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AMERICAN PATRIOTISM:

SPEECHES, LETTERS, AND OTHER PAPERS
WHICH ILLUSTRATE

THE FOUNDATION,

THE DEVELOPMENT,

THE PRESERVATION

OF TH E

United States of America.

COMPILED BY

SELIM H. PEABODY, Ph.D.

New York :

AMERICAN BOOK EXCHANGE,
Tribune Building.

1880.

PREFACE.

The design of this compilation is to present a sheaf of ripened grain
grown on American soil; to include the noblest specimens of the
learning, and eloquence, and wisdom, and patriotism of those who, by
the judgment of their own time and the concurrent verdict of posterity
have been recognized as the foremost men and the clearest thinkers in
the growing state. Such sheaves have been garnered before. But the
later events, hardly yet rounded into completeness, furnish to the
reaper a broader field, upturned by the tillage of war, whence has
sprang a new harvest of glorious and abounding grain not less precious
than that oft reaped before. This work has naturally classified itself
into three parts: the first including papers which illustrate the formative
period of the nation's history — culminating in the Revolution; the
second, those produced in a time, not at all of inaction, but of vigor-
ous and healthful yet of peaceful development; the third, those poured
forth in hot and tumultuous haste, blazing with patriotic fire, when the
Rebellion was earthquake, and tempest, and pestilence in one. Fol-
lowing the papers in the chronological order of their arrangement, one
may trace in the first period the progress of public thought; the hope
and wish that wrongs might be righted within the pale of the colonial
system; doubts of success ripening into conviction that separation was
imperative; lofty purpose culminating in the Declaration of Indepen-
dence; the period closing with the glorious sunset of the great com-
mander. Guided by no such sequence of ideas and events in the
second period, we simply include several of its historic papers, match-
less in eloquence and wisdom. In the third period, recognizing the
fact that the real cause of strife was the cancer of Human Slavery, we
have arranged, also in the order of time, papers which illustrate the
growth of public opinion; the enlightenment of the public conscience;

X PREFACE.

the courage of those who protested against wrong, in the teeth of bitter
denunciation; the grand uprising of the nation, when War, full pano-
plied, sprang into the arena, and the sword was flung into the oscillating
scales; the prudent, faithful, godlike words of the people's President;
the voice that cried, " Let the oppressed go free"; the agony that rent
the land when the assassin's bullet pierced at once the nation's head
and the people's heart; the requiems for the martyred President; and
finally, the philosophic reviews of the nation's life, completing the full
measure of a century's existence. Beginning, then, with the first
papers of this volume, and reading thoughtfully and carefully, in the
order given, with such collaterals as time and circumstances may offer,
the reader as he closes the book will discover that he has perused an
Epitome of the first century of American History. And the most im-
pressive lesson of these pages, having its germs in the very earliest,
with illustrations and enforcements in every other, formulated an
hundred times, in terms the most logical, the most authoritative, the
most eloquent, the most impassioned; emphasized by the thunder of
cannon, and sanctified by the blood of heroes and martyrs — is that
these United States of America, were, and are, and must remain, not
an aggregate of provinces, but One People — a Nation.

S. H. P.
New York, June i, 1880.

CONTENTS.

PART I.

PAGE

Protest of Boston against Taxation.

Samuel Adams 1764 1

The Grievances of the American Colonies.

Stephen Hopkins , 1764 4

Causes of American Discontent.

Benjamin Franklin 1768 16

Appeal to the Sons of Liberty.

Samuel Adams 1769 23

Letters from " Farmer." — Letter XII.

John Dickinson 1771 24

Letter from " Candidus.'"

§amuel Adams 1771 29

Report on the Rights of Colonists.

Samuel Adams 1772 32

Oration at Boston.

Joseph Warren 1772 37

Essay on the Constitutional Power of Great Britain.

John Dickinson . . .1774 44

I Thoughts on Standing Armies.

JOSIAH QUINCY, JR 1774 60

Oration on the Boston Massacre.

John Hancock 1774 85

Vindication of the Colonies.

Benjamin Franklin 1775 94

Speech for American Colonies.

John Wilkes 1775 97

VI CONTENTS.

Speech &n a Motion for Removing Troops from Boston.

WitLiAM Pitt, Earl of Chatham 1775 101

Speech to the Delegates of Virginia.

Patrick Henry 1775 108

Oration on the Re-interment of Warren.

Perez Morton 1776 no

Occupation of Dorchester Heights, 1776.

Edward Everett 1855 114

The Declaration of Independence.

Thomas Jefferson 1776 120

Predictions Concerning the 4th of July.

John Adams 1776 124

Patriotism a Virtue.

Jonathan Mason 1780 125

Circular Letter to the Governors.

George Washington 1783 154

Farewell to the Army.

George Washington 1783 142

Resignation of Commission.

George Washington 1783 146

The Defects of the Confederation.

Benjamin Rush 1787 147

Eulogy on Adams and Jefferson.

Daniel Webster 1826 150

PART II.

Inaugural Address.

George Washington 1789 181

Farewell Address.

George Washington 1797 184

On the Embargo.

Josiah Quincy, Jr 1808 196

Maritime Protection.

Josiah Quincy, Jr 1812 203

•Laying the Corner Stone of the Bunker Hill Monument.

Daniel Webster 1825 208

CONTENTS. Vil

Reply to Hayne.

Daniel Webster 1830 223

Second Centennial of Boston.

Josiah Quincy, Jr 1830 280

Proclamation against Nullification.

Andrew Jackson 1832 283

«4~. Lafayette.

John Quincy Adams 1834 300

The Jubilee of the Constitution.

John Quincy Adams 1839 311

-4~ Completion of Bunker Hill Monument.

Daniel Webster 1843 322

The True Grandeur of Nations.

Charles Sumner 1845 340

Eulogy on Webster.

Rufus Choate 18*53 395

PART III.

The Duty of the Free States.

William Ellery Channing 1842 449

The Lessons of Independence Day.

William Lloyd Garrison 1842 475

The Consequences of Secession.

Henry Clay 1850 483

Protest against Slavery in Nebraska and Kansas.

Charles Sumner. 1854 t 490

Debate with Douglas.

Abraham Lincoln 1858 494

Burial of John Brown.

Wendell Phillips. „, 1859 504

V<i At Independence Hall.

Abraham Lincoln „ 1861 507

•A First Inaugural Address.

Abraham Lincoln 1861 508

Vill CONTENTS.

Union Mass Meeting.

Daniel Stevens Dickinson 1861 515

Address at Amherst.

Daniel Stevens Dickinson 1861 520

The Rebellion ; Its Origin and Mainspring.

Charles Sumner 1861 541

The War for the Union.

Wendell Phillips 1861 562

■-^ Emancipation Proclamation.

Abraham Lincoln 1863 582

Emancipation Immediate, not Gradual.

Charles Sumner 1863 583

-4 National Cemetery at Gettysburg.

Edward Everett 1863 588

"V Speech at Gettysburg.

Abraham Lincoln 1863 614

The Treason of Slavery.

Carl Schurz 1864 615

^.Second Inaugural Address.

Abraham Lincoln 1865 637

The Martyr President.

Henry Ward Beecher 1865 639

The Death of Lincoln.

George Bancroft 1865 647

The Burial of Lincoln.

Matthew Simpson 1865 653

The Double Anniversary ; '76 and '63.

Charles Francis Adams, Jr 1869 663

Centennial Oration.

Robert Charles Winthrop 1876 668

Period First.

FOUNDATION.

Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State / /
Sail on, O Union, strong and great/
Humanity, with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years*
Is hanging breathless on thy fate !
We know what Master laid thy keel,
What Work-men •wrought thy ribs of steel.
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope.
What anvils rang, what hammers beat.
In what a forge and what a heat
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope /
Fear not each sudden sound and shock,
'Tis of the wave and not the rocki
' T is but the flapping of the sail,
And not a rent made by the gale f
In spite of rock and tempesfs roar.
In spite of false lights on the shore,
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea !
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee,
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears.
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,
Are all with thee, — are all with thee /

Henry Wadsworth "Longfellow.

AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

PROTEST OF BOSTON AGAINST TAXATION.

SAMUEL ADAMS.

Boston, May 24, 1764.

To Royal Tyler, yames Otis, Thomas disking, and Oxenbridge
T hacker, Esquires;

Gentlemen — Your being chosen by the freeholders and inhabitants
of the Town of Boston to represent them in the General Assembly
the ensuing year, affords you the strongest testimony of that confi-
dence which they place in your integrity and capacity. By this choice
they have delegated to you the power of acting in their public concerns
in general as your own prudence shall direct you, always reserving to
themselves the constitutional right of expressing their mind, and giv-
ing you such instructions upon particular matters as they at any time
shall judge proper.

We therefore, your constituents, take this opportunity to declare
our just expectations from you, that you will constantly use your
power and influence in maintaining the valuable rights and privileges
of the province, of which this town is so great a part, as well those
rights which are derived to us by the royal charter, as those which
being prior to and independent of it, we hold essentially as free-born
subjects of Great Britain.

That you will endeavor, as far as you shall be able, to preserve
that independence in the House of Representatives which charac-
terizes a free people, and the want of which may in a great measure
prevent the happy efforts of a free government ; cultivating as you
shall have opportunity that harmony and union there which is ever
desirable to good men, which is founded on principles of virtue and pub-
lic spirit, and guarding against any undue weight which may tend to
disadjust that critical balance upon which our happy constitution and
the blessings of it do depend. And for this purpose we particularly
recommend it to you to use your endeavors to have a law passed,
whereby the seats of such gentlemen as shall accept of posts of

2 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

profit from the Crown or the Governor, while they are members of
the House, shall be vacated agreeably to an act of the British Parlia-
ment, till their constituents shall have the opportunity of re-electing
them, if they please, or of returning others in their room.

Being members of the legislative body, you will have a special re-
gard to the morals of this people, which are the basis of public happi-
ness, and endeavor to have such laws made, if any are still wanting,
as shall be best adapted to secure them ; and we particularly desire you
carefully to look into the laws of excise, that if the virtue of the peo-
ple is endangered by the multiplicity of oaths therein enjoined, or their
trade and business is unreasonably impeded or embarrassed thereby,
the grievance may be redressed.

As the preservation of morals, as well as of property and right, so
much depends upon the impartial distribution of justice, agreeable to
good and wholesome law ; and as the judges of the land do depend
upon the free grants of the General Assembly for support, it is in-
cumbent upon you at all times to give your voice for their honorable
maintenance, so long as they, having in their minds an indifference
to all other affairs, shall devote themselves wholly to the duties of
their own department and the farther study of the law, by which their
customs, precedents, proceedings and determinations are adjusted and
limited.

You will remember that this province hath been at a very great
expense in carrying on the war, and that it still lies under a very
grievous burden of debt ; you will therefore use your utmost endeavor
to promote public frugality as one means to lessen the public debt.

You will join in any proposals which may be made for the better
cultivating the lands, and improving the husbandry of the province;
and as you represent a town which lives by its trade, we expect in a
very particular manner, though you make it the object of your atten-
tion to support our commerce in ail its just rights, to vindicate it from
all unreasonable impositions and promote its prosperity. Our trade
has for a long time labored under great discouragements, and it is
with the deepest concern that we see such farther difficulties coming
upon it as will reduce it to the lowest ebb, if not totally obstruct and
ruin it. We cannot help expressing our surprise that whc n so early
notice was given by the agent of the intentions of the Ministry to
burden us with new taxes, so little regard was had to this most inter-
esting matter, that the Court was not even called together to consult
about it till the latter end of the year ; the consequence of which was,
that instructions could not be sent to the agent, though solicited by
him, till the evil had gone beyond an easy remedy.

There is now no room for farther delay ; we therefore expect that
you will use your earliest endeavors in the General Assembly that
such methods may be taken as will effectually prevent these proceed-
ings against us. By a proper representation we apprehend it may

SAMUEL ADAMS. 3

easily be made to appear that such severities will prove detrimental to
Great Britain itself ; upon which account we have reason to hope that
an application, even for a repeal of the act, should it be already
passed, will be successful. It is the trade of the colonies that renders
them beneficial to the mother country ; our trade as it is now, and
always has been conducted, centres in Great Britain, and, in return for
her manufactures, affords her more ready cash beyond any compari-
son than can possibly be expected by the most sanguinary promotor
of these extraordinary methods. We are, in short, ultimately yield-
ing large supplies to the revenues of the mother country, while we are
laboring for a very moderate subsistence for ourselves. But if our
trade is to be curtailed in its most profitable branches, and burdens
beyond all possible bearing laid upon that which is suffered to remain,
we shall be so far from being able to take off the manufactures of
Great Britain, though it will be scarce possible for us to earn our
bread.

But what still heightens our apprehensions is, that these unex-
pected proceedings may be preparatory to new taxations upon us; for
if our trade may be taxed, why not our lands ? Why not the produce
of our lands and everything we possess or make use of? This we
apprehend annihilates our charter right to govern and tax ourselves.
It strikes at our British privileges, which, as we have never forfeited
them, we hold in common with our fellow subjects who are natives of
Britain. If taxes are laid upon us in any shape without our having a
legal representation where they are laid, are we not reduced from the
character of free subjects to the miserable state of tributary slaves ?

We therefore earnestly recommend it to you to use your utmost en-
deavors to obtain in the General Assembly all necessary instruction
and advice to our agent at this most critical juncture ; that while he
is setting forth the unshaken loyalty of this province and this town
— its unrivaled exertion in supporting his Majesty's government and
rights in this part of his dominions — its acknowledged dependence upon
and subordination to Great Britain, and the ready submission of its
merchants to all just and necessary regulations of trade, he may be
able in the most humble and pressing manner to remonstrate for us
all those rights and privileges which justly belong to us either by
charter or birth.

As his Majesty's other Northern American colonics are embarked with
us in this most important bottom, we farther desire you to use your
endeavors that their weight may be added to that of this province, that
by the united application of all who are aggrieved, all may happily
obtain redress.

4 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

THE GRIEVANCES OF THE AMERICAN COLONIES.
STEPHEN HOPKINS.
Proz'idence, July 30, 1764.

Liberty is the greatest blessing that r.en enjoy, and slavery the
greatest curse that human nature is capable of. Hence it is a matter
of the utmost importance to men which of the two shall be their por-
tion. Absolute liberty, is, perhaps, incompatible with any kind of
government. The safety resulting from society, and the advantages
of just and equal laws, hath caused men to forego some part of their
natural liberty, and submit to government. This appears to be the
most rational account of its beginning, although, it must be confessed,
mankind have by no means been agreed about it ; some have found
its origin in the divine appointment ; others have thought it took its
rise from power ; enthusiasts have dreamed that dominion was
founded in grace. Leaving these points to be settled by the descend-
ants of Fiimer, Cromwell, and Venner, we shall consider the British
Constitution, as it at present stands, on revolution principles ; and
from thence endeavor to find the measure of the magistrates' power
and the people's obedience.

This glorious Constitution, the best that ever existed among men,
will be confessed by all to be founded on compact, and established by
consent of the people. By this most beneficent compact, British sub-
jects are to be governed only agreeably to laws to which themselves
have in some way consented, and are not to be compelled to part
with their property but as it is called for by the authority of such
laws. The former is truly liberty ; the latter is to be really pos-
sessed of property, and to have something that may be called one's own.

On the contrary, those who are governed at the will of another, or
others, and whose property may be taken from them by taxes, or
otherwise, without their own consent, or against their will, are in a
miserable condition of slavery; "for (says Algernon Sidney, in his
discourse on government), liberty solely consists in the independency
upon the will of another ; and by name of slave we understand a man
who can neither dispose of his person or goods, and enjoys all at the
v.iil of his master." These things premised, whether' the British
American colonies on the continent are justly entitled to like privi-
leges and freedoms as their fellow-subjects in Great Britain are, is a
point worthy mature examination. In discussing this question we
shall make the colonies of New England, with whose rights we "are
best acquainted, the rule of our reasoning ; not in the least doubting
all the others are justly entitled to like rights with them.

STEPHEN HOPKINS. -5

New England was first planted by adventurers, who left England,
their native country, by permission of King Charles the First, and at
their own expense transported themselves to America, and, with great
risk and difficulty, settled among the savages, and, in a very surprising
manner, formed new colonies in the wilderness. Before their de-
parture the terms of their freedom, and the relation they should stand
in to the mother country, were fully settled. They were to remain
subject to the King, and dependant on the kingdom of Great Britain.
In return they were to receive protection, and enjoy all the rights and
privileges of free-born Englishmen. This is abundantly proved by
the charter given to the Massachusetts colony, while they were still
in England, and which they received and brought over with them, as
an authentic evidence of the condition they removed upon. The col-
onies of Connecticut and Rhode Island, also, afterwards obtained
charters from the Crown granting like ample privileges. By all these
charters it is in the most express and solemn manner granted that
these adventurers, and their children after them forever, should have
and enjoy all the freedom and liberty that the subjects in England
enjoy. That they might make laws for their government, suitable to
their circumstances, not repugnant to, but as near as might be agree-
able to, the laws of England ; that they might purchase lands, acquire
goods, and use trade for their advantage, and have an absolute prop-
erty in whatever they justly acquired. This, with many other gracious
privileges, were granted them by several kings ; and they were to pay,
as an acknowledgment to the Crown, only one-fifth of the ore of gold
and silver that should at any time be found in the State colonies ; in
lieu of a full satisfaction for all dues and demands of the Crown and
kingdom of England upon them.

There is not anything new or extraordinary in these rights granted
to the British colonies. The colonies from all countries at all times
have enjoyed equal freedom with the mother state. Indeed, there
would be found very few people in the world willing to leave their
native country, and go through the fatigue and hardship of planting
in a new, uncultivated one, for the sake of losing their freedom.
They who settle new countries must be poor, and in course, ought to
be free. Advantages, pecuniary and agreeable, are not on the side
of the emigrants ; and surely they must have something in their
stead.

To illustrate this, permit us to examine what hath generally been
the condition of the colonies with respect to their freedom. We will
begin with these who went out from the ancient Commonwealth of
Greece, which are the first, perhaps, we have any good account of.
Thucydides, that grave and judicious historian, says of them "they
were not sent out to be slaves, but to be the equals of those who re-
mained behind ;" and again, the Corinthians gave public notice "that
the new colony was going to Epidamus, into which all that should

fc AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

enter should have equal and like privileges with those who stayed at
home."

This was uniformly the condition of the Grecian colonies; they
went out and settled new countries; the)r took such forms of govern-
ment as themselves chose, though it generally nearly resembled that
of the mother state, whether democratical or orligarchical. 'Tis true
they were fond to acknowledge their original, and always confessed
themselves under obligation to pay a kind of honorary respect to, and
shyw a filial dependance on the commonwealth from whence it sprung.
Thucidides again tells us that the Corinthians complained of the
Corcyrans "from whom, though a colony of their own, they had
received some contemptuous treatment ; for they neither paid them
the usual honor on their public solemnities, nor began with the Cor-
inthians in the distribution of the sacrifice which is always done by
other colonies." From hence it is plain what kind of dependance the
Greek colonies were in, and what sort of acknowledgment they owed
to the mother state.

If we pass from the Grecian to the Roman colonies we shall find
them not less free ; but this difference may be observed between them,
that the Roman colonies did not, like the Grecian, become separate
states, governed by different laws, but always remained a part of the
mother state ; all that were free of the colonies were always free of
Rome. And Grotius gives us an opinion of the Roman King concern-
ing the freedom of the colonies. King Tullus says, "for our part,
-we look upon it to be neither truth nor justice that the mother cities
ought of necessity to rule over their colonies."

When we come down to the latter ages of the world, and consider
the colonies planted in the three last centuries in America from several
kingdoms in Europe, we shall find them, says Puffendorf, very differ-
ent from the ancient colonies, and he gives us an instance in those of
the Spaniards. Although it be confessed they fall greatly short of
enjoying equal freedom with the ancient Greek and Roman ones, yet
it will be truly said they enjoy equal freedom with their countrymen
in Spain ; but as they are all in the government of an absolute
monarch they have no reason to complain that one enjoys the liberty
the other is deprived of. The French colonies will be found nearly in
the same condition, and for the same reason, because their fellow-
subjects of France have always lost their liberty. And the question
is whether all colonies, as compared with one another, enjoy equal
liberty, or whether all enjoy as much freedom as the inhabitants of
the mother state ; and this will hardly be denied in the case of the
Spanish, French, and other modern foreign colonies.

By this it fully appears that colonies in general, both ancient and
modern, have always enjoyed as much freedom as the mother state
from which chey went out ; and will any one suppose the British
colonies of America are an exception to this general rule ? Colonies

STEP HEX HOP KEYS. 7

that came from a kingdom, renowned for liberty; from the constitution
founded on compact, from the people of all the sons of men the most
tenacious of freedom ; who left the delights of their native country,
parted from their homes and all their conveniences, searched out and
subdued a foreign country, with the most amazing travail and forti-
tude, to the infinite advantage and emolument of the mother state ;
that removed on a firm reliance of the solemn compact and real
promise and grant that they and their successors should be free, should
be partakers in all the privileges and advantages of the thes. English,
now English constitution.

If it were possible a doubt could yet remain in the most unbelieving
mind that these British colonies are not every way justly and fully
entitled to equal liberty and freedom with their fellow-subjects in
Europe, we might show that the Parliament of Great Britain have
always understood their rights in the same light.

By an act passed in the thirteenth year of the reign of His Majesty,
King George the Second, entitled ' ' An Act for naturalizing Foreign
Protestants, etc.," and by another act passed in the same reign, for
nearly the same purposes, by both which it is enacted and ordained,
" That all foreign Protestants who had inhabited, and resided for the
space of seven years, or more, in His Majesty's colonies in America,"
might, on the conditions therein mentioned, be naturalized, and there-
upon should be "deemed, adjudged, and taken to be His Majesty's
natural born subjects of the kingdom of Great Britain, to all intents,
constructions, and purposes, as if they and every one of them had
been, or were born within the same." No reasonable man will here
suppose that Parliament intended, in those acts, to put foreigners who
had been in the colonies only seven years, in a better condition than
than those who had been born in them, or had removed from Britain
thither, but only to put these foreigners on an equality with them ;
and to do this, they are obliged to give them all the rights of natural-
born subjects of Great Britain.

From what has been shown it will appear beyond a doubt that the
British subjects in America have equal rights with those in Britain ;
that they do not hold those rights and privileges granted them, but
possess them as inherent and indefeasible.

And the British legislative and executive powers have considered
the colonies as possessed of these rights, and have always, heretofore,
in the most tender and parental manner, treated them as their depend-
ant (though free) condition required. The protection promised on the
part of the Crown, which with cheerfulness and gratitude we acknowl-
edge, hath at all times been given to the colonies. The dependance
of the colonics to Great Britain hath been fully testified by a constant
and ready obedience to all the commands of his present Majesty, and
royal predecessors ; both men and money having been raised in them
at all times when called for, with as much alacrity and in as large pro-

8 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

portion as hath been done in Great Britain, the ability of each con-
sidered. It must also be confessed with thankfulness, that the first
adventurers and their successors, for one hundred and thirty years,
have fully enjoyed all the freedom and immunities promised on their
removal from England. But here the scene seems to be unhappily
changing. The British ministry, whether induced by jealousy of the
colonies, by false information, or by some alteration in the system of
political government, we have no information ; whatever hath been
the motive, this we are sure of, the Parliament passedan act, limiting,
restricting, and burdening the trade of these colonies much more than
had ever been done before, as also for greatly enlarging the power
and jurisdiction of the courts of admiralty in the colonies, and likewise
passed another act establishing certain stamp duties. These acts
have occasioned great uneasiness among the British subjects on the
continent of America. How much reason there is for it, we will en-
deavor in the most modest and plain manner we can, to lay before
the public.

In the first place, let it be considered that although each of the colo-
nies hath a legislature within itself, to take care of its interests and
provide for its peace and internal government, yet there are many
things of a more general nature, quite out of the reach of these particu-
lar legislatures which it is necessary should be regulated, ordered, and
governed. One of this kind is the commerce of the whole British em-
pire, taken collectively, and that of each kingdom and colony in it as
it makes a part of that whole — indeed, everything that concerns the
proper interest and fit government of the whole commonwealth, of
keeping the peace, and subordination of all the parts towards the whole
and one among another, must be considered in this light. Amongst
these general concerns, perhaps money and paper credit, these grand
instruments of all commerce, will be found also to have a place.
These, with all other matters of a general nature, it is absolutely neces-
sary should have a general power to direct them ; some supreme and
overruling authority with power to make laws and form regulations
for the good of all, and to compel their execution and observance. It
being necessary some such general power should exist somewhere,
every man of the least knowledge of the British constitution, will natu-
rally be led to look for and find it in the Parliament of Great Britain ;
that grand and august legislative body must from the nature of its
authority and the necessity of the thing be justly vested with this
power. Hence it becomes the indispensable duty of every good and
loyal subject cheerfully to obey and patiently submit to all the acts,
laws, orders, and regulations that may be made and passed by Parlia-
ment for directing and governing all these general matters.

Here it may be urged by many, and indeed with great appearance
of reason, that the equity, justice, and beneficence of the British Con-
stitution will require that the separate kingdoms and distinct colonies,

STEPHEN HOPKINS. 9

who are to obey and be governed by these general laws and regula-
tions, ought to be represented in some way or other in Parliament, at
least while these general matters are under consideration. Whether
the colonies will ever be admitted to have representatives in Parlia-
ment— whether it be consistent with their distant and dependant
state ; whether, if it were admitted, it would be to their advantage
— are questions we will pass by, and observe that these colonies
ought, in justice, and for the evident good of the commonwealth, to
have notice of every new measure about to be pursued, and new act
about to be passed, by which their rights, liberties, and interests may
be affected ; they ought to have such notice, that they may appear or
be heard by their agents, by counsel, or written representation, or by
some other equitable and effectual way.

The colonies are at so great a distance from England that the mem-
bers of Parliament can generally have but little knowledge of their
business, connections, and interests, but what is gained from the peo-
ple who have been there ; the most of those have so slight a knowledge
themselves that the informations the;/ can give are very little to be
depended upon, though they may pretend to determine with confidence
on matters far above their reach. Ail such informations are too un-
certain to be depended on in the transacting business of so much con-
sequence, and in which the interests of two millions of free people are
so deeply concerned. There is no kind of inconvenience or mischief
can arise from the colonies having such notice, and being heard in the
manner above mentioned ; but on the contrar)?-, very great mischiefs
have already happened to the colonies, and always must be expected,
if they are not heard before things of such importance are determined
concerning them.

Had the colonies been fully heard before the last act had been passed,
no reasonable man can suppose it ever would have passed at all, in
the manner it now stands. For what good reason can possibly be
given for making a law to cramp the trade and interest of many of the
colonies, and at the same time lessen in a prodigious manner the con-
sumption of the British manufactures in them ? These are certainly
the effects this act must produce. The duty of three pence per gallon
on foreign molasses is well-known to every man in the least acquaint-
ed with it to be much higher than that article can possibly bear, and
therefore must operate as an absolute prohibition. This will put a
total stop to the exportation of lumber, horses, flour, and fish to the
French and Dutch sugar-colonies ; and if any one supposes we may
find a sufficient sale for these articles in the English West Indies, he
verifies what was just now observed, that he wants true information.
Putting an end to the importation of foreign molasses at the same
time puts an end to all the costly distilleries in these colonies and to
the rum trade with the coast of Africa, and throws it into the hands of
the French? With the loss of the foreign molasses trade the cod-fish-

lo AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

ing in America must also be lost and thrown also into the hands of the
French. That this is the real state of the whole business is not mere
fancy ; neither this nor any part of it is an exaggeration, but a sober
and most melancholy truth.

View this duty of three pence per gallon on foreign molasses, not in
the light of a prohibition, but supposing the trade to continue and the
duty to be paid. Heretofore hath been imported into the colony of
Rhode Island only about one million, two hundred and fifty thousand
gallons annually ; the duty on this quantity is .£14,375 sterling, to be
paid yearly by this little colony ; a larger sum than was ever in it at
any one time. This money is to be sent away, and never to return;
yet the payment is to be repeated every year. Can this possibly be
done ? Can a new colony, compelled by necessity to purchase all its
clothing, furniture, and utensils from England, to support the expen-
ses of its own internal government, obliged by its duty to comply with
every call from the Crown, to raise money in emergencies; after all
this, can every man in it pay twenty-four shillings a year for the du-
ties of a single article only ? There is surely no man in his right mind
believes this possible. The charging foreign molasses with this high
duty will not affect all the colonies equally, nor any other near so
much as this of Rhode Island, whose trade depended more on foreign
molasses and on distilleries than that of any other; this must show
that raising money for the general services of the Crown or colonies
by such a duty will be extremely unequal, and therefore unjust. And
by taking either alternative, and by supposing, on the one hand, the
foreign molasses trade is stopped, and with it the principal ability of
the colonies to get money, but, on the other hand, that this trade is
continued and that the colonies get money from it, but all their money
is taken from them by paying their duty; can Britain be the gainer
by this? Is it not the chosen interest of Britain to dispose of
and be paid for her own manufactures? And doth she not find
the greatest and best market for them in her own colonies? Will
she find an advantage in disabling the colonies to continue their
trade with her? Or can she possibly grow rich by their being made
poor? .

Ministers have great influence, and parliaments have great power;
can either of them change the nature of things, stop our means of
getting money, and yet expect us to purchase and pay for British
manufactures? The genius of the people in these colonies is as little
turned to manufacturing goods for their own use as is possible to sup-
pose in any people whatsoever, yet necessity will compel them either
to go naked in this cold country, or to make themselves something
of clothing, if it be only of the skins of beasts.

By the same act of parliament the exportation of all kinds of timber
or lumber, the most natural product of these colonies, is greatly en-
cumbered and uselessly embarrassed, and the shipping it to any' port

STEPHEN HOPKINS. II

in Europe except Great Britain is prohibited. This must greatly af-
fect the linen manufacture in Ireland, as that kingdom used to receive
great quantities of flax-seed from America, many cargoes being made
of that, and barrel-staves were sent thither every year; but as the
staves can no longer be exported thither, the ships carrying flax-seed
casks without the staves which used to be intermixed among them must
lose one half of their weight, which will prevent their continuing this
trade, to the great injury to Ireland and of the plantations; and what
advantage is to accrue to Great Britain by it must be told by those who
can perceive the utility of this measure.

Enlarging the power and jurisdiction of the courts of vice-admiralty
in the colonies, is another part of the same act greatly and justly
complained of. Courts of admiralty have long been there in most of
the colonies whose authority were circumscribed within moderate ter-
ritorial jurisdictions, and whose courts have always done the business
necessary to be brought before these courts for trial in the manner it
ought to be done, and in a way only moderately expensive to the sub-
jects ; and if seizures were made, or informations exhibited, without
reason or contrary to law, the informer or seizer was left to the jus-
tice of the common law, there to pay for his folly or suffer for his
temerity.

But now this case is quite altered, and a custom-house officer may
make a seizure in Georgia of goods ever so legally imported, and
carry the trial to Halifax, at fifteen hundred miles distance, and
thither the owner must follow him to defend his property; and when
he comes there, quite beyond the circle of his friends, acquaintance,
and correspondence, among total strangers, he must there give bond,
and must find sureties to be bound with him in a large sum before he
shall be admitted to claim his own goods ; when this is complied with,
he hath a trial and his goods acquitted. If the judge can be prevailed
upon (which it is very well known may too easily be done) to cer-
tify there was only probable cause for making the seizure, the un-
happy owner may not maintain any action against the illegal seizure
for damages, or obtain any satisfaction ; but he may return to Georgia
quite ruined and undone^ in conformity to an act of parliament. Such
"unbounded encouragement and protection given to informers must
call to every one's remembrance Tacitus's account of the miserable
condition of the Romans in the reign of Tiberius their emperor, who
let loose and encouraged the informers of that age. Surely, if the
colonies had been fully heard before this had been done, the liberties
of the Americans would not have been so much disregarded.

The resolution that the House of Commons came into during the
same session of parliament, asserting their right to establish stamp
duties and internal taxes, to be collected in the colonies without their
own consent, hath much more, and for much more reason, alarmed the
British subjects in America than anything that had ever been done

12 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

before. These resolutions have been since carried into execution by
an act of parliament which the colonies do conceive is a violation of
their long-enjoyed rights. For it must be confessed by all men that
they who are taxed at pleasure by others cannot possibly have any
property, can have nothing to be called their own ; they who have no
property can have no freedom, but are indeed reduced to the most
abject slavery ; are in a state far worse than countries conquered and
made tributary, for these have only a fixed sum to pay, which they are
left to raise among themselves in the way that they may think most
equal and easy, and having paid the stipulated sum the debt is dis-
charged and what is left is their own. This is more tolerable than to
be taxed at the will of others, without any bounds, without any stipu-
lations or agreements, contrary to their consent and against their
wills. If we are told that those who lay taxes upon the colonies are
men of the highest character for wisdom, justice, and integrity, and
therefore cannot be supposed to deal hardly, unjustly, or unequally
by any; admitting and really believing that all this is true, it will
make no alteration in the case; for one who is bound to obey the will
of another is a.s really a slave, though he may have a good master,
as if he had a bad one ; and this is stronger in politic bodies than in
natural ones, as the former have a perpetual succession, and remain
the same ; and although they may have a good master at one time,
they may have a very bad one at another. And indeed, if the people
in America are to be taxed by the representatives of the people in
Britain, their malady is an increasing evil that must always grow
greater by time. Whatever burdens are laid upon the Americans will
be that much taken off the Britons ; and the doing this will soon be
extremely popular, and those who are put up to be members of the
House of Commons must obtain the votes of the people by promising
to take taxes off them by making new levies on the Americans. This
must most assuredly be the case, and it will not be in the power even
of the Parliament to prevent it ; the people's private interest will be
concerned, and will govern them ; they will have such and only such
representatives as will act a.greeably to their interest ; and these taxes
laid on Americans will be always a part of the supply bill in which
the other branches of the legislature can make no alteration : and in
truth, the subjects in the colonies will be taxed at the will and pleasure
of their fellow-subjects in Britain. How equitable and how just this
may be, must be left to every impartial man to determine.

But it will be said, that the moneys drawn from the colonies by
duties and by taxes will be laid up and set apart to be used for their
future defence. This will not at all alleviate the hardships, but serve
only the more strongly to mark the servile state of the people. Free
people have ever thought, and will think, that the money necessaiy for
their defence lies safest in their own hands until it be wanted im-
mediately for that purpose. To take the money of the Americans,

STEP HEX HOPKINS. 13

which they want continually to use in their trade, and lay it up for
their defence at a thousand leagues' distance from them, when the
enemies they have to fear are in their own neighborhood, hath not
the greatest probability of friendship or of prudence.

It is not the judgment of free people only that money for defence
is safest in their keeping, but it is also the opinion of the best and
wisest kings and governors of mankind in every age of the world
that the wealth of a state was most securely as well as most profitably
deposited in the hands of their faithful subjects. Constantius, em-
peror of the Romans, though an absolute prince, both practised and
praised this method.

" Diocletian sent persons on purpose to reproach him with his ne-
glect of the public, and the poverty to which he was reduced by his
own fault. Constantius heard these reproaches with patience ; and
having persuaded those who made them in Diocletian's name to
stay a few days with him, he sent word to the most wealthy persons
in the province, that he wanted money, and that they had now an
opportunity of showing whether or not they really loved their prince.
Upon this notice, every one strove who should be foremost in carry-
ing to the exchequer all their gold, silver and valuable effects, so that
in a short time Constantius from being the poorest became by far the
most wealthy of all the four princes. He then invited the deputies of
Diocletian to visit his treasury, desiring them to make a faithful report
to their master of the state in which they should find it. They obeyed,
and while they stood gazing upon the mighty heaps of gold and silver,
Constantius told them that the wealth which they beheld with aston-
ishment had long since belonged to him but that he had left it by
way of deposition, in the hands of his people, adding that the richest
and surest treasure of the prince was the love of his subjects. The
deputies were no sooner gone than the generous prince sent for those
who had assisted him in his exigency, commended their zeal and re-
returned to every one what they had so readily brought into his
treasury."

We are not insensible that when liberty is in danger the liberty of
complaining is dangerous ; yet a man on a wreck was never denied
the liberty of roaring as loud as he could, says Dean Swift. And we
believe no good reason can be given why the colonies should not mod-
estly and soberly inquire, what right the Parliament of Great Britain
have to tax them. We know that such inquiries have by one letter-
writer been branded with the little epithet of " Mushroom Policy,"
and he intimates that if the colonies pretend to claim any privileges,
they will draw down the resentment of the Parliament on them. Is
then the defence of liberty so contemptible, and pleading for just
rights so dangerous ? Can the guardians of liberty be thus ludicrous ?
Can the patrons of freedom be so jealous and so severe ?

Should it be urged that the money expended by the mother country

14 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

for the defence and protection of America, and especially during the
late war, must justly entitle her to some retaliation from the colonies,
and that the stamp duties and taxes intended to be raised in them are
only designed for that equitable purpose; if we are permitted to
examine how far this may rightfully vest the Parliament with the
power of taxing the colonies, we shall find this claim to have no
foundation. In many of the colonies, especially those in New Eng-
land, which were planted, as is before observed, not at the charge of
the Crown or kingdom of England, but at the expense of the planters
themselves, and were not only planted, but also defended against the
savages and other enemies in long and cruel wars which continued for
an hundred years, almost without intermission, solely at their own
charge; and in the year 1746, when the Duke d'Anville came out from
France with the most formidable fleet that ever was in the American
seas, enraged at these colonies for the loss of Louisburg the year
before, and with orders to make an attack on them; even in this
greatest exigence these colonies were left to the protection of heaven
and their own efforts. These colonies having thus planted themselves
and removed all enemies from their borders, were in hopes to enjoy
peace and recruit their state, much exhausted by these long struggles;
but they were soon called upon to raise men and send them out to the
defence of other colonies, and to make conquests for the Crown; they
dutifully obeyed the requisition, and with ardor entered into these ser-
vices and continued in them until all encroachments were removed, and
all Canada, and even the Ha /ana conquered. They most cheerfully
complied with every call of the Crown; they rejoiced, yea even exulted,
in the prosperity of the British empire. But these colonies whose
bounds we fixed, and whose borders were before cleared of enemies by
their own fortitude, and at their own expense, reaped no sort of
advantage by these conquests; they are not enlarged, have not gained
a single acre, have no part in the Indian or interior trade; the
immense tracts of land subdued, and no less immense and profitable
commerce acquired, all belong to Great Britain, and not the least share
or portion to these colonies, though thousands of their numbers have
lost their lives, and millions of their money have been expended in the
purchase of them — for great part of which we are yet in debt — and from
which we shall not in many years be able to extricate ourselves. Hard
will be the fate, cruel the destiny of these unhappy colonies, if the
reward they are to receive for all this is the loss of their freedom:
better for them Canada still remained French, yea, far more eligible
that it should remain so, than that the price of its reduction should be
their slavery.

If the colonies are not taxed by Parliament are they therefore ex-
empt from bearing their proper shares in the necessary burdens of
government? This by no means follows. Do they not support a
regular internal government in each colony as expensive to the peo-

STEPHEN HOPKINS. 15

pie here, as the internal government of Britain is to the people
there? Have not the colonies here at all times, when called upon by
the Crown to raise money for the public service, done it as cheerfully
as the Parliament have done on the like occasions? Is not this the
most easy way of raising money in the colonies? What occasion then
to distrust the colonies, what necessity to fall on the present mode to
compel them to do what they have ever done freely? Are not the
people in the colonies as loyal and dutiful subjects as any age or nation
ever produced, and are they not as useful to the kingdom in this
remote quarter of the world as their fellow-subjects are in Britain?
The Parliament, it is confessed, have power to regulate the trade of
the whole empire: and hath it not full power by this means to draw
all the money and wealth of the colonies into the mother country at
pleasure? What motive, after all this* can remain to induce the
Parliament to abridge the privileges and lessen the rights of the most
loyal and dutiful subjects; subjects justly entitled to ample freedom,
who have long enjoyed and not abused or forfeited their liberties, who
have used them to their own advantage, in. dutiful subserviency to the
orders and the interests of Great Britain? Why should the gentle
current of tranquillity, that has so long run with peace through all the
British States, and flowed with joy and happiness in all her countries,
be at last obstructed and turned out of its true course into unusual and
winding channels, by which many of these colonies must be ruined;
but none of them can possibly be made more rich or more happy.

Before we conclude, it may be necessary to take notice of the vast
difference there is between the raising money in a country by duties,
taxes, or otherwise, and employing and laying out the money again
in the same country; and raising the like sums of money by the like
means and sending it away quite out of the country where it is raised.
Where the former of these is the case, although the sums raised may
be very great, yet that country may support itself under them ; for as
fast as the money is collected together it is scattered abroad, to be
used in commerce and every kind of business; and money is not made
scarcer by this means, but rather the contrary, as this continual circu-
lation must have a tendency in some degree to prevent its being
hoarded. But where the latter method is pursued the effect will be
extremely different; for here, as fast as the money can be collected it
is immediately sent out of the country, never to return but by a te-
dious round of commerce, which at best must take up some time;
here all trade and every kind of business depending upon it will grow
dull and must languish more and more, until it comes to a final stop at
last. If the money raised in Great Britain in the three last years of the
war, and which exceeded forty millions sterling-, had been sent out of
the kingdom, would not this have nearly ruined the trade of the nation
in three years only? Think then Avhat must be the condition of these
miserable colonies when all the money proposed to be raised in them

1 6 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

by high duties on the importation of divers kinds of goods by the post-
office, by stamp duties, and other taxes, is sent way quite as fast as it
can be collected; and this is to be repeated continually ! Is it possible
for the colonies under these circumstances to support themselves, to
have an}>- money, any trade, or other business carried on in them?
Certainly not; nor is there at present, or ever was, any country under
heaven that did or possibly could support itself under such burdens.

We finally beg leave to assert that the first planters of these
colonies were pious Christians, were faithful subjects; who, with a
fortitude and perseverance little known and less considered, settled
these wild countries, by God's goodness and their own amazing labors,
thereby adding a most valuable dependance to the Crown of Great
Britain; were ever dutifully^ subservient to her interests; they so
taught their children that not one has been disaffected to this day, and
all have honestly obeyed every royal command and cheerfully sub-
mitted to every constitutional law. They have as little inclination as
they have ability to throw off their dependency; they have most care-
fully avoided every measure that might be offensive, and all such
manufactures as were interdicted. Besides all this, they have risked
their lives when they have been ordered, and furnished money when-
ever it has been called for ; have never been either troublesome or
expensive to the mother country ; have kept all due order, and have
supported a regular government ; they have maintained peace, and
practised Christianity. And in all conditions, upon all occasions, they
have always demeaned themselves as loyal, as dutiful subjects ought to
do; and no kingdom or state or empire hath, or ever had, colonies more
obedient, more serviceable, more profitable than these have ever been.

May the same Divine Goodness that guided the first planters, that
protected the settlements, and inspired kings to be gracious, parlia-
ments to be tender, ever preserve, ever protect, and support our
present most gracious King; give great wisdom to his ministers and
much understanding to his parliament; perpetuate the sovereignty of
the British Constitution, and the filial dependancy of all the colonies.

CAUSES OF AMERICAN DISCONTENT.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.

Philadelphia, January 7, 1768.

Sir: — As the cause of the present ill-humor in America, and of the
resolutions taken there to purchase less of our manufactures, does not
seem to be generally understood, it may afford some satisfaction to

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 1 7

your readers if you give them the following short historical state oi
facts.

From the time that the colonies were first considered as capable of
granting aids to the crown, down to the end of the last war, it is said
that the constant mode of obtaining those aids was by requisition made
from the crown, through its governors, to the several Assemblies, in
circular letters from the Secretary of State, in his Majesty's name,
setting forth the occasion, requiring them to take the matter into con-
sideration, and expressing a reliance on their prudence, duty, and
affection to his Majesty's government, that they would grant such
sums, or raise such numbers of men, as were suitable to their respec-
tive circumstances.

The colonies, being accustomed to this method, have from time to
time granted money to the crown, or raised troops for its service, in
proportion to their abilities ; and during all the last war beyond their
abilities, so that considerable sums were returned them yearly by Par-
liament, as they had exceeded their proportion.

Had this happy method of requisition been continued (a method
that left the King's subjects in those remote countries the pleasure of
showing their zeal and loyalty, and of imagining that they recom-
mended themselves to tl:eir sovereign by the liberality of their volun-
tary grants), there is no doubt but all the money that could reasonably
be expected to be raised from them in any manner might have been
obtained without the least heart-burning, offence, or breach of the
harmony of affections and interests that so long subsisted between the
two countries.

It has been thought wisdom in a government exercising sovereignty
over different kinds of people, to have some regard to prevailing and
established opinions among the people to be governed, wherever such
opinions might, in their effects, obstruct or promote public measures.
If they tend to obstruct public service they are to be changed, if pos-
sible, before we attempt to act against them; and they can be changed
only by reason and persuasion. But, if public business can be car-
ried on without thwarting those opinions, if they can be, on the con-
trary, made subservient to it, they are net unnecessarily to be
thwarted, however absurd such popular opinions may be in their
nature.

This had been the wisdom of our government with respect to raising
money in the colonies. It was well known that the colonists univer-
sally were of opinion that no money could be levied from English
subjects but by their own consent, given by themselves or their
chosen representatives; that, therefore, whatever money was to be
raised from the people in the colonies must first be granted by their
Assemblies, as the money raised in Britain is first to be granted by
the House of Commons; that this right of granting their own money
was essential to English liberty; and that, if any man, or body of men,

iS AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

in which they had no representative of their choosing, could tax them
at pleasure, they could not be said to have any property, anything
they could call their own. But, as these opinions did not hinder their
granting money voluntarily and amply, whenever the crown by its
servants came into their Assemblies (as it does into its Parliaments of
Britain and Ireland), and demanded aids, therefore that method was
chosen, rather than the hateful one of arbitrary taxes.

I do not undertake here to support these opinions of the Americans;
they have been refuted by a late act of Parliament, declaring its own
power ; which very Parliament, however, showed wisely so much
tender regard to those inveterate prejudices as to repeal a tax that
had militated against them. And those prejudices are still so fixed and
rooted in the Americans, that it has been supposed not a single man
among them has been convinced of his error, even by that act of Par-
liament.

The person, then, who first projected to lay aside the accustomed
method of requisition, and to raise money in America by stamps, seems
not to have acted wisely in deviating from that method (which the
colonists looked upon as constitutional), and thwarting unnecessarily
the fixed prejudices of so great a number of the King's subjects. It
was not, however, for want of knowledge that what he was about to
do would give them offence ; he appears to have been very sensible of
this, and apprehensive that it might occasion some disorders; to pre-
vent or suppress which he projected another bill, that was brought in
the same session with the Stamp Act, whereby it was to be made lawful
for military officers in the colonies to quarter their soldiers in private
houses.

This seemed intended to awe the people into a compliance with the
other act. Great opposition, however, being raised here against the
bill by the agents from the colonies and the merchants trading hither,
(the colonists declaring, that, under such a power in the army no one
could look on his house as his own, or think he had a home, when
soldiers might be thrust into it and mixed with his family at the
pleasure of an officer), that part of the bill was dropped; but there still
remained a clause, when it passed into a law, to oblige the several
Assemblies to provide quarters for the soldiers, furnishing them with
firing, bedding, candles, small beer or rum, and sundry other articles,
at the expense of the several provinces. And this act continued in
force when the Stamp Act was repealed ; though, if obligatory on the
Assemblies, it equally militated against the American principle above
mentioned, that money is not to be raised on English subjects without
their consent.

The colonies nevertheless, being put into high good-humor by the
repeal of the Stamp Act chose to avoid a fresh dispute upon the
other, it being temporary and soon to expire, never, as they hoped,
to revive again , and in the meantime they, by various ways, in

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 19

different colonies, provided for the quartering of the troops ; either by
acts of their own Assemblies, without taking notice of the act of Par-
liament, or by some variety or small diminution, as of salt and
vinegar, in the supplies required by the act ; that what they did might
appear a voluntary act of their own, and not done in due obedience to
an act of Parliament, which, according to their ideas of their rights,
they thought hard to obey.

It might have been well if the matter had then passed without no-
tice ; but, a governor having written home an angry and aggravating
letter upon this conduct in the Assembly of his province, the outed
proposer of the Stamp Act and his adherents, then in the opposition,
raised such a clamor against America as being in rebellion, and
against those who had been for the repeal of the Stamp Act as having
thereby been encouragers of this supposed rebellion, that it was
thought necessary to enforce the quartering act by another act of
Parliament, taking away from the province of New York, which had
been the most explicit in its refusal, ail the powers of legislation, till
it should have complied with that act. The news of which greatly
alarmed the people everywhere in America, as (it had been said) the
language of such an act seemed to them to be : Obey implicitly laws
made by the Parliament of Great Britain to raise money on you with-
out your consent, or you shall enjoy no rights or privileges at all.

At the same time a person lately in high office projected the levy-
ing more money from America, by new duties on various articles of
our own manufacture, as glass, paper, painters' colors, etc., appoint-
ing a new Board of Customs, and sending over a set of commission-
ers, with large salaries, to be established at Boston, who were to have
the care of collecting those duties, which were by the act expressly
mentioned to be intended for the payment of the salaries of governors,
judges, and other officers of the Crown in America, it being a pretty
general opinion here that those officers ought not to depend on the
people there for any part of their support.

It is not my intention to combat this opinion. But perhaps it may
be some satisfaction to your readers to know what ideas the Americans
have on the subject. They say then, as to governors, that they are
not like princes, whose posterity have an inheritance in the govern-
ment of the nation and therefore an interest in its prosperity. They
are generally strangers to the provinces they are sent to govern.
They have no estate, natural connection, or relation there to give
them an affection for the country ; that they come only to make
money as fast as they can ; are sometimes men of vicious character
and broken fortunes, sent by a minister merely to get them out of the
way ; that as they intend staying in the country no longer than their
government continues, and purpose to leave no family behind them,
they are apt to be regardless of the good will of the people, and care
not what is said or thought of thern after they are gone.

20 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

Their situation, at the same time, gives them many opportunities of
being vexatious, and they are often so, notwithstanding their depend-
ence on the Assemblies for all that part of their support that does not
arise from fees established by law, but would probably be much more
so if they were to be supported by money drawn from the people with-
out their consent or good will, which is the professed design of the
new act. That if by means of these forced duties government is to
be supported in America without the intervention of the Assemblies,
their Assemblies will soon be looked upon as useless, and a governor
will not call them, as having nothing to hope from their meeting and
perhaps something to fear from their inquiries into and remonstrances
against his maladministration. That tnus the people will be deprived
of their most essential rights. That it being, as at present, a govern-
or's interest to cultivate the good will by promoting the welfare of the
people he governs, can be attended with no prejudice to the mother
country, since all the laws he ma3T be prevailed on to give his assent
to are subject to revision here, and if reported against by the Board of
Trade are immediately repealed by the Crown ; nor dare he pass any
law contrary to his instructions, as he holds his office during the
pleasure of the Crown, and his securities are liable for the penalties of
their bonds if he contravenes those instructions. This is what they
say as to governors.

As to judges, they allege that, being appointed from this country,
and holding their commissions not during good behavior, as in Britain,
buc during pleasure, all the weight of interest or influence would be
thrown into one of the scales (which ought to be held even), if the
salaries are also to be paid out of duties raised upon the people with-
out their consent, and independent of their Assemblies' approbation
or disapprobation of the judge's behavior. That it is true judges
should be free from all influence ; and, therefore, whenever govern-
ment here will grant commissions to able and honest judges during
good behavior, the Assemblies will settle permanent and ample sala-
ries on them during their commissions ; but at present they have no
other means of getting rid of an ignorant or unjust judge (and some
of scandalous characters have, they say, been sometimes sent them)
left but by starving them out.

I do not suppose these reasonings of theirs will appear here to
have much weight I do not produce them with an expectation of
convincing your readers. I relate them merely in pursuance of the
task I have imposed on myself — to be an impartial historian of Ameri-
can facts and opinions

The colonists being thus greatly alarmed, as I said before, by the
news of the act for abolishing the Legislature of New York and the
imposition of these new duties, professedly for such disagreeable pur-
poses (accompanied by a new set of revenue officers with large ap-
pointments, which gave strong suspicions that more business of the

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 21

same kind was soon to be provided for them, that they might earn their
salaries), began seriously to consider their situation, and to revolve
afresh in their minds grievances which from their respect and love for
this country they had long borne, and seemed almost willing to forget.

They reflected how lightly the interest of all America had been es-
timated here, when the interests of a few of the inhabitants of Great
Biitain happened to have the smallest competition with it. That the
whole American people was forbidden the advantage of a direct im-
portation of wine, oil and fruit from Portugal, but must take them
loaded with all the expense of a voyage one thousand leagues round
about, being to be landed first in England, to be reshipped for Amer-
ica, expenses amounting, in war time at least, to thirty pounds per
cent more than otherwise they would have been charged with ; and
all this merely that a few Portugal merchants in London may gain a
commission on those goods passing through their hands (Portugal
merchants, by the by, that can complain loudly of the smallest hard-
ships laid on their trade by foreigners, and yet even in the last year
could oppose with all their influence the giving ease to their fellow-
subjects laboring under so heavy an oppression!) That on a slight
complaint of a few Virginia merchants nine colonies had been re-
strained from making paper money, become absolutely necessary to
their internal commerce, from the constant remittance of their gold
and silver to Britain.

But not only the interest of a particular body of merchants, but the
interest of any small body of British tradesmen or artificers, has been
found, they say, to outweigh that of all the King's subjects in the
Colonies. There cannot be a stronger natural right than that of a
man's making the best profit he can of the natural produce of his
lands, provided he does not thereby hurt the State in general. Iron
is to be found everywhere in America, and the beaver furs are the
natural produce of that country. Hats and nails and steel are wanted
there as well as here. It is of no importance to the common welfare
of the empire whether a subject of the King's obtains his living by
making hats on this or that side of the water. Yet the hatters of
England have prevailed to obtain an act in their own favor, restraining
that manufacture in America, in order to oblige the Americans to send
their beaver to England to be manufactured, and purchase back the
hats, loaded with the charges of a double transportation.

In the same manner have a few nail-makers, and a still smaller body
of steel-makers (perhaps there are not a half a dozen of these in Eng-
land), prevailed totally to forbid by an act of Parliament the erecting
of slitting-mills, or steel furnaces, in America; that the Americans may
be obliged to take all their nails for their buildings, and steel for their
tools, from these artificers, under the same disadvantages.

Added to these, the Americans remembered the act authorizing the
most cruel insult that perhaps was ever offered to' one people by

22 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

another, that of emptying our jolts Into their settlements; Scotland,
too, having within these two years obtained the privilege it had not
before, of sending its rogues and villains also to the plantations. I
say. reflecting on these things, they said one to another (their news-
papers are full of such discourses): " These people are not content
with making a monopoly of us, forbidding us to trade with any other
country of Europe, and Compelling us to buy everything of them,
though in many articles we could furnish ourselves ten, twenty, and
even fifty per cent, cheaper elsewhere ; but now they have as good as
declared they have a right to tax us ad libitum internally and exter-
nally; and that our constitutions and liberties shall all be taken away ^
if we do not submit to that claim.

' ' They are not content with the high prices at which they sell us
their goods, but have now begun to enhance those prices by new
duties; and, by the expensive. apparatus of a new set of officers appear
to intend a new augmentation and multiplication of those burdens that
shall still be more grievous to us. Our people have been foolishly
fond of their superfluous modes and manufactures, to the impoverish-
ing our own county, carrying off all our cash, and loading us with
debt ; they will not suffer us to restrain the luxury of our inhabitants
as they do that of their own, by laws ; they can make laws to dis-
courage or prohibit the importation of French superfluities, but though
those of England are as ruinous to us as the French ones are to them,
if we make a law ol that kind they immediately repeal it.

"Thus they get all our money from us by trade; and every profit
we can anywhere make by our fisheries, our produce, or our com-
merce, centres finally with them; but this does not signify. It is time,
then, to take care of ourselves by the best means in our power. Let
us unite in solemn resolution and engagements with and to each
other, that we will give these new officers as little trouble as possible,
b}^ not consuming the British manufactures on which they are to le\7y
the duties. Let us agree to consume no more of their expensive gew-
gaws. Let us live frugally, and let us industriously manufacture what
we can for ourselves; thus we shall be able honorably to discharge
the debts we already owe them, and after that we may be able to keep
some money in our country, not only for the uses of our internal com-
merce, but for the service of our gracious Sovereign, whenever he
shall have occasion for it, and think proper to require it of us in the
old constitutional manner. For, notwithstanding the reproaches
thrown out against us in their public papers and pamphlets, notwith-
standing we have been reviled in their Senate as rebels and traitors,
we are truly a loyal people. Scotland has had its rebellions, and
England its plots against the present royal family; but America is un-
tainted tvith those crimes ; there is in it scarce a man, there is not a
single native of our country, who is not firmly attached to his King
by principle and by affection.

SAMUEL ADAMS. 23

"■■«"■; *-•'

' ' But a new kind of loyalty seems to be required of us — a loyalty to
Parliament ; a loyalty that is to extend, it is said, to a surrender of
all our properties, whenever a House of Commons, in which there is
not a single member of our choosing, shall think fit to grant them
away without our consent; and to a patient suffering the loss of our
privileges as Englishmen, if we cannot submit to make such sur-
render. We were separated too far from Britain by the ocean, but we
were united to it by respect and love, so that we could at any time
freely have spent our lives and little fortunes in its cause; but this'
unhappy new system of politics tends to dissolve those bands of union,
and to sever us forever."

These are the wild ravings of the, at present, half distracted Amer-
icans. To be sure, no reasonable man in England can approve of
such sentiments, and, as I said before, I do not pretend to support or
justify them; but I sincerely wish, for the sake of the manufactures
and commerce of Great Britain, and for the sake of the strength,
which a firm union with our growing colonies would give us, that
these people had never been thus needlessly driven out of their senses.

I am yours, etc., F. S.

TO THE SONS OF LIBERTY.
SAMUEL ADAMS.

Boston, March 18, 1769.

Dearly Beloved •. Revolving time hath brought about another
anniversary of the repeal of the odious Stamp Act — an act framed to
divest us of our liberties and to bring us to slavery, poverty, and
misery. The resolute stand made by the Sons of Liberty against the
detestable policy had more effect in bringing on the repeal than any
conviction in the Parliament in Great Britain of the injustice and
iniquity of the act. It was repealed from principles of convenience to
Old England, and accompanied with a declaration of their right to
tax us; and since, the same Parliament have passed acts which, if
obeyed in the colonies, will be equally fatal.

Although the people of Great Britain be only fellow-subjects, they
have of late assumed a power to compel us to buy at their market
such things as we want of European produce and manufacture; and
at the same time, have taxed many of the articles for the express pur-
pose of a revenue; and, for the collection of the duties have sent
fleets, armies, commissioners, guardacostas, judges of admiralty, and
A. P. -Z.

24 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

a host of petty officers, whose insolence and rapacity are become in-
tolerable. Our cities are garrisoned; the peace and order which here-
tofore dignified our streets are exchanged for the horrid blasphemies
and outrage of soldiers; our trade is obstructed; our vessels and
cargoes, the effects of industry, violently seized; and, in a word, every
species of injustice that a wicked and debauched Ministry could in-
vent is practised against the most sober, industrious, and loyal peo-
ple that ever lived in society. The joint supplications of all the
colonies have been rejected, and letters and mandates, in terms of the
highest affront and indignity, have been transmitted from little and
insignificant servants of the Crown to his Majesty's grand and august
sovereignties in America.

These things being so, it becomes us, my brethren, to walk worthy
of our vocation, to use every lawful means to frustrate the wicked
designs of our enemies at home and abroad, and to unite against the
evil and pernicious machinations of -those who would destroy us. I
judge that nothing can have a better tendency to this grand end than
encouraging our own manufactures, and a total disuse of foreign
superfluities.

When I consider the conniption of Great Britain, their load of debt,
their intestine divisions, tumults and riots, their scarcity of pro-
visions, and the contempt in which they are held by the nations about
them; and when I consider, on the other hand, the state of the Ameri-
can colonies with regard to the various climates, soils, produce, rapid
population, joined to the virtue of the inhabitants, I cannot but think
that the conduct of Old England towards us may be permitted by Divine
wisdom, and ordained by the unsearchable providence of the Al-
mighty, for hastening a period dreadful to Great Britain.

"A Son of Liberty."

LETTERS FROM '* FARMER."— LETTER XII.
\ JOHN DICKINSON.

PJiiladelphia, February 15, 1768.

My dear Cojjntrymen — Some states have lost their liberty by par-
ticular accidents : but this calamity is generally owing to the decay of
virtue. A people is travelling fast to destruction, when individuals
consider their interests as distinct from those of the public. Such no-
tions are fatal to their country, and to themselves. Yet how many
are there, so weak and sordid as to think they perform all the offices

JOHN DICKINSON. 25

of life, if they earnestly endeavour to encrease their own wealth, pow-
er, and credit, without the least regard for the society, under the pro-
tection of which they live ; who, if they can make an immediate profit
to themselves, by lending their assistance to those, whose projects
plainly tend to the injury of their country, rejoice in their dexterity,
and believe themselves entitled to the character of able politicians.
Miserable men ! of whom it is hard to say, whether they ought to be
most the objects of pity or contempt : but whose opinions are cer-
tainly as detestable, as their practices are destructive.

Tho' I always reflect, with a high pleasure, on the integrity and un-
derstanding of my countrymen; which, joined with a pure and humble
devotion to the great and gracious author of every blessing they en-
joy, will, I hope, ensure to them, and their posterity, all temporal and
eternal happiness ; yet when I consider, that in every age and coun-
try there have been bad men, my heart, at thi? threatening period,
is so full of apprehension, as not to permit me to believe, but that
there may be some on this continent, against whom you ought to be
upon your guard — men, who either hold, or expect to hold certain advan-
tages, by setting examples of servility to their countrymen. Men,
who trained to the employment, or self taught by a natural versatility
of genius, serve as decoys for drawing the innocent and unwary into
snares. It is not to be doubted but that such men will diligently be-
stir themselves on this and every like occasion, to spread the infection
of their meanness as far as they can. On the plans they have adopted,
this is their course. This is the method to recommend themselves to
their patrons.

From them we shall learn, how pleasant and profitable a thing it is,
to be for our submissive behavior well spoken of at St. James's, or St.
Stephen's ; at Guildhall, or the Royal Exchange. Specious fallacies
will be drest up with all the arts of delusion, to persuade one colony
to distinguish herself from another, by unbecoming condescensions,
which will serve the ambitious purposes of great men at home, and
therefore will be thought by them to entitle their assistants in obtain-
ing them to considerable rewards.

Our fears will be excited. Our hopes will be awakened. It will be
insinuated to us, with a plausible affectation of wisdom and concern,
how prudent it is to please the powerful — how dangerous to provoke
them — and then comes in the perpetual incantation that freezes up
every generous purpose of the soul in cold, inactive expectation--
" that if there is any request to be made, compliance* will obtain a
favorable attention."

Our vigilance and our union are success and safety. Our negligence
and our division are distress and death. They are worse — they are
shame and slavery. Let us equally shun the benumbing stillness of
overweening sloth, and the feverish activity of that ill informed zeal,
which busies itself in maintaining little, mean, and narrow opinions.

26 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

Let us with a truly wise generosity and charity, banish and discour-
age all illiberal distinctions, which may arise from differences in situa-
tions, forms of government, or modes of religion. Let us consider our-
selves as men — freemen — Christian freemen — separated from the rest
of the world, and firmly bound together by the same rights, interests
and dangers. Let these keep our attention inflexibly fixed on the
great objects, which we must continually regard in order to preserve
those rights, to promote those interests, and to avert those dangers.

Let these truths be indelibly impressed on our minds — that we can-
not be happy without being free — that we cannot be free without
being secure in our property — that we cannot besecure in our
property, if without our consent, others may, as by right, take it
away — that taxes imposed on us by Parliament, do thus take it
away— that duties laid for the sole purpose of raising money, are
taxes — that attempts to lay such duties should be instantly and
firmly opposed — that this opposition can never be effectual, unless it
is the united effort of these provinces — that therefore benevolence of
temper towards each other, and unanimity of councils are essential to
the welfare of the whole — and lastly that for this reason every man
amongst us, who in any manner would encourage either dissension,
diffidence, or indifference between these colonies is an enemy to him-
self and to his country.

The belief of these truths, I verily think, my countrymen, is indis-
pensably necessary to your happiness. I beseech you, therefore,
"teach them diligently unto your children, and talk of them when
you sit in your houses, and when you walk by the way, and when you
lie down, and when you rise up."

What have these colonies to ask, while they continue free ? Or
what have they to dread, but insidious attempts to subvert their free-
dom ? Their prosperity does not depend on ministerial favours doled
cut to particular provinces. They form one political body of which
each colony is a member. Their happiness is founded on their con-
stitution; and is to be promoted by preserving that constitution in un-
abated vigor, throughout every part. A spot, a speck of decay, how-
ever small the limb on which it appears, and however remote it may
seem from the vitals, should be alarming. We have all the rights re-
quisite for our prosperity. The legal authority of Great Britain may
indeed lay hard restrictions upon us; but like the spear of Telephus,
it will cure as well as wound. Her unkindness will instruct and com-
pel us, after some time, to discover in our industry and frugality, sur-
prising remedies — if our rights continue unviolated. For as long as
the products oi our labor, and the rewards of our care, can properly
be called our own, so long it will be worth our while to be industrious
and frugal. But if when we plow — sow — reap — gather — and thresh —
we find, that we plow — sow — reap — gather — and thresh for others,
whose pleasure is to be the sole limitation hov/ much they shatt take.

JOHN DICKINSON. 27

and how much they shall leave, why should we repeat the unprofitable
toil ? Horses and oxen are content with that portion of the fruits of
their work which their owners assign them, in order to keep them
strong enough to raise successive crops; but even these beasts will
not submit to draw for their masters, until they are subdued by whips
and goads.

Let us take care of our rights, and we therein take care of our pros-
perity. "Slavery is. ever preceded by sleep." Individuals maybe
dependent on ministers, if they please. States should scorn it; and
if your are not wanting to yourselves, you will have a proper regard
paid you by those, to whom if you are not respectable, you will be
contemptible. But, if we have already forgot the reasons that urged
us, with unexampled unanimity, to exert ourselves two years ago, if
our zeal for the public good is worn out-before the homespun cloaths,
which it caused us to have made, if our resolutions are so faint, as by
our present conduct to condemn our own late successful example — if
we are not affected by any reverence for the memory of our ancestors,
who transmitted to us that freedom in whicn they had been blest; if
we are not animated by any regard for posterity, to whom, by tne
most sacred obligations, we are bound to deliver down the invaluable
inheritance; then, indeed, any minister, or any tool of a minister, or
any creature of a tool of a minister, or any lower instrument 01 ad-
ministration, if lower there be, is a personage whom it may be danger-
ous to offend.

I shall be extremely sorry, if any man mistakes my meaning in any-
thing I have said. Officers employed by the crown, are, while accord-
ing to the laws they conduct themselves, entitled to legal obedience,
and sincere respect. These it is a duty to render them; and these no
good or prudent person will withhold. But when these officers,
through rashness or design, desire to enlarge their authority beyond
its due limits, and expect improper concessions to be made to them,
from regard for the employments they bear, their attempts should be
considered as equal injuries to the crown and people, and should be
courageously and constantly opposed. To suffer our ideas to be con-
founded by names on such occasions, would certainly be an inexcusa-
ble weakness, and probably an irremediable error.

We have reason to believe, that several of his Majesty's present
ministers are good men, and friends to our country; and it seems not
unlikely, that by a particular concurrence of events, we have been
treated a little more severely than they wished we should be. They
might not think it prudent to stem a torrent. But what is the differ-
ence to us, whether arbitrary acts take their rise from ministers, or
are permitted by them ? Ought any point to be allowed to a good
minister, that should be denied to a bad one ? The mortality of

ministers, is a very frail mortality. A may "ucceed a Shel*

burne— A — ——may succeed a Corn way. .

eS AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

We find a new kind of minister lately spoken of at home — "The
minister of the House of Commons." The term seems to have pecu-
liar propriety when referred to these colonies, with a different mean-
ing annexed to it, from that in which it is taken there. By- the
word "minister" we may understand not only a servant of the crown,
but a man of influence among the commons, who regard themselves
as having a share in the sovereignty over us. The " minister of the
house" may, in a point respecting the colonies, be so strong, that the
minister of the crown in the house, if he is a distinct person, may not
choose, even where his sentiments are favorable to us, to come to a
pitched battle upon our account. For though I have the highest
opinion of the deference of the house for the King's minister, yet he
may be so good natured, as not to put it to the test, except it be for
the mere and immediate profit of his master or himself.

But whatever kind of minister he is,that attempt to innovate a
single iota in the privileges of these colonies, him I hope you will un-
dauntedly oppose; and that you will never suffer yourselves to be
either cheated or frightened into any unworthy obsequiousness. On
such emergencies you may surely, without presumption, believe, that
Almighty God himself will look down upon your righteous contest
with gracious approbation. You will be a "band of brothers,"
cemented by the dearest ties, and strengthened with inconceivable
supplies of force and constancy, by that sympathetic ardor, which
animates good men, confederated in a good cause. Your honor and
welfare will be, as they now are, most intimately concerned; and be-
sides, you are assigned by divine providence, in the appointed order
of things, the protectors of unborn ages, whose fate depends upon
your virtue. Whether they shall arise the generous and indisputable
heirs of the noblest patrimonies, or the dastardly and hereditary
drudges of imperious task-masters, you must determine.

To discharge this double duty to yourselves, to your posterity, you
have nothing to do, but to call forth into use the good sense and
spirit of which you are possessed. You have nothing to do, but to
conduct your affairs peaceably, prudently, firmly, and jointly. By
these means you will support the character of freemen, without losing
that of faithful subjects — a good character in any government— one of
the best under a British government — you will prove, that Americans
have that true magnanimity of soul, that can resent injuries, without
falling into rage; and that though your devotion to Great Britain k-
the most affectionate, yet you can make proper distinctions, and know
what you owe to yourselves, as well as to her — you will, at the same
time that you advance your interests, advance your reputation —
you will convince the world of the justice of your demands, and
the purity of your intentions. While all mankind must with un-
ceasing applauses, confess, that you indeed deserve liberty, who
so well understand it, so passionately love it, so temperately enjoy

SAMUEL ADAMS. 29

It, and so wisely, bravely, and virtuously assert, maintain, and de-
fend it.

IJ Certe ego libertatem, qua mihi a parente meo tradita est, experiar:
Verum id frustra an ob rem faciam, in vestra manu situm est.
quirites."
For my part, I am resolved to contend for the liberty delivered
down to me by my ancestors; but whether I shall do it effectually
or not, depends on you, my countrymen.
" How little soever one is able to write, yet when the liberties of
one's country are threatened, it is still more difficult to be silent."

A Farmer.

- .

- ■ ■ '

LETTER FROM CANDIDUS.

SAMUEL ADAMS.

Boston Gazette, October 7, 1771.

" Ambition saw that stooping- Rome could bear
A master, nor had virtue to be free."
-
I believe that no people ever yet groaned under the heavy yoke of
slavery but when they deserved it. This may be called a severe cen-
sure upon by far the greatest part of the nations in the world who are
involved in the miseries of servitude. But however they may be thought
by some to deserve commiseration, the censure is just. Zuinglius,
one of the first reformers, in his friendly admonition to the republic
of the Switzers, discourses much of his countrymen's throwing off the
yoke. He says that they who lie under oppression deserve what they
suffer and a great deal more, and he bids them perish with their
oppressors. The truth is, all might be free, if they valued freedom
and defended it as they onght. It is possible that millions could be
enslaved by a few, which is a notorious fact, if all possessed the inde-
pendent spirit of Brutus, who, to his immortal honor, expelled the
proud tryant of Rome and his "Royal and rebellious race." If,
therefore, a people will not be free, if they have not virtue enough to
maintain their liberty against a presumptuous invader, they deserve
no pity, and are to be treated with contempt and ignominy. Had not
Caesar seen that Rome was ready to stoop he would not have dared
to make himself the master of that once brave people. He was,

3© AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

indeed, as a great writer observes, a smooth and subtle tyrant, who
led them gently into slavery, "and on his brow o'er daring vice,
deluding virtue smiled. " By pretending to be the people's greatest
friend, he gained the ascendence over them; by beguiling arts, hypoc-
risy, and flattery, which are often more fatal than the sword^ he ob-
tained that supreme power which his ambitious soul had long thirsted
for. The people were finally prevailed upon to consent to their own
ruin. By the force of persuasion, or rather by cajoling arts and
tricks, always made use of by men who have ambitious views, they
enacted their Lex Regia, whereby quod placuit principi legis kcbtrit
vigorem, that is, the will and pleasure of the prince had the force of
law. His minions had taken infinite pains to paint to their imagina-
tions the godlike virtues of Caesar. They first persuaded them to be-
lieve that he was a deity, and then to sacrifice to him those rights and
liberties which their ancestors had so long maintained with unex-
ampled bravery and with blood and treasure. By this act they fixed
a precedent fatal to all posterity. The Roman people afterwards, in-
fluenced no doubt by this pernicious example, renewed it to his suc-
cessors, not at the end of every ten- years, but for life. They trans-
ferred all their right and power to Charles the Great. In eum
transtullt ornm stun jus et poUstaiem. Thus they voluntarily and
ignominiousiy surrendered their own liberty, and exchanged a free
constitution for a tyranny.

It is not my design to form a comparison between the state of this
country now and that of the Roman Empire in those dregs of time, or

between the disposition of Coesar ana that of . The comparison,

I confess, would not, in all its parts, hold good. The tyrant of Rome,
to do him justice, had learning, courage, and great abilities. It be-
hooves us, however, to awake, and advert to the danger we are in.
The tragedy of American freedom, it is to be feared, is nearly com-
pleted. A tyranny seems to be at the very dcor. It is to little pur-
pose, then, to go about coolly to rehearse the gradual steps that have
been taken, the means that have been used, and the instruments em-
ployed to compass the ruin of the public liberty. We know them
and we detest them. But what will this avail, if we have not courage
and resolution to prevent the completion of their system?

Our enemies would fain have us he down on the bed of sloth and
security, and persuade ourselves that there is no danger. They are
. administering the opiate with multiplied arts and delusions, and I
am sorry to observe that the gilded pill is so alluring to some who call
themselves the friends of liberty. But there is no danger when the
very foundations of our civil constitution tremble. When an attempt
was first made to disturb the corner-stone of the fabric, we were uni-
vc rsaiiy and justly alarmed. And can we be cool spectators, when we
see it already removed from its place ? With what resentment and
indignation did we first receive the intelligence of a design to make us

SAMUEL ADAMS. 3*

tributary, not to natural enemies, but, Infinitely more humiliating, to
fellow-subjects ! And yet, with unparalleled insolence, we are told to
be quiet when we see that very money which is torn from us by law-
less force made use of still'further to oppose us, to feed and pamper
a set of infamous wretches who swarm like the locusts of Egypt,
and some of them expect to revel in wealth and riot on the spoils of
our country. Is it a time" for us to sleep when our free government is
essentially changed, and a new one is forming upon a quite different
: ystem ? A government without the least dependence on the people —
a government under the absolute control of a minister of state, upon
whose sovereign dictates is to depend not only the time when, and
the place where, the Legislative Assembly shall sit, but whether it
shall sit at all ; and if it is allowed to meet, it shall be liable immedi-
ately to be thrown out of existence if in any one point it fails in
obedience to his arbitrary mandates.

Have we not already seen specimens of what we are to expect under
such a government in the instructions which Mr. Hutchinson has re-
ceived, and which he has publicly avowed and declared he is bound to
obey ? By one he is to refuse his assent to a tax bill unless the Com-
missioners ol the Customs and other favorites are exempted ; and if
these may be freed from taxes by the order of a minister, may not all
his tools and drudges, or any others who are subservien't to his
designs, expect the same indulgence? By another, he is to forbid to
pass a grant of the Assembly to any agent but one to whose election
he has given his consent, which is, in effect, to put it out of our power
to take the necessary and legal steps for the redress of those grievances
which we suffer by the arts and machinations of ministers and their
minions here. What difference is there between the present state
of this province, which in course will be the deplorable state of
America and that of Rome under the lav/ before mentioned ? The
difference is only this, that they gave their formal consent to the
change, which we have not yet done. But let us be upon our
guard against even a negative submission, for, agreeable to the sen-
timents of a celebrated writer, who thoroughly understood his sub-
ject, if we are voluntarily silent, as the conspirators would have us
be, it will be considered as an approbation of the change. " By the
fundamental laws of England the two Houses of Parliament, in con-
cert with the King, exercise the legislative power; but if the two
- Houses should be so infatuated as to resolve to suppress their powers,
and invest the King with the full and absolute government, certainly
the nation would not suffer it !" And if a minister shall usurp
the supreme and absolute government of America, and set up his
instructions as laws in the colonies, and their governors shall be so
weak or so wicked as, for the sake of keeping their places, to be made
the instrument in putting them in execution, who will presume to say
that the people have not a right, or that it is not their indispensable

32 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

duty to God and their country, by all rational means in their power.

to resist them!

" Be hrm, my friends, nor let unmanly sloth
Twine round your hearts indissoluble chains;
Ne'er yet by force was freedom overcome^
Unless corruption first dejects the pride
And guardian vigor of the free born souls
All crude attempts at violence are vain.

Determined hold
Your independence; for, that once destroyed,
Unfounded freedom is a morning dream.

The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution,
are worth defending at all hazards ; and it is our duty to defend them
against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from
our worthy ancestors. They purchased them for us with toil and
danger, and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to
us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of in-
famy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should
suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or
be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men.
Of the latter, we are in most danger at present. Let us therefore be
avyare of it. Let us contemplate our forefathers and posterity, and
resolve to maintain the rights bequeathed to us from the former for
the sake of the latter. Instead of sitting down satisfied with the
efforts we have already made, which is the wish of our enemies, the
necessity of the times more than ever calls for our utmost circumspec-
tion, deliberation, fortitude, and perseverance. Let us remember that
" if we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage
it, and involve others in our doom!" It is a very serious considera-
tion, which should deeply impress our minds, that millions yet unborn
may be the miserable sharers in the event !

"Candidus."

REPORT ON THE RIGHTS OF COLONISTS.

SAMUEL ADAMS.

Natural Rights of the Colonists as Men.

Boston, November 20, 1772.

Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: First, a right
to life. Second, to liberty. Thirdly, to property: together with the
right to support and defend them in the best manner they can. These

SAMUEL ADAMS. 33

are evident branches of, rather than deductions from, the duty of self-
preservation, commonly called the first law of nature.

All men have a right to remain in a state of nature as long as they
please, and in case of intolerable oppression, civil or religious, to
leave the society they belong to, and enter into another.

When men enter into society, it is by voluntary consent, and they
have a right to demand and insist upon the performance of such con-
ditions and previous limitations as form an equitable original compact.

Every natural right not expressly given up, or, from the nature of a
social compact necessarily ceded, remains.

All positive and civil laws should conform, as far as possible, to the
law of natural reason and equity.

As neither'reason requires nor religion permits the contrary, every
man living in or out of a state of civil society has a right peaceably
and quietly to worship God according to the dictates of his conscience.

"Just and true liberty, equal and impartial liberty," in matters
spiritual and temporal is a thing that all men are clearly entitled to Hy
the eternal and immutable taws of "God and nature, as well as by the
law of nations and all well-grounded municipal laws, which must have
their foundation in the former.

In regard to religion, mutual toleration in the different professions
thereof, is what all good and candid minds in all ages have ever prac-
tised, and both by precept and example inculcated on mankind. It is
now generally agreed among Christians that this spirit of toleration,
in the fullest extent consistent with the being of civil society, is the
chief characteristical mark of the true Church. Insomuch that Mr.
Locke has asserted and proved, beyond the possibility of contradiction
on any solid ground, that such toleration ought to be extended to all
whose doctrines are riot subversive of society. The only sects, which
he thinks ought to be, and which by all wise laws are, excluded from
such toleration, are those who teach doctrines subversive of the civil
government under which they live. The Roman Catholics, or Papists,
are excluded by reason of such doctrines as these :— That princes ex-
communicated may be deposed, and those that they call heretics may
be destroyed without mercy; besides their recognizing the Pope in so
absolute a manner, in subversion of government, by introducing, as
far as possible into the states under whose protection they enjoy life,
liberty and property, that solecism in politics, imperium in imperio,
leading directly to the worst anarchy and confusion , civil discord, war,
and bloodshed.

The natural liberty of man by entering into society is abridged, or
restrained, so far only as is necessary for the great end of society — the
best good of the whole. -

In the state of nature every man is, under God, judge and sole judge
of his own rights and of the injuries done him. By entering into
society he agrees to an arbiter or indifferent judge between him and

34 . AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

his neighbors; but he no more renounces his original right, thereby-
taking a cause cut of the ordinary course of law, and leaving the de-
cision to referees or indifferent arbitrators. In the last case, he must
pay the referee for time and trouble. . He should also be willing to
pay his just quota for the support of the government, the law and the
constitution; the end of which is to furnish indifferent and impartial
judges in all cases that may happen, whether civil, ecclesiastical,
marine, or military.

The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on
earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but
only to have the law of nature for his rule.

In the state of nature men may, as the patriarchs did, employ hired
servants for the defence of their lives, liberties and property, and they
should pay them reasonable wages. Government was instituted for.
the purpose of common defence, and those who hold the reins of gov-
ernment have an equitable, natural right to an honorable support from
the same principle that " the laborer is worthy of his hire." But then
the same community which they serve .ought to be the assessors of
their pay. Governors have a right to seek and take what they please;
by this, instead of being content with the station assigned them, that
of honorable servants of the society, they would soon become absolute
masters, despots and tyrants. Hence, as a private man has a right to
say what wages he will give in his private affairs, so has a community
to determine what they will give and grant of their substance for the
administration of public affairs. And in both cases more are ready to
offer their service at the proposed and stipulated price than are able
and willing to perform their duty.

In short it is the greatest absurdity to suppose it in the power of
one, or any number of men, at the entering into society to renounce
their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rights,
when the grand end of civil government, from the very nature of its
institution, is for the support, protection, and defence of those very
rights; the principal of which, as is before observed, are life, liberty,
and property. If men through fear, fraud or mistake, should in terms
renounce or give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of
reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such re-
nunciation. The right of freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it
is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become
a slave.

THE RIGHTS OF THE COLONISTS AS CHRISTIANS.

These may be best understood by reading and carefully studying the
institutes of the great Lawgiver and head of the Christian Church,
which are to be found clearly written and promulgated in the New
Testament.

SAMUEL ADAMS. 35

By the act of the British Parliament, commonly called the Tolerrtion
Act, every subject in England, except Papists, etc. , was restored to,
and re-established in, his natural right to worship God according to the
dictates of his own conscience. And by the charter of this province
it is granted, ordained and established (that is declared as an original
right), that there shall be liberty of conscience allowed in the worship
of God to all Christians except Papists, inhabiting, or which shall in-
habit or be resident within such province or territory. Magna Charta
itself is in substance but a constrained declaration or proclamation
and promulgation in the name of King, Lords, and Commons of the
sense the latter had their original, inherent, indefeasible, natural
rights, as also those of free citizens equally perdurable with the other.
That great author, that great jurist, and even that court writer, Mr.
Justice Blackstone, holds that this recognition was justly obtained of
King John, sword in hand. And peradventure it must be one day,
sword in hand, again rescued and preserved from total destruction and
oblivion.

THE RIGHTS OF THE COLONISTS AS SUBJECTS.

A commonwealth or state is a body politic, or civil society of men
united together to promote their mutual safety and prosperity by
means of their union.

The absolute right of Englishmen and all freemen, in or out of civil
society, are principally personal security, personal liberty, and private
property.

All persons born in the British American Colonies, are by the laws
of God and nature, and by the common law of England, exclusive of
all charters from the Crown, well entitled, and by acts of the British
Parliament are declared to be entitled, to all the natural, essential, in-
herent, and inseparable rights, liberties and privileges of subjects born
in Great Britain or within the realm. Among these rights are the
following, which no man, or body of men, consistently with their own
rights as men and citizens, or members of society, can for themselves
give up or take away from others.

"First. The first fundamental positive law of all commonwealths or
states, is the establishing the legislative power. As the first funda-
mental natural law, also, which is to govern even the legislative power
itself is the preservation of the society.

' ' Secondly. The legislative has no right to absolute arbitrary power
over the lives and fortunes of the people; nor can mortals assume a
prerogative not only too high for men, but for angels, and therefore
reserved for the exercise of the Deity alone.

" The Legislative cannot justly assume to itself a power to rule by
extempore arbitrary decrees ; but it is bound to see that justice is dis-
pensed, and that the rights of the subjects be decided by promulgated

AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

standing, and known laws, and authorized independent judges;" ttiat
is, independent, as far as possible, of prince and people. " There
should be one rule of justice for rich and poor, for the favorite at
court, and the countryman at the plough.

"Thirdly. The supreme power cannot justly take from any man
any part of his property without his consent in person or by his
representative."

These are some of the first principles of natural law and justice, and
the great barriers of all free states, and of the British Constitution in
particular. It is utterly irreconcilable to these principles, and to
many other fundamental maxims of the common law, common sense,
and reason, that a British House of Commons should have a right
at pleasure to give and grant the property of the colonists. (That
the colonists are well entitled to all the essential rights, liberties, and
privileges of men and freemen born in Britain, is manifest not only
from the colony charters in general, but acts of the British Parliament.)
The statute of the 13th of Geo. II, c. 7, naturalizes every foreigner
after seven years' residence. The words of the Massachusetts charter
are these : " And further, our will and pleasure is, and we do hereby,
for us, our heirs and successors, grant, establish, and ordain, that all
and every of the subjects of us, our heirs and successors, which shall
go to and inhabit within our said Province or Territory, and every of
their children which shall happen to be born there or on the seas in
going thither or returning from thence, shall have and enjoy all lib-
erties and immunities of free and natural subjects within any of the
dominions of us, our heirs and successors, to all intents, constructions,
and purposes whatsoever, as if they and every one of them were born
within this, our realm of England."

Now what liberty can there be where property is taken away with-
out consent? Can it be said with any coior of truth and justice that
this continent of three thousand miles in length, and Of a breadth as
yet unexplored, in which, however, it is supposed there are five
millions of people, has the least voice, vote, or influence in the British
Parliament ? Have they all together any more weight or power to
return a single member to that House of Commons who have not in-
advertently, but deliberately, assumed a power to dispose of their
lives, liberties, and properties, than to choose an Emperor of China ?
Had the colonists a right to return members to the British Parliament,
it would only be hurtful, as, from their local situation and circum-
stances it is impossible they should ever be truly and properly repre-
sented there. The inhabitants of this country, in all probability, in a
few years, will be more numerous than those of Great Britain and
Ireland together ; yet it is absurdly expected by the promoters of the
present measure that these, with their posterity to all generations,
should be easy while their property shall be disponed of by a House
of Commons at three tnotTsand miles distance from thcmt and who

JOSEPH WARREN. 37

cannot be supposed to have the least care or concern for their real
interest ; who have not only no natural care for their interest, but
must be in effect bribed against it, as every burden they lay on the
colonists is so much saved or gained to themselves. Hitherto, many
of the colonists have been free from quit rents ; but if the breath of
a British House of Commons can originate an act for taking away all
our money, our lands will go next, or be subject to rack rent from
haughty and relentless landlords, who will ride at ease while we are
trodden in the dirt. The colonists have been branded with the odious
names of traitors and rebels only for complaining of their grievances.
How long such treatment will or ought to be borne, is submitted.

■

ORATION.
-

JOSEPH WARREN.

Boston^ March 5, 1772.

Quis tali a fando,
Myrmidonum, Dolopuvivt, aut duri miles Ulyssei,
Temj>eret a lacrymis. — Virgil.

When we turn over the historic page and trace the rise and fall of
states and empires, the mighty revolutions which have so often varied
the face of the world strike our minds with solemn surprise, and we
are naturally led to endeavor to search out the causes of such aston-
ishing changes.

That man is formed for social life is an observation which, upon our
first inquiry, presents itself immediately to our view, and our reason
approves that wise and generous principle which actuated the first
founders of civil government ; art institution which hath its origin in
the weakness of individuals, and hath for its end the strength and
security of all : and so long as the means of effecting this important
end are thoroughly known, and religiously attended to, government
is one of the richest blessings to mankind, and ought to be held in the
highest veneration.

In young and new-formed communities the grand design of this in-
stitution is most generally understood and the most strictly regarded ;
the motives which urged to the social compact cannot be at once for-
gotten, and that equality which is remembered to have subsisted so
lately among them, prevents those who are clothed with authority
from attempting to invade the freedom of their brethren ; or if such

38 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

an attempt is made, it prevents the community from suffering the
offender to go unpunished : every member feels it to be his interest
and knows it to be his duty to preserve inviolate the constitution on
which the public safety depends, and he is equallv ready to assist the
magistrate in the execution of the laws, and the subject in defence of
his right; and so long as this noble attachment to a constitution,
founded on free and benevolent principles, exists in full vigor, in any
state, that state must be flourishing and happy.

) It was this noble attachment to a free constitution which raised
ancient Rome from the smallest beginnings to that bright summit of
happiness and glory to which she arrived ; and it was the loss of this
which plunged her from that summit into the black gulf of infamy
and slavery. It was this attachment which inspired her senators with
wisdom ; it was this which glowed in the breast of her heroes ; it was
this which guarded her liberties and extended her dominions, gave
peace at home, and commanded respect abroad ; and when this de-
cayed her magistrates lost their reverence for justice and the laws,
and degenerated into tyrants and oppressors — her senators, forgetful
of their dignity, and seduced by base corruption, betrayed their
country — her soldiers, regardless of their relation to the community,
and urged only by the hopes of plunder and rapine, unfeelingly com-
mitted the most flagrant enormities ; and, hired to the trade of death,
with relentless fury they perpetrated the most cruel murders, whereby
the streets of imperial Rome were drenched with her noblest blood.
Thus this empress of the world lost her dominions abroad, and her
inhabitants, dissolute in their manners, at length became contented
slaves ; and she stands to this day the scorn and derision of nations,
and a monument of this eternal truth, that public happiness depends on
a virtuous and unshaken attachment to a free constitution.

It was this attachment to a constitution, founded on free and benev-
olent principles, which inspired the first settlers of this country — they
saw with grief the daring outrages committed on the free constitution
of their native land — they knew nothing but a civil war could at that
time restore its pristine purity. So hard was it to resolve to embrue
their hands in the blood of their brethren, that they chose rather to
quit their fair possessions and seek another habitation in a distant
clime. When they came to this new world, which they fairly pur-
chased of the Indian natives, the only rightful proprietors, they culti-
vated the then barren soil by their incessant labor, and defended
their dear-bought possessions with the fortitude of the Christian and
the bravery of the hero.

After various struggles, which, during the tyrannic reigns of the
house of Stuart, were constantly kept up between right and wrong,
between liberty and slavery, the connection between Great Britain and
this colony was settled in the reign of King William and Queen Mary,
by a compact, the conditions of which were ex^essed in a charter, by

JOSEPH JFARREY. 39

which all the liberties and immunities of British subjects were corv
fided to this province, as fully and as absolutely as they possibly
could be by any human instrument which can be devised. And it is
undeniably true, that the greatest and most important right of a
British subject is, that he shall be governed by no laws but those to wltich
he, cither in person or by his representatives hath given his consent:
and this I will venture to assert is the great basis of British freedom ;
it is interwoven with the Constitution; and whenever this is lost, the
Constitution must be destroyed.

The British Constitution (of which ours is1 a copy) is a happy com-
pound of the three forms (under some of which all governments may
be ranged) viz., monarchy, aristocracy, anddemocracy; of ' these three
the British legislature is composed, and without the consent of each
branch, nothing can carry with it the force of a law ; but when a law
is to be passed for raising a tax, that law can originate only in the
democratic branch, Which is the House of Commons in Britain, and
the House of Representatives here. The reason is obvious: they and
their constituents are to pay much the largest part of it ; but as the
aristocratic branch, which, in Britain, is the House of Lords, and in
this province, the Council, are also to pay some part, their consent is
necessary ; and as the monarchic branch, which in Britain is the King,
and with us, either the King in person, or the Governor whom he shall
be pleased to appoint to act in his stead, is supposed to have a just
sense of his own interest, which is that of all the subjects in general,
his consent is also necessary, and when the consent of these three
branches is obtained, the taxation is most certainly legal.

Let us now allow ourselves a few moments to examine the late acts
of the British Parliament for taxing America. Let us with candor
judge whether they are constitutionally binding upon us ; if they are,
in the name of justice let us submit to them, without one murmuring
word.

First, I would ask whether the members of the British House of
Commons are the democracy of this province? if they are, they are
either the people of this province, or are elected by the people of this
province, to represent the'm, and have therefore a constitutional right
to originate a bill for taxing them; it is most certain they are
neither; and therefore nothing done by them can be said to be
done by the democratic branch of our Constitution. I would next
ask whether the Lords, who compose the aristocratic branch of the
Legislature, are peers of America? I never heard it was (even in these
extraordinary times) so much as pretended, and if they are not, cer-
tainly no act of theirs can be said to be the act of the aristocratic
branch of our Constitution. The power of the monarchic branch we,
with pleasure, acknowledge resides in the King, who may act either
In person or by his representative ; and I freely confess that I can see
no reason why a proclamation for raising in America issued bv the

40 AMERICAN PATRI0TJ3M.

King's sole authority would not be equally consislant with our own
Constitution, and therefore equally binding upon us with the late acts
of the British Parliament for taxing us ; for it is plain, that if there
is any validity in those acts, it must arise altogether from the
monarchical branch of the Legislature ; and I further think that it
would be at least as equitable; for I do not conceive it to be
of the least importance to us by whom our property is taken
away, so long as it is taken without our consent ; and I am very
much at a loss to know by what figure of rhetoric, the inhabitants of
this province can be called free subjects, when they are obliged to
obey implicitly, such laws as are made for them by men three thou-
sand miles off, whom they know not, and whom they never empower-
ed to act for them, or how they can be said to have property, when a
body of men, over whom they have not the least control, and who are
not in any way accountable to them, shall oblige them to deliver up
part, or the whole of their substance without even asking their con-
sent: and yet whoever pretends that the late acts of the British Parlia-
ment for taxing America ought to be deemed binding upon us, must
admit at once that we are absolute slaves, and have no property of
our own; or else that we may be freemen, and at the same time under
a necessity of obeying the arbitrary commands of those over whom we
have no control or influence, and that we may have property of our
own, which is entirely at the disposal of another. Such gross absurdi-
ties, I believe will not be relished in this enlightened age: and it can
be no matter of wonder that the people quickly perceived, and seri-
ously complained of the inroads which these acts must unavoidably
make upon their liberty, and of the hazard to which their whole prop-
erty is by them exposed; for, if they maybe taxed without their con-
sent, even in the smallest trifle, they may also, without their consent,
be deprived of every thing they possess, although never so valuable,
never so dear. Certainly it never entered the hearts of our ancestors,
that after so many dangers in this then desolate wilderness, their hard-
earned property should be at the disposal of the British Parliament;
and as it was soon found that this taxation could not be supported by
reason and argument, it seemed necessary that one act of oppression
should be enforced by another, and therefore, contrary to our just
rights as possessing, or at least having a just title to possess, all the
liberties and immunities of British subjects, a standing army was es-
tablished among us in time of peace; and evidently for the purpose of
effecting that, which it was one principal design of the fonnders of the
constitution to prevent (when they declared a standing army in a time
of peace to be against law), namely, for the enforcement of obedience
to acts which, upon fair examination, appeared to be unjust and un-
constitutional.

The ruinous consequences of standing armies to free communities
may be seen in the histories of Syracuse, Rome, and many other once

JOSEPH WAR REX. 41

flourishing states: some of which have now scarce a name! their bane-
ful influence is most suddenly felt, when they are placed in populous
cities; for, by a corruption of morals, the public happiness is Imme-
diately affected! and that this is one of the effects of quartering troops
in a populous city, is a truth, to which many a mourning parent, many
a lost, despairing child in this metropolis must bear a very melancholy
testimony. Soldiers are also taught to consider arms as the only ar-
biters by which every dispute is to be decided between contending
states ; — they are instructed implicitly to obey their commanders, with-
out enquiring into the justice of the cause they are engaged to support ;
hence it is, that they are ever to be dreaded as the ready engines of
tyranny and oppression. And it is too observable that they are prone
to introduce the same mode of decision in the disputes of individuals,
and from thence have often arisen great animosities between them
and the inhabitants, who, whilst in a naked, defenceless state, are fre-
quently insulted and abused by an armed soldiery. And this will be
more especially the case, when the troops are informed that the inten-
tion of their being stationed in any city is to overawe the inhabitants.
That this was the avowed design of stationing an armed force in this
town is sufficiently known ; and we, my fellow citizens, have seen, we
have felt the tragical effects \ — The fatal fifth of March, 1770, can never
be forgotten — The horrors of that dreadful night are but too deeply im-
pressed on our hearts — Language is too feeble to paint the emotion of
our souls, when our streets were stained with the blood of our breth-
ren— when our ears were wounded by the groans of the dying, and our
eyes were tormented with the sight of the mangled bodies of the dead.
When our alarmed imagination presented to our view our houses
wrapt in flames, our children subjected to the barbarous ca' rice of
the raging soldiery, — our beauteous virgins exposed to all tne inso-
lence of unbridled passion, — our virtuous wives, endeared to us by
every tender tie, falling a sacrifice to worse than brutal violence, and
perhaps like the famed Lucretia, distracted with anguish and despair,
ending their wretched lives by ttieir own fair hands. When we be-
held the authors of our distress parading in our streets, or drawn tip
in a regular battalia, as though in a hostile city, our hearts beat to
arms ; we snatched our weapons, almost resolved, by one decisive
Stroke, to avenge the death of our slaughtered brethren, and to secure
from future danger, all that we held most dear : but propitious heaven
forbade the bloody carnage, and saved the threatened victims of our too
keen resentment, not by their discipline, not by their regular array, —
no, it was royal George's livery that proved their shield — it was that
which turned the pointed engines of destruction from their breasts.
The thoughts of vengeance were soon buried in our inbred affection to
Great Britain, and calm reason dictated a method of removing the
troops more mild than an immediate resource to the sword. With
united efforts you urged the immediate departure of the troops from

\2 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

the town — you urged it, with a resolution which ensured success — you
obtained your wishes, and the removal of the troops was effected,
without one drop of their blood being shed by the inhabitants.

The immediate actors in the tragedy of that night were surrendered
to justice. It is not mine to say how far they were guilty ? they havre
been tried by the country and acquitted of murder ! and they are not
to be again arraigned at an earthly bar ; but, surely the men who have
promiscuously scattered death amidst the innocent inhabitants of a
populous city, ought to see well to it that they be prepared to stand
at the bar of an omniscient judge ! and all who contrived or encour-
aged the stationing troops in this place have reasons of eternal import-
ance, to reflect with deep contrition, on their base designs, and hum-
bly to repent of their impious machinations.

The infatuation which hath seemed, for a number of years, to pre-
vail in the British councils, with regard to us, is truly astonishing 1
what can be proposed by the repeated attacks made upon our freedom,
I really cannot surmise; even leaving justice and humanity out of
question. I do not know one single advantage' which can arise to the
British nation, from our being enslaved: — I know not of any gains,
which can be wrung from us by oppression, which they may not ob-
tain from us by our own consent, in the smooth channel of commerce :
we wish the wealth and prosperity of Britain ; we contribute largely
to both. Doth what we contribute lose all its value, because it is done
voluntarily ? the amazing increase of riches to Britain, the great
rise of the value of her lands, the flourishing state of her navy, are
striking proofs of the advantages derived to her from her commerce
with the colonies; and it is our earnest desire that she may still con-
tinue to enjoy the same emoluments, until her streets are paved with
American gold; only let us have the pleasure of calling it our own,
while it is in our own hands; but this it seems is too great a favor — we
are to be governed by the absolute command of others; our property is
to be taken away without our consent — if we complain, our complaints
are treated with contempt; if we assert our rights, that assertion is
deemed insolence; if we humbly offer to submit the matter to the
impartial decision of reason, the s7uord is judged the most proper
argument to silence our murmurs! but this cannot long be the case —
surely the British nation will not suffer the reputation of their justice
and their honor, to be thus sported away by a capricious ministry ; no,
they will in a short time open their eyes to their true interest: they
nourish in their own breasts, a noble love of liberty; they hold her
dear, and they know that all who have once possessed her charms, had
rather die than suffer her to be torn from their embraces — they are also
sensible that Britain is so deeply interested in the prosperity of the
colonies that she must eventually feel every wound given to their free^
dom; they cannot be ignorant that more dependence may be placed on
the affections of a brother, than on the forced service of a slave; they

JO SE T II WARREN. 43

must approve your efforts for the preservation of your rights; from a
sympathy of soul they must pray for your success: and I doubt not
but they will, ere long, exert themselves effectually, to redress your
grievances. Even the dissolute reign of king Charles II. when the
House of Commons impeached the Earl of Clarendon of high treason,
the first article on which they founded their accusation was that "he
had designed a standing army to be raised, and to govern tfci. kingdom
thereby." And the eighth article was, that " he had introduced an ar'r-
trary government into His Majesty s plantation" A terrifying example
to those who are now forging chains for this country.

You have, my friends and countrymen, frustrated the designs of
your enemies, by your unanimity and fortitude: it was your union and
determined spirit which expelled those troops, who polluted your
streets with innocent blood. You have appointed this anniversary as
a standard memorial of the bloody consequences of placing an armed force
in a populous city, and of your deliverance from the dangers which then
seemed to hang over your heads; and I am confident that you never
will betray the least want of spirit when called upon to guard your
freedom. None but they who set a just value upon the blessings of
liberty are worthy to enjoy her — your illustrious fathers were her
zealous votaries — when the blasting frowns of tyranny drove her from
public view, they clasped her in their arms, they cherished her in their
generous bosoms, they brought her safe over the rough ocean, and
fixed her seat in this then dreary wilderness; they nursed her infant
age with the most tender care; for her sake they patiently bore the
severest hardships; for her support, they underwent the most rugged
toils; in her defence they boldly encountered the most alarming dan-
gers: neither the ravenous beasts that ranged the woods for prey, nor
the more furious savages of the wilderness, could damp their ardor ! —
Whilst with one hand they broke the stubborn glebe, with the other
they grasped their weapons, ever ready to protect her from danger.
No sacrifice, not even their own blood, was esteemed too rich a liba-
tion for her altar! God prospered their valor; they preserved her
brilliancy unsullied; they enjoyed her whilst they lived, and dying,
bequeathed the dear inheritance to your care. And as they left you
this glorious legacy, they have undoubtedly transmitted to you some
portion of their noble spirit, to inspire you with virtue to merit her,
and courage to preserve her: you surely cannot, with such examples
before your eyes, as every page of the history of this country affords,
suffer your liberties to be ravished from you by lawless force, or
cajoled away by flattery and fraud.

The voice of your fathers' blood cries to you from the ground, my
sons scorn to be slaves! in vain we met the frowns of tyrants — in vain
we crossed the boisterous ocean, found a new world, and prepared it
for the happy residence of libert7~-in vain we toiled — in vain we fought
— we bled in vain, if you, our offspring, want valor to repel the assaults

A 4 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

of her invaders! ; — Stain not the glory of your worthy ancestors,

but like them resolve never to part with your birth-right; be wise in
your deliberations, and determined in your exertions for the preserva-
tion of your liberties. Follow not the dictates of passion, but enlist
yourselves under the sacred banner of reason; use every method in
your power to secure your rights; at least prevent the curses of pos-
terity from being heaped upon your memories.

If you, with united zeal and fortitude, oppose the torrent of oppres-
sion; if you feel the true fire of patriotism burning in your breasts; if
you, from your souls, despise the most gaudy dress that slavery can
wear; if you really prefer the lonely cottage (whilst blest with liberty)
to gilded palaces, surrounded with the ensigns of slavery, you may
have the fullest assurance that tyranny, with her whole accursed train,
will hide their hideous heads in confusion, shame, and despair — if you
perform your part, you must have the strongest confidence that the
same Almighty Being who protected your pious and venerable fore-
fathers— who enabled them to turn a barren wilderness into a fruitful
field, who so often made bare his arm for their salvation, will still be
mindful of you, their offspring.

May this Almighty Being graciously preside in £.11 our councils.
May he direct us to such measures as he himself shall approve, and be
pleased to bless. May we ever be a people favored of God. May our
land be a land of liberty, the seat of virtue, the asylum of the oppressed,
a name and a praise in the whole earth, until the last shock of time
shall bury the empires of the world in one common undistinguished
ruin!

■•
■" ■

ESSAY ON THE CONSTITUTIONAL POWER OF GREAT
BRITAIN.

JOHN DICKINSON.

Philadelphia^ August i, 1774.

The authority of Parliament has within these few years been a
question much agitated; and great difficulty, we understand has oc-
curred, in tracing the line between the rights of the mother country
and those of the colonies. The modern doctrine of the former is in-
deed truly remarkable; for though it points out, what are not our
rights, yet we can never learn from it, what are our rights. As,
for example, Great-Britain claims a right to take away nine-tenths
of our estates — have we a right to the remaining tenth ? No. — To

JOhrc\T S^ICA'IXSON. 45

sn3r we have, Is a "traitorous" position, denying her supreme legis-
lature. So far from having prupeUy, according to these late found
novels, we are ourselves a property.

We pretend not to any considerable share of learning; but, thanks
be to divine goodness, common sense, experience, and some acquaint-
ance with the constitution, teach us a fe*v salutary truths on this im-
portant subject. .

Whatever difficulty may occur in tracing the line, yet we contend,
that by the laws of God, and by the laws of the constitution, a line
there must be, beyond which her authority cannot extend. For all
these laws are " grounded on reason, full of justice, and true equity,"
mild, and calculated to promote the freedom and welfare of men.
These objects never can be attained by abolishing every restriction,
on the part of the governors, and extinguishing every right, on the
part of the governed.

Suppose it be allowed, that the line is not expressly drawn, is it
thence: to be concluded, there is no implied line? No English lawyer,
we presume, will venture to make the bold assertion. " The King
may reject what bills, may make what treaties, may coin what money,
may create what peers, and may pardon what offences, he pleases."
But is his prerogative respecting these branches of \tx unlimited ? By
no means. The words following those next above quoted from the
"commentaries on the laws of England," are — "unless where the
constitution hath expressly, or by evident consequence, laid down
some exception or boundary, declaring, that thus far the prerogative
shall go and no farther." There are "some boundaries" then, be-
sides the "express exceptions;" and according to the strong expres-
sion here used, "the constitution declares they are." What "evident
consequence" forms those "boundaries?"

The happiness of the people is the end, and, if the term is allowa-
ble, we would call it the body of the constitution. Freedom is the
spirit or soul. As the soul, speaking of nature, has a right to prevent
or relieve, if it can, any mischief to the body of the individual, and to
keep it in the best health; so the soul, speaking of the constitution,
has a right to prevent, or relieve, any mischief to the body of the
society, and to keep that in the best health. The "evident conse-
quence" mentioned, must mean a tendency to injure this health, that
is, to diminish the happiness of the people — or it must mean nothing.
If therefore, the constitution "declares by evident consequence;" that
a tendency to diminish the happiness of the people, is a proof, that
power exceeds a "boundary," beyond which it oughc not to "go;"
the matter is brought to this single point, whether taking our money
from us without our consent, depriving us of trial by jury, changing
constitutions of government, and abolishing the privilege of the writ
of habeas corpus, by seizing and carrying us to England, have not a
greater tendency to diminish our happiness, than any enormities a

4& AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

King can commit under pretence of prerogative, can have to diminish
the happiness of the subjects in England. To come to a decision
upon this point, no long time need be required. To make this com-
parison, is stating the claim of Parliament in the most favorable light:
For it puts the assumed power of Parliament, to do, "in all cases
whatsoever," what they please, upon the same footing with the ac-
knowledged power of the King, " to make what peers — pardon what
offences, etc., he pleases." But in this light, that power is not entitled
to be viewed. Such is the wisdom of the English constitution, that it
" declares" the King may transgress a "boundary laid down by evi-
dent consequence," even by using the power with which he is expressly
vested by the constitution, in doing those very acts which he is ex-
pressly trusted by the constitution to do— as by creating too many or
improper persons, peers; or by pardoning too many Or too great of-
fences, etc. But has the constitution of England expressly ^de-
clared," that the Parliament of Great-Britain may take away the
money of English colonists without their consent, and deprive them
of trial by jury, etc.? It cannot be pretended. True it is, that it has
been solemnly declared by Parliament, that Parliament has such a
power. But that declaraction leaves the point just as it Was before-
For if Parliament had not the power before, the declaration could nol
give it. Indeed if Parliament is really "omnipotent," that power Is
just and constitutional. We further observe, that no English lawyer,
as we remember, has pointed out precisely the line beyond which, if
a king, shall "go," resistance becomes lawful. General terms have
been used. The learned author of those commentaries, that notwith-
standing some human frailties, do him so much honor, has thought
proper, when treating of this subject, to point out the "precedent" ol
the revolution, as fixing the line. We would not venture any reflexion
on so great a man. It may not become us. Nor can we be provoked
by his expressions concerning colonists; because they perhaps con-
tain his real, though hasty sentiments. Surely, it was not his inten-
tion to condemn those excellent men, who casting every tender
consideration behind them, nobly presented themselves against the
tyranny of the unfortunate and misguided Charles's reign; those men,
whom the House of Commons, even after the restoration, would not
suffer to be censured.

We are sensible of the objection that may be made, as to drawing a
line between rights on each side, and the case of a plain violation of
rights. We think it not material. Circumstances have actually pro-
duced, and may again produce this question — What conduct of a
prince renders resistance lawful? James the second and his fathe;
violated express rights of their subjects, by doing what their own ex-
press rights gave them no title to do, and by raising money, and
levying troops, without consent of Parliament. It is not even settled,
v/hat violation of those will justify resistance. But may not some

JOHN DICKINSON1. 47

future prince confining himself to the exercise of his own express
rights, such as have been mentioned, act in a manner, that will be a
transgression of a "boundary" lakTdown by " evident consequence,"
the " constitution declaring he should go no further?" May not this
exercise of these his express rights, be so far extended, as to introduce
universal confusion and subversion of the ends of government ? The
whole may be oppressive, and yet any single instance legal. The
cases may be improbable; but we have seen and now feel events once
as little expected. Is it not possible, that one of these cases may
happen? If it does, has the constitution expressly drawn a line, be-
yond which resistance becomes lawful? It has not. But it may be
said, a king cannot arm against his subjects — he cannot raise money,
without consent of Parliament. This is the constitutional check upon
him. If he should, it would be a violation of their express rights. If
their purses are shut, his power shrinks. True. Unhappy colonists!
Our money may be taken from us— and standing armies established
over us, without our consent — every expressly declared constitutional
check dissolve:!, and the modes of opposition for relief so contracted,
as to leave us only the miserable alternative of supplication or violence.
And ... these, it seems, are the liberties of Americans. Because the
constitution has not "expressly declared" the line between the rights
of the mother country and those of her colonists, therefore, the latter
have no rights. A logic, equally edifying to the heads and hearts of
men of sense and humanity. •

We assert, a line there must be, and shall now proceed with great
deference to the judgment of others, to trace that line, according
to the ideas, we entertain: And it is with satisfaction we can say,
that the records, statutes, law-books, and most approved writers of
our mother country, those "dead but most faithful counsellors" (as
Sir Edward Coke calls them) "who cannot be daunted by fear, nor
muzzled by affection, reward, or hope of preferment, and therefore
may safely be believed," confirm the principles we maintain.

Liberty, life, or property, can, with no consistency of words or
ideas, be termed a right of the possessors, while others have a right
of taking them away at pleasure. The most distinguished authors,
that have written on government, declare it to be " instituted for the
benefit of the people; and that it never will have this tendency, where
it is unlimited." Even conquest itself is held not to destroy all the
rights of the conquered. Such is the merciful reverence judged by the
best and wisest men to be due to human nature, and frequently ob-
served even by conquerers themselves.

In fine, a power of government, in its nature tending to the misery
of the people, as a power that is unlimited, or in other words, a power
in which the people have no share, is proved to be, by reason and the
experience of all ages and countries, cannot be a rightful or legal
power: For, as an excellent Bishop of the Church of England argues,

48 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

-
"the ends of government cannot be answered by a total dissolution
of all happiness at present, and of all hopes for the future."

The just inference therefore from these premises would be an ex-
clusion of any power of Parliament over these colonies, rather than
the admission of an unbounded power.

We well know, that the colonists are charged by many persons in
Great-Britain, with attempting to obtain such an exclusion and a total
independence of her. As well we know the accusation to be utterly
false. We are become criminal in the sight of such persons, by re-
fusing to be guilty of the highest crime against ourselves and our
posterity. Nolwmts leges Anglice mutari. This is the rebellion with
which we are stigmatized. [We have committed the like offence,
that was objected by the polite and humane Fimbria against a rude
senator of his time. We have "disrespectfully refused to receive
the whole weapon into our body." We could not do it. and live.
But that must be acknowledged to be a poor excuse, equally RfE
consistent with good breeding and the supreme legislature of Great-
Britain.]

For these ten years past we have been incessantly attacked. Hard
is our fate, when, to escape the character of rebels, we must be degraded
into that of slaves: as if there was no medium, between the two ex-
tremes of anarchy and despotism, where innocence and freedom could
find repose and safety.

Why should we be exhibited to mankind, as a people adjudged by
Parliament unworthy of freedom? The thought alone is insupporta-
ble. Even those unhappy persons, who have had the misfortune of
being born under the yoke of bondage, imposed by the cruel laws, if
they may be called laws, of the land, where they received their birth,
no sooner breathe the air of England, though they touch her shore only
by accident, than they instantly become freemen. Strange contradic-
tion. The same kingdom at the same time, the asylum and the bane
of liberty.

To return to the charge against us, we can safely appeal to that
Being, from whom no thought can be concealed, that our warmest wish
and utmost ambition is, that we and our posterity may ever remain sub-
ordinate to, and dependent upon our parent state. This submission
our reason approves, our affection dictates, our duty commands, and
our interest enforces.

If this submission indeed implies a dissolution of our constitution,
and a renunciation of our liberty, we should be unworthy of our relation
to her, if we should not frankly declare, that we regard it with horror ;
and every true Englishman will applaud this just distinction and candid
declaration. [Our defence necessarily touches chords in unison with
the fibres of his honest heart. They must vibrate in sympathetic tones.
Tf we, his kindred, should be base enough to promise the humiliating
subjection, he could not believe us. We should suffer all the infamy of

JOHN DICKINSON. 49

the engagement, without finding the benefit expected from being thought
as contemptible as we should undertake to be.]

But this submission implies not such insupportable evils: and our
amazement is inexpressible, when we consider the gradual increase of
these colonies, from their slender beginnings in the last century to their
late flourishing condition, and how prodigiously, since their settlement,
our parent state has advanced in wealth, force and influence, till she is
become the first power on the sea, and the envy of the world— that these
our better days should not strike conviction into every mind, that the
freedom and happiness of the colonists are not consistent with her
authority and prosperity.

The experience of more than one hundred years will surely be
deemed, by wise men, to have some weight in the scale of evidence to
support our opinion. We might justly ask of her, why we are not per-
mitted to go on* as we have been used to do since our existence, con-
ferring mutual benefits, thereby strengthening each other, more and
more discovering the reciprocal advantages of. our connection, and
daily cultivating affections, encouraged by those advantages?

[What unknown offences have we committed against her within these
ten years, to provoke such an unexampled change in her conduct towards
us? In the last war, she acknowledged us repeatedly, to be faithful,
dutiful, zealous and useful in her cause. Is it criminal in us, that our
numbers, by the favor of Divine Providence have greatly increased ?
That the poor choose to fly from their native countries in Europe to
this continent? Or, that we have so much improved these woods, that
if we can be forced into an unsuccessful resistance, avarice itself might
be satiated with our forfeitures ?

It cannot with truth be urged, that projects of innovation have com-
menced with us. Facts and their dates prove the contrary. Not a dis-
turbance has happened on any part of this continent, but in consequence
of some immediately preceding provocation.

To what purpose? The charge of our affecting one great, or many-
small republics, must appear as contemptible a madness to her, as it
does to us. Divided as we are into many provinces, and incapable of
union, except against a common danger, she knew, that we could not
think of embarking our treasures of tranquility and liberty, on an
ocean of blood, in a wandering expedition to some Utopian port.
The history of mankind, from the remotest antiquity, furnishes not a
single instance of a people consisting of husbandmen and merchants,
voluntarily engaging in such a frenzy of ambition. No. Our highest
pride and glory has been, with humble unsuspecting duty to labor in
contributing to. elevate her to that exalted station, she holds among
the nations of the earth, and which, we still ardently desire and pray,
she may hold, with fresh accessions of fame and prosperity, till time
shall be no more.

These being our sentiments, and, we arc fully convinced, the senti-

5° AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

merits of our brethren throughout the colonies, with unspeakable af-
fliction, we find ourselves obliged to oppose that system of dominion
over us, arising from counsels pernicious both to our parent and her
children — to strive, if it be possible, to close the breaches made in our
former concord — and stop the sources of future animosities.— And
may God Almighty, who delights in the titles of just and merciful, in-
cline the hearts of all parties to that equitable and benevolent temper,
which is necessary solidly to establish peace and harmony, in the
place of confusion and dissension.

The legislative authority claimed by Parliament over these colonies
consists of two heads — first, a general power of internal legislation ;
and secondly, a power of regulating our trade: both she contends are
unlimited. Under the first, may be included among other powers,
those of forbidding us to worship our Creator in the manner we think
most acceptable to him — imposing taxes on us — collecting them by
their own officers — enforcing the collection by admiralty courts or
courts martial — abolishing trials by jury — establishing a standing
army among us in time of peace, without consent of our Assemblies —
paying them with our money — seizing our young men for recruits—
changing constitutions of government — stopping the press— declaring
any action, even a meeting of the smallest number, to consider of
peaceable modes to obtain redress of grievances high treason— taking
colonists to Great Britain to be tried — -exempting "murderers" of
colonists from punishment, by carrying them to England, to answer
indictments found in the colonies — shutting up our ports— pro-
hibiting us from slitting iron to build our houses — making hats to
cover our heads, or clothing to cover the rest of our bodies, etc.

In our provincial legislatures, the best judges in all cases what suits
us — founded on the immutable and unalienable rights of human
nature, the principles of the constitution, and charters and grants
made by the Crown at periods, when the power of making them was
universally acknowledged by the parent state, a power since frequently
recognized by her — subject to the control of the Crown as by law es-
tablished, is vested the exclusive right of internal legislation.

Such a right vested in Parliament, would place us exactly in the
same situation, the people of Great Britain would have been reduced
to, had James the first and his family succeeded in their scheme cf
arbitrary power. Changing the word Stuarts for Parliament, and
Britons for Americans, the arguments of the illustrious patriots of
those times, to whose virtues their descendants owe every blessing
they now enjoy, apply with inexpressible force and appositeness, in
maintenance of our cause, and in refutation of the pretension set up
by their too forgetful posterity, over their unhappy colonists. Com
fiding in the undeniable truth of this single position, that, " to live by
one man's will, became the cause of all men's misery," they generously
suilered. — And the worthy bishop before mentioned, who, for strenUx

JOHN DICKINSON. $i

ously asserting the principles of the revolution, received the unusual
honor of being recommended by a House of Gommons to the sovereign
for perferment, has justly observed, that " misery is the same whether
it comes from the hands of many or of one."

"It could not appear tolerable to him (meaning Mr. Hooker, author
of the ecclesiastical policy) to lodge in the governors of any society an
unlimited authority, to annul and alter the constitution of the govern-
ment, as they should see fit, and to leave to the governed the privilege
only of absolute subjection in all such alterations; or to use the Par
liamentary phrase, " in all cases whatsoever."

From what source can Great Britain derive a single reason to sup-
port her claim to such an enormous power ? That it is consistent
with the laws of nature, no reasonable man will pretend. That it
contradicts the precepts of Christianity, is evident. For she strives to
force upon us, terms, which she would judge to be intolerably severe
and cruel, if imposed on herself. "Virtual representation," is too
ridiculous to be regarded. The necessity of a supreme sovereign leg-
islature internally superintending the whole empire, is a notion equally
unjust and dangerous. " The pretence (says Mr. Justice Blackstone
speaking of James the first's reign) for which arbitrary measures was
no other than the tyrant's plea of the necessity of unlimited powers,
in works of evident utility to the public, the supreme reason above all
reasons, which is the salvation of the king's lands and people." This
was not the doctrine of James only. His son unhappily inherited it
from him. On this flimsy foundation was built the claim of ship
money, etc. Nor were there wanting men, who could argue, from the
courtly text, that Parliaments were too stupid or too factious to grant
money to the Crown, when it was their interest and their duty to do
so. This argument however, was fully refuted, and slept above a
century in proper contempt, till the posterity of those, who had over-
thrown it, thought fit to revive the exploded absurdity. Trifling as
the pretence was, yet it might much more properly be urged in favor
of a single person, than of a multitude. The counsels of a monarch
may be more secret. His measures more quick. In passing an act
of Parliament for all the colonies, as many men are consulted, if not
more, than need be consulted, in obtaining the assent of every legisla-
ture on the continent. If it is a good argument for Parliament, it is a
better against them. It therefore proves nothing but its own futilitv.
The suppose \ advantages of such a power, could never be attained but
by the destruction of real benefits, evidenced by facts to exist without it.
The Swiss Cantons, and the United Provinces, are combinations of
independent states. The voice of each must be given. The instance
of these colonies may be added: For stating the case, that no act of
internal legislation over them had ever been passed bv Great Britain,
her wisest statesmen would be perplexed to show, that she or the
colonies would have been less flourishing than they now are. What

52 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

benefits such a power may produce hereafter, time will discover. But
the colonies are not dependent on Great Britain, it is said, if she has
not a supreme unlimited legislature over them. "I would ask these
loyal subjects of the king (says the author of a celebrated invective
against us) what king it is, they profess themselves to be loyal subjects
of ? It cannot be his present most gracious majesty, George the
third, king of Great Britain, for his title is founded on an act of Par-
liament, and they will not surely acknowledge that Parliament can
give them a king, which is of all others, the highest act of sovereignty,
when they deny it to have power to tax or bind them in any other
case; and I do not recollect, that there is any act of Assembly, in any
of the colonies for settling the crown upon king William or the illus-
trious House of Hanover." "Curious reasoning this." It is to be
wished the gentleman had " recollected" that without any such "act
of Assembly" none of the colonists ever rebelled. What act of Parlia-
ment is here meant? Surely not the nth of Henry the seventh,
chapter ist, in favor of a. king de facto. Probably the 12th and 13th
of William the 3d chapter, the 2d, "for the further limitation of the
Grown, etc." is intended. And, is it imagined that the words "domin-
ions and territories thereunto belonging" in that statute, form his
Majesty's title to the sovereignty of these colonies ? The omission of
them might have looked odd; but what force is added by their inser-
tion ? The settlement of the crown of England includes the settle-
ment of the sovereignty of the colonies. King William is mentioned —
and will the gentleman venture to say, that William was not king of
England and sovereign of these colonies, before his title was " de-
clared" or "recognized" by "an act of Parliament?" The gentleman
slurs over this case. His zeal for the " illustrious House of Hanover"
would be little gratified, by inferring, that because the two houses with
the consent of the nation, made a king, therefore the two houses can
make laws. Yet that conclusion would be as justifiable as this— that
the assent of the colonies to an election of a king by the two houses,
or to the limitation of the Crown by act of Parliament, proves a right
in Parliament to bind the colonies by statutes "in all cases whatso-
ever." In such great points, the conduct of a people is influenced
solely by a regard for their freedom and happiness. The colonies
have no other head than the king of England. The person who by
the laws of that realm, is king oi that realm, is our king.

A dependence on the Crown and Parliament of Great Britain, is a
novelty — a dreadful novelty. It may be compared to the engine in-
vented by the Greeks for the destruction of Troy. It is full of armed
enemies, and the walls of the constitution must be thrown down, be-
fore it can be introduced among us.

When it is considered that the king as king of England has a power
in making laws — the power of executing them — of finally determining
on appeals — of calling upon us for supplies in times of war or any

JOHN DICKINSON. 53

emergency— that every branch of the prerogative binds us, as the sub-
jects are bound thereby in England— and that all our intercourse with
foreigners is regulated by Parliament. — Colonists may "surely" be
acknowledged to speak with truth, and precision, in answer to the
"elegantly" expressed question — "What king it is" etc. by saying
that "his most gracious majesty George the third" is the king of
England, and therefore,- " the king" they — profess themselves to be
loyal subjects of?

We are aware of the objection, that, " if the king of England is
' therefore king of the colonies, they are subject to the general legisla-
tive authority of that kingdom." The premises by no means warrant
this conclusion. It is built on a mere supposition, that, the colonies
are thereby acknowledged ,to be within the realm, and on an incanta-
tion expected to be wrought by some magic force in those words. To
be subordinately connected with England, the colonies have con-
tracted. To be subject to the general legislative authority of that
kingdom, they never contracted. Such a power as may be necessary
to preserve this connection she has. The authority of the sovereign,
and the authority of controlling our intercourse with foreign nations
form that power. Such a power leaves the colonies free. But a
general legislative power, is not a power to preserve that connection,
but to distress and enslave them. If the first power cannot subsist,
without the last, she has no right even to the first — the colonies were
deceived in their contract — and the power must be unjust and illegal;
for God has given to them a better right to preserve their liberty, than
to her to destroy it. In other words, supposing, king, lords and
commons acting in Parliament, constitute a sovereignty over the
colonies, is that sovereignty constitutionally absolute or limited ?
That states without freedom, should by principle grow out of a free
state, is as impossible, as that sparrows should be produced from
the eggs of an eagle. The sovereignty over the colonies, must be
limited. Hesiod long since said, " half is better than the whole;" and
the saying never was more justly applicable, than on the present oc-
casion. Had the unhappy Charles remembered and regarded it, his
private virtues might long have adorned a throne, from which his
public measures precipitated him in blood. To argue on this subject
from other instances of parliamentary power, is shifting the ground.
The connexion of the colonies with England, is a point of an unprec-
edented and delicate nature. It can be compared to no other case;
and to receive a just determination, it must be considered with refer-
ence to its own peculiar circumstances. The common law extends
to colonies; yet Mr. Justice Blackstone says, " such parts of the law
as are neither necessary nor convenient for them, as the jurisdiction
of the spiritual courts, etc. are therefore not in force. If even the
common law, in force within the realm of England when the colonists
quitted it, is thus abridged by the peculiar circumstances of colonies,

54 A M ERICA N PA TRIO TISM.

at least equally just, and. constitutional is it, that the power of making
new laws within the realm of England, should be abridged with re-
spect to colonies, by those peculiar circumstances.
. The _ laws of England with respect to prerogative, and in other in-
stances, have accommodated themselves, without alteration by statutes
to a change of circumstances, the welfare of the people so requiring.
A regard for that grand object perpetually animates the constitution,
and regulates all its movements— unless unnatural obstructions inter-
fere—

" Spiritus inttis alit, totamqtie infiisa perartus \

"Mens agitat molem, & magna se corpore miscet." I

Another argument for the extravagant power of internal legislation
over us remains. It has been urged with great warmth against us,
that " precedents" show this power is rightfully vested in Parliament.

Submission to unjust sentences proves not a right to pass them.
Carelessness or regard for the peace and welfare of the community,
may cause the submission. . Submission may sometimes be a Jess evil
than opposition, and therefore a dut}7. In such cases, it is a submis-
sion to the divine authority, which forbids us to injure our country;
not to the assumed authority, on which the unjust sentences were
founded. But when submission becomes inconsistent with and de-
structive of the public good, the same veneration for and duty to the
divine authority, commands us to oppose. The all wise Creator of
man impressed certain laws on his nature. A desire of happiness,
and of society, are two of those laws. They were not intended -to de-
stroy, but to support each other. Man has therefore a right to pro-
mote the best union of both, in order to enjoy both in the highest
degree. Thus, while this right is properly exercised, desires, that
seem selfish, by a happy combination, produce the welfare of others.
"This is removing submission from a foundation unable to support
it, and injurious to the honor of God, and fixing it upon much firmer
ground."

No sensible or good man ever suspected Mr. Hooker of being a
weak or factious person, " yet he plainly enough teacheth, that a
society upon experience of universal evil, have a right to try by
another form to answer more effectually the ends of government" —
And Mr. Hoadley asks — "Would the ends of government be de-
stroyed should the miserable condition of the people of France, which
hath proceeded from the king's being absolute, awaken the thoughts
of the wisest heads amongst them ; and move them all to exert them-
selves, so as that those ends should be better answered for the time to
come ?"

What mind can relish the hardy proposition, that because precedents
have been introduced by the inattention or timidity of some, and the
cunning or violence of others, therefore the latter have a right to

JOHN DICKINSON. 55

make the former miserable — that is, that precedents that ought never
to have been set, yet being set, repeal the internal laws of natural
justice . humanity and equity.

The argument from precedents begins unluckily for its advocates.
The first produced against us by the gentleman before mentioned, was
an act passed by the Commonwealth Parliament in 1650 to " punish"
Virginia, Barbados, Antigua, and Bermudas, for their fidelity to
Charles the Second. So ancient is the right of Parliament to " pun4
ish" colonists for doing their duty. But the Parliament had before
overturned church and throne, so that there is an older " precedent"
set against these.

That Parliament sat amidst the ruins that surrounded it, fiercer than
Marius among those of Carthage. Brutal power became an irresisti-
ble argument of boun^ess right. What the style of an Aristotle
could not prove, the point of a Cromwell's sword sufficiently demon-
strated. Innocence and justice sighed and submitted — What more
could they do? The restoration took place, and a legal Parliament
would not doubt but it had as extensive a right as an illegal one.
The revolution succeeded, and with it methods for blending together
the powers of king and people in a manner before unknown. A new
political alembic was fixed on the great principle of resistance, and in
it, severe experiments were to be made on every other principle of the
constitution. How the boldness of ministers and contempt of the
people have increased since that period, not a man in the least ac-
quainted with English history can be ignorant. The colonies were in
a state of infancy — still in a state of childhood. Not a single statute
concerning them is recollected to have been passed before the revolu-
tion, but such as related to the regulation of trade. "Precedents"
were afterwards made, that, when they grew up, the authority of a
master might succeed that of a parent.

Precedents, it is apprehended, are no otherwise regarded in the
English laws than as they establish certainty for the benefit of the
people — according to the maxim — "miserable is the servitude when
the laws are uncertain." Precedents militating against the welfare or
happiness of a people, are inconsistent with the grand original prin-
ciple on which they ought to be founded. Their supposed sanction
increases in proportion to the repetitions of injustice. They must be
void. In subjects of dispute between man and man, precedents may
be of use, though not founded on the best reason. They cause a cer-
tainty, and all may govern themselves accordingly. If they take from
an individual one day, they may give to him the next. But precedents
to overthrow principles, to justify the perpetual oppression of all, and
to impair the power of the Constitution, though a cloud of them ap-
pear, have no more force than the volumes of dust that surround a
triumphal car. They may obscure it: They cannot stop it. What
would the liberties of the people of England have been at this time, if
A. P.-^a.

5 6 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

precedents could have made laws inconsistent with the constitution ?
Precedents tending to make men unhappy, can with propriety of
character be quoted only by those beings, to whom the misery of men
is a delight.

" If the usage had been immemorial and uniform, and ten thousand
instances could have been produced, it would not have been sufficient;
because the practice must likewise be agreeable to the principles of
(the law, in order to be good: whereas this is a practice inconsistent
with, and in direct opposition to the first and clearest principles of the
law — to those feelings of humanity, out of which mankind will not be
reasoned, when power advances with gigantic strides threatening dis-
solution to a state — to those inherent though latent powers of society,
which no climate, no time, no constitution, no contract, can ever
destroy or diminish."

A parliamentary power of internal legislation over these colonies,
appears, therefore, to us equally contradictory to humanity and the
Constitution, and illegal.

As to the second head, a power of regulating our trade, our opinion
is that it is legally vested in Parliament, not as a supreme legislature
over these colonies, but as the supreme legislature and full representa-
tive of the parent state, and the only judge between her and her
children in commercial interests which the nature of the case in the
progress of their growth admitted. It has been urged, with great
vehemence against us, and seems to be thought their fort by our
adversaries, " that a power of regulation is a power of legislation, and
a power of legislation, if constitutional, must be universal and supreme
in the utmost sense of the words. It is therefore concluded that the
colonists, by acknowledging the power of regulation, have acknowl-
edged every other power." On this objection we observe that, accord-
ing to a maxim of law, "it is deceitful and dangerous to deal in
general propositions." The freedom and happiness of states depend
not on artful arguments, but on a few plain principles. The plausible
appearance of the objection consists in a confused comprehension of
several points, entirely distinct in their nature, and leading to conse-
quences directly opposite to each other. There was a time when
England had no colonies. Trade was the object she attended to in
Encouraging them. A love of freedom was manifestly the chief
motive of the adventurers. The connection of colonies with their
parent state may be called a new object of the English laws. That
her right extinguishes all their rights — rights essential to freedom, and
which they would have enjoyed, by remaining in their parent state
— is offensive to reason, humanity, and the Constitution of that State.
Colonies could not have been planted on these terms. What English-
man, but an idiot, would have become a colonist on these conditions ?
to mention no more particulars, " That every shilling he gained might
rightfully be taken from him— trial by jury abolished — the building

. JOHN DICK IN SOX. 57

houses or making cloths, with the materials found cr raised in the
colonies prohibited — and armed men set over him to govern him in
every action ?"

Had these provinces never been settled — had all the inhabitants of
them now living been born in England, and resident there, they would
now enjoy the rights of Englishmen, that is, they would be free, in
that kingdom. We claim, in the colonies, these and no other rights.
There no other kingdom or state interferes. But their trade, however
important it may be, as the affairs of mankind are circumstanced,
turns on other principles. All the power of Parliament cannot regu-
late that at their pleasure. It must be regulated, not by Parliament
alone, but by treaties and alliances formed by the King without the
consent of the nation, with other states and kingdoms. The freedom
of a people consists in being governed by laws, in which no alteration
can be made, without their consent. Yet the wholesome force of
these laws is confined to the limits of their own country. That is, a
supreme legislature to a people, which acts internally over that
people, and inevitably implies personal assent, representation, or
slavery. When an universal empire is established, and not till then,
can regulations of trade properly be called acts of supreme legislature.
It seems, from many authorities, as if almost the whole power of
regulating the trade of England was originally vested in the Crown.
One restriction appears to have been that no duty could be
imposed without the consent of Parliament. Trade was little re-
garded by our war-like ancestors. As commerce became of more
importance, duties and severities Were judged necessary additions
to its first simple state. Parliament more and more interfered.
The Constitution was always free, but not always exactly in the
same manner. "By the Feodal law, all navigable rivers and
havens were computed among the Regalia, and were subject to
the sovereign of the state. And in England it hath always been
held that the King is lord of the whole shore, and particularly is
guardian of the ports and havens, which are the inlets and gates of
the realm; and, therefore, so early as the reign of king John, we find
ships seized by the king's officers, for putting in at a place that was
not a legal port. These legal ports were undoubtedly at first assigned
by the Crown; since to each of them a court of portmote is incident,
the jurisdiction of which must flow from the royal authority. The
erection of beacons, lighthouses, and sea marks, is also a branch of
the royal prerogative. The king may injoin any man from going
abroad, or command any man to return. The powers of establish-
ing public marts, regulating of weights and measures, and the giving
authority to, or making current, money, the medium of commerce,
belong to the Crown. By making peace or war, leagues and treaties,
the king may open or stop trade as he pleases. The admiralty courts
are grounded on the necessity of supporting a jurisdiction so exten-

5 3 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

sive, though opposite to the usual doctrines of the common law. The
laws of Oleron were made by Richard I., and are still used in those
courts." In the "Mare clausum " are. several, regulations made by
kings. Time forbids a more exact inquiry into this point; but such, it
is apprehended, will, on inquiry, be found to have been the power of
i be Crown, that our argument may gain, but cannot lose. We will
proceed on a concession, that the power of regulating trade is vested
in Parliament.

Commerce rests on concessions and restrictions mutually stipulated
between the different powers of the world; and, if these colonies were
sovereign states, they would in all probability be restricted to their
present portion. The people of England were freemen before they
were merchants. Whether they will continue free they themselves
must determine. How they shall trade must be determined by Ger-
mans, Frenchmen, Spaniards, Italians, Turks, Moors, etc. The right
of acquiring property depends on the rights of others; the right of
acquired property, solely on the owner. The possessor is no owner
without it. "Almost every leaf and page of all the volumes of the
Common Law prove this right of property." Why should this right
be sacred in Great Britain^ "the, chief corner-stone" in the solid
foundation of her Constitution, and an empty name in her colonies ?
The Iamb that presumed to drink in the same stream with a stronger
animal, though lower down the current, could not refute the charge of
incommoding the latter by disturbing the water. Such power have
reasons that appear despicable and detestable at first when they are
properly enforced.

From this very principle arose her power; and can that power now
be justly exerted in suppression of that principle ? It cannot. There-
fore a power of regulating our trade involves not in it the idea of
supreme legislature over us* The first is a power of a preserving,
"protecting" nature. The last, as applied to America, is such 3
power as Mr. Justice Blackstone describes in these words, "whose
enormous weight spreads horror and destruction on all inferior move-
ments." The first is a power subject to a constitutional check.
Great Britain cannot injure us by taking away our commerce without
hurting herself immediately. The last is a power without .check or
limit. She might ruin us by it. The injury thereby to herself might
be so remote as to be despised by her.

The power of regulation was the only band that could have held us
together; formed on one of those "original contracts" which only
can be a foundation of just authority. Without such a bard our
general commerce with foreign nations might have been injurious and
destructive to her. Reason and duty reject such a licence. This our
duty resembles that of children to a parent. The parent has a power
over them; but they have rights which the parent cannot take away.
Heaven grant that our mother country may regard us as her children

J GUN DICKINSON. 59

that if, by the dispensation of Providence, the time shall come when
her power decreases; the memory of former kindnesses may supply
its decays, and her colonics, like dutiful children, may serve and
guard their aged parent, for ever revering the arms .hat held them in
their infancy, and the breasts that supported their lives while they
were little ones.

It seems as if the power Of regulation might not inaptly be com-
pared to the prerogative of making peace, war, treaties, or alliances,
whereby "the whole nation are bound against their consent;" and
yet the prerogative by no means implies a supreme legislature. The
language held in "the Commentaries" on this point is very remark-
able. "With regard to foreign concerns the King is the delegate or
representative of the people; and in him, as in a centre, all the rays
of his people are united, and the sovereign power quoad hoc is vested
in his person." Will any Englishman say these expressions are de-
scriptive of the king's authoriiy, within the realm. " Is the sovereign
power within that vested in his person ?'' He is styled "sovereign" in-
deed ; "his realm is declared by Many acts of Parliament an empire and
his crown imperial." But do these splendid appellations, the highest
known in Europe, signify, that f sovereign power is vested in his person
within the realm?" We have a full answer in the Commentaries.
"The meaning of the legislature, when it uses these terms of empire
and imperial, and applies them to the realm and Crown of England, is
only to assert, that our king is equally sovereign and independent within
these his dominions ; and owes no kind of subjection to any potentate
upon earth." Thus we maintain, that with regard to foreign af-
fairs, the parent original state, u is the delegate or representative," of
the entire dominions, "the sovereign power quoad hoc is vested" in her.
Her acts under this power "irrevocably bind the whole nation." But
yet this power by no means implies a supreme legislature.

The exercise of this power by statutes was absolutely necessary ; because
it was, and could only be lodged, as the laws of the parent state stand, in
the supreme legislature of that state, consisting of king, lords, and com-
mons ; and statutes are the modes by which their united sentiments and
resolutions are expressed. It is universally acknowledged in Great
Britain, that it infers no power of taxation in king and lords, that their
limited authority is used in clothing gifts and grants of the commons
with the forms of lav/ — nor does it infer supreme legislature over us,
that the limited authority of king, lords, and commons is used in cloth-
ing regulations of trade with the form of law. The commons joining in
the act, is not material. The difference is only in the mode of assent.
Theirs is express, ours is implied, as the assent of the "whole
nation," is, in the preceding instances.

This power of regulation appears to us to have been pure in its
principle, simple in its operation, and salutary in its effects. But for
some time past we have observed, with pain, that it hath been turned

60 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

to other purposes, than it was originally designed for, and retaining
its title, hath become aa engine of intolerable oppressions and griev-
ous taxations. The argument of an eminent judge, states the point in
%. :lrnilar case strongly for us, in these words— "Though it be granted,
hit the king hath the custody of the havens and ports of this island,
u.ing the very gates of this kingdom, and is trusted with the keys' of
these gates; yet the inference and argument thereupon made, I utterly
deny. For in it there is ?nutatio liypothesis, and a transition from a
thing of one nature to another; as the premises are of a power only
fiduciary, and in point of trust and government, and the conclusion
infers a, right of interest and gain. Admit the king has cuslodiam
portiium, yet he hath but the custody, which is a trust and not
dominuim tittle. He hath power to open and shut, upon considera-
tion of public good to the people and state, but not to make gain and
benefit by it. the one is protection, the other is expilation." By com-
mon law the king may restrain a subject from going abroad, Or enjoin
him by his chancellor from proceeding at law: But to conclude, that
he may therefore take money, not to restrain or not to enjoin, is to
sell government, trust, and common justice.

• THOUGHTS ON STANDING ARMIES.
JOSIAH QUINCY, JR.
Boston, May 14, 1774.

The faculty of intelligence may be considered as the first gift of God;
its due exercise is the happiness and honor of man ; its abuse his
calamity and disgrace. The most trifling duty is not properly dis-
charged witthout the exertion of this noble faculty; yet how often does it
lie dormant, while the highest concernments are in issue? Believe me
(my countrymen) the labor of examining for ourselves, or great impo-
sition, must be submitted to; there is no other alternative ; and unless
we weigh and consider what we examine, little benefit will result from
research. We are at this extraordinary crisis called to view the most
melancholy events of our day ; the scene is unpleasant to the eye, but
its contemplation will be useful, if our thoughts terminate with judg-
ment, resolution and spirit.

If at this period of public affairs, we do not think, deliberate, and
determine like men — men of minds to conceive, hearts to feel, and
virtue to act — what are we to do? — to gaze upon our bondage? while
our enemies throw about fire-brands, arrows and death, and play their
tricks of desperation with the gambols of sport and wantonness.

The proper object of society and civil institution is the advancement
of " the greatest happiness of the greatest number." The people (as a

JO SI AH QUINCY, JR. 61

body, being never interested to injure themselves and uniformly
desirous of the general welfare) have ever made this collective felicity
the object of their wishes and pursuit. But strange as it may seem,
what the many through successive ages have desired and sought, the
few have found means to baffle and defeat. The necessity of the ac-
quisition hath been conspicuous to the rudest mind; but man, incon-
siderate, that, " in every society, there is an effort constantly tending to
confer on one part the height of power, and to reduce the other to the
extreme of weakness and. misery," hath abandoned the most important
concerns of civil society to the caprice and control of those whose
elevation caused them to forget their pristine equality, and whose in-
terest urged them to degrade the best and most useful below the worst
and most unprofitable of the species. Against this exertion, and the
principle which originates it, ho vigilance can be too sharp, no
determination too severe.

But alas ! — as if born to delude and be deluded — to believe what-
ever is taught, and bear all that is imposed— successive impositions,
wrongs and insults awaken neither the sense of injury or spirit of
revenge. Fascinations and enchantments, chains and fetters bind in
adamant the undesstanding and passions of the human race. Ages
follow ages, pointing the way to study wisdom — but the charm con-
tinues.

Sanctified by authority and armed with power, error and usurpation
bid defiance to truth and right, while the bulk of mankind sit gazing at
the monster of their own creation — a monster, to which their follies
and vices gave origin, and their depravity and cowardice continue in
existence.

" The greatest happiness of the greatest number" being the object
and bond of society, the establishment of truth and justice ought to be
the basis of civil policy and jurisprudence. But this capital estab-
lishment can never be attained in a state where there exists a power
superior to the civil magistrate and sufficient to control the authority
of the laws. Whenever, therefore, the profession of arms becomes a
distinct order in the state, and a standing army part of the constitu-
tion, we are not scrupulous to affirm, that the end of the social com-
pact is defeated, and the nation called to act upon the grand question
consequent upon such an event. .

The people who compose the society (for whose security the labor
of its institution was performed, and of the toils its preservation daily
sustained) the people, I say are the only competent judges of their
own welfare, and, therefore, are the only suitable authority to determine
touching the great end of their subjection and their sacrifices. This
position leads us to two others, not impertinent on this occasion, be-
cause of much importance to Americans: —

That the legislative body of the commonwealth ought to deliberate,
determine and make their decrees in places where the legislators may

62 AM URIC AN PATRIOTISM.

easily know from their own observation the -wants and exigencies, the
sentiments and will, the good and happiness of the people ; and the
people as easily know the deliberations, motives, designs and conduct
of their legislators before their statutes and ordinances actually go
forth and take effect.

That every member of the Legislature ought himself to be so far
subject in his person and property to the laws of the state, as to im-
mediately and effectually feel every mischief and inconvenience result-
ing from all and every act of legislation.

The science of man and society, being the most extended in its
nature, and the most important in it's consequences of any in the circle
of erudition, ought to be an object of universal attention und study.
Was it made so, the rights of mankind would not remain buried for
ages, under systems of civil and priestly hierarchy, nor social felicity
overwhelmed by lawdess domination.

Under appearances the most venerable, and institutions the most
revered; under the sanctity of religion, the dignity of government,
and the smiles of beneficence, do the sttbtle and ambitious make
their first in croachments upon their species. Watch and oppose
ougbt therefore to be the motto of mankind. A nation in its best
estate, guarded by good laws, fraught with public virtue, and steeled
with martial courage may resemble Achilles ; but Achilles was
wrounded in the heel. The least point left unguarded, the foe enters.
Latent evils are the most dangerous— for we often receive the mortal
wound, Avhile we are flattered with security.

The experience of all ages show^e that mankind are inattentive to the
calamities of others, careless of admonition, and with difficulty roused
to repel the most injurious invasionr. "I perceive (said the great
patriot Cicero to his countrymen) an inclination for tyranny in ail
Csesar projects or executes." Notwithstanding this friendly caution,
not " till it was too late did the people find out that no beginnings,
however small, are to be neglected." For that Ccesar, who at first
attacked the commonwealth with mines very soon opened his bat-
teries. Encroachments upon the rights and property of the citizen are
like the rolling of mighty waters over the breach of ancient mounds ;
slow and unalarming at the beginning, rapid and terrible in the current,
a deluge and devastation at the end. Behold the oak, which stretchetli
its: if to the mountains, and overshadows the valleys, was once an
acorn in the bowels of the earth. Slavery (my friends) which was Yes-
terday engrafted among you, already overspreads the land, extending
its arms to the ocean, and its limbs to the rivers. Unclean and vora-
cious animals under its covert, find protection and food, but the shade
biusteth the green herb, and the root thereof poisoneth the dry ground,
while the winds which wave its branches scatter pestilence and death.

Regular government is necessary to the preservation of private
property and personal security. Without these, men will descend

JO SI A II QiVXCY, JR. 63

into barbarism, or at best become adepts in humiliation and servility;
but they will never make a progress in literature or the useful arts.
Surely a proficiency in arts and sciences is of some value to mankind,
and deserves some consideration. What regular government can
America enjoy with a legislative a thousand leagues distant, unac-
quainted with her exigencies, militant in interest, and unfeeling of her
calamities? What protection of property — when ministers under this
authority shall over-run the land with mercenary legions? What
personal safety when a British administration — (such as it now is,
and corrupt as it may be) — pour armies into the capital and senate-
house — point their artillery against the tribunal of justice, and plant
weapons of death at the posts of our doors?

Thus exposed to the power, and insulted by the arms of Britain-
standing armies become an object of serious attention. And as the
history of mankind affords no instance of successful and confirmed
tyranny, without the aid of military forces, we shall not wonder to
find them the desiderata of princes, and the grand object of modern
policy. What, though they subdue every generous passion, and extin-
guish every spark of virtue — all this must be done, before empires
will submit to be exhausted by tribute and plundered with impunity.

Amidst all the devices of man to the prejudice of his species, the
institution of which we treat, hath proved the most extensively fatal
to religion, morals, and social happiness. Founded in the most
malevolent dispositions of the human breast, disguised by the policy
of state, supported by the lusts of ambition, the sword hath spread
havoc and misery throughout the world. By the aid of mercenary
troops, the sinews of war, the property of the subject, the life of the
commonwealth have been committed to the hands of hirelings, whose
interest and very existence, depend on an abuse of their power. In
the lower class of life, standing armies have introduced brutal dc»
bauchery and real cowardice ; in the higher or iers of state, venal
haughtiness and extravagant dissipation. In short, whatever are the
concomitants of despotism ; whatever the appendages of oppression,
this armed monster hath spawned or nurtured, protected or .estab-
lished,— monuments and scourges of the folly and turpitude of man.

Review the armament of modern princes, — what sentiments actuate
the military body ? what characters compose it ? Is there a private
sentinel of all the innumerable troops that make so brilliant a figure,
who would not for want of property have been driven from a Roman
cohort, when soldiers were the defenders of liberty ?

Booty and blind submission is the science of the camp. When lust,
rapacity, or resentment incite, whole battalions proceed to outrage.
Do their leaders command — obedience must follow. " Private soldier
(said Tiberius Gracchus from the Roman rostrum) fight and die to
advance the wealth and luxury of the great." "Soldiers (said an
eminent Puritan in his sermon preached in this country more than

64 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

one hundred and thirty years ago), are commonly men who fight
themselves fearlessly into the mouth of hell for revenge, a booty, or
a little revenue ;— a day of battle is a day of harvest for the devil."
Soldiers, like men, are much the same in every age and country.

u Heroes are much the same, the point's agreed,
From Macedonia's madman to the Sweed."

- ■ - -

What will they not fight for — whom will they not fight against?
Are these men, who take up arms with a view to defend their country
and its laws ? Do the ideas or the feelings of the citizen actuate a
British private on entering the camp ? Excitements, generous and
noble, like these, are far from being the stimuli of a modern phalanx.
The general of an army, habituated to uncontrolled command, feels
himself absolute ; he forgets his superiors, or rather despises that civil
authority, which is destitute of an energy to compel his obedience.
His soldiers (who look up to him as their sovereign, and to their
officers as magistrates) lose the sentiments of the citizen and contemn
the laws. Thus a will and a power to tyrannize become united ; and
the effects are as inevitable and fatal in the political, as the moral
world.

The soldiers of Great Britain are by the mutiny act deprived of
those legal rights which belong to the meanest of their fellow subjects,
and even to the vilest malefactor. Thus divested of those rights and
privileges which render Britons the envy of all other nations, and
liable to such hardships and punishments as the limits and mercy of
our known laws utterly disallow; it may well be thought they are
persons best prepared and most easily tempted to strip others of their
rights, having already lost their own. Excluded, therefore, from the
enjoyments which others possess, like eunuchs of an Eastern seraglio,
they envy and hate the rest of the community, and indulge a malig-
nant pleasure in destroying those privileges to which they can never
be admitted. How eminently does modern observation verify that
sentiment of Baron Montesquieu — a slave living among free men will
soon become a beast.

A very small knowledge of the human breast, and a little consider-
ation of the ends for which we form into societies and common-
wealths, discover the impropriety and danger of admitting such an
order of men to obtain an establishment in the state ; the annals and
experience of every age, show that it is not only absurdity and folly-—
but distraction and madness. But we, in this region of the earth,
have not only to dread and struggle with the common calamities
resulting from such military bodies, but the combined dangers arising
from an arm)'' of foreigners, stationed in the very bowels of the land.
Infatuated Britons have been told — and as often deceived — that an
army of natives would never oppress their own countrymen. But
Caesar and Cromwell, and an hundred others, have enslaved their

JO SI A II QCIXCY, JR. 65

country with such kind of forces And who does not know that
subalterns are implicitly obedient to their officers ; who, when they
become obnoxious, are easily changed, as armies to serve the pur-
poses of ambition and power are soon new modelled. But as to
America, the armies which infest her shores, are in every view
foreigners, disconnected with her in interest, kindred, and other social
alliances, who have nothing to lose, bat everything to gain, by
butchering and oppressing her inhabitants. But yet worse : their
inroads are to be palliated, their outrages are to receive a sanction
and defence from a Parliament whose claims and decrees are as
unrighteous as the Administration is corrupt ; as boundless as their
ambition, and as terrible as their power. The usurpation and tyranny
of the Decemviri of Rome are represented as singularly odious and
oppressive ; but even they never assumed what Britain in the face of
all mankind hath avowed and exercised over the colonies— the power
of passing laws merely on her own authority. " Nothing that we
propose (said they to the people) can pass into a law without your
consent. Be yourselves, ye Romans, the authors of those laws oh
which your happiness depends."

"The dominion of all great empires degrades and debases the
human species." The dominion of Britain is that of a mighty empire.
Her laws waste our substance, her placemen corrupt our morals, and
her armies are to break our spirits. Yes, are they not to do more?
"To spoil, to slaughter, and to commit every kind of violence; and
then to call the manoeuvre by a lying name — government ; and, when
they have spread a general devastation, call it peace." In the bar-
barous massacres of France, in the sixteenth century, the very hang-
men refused obedience to the cruel mandates of the French monarch,
saying, they were legal officers, and only executed those the laws
condemned. Yet history bears testimony that the soldiers performed
the office which the hangman refused. Who then can be at a loss for
the views of those who were so fond of introducing and tenacious of
obtaining similar peace officers in this obnoxious capital ? But let all
such — yes, let Great Britain consider the nature of mankind; let her
examine carefully the history of past events, and attend to the voice
of experience.

In the same age we have just mentioned, the Low Countries, then
subject to the crown of Spain, being persecuted by the court and church
of that kingdom, rose up to resist their oppressors. Upon which, in
the year 1567, the Duke of Alva was sent, and entered the country
with a well-appointed army, ten thousand strong; in order to quell
and punish the insurgents. Terrified with these martial operations, the
towns suffered the open breach of their charters, and the people sub-
mitted to the most humiliating infraction of their liberties; while Alva,
being invested with the government, erected the court of twelve,
called the council of blood, and caused great numbers to be condemned

66 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

and executed on account of the insurrections. Universal complaints
ensued on this disuse of the ordinary courts of law and the introduction
of the army; but complaints were in vain, and all murmurs despised.
The people became enraged; but without a leader, they were over-
awed. " The army (says Sir William Temple) was fierce and. brave,
and desirous of nothing so much as a rebellion of the country." All
was seizure and process, confiscation and imprisonment,: blood and
horror, insolence and dejection, punishments executed and meditated
revenge. But though the multitude threatened vengeance, the threats
of a broken and unarmed people excited contempt and noc fear. Alva
redoubled his impositions and ravages, his edicts were published for
raising monies without the consent of: the state, and his soldiers were
called to levy the exactions by force.— But the event shewed that the
timidity and tameness of mankind; like every thing human, will have
a period. The patience of the miserable sufferers came to an end;
and those commotions began -which deluged a great part of Europe
with blood, and finally freed the united provinces from the yoke of
Spain and the inquisition.— ^What conflicts too sharp— what horrors too
dreadful to endure for such a happy deliverance — such a glorious issue ?
Thus "the first period of the low country troubles (says the same in-
genious writer) proved to King Philip (of Spain) a dear experience,
how little the boldest armies and best conduct, are able to withstand
the torrent of a stubborn and enraged people, which ever bears all
down before it, till it be divided into different channels by arts, or by
rhance; or till the springs which are. the humors that fed it, come to
be spent, or dry up of themselves."

During several centuries, history informs us, that no monarch in
Europe was either so bold, or so powerful as to venture on any steps
towards the introduction of regular troops. At last, Charles the 7th
of France, seizing a favorable opportunity in 1445, executed that which
his predecessors durst not attempt, and established the first standing
army known in Europe. Lewis the nth, son and successor of Charles,
finding himself at the head of his father's forces, was naturally excited
to extend the limits of his ancestors, in the levies of money and men.
Charles had not been able to raise upon his subjects two millions, but
the army he left his successor enabled him to levy near five. The
father established an army of about seventeen hundred, which "he
kept in good order and placed for the defence of the realm;" but this
army, though thus disciplined and stationed, enabled the son- to main-
tain "in continual pay a terrible band of men of arms, which gave the
realm (says the historian Philip de Commines) a cruel wound of which
it bled many years." How regular, correspondent and uniform are
the rise and progression of military calamities in all ages! How re-
plete with instruction— rhow full of admonition are the memorials of
distant times — especially when contracted into the view,, and held, up
in comparison witq the present.

JO SI A 11 QUIXCY, JR. 67

Charles and Lewis having set the example, all the neighboring
crowned heads soon followed, and mercenary troops were introduced
into all the considerable kingdoms of the continent. They gradually
became the only military force that was employed or trusted. It has
long been (says the learned Dr. Robertson) the chief object of policy
to increase and support them, and the great aim of princes or minis-
ters to discredit and to annihilate all other means of national activity
or defence. Who will wonder at this, who reflect, that absolute mon-
archies are established, and can only be supported by mercenary forces?
Who can be surprised that princes and their subalterns discourage a
. martial spirit among the people, and endeavor to render useless and
contemptible the militia, when this institution is the natural strength,
and only stable safeguard of a free country? ft Without it, 'tis folly to
think any free government will ever have security and stability." A
standing army in quarters will grow effeminate and dissolute; while a
militia, uniformly exercised with hard labor, are naturally firm and
robust. Thus an army in peace is worse than a militia; and in war, a
militia will soon become disciplined and martial. But "when the
sword is in the hands of a single person — -as in our constitution — he will
always (says the ingenious Hume) neglect to discipline the militia, in
order to have a pretext for keeping up a standing army. 'Tis evident
(says the same great character) that this is a mortal distemper in the
British government; of which it must at last inevitably perish." What
a deformed monster is a standing army in a free nation? Free, did I
say? what people are truly free, whose monarch has a numerous body
of armed mercenaries at his heels? who is already absolute in his power
— or by the breath of his nostrils may in an instant make himself so ?

No free government was ever founded or ever preserved its liberty
without uniting' the characters of the citizen and soldier in those des-
tined for defence of the state. The sword should never be in the
hands of any, but those who have an interest in the safety of the com-
munity, who fight for their religion and their offspring;— and repel
invaders that they may return to their private affairs, and the enjoy-
ment of freedom and good order. Such are a well regulated militia
composed of the freeholders, citizen and husbandman, who take up
arms to preserve their property as individuals, and their rights as free-
men. Such is the policy of a truly wise nation, and such was the
wisdom of the ancient Britons. The primitive constitution of a state
in a few centuries falls to deca)': errors and corruption creep gradually
into the administration of government — till posterity forget or disre-
gard the institutions of their remote ancestors. In ancient times, the
militia of England was raised, officered and conducted by common
consent. It's militia was the ornament of the realm in peace, and for
ages continued the only and sure defence in war. Was the King him-
self general of an army — it was by the consent of his people. Thus
when the Romans visited the island of Britain, Cassibelan was the Prince

63 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

and chief commander in war; but it was by the election of the great
Common Council, ' Sumnia belli (says Caesar) communi concilia, Cassi-
bilauo tradilur. Nor will this seem strange, when we consider that it
was the first state maxim with the Druids ne loqui de republica, nisi per
concilium — not even to speak upon a matter of state but in council.
Nor is it to be wondered that such politicians informed Caesar, that
they had -been so long accustomed to liberty, that they knew not the
meaning of tribute and slavery; and sent him word that they had as
good blood as he, and from the same fountain. Surely a message that
was received by a Roman, maybe sent to a British Csesar. These
were those venerable Druids, who had inspired the Gauls, of whom*
Caesar reports this memorable boast: We cart call or appeal to such a
Great Common Council, as all the world cannot resist. Tacitus, speak-
ing of our Saxon ancestors, relates, Rcges ex nobilitate. D-uccs ex vir~
iule in iisdetu conciliis eliguntur. The great council, or the Parliament
of the state had, not only the appointment of the principes militicv, but
the conduct of all the military forces, from the first erection of the
standard, to its lodgment in the Citadel; for as the same noble writer
informs, it was their general custom— not to entrust any man with the
bearing of arms, antcquam civiias sussectii) tun probaverit. Such was
the security of the people from the calamities of a standing army:—
happy indeed if their successors could boast a similar provision-
Britain would not now be groaning under Oppression — nor her distant
children struggling for their freedom.

A spirited nation thus embodied in a well disciplined militia, will
soon become warlike; and such a people more fitted for action than
debate, always hasten to a conclusion on the subject of grievances and
public wrongs, and bring their deliberations to the shortest issue.
With them "it is the work of but one day, to examine and resolve the
nice question, concerning the behavior of subjects towards a ruler who
abuses his power."

Artful dissemblings and plausible pretences are always adopted in
order to introduce regular troops. Dionysius became the tyrant of
Syracuse, the most opulent of all the Grecian cities, by feigning a
solicitude for the people and a fear of his own person. He humbly
prayed only a guard for his protection: they easily granted, what he
readily took — the power of plundering by military force, and entailing
his sovereignty by a devise of his sword. Agathocles, a successor to
the Dionysian family and to the command of the army, continued the
military tyranny; and butchered the enslaved people by centuries.

Cardinal Ximenes, who made the first innovation of this kind in
Spain, disguised the measure under the pious and popular appearance
of resisting the progress of the infidels. The nobles saw his views and
excited opposition in the chief towns of the kingdom. But by dexter-
ously using terror and entreaty, force and. forbearance, the refractory
cities v.'erc brought to compliance. The nobles thus driven to cespc-

JO SI AH QUIXCY, JR. 69

rate resolutions by the cardinal's military movements, at a personal
interview were warm and intemperate^ When the arch-prelate insen-
sibly led them towards a balcony, from which they had a view of a
large body of troops under arms, and a formidable train of artillery;
" Behold," says he, pointing to these, and raising his voice, " the pow-
ers which I have received from his catholic majesty. With these I
govern Castile, and with these I will govern it." Nobles and people
discovered it was now too late for resistance: to regret past folly and
dread future calamities was the remaining fate of the wretched Cas-
tilians. After the Romans quitted the island of Britain, the first
appearance of a standing army was under Richard the second. The
suppression of his enemies in Ireland calling him out of England, his
subjects seized the opportunity and dethroned him.

Henry the seventh, a character odious for rapacity and fraud, was
the first king of England who obtained a permanent military band in
that kingdom. It wa.; only a band of fifty archers: with the harmless
appellation of yeomen of the guards. This apparently trival institu-
tion was a precedent for the greatest political evil that ever infested
the inhabitants of Britain. The ostensible pretext was, the dignity of
government — " the grandeur of majesty" — the alteration of the con-
stitution, and an increase of power was the aim of the prince. An
early " oppugnation of the king's authority," though, no doubt, his
favorite subalterns would have styled it " ill-timed," had easily effected
that disbanding of the new raised forces, which being a little while de-
layed, no subsequent struggles have accomplished. The wisdom of
resistance at the beginning, has been repeatedly inculcated by the wise
and liberal-minded of all nations, and the experience of every age hath
confirmed their instruction. But no precept or example can make the
bulk of mankind wise for themselves. Though cautioned (as we have
seen) against the projects of Caesar, the smiles of his benignity deceived
the Roman commonwealth, till the increase of his power bid defiance
to opposition. Celebrated for his generosity and manificence, hts
complacency and compassion, the complaisant courtier made his way
into the hearts of his countrymen. They would not believe, though
admonished by the best of men and first of patriots, that the smiling
Caesar would filch away their liberties, that a native — born and bred a
Roman — would enslave his country — the land of his fathers— the land
of his birth — the land of his posterity. But the ambitious Caesar aim-
ing at authority, and Caesar armed and intoxicated with power, appear in
very different characters. He who appeared with the mildness of a
fine gentleman, in his primaeval state, in an advanced station conducted
with the sternness of a tyrant. Opposed by a tribune of the people in
taking money out of the public treasury against the laws, Caesar with
an army at his heels, proclaimed "arms and laws do not flourish to-
gether." " If you are not pleased (added the usurper) with what I am
about, you have nothing to do but to withdraw. Indeed war will not

70 AMEEICAX PATRIOTISM.

bear much liberty of speech. When I say this, I am departing from
my own right. For you and all I have found exciting a spirit of faction
against me, are at my disposal." Saying this, he, approached the doors

.of the treasury, as the keys were not produced, he sent his workmen
to break them open. This is the complaisant Caesar — renowned for
his amiable qualities: by his easy address he deceived, and by his arts
enslaved his countrymen — and prepared the way for a succeeding Nero
to spoil and slaughter them. — Singular and very remarkable have been
the interpositions of Providence in favor of New England — the per-
mission of an early carnage in our streets, peradventure, was to awaken
us from the danger — of being politely beguiled into security, and fraud-
fully drawn into bondage — a state that sooner or later ends in rapine
and blood. — Shall we be too enthusiastic, if we attribute to the divine
influence that unexpected good which hath so often in our day been
brought out of premeditated evil?- Few, comparatively, of the many
mischiefs aimed against us, but what have terminated in some advan-
tage, or are now verging to some happy issue. — If the dexterity of
veteran troops have not excited envy, if their outrage hath not pro-
voked revenge, their military disclipine hath set a well:timed example,
and their savage fury been a well-improved incentive. The lusts of
an enemy may touch a sensibility of mind, and his very pride pique

, the virtue of the heart. ;

Charles the second told his Parliament, their "jealousy, that the
forces he had raised were designed to control laws and property, was

■ weak and frivolous." The cajolement took for a season, but his sub-
jects having been abused by repeated violations of his most solemn
vows, at last roused from their lethargy; and the king began to dread
the severity of their vengeance. He therefore kept up a standing army,
not only against law, but the repeated resolutions of every Parliament
of his reign. He found that corruption without force could not con-
firm him a tyrant, and therefore cherished and augmented his troops
to the destruction of his people and the terror of his senators. "There
go bur masters" was a common saying among the members of Parlia-
ment. "No law can restrain these people; houses are taken from us,
our lives are in danger" (said one member in Parliament.) "Without
betraying her trust, (said Russel) we must vote these standing forces a
grievance. There are designs, about the King, to ruin religion and
property. Public business is the least of their concern. A few upstart
people, making hay while the sun shines, set up an army to establish
their interest: I A\ould have care taken for the future, that no army be
raised for a cabal interest. A gentleman said the last session, that
this war was made rather for the army, than the army for the war.
This government, with a standing army, can never be safe: We can-
not be secure in this house; and some of us mav have our heads
taken off."

Patriots harangued in vain — the Commons voted the keeping up

JO SI A II QUIXCW JR. 71

the army illegal and a grievance — but while they thus did, they openly
betrayed a dread of that array. "I would not give an alarm to those
who have arms in their hands/' said one member; "I cannot but
observe that the House of Commons is now in fear ef the army," said
another Plain as it was for what end the. army was kept up, the
people slumbered.

The British Court, never destitute of plausibilities to deceive, or
inventions to enthral the nation, appropriated moneys, raised by
Parliament for the purpose of disbanding the army, to their continu-
ance, and uniformly pursued similar measures, till in the year 1684,
"the King, in order to make his people sensible to their new
slavery, affected to muster his troops, which amounte 1 to 4,000
Avell-armed and disciplined." If Rapin denominated so small an
armament, the slavery of the subject under Charles II., what would
he call the state of Britons under George III.? With 4,000 troops
the kingdom it seems was reduced to servitude; but the spirit of the
nation soon after rose. -In 1685 complaint was made in Parliament
that the country 'was weary of the oppression and plunder of the
soldiers;" "the army (it was said) debauched the manners of all the
people, their wives, daughters, and servants." The grievance became
intolerable— and, what was happy, it was not too mighty for oppo-
sition James II had only 14,900 or 15,000 troops — and no riot
act. The barbarities of a Kirk, and the campaign of a Jefferies, could
not pass with impunity. The revolution succeeded, and James abdi-
cated his throne. Such was the fate of one who vainly affected to
play the despot with about fifteen regiments, had he been encircled
Avith an hundred, no doubt, he had reigned an applauded tyrant —
flattered in his day, with that lying appellation— the wisest and the
best of kings."

The army of the present king of Great Britain is larger than that
with which Alexander subdued the East, or Caesar conquered Gaul.
"If the army we now keep up (said Sir John Philips thirty years ago
in the House of Commons) should once be as much attached to the
Crown as Julius Caesar's army was to him, I should be glad to know
where we could find a force superior to that army!" Is there no such
attachment now existing? Surely the liberties of England, if not held
at will, are holden by a very precarious tenure.

The supreme power is ever possessed by those who have arms in
their hands and are disciplined to the use of them. When the Archieves,
conscious of a good title, disputed with Lysander about boundaries,
the Lacedemonian showed his sword, and vauntingly cried out "he
that is master of this can best plead about boundaries." The Mar-
motines of Messina declined appearance at the tribunal of Pompey,
to acknowledge his jurisdiction, alleging in excuse, ancient privi-
leges, granted them by the Romans— "Will you never have done
(exclaimed Pompey) with citing laws and privileges to men who wear

72 _ AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

swords ?"' What boundaries will they set to their passions, who have
no limits to their power? Unlimited oppression and wantonness are
the never-failing attendants of unbounded authority.. Such power a
veteran army always acquire, and, being able to riot in mischief with
impunity, they always do it with licentiousness.

Regular soldiers, embodied for the purpose of originating oppres-
sion or extending dominion, ever compass the control of the magis-
trate. The same force wh'ch preserves a despotism immutable, may
change the despot every day. Power is soon felt by those who
possess it, and they who Can command will never servilely obey.
The leaders of the army, having become masters of the person of
their sovereign, degrade or exalt him at will. Obvious as these truths
may seem, and confirmed as they are by all history, yet a weak or
wicked prince is easily persuaded, by the creatures who surround him,
to act the tyrant. A character so odious to subjects, must necessarily
be timid and jealous. Afraid of the wise and good, he must support
his dignity by the assistance of the worthless and wicked. Standing
armies are therefore raised by the infatuated prince. No sooner
established than the defenceless multitude are their first prey. Mere
power is wanton and cruel — the army grow licentious and the people
grow desperate. Dreadful alternative to the infatuated monarch ! In
constant jeopardy of losing the regalia of empire, till the caprice of an
armed banditti degrade him from sovereignty, or the enraged people
wreak an indiscriminate and righteous vengeance. Alas! when will
kings learn wisdom, and mighty men have understanding?

A fiirther review of the progress of armies in our parent state will
be a useful though not a pleasant employ. No particular reason or
occasion was so much as suggested in the bill which passed the
Parliament, in 1717, for keeping on foot a standing army of 30,000
men in time of peace (a number since amazingly increased). An act
justly recorded in the Lord's Journal, to be a precedent for keeping
the same army at all times, and which the protest of that day fore-
told, " must inevitably subvert the ancient constitution of the realm,
and subject the subjects to arbitrary power." To borrow the pointed
turn of a modern orator — what was once prophecy, is now history.

The powers given by the mutiny act, which is now constantly
passed every year, was repeatedly in former times "opposed and
condemned by Parliament as repugnant to Magna-charta, and incon-
sistent with the fundamental rights and liberties of a free people."
In this statute no provision is made for securing the obedience of the
military to the civil power, on which the preservation of our constitu-
tion depends. A great number of armed men governed by martial
law, having it in their power, are naturally inclined not only to dis-
obey, but to insult the civil magistrate. The experience of what hath
happened in England, as well as the memorials of all ages and nations,
have made it sufficiently apparent that wherever an effectual provision

JO SI AH QUINCY, JR. 73

is not made to secure the obedience of soldiers to the laws of their
country, the military hath constantly subverted and swallowed up the
civil power. What provision of this kind can the several continental
legislatures make against British troops stationed in the colonies?
Nay, if the virtue of one branch of government attempted the salutary
measure, would the first branch ever give its consent? A governor
must- — he will obey his master; the alternative is obvious. The armies
quartered among us must be removed, or they will in the end overturn
and trample on all that we ought to hold valuable and sacred.

We have authority to affirm that the regular forces of Great Britain
consist of a greater number than are necessary for the guard of the
King's person and the defence of government, and therefore dangerous
to the constitution of the kingdom. What, then, do these armaments,
when established here, threaten to our laws and liberties ? Well might
the illustrious members of the House of Peers, in 1722, hold forth the
danger of " a total alteration of the frame of our constitution from a
legal and limited monarchy to a despotic;" and declare they were
" induced to be of this judgment, as well from the nature of armies,
and the inconsistency of great military power and martial law with
civil authority, as from the known and universal experience of other
countries in Europe, which, by the influence and power of standing
armies, in time of peace, have, from limited monarchies, like ours, been
changed into absolute." The taxes necessary to maintain a standing
army drain and impoverish the land. Thus exhausted by tribute, the
people gradually become spiritless and fall an easy sacrifice to the
reigning power.

Spirits, like Britons, naturally fierce and independent, are not easily
awed or suddenly vanquished by the sword. Hence an augmentation
of forces hath been pushed when there was no design of bringing
them into action against Englishmen in an open field. New forces
have oftener than once been raised in England more for civil than
military service; and, as elections for a new parliament have ap-
proached, this door has been opened to introduce a large body of
commissioned pensioners. What hath been the consequence ? A
constant majority of placemen meeting under the name of a parlia-
ment, to establish grievances instead of redressing them — to approve
implicitly the measures of a court without information — to support
and screen ministers they ought to control or punish — to grant money
without right, and expend it without discretion? Have these been
the baneful consequences? Are these solemn truths? Alas! we
tremble to think; but, we may venture to say, that when this is true
of that legislative authority, which not only claims (but exercises)
"still power and authority to make laws and statutes to bind the
colonies and people of America in all cases whatsoever; " the forms
of our Constitution, creating a fatal delusion, will become our greatest
grievance.

74 AMERICAN FA TRIOTISM.

. The formalities of a free, and the ends of a despotic state, have often
subsisted together. Thus deceived was the republic of Rome'
officers and magistrates retained their, old names; the forms of the
ancient government being kept up, the fundamental laws of the com-
monwealth were violated with impunity, and its once free Constitution
utterly annihilated. He who gave Augustus Csesar the advice, "that
to the officers of state the same names, pomp, and ornaments, should
be continued, with all the appearances of authority, without the
power," discovered an intimate acquaintance with mankind. The
advice was followed, and Csesi.v soon became senate, magistrac3T, and
laws. Is not Britain to America what Caesar was to Rome?

It is curious to observe the various acts of imposition, which are
alternately practiced by the great and subtle of this world, on "their
subordinate and simple-minded brethren. Are a people free? new
oppressions are introduced or shrouded under old names; are they in
present bondage, and begin to grow turbulent? new appellations must
be adopted to disguise old burdens. A notable instance of this latter
kind we find in the Parliament of Great Biitain(in 36 Edw. 3, ch. 2),
upwards of four hundred years ago. The royal prerogative, called
purveyance, having been in vain regulated by many preceding
statutes, still continued so intolerably grievous that fresh murmurs
and complaints called for a more adequate or better adapted provision.
The British legislature, for this valuable purpose, therefore passed
this very remarkable law, which, by way of remedy, enacted as fol-
lows, viz.: That the hateful name of purveyor shall be changed into
that of Acator." Thus the nation were to be made to believe that the
oppression ceased because the name was altered. For the honor of
government, as well as mankind, it is devoutly to be wished that our
laws and history contained no other record of such disgraceful prac-
tices. If any late acts of the British Parliament carry. strong marks
of a similar policy, it is, surely, not altogether unworthy the consider-
ation of the members of that august body how far such disingenuous
practices are consistent with the honor of their private characters, or
the dignity of their public station.

The magic of sounds and appellations hath not ceased, and they
work as much deception and abuse as ever. What valuable purpose
does a wholly subordinate legislative serve, (except to amuse with the
shadow, while the substance is departed) if a remote state may legis-
late for and bind us "in all cases?" To what end doth an American
House of Representatives go through the form of granting away mon-
ies, if another power, full as familiar with our pockets, may annihilate
all they do; and afterwards, with a modern dexterity, take possession
of our purses without ceremony, and dispose of the contents without
modesty; — without control, and without account?

It is curious and instructive to attend the courts of debate in the
British Commons for keeping up the army. At first even the highest

JO SI A II QUINCY, JR. 75

courtiers would argue— that a standing army, in times of peace, was
never attempted. Soon after the court-speakers urged for continuance
of a numerous army for one year longer. At the end of several years
after, the gentlemen throw aside the mask, and boldly declare such a
number of troops must always be kept up. In short the army must be
continued till it becomes part of the constitution; and in later times,
members of the house have ventured to harangue for measures, none
would have dared to lisp a few years before. The wise foresaw this,
and the honest foretold it. " If we continue the army but a little
while longer," (said a celebrated member upwards of forty years ago.)
"it may be in the power of some gentlemen to talk in this house, in
terms that will be no way agreeable to the constitution or liberties
of our country. To tell us that the same number of forces must be
always kept up, is a proposition full-fraught with innumerable evils,
and more particularly with this, that it may make wicked ministers
more audacious than otherwise they would be in projecting and propo-
gating schemes which may be inconsistent with the liberties, destruc-
tive of the trade, and burthensome on the people of this nation. In
countries governed by standing armies, the inclinations of the people
are but little minded, the ministers place their security in the army,
the humors of the army they only consult, with them they divide the
spoils, and the wretched people are plundered by both." — Who, that
now reconsiders this prophetic language, in conjunction with the events
of his own time, but will cry out — the speaker felt the impulse of inspi-
ration !

"Whoever (says the justly celebrated Dr. Blackstone) will attentively

consider the English history, may observe, that the flagrant abuse of

any power, by the CroWn or its ministers, has always been productive

. of a struggle, which either discovers the exercise of that power to be

contrary to law, or (if legal) restrains it for the future."

The ingenious commentator Seems here to have particular references
to periods prior to the revolution. But will the learned judge say,
that since that era, there have been no flagrant abuses of power by the
Crown or its ministers? Have not repeated struggles arose in conse-
quence of such abuses, which did not terminate in the happy issue so
characteristic of Englishmen ? Let any one peruse the journals of Par-
liament, especially those of the House of Peers; let him carefully
review the British and American annals of the present century, and
answer truly to these questions. — The natural enquiry will be — whence
then is it — that such abuses have become so numerous and flagrant,
and the struggles of Britons so unsuccessful ? Will not the question
receive an ample solution in the words of the same great lawyer ? —
7 There is a newly acquired branch of (royal) power; and that not the
influence only, but the force of a disciplined army, paid indeed ulti-
mately by the people, but immediately by the Crown; raised by the
Crown, officered by the Crown, commanded by the Crown."

76 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

We are told by the same learned author, that "whenever the uncon-
stitutional oppressions, even of the sovereign power, advance with
gigantic strides and threaten desolation to a state, mankind will not
be reasoned out of the feelings of humanity, nor will sacrifice their
liberty by a scrupulous adherence to those political maxims, which
were established to preserve it." — But those who cannot be reasoned
out of their feelings, are easily repressed by the terror of arms, from
giving tokens of their sensibility; and states ancient and modern-
lyes Britain will bear me witness !) — who would disdain to sacrifice
their freedom to political institutions have tremblingly stood aloof,
while it was dragged to the altar under the banners of a royal army.

The policy and refinement of men clothed with authority, often
deceive those who are subject to its control; and thus a people are
often induced to waive their rights, and relinquish the barriers of their
safety. The fraud, however, must at last be discovered, and the nation
will resume their ancient liberties, if there be no force sufficient to
screen the usurper and defend his nomination. The sword alone is
sufficient to subdue that spirit which compels rulers to their duty, and
tyrants to their senses. Hence, then, though a numerous standing
army may not be absolutely requisite to depress a kingdom into servi-
tude, they are indispensably necessary to confirm an usurpation.

A large army and revenue are not easily and at once forced upon a
free people. By slow degrees and plausible pretences, as we have
seen in England, the end is accomplished. But when once a numerous
body of revenue and military men, entirely dependent on the Crown,
are incorporated, they are regardless of any thing but its will: and
where that will centers, and what such power can effect, Is a matter of
no doubtful disputation.

The present army of a prince Is always composed of men of honor"
and integrity, as the reigning monarch is ever the best of kings. In
such an army, it is said, you may trust your liberties with safety: in
such a king you may put your confidence without reserve: — the good
man has not a wish beyond the happiness of his subjects! Yet let it be
remembered, that under the best of kings, we ought to seize the fleeting
opportunity and provide against the worst. But admitting, that from
this rare character — -a wise and good monarch — a nation have nothing
to fear; — yet they have everything to dread from those who would
clothe him with authority, and invest him with powers incompatible
with all political freedom and social security. France, Spain, Den-
mark, and Sweden in modern times, have felt the baneful effects of
this fatal policy. Though the latter state are said to have this excel-
lent institution, that the commissions to their military officers all run
quam din se bene gesserint: a regulation which ought to be the tenure
of all offices of public trust, and may be of singular utility in states
which have incorporated a standing army as part of the constitution of
government.

JO SI A II QUINCY, JR. 77

An invasion and conquest by mere strangers and foreigners are
neither so formidable or disgraceful as the establishment of a standing
army Under color of the municipal law of the land. Thus Roman
armies were more terrible to the Roman colonies, than an "enemy's
army." Valor has scope for action against an open enemy, but the
most precious liberties of a kingdom are massacred in cold blood by
the disciplined Janizaries of the state, and there is little hope of a gen-
eral resistance. The natural inherent right of the conquered is to
throw off the yoke, as soon as they are able; but subjects enslaved by
the military forces of their own sovereign, become spiritless and des-
pondent; and scaffolds and axes, the gibbet and the halter, too often
terrify them from those noble exertions which would end in their de-
liverance, by a glorious victory or an illustrious death.

Yet in full peace, without any just apprehensions of insurrections at
home, or invasions from abroad ; it was the mischievous policy of the
English ministry in 1717, to procure an allowance of near double the
forces to what had ever before been established by the sanction of Par-
liament in times of public tranquillity. Well might many of the nobil-
ity of Britain conceive, that as so many forces were no ways neces-
sary to support, they had reason to fear danger to the constitution,
which was never entirely subverted but by a standing army. The
English military bands have since been much augmented; and whether
this disgraceful subversion has already taken place, or is still verging
to its accomplishment, may be resolved, after a further inspection, into
memorials of the present age.

More than half a century since, the discerning members of the
House of Lords discovered the tendency of these extraordinary arma-
ments to be no other, than to overthrow the civil power of the king-
dom, and to turn it into a military government. A very short period
after this, many of the same noble house, bore open testimony, that
they were "justly jealous from the experience of former times, that
the Crown itself, as well as the liberties of the people might be found
at the disposal of a standing army at home."

But as if one standing army was not enough to ruin a nation of Eng-
lishmen, a new kind of forces was raised against the commonwealth.
The officers employed in the customs, excise, in other branches of the
revenue, and other parts of public service, compose in effect a second
standing army in England, and in some respects are more dangerous,
than that body of men so called. The influence which this order have
in the election of members to serve in Parliament, hath been too often
felt in Great Britain to be denied. And we have good authority to
say, "that examples are not hard to find, where the military forces
have withdrawn to create an appearance of a free election, and the
standing civil forces of this kind have been sent to take that freedom
away. " Is a House of Commons thus chosen the representatives of
the people — or of the administration — or of a single minister ?

f 8 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

As Lewis the Xlth of France, was the first monarch in Europe, who
reduced corruption to a system, so the era of its establishment in Eng-
land may be fixed at the reign 'of Charles the Second. Britain, then
for the first time, saw corruption, like a destroying angel, walking at
noon-day. Charles pensioned his Parliament, and by it extinguished
not only the spirit of freedom, but the sentiments of honour and the
feelings of shame. Since the age of Charles, the science of bribery
and corruption hath made amazing progress. Patriots of the last cen-
tury told their countrymen what it threatened — the worthies of this
day ought rather to tell what hath been effected.

Near fifty years ago, there were more than two hundred persons
holding offices or employments under the Crown in the House of Com-
mons. Since that time this body like the military (and for the same
purposes) have received very notable additions. Is it to be wondered,
then, as we verge nearer to our own times, we should hear the most
august assembly in the kingdom declaring to the whole world, that
"the influence of the Crown is almost irresistible, being already over-
grown and yet increasing : that the most valuable rights of the nation
are subverted by arbitrary and illegal proceedings : that a flagrant us-
urpation (is made upon the subject) as highly repugnant to every prin-
ciple of the constitution, as the claim of ship-money by King Charles
the First, or that of the dispehsfrig power by King James the Second."
Finally, considering all that we have seen in the course of our review,
could any thing else be expected, than what forty of the House of
Lords openly protest they have seen with great uneasiness, a plan for
a long time systematically carried On, for lowering all the constitu-
tional powers of the kingdom, rendering the House of Commons odi-
ous, and the House of Peers contemptible ?"■

Here let us pause (my fellow-citizens) and consider: hath the exe-
crable plan thus systematically and for a long time pursued, at last
taken effect ? Are all the constitutional powers of Great Britain so
lowered in the estimation of the people, and their nobility despised ?
is their king possessed of power sufficient to make fear, a substitute
for love ? has he an army at his absolute command, with which no
force in his empire is capable to cope ? judge ye, my countrymen, of
these questions, upon which I may not decide: judge, for yourselves,
of the political state of that kingdom, which claims a right of dispos-
ing of our all ; a right of laying every burden that power can impose;
a right of over- running our soil and freeholds with mercenary legions,
and still more mercenary placemen and dependants. Thus luxury
and riot, debauchery and havock are to become the order and peace
of our cities, and the stability and honour of our times. To this and
like hopeful purposes, we find "the fullest directions sent to the sev
eral officers of the revenue, that all the produce of the American
duties, arising or to arise, by virtue of any British Act of Parliament,
should, from time to time, be paid to the deputy paymaster in America

JO SI A II QUINCY, JR. 79

to defray the subsistence of the troops, and any military expenses in-
curred in the colonies." Highly favoured Americans ! you are to be
wasted with taxes and impositions, in oi'der to satisfy the charges of
those armaments which are to blast your country with the most terri-
ble of all evils — universal corruption , and a military government.

The reigns of past and present great monarchs when compared,
often present a striking similitude. The Emp. Charles the Fifth,
having exalted the royal prerogative (or the. influence of the Crown)
on the ruins of the privileges of the Castilians, allowed the name
of the Cortes (or the Parliament) to remain : and the formality of
holding it thus continued, he reduced its authority and jurisdiction
to nothing, and modelled it in such a manner, that it became (says
Dr. Robertson) rather a junto of the servants of the Crown, than
an assembly of the representatives of the people. The success of
Charles in abolishing the privileges of the nobles of Castile, en-
couraged an invasion of the liberties of Arragon, which were yet
more extensive.

Attend Americans! reflect on the situation of your mother coun-
try, and consider the late conduct of your brethren in Britain toward
this'Continent. "The Castilians (once high spirited and brave in the
cause of freedom) accustomed to subjection themselves, assisted (says
the same illustrious historian) in imposing the yoke on their more
happy and independent neighbours." Hath not Britain (fallen from
her pristine freedom and glory) treated America, as Castile did Arra-
gon ? have not Britons imposed on our necks thesame yoke which the
Castilians imposed on the happy Arragonese ? Yes Hfcl speak it with
grief ; I speak it with anguish ; Britons are our oppressors ; I speak
it with shame ; I speak it with indignation ; we are slaves.

As force first fixes the chains of vassalage, so cowardice restrains an
enslaved people from bursting in sunder their bands. But the case
perhaps is not desperate till the yoke has been so long borne, that the
understanding and the spirits of the people are sunk into ignorance
and barbarism, supineness and perfect inactivity! Such, I yet trust,
is not the deplorable state of the land of my nativity. How soon it
may be — we shall tremble, when we reflect that the progress of thral-
dom is secret, and its effects incredibly rapid and dreadful. Hence we
see nations once the freest and most high-spirited in Europe, abject in
the most humiliating condition. The oath of allegiance to their king,
exhibits the true standard of all just subjection to government, and
testifies a genuine sense and spirit. " We, who are each of us as good,
and who are altogether more powerful than you, promise obedience
to your government, if you maintain our right and liberties; if not,
not." When a people, endowed with such understandings, senti-
ments and virtue, have fallen into a disgraceful vassalage — what have
we in this land, at this time, reason to fear! The same Athenians who
insulted and bid defiance to a Philip of Macedon, crouched and

80 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

cowled at the feet of an Alexander. Romans who with righteous in-
dignation expelled royalty, and the Tarquins bore with infamv and
shame the ravages of succeeding kings and emperors. Englishmen
who rose with a divine enthusiasm against the first Charles, disgrace-
fully submitted to the usurpation of a Cromwell; and then, with un-
exampled folly and madness, restored that odious and execrable race
of tyrants, the house of Stewart. Examples, like these, ought to
excite the deepest concern; at this day, they ought to do more — to
inspire fortitude and action.

Providence from the beginning hath exercised this country with sin-
gular trials. In the earliest periods of our history, New England is
seen surrounded with adversaries, and alternately vexed with foes
foreign and domestic. Fierce as her enemies were from abroad, and
savage as the natives of America were within, her worst enemies will
be found those of her own household. .

Our fathers "left their native country with the strongest assurance
that they and their posterity should enjoy the privileges of free
natural born English' subjects." Depending upon these assurances,
they sustained hardships scarcely paralleled in the annals of the world;
yet compassion, natural to the human breast, did not restrain internal
foes from involving them in new calamities; nor did that disgrace
and contempt, which suddenly fell upon the conspirators, damp the
ardor of their malignity.

So early as 1633 (not fourteen years after the first arrival at Ply-
mouth), "the new settlers were in perils from their own countrymen. "
In this, the infant state of the country, while exposed to innumerable
hardships, vexed with hostilities from Europe and the depredations of
savages, there existed men who " beheld the Massachusetts wTith an
envious eye." The characteristics of the first conspirators against this
province, were secrecy and industry; they had effected the mischief
before the people knew of their danger. Morton, in his letter to
Jefferies the first of May, 1634, writes, that " the Massachusetts patent,
by an order of council, was brought in view, and the privileges well
scanned." But by whom? very like some of more modern fame; an
archbishop, and the Privy Council of Charles the First! excellent essay-
masters for New England privileges — most renowned judges of the
rights and liberties of mankind! They first discover the chattel 't-
be void," and then, no doubt, advise to the issuing of the commission
found by my Lord Barrington in the 31st vol. of Mr. Petyt's manu-
script, "a commission directed to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the
Lord Chancellor, and other lords of the Privy Council, by which they
are impowered to prepare laws for the better government of the
colonies;" "which were afterwards to be enforced by the King's
proclamation."

This was considered as a master-stroke of policy; and the public
conspirators of the day displayed the plumage of triumph with that

JO SI AH QUINCY, JR. Si

spirit and ostentation which have descended to their successors. But
how easy is it, with Providence, to disappoint the projects, and humble
the pride of man! Laud and his master, in the subsequent periods of
history, are found too busied with their own concerns, to attend much
to those of others. Hence this extraordinary commission was never
executed, and the plan set on foot within three years after, " for re-
voking the patent of the Massachusetts," proved abortive. Literary
correspondence inimical to the province commenced with Archbishop
Laud in 163S. But in the pious language of our fathers, "the Lord
delivered them from the oppressor," "against all men's expectations
they were encouraged, and much blame and disgrace fell upon their
adversaries/' Yet notwithstanding "a spirit full of malignity against
the country (not very long after) much endangered both its civil and
religious liberties."

More than a century ago, "the great privileges of New England
were matter of envy;" and, accordingly, complaints multiplied to
Cromwell, no doubt for the benevolent purpose of abridging (what
were called) English liberties. "All attempts to the prejudice of the
colony, being to no purpose" with the Protector, the adversaries of
the province were despondent, until the restoration of Charles II,
gave new hopes; when "petitions and complaints were preferred
against the colony to the King in council, and to the Parliament."

" False friends and open enemies" now became the terror of the
country while new foes brought new charges to render it obnoxious.
" The great men and natives of the country, made their complaints
also to the King." The consequences were such as might be ex-
pected. " Four persons were sent over from England, the one of
them the known and professed enemy of the country, with such ex
traordinary powers {that our ancestors with grief complain), they were
to be subjected to the arbitrary power of strangers proceeding not by
any established law, but their own discretion.." How astonishingly
uniform, how cruelly consistent has been the conduct of Britain from
that day to the present?

Amid all these severe trials, the inhabitants of New England con-
ducted with a virtue and piety worthy remembrance and imitation.
"They appealed to God, they came not into this wilderness to seek
great things for themselves, but for the sake of a poor and quiet life."
They testified to their sovereign, that "their liberties were dearer to
them than their lives." " Evil minded men continue, however, to
misrepresent them," and what is almost incredible, the distresses ot
the colony, during a war, which excited compassion in some, yet these
very distresses were improved by others to render the colony more
obnoxious."

Although " this is certain, that as the colony was at first settled so
it was preserved from ruin without any charge to the mother country;"
yet in the height of the distress of war, "and whilst the authority

82 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

of the colony was contending with the natives for the posses-
sion of the soil; complaints were making in England which struck

at the powers of government." With what ferocity have Americans
been pursued from the earliest times ? That demon of malevolence,
which went forth at the beginning, still spirits up our adversaries, and
persecutes the country with unabated malice.

"Randolph^ who, the people of New England said, went up and
down seeking to devour them," was the next active emissary against
the province.; '.' He was incessant and open in endeavoring the alter
a ion of the constitution." In his open enmity, he appears far Ies3
odious than those who have been equally inimical and equally inde-
fatigable to the same purpose, with more cowardice, dissimulation,
and hypocrisy. Eight voyages were made across the Atlantic in the
course of. nine years by this irrverate spirit, with hostile intentions to
the government. Nor will it^be surprising to find him thus expose'
his life upon the ocean, when such services acquired " new powers."
Have we not seen, in our own day, a similar policy adopted arid the
same object operating as a motive to the like execrable conduct ?
Such has been the strange though unhappily consistent conduct of
our mother country, that she has laid temptations and given rewards
and stipends to those who have slandered and betrayed her own
children. Incited probably by the same motive, Cranfield rose up as
in league with Randolph, and "infamously represented the colony as
rogues and rebels."

Libels and conspiracies of this nature called for the interposition of
authority: express laws were enacted for the prevention of like
treasonable practices for the future, and, death being deemed the
proper punishment for an enemy to his country, traitors to the con-
stitution were to suffer that penalty. Thus a" conspiracy to invade
the commonwealth, or any treacherous attempt to alter and subvert
fundamentally the frame of polity and government, was made a
capital offence." Did our laws now contain a like provision, public
conspirators and elevated parricides would tremble for their heads,
who do not shudder at the enormity of their crimes. There are char-
acters in society so devoid of virtue and endued with ferocity that
nothing but sanguinary laws can restrain their wickedness. Even the
distress and cries of their native country excite no compassion; rever-
ence for fathers and affection for children cause no reluctance at
measures which stain the glorious lineage of their ancestors with
infamy, and blast their spreading progeny with oppression. That
emanation from the Deity, which creates them intelligents, seems to
cease its operation, and the tremendous idea of a God and futurity,
excites neither repentance or reformation.

Thus, my countrymen, from the days of Gardiner and Moreton,
Georges and Mason, Randolph and "Cranfield, down "to the present
cLy, the inhabitants of this northern region have constantly been in

JO SI A II QUIXCY, JR. S3

danger and troubles from foes open and secret, abroad and in theif
bosom. Our freedom has been the object of envy, and to make vcid
the charter of Our liberties the work and labor of an undiminished
race of villains. One cabal having failed of success, new conspirators
have rose, and, what the first could not make "void," the next
'humbly desired to revoke." To this purpose one falsehood after
another hath been fabricated and spread abroad with equal turpitude
and equal effrontery. That minute detail, which would present actors
now on the stage, is the province of history. She, inexorably severe,
towards the eminently guilty, will delineate their characters with the
point of a diamond; and, thus blazoned in the face of day, the abhor-:
ence and execrations of mankind will consign them to an infamous
immortality.

So great has been* the credulity of the British court, from the begin-
ning, or such hath been the activity of false brethren, that no tale
inimical to the Northern colonies, however false or absurd, but what
hath found credit with administration, and operated to the prejudice
of the country. Thus it was told and believed in England, that we
were not in earnest in the expedition against Canada at the beginning
of this century, and that the country did everything in its power to
defeat the success of it, and that the misfortune of that attempt ought
to be wholly attributed to the northern colonies. While nothing
could be more obvious than that New England had exhausted her
youngest blood and all her treasures in the undertaking, and that
every motive of self-preservation, happiness, and safety, must have
operated to excite these provinces to the most spirited and persevering
measures against Canada.

The people who are attacked by bad men have a testimony of their
merit, as the constitution which is invaded by powerful men, hath an
evidence of its value. The path of our duty needs no minute delinea-
tion—it lies level to the eye. Let us apply, then, like men sensible of
its importance and determined on its fulfillment. The inroads upon
our public liberty call for reparation; the wrongs we have sustained
call for — justice. That reparation and that justice may yet be ob-
tained by union, spirit, and firmness. But to divide and conquer was
the maxim of the devil in the garden of Eden — and to disunite and
enslave hath been the principle of all his votaries from that period to
the present. The crimes of the guilty are to them the cords of asso-
ciation and dread of punishment, -the indissoluble bond of union.
The combinations of public robbers ought, therefore, to cement
patriots and heroes; and, as the former plot and conspire to under-
mine and destroy the commonwealth, the latter ought to form a
compact for opposition — a band of vengeance.

What insidious arts, and what detestable practices have been used
to deceive, disunite, and enslave the good people of this continent .'
The mystical appellations of loyalty and allegiance, the venerable

84 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

names of government and good order, and the sacred ones of piety
and public virtue, have been alternately prostituted to that abominable
purpose. All the windings and guises, subterfuges, and doublings,
of which the human soul is susceptible, have been displayed on the
occasion. But secrets which were thought impenetrable are no longer
hid; characters deeply disguised are openly revealed; the discovery of
gross imposters hath generally preceded, but a short time, their utter
extirpation.

Be not again, my countrymen, " easily captivated with the appear-
ances only of wisdom and piety— professions of a regard to liberty
and of a strong attachment to the publick interest." Your fathers
have been explicitly charged with this folly by one of their posterity.
Avoid this and all similar errors. Be cautious against the deception
of appearances. By their fruits ye shall know th#m, was the saying
of One who perfectly knew the human heart. Judge of affairs which
concern social happiness by facts. Judge of. man by his deeds. For
it is very certain that pious zeal for days and times, for mint and
cummin, hath often been pretended by those who were. infidels at
bottom; and, it is as certain, that attachment to the dignity of govern-
ment and the king's service hath often flowed from the mouths of men
who harbored the darkest machinations against the true end of the
former, and were destitute of every right principle of loyalty to the
latter. Hence, then, care and circumspection are necessary branches
of political duty And as "it is much easier to restrain liberty from
running into licentiousness than power from swelling into tyranny
and oppression;" so much more caution and resistance are required
against the Overbearing of rulers than the extravagance of the people.

To give no more authority to any order of state, and to place no
greater public confidence in any man, than is necessary for the general
welfare, may be considered by the people as an important point of
policy. But though craft and hypocrisy are prevalent, yet piety and
virtue have a real existence; duplicity and political imposture abound,
yet benevolence and public spirit are not altogether banished by the
world. As wolves will appear in sheep's clothing, so superlative
knaves and parricides will assume the vesture of the man of virtue
and patriotism.

These things are permitted by Providence, no doubt, for wise and
good reasons. Man was created a rational, and was designed for an
active beinq". His faculties of intelligence and force were given him
for use. When the wolf, therefore, is found devouring the flock, no hier-
archy forbids a seizure of the victim for sacrifice; so also, when digni-
fied impostors are caught destroying those, whom their arts deceived
and their stations destined them to protect,— the sabre of justice
flashes righteousness at the stroke of execution.

Yet be not amused, my countrymen! — the extirpation of bondage,
and the re-establishment of freedom are not of easy acquisition. The

JOHN HANCOCK. 85

worst passions of the human heart, and the most subtle projects of the
human mind are leagued against you; and principalities and powers
have acceded to the combination. .Trials and conflicts you must,
therefore, endure; — hazards and jeopardies — of life and fortune — will
attend the struggle. Such is the fate of all noble exertions for public
liberty and social happiness. — Enter not the lists without thought and
consideration, lest you arm with timidity and combat with irresolu-
tion. Having engaged in the conflict, let nothing discourage youl
vigor, or repel your perseverance: — Remember, that submission to
the yoke of bondage is the worst that that can befall a people after
the most fierce and unsuccessful resistance. What can the misfortune
of vanquishment take away, which despotism and rapine would spare?
It had been easy*(said the great law-giver Solon to the Athenians),
to repress the advances of tyranny, and prevent its establishment, but
now it is established and grown to some height it would be more
glorious to demolish it. But nothing glorious is accomplished, noth-
ing great is attained, nothing valuable is secured without magnanimity
of mind and devotion of heart to the service — Brutus-like, therefore,
dedicate yourselves at this day to the service of your country; and
henceforth live a life of liberty and glory. — " On the ides of March"
(said the great and good man to his friend Cassius, just before the
battle of Philippi), "On the ides of March I devoted my life to my
country, and since that time, I have lived a life of liberty and glory."
Inspired with public virtue, touched with the wrongs and indignant
at the insults offered his country, the high-spirited Cassius exhibits an
heroic example:—" Resolved as we are" (replies the hero to his
friend), "resolved as we are, let us march against the enemy, for
though we should not conquer, we have nothing to fear."

ORATION.
JOHN HANCOCK.

Boston^ March 5, 1774.

Vendidit hie auro, patriam, dominumque potentem
Imposuit: fixit leges pretio atque refixit.
Non, mihi si linguae centum sint, oraque centum,
Ferrea vox, omnes scelerum: comprendere formas,
possim. — Virg.

Men, Brethren, Fathers and Fellow-Countrymen! — The atten-
tive gravity, the venerable appearance of this crowded audience; the
dignity which I behold in the countenances of so many in this great
assembly; the solemnity of the occasion upon which we have met to-
gether, joined to a consideration of the part I am to take in the im-
portant business of this day, fill me with an awe hitherto unknown;

S6 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

and heighten the sense which I have ever had, of my un worthiness to
fill this sacred desk; but alliire^ by the cali:o^1:some of my respected'
fellow-citizens, with whose request it is always my greatest pleasure
to comply, f almost forgot my want of ability to perform What they
required. In this situation I find' my only support, in assuring myself
that a generous people will not severely censure what they know was
well intended; though its want7 of merit, should prevent their being
able to applaud it. And I pray, that my Sincere attachment to the
interest of my Country, and hearty detestation' of every design formed
against her liberties, may be admitted as some apology, for my ap-"
pearance in this place.

I have always, from my earliest youth,' rejoiced in the felicity of my
fellow-men; and have ever considered it as the indispensable duty of
every member of society to promote, as far as in him lies, the prosr
perity of every individual, but more especially of the community to:
which he belongs; and also, as a faithful subject of the state, to use
his utmost endeavors to detect, and having detected, strenuously to
oppose every traitorous plot which its enemies may devise for its de-
struction. Security to the persons and properties of the governed, is
so obviously the design and end of civil government, that to attempt
a logical proof of it, would be like burning tapers at noonday, to
assist the sun in enlightening the world; and ft cannot be either
virtuous or honorable, to attempt to support a" government, of which
this is not the great and principal basis; and it is to the last degree
vicious and infamous to attempt to support a government, which
manifestly tends to render the persons and properties of the governed
insecure. Some boast of being friends to government; I am a friend
to righteous government founded upon the principles of reason and
justice; but I glory in publicly avowing my eternal enmity to tyranny.'
Is the present system, which the British administration have adopted
for the government of the colonies, a righteous government ? or is it
tyranny ■?— Here suffer me to ask fand would to Heaven there could
be an answer) what tenderness, what regard, respect or consideration
has Great Britain shown, in their late transactions, for the security of
the persons or properties of the inhabitants of the colonies ? or rather,
what have they omitted doing to destroy that security? they have de-
clared that they have, ever had, and of right ought ever to have, full
power to make laws of sufficient validity to bind the colonies in all
cases whatever: they have exercised this pretended right by imposing
a tax upon us without our consent; and lest we should show some re-
luctance at parting with our property, her fleets and armies are sent
to enforce their mad pretensions. The town of Boston, ever faithful
to the British crown, has been invested by a British fleet: the troops
of George the III. have crossed the wide Atlantic, not to engage an
enemy, but to assist a band of traitors in trampling on the rights and
liberties of his most loyal subjects in America— those rights and liber-

JOHN HANCOCK. 87

ties which, as a father, he ought ever to regard, and as a king, he is
bound, in honor, to defend from violations, even at the risk of his
own life.

Let not the history of the illustrious House of Brunswick inform
posterity, that a king descended from that glorious monarch, George
the II. once sent his British subjects to conquer and enslave his sub-
jects in America, but be perpetual infamy entailed upon that villain
who dared to advise his master to such execrable measures; for it was
easy to forsee the consequences which so naturally followed upon
sending troops into America, to enforce obedience to acts of the
British Parliament, which neither God nor man ever empowered them
to make. It was reasonable to expect that troops, who knew the
errand they were sent upon, would treat the people whom they were
to subjugate, with a cruelty and haughtiness, which too often buries
the honorable character of a soldier in the disgraceful name. of an un-
feeling ruffian. The troops, upon their first arrival, took possession
of our senate-house, and pointed their cannon against the judgment
hall, and even continued them there whilst the supreme court of judi-
cature for this province was actually sitting to decide upon the lives
and fortunes of the king's subjects. Our streets nightly resounded
with the noise of riot and debauchery: our peaceful citizens were
hourly exposed to shameful insults, and often felt the effects of their
violence and outrage. — But this was not all: as though they thought
it not enough to violate our civil rights they endeavored to deprive
us of the enjoyment of our religious privileges; to vitiate our morals
and thereby render us deserving of destruction. Hence the rude din
of arms which broke in upon your solemn devotions in your temples,
on that day hallowed by heaven, and set apart by God himself for his
peculiar worship. Hence, impious oaths and blasphemies so often
tortured your unaccustomed ear. Hence, all the arts which idleness
and luxury could invent, were used to betray our youth of ori sex
into extravagance and effeminacy, and of the other to infamy and ruin;
and did they not succeed but too well? did not a reverence for religion
sensibly decay ? did not our infants almost learn to lisp out curses be-
fore they knew their horrid import? did not our youth forget they
were Americans, and regardless of the admonitions of the wise and
aged, servilely copy from their tyrants those vices which finally must
overthrow the empire of Great Britain ? and must I be compelled to
acknowledge, that even the noblest, fairest part of all the lower crea-
tion did not entirely escape the cursed snare? when virtue has once
erected her throne within the female breast, it is upon so solid a basis
that nothing is able to expel the heavenly inhabitant. But. have there
not been some, few indeed. I hope, whose youth and inexperience
have rendered them a prey to wretches, whom, upon the least refiec-
tiari, they would have despised and hated as foes to God and their
country? I fear there have been some such unhappy instances; or
A. P. -4.

83 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

<?:o~ iipAsa , ijoiue-:/; ->,; is J41 sorru

^#rhyj*ave I seen an honest father flptbed^titiiishame, or why a virtu-
pus mother drowned in tears? . . / ' <i j
But I forbear, and come reluctantly to the1 transaction of thai dismal
night, when in. such quick succession, we felt the extremes of grief,: as-

, toni hment and rage.;, when Heaven in anger, .for a dreadful moment

.r uffered hell to take the reins; when Satan with his chosen hand opened
the sluices of New England's, blood,, and sacrilegiously polluted ..our
land Avith the dead bodies of jber guiltless; sons. Let this sad taienof
death never be told without a tear; let not the heaving bosom ceaseito
burn with a manly indignation at the barbarous story, through the long
tracts of future -time: let ever)7; parent tell the shameful, story to his

Jisteriing children till tears of pity glisten in their eyes, and -boiling
passions shake their tender frames; and whilst the anniversary of that
-ill-fated night is kept a jubilee in, the grim court of pandemonium,* iet
all America join in-one common prayer to heaven, that. the inhuman,
unprovoked; murders of. the fifth of March, 1770, plannedby Hillsbor-
ough, and a knot, of treacherous knaves in Boston, and executed J-y
the cruel hand of Preston and his sanguinary coadjutors, may ever
stand on history without a parallel,. But- what, my countrymen, with-
held the ready arm of vengeance from^executing instant justice on the
vile assassins ? perhaps you feared promiscuous carnage might ensue,
and that the innocent might shares the fate of those who. had performed
the infernal deed. ,But were not all guilty''' were you not too tender
of the lives of those who came to; fix a yoke On your necks'? but I;must
not too severely blame a fault, which great souls oniy can commit.
May that magnificence of spirit which scorns the low pursuits of. malice,
may that generous compassion which. often, preserves from ruin.Leven
a guilty villain, forever actuate the rmble bosoms of Americans L: But
let not the miscreant host vainly imagine that we feared their arms.
No; them xye despised ; we dread nothing, but slavery. ; Death is_ the
creature of a poltroon's brains; 'tis immortality to. sacrifice, ourselves
'for the salvation of pur, country. , We fear; not death. , That gloomy
night, the pale faced moon, and the affrighted stars; that hurried
through the sky, can witness that we fear not death. Our hearts which,
at the recollection, glow with rage that. four revolving years have
scarcely taught us to restrain,. can witness that .we fear not death; and
happy it is, for those who dared to insult us, that i heir naked bones are
now piled up an everlasting monument of Massachusetts' bravery.
But they retired, they fled, and in that flight they found their only
safety, We then expected that the hand of public justice would soon
inflict that punishment upon the murderers,, which, by the laws of God
and man, they had incurred. But let the unbiassed pen of a Robert-
son, or perhaps of some equally famed American, conduct this, trial
before the great tribunal of succeeding generations. And though the
murderers may escape the just resentment of an enraged people;
though drowsy justice, intoxicated by the poisonous draught prepared

J0I1X II AX COCK.

for her cup, still nods upon her rotten seat, yet he assured, such com-
-plkated crimes wti^fftfetsrth'eiif due reward. Tell me, ye bloody batch-
ers! ye vil'ains high and low! ye wretches who contrived, as weii as
lycrai who executed the "inhuman deed! do you not feel the goadk'and
-stings'Qf conscious: guilt pierce through your savage bosoms ? though
.some of you may think yourselves exalted to a height that bids defiance
to human justice, and others shroud yourselves beneath the mask ' o-t
hypocrisy^ and build your hopes of safety on the lb x arts of -cunning,
chicanery and falsehood; yet do you "not sometimes feel the gnawing
out-hat worm which never dies? do not the injured shades of Maverick, ~
Gray, Caldwell, Attucks and Carr,- attend you in your solitary walk*,
arrest you even in the midst of your debaucheries, and fill even your
dreams with terror? but if the ian appeased manes of the dead should
mot disturb their murderers, yet surely even your obdurate hearts must
shrink; and your guilty blood must chill within your rigid veins, when
your behold the miserable Monk,7 the Wretched victim of y&ur savage
cruelty.- Observe his totteririg-'knees,-' which scarce sustain his wasted
body :•, look on his haggard eyes; mark well the death- like paleness on
'his. fallen cheek, and teUme, does not the sight plant daggers in your
souls?: unhappy Monk! cut off in the gay morn of manhood, from all
'therjoys which sweeten life, doomed to drag oh a pitiful existence,
without even a hope to taste the pleasures of returning health! yet
■Monk, thou Hvest not in vain; thou- '"-l* vest a warning to thy country,
•-which sympathizes with thee in thy sufferings; thou It-vest an affecting,
an alarming instance of the unbounded violence which lust of power,
assisted by a standing army, can lead a traitor" to commit.

For us he bled, and now languishes. The wounds by which he is
•tortured to a lingering death, were aimed at our country!"- surely the
meek-eyed chanty can never- behold' such sufferings with indifference.
Nor can her lenient 'hand forbear to pour oil and wine into these
wounds, and to assuage at least, what it cannot heal.

Patriotism- is ever united -with humanity and compassion. This
noble affection which impels us to sacrifice everything dear, even life
itself, to our country, involves in it a common sympathy and tender-
ness for every citizen, and must ever have a particular feeling for one
who suffers in a public cause; Thoroughly persuaded of this, I need
not add a word to engage your compassion and bounty towards a fel-
low citizen, who, with long protracted anguish, falls a victim to the
relentless rage of our common enemies.

Ye dark designing knaves, ye murderers, parricides! how dare you
tread upon the earth, which has drank in the blood of slaughtered' in-
nocents, shed by your wicked hands? how dare you breathe that air
which wafted to the ear of heaven, the groans of those who fell a sacri-
fice to your accursed ambition? but if the laboring earth doth hot
expand her jaws; if the air you breathe is not commissioned to be the
minister of death yet hear it, and tremble! the eye of heaven penetrat-s

90 A M ERICA N \ PA TRIO 7'ISM.

the darkest chambers of, the soul, traces the leading clue through all
the L.byrinths which your industrious folly has devised; and you, how-
ever you may have screened yourselves from human eyes, must be
arraigned, must lift your hands, red with the blood of those whose
death you have procured, at the tremendous bar of God.

But I gladly quit the gloomy theme of death, and leave you to Im-
prove the .thought of that important day, when our naked souls must
stand before that being, from whom nothing can be hid. I would not
dwell too long upon the horrid effects! which have already followed
from quartering regular troops in this town; let our misfortunes teach
posterity to guard against such evils for the future. Standing armies
are sometimes (I would by no means say generally, much less univer-
sally) composed of persons who have rendered themselves unfit to live
in civil society; who have no other- motives of conduct than those
which a desire of the present gratification of their passions suggests;
who have no property in any country; men who have given up their
own liberties, and envy those who enjoy liberty; who are equally indif-
ferent to the glory of a George or a Louis; who for the addition of one
penny a day to _their: wages, would desert from the Christian cross,
and fight under the crescent of the Turkish sultan, from such men as
these, what has not a state to fear? with such as these, usurping Caesar
passed the Rubicon; with such as these he humbled mighty Rome, and
forced the mistress of the world to own a master in a traitor. These
are the men whom sceptercd robbers now employ to frustrate the de-
signs of God, and render vain the bounties which his gracious hand
pours indiscriminately upon his creatures. By these the miserable
slaves in Turkey, Persia, and many other extensive countries, are
rendered truly wretched, though their air is salubrious, and their soil
luxuriously fertile. By these France and Spain, though blessed by
nature with all that administers to tr\i convenience of life, have been
reduced to that contemptible state in which they now appear; and by
these Britain ■ — but. if I was possessed of the gift of pro-
phecy, I dare not, except by divine command, unfold the leaves on
which the destiny of that once powerful kingdom is inscribed.
- But, since standing armies are so hurtful to a state, perhaps my
countrymen may demand some substitute, some other means of
rendering us secure against the incursions of a foreign enemy. But
can you be one moment at a loss? will not a well disciplined militia
afford you ample security against foreign foes? wre want not courage;
it is discipline alone in which we are exceeded by the most formidable
troops that ever trod the earth. Surely our hearts "fl.utter'no more at
the sound of war than did those of the immortal band of Persia, the
Macedonian phalanx, the invincible Roman legions, the Turkish
Janissaries, the Gens des Armes of France, or the well-known grena-
diers of Britain. A well disciplined militia is a sa?f, an honorable
guard to a community like this, whose inhabitants are by nature

JOHN HANCOCK. 91

brave, and are laudably tenacious of that freedom in which they were
born. Fro n a well regulated militia we have nothing, to fear; their
interest is the same with that of the state. When a country is in-
vaded, the militia are ready to appear in its defence; they march into
the field with that fortitude which a consciousness of the justice of
their cause inspires; they do not jeopard their lives for a master who
considers them only as the instruments of his ambition, and whom they
regard only as the daily dispenser of the scanty pittance of bread and
water. No, they fight for their houses, their lands, for their wives,
their children, for all Who' claim the tenderest names, and are held
dearest in their hearts, they fight pro' an s et fo:is, for their liberty, and
for themselves, and for "their God. And let it riot offend, if F say,
that no militia ever appeared in more flourishing condition, than that
of this province now doth; and, pardon me if I say — of this town in
particular— I mean not to boast; I would not excite envy, but manly
emulation. We have all one common cause; let it therefore be our
only contest, who shall most contribute to the security of the liberties
of America. Arid may the same kind Providence which has watched
over this country from her infant state, still enable us to defeat our
enemies. I cannot here forbear noticing the signal manner in which
the designs of those who wish not well to us have been discovered.
The dark deeds of a treacherous cabal have been brought to public
view. You now know the serpents who, while cherished in your
bosoms, were darting their envenomed, stings into the vitals of the
constitution. But the representatives of the people have fixed a mark
on these ungrateful monsters, which, though it may> not make them
so secure as Cain of old, yet renders them at least as infamous. In-
deed it would be affrontive to the tutelar deity of this country even to
despair of saving it from all the snares which human policy can lay.

True it is, that the British ministry have annexed a salary to the
office of the governor of this province, to be paid out of a revenue,
raised in America without our consent. They have attempted to
render our courts of justice the instruments of extending the autho-
rity of acts of the British Parliament over this colony, by making the
judges dependent on the British administration for their support.
But this people will never be enslaved with their eyes open. The
moment they knew that the governor was not such a governor as the
charter of the province points out, he lost his power of hurting them.
They were alarmed; they suspected him, have guarded against him,
and he has found that a wise and a brave people, when they know
their danger, are fruitful in expedients to escape it.

The courts of judicature also so far lost their dignity, by being sup-
posed to be under an undue influence, that our representatives
thought it absolutely necessary to resolve that they were bound to
declare that they would not receive any other salary besides that
which the genera: court should grant them; and, if they did not make'

92 AvER*£^iM?;il$Ms:]T-

t.ienv ; . :!i ,/(j ^ ,^ ' ' f"'*J

Great expectations were also formed, from the artful scheme of
j.dlowing the East India company to export tea to America, upon their
< wn account. .This, certainly,, had it succeeded.,' woukThave effected
the- -purpose of the contrivers. and gratified the most sanguine wishes
o£ our adversaries. We' soon" should. ..have found our trade in the
Lands .of foreigners, and taxes i in posed 'on everything which \vc Con-
sumed; nor would it have been strange, .ifv in a few1 years, a company
in London should have purchased an' exclusive right of trading to
America. But their p'ot was soon discovered'." The peopie .'soon
were aware of the poison which,, with so much craft and .siibtilty, had
been concealed: loss, and disgrace ensued:, ...arid,, perhaps, this Ion -
concerted master-piece of policy may issue in the total disuse of tea
in this country, which will eventually be the saving of the lives 'and1
the estates of thousands— yet while' we rejoice that the adversary has
not hitherto prevailed against us, let us hy no means put ^CJT the
harness. Restless malice, and disappointed- ambition, will stiji sug-
gest new measures to our. inveterate enemies. Therefore let us also
be ready, to take the field whenever danger calls; let us be united and
strengthen the hands of .each other by promoting a general union
among us. Much has been done by the committees of correspond-
ence, for this and the other towns of this province, towards ; uniting
the: inhabitants; let them still go on and prosper. Much has been
done, by the committees of correspondence, for the houses of assem-
bly, in tins, and our sister, colonies, for uniting the inhabitants of the
whole continent, for the security of their common interest. May suc-
cess ever attend their generous endeavors..; But permit rile here to
suggest a general congress of deputies, from the several houses of
assembly on the continent, as the most. effectual method of establish-
ing such an union as the present posture of pur affairs require. At
such a congress a firm foundation may be laid for the security of our
rights. and liberties, a system may be formed for our common safety,
by a strict adherence to which we shall be able to frustrate afiV at-
tempts to overthrow our constitution, restore peace and harmony to
America, and secure honor and wealth to Great Britain, even against
the inclinations of her ministers, whose duty.it is to study her wel-
fare; and we shall also free ourselves from those unmannerly piilagers
who impudently tell us that they are licensed by an act of the British
Parliament to .thrust their dirty hands into, the pockets of every
American. But, I trust, the' happy 'time' -will come. when, witrf the
besom of destruction, those noxious vermin vvill be swept' forever from
the streets of Boston.

Surely you never will tamely suffer this country to be a den of
thieves. Remember, my friends, from whom yoa sprang. Let riot
a meanness of spirit, unknown to those whom you boa^t of as your

JOHX IIAXCOCK. 93

fa'hcrs, excite a thought to'the dishonor of your mother*/ T conjure
you by all that is dear, by all that is honorable, by all that is sacred,
not only that ye pray, but that you act; that, if" necessary, ye fight,
a id c v'en die, for the prosperity of our Jerusalem. Break in sunder,
w.th noble disdain, the bonds with which the Philistines have bound
vol;. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed by the soft arts of luxury
and effeminacy into th^'pit digged for your destruction. Despise the
glare of wcakh. That people who pay greater respect to a wealthy
villain than to an honest upright man in poverty, almost deserve to
be enslaved; they plainly show that wealthy however it may be ac-
qurrc 1, is, in thcrr esteem, to be preferred to virtue.

But I thank God that America abounds in men who are superior to
all temptation, whom nothing can divert from a steady pursuit of the
interest of their country, who arc at once its ornament and safe-guard.
And, sure I am, I should not incur your displeasure if I paid a respect
so justly due to their much honored characters in this place; but,
wfrenT-namc.ari" Adams, such a numerous host of fellow patriots rush
upon my mind- that I" fear it would take up too much of your time
shoul.l I attem t to call over the illustrious ro:!: but your grateful
hearts Will point you to the" men; and their revered names, in all
succeeding times, shall grace the annals of America. From "them, let
us. my friends, take example; from them, let us- catch the divine en-
thusiasm, and feel, each for himself, the God-like pleasure of diffus-
ing happiness on all around us; of delivering the oppressed from the
iron grasp of tyranny; of changing the hoarse complaints and bitter
moans of wretched slaves into those cheerful songs, which freedom and
contentment must inspire. There is a heart-felt satisfaction in reflect-
ing on our exertions for the public weal, which all the sufferings an
enraged tyrant can inflict, will never take away; which the ingratitude
and reproaches of th'<se whom we have saved from ruin cannot rob
us of. The virtuous asserter of the rights of mankind merits a reward
which even a want of success in his endeavors to save his country,
the heaviest misfortune which can befal a genuine patriot, cannot -en-
tirely prevent him from receiving.

\ I have the most animating confidence that the present noble struggle
for liberty will terminate gloriously for America. And let us play the
man for our Go 1, "and for the cities of our God; while we are using
the means in our power, let us humbly commit our righteous cause
to the great Lord of the universe, who loveth righteousness and
h.ateth iniquity. And, haying secured the approbation of our hearts
by a faithful and unwearied discharge of our duty to our country, let
us joyfully leave our concerns in the hands of Him who raiseth up and
paitteth down the empires and kingdoms of the world as He pleases;
and, with cheerful submission to His sovereign will, devoutly say:
1 "/Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither Shall fruit be in
the vines; the' labor of the olive bhallfuil, and the field shall yield' no

94 AMERICAN PATAVOTlSAf.

meat; the flock shall be cut off. from th.e^ fqldT, and there- shall be no
herd in the stalls; yet we will rejoice in the Lord, we will joy in the
God of our salvation."

i ~lz

VINDICATION OF THE COLONIES AND OFFER FROM
CONGRESS TO. PARLIAMENT.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.

■;.'.

■ Philadelphia, June 15, 1775.

... Forasmuch as the enemies of America in the Parliament of Great
Britain, to render us. odioais to the nation, and give an ill impression
of us in the minds of other European, powers, having represented us
as unjust and ungrateful in the highest degree; asserting, on every
occasion, that the colonies were settled at the expense of Britain; that
they were, at the expense of the same, protected in their infancy; that
they now ungratefully and unjustly refuse to contribute to their own
protection, and the common defence of the nation; that they intend
an abolition of the Navigation Acts; and that they are fraudulent in
their commercial dealings, and propose to cheat their creditors in
.Britain, by avoiding the payment of their just debts;

And, as by frequent repetitions these groundless assertions and
malicious calumnies may, if not contradicted and refuted, obtain fur-
ther credit, and be injurious throughout Europe to the reputation and
interest of the confederate colonies, it seems proper and necessary to
examine them in our own just vindication.

With regard to the first, that. t)u ''.colonics tvere settled at the expense
of Britain, it is a known fact, that none of the twelve united colonies
were settled, or even discovered,, at the expense of England. Henry
the- Seventh, indeed, granted a commission to Sebastian Cabot, a
Venetian, and his sons, to sail into western seas for the discovery .of
new countries; but it was to be " snis eorum propriis sump lib us el ex-
pensis," at their own cost and charges. They discovere , but soon
slighted and neglected these northern territories; which were, after
more than a hundred years' dereliction, purchased of the natives, and
settled at the charge and by the labor of private men and bodies of
men, our ancestors, who came over hither for that purpose. But our
adversaries have never been able to produce any record, that ever the
Parliament or government of England was at the smallest expense on
these accounts; on the contrary, there exists on the journals of Par-
liament a solemn declaration in 1642 (only twenty-two. years after the
first settlement of the Massachusetts, when, if such expense had ever
"been incurred, some of the members must have known and remem-
bered it), " That these colonies had been planted and established
without any expense to the slate."

BEXJAMIX FAAXXLIX. 95

New York is the only colony in the founding of which England can
: pretend to have been at any expense; and that was only the charge of
a small armament to take it from the Dutch, who planted it. But to
retain this colony at the peace, another at that time fully as valuable,
planted by_ private countrymen of ours, was given up by the Crown
to 'the Dutch in exchange, viz., Surinam, now a wealthy' sugar colony
in Guiana, and which, but for that cession, might still have remained
in our possession. Of late, indeed, Britain has been at some expense
in planting two colonies/Georgia and Nova Scotia; but those are not
in our confederacy; and the expense she has been at in their name
has chiefly been in grants of sums unnecessarily large, by way of
salaries to officers sent from England, and in jobs to friends, whereby
dependants might be provided for; those excessive grants not being
requisite to the welfare and good government of the colonies, which
good government (as experience in many instances of other colonies
has taught us) may be much more frugally, and full as effectually,
provided for and supported.

'With regard to the. second assertion, that these colonics were protected
in their infant state by England, it is a notorious fact, that, in none of
the many wars with the Indian natives, sustained by our infant settle-
ments for a century after our arrival, were ever any troops or forces
of any kind sent from England to assist us; nor were any forts built
at her expense, to secure our seaports from foreign invaders; nor any
ships of war sent to protect our trade till many years after our first
settlement, when our commerce become an object of revenue, or of
advantage to British -merchants; and then it was thought necessary to
have a frigate in some of our ports, during peace, to give weight to
the authority of custom-house officers, who were to restrain that com-
merce for the benefit of England. Our own arms, with our poverty,
and the care of a: kind Providence, were all this time our only protec-
tion; while we were neglected by the English government; which
either thought us not worth its cafe, or, having no good will to some
of us, on account of our different sentiments in religion and politics,
Was indifferent what became of us.

On the other hand, the colonies have not been wanting to do what
they could in every war for annoying the enemies of Britain. They
formerly assisted her in the conquest of Nova Scotia. In the war be-
fore last they took Louisburg, and put it into her hands. She made
her peace with that strong fortress, by restoring it to France, greatly
to their detriment. In the last war, it is true, Britain sent a fleet and
army, who acted with an equal army of . ours, in the reduction of
Canada; and perhaps thereby did more for us, than we in our pre-
ceding wars had done for her. Let it be remembered, however, that
she rejected the plan we formed in the Congress at Albany, in 1754,
for our own defence, by a union of the colonies; a union she was jealous
of, and therefore chose to send her own forces; otherwise her aid to

96 AMERICA^ PA TRIO TISM.

protect us was., not wanted,,. j(^nd £rpm our first. settlement to that
time, bet military operations in our favor were small, Compared with
the advantages she drew from her exclusive commerce with .us. , We
arer.;however, willing to. give full. weight, to this obligation; and, as
we are daily. growing stronger,, and oar assistance to her becotn'es of
more importance, we should with. pleasure.' embrace the first oppor-
tunity of showing our gratitude "by returning the favor in kind/

But, when Britain values herself as affording us protection, we de-
sire it may be considered; that! we have followed her in all her wars,
and joined with her at our own expense against all she thoug' Vfir to
quarrel with. This she has required, of1 us; and would never permit us
to, keep peace with any .power she declared her enemy; : though by
separate treaties we might have done.it, .'.Under such circumstances,
when at her instance we made nations our enemies, we submit it to the
common sense of -mankind, whether her protection of us in those wars
was not out just due, and to be claimed of r/>//Y, instead of being re-
ceived as a favor? And whether, when-all the parts exert themselves
todp,the utmost in their common defence, and in annoying the common
enemy, it is not as well the parts that, protect the whole, as the -iuhcile
that protects the parts? The protection. then has been proportion-
ably mutual. .. And, whenever the time shall. come, that our abilities
may as far exceed hers as hers have exceeded ours, we hope we shall
I- reasonable enough to. rest satisfied with her proportionable exer-
tions, and not think we do too muph for a part of the empire, when
that part does as much as. it can for the whole.

. To charge against us, that n<e_ re fuse to contribute to >our own protection,
appears from the above to be .groundless; but we farther declare it to
be absolutely false; for ft is well known, that we ever held it as our
duty to grant aids to the Crovvn, upon, requisition, towards, carrying
on its wars; which duty we have cheerfully complied with, to the
utmost of our abilities; insomuch that prudent and grateful acknowl-
edgments thereof by King and Parliament, appear On the records.
But, as Britain has enjoyed a most gainful monopoly of our commerce;
the same, with our maintaining the dignity of the King's representa-
tive in each colony, and' all our own separate establishments of govern-
m-nt, civil and military; has ever hitherto been deemed "an equivalent
for such aids as might otherwise be expected from us in time of peace.
And we hereby declare, that on a reconciliation with Britain, we shall
not only continue to grant aids in time of war, as aforesaid; but,
whenever she shall think fit to abolish her monopoly, and give us the
same privileges of trade as Scotland received at the union, and allow
us a free commerce with the rest of the word, we shall willingly agree
(and. we doubt not it will be ratified by our constituents) to give and
pay into the sinking fund [one hundred thousand pounds] sterling per
annum for the term of one hundred years, which duly, faithfully, and
inviolably applied to that purpose, is demonstrably more than suffi-

. w- V^V;)f7zk^PNi ' 97

2$.

3t/pe .^rnount, at . le^al British1 interest, to niore than [two hundred

^nd^ijirty million pounds',], .'■ ..'~'" "'.'

'C But ii Britain, does not think fit to accept this proposition, wjeV in

order to .remove her groundless jealousies, that we aim at indejiend-

cnce and.. an. abolition" of the Navigation Act (which hath in truth

xieyer been pur"i.titehtio'.r$,' and %p avoid all' future disputes, about the

jlgjit. of, making that and other acts for regulating our commerce, do

thereby declare ourselves ready and willing to enter into a Covenant

with Britain, that she shall'. fully possess, enjoy, and exercise the right,

for an hundred years to corrie; the same being bona fide used lor the

"common benefit; and, in case of such agreement, that every Assembly

be advised by us to confirm, it solemnly by laws of their ovVn,- which,

.once made,, cannot be repealed without the assent of the Crown.' ' ''

^1Z ^^eTast'charge^ that iuesirc dishonest traders, and aim' at defrauding

^apt creditors in Britain, is sufficiently and authentically refuted Wf the

^oleinri '.cleclafations of the British merchants to Parliament (btif-h;'at

the time of theStamp Act and in the last, session), who bore ample

testimony to the general good faith and fair dealing of the' Americans,

and declared their confidence in our integrity; for which, we refer -to

their petitions on" the journals of the House of Commons... And we

.presume we may safely call on the body of the British tradesman, who

n^av.e"had experience of both, to say,' whether they have not received

muclTmore : punctual payment from us, than they generally have from

thttaembers of their own two. Houses of Parliament.

On. the, whole of the above it appears, that the charge oi ingratitude
^towards the mother country, brought with so much confidence against
the' colonies, js totally without foundation; and that there is much more
^reason for retorting that charge on Britain, who, not only never contri-
butes any aid, nor affords, by an exclusive commerce, any advantages to
Saxony, her mother country; but no longer since than in the last war,
without the least provocation, subsidized the King of Prussia while he
ravaged.that 'mother country, and carried fire and sword into its capital,
the fine city of Dresden! An example we hope no provocation will in-
duce us to imitate.

SPEECH FOR AMERICAN COLONIES.

JOHN WILKES.

..-.,.■■ . ■ ■ -

House of Commons, February 6, 1775.

I am indeed surprised, that, in a business of so much moment as
this before the House, respecting the British colonies in America, a
cause which comprehends almost every question relative to the com-
mon rights^of mankind, almost every question of policy and legislation,

98 A ME RICA N PA TRIO TISM.

it should be resolved to proceed with so little circumspection, or rather .
with so much precipitation and heedless imprudence. With what tem-
erity are we assured, that the samermen who have been so often over-
whelmed with praises for their attachment to this country, for their
forwardness to grant it the necessary succors, for the valor they have
signalized in its defence, have all at. once so' degenerated from their
ancient manners, as to merit the appellation of seditious, ungrateful,
impious rebels'! - 'But if such a change has indeed been Wrought in the
minds of this most loyal people, it must at least be admitted, that affec-
tions so extraordinary could only have been produced by some very
powerful cause. But who is ignorant, who needs to be told of the new
madness that infatuates our ministers ?— who has not seen the tyran-
nical counsels they have pursued, for the last ten years? They would
"now have us carry to the foot of the throne,' a resolution stamped with
rashness and injustice, fraught with blood, and a horrible futurity!;
But before this be allowed them, before the signal of civil war be
given, before they are permitted to force Englishmen to: sheath their
swords, in the bowels of their fellow-subjects, I 'hope this House will
consider the rights of humanity, the original ground and cause of the
present dispute. Have we justice on our side ? No: assuredly no.
He must be altogether a stranger to the British constitution, who does
not know that contributions are voluntary gifts of the people; and
singularly blind, not to -.-perceive that the words "liberty and pro-
perty," so grateful to English ears, are nothing better than mockery
and insult to the Americans, if their property can be taken without
their consent. And what motive can there exist for this new rigor, for
these extraordinary measures ? Have riot the Americans always de-
monstrated the utmost zeal and liberality, whenever their succors have
been required by the mother country?

In the two last wars, they gave you more than you asked for, and
more than their facilities warranted: they were not only liberal towards
you, but prodigal of their substance. They fought gallantly and vic-
toriously by your side, with equal valor, against our and their enemy,
the common enemy of the liberties of Europe and America, the ambi-
tious and faithless French, whom now we fear and flatter. And even
now, at a moment when you are planning their destruction, when you
are branding them with the odious appellation of rebels, what is their
language, what their protestations? Read, in the name of Heaven,
the late petition of the Congress to the king; and you Will find, "they
are ready and willing, as they ever have been, to demonstrate their
loyalty, by exerting their most strenuous efforts in granting supplies,
and raising forces, when constitutionally required." And yet we hear
it vociferated, by some inconsiderate individuals, that the Americans
wish to abolish the navigation act: that they intend to throw off the
supremacy of Great Britain. But would to God, these assertions were
not rather a provocation than the truth ! They ask nothing, for such

JOHN WILKES. 99

are the words of their petition, but for pea^e, liberty, and safety. The?
wish not a diminution of the royal prerogative; they solicit not any
new right. They are ready, on the contrary, to defend this preroga-
tive^ to maintain the royal authority, and to draw closer the bonds of
their connection with Great Britain. But our ministers, perhaps to
punish others for their own faults, are sedulously endeavoring, not
only to relax these powerful ties, but to dissolve and sever them for-
ever. Their address represents the province of Massachusetts as in a
stale of actual rebellion. The other provinces are held out to our in-
dignation, as aiding and abetting. Many arguments have been em-
ployed, by some learned gentlemen among., us, to comprehend them
all in the same offence, and to involve them in the same proscription.

Whether their present state is that of rebellion, or of a fit and just
resistance to unlawful acts of power, to our attempts to rob them of
their property and liberties, as they imagine, I shall not declare. But
I well know what will follow, nor, however strange and harsh it may
appear to some, shall I hesitate to announce it, that I may not be ac-
cused hereafter, of having failed in duty to my country, on so grave
an occasion, and at the approach of such direful calamities. Know,
then, a successful resistance-is a revolution, not a rebellion: Rebellion,
indeed, appears on the back of a filing. enemy, but revolution flames
on the breastplate of the victorious warrior. Who can tell, whether,
in consequence .of this day's violent and mad address to his Majesty,
the scabbard may not be thrown away by them as well as by us; and
whether, in a few years, the independent Americans may not celebrate
the glorious era of the revolution of 1775, as we do that of 1668 ? The
generous effort of our forefathers for freedom, Heaven crowned with
success, or their noble blood had dyed our scaffolds, like that of
Scottish traitors and rebels; and the period of our history which
does us the most honor, would have been deemed a rebellion against
the lawful authority of the prince, not a resistance authorized by all
the laws of God and man, not the expulsion of a detested tyrant.

But suppose the Americans to combat against us with more unhappy
auspices than we combated James, would not victory itself prove per-
nicious and deplorable ? Would it not be fatal to British as well as
American liberty? Those armies which should subjugate the colo-
nists, would subjugate also their parent state. Marius, Sylla, Caesar,
Augustus, Tiberius, did they not oppress Roman liberty with the same
troops that were levied to maintain Roman supremacy over subject
provinces? But the impulse once given, its effects extended much
further than its authors expected; for the same soldiery that destroyed
the Roman republic, subverted and utterly demolished the imperial
power itself. In less than fifty years after the death of. Augustus, the
armies destined to hold the provinces in subjection, proclaimed three
emperors at once; disposed of the empire according to their caprice, and
raised to the throne of the Caesars the object of their momentary favor.

ioo AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

>mA an'j I b\ i : ■ - " --

I can no .morn comprehend the policy, than "-acknowledge the, justice
of your ~ de liberal-' on s.— -Y\"here is. .your- force.. what are your< arrGi,es,

. low are they to be recruited, and ho wJ supported ? The single pro-
vince; of. Massachusetts has, at this moment, thirty thousand -.rneri,

'well frained "and clisciplineeu and. can bring, in case of, emergency,
ninety thousand, "into the. field; and', doubt not, fheywill \do it, wh,en
aH that is dear is at slake, when forced to defend their liberty and
property against their cruel oppressors/ The right honorable gentle-
man \yith the blue riband assures us that ten thousand of our troops
t-nd four. Irish regiments,, will make their brains turn in the head a
little, and strike them aghast with terror? But where does the author
of this exquisite- scheme propose \$,pc$dp\§ ariny/? t Bpstonrpgrlqps,
you fa ay lay Tri ashes, of it may be made a strong garrison; but the
province will be lost to you. Youwill hold Boston as )*ou hold Gib-
raltar, in the midst of a country jwJiieh; will- no % be .yours; the whole
American continent will remain in the power of your enemies. The
ancient story of the philosopher Calanus and the Indian hide, will be
verified; where you tread,. it will be kept down; .but it will rise the
more in all other, parts. Where your fleets and armies. are stationed,
the possession will be secured while they continue; but aT the rest
will be lost. In the great saue of empire, you will decline I (ear,
from the decision of this day; and the Americans will rise to inde-
pendence, to power, to all the greatness of the most renowned states;
for they build on the solid basis of general public liberty.

I dread the effects of the present resolution; X shudder at our injus-
tice and cruelty; I tremble for the consequences of our imprudence.
You will urge the Americans to desperation. They will certainly de-
fend their property and liberties, with the spirit of freemen, with the
spirit our ancestors did, and T hope we should exert nn alike occasion.
They will sooner declare themselves independent, and risk every conse-
quence of such a contest, than submit to the galling yoke which ad-
ministration is preparing for them. Recollect Philip II. king of
Spain; remember the Seven Provinces, and the duke of Alva. It was
deliberated, in the council of the monarch, what measures should be
adopted respecting the Low Countries; some were disposed for clem-
ency, others advised rigor; the second prevailed. The duke of Alva
was Victorious, it is true, wherever he appeared; but his cruelties
sowed the teeth of the serpent. The beggars of the Briel,.as they
were called by the Spaniards, who despised them as you now despise
the Americans, were those however, who first shook the power of
Spain to the centre. And, comparing the probabilities of success in
the contest of that day, with the chances in that of the present, are
they so favorable to England as they were then to Spain ? This none
will pretend. You all know, however, the issue of that sanguinary con-
flict— how that powerful empire was rent asunder, and severed forever
into many parts. Profit, tlicn, by the experience of the past, if you

WILLIAM PITT— EARL OF CHATHAM ipi

would avoid a similar fate. But you would declare the Americans
rebels; and to your injustice and oppression, you add the most oppro-
brious language, and the most insulting scoffs. If you persist in your
"resolution, all hope Of a reconciliation is extinct. The Americans will
ct¥iumph— the whole continent of North America will be dismembered
frbm^Great Britain, and the wide arch of the raised empire fall. But
"'T,fWSpe: the; just vengeance of the people will overtake the authors of
'the^e pernicious counsels, and the loss of the first province of the
empire be speedilv followed bvthe loss of the heads of those ministers
who first inventedthcm.

■

S feB^ll 3 i

SPEECH ON A MOTION FOR REMOVING TROOPS FROM
odi tad inoi rcncnvw

WILLIAM PITT-EARL OF CHATHAM.
04 liva //0!tSt' $%&??&' December^ i775.

Mv Lords — After m re than six weeks, posession of the papers now
before you, on a subject so momentous, at a time when the fate of. this
nation hangs on every hour, the ministry have at length condescended
to submit, to the consideration of the House, intelligence from America,
with which your lordships and the -public have been long and fully
acquainted.

The measures of last year, my lords, which have produced the
present alarming state of America, were founded upon misrepresenta-
tion—they were violent, precipitate and vindictive. The nation was
told, that it was only a faction in Boston, which opposed all. lawful
government ; that an unwarrantable injury had been done to private
property, for which the justice of Parliament was called upon, to order
reparation; — that the least appearance of firmness would awe the
Americans into submission, and upon only passing the Rubicon we
should be fine ciade victor.

That the people might choose their representatives, under the itn-
pr.e-ssion of those misrepresentations, the Parliament was precipitately
dissolved. Thus the nation was to be rendered instrumental in execu-
ting the vengeance of administration on that injured, unhappy, traduced
People. .

But now, my lords, we find, that instead of suppressing the opposi-
tion of the faction at Boston, these measures have spread it over the
whole continent. They have united that whole people, by the most
indissoluble of all bands— intolerable wrongs. The just retribution is
an indiscriminate, unmerciful proscription of the innocent Avith the
guilty, unheard and untried. The bloodless victory, is an impotent
general, with his dishonored army, trusting solely to the pick-axe and

102 A ME RICA X T.i TRIO TJSM.

the spade, for security against the^iisfciraagftajion of an injured, and
insulted people. isiriim i'-nuo't

/My lords I am happy that a relaxation of my infirmities permits me
to seize this earliest opportunity of -offering my poor advice to save
this unhappy country, at this moment tottering to its ruin. But as I
have not the honor of access to his Majesty, i. will endeavor to trans
mit to him, through the constitutional channel, of this Housc^my ideas
on American business, to rescue himfrom the misadvice of his present
ministers. I congratulate your lordships: that; that business is at last
entered upon, by the noble lords (Lord Dartmouth). laying the papers
before you. As I suppose your lordshipsare too well apprised of their
contents, I hope I am not premature in submitting to you my present
fnoti on (reads themotion). I wish my. lords not to lose a.day in this
urging present crisis. An hour now lost in allaying the ferment in
America, may product years of calamity: but, for my own part, I will
not desert for a moment the conduct of this mighty business from the
first to the last, unless nailed to my bed by the extremity of sickness ;
I will give it unremitting attfention:^IwiU knock at the door of this
sleeping, or confounded ministry, and will rouse them to a sense of
; their important danger. When I state the importance of the colonies
;to this country, and the magnitude of danger hanging over this country
from the present plan of misadministration practised against them, I
desire not to be understood to argue for a reciprocity of indulgence
between England and America: I contend not for indulgence, but
"justice, to America; an<i I shall ever contend that the Americans owe
obedience to us, in a limited degree; they owe obedience to our ordi-
nances of trade and navigation; but let the line be skilfully drawn
between the objects of those ordinances, and their private, internal
property: — Let the sacredness of their property remain inviolate; let
it be taxable only by their own consent, given in their provincial
assemblies, else it will cease to be property. As to the metaphysical
refinements attempting to show that the Americans are equally free
from obedience to commercial restraints, as from taxation for revenue,
as being unrepresented here, I pronounce them futile, frivolous arid
groundless. -^-Property is, in its nature, single as an atom. It is indi-
visible, can belong to one only, and cannot be touched but by his
own consent. The law that attempts to alter this disposal of it anni-
hilates it.

When I urge this measure for recalling the troops from Boston, I
urge it on this pressing principle — that it is necessarily preparatory to
the restoration of your prosperity. It will then appear that you are
disposed to treat amicably and equitably, and to consider, revise and
repeal, if it should be found necessary, as I affirm it will, those violent
acts and declarations which have disseminated confusion throughout
your empire, Resistance to your acts, was as necessary as it was
just; and your vain declarations of the omnipotence of Parliament,

WILLIAM PITT— EARL OF CHATHAM. 1 03

arid your imperious doctrines of the- necessity of submission, will be
found equally impotent to convince or enslave your fellow subjects in
America, who feefthar tyranny,. -whether arabitioned by an individual
part of the legislature, or .by the bodies which compose Jt, is equally
int^lerable to British principles.

As to the means Of enforcing this thraldom, they are found to be as
ridiculous and weak in practice, as they were unjust in principle. In-
deed I cannot but feel, with the: most anxious sensibility, for the situa-
tion of General Gage and the troops under his command ; thinking
him, as I do, a man of humanity and understanding, and .entertaining,
iisH" ever shall, the highest respect,, thei warmest love, for the BritivTi
TroopSi Their situation is truly unworthy, pent up, pining in inglori-
ous inactivity.- They are an army of impotence. You may call them
an 'army of Safety and of guard; but they are in truth ah army of im-
potence and contempt— and to render the folly equal to the disgrace,
they are an army of irritation. I do not mean to censure the inactivity
of the troops. It is prudent and necessary. inaction. But it is a mis-
erable condition, where disgrace is prudence; and where it is necessary
to be contemptible. This tamer.ess, however disgraceful^ ought not
to be blamed, as I am surprised ^to hear is done by these ministers.
The first drop of blood, shed in a civil and unnatural War, would be
an immedicabile vitlnus. If would entail hatred and contention be-
tween the two people, from generation to generation. Woe be to
him who sheds the first, the unexpiable drop of blood in an impious
vvar, ivith a people -contending in the great cause of public liberty. I
"will tell you plainly, my lords, no son of mine nor anyone over whom
I have influence, shall ever draw his sword upon his fellow subjects.

I therefore urge and conjure your lordships immediately to adopt
this conciliatory measure. I will pledge myself for its immediately
producing conciliatory effects, from its, being well timed: But if you
delay, till your vain hope of triumphantly dictating the terms shall be
accomplished — you delay forever. And, even admitting that this
hope, which in truth is desperate, should be accomplished, what will
you gain by a victorious imposition of amity ? You will be untrusted
and unthanked. Adopt then the grace, while you have the opportunity
of reconcilement, or at least prepare the way; allay the ferment pre-
vailing in America, by removing the obnoxious hostile corps. Ob-
noxious and unserviceable; for their merit can be only inaction.
" iVon dhnicare est 'vincere ." Their victory can never be by exertions.
Their force would be most disproportionately exerted, against a brave,
generous, and united people, with arms in their hands and courage in
their hearts; three millions of people, the genuine descendants of a
valiant and pious ancestry, driven to these deserts by the narrow
maxims of a superstitious tyranny. And is the spirit of tyrannous
persecution never to be appeased? Are the brave sons of those bravo
forefathers to inherit their sufferings, as they have inherited their

104 A ME RICA N- PA TRIO TISM.

virtues ? Are they to sustain the inflictions of the most oppressive
and unex3.rn.pied .severity, beyond the accounts of history or. the de-
scription, of! poetry ? "^Rhadamanthuj fiahd j/iCJtissJmti irj-nalxx^fil
gdtqitt ■"aiifitiqiie /* So Pays the wisest' statesman and poiiticiVn,.\.Biif;
the Estonians, have been condemned unheard,. The discrim.inatrng
hand of vengeance has lumped together innocent and guilty ; ^ with ail
the formalities of hostility, has blocked up the town, and reduced to
beggary and \famine 30,600 inhabitants. But his. Majesty is.adviseci
that the^ union of America, cannot last.— Ministers have more eyes;
than I, and should have more ears, but from all the information T
have been able to procure, I can pron ounce it a union solid,, perma^
rtent and effectual. Ministers may satisfy themselves and delude the
public,;, with: the reports of what they call commercial bodies in
America. They are not commercial. They are your packers .and
factors; they live, upon 1 -notjurxg, . for I call commission nothing; I
mean the ministerial authority for their American intelligence. The.
runners of government, who are paid . for their intelligence. . But
these , are not. the men, nor this the influence to be considered in
America, when we estimate the firmness of their union. Even to ex-
tend the question, and to take in' the. really mercantile; circle, will.be
totally inadequate to the consideration. Trade indeed increases the.
wealth and glory of a country; but its real strength and stamina are
to be looked for among the cultivators of the land. . In their simplicity
of life is founded the simplicity of virtue, the integrity and courage pj;
freedom. Those true genuine sons. of. the earth are invincible: and
they surround and hem in the mercantile bodies; even if these bodies,,
which supposition I totally disclaim, could be supposed disaffected to
the -cause of liberty. Of this general spirit existing in the American
tjtjtion,Aor so I wish to distinguish the real and genuine Americans
from the psendo traders I have described; of this spirit of independ-
ence, animating the nation of America,, I have the most authentic in-
formation. It is not new among them; it is, and ever has been, their
established principle, their confirmed persuasion; it is. their nature
a.nd their doctrine. I remember some years ago when the repeal of
the stamp act was in agitation, conversing in a friendly confidence
with- -a -person of undoubted respect and authenticity on this subject;
and he assured me with a certainty which his judgment and opportu-
nity gave him, that these were the prevalent and steady principles of
America: That. you might destroy their towns, and cut them off front
the superfluities, perhaps the conveniences of life,, but that they were
prepared to despise your power, and would not lament their loss,
whilst they had, what, my lords ?— Their woods and liberty The
name of my authority, if I am called upon, will authenticate the
opinion irrefragably.

If illegal violences have been, as it is said, committed in America,
prepare the way, open a door of possibility, for acknowledgment and

WILLI AH FIFF—LARL OF CHATHAM. iCj

-.;-.-■'■ ;: ■■<-loihn\ srfj • jj yprfl piA ;

s-l/factlom ;Tut rro-ccd not.to,tuch coercion, such proscription.
C'C-se your, in discriminate' inCictiohs; amerce not thirty. thousand;-;;
oppress not three millions, ;for/ t':2 faults of forty or fifty. Such
severity of' Injustice must forever render incurable the grounds, you
hayC" riven your' colonies; ypu irritate them to unappeasable rancor;:
What, thou/da you march .frorn town to town, and: from provincet^.
' pffifirite }— Though you should be able to force a^temporary and' loci'l
&f$m|'ssibn," which I ^cnly suppose, not admit, how shall you be abh!
to secure' the obedience of the country you leave behind you in your
progress ? To grasp the dominion of rSoo miles of continent, popu-
lous; in valor, liberty and resistance ? . This resistance to your arb'r-
£farj^0systerri of taxation might have ' been foreseen fit ..vras obviou 1
frbffi the nature of things and of mankind; and above all, irotri the
^li^g^isii spirit flourishing in that country. The ; spirit which now r6-
SJi'Sts your taxation in America, is the same which formerly apposed,
and with .success opposed, loans, benevolences, and : ship money i;i
England— the same spirit which called all England on iis trg\f,-z.vA'\Sy
the bill of right's vindicated the English constitution-— the same spirt
which established the great fundamental and essential maxim of your
liberties, that no subject shall' be' taxed, but by his 01011 consent. If
your lordships will turn to the politics of those times, you will see the
attempts of the fords to poison this inestimable benefit of the bill, by
an insidious proviso. Ybu will see their attempts defeated, in their
conference with the commons, by the decisive arguments of the as-
certainers and maintairiers of bur liberty; yotr will see the thin, in-
conclusive and fallacious stuff of those enemies to freedom, contrasted
with the sound and solid reasoning of sergeant Glanville and the rest,'
those great and learned men who adorned and enlightened this Coun-
try, and placed her security on the summit of justice and freedom.
Arid whilst I atn on my legs, and thus do justice to the memory of
those great men, I must also justify the merit. of the living by declar-
ing my firm and fixed o pin fon, that such a man' exists this day [looking
towards Lord Cambden] ; this glorious spirit of wmiggism animates three
millions in America, who prefer poverty with liberty, to golden chains
and sordid affluence; and who will die in defence of their rights, as men,
as freemen. What shall oppose this spirit ? aided by the congenial flame
glowing in the breast of every whig in England, to the ambunt, I
hope, of at least double the American numbers' Ireland they have
to a man. In that country, joined as it is with the cause of the colo-
nies, and placed at their head, the distinction I contend for, is arid:
must be observed":

My ibrds — This country superintends and controls their trade and
navigation' but they tax themselves. And this distinction between
external and internal control, is sacred and insurmountable; it is
invblved in the abstract nature of things. Property is private, indi?
vidua!, absolute Trade is an extended and complicated considera-

Io6 . AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

tion; it reaches as far as ships can sail, or winds can blow. Tt.h'a
great and various machine — To regulate the numberless movement ;
of its several parts, and com bine them into effect for the good of the
whole, requires the superintending wisdom and energy of the supreme
power" in the empire. But this supreme power has no effect towards
internal taxation— for it does not exist in: that relation. There isro;
such thing, no such idea in this constitution, as a supreme -power,
operating upon property.

Let this distinction then remain forever ascertained. Taxatiickv
is theirs, commercial regulation is ours. As an American, I would
recognize to England her supreme right of regulating commerce ant^
navigation. As an Englishman, by birth and principle, T recognize
to the Americans their supreme, unalienable right to their property ;
a right which they are justified in the defence of, to tire cxtremitr-
To maintain this principle is the common cause of the whigs on t e
other. Jside of the Atlantic, and on this. 'Tis liberty to Tiberty; a &
gaged, that they will defend themselves, their families and their cou: -
try. In this great cause they are immovably allied. It is the alliance
of God and nature^— immutable, eternal,, fixed as the firmament of
H cayen ! : To such united i force, what force shall be o pposed1 What,
my lords, a few regiments in America, and 17 or 18,000 men at home'
The idea is too ridiculous to take up a moment of your lordships'
time— nor can such a national principled union be resisted by the
tricks of office or ministerial manoeuvres. Laying papers on your
table, or counting noses on a division, will not avert or postpone the
hour of danger. It must arrive, my lords, unless these fatal acts are
done away; it must arrive in all its horrors. And then these boastful
ministers, 'spite of all their confidence and all their manoeuvres, shall
be forced to hide their heads. But it is not repealing this act of Par-
liament, or that act of Parliament— it is not repealing a ..piece of 'parch-:
ment that can restore America to your bosom. You must repeal her
fears and her resentments, and you may then hope for her love and
gratitude. But now insulted with an armed force posted in Boston,
irritated with an hostile array before her eyes, her concessions, if you
could force them, would be suspicious and insecure. They will be.
imto animo. They will not be the sound, honorable pactions of free-
men ; they will be the dictates of fear and the extortions of force. But
it is more than evident that you cannot force them, principled and
united as they are, to your unworthy terms of submission. It is im-
possible. And when I hear General Gage censured for inactivity, I
must retort with indignation on those whose intemperate measures
and improvident councils have betrayed him into his present situation.
His situation reminds me, my lords, of the answer of a French general
in the civil wars of France, Monsieur Turenne, I think. The queen
said to him, with some peevishness, I observe that you were, often
very near the prince during the campaign, why did you not take him ?
— The Mareschai replied with great coolness— y'avo is gnwd ' petir*, -que

WILLIAM PITT— EARL OF CHATHAM. 107

Wm&leut le prince ne vie pris — I was very, much afraid the prince
would take me

•When your lordships look at the papers transmitted us from Amen
icay when you consider their decency, firmness and wisdom, you
cannot but respect their- cause, and wish to make it your ownr— for
myself I ?must declare and. avow that, in all my reading and observa-
tion, and it has been my favourite study — I have read Thucydides, and
have studied and admired the master statesman of the world— that for
solidity and. reasoning, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion,
under such a complication of different circumstances, no nation or
body of men can stand in preference to the general Congress at
Philadelphia.— I, trust it is obvious to your lordships, that all attempts
to impose servitude on such men, to establish despotism over such a
mighty continental nation^must be vain— must be futile.— -We shall
be forced ultimately to retract, whilst we can, not when we must. I
say -ve must necessarily undo these violent and oppressive a^ts . —
theymustffce repealed— you will repeal them • I pledge myself for it
you will in'the end repeal them, I stake my reputation on it I will
consent to be taken for an idiot if they are not finally repealed
A Void . then this humiliating, t disgraceful necessity*-— >With~ a dignity
becoming your exalted situation, make the first advances to concord,
to peace and "happiness,: for that is your true dignity, to act with pru-
dence and with justice. That you should first concede is obvious from :
sourrd and rational policy. Concession comes with better grace and
more salutary effect from the superior pdvver. It reconciles superior-
ity of power with the feelings of men 'T and establishes solid confidence
in the foundation of affection and gratitude. So thought the wisest
poet, and perhaps the wisest man in political sagacity, the' friend of
Maecenas, and the eutogist of Augustus. To him the adopted son and
successor of the first Caesar, to him the master of the world, he wisely
urged this conduct of prudence and dignity.

I "';-' yi Tuque, prior, etc. Virgil.

, Every motive, therefore, of justice and of policy, of dignity and of
prudence, urges you to allay the ferment in America, by a removal of
your troops from Boston, by a repeal of your acts of parliament, and
by demonstration of amicable dispositions toward your colonies.
Oft the other hand, every danger and every hazard, impend to deter you
from perseverance in your present ruinous measures. Foreign war
hanging over your heads by a slight and brittle thread: France and
Spain watching for the maturity of your errors; with a vigilant eye
to America and the temper of your colonies, more than to their own
concerns, be they what they may.

To conclude, my lords, if the ministers thus persevere in misadvis-
ing and misleading the king, I will not say that they can alienate his
subjects from his crown, but I will affirm that they will make the
crown not worth his wearing. I shall not say that the king is betrayed
twt I will pronounce that the kingdom is undone.

1 08 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

1 Dan raw 10 ^nornalqrrri srfi oib 9g3jiT .lie .aavlpewo 3vi*>5
,-fra i .i^rnaljna?. ^ I .'nriaai aSni^ fairfw oJ glrramtrgra tasl - dl ; po'^
ot in oo-id\ 03 ion sd sgoqiuq 23] li tv&T%s fem^oj cuii an'ssm Jsif^
SfCfeeH7 0^ A^ESOiLlTTION-; ^TO^FU^r VIRGIN L^oI^fEOi.
Hto 01 .bjTovrsriJ STATE GF^ DEFENCE, r; f?«ah3 jesi3 ^1
.anon zsrf 3rfa ,ua/to# S»im« in : .• >b*lunuK>oj5 eirfi &j

«a ;{eriT ,i9dio on io\ imWWte$¥m ,rn 31£ ^

£?S^ ^^.-'--— . :;^™;-

1 Mr. pREfft^ftxT-^Noraah thinks: more i)%h:ly tbari J.dpro£th6 ga#
otism, as well ag abilities, ^^^mtrYtmorlhy^^tle^^-yf^ha^ei jjist
■add ressed trie house. 3 But different! Jnerb often sec the; same sybjgcjt, >n
different lights ; and, therefore; I hope it. will notbethoughtdis^efpe/jt-
ful to those gentlemen, if, entertaining}, as I do, opinions; of acharacter
veryopposite to theirs, 1 shall speak forth; my. 'sentiments freely and
^without reserve. This is no time for ceremony. .The, question-before
-tnehoUse is one of awful moment, to this country. For my own part,
1 considcrit as- nodi big .less than, a question pf freedom or slavery ;
^a'nd-ih i proportion to the magniiudOof^ the subject ought to be gj
freisdbrn of the debate. It is e^ly in this; way that we can hope *p arrive
at truth, and fulfil the great responsibility which we hold to Godand
our country. Should I rkeep backrny opinions at such a timevthrpugh
fear of giving offence, I should consider myself as guilty of treason
towards my country, and of an act. of disloyalty toward the .-, Majesty
of HeavenV "which. I revere^ above all: earthiy. kings. -
:J>-Mr. President, it is natural to roan to indulge- in,, the illnsioKsJ-of
hope. We are apttolsbut our ieye.s against a painful truth, and listen
to the song of that - siren, till she . transforms us into beasts,, , Is
this the part of wise men. eng?!ged in a great and arduous struggle, .for
liberty? Are we disposed to be of.the number of- those, who, having
eyes, see not, and having. .ears; hear/not,, the things which so nearly
concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of
spirit it may cost, I am. willing to know, the whole truth ; to know the
worst, and to provide for it.

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided ; and that is the
lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but
by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has
been in the conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years, to
justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace
themselves and the house? Is it that insidious smile with which our
petition has been lately received ? Trust it not, sir; It will prove a
snare to you feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss.
Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports
with those warlike preparations which cover pur waters and darken
our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and
reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be recon-
ciled, that force must be called in to win back our love? Let. us not

r A TRICK IiEXRY. JO}

deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subju-
gation ; th_ last arguments to which kings resort. I ask gentlemen, sir,'
what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to
sufihiTgfeloa?: 'CajriL gent fern en assign any- other possible motive for it?
Has Great Britain any enemy, in this quarter of the world, to call for
all this accumulation of navies and armies ? No, sir, she has none.
They are meant for us : they can be meant for no other. They are
sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains, which the British
ministry have been so long forging! And' what "have we to oppose to
them ? Shall we try argument ? ~ Sir, we have been trying that for
the last tcrt; years. Have we anything new to offer upon- the subject ?
Nothing. " We have held the' subject up in every light of which it in
capable ; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and
humble supplication ? What terms shall we find,- which have not been
already exhausted ? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves
longer. Sir, we have done everything that could be done, to avert
the storm which i^ now coming on. We have petitioned ; we have
remonstrated ; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves
before the throne, and have implored its 'interposition to arrest the
tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have
been slighted ; ovr r :no-strance^ have produced additional violence
and insult ; our supplications have been disregarded ; and we have
been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne ! In vain,
after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and recon-
cil-at on. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be
free— if we mean to preserve inviolate, those inestimable privileges
for which we have been so long 'contending— if -we-.- -mean -not basely
to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged,
and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon, until the
glorious object of our contest shall be obtained— we must fight 1 I
repeat it, sir, we must fight ! Art appeal to arms and to the God of
Hosts is all that is left us !

•They tell us, sir, that we are Weak ; unable to cope with so for-
midable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger ? Will it be
the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally
disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every hou.>e ?
Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction ? Shall we
acquire the means of effectual resistance, by lying; supinely on our
backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until pur enemies
shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak, if we
make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath
placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy
cause of liberty, and in such a Country as that which we possess, are
invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us.
Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God
who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up

IIO A M ERICA X PA TRIfrTISM.

friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong
alone ; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Bes.d -s, sir, vre have
no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to
retire from the; contest." There is no~ retreat, but in submission arid
slavery! Our chains are forged ! Their clanking may be heard on
the 'plains of -Boston ! The war is inevitable— and let it come! I
repeat it, sir, let it come. J

• Tt is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry,
Peace, peace— but there is no peace. The war is actually begun !
The: next gale, that sweeps from the north, will bring to bur ears-' the
clash of resounding arms ! Our brethren are ajready in the field !
Why stand We here idle ? What is it that gentlemen wish ? What
would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet; as to be pur-
chased at the price of chains and slavery ? Forbid it, Almighty God !
I know not what course others may take ; but as for me, give me
liberty or give me death !
^:d }o

I
ORATION ON THE RE-INTERMENT OF WARREN.

■• ' ' -

PEREZ MORTON.

Boston, April 8, r776.

Illustrious Relics ! — What tidings from the grave? why hast thou
left the peaceful mansions of that tomb, to visit again this troubled
earth! art thou the welcome messenger of peace! art thou risen again to
exhibit thy glorious woirnds, and through them proclaim salvation to
thy country! or art thou come to demand the last debt of humanity to
which your rank and merit have so justly entitled you— but which has
been so long ungenerously withheld! and art thou angry at the bar-
barous usage? be appeased sweet ghost! for though thy body has
long laid undistinguished among the vulgar dead, scarce privileged
with earth enough to hide it from the birds of prey; though not a
friendly sigh was uttered o'er thy grave; and though the execration of
an impious foe, were all thy funeral knells; yet, matchless patriot! thy
memory has been embalmed in the affections of thy grateful country-
men; who, in their breasts, have raised eternal monuments to thy
bravery!

But let us leave the beloved remains, and contemplate for a moment
those virtues of the man, the exercise of which have so deservedly
endeared him to the honest among the great, and the good among the
humble.

In the private wTalks of life, he was a pattern for mankind. The
tears of her to whom the world is indebted for so much virtue, are silent
heralds of his filial piety; while his tender offspring in lisping out their

PEREZ MGRTOX. Ill

fetfoer's care, proclaim , hi.s parental affection; and an Adams can
witness with how much zeal he loved, where he had formed the sacred
connexion of a friend; their kindred souls were so closely twined, th; t
both felt one joy, both one affliction. In conversation he had the
happy talent of addressing his subject both to. the understanding- and
the passions; from the one he forced conviction, from the other he
stole assent.

He was blessed with a complacency of disposition and equanimity of
temper, which peculiarly endeared him -to his friends, and which, added
to the deportment of the gentleman, commanded reverence and esteem
even from his enemies.

Such was the tender sensibility of his soul, that he need but see dis-
tress to feel it, and contribute to its relief. He was deaf to the calls of
interest evenin the course of his profession; and wherever he beheld
an indigent object, which claimed his healing skill, he administered ft,
without even the hope. of any other reward than that which resulted
from the reflection of having so far promoted the happiness of his
fellow-men.

In the social departments of life, practising upon the strength of
that doctrine he used so earnestly to inculcate himself, that nothing
so much conduced to enlighten mankind, and advance the great end of
society at large, as the frequent interchange of sentiments, in friendly
meeting; we find him constantly engaged in this eligible labor; but on
none did he place so high a value, as on that most honorable of ail
detached societies, The Free and Accepted Masons: into this fraternity
he was early initiated; and after having given repeated proofs of a rapid
proficiency in the arts, and after evidencing by his life, the professions
of his lips — finally, as the reward of his merit, he was commissioned
The Most Worshipful Grand-Master of all the ancient Masons, through
North America. And you, brethren, are living testimonies, with how
much honor to himself, and- benefit to the craft universal, he discharged
the duties of his elevated trust; with what sweetened accents, he
courted your attention, while, with wisdom, strength, and beauty he
instructed his lodges in the secret arts of Freemasonry; what perfect
order and decorum he preserved in the government of them; and, in
ail his conduct, what a bright example he set us, to live within corn-
pass and act upon the square.

With what pleasure did he silence the wants of poor and pennyie.^s
brethren; yea, the necessitous everywhere, though ignorant of the
mysteries of the craft, from his benefactions, felt the happy effects
of that institution which is founded on faith, hope and charity. And
the world may cease to wonder, thr.t he so readily offered up hi-?, life,
on the altar of his country, when they are told that the main pillar of
masonry is the love of mankind.

The fates, as though they would reveal, in the person r? our Grand
Master, those mysteries which have to lo.ig lain hii from the

112 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

vrQrki.hSve suffered him, like the great . master-builder in. the temple
of old, to. fall by. the hands of ruffians, and be. again raised in. honor
' and/ authority.; ,w.e searched in the held for the murdered, sou of. a
v^idpy/,; and we found him, by the turf andf the, twig, buried on the
brow of a hill, tliough not in , a decent grave. And though, we must
again commit his body to the tomb, yet our breasts shall- be. the bury-
ing spot of his masonic virtues, and there —

" An adamantine monument we'll rear, .£alWMK>vj

With thisinscription," Masonry " lies here." kf*4 i'/fcnaiil

nhsigj . ■.. ■ .'..; (joniisioi - . fekla.-aiitMjnj-J

In public life the sole object of his ambition ; was, tp :a/-guir<5;tbJecijon
science of virtuous .enterprises ;.<z/»<?r tfjafrij, was the spring of rhj$-$c-
tions, avAv2trt!s constia recti was his guide,. . And on this,Eecuril,y4:e
was on every7 occasion ready to sacrifice his health, his ir,tere&t>)-ar1.d
his, ease, to the sacred calls of his countr)-. : When the liberties of
America -were attacked, he appeared, an early champion "in the con-
tesijo and .though, his kno\\dedge and ^abilities would rave _ insured
riches and preferment (could he have stooped to prostitution) yfi.he
nobly w t'tstood the fascinating charm f tossed fortune back her plume,
and pursued the in flexible ^purpose of his soul in guiltless competence.

I?Iersqught not the. airy honors of a name, else many of. those.- puhh>
cations which, in the early, period of our controversy, served to open
the minds of the people, had not appeared anonymous. In every 'time
of eminent danger, his fellow-citizens flew to him for advice; like the.
orator of A,th.€nsr he gave it and dispelled their fears— twice did they
call him to- the rostrum to commemorate the massacre of their breth-
ren; and from that instance,, in persuasive language he taught them,,
not only the dangerous tendency but the actual mischief, of stationing
a military /orce.. in a free city, . in a time of peace. They learnt the
profitable lesson and penned it among their grievances.

But his abilities were too great, his deliberations too much wanted,
to be, confined to the limits of a single, city, and at,.a time when our
liberties were most critically in danger from the secret machinations
and open assaults of our enemies, this town, to their lasting honor,
elected him to take a part in the councils of the state. And with what
fathfulness he. discharged the important delegation, the neglect of his
private concerns, and his unwearied attendance on that betrustmeht,
will sufficiently testify; and the records of that virtuous assembly will
remain the. testimonials of his accomplishments as a. statesman, and
his integrity and services as a patriot- through all posterity.

The Congress of our colony could not observe so much, virtue and
greatness without honoring it with the highest mark of their favor, and
by the free suffrages of that uncorrupted body of freemen he was soon
called to preside in the Senate— where, by his daily counsels and
cxnrtions> he was constantly promoting the great cause of general"
liberty.

pi: i::::' :,ic::roy. i:j

' ?. ; ' \- : /. ..

But when he foun.,1 the tools of oppression were obstinately bent on

vrHftfH?c;::'^:i-:i he' foa:i"d' the vengeance of the ttritish court must be
fi^S^ffe'd1 v/ith blood; heel jtcrmmei that what be eouU not effect by ills'
cft^Qci'i'cc or ms Pen' he would bring to purpose by his sword. And
oh the niemorabie 19th of April, he appeared in the field under the
uHiti^. characters of the general, the soldier, and the physician. Here
he'-#as -seen' animating hb countrymen to battle, and %hti'ng by their;
side, and there he was found "-' administering1 healing comforts to the1
Bounded; And when he .had. repel led the unprovoked assaults of the
enemy, and had driven them back into their strongholds, like the
virtuous chief of Rome, he returned to the Senate, and presided again
atthe councils of the fathers'.

When the: vanquished foe had rallied their disordered army, and
hy the acquisition of fresh strength, ! again presumed to light against
fi^emcri, Our patriot, ever anxious to be where he Could clothe TOGSt7
frtod, -again put off the Senator, and, in contempt of danger flew to
the held of battle, where after a stern, and almost victorious resistance,
a!:T tobsooh for his country: he sealed his prlncipies-with his -blood—
th.-n— .--.■--- ■

11 Frcedori -vvept thut rrrcrit covJ 5 not savc,M
But Wurrcn'i amines L- must ennc.U the grave,"

Enriched indeed! and the heights of Charlestowh- shall be more mem-
orable for thy fall,* than the Plains of Abraham are for that of the-hero
of Britain. For while he died contending for a single country, you
fell in the cause of virtue and mankind.

The greatness of his soul shone even in the moment of death ; for,
if fame speak true, in his last agonies he met the insults of his barbar-
ous foe with his wonted -"magnanimity", and with the true spirit of a"-
soldicr, frowned at their impotence.

|5i fine, tocomplete the great character— like Harrington he wrote —
like Cicero he spbke— like Hampden he lived— and like Wolfe he
died.

And can we, my countrymen, with indifference behold so much
valor laid prostrate by the hand of British tyranny! and can wec-ver
grasp that hand in affection again? are we not yet convinced -that he
who hunts the woods for prey, the naked and untutored Indian, is less
a: savage than the king of Britain!" have we not proofs, wrote in
blood, that the corrupted nation, from whence 'we sQ^^^ftn&ujgli
thn'e may be some traces of their ancient virtue left), are stubbornly
frxed on our destruction! and shall we still court a dependence on
such a state? still contend for a connexion with those who have forfeited
not only every kindred claim, but even their title to humanity? forbi I
it the spirit of the brave Montgomery! forbid it the spirit of immortals
Warren! forbid it the spirits of all our valiant countrymen! who fought
bied, and died for far different purposes, and who would have thought
the pui'v,h„_j de~a indeed! P3 SuVc paid th^r lives for the paltry boon

H4 A MERIC\ 4 .\ 1 rA TRIO. TISM.

of displacing one set of villains in power, to make way for .another.
No. They contended for the establishment of peace, liberty, and
safety to their country; and we are unworthy to be called their coun-
trymen, if we stop at any acquisition short of this. gJ ^ -

Now is the happy season, to seize again those rights,, which, as men,
we are by nature entitled to, and which, by contract, we never have
and never could have surrendered:— but which have been repeatedly
and violently attacked by the_J>4ng, lords and commons of Britain.
Ought we not then to disclaim forever, the forfeited affinity; and, by a
timely amputation of- that rotten limb ^of: the empire, prevent the
mortification of the whole? ought we not to listen to the voice of our
slaughtered, brethren, who are now. proclaiming aloud to their
country— . . . ;d oriw

Go tellthe kino-, and tellhim from our spirits, ' .-Iksvv \vnt
! That you and Brkoas can bt friends no more ; - o \jfoojci ■

Tellhire,. to you all tyrants are the same • 6* "IdbftfiOT

^ ,> . 5 Or if in bonis, the never conquer"d soul ," .

Can "feel a pang, more keen than slavery 's self,

'Xis where the chains- that ;c"rush~you into dust, ttHSuq

Arerforg'd by hands,, from which you hop'd for freedom.

"Yes, we ought, and will-— we will assert the blood of our murdered
hero against thy hostile oppressions. O shameless Britain! and when

"thy cloud-capped towers, thy gorgeous palaces " shall, by the teeth
of pride and folly, be levelled- with the dust— and when thy glory shall
have faded like the western sunbeam — the name and the virtues of
Warren shall remain immortal.

: - - . • ;.i;ojjonj

- . :di ^ni

t'JiC :

THE OCCUPATION OF DORCHESTER HEIGHTS.

- . t_ . - ' i - . ■ ■ .

EDWARD EVERETT.

Dorchester, Mass., July 4, 1855.

But there is another circumstance which must ever clothe the occu-
pation of Dorchester Heights with an affecting interest. It was the
first great military operation of Washington in the Revolutionary war;
not a battle, indeed, but the preparation for a battle on the grandest
scale, planned with such skill and executed with such vigor as at once
to paralyze the army and navy of the enemy and force him, without
striking a blow, to an ignominious retreat. Washington was com-
missioned as Commander in Chief of the American armies on the day
the battle of Bunker Hill was fought. The siege of Boston had been
already formed ; and those noble lines of cireumvallation, twelve
miles in compass, of which some faint remains may still be traced,
had been drawn along the high grounds of Charlesfown, Cambridge,
Koxbury, and Dorchester. An adventurous expedition agains

EDWARD EVERETT. 1 15

Quebec had failed; partial collisions had taken place wherever there
were royal forces throughout the country, but nothing decisive was
brought about, and a feverish excitement pervaded the continent;
Congress was still conducting the war without a constitutional exist-
ence, and all eyes and hearts were turned to the army and to Wash-
ington. Men at a safe distance, and with nothing at stake, are prone
to judge severely the conduct of those who are at the post of responsi-
bility and danger. Washington himself felt the- delicacy and the
hazards of his position; the importance of sustaining the expectations
of the country; the necessity of decisive results. But his army was
without discipline or experience/ save a few veterans- of the seven
years' war, without adequate supplies -of any kind, composed of .men
who had left their homes at a -moment's warning and were impatient
to return; weakened by camp diseases and the small-pox, with a
stock of powder so scanty that stratagem was resorted to by the com-
mander to conceal the deficiency even from his officers. Thus the
svimmer and the autumn wore away, and every week increased the
public impatience and added to the embarrassments of Washington.
His private letters at this time are filled with the most touching re-
marks on his distressed condition. -In a letter to Colonel Reed, of the
fourteenth of January, 1776, he says: "The reflection on my situation
and that of this army produces many an unhappy hour when all
around me are -wrapped in sleep. Few people know the predicament
we are in on a thousand accounts; fewer still ..will believe, if any dis-
aster happens to these lines, from what cause it flows. I have often
thought how much happier I should have been, if, instead of accept-
ing the command under such circumstances, I had taken my musket
on my shoulder and entered the ranks; or, if I could have justified
the measure to posterity and my own conscience, had retired to the
back country and lived in a wigwam."

At length, however, the re-enlistmerit of the army was completed;
advanced lines were thrown up; ordnance captured at Ticonderoga
had been transported by Knox with prodigious effort across the
country; ammunition had been taken by Manly in his prize ships;
shells- were furnished from the royal arsenal at New York. It was
Washington's wish to cross the ice at Boston, to carry the town by
assault, and destroy the royal army. The ice, however,'did not make
till the middle of February, and it was decided, by a council of war,
that the town could not be assaulted with success.

It was then resolved to repeat, On a grander scale, with full prepara-
tion and ample means, the hasty operation which had brought on the
battle of Bunker Hill the preceding summer. It was determined first
to occupy the heights of Dorchester, and, as soon as an impregnable
position was secured there, to establish batteries on Nook Hill and
the other rising grounds nearest Boston. The fleet in the harbor was
within range of the heights; the town was commanded from the hills

no AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

below. The occupation of these points would of necessity compel

Washington, though preferring, bolder, measures., yielded to the! de-
cision of his council, and threw, his whole soul into the work,/; "X^plan
for.a.^rand combined movcmen:t.w^s,matiired., -The heights of Dor-
chester were to be .occupied on the. night of the fourth of March^m
qrcfer that the anticipated.' battle .might be fought on the anniversary
of. the ever-memorable fifth of March, .1770. As' soon as the corf lot
was engaged on the heights, Putnam was to cross .from Cambridge
\yith a b,ody of four thousand men, land in. two divisions, in Boston,
and, forcing his way through the " town, burst open ' the -fortifica-
tions on the neck, and thus admit, a division, of the American- army
from Roxbury .: To distract and occupy the attention of the enemy,,
tlie town was severely bombarded from Somerville, East Cambridge,
and Roxbury, during the nights of the second, third, and fourth of
March:. ;. ; ! - y\. ' .. /.,; .;-;

I am told by professional men that these dispositions evince con-
summate military skill, and' are among the facts which show, that
\Vashiugton, too often compelled by his situation to pursue the Fabian
policy, possessed a talent for military combinations that entitles him
to a place besi.de the. greatest captains of "the last century.

. The fourth of March, the day so long and' anxiously expected, at
length arrives. The troops are put in motion in the evening from the
American lines, at Roxbury and Dorchester. An advanced guard of
eight hundred men. precedes; the carts with intrenching tools; Came
next, with the main 1)6dy7 twelve hundred strong, under General
Thomas; the. whole followed by a train of three hundred wagons
loaded with fascines, gabions, and bundles of hay. They crossed
Dorchester neck without being perceived, and reached their destina-
tion in two divisions,, one for." eachiof the heights. Bundles of hay
were placed on the. side of the causeway, at the most exposed parts,
as a protection in case the enemy should discover and attempt to in-
terrupt the movement. Under this shelter parties from the Artierican;
army passed several times during the night, without being perceived,
though it was bright moonlight. This was owing, no doubt, to the
cannonade and; bombardment of the town from the opposite quarter,
by which also theWhole surrounding country was thrown into a state
of painful expectation and alarm. The opera' ions were conducted" by; ,
Grid ley, an experienced engineer of the old' French war. He was
aided by Colonel Putnam, in laying out and executing the works,
which, before morning, though incomplete, were adequate agains;
grapeshot and musketry. "''.'.' . ~

.Washington was present on .the' heights. " In the strictness of mili-
tary dutv. the presence of the Commander-in-Chief of the army was
not required on the ground on such an occasion, but the operation

EDWARD EVERETT. "7

[moo --. - .• Lp ".Li ■'.-• i stab ■ ■- ■ ■

was tbo important to "btvfritsted entirely to subordinates. Accom-
panied by Mr. James Bowdoiu,. then ,a young man of twenty-two,
afterwards your respected ' fellow citizen and the representative of
Dorchester 'in the Convention of Massachusetts, wh'hh adopted the
Constitution of the United States,. Washington, whose headquarters
were at Cambridge, repairedj;on this eventful night, to Dorchester

f eights. 'He has left no record /descriptive, of the scene or of his
oughts and emotions at what he mus',L have regarded, at that time,
.as the most eventful hour of his life, and a most critical moment 'of
the war ' '.'The moon shining in its full lustre"" (they are the wore*
of Washington), revealed every object through the clear, Cold air of
eafjy March,. with that spectral distinctness with which: things present
themselves to the straining eye at. a great juncture. All immediately
around him intense movement, put carried on in death-like, silence-;
nothing heard but the incessant" tread of busy feet arid the "duH' Sound,
of the mattock upon the soil^ fro?en_so deep as. to make it necessary
to place reliance on the fascines and gabions. '.''" Beneath him, the
slumbering batteries of the castle; the roadstead arid harbor filled with
the vessels. of the royal fleet. motionless, except as; they swung; around
at their mOorings with the turn of the midnight tide; the beleaguered
qity, occupied by a powerful army and a considerable non-combatant
population, startled into unnatural vigilance by the incessant and de-
structive cannonade, but yet unobservant of the great operations in
progress so near them; trie surrounding country, dotted with a hun-
dred rural settlements roused from the deep sleep: of a New England
village by the unwonted tumult and glare. -

• It has been stated in one or t v.* o"r' well-authenticated cases of persons
restored after drowning, where life has been temporarily extinguished'
in the "full glow of health, "with" the faculties unimpaired by disease and
in perfect action, that, in the" last few minutes of conscious existence;
the whole series of the events of trie entire life comes rushing back to
the mind, distinctly ;but with inconceivable; rapidity ; that the whole
life is lived over again in a moment. Such a narrative, by a person
cjf high official position in a foreign country, and perfect credibility; I
have, read.' We may well suppose. that at this most critical moment
of Washington's life, a similar concentration of thought would take
place, and'that the events of his past existence as they had prepared
ldm. for it,— his training while. yet a boy in the vvilderne^s, his escape
from drowning and the rifle of the savage on" his perilous .mission to
Venango^ the shower of iron hail through which he rode unharmed. on
Braddock's field, would now crowd through his memory; that, much
more also the past life of his country, the early stages of the great
conflict now brought to its crisis, and still more solemnly the possi-
bilities of the future for himself arid for America, would press upon
him; the ruin of the patriotic cause if he failed at trie outset; the tri-
umphant consolidation of the revolution if he prevailed;' with highci

liS AMERICAN ' PATRIOTISM.

visions of the powerful family of rising states, their auspicious growth
and prosperous fortunes, hovering like a dream of angels in the re-
moter prospect r-^all this, attended -with" the immense desire of honest
fame (for we earinot think even Washington's mind too noble to pos-
sess the " last infirmity"), the Intense inward glow of manly heroism
about to act its great part on a sublime theatre,— the softness of the
man chastening the severity of the chieftain, and deeply touched at the
sufferings and bereavements about to be caused by the conflict of the
. morrow; the still tender emotions that breathed their sanctity Overall the
rest; the thought of the faithful and beloved wife who had' followed
him from Mount Vernon, and of the aged mother whose heart was
aching in her Virginia home for glad tidihgs:ef " George, who Was al-
ways a good boy," — all these pictures," visions, feelings; pangs-— too
vast for words, too deep for tears, but swelling, ho doubt, in one
unuttered prayer to Heaven- — we may well imagine to have filled the
soul of Washington at that decisive hour, as he stood upon the heights
of Dorchester, with the holy stars for his camp-fire, and the deep fold-
ing shadows of the night, looped by the hand of God to the four-quar-
ters of the sky, for the curtains of his tent.

The morning of the fifth of March dawned, and the enemy beheld
with astonishment, looming through a heavy mist, the operations of
the night. Gen. Howe wrote to the minister that they must have been
the work of at least twelve thousand rrien. In the account given by
one of his officers, and adopted in the Annual Register, it is said that
the expedition with which these works were thrown up, -'with '-their
sudden and unexpected appearance, "recalled to the mind those won-
derful stories of enchantment and invisible agency, which are so fre-
quent in the eastern romances."

General Howe, like a gallant commander, immediately determined
on the perilous attempt to dislodge the Americans before their en-
trenchments should be rendered impregnable. A powerful detach-
ment, led by Lord Percy, dropped do wfl'to the castle in the afternoon,
to rendezvous there, and thence cross over to Dorchester point, and
storm the heights. A heavy gale ("a dreadful storm" if is called, in
the British accounts) scattered the barges, and prevented the embarka-
tion of the troops. This delay gave the Americans time to perfect
their works; barrels filled with earth wTere placed around the heights, an
a' a His of trees disposed around the foot of the hills, reinforcements
of two thousand men ordered to the support of General Thomas, and
every preparation made for a decisive conflict.

It was soon understood that the royal commander, not deeming it
safe to take the risk of an engagement, had determined to evacuate
Boston. To prevent the destruction of the town, Washington was
willing that they should leave it unmolested. Finding, however, after
t otnc days, that no apparent movement was made for this purpose,
he determined without further delay to occupy Nook II i'i and the

EDWAKD EVERETT. 1 19

. other elevations fronting and commanding the town. This produced
the desired effect, and General Howe was at length compelled to ac-
knowledge the inability ol a powerful land and naval force, under
veteran leaders, to maintain themselves against untried levies whom
. they were accustomed to regard with contempt, led by officers from
whom they affected to. withhold even the usual titles of military com-
mand. He was obliged to acquiesce in an engagement with the Select-
men of Boston, tacitly sancdoned by " Mr. Washington," that his army
.should be allowed to embark without being fired upon, on condition
that they would not burn the town.

Thus, on the seventeenth qf March, 1776, an effective force of many
thousand men evacuated the town, and with a powerful fleet and a
numerous train of transports, sailed for Halifax. Putnam, with an
attachment of the American army, took possession of Boston. The
beloved commander himself made his entry into the town the follow-
ing day, and the first great act of .'the drama of the Revolution, was
brought to a triumphant close, on that old Dorchester Neck which.
before the foundation of Boston, our fathers selected as a place for
settlement. ; 1

This event diffused joy throughout the Union, and contributed
materially to prepare the public mind for that momentous political meas-
ure, of which -ye this day commemorate the seventy-ninth anniversary.
That civil government, however human infirmities mingle in its or-
ganization, is, in its ultimate principles, a Divine ordinance, will be
doubted by no one who believes, in an overruling Providence. That
svery people has a right to interpret for itself the will of Providence,
in reference to the form of government best suited to its condition.
subject to no external human responsibility, is equally certain, and is
*h.e doctrine which lies at the basis of the Declaration of Independence.
But what makes a people, — what constitutes this august community,
to which we give that name; how many persons — how few* bound to
each other by what antecedent ties of physical descent, of common
language, of local proximity, of previous political connection? This
is 1 great question, to which no answer, that I know, has yet been
.giveu: to which, in general terms, perhaps, none can be given.' Physi-
ologists ba.e. not yet found the seat of animal life,: — far less Of the ra-
tional intellect or spiritual essence of the individual man. Who Can
wonder that it should be still farther beyond our ability to define the
mysterious laws which— out of the physical instincts of our nature, the
inexplicable attractions of kindred and tongue, the persuasion of rea-
son, the social sympathies, the accidents as we call them of birth, the
wanderings of nations in the dark deeds of the past, the confederacies
of peace, the ravages of war. employed by the all-fashioning hand of
time, which moulds everything human according to the eternal types
in the Divine mind — work out, in the lapse of centuries, with more than
Promethean skill, that wondrous creation which wc call A People !

A. t. -o.

A 31 ERIC AN PA TRIO TIS3I.

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

ADOPTED BY CONGRESS JULY 4, 1776.

A DECLARATION BY THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES
OF AMERICA, IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED.

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one
people to dissolve the political hands which have connected them with
another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate
and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God
entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind^ requires
that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separa-
tion.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;
that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that,
whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends,
it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute
a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and
organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely
to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate
that governments should not be changed for light and transient
causes; and, accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are
more dispose 1 to suffer, whHe evils are sufferable, than to right them-
selves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But
when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the
same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism,
it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to
provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the
patient sufferance of these Colonies, and such is now the neee?F:ity
which constrains them to alter their former systems of government.
The history of the present king of Great Britain is a history of re-
peated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the estab-
lishment of an absolute tyranny over these States. To prove this, let
facts be submitted to a candid world : —

He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and neces-
sary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and
pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent
should be obtained; and. when so suspended, he has utterly negleTted
to attend to them.

He has refused to pass" other laws for the accommodation of large

THE DECLARATIOX OF LXDEPEXDEXCE. 12 r

districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of
representation in the Legislature ;. a right inestimable to them, and
formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncom-
fortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for
the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing
with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused, for a long time after such dissolutions, to cause
others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of
annihilation, have returned to the people at large tor their exercise,
the State remaining, in the meantime, exposed to all the danger
of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States ; for
that purpose, obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners ;
refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and rais-
ing the conditions of new appropriations of lands. .

He has obstructed the administration of justice by refusing his
assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone for the tenure of
their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
- He has erected a multitude of new .offices* and sent hither swarms
of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without
the consent of our Legislature.

He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior
to, the civil power.

He has combined, with others, to subject us to a jurisdiction
foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving
his assent to their acts of pretended legislation-: —

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us;

For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any
murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these
States ;

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world;

For imposing taxes on us without our consent;

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury ;

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences;

For abolishing the free system of Engish laws in a neighboring
Province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging
its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fix instru-
ment for introducing the same absolute ru!e into these Colonies;

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws,
and altering fundamentally the powers of our governments;
- For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves
invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever;

12 2. A M ERICA N PA TRIO TISM.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his pro-
tection, and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts , burnt our towns,
and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is, at this time, transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries
to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny; already
begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in
the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized
nation.

He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high
seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of
their friends and brethren; or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeav-
ored to bring on the inhabitants of bur frontiers the merciless Indian
savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruc-
tion of all ages, sexes, and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for redress
in the most humble terms :> our repeated petitions have been answered
only by repeated injury. A prince whose character is thus marked by
every act which may define a tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a free
people.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren.

We have warned them, from time to time, of attempts made by
their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We
Lave reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and
settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and mag-
nanimity; and we have conjured them, by the ties of our common
kindred, to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably inter-
rupt our connections and correspondence. They, too, have been
deaf to the voice of justice and consanguinity. We must, therefore,
acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation, and hold
them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war; in peace, friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America,
in General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of
the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by
the authority of the good people of these Colonies, solemnly publish
and declare, that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be,
free and independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance
to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them
and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved;
and that, as free and independent States, they have full power to
levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and
to do all other acts and things which independent States may of
right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance
on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each
other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred, honor.

THE DECLARATION OE INDEPENDENCE. 123

The signers to this declaration were:

JOHN HANCOCK, President.
new HAMPSHIRE. James Smith,

Josiah Bartlett, - George Taylor,

William Whipple, James Wilson,

Matthew Thornton. George Ross.

MASSACHUSETTS BAY. DELAWARE.

Samuel Adams, c^sar Rodney,

Tohn Adams George Reed,

Robert Treat Paine, Thomas McKean.

Elbridcre Gerrv

£^Dnaae uerry. Maryland.

Rhode island. Samuel Chase,

Stephen Hopkins, ~ n£ ? William Paca,
William Ellery. Thomas Stone,

Charles Carroll, of Carrollton.

CONNECTICUT.

Roger Sherman, VIRGINIA.

"Samuel Huhtmgtorif 1Aaa Zl George Wythe,

William Williams, Richard Henry Lee,

Oliver Wolcott. Thomas Jefferson,

Benjamin Harrison,

new York. Thomas-Nelson, Jr.,

William Floyd, Francis Lightfoot Lee,

Philip Livingston, Carter Braxton.
Francis Lewis,

Lewis Morris. north Carolina.

William Hooper,

new jersey. Joseph Hewes,

Richard Stockton, John Perm.
John Witherspbon,

Francis Hopkinson, south CAROLINA.

John Hart, Edward Rutledge.

Abraham Clark. Thbmas Havward. Jr.

Thomas Lvnch, jr.,

Pennsylvania. Arthur Middleton.
Robert Morris.

Benjamin Rush, Georgia.

Benjamin Franklin, Button Gwinnett,

John Morton, Lyman Hall,

George Clymcr, George Walton.

■.■ .

1*4 AMERKAX PATRIOTISM.

■ biw - -

■"■ ■ , ■ ■

PREDICTIONS CONCERNING FOURTH OF JULY.*

JOHN ADAMS TO MR, ADAMS. ™-

Philadelphia, July 3. 1776.

Had a declare tion of independence been made seven months ago,
it would have been attended with many great and glorious effects.
We might, before this hour, have formed alliance with foreign states.
We should have mastered Quebec, and been in possession of Canada.

You will, perhaps, wonder how such a declaration would have influ-
enced our affairs in Canada; but, if I could write with freedom, I
could easily convince you that it would, and explain to you the manner
how. Many gentlemen in high stations, and of great influence, have
been duped, by the ministerial bubble of commissioners, to treat; and
in real, sincere expectation of this event, which they so fondly wished,
they have been slow and languid in promoting measures for the reduc-
tion of that province. Others there are in the colonies, who really
wished that our enterprise in Canada would be defeated; that the col-
onies might be brought into danger and distress between two fifes,
and be thus induced to submit. Others really wished to defeat the
expedition to Canada, lest the' conquest of it should elevate the minds
of the people too much to hearken to those terms of reconcilation
which they believed would be offered us. These jarring views, wishes,
and designs, occasioned an opposition to many salutary measures
which were proposed for the support of that expedition, and caused
obstructions, embarrassments, and studied delays, which have finally
lost us the province.

All these causes, however^ in conjunction, would not have disap-
pointed us, if it had not been for a misfortune which could not have
been foreseen, and perhaps could not have been prevented — I mean
the prevalence of the small-pox among our troops. This fatal pesti-
lence completed our destruction. It is a frown of . Providence upon
us, which we ought to lay to heart.

But, on the other hand, the delay of this declaration to this time has
many great advantages attending it. The hopes of reconciliation which
were fondly entertained by multitudes of honest and well meaning,
though short-sighted and mistaken people, have been gradually, and at
last totally, extinguished. Time has been given for the whole people
maturely to consider the great question of independence, and to ripm
their judgment, dissipate their fears, and allure ..their, hopes, by discus-
sing it in newspapers and pamphlets — by debating it in assemblies,

* July 2, the vote was taken upon the question of independence, and nine of the

colonies voted for the resolution

JONATHAN MASON, 1 25

conventions, committees of safety and inspection — in town and county-
meetings, as well as in private conversations' so that the whole peo-
ple, in every colony, have ridw adopted it as their own act. This will
cement the union, and avoid those heats, and perhaps convulsions,
which might have been occasioned by such a declaration six months
ago.

But the day is past. The second day of July, 1776, will be a mem-
orable epocha in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it
will be celebrated by succeeding generations, as the great Anniversary
Festival. It ought to be commemorated, ss the day of deliverance
by. Solemn acts of devotion to God- Almighty. It ought to be solemn-
ized with pomp, shews, games,, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illu-
minations, from one end of the continent to the other, from this time
forward forever.

You may think me transported with enthusiasm; but I am not. I
am well aware of the toil, and blood, and treasure, that it will cost -us
to maintain this declaration, and support and defend these states. Yet,
through all the. gloom, I can see the rays of light and glory; I can see
that the end is more than worth all the means, and that posterity will
triumph, although you and I may rue, which I hope we shall not,

John Adams.
— ~^~ ~-~~- ■

PATRIOTISM A VIRTUE.

JONATHAN MASON.

. 1 .......

Boston, March 5, 1780.

41 Devotion to the public. Glorious flame !
Celestial ardor ! in what unknown worlds
H«st thou been blessing myriads since in Rome,
Old virtuous Rome, so many deathless names
From thee their lustre drew? sinee taught by thee
Their poverty puCsplendor to the blush,
Pain grew luxurious, and even death delight."

Thomson, vol. T. £. 336.

■ Unblest by virtue, government and league
Becomes a circling junto of the great

• To rob by law —

What are without it senates, save a face

Of consultation deep and reason free,

While the determin'd voice and heart are cold ?

What boasted freedom, save a sounding name?

And what election, but a market vile

Of slavery self -barter'd:?.".—^/^./. 3,

My Friends and Fellow Citizens— That the greatness and pros-
perity of a people depend upon the proportion of public spirit and the
love of virtue which is found to exist among them, seems to be a
maxim established by the universal consent, and I may say, experience

126 AMERICAN PA TRIO TISM.

Man is formed with a constitution wonderfully adapted, for social
Converse and connection. Scarcely ushered into the world, but his
wants teach him his inability, of himself, to provide for them. Wrapt
in astonishment, with an anxiety inexpressible, the solitary - existent
looks around for the aid of some friendly neighbor, and should he per-
chance meet the desired object; should he find one, endowed with
intellectual faculties, beset "with the same wants and weaknesses, and
in all respects the very image of himself; should he find him with a
heart open to mutual kind offices, and a hand stretched out to bestow
a proportion of his labor, with a bosom glowing with gratitude, his
soul is on the wing to express the sense he entertains of the generous
obligation.

A confidence is established between him and his benefactor, they
swear perpetual friendship, and a compact for mutual protection and
assistance becomes imperceptibly consented to. Thus doubly armed,
together they pursue their morning route, to satisfy those demands
only which nature reminds them off and while the ingenuity of the
one is exercised to ensnare, the strength of the other is, perhaps,
employed to subdue their vigorous opponent.

Their little family soon increases; and as their social ring becomes
gradually enlarged, their obligations to each other are equally circular.
Honest industry early teaches them, that a part only is sufficient to
provide for the whole, and that a portion of their time may be spared
to cull the conveniences as well as appease the wants of nature,
Property and personal security appear to be among the first objects of
their attention, and acknowledged merit receives the unanimous suf-
frage to preside guardian over the rights and privileges of their infant
socfety. The advantages derived are in a moment" experienced.
Their little policy, erected upon the broad basis of equality, they know
of no superiority but that which virtue and the love of the whole de-
mands; and while, with cheerfulness, they entrust to his care a certain
part of their natural rights, to secure the remainder, the agreement is
mutual, and the obligation upon his part equally solemn and binding
t >> resign them back either at the instance and request of their sover-
eign pleasure, or whensoever the end should be perverted for which
he received them.

Integrity of heart, benevolence of disposition, the love of freedom
and public spirit, are conspicuous excellencies in this select neighbor-
hood. Lawless ambition is without a friend, and the insinuating pro-
fessional pleas of tyrants, ever accompanied by the magnificence an I
splendor cf luxury, are unheard of among them; but simple in their
manners, and honest in their intentions, their regulations are but few
and those expressive, and without the aid of extreme refinement, by a
universal adherence to the spirit of their constitution, and to those
glorious principles from which that spirit originated, we find them at-
taining real glory — wc find them crowned with every Messing that

JO X ATX AX MA SOX. 1 27

human nature hath ever known of— we find them in the possession
of that summit of solid happiness that universal depravity will ad-
mit of. ■

Patriotism is essential to the preservation and well being of every
free government. To love one's country has ever been esteemed
honorable; and under the influence of this noble passion, every sociaX
virtue is cultivated, freedom prevails through the whole, and the puU
lie good is the object of every, one's concern. A constitution, buiir
upon such principles, and put in execution by men possessed with the
love of virtue and their fellow-men, must always ensure happiness to
its members The industry of the citizen will receive encouragement}
and magnanimity, heroism and benevolence will be esteemed the ad-
n ired qualifications of the age. Every, the least invasion on the pub-
lic liberty, is considered as an infringement on that of the subject; and
feeling himself roused at the appearance of oppression, with a divine
enthusiasm, he flies to obey the summons of his country, and does she
but request, with zeal he resigns the life of the individual for the pres-
ervation of the whole.

Without some portion of this generous principle, anarchy and corn-
fusion would immediately ensue, the jarring interests of individuals,
regarding themselves only, and indifferent to the welfare of others,
would still further heighten the distressing scene, and with the assist"
ance of the selfish passions, it would end in the ruin and subversion of
the state. But where patriotism is the leading principle, unanimity is
conspicuous in public and private councils. The constitution receives
for its stability the united efforts of every individual, and revered, for
its justice, admired for its principle, and formidable for its strength',
its fame reaches to the skies, U ■

Should we look into the history of the ancient republics, we shall
find them a striking example of. what I have asserted, and in no part
of their progress to greatness, producing so many illustrious actions;
arid advancing so rapidly in the road to glory, as when- actuated by
public spirit and the love of their country. The Greeks in particular
ever held such sentiments as these in the highest veneration, and with
such sentiments as these alone they established their freedom, and
finally conquered the innumerable armies of the east. . .

When Xerxes, the ambitious prince of Persia, vainly thinking that
jnature and the very elements were subject to his control, inflamed
with the thoughts of conquest, threatening the seas, should they resist,
swith his displeasure, and the mountains, should they oppose his pro-
gress; when, after having collected the armies of the then known world
under his banners, he entered the bowels" of Greece, leading forth his
millions, resolutely bent upon the destruction and extirpation of this
'small but free people, what do we perceive to be their conduct upon so
{alarming an occasion? do they tamely submit without a struggle? do
Ithey abandon the property, their liberties, and their country, to the

128 AMERICAX PATRIOTISM.

fury of these merciless invaders? do they meanly supplicate the favor,
or intreat the humanity of this haughty prince? no! sensible .of .the
justice of their cause, and that valor is oftentimes, superior to num-
bers; undaunted by the appearance of this innumerable host, and fired
with the glorious zeal, they,, with one voice, resolve to establish their
liberties, or perish in the attempt.

View them at the moment when the armies of their enemies, like an
inundation, overspread their whole Grecian territory; when oppres-
sion seemed as though collecting- its mighty fcrce, and liberty lay
fettered at the shrine of ambition, then shone forth the heavenly prin-
ciple, then flamed the spirit of the patriot, and, laying aside all senti-
ments of jealousy, as though favored with the prophetic wisdom. of
heaven, with bravery unexampled, they charge their foe, and, fighting
in defence of their country, success erovyns virtuous attempt. With
three hundred Lacedemonians, one only of whom was left to tell the
fate of these intrepid men to their weeping country, they conquered
the combined force of the whole eastern world.

The privileges and immunities of the states of Holland, after a con-
test of forty years, in which they withstood the exertions of their
powerful neighbors, being established by the force of this single prin-
ciple, which appears to prevail both in the senate and the field, might
also be adduced in support of what I have advanced; but, my fellow-
countrymen, we cannot want additional proofs; the living history of
our own times, will carry conviction to the latest posterity, that no
state, that no community, I may say that no family, nay, even that no
individual, can possibly flourish and be happy without some portion
of this sacred fire. It was this that raised America from being the
haunt of the savage and. the dwelling-place of the beast, to her present
state of civilization and opulence: it. was this that hath supported her
under the severest trials: it was this that taught her sons to fight, to
conquer, and to die, in support of freedom and its blessings; and
what is it, but this ardent love of liberty, that has induced you, my
fellow-citizens, to attend, on this solemn occasion, again to encourage
the streams of sensibility, and to listen, with so much attention and
candor, to one of the youngest of your fellow-citizens, whose youth
and inability plead powerfully against him, while the annual tribute is
paid to the memory of those departed citizens who fell the first sacri-
fices to arbitrary power. Check not such generous feelings. They
are the fruits of virtue and humanity, and, while the obligations you
remain under to those unhappy men lead you to shed the sympathetic'
tear, to dwell with pleasure upon their memories, and execrate the
causes of their death, remember that you can never repay them.
Ever bear it in your minds that, so implicit was the confidence you
willingly placed in that country that owed to you her affection, that,
nonvi-hstanding the introduction of that inhuman weapon of tyrants
into the very heart of your peaceful villages, you still would fain rely

J OX A THAN MASON. 1 29

on their deceitful assertion?, and paint the deformed monster: to you*
imaginations as the minister of peace and protection. Men, born in
the bosom of liberty, in the exercise of the social affections in their
full vigor, having once fixed them upon particular objects, they are
not hastily eradicated. Unaccustomed to sport with, and wantonly
sacrifice these sensible overflowings of the heart, to run the career of
passion and blinded lust, to be familiar with vice, and sneer at virtue,
to surprise innocence by deceiful cunning and assume the shape of
friendship to conceal the greater enmity, you could not at once realize
the fixed, the deliberate intention of those from whom you expected
freedom, to load you with slavery and chains, and not till insult re-
peated upon insult; not till oppression stalked at noon-day through
e Very avenue in your cities; nay, not till the blood of your peaceful
brethren flowed through yoUr; streets, was the envenomed serpent to
be discovered in the bushes; not till a general trespass had been made
upon the keenest feelings of human nature, and the widowed mother
was summoned to entomb the coid remains .of her affectionate son;
the virtuous bosom to resign its tender partner, and social circles
their nearest friends, could you possibly convince yourselves that you
and Britain were to be friends no more. Thrice happy day! the con-
sequences of which have taught the sons of America that a proper
exercise of public spirit and the love of virtue hath been able to sur-
prise and baffle the most formidable and most powerful tyranny on
earth/ ;

Patriotism is a virtue which will ever be universally admired, even
by those incapable of possessing it. Its happy effects are equally
visible in individuals as in states, and if we bestow a moment's reflec-
tion upon the heroes of antiquity, who have been deservedly cele-
brated by succeeding generations, both for their abilities and conduct,
we shall find that the true source of their greatness was this spirit of
freedom, and their inviolable attachment to the interest of their coun-
try.

With an attentive silence we listen to the historian while he relates
to us the integrity of conduct, the invincible courage, the earnest glow
of soul, and the ardent love of liberty which was exhibited in the lives
of those illustrious men, and so great were their virtues that we are
scarce able to credit them, but as the dreams of fancy, or the fictions
of the ingenious.

It is recorded of the celebrated Timolean, general of Corinth,
that notwithstanding he was blest with a temper singularly humane,
and with feelings that were ever roused at the miseries of his fellow-
men, he loved his country so passionately, that after making use of
every argument in his power to convince an elder brother of his error,
for attempting to become the tyrant of it, he devoted him to death ; a
brother on whom he had previously placed his affection, and whose
life being exposed to the fire of the enemy in a severe battle, he had

1 50 A MERlCAN PA TRIO TISM.

I before saved at the great risk of his own. Even in old age, after a

teriod of rigid retirement for twenty years, we are attracted by the
isinterested conduct of this exalted patriot.

When the Syracusians, groaning under every species of cruelty,
which' lust, avarice, and ambition, could inflict, supplicated their gen-
erous neighbors for assistance to alleviate those miseries they them-
selves had been exposed to, Tirnolean, urged to accept' the command
of the Corinthian auxiliaries,, at first hesitated,, his age, his manners,
his private happiness and the endearments of his family forbade it;
but sensible that he was but a member of the community, and stung
by the cries of innocence, his inclinations Were of but trivial moment
in competition with his duty.

View him. at the head of his chosen army, assembled to pleatl the
cause of suffering, virtue. In possession of arms and of power, if
inclined to pervert them, are his principles changed with his station?
_ are his thoughts bent on conquest or on death? or does he entertain a
secret wish to seize the moment of confidence, or build his greatness
upon the ruins of the distressed, or to remove one tyrant to reinstate
another? no ! but fired With a generous glow of soul, fired With the
manly sentiments of freedom, with an implacable hatred to oppression
of all kinds, he marches his troops to the deliverance of his afflicted
people, and with a firmness becoming soldiers fighting under the
standard of liberty, after a series of fatigue and toil, harassing marches
and fierce conflicts, he dethrones the tyrant, and is proclaimed the
deliverer of Syracuse. Haying restored tranquillity to this unhappy
country, repeopled their cities, revived their laws, and dispensed
justice to all ranks and classes, he resigned his command, and re-
treated once again to the private walks of life, accompanied with the
: grateful acknowledgments, of millions, as the patron Of their liberty
and the saviour of their country. Happy man! endowed with such a
noble soul, prone to feel for the misfortunes, and rejoice in the
happiness of his fellow-creatures.

But why need we resort to distant ages to furnish us with instances
of the effects of patriotism upon individuals ? will not the present day
afford at least one illustrious example to our purpose? yes, my fellow-
countrymen, America, young America too, can boast her patriots and
heroes,, men who have saved their country by their virtues, whose
characters posterity will admire, aud with a pleased attention, listen
on tiptoe to the story of their glorious exertions'. Let us pause a mo-
ment only upon the select catalogue, and take the first upon the list.
. View him in his private station, and here, as though Providence for
his excellencies had selected him for her own from the extensive circle
of humanity, we perceive him enjoying her richest dispensations. By
an affluent fortune, placed beyond the reach Of poverty or- depend-
ence, blessed with the social circle of "friends, and happily connected

'JONATHAN MASON. 131

by yet more endearing ties, peaceful reflections are his companions
through the da\\ and the soothing slumbers of innocence hover orer
his couch; charity presides steward of his household, and the distress-
ed are ever sure to receive. from his bosom that sigh which never fails
to console, and from his cheek the alleviating tear of sympathy. Hav-
ing reached the summit of human felicity, beyond even the picture of
his most sanguine expectations, it is indifferent to him, as an individu-
al, whether prince or people rule the state, but" nurtured in the bosom
of freedom, endowed with a greatness of soul, swallowed up with
public spirit and the love of mankind, does oppression scatter her
baleful prejudices, does ambition rear its guilty crest, friends, rela-
tions and fortunes are like the dust of the balance. The pleas
of nature give way to those of his country, and urged on by heav-
enly motives, he flies instantly to her relief. See him, while grief dis-
tracts his bosom at the effusion of human blood, grasp the sword of
justice and buckle on the harness, of the warrior. See him, with forti-
tude unparalleled, with perseverance indefatigable, deaf to pleasure
and despising corruption, cheerfully encountering the severest tasks
of duty, and the hardest toils of a military life. Modest in prosperity
and shining like a meteor in adversity, we behold this patriotic hero,
with a small army of determined freemen, attacking fighting, and con-
quering an army composed of the bravest veteran troops of Britain.

And shall we, my countrymen, stop the current of gratitude ? and
can we forbear testifying our joy upon the success of such singular ex-
ertions ? shall we seal. his death before we thank him for his services?
by no means. Our acknowledgments will irresistibly flow from us to
this deserved object of admiration, and his very actions will sting the
soul of the ungrateful wretch, until he is forced to admire their lustre,
. and confess his inability to equal them.

Some there are who, Roman-like, would banish him for his good
conduct; but while we copy the spirit of this great people, let us not
be as diligent to catch their vices. Such conduct is inconsistent with
the sentiments of freemen, and surely we cannot forget that he has
saved our country.

Rewards and punishments are in the hands of the public, and it is
equally consistent with generosity and humanity to bestow the one,
as inflict the other. We cannot be too cautious in the objects of our
gratitude; let merit, conspicuous merit, be the standard to which our
praises shall resort, and it will excite a noble emulation in others, and
let us rather forbear that respect, which is too often found attendant
upon the rich, though their wealth has been amassed with the ruin of
their country.

But the praises of us are not the patriot's only reward: with an ap-
proving conscience sweetening the declivity of life, his invitation is to
the skies, there to receive a far more "precious reward, for the estab-

1 3 2 A M ERICA N PA TRIO TISM.

lishment of that principle to which, since the origin of mankind, heaven
hath paid an immediate attention.

; :. ■-' . - I .v. : - - - '

" Where the brave youth with love olgtory fired,

Who greatly in his country's cause expired, «*W*Ve1

&*n Shall Inow he conquered. The firm patriot there,

EESffjrSfi ' Who made the welfare of mankind his care,

bn£ ,nT Though still by faction, vice, and fortune crost, to 3}£t

Shall find his generous labor was not lost."— Coin.

Such is the progress of public spirit and the love of virtue, and it is
the only pillar upon which can safely be erected thebappiness of man-
kind. Without some play of the social affections in every society,
With cmt some barrier to oppose the stormy passions of individuals,
without some general attachment to the public welfare, a door is open
to ambition and political corruption; luxury and selfishness become
fashionable vices, and the spirit of the government is perverted; the
public good is neglected, the riches of the state insecure, the liberty of
the siibfecr/s lighted, and the attempt of the tyrant made successful by
the follies- of the people.

What but the want of patriotism, that hath buried in ruins the
mighty empires of Greece and Rome, that standing armies, the scourge
of the innoeent, prevail throughout all Europe, that the pages of his-
tory present to our view so melancholy a picture of the human species,
and that America and Britain are not at this day running the road to
greatness and glory in concert; and what is it but the want of patriot-
ism that could induce that haughty nation, divested of every public
virtue, of every bosom feeling, of every pretension to humanity, with-
out apology or pretext, to usher a standing army, composed of va-
grants, criminals, and mercenaries, into our peaceful country.

O my countrymen, it is the want of patriotism that we are at this
time called to weep over the wanton massacre of innocent men; that
this is not the only house of mourning; that the fields of America have
become devoted to war, "and scenes of slaughter familiar to her sons;
that our oppressors yet persist in their destructive system of tyranny,
and if their power was equal to their thirst of blood, with the spirit of.
ambition by which they are now directed, would lead them to destroy
and extirpate the whole human race. But thanks be to heaven, that
by the force of those virtues which they have discarded, we have nobly
resisted the attempts of these cruel men, and the miseries they have so
profusely dealt out to us, are returning, with additional vengeance,
upon their own heads. The danger of the issue is now past, and if
we but retain the same patriotic ardor, with which we first defended
our rights from the grasp of our enemies, they are every day in our
power. We have everything to hope; they on the other hand have
everything to fear. Youth, vigor, and the invincible arm of justice,
are on our side: The genius 'of liberty also is our advocate, who,
though persecuted, hath never been conquered.

JONATHAN MA SOX. " 133

In our day we are called to see a happy country laid waste -at the
shrine of ambition; to» experience those scenes of distress which his?
tory is filled with: but experience rivets Its lessons upon the mind, and
if we resolve with deliberation, and execute with vigor, we may yet be
a free and nourishing people. Repine not too much at the ravages of
war, nor murmur at the dispensations of Providence. We oftentimes
rate our blessings in proportion to the difficulty in attaining them, and
if, without a struggle, we had secured our liberties, perhaps we should
have been less sensible of their value.- Chastisements in youth are
not without their advantages; blessings most commonly spring from
them in old age. They lead us to reflect seriously in the hour of re-
tirement, and to cherish thpse qualincatiohs which are frequently lost
in the glare of prosperity. .

The important prophecy is nearly accomplished. The rising glory
pf this western hemisphere is already announced, and she is summoned
to her seat among the nations. We have, publicly declared ourselves
convinced of the destructive tendency of standing armies: we have ac-
knowledged the necessity of public spirit and the love of virtue to the
happiness of any people, and we profess to be sensible of the great
blessings that flow from them,, Let us not then act unworthy of the
reputable character we now sustain: like the nation we have aban-
doned, be content with freedom in form and tyranny in substance,
profess virtue and practice vice, and convince an attentive world that
in this glorious struggle for our lives and properties, the only men ca-
pable of prizing such exalted privileges,' were an illustrious set of
heroes, who have. sealed their principles with their blood. Dwell, my
fellow-citizens, upon the present situation of your country. Remem-
ber that though our enemies have dispensed with the hopes of conquer-
ing, our land is not entirely freed of them, and. should our resistance
prove unsuccessful by our own inattention and inactivity, death will be
far preferable to the yoke of bondage. ;

Let us therefore be still vigilent over our enemies — instil into our
armies the righteous cause they protect and support, and let not the
soldier and citizen be distinct characters among us. By our conduct
let us convince them, that it is for the preservation of themselves and
their country they are now fighting; that they, equally with us, are in-
terested in the event, and abandon them not to the insatiable rapacity
of the greedy executioner.

As a reward for our exertions in the great cause of freedom, we are
now in the possession of those rights and privileges attendant upon
the original state of nature, with the opportunity of establishing a
government for ourselves, independent of any nation or any people
upon the earth. We have the experience of ages to copy from, advan-
tages that have been denied to any that have gone before us. Let us
then, my fellow-citizens, learn to value the blessing. Let integrity of
heart, the spirit of freedom and rigid virtue be seen to actuate every

134 A MERIl A X PA TRIO TJSM.

member of the common wealth. Letrnot party rage,, private animosi-
ties, or self interested motives, succeed that religious attachment $©
the public weal which has brought us successfully thus far; for vain
ere all the boasted charms of liberty if her greatest votaries are guided
by such base passions. The trial of our patriotism is yet before us;
and we have reason to thank heaven that its principles are so. well
known and diffused. \ Exercise towards each other the benevolent feel-
ings of friendship, and let that unity of/ sentiment, which, has shone
in the field, be equally animating in our councils.

Remember that prosperity is dangerous; that though successful, we
are not infallible: that like the rest oi mankind we are capable of
erring. The line of our happiness may be traced with exactness, and
still there may be a difficulty in pursuing it. Let us not forget that
our enemies have other arts in store for our destruction; that they; are
tempting us into those snares which, after successful struggles, proved
the ruin of the empires of the east; and let this sacred-maxim receive
the deepest impression upon our minds, that if avarice, if extortion, if
luxury and political corruption, are suffered to become popular among
us, civil discord and the ruin of our country will be the speedy conse-
quence of such fatal vices; but while patriotism is the leading prinei.
pie, and our laws are contrived with wisdom, and executed with vigor;
while industry, frugality and temperance are held in estimation, and
we depend upon public spirit and the love of virtue for our so< ial -hap-
piness, peace and affluence will throw their smiles upon the brow of the
individual, our commonwealth will flourish, our land become the land
of liberty, and America an asylum for the oppressed.

LETTER TO THE GOVERNORS.

_ ■- >:> /fcqsn ;

GEORGE WASHINGTON. Axdm

A<rzu£>urjr/i, A. 1 ..June 18, 1783.

Sir — The object for which I had the honor to hold an appointment
in the service of my country, being accomplished, I am now preparing
to resign it into the hands of Congress, and return to that domestic re-
tirement, which, it is well known, I left with the greatest reluctance;
a retirement for which I have never ceased to sigh through a long arid
painful absence, in which (remote from the noise and trouble of the
world), I meditate t6 pass the remainder of life, in a state of undis-
turbed repose; but, before I carry this resolution into effect, I think it
a duty incumbent on me to make this my last official communication,
to congratulate you on the glorious events which heaven has been
pleased to produce in our favor; to offer my sentiments respecting
some important subjects, which appear to me to be intimately con-
nected with the tranquillity of the. United States; to take .my leave of

GEORGE IVASIlLVGTOy. 135

your excellency as a public character; and to give my final blessing to
that country, in whose service I have spent the prime of my life, for
whose sake I have consumed so many anxious days and watchful
nights, and whose happiness, being- extremely dear to me, will ahvays
constitute no inconsiderable part of my own.

Impressed with the liveliest sensibility on this pleasing occasion, I
v.- ill claim the indulgence of dilating the more copiously on the subject
of our mutual felicitation. When we. consider the magnitude of the
prize we contended for, the doubtful nature o£ the contest and the fa-
vorable manner in which it has terminated, we shall find the greatest
possible reason for gratitude an 1 rejoicing. .This is a theme that will
prford infinite delight to, every benevolent and liberal mind; whether
the event in contemplation be considered as a source of present en joy-
■meaty or the parent of future happiness; and we, shall have equal oc-
casion to felicitate ourselves on the lot which Providence, has assigned
us,. whether we view it in a natural, a political, or moral point of light.
\\ The citizens of America, placed in the most enviable condition, as the
sole lords and proprietors of a vast tract of continent, comprehending
all the various soils and climates of the world, and abounding with all
the necessaries and conveniences: of life* are now, by the late satisfac-
tory pacification, acknowledgcd.to be possessed of absolute freedom and
independency: they are from this period to be considered as the actors
on a most conspicuous theatre, which seems to be peculiarly designed
by Providence for the display of human greatness and felicity. Here
they are not only surrounded with every thing that can contribute to
the completion of private and domestic enjoyment, but heaven .has
crowned all its other blessings, by giving a surer opportunity for politi-
cal happiness, than any other nation' has ever been favored with.
Nothing can illustrate these observations more forcibly than a recol-
lection of the happy conjuncture of times and circumstances, under
which our republic assumed -its rank among the nations. The founda-
tion of our empire was not laid in a gloomy age of ignorance and su-
perstition, but at an epocha when the rights of mankind were better
understood and more clearly defined, than at any former periptL Re-
searches of the human mind after social happiness have been carried
to a great extent; the treasures of knowledge acquired by the Jabors of
philosophers, sages, and legislators, through a long succession of years
are laid open for us, and their collected wisdom may be happily, ap-
plied in the establishment of our forms of government. The free cul-
tivation of letters, the unbounded extension of commerce, the progres-
sive refinement of manners, the. growing liberality of sentiment, and,
above all, the pure and benign light of revelation, have had a meliora-
ting influence on mankind, and increased the blessings of society. At
this auspicious period, the United States came into existence as a na-
tion; and if their citizens should not be completely free and happy,
the fault will be entirely their own.

6 AMERICAN rATAVOTISM.

Such is our situation, and such are our. prospects. But notwith-
standing, the cup of blessing is thus reached o.ut to us ; notwithstanding
happiness is ours, if we have a disposition to seize the occasion, .and
make it our own, yet 'it '..appears' ."to- me there is an option still left to.
the United States of America, whether they will be respectable and
prosperous, or contemptible and miserable as a nation. This is the
time of their political probation: this is the moment when the' eyes of
the whole world are turned upon them: this is the time to establish or.
ruin their national character forever: this is the favorable moment to^
'give such r. tone to the federal government, as will enable it to answer
the ends of it's institution: or, this may be the ill-fated moment for re-
laxing the powers Of the union, annihilating the cement of the confed-
eration, and exposing us tb become the sport of European politics,
which may play one state against another, to prevent their growing,
importance, and to serve their own interested purposes. For, accord-
ing to the system of policy the states shall "adopt at this moment, they
will stand or fall; and by their confirmation or lapse, it is yet to be de-
cided, whether the revolution must ultimately be considered as a bless-
ing or a curse, not to the present age alone, for with our fate will the
destiny of unborn millions be involved.

"With this conviction of the importance of the present crisis, silence ^
in me would be a crime; I will therefore speak to your excellency the
language of freedom and sincerity, without disguise.. I am aware,
however, those who differ from me in political' sentiments may, per-
haps, remark, I am stepping but of the proper line of my duty; and
they may prob'ably ascribe to arrogance or ostentation, what I know is
' alone the result of the purest intention. But the rectitude of my own
heart; which disdains such unworthy motives; the part I have hitherto
acted in life; the determination I have formed of not taking any share
in public business hereafter, the ardent desire I feel, and shall continue
to manifest, of quietly enjoying in private life, after all the toils of war,
the benefits of a wise and liberal government, will, I flatter myself,
sooner or later, convince my country, that I could have no sinister
views in delivering, with so little reserve, the opinion contained in this
address. y, _ '

There are four things which, I humbly conceive, are essential to
the well being, I may even venture to "say, to the existence, of the
United States, as an independent power. -

ist. An indissoluble union of the'states under one federal head.

2dly*. A sacred regard to pubiicTjustice.

3dly. The adoption of a proper peace establishment. And,

4thly. The prevalence of that pacific and friendly disposition among
the peopleof the United States, which will induce them to forget their
local prejudices and policies; to make those mutual concessions which
are requisite to the general prosperity; arid in some instances, to sac
rifice their individual advantages to the interest of the community.

GEORGE WASHINGTON. 13-7

These are the pillars on which the glorious fabric of our indepen-
dency and nationalcharacter must be supported. Liberty is the basis
—and whoever would dare to sap the foundation, or overturn the
structure, under Whatever specious pretext he may attempt it, will
merit the bitterest execration, and the severest punishment, which caii
be afflicted by his injured country.

On the three first articles I will make a few observations, leaving
the last to the good sense and serious consideration of those immedi-
ately concerned.

Under the first head, although it may not be necessary or proper
forme in this place to enter into a particular disquisition of the prin-
ciples of the union, and to take up the great question which has been
frequently agitated, whether it be expedient and requisite for the states
to delegate a larger proportion of power to Congress, or not; yet it
will be a part of my duty, and that o£ every true patriot, to assert,
without reserve, and to insist upon the following positions:— That, un-
less the states will suffer Congress to exercise those prerogatives they
are undoubtedly Invested with by the constitution, every thing must
very rapidly tend to anarchy and confusion: That it is indispensable
to the happiness of the individual states, that there should be lodged,
sbmevyhere, a supreme power to regulate and govern the general con-
cerns of the confederated republic, without Which the union cannot be
of long duration. That there must be a faithful and pointed compli-
ance on the part of every state with the late proposals and demands of
Congress, of the most fatal consequences will ensue: That whatever
measures have a tendency to dissolve the union, or contribute to vio-
late or lessen the sovereign authority y Ought to be considered as hos-
tile to the liberty and independence. of America, and the authors of
them treated accordingly. And, lastly, that, unless we can be enabled
by the concurrence of the states to participate in the fruits of the revo-
lution, and enjoy the essential benefits of civil society, under a form of
government so free and uncorrupted, so happily guarded against the
danger of oppression, as has been devised and adopted by the articles
of confederation, it will be a subject of regret, that so much blood and
treasure have been lavished for no purpose; that so many sufferings
have been encountered without a compensation, and that so many
sacrifices have been made in vain. Many other considerations might
here be adduced to prove, that, without an entire conformity to the
spirit of the union, we cannot exist as an independent power. It will
be sufficient for my purpose to mention but one or two, which seem to
me of the greatest importance. It is only in our united character as
an empire, that our independence is acknowledged, that our power
can be regarded, or our credit supported among foreign nations. The
treaties of the European powers with the United States of America,
will have no validity on a dissolution of the union. We shall be left
nearly in a state of nature; or we may find, by our own unhappy ex-

138 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

perience, that there is a natural and necessary progression from the ex-
treme of anarchy to the extreme of tyranny; and that arbitrary power is
most easily established on the ruins of liberty, abused to licentiousness.

As to the second' article^ which respects the performance of public
justice, Congress have, in their late address to the United Stites,
almost exhausted the subject; they have explained their ideas :o fully,
and have enforced the obligations the states are under to render com-
plete justice to all the public creditors, with so much dignity and en-
ergy, that, in my opinion, no real friend to the honor and "independ-
ency of America can hesitate a single moment respecting the pro-
priety of complying with the just and honorable measures proposed.
If their arguments do not produce conviction, I know of nothing that
will have greater influence, especially when we reflect that the system
referred to, being the result of the collected wisdom of the continent,
must be esteemed, if not perfect, certainly the least objectionable, of
any that could be devised; and that, if it should not be carried into
immediate execution, a national bankruptcy, with all its deplorable
Consequences, will take place before any different plan can possibly fee-
proposed or adopted; so pressing are the present circumstances, and'
such is the alternative now offered to the states.

The ability of the country to discharge the debts which have been
incurred in its defence, is not to be doubted; and inclination* I flatter
myself, will not be wanting. The path of our duty is plain before u^;
honesty will be found, on every experiment, to be the best and only-
true policy. Let us then, as a nation, be just; let us fulfil the public
contracts which Congress had undoubtedly a right to make for the pur-
pose of carrying on the war, with the same good faith Ave suppose our-
selves bound to perform our private engagements. In the meantime,
let an attention to the cheerful performance of their proper business,
as individuals, and as members of society, be earnestly inculcated on
the citizens of America; then will they strengthen the bands of govern-
ment, and be happy under its protection. Every one will reap the
fruit of his labors: every one will enjoy his own acquisitions, without
molestation and without danger.

In this state of absolute freedom and perfect security, who will
grudge to yield a very little of his property to support the Common in-
terests of society, and ensure the protection of government ? Who
does not remember the frequent declarations at the commencement of
the war — that we should be completely satisfied if, at the expense of
one half, we could defend the remainder of our possessions? Where
is the man to be found, who wishes to remain in debt, for the defence
of his own person and property, to the exertions, the bravery, and the
blood of others, without making one generous effort to pay the debt
of honor and of gratitude? In what part of the continent shall we
find any man, or body of men, who would not blush to stand up and
propose measures purposely calculated to rob the soldier of his stipend,

GEORGE IVASIIEYGTOX. 139

-and the public creditor of his due? And were it possible that such a
flagrant instance of injustice could ever happen, would it not excite
the general indignation, and tend to bring down upon the authors -of
such measures the aggravated vengeance of Heaven? If, after all, a

, -spirit of disunion, or a temper of obstinacy and perverscness should
manifest itself in any of the states; if such aa ungracious disposition
■should attempt to frustrate ail the happy effect that might be expected

-to flow from the union; if there should be a refusal to comply with re-
quisitions for funds to discharge the annual interest of the public
debt; and if that refusal should revive all those jealousies, and pro-
duce all those evils, which are now happily removed, Congress, who
have in all their transactions shown a great degree of magnanimity and
justice, will stand justified in the sight of God and man ! and that state
alone, which puts itself in opposition to the aggregate wisdom of the
continent, and follows such mistaken and pernicious councils, will be
responsible for all the consequences.

For my own part, conscious of having acted, Avhile a servant of the
public, in the manner I conceived best suited to promote the real in-
terests of my country; having, in consequence of my fixed belief in
some measure pledged myself to the army, that their country would
finally do them complete and ample justice, and not wishing to con-
ceal any instance of my official conduct from the eyes of the world, I
have thought proper to transmit to your excellency the enclosed col-
lection of papers relative to the half-pay and commutation granted bv
Congress, to the officers of the army. From these communications
my decided sentiment will -.be clearly comprehended, together with the
conclusive reasons which induced me, at an early period, to recommend
the adoption of this measure in the most earnest and serious manner.
As the proceedings of Congress, the army, and myself, are open to
all, and contain, in my opinion, sufficient information to remove the
prejudices and errors which may have been entertained by any, I
think it unnecessary to say anything more than just to observe,
that the resolutions of Congress, now alluded to, are as undoubtedly
and absolutely binding upon the United States, as the most solemn
acts of confederation or legislation.

As to the idea which, I am informed, has in some instances pre-
vailed, that the half-pay and commutation are to be regarded merely
in the odious light of a pension, it ought to be exploded forever; that
provision should be viewed, as it really was, a reasonable compensa-
tion offered by Congress, at a time when they had nothing else to
give to officers of the army, for services then to be performed. It was
the only means to prevent a total dereliction of the service. It was a
part of their hire. I may be allowed to say, it was the price of their
blood and of your independency. It is therefore more than a common
debt; it is a debt of honor; it can never be considered as a pension,
or gratuity, nor cancelled until it is fairly discharged.

140 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

With regard to the distinction between officers and soldiers, it , a
sufficient that the uniform experience of every nation of the work i,:.
combined with our -own, proves the utility and propriety of the die-
crimination. Rewards, in proportion to the aid. the- public draws fro tit
them, are unquestionably due to all its servants. - In some lines,, the,
soldiers have, perhaps, generally, had an ample- compensation for
their services, by the large bounties which have been paid them, as
their officers will receive in the proposed commutation, in others, ifT
besides the donation of land, the payment of arreages of clothing and
wages (in which articles all the component parts of the army must hi
put upon the same footing), we take into the estimate the bounties
many of the soldiers have received, and the gratuity of one year's full
pay, which is promised to all, possibly their situation (every . circum-
stance being duly considered), willnot be deemed less eligible than that
of the officers. Should a farther reward, however, be judged equitable,
I .will venture to assert, no man will enjoy greater satisfaction tha-,i
myself, in an exemption from taxes for a. limited time (which has been
petitioned for in some instances), or any other adequate immunity
or compensation granted to the brave defenders of their country !s."
cause. But neither the adoption or rejection of this proposition .will,-!
in any manner, affect, much less militate against the act of Congress,
by which they have offered five years' full pay, in lieu of the half
pay for If z, which had been before promised to the officers of the
army. "..-•---

Before I conclude the subject on public justice, I cannot omit t>
mention the obligations this country is under to that meritorious clas),
of veterans, the non-commissioned officers and privates,, who hav i
been discharged for inability, in , consequence of the resolution r L
Congress, of the 23d of April, 1782, on an annual pension for life.
Their peculiar sufferings, their singular merits and claims to the L
provision, need only to be known, to interest the feelings of humanity
in their behalf. Nothing but a punctual payment of their annual
allowance, , can rescue them from the most complicated misery; and
nothing could be a more melancholy and distressing sight than to be-
hold those who have shed their blood, or lost their limbs in the ser-
vice of their country, without a shelter, without a friend, and without
the means of obtaining any of the comforts or necessaries of life, com-
pe'led to beg their Ir^ad daily from door to door. Suffer me to recom-
mend those of this description, belonging to your state, to the warmest
patronage of your excellency and your legislature.

It is necessary to say but a few words on the third topic whi h
was proposed, and which regards particularly the defence of the re-
public— as there can be little doubt but Congress will recommend a
proper peace establishment for the United States, in which a due at-
tention will be paid to the importance of placing the militia of the
union upon a regular and respectable footing. If this should be the

GEORGE WASHINGTON. i^i

case, I should beg leave to urge the great advantage of it in the
strongest terms.

The militia of this country must be considered as the palladium
of our security, and the first effectual resort in case of hostility. It is
essential, therefore, that the same system should pervade the whole;
that the formation and discipline of the militia of the continent shou d-
be abroutely uniform; and that the same species of arms, accoutre-
ment, and military apparatus, should be introduced in every part of
the United States. No one, who has not learned it from experience,
can conceive the difficulty, expense, arid confusion, which result from
a contrary system, or the vague arrangements which have hitherto
prevailed.

If, in treating of political points, a greater latitude than usual has
been taken in the co„rje of the address, the importance of the crisis,
and the magnitude of the objects in discussion, must be my apology.
It is, however, neither my wish nor expectation, that the preceding
observations should claim any regard, except so far as they shall ap-
pear to be dictated by a good intention, consonant to the immutable
rules of justice; calculated to produce a liberal system of policy, and
founded oh whatever experience may have been acquired by a long
and close attention to publie business. Here I might speak with more
confidence from my actual observations; and, if it would not swell
this letter (already too prolix), beyond the bounds I had prescribed
myself, I could demonstrate to every mind open to conviction, that,
in less time, and with much less expense than has been incurred, the
war might have been brought to the same happy conclusion, if the
resources of the continent could have been properly called forth; that
the distresses and disappointments which have very often occurred,
have, in too many instances, resulted more from a want of energy in
the continental government than a deficiency of means in the particu-
lar states; that the inefficacy of the measures, arising from the want
of an adequate authority in the supreme power, from partial compli-
ance with the requisitions of Congress, in some of the states, and
from a failure of punctuality in others, while they tended to damp the
zeal of those who were more willing to exert themselves, serv ed also
to accumulate the expenses of the war, and to frustrate the best con-
certed plans; and that the discouragement occasioned by the compli-
cated difficulties and embarrassments, in which our affairs were by
this means involved, would have long ago produced the dissolution
of any army, less patient, less virtuous, and less persevering, than
that which I have had the honor to command. But, while I men-
tion those things which are notorious facts, as the defects of our
federal constitution, particularly in the prosecution of a war, I beg it
may be understood, that, as I have ever taken a pleasure in gratefully
acknowledging the assistance and support I have derived from every
class of citizens, so I shall always be happy to do justice to the un-

142 AM ERICA X PATRIOTISM.

paralleled exertions of the individual states, on many interesting occa-
sions.

I have thus freely disclosed what I wished to make known before
I surrendered up my public trust to those who. committed it to me.
The task is now accomplished; I now bid adieu to your excellency,
as the chief magistrate of your state; at the same time I bid a last
farewell to the cares of office, and all the employments of public life.

It remains, then, to be my final and only request, that your excel-
lency will communicate these sentiments to your Legislature at their
next meeting, and that they may be considered as the legacy of one
who has ardently wished, on all occasions, to be useful to his country,
and who, even in the shade of retirement, will not fail to implore the
Divine benediction upon it.

I now make it my earnest prayer, that God would have you, and
the state over which you preside, in His holy protection; that He
would incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit ojf subordi-
nation and obedience to government; to entertain a brotherly affec-
tion and love for one another; lor their fellow-citizens of the United
Slates at large, and particularly for their brethren who have served in
the field; and, finally, that he would most graciously be pleased to
dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves
with that charity, humility, and pacific temper of the mind, which
were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion,
without an humble imitation of whose example, in these things, we
can never hope to be a happy nation.

I have the honor to be, with much esteem and respect, sir, your
excellency's most obedient and most humble servant.

George Washington.
- -

. - " ~~

FAREWELL TO THE ARMY. ,

- ■
GEORGE WASHINGTON.

• -

Princeton, November 2, 1783.

The United States in Congress assembled, after giving the most hon-
orable testimony to the merits of the federal armies, and presenting
them with the thanks of their country for their long, eminent, and
faithful services, having thought proper, by their proclamation bear-
ing date the 18th day of October last, to discharge such part of the
troops as were engaged for the war, and to permit the officers on fur-
loughs to retire from service, from and after to-morrow; which procla-
mation having been communicated in the public papers for the infor-
mation and government of all concerned, it only remains for the
Commander-in-chief to address himself once more, and that for the
last time, to the armies of the United States (however widely dispersed

geq::g:: wasiiixgton. 143

the individuals who composed them may be), ami to bid them an affec-
tionate, a long farewell.

But before the Commander-in-chief takes his final leave of those he
holds most dear, he wishes to in iulge himself a few moments in calling
to mind a slight review of the past. He will then take the liberty of
exploring with his military friends their future prospects, of advising
the general line of conduct, which, in his opinion, ought to be pur-
sued', and he will conclude the address by expressing the obligations
he fells himself under for the spirited and able assistance he has ex-
perienced from them, in the performance of an arduous office.
; A contemplation of the complete attainment (at a period earlier than
could have been expected) of the object, for which we contended
against so formidable a power, cannot but inspire us with astonish-
ment and gratitude. The: disadvantageous circumstances on our part,
under which the war was undertaken, can never be forgotten. The
singular interpositions of Providence in our feeble condition were
such, as could scarcely escape the attention of the most unobserving;
while the unparalleled perseverance of the armies of the United States,
through almost every possible suffering and discouragement for the
space of eight long years, was little short of a standing miracle.

It is not the meaning nor within the compass of this address, to de-
tail the hardships peculiarly incident to our service, or to describe the
distresses, which in several instances have resulted from the extremes
of hunger and nakedness, combined with the rigors of an inclement
season; nor is it necessary to dwell on the dark side of our past affairs.
Every American officer and soldier must now console himself for any
unpleasant circumstances. Which may have occurred, by a recollection
of the uncommon scenes of which he has been called to act no in-
glorious part, and the astonishing events of which he has been a wit-
ness; events, which have seldom^ if' ever "before, taken place on the
stage of human action; nor can they probably ever happen again.
For who has before seen a disciplined army formed at once from such
raw materials ? Who, that was not a witness, could imagine, that the
most violent local prejudices would cease so soon; and that men, who
came from the different parts of the continent, strongly disposed by
the habits of education to despise and quarrel with each other, would
instantly become but one patriotic band of brothers ? Or who, that
was not on the spot, can trace the steps by which such a wonderful
revolution has been effected, and such a glorious period put to all our
warlike toils ?

It is universally acknowledged, that the enlarged prospects of hap-
piness, opened by the confirmation of our independence and sover-
eignty, almost exceed the power of description. And shall not the
brave men, who have contributed so essentially to these inestimable
acquisitions, retiring victorious from the field of war to the field of
agriculture, participate in all the blessings, which have been obtained?

144 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

In such a republic, who will exclude them from the rights of citizens;
and the fruits of their labor? In such a country, so happily circum-
stanced, the pursuits of commerce and the cultivation of the soil will un-
fold to industry the certain road to competence. To those hardy sol-
diers, who are actuated by the spirit of adventure, the fisheries will
afford ample and profitable employment; and the extensive and fertile
regions of the West will yield a most happy asylum to those, who;
fond of domestic enjoyment, are seeking for personal independence^
Nor is it possible to conceive that any one of the United States will
prefer a national bankruvt :y, and a dissolution of the Union, to a com-
pliance with the requisitions of Congress, and the payment of its just
debts; so that the officers and soldiers may expect considerable assist-
ance, in recommencing their civil occupations, from the sums due
to them from the public, which must and will most inevitably be
paid.

In order to effect this desirable purpose, and to remove the preju-
dices, which may have taken possession of the minds of any of the
good people of the States, it is earnestly recommended to all the troops,
that, with strong attachments to the Union, they should carry with
them into civil society the most conciliating dispositions, and that they
should prove themselves not less virtuous and useful as citizens, than
they have been persevering and victorious as soldiers. What though
there should be some envious individuals, who are unwilling to pay the
debt the public has contracted, or to yield the tribute due to merit; yet
let such unworthy treatment produce no invectives, nor any instance
of intemperate conduct. Let it be- remembered, that the unbiassed
voice of the free citizens of the United States has promised the just
reward and given the merited applause. Let it be known and remem-
bered, that the reputation of the federal armies is established beyond
the reach of malevolence; and let a consciousness of their achievements
and fame still incite the men, who composed them, to honorable
actions; under the persuasion that the private virtues of economy, pru-
dence, and industry, will not be less amiable in civil life, than the
more splendid qualities of valor, perseverance, and enterprise were in
the field. Every one may rest assured, that much, very much, of the
future happiness of the officers and men, will depend upon the wise
and manly conduct, which shall be adopted by them when they are
mingled with the great body of the community. And, although the
General has so frequently given it as his opinion in the most public
and explicit manner, that, unless the principles of the Federal Gov-
ernment were properly supported, and the powers of the Union in-
creased, the honor, dignity, and justice of the nation, would be lost
for ever; yet he cannot help repeating, on this occasion, so interesting
a sentiment, and leaving it as his last injunction to every officer and
every soldier, who may view the subject in the same serious point of
light, to add his best endeavors to tho^e of his worthy fellow citizens

GEORGE IVASHIXGTOX. 145

towards effecting these great and valuable purposes, on which our very-
existence as a nation so materially depends.

The Commander-in-chief conceives little is now wanting, to enable
the soldters to change the military character into that of the citizen,
but that steady and decent tenor of behavior, which has generally dis-
tinguished, not only the army under his immediate command, but the
different detachments and separate armies through the course of the
war. From their good sense and prudence he anticipates the happiest
consequences; and, while he congratulates them on the glorious occa-
sion, which renders their services in the field no longer necessary, he
Wishes to express the strong obligations he feels himself under for
the assistance he has received from every class and in ever instance.
He presents his thanks in the most serious and affectionate manner
to the general officers, as well for their counsel on many interesting
occasions, as for their ardor in promoting the success of the plans he
had adopted; to the commandants of -regiments and corps, and to the
other officers, for their great zeal and attention in carrying his orders
promptly into execution; to the staff, for their alacrity and exactness
in performing "the duties of their several departments; and to the non-
commissioned officers and private soldiers, for their extraordinary
patience and suffering, as well as their invincible fortitude in action.
To the various branches of the army, the General takes this last and
solemn opportunity of professing his inviolable attachment and friend-
ship. He wishes more than bare professions were in his power; that
he were really able to be useful to them all in future life. He flatters
himself, however, they wilt do him the justice to believe, that what-
ever could with propriety be attempted by him has been done.

And being now to conclude these his last public orders, to take his.
Ultimate leave in a short time of the military character, and to bid a
final adieu to the armies he has m long had the honor to command, he
can only again offer in their behalf his recommendations to their grateful
country, and his prayers to the God of armies. May ample justice
be done them here, and may the choicest of Heaven's favors, both
here and hereafter, attend those, who, under the Divine auspices,
have secured innumerable blessings for others. With these wishes
and his benediction, the Commander-in-chief is about to retire from
service. The curtain of separation will soon be drawn, and the mili-
tary scene to him will be closed for ever. .-,

- -
I .

.• : .

1 4<J A M ERICA X 1 \4 TRIO TISM.

.XZtizil&OO 3HT TO "81033:

RESIGNATION OF COMMISSION.

GEORGE WASHINGTON.

at- i- / r. i ■•-■ - o ; • siailT

iv<?w J or k, December 23, 1783.

Mr. President: The great events on which my resignation de-
pended, having at length taken place, I have now the honor of offer- -
mg my sincere congratulations to Congress, and of presenting my sell
before them to surrender into their hands the trust committed to me.
and to claim the indulgence of retiring from the service of my
country.

Happy in the confirmation of our independence and sovereignty,
and pleased with the opportunity afforded the United States of becom-
ing a respectable nation, I resign, with satisfaction, the appointment
I accepted with diffidence ; a diffidence in my abilities to accomplish
so arduous a task, whioh, however, Was superseded by a confidence m
the rectitude of our cause, the support of the Supreme Power of the
union, and the patronage of Heaven.

The successful termination of the war has verified the most san-
guine expectations ; and my gratitude for the interposition of Provi-
dence, and the assistance I have received from my countrymen, in-
creases with every review of the momentous contest.

While I repeat my < b-ligations to the army in general, I should do
injustice to my own feelings, not to acknowledge, in this place, the
peculiar services and distinguished merits of the persons who have
been attached to my person during the war. It was impossible the
choice of confidential officers to compose my family could have been
more fortunate. Permit me, sir, to recommend in particular those
who have continued in the service to the present moment as worthy of
the favorable notice and patronage of Congress.

I consider it as an indispensable duty to close this last soiemir act
of my official- life* by ^commending the interests of our dearest courts
try to the protection of Almighty God, and those who have the super-
intendence of them to his holy keeping.

Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great
theatre of action; and, bidding an affectionate farewell to this august
body, under whose orders I have long acted, I here offer my commis-
sion, and take my leave of ait the employments of public life.

-■ ,'i ;)i|

-Jj tci

BEXJAMIX RUSH. 1 47

THE DEFECTS OF THE CONFEDERATION.

BENJAMIN RUSH.
• Philadelphia, 1737. .

There is nothing more common than io confound the terms of
American Revolution with those of the Lite American War. The
American war is over, bat this is far from being the case with the
American revolution. On the contrary, nothing but the first act of
the great drama is closed. It remains yet to establish and perfect oar
new forms of government; and to prepare the principles, morals, an 1
manners of our citizens for. these forms of government, after they are
established and brought to perfection.

The confederation, together with most of our State constitution;,
were formed under very unfavorable circumstances. We had just
emerged from a corrupted monarchy. Although we understood per-
fectly the principles; of liberty,, yet most of us were ignorant of the
forms and combinations of power in republics. Add to this, the
British army was in the heart of our country* spreading desolation
wherever it went: our resentments, of course, were awakened. We
detested the British name, and unfortunately refused to copy some
things in the administration of justice and power, in the British Gov,
eminent, which have made it the admiration and envy of the world.
In our opposition to monarchy, we forgot that the temple of tyranny
has two doors. We bolted one of them by proper restraints; but we
left the other open, by neglecting to guard against the effects of our
own ignorance and licentiousness.

Most of the present difficulties of this country arise from the weak,
n.ess and other defects of our governments.

My business at present shall be only to suggest the defects of the
confederation. These consist — ■ 1st. In the deficiency of coercive
power. 2d. In a defect of exclusive power to issue paper money,
and regulate commerce. 3d. In vesting the sovereign power of the
United States in a single legislature: and 4th. In the too frequent ro,
tation of its members,

A convention is to sit soon for the purpose of devising means of ,
obviating part of the two first defects that have been mentioned. But
I wish they may add to their recommendations to each State to sur-
render up to Congress their power of emitting money. In this way,
a uniform currency ■ will. be produced, that will facilitate trade, and
help to bind the States together. Nor will the States be deprived of
large sums of money by this means, when sudden emergencies require
it; for they may always borrow them, as they did during the war, out
of the treasury of Congress. Even a loan office may be better insti-
tuted in this way, in each State, than in any other.

1 48 A ME RICA X PA TRIO TISM

The two last defects that have been mentioned are not of Jess mag-
nitude than the first. Indeed, the single legislature of Congress will
become more dangerous from an increase of power than ever. To
remedy this, let the supreme federal power be divided, like the legisla-
tures of most of our States, into two distinct, independent branches.
Let one of them be styled the Council of the States and the other the
Assembly of the States. Let the first consist of a single delegate—*
and the second of two, three, or four delegates, Chosen annually by
each State. Let the president be chosen annually by the joint ballot Of
both Houses; and let him possess certain powers, in conjunction with
a privy council, especially the power of appointing most of the officers
of the United States. The officers will not only be better when ap-
pointed this way, but one of the principal causes of faction will be
thereby removed from Congress. I apprehend this division of" the
power of Congress will become more necessary as soon as they are
invested with more ample powers of levying and expending public
money.

The custom of turning men out of power or office as SoOn as they
are qualified for it, has been found to be absurd in practice. Is it
virtuous to dismiss a general — a physician— or even a domestic, as
soon as they have acquired knowledge sufficient to be useful to us, for
the sake of increasing the number of able generals, skilful physicians—
and faithful servants? We do not. Government is a science, and
can never be perfect in America until we encourage men to devote not
only three years, but their whole lives to it. I believe the principal
reason why so many men of abilities object to serving in Congress is
owing to their not thinking it worth while to spend three years in
acquiring a profession which their country immediately afterwards for-
bids them to follow.

There are two errors or prejudices on the subject of government in
America, which lead to the most dangerous consequences.

It is often said, "that the sovereign and all other power is seated in
the people." This idea is unhappily expressed. 'It should be, "ail
power is derived from the people," they possess it only on the days of
their elections. After this, it is the property of their rulers; nor can
they exercise or resume it unless it be abused. It is of importance to
circulate this idea; as it leads to order and good government.

The people of America have mistaken the meaning of the word
sovereignty: hence each state pretends to be sovereign. In Europe,
it is applied only to those states which possess the power of making
war and peace— of forming treaties, and the like. As this power be-
longs only to Congress, they are the only sovereign power in the
United States.

We commit a similar mistake in our ideas of the word independent.
No individual state, as such, has any claim to 'independence. She is
independent only in a union with her sister states in congress.

BEN J A MIN R USII. 1 49

To conform the principles, morals, and manners of our citizens, to
our republican forms Of government, it is absolutely necessary that
knowledge of every kind should be disseminated through every part
of the United States,

For this purpose let Congress, instead of laying out a half a million
of dollars in building a federal town, appropriate only a fourth of that
sum in founding a federal university. In this university let every-
thing connected with government, such as history — the law of nature
and nations, the civil law, the municipal laws of our country, and
the principles of commerce— foe taught by competent professors. Let
masters be employed, likewise, to teach gunnery, fortification, and
everything connected with defensive and offensive war. Above all,
let a professor of, what is called in the European universities, economy,
be established in this federal seminary. His business, should be to
unfold the principles and practice of agriculture and manufactures of
all kinds, and to enable him to make his lectures more extensively use-
ful, Congress should support a travelling correspondent for him, who
should visit all the nations of Europe, and transmit to him, from
time to time, all the discoveries and improvements that are made in
agriculture and manufactures. To this seminary young men should
be encouraged to repair, after completing their academical studies in
the colleges of their respective states. The honors and offices of the
United States should, after a while, be confined to persons who had
imbibed federal and republican ideas in this university.

For the purpose of diffusing knowledge, as well as extending the
living principle of government to every part of the United States —
every State, city, county, village, and township in the Union should
be tied together by means of the post office. This is the true non-
electric wire of government. It is the only means of conveying heat
and light to every: individual in the federal commonwealth " Swe-
den lost her liberties," says the Abbe Raynal, " because her citizens
were so scattered that they had no means of acting in concert with
each other." It should be a constant injunction to the postmasters to
convey newspapers free of all charge for postage. They are not only
the vehicles of knowledge and intelligence, but the sentinels of the
liberties of our country. '

The conduct of some of those strangers who have visited our country
since the peace, and who fill the British papers with accounts of our
distresses, shows as great a want of good sense as it does of good
nature. They see nothing but the foundations and walls of the temple
of liberty; and yet they Undertake to judge of the whole fabric.
.: Our own citizens act a still more absurd part when they cry out,
after the experience of three or four years, that we are not proper
materials for republican government. Remember, we assumed these
lorms of government in a hurry, before we were prepared for them.
Let every man exert himself in promoting virtue and knowledge in

I 50 A MEXICAN PA TRIO. TISM.

our country, arid ,we shall soon become good republicans. Look at
the steps by which governments have been changed, or rendered stable
in Europe. - Read the history of Great ; Britain. Her boasted govern-
ment has risen out of wars and rebellions that lasted above six hun-
dred years. The United States are travelling peaceably into order and
good government. They know no strife— but what arises from the
collision of opinions; and, in three years, they have advanced further
h\ the road to stability and- happiness than most of the nations in
Europe have done, An. as-xnany centuries. . „

There is but one path that can lead the United States to destruction;
and that is their extent of territory. It was probably to effect this
that. Great Britain ceded to us so much waste land. But even, this
path may be avoided. Let but one new stale be exposed to sale at a
time, and let -the land office be shut up tilt every part of this new state
be settled. jc [ ■.-.-.-■■-. - -

I am extremely sorry to find a passion for retirement so universal
among the patriots and heroes ,0! the -war. They resemble skilful
mariners who, after exerting themselves to preserve a ship from sink-
ing in a storm, in the middle of the ocean, iirop asleep as soon as the
waves subside, and leave the care of, their lives and property, during
the remainder of the voyage, to sailors without knowledge or experi-
ence. Every man in a- republic is public property. His time and
talents, his youth, his manhood, his old age; nay more, his life, his
all, belong to his country*

Patriots of 1774* 1775, 1776-Theroes of 1778, 1779, 1780, come for-
ward! your country demands 3Tour services. Philosophers and friends
to mankind come forward! your country demands your studies and
f peculations. Lovers of peace and order, who declined taking part in
the late war, come forward!- your country forgives your timidity and
demands your influence and advice. Hear her proclaiming, in sighs
and- groans, in her governments, in her finances,- in. her trade, in her
manufactures, in her morals and in her manners, -■" The Revolution is
notover _-.-- 2j

■ - , ■■ -. . : ■■ ■■; .

, . . - . . . ■ .- ; ■ ■ . - ,. " . [ - ■ ■

EULOGY ON ADAMS AND JEFFERSON.

DANIEL Vv'EESTER.
Fav.ev.il Hall^ Boston, A itgi/st 2, 1826.

This is an unaccustomed spectacle,, For the first time, fellow
citizens, badges of mourning shroud the columns and overhang the
arches of this hall. These walls, which were consecrated so long ago
lo the cause of American liberty, which witnessed her infant struggles,
kx\<\ rung with the shouts of her earliest victories, proclaim now that
distinguished friends and champions of the great cause have fallen. It

DANIEL WEBSTER. 15*

is right that it should be thus. The tears which flow, and the honors
that are paid, when the founders of the republic die, give hope that
the republic itself may be immortal. It Is fit that by public assembly
and solemn observance, by anthem and by eulogy, we commemorate
the services of national benefactors, extol their virtues, and render
thanks to God for eminent blessings, early given and long-continued,
to our favored country.

-> Adams and Jefferson are no more; and we are assembled, fellow-
citizens — the aged, the middle-aged, and the young — by the spontaneous
impulse of all, under the authority of the municipal government, with ^
the presence of the chief magistrate of the commonwealth, and others
its officialrepresentatives, the university, and the learned societies, to
bear our part in those manifestations of respect and gratitude which
Universally pervade the land. Adams and Jefferson are no more. On
our fiftieth anniversary, the great day of national jubilee, in the very
hour of public rejoicing, in the midst of echoing and re-echoing voices
of thanksgiving, while their own names were on all tongues, they took
their flight together to the world of spirits.

If it be true that no one can safely be pronounced happy while he
lives; if that event which terminates life can alone crown its honors
and its glory, what felicity is here! The great epic of their lives, how
happily concluded! Poetry itself has hardly closed illustrious lives
and finished the career of earthly renown, by such a consummation.
If we. had the power we could not wish to reverse this dispensation of
the Divine Providence. The great objects of life were accomplished;
the drama was ready to be closed; it has closed; our patriots have
fallen; but so fallen, at such age, with such coincidence, on such a day,
that we cannot rationally lament that that end has come, which wq
knew could not be long deferre '. Neither of these great men, fellow-
citizens, could have died at any time without leaving an immense void
In our American society. They have been so intimately, and for so
4bng a time> blended with the history of the country, and especially so
united, in our thoughts and recollections, with the events of the revo-
lution, that the death of either would have touched the strings of
public sympathy. We should have felt that one great link, connecting
us with former times, was broken ; that we had lost something more,
as it were, of the presence of the revolution itself, and of the act of
independence, and were driven on by another great remove from the
days of our country's early distinction to meet posterity and to mix
with the future. Like the mariner, whom the ocean and the winds
carry along till he sees the stars which have directed his course, and
lighted his pathless way, descend one by one beneath the rising
horizon; we should have felt that the stream of time had borne us
onward, till another great luminary, whose light had cheered us, and
whose guidance we had followed, had sunk away from our sight.

But the incurrence of their death, on the anniversary of indepen-
A. i\—ti.

152 .... AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

dence, has naturally awakened stronger emotions. Both had been
presidents; both had lived to great age; both were early patriots; and
both were distinguished and even honored by their immediate agency
in the act of independence. It cannot but seem striking and extra-
ordinary that these two should live to see the fiftieth year from the
date of that act; that they should complete that year; and that then,
on the day which had fast linked forever their own fame with theii
country's glory, the heavens should open to receive them both
once. As their lives themselves- were the gifts of Providence, who i<
not willing to recognize in their happy termination, as well as in their
long continuance, proofs that our country and its benefactors are
objects of His care?

Adams and Jefferson, I have said, are no more. As human beings,
indeed, they are no more. They are no more, as in 1776, bold and
fearless advocates of independence: no more, as on Subsequent
periods, the head of the government; no more, as \ve have recently
seen them, aged and venerable objects of admiration and regard.
They are no more. They are dead. But how little is thereof the
great and good which can die! To their country they yet live, and
live forever. They live in all that perpetuates the remembrance of
men on earth; in the recorded proofs of their own great actions, in
the offspring of their intellect, in the deep engraved lines of public
gratitude, and in the respect and homage of mankind. They live in
their example; and they live, emphatically, and will live in the influence
which their lives and efforts, their principles and opinions, now exer-
cise, and will continue to exercise, on the affairs of men, not only in
their own country but throughout the civilized world. A superior and
commanding human intellect, a truly great man, when Heaven vouch-
safes so -rare a gift, is not a temporary flame, burning bright for a
while, and then expiring, giving place to returning darkness. It is
rather a spark of fervent heat, as well as radiant light, with power to
enkindle the common mass of human mind; so that when it glimmers,
in its own decay, and finally goes out in death, no night follows, but
it leaves the world all light, all on fire, from the potent contact of its
own spirit. Bacon died; but the human understanding, roused by the
touch of his miraculous wand, to a perception of the true philosophy,
and the just mode of inquiring after truth, has kept on its course, suc-
cessfully and gloriously. Newton died; yet the courses of the spheres
are still known, and they yet move on in the orbits which he saw, and
described for them, in the infinity of space.

No two men now live, fellow-citizens,— perhaps it may be doubted,
whether any two men have ever lived in one age, — who, more than
those we now commemorate, have impressed their own sentiments, in
regard to politics and government, on mankind, infused their own
opinions more deeply into the opinions of others, or given a more
lasting direction to the current of human thought, Their work doth not

DANIEL WEBSTER. 153

perish with them. The tree which they assisted to plant, will flourish,
although they water it and protect it no longer; . for it has struck its
roots deep; it has sent them to the very centre; no storm, not of force
to burst the orb, can overturn it; its branches spread wide; they stretch
their protecting arms broader and broader, and its top is destined to
reach the heavens. We are not deceived. There is no delusion here. ;
No age will come, in which the American revolution will appear less
than it is, one of the greatest events, in human history.. No age will
come, in which it will cease to be seen and felt, on either continent,
that a mighty step, a great advance, not only in American affairs, but in
human affairs, was made on the fourth of July, 1776. And no age will
come, we trust, so ignorant or so unjust, as not to see and acknowl-
edge the efficient agency of these we now honor, in producing that
momentous event.

We are not assembled, therefore, fellow-citizens, as men over-
whelmed with calamity by the sudden disruption of the ties of friend-
ship or affec ion, or as in despair for the republic, by the untimely
blighting of its hopes. Death has not surprised us by an unseasonable:
blow. We have, indeed, seen the tomb close, but it has closed only
over mature years, over long-protracted public service, over the weak-
ness of age, and over life itself only when the ends of living had been,
fulfilled. These suns, as they rose slowly, and steadily, amidst clouds
and storms, in their ascendant, so they have not rushed from their
meridian to sink suddenly in the west. Like the mildness, the seren-
ity, the continuing benignity of a summer's day, they have gone down
with slow descending, grateful, long-lingering light, and now that they
are beyond the visible margin of the world, good omens cheer us from
V the bright track of their fiery car."

There were many points of similarity in the lives and fortunes of
these great men. They belonged to the same profession, and had
pursued its studies and its practice, for unequal lengths of time indeed,
but with diligence and effect. Both were learned and able lawyers..
They were natives and inhabitants, respectively, of those two of the
colonies, which, at the revolution, were the largest and most powerful,
and which naturally had a lead in the political affairs of the times,.
When the colonies became, in some degree, united, by the assernb-ing.
of a general congress, they were brought to act together, in its delib-
erations, not indeed at the same time, but both at early periods. Each
had already manifested his attachment to the. cause of the country, as.
well as his ability to maintain it, by printed addresses, public speeches,
extensive correspondence, and whatever other mode could be adopted,
for the purpose of exposing the encroachments of the British Parlia-
ment and animating the people to a manly resistance. Both were net
only decided, but early friends of independence. While others yet
doubted, they were resolved; while others hesitated, they-. pressed
forward. They were both members of the committee for preparing

154 A ME RICA X PA TRIO 7 'ISM.

the Declaration of Independence, and they constituted the sub-corn-
mittee, appointed by the other members to make the draught. They:
left their seats in Congress, being called to other public employments,
at periods not remote from each other, although one of them returned
to it, afterwards, for a short time. Neither of them was of the assem-
bly of great men which formed the present constitution, and ■neither'"
was at any time member of Gongress under its provisions. Both have
been public ministers abroad, both vice-presidents, and both .presi-
dents. These coincidences are now singularly crowned and completed..
They have died together; and they died on the anniversary of liberty.

When many of us were last in this place, fellow-citizens, it was on
the day of that anniversary. We were met to enjoy the festivities;
belonging to the occasion, and to manifest our grateful homage to our
political fathers.

We did not, we could not here, forget our venerable neighbor of
Ouincy. We knew that we were standing, at a time of high and
palmy prosperity, where he had stood in the hour of utmost peril;
that we saw nothing but liberty and security, where he had met the
frown of power; that we were enjoying every thing, where he had
hazarded every thing; and just and sincere plaudits rose to his name,
from the crowds which filled this area, and hung over these galleries.
He whose grateful duty it was to speak to us, on that day, of the vir-
tues of our fathers, had, indeed /admonished us that time and years
were about to level his venerable frame with the dust. But he bade
us hope, that the "sound of a nation's joy, rushing from our pities,
ringing from our valleys, echoing from our hills, might yet break the
silence of his aged ear; that the rising blessings of grateful millions
might yet visit, with glad light, his decaying vision." Alas ! that
vision was then closing forever. Alas! the silence which was then
settling on that aged ear, was an everlasting silence ! For, lq ! ii
the very moment of our festivities, his freed spirit ascended to Cod
Who gave it ! Human aid and human solace terminate at the grave;
Or we would gladly have borne him upward, on a nation's outspread
hands; we would have accompanied him, and with the blessings of
millions, and the prayers of millions, commended him to the divine
favor.

While still indulging our thoughts on the coincidence of the death
of this venerable man with the anniversary of independence, we learn
that Jefferson, too, has fallen; and that these aged patriots, these
illustrious fellow-laborers, had left our world together. May not such
events raise the suggestion that they are not undesigned, and that
Heaven does so order things as sometimes to attract strongly the
attention, and excite the thoughts of men? The occurrence has
added new interest to our anniversary, and will be remembered in ail
time to come.

The occasion, fellow-citizens, requires some account of the lives :.nd

DANIEL WEBSTER. 155

services of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. This duty must neces-
sarily be performed. with. great brevity; and, in the discharge of it, I
shall be obliged to confine' my self, principally, to those parts of their
history and character which belonged to them as public men.

John Adams was born at Quincy, then part of the ancient town of
Braintree, on the 19th day of October (old style), 1735. He was a
descendant of the Puritans, his ancestors having early emigrated from
England .and settled in Massachusetts. Discovering early a strong
love of readingand of knowledge, together y/ith marks'of great strength
and activity of mind, proper care was taken by his worthy father, to
provide for his education. He pursued his youthful studies in Brain-
tree, under Mr. Marsh, a teacher whose fortune it was that Josiah
Quincy, Jr. as well as the subject of these remarks, should" receive
from him his instruction in the rudiments of classical literature. Hav-
ing been admitted, in 175 1, a member of Harvard college, Mr. Adams
was graduated, in course, in 1755; and 011 the catalogue of that instil
tution, his name, at the time Of his death, was second among the
living alumni, being preceded. only by that of the venerable Holyoke.
With what degree of reputation he left the university, is not now pre-
cisely known. We know only that he was distinguished, in a class
which numbered. Locke and Hemenway among its members. Choosing
the law for his profession, he commenced and prosecuted his studies
at Worcester, under the direction of Samuel Putnam, a gentleman
whom he has himself described as an acute man, an able and learned
lawyer, and as in large professional practice at that time. In 1758, he
was admitted to the bar, and commenced, business in Braintree. He
is understood to. have made his first considerable effort, or to have
obtained his first signal success^ at Plymouth, on one of those occa-
sions which furnish the earliest opportunity for distinction to many
young men of the profession, a jury trial, and a criminal cause. His
business naturally grew with his reputation, and his residence in the
vicinity afforded the opportunity, as his growing eminence gave the
power, of entering on the larger field of practice which the capital pre-
sented. In 1766, he removed his residence to Boston, still continuing
his attendance on the neighboring circuits, and not unfrequently called
to remote parts of the province. In 1770, his professional firmness
was brought to a test of some severity, on the application of the
British officers and soldiers to undertake their defence, on the trial of
the indictments found against them on account of the transactions of
the memorable fifth of March. He seems to have thought, on this
occasion thai a man can no more abandon the proper duties of his
profession, than he can abandon Other duties. The event proved,
that as he judged, well for his own reputation, so he judged well, also,
for the interest and permanent fame of his countrv. The result of
that trial proved, that notwithstanding the high degree of excitement
then existing, in consequence oi.the. measures of the British govern-

J56

AMLRICAX PA TRIGTISjT.

ment, a jury of Massachusetts would not deprive the most reckless
enemies, even the officers of that standing army, quartered among
them, which they so perfectly abhorred, of any part of that protection"
which the law, in its mildest and most indulgent interpretation, afforded
to persons accused of crimes.

Without pursuing Mr. Adams's professional course further, suffice
it to say, that on the first establishment of the judicial tribunals under
the authority of the state, in 1776, he received an offer of the high and
responsible station of chief justice of the Supreme Court. But he was
destined for another and a different career. From early life the bent
of his mind was towards politics; a propensity, which the state of the
times, if it did not create, doubtless very much strengthened. Public
subjects must have occupied the thoughts and filled up the conversa-
tion in the circles in which he then moved; and the interesting ques-
tions, at that time just arising, could not but seize on a mind, like his,
ardent, sanguine and patriotic. The letter, fortunately preserved,
written by him at Worcester so early as the 12th of October, 1755, is
a proof of very comprehensive views, and uncommon depth of reflec-
tion, in a young man not yet quite twenty. In this letter he predicted
the transfer of power, and the establishment of a new seat of empire
in America: he predicted, also, the increase of population in the col-
onies; and anticipated their naval distinction, and foretold that all
Europe, combined, could not subdue them. All this is said, not on a
public occasion, or for effect, but in the style of sober and friendly
correspondence, as the result of his own thoughts. "I sometimes
retire," said he, at the close of the letter, " and, laying things together,
form some reflections, pleasing to myself. The produce of one of
these reveries you have read above." This prognostication, so early
in his own life, so early in the history of the country, of independence,
of vast increase of numbers, of naval force, of such augmented power
as might defy all Europe, is remarkable. It is more remarkable, that
its author should live to see fulfilled to the letter, what could have
seemed to others, at the time, but the extravagance of youthful fancy.
His earliest political feelings were thus strongly American; and from
this ardent attachment to his native soil he never departed.

.While still living at Quincy, at the age of twenty-four, Mr. A'dams
was present, in this town, on the argument before the Supreme Court,
respecting writs of assistance, and heard the celebrated and patriotic
speech of James Otis. Unquestionably, that was a masterly perform-
ance. No flighty declamation about liberty, no superficial discussion
of popular topics, it was a learned, penetrating, convincing, constitu-
tional argument, expressed in a strain of high and resolute patriotism.
He grasped the question, then pending between England and her
colonies, with the strength of a lion; and if he sometimes sported, it
was only because the lion himself is sometimes playful. Its success
appears to have been as great as his merits, and its impression was
Widely felt. Mr. Adams himself seems never to have lost the feeling

DANIEL WEBSTER. 15 7

it produced, and to have entertained constantly the fullest conviction
of its important effects. "I do say," he observes, "in the most
solemn manner, that Mr. Otis's oration against writs of assistance
breathed into this nation the breath of life."

In 1765, Mr. Adams laid before the public what I suppose to be his
first printed performance, except essays for the periodical press, a
Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law. The object of this work
was to show that our New England ancestors, in consenting to exile
themselves from their native land, were actuated, mainly, by the de-
sire of delivering themselves from the power of the hierarchy, and
from the monarchical and aristocratical political systems of the other
continent; and to make this truth bear with effect on the politics of
the times. Its tone is uncommonly bold and animated, for that
period. He calls on the people not only to defend, but to study and
understand their rights and privileges; urges earnestly the necessity
of diffusing general knowledge; invokes the clergy and the bar, the
colleges and academies, and all others who have the ability and the
means, to expose the insidious designs of arbitrary power, to resist
its approaches, and to be persuaded that there is a settled design on
foot to enslave all America. " Be it remembered," says the author,
" that liberty must, at all hazards, be supported. We have a right to
it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have
earned it, and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their es-
tate, their pleasure, and their blood. And liberty cannot be preserved
without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right,
from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator,
who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a do*
sire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an undisputablc,
unalienable, indefeasible right to that most dreaded and envied kind
of knowledge, I mean of the character and conduct of their ruler:?.
Rulers are no more than attorneys, agents, and trustees, of the people;
and if the cause, the interest, and trust, is insidiously betrayed, of
wantonly trifled away, the people have a right to revoke the authority
that they themselves have deputed, and to constitute other and bettef
agents, attorneys and trustees.*'

The citizens of this town conferred on Mr. Adams his first political
distinction, and clothed him with his first political trust, by electing
him one of their representatives, in 1770. Before this time he had
become extensively known throughout the province, as well by the
part he had acted in relation to public affairs, as by the exercise of his
professional ability. He was among those who took the deepest in-
terest in the controversy with England, and whether in or out of the
legislature, his time and talents were alike devoted to the cause. In
the years 1773 and 1774, he was chosen a counsellor, by the members
of the General Court, but rejected by governor Hutchinson, in the
former of those years, and'' by governor Gage in the latter.

The time was now at hand, however, when the affairs of the colo-

15 8 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

nics urgently: demanded united councils. An ^open rupture with the
parent state appeared inevitable, and it was but the dictate of prudence,
that those who were united by a common interest and a common dan-
ger, should protect that interest, and guard against that danger, by
united efforts. A general congress of delegates from all the colonies
having been proposed and agreed to, the House of Representatives,
on the 17th of June, 1774, elected James Bowdoin, Thomas Cushing,
Samuel Adams, John Adams, and Robert Treat Paine, delegates from
Massachusetts. This appointment was made at Salem, where the
general court had been convened by governor Gage, in the last hour
of the existence of a House of Representatives under the provincial
charter. While engaged in this important business, the governor,
having been informed of what was passing, sent his secretary with a
message dissolving the general court. The secretary, finding the
door locked, directed the messenger to go in and inform the speaker
that the secretary was at the door with a message from the governor.
The messenger returned, and informed the secretary that the orders
of the house were that the doors should be kept fast; whereupon the
secretary soon after read a proclamation, dissolving the general court
upon the stairs. Thus terminated, forever, the actual exercise of the
political power of England ia or over Massachusetts. The four last-
named delegates accepted their appointments, and took their seats
in Congress, the first day of its .meeting, September 5, 1774, in
Philadelphia.

The proceedings of the first Congress are well known, and have
been universally admired. It is in vain that we would look for su-
perior proofs of wisdom, talent and patriotism. Lord Chatham said,
that, for himself he must declare, that he had studied and admired the
free states of antiquity, the master states of the world, but that, for
solidity of reasoning, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion, no
body of men could stand in preference to this Congress. It is hardly
inferior praise to say, that no production of that great man himself
can be pronounced superior to several of the papers published as the
proceedings of this most able, most firm, most patriotic assembly.
There is, indeed, nothing superior to them in the range of political
disquisition. They not only embrace, illustrate, and enforce every-
thing which political philosophy, the love of liberty, and the spirit of
free inquiry, had antecedently produced, but they add new and strik-
ing views of their own, and apply the whole, with irresistible force, in
support of the cause which had drawn them together.

Mr. Adams was a constant attendant on the deliberations of this
body, and bore an active part in its important measures. He was of
the committee to state the rights of the colonies, and of that also which
reported the address to the king.

As it was in the continental congress, fellow-citizens, that those
whose deaths have given rise to this occasion, were first bruught to-

DA XI EL WEBSTER. 159

gether, and called on to unite their industry and their ability in the
service of the country, let us now turn to the other of these distin-
guished men, and take a brief notice of his life, up to the period when
h: appeared within the walls of congress.

Thomas Jefferson, descended from ancestors who had been settled
in Virginia for some generations, was born near the spot on which he
died, in the county of Albemarle, on the 2d of Aprii (old style), 1743.
His youthful studies were pursued in the neighborhood of his father's
residence, until he was removed to the college of William and Mary,
the highest honors of which he in due time received. Having left the
college With reputation, he applied himself to the study of the law,
under the tuition of George Wythe, one of the highest judicial names
of which that state can boast. At an early age he was elected a mem-
ber of the legislature, in which he had no sooner appeared than he
distinguishd himself by knowledge, capacity, and promptitude.

Mr. Jefferson appears to have been imbued with an early love of
letters and science, and to have cherished a strong disposition to pur-
sue these objects. To the physical sciences, especially, and to ancient
classic literature, he is understood to have had a warm attach-
ment, and never entirely to have lost sight of them, in the midst
of the busiest occupations. But the times were times for action,
rather than for contemplation. The country was to be defended,
and to be saved, before it could be enjoyed. Philosophic leisure
and literary pursuits, and even the objects of professional at-
tention, were all necessarily postponed to the Urgent calls of the
public service. The exigency of the country made the same demand
on Mr. Jefferson that it made on others who bad the ability and the
disposition to serve it; and he obeyed tine call — thinking and feeling,
in this respect, with the great Roman orator; Quis cnim est tarn enpi-
dus in perspicienda cognoscendaque rerum natura, ut, si ei tractanti con-
templantique ies cognitione dignissimas subito sit allahtni pcriculum
discrimenque patr'ne, cui subvenire ppitularique possit, von ilia omnia re-
linquat atqne abjiciat, etiam si dinumerare se stellas, ant metiri viundi
7uagnitudinem posse arbitretur?

Entering, with all his heart, into the cause of liberty, his ability,
patriotism, and power with the pen, naturally drew upon him a large
participation in the most important concerns. Wherever he was,
there was found a soul devoted to the cause, power to defend and
maintain it, and willingness to incur all its hazards. In 1774, he pub-
lished a Summary View of the Rights of British America, a valuable
production among those intended to show the dangers which threat-
ened the liberties of the country, and to encourage the people in their
defence. In June, 1775, he was elected a member of the continental
congress, as successor to Peyton Randolph, who had retired on ac-
count of ill health, and took his eeat in that body on the 21st of the
same month.

1 60 A ME RICA N PA TRIO TISM.

And now, fellow-citizens, without pursuing the biography of these
illustrious men further, for the present, let us turn our attention to the
most prominent act of their lives, their participation in the Declara-
tion of Independence.

Preparatory to the introduction of that important measure, a com-
mittee, at the head of which was Mr. Adams, had reported a resolution,
which Congress adopted the 10th of May, recommending, in sub-
stance, to all the colonies which had not already established govern-
ments suited to the exigencies of their affairs, to adopt such government,
as would, in the opinion of the representatives of the people, best
conduce to the happiness and safety of their constituents in particular,
and America in general.

This significant vote was soon followed by the direct proposition,
which Richard Henry Lee had the honor to submit to Congress, by
resolution, on the 7th day of June. The published journal does not
expressly state it, but there is no doubt, I suppose, that this resolution
was in the same words, when originally submitted by Mr. Lee, as
when finally passed. Having been discussed, on Saturday the 8th,
and Monday the 10th of June, this resolution was on the last-men-
tioned day postponed, for further consideration, to the 1st day of
July: and, at the same time, it was voted, that a committee be ap-
pointed to prepare a declaration, to the effect of the resolution. This
committee was elected by ballot, on the following day, and consisted
of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sher-
man, and Robert R. Livingston.

It is usual, when committees are elected by ballot, that their mem-
bers are arranged in order, according to the number of votes which
each has received; Mr. Jefferson, therefore, had received the highest,
and Mr. Adams the next highest number of votes. The difference is
said to have been but of a single vote. Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Adams,
standing thus at the head of the committee, were requested by the
other members to act as a sub-committee, to prepare the draught; and
Mr. Jefferson drew up the paper. The original draught, as brought
by him from his study, and submitted to the other members of the
committee, with interlineations in the hand-writing of Dr. Franklin,
and others in that of Mr. Adams, was in Mr. Jefferson's possession
at the time of his death. The merit of this paper is Mr. Jefferson's.
Some changes were made in it^ on the suggestion of other members <
of the committee, and others by Congress while it was under discus-
sion; but none of them altered the tone, the frame, the arrangement,
or the general character of the instrument. As a composition, the
declaration is Mr. Jefferson's. It is the production of his mind, and
the high honor of it belongs to him, clearly and absolutely.

It lias sometimes been said, as if it were a derogation from the
merits of this paper, that it contains nothing new; that it only states
grounds of proceeding, and presses topics of argument, which had

R l XI EL WEBSTER. 1 6 1

often been stated and pressed before. But it was not the object oi
the declaration to produce anything new. It was not to invent rea-
sons for independence, but to state those which governed the Con-
gress. For great and sufficient causes, it was proposed to declare in-
dependence; and the proper business of the paper to be drawn, was
to set forth those causes, and justify the authors of the measure, in
any event of fortune, to the country, and to posterity. The cause of
American independence, moreover, was now to be presented to the
world, in such a manner, if it might so be, as to engage its sympathy,
to command its' respect, to attract its admiration; and in an assembly
of most able and distinguished men, Thomas Jefferson had the high
honor of being the selected advocate of this cause. To say that he
performed his great work well, would be doing him injustice. To say
that he did excellently well, admirably well, would be inadequate and
halting praise. .Let us rather say, that he so discharged the duty as-
signed him, that all Americans may well rejoice that the work of
drawing the title-deed of their liberties devolved on his hands.

With all its merits, there are those who have thought that there was
one thing in the declaration to be regretted; and that is, the asperity
and apparent anger with which it speaks of the person of the king;
the industrious ability with which it accumulates and charges upon
him all the injuries which the colonies had suffered from the mother
country. Possibly some degree of injustice, now or hereafter, at
home or abroad, may be done to the character of Mr. Jefferson, if
this part of the declaration be not placed in its proper light. Anger
or resentment, certainly, much less personal reproach and invective,
could not properly find place in a composition of such high dignity,
and of such lofty and permanent character.

A single reflection on the original ground of dispute, between Eng-
land and the colonies, is sufficient to remove any unfavorable impres-
sion, in this respect.

The inhabitants of all the colonies, while colonies, admitted them-
selves bound by their allegiance to the king; but they disclaimed,
altogether, the authority of Parliament; holding themselves, in this
respect, to resemble the condition of Scotland and Ireland, before the
respective unions of those kingdoms with England, when they ac-
knowledged allegiance to the same king, but each had its separate
legislature. The tie, therefore, which our revolution was to break,
did not subsist between us and the British Parliament, or between us
and the British government in the aggregate, but directly between us
and the king himself. The colonies had never admitted themselves
subject to Parliament. That was precisely the point of the original
controversy. They had uniformly denied that Parliament had au-
thority to make laws for them. There was, therefore, no subjection
to Parliament to be thrown off. But allegiance to the king did exist,
and had been uniformly acknowledged; and down to 1775, the mdsr

1 62 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

solemn assurances had been given that it was not intended to break
that allegiance, or to throw it off. ; Therefore, as the direct object and
only effect of the declaration, according to the principles on which the
controversy had been maintained, on our part, was to sever the tie of
allegiance, which bound us to the Jring, it was properly and necessarily
founded on acts of the Crown itself, as its justifying causes. Parlia-
ment is not so much as mentioned in the whole instrument. When
odious and oppressive acts are referred to, it is done by charging the
king with confederating with others " in pretended acts of legislation;"
the object being, constantly, to.hold the king himself directly responsi-
ble for those measures which were the grounds, of separation. Even
the precedent of the English "revolution, was not overlooked, and in
this case, as well as in that, occasion was found to say that the king
had abdicated the government. Consistency with the principles upon
which resistance began, and with all the previous state papers issued
by Congress, required that the declaration should be bottomed on the
misgovernment of the king; and therefore it was properly framed
with that aim and to that end... The king was known, indeed, to have
acted, as in other cases, by his ministers, and with his parliament;
but as pur ancestors had never admitted themselves subject either to
ministers or to Parliament, there were no reasons to be given for now
refusing obedience to their authority. This clear and obvious necessity
of founding the declaration "on the misconduct of the king himself,
gives to that instrument its personal application, and its character of
direct and pointed accusation.

The declaration having been reported to Congress by the com-
mittee, the resolution itself was taken up and debated on the first day
of July, and again on the second, on which last day it was agreed to
and adopted in these words:—

" Resolved, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be
free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance
to the British Crown, and that all political, connection between them
and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved."

Having thus passed the main resolution, Congress proceeded to
consider the reported draught of the declaration. It was discussed on
the second, and third, and fourth days of the month, in Committee of
the Whole; and on the last of those days, being reported from that
committee, it received the final approbation and sanction of Congress.
It was ordered, at the same time, that copies be sent to the several
states, and that it be proclaimed at the head of the army. The
declaration, thus published, did not bear the names of the members,
for as yet it had not been signed by them. It was authenticated, like
other papers of the Congress, by the signatures of the president and
secretary. On the 19th of July, as appears by the secret journal,
Congress " resolved that the decaratipn, passed on the fourth, be
fairly engxosscd on parchment, with the title and style of 'The unani-

DANIEL WEBSTER. 1 6

mous declaration of the Thirteen United States of America,' and that the
same, when engrossed, be signed by every member of Congress;" and,
on the second day of August following, " the declaration, being en-
grossed and compared at the table, was>signed by the members." So
that it happens, fellow-citizens, that we pay these honors to their
memory on the anniversary of that day on which these great men
actually signed their names to the declaration. The declaration was
thus made— that, is, it passed, and was adopted as an act of Con-
gress—on the fourth of July; it was then signed and certified by
the president and secretary, like other acts. The fourth of July,
therefore, is the anniversary of the declaration; but the signatures of
the members present were made to it, it being then engrossed on parch-
ment, on the second day of August. Absent members afterwards
signed, as they came in; and indeed it bears the names of some who
were not chosen members of Congress until after the fourth of July.
The interest belonging to the subject will be Sufficient, I hope, to
justify these details.

The Congress of the Revolution, fellow-citizens, sat with closed
doors, and no report of its debates was ever taken. The discussion,
therefore, which accompanied this great measure, has never been pre-
served, except in memory and by tradition. But it is, I believe, doing
no injustice to others to say, that the general opinion was, and uni-
formly has been, that in debate, on the side of independence, John
Adams had no equal. The great author of the declaration himself
has expressed that opinion uniformly and strongly. "John Adams,"
said he, in the hearing of him who has now the honor to address you,
''John Adams was our colossus on the floor. Not graceful, not
eloquent, not always fluent, in his public addresses, he yet came out
with a power, both of thought and of expression, which moved us from
our seats."

For the part which he was here to perform, .Mr. Adams was doubt-
less eminently fitted. He possessed a bold spirit, which disregarded
danger, and a sanguine reliance on the goodness of the cause, and the
virtues of the people, which led him to overlook all obstacles. His
character, too, had been formed in troubled times. He had been
rocked in the early storms of the controversy, and had acquired a
decision and a hardihood proportioned to the severity of the discipline
Which he had undergone.

He not only loved the American cause devoutly, but had studied
ind understood it. It was all familiar to him. He had tried his
powers, on the questions which it involved, often, and in various ways;
and had brought to their consideration whatever of argument or illus-
tration the history of his own country, the history of England, or the
Stores of ancient or of legal learning could furnish. Every grievance
enumerated in the long catalogue of the declaration had been the sub-
ject of his discussion, and the object of his remonstrance and reproba-

1 64 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

ttonV From 1760, the colonies, the rights of the colonies, the liberties
of the colonies, and the wrongs inflicted on the colonies, had engaged
his constant attention; and it has surprised those, who have had the
opportunity of observing, with what full remembrance, and with what
prompt recollection, he could refer, in his extreme old age, to every
act of Parliament affecting the colonies, distinguishing and stating their
respective titles, sections and provisions — and to all the colonial
memorials, remonstrances and petitions, with whatever else belonged
to the intimate and exact history of the times from that year
to 1775. It was, in his own judgment, between these years, that
the American people came to a full understanding and thorough
knowledge of their rights, and to a fixed resolution of maintaining them ;
and bearing himself an active part in all important transactions — the
controversy with England being then, in effect, the business of his life
—facts, dates, and particulars, made an impression which was never
effaced. He was prepared, therefore, by education and discipline, as
well as by natural talent and natural temperament, for the part which
he was now to act.

The eloquence of Mr. Adams resembled his general character, and
formed, indeed, a part of it. It was bold, manly and energetic; and
such the crisis required. When public bodies are to be addressed on
momentous occasions, when great interests are at stake and strorig
passions excited, nothing is valuable, in speech, farther than it is con-
nected with high intellectual and moral endowments. Clearness,
force, and earnestness, are the qualities which produce conviction.
True eloquence, indeed, does not consist in speech. It cannot be
brought from far. Labor and learning may toil for it; but they will
toil in vain. Words and phrases may be marshalled in every way;
but they cannot compass it. It must exist in the man, in the subject,
and in the occasion. Affected passion, intense expression, the pomp
of declamation, all may aspire after it — they cannot reacfr it It
comes, if it come at all, like the outbreaking of a fountain from the
earth, or the bursting forth of volcanic fires, with spontaneous, origi-
nal, native force. The graces taught in the schools, the costly orna-
ments, and studied contrivances of speech, shock and disgust men,
when their own lives, and the fate of their wives, their children, and
their country, hang on the decision of the hour. Then, words have
lost their power, rhetoric is vain, and all elaborate oratory contempti-
ble. Even genius itself then feels rebuked and subdued, as in the pres-
ence of higher qualities. Then, patriotism is eloquent; then self-
devotion is eloquent. The clear conception, outrunning the deduc-
tions of logic, — -the high purpose, — the firm resolve, — the dauntless
spirit, speaking on the tongue, beaming from the eye, informing every
feature, and urging the whole man onward, right onward, to his ob-
ject,— this, this is eloquence; or, rather, it is something greater and
higher than all eloquence, — it is action, noble, sublime, godlike action.

DANIEL WEBSTER. 165

In July, 1776, the controversy had passed the stage, of argument.
An appeal had been made to force, and opposing armies were in the
field. Congress then, was to decide whether the tie which had so long
bound us to the parent state, was to be severed at once, and severed
forever. All the colonies had signified their resolution to abide by
this decision, and the people looked for it with the most intense
anxiety. And surely, fellow-citizens, never, never were men called
to a more important political deliberation. If we contemplate it from
the point where they then stood, no question could be more full of in-
terest; if we look at it now, and judge of its importance by its effects,
it appears in still greater magnitude. - -

Let us, then, 'bring before us the assembly, which was about to
decide a question thus big with the fate of empire. Let us open their
doors, and look in upon . their deliberations^ Let us survey, the
anxious and care-worn countenances— let us hear the firm-toned voices
of this band of patriot-. .-■ ■

Hancock presides over this solemn sitting; and one of those not yet
prepared to pronounce for absolute independence, is on the floor, and
is urging his reasons for dissenting from the declaration.

"Let us pause! This step, once taken, cannot be retraced. This
resolution, once passed, will cut off all hope of reconciliation. If
success attend the arms of England, we shall then be no longer colonies,
with charters, and with privileges. These will all be forfeited by this
act; and we shall be in the condition of other conquered people — at the
mercy of the conquerors. For ourselves, we may be ready to run the
hazard; but are we ready to carry the country to that length? — Is
success So probable as to justify it ? Where is the military, where the
naval, power, by which we are to resist the whole strength of the arm
of England? for she will exert that strength to the utmost. Can we
rely on the constancy and perseverance of the people ? — or will they
not act as the people of other countries have acted, and, wearied with a
long war, submit in the end, to a worse oppression ? While we stand
on our old ground, and insist on redress of grievances, we know we are
right, and are not answerable for consequences. Nothing, then, can
be imputable to us. But if we now change our object, carry our pre-
tensions farther, and set up for absolute independence, we shall lose
the sympathy of mankind. We shall no longer be defending what we
possess, but struggling for something which we never did possess, and
which we have solemnly and uniformly disclaimed all intention of pur-
suing, from the very outset of the troubles. Abandoning thus our old
ground, of resistance only to arbitrary acts of oppression, the nations
will believe the whole to have been mere pretence, and they will look
on us, not as injured, but as ambitious subjects. I shudder before this
responsibility. It will be on us, if, relinquishing the ground we have
stood on so long, and stood on so safely, we now proclaim independence,
and carry on the war for that object, while these cities burn, these

l'66 a MR RICA N PA TRIO TISM.

pleasant fields whiten and bleach with the bones of their owners, and
these streams run blood. It will be upon us, it will be upon us, if
failing to maintain this Unseasonable and ill-judged declaration, : a
sterner despotism, maintained by military power, shall be established
over our posterity, when we ourselves, given up by an exhausted, ri a
harassed, a misled people, shall have expiated our rashness and atoned
for our presumption on the scaffold."

It was for Mr. Adams to reply to arguments like these. We know
his opinions, and we know his character. He would commence with
liis accustomed directness and earnestness.

"Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hamLand
ray heart to this vote. It is true, indeed, that in the beginning, we
aimed not at independence. But there's a divinity which shapes, our
ends. The injustice of England has driven us to arms; and, blinded
to her own interest, for our good, she has obstinately persisted, till
independence is now within our grasp. We have but to reach: forth
to it, and it is ours. Why, then, should we defer the declaration ?
Is any man so weak as now to hope for a reconciliation with England,
which shall leave either safety to the country and its liberties, ..or
safety to his own life and his own honor ? Are not you, sir, whoisit
in that chair, — is not he, our venerable colleague near you,- — are you
not both already the proscribed and predestined objects of .-punish-
ment and of vengeance? Cut off from all hope of royal clemency; what
are you, 7<rhat can you be, while the power of England remains, Lut
outlaws? If we postpone independence, do we mean to carry on, or
to give up, the war? Do we mean to submit to the measures of Par-
liament, Boston port -bill and all? Do we mean to submit, and con-
sent that we ourselves shall be ground to powder, and our country
and its rights trodden down in the dust? I know we do not mean to
submit. We never shall submit. Do we intend to violate that most
solemn obligation ever entered into by men — that plighting, before
God, of our sacred honor to Washington, when, putting him forth to
incur the dangers of war, as well as the political hazards of the times,
we promised to adhere to him, in every extremity, with our fortunes
and our lives ? I know there is not a man here, who would not rather
see a general conflagration sweep over the land, or an earthquake
sink it, than one jot or tittle of that plighted faith fall to the ground.
For myself, having, twelve months ago, in this place, moved you,
that Georga Washington be appointed commander of the forces,
raised or to be raised, for defence of American liberty, may my right
hand forget her cunning, and my tpngue cleave to the roof of m)
mouth, if I hesitate or waver in the gupport I give him. The war,
then, must go on, We must fight it through- And, if the war must
go on, why put off longer the declaration M Independence? That
measure will strengthen us. It will give us character abroad. The
nations will then treat with us, which they never can do while we

DA XI EL I VEB S TER. 1 C 7

acknowledge ourselves subjects in arms against our sovereign. Nay,
I maintain that England herself- will sootier" treat for peace with us 01

-the footing of independence, than consent, by repealing her acts, (o
acknowledge that her whole conduct towards us has been a course of
injustice and oppression. Her pride will be less wounded, by sub-
mitting to that course of things, which "now predestinates our inde-
pendence, than by yielding the points in controversy to her rebellious
subjects. The former, she would regard as the result of fortune; the
latter, she would: feeL as her own deep disgrace. Why, then-^— why,
then, sir, do we not, as sogn as possible, change this from a civil to a

1 tfi&tional war ? And, since we must fight it through, why not put
ourselves in a state to enjoy all the benefits of victory, if we gain the

■mtictory?.'

H If we fail, it can be no worse for us. But we shall not fail. The
cause will raise, up armies:: the cause will create navies. The people
— the people, if .we are true to them, will carry us, and will carry
themselves, gloriously through this straggle. I care not how fickle

Mother people have been found, j I know, the people of these colonies,
and I .know that, resistance to British; aggression is "deep and settled

-5i?in,^their hearts and cannot be eradicated. Every colony, indeed, has
expressed its willingness to follow, if we but take the lead. Sir, the

- declaration will inspire the people "with increased courage. Instead of
-a long and bloody war for restoration of privileges, for redress of
grievances, for chartered immunities, held under a British king, set
before them the glorious object of entire independence, and it will
breathe into them: anew the breath of life. Read this declaration at

^thehead of the army; every sword will -"be" drawn from its scabbard,
and the solemn vow uttered, to maintain it, Or to perish on the bed of
honor. Publish it from the pulpit;^ religion will approve it, and the
love of religious liberty will cling round it, resolved to stand with it,
or fall with it. Send it to the public halls; proclaim it there; let them
hear it, who heard the first roar of the enemy's cannon; let them see
it, who saw their brothers and their sons fall on the field of Bunker
Hill, and in the streets of Lexington and Concord, and the very walls
will cry out in its support,

- "Sir, I inow the uncertainty of human affairs, but I see, I see clearly,
through this day's business. You and I, indeed, may rue it. We
may not live to the time when this declaration shall be made good.
We may die; die, colonists; die, slaves; die, it may be, ignominiously
and on the scaffold. Be it so. Be it "so. If it be the pleasure of
Heaven that my country shall require the poor offering of my life,
the victim shall be ready, at the appointed hour of sacrifice, come
when that hour may. But, while I do live, let me have a country, or
at least the hope of a country, and that a free country.

" But, whatever may be our fate, be assured, be assured, that this
declaration will stand. It may cost treasure, and it may cost blood;

1 68 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

but it will stand, and it will richly compensate for both. Through
the thick gloom of the present I see the brightness of the future as
the sun in heaven. We shall make this a glorious, an immortal day*
When we are in our graves, our children will honor it. They will
celebrate it with thanksgiving, with festivity, with bonfires and illumi-
nations. On its annual return they will shed tears, copious, gushing
tears, not of subjection and slavery, not of agony and distress, but of
exultation, of gratitude, and of joy. Sir, before God, I believe the
hour has come. My judgment approves this measure, and my whole
heart is in it. All that I have, and all that I am, and all that I hope,
in this life, I am now ready here to stake Upon it; and I leave off, as
I began, that, live or die, survive or perish, I am for the declaration.
It is my living sentiment, and, by the T>lessing of God, it shall be my
dying sentiment; independence now, and independence forever."

And so that day shall be honored, illustrious prophet and patriot!
so that day shall be honored, and, as often as it returns, thy renown
shall come along with it, and the glory of thy life, like the day of thy
death, shall not fail from the remembrance of men.

It would be unjust, fellow-citizens, on this occasion, while we ex-
press our veneration for him who is the immediate subject of these
remarks, were We to omit a most respectful, affectionate, and grateful
mention of those other great mean, his colleagues, who stood with
him, and, with the same spirit, the same devotion, took part in the
interesting transaction. Hancock, the proscribed Hancock, exiled
from his home by a military governor, cut off, by proclamation, from
the mercy of the Crown — Heaven reserved for him the distinguished
honor of putting this great question to the vote, and of writing his
own name first, and most conspicuously, on that parchment which
spoke defiance to the power of the Crown of England. There, too,
is the name of that other proscribed patriot, Samuel Adams; a man
who hungered and thirsted for the independence of his country; who
thought the declaration halted and lingered, being himself not only
ready, but eager, for it, long before it was proposed; a man of the
deepest sagacity, the clearest foresight, and the profpundest judgment
in men. And there is Gerry, himself among the earliest and the fore-
most of the patriots, found, when the battle of Lexington summoned
them to common councils, by the side of Warren; a man who lived to
serve his country at home and abroad, and to die in the second place
in the government. There, too, is the inflexible, the upright, the
Spartan character, Robert Treat Paine. He, also, lived to serve his
country through the struggle, and then withdrew from her councils,
only that he might give his labors and his life to his native state in
another relation. These names, fellow-citizens, are the treasures of;
the commonwealth, and they are treasures which grow brighter by
time.

It is now necessarv to resume, and to finish, with great brevity, the

DANIEL WEBSTER. ^ 169

notice of the lives of those whose virtues and services we have met to
commemorate.

Mr. Adams remained in Congress from its first meeting till Novem-
ber, 1777, when he was appointed minister to France. He proceeded
on that service, in the February following, embarking in the Boston
frigate, on the shore of his native town, at the foot of Mount Wallas-
ton. The year following, he was appointed commissioner to treat of
peace with England. Returning to the United States, he was a dele-
gate from Braintree in the convention for framing the constitution of
this commonwealth, in 1780. At the latter end of the same year, he
again went abroad, in the diplomatic service of the country, and was
employed at various courts, and occupied with various negotiations,
until 1788. The particulars of these interesting and important ser-
vices this occasion does not allow time to relate. In 1782 he con-
cluded our first treaty with Holland. His negotiations with that re-
public ; his efforts to persuade the States-General to recognize our
independence; his incessant and indefatigable exertions to represent
the American cause favorably, on the continent, and to counteract the
designs of his enemies, open and secret; and his successful undertak-
ing to obtain loans, on the credit of a nation yet new and unknown, —
are among his most arduous, most useful, most honorable services.
It was his fortune to bear a part in the negotiation for peace with
England, and, in something more than six years from the declaration
which he had so strenuously supported, he had the satisfaction to see
the minister plenipotentiary of the Crown subscribe to the instrument
which declared that his "Britannic Majesty acknowledged the United
States to be free, sovereign, and independent." In these important
transactions Mr. Adams's conduct received the marked approbation
of Congress and of the country.

While abroad, in 1787, he published his Defence of the American
Constitutions ; a work of merit and ability, though composed with haste,
on the spur of a particular occasion, in the midst of other occupations,
and under circumstances not admitting of careful revision. The im-
mediate object of the work was to counteract the weight of opinions
advanced by several popular European writers of that day — M. Turgot,
the Abbe de Mably, and Dr. Price — at a time when the people of the
United States were employed in forming and revising their systems of
government.

Returning to the United States in 1788, he found the new government
about going into operation, and was himself elected the first vice-
president — a situation which he filled with reputation for eight years,
at the expiration of which he was raised to the presidential chair, as
immediate successor to the immortal Washington. In this high station
he was succeeded by Mr. Jefferson, after a memorable controversy be-
tween their respective friends, in 1801; and from that period his man-
ner of life has been known to all who hear me. He has lived, for

170 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

five-and-twenty years, with every enjoyment that could render old age
happy. Not inattentive to the occurrences of the times, political
cares have yet not materially, or for any long time disturbed his repose.
In 1820, he acted as elector of president and vice-president, and in the
same year we saw him, then at the age of eighty-five, a member of the
convention of this commonwealth^ called to revise the constitution.
Forty years before, he had been one of those who formed that con-
stitution; and he had now the pleasure of witnessing that there was
little which the people desired to change. Possessing all his faculties to
the end of his long life, with an unabated love of reading and contem-
plation, in the centre of interesting circles of friendship and affection,
he was blessed, in his retirement, with whatever of repose and felicity
the condition of man allows. He had, also, other enjoyments. He
saw around him that prosperity and general happiness, which had
been the object of his public cares and labors. No man ever beheld
more clearly, and for a longer time, the great and beneficial effects
of the services rendered by himself to his country. That liberty, which
he so early defended, that independence, of which he was so able an
advocate and supporter, he saw, we trust, firmly and securely estab-
lished. The population of the country thickened around him faster,
and extended wider, than his own sanguine predictions had antici-
pated; and the wealth, respectability, and power, of the nation sprang
up to a magnitude Which it is quite impossible he could have expected
to witness in his day. He lived, also, to behold those principles of
civil freedom,, which had been developed, established, and practically
applied in America, attract attention, command respect, and awaken
imitation, in other regions of the globe; and well might, and well did
he, exclaim, "Where will the consequences of the American revolu-
tion end?"

If anything yet remain to fill this cup of happiness, let it be added,
that he lived to see a great and intelligent people bestow the highest
honor in their gift, where he had bestowed his own kindest parental
affections, and lodged his fondest hopes. Thus honored in life, thus
happy at death, he saw the jubilee, and he died; and with the last
prayers which trembled on his lips, was the fervent supplication for
his country, " independence forever."

Mr. Jefferson, having been occupied, in the years 1778 and 1779, in
the important service of revising the laws of Virginia, was elected
governor of that state, as successor to Patrick Henry, and held the
situation when the state was invaded by the British arms. In 17S1, he
published his Notes on Virginia, a work which attracted attention in
Europe as well as America, dispelled many misconceptions respecting
this continent, and gave its author a place among men distinguished
for science.. In November, 1783, he again took his seat in the con-
tinental congress; but in the May following was appointed minister
plenipotentiary, to act abroad in the negotiation of commercial treaties,

DANIEL WEBSTER. 17 1

with Dr Franklin and Mr. Adams. He proceeded to France, in
^execution of this mission, embarking at Boston, and that was the only
occasion on which -he .ever visited this place. In 1785, he was ap-
pointed minister to France, the duties of which situation he continued
to perform, until October, 1789, when he obtained leave to retire, just
on the eve of that tremendous revolution which has so much agitated
the world, in our times. Mr. Jefferson's discharge of his diplomatic
duties .was marked by great ability, diligence, and patriotism, and
while he resided at Paris, in one of the most interesting periods, his
character for intelligence, his love of knowledge, and of the society of
learned men, distinguished him in the highest circles of the French
capital. No court in Europe had, at that time, in Paris, a representative
commanding or enjoying higher regard, for political knowledge or for
general attainment, than the minister of this then infant republic.
Immediately on his return to his native country, at the organization of
the government under the present constitution, his talents and ex-
perience recommended him to president Washington, for the first office
in his, gift. He was placed at the head of the department of state.
In this situation, also, he manifested conspicuous ability. His cor-
respondence with the ministers of Other powers residing here, and
rhis instructions to our own diplomatic agents abroad, are among our
ablest state-papers. A thorough knowledge of the laws and usages of
nations, perfect acquaintance with the immediate subject before him,
great felicity, and still greater facility, in writing, show themselves in
whatever effort his official situation called on him to, make. It is be-
lieved, by competent judges, that the diplomatic intercourse of the
government of the United States, from the first meeting of the con-
tinental congress in 1774 to the present time, taken together, would
not suffer, in respect to the talent with which it has beeft conducted,
by comparison with anything which other and older states can pro-
duce; and to the attainment of this respectability and distinction, Mr.
Jefferson has contributed his full part.

On the retirement of General Washington from the presidency, and
the election of Mr. Adams to that office, in 1797, he was chosen vice-
-jfresident. While presiding, in this capacity, over the deliberations of
the Senate, he compiled and published a Manual of Parliamentary
, Practice — a work of more labor and mere merit than is indicated by
its size. It is now received as the general standard by which proceed-
ings are regulated, not only in both houses of Congress, but in most
of the other legislative bodies in the country. In 1801, he was elected
president, in opposition to Mr. Adams, and re-elected in 1805, by a
vote approaching towards unanimity.

From the time of his final retirement from public life, in 1807, Mr. Jef-
ferson lived as became a wise man. Surrounded by affectionate" friends,
his ardor in the pursuit of knowledge undiminished, with uncommon
health, and unbroken spirits, he was able to enjoy largely the rational

1 72 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

pleasures of live, and to partake in that public prosperity which he
had so much contributed to produce. His kindness and hospitality,
the charm of his conversation, the ease of his manners, the extent of
his acquirements, and especially the full store of revolutionary inci-
dents, which he possessed, and which he knew when and how to dis-
pense, rendered his abode in a high degree attractive to his admiring
countrymen; while his high public and scientific character drew to-
wards him every intelligent and educated traveler from abroad. Both
Mr. Adams and Mr. Jefferson had the pleasure of knowing that the
respect which they so largely received, was not paid to their official
stations. They were not men made great by office; but great men,
on whom the country for its own benefit had conferred office. There
was that in them which office did not give; and which the relinquishment
of office did not and could not take away. In their retirement, in the
midst of their fellow-citizens, themselves private citizens, they enjoyed
as high regard and esteem as when filling the most important places
of public trust.

There remained to Mr. Jefferson yet one other work of patriotism
and beneficence — the establishment of a university in his native state.
To this object he devoted years of incessant and anxious attention,
and by the enlightened liberality of the legislature of Virginia, and
the co-operation of other able and zealous friends, he lived to see
it accomplished. May all success attend this infant seminary ; and
may those who enjoy its advantages, as often as their eyes shall rest
on the neighboring height, recollect what they owe to their disinter-
ested and indefatigable benefactor; and may letters honor him who
thus labored in the cause of letters.

Thus useful, and thus respected, passed the old age of Thomas
Jefferson. But time was on its ever-ceaseless wing, and was now
bringing the last hour of this illustrious man. He saw its approach
with undisturbed serenity. He counted the moments as they passed,
and beheld that his last sands were falling. That day, too, was at
hand, which he had helped to make immortal. One wish, one hope
— if it were not presumptuous — beat in his fainting breast. " Could it
be so — might it please God — he would desire — once more— to see the
sun — once more to look abroad on the scene around him, on the great
day of liberty. Heaven, in its mercy, fulfilled that prayer. He saw
that sun — he enjoyed its sacred light — he thanked God for this mercy,
and bowed his aged head to the grave. "Felix, non vitce tantum
claritate, sed etiam opportunitate mostis."

The last public labor of Mr. Jefferson naturally suggests the expres-
sion of the high praise which is due, both to him and to Mr. Adams,
for their uniform and zealous attachment to learning, and to the cause
of general knowledge. Of the advantages of learning, indeed, and
of literary accomplishments, their own characters were striking recom-
mendations and illustrations. They were scholars, ripe and good

DANIEL WEBSTER. 173

scholars; widely acquainted with ancient as well as modern literature,
and not altogether uninstructed in the deeper sciences. Their acquire-
ments, doubtless, were different, and so were the particular objects of
their literary pursuits; as their tastes and characters, in these respects,
differed like those of other men. Being, also, men of busy lives, with
great objects requiring action constantly before them, their attainments
in letters did not become showy or obstrusive. Yet I would hazard the
opinion, that if we could now ascertain all the causes which gave them
eminence and distinction in the midst of the great men with whom
they acted, we should find, not among the least, their early acquisition
in literature, the resources which it furnished, the promptitude and
facility which it communicated, and the wide field it opened, for an-
alogy and illustration; giving thus, on every subject, a larger view,
and a broader range, as well for discussion as for the government of
their own conduct.

Literature sometimes, and pretensions to it much oftener, disgusts, by
appearing to hang loosely on the character, like something foreign or
extraneous, not a part, but an ill-adjusted appendage ; or by seeming
to overload and weigh it down, by its unsightly bulk, like the produc-
tions of bad taste in architecture, where there is massy and cumbrous
ornament, without strength or solidity of column. This has exposed
learning, and especially classical learning, to reproach. Men have seen,
that it might exist, without mental superiority, without vigor, without
good taste, and without utility. But, in such cases, classical learning
has only not inspired natural talent ; or, at most, it has but made
original feebleness of intellect, and natural bluntness of perception,
something more conspicuous. The question, after all, if it be a ques-
tion, is, whether literature, ancient as well as modern, does not assist a
good understanding, improve natural good taste, add polished armor to
native strength, and render its possessor not only more capable of dcr
riving private happiness from contemplation and reflection, but more
accomplished, also, for action in the affairs of life, and especially for
public action. Those whose memories we now honor, were learned
men ; but their learning was kept in its proper place, and made sub-
servient to the uses and objects of life. They were scholars, not com-
mon, nor superficial ; but their scholarship was so in keeping with their
character, so blended and inwrought, that careless observers, or bad
judges, not seeing an ostentatious display of it, might infer that it did
not exist: forgetting, or not knowing, that classical learning, in men
who act in conspicuous public stations, perform duties which exercise
the faculty of writing, or address popular, deliberative, or judicial
bodies, is often felt, where it is little seen, and sometimes felt more ef-
fectually, because it is not seen at all.

But the cause of knowledge, in a more enlarged sense, the cause of
general knowledge and of popular education, had no warmer friends,
nor more powerful advocates, than Mr. Adams and Mr. Jefferson. On

174 , A ME RICA k PA TRIO TISM.

this foundation, they knew, the whole republican system rested ; and
this great and all-important truth they strove to impress by all the means
in their power. In the early publication, already referred to; Mr. Adams
expresses the strong and just sentiment, that the education of the poor is
more important, even to the rich themselves, than all their own riches.
On this great truth, indeed, is founded that unrivalled, that invaluable
political and moral institution, our own blessing, and the gloiy of bur
fathers— the New England system of free schools.

.'As the promotion of knowledge had been the object of their regard
through life, so these great men made it the subject of their testamentary
bounty. Mr. Jefferson is understood to have bequeathed his library to
the university, and that of Mr. Adams is bestowed on the inhabitants
of Quincy.

Mr. Adams and Mr. Jefferson, fellow-citizens, were successively presi-
dents of the United States. The comparative merits of their respective
administrations for a long time agitated and divided public opinion.
They were rivals, each supported by numerous and powerful portions of
the people, for the highest office. This contest, partly the cruse, and
partly the consequence, of the long existence of two great political par-
ties in the country, is now part of the history of our government. We
may naturally regret that any thing should have occurred to create dif-
ference and discord between those who had acted harmoniously and
efficiently in the great concerns of the revolution. But this is not the
time, nor this the occasion, for entering into the grounds of that dif-
ference, or for attempting to discuss the merits cf the questions whichit
involves. As practical questions, they were canvassed when the meas-
ures which they regarded were acted on and adopted ; and as belonging
to history, the time has not come for their consideration.

It is, perhaps, not wonderful, that when the constitution of the United
States went first into operation, different opinions should beentertained
as to the extent of the powers conferred by it. Here was a natural
source of diversity of sentiment. It is still less wonderful, that
that event, about contemporary with our government, under the present
constitution, which so entirely shocked all Europe, and disturbed
our relations with her leading powers, should be thought, by different
men, to have different bearings on our own prosperity ; and that the
eai-ly measures adopted by our government, in consequence of this new
state of things, should be seen in opposite lights. It is for the future
historian, when what now remains of prejudice and misconception shall
have passed away, to state these different opinions, and pronounce im-
partial judgment. In the mean time, all good men rejoice, and well
may rejoice, that the sharpest differences sprung out of measures, which,
whether right or wrong, have ceased, with the exigencies that gave them
birth, and have left no permanent effect, either on the constitution, or
on the general prosperity of the country. This remark, I am aware,
may be supposed to have its exception in one measure, the alteration of

DANIEL WEBSTER. 1 75

the constitution as to the mode of choosing president ; but it is true in
its general application. Thus the course of policy pursued towards
Prance, in 1798, on the one hand, and the measures of commercial re-
striction, commenced in 1807, on the other, both subjects of warm and
severe opposition, have passed away, and left nothing behind them.
They were temporary, and, whether wise or unwise, their consequences
were limited to their respective occasions. It is equally clear, at the
same time, and it is equally gratifying, that those measures of both
administrations, which were of durable importance, and which diew
after them interesting and long-remaining consequences, have received
general approbation. Such was the organization, or rather the creation,
of the navy, in the administration of Mr. Adams ; such the acquisition of
Louisiana, in that of Mr. Jefferson. The country, it may safely be
.added is not likely, to be willing either to approve, or to reprobat',
indiscriminately, and in the aggregate, all the measures of either, or of
any, administration. The dictate of reason and of justice is, that hold-
ing each one his own sentiments on the points in difference, we imitate
the great men themselves, in the forbearance and moderation which they
have cherished, and in the mutual respect and kindness which they have
been so much inclined to feel and to reciprocate.

No men, fellow-citizens, ever served their country with more entire
exemption from every imputation of selfish and mercenary motive than
those to whose memory we arc paying these proofs of respect. A sus-
picion of any disposition to enrich themselves or to profit by their public
employments, never rested on either. No sordid motive approached
them. The inheritance which they have left to their children, is of their
character and their fame.

Fellow-citizens, I will detain you no longer by this faint and feeble
tribute to the memory of the illustrious dead. Even in other hands,
adequate justice could not be performed, within the limits of this oc-
casion. Their highest, their best praise, is your deep conviction of their
merits, your affectionate gratitude for their labors and services. It is
not my voice, — it is this cessation of ordinary pursuits, this arresting of
all attention, these solemn ceremonies, and this crowded house, which
speak their eulogy. Their fame, indeed, is safe. That is now treasured
lip beyond the reach of accident. Although no sculptured marble'
should rise to their memory, nor engraved stone bear record of their
deeds, yet will their remembrance be as lasting as the land they honored.
Marble columns may, indeed, moulder into dust, time may erase all im-
press from the crumbling stone, but their fame remains; for which
American liberty it rose, and with American liberty only can it
perish. It was the last swelling peal of yonder choir, "Their bodies
are buried in Peace, but their name liyeth ever more." I catch
that solemn song, I echo that lofty strain of funeral triumph, " Their
name liyeth evermore,"

Of the illustrious signers of the Declaration of Independence there

176 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

now remains only Charles Carroll. He seems an aged oak, standing
alone on the plain, which time has spared a little longer, after all its
contemporaries have been levelled with the dust. Venerable object !
we delight to gather round its trunk, while yet it stands, and to dwell
beneath its shadow. Sole survivor of an assembly of as great men as
the world has witnessed, in a transaction, one of the most important
that history records, what thoughts, what interesting reflections must
fill his elevated and devout soul ! If he dwell on the past, how
touching its recollections; if he survey the present, how happy, how
joyous, how full of the fruition of that hope, which his ardent patriotism
indulged ; if he glance' at the future, how does the prospect of his
country's advancement almost bewilder his weakened conception !
Fortunate, distinguished patriot ! Interesting relic of the past ! Let
him know that while we honor the dead, we do not forget the living ;
and that there is not a heart here which does not fervently pray that
Heaven may keep him yet back from the society of his companions.

-And now, fellow-citizens, let us not retire from this occasion without
a deep and solemn conviction of the duties which have devolved upon
us. This lovely land, this glorious liberty, these benign institutions,
the dear purchase of our fathers, are ours; ours to enjoy, ours to pre-
serve, ours to transmit. Generations past, and generations to come,
hold us responsible for this sacred trust. Our fathers, from behind, ad-
monish us, with their anxious paternal voices ; posterity calls out to us,
from the bosom of the future ; the world turns hither its solicitous eyes — all,
all conjure us to act wisely, and faithfully, in the relation which we sustain.
We can never, indeed, pay the debt which is upon us ; but by virture,
by morality, by religion, by the cultivation of every good principle and
every good habit, we may hope to enjoy the blessing, through our day,
and to leave it unimpaired to our children. Let us feel deeply how
much, of what we are and of what we possess, we owe to this liberty,
and these institutions of government. Nature has, indeed, given us a
soil which yields bounteously to the hands of industry ; the mighty and
fruitful ocean is before us, and the skies over our heads shed health and
vigor. But what are lands, and seas, and skies, to civilized man, without
society, without knowledge, without morals, without religious culture?
and how can these be enjoyed, in all their extent, and all their excel-
lence, but under the protection of wise institutions and a free govern-
ment? Fellow-citizens, there is not one of us, there is not one of us
here present, who does not, at this moment, and at every moment, ex-
perience iu his own condition, and in the condition of those most near
and dear to him, the influence and the benefits of this liberty, and these
institutions. Let us then acknowledge the blessing ; let us feel it deeply
and powerfully ; let us cherish a strong affection for it, and resolve to
maintain and perpetuate it. The blood of our fathers, let it not have
been shed in vain ; the great hope of posterity, let it not be blasted.
The striking attitude, too, in which Ave stand to the world around us.

DANIEL WEBSTER. 177

■ — a topic to which I fear, I advert too often, and dwell on too long, —
cannot be altogether omitted here. Neither individuals nor nations can
perform their part well until they understand and feel its importance,
and comprehend and justly appreciate all the duties belonging to it. It
is not to inflate national vanity, nor to swell a light and empty feeling
of self-importance ; but it is that we may judge justly of our situation,
and of our own duties, that I earnestly urge this consideration of our
position, and our character, among the nations of the earth. It cannot
be denied, but by those who would dispute against the sun, that with
America, and in America, a new era commences in human affairs This
era is distinguished by free representative governments, by entire reli-
gious liberty, by improved systems of national intercourse, by a newly .
awakened and. an unconquerable spirit of free inquiry, and by a diffusion
of knowledge through the community, such as has been before alto-
gether unknown and unheard of. America, America, our country,
fellow citizens, our own dear and native land, is inseparably connected,
fast bound up, in fortune and by fate, with these great interests. If
they fallj we fall with them ; if they stand, it will be because we have
upholden them. Let us contemplate, then, this connection, which
binds the prosperity of others to our own ; and let us manfully dis-
charge all the duties whieh it imposes. If we cherish the virtues an«l
the principles of our fathers, Heaven will assist us to carry on the work
of human liberty and human happiness. Auspicious omens cheer us.
Great examples are before us. Our own firmament now shines brightly
upon our path. Washington is in the clear upper sky. Those other
stars have now joined the American constellation ; they circle round
their centre, and the heavens beam with new light. Beneath this illu-
mination, let us walk the course of life, and at its close devoutly com-
mend our beloved country, the common parent of us all, to the Divine
Benignity.

-
...

;8 (loma*!

- . . "_

■

•

1
. . -■

...
. . ■

Period Second.

DEVELOPMENT.

What constitutes a State ?
Not high raised battlement or labored mound,

Thick wall or moated gate :
Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned g

Not bays and broad-armed ports,
Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride /

Not starred and spangled courts,
Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride.

No: — Men, high-minded men,
With pozuers as far abo~>e dull brutes endued

In forest, brake, or den,
As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude-
Men who their duties kno7t>,
But k?iaiv their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain,

Prevent the long-aimed blow,
And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain:

These constitute a State.

Sir William Jones.

. '". ' ■ ■ ■■' '

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toh s -

I - . - ■ ■.'■■■.

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: ! ' . - '

- ■ •• ■

. . ■ ■' • -.r,

' -;

■■-•■■• : . ■ i .

"■■..'...■;:
' -• ■ ■ I

i8i

INAUGURAL ADDRESS.
GEORGE WASHINGTON.

New York., Aj>ril 30, 1789.

Fellow Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Represen-
tatives— Among the vicissitudes incident to life, no event could have
filled me with greater anxieties than that, of which the notification was
transmitted by your order, and received on the fourth day of the
present month. On the one hand, I was summoned by my country,
whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love, from a
retreat which I had chosen with the fondest predilection, and, in my
flattering hopes, with an immutable decision as the asylum of my de-
clining years; a retreat which was rendered every day more necessary
as well as more dear to me, by the addition of habit to inclination, and
Of frequent interruptions in my health to the gradual waste committed
en it by time: on the other hand, the magnitude and difficulty of the
trust to which the voice of my country called me, being sufficient to
awaken, in the wisest and most experienced of her citizens, a distrust-
ful scrutiny into his qualifications, could not but overwhelm with
despondence one'who, inheriting inferior endowments from nature,
and unpractised in the duties of civil administration, ought to be pecu-
liarly co. srlous of his own deficiencies. In this conflict of emotions,
all I dare aver is, that it has been my faithful study to collect my duty
from a just appreciation of every circumstance by which it might be
affected. All I dare hope is, that if, in executing this task, I have been
too much swayed by a grateful remembrance of former instances, or
by an affectionate sensibility to this transcendent proof of the confi-
dence of my fellow-citizens, and have thence too little consulted my
incapacity as well as disinclination for the weighty and untried cares
before me, my error will be palliated by the motives which misled
me, and its consequences be judged by my country, with some share
of the partiality in which they originated.

Such being the impressions under which I have, in obedience to the
public summons, repaired to the present station, it would be peculiarly
improper to omit, in this first official act, my fervent supplications to
that Almighty Being, who rules over the universe, who presides in the
councils of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every
human defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and
happiness of the people of the United States, a government instituted

lS2 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

by themselves for these essential purposes, and may enable every in-
strument employed in its administration, to execute, with success* the
functions allotted to his charge. In tendering this homage to the
Great Author of every public and private good, I assure myself that it
expresses your sentiments not less than my own; nor those of my fel-
low-citizens at large less than- either. No people can be bound to
acknowledge and adore the invisible hand which, conducts the affairs
of men, more than the people of the United States. Every step by
which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation,
seemis to have been distinguished by some token of providential .
agency. And, in the important revolution just accomplished, in the
system of their -united government, the tranquil deliberation's and vol-
untary consent of so many distinct .communities, from which the event
has resulted, cannot be compared with the means by wmich most gov-
ernments have been established, without some return of pious grati-
tude, along with an humble anticipation of the future blessings, which
the past seems to presage. These reflections, arising out of the present
crisis, have forced themselves too strongly on m)r mind to be sup-
pressed. You will join with' -me, I trust, in thinking that there are
none under the influence of which the proceedings of a new and free
government can more auspiciously commence.

By the article establishing the executive department, it is made the
duty of the president "to recommend to your consideration, such
measures as he, shall judge necessary and expedient." The circum-
stances under which I now meet you, will acquit me from entering
into that subject farther than to refer you to the great constitutional
charter under which we are assembled; and which, in defining your'
powers, designates the objects to which your attention is to be given.
It will be more consistent with those circumstances, and far more con-
genial with the feelings which actuate me, to substitute, in place of a
recommendation of particular measures, the tribute that is due to the
talents, the rectitude, and the patriotism which adorn the characters
selected to devise and adopt them. In these honorable qualifications,
I behold the surest pledges, that as, on one side, no 1o:al prejudices
or attachments, no separate views nor party animosities, will misdirect
the comprehensive and equal eye which ought to watch Over this great
assemblage of communities and interests— so, on another, that the
foundations oi our national policy 'will be laid in the pure and immu-
table principles of privr.te morality; and the pre-eminence of a free
government be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the
affections of its citizens, and command the respect of the world.

I dwell on this prospect with every satisfaction which an ardent love
for my country can inspire: since there is no truth more thoroughalj
established than that there exists, in the economy and course of nature
an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness — between cratj
and advantage — between the genuine maxims of an hones: am

GEORGE WASHINGTON. 183

magnanimous policy and the solid rewards of public prosperity and
felicity — since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious
smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards -
the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has crdained —
and since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and 1,he destiny
of the republican model of government, are justly considered as
deeply, perhaps, as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the
hands of the American people.

Besides the ordinary objects submitted to your care, it will remain
with your judgment to decide how far an exercise of the occasional
power delegated by the fifth article of the constitution is rendered ex-
pedient, at the present juncture, by the nature of objections which
have been urged against the system, or by the degree of inquietude
which has given birth to them. Instead of undertaking particular
recommendations on this subject, in which I could be guided by no
lights derived from official opportunities, I shall again give way to my
entire confidence in your discernment arid pursuit of the public good.
For, I assure myself, that, whilst you carefully avoid every alteration
which might endanger the benefits of an united and effective govern-
ment, or which ought to await the future lessons of experience, a rever-
ence for the characteristic rights of freemen, and a regard for the
public harmony, will sufficiently influence your deliberations on the
question, how far the former can be more impregnably fortified, or the
latter be safely and more advantageously promoted.

To the preceding observations I have one to add, which will be most
properly addressed to the House of Representatives. It concerns my-
self, and will therefore be as brief as possible.

When I was first honored with a call into the service of my cc rntrv,
then on the eve of an arduous struggle for its liberties, the li ht in
which I contemplated my duty, required that I should renounce every
pecuniary compensation. From this resolution I have in no instance
departed. And being still under the impressions which produced it, I
must decline, as inapplicable to myself, any share in the personal
erholuments, which may be indispensably included in a permanent
provision for the e: ecutive department; and must accordingly pray that
the pecuniary estimates for the station in which I am placed, may,
during my continuation in it, be limited to such actual expenditures as
the pubiic good may be thought to require.

Having thus imparted to you my sentiments, as they have been
awakened by the occasion which brings us together, I shall take my
present leave, but not without resorting once more to the benign
Parent of the human race, in humble supplication, that, since he has
been pleased to favor the American people with opportunities for de-
liberating in perfect tranquillity, and dispositions for deciding with
unparalleled unanimity, on a form of government for the security of
[their union, and the advancement of their happiness, so his diyine •
A r -i

1 84 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

blessing may be equally conspicuous in the enlarged views, the tem-
perate consultations, and the wise measures on which, the success of
this government must depend.

FAREWELL ADDRESS,

FAREWELL AUDREY,
GEORGE WASHINGTON.

United States, September 17, 1796.

Friends and Fellow Citizens —The -period for a new election of

a citizen, to administer the executive government of the United States,
being hot far distant, and the time actually arrived, when your thoughts
must be employed in designating the person who is to be clothed with
that important trust, it appears to me proper, especially as it may con •
dace to a more distinct expression of the, public voice, that -I should
now apprize you of the resolution I have formed, to decline beingeon-
- skier ed among the number of those, out of whom a choice is to be
made. „'

Ibeg yon, at the same time* to do me the justice to be assured, that
this resolution has not been taken without a strict regard to all the
considerations appertaining to the relation, which binds a dutiful citi-
zen to his country; and that, in withdrawing the tender of service,
which silence in my situation might imply, I am influenced by no
diminution of zeal for your future interest; no deficiency of grateful
respect for your past kindness; but am supported by a full conviction
that the step is compatible with both.

The acceptance Of, and continuance hitherto in, the office to which
your suffrages have twice called me, have been a uniform sacrifice of
inclination to the opinion of duty, and to a deference for what appeared
to be your desire. I constantly hoped, that it would have been much
earlier in my' power, consistently with motives, which I was not at
liberty to disregard, to return to that retirement, from which I had
been reluctantly drawn. The. strength of my inclination. to do this,
previous to the last election, had even led to the preparation of an ad-
dress to declare it to you; but mature reflection on the then perplexed
/ and critical posture of our affairs, with foreign nations, and the unani-
mous advice of persons entitled to my. confidence, impelled me to
abandon the idea.

I rejoice, that the state of your concerns, external as well as inter-
nal, ho longer renders the pursuit of inclination incompatible with the
sentiment of duty, or propriety, and am persuaded, whatever parti-
ality may be retained for my services, that, in the present circum-
stances of our country, you will not disapprove my determination to
retire.

GEORGE IV ASH I XG TOW 185

The impressions, with which I first undertook the arduous trust,
were explained on the proper occasion. In the discharge of this trust,
I will only say, that I have, with good intentions, contributed towards
the organization and administration of the government the best exer-
tions of which a very fallible judgment was capable. Not unconscious
in the outset, of the inferiority of my qualifications, experience in my
own eyes, perhaps still more in the eyes of others, has strengthened
the motives to diffidence of myself, and every day the increasing
weight of years admonishes me more and more, that the shade of re-
tirement is as necessary to me as it will be welcome. • Satisfied, that,
if any circumstances have given peculiar value to my services, they
were temporary, T have the cons'olatiOn to believe, that, while choice
and prudence invite me to quit the political ^ccne, patriotism does not
forbid it.

In looking forward to the moment, which is intended to terminate
the career of my public life, my feelings do not permit me to suspend
the deep acknowledgment of that debt of gratitude, which I owe to
my beloved country for the many honors it has conferred upon me ;
still more for the steadfast confidence with which it has supported me ;
and for the opportunities I have thence enjoyed of manifesting my in-
violable attachment, by services faithful and persevering, though in
usefulness unequal to my zeal. If benefits have resulted to our coun-
try from these services, let it always be remembered to your praise,
and as an instructive example in our annals, that Under circumsiances
in which the passions, agitated in every direction, wTere liable to mis-
lead, amidst appearances sometimes dubious, vicissitudes of fortune
often discouraging, in situations in which not unfrequently want of suc-
cess has countenanced the spirit of criticism, the constancy of your
~ support was the essential prop of the efforts, and a guarantee of the
plans by which they \vere effected. Profoundly penetrated with this
idea, I shall carry it With me to my grave, as a strong incitement to
unceasing vows that Heaven may continue to you the choicest tokens
of its beneficence; that $'our union and brotherly affection may be per-
petual, that the free constitution, which is the Work of your hands,
may be sacredly maintained; that its administration in every depart-
ment may be stamped with wisdom and virtue; that, in fine/the hap-
piness of the people of these states, under the auspices of liberty, may
be made complete, by so careful a preservation and so prudent a use
of this blessing, as will acquire to them the glory of recommending it t-
to the applause, the affection, and adoption of every nation, which is
yet a stranger to it.

Here, perhaps, I ought to stop." But a solicitude for your welfare,
which cannot end but with my life,- and the apprehension of danger-,
natural to that solicitude, urge me, on an occasion like the present, to
offer to your solemn contemplation, and to recommend to your fre-
quent review, some sentiments, which are the result of much reflec-

1 86 AM ERICA X PATRIOTISM

tlon, of no Inconsiderable observation, and which appear to me all-
important to the permanency of your felicity as a people. These will
be offered to you with the more freedom, as you can only see in them
the disinterested warnings of a parting friend, who can possibly have
no personal motive to bias his counsel. Nor can I forget, as an en-
couragement to it, your indulgent reception of my sentiments on a
former and not dissimilar occasion.

Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your
hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm
the attachment.

The unity of government, which constitutes you one people, is also
now dear to yoa. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice
of your real independence, the support of your tranquillity at home,
your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very
liberty, which you so highly prize But as it is easy to foresee, that,
from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be
taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the convic-
tion of this truth, as this is the point in your political fortress against
which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most con-
stantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed,
it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense
value of your national union to your collective and individual happi-
ness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable at-
tachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of
the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its
preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may
suggest even a suspicion, that it can in any event be abandoned; and
indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to
alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the
sacred ties which now link together the various parts.

For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest.
Citizens, by birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a
right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which
belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just
pride of patriotism, more than any appellation derived from local dis-
criminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same re-
ligion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have in a com-
mon cause fought and triumphed together; the independence and
liberty you possess are the work of joint counsels, and joint efforts, of
common dangers, sufferings, and successes.

But these considerations, however powerfully they address them-
selves to your sensibility, are greatly outweighed by those which
apply more immediately to your interest. Here every portion of our
country finds the most commanding motives for carefully guarding
and preserving the union of the whole.

The North, in an unrestrained intercourse with the South, protected

ceoece u \4 siiixc fpjy: i s 7

by the equal laws of a common government, finds 'in the productions of
the latter, great additional resources of maritime and commercial
enterprise and precious materials of manufacturing industry. The
South, in the same intercourse, benefiting by the agency of
the North, see its agriculture grow and its commerce expand.
Turning partly into its own channels the seamen of the North, it
finds its particular navigation invigorated ; and, while it contributes,
in different ways, to nourish and increase the general mass of the
national navigation, it looks forward to the protection of a maritime
strength, to which itself is unequally adapted. The East, in a like
intercourse with the West, already finds, and in the progressive im-
provement of interior communications by land and water, will more
and more find, a valuable vent for the commodities wdiich it brings
from abroad, or manufactures at home. The West derives from the
East supplies requisite to its growth and comfort, and, what is per-
haps of still greater consequence, it must of necessity owe the secure
enjoyment of indispensable outlets for its own productions to the;
weight, influence, and the future maritime strength of the Atlantic,
side of the Union, directed by an indissoluble community of interest,
as one nation. Any other tenure by which the West' can hold this
essential advantage, whether derived from its own separate strength,
or from an apostate and unnatural connexion with any foreign power,
must be intrinsically precarious.

WThile, then, every part of our country thus feels an immediate and
particular interest in union, all the parts combined cannot faihto find
in the united mass of means and efforts greater strength, greater
resource, proportionably greater security from external danger, a less
frequent interruption of their peace by foreign nations ; and, what is
of inestimable value, they must derive from union an exemption
from those broils and wars between themselves, which so frequently,
afflict neighboring countries not tied together by the same govern-
ments, which their own rivalships alone would be sufficient to pro-
duce, but which opposite foreign alliances, attachments, and intrigues
would stimulate and embitter. Hence, likewise, they will avoid the
necessity of those overgrown military establishments, which, under
any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to
be regarded as particularly "hostile to republican liberty. In this
sense it is, that your union ought to be considered as a main prop of
your liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to you the
preservation of the other.

These considerations speak a persuasive language to every reflect-
ing and virtuous mind, and exhibit the continuance of the Union as a
primary object of patriotic desire. Is there a doubt whether a com-
mon government can embrace so large a sphere ?- Let experience
solve it. To listen to mere speculation in such a case were criminal.
We are authorized to hope, that a proper organization of the whole,

is > AMERICAN FA TRIO TISM.

with the auxiliary agency of governments for the respective sub-
^divisions, will afford a happy issue to the' experiment. It is" well
worth a fair and full experiment. With such powerful and obvious
motives to union, affecting all parts of our country, while experience
shall not have demonstrated its impracticability, there will always he
reason to distrust the patriotism of those, who in any quarter may
endeavor to weaken its bands.

In contemplating the causes which may disturb our Union, it
-occurs as matter of serious concern, that any ground should have
been furnished for characterizing parties by geographical discrimina-
tions, Northern and Southern, Atlantic and- Western ; whence design-
ing men may endeavor to excite a belief that there is a real difference
of local interests and views. One of the expedients of party to
-acquire influence, within particular districts, is to misrepresent the
opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot shield yourselves
too much against the jealousies and heart-burnings, which spring
from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each.other
those, who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection. The
inhabitants of our western country have lately had a useful lesson on
this head; they have seen, in the negotiation by the Executive, and in
the unanimous ratification by the Senate, of the treaty with Spain, and
in the universal satisfaction at that event, throughout the United States,
a decisive proof how unfounded were the suspicions propagated
among them of a policy in the General Government and in the Atlan-
tic States unfriendly to their interests in regard to the Mississippi;
they have been witnesses to the formation of two treaties, that -with
Great Britain, and that with Spain, \vhieh secure to them every thing
they could desire, in respect to our foreign relations, towards confirm-
ing their prosperity. Will it not be their wisdom to rely for the pre-
servation of these advantages on the Union by which they were pro-
cured ? Will they not henceforth be deaf to those advisers, if such
there "are, who would sever them from their brethren and connect them
with aliens ?

To the efficacy and permanency of your Union, a Government for
the whole is indispensable. No alliances, however strict, between the
parts can be an adequate substitute; they must inevitably experience
the infractions and interruptions, which all alliances in all times have
experienced. Sensible of this momentous truth, you have improved
upon your first essay, by the adoption of a Constitution of Govern-
ment better calculated than your former for an intimate Union, and
for the efficacious management of your Common concerns. This Gov-
ernment, the offspring of our Own choke, Uninfluenced and unawed,
adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely
free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting security
with energy, and containing within itself a provision for its own
amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support.

GEORGE WASHINGTON. 1S9

Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its
.measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true
Liberty. The.basis of our political systems is the right of the people
to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But the con-
stitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and au-
thentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The
yery idea of the power and the right of the people to establish Gov-
ernment presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the estab-
lished Government, iish;

All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and
associations, under whatever plausibiecharacter, with the real design
to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and
action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this funda-
mental principle, and of. fatal tendency. They serve to organize
faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in
the place of the delegated will of the. nation, the will of a party, of-
-ten a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community;
nnd, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make
the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongru-
ous projects of faction, rather ithan the organ of consistent and
wholesome plans digested by common counsels, and modified by
mutual interests.

However combinations or associations of the above description may
now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of
time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, am-
bitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power
of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government;
destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to un-
just dominion.

Towards the preservation, of your government, and the permanency
zoi your present happy state* it. is. requisite, not only that you steadily
discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority,
but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its
principles, however specious the pretexts. One method of assault
maybe to effect, in the forms of the constitution, alterations, which
will impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what
cannot be directly overthrown. In all the changes to which you may
be invited, remember that time and habit are at least as necessary to fix
the true, character of governments, as of other human institutions;
that experience is the surest standard, by which to test the real ten-
dency of the existing constitution of a country; that facility in changes,
Upon the credit of mere hypothesis and opinion, exposes to perpetual
change, from the endless variety of hypothesis and opinion; and re-
member, especially, that, for the efficient management of your com-
mon interests, in a country so extensive as ours, a government of as
much vigor as is consistent with the perfect security of liberty is in-

i'9° AMERICAN PA TRIO TISJI.

dispensable. Liberty itself will find in such a government, with
powers properly distributed and adjusted, its surest guardian. It is,
indeed, little else than a name, where the government is too feeble to
withstand the enterprises of faction, to confine each member of the
society within the limits prescribed by the laws, and to maintain all
in the secure and tranquil enjoyment of the rights of person and
property.

I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the state,
with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical dis-
criminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and
warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of
the spirit of party, generally.

This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having
its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under
different shapes in all governments^ more or less stifled, controlled,
or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its great-
est rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened
by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different
ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself
a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and
permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result,
gradually incline the minds, of men to seek security and repose in the
absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some
prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors,
turns this disposition to the purposes of liis own elevation, on the
ruins of public liberty.

Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which never-
theless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and con-
tinual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the
interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

It serves always to distract the public councils, and enfeeble the
public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded
jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against
another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the
door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access
to the government itself through the channels of party passions.
Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy
and will of another.

There is ap opinion, that parties in free countries are useful checks
upon the administration of the government, and serve to keep alive
the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and
in governments of a monarchical cast, patriotism may look with indul-
gence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the
popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to
be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will

GKGRGK JJ'ASIIIXGTQN'. 191

always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And,
there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be, by force
of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be
quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into
a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.

It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free coun-
try should inspire caution, in those intrusted with its administration,
to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres,
avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach
upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the
powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the
'form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love
of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the hu-
man heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. The
necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by
dividing and distributing it into different depositories, and constitut-
ing each the guardian of the public weal against invasions by the oth-
ers, has been, evinced by experiments ancient and modern; some of
them In our country and under our own eyes. To preserve them
must be as necessary as to institute them. If, in the opinion of the
people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers
be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in
the way which the constitution designates. But let there be no
change by usurpation; for, though this, in one instance, may be the
instrument of good, it is the customary Aveapon by which free govern-
ments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance
in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit, which the use can
at any time yield.

Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political prosperity,
religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that
man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these
great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the. duties of
men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man,
ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all
their connexions with private and public felicity. Let it simply be
asked, Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if
the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instru-
ments of investigation in courts of justice ? And let us with caution
indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without reli-
gion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education
on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us
to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious
principle.

It is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring
of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less
iorce to every species of free government. Who, that is a sincere

i$2 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

friend tp Jt, can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the
foundation of the fabric ?

Promote, then, as an object of primary, importance, institutions for
the general diffusion of knowledge.. In proportion as the structure of
a government gives force .to. public opinion ,. it is essential that public
opinion -should be enlightened. .

Asa very important source of strength and security, cherish public
credit. One method of preserving it. is, to use it as sparingly; as pos-
sible; avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remem-
bering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger fre-
quently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it; avoiding
likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions' of
expense, but by vigorous exertion in time Of peace to discharge the
debts, which unavoidable wars may have occasioned not ungenerously
throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to
bear. The execution of these maxims belongs to your representatives,
but it is necessary that public opinion should co-operate. To facilitate
to.them the performance of their duty, it is essentia! that you should
practically bear in mind, that towards the payment of debts there must
be revenue; that to have revenue there must be taxes; that no taxes
can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleas-
ant; that the intrinsic embarrassment, inseparable from the selection of
the proper objects (which is always a choice of difficulties), ought to be
a decisive motive for a candid construction of the conduct of the gov-
ernment in making it, and for a spirit of acquiescence in the measures
for obtaining revenue, which the public exigencies may at any time
dictate.

Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace,
and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and
can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it? . It will be
worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period, a great nation,
to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a
people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who
can doubt, that in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a
plan would richly repay any temporary advantages, which might be
lost by a steady adherence to it ? Can it be that Providence has not
connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue? The ex-
periment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment whichennobles
human nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices? .

In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential, than that
permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular . nations, and
passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, "in.
place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be culti-;
vated. The nation, which indulges towards another an . habitus f
halve i or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is" a
slave to its animosity or to its -affection, either of which is sufficient to

CEORCE IV A SJIIXG 7U.V. tj$\

lead it astray from its duty arid its interest. Antipathy in one nation
against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury,
to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intract-
able, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence,
frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The
nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to "war
the Government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The
Government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and
adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times, it
makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility
instigated fjy pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious mo-
tives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations
has been the victim.

So likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another pro-
duces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitat-
ing the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where
no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities
of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quar-
rels and wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or justi-
fication. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of
privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the nation
making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to
have been retained; and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposi-
tion to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are with-
held. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who
devote themselves to the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice
the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even
with popularity; gilding,- with the appearances of a virtuous sense of
obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable
zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, cor-
ruption or infatuation.

As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attach-
ments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and indepen-
dent patriot. How marry opportunities do they afford to tamper with
domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public
opinion, to influence or awe the public councils! Such an attachment
of a small or weak, towards a great and powerful nation, dooms the
former to be the satellite of the latter.

Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to
believe me, fellow-citizens), the jealousy of a free people ought to be
be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign
influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government.
!But that jealousy, to be useful, must be impartial; else it becomes the
'instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defence
^against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation, and excessive
dislike of another, cause those whom they actuate to see danger only

194 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

on one side, :and serve to veil and even second the .arts. of Influence on
the other, -Real patriots .'who may resist the intrigues of the favorite;
are liable to become suspected and odious; "while, its tools and dupes
usurp the applause- and confidence of the ..people, to surrender their
interests. - d • \ l

The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is, in
extending our, commercial relations, to have with them, as little political
connexion asr possible. So far as we have already formed engage-
ments, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop.

Europe has a set of primary, interests, which to Us have none, or a
very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent con-
troversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns.
Hence* therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves; by
artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary
combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.

Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue
a different course. If we remain one people, under an efficient govern-
ment, the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from
external annoyance ; when we may take such an attitude as will cause
the neutrality, we may at any time resolve upon, to be" scrupulously
respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making
acquisitions upon us, .will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation;
when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice,
shall counsel.

Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our
own to stand upon foreign ground ? Why, by interweaving our destiny
with that of ~any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in
the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or caprice?

It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any
portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty
to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of. patronizing infi-
delity to existing engagements. . I hold the maxim no less applicable
to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy
I repeat it, therefore, let those engagements be observed in their gen-
uine sense. But, in my opinion, it is unnecessary and would be un-
wise to extend them.

Taking care always to keep ourselves, by suitable establishments,
on a respectable defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary
alliances for extraordinary emergencies.

Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by
policy, humanity, and interest. But even our commercial policy
should hold an equal and impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting
exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of
things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of com-
merce, but forcing nothing; establishing) with powers so disposed, in
order to give trade a stable course, to define the rights of our mer-

GEORGE WASHINGTON. 195

chants, and to enable the government to support them, conventional
rules of intercourse, the best that present circumstances and mutual
opinion will permit, but temporary, and liable to be from time to time
abandoned or varied, as experience and circumstances shall dictate;
constantly keeping in Anew, that it is folly in one nation to look for
disinterested favors from another; that it must pay with a portion of
its independence for whatever it may accept under that character;
that, by such acceptance, it may place itself in the condition of having (
given equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with
ingratitude for not giving more. There can be no greater error than
to expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an
illusion, which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to dis-
card.

In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old and af-
fectionate friend, I dare not hope they will make the strong and
lasting impression I could wish; that they will control the usual cur-
rent of the passions, or prevent our nation from running the course,
which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations. But, if I may even
flatter myself, that they may be productive of some partial benefit,
some occasional good; that they may now and then recur to moderate
the fury of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign in-
trigue, to guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism; thu;
hope will be a full recompense for the solicitude for your welfare, by
which they have been dictated.

How far in the discharge of my official duties, I have been guided by
the principles which have been delineated, the public records and other
evidences of my conduct must witness to you and to the world. To
myself, the assurance of my own conscience is, that I have at least
believed myself to be guided by them.

In relation to the still subsisting war in Europe, my proclamation of
the 22d of April, 1793, is the index of my plan. Sanctioned by your
approving voice, and by that of your Representatives in both Houses
of Congress, the spirit of that measure has continually governed me,
uninfluenced by any attempts to deter or divert me from it.

After deliberate examination, with the aid of the best lights I could
obtain, I was well satisfied that our country, under all the circum-
stances of the case, had a right to take, and was bound in duty and
interest to take, a neutral position. Having taken it, I determined,
as far as should depend upon me, to maintain it, with moderation,
perseverance and firmness.

The considerations which respect the right to hold this conduct, it
is not necessary on this occasion to detail. I will only observe, that,
according to my understanding of the matter, that right, so far from
being denied by any of the belligerent powers, has been virtually ad-
mitted by all.

The duty of holding a neutral conduct maybe inferred, without any-

196 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

thing more, from the obligation which justice and humanity impose on
every nation, in cases in which it is free to act, to maintain inviolate
the relations of peace and amity towards other nations.

The inducements of interest for observing that conduct will best be
referred to your own reflections and experience. With me a predomi-
nant motive has been to endeavor to gain time to our country to settle
and mature its yet recent institutions, and to progress without inter-
ruption to that degree of strength and consistency, which is necessary
to give it, humanly speaking, the command of its own fortunes.

Though, in reviewing the incidents of my administration, I am un-
conscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible of my
defects not . to thank it . probable that I may have. committed many er- -
rors. Whatever they may be I fervently beseech the Almighty to
avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend. I shall also carry
with me the hope, that my country will never cease to view them with
indulgence; and that, after .forty-five years of my life dedicated to its
sendee with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will
be consigned to oblivion, as myself must soon, be to the mansions of
rest.

Relying on its kindness in this as in other -things, and actuated by
that fervent love towards it, which is so natural to a man, who views
in it the native soil of himself and his progenitors for several genera-
tions; I anticipate with pleasing expectation that retreat, in which I
promise myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment of par-
taking, in the midst of my fellow-citizens, the benign influence of good
laws under a free government, the ever favorite object of my heart,
and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, Tabors, and
dangers. ; : . _

George Washington.

United States \ September ijt/i, 1796.

■ -

• - , ■ "J j ' -5 ' - - " " ■ :- :

ON THE EMBARGO.
JOSIAH QUINCY, JR.

Washington^ November 28, 1808.

I agree to this resolution, because, in my apprehension, it offers a~
solemn pledge to this nation — a pledge not to be mistaken, and not to
be evaded — that the present system of public measures shall be totally -
abandoned. Adopt it, and there is an end of the policy of deserting
our rights, under a pretense of maintaining them. Adopt it, and we
no longer yield to the beck of haughty belligerents the rights of navi-
gating the ocean,— that choice inheritance bequeathed to us by our
fathers. Adopt it, and there is a termination .of that base and abject

JO SI AH QUIXCY, JR. 197

1
submission by which this country has for these eleven months been
disgraced and brought to the brink of ruin.
• • • •

It remains for us, therefore, to consider what submission is, and
what the pledge not to submit implies.

One man submits to the order, decree, or edict of another, when he
does that thing which such order, decree, or edict commands, or when
he omits to do that thing which such order, decree, or edict prohibits.
This, then, is submission. It is to do as we are bidden. It is to fake
the will of another as a measure of our rights. It is to yield to his ^
power, to go where he directs, or to refrain from going where Tie
forbids us.

If this be submission, then the pledge not to submit implies the
reverse of all this. I : is a solemn declaration that we will not do that
thing which such order, decree, or edict commands, or that we will do
what it prohibits. This, then, is freedom. This is honor. This is
independence. It consists in taking the nature of things, and not the
wrill of another, as the measure of our rights. What God and nature
offer us we will enjoy in despite of the commands, regardless of the
menaces of iniquitous power.

Let us apply these correct and undeniable principles, to .the edicts of
Great Britain and France, and the consequent abandonment of the
ocean by the American government. The decrees of France prohibit
us from trading with Great Britain. The orders of Great Britain pro-
hibit us from trading with France. And what do we do? Why, in direct
subserviency to the edicts of each, Ave prohibit our citizens from trading
with either. We do more. As if unqualified submission was not
humiliating enough, we descend to an act of supererogation in servility;
we abandon trade altogether; we not only refrain from that particular
trade which their respective edicts proscribe, but, lest the ingenuity
of our merchants should enable them to evade their operation, to make
submission doubly sure, the American government virtually re-enact
the edicts of the belligerents, and abandon all the trade which, not-
withstanding the practical effects of their edicts, remains to us. The
same conclusion will result if we consider our embargo in relation to
the objects of this belligerent policy. France, by her edicts, would
compress Great Britain by destroying her commerce and cutting off her
supplies. All the continent of Europe, in the hand of Bonaparte, is
made subservient to this policy. The embargo law of the United
States, in its operation, is an union with the continental coalition
against British commerce at the very moment most auspicious to its
success. Can anything be in more direct subserviency to the views of
the French Emperor? If we consider the orders of Great Britain, the
result will be the same. I proceed at present on the supposition of a
perfect impartiality in our administration towards both belligerents,
so far as relates to the embargo law. Great Britain had two objects

I9« AM ERICA X PATRIOTISM.

in issuing her orders, First, to excise discontent: in the people on the
continent, by depriving them of their accustomed colonial supplies.
Second, to secure to herself that commerce of which she deprived
neutrals. Our embargo co-operates with the British view in both re-
spects. By our dereliction of the ocean, the continent is much more
deprived of the advantages of commerce than it would be possible for
the British navy to effect, and by removing our competition allthe com-
merce of the continent which can be forced is wholly left to be reaped
g.. by Great. Britain. The language of each sovereign is in direct ^con-
f formity with these ideas. Napoleon tells the American minister/ vir-
1 tually, that we are very good Americans; that although he will not
allow the property he has in his. hands to escape him, nor desist from
burning and capturing our vessels on every occasion, yet that he is,
thus far, satisfied with our co-operation. And what is the language of
George III., when our minister presents to his consideration the em-
bargo laws? Is it Le roy s ' avis era ? — "The king will reflect upon
them." No, it is the pure language of royal approbation, Lervyhveut —
"The king wills it." Were you colonies, he could expect no more.
His subjects as inevitably get that commerce which you abandon, as
the water will certainly run into the only channel which remains after
all the others are obstructed. In whatever point of view you consider
these embargo laws in relation to those edicts and decrees, we shall
find them co-operating with each belligerent in its policy. In this way,
I grant, our conduct may be impartial. But what has become of our
American rights to navigate the ocean ? They are abandoned in strict
conformity to the decrees of both belligerents. This resolution de-
clares that we will no longer submit to such degrading humiliation.
Little as I relish it, I will take it as the harbinger of a new day, — the
pledge of a new system of measures.

Perhaps here, in strictness, I ought to close my observations. But
the report of the committee, contrary to what I deem the principle of
the resolution, unquestionably recommends the continuance of the
embargo laws. And such is the state of the nation, and in particular
that portion of it which, in part, I represent, under their oppression,
that I cannot refrain from submitting some considerations on that
subject.

When I enter on the subject of the embargo, I am struck with won-
der at the very threshold. I know not with what words to express
my astonishment. At the time I departed from Massachusetts, if
there was an impression which I thought universal, it was that at the
commencement of this session an end would be put to this measure.
The opinion was not so much that it would be terminated, as that it
was then at .an end. Sir, the prevailing sentiment, according to my
apprehension, was stronger than this, — even that the pressure was so-
great that it could not possibly be longer endured; that it would soon
be absolutely insupportable, An4 &fs opinion, as I then had reason

JO S.I A II Q;UI\'C\\-JR. 199

to believe, was net confined to any one class, or description, or party,
—even those who were friends of the existing administration, and un-
willing to abandon it, were yet satisfied that a sufficient trial had been
given to this measure. With these impressions, I arrive in this city.
I hear the incantation of the great enchanter. I feel his spell. I see
the legislative machinery begin to move. The scene opens, and- 1 am
commanded to forget all my recollections, to disbelieve the evidence
of my senses, to contradict what I have seen, and heard, and felt. I
hear that all this discontent was merely party clamor,^-electioneering
artifice;. that the people of New England areabileand Willing to endure
this embargo for an indefinite, unlimited period; some say for six
months, some a year, some two years. The gentleman from North
Carolina (Mr. Macon) told us that he preferred three years of em-
bargo toa war. And the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Clopton) said
expressly, that he hoped we should never allow our vessels to go upon
the ocean again, until the orders and decrees of the belligerents were
rescinded. In plain English, until France and Great Britain should, in
their great condescension, permit.— Good Heavens ! Mr. Chairman,
•are men mad ?:. Is this House touched with that insanity which is the
never-failing precursor of the intention of Heaven to destroy? The
: „ people of New England, after eleven months' deprivation of the ocean,
to be commanded still longer to abandon it, for an undefined period, —
to hold their inalienable rights at the tenure of the will of Great Britain
or of Bonaparte ! A people commercial in ail aspects, in all their re-
lations, in all their hopes, in all their recollections of the past, in all
I their prospects of the future,— a people, whose first love was the ocean,
the choice of their childhood, the approbation of their manly years,
the most precious inheritance of their fathers, — in the midst of their
success, in the moment of the most exquisite perception of commercial
prosperity, to be commanded to abandon it, not for a time limited, but
for a time unlimited, — not until they can be prepared to defend them-
selves there (for that is not pretended), but until their rivals recede
from it, — not until their necessities require, but until foreign nations
permit ! I am lost in astonishment, Mr. Chairman. I have not words
to express the matchless absurdity of this attempt. I have no tongue
to express the swift and headlong destruction which a blind persever-
ance in such a system must bring upon this nation.

■-..-.. . . .

Mr. Chairman, other gentleman must take their responsibilties — I
shall take mine. This embargo must be repealed. You cannot en-
force it for any important period of time longer. When I speak of
your inability to enforce this law, let not gentlemen misunderstand
me. I mean not to intimate insurrections or open defiance of them.
Although it is impossible to foresee in what acts that ' ' oppression, " will
finally terminate, which, we are told, "makes wise men mad," I
speak of an inability resulting from very different causes.

200 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

TJhe gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Macon) exclaimed' the
other day, in a strain of patriotic ardor, "What! shall not our laws ....
be executed? Shall their authority be defied ? I am for enforcing
them at every hazard." I honor that gentleman's zeal: and I mean
no deviation from that true respect I entertain for him, when I tell;
him, that in this instance " his zeal is not according to knowledge."

Inask this House, is there no control to its authority? is there no
limit to the power of this national legislature? I hope I shall offend .
no man when I intimate that two limits exist,— nature and the :
constitution. Should this House undertake to declare that this
atmosphere should no longer surround us, that water should cease to; \
flow," that gravity should not hereafter operate, that the needle should
not vibrate to the pole, I do suppose, Mr. Chairman, — Sir, I mean no
disrespect to the authority of this House, I know the high notions ..'.
some gentlemen entertain on this subject, — I do suppose— Sir, I hope
I shall not- off end— -I think I may venture to affirm, that, such a law .
to the contrary notwithstanding, the air would continue to circulate,
the Mississippi, the Hudson, and the Potomac would hurl their floods
to the ocean, heavy bodies continue to descend,' and the mysterious
magnet hold on its course to its celestial cynosure.

Just as utterly absurd and contrary to nature is it to attempt to
prohibit the people of New England, for any considerable length of
time, from the ocean. Commerce is not only associated with all the
feelings, the habits, the interests and relations of that people, but the
nature of our soil and of our coast, the state of our population and
its mode of distribution Over our territory, render it indispensable.
We have five hundred miles Of sea-coast; all furnished with harbors,
bays, creeks, rivers, inlets, basins, — with every variety of invitation
to the sea, — with every species of facility to violate such laws as these.
Our people are not scattered over an immense surface; at a solemn
distance from each other, in lordly retirement, in the midst of ex-
tended plantations and intervening wastes. They are collected on the
margin of the ocean, by the sides of rivers, at the heads of bays,
looking into the water or on the surface of it for the incitement and
the reward of their industry. Among a people thus situated, thus
educated, thus numerous, laws prohibiting them from the exercise of
their natural rights will have a binding effect not one moment longer
than the public sentiment supports them. ....

I ask in what page of the constitution you find the power of
laying an embargo ? Directly given it is nowhere. You have it, then,
by construction, or by precedent. By construction of the power to
regulate. I lay out of the question the commonplace argument; that
regulation cannot mean annihilation; and that what is annihilated
cannot be regulated. I ask this question, — Can a power be ever
obtained by construction which had never been exercised at the time
of the authority given,— the like of which had not only never been

JO SL I H Q i ~1\ 'C \ \ JR. 2 o I

seen, hut the idea of which had never entered into h-man imagina-
tion, 1 will not say in this country, but in the world? Yet such is
this power, which by construction you assume to exercise. Never
before did society witness a total prohibition of all intercourse like
this in a commercial nation. Did the people of the United States
invest this House with a power of which at the time of investment
that people had not and could not have had any idea ? For even in
works of fiction it had never existed.

But it has been asked in debate, "will not Massachusetts, the
cradle of liberty, submit to such privations ?" An embargo liberty
was never cradled in Massachusetts. Our liberty was not so much a
mountain as a sea nymph. She was as free as air. She could swim,
or she could run. The ocean was her cradle? Our fathers met her
as she came, like the goddess of beauty, from the waves. They
caught her as she was sporting on the beach. They courted her
whilst she was spreading her nets upon the rocks. But an embargo
liberty, a handcuffed liberty, a liberty in fetters, a liberty traversing
between four sides of a prison, and beating her head against the
wails, is none of our offspring. We abjure the monster. Its parent-
age is all inland.

"The gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Macon) exclaimed the
other day, " Where is the spirit of '76 ?'.' Ay, sir; where is it ? Would
to Heaven that at our invocation it would condescend to alight on this
floor. But let gentlemen remember, that the spirit of '76 was not a
spirit of empty declamation, or of abstract propositions. It did not
content itself with non-importation acts, or non-intercourse laws. It
was a spirit of active preparation, of dignified energy.. It studied
both. to know.our rights and to devise the effectual means of maintain-
ing them. In all the annals of '76, you will find no such degrading
doctrine as that maintained in this report. It never presented to the
people of the United States the alternative of war or a suspension of
jour rights, and recommend the latter rather than to incur risk of the
llformer. What was the language of that period in one of the addresses
K>f Congress to Great Britain? "You attempt to reduce us by the
ssword to base and abject submission. On the sword, therefore, we
Jrely for protection." In that day there were no alternatives presented
{to dishearten,- — no abandonment of our rights under the pretence of
piaintaining them, — no gaining the battle by running away. In the
whole history of that period there are no such terms as " embargo,—
|dignified retirement, — trying who can do each other the most harm."
|At that time we had a navy, — that name so odious to the influences of
[the present day. Yes, Sir, in 1776, though but in our infancy, we had
•a navy scouring our coasts, and defending our commerce, which was
[.never for one moment wholly suspended. In 1776 we had an army
talso; and a glorious army it was! not composed of men halting from
jithe stews, or swept from the jails, but of the best blood, the real yeo-

2 o 2 AMERICAN PA TRIOTISM.

manry of the country, noble cavaliers, men without fear, and without
reproach. We had such an army in 1776, and Washington was alt its
headr We have an army in 1808, and a head to it.

I will not humiliate those who lead the fortunes of the nation at the
present day by any comparison with the great men of that period. But
I recommend the advocates of the present system of public measures
to study well the true spirit of 1776, before they venture to call it in aid
of their purposes. It may bring in its train some recollections not
suited to give ease or hope to their bosoms. I beg gentlemen who-are
so frequent in their recurrence to that period to remember, that among
the causes which led to a separation from Great Britain the following
are enumerated- Unnecessary restrictions upon trade; cutting off com-
mercial intercourse between the colonies; embarrassing our fisheries;
wantonly depriving our citizens of necessaries; invasion of private pro-
perty by governmental edicts; the authority of the commander-in-
chief, and under him of the brigadier-general, being rendered supreme
in the civil government; the commander-in-chief of the army made
governor of a colony; citizens transferred from their native country
for trial. Let the gentlemen beware how they appeal to the spirit of
'76; lest it come with the aspect, not of a friend, but of a tormentor, —
lest they find a warning when they look for support, and instead of en-
couragement they are presented with an awful lesson.

Let me ask, Is embargo independence? Deceive not yourselves.
It is palpable submission. Gentlemen exclaim, Great Britain "smites
us on one cheek." And what does Administration? " It turns the
other also." Gentlemen say, Great Britain is a robber, she " takes our
cloak." And what says Administration? " Let her take our coat also."
France and Great Britain require you to relinquish a part of your com-
merce, and you yield it entirely. Sir, this conduct may be the way to
dignity and honor in another world, but it will never secure safety and
independence in this.

At every corner of this great city we meet some gentlemen of the
majority, Wringing their hands and exclaiming, *"* What shall we do ?
Nothing but embargo will save us. Remove it, and what shall we do ?"
Sir, it is not for me," an humble and uninfluential individual, at an aw-
ful distance from the predominant influences, to suggest plans of
government. But to my eye the path of our duty is as distinct as the
milky way,— all studded with living sapphires, glowing with cumulat-
ing light. It is the path of active preparation, of dignified energy. It
is the path of 1776. It consists, not in abandoning our rights, but in
supporting them, as they exist, and where they exist, — on the ocea as
well as on the land. It consists in taking the nature of things as the
measure of the rights of your citizens, riot the orders and decrees of im-
perious foreigners. Give what protection you can. Take no counsel

JO SI A II QL'IXCV, JR. . 203

of fear. Your strength ■will increase with the trial, and prove greater
than you are now aware.

But I shall be told, " This may lead to war." I ask, " Are we now
at peace?" Certainly not, unless retiring from insult be peace,— unless
shrinking under the lash be peace. The surest way to prevent war is
not to fear it. The idea that nothing on earth is so dreadful as war is
inculcated too studiously among us. Disgrace is worse. Abandon-
ment of essential rights is worse.

Sir, I could not refrain from seizing the first opportunity of spread-
ing before this House the sufferings and exigencies of New England
under this embargo. Some gentlemen may deem it not strictly before
us. It is my opinion it is necessarily. For, if the idea of the com-
mittee be correct, and embargo is resistance, then this resolution sanc-
tions its continuance. If, on the contrary, as I contend, embargo is
submission, then this lesolution is a pledge of its repeal.

..- _

- •

MARITIME PROTECTION.

- ' ■-:-..-.-;/../-..

JOSIAH QUINCY, JR.

Washington, January 25, 1812.

If this commerce were the mushroom growth of a night, if it had its
vigor from the temporary excitement and the accumulated nutriment

•which warring elements in Europe had swept from the places of their
natural deposit, then, indeed, there might be some excuse for a tem-
porizing policy touching so transitory an interest. But commerce in
the Eastern States is of no foreign growth, and of no adventitious
seed. Its root is of a fibre which almost two centuries have nour-
ished; and the perpetuity of its destiny is written in legible characters
as well in the nature of the country as in the dispositions of its in-
habitants. Indeed, sir, look along your whole coast, from Passama-
quoddy to Capes Henry and Charles, and behold the deep and far-
winding creeks and inlets, the noble basins, the projecting headlands,
the majestic rivers, and those sounds and bays which are more like

-inland seas than like anything called by those names in other quarters

joi the globe. Can any man do this and not realize that the destiny of
the people inhabiting such a country is essentially maritime ? Can
any man do this without being impressed by the conviction that, al-
though the poor projects of politicians may embarrass, for a time, the
dispositions growing out of the condition of such a country, yet that

.: Nature will be too strong for cobweb regulation and will vindicate
her rights with certain effect,— perhaps with awful perils ? No nation
ever did or ever ought to resist such allurements and invitations to a
particular mode of industry.

204' A M ERICA N PA TRIO TISM.

The purposes of Providence relative to the destination of men are
to; be gathered from the circumstances in which his beneficence has
placed them. And to refuse to make use of the means of prosperity
which his goodness has put into our hands, what is it but spurning at
his bounty, and rejecting the blessings which his infinite wisdom
has designated for us by the very nature of his allotments ? The
employments of industry connected with navigation and commercial
enterprise are precious to the people of that quarter of the country by
ancient prejudice, not less than by recent profit. The occupation is
rendered dear and venerable by all the cherished associations of our
infancy, and all the sage and prudential maxims of our ancestors.
And as to the lessons of encouragement derived from recent experi-
ence, what nation ever within a similar period received so many that
were sweet and salutary ? What nation in so short a time ever before
ascended to such a height of commercial greatness ?

It has been said by some philosophers of the other hemisphere
that Nature in this New World had worked by a sublime scale; that
our mountains and rivers and lakes were beyond all comparison greater
than anything the Old World could boast; that she had here made
nothing diminutive — except its animals. And ought we not to fear
lest the bitterness of this sarcasm should be concentrated on our
country by a course of policy wholly unworthy of the magnitude and
nature of the interests committed to our guardianship ? Have we not
reason to fear that some future cynic, with an asperity which truth
shall make piercing, will declare, that all things in these United States
are great — except its statesmen ? and that we are pygmies to whom
Providence has intrusted, for some inscrutable purpose, gigantic
labors? Can we deny the justice of such severity of remark, if, in-
stead of adopting a scale of thought and a standard of action propor-
tionate to the greatness of our trust and the multiplied necessities of
the people, we bring to our task the mere measures of professional in-
dustry, and mete out contributions for national safety by our fee-tables,
our yard-sticks, and our gill-pots Can we refrain from subscribing
to the truth of such censure, if we do not rise in some degree to the
height of our obligations, and teach ourselves to conceive, and with
the people to realize, the vastness of those relations which are daily
springing among states which are not so much one empire as a con-
gregation of empires ?

. .

While I am on this point. I cannot refrain from noticing a strange
solecism which seems to prevail touching the term flag. It is talked
about as though there was something mystical in its very nature, — as
though a rag with certain stripes and stars on it tied to a stick, and
called a flag, was a wizard wand, and entailed security on everything
under it or within its sphere. There is nothing like all this in the
nature of the thincr. A flag is the evidence of power? A land flag is

JO SI AH QU1XCW JR. 205

evidence of land power, -A maritime flag is evidence of maritime
power. You may have a piece of bunting upon a staff , and call it a<
flag, but if you have no maritime power to maintain it, you have u
name and no reality; you have the shadow without the substance;
you have the sign of a flag, but in truth you have no flag.
.

Mr, Speaker, can any one contemplate the exigency which at this
day depresses our country, and for one moment deem it exceptional ;
The degree of such commercial exigencies may vary, but they must
always exist. It is absurd to suppose that such a population as is that
of the Atlantic States can be either driven or decoyed from the ocean.
It is just as absurd to imagine that wealth will not invite cupidity, and
that weakness will not insure both insult and plunder. The circum-
stances of our age make this truth signally impressive. Who does not
see in the conduct of Europe a general departure from those common
principles which once constituted national morality ? What is safe
which power can seize or ingenuity can circumvent ? or what truths
more palpable than these : that there is no safety for national rights
but in the national arm, and that important interests systematically
pursued must be systematically protected?
.

Touching that branch of interest which is most precious to com-
mercial men, it is impossible that there can be any mistake. For,
however dear the interests of property or of life exposed upon the
ocean may be to their owners or their friends, yet the safety of our
altars and of our firesides, of our cities and of our sea-board, must,
from the nature of things, be entwined with the affections by ties in-
comparably more strong and tender. And it happens that both na-
tional pride and honor are peculiarly identified with the support of these
primary objects of commercial interest.

" It is in this view, I state, that the first and most important object
of the nation ought to be such a naval force as shall give such a degree
of national security as the nature of the subject admits to our cities
and seaboard, and coasting trade; that the system of maritime protec-
tion ought to rest on this basis; and that it should not attempt to go
further until these objects are secured. And I have no hesitation to
declare that, until such a maritime force be systematically maintained
by this nation, it shamefully neglects its most important duties and
most critical interests.

But, it is inquired, What effect will this policy have upon the pres-
ent exigency ? I answer, the happiest in every respect. To exhibit a
definitive intent to maintain maritime rights by maritime means, what
is it but to develop new stamina of national character ? No nation
can have or has a right to hope for respect from others which does not

206 A ME RICA X PATRIOTISM.

first learn to respect itself. And how is this to be attained? By a
course of conduct conformable to its . duties, and relative to its con-
dition. If it abandons what it ought to defend, if it flies from the field
it is bound to maintain, how can it hope for honor ? To what other
inheritance is k entitled but disgrace ? Foreign nations undoubtedly
look upon this Union with eyes long read in the history of man, and
with thoughts deeply versed in the effects of passion and interest upon
independent states, associated by ties so apparently slight and novel.
They understand well that the rivalries among the great interests of
such states — the natural envyings which in all countries spring up be-
tween agriculture, commerce, and manufactures — the inevitable jeal-
ousies and fears of each other of South and North, interior and sea-
board ; the incipient or progressive rancor of party animosity— are
the essential weaknesses of sovereignties- thus combined. Whether
these causes shall operate, or whether they shall cease, foreign nations
will gather from the features of our policy. They cannot believe that
such a nation is strong in the affections of its associated parts when
they see the vital interests of whole states abandoned. But reverse
this policy; show a definitive and stable intent to yield the natural
protection to such essential interests; then they will respect you. And
to powerful nations honor comes attended by safety.

Mr. Speaker, what is national disgrace? Of what stuff is it com-
posed ? Is a nation disgraced because its flag is insulted — because its
seamen are impressed — because its course upon the highway of- the
ocean is obstructed ? No, sir. Abstractly considered, ad this is not
disgrace. Because all this may happen to a nation so weak as not to
be able to maintain the dignity of its flag, or the freedom of its citi-
zens, or the safety of its course. Natural Aveakness is never disgrace.
But, sir, this is disgrace: when we submit to insult and to injury which
we have the power to prevent or redress. Its essential constituents
are want of sense or want of spirit. When a nation with ample
means for its defence is so thick in the brain as not to put them into a.
suitable state of preparation; or when, with sufficient muscular force,
it is so tame in spirit as to seek safety, not in manly effort, but in re-
tirement, then a nation is disgraced ; then it shrinks from its high and
sovereign character into that of the tribe of Issachar, crouching down
between two burdens — the French burden on the one side and the
British on the other — so dull, so lifeless, so stupid that, wTere it not for
its braying, it could not be distinguished from the clod of the
valley.

. .

The general effec- of ths policy I advocate is to produce confidence
at home, and respect abroad. These are twin shoots from the same
sto:k, and never fail to flourish or fade together. Confidence is a plant
of no mushroom growth and of no artificial texture. It springs only
from sage counsels and generous endeavors. The protection you ex-

JO SI AH QUINOY, JR. 207

tend must be efficient, and suited to the nature of the object you pro-
fess 10 maintain. If it be neither adequate nor appropriate, your wis-
dom will be doubted, your motives will be distrusted, and in vain you
will expect confidence. The inhabitants of the seaboard will inquire of
their own senses, and not of your logic, concerning the reality of their
protection.

As to respect abroad, what course can be more certain to insure it !
What object more honorable, what more dignified, than to behold a
great nation pursuing wise ends by appropriate means, — rising to
adopt a series of systematic exertions suited to her power, and adequate
to her purposes ? What object more consolatory to the friends, what
more paralyzing to theenemies, of our Union, than to behold the natu-
ral jealousies and rivalries which are the acknowledged dangers of our
political condition subsiding or sacrificing? What sight more exhilar-
ating than to see this great nation once more walking forth among
the nations of the earth under the protection of no foreign shield ?
Peaceful, because powerful. Powerful, because united in interests and
amalgamated by concentration of those interests in the national affec-
tions. -.■-■• .:.".-

But let the opposite policy prevail; let the essential interests of the
great component parts of this Union find no protection under the na-
tional arm; instead of safety let them realize oppression, — and the
seeds'of discord and dissolution are inevitably sown in a soil the best
fitted for their root, and affording the richest nourishment for their ex-
pansion. It may be a long time before they ripen. But sooner or
later they will assuredly burst forth in all their destructive energies. In
the intermediate period, what aspect does a union thus destitute of
cement present? Is it that of a nation keen to discern, and strong to
resist, violations of its sovereignty ? It has rather the appearance of a
casual collection of semi-barbarous clans, with the forms of civilization
and the rude and rending passions of the savage state. In truth,
powerful, yet, as to any foreign affect, imbecile. Rich in the goods of
fortune, yet wanting that inherent spirit without which a nation is poor
indeed; their strength exhausted by struggles for local power; their
moral sense debased by low intrigues for personal popularity or tem-
porary pre-eminence; all their thoughts turned, not to the safety of the
State, but to the elevation of a chieftain. A people presenting such an
aspect, — what have they to expect abroad ? What but pillage, insult,
and scorn ?

The choice is before us. Persist in refusing efficient maritime pro-
tection; persist in the system of commercial restrictions; what now is
perhaps anticipation will hereafter be history.

2o8 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

■ liuo ( .

LAYING THE -CORNER-STONE OF THE BUNKER HILL
MONUMENT.

DANIEL WEBSTER, /ft), j J* (SFadibWA*

Charlcstown,7unei7,iZ.S. \ ~

This uncounted multitude before me, and around me, proves the
feeling which the occasion has excited. These thousands of human
faces, glowing with sympathy and joy, and, from the impulses of a
common gratitude, turned reverently to heaven, in this spacious tem-
ple of the firmament, proclaim that the day, the place, and the purpose
of our assembling, have made a deep impression on our hearts.

If, indeed, there be any thing in local association fit to affect the
mind of man, we need not strive to repress the emotions which agitate
us hesre. We are among the sepulchres of our fathers. We are on
ground distinguished by their valor, their constancy, and the shedding
of their blood. We are here, not to fix an uncertain date in our an-
nals, nor to draw into notice an obscure and unknown spot. If our
humble purpose had never been conceived, if we ourselves had never
been born, the 17th of June, 1775, would have been a day on which all
subsequent history would have poured its light, and the eminence
where we stand, a point of attraction to the eyes of successive genera-
tions. But we are Americans. We live in what may be called the
early age of this great continent; and we know that our posterity;
through all time, are here to suffer and enjoy the allotments of hu-
manity. We see before us a probable train of great events; we know
that our own fortunes have been happily cast; and it is natural, there1
fore, that we should be moved by the contemplation of occurrences
which have guided our destiny before many of us were born, and set*
tied the condition in which we should pass that portion of our exist-
ence, which God allows to men on earth.

We do not read even of the discovery of this continent without feel-
ing something of a personal interest in the event; without being re-
minded how much it has affected our own fortunes, and our own ex*
istence. It is more impossible for us, therefore, than for others, to
contemplate with unaffected minds that interesting, I may say, that
most touching and pathetic, scene, when the great discoverer of
America stood on the deck of his shattered bark, the shades of night
falling on the sea, yet no man sleeping — tossed on the billows of an*
unknown ocean, yet the stronger billows of alternate hope and despair
tossing his own troubled thoughts — extending forward his harassed
frame, straining westward his anxious and eager eyes, till Heaven at
last granted him a moment of rapture and ecstacy, in blessing his
vision with the sight of the unknown world.

JiAXiKL WK-BSmX. 20Q

Nearer to our times, more closely connected with our fates, and
therefore still more interesting to our feelings and affections, is tne
settlement of our own country by colonists from England. We cher-
ish every memorial of these worthy ancestors; we celebrate their pa-
tience and fortitude; we admire their daring enterprise; we teach our
children to venerate their piety; and we are justly proud of being de-
scended from men who have set the world an example of founding-
civil institutions on the great and united principles of human freedom
and human knowledge. To us, their children, the story of their labors
and sufferings can never be without its interest. We shall not stand
unmoved on the shore of Plymouth, while the sea continues to wash
it; nor will our brethren in another early and ancient colony, forget
the place of its first establishment, till their river shall cease to riow by
it. No vigor of youth, no maturity of manhood, will lead the nation
to forget the spots where its infancy was cradled and defended.

But the great event in the history of the continent, which we are
now met here to commemorate, — that prodigy of modern times, at
once the wonder and the blessing of the world, — is the American
revolution. In a day of extraordinary prosperity and happiness, of
high national honor, distinction and power, we are brought together,
in this place, by our love of country, by our admiration of exalted
character, by our gratitude for signal services and patriotic devo-
tion.

The society, whose organ I am, was formed for the purpose of
rearing some honorable and durable monument to the memory of the
early friends of American independence. They have thought that, for
this subject j no time could be more propitious than the present pros-
perous and peaceful period; that no place could claim preference over
this memorable spot; and that no day cculd be more auspicious to
the undertaking, than the anniversary of the battle which was here
fought. The foundation of that monument we have now laid. With
solemnities suited to the occasion, with prayers to Almighty God for
his blessing; and in the midst of this cloud of witnesses, we have be-
gun the work. We trust it will be prosecuted, — and that, springing
from a broad foundation, rising high in massive solidity and unadorned
grandeur, it may remain, as long as Heaven permits the work of man
to last^ a fit emblem, both of the events in memory of which it is
raised, and of the gratitude of those who have reared it.

We know, indeed, that the record of illustrious actions is most
safely deposited in the universal remembrance of mankind. We
know, that if we could cause this structure to ascend, not only till it
reached the skies, but till it pierced them, its broad surfaces could still
contain but part of that, which, in an age of knowledge, hath already
been spread over the earth, and which history charges itself with mak-
ing known to all future times. We know, that no inscripti«n on en-
tablatures less broad than the earth itself, can carry information of the

2 1 o A M ERICA N PA T RIOT ISM.

events we commemorate, where it has not already gone; and that no
structure, which shall not outlive the duration of letters and knowledge
among men, can prolong the memorial. But our object is, by this
edifice to show our own deep sense of the value and importance of the
achievements of our ancestors; and, by presenting this work of grati-
tude to the eye, to keep alive similar sentiments, and to foster a con-
stant regard for the principles of the revolut on. = Human beings are-
composed not of reason only, but of imagination also, and sentiment;
and that is neither wasted nor misapplied which is appropriated to the
purpose of giving right direction to sentiments, and opening proper
springs of feeling in the heart. Let it not be supposed that our object
is to perpetuate national hostility, or even to cherish a mere military
spir.t, It is higher, purer, nobler. We consecrate our work to the
spirit of national independence, and we wish that the light of peace
may rest upon it forever. We rear a memorial of our conviction of
that unmeasured benefit, which has been conferred on our own land,
and of the happy influences, which have been produced, by the same
events., on the general interests of mankind. We come, as Ameri-
cans, to mark a spot, which must forever be dear to us and our pos-
terity We wish that whosoever, in all coming time, shall turn his eye
hither, may behold that the place is not undistinguished, where the
first great battle of the revolution was fought. We wish that this
structure may proclaim the magnitude and importance of that event,
to every class and every age. We wish that infancy may learn^ the
purpose of its erection from maternal lips, and that weary and withered
age may behold it, and be solaced by the recollections which it sug-
gests. We wish that labor may look up here, and be proud, in the
midst of its toil. We wish that, in those days of disaster, which, as
they come on all nations, must be expected to come on us also, de-
sponding patriotism may turn its eyes hitherward, and be assured that
the foundations of our national power still stand strong. We wish
that this column, rising towards heaven among the pointed spires of
sO many temples dedicated to God, may contribute also to produce, in
all minds, a pious feeling of dependence and gratitude. We wish,
finally, that the last objeei on the sight of him who leaves his native
shore, and the first to gladden his who revisits it, may be something
which shall remind him or the liberty and the glory of his country:
Let it rise, till it meet the sun in his coming; let the earliest light of
the morning gild it. and parting day linger and play on its summit.

We live in a most extraordinary age. Events so various and so im-
portant that they might crowd and distinguish centuries, are, in our
times, compressed within the compass of a single life. When has it
happened that history has had so mu>:h to record, in the same term of
years, or since the 17th of June, 1775 ? Our own revolution, which,
under other circumstances, might itself have been expected to occasion
a war of half a century, has been achieved; twenty-four sovereign and

DAXIEL WEBSTER. 21 1

independent state* erected: and a general government established over
them, so safe, so wise, so free, so practical, that we might well wonder
its establishment should have been accomplished so soon, were it not
for the greater wonder that it should have been established at all. Two
or three millions of people have been augmented to twelve; and the
great forests of the west prostrated beneath the arm of successful indus-
try; and the dwellers on the banks of the Ohio and the Mississippi
become the fellow-citizens and neighbors of those who cultivate the
hills of New England. We have a commerce that leaves no sea unex-
plored; navies which take no law from superior force; revenues ade-
quate to all the exigencies of government, almost without taxation;
and peace with all nations, founded on equal rights and mutual respect.

Europe, within the same period, has been agitated by a mighty
revolution, which, while it has been felt in the individual condition
and happiness of almost every man, has shaken to the centre her po-
litical fabric, and dashed against one another thrones which had stood
tranquil for ages. On this, our continent, our own example has been
followed; and colonies have sprung up to be nations. Unaccustomed
sounds of liberty and free government have reached us from beyond
the track of the sun; and at this moment the dominion of European
power, in this continent, from the place where we stand to the south
pole, is annihilated forever.

In the mean time, both in Europe and America, such has been the
general progress of knowledge; such the improvements in legislation,
in commerce, in the arts, in letters, and above all, in liberal ideas,
and the general spirit of the age, that the whole world seems changed.

Yet, notwithstanding that this is but a faint abstract of the things
which have happened since the day of the battle of Bunker Hill, we
are but fifty years removed from it; and we now stand here, to enjoy
all the blessings of our own condition, and to look abroad on the
brightened prospects of the world, while we hold still among us some
of those, who were active agents in the scenes of 1775, and who are
now here, from every quarter of New England, to visit, once more,
and under circumstances so affecting, I had almost said so overwhelm-
ing, this renowned theatre of their courage and patriotism. \
k Venerable men! you have come down to us, from a former genera-
tion. Heaven has bounteously lengthened out your lives, that you
might behold this joyous day. You are now where you stood fifty
years ago, this very hour, with your brothers, and your neighbors,
shoulder to shoulder, in the strife for your country. Behold, how
altered! The same heavens are indeed over your heads; the same
ocean rolls at your feet; but all else, how changed! You hear now
no roar of hostile cannon, you see no mixed volumes of smoke and
flame rising from burning Charlestown. The ground strewed with
the dead and the dying; the impetuous charge; the steady and suc-
cessful repulse; the loud call to repeated assault; the summoning of

no-
tlie

2 12 AMERICA X PA TRIO TISM.

all that is manly to repeated resistance; a thousand bosoms freely and
fearlessly bared in an instant to whatever of terror there may be in
war and death; — all these you have witnessed, but' you witness them
no more. All is peace. The heights of yonder metropolis, its towers
and roofs, which you then saw filled with wives and children and
countrymen in distress and terror, and looking with unutterable ei
tions for the issue of the xrombat, have presented you to-day with
sight of its whole happy population, come out to welcome and greet
you with a universal jubilee. Yonder proud ships, by a felicity of
position appropriately lying at the foot of this mount, and seeming
fondly to cling around it, are not means of annoyance to you, but
your country's own means of distinction and defence. All is peace;
and God has granted you this sight of your country's happiness, ere
you slumber in the grave forever. He has allowed you to behold and
to partake the reward of your patriotic toils; and he has allowed us,
your sons and countrymen, to meet you here, and in the name of the
present generation, in the name of your country, in the name of lib-
erty, to thank you!

But, alas! you are not all here! Time and the sword have thinned
your ranks. Prescott, Putnam, Stark, Brooks; Read, Pomeroy,
■ Bridge! our eyes seek for you in vain amidst this broken band. You
are gathered to your fathers, and live only to your country in her
grateful remembrance, and your own bright example. But let us not
too much grieve that you have met the common fate of men. You
lived, at least, long enough to know that your work had been nobly
and successfully accomplished.. You lived to see your country's inde-
pendence established, and to sheathe your swords from war. On the

light of liberty you saw arise the light of peace, like

.. - . - - _ . . _ .

t another morn,
Risen on mid-noon ;"—

and the sky, on which you closed your eyes, was cloudless.

But — -ah! — him! the first great martyr in this great cause! him! the
premature victim of his own self-devoting heart! him! the head
of our civil councils, and the destined leader of our military
bands; whom nothing brought hither but the unquenchable hre
of his own spirit; hini! cut off by Providence, in the hour of
overwhelming anxiety and thick gloom; falling ere he saw the star of
his country rise ; pouring Out his gen erous blood, like water, before
he knew whether it would fertilize a land of freedom or of bondage'
how shall I struggle with the emotions that stifle the utterance of thy
name! — Our poor work may perish; but thine shall endure! This
monument may moulder away; the solid ground it rests upon may
sink down to a level with the sea; but thy memory shall not iail!
Wheresoever among men a heart shall be found, that beats to. the
transports of patriotism and liberty, its aspirations shall be to claim
kindred with thy spirit!

DANIEL WEBSTER. 213

But the scene amidst which we stand does not permit us to, confine
our thoughts or our sympathies to those fearless spirits, who hazarded
or lost their lives on this consecrated spot. We have the happiness
to rejoice here in the presence of a most worthy representation of the
survivors of the whole revolutionary army.

Veterans! you are the remnant of many a well-fought field. You
bring with you marks of honor from Trenton and Monjpnouth, from
Yorktown, Camden, Bennington and Saratoga. Veterans of half a
century! when, in your youthful days, you put everything at hazard
in your country's cause, good as that cause was, and sanguine as
youth is, still your fondest hopes did^cot stretch onward to an hour
like this! At a period to which ytm could not reasonably have ex-
pected to arrive; at a moment of national prosperity, such as you
could never have foreseen, you are now met, here, to enjoy the fellow-
ship of old soldiers, and to receive the overflowings of a universal
gratitude.

But your agitated countenances and your heaving breasts inform
me, that even this is not an unmixed joy. I perceive that a tumult of
contending feelings rushes upon you. The images of the dead, as
well as the persons of the living, throng to your embraces. The
scene overwhelms your and I turn from it. May the Father of all
mercies smile upon your declining years, and bless them! And when
you shall here have exchanged- your embraces; when you shall once
more have pressed the hands which have been so often extended to
give succor in adversity, or grasped in the exultation of victory; then
look abroad into this lovely land, which your young valor defended,
and mark the happiness with which it is filled; yea, look abroad into
the whole earth, and see what a name you have contributed to give to
your country, and what a praise ybii have added to freedom, and then
rejoice in the sympathy and gratitude which beam upon your last
days from the improved condition Of mankind.

The occasion does not require of me any particular account of the
battle of the 17th' of June, nor any detailed narrative of the events
which immediately preceded it. These are familiarly known to ail.
In the progress of the great and interesting controversy, Massachu-
setts and the town of Boston had become early and marked objects of
the displeasure of the British Parliament. This had been manifested,
in the act for altering the government of the province, and in that for
shutting up the port of Boston. Nothing sheds more honor on our
early history, and nothing better shows how little the feelings and
sentiments of the colonies were known or regarded in England, than
the impression which these "measures everywhere produced in America.
It had been anticipated, that, while the other colonies would be terri-
fied by the severity of the punishment inflicted on Massachusetts, the
other seaports would be governed by a mere spirit of gain; and that,
as Boston was now cut off from all commerce, the unexpected advan-
tage, which this blow on her was calculated to confer on other towns.

214 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

would be greedily enjoyed. How miserably such reasoners deceived
themselves!: Haw little they knew of the depth,, and the: strength,
and. the intenseness of that -feeling of resistance to illegal acts of
power, which possessed the whole American people! Everywhere
the unworthy boon was rejected with scorn. The fortunate occasion
was seized, everywhere, to show to the whole world, that the. colonies
were swayed by no local interest, no partial interest, no selfish inter-,
est. The temptation to profit by the punishment of Boston was
strongest to our neighbors of Salem. Yet Salem was precisely the
place where this miserable proffer was spurned, in a tone of the most
lofty self-respect, and the most indignant patriotism. "We are
deeply affected," said its inhabitants, " with the sense of our. public
calamities; but the miseries that are now rapidly hastening on our
brethren in the capital of the province, greatly excite our commisera-
tion. By shutting up the port of Boston, some imagine that the
course of trade might be turned hither and to our benefit. But we
must te dead to every idea of justice, lost to all feelings of humanity,
could we indulge a thought to seize on wealth, and raise our fortunes
on the ruin of our suffering neighbors." These noble sentiments
were not confined to our immediate vicinity. In that day of general
affection and brotherhood, the blow given to Boston smote on every
patriotic heart from one end of the country to the other. Virginia
and the Carolinas, as well as Connecticut and New. Hampshire, felt
and proclaimed the cause to be their own. The continental Congress,
then holding its first session in Philadelphia, expressed its sympathy
for. the suffering inhabitants of Boston; and addresses were received
from all quarters, assuring them that the cause was a common one,
and should be met by common efforts and common sacrifices. The.
Congress of Massachusetts responded to these assurances— and in an
address to the Congress at Philadelphia, bearing the officialsignature,
perhaps among the last, of the immortal Warren, notwithstanding the
severity of its suffering and the magnitude of the dangers which
threatened it, it was declared, that this colony "is ready, at all
times, to spend and to be spent in the cause of America."

But the hour drew nigh, which was to put professions to the proof,
and to determine whether the authors of these mutual pledges were
ready to seal them in blood. The tidings of Lexington and Concord^
had no sooner spread, than it was universally felt that the time was at
last come for action. A spirit pervaded all ranks, not transient, not
boisterous, but deep, solemn, determined,

-' totamque infusa per art us
Mens agitat molem, ct magna sz corJ>ore miscef."

War, on their own soil and at their own-doors, was, indeed, a strange
work to the yeomanry of New England. But their consciences were
convinced of its necessity, their country called them to it. and they

i DANIEL WEBSTER. ^. *#$

did not withhold themselves from the perilous trial. The ordinary oc-
cupations of life were abandoned. The plough was stayed in the unfin-
ished furrow; wives gave up their husbands, and mothers gave up
their sons, to the battles of a civil war. Death might come, in
honor, on the field; it might come, in disgrace, on the scaffold. For
either and for both they were prepared. The sentiment of Quincy
was full in their hearts. " Blandishments," said that distinguished
son of genius and patriotism, " will not fascinate us. nor will threats
of a halter intimidate; for, under God, we are determined that where-
soever, whensoever, or hoAvsoever we shall be called to make our exit,
we will die free men."

The 17th of June saw the four New England colonies standing here,
side by side to triumph or to fall together; and there was with them,
from that moment to the end of the war, what, I hope, will remain
with them forever, one cause, one country, one heart.

The battle of Bunker Hill Was attended with the most important ef-
fects, be\-ond its immediate result as a military engagement. It cre-
ated, at once, a state of open, public war. There could now be no
longer a question of proceeding against individuals as guilty of treason
or rebellion. That fearful crisis was past. The appeal now lay to the
sword — and the only question was, whether the spirit and the re-
sources of the people would hold out, till the object should be accom-
plished. Nor were its general consequences confined to our own
country. The previous proceedings of the colonies, their appeals,
resolutions, and addresses, had made their cause known to Europe.
Without boasting, we may say that, in no age or country, has the
public cause been maintained with more force, of argument, more
power of illustration, or more of that persuasion which excited feeling
and elevated principle can alone bestow, than the revolutionary state-
papers exhibit. These papers will forever deserve to be studied, not
only for the spirit which they breathe, but for the ability with which
they were written. -

To this able vindication of their cause, the colonies had now added
a practical and severe proof of their own true devotion to it, and
evidence also of the power which they could bring to its support.
All now saw, that, if America fell, she would not fall without a
struggle. Men felt sympathy and regard, as well as surprise, when
they beheld these infant states, remote, unknown, unaided, encounter
the power of England, and, in the first considerable battle, leave more
• f their enemies dead on the field, in proportion to the number of
•ombatants, than they had recently known in the wars of Europe.

Information of these events circulating through Europe, at length
reached the ears of one who now hears me. lie has not forgotten the
emotion which the fame of Bunker Hill and the name of Warren,
excited in his youthful breast.

Sir, avc arc assembled to commemorate the establishment of great
A. P.— S.

2 1 6 AMERICA N PA TRI0TIS3L

public principles of liberty, and to do honor to the distinguished dead.
The occasion is too severe for eulogy to the living. But, sir, your in-
teresting relation to this country, the peculiar circumstances which
surround you and surround us, call on me to express the happiness
which we derive from your presence and aid in this solemn com-
memoration.

Fortunate, fortunate man ! with what measure of devotion will you
not thank God for the circumstances of your extraordinary life ! You
are connected with both hemispheres and with two generations.
Heaven saw fit to ordain, that the electric spark of liberty should be
conducted, through you, from the new world to the old: and we, who
sre now here to perform this duty of patriotism, have all of us long
ago received it in charge from our fathers to cherish your name and
3rour virtues. You will account it an instance of your good fortune,
sir, that you crossed the seas to visit us at a time which enables you
to be present at this solemnity. You now behold the field, the renown
of which reached you in the heart of France, and caused a thrill in
your ardent bosom. You see the lines of the little redoubt thrown up
by the incredible diligence of Prescott; defended, to the last extremity,
by his lion-hearted valor; and within which the corner-stone of our
monument has now taken its position. You see where Warren fell,
and where Parker, Gardner, McCleary, Moore, and other early
patriots, fell with him. Those who survived that day, and whose
lives have been prolonged to the present hour, are now around you.
Some of them you 'have known in the trying scenes of the War.
Behold ! they now stretch forth their feeble arms to embrace you.
Behold ! they raise their trembling voices to invoke the blessing of
God on you, and yours, forever.

Sir, you have assisted us in laying the foundation of this edifice.
You have heard us rehearse, with our feeble commendation, the
names of departed patriots. Sir, monuments and eulogy belong to the
dead. We give them, this day, to Warren and his associates. On
other occasions, they have been given to your more immediate com-
panions in arms — to Washington, to Greene, to Gates, Sullivan,- and
Lincoln. Sir, we have become reluctant to grant these, our highest
and last honors, further. We would gladly hold them yet back from
the little remnant of that immortal band. Senis in ccclum redeas.
Illustrious as are your merits, yet -far, oh, very far distant be the day,
when any inscription shall bear your name, or any tongue pronounce
its eulogy !

The leading reflection to which this occasion seems to invite us,
respects the great changes which have happened in the fifty years since
the battle of Bunker Hill was fought. And it peculiarly marks the
character of the present age, that, in looking at these changes, and in
estimating their effect on our condition, we are obliged to consider, not
what has been done in our own country only, but in others also. In

DANIEL WEBSTER. 217

these interesting times, while nations are making separate and in-
dividual advances in improvement, they make, too, a common pro-
gress; like vessels on a common tide, propelled by the gales at differ-
ent rates, according to their several structure and mangement, but all
moved forward by one mighty current beneath, strong enough to bear
onward whatever does not sink beneath it.

A chief distinction of the present day is a community of opinions
and knowledge amongst men, in different nations, existing in a degree
heretofore unknown. Knowledge has, in our time, triumphed, and is
triumphing, over distance, over difference of languages over diver-
sity of habits, over prejudice, and over bigotry. The civilized and
Christian world is fast learning the great lesson, that difference of
nation does not imply necessary hostility, and that all contact need
not be war. The whole world is becoming a common field for intel-
lect to act in. Energy of mind, genius, power, wheresoever it exists,
may speak out in any tongue, and the world will hear it. A great
chord of sentiment and feeling runs through two continents, and
vibrates over both. Every breeze wafts intelligence from country to
country; every wave rolls it; all give it forth, and all in turn receive
it. There is a vast commerce of ideas. There are marts and ex-
changes for intellectual discoveries, and a wonderful fellowship of
those individual intelligences which make up the mind and opinion of
the age. Mind is the great lever of all things; human thought is the
process by which human ends are ultimately answered; and the
diffusion of knowledge, so astonishing in the last half century, has
rendered innumerable minds, variously gifted by nature, competent to
be competitors, or fellow-workers, on the theatre of intellectual opera-
tion.

From these causes, important improvements have taken place in the
personal condition of individuals. Generally speaking, mankind are
not only better fed, and better clothed, but they are able also to enjoy
more leisure; they possess more refinement and more self-respect. A
superior tone of education, manners, and habits, prevails. This re-
mark, most true in its application to our own country, is also partly
true when applied elsewhere. It is proved by the vastly-augmented
consumption of those articles of manufacture and of commerce which
contribute to the comforts and the decencies of life; an augmentation
which has far outrun the progress of population. And while the un-
exampled and almost incredible use of machinery would seem to sup-
ply the place of labor, labor still finds finds its occupation and its
reward; so wisely has Providence adjusted men's wants and desires
to their condition and their capacity.

Any adequate survey, however, of the progress made in the last
half century in the polite and the mechanic arts, in machinery and
manufactures, in commerce and agriculture, in letters and in science,
would require volumes. I must abstain wholly from these subjects,

2 1 s a MERia t y pa t::io tis.v.

and turn, for a moment, to the contemplation of what has been done
on the great question of politics and government. This is the master
topic of the age; and during the whole fifty years it has intensely oc-
cupied the thoughts of men. The nature of civil government, its ends
and uses, have been canvassed and investigated: ancient opinions
attacked and defended; new ideas recommended and resisted, by what,
ever power the mind of man couki bring to the controversy. From
the closet and the public halls, the debate has been transferred to the
field; and the world has been shaken by wars of unexampled magni-
tude, and the greatest variety of fortune. A day of peace has at
length succeeded: and now that the strife has subsided, and the smoke
cleared away, we may begin to see what has actually been done, per-
manently changing the state and condition of human society. And
without dwelling on particular circumstances, it is most apparent that,
from the before -mentioned causes of augmented knowledge and im-
proved individual condition* a real, substantial, and important change
has taken place, and is taking place, greatly beneficial, on the whole,
to human liberty and human happiness.

The great .vhocl of political revolution began to move in America.
Here its rotation was guarded, regular and safe. Transferred to
the other continent, from unfortunate, but natural, causes, it re-
ceived an irregular and violent impulse: it whirled along with a fearful
celerity, till at length, like the chariot-wheels in the races of antiquity,
it took fire from the rapidity of its own motion, and blazed onward,
spreading conflagration and terror around.

We learn from the result of this experiment, how fortunate was our
own condition, and how admirably the character of our people was
calculated for making the great example of popular governments.
The possession of power did not turn the heads of the American peo-
ple, for they had long been in the habit of exercising a great portion of
self-control. Although the paramount authority of the parent state
existed over them, yet a large field of legislation had always been
open to our colonial assemblies. They were accustomed to repre-
sentative bodies and the forms of free government; they understood
the doctrine of the division of power among different branches, and
the necessity of checks on each. The character of our countrymen,
moreover, was sober, moral, and religious; and there was little in the
change to shock their feelings of justice and humanity, or even to dis-
turb an honest prejudice. We have no domestic throne to overturn,
no privileged orders to cast down, no violent changes of property to
encounter. In the American Revolution, no man sought or wished
for more than to defend and enjoy his own. None hoped for plunder
or for spoil. Rapacity was unknown to it; the axe was not among the
instruments of its accomplishment; and we all know that it could not
have lived a single day under any well-founded imputation of possess-
ing a tendency adverse to the Christian religion.

DANIEL WEBSTER. 219

It need not surprise us, that, under circumstances less suspicious,
political revolutions elsewhere, even when well intended, have ter-
minated differently. It is, indeed, a great achievement— it is the
master-work of the world — to establish governments entirely -popular.,
on lasting foundations; nor is it easy, indeed, to introduce the popular
principle at all into governments to which it has been altogether a
stranger. It cannot be doubted, however, that Europe has come out of
the contest in which she has been so long engaged, with greatly
superior knowledge, and in many respects, a highly improved condi-
tion. Whatever benefit has been acquired, is likely to be retained, for
it consists mainly in the acquisition of more enlightened ideas. And
although kingdoms and provinces may be wrested from the hands that
hold them, in the same manner they were obtained; although ordinary
and vulgar power may, in human affairs, be lost as it has been won;
yet it is the glorious prerogative of the empire of knowledge, that what
it gains it never loses. On the contrary, it increases by the multiple
of its own power; all its ends become' means; all its attainmements,
helps to new conquests. Its whole abundant harvest is but so much
seed wheat, and nothing has ascertained, and nothing can ascertain,
the amount of ultimate product.

Under the influence of this rapidly-increasing knowledge, the peo-
ple have begun, in all forms of government, to think and to reason
on affairs of state. Regarding government as an institution for the
public good, they demand a knowledge of its operations, and a parti-
cipation in its exercise. A call for the representative system, wher-
ever it is not enjoyed,_ and where there is already intelligence enough
to estimate its value, is perseveringly made. Where men may speak
out, they demand it; where the bayonet is at their throats, they pray
for it. fjf J

When Louis XIV. said, " I am the state," he expressed the essence
of the doctrine of unlimited power. By the rules of that system, the
people are disconnected from the state; they are its subjects, — it is
their lord. These ideas, founded in the love of power, and long sup-
ported by the excess and the abuse of it, are yielding, in our age, to
other opinions ; and the civilized world seems at last to be proceeding
to the conviction of that fundamental and manifest truth, that the
powers of government are but a trust, and that they cannot be law-
fully exercised but for the good of the community. As knowledge is
more and more extended, this conviction becomes more and more
general. Knowledge, in truth, is the great sun in the firmament
Life and power are scattered with all its beams. The prayer of the
Grecian combatant, when enveloped in unnatural clouds and dark-
ness, is the appropriate political supplication for the people of every
countiy not yet blessed with free institutions :

*' Dispel this cloud ; the light of heaven restore :
Give me to see— and Ajax a^ks no more."

2 20 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

We may hope that the growing influence of enlightened sentiments
will promote the permanent peace of the world. Wars, to maintain
family alliances, to uphold or to cast down dynasties, to regulate suc-
cessions to thrones, which have occupied so much room in the history
of modern times, if not less likely to happen at all, will be less likely
lo become general, and involve many nations, as the great principle
shall be more and more established, that the interest of the world is
peace, and its first great statute, that every nation possesses the power
of establishing a government for itself. But public opinion has at-
tained also an influence over governments which do not admit the
popular principle into their organization. A necessary respect for the
judgment of the world operates, in some measure, as a control over
the most unlimited forms of authority. It is owing, perhaps, to this
truth, that the interesting struggle of the Greeks has been suffered to
go on so long, without a direct interference, either to wrest that coun-
try from its present masters, and add it to other powers, or to execute
the system of pacification by force; and, with united strength, lay the
neck of Christian and civilized Greece at the foot of the barbarian
Turk. Let us thank God that we live in an age when something has
influence besides the bayonet, and when the sternest authority does
not venture to encounter the scorching power of public reproach.
Any attempt of the kind I have mentioned, should be met by one uni-
versal burst of indignation; the air of the civilized world ought to be
made too warm to be comfortably breathed by any who would hazard
it.

It is, indeed, a touching reflection, that while, in the fulness of Our
country's happiness, we rear this monument to her honor, we look for
instruction in our undertaking to a country which is now in fearful
contest, not for works of art or memorials of glory, but for her own
existence. Let her be assured that she is not forgotten in the world ;
that her efforts are applauded, and that constant prayers ascend for
her success. And let us cherish a confident hope for her final triumph.
If the true spark of religious and civil liberty be kindled, it will burn.
Human agency cannot extinguish it. Like the earth's central fire, it
may be smothered for a time ; the ocean may overwhelm it : moun-
tains may press it down ; but its inherent and unconquerable force
will heave both the ocean and the land, and at some time or another,
in some place or another, the volcano will break out and flame up to
heaven.

Among the great events of the half century, we must reckon, cer-
tainly, the revolution of South America ; and we are not likely lo
overrate the importance of that revolution, either to the people of the
country itself, or to the rest of the world. The late Spanish colonies,
now independent states, under circumstances less favorable, doubt-
less, than attended our own revolution, have yet successfully com-
menced their national existence. They have accomplished the great

DANIEL WEBSTER. 221

object of establishing their independence; they are known and ac-
knowledged in the world ; and although, in regard to their systems of
government, their sentiments on religious toleration, and their provi-
sions for public instruction, they may have yet much to learn, it pjiist
be admitted that they have risen to the condition of settled and estab-
lished states more rapidly than could have been reasonably antici-
pated. They already furnish an exhilarating example of the differ-
ence between free governments and despotic misrule. Their
commerce, at this moment, creates a new activity in ail the great
marts of the world. They show themselves able, by an exchange of
commodities, to bear a useful part in the intercourse of nations. A
new spirit of enterprise and industry begins to prevail ; all the great
interests of society receive a salutary impulse ; and the progress of
information not only testifies to an improved condition, but consti-
tutes, itself, the highest and most essential improvement.

When the battle of Bunker Hill was fought, the existence of South
America was scarcely felt in the civilized world. The thirteen little
colonies of North America habitually called themselves the " Conti-
nent-". Borne down by colonial subjugation, monopoly, and bigotry,
these vast regions of the south were hardly visible above the horizon.
But, in our day, there hath been, as it were, a new creation. The
southern hemisphere emerges from the sea. Its lofty mountains be-
gin to lift themselves into the light of heaven ; its broad and fertile
plains stretch out in beauty to the eye of civilized man, and, at the
mighty being of the voice of political liberty, the waters of darkness
retire.

And, now, let us indulge an honest exultation in the conviction of
the benefit which the example of our country has produced, and is
likely to produce, on human freedom and human happiness. And let
us endeavor to comprehend, in all its magnitude, and to feel, in all its
importance, the part assigned to us in the great drama of human af-
fairs. We are placed at the head of the system of representative and
popular governments. Thus far, our example shows that such gov-
ernments are compatible, not only with respectability and power, but
with repose, with peace, with security of personal rights, with good
laws, and a just administration.

We are not propagandists. Wherever other systems are preferred,
either as being thought better in themselves, or as better suited to ex-
isting condition, we leave the preference to be enjoyed. Our history
hitherto proves, however, that the popular form is practicable, and
that, with wisdom and knowledge, men may govern themselves; and
the duty incumbent on us is, to preserve the consistency of this cheer-
ing example, and take care that nothing may weaken its authority
with the world. If, in our case, the representative s)Tstem ultimately
fail, popular governments must be pronounced impossible. No com-
bination of circumstances more favorable to the experiment can ever

22 2 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

-I

be expected to occur. The last hopes of mankind, therefore, rest
with us; and if it should be proclaimed that our example had become
an argument against the experiment, the knell of popular liberty would
be sounded throughout the earth.

These are excitements to duty; but they are not suggestions of
doubt. Our history and our; condition, all 'that is gone before us, and
all that surrounds us; authorize the belief, that popular governments,
though subject to occasional variations, perhaps not always for the
better, in form, may yet, in their general character, be as durable and
permanent as other systems. We know, indeed, that, in our coun-
try, any other is impossible. The principle of free governments ad-
heres to the American soil. It is bedded in it— immovable as its :
mountains.

And let the sacred obligations which have devolved on this genera-
tion, and on us, sink deep into our hearts. Those are daily dropping
from among us, who established our liberty and our government. The
great trust now descends to new hands. Let us apply ourselves to
that which is presented to us, as our appropriate object. We can win
no laurels in a war for independence. Earlier and worthier hands
have gathered them all. Nor are there places for us by the side of
Solon, and Alfred, and other founders of states. Our fathers have
filled them. But there remains to us a great duty of defence and pre-
servation; and there is opened to us, also, a noble pursuit, to which
the spirit of the times strongly invites us. Our proper business is
improvement. Let our age be the age of improvement. In a day of
peace, let us advance the arts of peace and the works of peace. Let
us develop the resources of our land, call forth its powers, build up
its institutions, promote all its great interests, and see whether we
also, in our day and generation, may not perform something worthy
to be remembered. Let us cultivate a true spirit of union and har-
mony. In pursuing the great objects which our condition points out
to us, let us act under a settled conviction, and an habitual feeling, that
these twenty-four states are one country. Let our conceptions be en-
larged to the circle of our duties. Let us extend our ideas over the
whole of the vast field in which we are called to act. Let our object
be, our country, our whole country, and nothing but our country.
And, by the blessing of God, may that country itself become a vast
and splendid monument, not of oppression and terror, but of wisdom,
of peace, and of liberty, upon which the world may gaze, with admi-
ration, forever.

DANIEL WEBSTER. 223

REPLY TO HAYNE.

• ■

DANIEL WEBSTER.

The Senate, January ^^.

Mr. Webster addressed the Senate as follows :—

Mr. President : When the mariner has been tossed, for many days,
in thick weather, and on an unknown sea, he naturally avails himself
of the first pause in the storm, the earliest glance of the sun, to take
his latitude, and ascertain how far the elements have driven him from
his true course. Let us imitate this prudence, and before we float
farther, refer to the point from which we departed, that we may at
least be able to conjecture where we now are. I ask for the reading
of the resolution.

[The secretary read the resolution, as follows : —

"Resolved, That the committee on public lands be instructed to
inquire and report the quantity of the public lands remaining unsold
within each state and territory, and whether it be expedient to limit,
for a certain period, the sales of the public lands to such lands only as
have heretofore been offered for sale, and are now subject to entry at
the minimum price. And, also, whether the office of surveyor gene-
ral, and some of the land offices, may not be abolished without detri-
ment to the public interest ; or whether it be expedient to adopt
measures to hasten the sales, and extend more rapidly the surveys of
the public lands."]

We have thus heard, sir, what the resolution is, which is actually
before us for consideration ; and it will readily occur to every one
that it is almost the only subject about which something has not
been said in the speech, running through two days, by which the
Senate has been now entertained by the gentleman from South Caro-
lina. Every topic in the wide range of our public affairs, whether
past or present, — everything, general or local, whether belong-
ing to national politics or party politics, — seems to have attracted
more or less of the honorable member's attention, save only the reso-
lution before us. He has spoken of everything but the public lands.
They have escaped his notice. To that subject, in all his excursions,
he has not paid even the cold respect of a passing glance.

When this debate, sir, was to be resumed, on Thursday morning, it
so happened that it would have been convenient for me to be else-
where. The honorable member, however, did not incline to put off
the discussion to another day. He had a shot, he said, to return, and
he wished to discharge it. That shot, sir, which it was kind thus to
inform us was coming, that we might stand out of the way, or
pr^pire ourselves to fall before it, and die with decency^ has now

224 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

been received. Under ail advantages, and with expectation awakened
by the tone which preceded it, it has been discharged, and has
spent its force. It may become me to say no more of its effect than
that, if nobody is found, after all, either killed or wounded by it, it is
not the first time in the history of human affairs that the vigor and
success of the war have not quite come up to the lofty and sounding
phrase of the manifesto.

The gentleman, sir, in declining to postpone the debate, told the
Senate with the emphasis of his hand upon his heart, that there was
something rankling here, which he wished to relieve. [Mr. Hayne
rose and disclaimed having used the word rankling.] It would not,
Mr. President, be safe for the honorable member to appeal to those
around him, upon the question whether he did, in fact, make use of
that word. But he may have been unconscious of it. At any rate, it
is enough that he disclaims it. But still, with or without the use of
that particular word, he had yet something here, he said of which he
wished to rid himself by an immediate reply. In this respect, sir, I
have a great advantage over the honorable gentleman. There is
nothing here, sir, which gives me the slightest uneasiness ; neither
fear, nor anger, nor that which is sometimes more troublesome than
either, the consciousness of having been in the wrong. There is
nothing either originating here, or now received here by the gentle-
man's shot. Nothing original, for I had not the slightest feeling of
disrespect or unkindness towards the honorable member. Some
:s, it is true, had occurred, since our acquaintance in this body,
\.-!:i h I could have wished might have been otherwise ; but I had
used philosophy, and forgotten them. When the honorable member
rose, in his first speech, I paid him the respect of attentive listening;
and when he sat down, though surprised, and I must say even aston-
ished, at some of his opinions, nothing was farther from my intention
than to commence any personal warfare ; and through the whole of
the few remarks I made in answer, I avoided, studiously and care-
fully, everything which I thought possible to be construed into dis-
respect. And, sir, while there is thus nothing originating here, which
I wished at any time, or now wish, to discharge, I must repeat, al .<>,
that nothing has been received here, which rankles, or in any way
gives me annoyance. I will not accuse the honorable member of
violating the rules of civilized war — I will not say that he poisoned
his arrows. But whether his shafts were, or were not, dipped in that
which would have caused rankling if they had reached, there was not,
as it happended, quite strength enough in the bow to bring them to
their mark. If he wishes now to find those shafts, he must look for
them elsewhere ; they will not be found fixed and quivering in the
object at which {}\<:y were- aimed!

The honorable member complained that I had slept on his speech,
I must have slepi: on it, or hot STCpt at all. The moment the honor-

DA KIEL UE ESTER. 225

able member sat down, his friend from Missouri rose, and. with
much honeyed commendation of the speech, suggested that the
impressions which it had produced were too charming and delightful
to be disturbed by other sentiments or other sounds, and proposed
that the Senate should adjourn. Would it have been quite amiable in
me, sir, to interrupt this excellent good-feeling? Must I not have
been absolutely malicious, if I could have thrust myself forward to
destroy sensations thus pleasing ? Was it not much better and kinder,
both to sleep upon them myself, and to^aDow others, also, the pi
of sleeping upon them ? But if it be meant, by sleeping upon his
speech, that I took time to prepare a rep!)' to it. it is quite a mistake :
owing to other engagements, I could not employ even the interval
between the adjournment of the Senate and its meeting the next
morning in attention to the subject of this debate. Nevertheless, sir,
the mere matter of fact is undoubtedly true — I did sleep on the g;-r Ne-
man's speech, and slept soundly. And I slept equally well on his
speech of yesterday, to which I am now replying. It is quite pos-
sible that, in this respect also, I possess some advantage over the
honorable member, attributable, doubtless, to a cooler temperament
on my part ; for in truth I slept upon his speeches remarkably well.
But the gentleman inquires why he was made the object of such a
reply. Why was he singled out ? If an attack had been made on the
east, he, he assures us, did not begin it — it was the gentleman from
Missouri. Sir, I answered the gentleman's speech because I happened
to bear it ; and because, also, I chose to give an answer to that
speech, which, if unanswered, I thought most likely to produce
injurious impressions. I did not stop to inquire who was the original
drawer of the bill. I found a reponsible indorser before me, and it
was my purpose to hold him liable, and to bring him to his
responsibility without delay. But. sir, this interrogatory of the hon-
orable member was only introductory to another. He proceeded to
ask me whether I had turned upon him in this debate from
consciousness that I should find an overmatch if I ventured on a con-
test with his friend from Missouri. If, sir, the honorable member, <x
gratia wadestia\ had chosen thus to defer to his friend, and to pay him
a Compliment, without intentional disparagement to others, it would
have been quite according to the friendly courtesies of debate, and
not at all ungrateful to my own feelings. I am not one of those, sir,
who esteem any tribute of regard, whether light and occasional, or
mere serious and deliberate, which may be bestowed on others as so
much unjustly withholden from themselves. But the tone and man-
ner of the gentleman's question forbid me thus to interpret it. I am
not at liberty to consider it as nothing more than a civility to his
friend. It had an air of taunt and disparagement, a little of the lofti-
ness of asserted superiority, which does not allow me to pass it over
without notice. It was put as a question for me to answer, and so

226 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

; \ '■ : :..

put as if it were difficult for me. to answer, whether I. deemed^ the,
member from Missouri an overmatch for myself in debate here.
It seems to me, sir, that is extraordinary language, and an extraordi-
nary tone for the discussions of this body.

Matches and overmatches! Those terms are more applicable else^--
where than here, and fitter for other assemblies than this. Sir, the geri--
tiemaff seerns to1 forget where and what we are. This is a senate; a
senate Of equals; of men of individual honor and personal character,,
and of absolute independence. We know no masters; we acknowledge
no dictators. This is a hall for mutual consultation and discussion, not.
an arena for the exhibition of champions. I offer myself, sir, as. a match
for no man; I throw the challenge of debate at no man's feet. Hut,
then, sir, since the honorable member has put the question in a man-
ner that calls for an answer, I will give him art answer; and I tell, him
that, holding myself to be the humblest of the members here; I yet know
nothing in the arm of his friend. from Missouri, either atone, or when
aided by the arm of his friend from South Carolina, that, need, deter
even me from espousing whatever opinions I may choose to espouse,
from debating whenever I may choose to debate, or from speaking
whatever I may see fit to say on the floor of the Senate. Sir, when
uttered as matter of commendation or compliment, I should dissent
from nothing which the honorable member might say of his friend.
Still less do I put forth any pretensions. of my own. But when put to
me as matter of taunt, I throw it back, and say to the gentleman that
he could possibly' say nothing less likely than such a ..comparison to
wound my pride of personal character. The anger of its tone rescued
the remark from intentional irony, which, otherwise, probably, would
have been its general acceptation. But, sir, if it be imagined that by
this mutual quotation and commendation; if it be supposed that, by
casting the characters of the drama, assigning to each his part, —
to one the attack, to another the cry of onset,— or if it be thought that
by a loud and empty vaunt of anticipated victory any laurels are to be
won here; if it be imagined, especially, that any or all these things will
shake any purpose of mine, I can tell the honorable member, once for
all, that he is greatly mistaken, and that he is dealing with one of
whose temper and character he has yet much to learn. Sir, I shall not
allow myself, on this occasion,— I hope on no occasion,— to be be-
traved into any loss of temper; but if provoked, as I trust I never
shall allow myself to be, into crimination and recrimination, the hon-
orable member may, perhaps, find that in that contest there will be
blows to take as well as blows to give; that others can state compari-
sons as significant, at least, as his own; and that his impunity may,
perhaps, demand of him whatever powers of taunt and sarcasm he may
possess. I commend him to a prudent husbandry of his resources.

But, sir, the coalition! The coalition! Ay, "the murdered coali-
tion!" The gentleman asks if I were led or frighted into this debate

DANIEL WEBSTER. 227

by the spectre of the coalition.—*' Was it the ghost of the murdered
coalition," he exclaims, " which haunted the . member from Massachu-
setts, and which, like the ghost of Banquo, would never down?"
"The murdered coalition!" Sir, this charge of a coalition, in refer-
ence to the late administration, is not original with the honorable
member. It did not spring up in the Senate. Whether as a fact, as
an argument, or as an embellishment, it is all borrowed. He adopts it,
indeed, from a very low origin, and a still lower present condition. It
is one of the thousand calumnies with which the press teemed during
an excited political canvass. It was a charge of which there was not
only no proof or probability, but which was, in itself, wholly impossi-
ble to be true. No man of common information ever believed a sylla-
ble of it. Yet it was of that class of falsehoods which, by continued rep-
etition through all the organs of detraction and abuse, are capable of
misleading those who are already far misled, and of further fanning
passion already kindling into flame. Doubtless it served its day, and,
in a greater or less degree, the end designed by it. Having done that,
it has sunk into the general mass of stale and loathed calumnies. It
is the very cast-off slough of a polluted and shameless press. Incapa-
ble of further mischief, it lies in the sewer, lifeless and despised. It is
not now, sir, in the power of the honorable member to give it dignity
or decency, by attempting to elevate it, and to introduce it into the
Senate. He cannot change it from what it is — an object of general
disgust and scorn. On the contrary, the contact, if he choose to touch
it, is more likely to drag him down, down, to the place where it lies it-
self.

But, sir, the honorable member was not, for other reasons, entirely
happy in his allusion to the story of Banquo 's murder and Banquo's
ghost. It was not, I think, the friends, but the enemies of the mur-
dered Banquo. at whose bidding his spirit w;ould not down. The
honorable gentleman is fresh in his reading of the English classics, and
can put me right if I am wrong; but according to my poor recollection,
it was at those who had begun with caresses, and ended with foul and
treacherous murder, that the gory locks were shaken. The ghost of
Banquo, like that of Hamlet, was an honest ghost. It disturbed no
innocent man. It knew where its appearance would strike terror, and
who would cry out, A ghost! It made itself visible in the right quarter,
and compelled the guilty, and the conscience-smitten, and none others,
to start, with,

" Prithee, see there ! behold !— look ! lo !
If I stand here, I saw him !"

Their eyeballs were seared — was it not so, sir ? — who had thought to
shield themselves by concealing their own hand, and laying the impu-
tation of the crime on a low and hireling agency in wickedness; who
had vainly attempted to stifle the workings of their own coward con-

228 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

sciences; by ejaculating, through white lips and chattering teeth,
" Thou canst not say I did it!" I have misread the great poet, if it
was those who had no way partaken in the deed of the death, who
either found that they were, or feared that they should be, pushed from
their stools by the ghost of the slain, or who cried out to a spectre
created by their own fears, and their own remorse, " A vaunt ! and
quit our sight!"

There is another particular, sir, in which the honorable member's
quick perception of resemblances might, I should think, have seen some-
thing- in the story of Banquo, making it not altogether a subject of the
most pleasant contemplation. Those who murdered Banquo, what
did they win by it? Substantial good ? Permanent power ? Or dis-
appointment, rather, and sore mortification — dust and ashes — the
common fate of vaulting ambition overleaping itself? Did not even-
handed justice, ere long, commend the poisoned chalice to their own
lips ? Did they not soon find that for another they had " filled their
mind?" — that their ambition, though apparently for the moment suc-
cessful, had but put a barren sceptre in their grasp ? Ay, sir, —

" A barren sceptre in their gripe.
Thence to be wrenched by an unlineal hand,
No son of theirs succeeding."

Sir, I need pursue the allusion no further. I leave the honorable
gentleman to ran it out at his leisure, and to derive from it all the
gratification it is calculated to administer. If he finds himself pleased
with the associations, and prepared to be quite satisfied, though the
parallel should be entirely completed, I had almost said I am satisfied
also — but that I shall think of. Yes, sir, I will think of that.

In the course of my observations the other day, Mr. President, I
paid a passing tribute of respect to a very worthy man, Mr. Dane, of
Massachusetts. It so happened, that he drew the ordinance of 1787
for the government of the North-western Territory. A man of so
much ability, and so little pretence; of so great a capacity to do good,
and so unmixed a disposition to do it for its own sake; a gentleman
who acted an important part, forty years ago, in a measure the in-
fluence of which is still deeply felt in the very matter which was the
subject of debate, might, I thought, receive from me a commendatory
recognition.

But the honorable member was inclined to be facetious on the sub*
ject. He was rather disposed to make it matter of ridicule that I had
introduced into the debate the name of one Nathan Dane, of whom he
assures us he had never before heard. Sir, if the honorable member
had never before heard of Mr. Dane, I am sorry for it. It shows
him less acquainted with the public men of the country than I had sup-
posed. Let me tell him, however, that a sneer from him at the men-
tion of the.name of Mr. Dane is in bad-taste.-- It may well be a high

DANIEL WEBSTER. 229

mark of ambition, sir, either with the honorable gentleman or myself,
to accomplish as much to make our names known to advantage, and
remembered with gratitude, as Mr. Dane has accomplished. But the
truth is, sir, I suspect that Mr. Dane lives a little too far north. He is
of Massachusetts, and too near the north star to be reached by the
honorable gentleman's telescope. If his sphere had happened to
range south of Mason and Dixon's line, he might, probably, have
come within the scope of his vision!

I spoke, sir, of the ordinance of 1787, which prohibited slavery in all
future t:mes north-west of the Ohio, as a measure of great wisdom and
foresignt, and one which had been attended with highly beneficial and
permanent consequences. I supposed that on this point no two gen-
tlemen in the Senate could entertain different opinions. But the
simple expression of this sentiment has led the gentleman, not only
into a labored defence of slavery in the abstract, and on principle,
but also into a warm accusation against me, as having attacked the
system of domestic slavery now existing in the Southern States. For
all this there was not the slightest foundation in any thing said or inti-
mated by me. I did not utter a single word which any ingenuity
could torture into an attack on the slavery of the south. I said only
that it was highly wise and useful in legislating for the north-western
country, while it was yet a wilderness, to prohibit the introduction of
slaves; and added, that I presumed, in the neighboring state of Ken-
tucky, there was no reflecting and intelligent gentleman who would
doubt that, if the same prohibition had been extended, at the same
early period, over that commonwealth, her strength and population
would at this day, have been far greater than they are. If these opin-
ions be thought doubtful, they are, nevertheless, I trust, neither extra-
ordinary, nor disrespectful. They attack nobody and mcnace..,nobody.
And yet, sir, the gentleman's optics have discovered, even in the mere
expression of this sentiment, what he calls the very spirit of the Mis-
souri question! He represents me. as making an onset on the whole
south, and manifesting a spirit which would interfere with and disturb
their domestic condition. Sir, this injustice no otherwise surprises me
than as it is done here, and done without the slightest pretence of ground
for it. I say it only surprises me as being done here; for I know full
well that it is and has been the settled policy of some persons in the
south, for years, to represent the people of the north as disposed to
interfere with them in their own exclusive and peculiar concerns. This
is a delicate and sensitive point in southern feeling, and of late years
it has always been touched, and generally with effect, whenever the
object has been to unite the whole south against northern men or nor-
thern measures. This feeling, always carefully kept alive, and main-
tained at too .intense a heat to admit discrimination or reflection, is a
lever of great power in our political machine. It moves vast bodies,
and gives to them one and the same direction. But the feeling is with-

230 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

out adequate cause, and the suspicion which exists wholly groundless.
There is not, and never has been, a disposition in the north to inter-
fere with these interests of the south. Such interference has riever
been supposed to be within the power of government, nor has it been
in any way attempted. It has always been regarded as a matter of do-
mestic policy, left with the states themselves, and with whic'.i the federal
government had nothing to do. Certainly, sir, I am, and ever have
been, of that opinion. The gentleman, indeed, argues that slavery in
the abstract is no evil. Most assuredly I need not say f differ with
him altogether and most widely on that point. I regard domestic
slavery as one of the greatest of evils, both moral and political. But,
though it be a malady, and whether it be curable, and if so, by what
means; or, on the other hand, whether it be the vulniis immciicabiU of
the social system, I leave it to those whose right and duty it is to in-
quire and to decide. And this I believe, sir, is, and uniformly ha^
been, the sentiment of the north. Let us look a little at the history of
this matter.

When the present constitution was submitted for the ratification of
the people, there were those who imagined that the powers of the gov-
ernment which it proposed to establish might, perhaps, in some possU
ble mode, be exerted in measures tending to the abolition of slavery.
This suggestion would, of course, attract much attention in the south-
ern conventions. In that of Virginia, Governor Randolph said, —

" I hope there is none here, who, considering the subject in the
calm light of philosophy, will make an objection dishonorable to Vir-
ginia— that, at the moment they are securing the rights of their citizens,
an objection is started, that the:e is a spark of hope that those unfortu-
nate men now held in bondage may, by the operation of the general
government, be made free."

At the very first Congress petitions on the subject were presented,
if I mistake not, from different states. The Pennsylvania Society for
Promoting the Abolition of Slavery took a lead, and laid before Con-
gress a memorial, praying Congress to promote the abolition by such
powers as it possessed. This memorial was referred, in the House of
Representatives, to a select committee, consisting of Mr. Foster, of
New Hampshire, Mr. Gerry, of Massachusetts, Mr. Huntington, of
Connecticut, Mr. Lawrence, of New York, Mr. Sinnickson, of New
Jersey, Mr. Hartley, of Pennsylvania, and Mr. Parker, of Virginia;
all of them, sir, as you will observe, northern men, but the last. This
committee made a report, which was committed to a committee of the
whole house, and there considered and discussed on several days; and
being amended, although in no material respect, it was made to ex-
press three distinct propositions on the subjects of slavery and the
slave trade. First, in the words of the constitution, that Congress
could not, prior to the year iSoS, prohibit the migration or importa-
tion of such persons as any of the states then existing should thiuK

DA.Y/EL WEBSTER. 231

proper to admit. Second, that Congress had authority to restrain the
citizens of the United States from carrying- on the African slave trade
for the purpose of supplying foreign countries. On this proposition,
our early laws against those who engage in that traffic are founded.
The third proposition, and that which bears on the present quection,
was expressed in the following terms: —

" A'eso/xcd, That Congress have no authority to interfere in the
emancipation of slaves, or in the treatment of them in any of the
states; it remaining with the several states alone to provide rules and
regulations therein, which humanity and true policy may require."

::This resolution received the sanction of the House of Representa-
tives so early- as March, 1790. And, now, sir, the honorable member
will allow me to remind him, that not only were the select committee
who reported the resolution, with a single exception, all northern men,
but also that of the members then composing the House of Representa-
tives, a large majority k I believe nearly two thirds, were northern men
also.

The house agreed to insert these resolutions in its journal ; and, from
that<iay to this, it has never been maintained or contended that Con-
gress had any authority to regulate or interfere with the condition of
slaves in the several states. No northern gentleman, to my knowl-
edge, has moved any such question in either house of Congress.

The fears of the south, whatever fears they might have entertained,
were allayed and quieted by this early decision ; and so remained, till
they were excited afresh, without cause, but for collateral and in-
direct purposes. When it became necessary, or was thought so, by
some political persons, to find an unvarying ground for the exclusion
of northern men from confidence and from lead in the affairs of the
republic, then, and not till then, the cry was raised, and the feeling
industriously excited, that the influence of northern men in the public
councils wOuld endanger the relation of master and slave. For my-
self, I claim no other merit, than that this gross and enormous injus-
tice towards the whole north has not wrought upon me to change my
opinions, or my political conduct. I hope I am above violating my
principles, even under the smart of injury and false imputations. Un-
just suspicions and undeserved reproach, whatever pain I may experi-
ence from them, will not induce me, I trust, nevertheless, to overstep
the limits of constitutional duty, or to encroach on the rights of others.
The domestic slavery of the south I leave where I find it — in the
hands of their own governments. It is their affair, not mine. Nor
do I complain of the peculiar effect which the magnitude of that popu-
lation has had in the distribution of power under this federal govern-
ment. We know, sir, that the representation of the states in the
other house is not equal. We know that great advantage, in that res-
pect, is enjoyed by the slaveholding states; and we know, too. that
the intended equivalent for that advantage— that is to say, the imposi-

232 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

tion of direct taxes in the same ratio — has become merely nominal ;
the habit of the government being almost invariably to collect its reve-
nues from other sources, and in other modes. Nevertheless, I do
not complain ; nor would I countenance any movement to alter- this
arrangement of representation. It is the original bargain, the com-
pact— let it stand; let the advantage of it be fully enjoyed. The
Union itself is too full of benefit to be hazarded in propositions for
changing its original basis. I go for the constitution as it is, and for
the Union as it is. But I am resolved not to submit, in silence, to
accusations, either against myself individually, or against the north,
wholly unfounded and unjust— accusations which impute to us a dis-
position to evade the constitutional compact, and to extend the power
of the government over the internal laws and domestic condition of
the states. All such accusations, wherever and whenever made, all
insinuations of the existence of any such purposes, I know and feel to
be groundless and injurious. And we must confide in southern gentle-
men themselves; we must trust to those whose integrity of heart and
magnanimity of feeling will lead them to a desire to maintain and dis-
seminate truth, and who possess the means of its diffusion with the
southern public; we must leave it to them to disabuse that public of its
prejudices. But, in the mean time, for my own part, I shall continue
to act justly, whether those towards whom justice is exercised receive
it with candor or with contumely.

Having had occasion to recur to the ordinance of 1787, in order to
defend myself against the inferences which the honorable member has
chosen to draw from my former observations on that subject, I am
not willing now. entirely to take leave of it without another remark.
It need hardly be said, that that paper expresses just sentiments oil
the great subject of civil and religious liberty. Such sentiments wer
common, and abound in all our state papers of that day. But thi
ordinance did that which was not so common, and which is not, evi
now, universal; that is, it set forth and declared, as a high and binding
duty of government itself, to encourage schools and advance the means
of education; on the plain reason that religion, morality, and knowl
edge are necessary to good government, and to the happiness of mar
kind. One observation further. The important provision incor-
porated into the constitution of the United States, and several of those
of the states, and recently, as we have seen, adopted into the reform(
constitution of Virginia, restraining legislative power, in questions
private right, and from impairing the obligation of contracts, is firs
introduced and established, as far as I am informed, as matter of e:?
press written constitutional law, in this ordinance of 1787. And
must add, also, in regard to the author of the ordinance, who has not
had the happiness to attract the gentleman's notice heretofore, nor tc
avoid his sarcasm now, that he was chairman of that select committc
of the old Congress, whose report first expressed the strong sense

y DANIEL WEBSTER. 233

that body, that the old confederation was not adequate to the exigen-
cies of the country, and recommending to the states to send delegates
to the convention which formed the present constitution.

An attempt has been made to transfer from the north to the south
the honor of this exclusion of slavery from the North-western Terri-
tory. The journal, without argument or comment, refutes such attempt.
The session of Virginia was made March, 1784. On the 19th of April
following, a committee, consisting of Messrs. Jefferson, Chase, and
Howell, reported a plan for a temporary government of the territory,
in which was this article: " That after the year 1800, there shall be
neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, in any of the said states,
otherwise than in punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have
been convicted." Mr. Speight, of North Carolina, moved to strike
out this paragraph. The question was put, according to the form
then practised: "Shall these words stand, as part of the plan," &c.
•New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New
York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania — seven states — voted in the
affirmative ; Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina in the negative.
North Carolina was divided. ' As the consent of nine states was nec-
essary, the words could not stand, and were struck out accordingly.
Mr. Jefferson voted for the clause, but was overruled by his colleagues.

In March of the next year (1785), Mr. King, of Massachusetts, sec-
onded by Mr. Ellery, of Rhode Island, proposed the formerly rejected
article, with this addition: "And that this regulation shall be an
article of compact, and remain a fundamental principle of the con-
stitution between the thirteen original states and each of the states
described in the resolve," &c. On this clause, which provided the
adequate and thorough security, the eight Northern States, at that
time, voted affirmatively, and the four Southern States negatively.
The votes of nine states were not yet obtained, and thus the provision
was again rejected by the Southern States. The perseverance of the
north held out, and two years afterwards the object was attained. It
is- no derogation from the credit, whatever that may be, of drawing
the ordinance, that its principles had before been prepared and dis-
cussed in the form of resolutions. If one should reason in that way,
what would become of the distinguished honor of the author of the
Declaration of Independence ? There is not a sentiment in that paper
which had not been voted and resolved in the assemblies, and other
popular bodies in the country, over and over again.

But the honorable member has now found out that this gentleman,
Mr. Dane, was a member of the Hartford Convention. However unin-
formed the honorable member may be of characters and occurrences
at the north, it would seem that he has at his elbows, on this occasion,
some high-minded and lofty spirit, some magnanimous and true-
hearted monitor, possessing the means of local knowledge, and ready
to supply the honorable member with every thing, down even to for-

234 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

gotten and moth-eaten twopenny pamphlets, which may be used to
the disadvantage of his own country. But, as to the Hartford Con-
vention, sir, allow me to say, that the proceedings of that body seem
now to be less read and studied in New England than farther south.
They appear to be looked to, not in New England, but elsewhere, for
the purpose of seeing how far they may serve as a precedent. „ But
they will not answer the purpose— they are quite too tame. The lati-
tude in which they originated was too cold. Other conventions, of
more recent existence, have gone a whole bar's length beyond it. The
learned doctors of Colleton and Abbeville have pushed their commen-
taries on the Hartford collect so far that the original text writers are
thrown entirely into the shade. I have nothing to do, sir, with the
Hartford Convention. Its journal, which the gentleman has quoted, I
have never read. So far as the honorable member may discover in its.
proceedings a spirit in any degree resembling that which was avowed
and justified in those other conventions to which I have alluded, or so
far as those proceedings can be shown to be disloyal to the constitu-
tion, or tending to disunion, so far I shall be as ready as any one to
bestow on them reprehension and censure.

Having dwelt long on this convention, and other occurrences of
that day, in the hope, probably (which will not be gratified), that I
should leave the course of this debate to follow him at length in those
excursions, the honorable member returned, and attempted another
object. He referred to a speech of mine in the other house, the same
which I had occasion to allude to myself the other day; and has quoted
a passage or two from it, with a bold though uneasy and laboring air
of confidence, as if he had. detected in me an inconsistency. Judging
from the gentleman's manner, a stranger to the course of the debate,
and to the point in discussion, would have imagined, from so trium-.
phant a tone, that the honorable member was about to overwhelm me
with a manifest contradiction. Any one who heard him, and who had
not heard what I had, in fact, previously said, must have thought me
routed and discomfited, as the gentleman had promised. Sir, a breath
blows all this triumph away. There is not the slightest difference in
the sentiments of my remarks on the two occasions. What I said
here on Wednesday is in exact accordance with the opinions expressed
by me in the other house in 1825. Though the gentleman had the
metaphysics of Hudibras— though he were able

" to sever and divide
A hair 'twixt north and north-west side,''

he could not yet insert his metaphysical scissors between the fair
readinSof my remarks in 1825 and what I said here last week. There
is not only no contradiction, no difference, but, in truth, too exact a
similarity, both in thought and language, to be entirely in just taste.
I had myself quoted the same speech; had recurred to it, and spoke

DANIEL WEBSTER, 235

with it open before me; and much of what I said was little more than
a repetition from it. In order to make finishing work with this alleged
contradiction, permit me to recur to the origin of this debate, and re-
view its course. This seems expedient, and may be done as well now
as at any time.

Well, then, its history is this: The honorable member from Connecti-
cut moved a resolution, which constituted the first branch of that which
is now before us; that is to say, a resolution instructing the committee
on public lands to inquire into the expediency of limiting, for a certain
period, the sales of public lands to such as have heretofore been offered
for sale; and whether sundry offices, connected with the sales of the
lands, might not be abolished without detriment to the public service.

In the progress of the discussion which arose on this resolution, an
honorable member from New Hampshire moved to amend the resolu-
tion, so as entirely to reverse its object; that is, to strike it all out, and
insert a direction to the committee to inquire into the expediency of
adopting measures to hasten the sales, and extend more rapidily the
surveys of the lands.

The honorable member from Maine (Mr. Sprague) suggested that
both these propositions might well enough go for consideration, to the
committee; and in this state of the question, the member from South
Carolina addressed the Senate in his first speech. He rose, he said, to
give us his own free thoughts on the public lands. I saw him rise, with
pleasure, and listened with expectation, though before he concluded I
was filled with surprise. Certainly, I was never more surprised than
to find him following up, to the extent he did, the sentiments and opin-
ions which the gentleman from Missouri had put forth, and which it is
known he has long entertained.

I need not repeat, at large, the general topics of the honorable
gentleman's speech. When he said, yesterday, that he did not attack
the; eastern states, he certainly must have forgotten not only particular
rerharks, but the whole drift and tenor of his speech; unless he means
by not attacking, that he did not commence hostilities, but that another
had preceded him in the attack. He, in the first place, disapproved of
i the whole course of the government for forty years, in regard to its
dispositions of the public land; and then, turning northward and east-
jward, and fancying he had found a cause for alleged narrowness and

I niggardliness in the " accursed policy" of the tariff, to which he repre-
sented the people of New England as wedded, he went on for a full
lihour, with remarks, the whole scope of which was to exhibit the re-
tsults of this policy, in feelings and in measures unfavorable to the west.

II thought his opinions unfounded and erroneous, as to the general
ijcoufse of the government, and ventured to reply to them.

The gentleman had remarked on the analogy of other cases, and
['quoted the conduct of European governments towards their own sub-
fijects, settling on this continent, as in point, to show that we had been

" - . . . - '-"■ : - -

236 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

harsh and rigid in selling when we should have given the public lands
to settlers. I thought the honorable member had suffered his judg-
ment to be betrayed by a false analogy; that he was struck with an
appearance of resemblance where there was no real similitude. I
think so still. The first settlers of North America were enterprising
spirits, engaged in private adventure, or fleeing from tyranny at home.
When arrived here, they were forgotten by the mother country, or
remembered only to be oppressed. Carried away again by the appear-
ance of analogy, or struck with the eloquence of the passage, the honor-
able member yesterday observed that the conduct of government
towards the western emigrants, or my representation of it, brought to
his mind a celebrated speech in the British Parliament. It was, sir,
the speech of Colonel Barre. On the question of the stamp act, or tea
tax, I forget which, Colonel Barre had heard a member on the treasury
bench argue, that the people of the United States, being British colon-
ists, planted by the maternal care, nourished by the indulgence, and
protected by the arms of England, would not grudge their mite to re-
lieve the mother countiy from the heavy burden under which she
groaned. The language of Colonel Barre, in reply to this, was, "They
planted by your care? Your oppression planted them in America.
They fled from your tyranny, and grew by your neglect of them. So
soon as you began to care for them, you showed your care by sending
persons to spy out their liberties, misrepresent their character, prey
upon them, and eat out their substance."

And now does the honorable gentleman mean to maintain that lan-
guage like this is applicable to the conduct of the government of the
United States towards the western emigrants, or to any representation
given by me of that conduct ? Were the settlers in the west driven
thither by our oppression ? Have they flourished ohhy by our neglect
of them f Has the government done nothing but to prey upon them,
and eat out their substance ? Sir, this fervid eloquence o* the British
speaker, just when and where it was uttered, and fit to remain an ex-
ercise for the schools, is not a little out of place, when it was brought
thence to be applied here, to the conduct of our own country towards her
own. citizens. From America to England it may be true; from Ameri-
cans to their own government it -would be strange language. Let us
leave it to be recited and declaimed by our boys against a foreign
nation ; not introduce it here, to recite and declaim ourselves against
our own.

But I come to the point of the alleged contradiction. In vcvj remarks
on Wednesday, I contended- that we could not give awa}^ gratuitously
all the public lands ; that we held them in trust; that the government
had solemnly pledged itself to dispose of them as a common fund for
the common benefit, and to sell and settle them as its discretion should
dictate. Now, sir, what contradiction does the gentleman find to this
sentiment in the speech of 1825? He quotes me as having then said, -

£ DANIEL WEBSTER. 237

that we ought not to hug these lands as a very great treasure. Very

well, sir; supposing me to be accurately reported in that expression,
what is the contradiction? I have not now said, that we should hug
these lands as a favorite source of pecuniary income. No such thing.
It is not my view. What I have said, and what I do say, is, that they
are a common fund — to be disposed of for the common benefit — to he
sold at low prices, for the accommodation of settlers, keeping the
object of settling the lands as much in view as that of raising money
from them. This I say now, and this I have always said. Is this
hugging them as a favorite treasure? Is there no difference between
hugging and hoarding this fund, on the one hand, as a great treasure,
and on the other of disposing of it at low prices, placing the proceeds
in the general treasury of the Union? My opinion is, that as much is
to be made of the land, as fairly and' reasonably may be, selling it ail
the while at such rates as to give the fullest effect to settlement. This
is not giving it all away to the states, as the gentleman would propose;
nor is it hugging the fund closely and tenaciously, as a favorite treas-
ure; but it is, in my judgment, a just and wise policy, perfectly accord-
ing with all the various duties which rest on government. So much
for my contradiction. And what is it? Where is the ground of the
gentleman's triumph ? What inconsistency, in word or doctrine, has
he been able to detect? Sir, if this be a sample of that discomfiture
with which the honorable gentleman threatened me, commend me to
the word discomfiture for the rest of my life.

But, after all, this is not the point of the debate ; and I must bring
the gentleman back to that which is the point.

The real question between me and him is, Where has the doctrine
been advanced, at the south or the east, that the population of the west
should be retarded, or, at least, need not be hastened, on account of
its effect to drain off the people from the Atlantic States ? Is this doc-
trine, as has been alleged, of eastern origin ? That is the question.
Has the gentleman found any thing by which he can make good his
accusation? I submit to the Senate, that he has entirely failed ; and
as far as this debate has shown, the only person who has advanced
such sentiments is a gentleman from South Carolina, and a friend to
the honorable member himself. The honorable gentleman has given
no answer to this ; there is none which can be given. This simple
fact, while, it requires no comment to enforce it, defies all argument to
refute it. I could refer to the speeches of another Southern gentle-
man, in years before, of the same general character, and to the same
effect, as that which has been quoted; but I will not consume the time
of the Senate by the reading of them.

So then, sir, New England is guiltless of the policy of retarding
western population, and of all envy and jealousy of the grow th of the
new states. Whatever there be of that policy in the country, no part
of it is hers. If it has a local habitation, the honorable member has

238 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

probably seen, by this time, where he is to look for it ; and if it now
has received a name, he himself has christened it.

We approach, at length, sir, to a more important part of the honora-
ble gentleman's observations. Since it does not accord with ray views
of justice and policy to vote away the public lands altogether, as mere
matter of gratuity, I am asked, by the honorable gentleman, on what
ground it is that I consent to give them away in particular instances.
How, he inquires, do I reconcile with these professed sentiments my
support of measures appropriating portions of the lands to particular
roads, particular canals, particular rivers, and particular institutions of
education in the west ? This leads, sir, to the real and wide difference
in political opinions between the honorable gentleman and myself.
On my part, I look upon all these objects as connected with the com-
mon good, [fairly embraced in its objects and its terms; he, on the con-
trary, deems them all, if good at all, only local good. This is our
difference. The interrogatory which he proceeded to put at . once ex-
plains this difference. "What interest," asks he, "has South Caro-
lina in a canal in Ohio ?" Sir, this very question is full of significance.
It developes the gentleman's whole political system; and its answer
expounds mine. Here we differ toto ccelo. I look upon a road over
the Alleghany, a canal round the falls of the Ohio, or a canal or rail-
way from the Atlantic to the western waters, as being objects large
and extensive enough to be fairly said to be for the common benefit.
The gentleman thinks otherwise, and this is the key to open his con'
struction of the powers of the government. He may well ask, upor:
his system, What interest has South Carolina in a canal in Ohio 5
On that system, it is true, she has no interest. On that system, Ohio
and Carolina are different governments and different countries, con*
nected here, it is true, by some slight and ill-defined bond of union,
but in all main respects separate and diverse. On that system, Caro-
lina has no more interest in a canal in Ohio than in Mexico. The
gentleman, therefore, only follows out his own principles; he does no
more than arrive at the natural conclusions of his own doctrines ; he
only announces the true results of that creed which he has adopted
himself, and would persuade others to adopt, when he thus declares
that South Carolina has no interest in a public work in Ohio. Sir, we
narrow-minded people of New England do not reason thus. Our no-
tion of things is entirely different. We look upon the states, not as
separated, but as united. We love to dwell on that Union, and on the
mutual happiness which it has so much promoted, and the common re*
nown which it has so greatly contributed to acquire. In our contem.
plation, Carolina and Ohio are parts of the same country — states united
under the same general government, having interests common, associ*
ated, intermingled. In whatever is within the proper sphere of the con.
stitutional power of this government, we look upon the states as one.
We do not impose geographical limits to our patriotic feeling or re*

DANIEL WEBSTER. 239

gard; we do not follow rivers, and mountains, and lines of latitude, to
find boundaries beyond which public improvements do not benefit us.
We, who come here as agents and representatives of those narrow-
minded and selfish men of New England, consider ourselves as bound
to' regard, with equal eye, the good of the whole, in whatever is within
our power of legislation. Sir, if a railroad or a canal, beginning in
South Carolina, and ending in South Carolina, appeared tome to be
of national importance and national magnitude, believing as I do that
the power of government extends to the encouragement of works of
that description, if I were to stand up here and ask, " What interest
has Massachusetts in a railroad. in South Carolina?" I should not be
willing to face my constituents. These same narrow-minded men
would tell me that they had sent me to act for the whole country, and
that one who possessed too little comprehension, either of intellect or
feeling,— one who was not large enough, in mind and heart, to em-
brace the whole,— was not fit to be intrusted with the interest of any
part Sir, I do not desire to enlarge the powers of the government
by unjustifiable construction, nor to exercise any not within afair inter-
pretation. But when it is believed that a power does exist, then it is,
in my judgment, to be exercised for the general benefit of the whole;
se> far as respects the exercise of such a power, the states are one. It
was the very object of the constitution to create unity of interests to
the extent of the powers of the general government. In war and
peace we are one; in commerce one; because the authority of the gen-
eral government reaches to war and peace, and to the regulation of
commerce. I have never seen any more difficulty in erecting light-
houses on the lakes than on the ocean, in improving the harbors of
inland seas, than if they were within the ebb and flow of the tide ; or
of removing obstructions in the vast streams of the west, more than
in any work to facilitate commerce on the Atlantic coast. If there be
power for one, there is power also for the other; and they are all and
equally for the country.

There are other objects, apparently more local, or the benefit of
which is less general, towards which, nevertheless, I have concurred
with others to give aid by donations of land. It is proposed to con-
struct a road in or through one of the new states in which this govern-
ment possesses large quantities of land. Have the United States no
right, as a great and untaxed proprietor — are they under no obligation
—to contribute to an object thus calculated to promote the common
good of all the proprietors, themselves included ? And even with re-
spect to education, which is the extreme case, let the question be con-
sidered. In the first place, as we have seen, it was made matter of
compact with these states that they should do their part to promote
education. In the next place, our whole system of land laws proceeds
on the idea that education is for the common good ; because, in every
division, a certain portion is uniformly reserved and appropriated for

240 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

the use of schools. And, finally, have not these new states singularly-
strong claims, founded on the ground already stated, that the govern-
ment is a great untaxed proprietor in the ownership of the soil ? It is
a consideration of great importance that probably there is in no part
of the country, or of the world, so great a call for the means of edu-
cation as in those new states, owing to the vast number of persons
within those ages in which education and instruction are usually re-
ceived, if received at all. This is the natural consequence of recency
of settlement and rapid increase. The census of these states shows
how great a proportion of the whole population occupies the classes
between infancy and manhood. These are the wide fields, and here
is the deep and quick soil for the seeds of knowledge and virtue ; and
this is the favored season, the spring time for sowing them. Let them
be disseminated without stint. Let them be scattered with a bounti-
ful broadcast. Whatever the government can fairly do towards these
objects, in my opinion, ought to be done.

These, sir, are the grounds, succinctly stated, on which my votes
for grants of lands for particular objects rest, while I maintain, at the
same time, that it is all a common fund, for the common benefit. And
reasons like these, I presume, have influenced the votes of other gen-
tlemen from New England. Those who have a different view of the
powers of the government, of course, come to different conclusions
on these as on other questions. I observed, when speaking on this
subject before, that if we looked to any measure, whether for a road,
a canal, or anything else intended for the improvement of the west, it
would be found, that if the New England ayes were struck out of the
list of votes, the southern noes would always have rejected the meas-
ure. The truth of this has not been denied, and cannot be denied
In stating this, I thought it just to ascribe it to the constitutional
scruples of the south, rather than to any other less favorable or less
charitable cause. But no sooner had I done this, than the honor-
able gentleman asks if I reproach him and his friends with their con-
stitutional scruples. Sir, I reproach nobody. I stated a fact, and
gave the most respectful reason for it that occurred to me. The gen-
tleman cannot deny the fact — he may, if he choose, disclaim the rea-
son. It is not long since I had occasion, in presenting a petition from
his own state, to account for its being intrusted to my hands by saying,
that the constitutional opinions of the gentleman and his worthy col-
league prevented them from supporting it. Sir, did I state this as a
matter of reproach? Far from it. Did I attempt to find any other
cause than an honest one for these scruples ? Sir, I did not. It did
not become me to doubt, nor to insinuate that the gentleman had
either changed his sentiments, or that he had made up a set of consti-
tutional opinions, accommodated to any particular combination of po-
litical occurrences. Had I done so, I should have felt, that while I
was entitled to little respect in thus questioning other people's motives,
I justified the whole world in suspecting my own.

DANIEL WEBSTER. 241

But how has the gentleman returned this respect for others' opinions ?
His own candor and justice, how have they been exhibited towards the
motives of others, while he has been at so much, pains to maintain —
what nobody has disputed — the purity of his own? Why, sir, he has
asked, when, and how, and why New England votes were found going
for measures favorable to the West; he has demanded to be informed
whether all this did not begin in 1825, and wdiile the election of
President was still pending. Sir, to these questions, retort would be
justified; and it is both cogent and at hand. Nevertheless, I will
answer the inquiry not by retort, but by facts. I will tell the gentle-
man when, and how, and why New England has supported measures
favorable to the West. I have already referred to the early history of
the government — to the first acquisition of the lands — to the original
laws for disposing of them and for governing the territories where they
lie; and have shown the influence of New England men and New Eng-
land principles in all these leading measures. I should not be pardoned
where I to go over that ground again. Coming to more recent times,
and to measures of a less general character, I have endeavored to prove
that everything of this kind designed for western improvement has
depended on the votes of New England. All this is true beyond the
power of contradiction.

And now, sir, there are two measures to which I will refer, not so
ancient as to belong to the early history of the public lands, and not
so recent as to be on this side of the period when the gentleman
charitably imagines a new direction may have been given to New
England feeling and New England votes. These measures, and the
New England votes in support of them, may be taken as samples and
specimens of all the rest. In 1820 (observe, Mr. President, in 1820),
the people of the West besought Congress for a reduction in the price of
lands. In favor of that reduction, New England, with a delegation of
forty members in the other house, gave thirty-three votes, and only one
against it. The four Southern States, with fifty members, gave thirty-two
votes for it, and seven against it. Again, in 1821 (observe, again, sir,
the time), the law passed for the relief of the purchasers of the public
lands. This was a measure of vital importance to the West, and more
especially to the Southwest. It authorized the relinquishment of con-
tracts for lands, which had been entered into at high prices, and a reduc-
tion, in other esses* of not less than 37^ per cent, en the purchase
money. Many millions of dollars, six or seven I believe, at least —
probably much more — were relinquished by this law. On this bill New
England, with her forty members, gave .more affirmative votes than
the four Southern States with their fifty-two or three members.
These two are far the most important measures respecticg the
public lands which have been adopted within the last twenty years.
They took place in 1S20 and 1821. That is the time when. And as to
the manner how, the gentleman already sees that it was by voting,

242 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

in solid column, for the required relief; and lastly as to the cause why,
I tell the gentlemen,- it was because the members from New England
thought the measures just and salutary; because they entertained
towards the West neither envy, hatred, nor malice; because they
deemed it becoming them, as just arid enlightened public men, to
meet the exigency which had arisen in the West with the appropriate
measure of relief; because they felt it due to their own characters, and
the characters of their New England predecessors in this government,
to act towards the new states in the spirit of a liberal, patronizing,
magnanimous policy. So much, sir, for the cause why; and I hope
that by this time, sir, the honorable gentleman is satisfied; if not, I
do not know when, or how, or why, he ever will be.

Having recurred to these two important measures, in answer to the
gentleman's inquiries, I must now beg permission to go back to i
period still something earlier, for the purpose still further of showing
how much, or rather how little, reason there is for the gentleinan's in-
sinuation that political hopes, or fears, or party associations, were the
grounds of these New England votes. And after what has been said,
I hope it may be forgiven me if I allude to some political opinions and
votes of my own, of very little public importance, certainly, but
which, from the time at which they were given and expressed, may
pass for good witnesses on this occasion.

This government, Mr. President, from its origin to the peace of
1815, had been too much engrossed with various other important con-
cerns to be able to turn its thoughts inward, and look to the develop-
ment of its vast internal resources. In the early part Of President
Washington's administration, it was fully occupied with organizing the
government, providing for the public debt, defending the frontiers/
and maintaining domestic peace. Before the termination of that ad-.
ministration, the fires of the French revolution blazed forth, as from a
new-opened volcano, and the whole breadth of the ocean did not en-
tirely secure us from its effects. The smoke and the cinders reached'
us, though not the burning lava. Difficult and agitating questions,
embarrassing to government, and dividing public opinion, sprung out'
of the new state of our foreign relations, and were succeeded by
others, and yet again by others, equally embarrassing, and equallvp
exciting division and discord, through the long series of twenty years,
till they finally issued in the war with England. Down to the cios-Y
of that war, no distinct, marked, and deliberate attention had been.
given, or could have been given, to the internal condition of the coun-
try, its capacities of improvement, or the constitutional power of the-
government, in regard to objects connected with such improvement.

The peace, Mr. President, brought about an entirely new and a
most interesting state of things; it opened to us other prospects, an i
suggested other duties; we ourselves were changed, and the whole
world was changed. The pacification of Europe, after June, 1S15,

DAXIEL WEBSTER. 243

assumed a firm and permanent aspect. The nations evidently mani-
fested that they were disposed for peace; some agitation of the waves
might be expected, even after the storm had subsided; but the ten-
dency was, strongly and rapidly, towards settled repose.

It so happened, sir, that I was at that time a member of Congress, and,
like others, naturally turned my attention to the contemplation of the
newly-altered condition of the country, and of the world. It appeared
plainly enough to me, as well as to wiser and more experienced men,
that the policy of the government would necessarily take a start in a
new direction; because new directions would necessarily be given to
the pursuits and occupations of the people. We had pushed our com-
merce far and fast, under the advantage of a neutral flag. But there
were now no longer flags, either neutral or belligerent. The harvest
of neutrality had been great, but we had gathered it all. With the
peace of Europe, it was obvious there would spring up, in her circle of
nations, a revived and invigorated spirit of trade, and a new activity
in all the business and objects of civilized life. Hereafter, our com-
mercial gains were to be earned only by success in a close and intense
competition. Other nations would produce for themselves, and carry
for themselves, and manufacture for themselves, to the full extent of
their abilities. The crops of our plains would no longer sustain Euro-
pean armies, nor our ships longer supply those whom war had ren-
dered unable to supply themselves. It was obvious, that, under
these circumstances, the country would begin to survey itself, and to
estimate its own capacity of improvement. And this improvement,
how was it to be accomplished, and who was to accomplish it ?

We were ten or twelve millions of people, spread over almost half
a world. We were twenty-four states, some stretching along the
same seaboard, some along the same line of inland frontier, and
others on opposite banks of the same vast rivers. Two considera-
tions at once presented themselves, in looking at this state of things,
with great force. One was, that that great branch of improvement,
which consisted in furnishing new facilities of intercourse, necessarily
ran into different states, in every leading instance, and would benefit
the citizens of all such states. No one state, therefore, in such cases,
would assume the whole expense, nor was the co-operation of several
states to be expected. Take the instance of the Delaware Breakwater.
It will cost several millions of money. Would Pennsylvania alone
have ever constructed it? Certainly never, while this Union lasts,
because it is not for her sole benefit, Would Pennsylvania, New
Jersey, and Delaware have united to accomplish it, at their joint ex-
pense? Certainly not, for the same reason. It could not be done,
therefore, but by the general government. The same may be said of
the large inland undertakings, except that, in them, government, in-
stead of bearing the whole expense, co-operates with others who bear
apart. The other consideration is, that the United States have the

244 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

means. They enjoy the revenues derived from commerce, and the
states have no abundant and easy sources of public income. The
custom houses fill the general treasury, while the states have scanty
resources, except by resort to heavy direct taxes.

Under this view of things, I thought it necessary to settle, at least for
myself, some definite notions, with respect to the powers of govern-
ment, in regard to internal affairs. It may not savor too much of self-com-
mendation to remark, that, with this object, I considered the constitu-
tion, its judicial construction, its contemporaneous exposition, and the
whole history of the legislation of Congress under it ; and I arrived at the
conclusion that government has power to accomplish sundry objects, or
aid in their accomplishments, which are now commonly spoken of as In-
ternal Improvements. That conclusion, sir, may have been right, or it
may have been wrong I am not about to argue the grounds of it at large.
I say only that it adopted, and acted on, even so early as in r8i6. Yes,,
Mr. President, I made up my opinion, and determined on my intended
course of political conduct on these subjects, in the 14th Congress, in
1-8 1 6. And now, Mr. President, I have further to say, that I made up
these opinions, and entered on this course of political conduct, Teucro
diice. Yes, sir, I pursued, in all this, a South Carolina track. On the
doctrines of internal improvement, South Carolina, as she was then
represented in the other house, set forth, in 1816, under a fresh and
leading breeze; and I was among the followers. But if my leader-
sees new lights, and turns a sharp corner, unless I see new lights
also, I keep straight on in the same path. I repeat, that leading gen-
tlemen from South Carolina were first and foremost in behalf of the
doctrines of internal improvements, when those doctrines first came
to be considered and acted upon in Congress. The debate on the
bank question, on the tariff of 1816, and on the direct tax will show
who was who, and what was what, at that time. The tariff of 1816,
one of the plain cases of oppression and usurpation, from which, if
the government does not recede, individual states may justly secede
from the government, is, sir, in truth, a South Carolina tariff, sup
ported by South Carolina votes. But for those votes, it could not
have passed in the form in which it did pass; whereas, if it had de^
pended on Massachusetts votes, it would have been lost. Does not
the honorable gentleman well know all this? There are certainly
those who do full well know it all. I do not say this to reproach
South Carolina; I only state the fact, and I think it will appear to be
true, that among the earliest and boldest advocates of the tariff, as a
measure of protection, and on the express ground of protection, v>ere
leading gentlemen of South Carolina in Congress. I did not then, and
cannot now, understand their language in any other sense. Whil : this
tariff of 1 8 16 was under discussion in the House of Representatives,
an honorable gentleman from Georgia, now of this house (Mr. For-
syth), moved to reduce the proposed duty on cotton. He failed by

DANIEL WEBSTER. 245

four votes, South Carolina giving three votes (enough to have turned
the scale) against his motion. The act, sir, then passed, and received
on its passage the support of a majority of the representatives of South
Carolina present and voting. This act is the first, in the order of
those now denounced as plain usurpations. We see it daily in the list
by the side of those of 1824 and 1828, as a case of manifest oppres-
sion, justifying dis-union. I put it home to the honorable member
from South Carolina, that his own state was not only "art and part"
in this measure, but the causa causans. Without her aid, this seminal
principle of mischief, this root of upas, could not have been planted.
I have already said — and it is true — that this act proceeded on the
ground of protection. It interfered directly with existing interests of
great value and amount. It cut up the Calcutta cotton trade by the
roots. But it passed, nevertheless, and it passed on the principle of
protecting manufacturers, on the principle against free trade, on the
principle opposed to that which lets us alone.

Such, Mr. President, were the opinions of important and leading
gentlemen of South Carolina, on the subject of internal improvement,
in 1816. I went out of Congress the next year, and returning again
in 1823, thought I found South Carolina where I had left her. I really
supposed that all things remained as they were, and that the South
Carolina doctrine of internal improvements would be defended by the
same eloquent voices and the same strong arms, as formerly. In the
lapse of these six years, it is true, political associations had assumed
a new aspect and new divisions. A party had arisen in the south,
hostile to the doctrine of internal improvements, and had vigorously
attacked that doctrine. Anti-consolidation was the flag under which
this party fought, and its supporters inveighed against internal im-
provements, much after the same manner in which the honorable gen-
tleman has now inveighed against them, as part and parcel of the
system of consolidation.

Whether this party arose in South Carolina herself, or in her neigh-
borhood, is more than I know. I think the latter. However that
may have been, there were those found in South Carolina ready to
make war upon it, and who did make intrepid war upon it. Names
being regarded as things, in such controversies, they bestowed on the
antuimprovement gentlemen the appellation of radicals. Yes, sir,
the name of radicals, as a term of distinction, applicable and app!:ed
to those who denied the liberal doctrines of internal improvements,
originated, according to the best of my recollection, somewhere be-
tween North Carolina and Georgia. Well, sir, those mischievous
radicals were to be put down, and the strong arm of South Carolina
was stretched out to put them down. About this time, sir, I returned
to Congress. The battle with the radicals had been fought, and our
South Carolina champions of the doctrines of internal improvement
had nobly maintained their ground, and were understood to have

246 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

achieved a victory. They had driven back the enemy with discomfit-
ure; a thing, by the way, sir, which is not always performed when it
is promised. A gentleman, to whom I have already referred in this
debate, had come into Congress, during my absence from it, from
South Carolina, and had brought with him a high reputation for
ability. He came from a school with which we had been acquainted,
et noscitwr a sociis. I hold in my hand, sir, a printed speech of this
distinguished gentleman (Mr. McDuffie) "on internal improvements,"
delivered about the period to which I now refer, and printed with a
few introductory remarks upon consolidation; in which, sir, I think
he quite consolidated the arguments of his opponents, the radicals, if
to crush be to consolidate. I give you a short but substantive quota-
tion from these remarks. He is speaking of a pamphlet, then recently
published, entitled " Consolidation;" and having alluded to the ques-
tion of rechartering the former bank of the United States, he says,

Moreover, in the early history of parties, and when Mr. Crawford
advocated the renewal of the old charter, it was considered a federal
measure; which internal improvement never was, as this author erro-
neously states. This latter measure originated in the administration
of Mr. Jefferson, with the appropriation for the Cumberland road;
and was first proposed, as a system, by Mr. Calhoun, and carried
through the House of Representatives by a large majority of the re-
publicans, including almost every one of the leading men who carried
us through the late war."

So then, internal improvement is not one of the federal heresies.

One paragraph more, sir.

"The author in question, not content with denouncing as federal-
ists General Jackson, Mr. Adams, Mr. Calhoun, and the majority of
the South Carolina delegation in Congress, modestly extends the de-
nunciation to Mr. Monroe and the whole republican party. Here are
his words: 'During the administration of Mr. Monroe, much has
passed which the republican party would be glad to approve, if they
could! But the principal feature, and that which has chiefly elicited
these observations, is the renewal of the system of internal improve-
ments.' Now, this measure was adopted by a vote of 115 to 86, of a
republican Congress, and sanctioned by a republican president.
Who, then, is this author, who assumes the high prerogative of de-
nouncing, in the name of the republican party, the republican admin-
istration of the country — a denunciation including within its sweep
Calhoun, Lowndes, and Cheves; men. who will be regarded as the
brightest ornaments of South Carolina, and the strongest pillars of
the republican party, as long as the late war shall be remembered, and
talents and patriotism shall be regarded as the proper objects of the
admiration and gratitude of a free people!"

Such are the opinions, sir, which were maintained by South Caro-
lina gentlemen in the House of Representatives on the subject of in-

DANIEL WEBSTER. 247

ternal improvement, when I took my seat there as a member frorn
Massachusetts, in 1823. But this is not all; we had a bill before us,
and passed it in tMat house, entitled " An act to procure the necessary
surveys, plans, and estimates upon the subject of roads and canals."
It authorizes the president to cause surveys and estimates to be made
of the routes of such roads and canals as he might deem of national
importance in a commercial or military point of view, or for the trans-
portation of the mail; and appropriated thirty thousand dollars out of
the treasury to defray the expense. This act, though preliminary in
its nature, covered the -whole ground. It took for granted the com-
plete power of internal improvement, as far as any of its advocates
had ever contended for it. Having passed the other house, the bill
carrie up to the Senate, and was here considered and debated in April,
1824. The honorable member from South Carolina was a member of
the Senate at that time. While the bill was under consideration here,
a motion was made to add the following proviso: —

-" Provided, That nothing herein contained shall be construed to
affirm or admit a power in Congress, on their own authority, to make
roads or canals within any of the states of the Union."'

The yeas and nays were taken on this proviso, and the honorable
member voted in the negative. The proviso failed.

A motion was then made to add this provision, viz.:: —

" Provided, That the faith of the United States is hereby pledged,
that no money shall ever be expended for roads or canals, except it
shall b>e among the several states, and in the same proportion as
direct taxes are laid and assessed by the provisions of the constitu-
tion."

The honorable member voted against this proviso also, and it
failed.

' The bill was then put on its passage, and the honorable member
voted for it, and it passed, and became a law.

Now, it strikes me, sir, that there is no maintaining these votes but
upon the power of internal improvement, in its broadest sense. In
truth, these bills for surveys and estimates have always been con-
sidered as test questions. They show Who is for and who against in-
ternal improvement. This law itself went the whole length, and
assumed the full and complete power. The gentleman's votes sus-
tained that power, in every form in which the various propositions tc
amend presented it. He went for the entire and unrestrained au-
thority, without consulting the states, and without agreeing to any
^proportionate distribution. And now, suffer me to remind you, Mr.
President, that it is this very same power, thus sanctioned, in every
form, by the gentleman's own opinion, that is so plain and manifest
a usurpation, that the state of South Carolina is supposed to be justi-
fied in refusing submission to any laws carrying the power into effect.
Truly, sir, is not this a little too hard?' May wc not crave some
A. A— 9.

2 4s AMEAICAX rATKlOTJSM.

mercy, under favor and protection of the gentleman's own authority ?
Admitting that a road or a canal must be written down flat usurpation
as ever was committed, may we find no mitigation in our respect for
his place, and his vote, as one that knows the law ?

The tariff which South Carolina had an efficient hand in establishing
in 1S16, and this asserted power of internal improvement, — advanced
by her in the same year, and, as we have now seen, approved and
sanctioned by her representatives in 1S24, — these two measures are the
great grounds on which she is now thought to be justified in breaking
up the Union, if she sees fit to break it up.

I may now safely say, I think, that we have had the authority of
leading and distinguished gentlemen from South Carolina in support
of the doctrine of internal improvement. I repeat, that, up to 1S24, I,
for one, followed South Carolina; but when that star in its ascension
veered off in an unexpected direction, I relied on its light no longer.
[Here the Vice President said, does the chair understand the gentle-
man from Massachusetts to say that the person now occupying the
chair of the Senate has changed his opinions on the subject of internal
improvements?] From nothing ever said to me, sir, have I had rea-
son to know of any change in the opinions of the person filling the
chair of the Senate. If such change has taken place, I regret it; I
speak generally of the State of South Carolina. Individuals we know
there are who hold opinions favorable to the power. An application
for its exercise in behalf of a public work in South Carolina itself is
now pending, I believe, in the other house, presented by members
from that state.

I have thus, sir, perhaps not without some tediousness of detail,
shown that, if I am in error on the subject of internal improvements,
how and in what company I fell into that error. If I am wrong, it is
apparent who misled me.

I go to other remarks of the honorable member — and I have to com-
plain of an entire misapprehension of what I said on the subject of the
national debt — though I can hardly perceive how any one could mis-
understand me. What I said was, not that I wished to put off the
payment of the debt, but, on the contrary, that I had always voted for
every measure for its reduction, as uniformly as the gentleman him-
self. He seems to claim the exclusive merit of a disposition to reduce
the public charge; 1 do not allow it to him. As a debt, I was, I am, for
paying it; because it is a charge on our finances, and on the industry
of the country. But I observed that I thought I perceived a morbid
fervor on that subject; an excessive anxiety to pay off the debt; not so
much because it is a debt simply, as because, while it lasts, it furnishes
one objection to disunion. It is a tie of common interest while it
lasts. I did not impute such motive, to the honorable member him-
self; but that there is such a feeling in existence I have not a particle
of doubt. The most I said was, that if one effect of the debt was to

DAXIEL WEIL ;;/..'. 249

strengthen our Union, that effect itself was not regretted by me, how-
ever much others might regret it. The gentleman has not seen how
to reply to this otherwise than by supposing me to have advanced the
doctrine that a national debt is a national blessing. Others, I must
hope, will find less difficulty in understanding me. I distinctly and
pointedly cautioned the honorable member not to understand me as
expressing an opinion favorable to the continuance of the debt. I
repeated this caution, and repeated it -more than once — but it was
thrown away.

On yet another point I was still more unaccountably misunderstood.
The gentleman had harangued against ''consolidation." I told him,
in reply, that there was one kind of consolidation to which . I was at-
tached, and that was, the consolidation of our Union; and that this was
precisely that consolidation to which I feared others were not attached;
that such consolidation was the very end of the constitution — the lead-
ing object, as they had informed us themselves, which its framers had
kept in view. I turned to their communication, and read their very
words, — "the consolidation of the Union," — and expressed my devotion
to this sort of consolidation. I said in terms that I wished not, in the
slightest degree, to augment the powers of this government; that my
object was to preserve, not to enlarge; and that, by consolidating the
Union, I understood no more than the strengthening of the Union
and perpetuating it. Having been thus explicit; having thus read, from
the printed book, the precise words which I adopted, as expressing
my own sentiments, it passes comprehension, how any man could
understand me as contending for an extension of the powers of the
government, or. for consolida ion in that odious sense in which it
means an accumulation, in the federal government, of the power
properly belonging to the states.

I repeat, sir, that, in adopting the sentiments of the framers of the
constitution, I read their language audibly, and word for word; and I
pointed out the distinction, just as fully as I have now done, between
the consolidation of the Union and that other obnoxious consolidation
which I disclaimed: and yet the honorable gentleman misunderstood
me. The gentleman had said that he wished for no fixed revenue —
not a shilling. If, by a word, he could convert the Capitol into gold,
he would not do it. Why all this fear of revenue ? Why, sir, because,
as the gentleman told us, it tends to consolidation. Now, this can
mean neither more nor less than that a common revenue is a common
interest, and that all common interests tend to hold the union of the
states together. I confess I like that tendency; if the gentleman dis-
likes it, he is right in deprecating a shilling's fixed revenue. So much,
sir, for consolidation.

As well as I recollect the course of his remarks, the honorable
gentleman next recurred to the subject of the tariff. He did not
doubt the word must be of unpleasant sound to me, and proceeded,

250 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

with an effort neither new nor attended with new success, to involve
me and my votes in inconsistency and contradiction. I am happy
the honorable gentleman has furnished me an opportunity of a timely
remark or two on that subject. I was glad he approached it, for it
is a question I enter upon without fear from any body The strenuous
toil of the gentleman has been to raise an inconsistency between my
dissent to the tariff in 1824 and my vote in 1828. It is labor lost. He
pays undeserved compliment to my speech in 1824; but this is to rai.se
me high that my fall, as he would have it, in 1828 may be the more
signal. Sir, there was no fall at all. Between the ground I stood on
in 1S24 and that I took in 1828, there was not only no precipice, but
no declivity. It was a change of position, to meet new circumstances,
but on the same level. A plain tale explains the whole matter. In
1 8 16, I had not acquiesced in the tariff, then supported by South
Carolina. To some parts of it, especially, I felt and expressed great
repugnance, I held the same opinions in 1821, at the meeting in
Faneuil Hall, to which the gentleman has alluded. I said then, and
say now, that, as an original question, the authority of Congress to
exercise the revenue power, with direct reference to the protection of
manufactures, is a queslio 1 Able authority, far more questionable, in
my judgment, than the power of internal improvements. I must con-
fess, sir, that, in one respect, some impression has been made on my
opinions lately. Mr. Madison's publication has put the power in a
very strong light. He has placed it, I must acknowledge, upon grounds
of construction and argument which seem impregnable. But, even if
the power were doubtful, on the face of the constitution itself, it had
been assumed and asserted in the first revenue law ever passed under
the same constitution; and. on this ground, as a matter settled by
contemporaneous practice, I had refrained from expressing the opinion
that the tariff laws transcended, constitutional limits, as the gentleman
supposes. What I did say at Faneuii Hall, as far as I now remember,
was, that this was originally matter of doubtful construction. The
gentleman himself, I suppose, thinks there is no doubt about it, and
that the laws are plainly against the constitution. Mr. Madison's
letters, already referred to, contain, in my judgment, by far the most
able exposition extant of this part of the constitution. He has satis-
fied me, so far as the practice of the government had left it an open
question.

With a great majority of the representatives of Massachusetts, I
voted against the tariff of 1824. My reasons were then given, ant
will not now repeat them. But notwithstanding our dissent, the great
states of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Kentucky went for
the bill, in almost unbroken column, and it passed. Congress an<
the President sanctioned it, and it became the lav/ of the land. What,
then, were we to do ? Our only option was either to fall in with this
settled course of public policy, and to accommodate ourselves to it

DANIEL WEBSTER. 251

well as we could, or to embrace the South Carolina doctrine, and talk
of nullifying the statute by state interference.

This last alternative did not suit our principles, and of course, we
adopted the former. In 1827, the subject came again before Con~
gress, on a proposition favorable to wool and woollens. We looked
upon the system of protection as being fixed and settled. The law of
1824 remained. It had gone into full operation, and in regard to
some objects intended by it, perhaps most of them, had produced all
its expected effects. No man proposed to repeal it — no man attempted
to renew the general contest on its principle. But, owing to subse-
quent and unforeseen occurrences, the benefit intended by it to wool
and woollen fabrics had not been realized. Events, not known here
when the iaw passed, had taken place, which defeated its object in
that particular respect. A measure was accordingly brought forward
to meet this precise deficiency, to remedy this particular defect. It
was limited to wool and woollens. Was ever anything more reason-
able ? If the policy of the tariff laws had become established in prin-
ciple as the permanent policy of the government, should they not be
revised and amended, and made equal, like other laws, as exigencies
should arise, or justice require? Because we had doubted about
adopting the system, were we to refuse to cure its manifest defects,
after it became adopted, and when no one attempted its repeal ? And
this, sir, is the inconsistency so much bruited. I had voted against
the tariff of 1824 — but it passed; and in 1827 and 1S2S, I voted to
amend it in a point essential to the interest of my constituents.
Where is the inconsistency ? Could I do otherwise ?

Sir, does political consistency consist in always giving negative
votes ? Does it require of a public "man to refuse to concur in amending
laws because they passed against his consent ? Having voted against
the tariff originally, does consistency demand that I should do all in
my power to maintain an unequal tariff, burdensome to my own con-
stituents, in many respects, —favorable in none? To consistency of
that sort I lay no claim; and there is another sort to which I lay as
little — and that is, a kind of consistency by which persons feel them-
selves as much bound to oppose a proposition after it has become the
law of the land as before.

The bill of 1827, limited, as I have said, to the single object in
which the tariff of 1824 had manifestly failed in its effect, passed the
House of Representatives, but was lost here. We had then the act of
1828. I need not recur to the history of a measure so recent. Its
enemies spiced it with whatsoever they thought would render it distaste-
ful ; its friends took it, drugged as it was. Vast amounts of property,
many millions, had been invested in manufactures, under the induce-
ments of the act of 1824. Events called loudly, as I thought, for
further regulations to secure the degree of protection intended by that
act. I was disposed to vote for such regulations, and desired nothing

252 AMERICA X PATRIOTISM,

more ; but certainly was not to be bantered out of my purpose by a
threatened augmentation of duty on -molasses, put into the bill for the
avowed purpose of making it obnoxious. The vote may have been
righi or wrong, wise or unwise, but it is little less than absurd to
allege against it an inconsistency with opposition to the former law.

Sir, as to the general subject of the tariff, I have little now to say.
Another opportunity may be presented. I remarked, the other day,
that this policy did not begin with us in New England ; and yet, sir,
New England is charged with vehemence as being favorable, or
charged with equal vehemence as being unfavorable, to the tariff
policy, just as best suits the time, place, and occasion for making
some charge against her. The credulity of the public has been put to
its extreme capacity of false impression relative to her conduct in this
particular. Through all the south, during the late contest, it was New
England policy, and a New England administration, that was afflicting
the country with a tariff policy beyond all endurance, while on the
other side of the Alleghany, eyen the act of 1828 itself — the very sub-
limated essence of oppression, according to southern opinions — was
pronounced to be one of those blessings for which the west was indebted
to the " generous south. "

With large investments in manufacturing establishments, and vari-
ous interests connected with and dependent on them, it is not to be
expected that New England, any more than other portions of the
country will now consent to any measure destructive or highly
dangerous. The duty of the government, at the present moment,
would seem to be to preserve, not to destroy ; to maintain the
position which it has assumed ; and for one, I shall feel it an indis-
pensable obligation to hold it steady, as far as in my power, to that
degree of protection which it has undertaken to bestow. No more of
the tariff.

Professing to be provoked by what he chose to consider a charge
made by me against South Carolina, the honorable memoer, Mr.
President, has taken up a new crusade against New England. Leav-
ing altogether the subject of the public lands, in which his success
perhaps, had been neither distinguished nor satisfactory, and letting
go, also, of the topic of the tariff, he sallied forth in a general assault
on the opinions, politics, and parties of New England, as they have
been exhibited in the last thirty years. This is natural. The
"narrow policy" of the public lands had proved a legal settlement in
South Carolina, and was not to be removed. The "accursed policy"
of the tariff, also, had established the fact of its birth and parentage
in the same state. No wonder, therefore, the gentleman wished to
carry the war. as he expressed it, into the enemy's country. Pru-
dently willing tc quit these subjects, he was doubtless desirous of
fastening others, which could not be transferred south of Mason and
Dixon's line. The politics of New England became his theme ; and

DANIEL WEBSTER. 253

it was in this part of his speech, I think, that he menaced me with
such sore discomfiture.

Discomfiture ! why, sir, when he attacks any thing which I main-
tain, and overthrows it; when he turns the right or left of any position
which I take up; when he drives me from any ground I choose to oc-
cupy, he may then talk of discomfiture, but not till that distant day.
What has he done? Has he maintained his own charge? Has he
proved what he alleged? Has he sustained himself in his attack on
the government, and on the history of the north, in the matter of the
public lands? Has he disproved a fact, refuted a proposition, weak-
ened an argument maintained by me? Has ha come within beat of
drum of any position of mine ? O, no ; but he has " carried the war
into the enemy's country !-" Carried the war into the enemy's coun-
try! Yes, sir, and what sort of a war has he made of it? Why, sir,
he has stretched a drag net over the whole surface of perished pamph-
lets, indiscreet sermons, frothy paragraphs, and fuming popular ad-
dresses; over whatever the pulpit in its moments of alarm, the press
in its heats, and parties in their extravagance, have severally thrown
off, in times of general excitement and violence. He has thus swept
together a mass of such things, as, but that they are now old, the pub-
lic health would have required him rather to leave in their state of dis-
persion.

For a good long hour or two, we had the unbroken pleasure of list-
ening to the honorable member, while he recited, with his usual grace
and spirit, and with evident high gusto, speeches, pamphlets, ad-
dresses, and all the et ceteras of the political press, such as warm heads
produce in warm times, and such as it would be " discomfiture" in-
deed for any one, whose taste did not delight in that sort of reading,
to be obliged to peruse. This is his war. This is to carry the war
into the enemy's country. It is in an invasion of this sort that he flat-
ters himself with the expectation of gaining laurels fit to adorn a sen-
ator's brow.

Mr. President, I shall not, it will, I trust, not be expected that I
should, either now or at any time, separate this farrago into parts;
and answer and examine its components. I shall hardly bestow upon
it all a general remark or two. In the run of forty years, sir, under
this constitution, we have experienced sundry successive violent party
contests. Party arose, indeed, with the constitution itself, and in
some form or other has attended through the greater part of its history.

Whether any other constitution than the old articles of confedera-
tion was desirable was, itself, a question on which parties formed, if
a new constitution was framed, what powers should be given to it was
another question: and when it had been formed, what was, in fact, the
just extent of the powers actually conferred, was a third. Parties, as
we know, existed under the first administration, as distinctly marked
as those which manifested themselves at any subsequent period.

2$4 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

The contest immediately preceding the political change in 1801. and
that again, which existed at the commencement of the late war, are
other instances of party excitement, of something more than usual
strength and intensity. In all these conflicts there was, no doubt,
much of violence on both and all sides. It would be impossible, if
one had a fancy for such employment; to adjust the relative q-aaniiim
of violence between these two contending parties. There was enough
in each, as must always be expected in popular governments. With a
great deal of proper and decorous discussion there was mingled a great
deal, also, of declamation, virulence, crimination and abuse.

In regard to any party, probably, at one of the leading epochs in
the history of parties, enough may be found to make out another
equally inflamed exhibition, as that with which the honorable mem-
ber has edified us. For myself, sir, I shall not rake among the rub-
bish of by -gone times to see what I can find, or whether I cannot find
something by which I can fix a blot on the escutcheon of any state,
any party, or any part of the country. General Washington's admin-
istration was steadily and zealously maintained, as we all know, by
New England. It was violently opposed elsewhere. We know in
what quarter he had the most earnest, constant, and persevering sup-
port, in all his great and leading measures. We know where his pri-
vate and personal character was held in the highest degree of attach-
ment and veneration, and we know, too, where his measures were
opposed, his services slighted, and his character vilified.

We know, or we might know, if we turn to the journals, who ex-
pressed respect, gratitude, and regret, when he retired from the chief
magistracy; and who refused to express either respect, gratitude, or
regret. I shall not open those journals. Publications more abusive
or scurrilous never saw the light than were sent forth against Wash-
ington, and all his leading measures, from presses south of New En-
gland: but I shall not look them up. I employ no scavengers — no
one is in attendance on me, tendering such means of retaliation; and
if there were, with an ass's load of them, with a bulk as huge as that
which the gentleman himself has produced, I would not touch one of
them. I see enough of the violence of our own times to be no way
anxious to rescue from forgetfulness the extravagances of times past.
Besides, what is all this to the present purpose? It has nothing to do
with the public lands, in regard to which the attack was begun; and it
has nothing to with those sentiments and opinions, which I have
thought tend to disunion, and all of which the honorable member
sedffis to have adopted himself, and undertaken to defend. New
En/land has, at times, — so argues the gentleman, — held opinions as
dangerous as those which he now holds. Be it so. But why, there-
fore, does he abuse New England? If he finds himself countenanced
by acts of hers, how is it that, while he relies on these acts, he covers,
or seeks to cover their authors with reproach?

DANIEL WEBSTER. 255

But, sir, if, in the course of forty years, there have been undue effer-
vescences of party in New England, has the same thing happened no-
where else? Party animosity and party outrage, not in New England,
but elsewhere, denounced President Washington, not only as a fed-
ralist, but as a tory, a British agent, a man who, in his high oflice,
sanctioned corruption. But does the honorable member suppose that,
if I had a tender here, who should put such an effusion of wickedness
and folly in my hand, that I would stand up and read it against the
south? Parties ran into great heats, again, in 1799 and 1S00. What
was said, sir, or rather what was not said, in those years, against John
Adams, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and
its admitted ablest defender on the floor of Congress? If the gentle-
man wants to increase his stores of party abuse and frothy violence,
if he has a determined proclivity to such pursuits, there are treasures
of that sort south of the Potomac, much to his taste, yet untouched. I
shall not touch them.

The parties which divided the country, at the commencement of the
late war, were violent. But, then, there was violence on both sides,
and violence in every state. Minorities and majorities were equally
violent. There was no more violence against the war in New Eng-
land than in other states; nor any more appearance of violence, ex-
cept that, owing to a dense population, greater facility for assembling,
and more presses, there may have been more, in quantity, spoken
and printed there than in some other places. In the article of ser-
mons, too, New England is somewhat ' more abundant than South
Carolina; and for that reason, the chance of finding here and there
an exceptionable one may be greater. I hope, too, there are more
good ones. Opposition may have been more formidable in New
England, as it embraced a larger portion of the whole population;
but it was no more unrestrained in its principle, or violent in manner.
The minorities dealt quite as harshly with their own state govern-
ments as the majorities dealt with the administration here. There
were presses on both sides, popular meetings on both sides — ay, and
pulpits on both sides also. The gentleman's purveyors have only
catered for him among the productions of one side. I certainly shall
not supply the deficiency by furnishing samples of the other. I leave
to him, and to them, the whole concern.

It is enough for me to say that if, in any part of this, their grateful
occupation — if in all their researches — they find anything in the his-
tory of Massachusetts, or New England, or in the proceedings of any
legislative or other public body, disloyal to the Union, speaking
slightly of its value, proposing to break it up, or recommending non-
intercourse with neighboring states, on account of difference of politi-
cal opinion, then, sir, I give them all up to the honorable gentleman's
unrestrained rebuke, expecting, however, that he will extend his buf-
fetings, in like manner, to all similar proceedings, wherever else found.

256 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

The gentleman, sir, has spoken at large of former parties, now no
longer in being, by their received appellations, and has undertaken to
instruct us, not only in the knowledge of their principles, but of their
respective pedigrees also. He has ascended to their origin, and run
out their genealogies. With most exemplary modesty he speaks of
the party to which he professes to have belonged himsalf, as the true,
pure, the only honest, patriotic party, derived by regular descent
from father to son, from the time of the virtuous Romans] Spread-
ing before us the family tree of political parties, he takes especial care
to show himself snugly perched on a popular bough! He is wakeful to
the expediency of adopting such rules of descent, for political parties, as
shall bring him in, in exclusion of others, as an heir to the inheritance
of all public virtue, and all true political principles. His doxy is always
orthodoxy. Heterodoxy is confined to his opponents. He spoke,
sir, of the federalists, and I thought I saw some eyes begin to open
and stare a little when he ventured on that ground. I expected he
would draw his sketches rather lightly when he looked on the circle
round him, and especially if he should cast his thoughts to the high
places out of the Senate. Nevertheless, he went back to Rome, ad
annum urbe condita, and found the fathers of the federalists in the
primeval aristocrats of that renowned empire! He traced the flow of
federal blood down through successive ages and centuries, till he got
into the veins of the American tories (of whom, by the way, there
were twenty in the Carolines for one in Massachusetts). From the
tories he followed it to the federalists; and as the federal party wTas
broken up, and there was no possibility of transmitting it further on
this side of the Atlantic, he seems to have discovered that it has gone
off, collaterally, though against all the canons of descent, into the
ultras of France, and finally became extinguished, like exploded gas,
among the adherents of Don Miguel.

This, sir, is an abstract of the gentleman's history of federalism. I
am not about to controvert it. It is not, at present, worth the pains
of refutation, because, sir, if at this day one feels the sin of federalism
lying heavily on his conscience, he can easily obtain remission. He
may even have an indulgence, if he is desirous of repeating the trans-
gression. It is an affair of no difficulty to get into this same right
line of patriotic descent. A man, nowadays, is at liberty to choose
his political parentage. He may elect his own father. Federalist op
not, he may, if he choose, claim to belong to the favored stock, and
his claim will be allowed. He may carry back his pretensions just as
far as the honorable gentleman himself; nay, he may make himself
oat the honorable gentleman's cousin, and prove satisfactorily that he
is descended from the same political great-grandfather. All this is
allowable. We all know a process, sir, by which the whole Essex
Junto could, in one hour, be all washed white from their ancient
federalism, and come out, every one of them, an original democrat,

DANIEL WEBSTER. 257

dyed in the woo!! Some of them have actually undergone the opera-
tion, and they say it is quite easy. The only inconvenience it occa-
sions, as they tell us, is a slight tendency of the blood to the face, a
soft suffusion, which, however, is very transient, since nothing is said
calculated to deepen the red on the cheek, but a prudent silence ob-
served in regard to allthe past. Indeed, sir, some smiles of approba-
tion have been bestowed, and some crumbs of comfort have fallen,
not a thousand miles from the door of the Hartford Convention itself.
And if the author of the Ordinance of 1787 possessed the other requis-
ite qualifications, there is no knowing, notwithstanding his federalism,
to what heights of favor he might not yet attain.

Mr. President, in carrying his warfare, such as it was, into New
England, the honorable gentleman all along professes to be acting on
the defensive. He desires to consider me as having assailed South
Carolina, and insists that he comes forth only as her champion, and
in her defence. Sir, I do not admit that I made any attack whatever
on South Carolina. Nothing like it. The honorable member, in his
first speech, expressed opinions in regard to revenue, and some other
topics, which I heard both with pain and surprise. I told the gentle-
man that I was aware that such sentiments were entertained out of
the government, but had not expected to find them advanced hi it:
that I knew there were persons in the south who speak of our Union
with indifference, or doubt, taking pains to magnify its evils, and to
say nothing of its benefits; that the honorable member himself, I was
sure, could never be one of these; and I regretted the expression of
such opinions as he had avowed, because I thought their obvious ten-
dency was to encourage feelings of disrespect to the Union, and to
weaken its connection. This, sir, is the sum and substance of all I
said on the subject. And this constitutes the attack which called on
the chivalry of the gentleman, in his opinion, to harry us with such a
forage among the party pamphlets and party proceedings of • Massa-
chusetts. If he means that I spoke with dissatisfaction or disrespect,
of the ebullitions of individuals in South Carolina, it is true. But, if
he means that I had assailed the character of the state, her honor or
patriotism, that I had reflected on her history or her conduct, he had
not the slightest ground for any such assumption. I did not even
refer, I think, in my observations, to any collection of individuals. I
said nothing of the recent conventions. I spoke in the most guarded
and careful manner, and only expressed my regret for the publication
of opinions which I presumed the honorable member disapproved as
much as myself. In this, it seems, I was mistaken.

I do not remember that the gentleman has disclaimed any senti-
ment, or any opinion, of a supposed anti-Union tendency, which on
all or any of the recent occasions has been expressed. The whole
Jrift of his speech has been rather to prove, that, in divers times and
manners, sentiments equally liable to objection have been promul-

258 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

gated in New England. And one would suppose that his object, in
this reference to Massachusetts, was to find a precedent to justify
proceedings in the south,; were it- not for the reproach and contumely
with which he labors, all along, to load his precedents.

By way of defending South Carolina from what he chooses to think
an attack on her, he first quotes the example of Massachusetts, and
then denounces that example, in good set terms. This twofold pur-
pose, not very consistent with itself, one would think, was exhibited
more than once in the course of his speech. He referred, for instance,
to the Hartford Convention. Did he do this for authority, or for a
topic of reproach ? Apparently for both; for he told us that he should
find no fault with the mere fact of holding such a convention, and
considering and discussing such questions as he supposes were then
and there discussed; but what rendered it obnoxious was the time it
was holden, and the circumstances of the country then existing. We
were in a war, he said, and the county needed all our aid; the hand
of government required to be strengthened, not weakened; and patri-
otism should have postponed such proceedings to another day. The
thing itself, then, is a precedent; the time and manner of it, only, sub-
ject of censure.

Now, sir, Igo much farther, on this point, than the honorable mem-
ber. Supposing, as the gentleman seems to, that the Hartford Con-
vention assembled for any such purpose as breaking up the Union,
because they thought unconstitutional laws had been passed, or to
core rt on that subject, or to calculate the value of the Union-; sup-
posing this to be their purpose, or any part of it, then I say the meet-
ing itself was disloyal, and obnoxious to censure, whether held in
time of peace, or time of war, or under whatever circumstances. The
materia! matter is the object. Is dissolution the object? If it be, ex-
terna] circumstances may make it a more or less aggravated case, but
cannot affect the principle. I do not hold, therefore, that the Hartford
■ Convention was pardonable, even to the extent of the gentleman's
admission, if its objects were really such as have been imputed to it.
Sir, there never was a time, under any degree of excitement, in which
the Hartford Convention, or any other convention, could maintain it-
self one moment in New England, if assembled for any such purpose
as the gentleman says would have been an allowable purpose. To
hold conventions to decide questions of constitutional law ! — to try
the binding validity of statutes, by votes in a convention ! Sir, the
Hartford Convention, I presume, would not desire that the honorable
gentleman should be their defender or advocate, if he puts their case
upon such untenable and extravagant grounds.

Then, sir, the gentleman has no fault to find with these recently-
promulgated South Carolina opinions. And, certainly, he need have
none; for his own sentiments, as now advanced, and advanced on re-
floction^ as far as I have been able to comprehend them, go the full

DANIEL WEBSTER. 259

length of all these opinions. I propose, sir, to say something on
these, and to consider how far they are just and constitutional. Be-
fore doing that, however, let me observe, that the eulogium pro-
nounced on the character of the state of South Carolina, by the hon-
orable gentleman, for her revolutionary and other merits, meets my
hearty concurrence. I shall not acknowledge that the honorable
member goes before me in regard for whatever of distinguished talent
or distinguished character South Carolina has produced. I claim part
of the honor, I partake in the pride, of her great name. I claim them
for countrymen, one and all. The Laurenses, the Rutledges, the
Pinckneys, the Sumpters, the Marions — Americans all — whose fame
is no more to be hemmed in by state lines than their talents and pat-
riotism were eapable of being circumscribed within the same narrow
limits. In their day and generation, they served and honored the
country, and the whole country ; and their renown is of the treasures
of the whole country. Him whose honored name the gentleman him-
self bears^does he suppose me less capable of gratitude for his patri-
otism, or sympathy for his sufferings, than if his eyes had first opened
upon the light in Massachusetts instead of South Carolina? Sir, does
he suppose it is in his power to exhibit a Carolina name so bright as
to produce envy in my bosom ? No, sir; increased gratification and
delight, rather.

Sir, I thank God that if I am gifted with little of the spirit which is
said to be able to raise mortals to the skies, I have yet none, as I
trust, of that other spirit, which would drag angels down. When I
shaH'be found, sir, in my place here in the Senate, or elsewhere, to
sneer at public merit, because it happened to spring up beyond the
little limits of my own state, or neighborhood; when I refuse, for any
such cause, or for any cause, the homage due to American talent, to
elevated patriotism, to sincere devotion to liberty and the country; or
if I see an uncommon endowment of Heaven, if I see extraordinary
capacity and virtue in any son of the south, and if, moved by local
prejudice, or gangrened by state jealousy, I get up here to abate the
tithe of a hair from his just character and just fame, — may my tongue
cleave to the roof of my mouth ! Sir, let me recur to pleasing recol-
lections; let me indulge in refreshing remembrance of the past; let
me remind you that in early times no states cherished greater har-
mony, both of principle and feeling, than Massachusetts and South
Carolina. Would to God that harmony might again return. Shoulder
to shoulder they went through the revolution; hand in hand they stood
round the administration of Washington, and felt his own great arm
lean on them for support. Unkind feeling, if it exist, alienation, and
distrust are the growth, unnatural to such soils, of false principles
since sown. They are weeds, the seeds of which that same great arm
never scattered.

Mr. President, I shall enter on no encomium upon Massachusetts--

2 6o A M ERICA N PA TRIO IT SAL

she needs none. There she is — behold her, and judge for yourselves.
There is her history — the world knows it by heart. _ The past, at least,
is secure. There is Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker
Hill; and there they will remain forever. The bones of her sons,
fallen in the great struggle for independence, now lie mingled with the
soil of every state from New England to Georgia; and there they will
lie- forever. And, sir, where American liberty raised its first voice,
and where its youth was nurtured and sustained, there it still lives, in
the strength of its manhood, and full of its original spirit. If discord
and disunion shall wound it; if party strife and blind ambition shall
hawk at and tear it; if folly and madness, if uneasiness under salu-
tary and necessary restraint, shall succeed to separate it from that
Union by which alone its existence is made sure, — It will stand, in the
end, by the side of that cradle in which its infancy was rocked; it will
stretch forth its arm, with whatever vigor it may still retain, over the
friends who gather round it; and it will fall at last, if fall it must,
amidst the proudest monuments of its own glory, and on the very spot
of its origin.

There yet remains to be performed, Mr. President, by far the most
grave and important duty which I feel to be devolved on me by this
occasion. It is to state, and to defend, what I conceive to be the true
principles of the constitution under which we are here assembled. I
might well have desired that so weighty a task should have fallen into
other and abler hands. I could have wished that it should have been
executed by those whose character and experience give weight and in-
fluence to their opinions, such as cannot possibly belong to mine. But,
sir, I have met the occasion, not sought it; and I shall proceed to state
my own sentiments, without challenging for them any particular re-
gard, with studied plainness and as much precision as possible,

I understand the honorable gentleman from South Carolina to main-
tain that it is a right of the state legislatures to interfere, whenever,, in
their judgment, this government transcends its constitutional limits,
and to arrest the operation of its laws.

I understand him to maintain this right as a right existing under the
constitution, not as a right to overthrow it, on the ground of extreme
necessity, such as would justify violent revolution.

I understand him to maintain an authority, on the part of the states,
thus to interfere, for the purpose of correcting the exercise of power
by the general government, of checking it, and of compelling it to
conform to their opinion of the extent of its power.

I understand him to maintain that the ultimate power of judging of
the constitutional extent of its own authority is not lodged exclusively in
the general government or any branch of it; but that on the contrary,
the states may lawfully decide for themselves, and each state for itself,
whether, in a given case, the act of the general government transcends
its power. . ... - . _ ... . -

DANIEL WEBSTER. 261

I understand him to insist that, if the exigency of the case, in the
opinion of any state government, require it, such state government
may, by its own sovereign authority, annul an act of the general gov-
ernment which it deems plainly and palpably unconstitutional.

This is the sum of what I understand from him to be the South Caro-
lina doctrine. I propose to consider it, and to compare it with the con-
stitution. Allow me to say, as a preliminary remark, that I call this
the South Carolina doctrine, only because the gentleman himself has
so denominated it. I do not feel at liberty to say that South Carolina,
as a state, has ever advanced these sentiments. I hope she has not,
and never may. That a great majority of her people are opposed to
the tariff laws is doubtless true. That a majority, somewhat less than
that just mentioned, conscientiously believe these laws unconstitution-
al, may probably also be true. But that any majority holds to the
right of direct state interference, at state discretion, the right of nulli-
fying acts of Congress by acts of state legislation, is more than I know,
and what I shall be slow to believe.

That there are individuals, besides the honorable gentleman, who do
maintain these opinions, is quite certain. I recollect the recent ex-
pression of a sentiment which circumstances attending its utterance
and publication justify us in supposing was not unpremeditated— "The
sovereignty of the state; never to be controlled, construed, or decided
on, but by her own feelings of honorable justice."

[Mr. Hayne here rose, and said, that, for the purpose of being
clearly understood, he would state that his proposition was in the words
of the Virginian resolution, as follows. —

" That this Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that
it views the powers of the federal government, as resulting from the
compact to which the states are parties, as limited by the plain sense
and intention of the instrument constituting that compact, as no further
valid than they are authorized by the grants enumerated in that com-
pact; and that, in case of a deliberate, palpable and dangerous exercise
of other powers not granted by the said compact, the states who are
parties thereto have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for
arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining within their
respective limits, the authorities, rights and liberties pertaining to
them."]

Mr. Webster resumed: —

I am quite aware, Mr. President, of the existence of the resolution
which the gentleman read, and has now repeated, and that he relies ou
it as his authority. I know the source, too, from which it is under-
stood to have proceeded. I need not say, that I have much respect
for the constitutional opinions of Mr. Madison ; they would weigh
greatly with me, always. But, before the authority of his opinion be
vouched for the gentleman's proposition, it will be proper to consider
what is the fair interpretation of that resolution, to which Mr. Madi-

262 AMERICA X PATRIOTISM

son is understood to have given his sanction. As the gentleman con-
strues it, it is an authority for him. Possibly he may not have adoptee!
the right construction. That resolution declares, that in the case 81
the dangerous exercise of powers not granted by the general govern-
ment, the states may interpose to arrest the progress of the evil. Bat
how interpose? and what does this declaration purport ? Does it
mean no more than that there maybe extreme cases, in which the peo-
ple, in any mode of assembling, may resist usurpation, and relieve
themselves from a tyrannical government? No one will deny this.
Such resistance is not only acknowledged to be just in America, but
in England also. Blackstone admits as much, in the theory and prac-
tice, too, of the English constitution. We, sir, who oppose the Caro-
lina doctrine, do not deny that the people may, if they choose, throw
off any government, when it becomes oppressive and intolerable, and
erect a better in its stead. We all know that civil institutions are es-
tablished for the public benefit, and that, when they cease to answer
the ends of their existence, they may be changed.

But I do not understand the doctrine now contended for to be that
which, for the sake of distinctness, we may call the right of revolution.
I understand the gentleman to maintain, that without revolution, with-
out civil commotion, without rebellion, a remedy for supposed abuse
and transgression of the powers of the general government lies in a
direct appeal to the interference of the state governments. [Mr.
Hayne here rose: He did not contend, he said, for the mere right of
revolution, but for the right of constitutional resistance. What he
maintained was, that, in case of a plain, palpable violation of the con-
stitution by the general government, a state may interpose; and that
this interposition is constitutional.] Mr. Webster resumed: —

So, sir, I understood the gentleman, and am happy to find that I did
not misunderstand him. What he contends for is, that it is constitu-
tional to interrupt the administration of the Constitution itself, in the
hands of those who are chosen and sworn to administer it, by the
direct interference, in form of law, of the states, in virtue of their sov-
ereign capacity. The inherent right in the people to reform their gov-
ernment I do not deny; and they have another right, and that is, to
resist unconstitutional laws without overturning the government. It
is no doctrine of mine, that unconstitutional laws bind the people.
The great question is. Whose prerogative is it to decide on the consti-
tutionality or unconstitutionality of the laws? On that the main
debate hinges. The proposition that, in case of a supposed violation
of the Constitution by Congress, the states have a constitutional right
to interfere and annul the law of Congress, is the proposition of the
gentleman; I do not admit it. If the gentleman had intended no more
than to assert the right of revolution for justifiable cause, he would
have said only what all agree to. But I cannot conceive that there
can be a middle course between submission to the laws, when regu-

DANIEL WEBSTER. 263

larly pronounced constitutional on the one hand, and open resist-
ance, which is revolution or rebellion, on the other. I say the
right of a state to annul a law of Congress cannot be maintained 1 lit
on the ground of the unalienable right of man to resist oppression ;
that is to say upon the ground of revolution. I admit that there is an
ultimate violent remedy, above the Constitution, and in defiance of
the Constitution, which may be resorted to, when a revolution is to be
justified. But I do not admit that, under the Constitution, and in con-
formity with it, there is any mode in which a state government as a
member of the Union, can interfere and stop the progress of the
general government, by force of her own laws, under any circum-
stances whatever.

This leads us to inquire into the origin of this government, and the
source of its power. Whose agent is it? Is it the creature of the stale
legislatures, or the creature of the people? If the Government of the
United States be the agent of the state governments, then they may
control it, provided they can agree in the manner of controlling it, if
it is the agent of the people, then the people alone can control it,
restrain it, modify or reform it. It is observable enough," that the
doctrine for which the honorable gentleman contends, leads him to the
necessity of maintaining, not only that this general government is the
creature of the states, but that it is the creature of each of the states
severally; so that each may assert the power, for itself, of determining
whether it acts within the limits of its authority. It is the servant of
four and twenty masters, of different wills and different purposes;
and yet bound to obey all. This absurdity (for it seems no less)
arises from a misconception as to the origin of this government, and
its true character. It is, sir, the people's constitution, the people's
government; made for the people; made by the people; and answera-
ble to the people. The people of the United States have declared
that this Constitution shall be the supreme law. We must either admit
the proposition, or dispute their authority. The states are unques-
tionably sovereign, so far as their sovereignty is not affected by this
supreme law. The state legislatures, as political bodies, however
sovereign, are yet not sovereign over the people. So far as the people
have given power to the general government, so for the grant is Un-
questionably good, and the government holds of the people, and not
of the state governments. We are all agents of the same supreme
power, the people. The general government and the state govern-
ments derive their authority from the same source. Neither can, in
relation to the other, be called primary; though one is definite and re-
stricted, and the other general and residuary.

The national government posseses those powers which it can be
shown the people have conferred on it, and no more. All the rest be-
longs to the state governments, or to the people themselves. So far as
the people have restrained state sovereignty by the expression of their

264 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

will, in the Constitution of the United States, so far, it must be ad-
mitted, state sovereignty is effectually controlled. I do not contend
that it is, or ought to be, controlled further, The sentiment to which
I have referred propounds that state sovereignty is only to be con-
trolled by its own "feeling of justice;" that is to say, it is not to be
controlled at all, for one who is to follow his feelings, is under no legal
control. Now, however men may think this ought to be, the fact is, that
the people of the United States have chosen to impose control on
state sovereignties. The Constitution has ordered the matter differ-
ently from what this opinion announces. To make war, for instance,
is an exercise of sovereignty; but the Constitution declares that no
state shall make war. To coin money is another exercise of sovereign
power; but no state is at liberty to coin money. Again: the Consti-
tution says, that no sovereign state shall be so sovereign as to make a
treaty. These prohibitions, it must be confessed, are a control on the
state sovereignty of South Carolina, as. well as of the other states, which
does not arise "from her own feelings of honorable justice." Such
an opinion, therefore, is in defiance of the plainest provisions of the
Constitution.

There are other proceedings of public bodies which have already
been alluded to, and to which I refer again for the purpose of ascer-
taining more fully what is the length and breadth of that doctrinc;
denominated the Carolina doctrine, which the honorable member has
now stood up on this floor to maintain.

In one of them I find it resolved that " the tariff of 1828, and every
other tariff designed to promote one branch of industry at the expense
of others, is contrary to the meaning and intention of the federal com-
pact; and as such, a dangerous, palpable, and deliberate usurpation of
power, by a determined majority, wielding the general government
beyond the limits of its delegated powers, as calls upon the states
which compose the suffering minority, in their sovereign capacity, to
exercise the powers which, as sovereigns, necessarily devolve upon
them, when their compact is violated."

Observe, sir, that this resolution holds the tariff of 1828, and every
other tariff, designed to promote one brench of industry at the expense
of another, to be such a dangerous, palpable, and deliberate usurpa-
tion of power, as calls upon the states, in their sovereign capacity to
interfere by their own power. This denunciation, Mr. President, yc
will please to observe, includes our old tariff of 1816, as well as al
others; because that was established to promote the interest of. tl
manufactures of cotton, to the manifest and admitted injury of the d
cutta cotton trade, Observe, again, that all the qualifications are hei
rehearsed, and charged upon the tariff, which are necessary to brir
the case within the gentleman's proposition. The tariff is a usurps
tion; it is a dangerous usurpation; it is a palpable usurpation; it
a deliberate usurpation. It is such a usurpation as calls upon the

DANIEL WEBSTER. 265

states to exercise their right of interference. Here is a case then,
within the gentleman's principles, and all his qualifications of his
principles. It is a case for action. The Constitution is plainly, dan-
gerously, palpably, and deliberately violated; and the states must in-
terpose their own authority to arrest the law. Let us suppose the state of
South Carolina to express the same opinion, by the voice of her legis-
lature. That would be very imposing; but what then? Is the voice
of one state conclusive? It so happens that, at the very moment
when South Carolina resolves that the tariff laws are unconstitutional,
Pennsylvania and Kentucky resolve exactly the reverse. They hold
those laws to be both highly proper and strictly constitutional. And
now, sir, how does the honorable member propose to deal with this
case? How does he get out of this difficulty, upon any principle of
his? His construction gets us into it; how does he propose to get us
out?

In Carolina, the tariff is a palpable, deliberate usurpation. Caro-
lina, therefore, may nullify it, and refuse to pay the duties. In Penm
sylvania, it is both clearly constitutional and highly expedient; and
there the duties are to be paid. And yet we live under a government
of uniform laws, and under a constitution, too, which contains an ex-
press provision, as it happens, that all duties shall be equal in all the
states! Does not this approach absurdity?

If there be no power to settle such questions, independent of either
of the states, is not the whole Union a rope of sand ? Are we not
thrown back again precisely upon the old confederation?

It is too plain to be argued. Four and twenty interpreters of con-
stitutional law, each with a power to decide for itself, and none with
authority to bind any body else, and this constitutional law the only
bond of their union! What is such a state of things but a mere con-
nection during pleasure, or, to use the phraseology of the times, dur-
ing feeling? And that feeling, too, not the feeling of the people who
established the constitution, but the feeling of the state governments.

In another of the South Carolina addresses, having premised that
the crisis requires "all the concentrated energy of passion," an atti-
tude of open resistance to the laws of the Union is advised. Open
resistance to the laws, then, is the constitutional remedy, the conser-
vative power of the state, which the South Carolina doctrines teach
for the redress of political evils, real or imaginary. And its authors
further say that, appealing with confidence to the constitution itself to
justify their opinions, they cannot consent to try their accuracy by the
courts of justice. In one sense, indeed, sir, this is assuming an atti-
tude of open resistance in favor of liberty. But what sort of liberty?
The liberty of establishing their own opinions, in defiance of the
opinions of all others; the liberty of judging and of deciding exclu-
sively themselves, in a matter in which others have as much right to
judge and decide as they; the liberty of placing their opinions above

266 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

the judgment of all others, above the laws, and above the constitution.
This is their liberty, and this is the fair result of the proposition con-
tended for by the honorable gentleman. Or it may be more properly
said, it is identical with it, rather than a result from it. In the same
publication we find the following: "Previously to our revolution,
when the arm of oppression was stretched over New England, where
did our northern brethern meet with a braver sympathy than that
which sprung from the bosom of Carolinians ? We had no extortion,
no oppression, no collision with the king's ministers, no navigation
interests springing up, in envious rivalry of England."

This seems extraordinary language. South Carolina no Collision
with the king's ministers in 1775! no extortion! no oppression! But,
sir, it is also most significant language. Does any man doubt the
purpose for which it was penned ? Can any one fail to see that it was
designed to raise in the reader's mind the question, whether, at this
time, — that is to say, in 1828 — South Carolina has any collision with
the king's ministers, any oppression, or extortion, to fear from Eng-
land? whether, in short, England is not as naturally the friend of
South Carolina as New England, with her navigation interests spring-
ing up in envious rivalry of England ?

Is it not strange, sir, that an intelligent man in South Carolina, in
1828, should thus labor to prove, that, in 1775, there was no hostility,
no cause of war, between South Carolina and England ? that she had
no occasion, in reference to her own interest, or from a regard to her
own welfare, to take up arms in the revolutionary contest? Can any
one account for the expression of such strange sentiments, and their
circulation through the state, otherwise than by supposing the object
to be, what I have already intimated, to raise the question, if they had
no "collision" (mark the expression) with the ministers of King ■
George the Third, in 1775, what collision have they, in 1828, with the
ministers of King George the Fourth? What is there now, in the ex-
isting state of things, to separate Carolina from Old, more, or rather
less, than from New England?

Resolutions, sir, have been recently passed by the legislature of
South Carolina. I need not refer to them; they go no further than
the honorable gentleman himself has gone — and I hope not so far.
I content myself, therefore, with debating the matter with him.

And now, sir, what I have first to say on this subject is, that at no
time, and under no circumstances, has New England, or any state in
New England, or any respectable body of persons in New England,
or any public man of standing in New England, put forth such a doc-
trine as this Carolina doctrine.

The gentleman has found no case — he can find none — to support his
own opinions by New England authority. New England has studied
the constitution in other schools, and under other teachers. She looks
upon it with other regards, and deems more highly and reverently,

DANIEL WEBSTER. 267

both of its just authority and its utility and excellence. The history
01 her legislative proceedings may be traced — the ephemeral effusions
of temporary bodies, called together by the excitement of the occasion,
may be hunted up— they have been hunted up. The opinions and
votes of her public men, in and out of Congress, may be explored — it
will all be in vain. The Carolina doctrine can derive from her neither
countenance nor support. She rejects it now; she always did reject
it; and till she loses her senses, she always will reject it. The honor-
able member has referred to expressions on the subject of the embargo
law, made in this place by an honorable and venerable gentleman
(Mr. Hillhouse) now favoring us with his presence. He quotes that
distinguished senator as saying, that in his judgment the embargo law
was unconstitutional, and that, therefore, in his opinion, the people
were not bound to obey it.

That, sir, is perfectly constitutional language. An unconstitutional
law is not binding; but then it does not rest with a resolution or a law
of a state legislature to decide whether an act of Congress be or be
not constitutional. An unconstitutional act of Congress would not
bind the people of this District, although they have no legislature to
interfere in their behalf; and, on the other hand, a constitutional law
of Congress does bind the citizens of every state, although all their
legislatures should undertake to annul it, by act or resolution. The
venerable Connecticut senator is a constitutional lawyer, of sound prin-
jciplcs and enlarged knowledge; a statesman practised and experi-
enced, bred in the company of Washington, and holding just views
upon the nature of our governments. He believed the embargo un-
constitutional, and so did others; but what then? Who did he suppose
was to decide that question? The state legislatures? Certainly not.
No such sentiment ever escaped his lips. Let us follow up, sir, this
jNcvv England opposition to the embargo laws; let us trace it, till we
discern the principle which controlled and governed New England
throughout the whole course of that opposition. We shall then see
what similarity there is between the New England school of constitu-
tional opinions and this modern Carolina school. The gentleman, I
hink, read a petition from some single individual, addressed to the
egislature of Massachusetts, asserting the Carolina doctrine — that is,
he right of state interference to arrest the laws of the Union. The
ate of that petition shows the sentiment of the legislature. It met
10 favor. The opinions of Massachusetts were otherwise. They had
peen expressed in 1798, in answer to the resolutions of Virginia, and
he did not depart from them, nor bend them to the times. Misgov-
erned, wronged, oppressed, as she felt herself to be, she still held fast
ler integrity to the Union. The gentleman may find in her proceed-
ngs much evidence of dissatisfaction with the measures of govern-
nent, and great and deep dislike to the embargo; all this makes the
:ase so much the stronger for her; for, notwithstanding all this dis-

268 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

satisfaction and dislike, she claimed no right still to sever asunder the
bonds of the Union. There was heat and there was anger in her po-
litical feeling. Be it so. Her heat or her anger did not, nevertheless,
betray her into infidelity to the government. The gentleman labors
to prove that she disliked the embargo as much as South Carolina dis-
likes the tariff, and expressed her dislike as strongly. Be it so; but
did she propose the Carolina remedy? Did she threaten to interfere,
by state authority, to annul the laws of the Union? That is the ques-
tion for the gentleman's consideration.

No doubt, sir, a great majority of the people of New England con-
scientiously believed the embargo law of 1807 unconstitutional— as
conscientiously, certainly, as the people of South Carolina hold that
opinion of the tariff. They reasoned thus: Congress has power to
regulate commerce; but here is a law, they said, stopping all com-
merce, and stopping it indefinitely. The law is perpetual; that is, it
is not limited in point of time, and must of course continue till it shall
he repealed by some other law. It is as perpetual, therefore, as the
law against treason or murder. Now, is this regulating commerce, or
destroying it ? Is it guiding, controlling, giving the rule to commerce,
as a subsisting thing, or is it putting an end to it altogether ? Nothing
is more certain than that a majority in New England deemed this law
a violation of the constitution. The very case required by the gentle-
man to justify state interference had then arisen. Massachusetts be-
lieved this law to be "a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise
of a power not granted by the constitution." Deliberate it was, for it
was long continued; palpable she thought it, as no words in the con-
stitution gave the power, and only a construction, in her opinion most
violent, raised it; dangerous it was, since it threatened utter ruin to
her most important interests. Here, then, was a Carolina case. How
did Massachusetts deal with it? It was, as she thought, a plain,
manifest, palpable violation of the constitution; and it brought ruin to
her doors. Thousands of families, and hundreds of thousands of in-
dividuals, were beggared by it. While she saw and felt all this, she
saw and felt, also, that, as a measure of national policy-, it was per-
fectly futile; that the country was no way benefited by that which
caused so much individual distress; that it was efficient only for the
production of evil, and all that evil inflicted on ourselves. In such a
case, under such circumstances, how; did Massachusetts demean her-
self ? Sir, she remonstrated, she memorialized, she addressed herself
to the general government, not exactly " with the concentrated energy
of passion," but with her strong sense, and the energy of sober con-
viction. But she did not interpose the arm of her power to arrest the
law, and break the embargo. Far from it. Her principles bound her
to two things; and she followed her principles, lead where they might.
First, to submit to every constitutional law of Congress; and secondly,
if the constitutional validity of the law be doubted, to refer that ques-

DANIEL WEBSTER. 269

tion to the decision of the proper tribunals. The first principle is vain
and ineffectual without the second. A majority of us in New England
believed the embargo law unconstitutional; but the great question
was, and always will be, in such cases, Who is to decide this? Who
is to judge between the people and the government ? And, sir, it is
quite plain, that the constitution of the United States confers on the
government itself, to be exercised by its appropriate department, this
power of deciding, ultimately and conclusively, upon the just extent
of its own authority. If this had not been done, we should not have
advanced a single step beyond the old confederation.

Being fully of opinion that the embargo law was unconstitutional,
the people of New England were yet equally clear in the opinion— it
was a matter they did not doubt upon — that the question, after all,
must be decided by the judicial tribunals of the United States. Be-
fore those tribunals, therefore, they brought the question. Under the
provisions of the law they had given bonds, to millions in amount,
and which were alleged to be forfeited. They suffered the bonds to
be sued; and thus raised the question. In the old-fashioned way of
settling disputes they went to law. The case came to hearing and
solemn argument; and he who espoused their cause and stood up for
them against the validity of the act, was none other than that great
man, of whom the gentleman has made honorable mention, Samuel
Dexter. He was then, sir, in the fulness of his knowledge and the
maturity of his strength. He had retired from long and distinguished
public service here, to the renewed pursuit of professional duties; car-
rying with him all that enlargement and expansion, all the new
strength and force> which an acquaintance with the more general sub-
jects discussed in the national councils is capable of adding to profes-
sional attainment, in a mind of true greatness and comprehension.
He was a lawyer, and he was also a statesman. He had studied the
constitution, when he filled public station, that he might defend it; he
had examined its principles, that he might maintain them. More
than all men, or at least as much as any man, he was attached to the
general government, and to the union of the states. His feelings and
opinions all ran in that direction. A question of constitutional law,
too, was, of all subjects, that one which was best suited to his talents
and learning. Aloof from technicality, and unfettered by artificial
rule, such a question gave opportunity for that deep and clear analysis,
that mighty grasp of principle, which so much distinguished his higher
efforts. His very statement was argument; his inference seemed dem-
onstration. The earnestness of his own conviction wrought convic-
tion in others. One was convinced, and believed, and assented,
because it was gratifying, delightful, to think, and feel, and believe,
in unison with an intellect of such evident superiority.

Mr. Dexter, sir, such as I have described him, argued in the New
England cause. He put into his effort his whole heart, as well as all

270 A ME RICA N PA TRIG TISM.

the powers of his understanding; for he had avowed, in the most pub-
lic manner, his entire concurrence w'..i his neighbors, on the point
in dispute. He argued the cause; it was lost, and New England
submitted. The established tribunals pronounced the law constitu-
tional, and New England acquiesced. Now, sir, is not this the exact
opposite of the doctrine of the gentleman from South Carolina?
According to him, instead of referring to the judicial tribunal, we
should have broken up the embargo, by laws of our own; we should
have repealed it, quoad New England ; for we had a strong, palpable,
and oppressive case. Sir, we believed the embargo unconstitutional ;
but still, that was matter of opinion, and who was to decide it? We
thought it a clear case; but, nevertheless, we did not take the law into
our hands, because we did not wish to bring about a revolution, nor to
break up the Union; for I maintain, that between submission to the de-
cision of the constituted tribunals, and revolution, or disunion, there is
no middle ground — there is no ambiguous condition, half allegiance and
half rebellion. There is no treason, madcosy. And, sir, how futile,
how very futile it is, to admit the right of state interference, and then
to attempt to save it from the character of unlawful resistance, by
adding terms of qualification to the causes and occasions, leaving all
the qualifications, like the case itself, in the discretion of the state
governments. It must be a clear case, it is said ; a deliberate case; a
palpable case; a dangerous case. But, then, the state is still left at
liberty to decide for herself what is clear, what is deliberate, what is
palpable, what is dangerous.

Do adjectives and epithets avail any thing? Sir, the human mind
is so constituted, that the merits of both sides of a controversy appear
very ciear, and very palpable, to those who respectively espouse them,
and both sides usually grow clearer, as the controversy advances.
South Carolina sees unconstitutionality in the tariff — she sees oppres-
sion there, also, and she sees danger. Pennsylvania, with a vision
not less sharp, looks at the same tariff, and sees no such thing in it-
she sees it all constitutional, all useful, all safe. The faith of South
Carolina is strengthened by opposition, and she now not only sees,
but resolves, that the tariff is palpably unconstitutional, oppressive,
and dangerous; but Pennsylvania, not to be behind her neighbors, and
equally willing to strengthen her own faith by a confident asseveration,
resolves also, and gives to every warm affirmative of South Carolina,
a plain, downright Pennsylvania negative. South Carolina, to show
the strength and unity of her opinions, brings her Assembly to a
unanimity, within seven votes; Pennsylvania, not to be outdone in
this respect more than others, reduces her dissentient fraction to five
votes. Now, sir, again I ask the gentleman, what is to be done ?
Are these states both right ? Is he bound to consider them both
right ? If not, which is in the wrong ? or, rather* which has the best
right to decide ?

DANIEL WEBSTER. 271

And if he, and if I, arc not to know what the constitution means,
and what it is, till those two state legislatures, and the twenty-two
others, shall agree in its construction, what have we sworn to, when
we have sworn to maintain it ? I was forcibly struck, sir, with one
reflection, as the gentleman went on with his speech. He quoted
Mr. Madison's resolutions to prove that a state may interfere, in a
case of deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of a power not
granted. The honorable member supposes the tariff law to be such
an exercise of power, and that, consequently, a case has arisen in
which, the state may, if it see lit, interfere by its own law. Now, it
so happens, nevertheless, that Mr. Madison himself deems this same
tariff law quite constitutional. Instead of a clear and palpable viola-
tion, it is, in his judgement, no violation at alL, So that, while they
use his authority for a hypothetical case, they reject it in the very
case before them. All this, sir, shows the inherent futility — I had
almost used a stronger word — of conceding this power of interfer-
ence to the states, and then attempting to secure it from abuse by
imposing qualifications of which the states themselves are to judge.
One of two things is true: either the laws of the Union are beyond
the control of the states, or else we have no constitution of general
government, and are thrust back again to the days of the confederacy.

Let me here say, sir, that if the gentleman's doctrine had been re-
ceived and acted upon in New England, in the times of the embargo
and non-intercourse, we should probably not now have been here.
The government would very likely have gone to pieces and crumbled
into dust. No stronger case can ever arise than existed under those
laws; no states can ever entertain a clearer conviction than the New
England States then entertained ; and if they had been under the
influence of that heresy of opinion, as I must call it, which the hon-
orable member espouses, this Union would, in all probability, have
been scattered to the four winds. I ask the gentleman, therefore, to
apply his principles to that case; I ask him to come forth and declare
whether, in his opinion, the New England States would have been
justified in interfering to break up the embargo S)^stem, under the
conscientious opinions which they held upon it. Had they a right
to annul that law ? Does he admit, or deny ? If that which is thought
palpably unconstitutional in South Carolina justified that state in
arresting the progress of the law, tell me whether that which was
thought palpably unconstitutional also in Massachusetts would have
justified her in doing the same thing. Sir, I deny the whole doctrine.
It has not a foot of ground in the constitution to stand on. No public
'man of reputation ever advanced it in Massachusetts, in the warmest
times, or could maintain himself upon it there at any time.

I wish now, sir, to make a remark upon the Virginia resolutions of
1798. I cannot undertake to say how these resolutions were under-
stood by those who passed them. Their language is not a little

272 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

indefinite. In the case of the exercise, by Congress, of a dangerous
power, not granted to them, the resolutions assert the right, on the
part of the state, to interfere, and arrest the progress of the evil.
This is susceptible of more than one interpretation. It may mean no
more than that the states may interfere by complaint and remon-
strance, or by proposing to the people an alteration of the federal
constitution. This would all be quite unobjectionable; or it may be
that no more is meant than to assert the general right of revolution,
as against all governments, in cases of intolerable oppression. This
no one doubts; and. this, in my opinion, is all that he who framed
these resolutions could have meant by it; for I shall not readily be-
lieve that he was ever of opinion that a state, under the constitu-
tion, and in conformity with it, could, upon the ground of her own
opinion of its unconstitutionality, however clear and palpable she
might think the case, annul a law of Congress, so far as it should
operate on herself, by her own legislative power.

I must now beg to ask, sir, Whence is this supposed right of the
states derived ? Where do they get the power to interfere with the laws
of the Union? Sir, the opinion which the honorable gentleman main-
tains is a notion founded in a total misapprehension, in my judgment,
of the origin of this government, and of the foundation on which it
stands. I hold it to be a popular government, erected by the people,
those who administer it responsible to the people, and itself capable of
being amended and modified, just as the people may choose it should be.
It is as popular, just as truly emanating from the people, as the state
governments. It is created for one purpose ; the state governments for
another. It has its own powers ; they have theirs. There is no more
authority with them to arrest the operation of a law of Congress, than
with Congress to arrest the operation of their laws. We are here toad-
minister a constitution emanating immediately from the people, and
trusted by them to our administration. It is not the creature of the
state governments. It is of no moment to the argument that certain
acts of the state legislatures are necessary to fill our seats in this body.
That is not one of their original state powers, a part of the sovereignty
of the state. It is a duty which the people, by the constitution itself,'
have imposed on the state legislatures, and which they might have left to
be performed elsewhere, if they had seen fit. So they have left the
choice of president with electors ; but all this does not affect the propo-
sition that this whole government — president, Senate, and House of
Representatives — is a popular government. It leaves it still all its popu-
ular character. The governor of a state (in some of the states) is chosen
not directly by the people, but by those who are chosen by the people
for the purpose of performing, among other duties, that of electing a
governor. Is the government of the state on that account not a popular
government? This government, sir, is the independent offspring of the
popular will. It is not the creature of state legislatures, nay, more,

DANIEL WEBSTER. 273

if the whole truth must be told, the people brought ^ nito existence, es-
tablished it, and have hitherto supported it, for the very purpose,
amongst others, of imposing certain salutary restraints on state sove-
reignties. The states cannot now make war; they cannot contract
alliances ; they cannot make, each for itself, separate regulations of
commerce ; they cannot lay imposts ; they cannot coin money. If this
constitution, sir, be the creature of state legislatures, it must be admitted
that it has obtained a strange control over the volitions of its creators.

The people then, sir, erected this government. They gave it a con-
stitution, and in that constitution they have enumerated the powers
which they bestow on it. They have made it a limited government.
They have defined its authority. They have restrained it to the exercise
of such powers as are granted ; and all others, they declare, are reserved
to the stat«s or the people. But, sir, they have not stopped here. If
they had, they would have accomplished but half their work. No
definition can be so clear as to avoid possibility of doubt ; no limitation
so precise as to exclude all uncertainty. Who, then, shall construe this
grant of the people ? Who shall interpret their will, where it may be
supposed they have left it doubtful ? With whom do they leave this
ultimate right of deciding on the powers of the government ? Sir, they
have settled all this in the fullest manner. They have left it with the
government itself, in its appropriate branches. Sir, the very chief end,
the main design for which the whole constitution was framed and
adopted, was to establish a government that should not be obliged
to act through state agency, or depend on state opinion and discretion.
The people had had quite enough of that kind of government under
the confederacy. Under that system, the legal action— ^-the application
of law to individuals — belonged exclusively to the states. Congress
could only recommend — their acts were not of binding force till the
states had adopted and sanctioned them. Are we in that condition still ?
Are we yet at the mercy of state discretion and state construction ?
Sir, if we are, then vain will be our attempt to maintain the con-
stitution under which we sit.

But, sir, the people have wisely provided, in the constitution itself, a
proper suitable mode and tribunal for settling questions of constitutional
law. There are, in the constitution, grants of powers to Congress, and
restrictions on those powers. There are also prohibitions on the states.
Some authority must therefore necessarily exist, having the ultimate
jurisdiction to fix and ascertain the interpretation of these grants, re-
strictions, and prohibitions. The constitution has itself pointed out,
ordained, and established that authority. How has it accomplished this
great and essential end? By declaring, sir. that " the constitution and
the laws of the United States, made in pursuance thereof, shall be the
supreme law of the land, anything in the constitution or laws of any state
to the contrary notwithstanding."

This, sir, was the first great step. By this, the supremacy of the con-

274 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

stitution and laws of the United States is declared. The- people so
will it. No state law is to be valid which comes in conflict with the con-
stitution or any law of the United States. But who shall decide this
question of interference ? To whom lies the last appeal ? This, sir, the
constitution itself decides also, by declaring "that the judicial power
shall extend to all cases arising under the constitution and laws of the
United States." These two provisions, sir, cover the whole ground.
They are, in truth, the keystone of the arch. With these it is a constitu-
tion ; without them it is a confederacy. In pursuance of these clear and
express provisions, Congress established, at its very first session, in the
judicial act, a mode for carrying them into full effect, and for bringing
all questions of constitutional power to the final decision of the Supreme
Court. It then, sir, became a government. It then had the means of
self-protection ; and but for this, it would, in all probability, have been
now among things which are passed. Having constituted the govern-
ment, and declared its powers, the people have further said, that since
somebody must decide on the extent of these powers, the government
shall itself decide — subject always, like other popular governments, to
its responsibility to the people. And now, sir, I repeat, how is it that d
state legislature acquires any right to interfere ? Who, or what, gives
them the right to say to the people, ''We, who are your agents and ser-
vants for one purpose, will undertake to decide, that your other agents
and servants appointed by you for another purpose, have transcended
the authority you gave them?" The reply would be, I think, not im-
pertinent, " Who made you a judge over another's servants ? To their
own masters they stand or fail."

Sir, I deny this power of state legislatures altogether. It cannot
stand the test of examination. Gentlemen may say, that, in an ex-
treme case, a state government might protect the people from intol-
erable oppression. Sir, in such a case the people might protect them-
selves, without the aid of the state governments. Such a case warrants
revolution. It must make, when it comes, a law for itself. A nullifying
act of a state legislature cannot alter the case, nor make resistance any
more lawful -In maintaining these sentiments, sir, I am but assert-
ing the rights of the people. I state what they have declared, and
insist on their right to declare it. They have chosen to repose this
power in the general government, and I think it my duty to support
it, like other constitutional powers.

For myself, sir, I doubt the jurisdiction of South Carolina, or any
other state, to prescribe my constitutional duty, or to settle, between
me and the people, the validity of laws of Congress for which I have
voted. I decline her umpirage. I have not sworn to support the
constitution according to her construction of its clauses. I have not
stipulated, by my oath of office or otherwise, to come under any re-
sponsibility, except to the people and those whom they have appointed
to pass upon the question, whether the laws, supported by my votcsy

DANIEL WEBSTER. 275

conform to the constitution of the country. And, sir, if we look to the
general nature of the case, could any thing have been more preposter-
ous than to have made a government for the whole Union, and yet
left its powers subject, not to one interpretation, but to thirteen or
twenty-four interpretations? Instead of one tribunal, established by
all, responsible to all, with power to decide for ail, shall constitutional
questions be left to four and twenty popular bodies, each at liberty to
decide for itself, and none bound to respect the decision of others; and
each at liberty, too, to give a new construction, on every new election
of its own members ? Would any thing, with such a principle in it, or
rather with such a destitution of all principle, be fit to be called a gov-
ernment ? No, sir. It should not be denominated a constitution. It
should be called, rather, a collection of topics for everlasting contro-
versy; heads of, debate for a disputatious people. It would not be a
government. It would not be adequate to any practical good, nor fit
for any country to live under. To avoid all possibility of being mis-
understood, allow me to repeat again, in the fullest manner, that I
claim no powers for the government by forced or unfair construction.
I admit that it is a government of strictly limited powers, of
enumerated, specified and particularized powers ; and that what-
soever is not granted is withheld. But, notwithstanding all this,
and however the grant of powers may be expressed, its limits and
extent may yet, in some cases, admit of doubt; and the general gov-
ernment would be good for nothing, it would be incapable of long
existence, if some mode had not been provided in which those
doubts, as they should arise, might be peaceably, but authoritatively,
solved.

And now, Mr. President, let me run the honorable gentleman's doc-
trine a little into its practical application. Let us look at his probable
7/iodus operandi. If a thing can be done, an ingenious man can tell
how it is to be done. Now, I wish to be informed how this state
interference is to be put in practice. We will take the existing case of
the tariff law. South Carolina is said to have made up her opinion
upon it. If we do not repeal it (as we probably shall not), she will
then apply to the case the remedy of her doctrine. She will, we must
suppose, pass a law of her legislature, declaring the several acts of
Congress, usually called the tariff laws, null and void, so far as they
respect South Carolina, or the citizens thereof. So far, all is a paper
transaction, and easy enough. But the collector at Charleston is col-
lecting the duties imposed by these tariff laws — he, therefore, must be
stopped. The collector will seize the goods if the tariff duties are not
paid. The state authorities will undertake their rercue: the marshal,
with his posse, will come to the collector's aid; and here the contest
|begins. The militia of the state will be called out to sustain the nulli-
fying act. They will march, sir, under a very gallant leader; for. I
believe the honorable member himself commands the militia of that

276 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

part of the state. He will raise the nullifying act on his standard, and
spread it out as his banner. It will have a preamble, bearing that
the tariff laws are palpable, deliberate, and dangerous violations of the
constitution, He will proceed, with his banner flying, to the custom

house in Charleston, —

•

. "a11 the while ^

Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds."

Arrived at the custom house, he will tell the collector that he must col-
lect no more duties under any of the tariff laws. This he will be some-
what puzzled to say, by the way, with a grave countenance, consider-
ing what hand South Carolina herself had in that of 1816. But, sir,
the collector would, probably, not desist at his bidding. Here would
ensue a pause; for they say, that a certain stillness precedes the tem-
pest. Before this military array should fall on the custom house, col-
lector, clerks, and all, it is very probable some of those composing it
would request of their gallant commander-in-chief to be informed a
little upon the point of law; for they have doubtless a just respect for
his opinion as a lawyer, as well as for his bravery as a soldier. They
know he has read Blackstone and the constitution, as well as Turenne
and Vauban. They would ask him, therefore, something concerning
their rights m this matter. They would inquire whether it was not
somewhat dangerous to resist a law of the United States. What would
be the nature of their offence, they would wish to learn, if they, by mili-
tary force and array, resisted the execution in Carolina of a law of the
United States, and it should turn out, after all, that the law was con-
stitutional. He would answer, of course, treason. No lawyer could
give any other answer. John Fries, he would tell them, had learned
that some years ago. How then, they would ask, do you propose to
defend us? We are not afraid of bullets, but treason has a way of
taking people off that we do not much relish. How do you propose
to defend us ? "Look at my floating banner," he would reply; "see
there the nullifying law !" Is it your opinion, gallant commander, they
would then say, that if we should be indicted for treason, that same
floating banner of yours would make a good plea in bar ? " South
Carolina is a sovereign state," he would reply. That is true; but
would the judge admit our plea? " These tariff laws," he would re-
peat, " are unconstitutional, palpably, deliberately, dangerously."
That all may be so; but if the tribunals should not happen to be of
that opinion, shall we swing for it ? We are ready to die for our
country, but it is rather an awkward business, this dying without
touching the ground. After all, this is a sort of hemp-tax, worse thap
any pare of the tariff.

Mr, President, the honorable gentleman would be in a dilemma
like that of another great general. He would have a knot before him
which he could not untie. He must cut it with hij- sword. He raust

DANIEL WEBSTER. _ 277

Bay to his followers, Defend yourselves with your bayonets; and this
is war — civil war.

Direct collision, therefore, between force and force, is the unavoida-
ble result of that remedy for the revision of unconstitutional laws
which the gentleman contends for. It must happen in the very
first case to which it is applied. Is not this the plain result r To
resist, by force, the execution of a law, generally, is treason. Can
the courts of the United States take notice of the indulgence of a state
to commit treason ? The common sayings that a state cannot commit
treason herself, is nothing to the purpose. Can it authorize others to
do it? If John Fries had produced an act of Pennsylvania, annulling
the law of Congress, would it have helped his case ? Talk about it as
we will, these doctrines go the length of revolution. They are in-
compatible with any peaceable administration of the government.
They lead directly to disunion and civil commotion ; and therefore it
is, that at the commencement, when they are first found to be main-
tained by respectable men and in a tangible form, that I enter my
public protest against them all.

The honorable gentleman argues, that if this government be the
sole judge of the extent of its own powers, whether that right of judg-
ing be in Congress or the Supreme Court, it equally subverts state
sovereignty. This the gentleman sees, or thinks he sees, although he
cannot perceive how the right of judging, in this manner, if left to the
exercise of state legislatures, has any tendency to subvert the govern-
ment of the Union. The gentleman's opinion may be that the right
ought not to have been lodged with the general government; he may
like better such a constitution as we should have under the right of
state interference; but I ask him to meet me on the plain matter of
fact — I ask him to meet me on the constitution itself — I ask him if the
power is not found there — clearly and visibly found there.

But, sir, what is this danger, and what the grounds of it ? Let it be
remembered, that the constitution of the United States is not unaltera-
ble. It is to continue in it's present form no longer than the people
who established it shall choose to continue it. If they shall become
convinced that they have made an injudicious or inexpedient partition
and distribution of" power between the state governments and the
general government, they can alter that distribution at will.

If anything be found in the national constitution, either by original
provision or subsequent interpretation, which ought not to be in it,
the people know how to get rid of it. If any construction be estab-
lished, unacceptable to them, so as to become, practically, a part of
the constitution, they will amend it at their own sovereign pleasure.
But while the people choose to maintain it as it is, while they are sat-
isfied with it, and refuse to change it, who has given, or who can give,
to the state legislatures a right to alter it, either by interference, con-
struction, or otherwise ?' Gentlemen do not seem to recollect that the

273 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

people 'have any power to do anything for themselves; they imagine
there is no , safety for them any longer than they are under the close
guardianship of the state legislatures. Sir, the people have, not trusted
their- safety, in regard to the general constitution, to these hands.
They have required other security, and taken other bonds. They
have chosen to trust themselves, first, to the plain words of the in-
strument, and to such construction as the government itself, in doubt-
f :1 cases, should put on its own powers, under their oaths of office,
and subject to their responsibility to them; just as the people of a
state trust their own state governments with a similar power. Sec-
ondly, they have reposed their trust in the efficacy of .frequent elec-
tions, and in their own power to remove their own " servants and
figentsy whenever they see cause. Thirdly they have reposed. trust in
the judicial power, which in order that it might be trustworthy, they
have made as respectable, as disinterested, and as independent as
practicable. Fourthly, they have seen fit to rely, in case of necessity,
cr high expediency, on their known and admitted power to alter or
amend the constitution, peaceably and quietly, whenever experience
shall point out defects or imperfections. And finally, 'the people cf
the United States have at no time, in no way, directly or. indirectly,
authorized* any state legislature to construe or interpret their instru-
ment of government; much less to interfere, by their ownpov/er, to
arrest its course and operation.

If, sir, the people, in these respects, had done otherwise than they
have done, their constitution could neither have been preserved, nor
would it have been worth preserving. And if its plain provision shall
how be disregarded, and these new doctrines interpolated in it, it will
become as feeble and helpless . a being as enemies, whether early or
more recent, could possibly desire. It will exist in every state, but
as a poor dependant on state permission. ., It must borrow leave to be,
and will be, no longer than state pleasure, or state discretion, sees fit
to grant the indulgence, and to prolong its. poor existence.

But, sir, although there are fears, there are hopes also. The pejqpje
have preserved this, their own chosen constitution, for forty years,
and have seen their happiness, prosperity, and renown grow with its
growth and strengthen with its strength. They are now, generally,
strongly attached to it. Overthrown by direct assault it cannot be;
evaded, undermined, nullified, it will not be, if we, and those who
shall succeed us here, as agents and representatives of .the people,,
shall conscientiously and vigilantly discharge the two great branches
of Our public trust — faithfully to preserve and wisely to administer it.

Mr. President, I have thus stated the reasons of my dissent to the
doctrines which have been advanced and maintained. I am conscious
of having detained you, and the Senate., much too long. I was drawn
into the debate, with no previous deliberation such as is suited to the
d: cui::on of so grave and important a subject. But it is a subject of

D AX ILL WEBSTER. «79

which my heart is full, and I have not been willing to suppress the
utterance of its spontaneous sentiments.

I cannot, even now, persuade myself to relinquish it, without express-
ing, once more, my deep conviction, that since it respects nothing less
than the union of the states, it is of most vital and essential importance
to the public happiness. I profess, sir, in my career hitherto, to have
kept steadily in view the prosperity and honor of the whole country,
and the preservation of our Federal Union. It is to that Union we
owe our safety at home, and our consideration and dignity abroad.
It is to that Union that we are chieflv indebted for whatever makes us
most proud of our country. That Union we reached only by the dis-
cipline of our virtues in the severe school of adversity. It had its
origin in the necessities of disordered finance, prostrate commerce,
and ruined credit. Under its benign influences, these great interests
immediately awoke, as from the dead, and sprang forth with newness
of life. Every year of its duration has teemed with fresh proofs of its
utility and its blessings; and although our territory has stretched out
wider and wider and our population spread farther and farther, they
have not outrun its protection or its benefits. It has been to us all a
copious fountain of national, social, personal happiness. I have not
allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the Union, to see what might lie
hidden in the dark recesses behind. I have not coolly weighed the
chances of preserving liberty, when the bonds that unite us together
shall be broken asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over
the precipice of disunion, to see whether, with my short sight, I can
fathom the depth of the abyss below; nor could I regard him as a safe
counsellor in the affairs of this government, whose thoughts should be
mainly bent on considering, not how the Union should be best pre-
served, but how tolerable might be the condition of the people when
it shall be broken up and destroyed. While the Union lasts, we have
high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out before us, for us and
our children. Beyond that I seek not to penetrate the veil. God
grant that, in my day at least, that curtain may not rise. God grant
that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind. When my
eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the sun in heaven,
may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments
of a once glorious Union; on states dissevered, discordant, belliger-
ent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in frater-
nal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering glance, rather, behold
the gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known and honored through-
out the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming
in their original lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, not a single
star obscured — bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory
as, What is all this worth? nor those other words of delusion and
folly, Liberty first, and Union afterwards; but everywhere, spread all
over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they
A r.-iu.

28o AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the
whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American
heart — Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!

SECOND CENTENNIAL OF BOSTON.
JOSIAH QUINCY, JR.

Boston, September 17, 1830.

If, after this general survey of the surface of New England, we cast
pur eyes on the cities and great towns, with what wonder should we
behold, did not familiarity render the phenomenon almost unnoticed,
men, combined in great multitudes, possessing freedom and the con-
sciousness of strength, — the comparative physical power of the ruler
less than that of a cobweb across a lion's path, — yet orderly, obedient,
and respectful to authority; a people, but no populace; every class in
reality existing which the general law of society acknowledges, except
one, — and this exception characterizing the whole country. The soil
of New England is trodden by no slave. In our streets, in our assem-
blies, in the halls of election and legislation, men of every rank and
condition meet, and unite or divide on other principles, and are actu-
ated by other motives than those growing out of such distinctions.
The fears and jealousies which in other countries separate classes of
men, and make them hostile to each other, have here no influence, or
a very limited one. Each individual, of whatever condition, has the
consciousness of living under known laws, which secure equal rights,
and guarantee to each whatever portion of the goods of life, be it
great or small, chance or talent or industry may have bestowed. All
perceive that the honors and rewards of society are open equally to
the fair competition of all, — that the distinctions of wealth or of power, -
are not fixed in families, — that whatever of this nature exists to-day
may be changed to-morrow, or, in a coming generation, be absolutely
reversed. Common principles, interests, hopes, and affections are the
result of universal education. Such are the consequences of the
equality of rights, and of the provisions for the general diffusion of
knowledge, and the distribution of intestate estates, established by the
laws framed by the earliest emigrants to New England.

If from our cities we turn to survey the wide expanse of the inter-
ior, how do the effects of the institutions and example of our early
ancestors appear, in all the .local comfort and accommodation which
mark the general condition of the whole country ! — unobtrusive indeed,
but substantial; in nothing splendid, but in everything sufficient and
satisfactory. Indications of active talent and practical energy exist
everywhere. With a soil comparatively little luxuriant, and in great

JO SI A II QUINCY, JR, 281

proportion either rock, or hill, or sand, the skill and industry of man
are seen triumphing over the obstacles of nature; making the rock the
guardian of the field; moulding the granite, as though it were clay;
leading cultivation to the hill top, and spreading over the arid plain
hitherto unknown and unanticipated harvests. The lofty mansion of the
prosperous adjoins the lowly dwelling of the husbandman; their re-
spective inmates are in daily interchange of civility, sympathy, and
respect. Enterprise and skill, which once held chief affinity with the
ocean or the sea-board, now begin to delight the interior, haunting our
rivers, where the music of the waterfall, with powers more attractive
than those of the fabled harp of Orpheus, collects around it intellectual
man and material nature. Towns and cities, civilized and happy
communities; rise, like exhalations, on rocks and in forests, till the
deep and far-sounding voice of the neighboring torrent is itself lost
and unheard, amid the predominating noise of successful and rejoicing
labor.

What lessons has New England, in every period of her history,
given to the world ! What lessons do her condition and example still
give ! How unprecedented, yet how practical ! How simple, yet how
powerful ! She has proved that all the variety of Christian sects may
live together in harmony, under a government which allows' equal
privileges to all, exclusive pre-eminence to none. She has proved
that ignorance among the multitude is not necessary to order, but that
the surest basis of perfect order is the information of the people. She
has proved the old maxim, that no government, except a despotism
with a standing army, can subsist where the people have arms," to be
false. Ever since the first settlement of the country, arms have been
required to be in the hands of the whole multitude of New England ;
yet the use of them in a private quarrel, if it have ever happened, is
so rare, that a late writer of great intelligence, who had passed his
whole life in New England, and possessed extensive means of infor-
mation, declares, "I know not a single instance of it." She has
proved that a people of a character essentially military may subsist
without duelling. New England has at all times been distinguished,
both on the land and on the ocean, for a daring, fearless, and enter-
prising spirit; yet the same writer asserts that, during the whole period
of her existence, her soil has been disgraced but by five duels, and that
only two of these were fought by her native inhabitants ! Perhaps
this assertion is not minutely correct. There can, however, be re*
•question that it is sufficiently near the truth to justify the position for
which it is here adduced, and which the history of New England, as
well as the experience of her inhabitants, abundantly confirms,1 — that,
in the present and in every past age, the spirit of our institutions has,
to every important practical purpose, annihilated the spirit of duelling.

Such are the true glories of the institutions of our fathers ! Such
the natural fruits of that patience in toil, that frugality of disposition,

282 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

that temperance of habit, that general diffusion of knowledge, and that
sense of religious responsibility, inculcated by the precepts, and exhi-
bited in the example, of every generation of our ancestors I

And now, standing at this hour on the dividing line which separates
the ages that are passed from those which are to come, how solemn is
the thought, that not one of this vast assembly — not one of that great
multitude who now throng our streets, rejoiee in our fields, and make
oar hills echo with their gratulations — shall live to witness the next
return of the era we this day celebrate ! The dark veil of futurity
conceals from human sight the fate of cities and nations, as well as of
individuals. Man passes away; generations are but shadows; — there
is nothing stable but truth; principles only are immortal.

What, then, in conclusion of this great topic, are the elements of
the liberty, prosperity, and safety which the inhabitants of New Eng-
land at this day enjoy ? In what language, and concerning what com-
prehensive truths, does the wisdom of former times address the
inexperience of the future?

These elements are simple, obvious, and familiar.

Every civil and religious blessing of New England — all that here
gives happiness to human life, or security to human virtue — is alone
to be perpetuated in the forms and under the auspices of a free com-
monwealth.

The commonwealth itself has no other strength or hope than the
intelligence and virtue of the individuals that compose it.

For the intelligence and virtue of individuals there is no other
human assurance than laws providing for the education of the whole
people.

These laws themselves have no strength, or efficient sanction, ex-
cept in the moral and accountable nature of man disclosed in the
records of the Christian faith; the right to read, to construe, and to judge
concerning which belongs to no class or caste of men, but exclusively
to the individual, who must stand or fall by his own acts and his own
faith, and not by those of another.

The great comprehensive truths, written in letters of living light on
every page of our history, — the language addressed by every past age
of New England to all future ages, is this: Human happiness has no
perfect security but freedom; freedom none but virtue; virtue, none
but knowledge; and neither freedom, nor virtue, nor knowledge has
any vigor, or immortal hope, except in the principles of the Christian
faith, and in the sanctions of the Christian religion.

Men of Massachusetts ! citizens of Boston ! descendants of the early
emigrants! consider your blessings; consider your duties. You have an
inheritance acquired by the labors and sufferings of six successive gen-
erations of ancestors. They founded the fabric of your prosperity in a
severe and masculine morality, having intelligence for its cement, and
religion for its groundwork. Continue to build on the same foundation,

ANDREW JACKSON. 283

and by the same principles; let the extending temple of your country's
freedom rise, in the spirit of ancient times, in proportions of intellec-
tual and moral architecture, — just, simple, and sublime. As from, the
first to this day, let New England continue to be an example to the
world of the blessings of a free government, and of the means and
capacity of men to maintain it. And in all times to come, as in all
times past, may Boston be among the foremost and boldest to exem-
plify and uphold whatever constitutes the prosperity, the happiness,
and the glory of New England.

lo ZG fi3W cZ

I . .

PROCLAMATION AGAINST NULLIFICATION.

ANDREW JACKSON.

Washington, December xg, 1832.

Whereas a convention: assembled, in the State of South Carolina
have passed an ordinance, by .which they declare" That the several
acts and parts of acts of. the Congress of :the United States, purport-
ing to be laws for the imposing of duties and .imposts on the importa-
tion of foreign commodities, "arid now having actual operation and ef-
fect within the United States, and more especially," two acts for the
same purposes passed on the 29th of May,. 1828, and on the 14th of
July, 1832, "are unauthorized by the Constitution of the United
States, and violate the true meaning and intent thereof, and are null
and void, and no law," nor binding on the citizens of that State or its
officers; and by, said, ordinance, it is further . declared to be unlawful
for any of the constituted authorities of the State or of the United
States to enforce the payment of the duties imposed by the said acts
within the same State, and that it is the duty of the legislature to
pass, such laws as may be .necessary to give fulf effect to the said ordi-
nance ;

, And whereas, by the said ordinance, it is further ordained, that in
no case of law or equity decided in the courts of said State, wherein
shall be drawn in question, the validity of the said ordinance, or of the
acts of the legislature that may be passed to give it effect, or of the
said laws of the United States, no appeal shall be allowed to the Su-
preme Court of the United States, nor shall any copy of the record be
permitted or allowed for that purpose, and that any person attempt-
ing to take such appeal shall be punished as for a contempt of
court ;

And, finally, the said, ordinance declares that the people of South
Carolina will maintain the said ordinance at every hazard; and that
they will consider the passage of any act by Congress abolishing or
closing the ports of the said State, or otherwise obstructing the free

284 A M ERIC A N PA TRW TJSM.

ingress or egress of vessels to and from the said ports, or any other
act of the federal government to coerce the State, shut up her ports,
destroy or harass her commerce, or to enforce the said acts otherwise
than through the civil tribunals of the country, as inconsistent with
the longer continuance of South Carolina in the- Union; and that the
people of the said State will thenceforth hold themselves absolved
from all further obligation to maintain or preserve their political con-
nexion with the people of the other States, and will forthwith proceed
to organize a separate government, and do all other acts and things
which sovereign and independent States may of right do.

And whereas the said ordinance prescribes to the people of South
Carolina a course of conduct in direct violation of their duty as citi-
zens of the United States, contrary to the laws of their country, sub-
versive of its Constitution, and having for its object the destruction
of the Union; that Union which, Coeval with our political existence,
led our fathers, without any other ties to unite them than those of pat-
riotism and a common cause, through a sanguinary struggle to a glo-
rious independence; that sacred Union, hitherto inviolate, which,
perfected by our happy Constitution, has brought us, by the favor of
heaven, to a state of prosperity at home, and high consideration
abroad, rarely, if ever equalled in the history of nations. To pre-
serve this bond of our political existence from destruction, to main-
tain inviolate this state of national honor and prosperity, and to jus-
tify the confidence my fellow-citizens have reposed in me, I, Andrew
Jackson, President of the United States, have thought proper to issue
this my proclamation, stating my views of the Constitution and laws
applicable to the measures adopted by the convention of South Caro-
lina, and to the reasons they have put forth to sustain them, declaring
the course which duty will require me to pursue, and appealing to the
understanding and patriotism of the people, warn them of the conse-
quences that must inevitably result from an observance of the dictates
of the convention.

Strict duty would require of me nothing more than the exercise of
those powers with which I am now, or may hereafter be invested, for
preserving the peace of the Union, and for the execution of the laws.
But the imposing aspect which opposition has assumed in this case,
by clothing itself with State authority, and the deep interest which
the people of the United States must all feel in preventing a resort to
stronger measures, while there is a hope that anyth.ng will be yielded
to reasoning and remonstrance, perhaps demand, and will certainly
justify, a full exposition to South Carolina and the nation of the views
I entertain of this important question, as well as a distinct enun-
ciation of the course which my sense of duty will require me to pur-
sue.

The ordinance is founded, not on the indefeasible right of resisting
acts which are plainly unconstitutional, and too oppressive to be en-

' ANDREW JACKSON, 285

dured, but on the strange position that any one State may not only
declare an act of Congress void, but prohibit its execution; that they
may do this consistently with the Constitution ;-that the true construc-
tion of that instrument permits a State to retain its place in the Union,
and yet be bound by no other of its laws than those it may choose to
consider as constitutional. It is true, they add, that to justify this ab-
rogation of a law, it must be palpably contrary to the Constitution ;
but it is evident that, to give the right of resisting laws of that de
scription, coupled with the uncontrolled right to decide what laws de-
serve that character, is to give the power of resisting all laws. For,
as by the theory, there is no appeal, the reasons alleged by the State,
good or bad, must prevail. If it should be said that public opinion is
a sufficient check against the abuse of this power, it may be asked
why it is not deemed a sufficient guard against the passage of an un-
constitutional act by Congress ? There is, however, a restraint in
this last case, which makes the assumed power of a State more inde-
fensible, and which does not exist in the other. There are two ap-
peals from an unconstitutional act passed by Congress — one to the
judiciary, the other to the people and the States. There is no appeal
from the State decision in theory, and the practical illustration shows
that the courts are closed against an application to review it, both
judges and jurors being sworn to decide in its favor. But reasoning
on this subject is superfluous, when our social compact, in express
terms, declares that the laws Of the United States, its Constitution,
and treaties made under it, are the supreme law of the land; and, for
greater caution, adds " that the judges in every State shall be bound
thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the con-
trary notwithstanding." And it may be asserted, without fear of refu-
tation, that no federative government could exist without a similar
provision. Look for a moment to the consequence. If South Caro-
lina considers the revenue laws unconstitutional, and has a right to
prevent their execution in the port of Charleston, there would be a
clear constitutional objection to their collection in every other port,
and no revenue could be collected anywhere, for all imposts must be
equal. It is no answer to repeat that an unconstitutional law is no
law, so long as the question of its legality is to be decided by the State
itself; for every law operating injuriously upon any local interest wiL1
be perhaps thought, and certainly represented, as unconstitutional,
and, as has been shown, there is no appeal.

If this doctrine had been established at an earlier day the Union
would have been dissolved in its infancy. The excise law in Pennsyl-
vania, the embargo and non-intercourse law in the eastern States, the
carriage tax in Virginia, were all deemed unconstitutional, and were
more unequal in their operation than any of the laws now complained
of; but fortunately none of those states discovered that they had the
right now claimed by South Carolina. The war into which we were

286 A ME RICA N ' FA TRIO TISM.

forced to support the dignity of the nation and the rights of our citi-
zens might have ended in defeat and disgrace instead of victory and
honor, if the states who supposed it a ruinous and unconstitutional
measure had thought they possessed the right of nullifying the act by
which it was declared, and denying supplies for its prosecution.
Hardly and unequally as those measuixs bore upon several members
of the Union, to the legislatures of none did this efficient and peace-
able remedy, as it is called, suggest itself. The discovery of this im-
portant feature in our Constitution was reserved to the present day.
To the statesmen of South Carolina belongs the invention, and upon
the citizens of that State will unfortunately fall the evils of reducing it
to practice.

If the doctrine of a state veto upon the laws of the Union carries
with it internal evidence of its impracticable absurdity, our constitu-
tional history will also afford abundant proof that it would have been
repudiated with indignation had it been proposed to form a feature in
our government.

In our colonial state, although depending on another power, we
very early considered ourselves as connected by common interest with
each other. Leagues were formed for common defence, and before
the declaration of independence we were known in our aggregate
character as the United Colonies of America. That decisive and im-
portant step was taken jointly. We declared ourselves a nation by a
joint, not by several acts, and when the terms of our confederation
were reduced to form, it was in that of a solemn league of several
states, by which they agreed that they would collectively form one
nation for the purpose of conducting some certain domestic concerns
and all foreign relations. In the instrument forming that Union is
found an article which declares that 1 1 every state shall abide by the
determinations of Congress on all questions which, by that confedera-
tion, should be submitted to them."

Under the confederation, then, no state could legally annul a de-
cision of the Congress or refuse to submit to its execution; but no pro-
vision was made to enforce these decisions. Congress made requisi-
tions, but they were not complied with. The government could not
operate on individuals. They had no judiciary, no means of collect-
ing revenue.

But the defects of the confederation need not be detailed. Under
its operation we could scarcely be called a nation. We had neiLher
prosperity at home nor consideration abroad. This state of things
could not be endured, and our present happy Constitution was formed,
but formed in vain, if this fatal doctrine prevails. It was formed for
important objects that are announced in the preamble made in the
name and by the authority of the people of the United States, whose
delegates framed and whose conventions approved it. The most
important among these objects, that which is placed first in rank,

ANDRE IV J A CKSOX.

on which all the others rest, is, " to form a more perfect Union." Now,
is it possible that even if there were no express provision giving su-
premacy to the Constitution and laws of the United States over those
of the states, can it be conceived that an instrument made for the pur-
pose of "forming a more perfect Union" than that of the confedera-
tion, could be so constructed by the assembled wisdom of our country
as to substitute for that confederation a form of government depend-
ent for its existence on the local interest, the party spirit of a state, or
of a prevailing faction in a state ? Every man of plain, unsophisti-
cated understanding, who hears the question, will give such an answer
as will preserve the Union. Metaphysical subtlety, in pursuit of an
impracticable theory, could alone have devised one that is calculated
to destroy it.

I consider, then, the power to annul a law of the United States, as-
sumed by one state, incompatible with the existence of the Union,
contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized
by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which it was founded,
and destructive of the great object for which it was formed.

After this general view of the leading principle, we must examine
the particular application- of it which is made in the ordinance.

The preamble rests its justification on these grounds: It assumes
as a fact that the obnoxious laws, although they purport to be laws
for raising revenue, were in reality intended for the protection of
manufactures, which purpose it asserts to be unconstitutional; that
the operation of these laws is unequal; that the amount raised by them
is greater than is required by the wants of the government; and,
finally, that the proceeds are to be applied to objects unauthorized by
the Constitution. These are the only causes alleged to justify an open
opposition to the laws of the country, and a threat of seceding from
the Union if any attempt should be made to enforce them. The first
virtually acknowledges that the law in question was passed under a
power expressly given by the Constitution to lay and collect imposts;
but its constitutionality is drawn in question from the motives of those
who passed it. However apparent this purpose may be in the present
case, nothing can be more dangerous than to admit the position that
an unconstitutional purpose, entertained by the members who assent
to a law enacted under a constitutional power, shall make that law
void; for how is that purpose to be ascertained ? Who is to make the
scrutiny ? How often may bad purposes be falsely imputed ! in hoAV
many cases are they concealed by false professions ! in how many is
no declaration of motive made! Admit this doctrine, and you give to
the states an uncontrolled right to decide, and every law may be an-
nulled under this pretext. If, therefore, the absurd and dangerous
doctrine should be admitted that a state may annul an unconstitutional
law, or one that it deems such, it will not apply to the present case.

The next objection is, that the laws in question operate unequally.

288 A ME RICA X FA TRIO TISM.

This objection may be made with truth to every law that has been or
can be passed. The wisdom of man never yet contrived a system of
taxation that would operate with perfect equality. If the unequal
operation of a law makes it unconstitutional, and if all laws of that
description may be abrogated by any state for that cause, then indeed
is the federal Constitution unworthy of the slightest effort for its pres-
ervation. We have hitherto relied on it as the perpetual bond of our
Union. We have received it as the work of the assembled wisdom of
the nation. We have trusted to it as to the sheet-anchor of our safety
in the stormy times of conflict with a foreign or domestic foe. We
have looked to it with sacred awe as the palladium of our liberties,
and with all the solemnities of religion have pledged to each other our
lives and fortunes here and our hopes of happiness hereafter, in its
defence and support. Were we mistaken, my countrymen, in attach-
ing this importance to the Constitution of our country ? Was our de-
votion paid to the wretched, inefficient, clumsy contrivance which this
new doctrine would make it ? Did we pledge ourselves to the support
of an airy nothing — a bubble that must be blown away by the first
breath of d'oaffection ? Was this self-destroying, visionary theory the
work of the profound statesmen, the exalted patriots, to whom the
task of constitutional reform was intrusted ? Did the name of Wash-
ington sanction — did the states deliberately ratify such an anomaly m
the history of fundamental legislation. No. We were not mistaken.
The letter of this great instrument is free from this radical fault; its"
language directly contradicts the imputation; its spirit, its evident in-
tent, contradicts it. No, we did not err. Our Constitution does not
contain the absurdity of giving power to make laws, and another
powei to resist them. The sages, whose memory will always be rev-
erenced, have given us a practical, and, as they hoped, a permanent
constitutional compact. The Father of his Country did not affix his
revered name to so palpable an absurdity. Nor did the states, when
they severally ratified It, do so under the impression that a veto on
the laws o.f the United States was reserved to them, or that they could
exercise it by implication. Search the debates in all their conven-
tions; examine the speeches of the most zealous opposers of federal1
authority: look at the amendments that were proposed. They are all
silent; not a syllable uttered, not a vote given, not a motion made to
correct the explicit supremacy given to the laws of the Union over
those of the states, or to show that implication, as is now contended; •
could defeat it. No, we have not erred. The Constitution is still the
object of our reverence, the bond of our Union, our defence in dan-
ger, the source of our prosperity in peace: it shall descend as we have
received it, uncorrupted by sophistical construction, to our posterity;
and the sacrifices of local interest, of state prejudices, of personal ani-
mosities, that were made to bring it into existence, will again bepatri-;
otically offered for its support.

ANDREW JACKSON. 289

The two remaining objections made by the ordinance to these laws
are, that the Slims intended to be raised by them ate greater than are
required, and that the proceeds will be unconstitutionally employed.

The Constitution has given expressly to Congress the right o£«rais-
ing revenue, and of determining the sum the public exigencies will
require. The states have no control over the exercise of this right
other than that which results from the power of changing the repre-
sentatives who abuse it, and thus procure redress. Congress may
undoubtedly, abuse this discretionary power, but the same may be
said of others with which they are vested. Yet the discretion must exist
somewhere. The Constitution has given it to the representatives of
ail the people, checked by the representatives of the states and by the
Executive power. The South Carolina construction gives it to the
legislature or the convention of a single state, where neither the peo-
ple of the different states, nor the states in their separate capacity,
nor the Chief -Magistrate elected by the people, have any representa-
tion. Which is the most discreet disposition of the power? I do not
ask )rou, fellow-citizens, which is. the constitutional disposition; that
instrument speaks a language not to be misunderstood. But if you
were assembled in general convention, which would you think the
safest depository of this discretionary power in the last resort? Would
you add a clause giving it to each of the states, or would you sanction
the wise provisions already made by your Constitution ? If this
should be the result of your deliberations when providing for the future,
are you, can youT be ready to risk all that we hold dear to establish,
for a temporary and a local purpose, that which you must acknowledge
to be destructive, and even absurd, as a general provision ? Carry
out the consequences of this right vested in the different states, and
you must perceive that the crisis your conduct presents at this day
would recur whenever any law of the United States displeased any of
the states, and that we should soon cease to be a nation.

The ordinance, with the same knowledge of the future that character-
izes a former objection, tells you that the proceeds of the tax will be
unconstitutionally applied. If this could be ascertained with certainty,
the objection would, with more propriety, be reserved for the law so
applying the proceeds, but surely cannot be urged against the laws
levying the duty.

These are the allegations contained in the ordinance. Examine
them seriously, my fellow-citizens — judge for yourselves. I appeal to
you to determine whether they are so clear, so convincing, as to leave
no doubt of their correctness; and even if you should come to this
conclusion, how far they justify the reckless, destructive course which
you are directed to pursue. Review these objections, and the conclu-
sions drawn from them, once more. What are they? Every law,
then, for raising revenue, according to the South Carolina ordinance,
may be rightfully annulled, unless it be so framed as no law even will

igo - AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

or can be framed.' Congress has a right to pass laws for raising
revenue, and each state has a right, to. oppose their execution — two
rights directly opposed to each other; and- yet is this absurdity sup-
posed to be contained in -an instrument drawn for the express purpose
of avoiding collisions between the states and the general government
by an assembly of the most enlightened statesmen and purest patriots
ever embodied' for a similar purpose.. " .'

In vain have these sages declared that Congress shall have power
to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises; in vain have
they provided that. they shall have power to pass laws which shall be
necessary and proper to carry those powers into execution; that those
laws and that Constitution shall be the " supreme law of the land,
and that the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything
in the constitution oriaws of any state to, the contrary notwithstand-
ing." In vain have the people of the several states solemnly sanc-
tioned these provisions, made them their paramount law, and indi-
vidually sworn to support them whenever they were called on to
execute any office. Vain, provisions! ineffectual restrictions! vile
profanation of oaths! miserable mockery of legislation! if a bare ma-
jority of the voters In any one state may, on a real or supposed
knowledge of the intent with which a law has been passed, declare
themselves free, from its operation-^say here it gives too little, there
too much, and operates unequally; here it suffers articles to be free
that ought to be taxed— there it taxes those that ought to be free; in
ibis case the proceeds are intended to be applied to purposes which'
we .do not approve— in that the amount raised is more than is wanted.

Congress, it is true, is invested by the Constitution with the right
of deciding these questions according to its sound discretion. Con-
gress is composed of the representatives of all the states, and of all
the people of all the states; but we, part of the people of one state,
to whom the Constitution has given no power on the subject, from
whom it has expressly taken it away- — we, who have solemnly agreed,
that this Constitution shall be our law— we, most of whom have sworn
to support it — -we now abrogate this law, and swear, and force others to
swear, that it shall not be obeyed. And we do this not because Con-
gress have no right to pass such laws — this we do not allege — but be-
cause they have passed them with improper views... They are uncon-
stitutional from the motives of those who passed them, which we can
never with certainty know; from their unequal operation, although it
is impossible, from the nature of things, that they should be equal;
and from the disposition which we presume may be made of their pro-
ceeds, although that disposition has not been declared. This is the
plain meaning of the ordinance in relation to laws which it abrogates
for alleged unconstitutionality. But it does not stop there. It re-
peals, in express terms, an important part of the Constitution itself,
and of laws passed to give if Meet, which have never" been alleged to-

A XDRE IF /- I CA'SOJW 2 9 1

b~ unconstitutional. The Constitution declares that the judical powers
of the United States extend to cases arising under the laws of the
United States, and that such laws, the Constitution and treaties, shall
he paramount to the state constitutions and laws. The judiciary act
prescribes the mode by which the case may be brought before a court
of the United states, by appeal, when a state tribunal shall decide
against this provision of the Constitution. The ordinance declares
there shall be no appeal; makes the state law paramount to the Con-
stitution and laws of the United States; forces judges and jurors to
swear that they will disregard their provisions; and even makes it
penal in a suitor to attempt relief by appeal. It further declares that
it shall not be lawful for. the authorities of the United States, or of
that state, to enforce the payment of duties imposed by the revenue
laws within its limits.

Here is a lav/ of the United States, not even pretended to be uncon-
stitutional, repealed by the authority of a small majority of the voters
of a. single state. Here is a provision 'of the Constitution which is
solemnly abrogated by the same authority.

On such expositions and reasonings the ordinance grounds not only
an assertion of the right to annul the laws of which it complains, but
to enforce it by a threat of seceding from the Union if any attempt is
made to execute them.

This right to secede is deduced from the nature of the Constitution,
which, they say, is a compact between sovereign states, who have pre-
served their whole sovereignty, and therefore are subject to no supe-
rior; that, because they made the compact they can break it when, in
their opinion, it has been departed from by the other states. Falla-
cious as this course of reasoning is. it enlists state pride, and finds ad-
vocates in the honest prejudices of those who have not studied the
nature of our government sufficiently to'sce the radical error on which
it rests.

The people of the United States formed the Constitution, acting
through the state legislatures in making the compact, to meet and dis-
cuss its provisions, and acting in separate conventions when they rati-
fied these provisions; but the terms used in its construction show it to
be a government in which the people of the states collectively are rep-
resented. We are one people in the choice of the President and Vice-
President. Here the states have no other agency than to direct the
mode in which the votes shall be given. The candidates having the
majority of all the votes are chosen. The electors of a majority of
states may have given their votes for one candidate, and yet another
may be chosen. The people, then, and not the states, are represented
in the executive branch.

In the House of Representatives there is this difference, that the
people of one state do not, as in the case of President and Vice-Pres-
ident, all vote for the same officers. The people of all the states do

292 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

not vote for all the members, each state electing only its own repre^
sentatives. But this creates no material distinction. When chosen,
they are all representatives of the United States, not representatives
of the particular state from which they come. They are paid by the
United States, not by the state, nor are they accountable to it for any
act done in the performance of their legislative functions; and how-
ever they may in practice, as it is their duty to do, consult and prefer
ihe interests of their particular constituents when they come in con-
flict with any other partial or local interest, yet it is their first and
highest duty, as representatives of the United States, to promote the
general good.

The Constitution of the United States, then, forms a government,
not a league, and whether it be formed by compact between the states
or in any other manner, its character is the same. It is a government
in which all the people are represented, which operates directly on the
people individually, not upon the states — they retained all the power
they did not grant. But each state having expressly parted with so
many powers as to constitute, jointly with the other states, a single
nation, cannot from that period possess any right to secede, because
such secession does not break a league, but destroys the unity of a
nation, and any injury to that unity is not only a breach which would
result from the contravention of a compact, but it is an offence against
the whole Union. To say that any state may at pleasure secede from
the Union is to say that the United Stales are not a nation, because it
would be a solecism to contend that any part of a nation might dis-
solve its connection with the other parts, to their injury or ruin, with-
out committing any offence. Secession, like any other revolutionary
act, may be morally justified by the extremity of oppression; but to
call it a constitutional right is confounding the meaning of terms, and
can only be done through gross error, or to deceive those who are
Avilling to assert a right, but would pause before they made a revolu-
tion, or incur the penalties consequent on a failure.

Because the Union was formed by compact, it is said the parties to
that compact may, when they feel themselves aggrieved, depart from
it; but it is precisely because it is a compact that they cannot. A com-
pact is an agreement or binding obligation. It may by its terms have
a sanction or penalty for its breach, or it may not. If it contains no
sanction, it may be broken with no other consequence than moral
guilt;, if it have a sanction, then the breach insures the designated or
implied penalty. A league between independent nations generally has
no sanction other than a moral one; or if it should contain a penalty,
as there is no common superior, it cannot be enforced. A govern-
ment, on the contrary, always has a sanction, express or implied, and
in our case it is both necessarily implied and expressly given. An at-
tempt, by force of arms, to destroy a government is an offence by
whatever means the Constitutional compact may have been formed.

A XDRE W J A CKSOX. 2 95.

and such government has the right, by the law of self-defence, to pass
acts for punishing the offender.unless that right is modified, restrained,
or resumed by the constitutional act. In our system, although it is
modified in the case of treason, yet authority is expressly given to pass
all laws necessary to carry its powers into effect and under this grant
provision has been made for punishing acts which obstruct the due ad-
ministration of the laws.

It would seem superfluous to add anything to show the nature of
that union which connects us; but as erroneous opinions on this sub-
ject are the foundation of doctrines the most destructive to our peace,
I must give some further development to my views on this subject.
No one, fellow-citizens, has a higher reverence for the reserved rights
of the states than the magistrate who now addresses you. No one
would make greater personal sacrifices or official exertions to defend
them from violation, but equal care must be taken to prevent on their
part an improper interference with or resumption of the rights they
have vested in the nation. The line has not been so distinctly drawn
as to avoid doubts in some cases of the exercise of power. Men of
the best intentions and soundest views may differ in their construction
of some parts of the Constitution, but there are others on which dis-
passionate reflection can leave no doubt. Of this nature appears to
be the assumed right of secession. It treats, as we have seen, on the
alleged undivided sovereignty of the states, and on their having
formed, in this sovereign capacity, a compact which is called the Con-
stitution, from which, because they made it, they have the right to
secede. Both of these positions are erroneous, and some of the argu-
ments to prove them so have been anticipated.

The states severally have not retained their entire sovereignty. It
has been shown that in becoming parts of a nation, not members of a
league, they surrendered many of their essential parts of sovereignty.
The right to make treaties, declare war, levy taxes, exercise exclusive
judicial and legislative powers, were ail of them functions of sovereign
power. The states, then, for all these purposes, were no longer sov-
ereign. The allegiance of their citizens' was transferred in the first in-
stance to the government of the United States. They became Amer-
ican citizens, and owed obedience to the Constitution of the United
States, and to laws made in conformity with the powers it vested in
Congress. This last position has not been and cannot be denied.
How, then, can that state be said to be sovereign and independent
whose citizens owe obedience to laws not made by it, and whose mag-
istrates are sworn to disregard those laws when they come in conflict
with those passed by another? What shows conclusively that the
states cannot be said to have reserved an undivided sovereignty is,
that they expressly ceded the right to punish treason — not treason
against their separate power, but treason against the United States.
Treason is an offence against sovereignty, and, sovereignty must re-

294 A ME RICA X FA TRIO ZYS.V.

side with the power to punish it. But the rererved rights of &m
states are not less sacred because the;/ have, for their common interest,
made the general government the depository of these powers.

The unity of our political character (as has been shown for another
purpose) commenced with its very existence. Under the royal gov-
ernment we had no separate character; our opposition to its.: op-
pression began as united colonies. We were the United States
under the confederation, and the name was perpetuated, and i the
Union rendered more perfect, by the federal constitution. In none
of these stages did we consider ourselves in any other light than as
forming one nation. Treaties and alliances were made ia the name
of all. Troops were raised for the joint defence. Ho -v, then, with
all these proofs, that under all changes of our positioa we had for
designated purpose.* and defined powers, created national govern-
ments— how is it that the most perfect of those several modes of
union should now be considered as a mere league that may be dis-
solved at pleasure? It is from an abuse of terms. Compact is used
as synonymous with league, although the true term is not employed,
because it would at once show the fallacy of the reasoning. It would
not do to say that our constitution was only a league, but it is labored
to prove it a compact (which in one sense it is), and then to argue that
as a league is a compact, every compact between nations must, of
course, be a league, and that from such an engagement every sover-
eign power has a right to recede. But it has been shown that, in this
sense, the states are not sovereign, and that even if they were, and the
national constitution had been formed by compact, there would be no
right in any one state to exonerate itself from its obligations.

So obvious are the reasons which forbid this secession, that it is
necessary only to allude to them. The Union was formed for the
benefit of all. It was produced by mutual sacrifices of interests and
opinions. Can those sacrifices be recalled ? Can the states, who
magnanimously surrendered their title to the territories of the west,
recall the giant ? Will the inhabitants of the inland states agree to
pay the duties that may be imposed without their assent by those on
the Atlantic or the Gulf, for their own benefit ? Shall there be a free
port in one state and onerous duties in another ? No one believes
that any right exists in a single state to involve all the others in these
and countless other evils contrary to the engagements solemnly made.
Every one must see that the other states, in self-defence, must oppose
it at all hazards.

These are the alternatives that are presented by the convention: a
repeal of all the acts for raising revenue, leaving the government with-
out the means of support, or an acquiescence in the dissolution of our
Union by the secession of one of its members. When the first was
proposed, it was known that it cpuld not be listened to for a moment.
It was known, if force was applied to oppose the execution of the

A NDRE W J A CKSOX. 295

laws that it must be repelled by force: that Congress could not, with-
out involving itself in disgrace and the country in ruin, accede to' the
proposition; and yet if this is not done in a given day, or if ant at-
tempt is made to execute the laws, the state is, by the ordinance,
declared to be out of the Union. The majority of a convention as-
sembled for the purpose have dictated these terms, or rather this re-
jection of all terms, in the name of the people of South Carolina i It

• is true that the governor of the state speaks of the submission of 'their
grievances to a convention of all the states, which, he says, they
M sincerely and anxiously seek and desire." Yet this obvious and

'Constitutional mode of obtaining the sense of the other states on;the
construction of the federal compact, and amending it, if necessary,

-has never been attempted by those who have urged the state on to

this destructive measure. The state'might have proposed the call for

a general convention to the other states, and Congress; if a sufficient

- number of them concurred, must have called it. But the first rriagis-

--trate of South Carolina, when he expressed a hope that, l'on a review-
by Congress; and the functionaries of the general government of the
merits of the controversy," such a convention will be accorded to
them, must have known that neither Congress nor any functionary of
the general government has authority to call such a convention, unless
it be demanded by two- thirds of the states. This suggestion, then, is
another instance of the reckless inattention to the provisions of the
constitution with which this crisis has been madly hurried on, or of
the attempt to persuade the people that a constitutional remedy had
been sought and refused. If the legislature of South Carolina " anxi-
ously desire" a general convention to consider their complaints, why
have they not made application for it in the way the constitution
points out ? The assertion that they " earnestly seek it" is completely
negatived by the omission.

This, then, is the position in which we stand. A small majority of
the citizens of one state in the Union have elected delegates to a state
convention, that convention has ordained that all the revenue laws of
the United States must be repealed, or that they are no longer a
member of the Union. The governor of that state has recommended
to the legislature the raising of an army to carry the secession into
effect, and that he may be empowered to give Clearances to vessels in
the name of the state. No act of violent opposition to the laws has
yet been committed, but such a state of things is hourly apprehended,
and it is the intent of this instrument to proclaim, not only that the
duty imposed ort me by the constitution " to take care that the laws be
faithfully executed," shall be performed to the extent of the powers
already vested in me by law, or of such others as the wisdom of Con-
gress shall devise and intrust to me for that purpose, but to warn the
citizens of South Carolina who have been deluded into an opposition
to the laws, of the danger they will incur by obedience to the illegal

296 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

and disorganizing ordinance of the convention ; to exhort those who
have refused to support it to persevere in their determination to tip-
hold the constitution and laws of their country, and to point out to
all the perilous siluation into which the good people of that state have
been led, and that the course they are urged to pursue is one of ruin
and disgrace to the very state whose rights they affect to support.

Fellow-citizens of my native state, let me riot only admonish you,
as the first magistrate of our common country, not to incur the penalty
of its laws, but use the influence that a father would over his children
whom he saw rushing to certain ruin. In that paternal language,
with that paternal feeling, let me tell you, my countrymen, that you
are deluded by men who are either deceived themselves or wish to
deceive you. Mark under what pretences you have been led on to
the brink of insurrection and treason, on which you stand! First, a
diminution of the value of your staple commodity, lowered by over
production in other quarters, and the Consequent diminution in the
value of your lands, were the sole effect of the tariff laws.

The effect of those laws was confessedly injurious, but the evil was
greatly exaggerated by the unfounded theory you were taught to be-
lieve, that its burdens were in proportion to your exports, riot to your
consumption of imported articles. Your pride was roused by the as-
sertion that a submission to those laws was a state of vassalage, and
that resistance to them was equal, in patriotic merit, to the oppositions
our fathers offered to the oppressive laws of Great Britain. You were
told that this opposition might be peaceably — might be constitutionally
made; that you might enjoy all the advantages of the Union, and bear
none of its burdens. Eloquent appeals to your passions, to your
state pride, to your native courage, to your sense of real injury, were
used to prepare you for the period when the mask, which concealed
the hideous features of disunion should be taken off. It fell, and you
were made to look with complacency on objects which, not long
since, you would have regarded with horror. Look back to the arts
which have brought you to this state; look forward to the conse-
quences to which it must inevitably lead! Look back to what was
first told you as an inducement to enter into this dangerous course.
The great political truth was repeated to you, that you had the revo-
lutionary right of resisting all laws that were palpably unconstitutional
and intolerably oppressive; it was added that the right to nullify a law
rested on the same principle, but that it was a peaceable remedy'
This character which was given to it made you receive, with too
much confidence, the assertions that were made of the unconstitution-
ality of the law and its oppressive effects. Mark, my fellow-citizens,
that, by the admission of your leaders, the unconstitutionality must be
palpable, or it will not justify either resistance or nullification! What
is the meaning of the word palpable in the sense in which it is here
used? That which is apparent to everyone; that which no man of

A NDRE W J A CKSOK. 297

ordinary intellect will fail to perceive. Is the unconstitutionality Of
these laws of that description ? Let those among your leaders, who
once approved and advocated the principle of productive duties, an-
swer the question, and let them choose whether they will be con-
sidered as incapable, then, of perceiving that which must have been
apparent to every man of common understanding, or as imposing
upon your confidence, and endeavoring to mislead you now. In
either case they are unsafe guides in the perilous path they urge you
to tread. Ponder well on this circumstance, and you will know how
to appreciate the exaggerated language they address to you. They
are not champions of liberty emulating the fame of our revolutionary
fathers; nor are you an oppressed people, contending, as they repeat
to you, against worse than colonial vassalage.

You are free members of a flourishing and happy Union. There is
no settled design to oppress you. You have indeed felt the unequal
operation of laws which may have been unwisely, not unconstitution-
ally passed; but that inequality must necessarily be removed. At the
very moment when you were madly urged on to the unfortunate course
you have begun, a change in public opinion had commenced. The
nearly approaching payment of the public debt, and the consequent
necessity of a diminution of duties, had already produced a considerable
reduction, and that, too, on some articles of general consumption in
your State. The importance of this change was underrated, and you
were authoritatively told that no further alleviation of your burdens
was to be expected at the very time when the condition of the country
imperiously demanded such a modification of the duties as should re-
duce them to a just and equitable scale. But as if apprehensive of the
effect of this change in allaying your discontents, you were precipitated
into the fearful state in which you now find yourselves.

I have urged you to look back to the means that were used to hurry
you on to the position you have now assumed, and forward to the
consequences it will produce. Something more is necessary. Con-
template the condition of that country Of which you still form an im-
portant part. Consider its government uniting in one bond of common
interest and general protection so many different States — giving to all
their inhabitants the proud title of American citizens, protecting their
commerce, securing their literature and their arts; facilitating their in-
tercommunication; defending their frontiers; and making their name
respected in the remotest parts of the earth. Consider the extent of
its territory; its increasing and happy population; its advance in arts
which render life agreeable; and the sciences which elevate the mind !
See education spreading the lights of religion, morality, and general in-
formation into every cottage in this wide extent of our Territories
and States ! Behold it as the asylum where the wretched and the
oppressed find a refuge and support ! Look on this picture of happi-
ness and honor, and say, we, too, are Citizens of America! Caro-

298 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

lina is one of these proud States; her arms have defended,' her best
blood has cemented, this happy Union! And then add, if you can,
without horror and remorse, this happy Union we will dissolve ; this
picture of peace and prosperity We will deface; this free intercoufte we
will interrupt; these fertile fields we will deluge with blood; the pro-
tection of that glorious flag we renounce; the very name of Americans
We discard. And for what, mistaken men; for what do you throw
away these inestimable blessings? For what would you exchange
your share in the advantages and honor of the Union ? For the dream
of separate independence — a dream interrupted by bloody conflicts
With your neighbors, and a vile dependence on a foreign power. IT
your leaders could suceed in establishing a separation, what would be
your situation ? Are you united at home; are you free from the appre-
hension of civil discord, with all its fearful consequences? Do our
neighboring republics, every day suffering some new revolution, or
contending with some new insurrection — do they excite your envy?
But the dictates of a high duty oblige me solemnly to announce that
you cannot succeed. The laws of the United States must be execiited-
I have no discretionary power on the subject; my duty is emphatically
pronounced in the Constitution. Those who told you that you might
peaceably prevent their execution deceived you; they could not have
been deceived themselves. They know that a forcible opposition could
alone prevent the execution of the laws, and the know that such opposi-
tion must be repelled. Their object is disunion; but be not deceived by
names; disunion, by armed ' force, is treason. Are you really ready
to incur its guilt? If you are, on the heads of the instigators of the
act be the dreadful consequences; on their heads be the dishonor, but
on yours may fall the punishment. On your unhappy State will ine-
vitably fall all the evils of the conflict you force upon the government
of your country. It cannot accede to the mad project of disunion, of
which you would be the' first victims; its first magistrate cannot, if he
would, avoid the performance of his duty. The consequence must be
fearful for you, distressing to your fellow-citizens here, and to the
friends of good government throughout the world. Its enemies have
beheld our prosperity with a vexation they could not conceal; it was
a standing refutation of their slavish doctrines,, and they will point to
our discord with the triumph of malignant joy. It is yet in your power
to disappoint them. There is yet time to show that the descendants
of the Pinckneys, the Sumters, the Rutledges, and of the thousand
other names which adorn the pages of your revolutionary history, will
not abandon that Union, to support which so many of them fought,
and bled, and died.

I adjure you, as you honor their memory, as you love the cause of
freedom, to which they dedicated their lives, as you prize the peace of
your country, the lives of its best citizens, and your own fair fame, to
retrace your steps. Snatch from the archives of your State the elisor-

A NDRE IV J A CKSON. 299

ganizing edict of its convention; bid its members to reassemble, and
promulgate the decided expressions of your will to remain in the path
which alone can conduct you to safety, prosperity, and honor. Tell
them that, compared to disunion, all other evils are light, because that
brings with it an accumulation of all. Declare that you will never take
the field unless the star-spangled banner 01 your country shall float
over you; that you will not be stigmatized when dead, and dishonored
and scorned while you live, as the autnors of the first attack on the
Constitution of your country. Its destroyers you cannot be. You
may disturb its peace — you may interrupt the course of its prosperity
— you may cloud its reputation for stability, but its tranquillity will be
restored, its prosperity Will return, and the stain upon its national char-
acter will be transferred and remain an eternal blot on the memory of
those who caused the disorder.

.Fellow-citizens of the United States: The threat of unhallowed dis-
union— the names of those once respected, by whom it is uttered — the
array of military force to support it — denote the approach of a crisis
in our affairs on which the continuance of oUr unexampled prosperity,
our political existence, and perhaps that of all free governments may
depend. The conjuncture demanded a free, a full, and explicit enun-
ciation, not only of my intentions, but of my principles of action; and,
as the claim was asserted of a right by a State to annul the laws of the
Union, and even to secede from it at pleasure, a frank exposition of
my opinions in relation to the origin and form of our government, and
the construction I give to the instrument by which it was created,
seemed to be proper. Having the fullest confidence in the justness of
the legal and constitutional opinion of my duties, which has been ex-
pressed, I rely, with equal confidence, on your undivided support in
my determination to execute the laws, to preserve the Union by all
constitutional means, to arrest, if possible, by moderate but firm mea-
sures, the necessity of a recourse to force; and, if it be the will of
Heaven, that the recurrence of its primeval curse on man for the shed-
ding of a brother's blood should fall upon our land, that it be not called
down by an offensive act on the part of the United States.

Fellow-citizens : The momentous case is before you. On your un-
divided support of your government depends the decision of the great
question it involves, whether your sacred Union will be preserved, and
the blessings it secures to us as one people shall be perpetuated. No
one can doubt that the unanimity with which that decision will be ex-
pressed will be such as to inspire new confidence in republican insti-
tutions, and that the prudence, the wisdom, and the courage which it
will bring to their defence will transmit them unimpaired and invigo-
rated to our children.

May the Great Ruler of nations grant that the signal blessings with
which he has favored ours may not, by the madness of party or per-
sonal, ambition, be disregarded and lost; and may his wise Providence

300 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

bring those who have produced this crisis to see their folly before they
feel the misery of civil strife, and inspire a returning veneration for
that Union which, if we may dare to penetrate his designs, he has
chosen as the only means of attaining the high destinies to which we
may reasonably aspire.

In testimony whereof, I have caused the seal of the United States
to be hereunto affixed, having signed the same with my hand.

Done at the City of Washington, this ioth day of December, in the
year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty-two, and of
the independence of the United States the fifty-seventh.

ANDREW JACKSON.
By the President :

Edw. Livingston,

Secretary of State.

LAFAYETTE.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

Washington, Dec. 31, 1834.

On the 6th of September, 1757, Lafayette was 'born. The kings of
France and Britain were seated upon their thrones by virtue of the
principle of hereditary succession, variously modified and blended
with different forms of religious faith, and they were waging war
against each other, and exhausting the blood and treasure of their
people for causes in which neither of the nations had any beneficial or
lawful interest.

In this war the father of Lafayette fell in the cause of his king, but
not of his country. He was an officer of an invading army, the
instrument of his sovereign's wanton ambition and lust of conquest.
The people of the electorate of Hanover had done no wrong to him
or to his country. When his son came to an age capable of under-
standing the irreparable loss that he had suffered, and to reflect upon
the causes of his father's fate, there was no drop of consolation
mingled in the cup., from the consideration that he had died for
his country. And when the youthful mind was awakened to medita-
tion upon the rights of mankind, the principles of freedom, and
theories of government, it cannot be difficult to perceive, in the illus-
trations of his own family records, the source of that aversion to her-
editary rule, perhaps the most distinguishing feature of his political
opinions, and to which he adhered through all the vicissitudes of his
life.

In the same war, and at the same time, George Washington was
armed, a loyal subject, in support of his king; but to him that was-

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 301

also the cause of his country. His commission was not in the army
of George the Second, but issued under the authority of the Colony of
Virginia, the province in which he received his birth. On the borders
of that province, the war in its most horrid forms was waged — not a
war of mercy, and of courtesy, like that of the civili2ed embattled
legions of Europe; but war to the knife — the war of Indian savages,
terrible to man, but more terrible to the tender sex, and most terrible
to helpless infancy. In defence of his country against the ravages of
such a war, Washington, in the dawn of manhood, had drawn his
sword, as if Providence, with deliberate purpose, had sanctified for
him the practice of war, all-detestable and unhallowed as it is, that he
might, in a cause, virtuous and exalted by its motive and its end, be
trained and fitted in a congenial school to march in after times the
leader of heroes in the war of his country's independence.
. At the time of the birth of Lafayette, this war, which was to make
him a fatherless child, and in which Washington was laying broad and
deep, in the defence and protection of his native land, the foundations
of his unrivalled renown, was but in its early stage. It was to con-
tinue five years longer, and was to close with the total extinguishment
of the colonial dominion of France on the Continent of North America.
The deep humiliation of France, and the triumphant ascendancy on
this Continent of her rival, were the first results of this great national
conflict. The complete expulsion of France from North America
seemed to the superficial vision of men to fix the British power over
these extensive regions on foundations immovable as the everlasting
hills.

Let us pass in imagination a period of only twenty years, and alight
upon the borders of the river Brandywine. Washington is Com-
mander-in-chief of the armies of the United States of America — war is
again raging in the heart of his native land — hostile armies of one and
the same name, blood, and language, are arrayed for battle on the
banks of the stream; and Philadelphia, where the United States are in
Congress assembled, and whence their decree of independence has
gone forth, is the destined prize to the conflict of the day. Who is
that tall, slender youth, of foreign air and aspect, scarcely emerged
llfrom the years of boyhood, and fresh from the walls of a college;
[fighting, a volunteer, at the side of Washington, bleeding, uncon-
sciously to himself, and rallying his men to secure the retreat of the
iscattered American ranks ? It is Gilbert Motier de Lafayette — the
■ son of the victim of Minden; and he is bleeding in the cause of North
'American independence and of freedom.

We pause one moment to inquire what was this cause of North
JAmerican Independence, and what were the motives and inducements
Ito the youthful stranger to devote himself, his life, and fortune, to it.

The people of the British colonies in North America, after a con-
troversy of ten years' duration with their sovereign beyond the seas,

392 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

upon an attempt by him and his Parliament to tax them without their
consent, had been constrained by necessity to declare themselves in-
pendent- — to dissolve the tie of their allegiance to him — to renounce
their right to his protection, and to assume their station among the
independent civilized nations of the earth. This had been done with
a deliberation and solemnity unexampled in the history of the world—
done in the midst of a civil war, differing in character from any -of
those which for centuries before had desolated Europe. The war had
arisen upon a question between the rights of the people and the
powers of their government. The discussions, in the progress of the
controversy, had opened to the contemplations of men the. first foun-
dations of civil society and of government. The war of independence
began by litigation upon a petty stamp on paper, and a tax of three
pence a pound upon tea; but these broke up the fountains of the great
deep, and the deluge ensued. Had the British Parliament the right
to tax the people of the Colonies in another hemisphere, not repre-^

fsented in the Imperial Legislature ? They affirmed they had : the
people of the colonies insisted they had not. There were ten years.,
of pleading before they came to an issue; and all the legitimate
sources of power, and all the primitive elements of freedom, were
scrutinized, debated, analyzed, and elucidated, before the lighting of
the torch of Ate, and her cry of havoc upon letting slip the dogs of
war.

When the day of conflict came, the issue of the contest was neces-
sarily changed. The people of the Colonies had maintained the con-
test on the principle of resisting the invasion of chartered rights—
first by argument and remonstrance, and, finally, by appeal to the
sword. But with the war came the necessary exercise of sovereign
powers. The Declaration of Independence justified itself as the only
possible remedy for insufferable wrongs. It seated itself upon the
first foundations of the law of nature, and the incontestable doctrine
of human rights. There was no longer any question of the constitu-
tional powers of the British Parliament, or of violated colonial char-
ters. Thenceforward the American nation supported its existence by
war; and the British nation, by war, was contending for conquest.
As, between the two parties, the single question at issue was Inde-
pendence^— but in the confederate existence of the North American
Union, Liberty — not only their own liberty, but the vital principle of
liberty to the whole race of civilized man, was involved.

It was at this stage of the conflict, and immediately after the Dec-
laration of Independence, that it drew the attention, and called into
action the moral sensibilities and the intellectual faculties of Lafayette,
then in the nineteenth year of his age.

The war was revolutionary. It began by the dissolution of the
British Government in the colonies; the people of which were, by
that operation, left without any government whatever. They were

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 303

then at one and the same time maintaining their independent national
existence by war, and forming new social compacts for their own
government thenceforward. The construction of civil society; the
extent and the limitations of organized power; the establishment of a
system of government combining the greatest enlargement of indi-
vidual liberty with the most perfect preservation of public order, were
the continual occupations of every mind. The consequences of this
state of things to the history of mankind, and especially of Europe,
were foreseen by none. Europe saw nothing but the war; a people
struggling for liberty, and against oppression; and the people in every
part of Europe sympathized with the people of the American colo-
nies.

With their governments it was not so. The people of the American
colonies were insurgents; all governments abhor insurrection. They
were revolted colonists; the great maritime powers of Europe had
eolonies of their own, to which the example of resistance against
oppression might be contagious. The American colonies were stig-
matized in all the official acts of the British Government as rebels;
and rebellion to the governing part of mankind is as the sin of witch-
craft. The governments of Europe, therefore, were at heart, on the
side of the British Government in this war, and the people of Europe
were on the side of the American people.

Lafayette, by his position and condition in life, was one of those
who, governed by the ordinary impulses which influence and control
the conduct of men, would have sided in sentiment with the British or
royal cause. \

Lafayette was born a subject of the most absolute and most splen-
did monarchy of Europe; and in the highest rank of her proud and
chivalrous nobility. He had been educated at a college of the Uni-
versity of Paris, founded by the royal munificence of Louis the Four-
teenth, or Cardinal Richelieu. Left an orphan in early childhood,
with the inheritance of a princely fortune, he had been married at six-
teen years of age, to a daughter of the house of Noailles, the most
distinguished family of the kingdom, scarcely deemed in public con-
sideration inferior to that which wore the crown. He came into active
life, at the change from boy to man, a husband and a father, in the
full enjoyment of everything that avarice could covet, with a certain
prospect before him of all that ambition could crave. Happy in
his domestic affections, incapable, from the benignity of his nature, of
envy, hatred, or revenge, a life of "ignoble ease and indolent repose"
seemed to be that which nature and fortune had combined to prepare
before him. To men of ordinary mould this condition would have ied
to a life of luxurious apathy and sensual indulgence. Such was the
life into which, from the operation of the same causes, Louis the Fif-
teenth had sunk, with his household and court, while Lafayette was
rising to manhood surrounded by the contamination of their example.

3°4 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

Had his natural endowments been even of the higher and nobler order
of such as adhere to virtue, even in the lap of prosperity, and in the
bosom of temptation, he might have lived and died a pattern of the
nobility of France, to be classed, in aftertimes, with the Turennes and
the Montausiers of the age of Louis the Fourteenth, or with the Villars
or the Lamoignons of the age immediately preceding his own.

But as, in the firmament of heaven that rolls over our heads, there
is, among the stars of the first magnitude, one so pre-eminent in
splendor, as in the opinion of astronomers, to constitute a class by
itself; so in the fourteen hundred years of the French monarchy,
among the multitudes of great and mighty men which it has evolved,
the name of Lafayette stands unrivalled in the solitude of glory.

I n entering upon the threshold of life, a career was to open before
him. He had the option of the court and the camp. An office was
tendered to him in the household of the King's brother, the Count de
Provence, since successively a royal exile and a reinstated king. The
servitude and inaction of a court had no charms for him; he pre-
ferred a commission in the army, and, at the time of the Declaration
of Independence, was a captain of dragoons in garrison at Metz.

There, at a entertainment given by his relative, the Marechal de

Broglie, the commandant of the place, to the Duke of Gloucester,

brother to the British king, and then a transient traveller through that

j part of France, he learns, as an incident of intelligence received that

(morning by the English Prince from London, that the Congress of
rebels at Philadelphia, had issued a Declaration of Independence. A
conversation ensues upon the causes which have contributed to pro-
duce this event, and upon the consequences which may be expected to
flow from it. The imagination of Lafayette has caught across the At-
lantic tide the spark emitted from the Declaration of Independence;
his heart has kindled at the shock, and, before he slumbers upon his
pillow, he has resolved to devote his life and fortune to the cause.
/ . You have before you the cause and the man. The self-devotion of
j Lafayette was twofold. First to the people, maintaining a bold and
seemingly desperate struggle against oppression, and for national ex^
istence. Secondly, and chiefly, to the principles of their declaration,
which then first unfurled before his eyes the consecrated standard of
human rights. To that standard, without an instant of hesitation,
he repaired. Where it would lead him, it is scarcely probable that he
; himself then foresaw. It was then identical with the Stars and Stripes
I of the American Union, floating to the breeze from the Hall of Inde-
'. pendence, at Philadelphia. Nor sordid avarice, nor vulgar ambition,
could point his footsteeps to the pathway leading to that banner. To
the love of ease or pleasure nothing could be more repulsive. Some-
thing may be allowed to the beatings of the youthful breast, which
make ambition virtue, and something to the spirit of military adven-
ture, imbibed from his profession, and which he felt in common with

JOHN QCLYCY ADAMS. 3°5

many others. France, Germany, Poland, furnished to the armies of
this Union, in our revolutionary struggle, no inconsiderable number of
officers of high rank and distinguished merit. . The names of Pulaski j
and De Kalb are numbered among the martyrs of our freedom, and
their ashes repose in our soil side by side with the canonized bones of
Warren and of Montgomery. To the virtues of Lafayette, a more
protracted career and happier earthly destinies were reserved. To the
moral principle of political action, the sacrifices of no other man were
comparable to his. Youth, health, fortune; the favor of his king; the
enjoyment of ease and pleasure; even the choicest blessings of domes-
tic felicity — he gave them all for toil and danger in a distant land, and ")
an almost hopeless cause; but it was the cause of justice, and of the /
rights of human kind.

The resolve is firmly fixed, and it now remains to be carried into exe-
cution. On the 7th of December, 1776, Silas Deane, then a secret
agent of the American Congress at Paris, stipulates with the Marquis de
Lafayette that he shall receive a commission, to date from that day, of
Major General in the Army of the United States ; and the Marquis
stipulates, in return, to depart when and how Mr. Deane shall judge
proper, to serve the United States with all possible zeal, without pay or
emolument, reserving to himself only the liberty of returning to Europe,
if his family or his King should recall him.

Neither his family nor his King were willing that he should depart ;
nor had Mr. Deane the power, either to conclude this contract, or to
furnish the means of his conveyance to America. Difficulties rise up
before him only to be dispersed, and obstacles thicken only to be sur-
mounted. The day after the signature of the contract, Mr. Deane's
agency was superseded by the arrival of Doctor Benjamin Franklin and
Arthur Lee as his colleagues in commission ; nor did they think them-
selves authorized to confirm his engagements. Lafayette is not to be
discouraged. The Commissioners extenuate nothing of the unpromising
condition of their cause. Mr. Deane avows his inability to furnish him
with a passage to the United States. " The more desperate the cause,"'
says Lafayette, "the greater need has it of my services; and, if Mr.
" Deane has no vessel for my passage, I shall purchase one myself, and. I
" will traverse the Ocean with a selected company of my own."

Other impediments arise. His design becomes known to the British
Ambassador at the Court of Versailles, who remonstrates to the French
Government against it. At his instance, orders are issued for the deten-
tion of the vessel purchased by the Marquis, and fitted out at Bordeaux,
and for the arrest of his person. To elude the first of these orders, the
vessel is removed from Bordeaux to the neighboring port of Passage,
within the dominion of Spain. The order for his own arrest is exe-
cuted ; but, by stratagem and disguise, he escapes from the custody of
those who have him in charge, and. before a second order can reach
him, he is safe on the ocean wave, bound to the land of Independence
and of Freedom. J

306 AM ERICA X PATRIOTISM.

The war of American Independence is closed. The people of the
North American Confederation are in union, sovereign and independent.
Lafayette, at twenty-five years of age, has lived, the life of a patriarch,
and illustrated the career of a hero. Had his days upon earth been then
numbered, and had he then slept with his fathers, illustrious as for cen-
turies their names had been, his name, to the end of time, would
have transcended them all. Fortunate youth! fortunate beyond
even the measure of his companions in arms with whom he
had achieved the glorious consummation of American Independence.
His fame was all his own; not cheaply earned ; not ignobly won.
His fellow-soldiers had been the champions and defenders of their
country. They reaped for themselves, for their wives, their children,
their posterity to the latest time, the rewards of their dangers an4
their toils. Lafayette had watched, and labored, and fought, and bled,
not for himself, not for his family, not, in the first instance, even for
his country. In the legendary tales of chivalry we read of tourna-
ments at which a foreign and unknown knight suddenly presents
himself, armed in complete steel, and, with the vizor down, enters the
ring to contend with the assembled flower of knighthood for the prize
of honor, to be awarded by the hand of beauty ; bears it in triumph
away, and disappears from the astonished multitude of competitors
and spectators of the feats of arms. But where, in the rolls of history;
where, in the fictions of romance, where, but in the life of Lafayette,
has been seen the noble stranger, flying, with the tribute of his name,
his rank, his influence, his ease, his domestic bliss, his treasure, his
blood, to the relief of a suffering and distant land, in the hour of her
deepest calamity — baring his bosom to her foes; and not at the trans-
ient pageantry of a tournament, but for a succession of five years
sharing all the vicissitudes of her fortunes; always eager to appear at
the post of danger — tempering the glow of youthful ardor with the
cold caution of a veteran commander; bold and daring in action;
prompt in execution; rapid in pursuit; fertile in expedients; unattain-
able in retreat; often exposed, but never surprised, never disconcerted1;
eluding his enemy when within his fancied grasp; bearing upon hirh
"with irresistible sway when of force to cope with him in the conflict of
arms? And what is this but the diary of Lafayette, from the day of
his rallying the scattered fugitives of the Brandywine, insensible
of the blood flowing from his wound, to the storming of the redoubt
at Yorktown ?

Henceforth, as a public man, Lafayette is to be considered as a
Frenchman, always active and ardent to serve the United States, but
no longer in their service as an officer. So transcendent had been
his merits in the common cause, that, to reward them, the rule of
progressive advancement in the armies of France was set aside for
him. He received from the minister of war a notification that from
the day of his retirement from the service of the United States as a

JOHN QUIXCY ADAMS. 307

major general, at the close of the war, he should hold the same rank
in the armies of France, to date from the day of the capitulation of
Lord Cornwallis.

Henceforth he is a Frenchman, destined to perform in the history
of his country a part, as peculiarly his own, and not less glorious than
that which he had performed in the war of independence. A short
period of profound peace followed the great triumph of freedom. The
desire of Lafayette once more to see the land of his adoption and the
associates of his glory, the fellow-soldiers who had become to him as I
brothers, and the friend and patron of his youth, who had become to
him as a father; sympathizing wiih their desire once more to see him
— to see in their prosperity him who had first come to them in their
affliction, induced him, in the year 1784, to pay a visit to the United
States.

On the 4th of August, of that year, he landed at New York, and, in
the space of five months from that time, visited his venerable friend at
Mount Vernon, where he was then living in retirement, and traversed
ten States of the Union, receiving every where, from their legislative
as^emDlie^, "from the municipal bodies of the cities and towns through
which he passed, from the officers of the army, his late associates, now
restored to the virtues and occupations of private life, and even from
the recent emigrants from Ireland, who had come to adopt for their
country the self-emancipated land, addresses of gratulation and of joy,
the effusions of hearts grateful in the enjoyment of the blessings for
the possession of which they had been so largely indebted to his ex-
ertions— and, finally, from the United States of America in Congress
assembled at Trenton.

On the 9th of December it was resolved by that body that a com-
mittee, to consist of one member from each State, should be appointed
to receive, and in the name of Congress take leave of the marquis. That
they should be instructed to assure him that Congress continued to en-
tertain the same high sense of his abilities and zeal to promote the wel-
fare of America, both here and in Europe, which they had frequently
expressed and manifested on former occasions, and which the recent
marks of his attention to their commercial and other interests had
perfectly confirmed. ' ' That, as his uniform and unceasing attach-
ment to this country has resembled that of a patriotic citizen, the
United States regard him with particular affection, and will not cease
to feel an interest in whatever may concern his honor and prosperity,
and that their best and kindest wishes will always attend him."

And it was further resolved, that a letter be written to his Most
Christian Majesty, to be signed by his Excellency the President of
Congress, expressive of the high sense which the United States in
Congress assembled entertain of the zeal, talents, and meritorious
services of the Marquis de Lafayette, and recommending him to the
favor and patronage of his Majesty.

3o8 A ME RIO AX PATRIOTISM.

The first of these resolutions was, on the next day, carried into ex-
ecution. At a Solemn interview with the Committee of Congress,
received in their hall, and addressed by the chairman of their com-
j mittee, John Jay, the purport of these resolutions was communicated
\ to him. He replied in terms of fervent sensibility for the kindness
manifested personally to himself; and, with allusions to the situation,
the prospects,"- and the duties of the people of this country, he pointed
out the great interests which he believed it indispensable to their wel-
fare, that they should cultivate and cherish. In the following mem-
orable sentences the ultimate objects of his solicitude are disclosed in
a tone deeply solemn and impressive :

" May this immense temple of freedom," said he, "ever stand, a
lesson to oppressors, an example to the oppressed, a sanctuary for
the rights of mankind ! and may these happy United States attain that
complete splendor and prosperity which will illustrate the blessings of
their government, and for ages to come rejoice the departed souls of
its founders."

Fellow-citizens ! Ages have passed away since these words were
spoken ; but ages are the years of the existence of nations. The found-
( ers of this immense temple of freedom have all departed, save here
and there a solitary exception, even while I speak, at the point of tak-
ing wing. The prayer of Lafayette is not yet consummated. Ages
> upon ages are still to pass away before it can have its full accomplish-
ment; and,»for its ful1 accomplishment, his spirit, hovering over our
[ heads, in more than echoes talks around these walls. It repeats the
prayer which from his lips fifty years ago was at once a parting bless-
ing and a prophecy; for, were it possible for the whole human race,
now breathing the breath of life, to be assembled within this hall, your
orator would, in your name and in that of your constituents, appeal to
them to testify for your fathers of the last generation, that, so far as
has depended upon them, the blessing of Lafayette has been prophecy.
Yes I this immense temple of freedom still stands, a lesson to op-
pressors, an example to the oppressed, and a sanctuary for the rights
of mankind. Yes ! with the smiles of a benignant Providence, the
splendor and prosperity of these happy United States have illustrated
the blessings of their government, and, we may humbly hope, have
rejoiced the departed souls of its founders. For the past your fathers
and you have been responsible. The charge of the future devolves
upon you and upon your children. The vestal fire of freedom is in your
custody. May the souls of its departed founders never be called to
witness its extinction by neglect, nor a soil upon the purity of its
keepers !

With this valedictory, Lafayette took, as he and those who heard
him then believed, a final leave of the people of the United States,
He returned to France and arrived at Paris on the 25th,of January,
1735.

JOHN QUIKCY ADAMS. 309

Such, legislators of the North American Confederate Union, was
the life of Gilbert Motier de Lafayette, and the record of his life is
the delineation of his character. Consider him as one human being
of one thousand millions, his contemporaries on the surface of the
terraqueous globe. Among that thousand millions seek for an object
of comparison with him; assume for the standard of comparison all
the virtues which exalt the character of man above that of the brute
creation; take the ideal man, little lower than the angels; mark the
qualities of mind and heart which entitle him to his station of pre-
eminence in the scale of created beings, and inquire who, that lived
in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries of the Christian era, com-
bined in himself so many of those qualities, so little alloyed with
those which belong to that earthly vesture of decay in which the im-
mortal spirit is enclosed, as Lafayette.

Pronounce him one of the first men of his age, and you have yet
not done him justice. Try him by that test to which he sought in
vain to stimulate the vulgar and selfish spirit of Napoleon; class him
among the men who, to compare and seat themselves, must take in the
compass of all ages; turn back your eyes upon the records of time:
summon from the creation of the world to this day the mighty dead
of every age and every clime- — and where, among the race of merely
mortal men, shall one be found, who, as the benefactor of his kind,
shall claim to take precedence of Lafayette ?

There have doubtless been, in all ages, men, whose discoveries or
inventions, in the world of matter or of mind, have opened new
avenues to the dominion of man over the material creation; have- in-
creased his means or his faculties of enjoyment; have raised him in
nearer approximation to that higher and happier condition, the object
of his hopes and aspirations in his present state of existence.

Lafayette discovered no new principle of politics or of morals. He
invented nothing in science. He disclosed no new phenomenon in
the laws of nature. Born and educated in the highest order of feudal
nobility, under the most absolute monarchy of Europe, in possession
of an affluent fortune, and master of himself and of all his capabili-
ties, at the moment of attaining manhood, the principle of republican
justice and of social equality took possession of his heart and mind,
as if by inspiration from above. He devoted himself, his life, his
fortune, his hereditary honors, his towering ambition, his splendid
hopes, all to the cause of liberty. He came to another hemisphere
0 to defend her. He became one of the most effective champions of
our independence; but, that once achieved, he returned to his own
country, and thenceforward took no part in the controversies which
have divided us. In the events of our revolution, and in the forms
of policy which we have adopted for the establishment and perpetua-
tion of our freedom, Lafayette found the most perfect form of govern-
ment. He wished to add nothing to it.

3 1 o AMERICAN^ PA TRIO TISM.

straeted nothing from it. Instead of the imaginary Re puHfc^ci
Plato, or the Utopia of Sir Thomas More, he took a practical existing,
model, in actual operation here, and never attempted or wished more
than to apply it faithfully to his own country.

It was not given to Moses to enter the promised land; but he saw
it from the summit of Pisgah. It was nof given to Lafayette to wit-
ness the consummation of his wishes in the establishment of a repub-
lic, and the extinction of all hereditary rule in France. His principles
were in advance of the age and hemisphere in which he lived. A Bour-
bon still reigns on the throne of France, and it is not for us to scruti-
nize the title by which he reigns. The principles of elective and hered-
itary power, blended in reluctant union in his person, like the red and
white roses of York and Lancaster, may postpone to aftertime the last
conflict to which they must ultimately come. The life of the patriarch
was not long enough for the development of his whole political sys-
tem. Its final accomplishment is in the womb of time.

The anticipation of this event is the more certain, from the consid-
eration that all the principles for which Lafayette contended were
practical. He never indulged himself in wild and fanciful specula-
tions. The principle of hereditary power was, in his opinion, the bane
of all republican liberty in Europe. Unable to extinguish it in the
Revolution of 1830, so far as concerned the chief magistracy of the
nation, Lafayette had the satisfaction of seeing it abolished with ref-
erence to the peerage. An hereditary crown, stript of the support
which it may derive from an hereditary peerage, however compatible
with Asiatic despotism, is an anomaly in the history of the Christian
world, and in the theory of free government. There is no argument
producible against the existence of an hereditary peerage, but applies
with aggravated weight against the transmission, from sire to son, of
an hereditary crown. The prejudices and passions of the people of
France rejected the principle of inherited power, in every station of
public trust, excepting the first and highest of them all; but there they
clung to it, as did the Israelites of old to the savory deities of Ejypt.

This is not the time or the place for a disquisition upon the compar-
ative merits, as a system of government, of a republic, and a mon-
archy surrounded by republican institutions. Upon this subject there
i£ among us no diversity of opinion, and if it should take the people
of France another half century of internal and external war, of daz-
zling and delusive glories; of unparalleled triumphs, humiliating re-
verses, and bitter disappointments, to settle it to their satisfaction, the
ultimate result can only bring them to the point where we have stood
from the day of the Declaration of Independence — to the point where
Lafayette would have brought them, and to which he looked as a con-
summation devoutly to be wished.

Then, too, and then only, will be the time when the character of
Lafayette will be appreciated at its true value throughout the civilize

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 31 1

world. When the principle of hereditary dominion shall be extin-
guished in all the institutions of France; when government shall no
longer be considered as property transmissible from sire to son, but
as a trust committed for a limited time, and then to return to the peo-
ple whence it came; as a burdensome duty to be discharged, and not
as a reward to be abused; when a claim, any claim, to political power
by inheritance shall, in the estimation of the' whole French people, be

held as it now is by the whole people of the North American Union '

then will be the time for contemplating the character of Lafayette, not
merely in the events of his life, but, in the full development of his
intellectual conceptions, of his fervent aspirations, of the labors and
perils and sacrifices of his long and eventful career upon earth; and
thenceforward, till the hour when the trump of the Archangel' shall
sound to announce that Time shall be no more, the name of Lafayette
shall stand enrolled upon the annals of our race, high on the list of
the pure and disinterested benefactors of mankind.
t. - '

1 .. - - .

THE JUBILEE OF THE CONSTITUTION.

- . -•
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

Ke-zv York, April 30,1839.

Fellow-Citizens and Brethren, Associates of the New York
Historical Society :

Would it be an unlicensed trespass of the imagination to conceive,
that on the night preceding the day of which you now commemorate
the fiftieth anniversary— on the night preceding that thirtieth of April,
one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine, when from the balcony
of your city-hall, the Chancellor of the State of New York adminis-
tered to George Washington the solemn oath, faithfully to execute the
office of President of the United States, and to the best of his ability, to

preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States

that in the visions of the night, the guardian angel of the Father of
our country had appeared before him, in the venerated form of his
mother, and, to cheer and encourage him in the performance of the
momentous and solemn duties that he was about "to assume, had de-
livered to him a suit of celestial armor — a helmet, consisting of the
principles of piety, of justice, of honor, of benevolence, with which
from his earliest infancy he had hitherto walked through life, in the
presence of all his brethen— a spear, studded with the self-evident
truths of the Declaration of Independence — a sword, the same with
which he had led the armies of his country through the war of free-
dom, to the summit of the triumphal arch of independence — a corslet
and cuishes of long experience and habitual intercourse in peace and
A. P.-11.

312. AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

war with the world of mankind, his contemporaries of the human race,
in all their stages of civilization — and last of all, the Constitution of
the United States, a shield, embossed by heavenly hands, with the fu-
ture history of his couctry.

Yes, gentlemen ! on that shield, the Constitution of the United
States was sculptured (by forms unseen, and in characters then invis-
ible to mortal eye), the predestined and prophetic history of the one
confederated people of the North American Union.

They had been the settlers of thirteen separate and distinct English
colonies, along the margin of the shore of the North American con-
tinent: contiguously situated, but chartered by adventurers of char-
acters variously diversified, including sectarians, religious and politi-
cal, of all the classes which for the two preceding centuries had
agitated and divided the people of the British islands — and with them
were intermingled the descendants of Hollanders, Swedes, Germans,
and French fugitives from the persecution of the revoker of the Edict
of Nantes.

In the bosoms of this people, thus heterogeneously composed; there
was burning, kindled at different furnaces, but all furnaces of afflic-
tion,, one clear, steady flame of liberty. Bold and daring enterprise,
stubborn endurance of privation, unflinching intrepidity in facing
danger, and inflexible adherence to conscientious principle, had steeled
to energetic and unyielding hardihood the characters of the primitive
settlers of all these colonies. Since that time two or three generations
of men had passed away — but they had increased and multiplied with
unexampled rapidity; and the land itself had been the recent theatre
of a ferocious and bloody seven years' war between the two most pow-
erful and most civilized nations of Europe, contending for the posses-
sion of this continent.

Of that strife the victorious combatant had been Britain. She had
conquered the provinces of France. She had expelled her rival totally
from the continent, over which, bounding herself by the Mississippi,
she was thenceforth to hold divided empire only with Spain. She had
acquired undisputed control over the Indian tribes, still tenanting the
forests unexplored by the .European man. She had. established an
uncontested monopoly of the commerce of all her colonies. But for-
getting all the warnings of preceding ages — forgetting the lessons
written m the blood of her own children, through centuries of de-
parted time, she undertook to tax the people of the colonies without
their consent.

Resistance, instantaneous, unconcerted, sympathetic, inflexible re-
sistance, like an electric shock startled and roused the people of all the
English colonies on this continent.

This was the first signal of the North American Union. The strug-
gle was for chartered rights — for English liberties — for the cause of
Algernon Sydney and John Hampden — for trial by jury — the Habeas
Corpus and Magna Charta.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 313

But the English lawyers had decided that Parliament was omnipo-
tent— and Parliament in their omnipotence, instead of trial by jury
and the Habeas Corpus, enacted admiralty courts, in England to try
Americans for offences charged against them as committed in Ameri-
ca— instead of the privileges of Magna Charta, nullified the charter
itself of Massachusetts Bay; shut up the port of Boston; sent armies
and navies to keep the peace, and teach the colonies that John Hamp-
den was a rebel, and Algernon Sidney a traitor.

English liberties had failed them. From the omnipotence of Par-
liament the colonists appealed to the rights of man and the omnipo-
tence of the God of battles. Union ! Union ! was the instinctive and
simultaneous cry throughout the land. Their Congress, assembled at
Philadelphia, once — twice had petitioned the king; had remonstrated
to Parliament; had addressed the people of Britain, for the rights of
Englishmen — in vain. Fleets and armies, the blood of Lexington,
and the fires of Charlestown and Falmouth, had been the answer to
petition, remonstrance, and address.

Independence was declared. The colonies were transformed into
States. Their inhabitants were proclaimed to be one people, renounc-
ing all allegiance to the British crown; all co-patriotism with the Brit-
ish nation; all claims to chartered rights as Englishmen. Thenceforth
their charter was the Declaration of Independence. Their rights, the
natural rights of mankind. Their government, such as should be in-
stituted by themselves, under the solemn mutual pledges of per-
petual union, founded on the self-evident truths proclaimed in the
Declaration.

The Declaration of Independence was issued, in the excruciating
agonies of a civil war, and by that war independence was to be main-
tained- Six long years it raged with unabated fury, and the Union
was yet no more than a mutual pledge of faith, and a mutual partici-
pation of common sufferings and common dangers.

The omnipotence of the British Parliament was vanquished. The
independence of the United States Of America was not granted, but
recognized. The nation had "assumed among the powers of the
earth, the separate and equal station, to which the laws of nature, and
of nature's God, entitled it" — but the one, united people, had yet no
government.

In the enthusiasm of their first spontaneous, unstipulated, unpre-
meditated union, they had flattered themselves that no general gov-
ernment would be required. As separate states they were all agreed
that they should constitute and govern themselves. The revolution
under which they were gasping for life, the war which was carryinr--
desolation into all their dwellings, and mourning into every family,
had been kindled by the abuse of power — the power of government.
An invincible repugnance to the delegation of power, had thus been
generated, by the very course of events which had rendered it neces-
sary; and the more indispensable it became, the more awakened was

3 1'4 A M ERICA N PA TRIOTISM.

the jealousy and the more intense was the distrust by which it was to
be circumscribed.

They relaxed their union into a league of friendship between sover-
eign and independent states. They constituted a Congress, with
powers co-extensive with the nation, but so hedged and hemmed in
with restrictions, that the limitation seemed to be the general rule, and
the grant the occasional exception. The articles of confederation,
subjected to philosophical analysis, seem to be little more than an
enumeration of the functions of a national government which the
Congress constituted by the instrument was not authorized to perform.
There was avowedly no executive power.

The nation fell into an atrophy. The Union languished to the point
of death. A torpid numbness seized upon all its faculties. A chilling
cold indifference crept from its extremities to the centre. The system
was about to dissolve in its own imbecility — impotence in negotiation
abroad — domestic insurrection at home, were on the point of bearing
to a dishonourable grave the proclamation of a government founded
on the rights of man, when a convention of delegates from eleven of
the thirteen states, with George Washington at their head, sent forth
to the people, an act to be made their own, speaking in their name
and in the first person, thus : " We the people of the United States,
in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domes-
tic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general
welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our pos-
terity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States
of America."

This act was the complement to the Declaration of Independence ;
founded upon the same principles, carrying them out into practical
execution, and forming with it one entire system of national govern-
ment. The Declaration was a manifesto to the world of mankind, to
justify the one confederated people, for the violent and voluntary se-
verance of the ties of their allegiance, for the renunciation of their
country, and for assuming a station themselves, among the potentates
of the world — a self-constituted sovereign — a self-constituted country.

In the history of the human race this had never been done before.
Monarchs had been dethroned for tyranny — kingdoms converted into
republics, and revolted provinces had assumed the attributes of sove-
reign power. In the history of England itself, within one century and
a half before the day of the Declaration of Independence, one lawful
king had been brought to the block, and another expelled, with all his
posterity, from his own kingdom, and a collateral dynasty had ascend-
ed his throne. But the former of these revolutions had by the delibe-
rate and final sentence of the nation itself, been pronounced a rebel-
lion, and the rightful heir of the executed king had been restored to
the crown. In the latter, at the first onset, the royal recreant had
fled — he was held to have abdicated the crown, and it was placed upon

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 3X5

the heads of his daughter and of her husband, the prime leader of the
conspiracy against him. In these events there had been much contro-
versy upon the platform of English liberties — upon the customs of
the ancient Britons; the laws of Alfred, the Witenagamote of the
Anglo-Saxons, and the Great Charter of Runnymede with all its num-
berless confirmations. But the actors of those times had never
ascended to the first foundation of civil society among men, nor had
any revolutionary system of government been rested upon them.

The motive for the Declaration of Independence was on its face
avowed to be " a decent respect for the opinions of mankind." Its
purpose to declare the causes which impelled the people of the English
Colonies on the continent of North America, to separate themselves
from the political community of the British nation. They declare only
the causes of their separation, but they announce at the same time
their assumption of the separate and equal station to which the laves
of nature and of nature's God entitle them, among the powers of the
earth.

Thus their first movement is to recognise and appeal to the laws of
nature and to nature's God, for their right to assume the attributes of
sovereign power as an independent nation.

The causes of their necessary separation, for they begin and end by
declaring it necessary, alleged in the Declaration, are all founded on
the same laws of nature and of nature's God — and hence as prelimi-
nary to the enumeration of the causes of separation, they set forth as
self-evident truths, the rights of individual man, by the laws of nature
and of nature's God, to life, to liberty, to the pursuit of happiness.
That all men are created equal. That to secure the rights of life, lib-
erty, and the pursuit of happiness, governments are instituted among
men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
All this is by the laws of nature and of nature's God, and of course pre-
supposes the existence of a God, the moral ruler of the universe, and
a rule of right and wrong, of just and unjust, binding upon man, pre-
ceding all institutions of human society and of government. It avers,
also, that governments are instituted to secure these rights of nature
and of nature's God, and that whenever any form of government be-
comes destructive of those ends, it is the right of the people to
alter, or to abolish it, and to institute a new government— to throw
off a government degenerating into despotism, and to provide new
guards for their future security. They proceed then to say that such
was then the situation of the colonies, and such the necessity which
constrained them to alter their former systems of government.

Then follows the enumeration of the acts of tyranny by which the
king, parliament, and people of Great Britain, had perverted the pow-
ers to the destruction of the ends of government, over the colonies,
and the consequent necessity constraining the colonies to the separa-
tion.

3 1 6 4 ME RICA N PA TRIO TISM.

In conclusion, the Representatives cf the United States of America,
in general Congress assembled, appealing to- the Supreme Judge of the
world for the rectitude of their intentions, do, in the name and by the
authority of the good people of these Colonies, solemnly publish and
declare that these United Colonies, are, and of right ought to be, free
and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to
the British crown ; and that all political connexion between them
and the state of Great Britain, is, and ought to be totally dissolved ;
and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy
war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do
all other acts and things which independent states may of right do.
The appeal to the Supreme Judge of the world, and the rule of right
and wrong as paramount events to the power of independent states,
are here again repeated in the very act of constituting a new sovereign
community.

. It is not immaterial to remark, that the signers of the Declaration,
though qualifying themselves as the Representatives of the United
States of America, in general Congress assembled, yet issue the De-
claration, in the name and by the authority of the good people of the
colonies — and that they declare, not each of the separate colonies, but
the United Colonies, free and independent states. The whole people
declared the colonies in their united condition, of right, free and
independent states.

The dissolution of allegiance to the British crown, the severance of
the colonies from the British empire, and their actual existence as
Independent States, thus declared of right, were definitively established
in fact, by war and peace. The independence of each separate state
had never been declared of right. It never existed in fact. Upon the
principles of the Declaration of Independence, the dissolution of the
ties of allegiance, the assumption of sovereign power, and the institu-
tion of civil government, are all acts of transcendant authority, which
the people alone are competent to perform — and accordingly, it is in
the name and by the authority of the people, that two of these acts — the
dissolution of allegiance, with the severance from the British empire,
and the declaration of the United Colonies, as free and independent
states, were performed by that instrument.

But there still remained the last and crowning act, which the people
of the Union alone were competent to perform — the institution of civil
government, for that compound nation, the United States of America.

At this day it cannot but strike us as extraordinary, that is does not
appear to have occurred to any one member of that assembly, which
had laid down in terms so clear, so explicit, so unequivocal, the foun-
dation of all just government, in the imprescriptable rights of man,
and the transcendant sovereignty of the people, and who in those
principles, had set forth their only personal vindication from the
charges of rebellion against their king, and of treason to their country.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 317

that their last crowning act was still to be performed upon the same
principles. That is, the institution, by the people of the United States,
of a civil government, to guard and protect and defend them all. On
the contrary, that same assembly which issued the Declaration of Inde-
pendence, instead of continuing to act in the name, and by the authority
of the good people of the United States, had immediately after the ap-
pointment of the committee to prepare the Declaration, appointed
another committee, of one member from each colony, to prepare and di-
gest the form of confederation, to be entered into between the colonies.

That committee reported on the 12th of July, eight days after the
Declaration of Independence had been issued, a draught of articles of
confederation between the colonies. This draught was prepared by
John Dickinson, then a delegate from Pennsylvania, who voted
against the Declaration of Independence, and naver signed it — having
been superseded by a new election of delegates from that State, eight
days after his draught was reported.

There was thus no congeniality of principle between the Declaration
of Independence and the articles of confederation. The foundation
of the former were a superintending Providence — the rights of man
and the constituent revolutionary power of the people. That of the
latter was the sovereignty of organized power, and the independence
of the separate or dis-united States. The fabric of the Declaration
and that of the Confederation, were each consistent with its own
foundation, but they could not form one consistent symmetrical
edifice. They were the productions of different minds and of adverse
passions— one, ascending for the foundation of human government to
the laws of nature and of God, written upon the heart of man — the
other, resting upon the basis of human institutions, and prescriptive
law and colonial charter. The corner stone of the one was right —
that of the other was power.

The work of the founders of our independence was thus but half
done. Absorbed in that more than herculean task of maintaining
that independence and its principles, by one of the most cruel wars
that ever glutted the furies with human woe, they marched undaunted
and steadfast through that fiery ordeal, and consistent in their prin-
ciples to the end, concluded, as an acknowledged sovereignty of the
United States, proclaimed by their people in 1776, a peace with that
same monarch, whose sovereignty over them they had abjured in
obedience to the laws of nature and of nature's God.

But for these United States, they had formed no constitution.
Instead of resorting to the source of all constituted power, they had
wasted their time, their talents, and their persevering, untiring toils,
in erecting and roofing and buttressing a frail and temporary shed to
shelter the nation from the storm, or rather a mere baseless scaffold-
ing on which to stand, when they should raise the marble palace of
the people, to stand the test of lime.

3 1 3 a MEXICAN PA TRIO TISM.

Five years were consumed by Congress and the State Legislatures,
in debating and altercating and adjusting these Articles ot Confedera-
tion. The first of which was : —

"Each State retains its sovereignty,; freedom and independence,
and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this con-
federation expressly delegated to the United States in Congress
assembled."

Observe the departure from the language, and the consequent con-
trast of principles, with those of the Declaration of Independence.

Each state retains its sovereignty, &c— where did each state get
the sovereignty which it retains? In the Declaration of Indepen-
dence the delegaties of the colonies in Congress assembled, in the
name and by the authority of the good people of the colonies,
declare, not each colony, but the United Colonies, in fact, and of
right, not sovereign, but free and independent states. And why did
they make this declaration in the name and by the authority of the
one people of all the colonies ? Because by the principles before
laid down in the Declaration, the people^ and the people alone, as the
rightful source of all legitimate government, were competent to dis-
solve the bands of subjection of all the colonies to the nation of
Great Britain, and to constitute them free and independent states.
Now the people of the colonies, speaking by their delegates in Con-
gress, had not declared each colony a sovereign, free and indepen-
dent state — nor had the people of each colony so declared the
colony itself, nor could they so declare it, because each was already
bound in union with all the rest; a union formed de facto, by the
spontaneous revolutionary movement of the whole people, and organ-
ized by the meeting of the first Congress, in 1774, a year and ten
months before the Declaration of Independence.

Where, then, did each state get the sovereignty, freedom and
independence, which the articles of confederation declare it retains ?—
not from the Avhole people of the whole Union — not from the Declar-
ation of Independence — not from the people of the state itself. It
was assumed by agreement between the Legislatures of the several
states, and their delegates in Congress, without authority from or
consultation of the people at all.

In the Declaration of Independence, the enacting and constituent
party dispensing and delegating sovereign power, is the whole people
of the United Colonies. The recipient party, invested with power, is
the United Colonies, declared United States.

In the articles of confederation, this order of agency is inverted.
Each state is the constituent and enacting party and the United States
in Congress assembled, the recipient of delegated power — and that
power, delegated with such a penurious and carking hand, that it had
more the aspect of a revocation of the Declaration of Independence
than an instrument to carry it into effect.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 319

None of these indispensably necessary powers were ever conferred by
the state legislatures upon the Congress of the confederation ; and well
was it that they never were. The system itself was radically defective.
Its incurable disease was an apostacy from the principles of the Decla-
ration of Independence. A substitution of separate state sovereignties,
in the place of the constituent sovereignty of the people, as the basis of
the confederate Union.

In the Congress of the confederation, the master minds of James
Madison and Alexander Hamilton, were constantly engaged through the
closing years of the Revolutionary War, and those of peace which im-
mediately succeeded. That of John Jay was associated with them
shortly after the peace, in the capacity of Secretary to the Congress for
Foreign Affairs. The incompetency of the articles of confederation for
the management of the affairs of the Union at home and abroad, was
demonstrated to them by the painful and mortifying experience of every
day. Washington, though in retirement, was brooding over the cruel
injustice suffered by his associates in arms, the warriors of the Revolu-
tion 'r over the prostration of the public credit and the faith of the na-
tion, in the neglect to provide for the payment even of the interest
upon the public debt ; over the disappointed hopes of the friends of
freedom ; in the language of the address from Congress to the states of
the 18th of April, 1783 — "the pride and boast of America, that the
rights for which she contended were the rights of human nature. '

At his residence of Mount Vernon, in March, 1785, the first idea was
started of a revisal of the articles of confederation, by an organization,
of means differing from that of a compact between the state legis-
latures and their own delegates in Congress. A convention of delegates
from the state legislatures, independent of the Congress itself, was the
expedient which presented itself for effecting the purpose, and an
augmentation of the powers of Congress for the regulation of com-
merce, as the object for which this assembly was to be convened. In
January, 1786, the proposal was made and adopted in the Legislature
of Virginia, and communicated to the other state legislatures.

The convention was held at Annapolis, in September of that year.
It was attended by delegates from only five of the central states; who on
comparing their restricted powers with the glaring and universally ac-
knowledged defects of the confederation, reported only a recommenda-
tion for the assemblage of another convention of delegates to meet at
Philadelphia, in May, 1787, from all the states and with enlarged powers.

The Constitution of the United States was the work of this conven-
tion. But in its construction the convention immediately perceived
that they must retrace their steps, and fall back from a league of
friendship betwen sovereign states, to the constituent sovereignty
of the people ; from power to right — from the irresponsible despotism
of state sovereignty, to the self-evident truths of the Declaration of
Independence. In that instrument, the right to institute and to alter

320 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

governments among men was ascribed exclusively to the people—
the ends of government were declared to be to secure the natural
rights of man ; and that when the government degenerates from the
promotion to the destruction of that end, the right and the duty ac-
crues to the people to dissolve this degenerate government and to in-
stitute another. The signers of the Declaration further averred, that
the one people of the- United Colonies were then precisely in that
situation -with a government degenerated into tyranny, and called
upon by the laws of nature and of nature's God, to dissolve that gov-
ernment and to institute another. Then in the name and by the
authority of the good people of the colonies, they pronounced the dis-
solution of their allegiance to the king, and their eternal separation
from the nation of Great Britain — and declared the United Colonies in-
dependent states. And here as the representatives of the one people
they had stopped. They did not require the confirmation of this act,
for the power to make the declaration had already been conferred upon
them by the people ; delegating the power, indeed, separately in the
separate colonies, not by colonial authority, but by the spontaneous
revolutionary movement of the people in them all.

From the day of that declaration, the constituent power of the people
had never been called into action. A confederacy had been substituted
in the place of a government ; and state sovereignty had usurped the
constituent sovereignty of the people.

The convention assembled at Philadelphia had themselves no di-
rect authority from the people. Their authority was all derived from
the state legislatures. But they had the articles of confederation
before them, and they saw and felt the wretched condition into which
they had brought the whole people, and that the Union itself was in the
agonies of death. They soon perceived that the indispensably needed
powers were such as no state government, no combination of them,
was by the principles of the Declaration of Independence competent
to bestow. They could emanate only from the people. A highly
respectable portion of the assembly, still clinging to the confederacy
of states, proposed as a substitute for the Constitution, a mere revival
of the articles of confederation, with a grant of additional powers to
the Congress. Their plan was respectfully and thoroughly discussed,
but the want of a government and of the sanction of the people to
the delegation of powers, happily prevailed. A constitution for the
people, and the distribution of legislative, executive, and judicial
powers, was prepared. It announced itself as the work of the people
themselves; and as this was unquestionably a power assumed by the
convention, not delegated to them by the people, they religiously con-
fined it to a simple power to propose, and carefully provided that it
should be no more than a proposal until sanctioned by the confedera-
tion Congress, by the state legislatures, and by the people of the
several states, in conventions specially assembled, by authority of

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. $U

their legislatures, for the single purpose of examining and passing
upon it.

And thus was consummated the work, commenced by the Declara-
tion of Independence. A work in which the people of the North
American Union, acting under the deepest sense of responsibility to
the Supreme Ruler of the universe, had achieved the most transcend-
ent act of power, that social man in his mortal condition can perform.
Even that of dissolving the ties of allegiance by which he is bound to
his country — of renouncing that country itself — of demolishing its
government, of instituting another government, and of making for
himself another country in its stead.

And on that day, of which you now commemorate the fiftieth anni-
versary— on that 30th day of April, one thousand seven hundred and
eighty-nine, was this mighty revolution, not only in the affairs of our
own -country, but in the principles of government over civilized man,
accomplished.

The revolution itself was a work of thirteen years — and had never
been completed until that day. The declaration of Independence
and the Constitution of the United States, are parts of one consistent
whole, founded upon one and the same theory of government, then
new, not as a theory, for it had been working itself into the mind of
man for many ages, and been especially expounded in the writings
of Locke, but had never before been adopted by a great nation in
practice.

There are yet, even at this day, many speculative objections to this
theory. Even in our own country, there are still philosophers who
deny the principles asserted in the declaration, as self-evident truths
— who deny the natural equality and inalienable rights of man — who
deny that the people are the only legitimate source of power- — who
deny that all just powers of government are derived from the consent
of the governed. Neither your time, nor perhaps the cheerful nature
of this occasion, permit me here to enter upon the examination of this
anti-revolutionary theory, which arrays state sovereignty against the
constituent sovereignty of the people, and distorts the Constitution of
the United States into a league of friendship between confederate cor-
porations. I speak to matters of fact. There is the Declaration of
Independence, and there is the Constitution of the United States — let
them speak for themselves. The grossly immoral and dishonest doc-
trine of despotic state sovereignty, the exclusive judge of its own
obligations, and responsible to no power on earth or in heaven, for
the violation of them, is not there. The Declaration says it is not in
me. The Constitution says it is not in me.

322 AMERICAN PA TRIOTISM.

■ - : -

COMPLETION OF BUNKER HILL MONUMENT.

.. ■ -

DANIEL WEBSTER.

Lharlestoxvn^ June 17, 1843.

A duty has been performed. A work of gratitude and patriotism is
completed. This structure, having its foundations in soil, which drank
deep of early revolutionary blood, has at length reached its destined
height, and now lifts its summit to- the skies.

We have assembled to celebrate the accomplishment of this under-
taking, and to indulge, afresh, in the recollection of the great event,
which it is designed to commemorate. Eighteen years, more than half ;
the ordinary duration of a generation dT^mankind, have elapsed since
the corner stone of this monument was laid. The hopes of its pro- /
jectors rested on voluntary contributions, private munificence, and the
general favor of the public. These hopes have not been disappointed.
Donations have been made by individuals, in some cases of large
amount, and smaller sums contributed by thousands. All who regard
the object itself as important, and its accomplishment, therefore, as a
good attained, will entertain sincere respect and gratitude for the un-
wearied efforts of the successive Presidents, Boards of Directors, and
Committees of the Association, which has had the general control of
the work. The architect, equally entitled to our thanks and commen-
dation, will find other reward, also, for his labor and skill, in the
beauty and elegance of the obelisk itself, and the distinction which, as
a work of art, it confers on him.

At a period when the prospects of further progress in the under-
taking were gloomy and discouraging, the Mechanic Association, by a
most praiseworthy and vigorous effort, raised new funds for carrying
it forward, and saw them applied with fidelity, economy and skill. It
is a grateful duty to make public acknowledgments of such timely and
efficient aid.

The last effort, and the last contribution, were from a different
source. Garlands of grace and elegance were destined to crown a
work, which had its commencement in manly patriotism. The win-
ning power of the sex addressed itself to the public, and all that was
needed to carry the monument to its proposed height, and give to it its
finish, was promptly supplied. The mothers and the daughters of the
land contributed thus, most successfully to whatever of beauty is in the
obelisk itself, or whatever of utility and public benefit and gratification
in its completion.

Of those, with whom the plan of erecting on this spot a monument,
worthy of the event to be commemorated, orginated, many are now
present; but others, alas I have themselves become subjects of moa-

DANIEL WEBSTER. 323

umental inscription. William Tudor, an accomplished scholar, a dis-
tinguished writer, a most amiable man, allied, both by birth and sen-
timent, to the patriots of the revolution, died, while on public service
abroad, and now iies buried in a foreign land. William Sullivan, a
name fragrant of revolutionary merit, and of public .service and
public virtue, who himself partook, in a high degree, of the respect
and confidence of the community, and yet was always most loved
where best known, has also been gathered to his fathers. And last,
George Blake, a lawyer of learning and eloquence, a man of wit and
of talent, of social qualities the most agreeable and fascinating, and
of gifts which enabied him to exercise large sway over public assem-
blies, has closed his human career. I know that in the crowds before
me, there are those, from whose eyes copious tears will flow, at the
mention of these names. But such mention is due to their general
character, their public and private virtues, and especially on this occa-
sion, to the spirit and zeal with which they entered into the under-
taking, which is now completed.

I have spoken only of those who are not now numbered with the
living. But a long life, now drawing towards its close, always distin-
guished by acts of public spirit, humanity, and charity, forming a
character, which has already become historical, and sanctified by
public regard, and by the affection of friends, may confer, even on the
living, the proper immunity of the dead, and be the lit subject of hon-
orable mention, and warm commendation. Of the early projectors of
the design of this monument, one of the most prominent, the most
zealous and the most efficient, is Thomas H. Perkins. It was beneath
his ever hospitable roof that those whom I have mentioned, and others
yet living and now present, having assembled for the purpose, adopted
the first step towards erecting a monument on Bunker Hill. Long may
he remain, with unimpaired faculties, in the wide field of his usefulness.
His charities have distilled, like the dews of heaven; he has fed the hun-
gry, and clothed the naked; he has given sight to the blind; and for
such virtues there is a reward on high, of which all human memorials,
all language of brass and stone, are but humble types and attempted
imitations.

Time and nature have had their course, in diminishing the number
of those whom we met here on the 17th of June, 1825. Most of the
revolutionary characters then present have since deceased, and Lafay-
ette sleeps in his native land. Yet the name and blood of Warren are
with us; the kindred of Putnam are also here; and near me, universally
beloved for his character and his virtues, and now venerable for his
years, sits the son of the noble-hearted and daring Prescott. Gideon
Foster of Danvers, Enos Reynolds of Boxford, Phineas Johnson,
Robert Andrews, Elijah Dresser, Josiah Cleaveland, Jesse Smith,
Philip Bagley, Needham Maynard, Roger Plaisted, Joseph Stephens,
Nehemiah Porter, and James Harvey, who bore arms for their country,

324 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

either at Concord and Lexington, on the iqth of April, or on Bunker
Hill, all now far advanced in age, have come here to-day, to look
once more on the field of the exercise of their valor, and to receive a
hearty outpouring of our respect.

They have long outlived the troubles and dangers of the Revo-
lution; they have outlived the evils arising from the want of a united
and efficient government; they have outlived the pendency of im-
minent dangers to the public liberty; they have outlived nearly
all their contemporaries; but they have not outlived — they can-
not outlive — the affectionate gratitude of their country. Heaven has
not allotted to this generation an opportunity of rendering high ser-
vices, and manifesting strong personal devotion, such as they ren-
dered and manifested, and in such a cause as roused the patriotic lires
of their youthful breasts; and nerved the strength of their arms. But
we may praise what we cannot equal, and celebrate actions which we
were not born to perform. Fulchfum est benefacere reipublica, etiam
bene dice re Jiaud.

The Bunker Hill Monument is finished. Here it stands. Fortunate
in the natural eminence on which it is placed — higher, infinitely higher
in his objects and purpose, it rises over the land and over the sea. and
visible, at their homes, to three hundred thousand citizens of Massa-
chusetts— it stands a memorial of the last, and a monitor to the pres-
ent, and all succeding generations. I have spoken of the loftiness of
its purpose. If it had been without any other design than the creation
of a work of art, the granite, of which it is composed, would have
slept in its native bed. It has a purpose; and that purpose gives it
character. That purpose enrobes it with dignity and moral grandeur.
That well-known purpose it is which causes us to look up to it with
a feeling of awe. It is itself the orator of this occasion, it is not from
my iips, it is not from any human lips, that that strain of eloquence is
this day to flowT, most competent to move and excite the vast multi-
tudes around. The potent speaker stands motionless before them.
It is a plain shaft. It bears no inscriptions, fronting to the rising sun,
from which the future antiquarian shall wipe the dust. Xor does the
rising sun cause tones of music to issue from its summit. But at the
rising of the sun, and at the setting of the sun, in the blaze of noon-
day, and beneath the milder effulgence of lunar light, it looks, it
speaks, it acts, to the full comprehension of every American mind,
and the awakening of glowing enthusiasm in every American heart.
Its silent, but awful utterance; its deep pathos, as it brings to our con-
templation the 17th of June. 1775, and the consequences which have
resulted to us, to our country, and to the world, from the events of
that day, and which we know must continue to rain influence on the
destinies of mankind, to the end of time; the elevation with which it
raises us high above the ordinary feelings of life, surpasses all that the
study of the closet, or even the. inspiration of genius can produce.

DANIEL WEBSTER. 325

To-day, it speaks to us. Its future auditories will be through succes-
sive generations of men, as they rise up before it, and gather round
it. Its speech will be of patriotism and courage; of civil aud religious
liberty; of free government; of the moral improvement and elevation
of mankind"; and of the immortal memory of those who with heroic
devotion have sacrificed their lives for their country.

In the older world, numerous fabrics still exist, reared by human
hands, but whose object has been lost, in the darkness of ages. They
are now monuments of nothing, but the labor and skill, which con-
structed them.

The mighty pyramid itself, half buried in the sands of Africa, has
nothing to bring down and report to us, but the power of kings and
the servitude of the people. If it had any purpose, beyond that of a
mausoleum, such purpose has perished from history, and from tradi-
tion. If asked for its moral object, its admonition, its sentiment, its
instruction to mankind, or any high end in its erection, it is silent-
silent as the millions which lie in the dust at its base, and in the cata-
combs which surround it. Without a just moral object, therefore,
made known to man, though raised against the skies, it excites only
conviction of power, mixed with strange wonder. But if the civiliza-
tion of the present race of men, founded as it is, in solid science, the
true knowledge of nature and vast discoveries in art, and which is
stimulated and purified by moral sentiment and by the truths of
Christianity, be not destined to destruction, before the final termina-
tion of human existence on earth, the object and purpose of this
edifice will be known, till that hour shall come. And even if civiliza-
tion should be subverted, and the truths of the Christian religion ob-
scured by a new deluge of barbarism; the memory of Bunker Hill and
the American Revolution will still be elements and .parts of the knowl-
edge, which shall be possessed by the last man, to whom the light of
civilization and Christianity shall be extended.

This celebration is honored by the presence of the Chief Executive
Magistrate of the Union. An occasion so national in its object and'
character, and so much connected with that Revolution, from which
the government sprang, at the head of which he is placed, may well
receive from him this mark of attention and respect. Well acquainted
with Yorktown, the scene of the last great military struggle of the
Revolution, his eye now surveys the field of Bunker Hill, the theatre
of the first of these important conflicts. He sees where Warren fell,
where Putnam and Prescott and Stark and Knowlton and Brooks
fought. He beholds the spot, where a thousand trained soldiers of
England were smitten to the earth, in the first effort of Revolutionary
war, by the arm of a bold and determined yoemanry, contending for
liberty and their country. And while all assembled here entertain
towards him sincere personal good wishes, and the high respect due
to his elevated office and station, it is not be doubted, that he enters.

326 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

with true American feeling, into the patriotic enthusiasm, kindled by
the occasion, which animates the millions which surround him.

His Excellency, the Governor of the Commonwealth, the Governor
of Rhode Island, and the other distinguished public men, whom we
have the honor to receive as visitors and guests, to-day, will cordially
unite in a celebration connected with the great event of the Revolu-
tionary war,

No name in the history of 1775 and 1776 is more distinguished than
that of an ex-President of the United States, whom we expected to see
here, but whose ill health prevents his attendance. Whenever popular
rights were to be asserted, an Adams was present; and when the time
came, for the formal Declaration of Independence, it was the voice of
an Adams that shook the halls of Congress. We wish we could have
welcomed to us, this day, the inheritor of Revolutionary blood, and
the just and worthy representative of high Revolutionary names,
merit and services.

Banners and badges, processions and flags, announce to us, that
amidst this uncounted multitude are thousands of natives of New
England, now residents in other States. Welcome, ye kindred names,
with kindred blood! From the broad savannas of the South, from
the newer regions of the West, from amidst the hundreds of thousands
of men of Eastern origin, who cultivate the rich valley of the Genesee,
or live along. the chain of the Lakes, from the mountains of Pennsyl-
vania, and the thronged cities of the coast, welcome, welcome! Wher-
ever else you may be strangers, here you are all at home. You as-
semble at this shrine of liberty, near the family altars, at which your
earliest devotions were paid to Heaven; near to the temples of wor-
ship, first entered by you, and near to the schools and colleges, in
which your education was received. You come hither with a glorious
ancestry of liberty. You bring names, which are on the rolls of Lex-
ington, Concord and Bunker Hill. You come, some of you, once
more to be embraced by an aged Revolutionary father, or to receive
another, perhaps, a last blessing, bestowed in love and tears, by a
mother, yet surviving to witness, and to enjoy, your prosperity and
happiness.

But if family associations and the recollections of the past, bring
you hither with greater alacrity, and mingle with your greeting much of
local attachment, and private affection, greeting also be given, free
and hearty greeting, to every American citizen who treads this sacred
soil with patriotic feeling, and respires with pleasure in an atmosphere
fragrant with the recollections of 1775. This occasion is respectable —
nay, it is grand, it is sublime, by the nationality of its sentiment. In
the seventeen millions of happy people, who form the American com-
munity, there is not one who has not an interest in this monument, as
there is not one that has not a deep and abiding interest in that which
it commemorates.

DANIEL WEBSTER. 327

Woe betide the man, who brings to this day's worship feeling less
than wholly American! Woe betide the man, who can stand here
with the fires of local resentments burning, or the purpose of foment-
ing local jealousies, and the strifes of local interests, festering and
rankling in his heart. Union, founded in justice, in patriotism, and
the most plain and obvious common interest; union, founded on lie
same love of liberty, cemented by blcod shed in the same common
cause; union has been- the source of ail our -glory and greatness thus
far, and is the ground of all our highest hopes. This column stands
on Union. I know not that it might not • keep its position,, if the
American Union, in the mad conflict of human passions, and in the
strife of parties and factions, should be broken up and destroyed. I
know not that it would totter and fall to the earth, and mingle its frag-
ments with the fragments of Liberty and the Constitution, when State
should be separated from State, and faction and dismemberment ob-
literate forever all the hopes of the founders of our Republic, and the
great inheritance of their children. It might stand. But who, from
beneath. the weight of mortification and shame, that would oppress
him, could look up to behold it? For my part, should I live to such a
time, I shall avert my eyes from it forever.

It is not as a mere military encounter of hostile armies, that the
battle of Bunker Hill founds its principal claim to attention. Yet,
even as a mere battle, there were circumstances attending it, extraor-
dinary in character and entitling it to peculiar distinction. It was
fought on this eminence; in the neighborhood of yonder city; in the
presence of more spectators than there were combatants in the con-
flict. Men, women, and children, from every commanding position,
were gazing at the battle and looking for its result with all the eager-
ness natural to those who knew that the issue was fraught with the
deepest consequences to them. Yet, on the sixteenth of June, 1775,
there was nothing around this hill but verdure and culture. There
was, indeed, the note of awful preparation in Boston. There was the
provincial army at Cambridge with its right flank resting on Dorches-
ter, and its left on Chelsea. But here all was peace. Tranquillity
reigned around.

On the seventeenth everything was changed. On yonder height
had arisen, in the night, a redoubt in which Prescott commanded.
Perceived by the enemy at dawn, it was immediately cannonaded
from the floating batteries in the river, and the opposite shore. And
then ensued the hurry of preparation in Boston, and soon the troops
of Britain embarked in the attempt to dislodge the colonists.

I suppose it would be difficult, in a military point of view, to ascribe
to the leaders on either side, any just motive for the conflict which
followed. On the one hand it could not have been very important
to the Americans to attempt to hem the British within the town by ad-
vancing one single post a quarter of a mile; while on the other hand,

32& AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

if the British found it essential to dislodge the American troops, they
had it in their power, at no expense of life. By moving up their ships
and batteries, they could have completely cut off all communication
with the main land over the neck, and the forces in the redoubt would
have been reduced to a state of famine in forty-eight hours.

But that was not the day for any such considerations on either
side! Both parties were anxious to try the strength of their arms.
The pride of England would not permit the rebels, as she termed
them, to defy her to the teeth, and without for a moment calculating
the cost, the British General determined to destroy the fort immedi-
ately. On the other side, Prescott and his gallant followers longed
and thirsted for a conflict. They wished it, and wished it at once.
And this is the true secret of the movements on this hill.

I will not attempt to describe the battle. The cannonading— the
landing of the British — their advance — the coolness with which the
charge was met — the repulse — the second attack — the second repulse — ■
the burning of Charlestown — and finally the closing assault, and the
slow retreat of the Americans — the history of all these is familiar.

But the consequences of the battle of Bunker Hill are greater than
those of any conflict between the hostile armies of European powers.
It was the first great battle of the revolution; and not only the first
blow, but the blow which determined the contest. It did not, indeed,
put an end to the war, but in the then existing hostile state of feeling,
the difficulties could only be referred to the arbitration of the sword.
And one thing is certain; that after the New England troops had
shown themselves able to face and repulse the regulars, it was de-
cided that peace never could be established but upon the basis of the
independence of the colonies. When the sun of that day went down,
the event of independence was certain! When Washington heard of
the battle he inquired if the militia had stood the fire of the regulars ?
And when told that they had not only stood that fire, but reserved
their own till the enemy was within eight rods, and then poured it in
with tremendous effect — " then," exclaimed he, " the liberties of the
country are safe!"

The consequences of this battle were just of the same importance as
the revolution itself.

If there was nothing of value in the principles of the American Revo-
lution., then there is nothing valuable in the battle of Bunker Hill and
its consequences. But if the revolution was an era in the history of
man, favorable to human happiness — if it was an event which marked
the progress of man, all over the world, from despotism to liberty — \
then this monument is not raised without cause. Then, the battle of
Bunker Hill is not an event undeserving celebrations, commemora-
tions and rejoicings.

What then is the true and peculiar principle of the American revo-
lution, and of the systems of government which it has confirmed and

DANIEL WEBSTER. 329

established ? Now the truth is, that the American revolution Was not
caused by the instantaneous discovery of principles of government be-
fore unheard of, or the practicable adoption of political ideas, such as
had never before entered into the minds of men. It was but the full
development of principles of government, forms of society, and politi-
cal sentiments, the origin of all which lay back two centuries in Eng-
lish and American history.

The discovery of America, its colonization by the nations of
Europe, the history and progress of the colonies, from their estab-
lishment, to the time when the principal of them threw off their
allegiance to the respective states which had planted them, and
founded governments of their own, constitute one of the most inter-
esting trains of events in human annals. These events occupied
three hundred years; during which period civilization and know-
ledge made steady progress in the old world; so that Europe, at
the commencement of the nineteenth century, had become greatly
changed from that Europe which began the colonization of America
at the commencement of the fifteenth. And what is most material
to my present purpose is, that in the progress of the first of these
centuries, that is to say, from the discovery of America to the settle-
ments of Virginia and Massachusetts, political and religious events
took place, which most materially affected the state of society, and the
sentiments of mankind, especially in England, and in parts of conti-
nental Europe. After a few feeble and unsuccessful efforts by Eng-
land, under Henry the Seventh, to plant colonies in America, no
designs of that kind were prosecuted for a long period, either by the
English government, or any of its subjects. Without inquiring into
the causes of this long delay, its consequences are sufficiently clear
and striking. England in this lapse of a century, unknown to herself
but under the Providence of God, and the influence of events, was
fitting herself for the work of colonizing North America, on such
principles, and by such men, as should spread the English name and
English blood, in time, over a great portion of the Western hemi-
sphere. The commercial spirit was greatly encouraged by several
laws passed in Henry the Seventh's reign; and in the same reign en-
couragement was given to arts and manufactures in the Eastern coun-
tries, and some not unimportant modifications of the Feudal system,
by allowing the breaking of entails. These, and other measures,
and other occurrences, were making way for a new class of society
to emerge, and show itself in a military and feudal age. A middle
class, neither Barons nor great landholders on the one side, nor
the mere retainers of the Crown, nor Barons nor mere agricultural
laborers on the other. With the rise and growth of this new class
of society, not only did commerce and the arts increase, but better
education, a greater degree of knowledge, juster notions of the
true ends of government, and sentiments favorable to civil liberty,

33° AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

began to spread abroad, and become more and more common. But
the plants springing from these seeds, were of slow growth. The
character of English society had indeed begun to undergo a change;
but changes of national character are ordinarily the work of time*
Operative causes were, however, evidently in existence, and sure
to produce, ultimately, their proper effect. From the accession of
Henry Seventh, to the breaking out of the civil wars, England enjoyed
much more exemption from war, foreign and domestic, than for a long
period before, and during the controversy between the houses of York
and Lancaster. These years of peace were favorable to commerce
and the arts. Commerce and the arts augmented general and individ-
ual knowledge, and knowledge is the only first fountain, both of the
love and the principles of human liberty. Other powerful causes soon
came into active play. The reformation of Luther broke out, kindling
up the minds of men afresh, leading to new habits of thought, and
awakening in individuals energies before unknown even to themselves.
The religious controversies of this period changed society as well as
religion; indeed, it would be easy to prove, if this occasion were proper
for it, that they changed society to a considerable extent, where they
did not change the religion of the state. The spirit of commercial and
foreign adventure, therefore, on the one hand, which had gained so
much strength and influence, since the time of the discovery of America,
and, on the other, the assertion and maintenance of religious liberty,
having their source indeed in the reformation, but continued, diversi-
fied, and continually strengthened by the subsequent divisions of sen-
timent and opinion among the reformers themselves, and this love of
religious liberty drawing after them, or bringing along with them, as
they always do; an ardent devotion to the principle of civil liberty,
were the powerful influences, under which character was formed, and
men trained for the great work of introducing English civilization,
English law, and what is more than all, Anglo-Saxon blood, into the
wilderness of North America. Raleigh and his companions may be
considered as the creatures, principally, of the first of these causes.
High-spirited, full of the love of personal adventure, excited too, in
some degree, by the hopes of sudden riches from the discovery of
mines of the precious metals, and not unwilling to diversify the labors
of settling a colony with occasional cruising against the Spaniards in
the West Indian seas, they crossed and recrossed the ocean, with a
frequency which surprises us, when we consider the state of navigation,
and which evinces a most daring spirit. The other cause peopled New
England. The May-Flower sought our shores under no high-wrought
spirit of commercial adventure, no love of gold, no mixture of purpose,
warlike or hostile, to any human being, Like the dove from the ark,
she had put forth only to find rest. Solemn prayers from the shores
of the sea in Holland, had invoked for her, at her departure, the bless-
ings of Providence. The stars which guided her were the unobscured

DANIEL WEBSTER. 33 1

constellations of civil and religious liberty. Her deck was the altar of
the living God. Fervent prayers from bended knees, mingled morning
and evening, with the voices of ocean, and the sighing of the wind in
her shrouds. Every prosperous breeze, which, gently swelling her
sails, helped the Pilgrims onward in their course, awoke new anthems
of praise; and when the elements were wrought into fury, neither the
tempest, tossing their fragile bark like a feather, nor the darkness and
howling of the midnight storm, ever disturbed, in man or woman, the
firm and settled purpose of their souls, to undergo all, and to do all,
that the meekest patience, the boldest resolution, and the highest trust
in God, could enable human beings to suffer or to perform.

Some differences may doubtless be traced at this day, between the
descendants of the eatly colonists of Virginia and those of New Eng-
land, owing to the different influences and different circumstances
under which the respective settlements were made. But only enough
to create a pleasing variety in the midst of a general resemblance.

-fades, non omnibus una,

Nee diversa tatuen, qualem decet esse sororem.

But the habits, sentiments, and objects of both, soon became modified
by local causes, growing out of their condition in the New World; and
as this condition was essentially alike in both, and as both at once
adopted the same general rules and principles of English jurisprudence,
these differences gradual^ diminished. They gradually disappeared by
the progress of time, and the influence of intercourse. The necessity
of some degree of union and co-operation to defend themselves against
the savage tribes, tended to excite in them mutual respect and regard.
They fought together in the wars against France. The great and
common cause of the revolution bound them together by new links of
brotherhobod; and finally, fortunately, happily, and gloriously, the
present form of government united them to form the Great Republic
of the world, and bound up their interest and fortunes, till the whole
earth sees that there is now for them, in present possession, as well
as future hope, only " One Country, One Constitution, and One
Destiny."

The colonization of the tropical region, and the whole of the South-
ern parts of the continent, by Spain and Portugal, was conducted on
other principles, under the influence of other motives, and followed by
far different consequences. From the time of its discovery, the Span-
ish government pushed forward its settlements in America, not only
with vigor, but with eagerness; so that long before the first permanent
English settlement had been accomplished, in what is now the United
States, Spain had conquered Mexico, Peru, and Chili; and stretched
her power over nearly all the territory she ever acquired in this conti-
nent. The rapidity of these conquests is to be ascribed in a great de-
gree, to the eagerness, not to say the rapacity, of those numerous bands

3S2 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

of adventurers who were stimulated to subdue immense regions, and
take possession of them in the name of the crown of Spain. The
mines of gold and silver were the excitement to these efforts, and
accordingly settlements were generally made, and Spanish authority
established on the immediate eve of the subjugation of territory, that
the native population might be set to work by their new Spanish masters,
in the mines. From these facts, the love of gold — gold not produced
by industry, nor accumulated by commerce, but gold dug from its
native bed in the bowels of the earth, and that earth ravished from its
rightful possessors by every possible degree of enormity, cruelty, and
crime, was long the governing passion in Spanish wars, and Spanish
settlements, in America, Even Columbus himself did not wholly
escape the influence of this base motive. In his early voyages we find
him passing from island to island, inquiring everywhere for gold; as if
God had opened the new world to the knowledge of the old, only to
gratify a passion equally senseless and sordid; and to offer up millions
of an unoffending race of men to the destruction of the sword, sharp-
ened both by cruelty and rapacity. And yet Columbus was far above
his age and country. Enthusiastic, indeed, but sober, religious, and
magnanimous; born to great things and capable of high sentiments, as
his noble discourse before Ferdinand and Isabella, as well as the
whole history of his life shows. Probably he sacrificed much to the
known sentiments of others, and addressed to his followers motives
likely to influence them. At the same time it is evident that he him-
self looked upon the world which he discovered as a world of wealth,
all ready to be seized and enjoyed.

The conquerors and the European settlers of Spanish America were
mainly military commanders and common soldiers. The monarchy
of Spain was not transferred to this hemisphere, but it acted in it, as
it acted at home, through its ordinary means, and its true representa-
tive, military force. The robbery and destruction of the native race
was the achievement of standing armies, in the right of the king, and
by his authority; fighting in Ms name, for the aggrandizement of his
power, and the extension of his prerogatives; with military ideas under
arbitrary maxims, a portion of that dreadful instrumentality by which
a perfect despotism governs a people. As there was no liberty in
Spain, how could liberty be transmitted to Spanish colonies?

The colonists of English America were of the people, and a people
already free. They were of the middle, industrious, and already prosr
perous class, the inhabitants of commercial and manufacturing cities, -
among whom liberty first revived and respired, after a sleep of a
thousand years in the bosom of the dark ages. Spain descended on
the new world in the armed and terrible image of her monarchy and
her soldiery; England approached it in the winning and popular garb
of personal rights, public protection and civil freedom. England trans-
planted liberty to America; Spain transplanted power. England,

DANIEL WEBSTER. Zoz

through the agency of private companies', and the efforts of individu-
als, colonized this part of North America, by industrious individuals,
making their own way in the wilderness, defending themselves against
the savages, recognising their right to the soil, and with a general
honest purpose of introducing knowledge as well as Christianity
among them. Spain stooped on South America, like a falcon on its
prey. Everything was gone. Territories were acquired by fire and
•sword. Cities were destroyed by fire and sword. Hundreds of thou
sands of human beings fell by fire and sword. Even conversion to
Christianity was attempted by fire and sword.

Behold, then, fellow-citizens, the difference resulting from tl:e
operation of the two principles! Here, to-day, on the summit of
Bunker Hill, and at the foot of the monument, behold the difference!
I would, that the fifty thousand voices present could proclaim it, with
a shout which should be heard over the globe. Our inheritance was
of liberty, secured and regulated by law, and enlightened by religion
and knowledge; that of South America was of power, stern, unrelent-
ing, tyrannical military power. And look to the results, on the gen-
eral and aggregate happiness of the human race. And behold the
results, in all the regions conquered by Cortes and Pizarro, and the
contrasted results here. I suppose the territory of the United States
may amount to one-eighth or one; tenth of that colonized by Spain on
this continent, and yet in all that vast region there are but between one
and two millions of European color and European blood; while in the
United States there are fourteen millions who rejoice in their descent
from the people of the more northern part of Europe.

But we follow the difference, in the original principle of coloniza-
tion, and in its character and objects, still further. We must look to
moral and intellectual results; we must consider consequences, not
only as they show themselves in the greater or less multiplication of
men or the supply of their physical wants — but in their civilization,
improvement and happiness we must inquire what progress has been
made in the true science of liberty, and in the knowledge of the great
principles of self-government.

I would not willingly say anything on this occasion, discourteous to
the new governments, founded on the demolition of the power of the
Spanish monarchy. They are yet on their trial, and I hope for a fa-
vorable result. But truth, sacred truth, and fidelity to the cause of
civil liberty, compels me to say, that hitherto they have discovered
quite too much of the spirit of that monarchy, from which they sepa-
rated themselves. Quite too frequent resource is made to military
force; and quite too much of the substance of the people consumed,
in maintaining armies., not for defence against foreign aggression
only, but for enforcing obedience to domestic authority. Standing
armies are the oppressive instruments for governing the people, in the
Hands of hereditary and arbitrary monarchs. A military republic, a

334 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

government founded on mock elections, and supported only by the
sword, is a movement indeed, but a retrograde and disastrous move-
ment, from the monarchical systems. If men would enjoy the blessings
of republican government, they must govern themselves by reason,
by mutual counsel and consultation, by a sense and feeling of general
interest, and by the acquiescence of the minority in the will of the ma-
jority, properly expressed; and above all, the military must be kept,
according to the language of our bill of rights, in strict subordination
to the civil authority. Wherever this lesson is not both learned and
practised, there can be no political freedom. Absurd, preposterous is
it — a scoff and a satire on free forms of constitutional liberty, for con-
stitutions and frames of government to be prescribed by military lead-
ers, and the right of suffrage to be exercised at the point of the sword.

Making all allowance for situation and climate, it cannot be doubted
by intelligent minds that the difference now existing between North
and South America is justly attributable, in a degree, to political in-
stitutions. And how broad that difference is! Suppose an assembly,
in one of the valleys, or on the side of one of the mountains of the
southern half of the hemisphere, to be held, this day, in the neighbor-
hood of a large city — what would be the scene presented ? Yonder is
a volcano, flaming and smoking, but shedding no light, moral or in-
tellectual. As its foot is the mine, yielding, perhaps, sometimes,
large gains to capital, but in which labor is destined to eternal and un-
requited toil, and rewarded only by penury and beggary. The city
is filled with armed men; not a free people, armed and coming forth
voluntarily to rejoice in a public festivity, but hireling troops, sup-
ported by forced loans, excessive impositions on commerce, or taxes
wrung from a half fed, and a half clothed population. For the great
there are palaces covered with gold, for the poor there are hovels of
the meanest sort. There is an ecclesiastical hierarchy enjoying the
wealth of princes; but there are no means of education to the people.
Do public improvements favor intercourse between place and place ?
So far from this, that the traveller cannot pass from town to town,
without danger, every mile, of robbery and assassination. I would"
not overcharge or exaggerate this picture; but its principal sketches
are all too true.

And how does it contrast with the scene now actually before us?
Look round upon these fields; they are verdant and beautiful, well
cultivated, and at this moment loaded with the riches of the early
harvest. The hands which till them are free owners of the soil, en-'
joying equal rights, and protected by law from oppression and
tyranny. Look to the thousand vessels in our sight, filling the har-
bor, or covering the neighboring sea. They are the instruments of a<
profitable commerce, carried on by men who know that the profits of
their hardy enterprise, when they make them, are their own; and this
commerce is encouraged and regulated by wise laws, and defended,

DANIEL WEBSTER. 335

when need be, by the valor and patriotism of the country. Look to
that fair city, the abode of so much diffused wealth, so much general
happiness and comfort, so much personal independence, and so much
general knowledge. She fears no forced contributions, no siege or
sacking from military leaders of rival factions. The hundred tem-
ples, in which her citizens worship God, are in no danger of sacrilege.
The regular administration of the laws encounters no obstacle ? The
long processions of children and youth, which you see this day issuing
by thousands from the free schools, prove the care and anxiety with
which a popular government provides for the education and morals of
the people. Everywhere there is order; everywhere there is security.
Everywhere the law reaches to the highest, and reaches to the lowest,
to protect him in his rights, and to restrain him from wrong; and over
all hovers liberty, that liberty which our fathers fought and fell for on
this very spot, with her eye ever watchful, and her eagle wing ever
wide outspread.

The colonies of Spain from their origin to their end were subject to
the sovereign authority of the kingdom. Their government, as well
as their commerce, was a strict home monopoly. If we add to this
the established usage of filling important posts in the administration
of the colonies, exclusively by natives of old Spain, thus cutting off
forever all hopes of honorable preferment from every man born in the
western hemisphere, causes enough rise up before us at once to ac-
count fully for the subsequent history and character of these provinces.
The Viceroys and Provincial Governors of Spain were never at home
in their governments in America. They did not feel that they were of
the people whom they governed. Their official character and employ-
ment have a good deal of resemblance to those of the Pro-consuls
of Rome, in Asia, Sicily and Gaul; but obviously no resemblance to
those of Carver and Winthrop, and very little to those of the Gov-
ernors of Virginia after that colony had established a popular house of
burgesses.

The English colonists in America, generally speaking, were men
who were seeking new homes in a new world. They brought with
them their families and all thast was most dear to them. This was
especially the case with the colonists of Plymouth and Massachu-
setts. Many of them were educated men, and all possessed their
full share, according to their social condition, of the knowledge and
attainments of that age. The distinctive characteristic of their set-
tlement is the introduction of the civilization of Europe into a
wilderness, without bringing with it the political institutions of Eu-
rope. The arts, sciences, and literature of England came over with
the settlers. That great portion of the common law, which regulates
the social and personal relations and conduct of men, came also. The
jury came ; the habeas corpus came; the testamentary power came,
and the lav; ef inheritance and descent came also, except that part of

S36 A MEXICAN PA TRIO TISM.

it which recognizes the rights of primogeniture, which either did not
come at all, or soon gave way to the rule of equal partition of estates
among children. But the monarchy did not come, nor the aristocracy,
nor the church as an estate of the realm. Political institutions were to
be framed anew, such as should be adapted to the state of things.
But it could not be doubtful what should be the nature and character
of these institutions. A general social equality prevailed among the
settlers, and an equality of political rights seemed the natural, if not
the necessary consequence. After forty years of revolution, violence
and war the people of France have placed at the head of the funda-
mental instrument of their government, as the great boon obtained
by all their sufferings and sacrifices, the declaration that all French-
men are equal before the law. What France had reached only by
the expenditure of so much blood and treasure, and the exhibition
of so much crime, the English colonists obtained, by simply chang-
ing their place, carrying with them the intellectual and moral cul-
ture of Europe, and the personal and social relations to which they
were accustomed, but leaving behind their political institutions. It
has been said with much veracity, that the felicity of the American
colonies consisted in their escape from the past. This is true, so far
as respects political establishments, but no further. They brought
with them a full portion of all the riches of the past, in science, in art,
in morals, religion and literature. The Bible came with them. And
it is not to be doubted, that to the free and universal reading of the
Bible, is to be ascribed in that age, ascribed in every age, that men
were much indebted for right views of civil liberty. The Bible is a
book of faith, and a book of doctrine ; but it is also a book, which
teaches man his own individual responsibility, his own dignity, and
his equality with his fellow man. Bacon, and Locke, and Milton and
Shakspeare also came with them. They came to form new political
systems, but all that belonged to cultivated man, to family, to neigbor-
hood, to social relations, accompanied them. In the Doric phrase of
one of our own historians, '' they came to settle on bare creation ;"
but their settlement in the wilderness, nevertheless, was not a lodg-
ment of nominal tribes, a mere resting-place of roaming savages. It
was the beginning of a permanent community, the fixed residence of
cultivated men. Not only was English literature read, but English,
good English, was spoken and written, before the axe had made way
to let in the sun upon the habitations and fields of the settlers. And'!
whatever may be said to the contrary, a correct use of the English
language is, at this day, more general throughout the United
States than it is throughout England herself. But another grand
characteristic is, that in the English colonies, political affairs were
left to be managed by the colonists themselves. ' There is another
fact wholly distinguishing them in character as it has distinguished
them in fortune, from the colonists of Spain. Here lies the founda-

DAXIEL WEBSTER. 337

tipn of that experience in self-government, which had preserved order,
and security, and regularity amidst the play of popular institutions.
Home government was the secret of the prosperity of the North
American settlements. The more distinguished of the New England
colonists, with a most remarkable sagacity, and a long-sighted reach
into futurity, refused to come to America, unless they Could bring
with them charters providing for the administration of their affairs
in this country. They saw, from the first, the evils of being gov-
erned in a new world by counsels held in the old. Acknowledging
the general superiority of the Crown, they still insisted on the right of
passing local laws, and of local administration. And history teaches
us the justice and the value of this determination, in the example of .
Virginia. The attempts early to settle that colony failed, sometimes
with the most melancholy and fatal consequences, from want of
knowledge, care and attention on the part of those who had the charge
of their affairs in England ; and it was only after the issuing of the third
charter, that its prosperity fairly commenced. The cause was that,
by that third charter, the people of Virginia (for by this time they so
deserved to be called), were allowed to constitute and establish the
first popular representative Assembly, which ever convened on this
continent, the Virginia House of Burgesses.

Here then, are the great elements of our political system originally
introduced, early in operation, and ready to be developed, more and
more as the progress of events should justify or demand.

Escape from the existing political systems of Europe ; but the con-
tinued enjoyment of its sciences and arts, its literature, and its man
ners ; with a series of improvements upon its religious and moral
sentiments and habits ; home governments ; or the power of passing
local laws, with a local administration.

Equality of rights.

Representative systems.

Free forms of Government, founded on popular representation.

Few topics are more inviting, or more fit for philosophical discus-
sion, than the action and influence of the new world upon the old ; or
the contributions of America to Europe.

Her obligations to Europe for science and art, laws, literature and
manners, America acknowledges as she ought, with respect and
gratitude. And the people of the United States, descendants of the
English stock, grateful for the treasures of knowledge derived from /
their English ancestors, acknowledge also, with thanks and filial
regard, that among those ancestors, under the culture of Hampden
and Sydney, and other assiduous friends, that seed of popular liberty
first germinated, which on our soil has shot up to its full height, until
its branches overshadow all the land.

But America has not failed to make returns. If she has not can-
celled the obligation, or equalled it by others of like weight, she has,

338 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

at least, made respectable advances, and some approaches towards
equality. And she admits, that standing in the midst of civilized
nations, and in a civilized age — a nation among nations — there is a
high part which she is expected to act, for the general advance of
human interests and human welfare.

American mines have filled the mints of Europe with the precious
metals. The productions of the American soil and climate have
poured out their abundance of luxuries for the taDles of the rich, and
of necessaries for the sustenance of the poor. Birds and animals
of beauty and value have been added to the European stocks j and
transplantations from the transcendant and unequalled riches of our
forests have mingled themselves profusely with the elms, and ashes,
and druidical oaks of England. \.

America has made contributions far more vast. Who can estimate
the amount, or the value, of the augmentation of the commerce of the
world, that has resulted from America ? Who can imagine to himself
what would be the shock to the Eastern Continent, if the Atlantic
were no longer traversable, or there were no longer American pro-
ductions, or American markets ?

But America exercises influences, or holds out examples for the
consideration of the Old World, of a much higher, because they are c
a moral and political character.

America has furnished to Europe proof of the fact that popular ir
stitutions, founded on equality and the principle of representation, ai
capable of maintaining governments — able, to secure the rights <
person, property and reputation.

America has proved that it is practicable to elevate the mass (
mankind — that portion which in Europe is called the laboring, c
lower class — to raise them to self respect, to make them competent t
act a part in the great right, and great duty, of self-government
and this she has proved may be done by education and the diffusio
of knowledge. She holds out an example, a thousand times mor
enchanting than ever was presented before, to those nine-tenths c
the human race who are born without hereditary fortune or heredit
rank.

America has furnished to the world the character of Washingtor
And if our American institutions had done nothing else, that alor
would have entitled them to the respect of mankind.

Washington ! ' ' First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts
of his countrymen !" Washington is all our own 1 The enthusiastic
veneration and regard in which the people of the United States hold
him, prove them to be worthy of such a countryman; while his rep-
utation abroad reflects the highest honor on his country and its insti-
tutions. I would cheerfully put the question to-day to the intelligence
of Europe and the world, What character of the century, upon the whole,
stands out in the relief of history, most pure, most respectable, most

DANIEL WEBSTER. 339

sublime; and I doubt not, that by a suffrage approaching to unanimity,
the answer would be Washington !

This structure, by its uprightness, its solidity, its durability, is no unfit
emblem of his character. His public virtues and public principles
were as firm as the earth on which it stands; his personal motives, as
pure as the serene heaven in which its summit is lost. But, indeed,
though a fit, it is an inadequate emblem. Towering high above the
column which our hands have builded, beheld, not by the inhabitants
of a single city or a single State — ascends the colossal grandeur of his
character, and his life. In all the constituents of the one — in all the
acts of the other — in all its titles to immortal love, admiration and re-
nown— it is an American production. It is the embodiment and vin-
dication of our transatlantic liberty. Born upon our soil — of parents
also born upon it — never for a moment having had a sight of the old
world — instructed, according to the modes of his time, only in the
spare, plain, but Avholesome elementary knowledge which our insti-
tutions provided for the children of the people — growing up beneath
and penetrated by the genuine influences of American society — grow-
ing up amidst our expanding, but not luxurious, civilization — partak-
ing in our great destiny of labor, our long contest with unreclaimed
nature and uncivilized man — our agony of glory, the war of indepen-
dence.— our great victory of peace, the formation of the Union and the
establishment of the Constitution — he is all — all our own ! That
crowded and glorious life —

" Where multitudes of virtues passed along-,
Each pressing" foremost in the mighty throng
Contending to be seen, then making room
For greater multitudes that were to come ; — "

that life was the life of an American citizen.

I claim him for America. In all the perils, in every darkened mo-
ment of the State, in the midst of the reproaches of enemies and of mis-
givings of friends — I turn to that transcendant name for courage and
for consolation. To him who denies, or doubts whether our fervid
liberty can be combined with law, with order, with the security of
property, with the pursuits and advancement of happiness — to him
who denies that our institutions are capable of producing exaltation of
soul and the passion of true glory — to him who denies that we have
contributed anything to the stock of great lessons and great examples
— to all these I reply by pointing to Washington i

And now, friends and feliow-citizens, it is time to bring this discourse
to a close.

We have indulged in gratifying recollections of the past, in the
prosperity and pleasures of the present, and in high hopes of the
future. But let us remember that we have duties and obligations to
perform, corresponding to the blessings which we enjoy. Let us
remember the trust, the sacred trust, attaching to the rich in-

340 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

heritance which we have received from our fathers. Let us feel
our personal responsibility, to the full extent of our power and
influence, for the preservation of our institutions of civil and religious
liberty. And let us remember that it is only religion, and morals, and
knowledge, that can make men respectable and happy under any form
of government. Let us hold fast the great truth that communities are
responsible, as well as individuals; that no government is respectable
which is not just; that without unspotted purity of public faith, with-
out sacred public principle, fidelity and honor — no mere forms of gov-
ernment, no machinery of laws, can give dignity to political society.
In our day and generation let us seek to raise and improve the moral
sentiment, so that we may look, not for a degraded, but for an elevated
and improved future. And when we, and our children, shall all have
been consigned to the house appointed for all living, may love of
country — and pride of country — glow with equal fervor among those
to whom our names and our blood shall have descended ! And then,
when honored and decrepid age shall lean against the base of this
monument, and troops of ingenuous youth shall be gathered round it,
and when the one shall speak to the other of its objects, the purposes
of its construction, and the great and glorious events with which it is
connected — there shall rise, from every youthful breast, the ejaculation
— "thank God, I — I also — am an American."

THE TRUE GRANDEUR OF NATIONS.

CHARLES SUMNER.

Boston^ July 4, 1845.

O ! yet a nobler task awaits thy hand !

For what can War but endless War still breed ?
Till Truth and Right from Violence be freed.

— Milton, Sonnet to Fairfax.

It was a plea for universal peace, a poetic rhapsody on the wrong's and horrors
of war, and the beauties of concord ; not, indeed, without solid argument, but that
argument clothed in all the gorgeousness of historical illustration, classic imagery,
and fervid effusion, rising high above the level of the existing conditions, and pic
turing an ideal future,- the universal reign of justice and charity, — not far oft ft
his own imagination, but far beyond the conceptions of living society ; but to th::
society he addressed the urgent summons to go forth at once in pursuit of this idt
consummation to transform all swords into ploughshares, and all war-ships
peaceful merchantmen, without delay ; believing that thus the nation would ri
to a greatness never known before, which it could accomplish if it only willed it

And this speech he delivered while the citizen soldier}- of Boston, in festive array,
were standing before him, and while the very air was stirred by the premonitory
nmtterings of an approaching war.

The whole man revealed himself in that utterance. — a soul full of the native in-
stinct of justice, an overpowering sense of right and wrong- which made him look at-
the problems of human society from the lofty plane of an ideal mortality, which fixed
for him, high beyond the existing condition of things, the aims for which he must
strive, and inspired and lireJ his ardent nature for the ^tru^gle."

CAR.L SCIIURZ.

CHARLES SUMNER. 341

It is in obedience to an uninterrupted usage in our community that,
on this Sabbath of the Nation, we have all put aside the common cares
of life, and seized a respite from the never-ending toils of labor, to
meet in gladness and congratulation, mindful of the blessings trans-
mitted from the past, mindful also, I trust, of the duties to the present
and the future. May he who now addresses you be enabled so to
direct your minds, that you shall not seem to have lost a day !

All hearts first turn to the Fathers of the Republic. Their venerable
forms rise before us, and we seem to behold them, in the procession
of successive generations. They come from the frozen rock of Ply-
mouth, from the wasted bands of Raleigh, from the Heavenly com-
panionship of William Penn, from the anxious councils of the Revolu-
tion, and from all those fields of sacrifice, on which, in obedience to
the spirit of their age, they sealed their devotion to duty with their
blood, they seem to speak to us, their children : " Cease to vaunt your-
selves of what you do, and of what has been done for you. Learn to
walk humbly, and to think meekly of yourselves. Cultivate habits of
self-sacrifice and of devotion to duty. May our words be always in
your minds, never aim at aught which is not right, persuaded that
without this, every possession and all knowledge will become an evil
and a shame. Strive to increase the inheritance which we have be-
queathed ; know, that, if we excel you in virtue, such a victory will be
to us a mortification, while defeat will bring happiness. It is in this
Avay that you may conquer us. Nothing is more shameful to a man,
than to found his title to esteem, not on his own merits, but on the
fame of his ancestors. The glory of the fathers is doubtless to their
children a most precious treasure ; but to enjoy it without transmitting
it to the next generation, and without adding to it yourselves, this is
the height of imbecility. Following these counsels, when your days
shall be finished on earth, you will come to join us, and we shall re-
ceive you as friends receive friends ; but if you neglect our words,
expect no happy greeting then from us."

Honor to the memory of our Fathers ! May the turf lie gently on
their sacred graves ! But let us not in words only, but in deeds also,
testify our reverence for their name. Let us imitate what in them
was lofty, pure and good ; let us from them learn to bear hardship and
privation. Let us, who now reap in strength what they sowed in weak-
ness, study to enhance the inheritance we have received. To do this, Ave
must not fold our hands in slumber, nor abide content with the past.
To each generation is committed its peculiar task; nor does the heart,
which responds to the call of duty, find rest except in the world to
come.

Be ours, then, the task which, in the order of Providence, has been
cast upon us ! And what is this task ? How shall Ave best perform
the part assigned to us ? What can we do to make our coming wel-
come to our fathers in the skies, and to draAv to our memory hereafter
the homage of a grateful posterity? How can Ave add to the inheri-

342 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

tancewe have received ? The answers to these questions cannot fafl
to interest all minds; particularly on this anniversary of the birth-day
of our country. Nay, more ; it becomes us, on this occasion, as pa-
triots and citizens, to turn our thoughts inward, as the good man dedi-
cates his birth-day, to the consideration of his character and the mode
in which its vices may be corrected and its virtues strengthened.
Avoiding, ;then, all exultation in the prosperity that has enriched our
; L'ind, and in the extending influence of the blessings of freedom, let us
consider what We can do to elevate our character, to add to the happi-
ness of all-; and to attain to that righteousness which exalteth a nation.
' In this spirit, I propose to inquire what, "in our age are the true ob-
jects of national ambition^— what is truly national glory— national
honor— what "is the true grandeur of nations.

I hope to rescue these terms, so powerful over the minds of men,
from the mistaken objects- to which they are applied, from deeds of war
and the extension of empire, that henceforward they may be attached
only to acts of justice and humanity. ;

The subject will raise us to the contemplation of things that are not
temporary or local in their character , but which belong to all ages and
all countries ; which are as lofty 'as truth, as universal as humanity.
But it derives a peculiar interest, at this moment, from transactions in
which our country has become involved. On the one side, by an act of
unjust legislation, extending our power over Texas, we have endangered
peace with' Mexico j while on the other, by a presumptuous assertion of
a disputed claim to a worthless territory beyond the Rocky Mountains,
we hav6 kindled anew on the hearth of our mother country, the
smothered fires of hostile strife. Mexico and England both aver the
determination to vindicate what is called the national honor ; and the
dread arbitrament of war is calmly contemplated by our Government,
provided it cannot obtain what is called an honorable peace.

Far be from our country and Our age the sin and shame of contests
hateful in the sight of God and all good men, having their origin in no
righteous though mistaken sentiment, in no true love of country, in no
generous thirst for fame, that last infirmity of noble minds, but
springing in both cases from an ignorant and ignoble passion for new
territories ; strengthened in one case, by an unnatural desire, in this
land of boasted freedom, to fasten by new links the chains which
promise soon to fall from the limbs of the unhappy slave ! In such con-
tests, God has no attribute which can join with us. Who believes that
the national honor will be promoted by a war with Mexico or England?
What just man would sacrifice a single human life, to bring under our
rule both Texas and Oregon ? It was an ancient Roman, touched, per-
haps, by a transient gleam of Christian truth, who said, when he turned
as de from a career of Asiatic conquest, that he would rather save the
life of a single citizen than become master of all the dominions of
Mithridates.

CHARLES SUMNER. 343

A war with Mexico would be mean and cowardly ; but with England
it would be at least bold, though parricidal. The heart sickens at the
murderous attack upon an enemy, distracted by civil feuds, weak at
home, impotent abroad ; but it recoils in horror from the deadly shock
between children -of a common ancestiy, speaking the same language,
soothed in infancy by the same words of love and tenderness, and
hardened into vigorous manhood under the bracing influence of insti-
tutions drawn from the same ancient founts of freedom. Curam
acuebat, quod adversus Latinos bellandum era/, Ijngud moribus, ar/nerum
gencre, inslitutis ante omnia militaribus congrnentes; viiliies militibus%
eenturionibus eenturiones, iribuni tribuuis airfares, colligaqtie, iisdem
pccvsidis, s<zpe iisdem. manipulis pennixti fuerant.

In our age there can be no peace that is not honorable ; there
can be no war that is not dishonorable. The true honor of a na-
tion is to be found only in deeds of justice and in the happiness
of its people, all of which are inconsistent with war. In the clear eye
of Christian judgment vain are its victories ; infamous are its spoils.
He is the true. benefactor and alone worthy of honor who brings comfort
where before was wretchedness ; who dries the tear of sorrow ; who
pours oil into the wounds of the unfortunate ; who feeds the hungry
and clothes the naked ; who unlooses tnc fetters of the slave ; who
does justice ; who enlightens the ignorant ; who enlivens and exalts, by
his virtuous genius, in art, in literature, in science, the hours of life ;
who, by words or actions, inspires a love for God and for man. This is
the Christian h^jo ; this is the man of honor in a Christian land. He
is no benefactor, nor deserving of honor, whatever may be his worldly
renown, whose life is passed in acts of (orce ; who renounces the great
law of Christian brotherhood ; whose vocation is blood ; who triumphs
in battle over his fellow-men. Well may old Sir Thomas Browne ex-
claim, " the world does not know its greatest men ;" for thus far it has
chiefly discerned the violent brood of battle, the armed men springing
up from the dragon's teeth sown by Hate, and cared little for the truly
good men, children of Love, Crom wells guiltless of their country's
blood, whose steps on earth have been as noiseless as an angel's wing.

It is not to be disguised that these views differ from the generally
received opinions of the world down to this day. The voice of man
has been given mostly to the praise of military chieftains, and the
honors of victory have been chanted even by the lips of woman. The
mother, while rocking her infant on her knees, has stamped on his
tender mind, at that age more impressible than wax, the images of
war; she has nursed his slumbers with its melodies; she has pleased
his waking hours with its stories; and selected for his playthings the
plume and the sword. The child is father to the man; and who can
weigh the influence of these early impressions on the opinions of later
years? The mind which trains the child is like the hand which com-
mands the end of a long lever; a gentle effort at that time suffices to
A. V.-XL

344 . AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

heave the enormous weight of succeeding years. As the boy advances
to youth he is fed, like Achilles, not only on honey and milk, but on
bear's flesh and lion's marrow. He draws the nutriment of his soul
from a literature, whose beautiful fields have been moistened by human
blood. Fain would I offer my tribute to the father of poetry, stand-
ing, with harp of immortal melody, on the misty mountain top of dis-
tant antiquity; to all those stories of courage and sacrifice which1 cm-
blazon the annals of Greece and Rome; to the fulminations of Demos-
thenes and the splendors of Tully; to the sweet verse of Virgil and the
poetic prose of Livy. Fain would I offer my tribute to the new liter-
ature, which shot up in modern times as a vigorous forest from the
burnt site of ancient woods; to the passionate song of the Troubadour
of France, and the Minnesinger of Germany ; to the thrilling ballads
of Spain; and the delicate music of the Italian lyre. But from all
these has breathed the breath of war, that has swept the heart-strings
of innumerable generations of men!

And when the youth becomes a man, his country invites his services
in war, and holds before his bewildered imagination the highest prizes
of honor. For him is the pen of the historian and the verse of the
poet. His soul swells at the thought, that he also is a soldier; that
his name shall be entered on the list of those who have borne arms in
the cause of their country; and, perhaps, he dreams, that he too may
sleep, like the Great Captain of Spain, with a hundred trophies over
his grave. But the contagion spreads among us, beyond those bands
on whom is imposed the positive obligation of law. Respectable citi-
zens volunteer to look like soldiers, and to affect in dress, in arms and
deportment, what is called "&he pride, pomp and circumstance of
glorious war." The, ear-piercing fife has to-day filled our streets, and
we have come together, on this anniversary, by the thump of drum.
and the sound Of martial music.

It is not strange, then, that the spirit of war still finds a home
among us; nor that its honors are still regarded. This fact may seem
to give point to the bitter philosophy of Hobbes, who held that the
natural state of mankind was war, and to sustain the exulting language
of the soldier in our own day, who has said : " War is the condition of
this world. From man to the smallest insect, all are at strife; and the
glory of arms, which cannct be obtained without the exercise of honor,
fortitude, courage, obedience, modesty and temperance, excites the
brave man's patriotism, and is a chastening correction of the- rich
man's pride."

I now ask what is war? Let me give a short but strictly scientific
answer. War is a public, armed contest, between nations, in order
to establish justice between them; as, for instance, to determine a dis-
puted boundary line, or the title to a territory. It has been called by
Lord Bacon "one of the highest trials of right, when princes and

CHARLES SUMNER. 345

upon the justice of God for the deciding of their controversies, by such
success as it shall please him to give on either side."

. This definition may seem, at first view, to exclude what are termed
by "martial logic," defensive wars. But a close consideration of the
subject will make it apparent that no war can arise among Christian
nations, at the present day, except to determine an asserted right.
The wars usually and falsely called defensive are of this character.
They are appeals for justice to force; endeavors to redress evil by
force. They spring from the sentiment of vengeance or honor. They
inflict evil for evil, and vainly essay to overcome evil by evil. The
wars that now lower from Mexico and England are of this character.
On the one side, we assert a title to Texas which is disputed; and on
the other side a title. to Oregon, which is disputed. Who can regard
the ordeal by battle in these causes as a defensive war ? The object
, proposed in 1834 by war with France, was to secure the payment of
five millions of dollars, in other words, to determine, by the arbitra-
ment of war, a question of justice. It would be madness to term this
f. case of self-defence; it has been happily said, if, because a man re-
uses to pay a just debt, I go to his house and beat him, that is not
self-defence; but such was precisely the conduct proposed to be
adopted by our country. The avowed purpose of the war, declared
by the United States against Great Britain in 1812, was to obtain from
the latter power an abandonment of her unrighteous claim to search
American vessels. It is a mockery to miscall such a contest a defen-
sive war,

I repeat, therefore, that war is a public, armed contest, between na-
tions, in order to establish justice between them.

When we have considered the character of war; the miseries it pro-
duces; and its utter and shameful insufficiency, as a means of estab-
lishing justice, we may then be able to determine, strictly and logically,
whether it must not be ranked with crimes from which no true honor
can spring, to individuals or nations, but rather condemnation and
shame.

I. And first as to the character of war, or that part of our nature in
which it has its origin. Listen to the voice of the ancient poet of
Boeotian Ascra:

This is the law for mortals ordained by the Ruler of Heaven |
Fishes and Beasts and Birds of the air devour each other ;
Justice dwells not amongf them; only to man has he given
Justice the Highest and Best.

The first idea that rises to the mind,, in regarding war, is that it is a
resort to force, whereby each nation strives to overpower the other.
Reason, and the divine part of our nature, in which alone we diner
from the beasts, in which alone we approach the divinity, in which
alone arc the elements of justice, the professed object of war, arc dc-

346 AM ERICA X PATRIOTISM.

throned. It is, in short, a temporary-adoption, by men, of the char-
acter of wild beasts, emulating their ferocity, rejoicing like them in
blood, and seeking, as with a lion's paw, to hold an asserted right.
This character of war is somewhat disguised, in more recent days, by
the skll and knowledge which it employs; it is, however, still the
same, made more destructive by the genius and intellect which have
been degraded to its servants. The early poets, in the unconscious
simplicity of the world's childhood, make this strikingly apparent.
All the heroes of Homer are likened in their rage tP the ungovernable
fury of animals or things devoid of human reason or human affection.
Menelaus presses his way though the crowd, " like a beast." Sarpe-
don was aroused against the Argives, " as a lion against the crooked-
horned oxen;" and afterwards rushes forward "like a lion nourished
on the mountains for a long time famished for want of flesh, but whose
courage compels him to go even to the well-guarded sheep-fold." The
great Telamonian Ajax in one and the same passage is likened to " a
beast," " a tawny lion" and " an obstinate ass;" and all the Greek
chiefs, the flower of the camp, are described as ranged about Diomed,
"like raw-eating lions or wild boars whose strength is irresistible."
And Hector, the hero in whom cluster the highest virtues of polished
war, is called by the characteristic term, " the tamer of horses," and
one of his renowned feats in battle, indicating only brute strength, is
where he takes up and hurls a stone which two of the strongest men
could not easily put into a wagon; and he drives over dead bodies and
shields, while the axle is defiled by gore, and the guard about the seat,
sprinkled from the horse's hoofs and from the tires of the wheels;
and, in that most admired passage of ancient literature, before return-
ing his child, the young Astyanax, to the arms of his wife, he invokes
the gods for a single blessing on his head, that "he may excel his
father, and bring home bloody spoils, his enemy being slain, and so
make glad the heart of his mother."

Illustrations of this nature might be gathered from the early fields
of modern literature, as well as from the more ancient, all snowing
the unconscious degradation of the soldier, who, in the pursuit of jus-
tice, renounces the human character to assume that of the beasts.
Henry V., in our own Shakespeare, in the spirit-stirring appeal to his
troops, says —

When the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger

This is plain and frank, and reveals the true character of war.

I need not dwell on the moral debasement of man that must ensue.
All the passions of his nature are unleashed like so many blood-
hounds, and suffered to rage. All the crimes which fill our prisons
stalk abroad, plaited with the soldier's garb, and unwhipt of justice.

CHARLES SUMXER. 347

Murder, robbery, rape, arson, theft, are the sports of .this fiendish
Saturnalia, when

The gates of mercv shall be all shut up
And the fleshed soldier, rough and hard of heart,
In the liberty of bloody hand shall range
With conscience wide as hell.

Such is the foul disfigurement which war produces in man; man, of
whom it has been said, * How noble in reason, how infinite in facul-
ties ! in form and moving, how express and admirable 1 in action, how
like an angel ! in apprehension, how like a God 1"

II. Let us now consider more particularly the effects or conse-
quences of this resort to brute force, in the pursuit of justice,

The immediate effect of war is to sever all relations of friendship
and commerce between the two nations and every individual thereof,
impressing upon each "citizen or subject the character of enemy. Im-
agine this between England and the United States. The innumerable
ships of the two countries, the white doves of Commerce, bearing the
olive of peace, would be driven from the sea, or turned from their
proper purposes to be ministers of destruction; the threads of social
and business intercourse which have become woven into a thick web
would be suddenly snapped asunder;, friend could no longer commu-
nicate with friend; the twenty thousand letters, which each fortnight
are speeded, from this port alone, across the sea, could no longer, be
sent, arid the human affections and desires, of which these are the
precious expression; would seek in vain for utterance. Tell me, you,
who have friends and kindred abroad, or who: are bound to foreigners
by the more Worldly relations of commerce, are you prepared for this
rude separation ?

But this is little compared with what must follow. This is only the
first portentous shadow of the disastrous eclipse, the twilight usher of
thick darkness, that is to cover the whole heavens, as with a pall,
to be broken only by the blazing lightnings of the battle and the
siege.

The horrors of these redden every page of history; while, to the
disgrace of humanity, the historian has rarely applied to their brutal >
authors the condemnation they deserve. A popular writer, in our own
day, dazzled by those false ideas of greatness at which reason and Chris-
tianity blush, does not hesitate to dwell on them with terms of rapture and
eulogy. At Tarragona, above six thousand human beings, almost all
defenceless, men and women, grey hairs and infant innocence, at-
tractive youth and wrinkled age, were butchered by the infuriated
troops in one night, and the morning sun rose upon a city whose
Streets and houses were inundated with blood. And yet this is called
"a glorious exploit." This was a conquest by the French. At a
later day Cmdad Rodrigo was stormed by the British, when there en-
sued in the license of victory, a frightful scene of plunder and vio-

3$k AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

len.ce,. while shouts and screams on all sides fearfully intermingled
with the groans of the wounded. The churches were desecrated, the
cellars of wine and spirits were pillaged; fire was wantonly applied to
different parts of the city; and brutal intoxication spread in every di-
rection. It was only when the drunken men dropped from excess, or
iVil asleep, that any degree of order was restored, and yet the storm-
ing of Ciudad Rodrigo is pronounced "one of the most brilliant ex-
ploits of the British army." This exploit was followed by the storm-
ing of Badajoz, in which the same scenes were enacted again with
added atrocities. Let the story be told in the' words of a partial his-
torian : ' ' Shameless rapacity, brutal intemperance, savage lust, cruel-
ty and murder, shrieks and piteous lamentations, groans, shouts, im-
precations, the hissing of fire bursting from the houses, the crashing
of doors and windows, and the report of muskets used in violence,
resounded for two days and nights in the streets of Badajoz ! On the
third, when the city was sacked, when the soldiers were exhausted by
their excesses, the tumult rather subsided than was quelled ! The
wounded were. then looked to, the dead disposed of."

The same terrible war affords another instance of the horrors of a
siege, which cries to Heaven for judgment. For weeks before the
surrender of Saragossa, the deaths were from four to five hundred
daily; the living were unable to bury the dead, and thousands of car-
casses, scattered about the streets and court-yards, or piled in heaps
at..the doors of churches, were left to dissolve in their own corruption
or to be licked up by the flames of the burning houses. The city was
shaken to its foundation by sixteen thousand shells thrown during the
bombardment, and the explosion of forty-five thousand pounds of
powder in the mines, while the bones of forty thousand persons of
every age and both sexes bore dreadful testimony to the unutterable
atrocity of war.

These might be supposed to be pictures from the age of Alaric,
Scourge of God, or of Attila, whose boast was, that the grass did not
grow where his horse had "set his foot; but no; they belong to our own
times. They are portions of the wonderful but wicked career of him,
who Stands out as the foremost representative of worldly grandeur.
The heart aches, as we follow him and his marshals from field to field
of glory. At Albuera, in Spain, we see the horrid piles of carcasses,
while all the night the rain pours down, and the river and the hills
and the woods on each side, resound with the dismal clamors and
groans of dying men. At Salamanca, long after the battle, we behold
the ground still blanched by the skeletons of those who fell, and
strewn with the fragments of casques and cuirasses. We follow in
the dismal traces of his Russian campaign; at Valentina we see the
soldiers black with powder, their bayonets bent with the violence of
the encounter; the earth ploughed with cannon shot, the trees torn
and mutilated, the field covered with broken carriages, wounded
horses, and mangled bodies, while disease, sad attendant on military

CHARLES SUMXER. 349

suffering, sweeps thousands from the great hospitals of the army, and
the multitude of amputated limbs, which there is not time to destroy,
accumulate in bloody heaps, filling the air with corruption. What
tongue, what pen, can describe the horrors of the field of Borodino,
where between the rise and set of a single sun, more than one hun-
dred thousand of our fellow-men, equalling in number the population
of this whole city, sank to the earth dead or wounded ? Fifty days
after the battle, no less than twenty thousand are found lying where
they have fallen, and the whole plain is strewn with half-buried car-
casses of men and horses, intermingled with garments dyed in blood,
and bones gnawed by dogs and vultures. Who can follow the French
army, in their dismal retreat, avoiding the pursuing spear of the Cos-
sack, only to sink under the sharper frost and ice, in a temperature
below zero, on foot, without a shelter for their bodies, and famishing
on horse-flesh and a miserable compound of rye and snow-water?
Still later we behold him with a fresh array, contending against new
forces under the walls of. Dresden; and as the Emperor rides over the
field of battle, having supped with the king of Saxony the night be-
fore, ghastly traces of the contest of the preceding day are to be seen
on all sides; out of the newly made graves hands and arms are pro-
jecting, stark and stiff above the earth. And shortly afterwards,
when shelter is needed for the troops, direction is given to occupy the
hospitals for the insane, with the order, " Turn out the mad."

But why follow furthe"r in this career of blood ? There is, however,
one other picture of the atrocious, though natural consequences of war,
occurring almost within our own day, that 1 would not omit. Let me
bring to your mind Genoa, called the Suburb, City of Palaces, dear to
the memory of American childhood as the birthplace of Christopher
Columbus, and one of the spots first enlightened by the morning
beams of civilization, whose merchants were princes, and whose rich
argosies, in those early days, introduced to Europe the choicest pro-
ducts of the East, the linen of Egypt, the spices of Arabia, and the
silks of Sarmacand. She still sits in queenly pride, as she did then,'
her mural crown studded with towers, her churches rich with marble
floors and rarest pictures, her palaces of ancient doges and admirals
yet spared by the hand of time, her close streets, thronged by one
hundred thousand inhabitants, at the feet of the maritime Alps, as
they descend to the blue and tideless waters of the Mediterranean sea,
leaning with her back against their strong mountain sides, overshad-
owed by the foliage of the fig tree and the olive, while the orange and
lemon fill with their perfume the air where reigns perpetual spring.
Who can contemplate such a city without delight ? Who can listen to
the story of her sorrows without a pang ?

In the autumn of 1799, the armies of the French Republic, which had
dominated over Italy, were driven from their conquests, and compelled
with shrunk forces, under Massena, to seek shelter within the walls of
Genoa. After various efforts by the Austrian General on the land, aid-

35° A MEXICAN PA TRIO TISM.

ed by a bombardment from the British fleet in the harbor, to force, the
strong defences by assault, the city is invested by a strict blockade.
All communication with the country is cut off on the one side, while
the harbor is closed by the ever-wakeful British watch-dogs of war.
Within the beleaguered and unfortunate city, are the peaceful inhab-
itants, more than those of Boston in number, besides the French troops.
Provisions soon become scarce, scarcity sharpens into want, till fell fa-
mine,bringing blindness and madness in her train, rages like an Erinnys.
Picture to yourself this large population, not pouring out their lives in
the exulting rush of battle, but wasting at noon-day, the daughter by the
side of the mother, the husband by the side of" the wife. When grain
and rice fail, flax-seed, millet, cocoas and almonds are ground by hand-
mills into flour, and even bran, baked with honey, is eaten, not to sat-
isfy, but to deaden hunger. During the siege, but before the last ex-
tremities, a pound of horse-flesh is sold for 32 cents; a pound of bran
for 30 cents; a pound of flour for $1.75. .A single bean is sold for 4
cents, and a biscuit of three ounces for $2.25, and none are finally to
be had. The miserable soldiers, after devouring all the horses in the
city, are reduced to the degradation of feeding on dogs, cats, rats and
worms, which are eagerly hunted out in the cellars and common sew-
ers. Happy were now, exdaims an Italian historian, not those who
lived, but those who died ! The day is dreary from hunger; the night
more dreary still from hunger accompanied by delirious fancies. Re-
course is now had to herbs; monk's rhubarb, sorrel, mallows, wild
succory. People of every condition, women of noble birth and beauty,
seek on the slope of the mountain enclosed within the defences, those
aliments which nature destined solely for the beasts. A little cheese
and a few vegetables are all that can be afforded to the sick and
wounded, those sacred stipendiaries upon human charity. Men and
women, in the last anguish of despair, now fill the air with their groans
and shrieks; some in spasms, convulsions and contortions, gasping
their last breath on the unpitying stones of the streets; alas ! not more
unpitying than man. Children, whom a dying mother's arms had
ceased to protect, the orphans of an hour, with piercing cries, seek in
vain the compassion of the passing stranger; but none pity or aid
them. The sweet fountains of sympathy are all closed by the selfish-
ness of individual distress. In the general agony, the more impetu-
ous rush out of the gates, and impale themselves on the Austrian bay-
onets, while others precipitate themselves into the sea. Others still
(pardon the dire recital !) are driven to eat their shoes and devour the
leather of their pouches, and the horror of human flesh has so far
abated that numbers feed like cannibals on the bodies of the dead.

At this stage the French general capitulated, claiming and receiving
what are called " the honors of war;" but not before twenty thous-
and innocent persons, old and young, women and children, having no
part or interest in the war, had died the most horrible of deaths. The

LHAkLES SUMNER. 351

-Austrian flag floated over the captured Genoa but a brief span of time;
for Bonaparte had already descended, like an eagle, from the Alps,
and in less than a fortnight afterwards, on the vast plains of Maren-
go, shattered, as with an iron mace, the Austrian empire in Italy.

But wasted lands, ruined and famished cities, and slaughtered armies
are only a part of "the purple testament of bleeding war." Every
soldier is connected, as all of you, by dear ties of 'kindred, love and
friendship. He has been sternly summoned from the warm embraces
of family. To him there is, perhaps, an aged mother, who has fondly
hoped to lean her decaying frame upon his more youthful form; per-
haps a wife, whose life has been just entwined inseparably with his,
-now condemned to wasting despair; perhaps brothers, sisters. As he
falls on the field of battle, must not all these rush with his blood ? But
who can measure the distress that radiates as from a bloody sun, pen-
etrating innumerable homes ? Who can give the gauge and dimen-
sions of this incalculable sorrow ? Tell me, ye who have felt the bit-
terness of parting with dear friends and kindred, whom you have
watched tenderly till the last golden sands have run out, and the great
hour-glass is turned, what is the measure of your anguish? Your
friend has departed, soothed by kindness and in the arms of love; the
soldier gasps out his life, with no friend near, while the scowl of hate
darkens all that he beholds, darkens his own departing soul. Who
can forget the anguish that fills the bosom and crazes the brain of
Leonora, in the matchless ballad of Burger, who seeks in vain among
the returning squadrons for her lover left dead on Prague's ensan-
guined plain ? But every field of blood has many Leonoras. From a
poet of antiquity, we draw a vivid picture of homes made desolate
by the murders of battle.

•

But through the bounds of Grecia's land,

Who sent her sons for Troy to part,

See mourning-, with much suffering heart,

On each maivs threshold stand.

On each sad hearth in Grecia's land.

Well may her soul with grief be rent ;

She well remembers whom she sent,

She sees them not return ;

Instead of men, to each man's home,

Urns and ashes only come,

And the armor which they wore ;

Sad relics to their native shore.

For Mars, the barterer of the lifeless clay,

Who sells for gold the slain,

And holds the. scale in battle's doubtful day,

High balanced o'er the plain,

From Ilium's walls for men returns

Ashes and sepulchral urns ;
' Ashes wet with many a tear,

Sad relics of the fiery bier.

Round the full urns the general groan

Goes, as each their kindred own.

35->

4 MEXICAN PA T RIOT ISM.

■ One they mourn in battle strong,

And one, that 'mid the armed throng
He sunk in glory s slaughtering tide,
And for another^ consort died
. * * * * * * 2frru3

Others they mourn whose monuments stand
by Ilium's walls on foreign strand ;
Where they fell in beauty's bloom,
There they lie in hated tomb ;
Sunk beneath the massv mound,
In eternal chambers bound.

III. From this dreary picture of the miseries of war, I turn to
another branch of the subject.

War is utterly ineffectual to secure or advance the object at which ft
aims. The misery which it excites, contributes to no end, helps to
establish no right, and therefore, in no respect determines justice be-
tween the contending nations.

The fruitlessness and vanity of war appear in the results of the
great wars by which the world has been lacerated. After long strug-
gles, in which each nation has inflicted and received incalculable
injury, peace has been gladly obtained on the basis of the condition
of things before the war. — Status ante Bellum. Let me refer for an
example to our last war with Great Britain, the professed object of
which was to obtain from the latter power a renunciation of her claim
to impress our seamen. The greatest number of American seamen
ever officially alleged to be compulsorily serving in the British navy
was about eight hundred. To overturn this injustice, the whole
country was doomed, for more than three years, to the accursed blight
of war. Our commerce was driven from the seas: the resources of
the land were drained by taxation; villages on the Canadian frontier
were laid in ashes: the metropolis of the republic was captured,
while gaunt distress raged every where within our borders. Weary
with this rude trial, our Government appointed Commissioners to
treat for peace, under these instructions : "Your first duty will be to
conclude peace with Great Britain, and you are authorized to do it, in
case you obtain a satisfactory stipulation against impressment, one
which shall secure under our flag protection to the crew. If this en-
croachment of Great Britain is not provided against, the United
States have appealed to arms in vain." Afterwards, despairing of
extorting from Great Britain a relinquishment of the unrighteous
claim, and foreseeing only an accumulation of calamities from an in-
veterate prosecution of the war, our Government directed their nego-
tiators, in concluding a treaty of peace, "to omit any stipulation
on the subject of impressment." The instructions were obeyed and
the treaty that once more restored to us the blessings of peace,
which we had rashly cast away, and which the country hailed with an
intoxication of joy, contained no allusion to the subject of impress-
mem, nor did it provide for the surrender of a single American sailor

CHARLES SUMNER. _. . 353

detained in the service of the British navy, and thus, by the confes-
sion of our own Government, "The United States had appealed to
arms in vain."

All this is the natural result of an appeal to war in order to establish
justice. Justice implies the exercise of the judgment in the determi-
antion of right. Now war not only supersedes the judgment, but
delivers over the results to superiority of force, or to chance.

Who can measure before-hand the currents of the heady fight? In
common language we speak of the chances of battle; and soldiers,
whose lives are devoted to this harsh calling, yet speak of it as a
game. The great captain of our age, who seemed to chain victory to
his chariot wheels, in a formal address to his officers, on entering
Russia, says: " In war, fortune has an equal share with ability in pro-
curing success." The mighty victory of Marengo, the accident of an
■accident, wrested unexpectedly at the close of the day from a foe
who at an earlier hour was successful, must have taught him the un-
certainty of war. Afterward, in the bitterness of his spirit, when his
immense forces had been shivered, and his triumphant eagles driven
back with broken wings, he exclaimed, in that remarkable conversa-
tion recorded by the Abbe de Pradt: "Well ! this is war. High in the
morning, — low enough at night. From a triumph to a fall is often
but a step." The military historian of the Peninsular campaign,
says: "Fortune always asserts her supremacy in war, and often from
a slight mistake, such disastrous consequences flow, that in every age
and in every nation, the uncertainty of wars has been proverbial;" and
again, in another place, in considering the conduct of Wellington, he
says: "A few hours' delay, an accident, a turn of fortune, and he
Would have been foiled ! Ay ! but this is war, always dangerous and
uncertain, an ever-rolling wheel and armed with scythes." And can
intelligent man look for justice to an ever-rolling wheel armed with
scythes ?

The character of war, as dependent upon chance, might be illus-
trated from every page of history. It is less discerned, perhaps, in
the conflict of large masses, than of individuals, though equally
present in both. How capriciously the wheel turned when the for-
tunes of Rome were staked on the combat between the Horatii and
Curatii, and who, at one time, could have argued that the single
Horatius, with his two slain brothers on the field, would have over-
powered the three living enemies?

But the most interesting illustration is to be found in the history of
the private wars, and particularly of the judicial combat, or of trial
by battle, in the dark ages. The object proposed in these cases was
precisely the professed object of modern war, the determination of
justice. Did time permit, it would be interesting and instructive to
trace the curious analogies between this early ordeal by battle, child
of superstition and brute force, and the great ordeal of war. Like

354 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

the other ordeals, by burning ploughshares, by holdi'rig hot iron, by
dipping thehand in hot water, or hot oil, they are both "a presumptu-
ous appeal to Providence, under an apprehension and hope that
Heaven will give the victory to him who has^he right. "The mon-
strous usage of trial by battle prevailed in the early modern centuries
throughout Europe; it was" a part of the common law of England; and
though it fell into desuetude, overruled by the advancing spirit of
civilization, still, to the disgrace of the English law, it was not legis-
latively abolished, until in 1S17 the right to it had been distinctly
claimed in Westminster Hall. Abraham Thornton, on appeal against
him for murder, when brought into court, pleaded as follows : "N6t
guilty, and I am, ready to defend the same by my body ;" and there-
upon taking off his glove, he threw it upon the floor of the court.
The appellant did not choose to submit to this trial, an 1 abandoned
his proceedings. In the next session of Parliament, trial by battle
was abolished in England. The attorney general, On introducing the
bill for this purpose remarked, that, "if the party had persevered he
had no doubt the legislature" would have felt it their imperious duty
to interfere and pass an ex post facto law, to prevent so degrading a
spectacle from taking place."

To an early monarch of France belongs the honor of first interposing
the royal authority, for the entire suppression within his jurisdiction of
this impious usage, so universally adopted, so dear to the nobility
and so profoundly rooted in the institutions of the feudal age. And
here let me pause with reverence, as I mention the name of St. Louis,
a prince, whose unenlightened errors may find easy condemnation in
our age of larger toleration arid wider knowledge, but "whose firm
and upright soul, whose exalted s'ense of justice, whose fatherly re-
gard for the happiness of his people, whose respect for the rights of
others, whose conscience void of offence before God and man, make
him foremost among Christian rulers, the highest example for a
Christian prince or a Christian people. He was of conscience all-
compact, subjecting all that he did to the single and exclusive test of
moral rectitude, disregarding all considerations of worldly advant-
age, all fear of worldly consequences.

His soul, thus tremblingly sensitive to questions of right, Was
shocked by the judicial combat. In his sight, it was a sin thus to
tempt God, by demanding of him a miracle, whenever judgment was
to be pronounced. In .1260 he assembled a parliament, where he
issued an ordinance, to take effect throughout the royal dominion, in
which he expressly says: "We forbid to all persons throughout
our dominions the trial by battle; and, instead of battles, we estab-
lish proofs by witnesses; and we do not take away the other good and
loya! proofs which have been used in lay' courts to this day. . . . ...

And these battles we abolish in our dominion for ever."- " -
• Such- were the restraini^ on ihz royal authority, that "this ordinance

CHARLES SUMNER. 355

was confined in its operation to the demesnes of the king; and did
not extend to those of the barons and feudatories of the realm. But
where the power of St. Louis did not reach, there he labored by his
example, his influence and his express intercession. He treated with
many of the great vassals of the crown, and induced them to renounce
this unnatural usage. Though for many years later France continued
in some parts to be vexed by it, still its overthrow commenced with
the ordinance of St. Louis.

Honor and blessings attend the name of this truly Christian king;
who submitted all his actions to the Heaven-descended sentiment of
duty; who began a long and illustrious reign by renouncing and re-
storing a portion of the conquests of his predecessor, saying to those
about him, whose souls did not ascend to the height of his morality,
" I know that the predecessors of the king of England have lost by
the right of conquest the land which I hold; and the land which I give
him, I do not give because I am bound to him or his heirs, but to put
love between my children and his children, who are cousin-germans;
and it seems to me that what I thus give, I employ to good purpose '"
Honor to him, who never grasped by force or cunning any new acqui-
sition; who never sought advantage from the turmoils and dissensions
of his neighbors, but studied to allay them; who, first of Christian
princes, rebuked the spirit of war, saying to those who would have
him profit by the dissensions of his neighbors, "Blessed are the
peace-makers;" who abolished trial by battle throughout his dominions,
who aimed to do justice to all his people, and to all neighbors,
and in the extremity of his last illness, on the sickening sands of
Tunis, among the bequests of his spirit, enjoined on his son and
successor. " in maintaining justice, to be inflexible and loyal, neither
turning to the right hand nor to the left I"

The history of the trial by battle will illustrate and bring home 16
your minds the chances of war, and the consequent folly and wicked-
ness of submitting any question to its arbitrament. As we revert to
those early periods in which it prevailed, our minds are impressed
by the barbarism which we behold; we recoil, with horror, from the
awful subjection of justice to brute force; from the impious profana-
tion of the character of God in deeming him present in these outrages;
from the moral degradation out of which they sprang, and which they
perpetuated, we involve ourselves in our self-complacent virtue, and
thank God that we are not as these men, that ours is, indeed an age of
light, while theirs was an age of darkness !

But are we aware that this monstrous and impious usage, which
our enlightened reason so justly condemns in the cases of individuals
is openly avowed by our own country, and by the other countries of
the earth, as a proper mode of determining justice between them ?
Be upon our heads and upon our age the judgment of barbarism which
we pronounce upon those that have gone 'before ! At this moment,

35^

AMERICA X PA TRI0T1SM.

in this period of light, when the noon-day sun of civilization seems, to
the contented souls of many, to be standing still in the heavens, as
upon Gibeon, the relations between nations are governed by the same
rules of barbarous brutal force, which once prevailed between indi-
viduals. The dark ages have not passed away; Erebus and black
Night, born of Chaos, still brood over the earth; nor shall we hail the
clear day, until the mighty hearts of the nations shall be touched as
those of children, and the whole earth, individuals and nations alike,
shall acknowledge one and the same rule of right.

Who has told you, fond man ! to regard that as a glory when per-
formed by a nation, which is condemned as a crime and a barbarism,
when committed by an individual ? In what vain conceit of wisdom
and virtue do you find this incongruous moraEty ? Where . is it
declared, that God, who is no respecter of persons, is a respecter of
multitudes ? Whence do you draw these partial laws of a powerful
and impartial God ? Man is immortal; but states are mortal. He has
a higher destiny than states. Shall states be less amenable to the
great moral laws? Each individual is an atom of the mass. Must not
the mass be like the individuals of which it is composed? Shall the
mass do what individuals may not do ?, No. The same moral laws
which govern individuals govern masses, as the same laws in nature
prevail over large and small, controlling the fall of an apple and the
orbits of the planets. It was the beautiful discovery of Newton, that
gravity is a universal property of matter, a law obeyed by ever}- parti-
cle in reference to every other particle, and connecting the celestial
mechanism with terrestrial phenomena. So the rule of right, which
binds the single individual, rinds two or three when gathered together
— binds conventions and congregations of men — binds villages, towns
and cities — binds states, nations and empires — clasps the whole human
family in its seven-fold embrace; nay more,

Beyond the flaming- bounds of place and time,
The living throne, the sapphire blaze,

it binds the angels of heaven, the Seraphim, full of love, the Cheru
bim, full of knowledge; above all, it binds, in self-imposed bonds, a
just and omnipotent God. It is of this, and not of any earthly law,
that Hooker speaks in that magnificent period which sounds like an
anthem; " Of law no less can be said, that her seat is the bosom of
God, her voice the harmony of the world; all things in heaven and
earth do her homage, the ve_ry least as feeling her care, the greatest
as not exempted from her power; both angels and men, and creatures
of what condition soever, though each in different sort and manner,
yet all with uniform consent admiring her as the mother of their peace
and joy."

We are. struck with horror and our hair stands on end, at the re-
port of a single murder; we think of the soul that has been hurried to

CHARLES SCMXER. 357

its final account; we seek the murderer; and the law puts forth all its
energies to secure his punishment. Viewed in the clear light of truth,
what are war and battle but organized murder; murder of malice
aforethought; in cold blood; through the operation of an extensive
machinery of crime; with innumerable hands; at incalculable cost of
money; through subtle contrivances of cunning and skill; or by the
savage brutal assault? Was not the Scythian right, when he said to
Alexander, " Thou boastest, that the only design of thy marches is to
extirpate robbers; thou thyself art the greatest robber in the world."
Among us one class of sea-robbers is hanged as pirates; another is
hailed with acclamation:

Ille crucem sceleris pretium tuht, hie diadema.

It was amidst the thunders which made Sinai tremble, that God
declared, "Thou shalt not killr" and the voice of these thunders, with
this commandment, has been prolonged to our own day in the echoes
of Christian churches. What mortal shall restrain the application of
these words? Who on earth is empowered to vary or abridge the com-
mandments of God ? Who shall presume to declare, that this injunc-
tion was directed, not to nations, but to individuals only; not to many
but to one only; that one man may not kill, but that many may; that
it is forbidden to each individual to destroy the life of a single human
being, but that it is not forbidden to a nation to cut off by the sword a
whole people ?

When shall the St. Louis of the nations arise? the Christian ruler or
Christian people who shall proclaim to the whole earth, that hence-
forward forever the great trial by battle shall cease; that it is the duty
and policy of nations to establish love between each other; and in all
respects, at all times, towards all persons, as well their own people,
as the people of other lands, to be governed by the sacred rules of
right, as between man and man! May God speed the coming of that
day !

I have already alluded, in the early part of my remarks, to some of
the obstacles to be encountered by the advocate of peace. One of
these is the warlike tone of the literature by which our minds and
opinions are formed. The world has supped so full with battles, that
all its inner modes of thought, and many of its rules of conduct seem
to be incarnadined with blood; as the bones of swine, fed on madder,
are said to become red. But I now pass this by, though a most fruit-
ful theme, and hasten to other topics. I propose to consider in suc-
cession, very briefly, some of those influences and prejudices, which
are most powerful in keeping alive the delusion of war.

i. One of the most important of these is the prejudice to a certain
extent in its favor founded on the belief in its necessity. The con-
sciences of all good men condemn it as a crime, a sin; even the soldier,
whose profession it is, confesses that it is to be resorted to only in the

35 8 AMERICAN PA TRIO TISM.

last necessity. But a benevolent and omnipotent God cannot render
it necessary, to commit a crime. When war is called a necessity, it is
meant, of course, that its object cannot be gained in any other way.
Now \ think that it has already appeared with distinctness, approach-
ing demonstration, that the professed object of war, which is justice
between nations^ is in no respect promoted by war; that force is not
justice, nor in any way conducive to justice; that the eagles of victory
can be only the emblems of successful force and not of established
right. Justice can be obtained only by the exercise of the reason and
'^judgment; but these are silent in the din of arms, justice is without
passion; but war lets loose all the worst passions of our nature, while
high arbiter Chance more embroils the fray." The age has passed
in which a nation, within the enchanted circle of civilization, will make
war upon its neighbor, for any professed purpose of booty or ven-
geance. It does" nought in hate, but allin honor." There are pro-
fessions even of tenderness which mingle w th the first mutterings of
the dismal strife. Each Of the two governments, as if conscience-
struck at the abyss into which it is about to plunge, seeks to fix on
the other the charge of hostile aggression, and to assume to itself the
ground of defending some right; some, stolen Texas; some distant,
worthless Oregon. Like Pontius Pilate, it vainly washes its hands of
innocent blood, and straightway allows a crime at which the whole
heavens are darkened, and two kindred countries are severed, as the
veil of the Temple was rent in twain.

The various modes which have, been proposed for the determina-
tion of disputes between nations are Negotiation, Arbitration, Medi-
tation, and a Congress of Nations, all of thern practicable and calcula-
ted to secure peaceful justice. Let it be said, then, that war is a
necessity, and may our country aim at the true glory of taking the
lead in the recognition of these as the only proper modes of determin-
ing justice between nations! Such a glory, unlike the earthly fame
of battles, shall be immortal as the stars, dropping perpetual light
upon the souls' of men!

2. Another prejudice in favor of war is founded on the practice of
nations, past and present. There is no crime or enormity in morals
which may not find the support of human example, often on a most
extended scale. But it is not to be urged in our day that we are to
look for a standard of duty in the conduct of vain, mistaken, fallible
man. It is not in the power of man, by any subtle alchemy, to trans-
mute wrong into right. Because war is according to the practice of
the world, it does not follow that it is right. For ages the world wor-
shipped false gods; but these gods were not the less false because all
bowed before them. At this moment the larger portion of mankind are
heathen; but heathenism is not true. It was once the practice of na-
tions to slaughter prisoners of war; but even the spirit of war recoils
now from this bloody sacrifice. In Sparta, theft, instead of being exe-

CHARLES SCMXER. 559

crated as a crime, was dignified into an art and an accomplishment, and
as such admitted into the system of youthful education: and even this
debasing practice, "established by local feeling, is enlightened. like
war, by an instance of unconquerable firmness, which is a barbaric
counterfeit of virtue. The Spartan youth, who allowed the fox con-
cealed under his robe to eat into his heart, is an example of mistaken
fortitude, not unlike that which we are asked to admire in the soldier.
Other illustrations of this character Crowd upon the mind; but I will
not dwell upon them. We turn with disgust from Spartan cruelty and
the wolves of Taygetus; from the awful" cannibalism of the Feegee
Islands; from the profane rites of innumerable savages; from the
crashing Juggernaut; from the Hindoo widow lighting her funeral
pyre; from the Indian dancing at the" stake. But had not all these, in
their respective places and days, like war, the sanction of established
usage ?

. .But/it is often said, " Let us not be wiser than our fathers." Rather
let us try to excel our fathers in wisdom. Let us imitate what in them
was good, but let us not bind ourselves, as in the chains of Fate, by
their imperfect example. There are principles which are higher than
human examples. Examples are to be followed when -they accord
with the suggestions of duty. But he is unwise and wicked who at-
tempts to lean upon these rather than upon those truths, which, like
the Everlasting Arm, cannot fail!

In all modesty, be it said, we have lived to little purpose if we are
not wiser than the generations that have gone before us. It is the
grand distinction of man that he is a progressive being; that his
reason at the present day is not merely the reason of a single human
being, but that of the whole human race, in all ages from which
knowledge has descended, in all lands from which it has been borne
away. We are the heirs to an inheritance of knowledge which has
been accumulating from generation to generation. The child is now
taught at his mother's knee the orbits of the heavenly bodies,

"Where worlds on worlds compose one Universe.'*

the nature of this globe ; the character of the tribes "of men. by which
it is covered, and the geography of nations, all of which were far be-
yond the ken of the most learned of other days. It is, therefore,
true, as has been said, that antiquity is the real infancy of man ; it is
then that he is immature, ignorant, wayward, childish, selfish, finding
his chief happiness in pleasures of sense, all unconscious of the higher
delights of knowledge and of love. The animal part of his nature
feigns over his soul, and he is driven on by the gross impulses of
force. He seeks contests, war and blood. But we are advanced
from the childhood of man ; reason and the kindlier virtues of age,
repudiating and abhoring force, now bear sway. We are the true
Ancients* The single lock on the battered forehead of Old Time is

360 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

thinner now than when our fathers attempted to grasp it ; the hour-
glass has been turned often since ; the scythe is heavier laden with
the work of death.

Let us cease, then, to look for a lamp to our feet in the feeble tapers
that glimmer in the sepulchres of the past. Rather let us hail those
ever-burning lights above, in whose beams is the brightness of noon-
day!

3. There is a topic to which I allude with diffidence ; but in the
spirit of frankness. It is the influence which war, though condemned
by Christ, has derived from the Christian Church. When Constan-
tine, on one of his marches at the head of his army, beheld the lumi-
nous: trophy of the cross in the sky right above the meridian sun,
inscribed with these words, "By this conquer," had his soul been
penetrated by the true spirit of Him whose precious symbol it was, he
would have found in it no inspiration to the spear and the sword. He
would have received the lesson of self-sacrifice, as from the lips of the
Saviour, and would have learned that it was not by earthly weapons
that any true victory was to be won. The pride of conquest would
have been rebuked, and the bauble sceptre of Empire would have fal-
len from his hands. "By this conquer ;'-'. that is, by patience, suffer-
ing, forgiveness of evil, by all those virtues of which the cross is the
affecting token, conquer ; and the victory shall be greater than any in
the annals of Roman conquest ; it may not find a place in the records
of man ; but it shall appear in the register of everlasting life.

The Christian Church, after the first centuries of its existence,
failed to discern the peculiar spiritual beauty of the faith which it pro-
fessed. Like Constantine, it found new incentives to war in the re-
ligion of peace ; and such has been its character, let it be said fear-
lessly, even to our own day. The Pope of Rome, the asserted head
of the church, the Vicegerent of Christ on earth, whose seal is a fish-
erman, on whose banner is a lamb before the holy cross, assumed
the command of armies, often mingling the thunders of battle with
those of the Vatican. The dagger which projected from the sacred
vestments of the Archbishop de Retz, as he appeared in the streets of:
Paris, was called by the people, " The Archbishop's Prayer Book."
We read of mitred prelates in armor of proof, and seem still to catch,
the jingle of the golden spurs of the bishops in the streets of Cologne.
The sword of knighthood was consecrated by the church ; and priests
were often the expert masters in military exercises. I have seen at
the gates of the Papal Palace in Rome a constant guard of Swiss sol-
diers; I have seen, too, in our own streets, a show as incongruous and
as inconsistent, a pastor of a Christian church parading as the chaplain
of a military array! Ay! more than this ; some of us have heard,
within a few short weeks, in a Christian pulpit, from the lips of an
eminent Christian divine, a sermon in which we are encouraged to
serve the God of Battles, and, as citizen soldiers, to fight for peace;

CHARLES SUMXER. 361

a sentiment which can find no support in the religion of Him who
has expressly enjoined, when one cheek is smitten to turn the other,
and to which we listen with pain and mortification from the lips of
one who has voluntarily become a minister of Christian truth ; alas!
in his mind, inferior to that of the heathen, who declared that he pre-
ferred the unjustest peace to the justest war.

And who is the God of Battles? It is Mars ; man-slaying, blood-
polluted, city-smiting Mars' Him we cannot adore. It is not he who
binds the sweet influences of the Pleiades, and looses the bands of
Orion ; who causes the sun to shine on the just and the unjust ; who
tempers the wind to the shorn lamb ; who distils the oil of gladness
upon every upright heart; the fountain of mercy and goodness: the
God of justice and love. The God of Battles is not the God of
Christians ; to him can ascend none of the prayers of Christian
thanksgiving ; for him there can be no words of worship in Christian
temples ; no swelling anthem to peal the note of praise.

There is now floating in this harbor a ship of the line of our coun-
try. Many of you have, perhaps, pressed its deck, and observed with
admiration the completeness which prevails in all its parts; its lithe
masts and complex net-work of ropes; its thick wooden walls, within
which are more than the soldiers of Ulysses; its strong defences, and
its numerous dread and rude-throated engines of war. There each
Sabbath, amidst this armament of blood, while the wave comes
gently plashing against the frowning sides, from a pulpit supported
by a cannon, or by the side of a cannon, in repose now, but ready to
awake its dormant thunder, charged with death, a Christian preacher
addresses the officers and crew' May his instructions carry strength
and succor to their souls! But he cannot pronounce in such a place,
those highest words of the Master he professes, ' Blessed are the
peace-makers;" " Love your enemies;" "Render not evil for evil."
Like Macbeth's "Amen," they must stick in his throat.

It cannot be doubted that this strange and unblessed conjunction of
the clergy with war, has had no little influence in blinding the world
ito the truth now beginning to be recognized, that Christianity forbids
war in all cases.

Individual interests are mixed up with prevailing errors, and are
concerned in maintaining them to such an extent, that it is not sur-
prising that military men yield reluctantly to this truth. They are
naturally in this matter, like lawyers, according to Voltaire, " the con-
servators of ancient barbarous usages;" but that these usages should
[obtain countenance in the Christian church is one of those anomalies,
jwhich make us feel the weakness of our nature and the elevation of
(Christian truth. It is important to observe, as an unanswerable fact
of history, that for some time after the Apostles, while the lamp of
Christianity burnt pure and bright, not only the Fathers of the church
held it unlawful for Christians to bear arms, but those who came

362 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

within its pale abstained from the use of arms, although at the cost
of their lives. Marcellus the Centurion, threw down his military belt
at the head of the legion, and in the face of the standards declared
with a loud voice, that he would no longer serve in the army, for he
had become a Christian; and many others followed his example. It
was not until Christianity became corrupted, that its followers became
soldiers, and its priests learned to minister at the altar of the God of
battles.

Thee to defend the Moloch priest prefers

The prayer of hate, and bellows to the herd

That I>eity, accomplice Deity,

In the fierce jealousy of waked wrath

Will go forth with our armies and our fleets

To scatter the red ruin on their foes !

O blasphemy ! to mingle fiendish deeds

With blessedness !

A motion has been brought forward in Congress, to dispense
with the services of chaplains in the army and navy, mainly on ac-
count of the incompatibility between the principles of the Gospel and
the practice of war. It is to be hoped that what God has placed so
far asunder may no longer be joined together by man. If chaplains
are to be employed, it should be to preach the religion they profess as
to the heathen, and not to offer incense to the idol of war.

When will Christian ministers look for their faith, not to the ideas,
opinions and practices of the people by whom they are surrounded,
but to the written words of the texts from which they preach ? It has
been said of a monarch of England that he "read Gospel truth in
Anna Boleyn's eyes." Not less hyperbolical and impossible is their
discernment who can find in the flashing bayonet, any token of peaces
any illumination of Christian love. That truly great man, the be-
loved Channing, whose spirit speaks to us from no sceptered urn, but
from that sweet grassy bed at Mount Auburn, say^: " When I think
of duelling and war in the Christian world, and then of the superiority
to the world and the unbounded love and forbearance which charac-
terize our religion, I am struck with the little progress which Chris-
tianity has as yet made."

One of the beautiful pictures, adorning the dome of a church in
Rome, by that master of art, whose immortal colors breathe as with
the voice of a poet, the divine Raffaelle, represents Mars, in the atti-
tude of war, with a drawn sword uplifted and ready to strike, while an
unarmed angel from behind, with gentle but irresistible force, arrest*
and holds the descending arm. Such is the true image of Christian
duty; nor can I readily perceive the difference in principle between
those ministers of the Gospel, who themselves gird on the sword, as in
the olden time, and those others, who, unarmed and in customary suit of
solemn black, lend the sanction of their presence to the martial array,
or to any form of preparation for war. The drummer, who pleaded

CIIAKLES SCMXER. 365

that he did not fight, was held more responsible for the battle than
the mere soldier; for it was the sound of his drum that inflamed the
flagging courage of the troops.

,4. From the prejudices engendered by the church, I pass to the
prejudices engendered by the army itself: prejudices having their im-
mediate origin more particularly in military life, but unfortunately
diffusing themselves, in widening though less apparent circles,
throughout the community. I allude directly to what is called the
point of honor, early child of chivalry, the living representative in
our day of an age of barbarism. It is difficult to define what is so
evanescent, so impalpable, so chimerical, so unreal: and yet which
exercises such power over many men, and controls the relations of
states. As a little water, which has fallen into the crevice of a rock,
under the congelation of winter, swells till it burst the thick and stony
fibres: so a word, or a slender act, dropping into the heart of man,
under the hardening influence of this pernicious sentiment, dilates till
it rends in pieces the sacred depository of human affections, while
hate and the demon strife, no longer restrained, are let loose abroad.
The musing Hamlet saw the strange and unnatural power of this sen-
timent, when his soul pictured to his contemplations

the army of such mass and charge.

Led by a delicate and tender prince
Exposing what is mortal and unsure •
To all that fortune, death and danger, dare
Even for an egg-shell ;

and when he says, with a point which has given to this sentiment its
strongest and most popular expression,

Rightly to be greet

Is not to stir without great argument;
But greatly to rind quarrel in a straw
When honor's at the stake.

And when is honor at stake ? This question opens again the views
with which I commenced, and with which I hope to close this dis-
course. Honor can only be at stake, where justice and happiness are
at stake; it can never depend on an egg-shell, or a straw; it can never
depend on an impotent word 61 anger or folly, not even if that word
be followed by a blow. In fine, true honor is to be found in the high-
est moral and intellectual excellence, in the dignity of the human
feoul, in its nearest approach to those qualities which we reverence as
the attributes of God. Our community frowns with indignation upon
Ihe profaneness of the duel, which has its rise in this irrational point
61 honor. But are they aware that they themselves indulge the senti-
nent, on a gigantic scale, when they recognize what is called the
lonor of the country, as a proper ground for war ? We have already
seen that justice is in no respect promoted by war? It true honor
promoted where justice is not ?

364 AM ERIC AX PATRIOTISM.

But the very word honor, as used by the world, does nct; express
any elevated sentiment. How infinitely below the sentiment ol duty!
It is a word of easy virtue, that has been prostituted to the most op-
posite characters and transactions. From the field of Pavia, v. here
France suffered one of the greatest reverses in her annals, Francis
writes to his mother: "ail is lost except honor!" At a later- clay, the
renowned cook, the grand Vatel. in a paroxysm of grief and mortiuca-
tion at the failure of two dishes expected on the table, exclaimed,
" I have lost my honor." Montesquieu, whose writings are a con-
stellation of epigrams, places it in direct contrast with virtue. He
represents what he calls the prejudice of honor as the animating prin-
ciple of monarchy, while virtue is that of a republic, saying that in
well governed monarchies almost everybody will be a good citizen,
but it will be rare to meet with a really good man. By an instinct
that points to the truth, we do not apply this term to tdie high col-
umnar virtues which sustain and decorate life, to parental affection, to
justice, to the attributes of God. We do not speak of an honorable
father, an honorable mother, an honorable judge, an honorable angel,
an honorable God. In such sacred connections we feel, beyond the
force of any argument, the vulgar and debasing character of the senti-
ment to which it refers.

The degrading rale of honor is founded in the supposed necessity oi
resenting by force, a supposed injury*, whether by word or act. But
suppose such an injury' is received, sullying, as is falsely imagined,
the character; is it wiped away by a resort to force, by descending to
the brutal level of its author ? " Could I have wiped your blood from
my conscience as easily as I can this insult from my face," scid a
Marshal of France, greater on this occasion than on any field of fame,
" I would have laid you dead at my feet." It is Plato, reporting the
angelic wisdom of Socrates, who declares in one of those beautiful
dialogues, which shine with stellar light across the ages, that it is more
shameful to do a wrong than to receive a wrong. And this benua
sentiment commends itself, alike to the Christian, who is told to renj
der good for evil, and to the universal heart of man. But who thai
confesses its truth, can vindicate a resort to force, for the sake oi
honor? Better far to receive the blow that a false morality ha*
thought degrading, than that it should be revenged by force. Bettei
that a nation should submit to what is wrong, rather than vainly secj|
to maintain its honor by the great crime of war.

It seems that in ancient Athens, as in unchristianized Christia*
lands, there were sophists, who urged that to suffer was unbecoming
a man, and would draw down upon him incalculable evils. The f J
lowing passage will show the manner in which the moral cowardice o
these. persons of little faith was rebuked by him, whom the Gods pro
nounced wisest of men: *' These things being so, let us inquire wha^j
it is you reproach me with; whether it is well said, or cot. that I. for

CHARLES SIWIXER. ^

sooth, am not able to assist either myself, or any of my friends cr my
relations, or to save them from the greatest dangers; but that, like the
outlaws, I am at the mercy of any one, who may choose to smi.e me
Ofi the temple — and this was the strong point in your argument — or to
take away my property, or to drive me out of the city, or (to take
the extreme case) to kill me; now, according to your argument, to be
so situated is the most shameful thing of all. But my view is, — a
view expressed many times already, but there is no objection to its
being stated again: — my view, I say, is, O Callicles, that to be struck
unjustly on the temple is not most shameful, nor to have my body
mutilated, nor my purse cut; but to strike me and mine unjustly, and
to mutilate me and to cut my purse is more shameful and worse; and
stealing too, and enslaving, and housebreaking, and in general doing
any wrong whatever to me and mine is more shameful and worse for
him who does the wrong, than for me who suffer it. These things,
thus established in the former arguments, as I maintain, are secured
and bound, even if the expression be somewhat too rustical, with iron
and adamantine arguments, and unless you, or some one more vigor-
ous than you, can break them, it is impossible for any one, speaking
otherwise than I now speak, to speak well: since, for my part, 1 al-
ways have the same thing to say, that I know not how these things
jarc, but that of all whom I have ever discoursed with as now, not one
lis able to say otherwise without being ridiculous." Such is the wis-
dom of Socrates.

But the modern point of honor does not find a place in warlike an-
tiquity. Themistocles at Salamis did not send a cartel to the Spartan
commander, when threatened by a blow. " Strike, but hear," was
the response of that linn nature, which felt that true honor was to be
■fitted only in the performance of duty. It was in the depths of
modern barbarism, in the age of chivalry, that this sentiment shot up
in the wildest and most exuberant fancies; not a step was taken with-
|out reference to it; no act was done which had not some point tend-
ing to "the bewitching duel," and every stage in the combat, from
die ceremonies of its beginning to its deadly close, were measured by
this fantastic law. The Chevalier Bayard, the cynosure of chivalry,
the knight without fear and without reproach, in a contest with the
Spaniard Don Alonzo de Soto Mayor, by a feint struck him such a
blow in the throat, that despite the gorget, the weapon penetrated
our lingers deep. The wounded Spaniard grasped his adversary,
ind struggling with him, they both rolled on the ground, when Bay-
urd. drawing his dagger, and thrusting its point in the nostrils of the
Spaniard, exclaimed, " Senor Alon/o, surrender, or you are a dead
•nan!" A speech which appeared superfluous, as Don Diego de Guig-
lones, his second, exclaimed, "Senor Bayard, he is dead; you have
onquered." Bayard, says the chronicler, would have given one hun-
Jrcd thousand crowns to spare his life; but, he now fell upon his

366 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

knees, kissed the ground three times and then dragged his dead enemy
out of the camp, saying to the second of his fattett foe, "Senor Don
Diego, have I done enough ?"•.- To which the other piteously replied,
"Too much,, Senor, for the honor of Spain!" when Bayard very gen-
erously presented him with the corpse, although it was his right, by
the laws of honor, to do whatever he thought proper with it; an act
which is highly commended by Brantome, Who thinks it difficult to
say which did him most honor — not having ignominiously dragged the
body like the carcass of a dog by a leg out of the field, or having con-
descended to fight while laboring under an ague!

If such a transaction conferred honor on the brightest son of chiv-
alry, We may understand therefrom something of the real character oi
that age, the departure of which has been lamented with such touch-
ing but inappropriate eloquence. Do not condescend to draw a great
rule of conduct from such a period. Let the point of honor stay with
the daggers, the swords and the weapons of combat, by which it was
guarded; let it appear only with its inseparable companions, the
bowie-knife, and the pistol !

Be ours a standard of conduct derived, not from the degradation o1
our nature, though it affects the semblance of sensibility and refine
ment, but having its sources in the loftiest attributes of man, in truth.
injustice, in duty; and may this standard, which governs our. rela-
tions to each other, be recogni2ed amongst the nations! When shal
we behold the dawning of that happy day, harbinger of infinite happi-
ness beyond, in which nations shall feel that it is better to receive £
wrong than to do a wrong.

Apply this principle to Our relations with England at this moment.
Suppose that proud monarchy, refusing all submission to negotta-
tion or arbitration, should absorb the whole territory of Oregon intc
her Own overgrown dominions, and add, at the mouth of the Colum-
bia River, a new morning drum-beat to the national airs with which
she has encircled the earth, who, then, is in the attitude of the truest
honor, England, who has appropriated, by an unjust act, what is not
her own, or the United States, the victim of the injustice?

5. There is still another reason which stimulates war, and interferes
with the natural attractions of peace; I refer to a selfish and exagge
rated love of country, leading to its physical aggrandizement, and the
strengthening of its institutions at the expense of other countries. Out
minds, nursed by the literature of antiquity, have imbibed the narrow
sentiment of heathen patriotism. Exclusive love for the land of birtt
was a part of the religion of Greece and Rome. It is an indication Ol
the lowness of their moral nature, that this sentiment was so exclusive,
and so material in its character. The Oracle directed the returning
Roman to kiss his mother, and he kissed the Mother Earth. Aga-
memnon, on regaining his home after a perilous separation of mdiri
- ----- -

CHARLES SUMNER. 367

than tea yeare at the siege of Troy, before addressing his family, his
friends, his countrymen, first salutes Argos:

By your leaves, Lords, first Argos I salute.
-
The schoolboy cannot forget the cry of the victim of Verres, which
was to stay the descending fasces of the lictor, " I am a Roman citi-
zen;" nor those other words sounding in the dark past, ' " How sweet
it is to die for one's country !" The Christian cry did not rise, " I am
a man;" the Christian ejaculation did not swell the soul, "How sweet
it is to die for duty !" The beautiful genius of Cicero, at times in-
stinct with truth almost divine, did not ascend to that highest heaven,
where is taught, that all mankind are neighbors and kindred, and that
the relations of fellow-countrymen are less holy than those of fellow-
man. To the love of universal man may be applied those wOrds by
which the great Roman elevated his selfish patriotism to a virtue, when
he said that country alone embraced all the charities of all. Attach
this admired phrase for a moment to the single idea of country, and
you will see how contracted are its charities compared with the' 'world-
wide circle of Christian love^ whose neighbor is the suffering man,
though at the farthest pole. Such a sentiment would dry up those
fountains of benevolence, which now diffuse themselves in precious
waters in distant unenlightened lands, bearing the blessings of truth
to the icy mountains of Greenland, and the coral islands of the Pacific
sea.

It has been a part of the policy of rulers to encourage this exclusive
patriotism; and the people of modern times have each inherited the
feeling of antiquity. I do not know that any one nation is in a con-
dition to reproach the other with this patriotic selfishness. All are
selfish. Among us the sentiment has become active, while it has de-
rived new force from the point with wThich it has been expressed. An
officer of our navy, one of the so called heroes nurtured by war, whose
name has been praised in churches, has gone beyond all Greek, all Ro-
man example, Our country, be she right or wrong," was his exclama-
tion: a sentiment dethroning God and enthroning the devil, whose flagi-
tious character should be rebuked by every honest heart. "Our country,
our whole country, and nothing but our country," are other words,
which have often been painted on banners, and echoed by the voices
pf innumerable multitudes. Cold and dreary, narrow and selfish,
would be this life, if nothing but our country occupied our souls; if,
:he thoughts that wander through eternity, if the infinite affections of
ur nature were restrained to that spot of earth where we have been
laced by the accident of birth.
I do not inculcate an indifference to country. We incline, by a
atural sentiment, to the spot where we were born, to the fields which
itnessed the sports of childhood, to the seat of youthful studies, ?r<\
o the institutions under which we have been trained. The finger of God

3^8 AMERICAN PA TRIO TISM.

writes in indekble colors all these things upon the heart of man, so that
in the dread extremities of death, he reverts in fondness to early as-
sociations, and longs for a draught of cold water from the bucket in his
father's well. This sentiment is independent of reflection, for it begins
before reflection, grows with our growth, and strengthens with our
strength. It is blind in its nature; and it is the duty of each of us to
take care that it does not absorb the whole character. In the moral
night which has enveloped the world, each nation, thus far, has lived
ignorant and careless, to much extent, of the interests of others,, which
it imperfectly saw; but this thick darkness has now been scattered,-
and we begin to discern, all gilded by the beams of morning, the
distant mountain-peaks of other lands. We find that God has not
placed us on this earth alone; that there are other nations, equally
with us, children of his protecting care.

The curious spirit goes further, and while it recognizes an inborn
sentiment of attachment to the place of birth, inquires into the
nature of the allegiance which is due to the state. The old idea, still
too much received, is, that man is made for the state, and not the
state for man. Far otherwise is the truth. The state is an artificial
body, intended for the security of the people. How constantly do we
find, in human history, that the people have been sacrificed for the
state; to build the Roman name, to secure to England the trident of
the sea. This is to sacrifice the greater for the less; for the fleet-
ing possessions of earth to barter the immortal soul. Let it be re-
membered that the state is not worth preserving at the cost of the
lives and happiness of the people.

It is not that I love country less, but humanity more, that now, on
this national anniversary, I plead the cause of a higher and truer
patriotism. Remember that you are men, by a more sacred bond
than you are citizens; that you are children of a common father more-
than you are Americans.

Viewing, then, the different people of the globe, as all deriving their
blood from a common source, and separated only by the accident o£
mountains, rivers and seas, into those distinctions around which
cluster the associations of country, we must regard all the children of
the earth as members of the great human family. Discord in this.
family is treason to God; while all war is nothing more than civil
war. It will be in vain that we restrain this odious term, import:ng^,
so much of horror, to the petty dissensions of a single state. It be*f
longs as justly to the feuds between nations. The soul stands aghastr,
as we contemplate fields drenched in fraternal gore, where the happK
ness of homes has been shivered by the unfriendly arms of neighbors,
and where kinsmen have sunk beneath the cold steel that was nerved;
by a kinsman's hand. This is civil war, which stands for ever accursed
in the calandar of time. But the muse of history, in the faithful record .
of the future transactions of nations, inspired by a new and loftier

CHARLES SUMXKR. 3^9

justice, and touched to finer sensibilities, shall extend to the general
sorrows of universal man the sympathy which has been profusely shed
for the selfish sorrow of country, and shall pronounce all war to
be ^ivil war, and the partakers in it as traitors to God and enemies to
man.

6. I might pause, fearing that those of my hearers who have kindly
accompanied me to this.stage, would be ready to join in the conden-
nation of war, and hail peace, as the only condition becoming tl 2
dignity of human nature, and in which true greatness can be achieved.
But there is still one more consideration, which yields to none of the
others in importance; perhaps it is more important than all. It is a:»
once cause and effect; the cause of much of the feeling in favor, of
war, and the effect of this feeling. I refer to the costly preparations
for war, in time of peace.

I do not propose to dwell, upon the immense cost of war itself. That
will be present to the minds of all in the mountainous accumulations
of debt, piled like Ossa upon Pelion, with which Europe is pressed to
the earth. According to the most recent tables to which I have had
access, the public debt of the different European states, so far as it is
known, amounts to the terrific sum of $6,387,000,000, all of this the
growth of war ! It is said that there are throughout these states, 17,-
900,000 paupers, or persons subsisting at the expense of the country,
without contributing to its resources. If these millions of the public
debt, forming only a part of what has been wasted in war, could be
apportioned among these poor, it would give to 'each of them $375,
a sum which would place all above want, and which is about equal to
the average value of the property of each inhabitant of Massachusetts.

The public debt of Great Britain amounted in 1839 to $4,265,000,000,
all of this the growth of war since 16S8 ! This amount is about equal to
the sum total, according to the calculations of Humboldt, of all the
treasures which have been reaped from the harvest of gold and silver
in the mines of Spanish America, including Mexico and Peru, since
the first discovery of our hemisphere by Christopher Columbus ! It is
much larger than the amount of all the precious metals, which at this
moment form the circulating medium of the world ! It is said rashly
by some persons, who have given little attention to this subject, that
Sill this expenditure was good for the people; but these persons do not
Dear in mind that it was not bestowed on any useful object. It was1
tvasted. The aggregate capital of all the joint stock companies in Eng-i
and, of which there was any known record in 1842, embracing canals,
locks, bridges, insurance companies, banks, gas-lights, water, mines,
'•ailways, and other miscellaneous objects, was about $835,000,000; a
|um which has been devoted to the welfare of the people, but how
tlfinitely less in amount than the war debt ! For the six years ending
\ 1S36, the average payment for the interest on this debt was about
140,000,000 annually. If we add to this sum, $60,000,000 during this

3T° AMERICAN* PA TRIOTISM.

same period paid annually, to the navy^ndJOTdnance, we shall have
$200,000,000 as the annual tax of tlid English people, to pay for former
Wars.and to prepare for new. During this same period there was an
annual appropriation of only $20,000,000 for all the civil purposes of
the government. It thus appears that war absorbed ninety cents of
every dollar that was pressed by heavy taxation from the English
people, who" almost seem to sweat blood 1 What fabulous monster, or
chimera dire, ever raged with a maw so ravenous ! The remaining;
ten cents sufficed to maintain the splendor of the throne, the adminis-
tration of justice, and the diplomatic relations with foreign powers, in
short all the proper objects of a Christian state.

•Let us now look exclusively at the preparations for war in time of
peace. It is one of the miseries of war that, even in peace, its evils
continue to be felt by the world, beyond any other evils by which poor
suffering humanity is oppressed. If Bellona withdraws from the field,
we only lose the sight of her flaming torches; the bay of her dogs is
heard on the mountains, and civilized man thinks to find protection
from their sudden fury, only by enclosing himself in the defences of
war. At this moment the Christian nations, worshipping a symbol of
common brotherhood, live as in entrenched camps, in which they
keep armed watch, to prevent surprise from each: other.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to arrive at any exact estimate of
the cost of these preparations, ranging under four different heads; the
standing army; the navy; the fortifications, and ordnance; and the
militia or irregular troops. •

The number of soldiers now keeping the peace of European Chris*
tendom, as a standing army, Without counting the navy, is upwards of
two millions. Some estimates place it as high as three millions. The
army of Great Britain exceeds 300,000 men; that of France 350,0007
that of Russia 730,000, and is reckoned by some as high as 1,000,000 ;•
that of Austria about 275,000; and that of Prussia. 150,000. Taking!
the smaller number, suppose these two millions to require for thein
annual support an average sum of only $150 each, the result would he
$300,000,000, for their sustenance alone; and reckoning one officer ta
ten soldiers, and allowing to each of the latter an English shilling at
day, or $87 a year, for wages, and to the former an average salary ofj,
$500 a year, we should have for the pay of the whole no less thanr
$256,000,000; or an appalling sum total for both sustenance and pa-)E
of $556,000,000. If the same calculation be made, supposing the
forces to amount to three millions, the sum total will be $835,000,000 b
But to this enormous sum another still more enormous must be addedj
on account of the loss sustained by the withdrawal of two millions oi
hardy, healthy men, in the bloom of life, from useful, productive labors
It has been supposed that it costs an average of $500 to rear a
soldier; and that the value of his labor if devoted to useful objects.
would be $150 a year. The Christtan powers, therefore, in setting

CI/ A RLE S S UMXKK. 3 7 I

ipart two millions of men. as soldiers, sustain a loss of $r, 000,000,000
an account of their training; and $300,000,000 annually, on account
)f their labor. So much fqr the cost of the standing army of European
Christendom in time of peace.

Glance now at the navy of European Christendom. The royal navy
A Great Britain consists at present of 556 ships of all classes; but .de-
luding such as are used as convict ships, floating chapels, coal
lepots, the efficient navy consists of 88 sail of the line, 109 frigates;
[90 small frigates, corvettes, brigs and cutters, including packets; 65
steamers of various sizes; 3 troop-ships and yachts; in all 455 ships.
3f these there were in commission in July, 1839, 190 ships, Carrying
n all 4,202 guns. The number of hands employed in 1839, was 34."
|&g£ The navy of France, though not comparable in size with that of
England, is of vast force. By royal ordinance of 1st of January, 1837,
t was fixed in time of peace at 40 ships of the line, 50 frigates, 40
steamers, and 190 smaller vessels; and the amount of crews in 1839,
was 20,317 men. The Russian navy consists of two large fleets in the
julf of Finland and the Black Sea; but the exact amount of their force
ind their available resources has been a subject of dispute amongst naval
men and politicians. Some idea may be formed of the size of the navy
from the number of hands employed. The crews of tbe Baltic fleet
imounted in 1837, to not less than 30,800 men; and those of the fleet
n the Black Sea to 19,800, or altogether 50,600. The Austrian navy
xrosistedin 1837, of 8 ships of the line, 8 frigates, 4 sloops, 6 brigs, .7
schooners or galleys, and a number of smaller vessels; the number of
uen in its service in 1839, was 4,547. The navy of Denmark con-
sisted at the close of 1837 of 7 ships of the line, 7 frigates, 5 sloops, 6
>rig3, 3 schooners; 5 cutters, 58 gun-boats, 6 gun-rafts, and 3 bomb
vessels, requiring about 6,500 men to man them. The navy of Swe-
len and Norway consisted recently of 23S gun-boats, 11 ships of the
ine, 8 frigates, 4 corvettes, 6 brigs, with several smaller vessels. The
tavy of Greece consists of 32 ships of war. carrying 190 guns, and 2,400
nen. The navy of Holland in 1839, consisted of 8 ships of the line,
1 frigates, 15 corvettes, 21 brigs, and 95 gun-boats. It is impossible
o give any accurate idea of the immense cost of all these mighty pre-
arations for war. It is melancholy to contemplate such gigantic
leans, applied by European Christendom to the erection of these
uperfluous wooden walls in time of peace !

In the fortifications and arsenals of Europe, crowning every height,
ommanding every valley, and frowning over every plain and every
^a, wealth has been sunk which is beyond calculation. Who can tell
le immense sums that have been expended in hollowing out, for the
urposes of defence, the living rock of Gibraltar ? Who can calculate
le cost of all the preparations at Woolwich, its 27,000 cannons, and
s hundreds of thousands of small arms ? France alone contains up-
ards of one hundred and twenty fortified places. And it is supposed

37 2 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM. •

that the yet unfinished fortifications of Paris have cost upwards of fifty
millions of dollars !

The cost of the militia or irregular troops, the yeomanry of
England, the national guards of Paris, aifd the landwehr and land-
sturm of Prussia, must add other incalculable sums to these enormous
amounts.

Turn now to the United States, separated by a broad ocean from,
immediate contact with the great powers of Christendom, bound by
treaties of amity and commerce with all the nations of the earth; con-
nected with all by the strong ties of mutual interest; and professing a
devotion to the principles of peace. Are the treaties of amity mere
words ? Are the relations of commerce and. mutual interest mere
things of a day ? Are the professions of peace vain ? Else why not
repose in quiet unvexed by preparations for war ?

Enormous as are the expenses of this character in Europe, those in
our country are still greater in proportion to the other expenditures of
the federal government.

It appears that the average expenditures of the federal government
for the six years ending with 1840, exclusive of payment on account of
debt, were $26,474,892; of this sum, the average appropriation, each
year for military and naval purposes amounted to $21,328,903, being
eighty per cent, of the whole amount ! Yes; of all the income which was
received by the federal government, eighty cents in every dollar was
applied in this useless way. The remaining twenty cents. sufficed to
maintain the government, the administration of justice, our relations
with foreign nations, the light-houses which shed their cheerful signals
over the rough waves which beat upon our long and indented coast,
from the Bay of Fundy to the mouth of the Mississippi. Let us ob-
serve the relative expenditures of the United States, in the scale of the
nations, for military preparations, in time of peace, exclusive of pay-
ments on account of the debts. These expenditures are in proportioB
to the whole expenditure of government :

In Austria, as 33 per cent.,

In France, as 38 per cent.,

In Prussia, as 44 per cent.,

In Great Britain, as 74 per cent.,

In the United States, as So per cent !
To these superfluous expenditures of the Federal Government, are to
be added the still larger and equally superfluous expenses of the mili-
tia throughout the country, which have been placed at $50,000,0003!
year!

By a table of the expenditures of the United States, exclusive^
payments on account of the public debt, it appears that, in the Mm
three years from the formation of our present government, in 178c!
down to 1843, there have been $246,620,055 spent for civil purposes,
comprehending the expenses of the executive, the legislative, the juii-

CHARLES SL'MXER. 373

ciary, the post office, light houses, and intercourse with foreign gov-
ernments. During this same period there have been $368,526,594 de-
voted to the military establishment, and $170,437,684 to the naval es-
tablishment; the two forming an aggregate of $538,964,278. Deduct-
ing from this sum the appropriations during three years of war, and
nre shall find that more than four hundred millions were absorbed by
vain preparations in time of peace for war. Add to this amount a
moderate sum for the expenses of the militia during the same period,
which a candid and able writer places at present at $50,000,000 a year;
x>r the past years Ave may take an average of $25,000,000, and we shall
lave the enormous sum of $1,335,000,000 to be added to the $400,000,-
Doo; the whole amounting to seventeen hundred and thirty-five mil-
lions of dollars, a sum beyond the conception of human faculties, sunk
under the sanction of the government of the United States in mere
Peaceful preparations for war; more than seven times as much as was
dedicated by the government, during the same period, to all other
purposes whatsoever.

[From this serried array of figures the mind instinctively retreats,
f we examine them from a nearer point of view, and, selecting some
>articular part, compare it with the figures representing other interests
n the community they will present a front still more dread.
Within a short distance of this city stands an institution of learning,
vhich was one of the earliest cares of the early forefathers of the
country, the conscientious Puritans. Favored child of an age of trial
Lnd struggle, carefully nursed through a period of hardship and
mxiety, endowed at that time by the oblations of men like Harvard,
ustained from its . first foundation by the paternal arm of the com-
monwealth, by a constant succession of munificent bequests, and by
he prayers of all good men, the University at Cambridge now invites
mr homage as.the most ancient, the most interesting and the most
mportant seat of learning in the land; possessing the oldest and
nost valuable library, one of the largest museums of mineralogy and
latural history — a school of law, which annually receives into its bosom
riore than one hundred and fifty sons from all parts of the Union,
srhere they listen to instruction from professors whose names have
>ecome among the most valuable possessions of the land— a school of
ivinity, the nurse of true learning and piety — one of the largest and
lost flourishing schools of medicine in the country- — besides these, a
eneral body of teachers, twenty-seven in number, many of whose
tames help to keep the name of the country respectable in every part
f the globe, where science, learning and taste are cherished — t«he
rhole presided over at this moment by a gentleman, early distin-
uished in public life by his unconquerable energies and his masculine
loquence, at a later period, by the unsurpassed ability with which he
idministered the affairs of our city, now, in a green old age, full of
ears and honors, preparing to lay down his present high trust. Such

374 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

is Harvard University, and as one of the humblest of her children,
happy in the recollection of a youth nurtured in her classic retreats,
I cannot allude to her without an expression of filial affection and
respect

It appears from the last report of the treasurer, that the whole avail-
able property of the university/the various accumulations of more
than two centuries of generosity, amounts to $703,175.

There now swings jdly at her moorings, in this harbor, a ship of the
line, the Ohio, carrying ninety guns^ finished as late as 1S36 for $547,-
888; repaired only two years afterwards in 1838, for $223,012; with an
armament which has cost $53*94$;. making an amount of $834,845, as
the actual cost at this moment of that; single ship; more than $100,000
beyond all the -available accumulations of the richest and most ancient
seat of learning in the land? Choose ye, my fellow citizens of a
Christian state, between the two caskets — that wherein is the loveliness
©^knowledge and- truth, or that which contains the carrion death.

Let us pursue the comparison sttil furthen The account of the ex-
penditures of the university during the last. year, for the general pur-
poses of the college, the instruction of the undergraduates, and for the
schools of law and divinity, amounts to $45,949. The cost of .the Ohio
for one yearin service, in salaries,, wages and provisions, is $220,000;
being $175,000 more than the annual expenditures of the university;
more than four times as much. In other words, for the annual sum
which is lavished on one ship of the line, four institutions, like Harvard
University, might be sustained throughout the country !

Still further let us pursue the comparison. The pay of the captain of
a ship dike the Ohio, is. $4, 5 00, when in service; $3,500, when on leave
of absence, or off duty. The salary of the president of the Harvard
University is $2,205; without leave of absence, and never being off
duty! .

If the large endowments of Harvard University are dwarfed by a
comparison with the expense of a single ship of the line, how much
more must it be so with those, of other institutions of learning and
beneficence, less favored by the bounty of many generations. The
average cost of a sloop of war is $315,000; more, probably, than all
the endowments of those twin stars of learning in the western part of
Massachusetts, the colleges at Williams town and Amherst, and of that
single star in the east, the guide to many ingenuous youth, the semin-
ary at And over. The yearly cost of a sloop of war in service is. above
$50,000; more than the annual expenditure of these three institutions
combined.

I might press the comparison with other institutions of beneficence;
with the annual expenditures for the blind — that noble and successful
charity, which has shed true lustre upon our commonwealth, amount-
ing to $12,000; and the annual expenditures for the insane of the com-
monwealth, another charity dear to humanity, amounting to $27,844.

CHARLES SUMNER. 375

. Take all the institutions of learning- and beneficence, the precious
jewels of the commonwealth, the schools, colleges, hospitals and asy-
lums, and the sums by which they have been purchased and preserved
are trivial and beggarly, compared with the treasure squandered within
the borders of Massachusetts in vain preparations for war. There is
the navy yard at Charlestown, with its stores on hand, all costing
$4,741,000; the fortifications in the harbors of Massachusetts, in which
have been sunk already incalculable sums, and in -which it is now pro-

-jpjjsed to sink $3,853,000 more; and besides, the arsenal at Springfield,
containing in 1S42, 175,118 musketsf valued at $2,999,998, and which

.-is, fed by an annual appropriation of about $200,000; but whose highest

1 value. will ever be, in the judgment Of all lovers of truth, that it in-
spired a poem, which, in its influence shall be mightier than a battle,
and shall endure when- arsenals and fortifications have crumbled to

1 the earth.

Look for one moment at a high and peculiar interest of the nation,
the administration of justice. Perhaps no part of our system is re-
garded :with more pride and confidence by the enlightened sense of the
country. To thisv indeed, all the other Concerns of government, all
its complications of machinery, are in a manner subordinate, since it
is for the sake of justice that men come together in states and establish
laws. What part of the government Can compare in importance, with
the federal judiciary, that great balance Wheel of the constitution, con-
trolling the relations of the states to each other, the legislation of
Congress and of the states, besides private interests to an incalculable
amount ?. Nor can the citizen, who discerns the true glory of -his

^country, failto recognize in the judicial labors of Marshall, now de-
parted, and in the immortal judgments of Story, who is still spared to

'M%y—>-scriis in caelum rt:dmt~a. higher claim to admiration and gratitude
than can be found in any triumph of battle. The expenses of the ad-
ministration of justice, throughout the United States, under the federal
government, in 1842; embracing the salaries of the judges, the
cost of juries, court-houses and all offices thereof, in short all the
outlay by which justice, according to the requirements of Magna
Charta, is carried to every man's door, amounted to $560990, a larger
sum than is usually appropriated for this purpose, but how insignifi-
cant compared with the demands of the army and naVy !

Let me allude, to one more curiosity of waste. It appears, by a
calculation founded on the expenses of the navy, that the average cost
of each gun, carried, over the ocean, for one year, amounts to about
fifteen thousand dollars; a sum sufficient to sustain ten professors of
colleges, and equal to the salaries of all the judges of the supreme
court of Massachusetts and the governor combined !
-; Such are a few brief illustrations of the tax which the nations of the

—world,' and particularly our own country, impose on the people, in
.time of profound peace, for no purpose of good, byf only in obedience
A. P.-13. ,

376 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM,

to the spirit di war. As we wearily climb, in this survey, from expen-
diture to expenditure, from waste to waste, we seem to pass beyond
the region of ordinary calculation; Alps on Alps arise, on whose
crowning heights of everlasting ice, far above the habitations of man,
where no green thing lives, where no creature draws its breath, we
behold the cold, sharp, flashing glacier of war.

In rhe contemplation of this spectacle the soul swells with alternate
(despair and hope; with despair, at the thought of such wealth, capable
of rendering such service to humanity, not merely wasted but given to
perpetuate hate; with hope, as the blessed vision arises of the devotion
of all these incalcuable means to the purposes of peace. The whole
world labors at this moment with poverty and distress; and the painful
question occurs to every observer, in Europe as well as at home, —
what shall become of the poor, — the increasing standing army of the
poor. Could the humble voice that now addresses you penetrate
those distant counsels, or counsels nearer home, it would say, disband
your standing armies of soldiers ; abandon your fortifications and
arsenals, or dedicate them to works of beneficence, as the statue of
Jupiter Capitolinus was changed to the image of a Christian saint ;
apply your navy to purposes of commerce: in fine, utterly forsake the
present incongruous system of armed peace !

That I may not seem to press to this conclusion with too much haste,
at least as regards our own country, I shall consider briefly, as be-
comes the occasion, the asserted usefulness of the national defences
'which it is proposed to abandon.

What is the use of the standing army of the United States ? It has
"been a principle of freedom, during many generations, to avoid a stand-
ing army; and one of the complaints in the Declaration of Indepen-
dence was that George III. had quartered large bodies of troops in the
colonies. For the first few years, after the adoption of the Federal
Constitution, during our weakness, before our power was assured,
before our name had become respected in the family of nations, under
the administration of Washington, a small sum was deemed ample for
the military establishment of the United States. It was only when the
country, at a later day, had been touched by the insanity of war, that
it surrendered to military prejudices, and, abandoning the true econ-
omy of a republic, cultivated a military spirit, and lavished the means,
which it begrudged to the purposes of peace, in vain preparation' for
war. It may now be said of the army of the* United States, as Dun-
ning said of the prerogatives of the Crown, it has increased, is increas-
ing, and ought to be diminished. At this moment there are more
than fifty-five military posts in the country. Of what use is the de-
tachment of the second regiment of artillery in the quiet town of New
London in Connecticut ? Of what use is the detachment of the first
regiment of artillery in that pleasant resort of fashion, Newport? No
person, who has not lost all sensibility to the dignity of human nature,

CHARLES SUMNER. 377

car. observe, -without mortification, the discipline, the drilling, the
inarching and countermarching, the putting guns to the shoulder and
the dropping them to the earth, which nil the lives of the poor soldiers,
and prepare them to become the mere inanimate parts of a mere
machine, to which the great living master of the art of war has likened
an a:;ny. And this sensibility must be much more offended when he
beholds a number of the ingenious youth of the country, under the
auspices of the government, amidst the bewitching scenery of West
Point, trained to the same farcical and humiliating exercises. It is
time that the people should declare the army to be an utterly useless
branch of the public service; but not merely useless, also a seminary
of idleness and vice, breeding manners uncongenial with our institu-
tions, shortening the lives of those whom it enlists, and maintained at
an expense, as we have already seen, which far surpasses ail that is
bestowed on all the civil purposes of the government.

But I hear the voice of some defender of this abuse, some upholder
of this " rotten borough" of our constitution, crying, the army is needed
for the defence of the country ! As well might you say, that the
shadow is needed for the defence of the body ; for what is the army of
the United States but the feeble shadow of the power of the American
people ! In placing the army on its present footing, so small in num-
bers compared with the forces of the great European states, our gov-
ernment has tacitly admitted its superfiuousness as a means of defence.
Moreover, there is one plea for standing armies in Europe which can-
not prevail here. They are supposed to be needed by governments,
which do not proceed from the popular voice, to sustain their power.
The monarchs of the old world, like the chiefs of the ancient German
tribes, are upborne on the shields of the soldiery. Happily with us
the government springs from the hearts of the people, and needs no
janizaries for its support. It only remains to declare distinctly that
the country will repose, in the consciousness of right, without the
wasteful excess of supporting soldiers, lazy consumers of the fruits of
the earth, who might do the state good service in the various depart-
ments of useful industry.

What is the use of the navy of the United States ? The annual
expense of our navy for several years past has been upwards of six
millions of dollars. For what purpose is this paid? Xot for the
apprehension of pirates; for frigates and ships of the line are of too ?
great bulk to be of service for this purpose. Not for the suppression \
of the slave trade; for, under the stipulations with Great Britain, we
employ only eighty guns in this holy alliance. Xot to protect our
coasts; for all agree that our few ships would form an unavailing de-
fence against any serious attack. Xot for these purposes all will
admit; but for the protection of our navigation. This is not the occa-
sion for minute calculations. Suffice it to say, that an intelligc:::
merchant, who has been extensively engaged in commerce for the last

378 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

twenty years, and who speaks, therefore, with the authority of knowl-
edge, has demonstrated in a tract of perfect clearness, that the annual
amount of the freights of the whole mercantile marine of the country
does not equal the annual expenditure of the navy of the United
States. Protection at such cost is more ruinous than one of Pyrrhus'
victories.

In objecting to the navy, I wish to limit myself to the navy as an
asserted arm of national defence. So far as it may be necessary, as a
part of the police of the seas, to purge them of pirates, and above all,
to defeat the hateful traffic in human flesh, it is a proper arm of
government. The free cities of Hamburgh and Bremen, survivors of
the great Hanseatic League, with a commerce that whitens the most
distant seas, are without a single ship of war. Let the United States be
willing to follow their wise example, and abandon an institution which
has already become a vain and most expensive toy !

What is the use of the fortifications of the United States? We have
already seen the enormous sums which have been locked in the dead
hands, in the odious mortmain, of their everlasting masonry. This is
in the hope of saving the country thereby from the horrors of con-
quest and bloodshed. And here let me meet this suggestion with
frankness and distinctness. I will not repeat what has been set forth
in an earlier part of my remarks, the considerations showing that ia
our age, no war of strict self-defence can possibly arise, no war which
can be supported by the consciences of those even who disclaim
the highest standard of the Gospel; but I will suppose the case of a
war, unjust and unchristian it must be, between our country and one
of the great powers of Europe. In such a war, what would be the
effect of the fortifications ? Clearly to invite the attack, which they
would in all probability be inadequate to defeat. It is a rule now
recognized even in the barbarous code of war, one branch of which
has been illustrated with admirable ability in the diplomatic corre-
spondence of Mr. Webster, that noncombatants shall not. in any way,
be molested, and that the property of private persons shall in all cases
be held sacred. So firmly did the Duke of Wellington act upon this
rule, that throughout the murderous campaigns of Spain, and after-
wards when he entered France, flushed with the victory of Waterloo,
he directed that his army should pay for all provisions, and even for the
forage of their horses. The war is carried on against public property
— against fortifications, nayv-yards and arsenals. But if these do not
exist, there can be no aliment, no fuel for the flame. Every new for-
tification and every additional gun in our harbor is, therefore, not a
safeguard, but a source of danger to our city. Better throw them in
the sea, than madly allow them to draw to our homes the lightning of
battle, without, alas, any conductor to hurry terrors innocently be-
neath the concealing bosom of the earth!

What is the use of the militia of the United States? This immense

CHARLES SUMNER. 379

system spreads, with more than a, hundred arms, over . the whole
country, sucking its best life-blood, the unbought energies of the
youth. The same farcical discipline, shouldering arms and carrying
arms, which we have observed in the soldier, absorbs their time,,
though, of course, to a. much less degree than in the regular army,
We read with astonishment of the painted flesh, and uncouth vest.;
ments of our progenitors, the ancient, Britons. The generation will
soon come that will regard- with equal wonder the pictures of their an-
cestors, closely dressed-.in padded and well-buttoned coats of blue,
"besmeared with gold," surmounted by a huge mountain-cap of
shaggy bear-skin, and with a barbarous device, typical of brute force,
a tiger, painted on oil-skkv tied with leather to their backs! In the
streets of Pisa, the galley-slaves are compelled to wear dresses stamped
with the name of : the crime for which they are suffering punishment;
as theft, robbery, murder. ^ It is not. a little strange, that Christians,-
living In a: land "where bells have tolled to church,," should volun-
tarily adopt devices which, if they. have any meaning,' recognize the
example of beasts as worthy of imitation by mam The general con-
siderations which belong to the subject of preparations for war will
illustrate the inanity of the militia for purposes of national defence.
I do not know, indeed, that it is now strongly advocated on this
ground. A It isi most, often spoken of as an important part of the police
of the country.: I would- not: undervalue the blessings to be derived
from an active, efficient, .ever-wakeful police; and I believe that such
a police has been long required in our country, Eut the. militia, com-
posed of youth of undoubted character^ though of untried courage, is
clearly inadequate for this . purpose. No person, who has seen them
in an actual riot, can hesitate in this judgment. A very small portion
of the means which are absorbed by the. militia, v/ould provide, a police
that should be competent to all the emergencies of domestic disorder
and violence.

The City of Boston has longbeen convinced of the inexpediency of
a Fire Department composed of mere volunteers. It is to be hoped that
a similar conviction may pervade the country with regard to the police,
lam well aware, however,- that efforts to abolish the militia system will
be encountered by some of the dearest prejudices of the common mind;
not only by the war spirit ; but by that other spirit, which fi'.-st aiiimates
childhood, and at a later day, ■ *' children of a larger growth," inviting
to finery of dress and parade, — the same spirit which fantastically be-
decks the dusky feather-cinctured; chiefs of the soft regions warmed
by the tropical sun ; which inserts rings in the noses of the North
American Indians; which slits the ears of the Australian savages ; and
tattoes the New Zealand cannibals.

Such is a review of the true character and value, of the national de-
fences of the United States ! It will be observed that I have thus far
regarded them in the plainest light of ordinary wordly economy, with-

3^o AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

out reference to those higher considerations, founded on the history and
:,.,.urj of man. and the tiucns of Christianity, which pronounce them to
oe \ain-. It is grateful to know, that though they may yet have the
support of what Jeremy TayJor calls the "popular noises," still the
more economical, more humane, more wise, more Christian system is
daily commending itself to wide circles of the good people of the land.
All the virtues that truly elevate a state are on its side. Economy, sick
of the pigmy efforts to staunch the smallest fountains and rills of exu-
berant expenditure, pleads that here is an endless, boundless river, an
Amazon of waste, rolling its turbid, unhealthy waters vainly to the sea.
It chides us with an unnatural inconsistency when we strain at a little
twine and red tape, and swallow the monstrous cables and armaments
of war. Humanity pleads for the poor from whom such mighty means
are withdrawn. Wisdom frowns on these preparations as calculated to
nurse sentiments inconsistent with peace. Christianity calmly rebukes
the spirit in which they have their origin, as being of little faith, and
treacherous to iier high behests; while History shows t:,e sure progress
of man, like the lion in Paradise still " pawing to get free his hinder
parts," but certain, if he be true to his nature, to emancipate himself
from the restraints of earth.

The sentiment, that in time of peace we must prepare for war, has
been transmitted from distant ages when brute force prevailed. It is the
terrible inheritance, the damnosa hcBredltas, which painfully reminds the
people of our day of their relations with the past. It belongs to the
rejected dogmas of barbarism. It is the companion of those harsh rules
of tyranny by which the happiness of the many has been offered up t >
the propensities of the few. It is the child of suspicion and the fore-
runner of violence. Having in its favor the almost uninterrupted usage
of the world, it possesses a hold on the common mind, which is
not easily unloosed. And yet the conscientious soul cannot fail, on
careful observation to detect its most mischievous fallacy — a fallacy the
most costly the world has witnessed, and which dooms nations to annual
tributes in comparison with which all that have been extorted by con-
quests are as the widow's mite by the side of Pharisaical contributions.
So true is what Rousseau said, and Guizot has since repeated, "that a
b?.d principle is far worse than a bad fact ;" for the operations of the one
are finite, while those of the other are infinite.

I speak of this principle with earnestness ; for I believe it to be erro-
neous and false, founded in ignorance and barbarism, unworthy of an
age of light, and disgraceful to Christians. I have called it a principle ;
but it is a mere prejudice — sustained by human example only, and net
by lofcy truth — in obeying which we imitate the early mariners, who
steered from headland to headland and hugged the shore, unwilling to
venture upon the broad ocean, where their guide should be the lumi-
naries of Heaven.

Dismissing from our minds, the actual usage of nations on the one

CHARLES SUMXER. 381

side, and the considerations of economy on the other, and regarding
preparations for war in time of peace in the clear light of reason, in a
just appreciation of the nature of man, and in the injunctions of the
highest truth, and they cannot fail to be branded as most pernicious.
They are pernicious on two grounds ; first, because they inflame the
people, who make them, exciting them to deeds of violence which
otherwise would be most alien to their minds, and second, because,
having their origin in the low motive of distrust and hate, they inevitably,
by a sure law of the human mind, excite a corresponding feeling in other
nations. Thus they are in fact not the preservers of peace, but the pro-
vokers of war.

In illustration of the first of these grounds, it will occur to every in-
quirer that the possession of power is always in itself dangerous, that
it tempts the purest and highest natures to self-indulgence, that it can
rarely be enjoyed without abuse ; nor is the power to employ force in
war, or otherwise, an exception to this law. History teaches that the
nations possessing the greatest military forces have always been the
most belligerent ; while the feebler powers have enjoyed, for a longer
period, the blessings of peace. The din of war resounds throughout
more than seven hundred years of Roman history, with only two
short lulls of repose ; while smaller states, less potent in arms, and
without the excitement to quarrels on this account, have enjoyed long
eras of peace. It is not in the history of nations only that we find
proofs of this law. Like every great moral principle, it applies equally
to individuals. The experience of private life, in all ages, confirms it.
The wearing of arms has always been a provocative to combat.
It has excited the spirit and furnished the implements of strife. As
we revert to the progress of society in modern Europe, we find that
the odious system of private quarrels, of hostile meetings even in the
street, continued so long as men persevered in the habit of wearing
arms. Innumerable families were thinned by death received in these
has.ly and often unpremeditated encounters; and the lives of scholars
and poets were often exposed to their rude chances. Marlowe, "with
all his rare learning and wit," perished ignominiously under the
weapon of an unknown adversary; and Savage, wThose genius and mis-
fortune inspired the friendship and the eulogies of Johnson, was tried
for murder committed in a sudden broil. "The expert swordsman,"
says Mr. Jay, "the practised marksman, is ever more ready to en-
gage in personal combats than the man who is unaccustomed to the
use of deadly weapons. In those portions of our country where it is
supposed essential to personal safety to go armed with pistols and
bowie-knives, mortal affrays are so frequent as to excite but little at-
tention, and to secure, with rare exceptions, impunity to the murderer;
whereas, at the North and East, where we are unprovided with such
facilities for taking life, comparatively few murders of the kind are
perpetrated. We might, indeed, safely submit the decision of the

382 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

principle we are discussing to the calculations of pecuniary interest.
Let two men, equal in -age and health, apply for an insurance on their
lives ; one known to be ever armed to defend his honor and his lite
against every assailant ; and the other -a meek, unresisting Quaker.
Can we doubt for a moment which of these men would be deemed by
the insurance company most likely to reach a good old age ?"

The second of these grounds is a part of the unalterable nature of
man, which was recognized in early ages, though unhappily it has
been rarely made the basis of intercourse among nations. It is an
expansion of the old Horatian adage* Si vis ?ne 'Jlen, dolcnduni &Ft
primum ipsi tibi ; if you wish me to weep, you must yourself fii^t
weep. So are we all knit together that the feelings in our own bosom
awaken corresponding feelings in the bosom of others; as harp an-
swers to harp in its softest vibrations; as deep responds to deep in the
might of its passions. What within us is good invites the good in our
brother; generosity begets generosity; love wins love; peace secures
peace; while all within us that is bad challenges the bad in our
brother; distrust engenders distrust; hate provokes hate; war arouses
war. Life is full of illustrations of this beautiful law. Even the mis-
erable maniac, in whose mind the common rules of conduct are over-
thrown, confesses its overruling power, and the vacant stare of mad-
ness may be illumined by a word of love. The wild beasts confess it;
and what is the interesting story of Orpheus, whose music drew in lis-
tening rapture the lions and panthers of the forest, but an expression
of this prevailing law ?

Literature abounds in illustrations of this principle. Looking back
to the early dawn of the world one of the most touching scenes which
we behold, illumined by that auroral light, is the peaceful visit of the
aged Priam to the tent of Achilles to entreat the body of his son.
The fierce combat has ended in the death of Hector, whose unhen-
ored corse the bloody Greek has already trailed behind his chariot.
The venerable father, after twelve days of grief, is moved to efforts to
regain the remains of the Hector he had so dearly loved. He leaves
his lofty cedarn chamber, and with a single aged attendant, unarmed,
repairs to the Grecian camp, by the side of the distant sounding sea.
Entering alone, he finds Achilles within his tent, in the company of
two of his chiefs. He grasps his knees, and kisses those terrible
homicidal hands, which had taken the life of his son. The heart of
the inflexible, the angry, the inflamed Achilles is touched by the sight
which he beholds, and responds to the feelings of Priam. He takes
the suppliant by the hand, seats him by his side, consoles his grief,
refreshes his weary body, and concedes to the prayers of a weak, un-
armed old man what all Troy in arms could not win. In this scene
th? poet, with unconscious power, has presented a picture of the om-
nipotence of that law of our nature, making all mankind of kin, in

CHARLES SUMNER, 3 S3

obedience to which no word of kindness, no act of confidence, falls
idly to the earth.

Among the legendary passages of Roman history, perhaps none
makes a deeper impression, than that scene, after the Roman youth
had been consumed at Allia, and the invading Gauls under Brennus
had entered the city, where we behold the venerable senators of the
Republic, too old to flee, and careless of surviving the Roman
name, seated each on his curule chair, in a temple, unarmed, looking,
as Livy says, more august than mortal, and with the majesty of the
gods. The Gauls gaze on them as upon sacred images, and the band
of slaughter, which had ranged through the streets of Rome, is stayed
by the sight of an assembly of unarmed old men. At length a Gaul
approaches and gently strokes with his hands the silver beard of a
senator, who, indignant at the license, smites the barbarian with his
ivory staff ; which was the signal for general vengeance. Think you,
that a band of savages could have slain these senators, if the appeal
to force had not first been made by one of their own number ?

Following this sentiment in the literature of modern times we find
its pervading presence. I will not dwell on the examples which arise
to, the mind. I will allude only to that scene in Swedish poetry,
where Frithiof, in deadly combat with Atle, when the falchion of the
latter broke, said, throwing away his own weapon : —

S wordless focman's life

Ne'er dyed this gallant blade.

The two champions now closed in mutual clutch ; they hugged like
be^rs, says the poet;

'Tis o'er; for Frithiof s matchless strength

Has felled his ponderous size ;
And 'neath that knee, at giant length,

Supine the Viking lies.
u But fails my sword, thou Berserk swart I"

The voice rang far and wide.
" Its point should pierce thy inmost heart,

Its hilt should drink the tide."
"Be free to lift the weaponed hand,"

Undaunted Atle spoke,
" Hence, fearless, quest thy distant brand I

Thus I abide the stroke."

Frithiof regains his sword, intent to close the dread debate, while his
adversary awaits the stroke ; but his heart responds to the r -.<. uerous
courage of his foe ; he cannot injure one who has shown suoh con-
fidence in him : —

This quelled his ire, this checked his arm,
Out stretched the hand of peace.

I cannot leave these illustrations without alluding particularly to the
history of the treatment of the insane, which is full of deep kii 'ruction,
showing how strong in nature must be the principle, which l.ui.s us to

384 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

respond to the conduct and feelings of others. When Pinel first
proposed to remove the heavy chains from the raving maniacs of the
hospitals of Paris, he was regarded as one who saw visions or
dreamed dreams. His wishes were gratified at last ; and the change
in the conduct of his patients was immediate ; the wrinkled front of
evil passions was smoothed into the serene countenance of peace.
The old treatment by force is now universally abandoned ; the law of
love has taken its place ; and all these unfortunates mingle together,
unvexed by those restraints, which implied suspicion, and, therefore,
aroused opposition. The warring propensities, which once filled with
confusion and strife the hospitals for the insane while they were con-
trolled by force, are a dark but feeble type of the present relations of
nations, on whose hands are the heavy chains of -military prepara-
tions, assimilating the world to one great mad-house ; while the peace
and good-will which now abound in these retreats, are the happy
emblems of what awaits the world when it shall have the wisdom to
recognize the supremacy of the higher sentiments of our nature ; of
gentleness, of confidence, of love ;

making their future might

Magnetic o'er their fixed untrembling heart

I might also dwell on the recent experience, so full of delightful
wisdom, in the treatment of the distant, degraded convicts of New
South Wales, showing the importance of confidence and kindness on
the part of their overseers, in awakening a corresponding sentiment
even in these outcasts, from whose souls virtue seems, at first view, to
be wholly blotted out. Thus from all quarters, from the far-off past,
from the far-away Pacific, from the verse of the poet, from the legend
of history, from the cell of the mad-house, from the assembly of trans-
ported criminals, from the experience of daily life,. from the universal
heart of man, ascends the spontaneous tribute to the prevailing power
of that law, according to which the human heart responds to the feel-
ings by which it is addressed, whether of confidence or distrust, of
love or hate

It will be urged that these instances are exceptions to the general
laws by which mankind are governed. It is not so. They are the
unanswerable evidence of the real nature of man. They reveal the
divinity of humanity, out of which all goodness, all happiness, all'
true greatness can alone proceed. They disclose susceptibilities
which are general, which are confined to no particular race of men, to
no period of time, to no narrow circle of knowledge and refinement —
susceptibilities which are present wherever two or more human beings
come together. It is, then, on the impregnable ground of the univer-
sal and unalterable nature of man, that I place the fallacy of that
prejudice, in obedience to which in time of peace we prepare for
war.

CHARLES SUMNER. 3$5

But this prejudice is not only founded on a misconception of the
nature of man ; it is abhorrent to Christianity, which teaches that
love is more puissant than force. To the reflecting mind the omni-
potence of God himself is less discernible in the earthquake and the
storm than in the gentle but quickening rays of the sun, and the sweet
descending dews. And he is a careless observer who does not recog-
nize the superiority of gentleness and kindness, as a mode of exercis-
ing influence, or securing rights among men. As the winds of
violence beat about them, they hug those mantles, which they gladly
throw to the earth under the genial warmth of a kindly sun. Thus
far, nations have drawn their weapons from the earthly armories of
force unmindful of those others of celestial temper from the house of
love.

But Christianity not only teaches the superiority of love over force ;
it positively enjoins the practice of the one, and the rejection of the
other. It says ; " Love your neighbors ;" but it does not say ; "In
time of peace rear the maseive fortification, build the man of war,
enlist armies, train the militia, and accumulate military stores to be
employed in future quarrels with your neighbors." Its precepts go
still further. They direct that we should do unto others as we would
have them do unto us — a golden rule for the conduct of nations as
well as individuals, called by Confucius the virtue of the heart, and
made by him the basis of the nine maxims of government which he
presented to the sovereigns of his country ; but how inconsistent
with that distrust of others, in wrongful obedience to which nations,
in time of peace, seem to sleep like soldiers on their arms. But its
precepts go still further. They enjoin patience, suffering, forgiveness
of evil, even the duty of benefiting a destroyer, " as the sandal wood,
in the instant of its overthrow, sheds perfume on the axe which fells
it." And can a people, in whom this faith is more than an idle word,
consent to such enormous sacrifices of money, in violation of its plain-
est precepts ?

The injunction, "Love one another," is applicable to nations as
well as individuals. It is one of the great laws of Heaven. And
anyone may well measure his nearness to God by the degree to which
he regulates his conduct by this truth.

In response to these successive views, founded on considerations of
economy, of the true nature of man, and of Christianity, I hear the
skeptical note of some defender of the transmitted order of things,
some one who wishes "to fight for peace," saying, these views are
beautiful but visionary; they are in advance of the age ; the world is
not yet prepared for their reception. To such persons (if there be
such), I would say ; nothing can be beautiful that is not true ; but
these views are true ; the time is now come for their reception ; now
is the day and now is the hour. Every effort to impede their progress
arrests the advancing hand on the great dial-plate of human happiness.

3^6 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

The name of Washington is invoked as an authority for a prejudice
which .economy,. humanity and Christianity ail^declare to be false.
Mighty and reverend as is his name, more mighty and more reverend
Is truth. The words of counsel which he "gave were in accordance
with the spirit of. his age,— an age which was not shocked by the slave-
trade." But his lofty soul, which loved virtue, and inculcated justice
and benevolence, froWris upon the efforts of those Who would use his
authority as an incentive to war. God forbid, that his sacred charac-
ter should be profanely stretched, like the skin of John Ziska, on a
militia drum to arouse the martial ardor of the. American people !

It is melancholy to consider the impediments which truth encounters
on its first appearance. A large portion of mankind, poising them-
selves on the flagitious fallacy, that whatever is, is right, avert their
countenances from all that is inconsistent with established usage. I
have already, in another part of this address, set forth the superiority
of principle to any human example ; I would here repeat that the prac-
tice of nations can be no apology for a system which is condemned by
such principles as I have now considered. Truth enters the world
like? a humble child, with few to receive her ; it is only when she has
grown in years and stature, and the purple flush of youthful strength
beams from her face, that she is sought and wooed. It has been thus
in all ages. Nay, more ; there is often an irritation excited by her
presence • and men who are kind and charitable forget their kindness
and lose their charity towards the unaccustomed stranger. It was this
feeling which awarded a dungeon to Galileo, when he declared that the
earth moved, round the sun ; which neglected the great discovery of
the circulation of the blood by Harvey ; and which bitterly opposed
the divine philanthropy of Clarkson, when he first denounced the wick-
edness of the slave-trade. But the rejected truths of to-day shall be-
come the chief corner-stones to the next generation.

Auspicious omens in the history of the past and in the present,
cheer us for the future. The terrible wars of the French Revolution
were the violent rending of the body which preceded the exorcism of
the fiend. Since the morning stars first sang together, the world has
not witnessed a peace so harmonious and enduring as that which now
blesses the Christian nations. Great questions between them, fraught
with strife, and in another age, sure heralds of war, are now deter-
mined by arbitration or mediation. Great political movements
which only a few short years ago must have led to forcible rebel-
lion, are now conducted by peaceful discussion. Literature, the
press, and various societies, all join in the holy work of inculcating
good-w.ll to man. The spirit of humanity. now pervades the best
writings, whether the elevated philosophical inquiries of the vestiges
of creation, the ingenious but melancholy moralizings of the Story of
a Feather, or the overflowing raillery of Punch. Genius can never be

CHARLES SUMNER.' 387

so Promethean as when it bears the heavenly fire of love to the
hearths of men.

It was Dr. Johnson, in the last age, who uttered the detestable senti-
ment, that he liked " a good hater : " the man of this age shall say-
he likes "a good lover," A poet, whose few verses will bear him [on
his immortal flight with unflagging wing, has given expression to this
sentiment in words of uncommon pathos and power:

He prayeth well who loveth well
All things, both great and small.

He prayeth best who loveth best
Both man. and bird, and beast,
For the dear God who loveth us.
He made and loveth all.

Every where the ancient law of hate is yielding to the law of love. It
is seen in the change of dress ; the armor of complete steel was the
habiliment of the knight; and the sword was an indispensable companion
of the gentleman of the last century; but he would be thought a madman
Or a bully who should wear either now. It is seen in the change of do-
mestic architecture; the places once chosen for castles or houses, were in
the most savage, inaccessible retreats, where the massive structure was
reared, destined solely to repel attacks, and to enclose its inhabitants.
The monasteries and churches were fortified, and girdled by towers,
ramparts and ditches, and a child was often stationed as a watchman, —
not of the night, — but to observe what passed at a distance, and an-
nounce the approach of the enemy ! The houses of the peaceful citi-
zens in towns were castellated, often without so much as an aperture
for light near the ground, and with loop-holes above, through
which the shafts of the cross-bow might be aimed. In the system of
fortifications and preparations for war, nations act toward each other
in the spirit of distrust and barbarism, which we have traced in the
individual, but which he has now renounced. In so doing, they take
counsel of the wild boar in the fable, who whetted his tusks on a tree
of the forest, when no enemy was near, saying that in time of peace
he must prepare for war. But has not the time now come, when man,
whom God created in his own image, and to whom He gave the heav-
en-directed countenance, shall cease to look down to the beasts for
examples of conduct ?

We have already offered our homage to an early monarch of France,
for his efforts in abolishing the trial by battle and in the cause of
peace. To another monarch of France, in our own day, a descendant
of St. Louis, worthy of the illustrious lineage, Louis Philippe, be-
longs the honest fame of first publishing from the throne the truth,
that peace was endangered by preparations for war. " The sentiment,
or rather the principle," he says, "that in peace you must prepare for
war, is one of difficulty and danger, for while we keep armies on land

3§S AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

to preserve peace, the)'' are, at the same time incentives and instru-
ments of war. He rejoiced in all efforts to preserve peace, for that
was what all need. He thought the time was coming when we shall
get rid entirely of war in all civilized countries." This time has been
hailed by a generous voice from the army itself, by a Marshal of
France, who gave as a toast at a public dinner in Paris, the following
words of salutation to a new and approaching era of happiness : "To
the pacific union of the great human family, by the association of in-
dividuals, nations and races! To the annihilation of war ! To the
transformation of destructive armies into corps of industrious laborers,
who will consecrate their lives to the cultivation and embellishment of
the world !" Be it our duty to speed this consummation !

To William Penn belongs the distinction, destined to brighten as
men advance in virtue, of first, in human history, establishing the
law of love as a rule of conduct for the intercourse of nations.
While he recognized as a great end of government, " to support power
in reverence with the people, and to secure the people from abuse of
power," he declined the superfluous protection of arms against foreign
force, and " aimed to reduce the savage nations by just and gentle
manners to the love of civil society and the Christian religion." His
serene countenance, as he stands with his followers in what he called the
sweet and clear air of Pennsylvania, all unarmed, beneath the spread-
ing elm, forming the great treaty of friendship with the untutored In-
dians,— who fill with savage display the surrounding forest as far as
the eye can reach, — not to wrest their lands by violence, but to obtain
them by peaceful purchase, is, to my mind, the proudest picture in
the history of our country. "The great God," said this illustrious
Quaker, in his words of sincerity and truth, addressed to the Sachems,
" has written his law in our;hearts, by which we are taught and com-
manded to love, and to help, and to do good to one another. It is
not our custom to use hostile . weapons against our fellow-creatures,
for which reason we have come unarmed. Our object is not to do
injury, but to do good. We have met, then, in the broad pathway of
good faith and good will, so that no advantage can be taken on either
side, but all is to be openness, brotherhood and love; while all are to
be treated as of the same flesh and blood." These are, indeed, words
of true greatness. " Without any carnal weapons," says one of his
companions, "we entered the land, and inhabited therein as safe as
if there had been thousands of garrisons." " This little state," says
Oldmixon, " subsisted in the midst of six Indian nations, without so
much as a militia for its defence." A great man, worthy of the man-
tle of Penn, the venerable philanthropist, Clarkson, in his life of the
founder of Pennsylvania, says, " The Pennsylvanians became armed,
though without arms; they became strong, though without strength;
they became safe, without the ordinary means of safety. The consta-
ble's staff was \h% ^nly instrument of authority amongst them for the

CHARLES SU3IXER. 389

greater part of a century, and never, during the administration of
Penn, or that of his proper successors, was there a quarrel or a war."

Greater than the divinity that doth hedge a king, is the divinity that
encompasses the righteous man, and the righteous people. The flow-
ers of prosperity smiled in the blessed footprints of William Penn.
His people were unmolested and happy, while (sad but true contrast!)
those of other colonies, acting upon the policy of the world, building
forts, and showing themselves in arms, not after receiving provoca-
tion, but merely in the anticipation, or from the fear, of insults or
danger, were harassed by perpetual alarms, and pierced by the sharp
arrows of savage war.

This pattern of a Christian commonwealth never fails to arrest the
admiration of all who contemplate its beauties. It drew an epigram
of eulogy from the caustic pen of Yoltaire, and has been fondly
painted by many virtuous historians. Every ingenuous soul in our
day offers his willing tribute to those celestial graces of justice and
humanity, by the side of which the flinty hardness of the Pilgrims of
Plymouth Rock seems earthly and coarse.

But let us not confine ourselves to barren words in recognition of
virtue. While we see the right, and approve it, too, let us dare to
pursue it. Let us now, in this age of civilization, surrounded by
Christian nations, be willing to follow the successful example of
William Penn, surrounded by savages. Let us, while we recognize
those transcendent ordinances of God, the law of right and the lav/
of love, — the double suns which illumine the moral universe, — aspire
to the true glory, and what is higher than glory, the great good, of
taking the lead in the disarming of the nations. Let us abandon the
system of preparation for war in time of peace, as irrational, unchris-
tian, vainly prodigal of expense, and having a direct tendency to ex-
cite the very evil against which it professes to guard. Let the enor-
mous means thus released from iron hands, be devoted to labors of
beneficence. Our battlements shall be schools, hospitals, colleges and
churches ; our arsenals shall be libraries ; our navy shall be peaceful
ships, on errands of perpetual commerce; our army shall be the teach-
ers of youth and the ministers of religion. This is indeed, the cheap
defence of nations. In such entrenchments what Christian soul can
be touched with fear. Angels of the Lord shall throw over the land
an invisible, but impenetrable panoply :

Or if virtue feeble were

Heaven itself would stoop to her.

At the thought of such a change in policy, the imagination loses it-
self in the vain effort to follow the various streams of happiness,
which gush forth as from a thousand hills. Then shall the naked be.
clothed and the hungry fed. Institutions of science and learning shall
crown every hill-top; hospitals for the sick, and other retreats for the

39° AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

unfortunate children of the world, for all who suffer in any way, in
mind, body or estate, snail nestle in every valley; while the spires b«
new churches shall leap exulting to the skies. The whole land shal
bear witness to the change; art shall confess it in the new inspiratior
of the canvas and the marble; the harp of the poet shall proclaim ii
in a loftier rhyme. Above ail, the heart of man shall bear witness
to it, in the elevation of his sentiments, in the expansion of his affec-
tions, in his devotion to the highest truth, in his appreciation of a true
greatness. The eagle of our country, without the terror of his beak,
and dropping the forceful thunderbolt from his pounces, shall soar
with the olive of peace,, into untried realms of ether, nearer to the sun.

And here let us review the field over which we have passed. We
have beheld war, a mode of determining justice between nations, hav-
ing its origin in an appeal, not to the moral and intellectual part of
man's nature, distinguishing him from the beasts, but to that low part
of his nature, which he has in common with the beast; we have con-
templated its infinite miseries to the human race; we have weighed its
sufficiency as a mode of determining justice between nations, and
found that it is a rude appeal to force or a gigantic game of chance,
in which God's children are profanely dealt with as a pack of cards,
while it is unnatural and irrational wickedness.it is justly to be
likened to the monstrous and impious usage of trial by battle which
disgraced the dark ages, thus showing that, in this age of boasted civ-
ilization, justice between nations is determined by the same rules of
barbarous brutal force which once controlled the relations between in-
dividuals. We have next considered the various prejudices by which
war is sustained; founded on a false belief in its necessity; on the
practice of nations past and present; on the infidelity of the Christian
church; on a false idea of honor; on an exaggerated idea of the duties
of patriotism; and lastly that monster prejudice, which draws its vam-
pire life from the vast preparations in time of peace for war; dwelling
at the last stage upon the thriftless, irrational and unchristian charac-
ter of these preparations, and catching a vision of the exalted good
that will be achieved when our country, learning wisdom, shall aim at
the true grandeur of peace. I

And now, if it be asked why, on this national anniversary, in the
consideration of the true grandeur of nations, I have thus dwelt singly
and exclusively on war, it is, because war is utterly and irreconcilably
inconsistent with true greatness. Thus far mankind has worshipped
in military glory, anidoi, compared with which the colossal images of
ancient Babylon or modern Hindostan are but toys; and we, in this
blessed day of light, in this blessed land of freedom, are among the
Idolaters. The Heaven-descended injunction, know thyself, still speaks
to an ignorant world from the distant letters of gold at Delphi; know
thyself; know that the moral nature is the most noble part of man;

CHARLES SUMNER. 39 I

. transcending- far that part which is the seat of passion, strife rnd war;
nobler than the intellect itself. Suppose war to be decided by force,
where is the glory? Suppose it to be decided by chance, where is tfie
glory? No; true greatness consists in imitating as near as is possible
for finite man, the perfections of an Infinite Creator: above all, in
cultivating those highest perfections, justice and love; justice, which
like that of St. LouisT shall not swerve to the right hand or to the left;

: Jove, which like that of William Per.n, shall regard ail -mankind 6i
kin. "God is angry/' says Plato, "when any one censures a man
like himself, or praises a man of an opposite character- And the God-
like man is the goodr man " And again, in another -of these lovely
dialogues, vocal with immortal truth, " Nothing resembles God more
than that man among us who has arrived at the highest degree o( jus-
tice." The true greatness of -nations is in those qualities which con-
stitute the greatness of the individual. It is not to be found in extent

.of territory; nor in vastness of population, nor in wealth; not' in forti-
fications, or armies, or navies; not in the phosphorescent glare of fields
of battle; not in Golgothas, though covered by monuments that kiss
the clouds; for all these are the creatures and representatives of those
qualities of our nature, which are unlike anything in God's nature.

Nor is the greatness of nations to be found in triumphs of the in-
tellect alone, in literature, learning, science, or art. The polished
Greeks, the world's masters in the delights of language, and in range
of thought, and the commanding Romans, overawing thc: earth with
their power, were little more than splendid savages; and the age of
Louis XIV. of France, spanning so long a period of ordinary worldly
magnificence, thronged by marshals bending under military laurels,
enlivened by the unsurpassed comedy of Moliere, dignified by the
tragic genius of Corneille, illumined by the splendors of Bossuet, is
degraded by immoralities that cannot be mentioned without a blush,
by a heartlessness in comparison with which the ice of Nova Zembla
is warm, and by a succession of deeds of injustice not to be washed
out by the tears of all the recording angels of heaven.

The true greatness of a nation cannot be in triumphs of the intel-
lect alone. Literature and art may widen the sphere of its influence;
they may adorn it; but they are in their nature but accessories. The
true grandeur of humanity is in moral elevation, sustained, enlight-
ened, and decorated by the intellect of man. The truest tokens of
this grandeur in a state are the diffusion of the greatest happiness
among the greatest number, and that passionless God-like Justice.
which controls the relations of the state to other states, and to all- the
people, who are committed to its charge.

But war crushes with bloody heel all justice, all happiness, all that
is God-like in man. "It is," says the eloquent Robert Hall, " the
temporary repeal of all the principles of virtue." True, it cannot be
disguised, that there are passages in its dreary annals cheered by

39 2 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

deeds of generosity and sacrifice. But the virtues which shed their
charm over its horrors are all borrowed of peace ; they are emanations
of the spirit of love, which is so strong in the heart of man, that it
survives the rudest assaults. The flowers of gentleness, of kindli-
ness, of fidelity,, of humanity, which flourish in unregarded luxuri-
ance in the rich meadows of peace, receive unwonted admiration when
we discern them in war, like violets shedding their perfume on the
perilous edges of the precipice, beyond the smiling borders of civili-
zation. God be praised for all the examples of magnanimous virtue
which he has vouchsafed to mankind ! God be praised that the Ro-
man Emperor, about to start on a distant expedition of war, encom-
passed by squadrons of cavalry and by golden eagles which moved in
the winds, stooped from his saddle to listen to the prayer of the hunv
ble widow, demanding justice for the death of her son ! God be
praised that Sydney, on the field of battle, gave with dying hand the
cup of cold water to the dying soldier ! . That single act of .self-for-
getful sacrifice has consecrated the fenny field of Zutphen, far, oh! far
beyond its battle; it has consecrated thy name, gallant Sydney, beyond
any feat of thy sword, beyond any triumph of thy pen. But there are
hands outstretched elsewhere than on fields of blood, for so little as a
cup of cold water; the world is full of opportunities for deeds of kind-
ness. Let me not be told, then, of the virtues of war. Let not the
acts of generosity and sacrifice, which have triumphed on its fields, be
invoked in its defence. In the words of Oriental imagery, the poison-
ous tree, though watered by nectar, can produce only the fruit of
death !

As we cast our eyes over the history of nations we discern with hor-
ror the succession of murderous slaughters by which their progress
has been marked. As the hunter traces the wild beast, when pursued
to his lair, by the drops of blood on the earth, so we follow man, faint,
weary, staggering with wounds, through the black forest of the past,
which he has reddened with his gore. Oh ! let it not be in the future
ages as in those which we now contemplate. Let the grandeur of man
be discerned in the blessings which .he has secured; in the good he
has accomplished; in the triumphs of benevolence and justice; in the
establishment of perpetual peace.

As the ocean washes every shore, and clasps, with all-embracing
arms, every land, while it bears on its heaving bosom the products of
various climes; so peace surrounds, protects, and upholds all other
blessings. Without it commerce is vain, the ardor of industry is re-
strained, happiness is blasted, virtue sickens and dies.

And peace has its own peculiar victories, in comparison with which
Marathon and Bannockburn and Bunker Hill, fields held sacred in the
history of human freedom, shall lose their lustre. Our own Wash-
ington rises to a truly heavenly stature — not when we follow him over
the ice of the Delaware to the capture of Trenton — not when we be-

CHARLES SUMNER. 393

hold him victorious over Cornwall is at Yorktown; but when we regard
him, in noble deference to justice, refusing the kingly crown which a
faithless soldiery proffered, and at a later day, upholding the peaceful
neutrality of the country, while he received unmoved the clamor of
the people wickedly crying for war. What glory of battle in Eng-
land's annals will not fade by the side of that great act of justice, by
which her legislature, at a cost of one hundred million dollars, gave
freedom to eight hundred thousand slaves ! And when the day shall
come (may these eyes be gladdened by its beams !) that shall witness
an act of greater justice still, the peaceful emancipation of three mil-
lions of our fellow-men, " guilty of a skin not colored as our own,"
now held in gloomy bondage, under the Constitution of our country,
then shall there be a victory, in comparison with which that of Bunker
Hill shall be as a farthing-candle held up to the sun. That victory
shall need no monument of stone. It shall be written on the grateful
hearts of uncounted multitudes, that shall proclaim it to the latest
generation. It shall be one of the great land-marks of civilization;
nay more, it shall be one of the links in the golden chain by which
humanity shall connect itself with the throne of God.

As the cedars of Lebanon are higher than the grass of the valley;
as the heavens are higher than the earth; as man is higher than the
beasts of the field; as the angels are higher than man; as he that
ruleth his spirit is higher than he that taketh a city; so are the
virtues and victories of peace higher than the virtues and victories of
war.

Far be from us, fellow-citizens, on this anniversary, the illusions of
national freedom in which we are too prone to indulge. We have but
half done, when we have made ourselves free. Let not the scornful
taunt be directed at us: " They wish to be free; but know not how to
be just." Freedom is not an end in itself; but a means only; a means
of securing justice and happiness, the real end and aim of states, as
of every human heart. It becomes us to inquire earnestly if there is
not much to be done by which these can be promoted. If I have suc-
ceeded in impressing on your minds the truths, which I have upheld
to-day, you will be ready to join in efforts for the abolition of war,
and of all preparations for war, as indispensable to the true grandeur
of our country.

To this great work let me summon you. That future which filled
the lofty visions of the sages and bards of Greece and Rome, which
was foretold by the prophets and heralded by the evangelists, when
man in happy isles, or in a new paradise, shall confess the loveliness
of peace, may be secured by your care, if not for yourselves, at least
for your children. Believe that you ran do it, and you can do it. The
true golden age is before you, not behind you. If man has been
driven once from Paradise, while an angel with a flaming sword for-
bade his return, there is another Paradise, even on earth, which he

394 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

may form for himself, by the cultivation of the kindly virtues of life,
where the confusion of tongues shall be dissolved in the union of
hearts, where there shall be a perpetual jocund spring, and sweet
strains borne on the " odoriferous wings of gentle gales," more pleas*
ant than the Vale of Tempe, richer than the garden of the Hesperides,
with no dragon to guard its golden fruit.

Let it not be said that the age does not demand this work. The
mighty conquerors of the past, from their fiery sepulchres, demand it;
the blood of millions unjustly shed in war crying from the ground de-
mands it; the voices of all good men demand it; the conscience even
of the soldier whispers " peace." There are considerations, springing
from our situation and condition, which fervently invite us to take the
lead in this great work; To this should bend the patriotic ardor of
the land; the ambition of the statesman; the efforts of the scholar;
the pervasive influence of the press; the mild persuasion of the sanc-
tuary; the early teachings of the school. Here, in ampler ether and
diviner air, are untried fields for exalted triumphs, more truly worthy
the American name, than any snatched from rivers of blood. War is
known as the last reason of kings. Let it be no reason of our repub-
lic. Let us renounce and throw off forever the yoke of a tyranny
more oppressive than any in the annals of the world. As those
standing on the mountain-tops first discern the coming beams of
morning, let us, from the vantage-ground of liberal institutions, first
recognize the ascending sun of a new era ! Lift high the gates, and
let the King of glory in — the King of true glory — of peace. I catch
the last words of music from the lips of innocence and beauty-

And let the whole earth be filled with his glory !

It is a beautiful picture in Grecian story, that there was at least one
spot, the small island of Delos, dedicated to the gods, and kept at all
times sacred from war, where the citizens of hostile countries met and
united in a common worship. So let us dedicate our broad country !
The temple of honor shall be surrounded by the temple of concord,
so that the former can be entered only through the portals of the lat-
ter ; the horn of abundance shall overflow at its gates ; the angel
of religion shall be the guide over its steps of flashing adamant; while
within justice, returned to the earth from her long exile in the skies,
shall rear her serene and majestic front. And the future chiefs of the
republic, destined to uphold the glories of a new era, unspotted by
human biood, shall be ''the first in peace, and the first in the hearts
of their countrymen."

But while we seek these blissful glories for ourselves, let us strive
to extend them to other lands. Let the bugles sound the truce of God
to the whole world forever. Let the selfish boast of the Spartan wo-
men become the grand chorus of mankind, that they have never seen
the smoke of an enemy's camp. Let the iron belt of martial music

RUFUS CHO ATE. 395

which now encompasses the earth, be exchanged for the golden cesius
of peace, clothing all with celestial beauty. History dwells with
fondness on the reverent homage, that was bestowed, by massacring
soldiers, on the spot occupied by the sepulchre of the Lord. Vain
man! to restrain his regard to a few feet of sacred mould! The
whole earth is the sepulchre of the Lord; nor can any righteous man
profane any part thereof. Let us recognize this truth; and now, on
this sabbath of our country, lay a new stone in the grand temple of
Universal peace, whose dome shall be as lofty as the firmament of
heaven, as broad and comprehensive as the earth itself.

EULOGY ON WEBSTER.

RUFUS CHOATE.
Dartmouth College, July 27, 1853.

It would be a strange neglect of a beautiful and approved custom of
the schools of learning, and of one of the most pious and appropriate
of the offices of literature, if the college in which the intellectual life
of Daniel Webster began, and to which his name imparts charm and
illustration, should give no formal expression to her grief in the com-
mon sorrovv ; if she should not draw near, of the most sad, in the pro-
cession of the bereaved, to the tomb at the sea, nor find, in all her
classic shades, one affectionate and grateful leaf to set in the garland
with which they have bound the brow of her child, the mightiest de-
parted. Others mourn and praise him by his more distant and more
general titles to fame and remembrance ; his supremacy of intellect,
his statesmanship of so many years, his eloquence of reason and of the
heart, his love of country incorruptible, conscientious, and ruling every
hour and act ; that greatness combined of genius, of character, of
manner, of place, of achievement, which was just now among us, and
is not, and yet lives still and forever more. You come, his cherished
mother, to own a closer tie, to indulge an emotion more personal and
more fond — grief and exultation contending for mastery, as in the
bosom of the desolated parent, whose tears could not hinder him from
exclaiming, " I would not exchange my dead son for any living one of
Christendom."

Many places in our American world have spoken his eulogy. To
all places the service was befitting, for his renown, is it not of the
treasures of the whole country ? To some it belonged with a strong
local propriety, to discharge it. In the halls of Congress, where the
majestic form seems ever to stand and the tones to linger, the deco-
rated scene of his larger labors and most diffusive glory; in the courts
of law, to whose gladsome light he loved to return— puttiog on again

396 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

the robes of that profession,, ancient as magistracy, noble as virtue,
necessary as justice, — in which he found the beginning of his honors ;
and in Faneuil Hall, whose air breathes and burns of him ; in the
commercial cities, to whose pursuits his diplomacy secured a peaceful
sea ; in the cities of the inland, around which his capacious public
affections, and wise discernment, aimed ever to develop the uncounted
resources of that other, and that larger, and that newer America ; in
the pulpit, whose place among the higher influences which exalt a
state, our guide in life, our consolation in death, he appreciated pro-
foundly, and vindicated by weightiest argument and testimony, of
whose offices it is among the fittest, to mark and point the moral of
the great things of the world, the excellency of dignity, and the excel-
lency of power passing away as the pride of the wave, — passing from
our eye to take on immortality ; in these places, and such as these,
there seemed a reason beyond, and other, than the universal calamity,
for such honors of the grave. But if so, how fit a place is this for
such a service ! We are among the scenes where the youth of Web-
ster awoke first, and fully, to the life of the mind. We stand, as it
were, at the sources, physical, social, moral, intellectual, of that ex-
ceeding greatness. Some now here saw that youth ; almost it was
yours, Nilum parvum videre. Some, one of his instructors certainly,
some possibly of his class-mates, or nearest college friends, some of
the books he read, some of the apartments in which he -studied are
here. We can almost call up from their habitations in the past, or in
the fancy, the whole spiritual circle which environed that time of his
life ; the opinions he had embraced ; the theories of mind, of reli-
gion, of morals, of philosophy, to which he had surrendered himself ;
the canons of taste and criticism which he had accepted ; the great
authors whom he loved best ; the trophies which began to disturb his
sleep ; the facts of history which he had learned, believed and began
to interpret ; the shapes of hope and fear in which imagination began
to bring before him the good and evil of the future. Still the same
outward world is around you, and above you. The sweet and solemn
flow of the river gleaming through intervals here and there ; mar-
gins and samples of the same old woods, but thinned and retir-
ing ; the same range of green hills yonder, tolerant- or culture to
the top, but shaded then by primeval forests, on whose crest the
last rays of sun-set lingered ; the summit of Ascutney ; the great
northern light that never sets; the constellations that walk around,
and watch the pole; the same nature, undecayed, unchanging, is
here. Almost, the idolatries of the old Paganism grown intelligible.
" Magnoritm fluminum capita veneramur" exclaims Seneca. " Snbita
et ex abrupto vasti amnis eruptio aras habet /" We stand at the foun-
tain of a stream; we stand rather at the place where a stream, sudden,
and from hidden springs, bursts to light; and whence we can follow it
along and down, as we might our own Connecticut, and trace its re-

RUFUS CHO ATE. 397

splendant pathway to the sea; and we venerate, and would almost
build altars here. If I may adopt the lofty language of one of the ad-
mirers of William Pitt, we come naturally to this place, as if we could
thus recall every circumstance of splendid preparation which con-
tributed to fit the great man for the scene of his glory. We come, as
if better here than elsewhere; "we could watch, fold by fold, the
bracing on of his vulcanian panoply, and observe with pleased anxiety,
the leading forth of that chariot which, borne on irresistible wheels,
and drawn by steeds of immortal race, is to crush the necks of the
mighty, and sweep away the serried strength of armies."

And therefore, it were fitter that I should ask of you, than speak
to you, concerning him. Little indeed anywhere can be added now
to that wealth of eulogy that has been heaped upon his tomb. Before
he died, even, renowned in two hemispheres, in ours he seemed to be
known with a universal nearness of knowledge. He walked so long
and so conspicuously before the general eye; his actions, his opinions,
on all things, which had been large enough to agitate the public mind
for the last thirty years and more, had had importance and conse-
quences so remarkable — anxiously awaited for, passionately can-
vassed, not adopted always into the particular measure, or deciding
the particular vote of government of the country, yet sinking deep into
the reason of the people — a stream of influence whose fruits it is yet
too soon for the political philosophy to appreciate completely; an im-
pression of his extiaordinary intellectual endowments, and of their
peculiar superiority in that most imposing and intelligible of all forms
of manifestation, the moving of others' minds by speech- -this impres-
sion had grown so universal and fixed, and it had kindled curiosity to
hear him and read him, so wide and so largely indulged; his individu-
ality altogether was so absolute and so pronounced, the force of will
no less than the power of genius; the exact type and fashion of his
mind, not less than its general magnitude, were so distinctly shown
through his musical and transparent style; the exterior of the man, the
grand mastery of brow and eye, the deep tones, the solemnity, the
sovereignty, as of those who would build states, "where every power
and every grace did seem to set its seal," had been made, by personal
observation, by description, by the exaggeration even of those who
had felt the spell, by art, the daguerrotype and picture and statue, so
familiar to the American eye, graven on the memory like the Wash-
ington of Stuart; the narrative of the mere incidents of his life had
been so. often told — by some so authentically and with such skill — and
had been so literally committed to heart, that when he died there
seemed to be little left but to say when and how his change came;
with what dignity, with what possession of himself, with what loving
thought for others, with what gratitude to God, uttered with unfalter-
ing voice, that it was appointed to him there to die; to say how thus,
leaning on the rod and staff of the promise, he took his way into the

39$ AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

great darkness undismayed, till death should be swallowed up of life;
and then to relate how they laid him in that simple grave, and turning
and pausing and joining their voices to the voices of the sea, bade him
hail and farewell.

And yet I hardly know what there is in public biography, what there
is in literature, to be compared, in its kind, with the variety and beauty
and adequacy of the series of discourses through which the love and
grief, and deliberate and reasoning admiration of America for this
great man, have been uttered. Little, indeed, there would be for
me to say, if I were capable of the light ambition of proposing to omit
all which others have said on this themebefore, little to add if I sought
to say anything wholly new.

I have thought, perhaps the place where I was to speak suggested
the topic, that before we approach the ultimate and historical greatness
of Mr. Webster, in its two chief departments, and attempt to appre-
ciate by what qualities of genius and character, and what -succession
of action he attained it, there might be an interest in going back of all
this, so to say, and pausing a few moments upon his youth. I include
in that designation the period from his birth, on the eighteenth day of
January, 1782, until 1S05, when, 23 years of age, he declined the clerk-
ship of his father's court, and dedicated himself irrevocably to the pro-
fession of the law, and the chances of a summons to less or more of
public life. These twenty-three years we shall call the youth of Web-
ster. Its incidents are few and well-known, and need not long de-
tain us.

Until May, 1796, beyond the close of his fifteenth year, he lived at
home, attending the schools of Masters Chase and Tappan success-
fully; at work sometimes, and sometimes at play, like any boy; but
finding already, as few beside him did, the stimulations and the food
of intellectual life in the social library; drinking in, unawares, from
the moral and physical aspects about him, the lesson and the power
of contention and self-trust; and learning how much grander than the
forest bending to the low storm, or the silver and cherishing Merrimac,
swollen to inundation, and turning, as love becomes madness, to ravage
the subject intervale; or old woods sullenly retiring before axe and fire
— learning to feel how much grander than these was the coming in of
civilization as there he saw it, courage, labor, patience, plain living,
heroical acting, high thinking, beautiful feeling, the fear of God, love of
country and neighborhood and family, and all that form of human life
of which his father and mother and sisters and brother were the endeared
exemplification. In the arms of that circle, on parent knees, or later, in
intervals of work or play, the future American statesman acquired the
idea of country, and became conscious of a national tie and a national life.
There and then, something, glimpses, a little of the romance, the sweet
and bitter memories of a soldier and borderer of the old colonial time and
war opened to the large, dark eyes of the child; memoirs of French

RUFUS CIIO ATE. 399

and Indians stealing up to the very place where the story was telling ;
of men shot down at the plough, within sight of the old log house; of
the massacre at Fort William Henry; of Stark, of Howe, of Wolfe,
falling in the arms of victory; and then of the next age, its grander
scenes and higher names; of the father's part at Bennington and
White Plains; of Lafayette and Washington; and then of the Con-
stitution, just adopted, and the first President, just inaugurated, wi'.h
services of public thanksgiving to Almighty God, and the Union, jtut
sprung inro life, all radiant as morning, harbinger and promise of
a brighter day. We have heard how in that season he bought
and first read the Constitution on the cotton handkerchief. The
small cannon, I think his biographers say, was the ominous plaything
of Napoleon's childhood. But this incident reminds us rather of the
youthful Luther, astonished and kindling over the first Latin Bible
he ever saw — or the still younger Pascal, permitted to look into the
Euclid, to whose sublimities an irresistible nature had secretly at-
tracted him. Long before his fourteenth year, the mother first, and
then the father, and the teachers, and the schools, and the. little
neighborhood, had discovered an extraordinary hope in the boy — a
purpose, a dream, not yet confessed, of giving him an education be-
gan to be cherished, and in May, 1796, at the age of a little more than
fourteen he was sent to Exeter. I have myself heard a gentleman,
long a leader of the Essex bar and eminent in the public life, now no
more, who was then a pupil at the school, describe his large frame,
superb face, immature manners and rustic dress, surmounted with a
student's gown when he first came; and say, too, how soon and uni-
versally his capacity was owned. WTho does not wish that the glorious
Buekminster could have foreseen and witnessed the whole greatness, but
certainly the renown of eloquence, which was to come to the young
stranger, who, choking, speechless, the great fountain of feelings sealed
as yet, he tried in vain to encourage to declaim before the unconscious,
bright tribes of the school ? The influences of Exeter on him were ex-
cellent, but his stay was brief. In the winter of 1796 he was at
home again, and in February, 1797, he was placed under the private
tuition, and in the family of R.ev. Mr. Wood, of Boscowen. It .was
on the way with his father to the house of Mr. Wood that he first
heard with astonishment, that the parental love and good sense had
resolved on the sacrifice of giving him an education at college. " I
remember," he writes, " the very hill we were ascendinir, through deep
snows, in a New England sleigh, when my father made his purpose
known to me. I could not speak. How could he, I thought, with so
large a family and in such narrow circumstances, think of incurring so
great an expense for me? A warm glow ran all over me, and I laid
my head on my father's shoulder and wept." That speechlessness,
that glow, those tears reveal to us what his memory and consciousness
could hardly do to him, that already, somewhere, at some hour of day

4°o AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

•
or evening or night, as he read some page, or heard some narrative,
or saw some happier schoolfellow set off from Exeter to begin his
college life, the love of intellectual enjoyment, the ambition of intel-
lectual supremacy had taken hold of him; that when or how he knew
not, but before he was aware of it, the hope of obtaining a liberal
education and leading a professional life had come to be his last thought
before he slept, his first when he awoke, and to shape his dreams.
Behold in them, too, his whole future. That day, that hour, that
very moment, from the deep snows of that slow hill he set out on the
long ascent that bore him — "no step backward" — to the high places
of the world ! He remained under the tuition of Mr. Wood until
August, 1796, and then entered this college, where he was, at the end
of the full term of four years, graduated in 1801. Of that college life
you can tell me more than I can tell you. It is the universal evidence
that it was distinguished by exemplary demeanor, by reverence for
religion; respect for instructors, and observance of law. We hear from
all sources, too, that it was distinguished by assiduous and various
studies. With the exception of one or two branches for which his
imperfect preparation had failed to excite a taste, he is reported to
have addressed himself to the prescribed tasks, and to have availed
himself of the whole body of means. of liberal culture appointed by
the government, with decorum and conscientiouness and zeal We
hear more than this. The whole course of traditions concerning his
college life Is full to prove two facts. The first is, that his reading,
general and various far beyoud the requirements of the faculty, or the
average capacity of that stage of the literary life, was not solid and
useful merely, which is vague commendation, but it was such as pre-
dicted and educated the future statesman. In English litetature, it
finer parts, its poetry and tasteful reading, I mean, he had read much
rather than many things, but he had read somewhat. That a ycmg
man of his emotional nature, full of eloquent feeling, the germs of a
fine taste, the ear for the music of words, the eye for all beauty and
all sublimity, already in extraordinary measure his, already practising
the art of composition, speech, and criticism, should have recreated
himself, as we know he did, with Shakespeare, and Pope, and Addison;
with the great romance of Defoe; with the more recent biographies of
Johnson, and his grand imitations of Juvenal; with the sweet and re-
fined simplicity and abstracted observation of Goldsmith, minglec
with sketches of homefelt delight; with the elegy of Gray, whose
solemn touches soothed the thoughts or test the consciousness of the
last hour; with the vigorous originality of then recent Cowper, whom he
quoted when he came home, as it proved, to die — this we should ha^.
expected. But I have heard, and believe, that it was to another insti
tution, more austere and characteristic, that Ins own mind was irresti-
bly and instinctively, even then attracted. The conduct of what Locke
calls the human understanding; the limits of human knowledge; the

RUFUS CIIO ATE. 401

means of coming to the knowledge of the different classes of truth; the
laws of thought; the science of proofs, which is logic; the science of
morals; the facts of history; the spirit of laws; the conduct and aims of
reasoning in politics — these were the strong meat that announced
and began to train the great political thinker and reasoner of a later
day.

I have heard that he might oftener be found in some solitary seat or
walk, with a volume of " Gordon's," or Ramsay's "Revolution," or of
the " Federalist," or of " Hume's History of England," or of his
essavs, or of Grotius, or Puffendorf, or Cicero, or Montesquieu, or
Locke, or Burke, than with "' Virgil," or " Shakespeare," or the " Spec-
tator." Of the history of opinions, in the department of philosophy,
he was already a curious student. The oration he delivered before
the United Fraternity, when he was graduated, treated that topic of
opinion, under some aspects, as I recollect from once reading the
manuscript, with copiousness, judgment and enthusiasm; and some of
his ridicule of the Berkleian theory of the non-existence of matter, I
well remember, anticipated the sarcasm of a later day on a currency
all metallic, and on nullification as a strictly constitutional remedy.

The other fact as wel1 established by all we can gather of his life in
college is, that the faculty, so transcendent afterwards, of moving the
minds of men by speech, was already developed and effective in a re-
markable degree. Always there is a best writer and speaker or two
in college, but this stereotyped designation seems wholly inadequate
to convey the impression he made in his time. Many, now alive,
have said that some of his performances, having regard to his youth,
his objects, his topics, his audience — one on the celebration of inde-
pendence, one a eulogy on a student much beloved — produced an
instant effect, and left a recollection, to which nothing else could be
compared; which could be felt and admitted only, not explained, but
which now they know were the first sweet tones of the inexplicable but
delightful influence of that voice, unconfirmed as yet, and unassured,
whose more consummate expression charmed and suspended the soul
of a nation. To read these essays now disappoints you somewhat. As
Quintillian says of Hortensius, Apparet placuisse a liquid eo dicente
quod legentes non invenitnus. Some spell there was in the spoken
word which the reader misses. To find the secret of that spell, you
must recall the youth of Webster. Beloved fondly, and appreciated ■
by that circle, as much as by any audience, larger, more exacting, morv."
various and more fit, which afterwards he found anywhere; known to
be manly, just, pure, generous, affectionate; known and felt by his
strong will, his high aims, his commanding character, his uncommon
and difficult studies; he had every heart's warmest good wish with him
when he rose; and then, when, unchecked by any very severe theory
of taste, unoppressed by any dread of saying something incompatible
wiih his place and fame, or unequal to himself, he just unlocked the

40 2 A ME RICA N PA TRIG TISM.

deep spring of that eloquent feeling, which, in connection with his
power of mere intellect, was such a stupendous psychological mystery,
and gave heart and soul, not to the conduct of an argument, or the
investigation and display of a truth of the reason, but to a fervid,
beautiful, and prolonged emotion, to grief, to eulogy, to the patriotism
of scholars — why need we doubt or" wonder, as they looked on that
presiding brow, the aye large, sa-i, unworldly, incapable to be fathomed,
the lip and chin, whose firmness as of chiseled, perfect marble, pro-
foundest sensibility alone caused ever to tremble, why wonder at the
traditions of the charm which they owned; and the fame which they
even then predicted ?

His college life closed in 1801. For the statement that he had
thought of selecting the profession of theology, the surviving mem-
bers of his family, his son and his brother-in-law, assure me that there
is no foundation. Certainly he began at once the study of the law,
and interrupted only by the necessity of teaching an academy a few
months, with which he united the recreation of recording deeds, he
prosecuted it at Salisbury in the office of Mr. Thompson, and at Bos-
ton in the office of Mr. Gore, until March, 1805, when, resisting the
sharp temptation of a clerkship, and an annual salary of fifteen hun-
dred dollars, he was admitted to the bar.

Av;d so he has put on the robe of manhood, and has come to do the
work of life. Of his youth there is no need to say more. It had
been pure, happy, strenuous; in many things privileged. The influ-
ence of home, of his father, and the excellent mother, and thai noble
brother, whom he loved so dearly, and mourned with such sorrow — -
these influences on his heart, principles, will, aims, were elevated
and strong at an early age, comparatively, the then great distinction
of liberal education was his. His collegee life wTas brilliant and with-
out a stain; and in moving his admission to the bar, Mr. Gore pre-
sented him as one of extraordinary promise.

VV !tn prospects bright, upon the world he came—
Pure love of virtue, -strong- desire of fame :
Men watched the way his lofty mind would take.
And all foretold the progress he would make.

And yet, if on some day, as that season was drawing to its close,
it had been foretold to him, that before his life — prolonged to little
more than three score years and ten — should end, he should see that
country, in which he was coming to act his part, expanded across a
continent; the thirteen states of 1S01 multiplied to thirty-one; the
territory of the Northwest and the great valley below sown full of
those stars of empire; the Mississippi forded, and the Sabine, and Rio
Grande, and the Nueces; the ponderous gates of the Rocky Mount-
ains opened to shut no more; the great tranquil sea become our sea;
her area seven times larger, her people five times more in number;
that through all experiences of trial, the madness of party, the in-

JRUFUS CIIO ATE. 4°3

justice of foreign powers, the vast enlargement of her t orders, the
antagonisms of interior interest and feeling — the spirit of nationality-
would grow stronger still and more plastic; that the tide of American
feeling would run ever fuller; that her agriculture would grow more
scientific; her arts more various and instructed, and better rewarded;
her commerce winged to a wider and still wider flight; that the part
she would play in human affairs would grow nobler ever, and more
recognized; that in this vast growth of national greatness time would
be found for the higher necessities of the soul; that her popular and
her higher education would go on advancing; that her charities and
all her enterprises of philanthropy would go on enlarging; that her
age of lettered glory should find its auspicious dawn — and then it had
been also foretold him that even so, with her growth and strength,
should his fame grow and be established and cherished, there where
she should garner up her heart; that by long gradations of service and
labor he should rise to be, before he should taste of death, of the
peerless among her great ones; that he should win the double honor,
and wear the double wreath of professional and public supremacy;
that he should become her wisest to counsel and her most eloquent to
persuade; that he should come to be called the Defender of the Con-
stitution and the preserver of honorable peace; that the "austere
glory of suffering" to save the Union should be his; that his death,
at the summit of greatness, on the verge of a ripe and venerable age,
should be distinguished, less by the flags at half-mast on ocean and
lake, less by the minute-guns, less by the public procession, and the
appointed eulogy, than by sudden paleness over-spreading all faces,
by gushing tears, by sorrow, thoughtful, boding, silent, the sense of
desolateness, as if renown and grace were dead— as if the hunter's
path, and the sailor's in the great solitude of wilderness or sea, hence-
foreward were more lonely and less safe than before — had this pre-
diction been whispered, how calmly had that perfect sobriety of mind
put it all aside as a pernicious or idle dream ! Yet in the fulfilment
of that prediction is told the remaining story of his life.

It does not come within the plan which I have marked out for this
discourse to repeat the incidents of that subsequent history. The
mpre conspicuous are known to you and the whole American world.
Minuter details the time does not permit, nor the occasion require.
Some quite general views of what he became and achieved; some at-
tempt to appreciate that intellectual power, and force of will, and
elaborate culture, and that power of eloquence, so splendid and re-
markable, by which he wrought his work; some tributes to the en-
dearing and noble parts of his character; and some attempt to vindi-
cate the political morality by which his public life was guided, even to
its last great act, are all that I propose, and much more than I can hope
worthily to accomplish.

In coming, then, to consider what he became and achieved, I have

404 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

always thought it was not easy to lay too much stress, in the first
place, on that realization of what might have been regarded incom-
patible forms of superiority, and that exemplification of what might
have been regarded incompatible gifts or acquirements — " rare in their
separate excellence, wonderful in their special combination" — which
meet us in him everywhere. Remark first that evidence — rare, if not
unprecedented — of the first rate, in the two substantially distinct and
unkindred professions — that of the law and that of public life. In
surveying that ultimate and finished greatness in which he stands be-
fore you in his full stature and at his best, this double and blended
eminence is the first thing that fixes the eye, and the last. When he
died, he was first of American lawyers, and first of American states-
men. In both characters he continued — discharging the foremost
part in each — down to the falling of the awful curtain. Both charac-
ters he kept distinct — the habits of mind, the forms of reasoning, the
nature of the proofs, the style of eloquence. Neither hurt nor changed
the other. How much his understanding was "quickened and invig-
orated " by the law, I have often heard him acknowledge and explain.
But how, in spite of the law, was that mind, by other felicity and
other culture, " opened and liberalized" also? How few of what are
called the intellectual bad habits of the bar he carried into the duties of
statesmanship ! His interpretations of the Constitution and of treat-
ies ; his expositions of public law — how little do you find in them,
where, if anywhere, you would expect it, of the mere ingenuity, the
moving of " vermiculate questions," the word-catching, the scholastic
subtlety, which, in the phrase of his memorable quotation —

"Can sever and divide
A hair, twixt north and north-west side."

Ascribed by satire to the profession; and how much of its truer func-
tion, and nobler power of calling history, language, the moral senti-
ments, reason, common sense, the high spirit of magnanimous
nationality to the search of truth! How little do we find in his
pontics of another bad habit of the profession, the worst " idol of the
cave!" a morbid, unreasoning, and regretful passion for the past, that
bends and weeps over the stream, running irreversibly, because it
will not return, and will not pause, and gives back to vanity every
hour a changed and less beautiful face! We ascribe :o him certainly
a sober and conservative habit of mind, and such he had. Such a
habit the study and practice of the law doubtless does not impair.
But his was my Lord Bacon's conservatism. He held with him,
"that antiquity deserves this reverence, that men should make a
stand thereupon, and discover what is the bast way ; but when the
discovery is well tak.n, then to make progression." He would keep
the Union according to the Consiitution, not as a relic, a memorial,
a tradition — not for what it has done, though that kindled his grati-

£CI-C\S CIIO ATE. 405

tude and excited his admiration — but for what it is now and hereafter
to do, when adapted by a wise practical philosophy to a wider and
higher area, to larger numbers, to severer and more glorious proba-
tion. Who better than he has grasped and displayed the advancing
tendencies and enlarging duties of America ? Who has caught — whose
eloquenee, whose genius, whose counsels, have caught more
adequately the genuine inspiration of our destiny? Who has better
expounded by what moral and prudential policy, "by what improved
culture of heart and reason, by what true worship of God, by what
good faith to all other nations, the dangers of that destiny may be
disarmed, and its large promise laid hold on ?

And while the lawyer did not hurt the statesman, the statesman
did not hurt the lawyer. More ; the statesman did not modify, did
not unrobe, did not tinge, the lawyer. It would not be to him that
the epigram could have application, where the old Latin satirist
makes the client complain that his lawsuit is concerning tres capelhe
— three kids ; and that his advocate, with large disdain of them, is
haranguing with loud voice and both hands, about the slaughters of
Cannae, the war of Mithridates, the perjuries of Hannibal. I could
never detect that in his discussions of law he did not just as much
recognize authority, just as anxiously seek for adjudications old and
new in his favor, just as closely sift them and collate them, that he
might bring them to his side if he could, or leave them ambiguous and
harmless if he could not ; that he did not just as rigorously observe
the peculiar mode which that science employs in passing from the
known to the unknown, the peculiar logic of the law, as if he had
never investigated any other than legal truth by any other organon
than legal logic in his life. Peculiarities of legal reasoning he cer-
tainly had, belonging to the peculiar structure and vast power of
his mind ; more original thought, more discourse of principles, less of
that mere subtlety of analysis, which is not restrained by good sense,
and the higher power of duiy tempering and combining one trv.th in a
practical science with other truths, from absurdity or mischief, but
still,it was all strict and exact legal reasoning. The long habit of
employing the more popular method, the probable and plausible con-
jectures, the approximations, the compromises of deliberative discus-
sion, did not seem to have left the least trace on his vocabulary, or
his reasonings, or his demeanor. No doubt, as a part of his who'e
culture it helped it to give enlargement and general power and eleva-
tion of mind ; but the sweet stream passed under the bitter sea, the
bitter sea pressed on the sweet stream, and each flowed unmingled,
unchanged in taste or color.

I have said that this double eminence is rare, if not unprecedented.
We do no justice to Mr. Webster, if we do not keep this ever in mind.
How many exemplifications of it do you rind in British public life ?
The Earl of Chatharn, Burke, Fox. Sheridan, Windham, Pitt, Grattan,

406 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

Canning, Peel— were they also, or any one, the acknowledged leader
in Westminster Hair or on the circuit? And, on the other hand.
would you say that the mere parliamentary career of Mansfield, or
Thurlovv, or Dunning, or Erskine, or Camden, or Curran, would com-
pare i a duration, constancy, variety of effort, the range of topics
discussed, the fulness, extent, and affluence of the discussions, the in-
fluence exerted, the space filled, the senatorial Character completely
realized — with his? In our own public life it is easier to find a paral-
lel. Great names crowd on us in each department ; greater, or more
loved, or more venerable, no annals can show. But how few, even
here, have gathered the double wreath, and the blended fame. ,

And now, having observed the fact of this combination of quality
and excellence scarcely compatible, inspect for a moment each by
itse 'f.

The professional life of Mr. Webster began in the spring of 1805.
It may not be said to have ended until he died; but I do not know
that it happened to him to appear in court, for the trial of a cause,
after his argument of the Goodyear patent for improvements in the
preparation of India-rubber, in Trenton, in March, 1852.

There I saw, and last heard him. The thirty-four years which had
elapsed since a member of this college, at home for health, I first
saw and heard him in the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, in the
county of Essex, defending Jackman, accused of the robbery of Good-
rich, had in almost all things changed him. The raven hair, the vig-
orous, full frame and firm tread, the eminent but severe beauty of the
countenance not yet sealed with middle age of man, the exuberant
demonstration of all sorts of power, which so marked him at first— for
these, as once they were, I explored in vain. Yet how far higher was
the interest that attended him now: his sixty-nine )rears robed, as it
were, with honor and with love, with associations of great service
done to the State, and of great fame gathered and safe; and then -the
perfect mastery of the cause in its legal and scientific principles, and
in all its facts; the admirable clearness and order in which his propo-
sitions were advanced successively; the power, the occasional^high
ethical tone, the appropriate eloquence, by which they were made
probable and persuasive to the judicial reason, these announced the
leader of the American bar, with every faculty and every accomplish-
ment by which he had won that proud title, wholly unimpaired; the
eye not dim, nor the natural force abated.

I cannot here and now trace, with any minuteness, the course of
Mr. Webster at the bar during these forty-eight years from the open-
ing of his office in Boscawen; nor convey any impression whatever of
the aggregate of labor which that course imposed; or of the intellect-
ual power which it exacted; nor indicate the stages of his rise; nor
define the ~ime when his position at the summit of the profession may
be said to dave become completely vindicated. You know, in gen-

RUFUS CIIO ATE. 4°7

eral, that he began the practice of the law in New Hampshire in the
spring of 1805; that he prosecuted it, here, in its severest school, with
great diligence, and brilliant success, among competitors of larger ex-
pepence and of consummate ability, until 1816; that he then removed
to Massachusetts, and that there, in the courts of that State, and of
oiher. States, and in those of the general government, and especially in
the Supreme Court sitting at Washington, he pursued it as the calling
by which he was to earn his daily bread, until he died. You know,
indeed, that he did not pursue it exactly as one pursues it who con-
fine's himself to an office; and seeks to do the current and miscellane-
ous business of a single bar. His professional employment, as I have
often heard him say, was very much the preparation of opinions on
important questions, presented from every part of the country; and the
trial of causes. This kind of professional life, allowed him seasonable
vacations; and it accommodated itself somewhat to the exactions of
his other and public life. But it was all one long and continued prac-
tice of the law; the professional character was^ never put off, nor the
professional robe long unworn to the last.

You know, too, his character as a jurist. This topic has been re-
cently and separately treated, with great ability, by one in a high de-
gree competent to the task; the late learned Chief Justice of New
Hampshire, now professor of law at Cambridge; and it needs no ad-
ditional illustration from me. Yet, let me sW, that herein, also, the
first thing which strikes you is the union of diverse, and, as I have
said, what might have been regarded incompatible excellencies. I
shall submit it to the judgment of the universal American bar, if a
carefully prepared opinion of Mr. Webster, on any question of law
whatever in the whole range of our jurisprudence, would not be ac-
cepted everywhere as of the most commanding authority, and as the
highest evidence of legal truth ? I submit it to that same judgment,
if for many years before his death, they would not have rather chosen
to intrust the maintenance and enforcement of any important proposi-
tion of law whatever, before any legal tribunal of character whatever,
to his best exertion of his faculties, than to any other ability which the
whole wealth of the profession could supply ?

And this alone completes the description of a lawyer and a forensic
orator of the first rate ; but it does not complete the description of his
professional character. By the side of all this, so to speak, there was
that whole class of qualities which made him for any description of trial
by jury whatever, criminal or civil, by even a more universal assent,
foremost. For that form of trial no faculty was unused or needless ;
but you were most struck there to see the unrivalled legal reason put
off, as it were, and reappear in the form of a robust common sense and
eloquent feeling, applying itself to an exciting subject of business ; to see
the knowledge of men and life by which the falsehood and veracity of
witnesses, the probabilities and improbabilities of transactions as sworn
A. P.-H.

4°8 AMERICA X PATRIOTISM.

to, were discerned in a moment ; the direct, plain, forcible speech ; the
consummate narrative, a department which he had particularly cultivated,
and in which no man ever excelled him ; the easy and perfect analysis
by which he conveyed his side of the cause to the mind of the jury ; the
occasional gush of strong feeling, indignation, or pity; the masterly,
yet natural way, in which all the moral emotions of which his cause was
susceptible, were called to use, the occasional sovereignty of dictation
to which his convictions seemed spontaneously to rise. His efforts in
trials by jury composed a more traditional and evanescent part of his
professional reputation than his arguments on questions of law : but I
almost think they were his mightiest professional displays, or displays
of any kind, after all.

One such I stood in a relation to witness with a comparatively easy
curiosity, and yet with intimate and professional knowledge of all the
embarrassments of the case. It was the trial of John Francis Knapp,
charged with being present, aiding, and abetting in the murder of
Joseph White, in which Mr. Webster conducted the prosecution for the
commonwealth, in the same year with his reply to Mr. Hayne, in the
Senate and a few months later; and when I bring to mind the incidents
of that trial ; the necessity of proving that the prisoner was near
enough to the chamber in which the murder was being committed
by another hand to aid in the act ; and was there with the intention to
do so, and thus in point of law did aid in it — because mere accessorial
guilt was not enough to convict him \ the difficulty of proving this — ■
because the nearest point to which the evidence could trace him was
still so distant as to warrant a pretty formidable doubt whether mere
curiosity had not carried him thither ; and whether he could in any
useful, or even conceivable manner have co operated with the actual
murderer, if he had intended to do so ; and because the only mode of
rendering it probable that he was there with a purpose of guilt was by
showing that he was one of the parties to a conspiracy of murder,
whose very existence, actors, and objects, had to be made out by the
collation of the widest possible range of circumstances— some of them
pretty loose — and even if he was a conspirator it did not quite neces-
sarily follow that any active participation was assigned to him for his
part, any more than to his brother, who, confessedly, took no such part
— the great number of witnesses to be examined and cross-examined, a
duty devolving wholly on him ; the quick and sound judgment demanded
and supplied to determine what to use and what to reject of a mass of
rather unmanageable materials ; the points in the law of evidence to be
argued — in the course of which he made an appeal to the Bench on the
complete impunity which the rejection of the prisoner's confession would
give to the murder, in a style of dignity and energy, I should rather say
of grandeur, which I never heard him equal before or after ; the high
ability and fidelity with which every part of the defense was
conducted ; and the final summing up, to which he brought, and in

KUFUS CHOATE. 409

which he needed, the utmost exertion of every faculty he possessed to
persuade the jury that the obligation of that duty, the s.ense of which,
he said, " pursued us ever : it is omnipresent like the Ueity : if we
take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the
sea, duty performed or duty violated is still with us for our happiness or
misery" — to persuade them that this obligation demanded that on his
proofs they should convict the prisoner : to which he brought first the pro-
found belief of his guilt, without which he could not have prosecuted him;
then skill, consummate in inspiring them with a desire or a willingness to
be instrumental in detecting that guilt ; and to lean on him in the effort
to detect it ; then every resource of professional ability to break the force
of the propositions of the defense, and to establish the truth of his own ;
inferring a conspiracy to which the prisoner was a party, from circum-
stances acutely ridiculed by the able counsel opposing him as "Stuff,"
but woven by him into strong and uniform tissue, and then bridging
over from the conspiracy to the not very necessary inference that the
particular conspirator on trial was at his post, in execution of it — to aid
and abet — the picture of the murder with which he began — not for
rhetorical display, but to inspire solemnity and horror, and a desire to
detect and punish for justice and for security ; the sublime exhortation
to duty with which he closed — resting on the universality, and authori-
tativeness, and eternity of its obligation — which left in every juror's
mind the impression that it was the duty of convicting in this particular
case, the sense of which would be with him in the hour of death, and m
the judgment, and forever — with these recollections of that trial I cannot
help thinking it a more difficult and higher effort of mind than that more
famous " oration for the crown."

It would be not unpleasing nor inappropriate to pause, and recall the
names of some of that succession of competitors by whose rivalry the
several stages of his professional life were honored and exercised ; and
of some of the eminent judicial persons who presided over that various
and high contention. Time scarcely permits this ; but in the briefest
notice I must take occasion to say that perhaps the most im-
portant influence— certainly the most important early influence —
on his professional traits and fortunes, was that exerted by the great
general abilities, impressive character, and legal genius of Mr. Mason.
Who he was you all know. How much the jurisprudence of New
Hampshire owes to him ; what deep traces he left on it ; how much he 3
did to promote the culture, and to preserve the integrity of the old
commen law, to adapt it to your wants, and your institutions, and to
construct a system of practice by which it was administered with extra-
ordinary energy aud effectiveness for the discovery of truth, and the en-
forcement of right ; you of the legal profession of this state will ever be
proud to acknowledge. Another forum in aneighboring commonweal th,
witnessed and profited by the last labors, and enlarged studies of the
consummate lawyer and practise* ; and at an early day the Senate, the

4TO AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

country, had recognized his vast practical wisdom and sagacity, the fruit
of the highest, intellectual endowments, matured thought, and profound
observation ; his fidelity to the obligations of that party connection to
which he was attached ; his fidelity through all his life, still more
conspicuous, and still more admirable, to the higher obligations of a
considerate and enlarged patriotism. He had been more than fourteen
years at the bar, when Mr. Webster came to it ; he discerned instantly
what manner of man his youthful competitor was j he admitted him to
his intimate friendship ; and paid him the unequivocal compliment, and
did him the real kindness of compelling him to the utmost exertion of
his diligence and capacity by calling out against him all his own.
"The proprieties of this occasion," these' are Mr. Webster s words in
presenting the resolution of the Suffolk bar upon Mr. Mason's death,
compel me, with whatever reluctance, to refrain from the indulgence of
the personal feelings which arise in my heart upon the death of one with
whom I have cultivated a sincere, affectionate, and unbroken friendship
from the day when I commenced my own professional career to the
closing hour of his life. I will not say of the advantages which I have
derived from his intercourse and conversation all that Mr. Fox said of
Edmund Burke, but I am bound to say, that of my own professional dis-
cipline and attainments, whatever they may be, I owe much to that close
attention to the discharge of my duties which I was compelled to pay
for nine successive years, from day to day, by Mr. Mason's efforts and
arguments at the same bar. I must have been unintelligent indeed, not
to have learned something from the constant displays of that power
which I had so much occasion to see and feel.

I reckon next to his, for the earlier time of his life, the influence
of the learned and accomplished Smith; and next to these — some may
believe greater — is that of Mr. Justice Story. That extraordinary per-
son had been admitted to the bar in Essex in Massachusetts in 1S01;
and he was engaged in many trials in the county of Rockingham in
this state before Mr. Webster had assumed his own established posi-
tion. Their political opinions differed; but such was his affluence of
knowledge already; such his stimulant enthusiasm; he was burning
with so incredible a passion for learning, and fame, that the influence
on the still young Webster was instant; and it was great and perma-
nent. It was reciprocal too; and an intimacy began that attended the
whole course of honor through which each, in his several sphere, as-
cended. Parsons he saw, also, but rarely; and Dexter oftener, and
with more nearness of observation, while yet laying the foundation of
his own mind and character; and he shared largely in the universal
admiration of that time and of this, of their attainments, and genius,
and diverse greatness.

As he came to the grander practice of the national bar, other com-
petition was to be encountered. Other names begin to solicit us; other
contention; higher prizes. It would be quite within the proprieties of

RUFUS CHOATE. 411

this discourse to remember the parties, at least, to some of the higher
causes, by which his ultimate professional fame was built up; even if
I could not hope to convey any impression of the novelty and diffi-
culty of the questions which they involved, or of the positive addition
which the argument and judgment made to the treasures of our con-
stitutional and general jurisprudence. But there is only one of which
I have time to say anything, and that is the case which established the
inviolability of the charter of Dartmouth College by the Legislature of
the State of New Hampshire. Acts of the Legislature, passed in the
year 18 16, had invaded its charter. A suit was brought to test their
validity. It was tried in the Supreme Court of the state; a judgment
was given against the college, and this was appealed to the Supreme
Federal Court by writ of error. Upon solemn argument the charter
was decided to be a contract whose obligation a state may not impair;
the acts were decided to be invalid as an attempt to impair it, and you
hold your charter under that decision to-day. How much Mr. Web-
ster contributed to that result, how much the effort advanced his own
distinction at the bar, you all know. Well, as if of yesterday, I re-
member how it was written home from Washington, that " Mr. Web-
ster closed a legal argument of great power by a peroration which
charmed and melted his audience." Often since I have heard vague
accounts, not much more satisfactory, of the speech and the scene.
I was aware that the report of his argument, as it was published, did
not contain the actual peroration, and I supposed it lost forever. By
the great kindness of a learned and excellent person, Doctor Chauncy
A. Goodrich, a professor in Yale College, with whom I had not the
honor of acquaintance, although his virtues, accomplishments, and
most useful life, were well known to me, I can read to you the words
whose power, when those lips spoke them, so many owned, although
they could not repeat them. As those lips spoke them, we shall hear
them nevermore, but no utterance can extinguish their simple, sweet
and perfect beauty. Let me first bring the general scene before you,
and then you will hear the rest in Mr. Goodrich's description. It
was in 1S18, in the thirty-seventh year of Mr. Webster's age. It was
addressed to a tribunal presided over by Marshall, assisted by
Washington, Livingston, Johnson, Story, Todd and Duvall — a tribu-
nal unsurpassed on earth in all that gives illustration to a bench of
law, and sustained and venerated by a noble bar. He had called to
his aid the ripe and beautiful culture of Hopkinson; and of his oppo-
nents was William Wirt, then and ever of the leaders of the bar, who
with faculties and accomplishments fitting him to adorn and guide pub-
lic life, abounding in deep professional learning, and in the most
various and elegant acquisitions — a ripe and splendid orator, made so
by genius and the most assiduous culture — consecrated all to the ser-
vice of the law. It was before that tribunal, and in the presence of an
audience select and critical, among whom, it is to be borne in mind,

412 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

were some graduates of the college, who were attending to assist
against her, that he opened the cause. I gladly proceed to give- the
words of Mr. Goodrich.

" Before going to Washington, which I did chiefly for the sake of
hearing Mr. Webster, I was told that, in arguing the case at Exeter,
New Hampshire, he had left the whole court-room in tears at the con-
clusion of his speech. This, I confess, struck me unpleasantly — -any
attempt at pathos on a purely legal question like this, seemed har.Jy
in good taste. On my way to Washington I made the acquaintance of
Mr. Webster. We were together for several days in Philadelphia, at
the house of a common friend; and as the college question was orte
of deep interest to literary men, we conversed often and largely on
the subject. As he dwelt upon the leading points of the case, in terms
so calm, simple and precise, I said to myself more than once, in ref-
erence to the story I had heard, whatever may have seemed appro-
priate in defending the college at home, and on her own ground, there
will be ho appeal to the feelings of Judge Marshall and his associates
at Washington. The Supreme Court of the United States held its ses-
sion that winter in a mean apartment of moderate size, the Capitol
not having been built after its destruction in 1S14. The audience,
when the case came on, was therefore small, consisting chiefly of legal
men, the elite of the profession throughout the country. Mr. Webster
entered upon his argument in the calm tone of easy and dignified con-
versation. His matter was so completely at his command that he
scar;ely looked at his brief, but went on for more than four hours witn
a st ?tement so luminous, and a chain of reasoning so easy to be un-
der iood, and yet approaching so nearly to absolute demonstration,
that he seemed to carry with him every man of his audience without
the slightest effort or weariness on either side. It was hardly elo-
quence, in the strict sense of the term; it was pure reason. Now and
then, for a sentence or two, his eye flashed and his voice swelled into
a bolder note, as he uttered some emphatic thought; but he instantly
fell back into the tone of earnest conversation which ran throughout
the great body of his speech. A single circumstance will show you the
clearness and absorbing power of his argument.

" I observed that Judge Story, at the opening of the case had pre-
pared himself, pen in hand, as if to take copious minutes. Hour after
hour I saw him fixed in the same attitude, but, so far as I could per-
ceive, with not a note on his paper. The argument closed, and I
could not discover that he had taken a single note. Others around
me remarked the same thing, and it was among the on dits of Wash-
ington that a friend spoke to him of the fact with surprise, when the
judge remarked, ' every thing was so clear, and so easy to remember,
that not a note seemed necessary, and, in fact, I thought little or
nothing about my notes.'

"The argument ended. Mr. Webster stood for some moments

RUFUS CIIO ATE. 413

silent before the court, while every eye was fixed intently upon him.
At length, addressing the Chief Justice, Marshall, he proceeded thus:
4 This, sir, is my case ! It is the case not merely of that humble in-
stitution; it is the case of every college in our land. It is more. It
is the case of every eleemosynary institution throughout our country
— of all those great charities founded by the piety of our ancestors to
alleviate human misery and scatter blessings along the pathway of life.
It is more ! It is, in some sense, the case of every man among us.
who has property of which he may be stripped, for the question is
simply this: Shall our State Legislatures be allowed to take that which
is not their own, to turn it from its original use, and apply it to such
end and purposes as they, in their discretion shall see fit !

" ' Sir, you may destroy this little institution; it is wtak; it is in your
hands ! I know it is one of the lesser lights in the literary horizon of
our country.. You may put it out. But if you do so, you must carry
through your work ! You must extinguish, one after another, all those
great lights of science which* for more than a century, have thrown
their radience over our land.

" ' It is, sir, as I have said, a small college. And yet, there are those
who love it '• — here the feelings which he had thus far succeeded in keepr
ing down, broke forth. His lips quivered; his firm cheek trembled
with emotion ; his eyes were filled with tears, his voice choked, and he
seemed struggling to the utmost simply to gain that mastery over him-
self which might save him from an unmanly burst of feeling. I will
not attempt to give you the few broken words of tenderness in which
he went on to speak of his attachment to the college. The whole
seemed to be mingled throughout with recollections of father, mother,
brother, and all the trials and privations through which he had made
his way into life. Every one saw that it was wholly unpremeditated,
and a pressure on his heart, which sought relief in words and tears.

"The court-room during these two, or three minutes presented an
extraordinary spectacle. Chief Justice Marshall, with his tall and
gaunt figure bent over as if to catch the slightest whisper, the deep fm>
rows on his cheek expanded with emotion, and eyes suffused with tears;
Mr. Justice Washington at his side, with his small and emaciated frame
and countenance more like marble than I ever saw on any other
human being — leaning forward with an eager, troubled look ; and the
remainder of the court, at the two extremities, pressing as it were,
toward a single point, while the audience below were wrapping them-
selves round in closer folds beneath the bench to catch each look, and
every movement of the speaker's face. If a painter could give us the
scene on canvas — those forms and countenances, and Daniel Webster
as he then stood in the midst; it would be one of the most touching
pictures in the history of eloquence. One thing it taught me, that the
pathetic depends not merely on the words uttered, but still more on
the estimate wTc put upon him who utters them. There was not one

4r4 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

among the strong minded men of that assembly who could think it
unmanly to weep, when he saw standing before him the man who had
made such an argument, melted into the tenderness of- a child.

" Mr. Webster had now recovered his.composurc, and fixing his keen
eye on the Chief Justice, said, in that deep tone with which he some-
times thrilled the heart of an audience : —

" ' Sir, I know not how others may feel (glancing at the opponents of
the college before him), but for myself, when I see my alma mater
surrounded like Caesar in the Senate House, by those who are reiter-
ating stab upon stab, I would not for this right hand, have her turn
to me, and say, et tu quoque, mi fill ! and thou, too, my son ! — He sat
down.' There was a deathlike stillness throughout the room for some
moments; every one seemed to be slowly recovering himself, and
coming gradually back to his ordinary range of thought and feeling."

It was while Mr. Webster was ascending through the long gradations
of the legal profession to its highest rank, that by a parallel series of dis-
play on a stage, and in parts totally distinct, by other studies, thoughts,
and actions, he rose also to be at his death the first of American states-
men. The last of the mighty rivals was dead before him, and he stood
alone. Give this aspect also of his greatness a passing glance. His
public life began in May, 1813, in the House of Representatives in
Congress, to which this state had elected him. It ended when he died.
If you except the interval between his removal from New Hampshire
and his election in Massachusetts, it was a public life of forty years.
By what political morality and by what enlarged patriotism, embracing
the whole country, that life was guided, I shall consider hereafter. Let
me now fix your attention rather on the magnitude and variety and
actual value of the service. Consider that from he day he went upon
the Committee of Foreign Relations, in 18 13, in the time of war, and
more and more, the longer he lived and the higher he rose, he was a
man whose great talents and devotion to public duty placed and kept
him in a position of associated or sole command ; command in the
political connection to which he belonged, command in opposition,
command in power, and appreciate the responsibilities which that
implies, what care, what prudence, what mastery of the whole ground
— exacting for the conduct of a party, as Gibbon says of Fox, abilities
and civil discretion equal to the conduct of an empire. Consider the
work he did in that life of forty years — the range of subjects investi-
gated and discussed ; composing the whole theory and practice of our
organic and administrative politics, foreign and domestic; the vast
body of instructive thought he produced and put in possession of the
country; how much he achieved in Congress as well as at the bar, to
fix the true interpretation, as well as to impress the transcendent value
of the constitution itself, as much altogether as any jurist or statesman
since its adoption. How much to establish in the general mind, the
great doctrine that the government of the United States is a govern-

RUFUS CIIO ATE. 4*5

ment proper, established by the people of the states, not a compact
between sovereign communities, — that within its limits it is supreme,
and that whether it is within its limits or not, in any given exertion of
itself, is to be determined by the Supreme Court of the United States—
the ultimate arbiter in the last resort — from which there is_no appeal
but to revolution; how much he did in the course of th- \titS ~--'~Aov\s
which grew out of the proposed mission to Panama, aau, at a later
da)T, out of the removal of the deposits, to place the executive depart-
ment of the government on its true basis, and under its true limita-
tions, to secure to that department all its just powers en the one
hand, and on the other hand to vindicate to the legislative depart-
ment, and especially to the Senate, all that belongs to them to arrest
the tendencies which he thought at one" time threatened to substi-
tute the government of a single will, of a single person of great
force of character and boundless popularity, and of a numerical
majority of the people, told by the head, without intermediate institu-
tions of any kind, judicial or senatorial, in place of the elaborate
system of checks and balances, by which the Constitution aimed at a
government of jaws and not of men; how much attracting less popular
attention, but scarcely less important, to complete the great work
which experience had shown to be left unfinished by the judiciary act
cf 1789, by providing for the punishment of all crimes against the
United States. How much for securing a safe currenc}*- and a true
financial system, not only by the promulgation of sound opinions, but
by good specific measures adopted, or bad ones defeated. How much
to develop the vast material resources of the country, and to push
forward the planting of the West — not troubled by any fear of exhaust-
ing old States — by a liberal policy of public lands, by vindicating the
constitutional power of Congress to make or aid in making large classes
"of internal improvements, and by acting on that doctrine uniformly
from 1 Si 3, whenever a road was to be built, or a rapid suppressed, or
a canal to be opened, or a breakwater or a lighthouse set up above or
below the flow of the tide, if so far beyond the ability of a single
state, or of so wTide utility to commerce and labor as to rise to the rank
of a work general in its influences — another tie of union, because
another proof of the beneficence of union. How much to protect the
vast mechanical and manufacturing interests of the country, a value
of many hundreds of millions — after having lured into existence
against his counsels, against his science of political economy, by a
policy of artificial encouragement — from being sacrificed, and the pur-
suits and plans of large regions and communities broken up. r.nd the
acquired skill of the country squandered by a sudden and < -vprxious
withdrawal of the promise of the Government. How much for the right
performance of the most delicate and difficult of all tasks, ih'o ordering
of the foreign affairs of a nation, free, sensitive, self-concciour-, recog-
nizing it is true, public law and a morality of the State, bihilih'g On the

4i'6-

AM ERIC AN PA TRIOTISM.

conscience of the State, yet aspiring to power, eminence, and com-
mand, its whole frame filled full and all on fire with American feeling,
sympathetic with liberty everywhere. How much for the right ordering
of the foreign affairs of such a State— aiming in all his policy, from his
speech on the Greek question in 1823, to- his letters to M. Hulsemann
in iSj^'^'o'CCUpy the high, plain, yet dizzy ground which separates
influence u^'n intervention, to avow and promulgate warm good will
to humanity, ^wherever striving to be free, to inquire authentically into
the history of its struggles, to take official and avowed pains to ascer-
tain the moment when its success may be recognized: consistently, ever,
with the great code that keeps the peace of the world, abstaining from
everything which shall give any nation a right under the law of nations
to utter one word of complaint, still less to retaliate by war, the sym-
pathy, but also the neutrality, of Washington. How much to compose
with honor concurrence of «. ifficulties with the first power in the world,
which anything less than the highest degree of discretion, firmness,
ability, and means of commanding respect and confidence at home and
abroad Would inevitably have conducted to the last calamity— a disputed
boundary line of many hundred miles from the St. Croix to the Rocky
Mountains, which divided an exasperated and impracticable border
population, enlisted the pride and affected the interests and controlled
the politics of particular States, as well as pressed on the peace and
honor of the nation, which the most popular administrations of the
era of the quietest and best public feelings, the times of Munroe and of
Jackson, could not adjust, which had grown so complicated with other
topics of excitement that one false step right or left, would have been
a step down a precipice — this line settled forever; the claim of England
to search our ships for the suppression of the slave trade silenced for-
ever, and a new engagement entered into by treaty, binding the
national faith to contribute the specific naval force for putting an end
to the great crime of man — the long practice of England to enter an
American ship and impress from its crew, terminated forever, the deck
henceforth guarded sacredly and completely by the flag. How much by
profound discernment, by eloquent speech, by devoted life to strengthen
the ties of union, and breathe the fine and strong spirit of nationality
through all our numbers. How much, most of all, last of all, after the
war with Mexico — needless if his counsels had governed — had ended in
so vast an acquisition of territory, in presenting to the two great anta-
gonistic sections of our country so vast an area to enter on, so imperial *
a prize to contend for, and the accursed fraternal strife had begun;
how much then, when, rising to the measure of a true, and difficult and
rare greatness, remembering that he had a country to save as well as
a local constituency to gratify, laying all the wealth, all the hopes, of
an illustrious life on the altar of a hazardous patriotism, he sought and
won the more exceeding glory which now attends — which in the next
age shall more conspicuously attend — his name who composes an

RUFC5 CIIO ATE. 4*7

agitated and saves a sinking land — recall this series of conduct and
influences, study them carefully in their facts and results — the reading
of years, and you attain to a true appreciation of this aspect of his
greatness — his public character and life,

For such a review the eulogy of an hour has no room. Such a task
demands research, details, proofs, illustrations; a long labor — a volume
of history composed according to her severest laws — setting down
nothing, depreciating nothing in malignity to the dead; suppressing
nothing and falsifying nothing in adulation of the dead, professing
fidelity incorrupt — -unswervedby hatred or by love, yet able to measure,
able toglow, in the contemplation of a true greatness and a vast and
varied and useful public life; such a history as the genius and judg-
ment and delicate private and public morality of Everett — assisted by
his perfect knowledge of the facts — not disqualified by his long friend-
sh p unchilled to the last hour— such a history as he might construct.

Two or three suggestions, occurring on the most general observa-
tion of this aspect of his eminence, you will tolerate as I leave the
topic.

Remark how very large a proportion of all this class of his acts are
wholly beyond, and outside, of the profession of the law; demanding
studies, experience, a turn of mind, a cast of qualities and character,
such as that profession neither gives, nor exacts. Some single
speeches in Congress of consummate ability, have been made by great
lawyers, drawing for the purpose only on the learning, accomplish-
ments, logic, and eloquence of the forum. Such was Chief Jus-
tice, then Mr., Marshall's argument in the case of Jonathan Robbins —
turning on the interpretation of a treaty, and the constitutional power
of the executive; demonstration, if there is any in Euclid — anticipat-
ing the masterly judgments in the cause of Dartmouth College, or of
Gibbons and Ogden, or of Maculloch and the State of Maryland; but
such an one as a lawyer like him — if another there Avas — could have
made in his professional capacity at the bar of the House, although he
had never reflected on practical politics an hour in his life. Such
somewhat was William Pinckney's speech in the House of Represen-
tatives on the treaty-making power, in 18 15, and his two more splen-
did displays, in the Senate, on the Missouri question, in 1820, the last
of which I heard Mr. Clay pronounce the greatest he ever heard. They
were pieces of legal reasoning, on questions of constitutional law;
decorated of course by a rhetoric which Hortensius might have envied,
and Cicero would not have despised; but they were professional at
last. To some extent this is true of some of Mr. Webster's ablest
speeches in Congress; or, more accurately, of some of the more im-
portant portions of some of his ablest. I should say so of a part of
that on the Panama Mission; of the reply to Mr. Hayne even; and of
almost the whole of that reply to Mr. Calhoun on the thesis, " the
Constitution not a compact between sovereign states;" the whole se-

41 3 . AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

ries of discussion of the constitutional power of the Executive, and the
constitutional power of the Senate, growing out of the removal of the
deposits and the supposed tendencies of our system towards a central-
ization of government in a president and a majority of the people,—
marked, all of them, by amazing ability. To these the lawyer who
could demonstrate that the charter of this college is a contract within
the Constitution, or that the steamboat monopoly usurped upon the
executive power of Congress to regulate commerce, was already equal
— but to have been the leader, or of the leaders of his political connec-
tion for thirty years; to have been able to instruct and guide on every
question of policy as well as law, which interested the nation in all
that time; every question of finance; of currency; of the lands; of the
development and care of our resources and Tabor; to have been of
strength to help lead his country by the hand, up to a position of in-
fluence and attraction on the highest place on earth, yet to keep her p^ace
and to keep her hftnor; to have been able to emulate the prescriptive
and awful renown of the founders of states by doing something which
will be admitted, when some generations have passed, even more than
now, to have contributed to preserve the state— for all this another
man was needed — and he stands forth another and the same.

I am hereafter to speak separately of the political morality which
guided him ever, but 1 would say a word now on two portions of his
public life, one of which has been the subject of accusatory, the other
of disparaging criticism, unsound, unkind, in both instances.

The first comprises his course in regard to a protective policy. He
opposed a tariff of protection it is said, in 1816, and 1820, and 1824 ';
and he opposed, in 1828, a sudden and fatal repeal of such a tariff;
and thereupon I have seen it written that "this proved him a man
with no great comprehensive ideas of political economy ; who took
the fleeting interests, and transient opinions of the hour for his norms
of conduct ;" " who had no sober and serious convictions of his own."
I have seen it more decorously written, ° that his opinions on this sub-
ject were not determined by general principles, but by a consideration
of immediate sectional interests."

I will not answer this by what Scaliger says of Lipsius, the arrogant
pedant who dogmatized on the deeper politics as he did on the text of
Tacticus and Seneca. Neque est ftoilticus; nee potest qnicquam in poli-
tia; nihil possunt pedantes irt ipsis rebus; nee ego, nee alius doctus pos-
siimus scribere in politieis. I say only that the case totally fails to give
color to the charge. The reasonings of Mr. Webster in 1816, 1820, and
1824, expressed, that on mature reflection and due and appropriate
study he had embraced the opinion that it was needless and unwise
to force American manufactures, by regulation, prematurely to life.
Bred in a commercial community; taught from his earliest hours of
thought to regard the care of commerce, as in point of fact the leading
object and cause of the Union; to observe around him no other forms

RUFUS CHOATE. 419

of material industry than those of commerce, navigation, fisheries,
agriculture, and a few plain and robust mechanical arts, he would
come to the study of the political economy of the subject with a cer-
tain preoccupation of mind perhaps ; so coming he did study it at its
well heads, and he adopted his conclusions sincerely, and announced
them strongly.

His opinions were overruled by Congress ; and a national policy
was adopted, lolding out all conceivable promise of permanence, un-
der which vast and sensitive investments of capital were made ; the
expectations, the employments, the habits, of whole ranges of states
were recast ; an industry, new to us, springing, immature, had been
advanced just so far, that if deserted at that moment, these must fol-
low a squandering of skill, a squandering of property, an aggregate
of destruction, senseless, needless, and unconscientious — such as marks
the worst form of revolution. On these facts, at a later day, he
thought that that industry, the child of Government, should not thus
capriciously be deserted. " The duty of the government," he said,
"at the present moment would seem to be to preserve, not to destroy;
to maintain the position which it has assumed; for one I shall feel it an
indispensable obligation to hold it steady, as far as in my power, to that
degree of protection which it has undertaken to bestow."

And does this prove that these original opinions were hasty, shal-
low, insincere, unstudied? Consistently with every one of them;
consistently with the true spirit, and all the aims of the science of po-
litical economy itself ; consistent with every duty of sober, high, earn-
est, and moral statesmanship, might not he who resisted the making
of a tariff in 1816, deprecate its abandonment in 1828? Does not
Adam Smith himself admit that it is " matter fit for deliberation how
far or in what manner, it may be proper to restore that free importa-
tion after it has been for some little time interrupted ?" implying that
a general principle of national wealth may be displaced or modified by
special circumstances— but would these censors therefore cry out that
he had no "great and comprehensive ideas of political economy," and
was willing to be "determined not by general principles, but by im-
mediate interests ?" Because a father advises his son against an early
and injudicious marriage, does it logically follow, or is it ethically
right, that after his advice has been disregarded, he is to recommend
desertion of the young wife, and the young child ? I do not appreciate
the beauty and comprehensiveness of those scientific ideas which for-
get that the actual and vast " interests" of the community are exactly
what the legislator has to protect ; that the concrete of things must
limit the foolish wantonness of a priori theory; that that department of
politics which has for its object the promotion and distribution of the
wealth of nations, may very consistently, and very scientifically, pre-
serve what it would not have created. He who accuses Mr. Webster
in this behalf of " having no sober and serious convictions of his own."

42 o AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

must afford some other proof than his opposition to the introduction
of a policy ; and then his willingness to protect it after it had been in-
troduced, and five hundred millions of property, or, however, a count-
less sum had been invested under it, or become dependent on its con-
tinuance.

I should not think that I consulted his true fame if I did not add
that as he came to observe the practical workings of the protective
policy more closely than at first he had done; as he came to observe
the Working and influences of a various manufacturing and mechanical
labor; to see how it employs and develops every faculty; finds occu-
pation for every hour; creates or diffuses and disciplines ingenuity,
gathering up every fragment of mind and time so that nothing be lost;
how a steady and ample home market assists agriculture; how all the
great employments of man are connected by a kindred tie, so that the
tilling of the land, navigation, foreign, coastwise and interior com-
merce, all grow with* the growth, and strengthen with the strength of
the industry of the arts — he came to appreciate, more adequately than
at first, how this form of labor contributes to wealth, power, enjoy-
ment, a great civilization; he came more justly to grasp the conception
of how consummate a destruction it would cause — how senseless, how
unphilosophical, how immoral — to arrest it suddenly and capriciously
after it had been lured into life; how wiser, how far truer to the prin-
ciples of the science which seeks to augment the wealth of the state, .'
to refuse to destroy so immense an accumulation of that wealth. In
this sense, and in this way, I believe his opinions were matured and '
modified; but it does not quite follow that they were not, in every,
period, conscientiously formed and held, or that they were not in the
actual circumstances of each period philosophically just, and practically
wise.

The other act of his public life to which I alluded is his negotiation
of the Treaty of Washington, in 1842, with Great Britain. This act,
the country, the world, has judged and has applauded. Of his ad-
ministrative ability; his discretion; temper; civil courage; his power
of exacting respect and confidence from those with whom he commu-
nicated, and of influencing their reason; his knowledge of the true in-
terests and true grandeur of the two great parties to the negotiation;
of the states of the Union more immediately concerned, and of the
world, whose chief concern is peace; and of the intrepidity with which
he encountered the disappointed feelings, and disparaging criticisms
of the hour, in the consciousness that he had done a good and large
deed, and earned a permanent' and honest renown— of these it is the
truest and most fortunate single exemplification which remains of him.
Concerning its difficulty, importance, and merits of all sorts, there
were at the time few dissenting opinions among those most conversant
with the subject, although there were some; to-day there are fewer
still. They are so few — a single sneer by the. side of his grave, ex-

RUFUS CIIO ATE. 421

pressing that " A man who makes such bargain is not entitled to any
great glory among diplomatists," is all that I can call to mind — that I
will not arrest the course of your feelings here and now by attempting
to refute that "sneer," out of the history of the hour and scene.
"Standing here," he said in April, 1846, in the Senate of the United
States, to which he had returned — " standing here to-day, in this Sen-
ate, and speaking in behalf of the administration of which I formed a
part, and in behalf of the two houses of Congress who sustained that
administration, cordially and effectively, in everything relating to this
treaty, I am willing to appeal to the public men of the age, whether in
1842, and in the City of Washington, something was not done for the
suppression of crime; for the true exposition of the principles of pub-
lic law; for the freedom and security of commerce on the ocean, and
for the peace of the world !" In that forum the appeal has been heard,
and the praise of a diplomatic achievement of true and permanent
glory, has been irreversibly awarded to him. Beyond that forum of
the mere " public men of the age," by the larger jurisdiction, the gen-
eral public, the same praise has been awarded. Sunt hie etiam sua
pneinia laudi. That which I had the honor to say in the Senate, in the
session of 1843, in a discussion concerning this treaty, is true and ap-
plicable, now as then. " Why should I, or why should any one as-
sume the defense of a treaty here in this body, which but just now, on
the amplest consideration, in the confidence and calmness of executive
session was approved by a vote so decisive ? Sir, the country by a
vote far more decisive, in a proportion very far beyond thirty-nine to
nine, has approved your approval. Some there are, some few— I
speak not now of any member of this Senate — restless, selfish, reck-
less, 'the cankers of a calm world and a long peace,' pining with
thirst of notoriety, slaves to their hatred of England, to whom the
treaty is distasteful; to whom any treaty, and all things but the glare
and clamor, the vain pomp and hollow circumstance of war — all but
these would be distasteful and dreary. But the country is with you in
this act of wisdom and glory; its intelligence, its morality, its labor,
its good men, the thoughtful, the philantropic, the discreet, the
masses are with you." " It confirms the purpose of the wise and
good of both nations to be forever at peace with one another, and to
put away forever all war from the kindred races; war, the most ridicu-
lous of all blunders; the most tremendous of crimes; most comprehen-
sive of evils." '

And now to him who in the solitude of his library depreciates this
act, first, because there was no danger of a war with England, I answer
that according to the overwhelming weight of that kind of evidence by
which that kind of question must be tried, that is by the judgment of
the great body of well-informed public men at that moment in Con-
gress, in the government, in diplomatic situation — our relation to that
power had become so delicate, and so urgent, that unless soon ad-

422 A M ERIC AN PA TRIG T1SM.

justed by negotiation there was real danger of war. Against such
evidence what is the value of the speculation of a private person, ten
years afterwards, in the shade of his general studies, whatever his
sagacity? The temper of the border population, the tendencies
to disorder in Canada, stimulated by sympathisers on our side
of the line; the entrance on our territory of -a British armed force
in 1837, cutting the Caroline out of her harbor, and sending her
own the falls; the arrest of McLeod in 1 841, a British subject,
w -.imposing part of that force, by the government of New York, and
„he threat to hang him which a person high in office in England,
declared in a letter which was shown to me, would raise a cry for war
from "Whig, Radical; and Tory" which no ministry could resist;
growing irritation caused by the search of our vessels under color of
suppressing the slave trade; the long controversies, almost as old as
the government, about the boundary line — so conducted as to have; at
last convinced each disputant that the other was fraudulent and insin-
cere; as to have enlisted the pride of states; as to have exasperated and
agitated a large line of border; as to have entered finally into the
tactics of political parties, and the schemes of ambitious men, out-
bidding, out-racing one another in a competition of clamor and vehem-
ence; a controversy on which England, a European monarchy, a first-
class power near to the great sources of the opinions of the world, by
her press, her diplomacy, her universal intercourse had taken great pains
to persuade Europe that our claim was groundless and unconscientious —
all these things announced to near observers in public life, a crisis at hand
which demanded something more than "any sensible and honest man"
to encounter; assuring some glory to him who should triumph over it.
One such observer said: "Men stood facing each other with guns on
their shoulders, upon opposite sides of fordable rivers thirty yards
wide. The discharge of a single musket would have brought on a
war whose fires would have encircled the globe."

In this act disparaged next because what each party had for forty-six
years claimed as the true line of the old treaty was waived, a line of
agreement substituted, and equivalents given and taken, for gain or
loss ? But herein you will see only, what the nation has seen, the
boldness as well as sagacity of Mr. Webster. When the award of the
King of the Netherlands, proposing a line of agreement was offered
to President Jackson, that strong will dared not accept it in the face
of the party politics of Maine — although he advised to offer her the
value of a million of dollars to procure her assent to an adjustment
which his own mind approved. What he dared not do, inferred some
peril I suppose. Yet the experience of twenty years, of sixty years,
should have taught all men, had taught many who shrunk from act-
ing on it, that the Gordian knot must be cut, not unloosed — that all
further attempt to find the true line must be abandoned as an idle and
a perilous diplomacy ; and that a boundary must be made by a bar-

RUFUS CITOATE. 423

gain/worthy of nations, or must be traced by the point of the bayonet.
The merit of Mr. Webster is first that he dared to open the nego-
tiation on this basis. I say the boldness. For appreciate the domes-
tic difficulties which attended, it. In its nature it proposed to give xz?
something whice we had thought our own for half a century ; to cede
of the territory of more than, one state; it. demanded therefore the
assent of those states by formal act, committing the state parties. ;ia
power unequivocally ; it was to be undertaken not in the administra-
tion of Monroe — electedby .the whole people— not in the administra-
. tion of Ja.ckson, whose, vast popularity could carry anything and with-
stand anything; but just when the death of President Harrison had
scattered his party, had alienated hearts, had severed ties and dis-
solved connections indispensible to the strength of administration ; cre-
ating a loud call on Mr, Webster to leave the cabinet — creating almost
the appearance of an unwillingness that he should contribute to its
glory even by largest service to the state.

Yet consider finally how he surmounted every difficulty^ I will not
say with Lord Palmerston, in Parliament, that there was " nobody in
England who did not admit .it a very bad treaty for England." But
I may repeat what I said on it in the Senate in 1843. " And now

.what does the world see? An adjustment concluded by a special
minister at Washington, by which four fifths of the value of the whole
subject in controversy, is left to you as your own.; and by which, for
that one fitth which England desires to possess, she pays you over and
over, in the national equivalents, imperial equivalents, such as a
nation may give, such as a nation may accept, satisfactory to your in-
terests, soothing to your honor — the navigation of the St. John— a
concession the value of which nobody disputes, a concession not to
Maine alone, but to the whole country, to commerce, to navigation,
as far as winds blow or waters roll — an equivalent of unappreciable
value, opening an ample path to the sea, an equivalent in part for

- what she receives of the territory in dispute — a hundred thousand
acres in New Hampshire ; fifty thousand acres in Vermont and New
York ; the point of land commanding the great military way to and
from Canada by Lake Champlain ; the fair rand fertile island of St.
George ; the surrender of a pertinacious pretension to four millions of
acres westward of Lake Superior." Sir, I will not say that this adjust-
ment admits, or was designed to admit, that our title to the whole
territory in controversy was perfect and indisputable. I will not do
so much injustice to the accomplished and excellent person who rep-
resented the moderation and the good sense of the English govern-
ment and people in this negotiation. I cannot adopt even for the
defense of a treaty which I so much approve, the language of a Avriter
in the London Morning Chronicle of September last, who has been
said to be Lord Palmerston, which over and over asserts — sub-
stantially as his lordship certainly did in Parliament, that the adjust-

424 A M ERICA N PA TRIO TISM.

ment " virtually acknowledges the American: claim to the whole
of the disputed territory," and that " it gives England no share
at all, absolutely none; for the capitulation virtually and prac-
tically yields up the whole territory to the United States and
then brings tack a small part of it in exchange for the right of
navigating the St. John. " I will not say this. But, I say first,
that by the concession of everybody it is a better treaty than the ad-
ministration of President Jackson would have most eagerly concluded,
it by the offer of a million and a quarter acres of land they could have
procured the assent of Maine to it. That treaty she rejected; this she
accepts; and I disparage nobody when I maintain that on all parts,
and &A aspects, of this question, national or state, military or indus-
trial, her opinion is worth that of the whole country beside. I say
next, that the treaty admits the substantial justice of your general
claim. It admits that in its utmost extent it was plausible, formidable,
and made in pure good faith. It admits before the nations that we
have not been rapacious; have not made false clamor; that we have
asserted our own. and obtained our own. Adjudging to you the pos-
session of four-fifths indisputably, she gives you for the one-fifth which
you concede, equivalents, given as equivalents, eo nomine, on purpose
to soothe and save the point of honor; whose intrinsic and compara-
tive value is such that you may accept them as equivalents without re-
proach to your judgment, or your firmness, or your good faith; whose
intrinsic and comparative value, tried by the maxims, weighed in the
scales of imperial iraffic, make them a compensation, over and over
again, for all we concede.

But I linger too long upon his public life, and upon this one of its
great acts. With what profound conviction of all the difficulties which
beset it; with what anxieties for the issue, hope and fear alternately
preponderating, he entered on that extreme trial of capacity and good
fortune, and carried it through, I shall not soon forget. As if it were
last night, I recall the time when, after the Senate had ratified it in an
evening executive session, by a vote of thirty-nine to nine, I person-
ally carried to him the result at his own house, and in the presence of
his wife. Then, indeed, the measure of his glory and happiness
seemed full. In the exuberant language of Burke, " I stood near
him, and his face, to use the expression of the Scripture of the first
martyr, was as if it had been the face of an angel. ' Hope elevated,
and joy brightened his crest.' " I do not know how others feel, but if I
had stood in that situation, I would not have exchanged it for all that
kings or people could bestow.

Such eminence and such hold on the public mind as he attained de-
mands extraordinary general intellectual power, adequate mental
culture, an impressive, attractive, energetic, and great character, and
extraordinary specific power also of influencing the convictions and
actions of others by speech. These all he had.

RUFUS CHOATE, 425

That in the quality of pure and sheer power of intellect he was of
the first class of men is, I think, the universal judgment of all who
have personally witnessed many of his higher displays, and of all who
without that opportunity have studied his life in its actions and influ-
ences, and studied his mind in its recorded thoughts. Sometimes it
has seemed to me that to enable one to appreciate with accuracy, as a
psychological speculation, the intrinsic and absolute volume and tex-
ture of that brain; the real rate and measure of those abilities; it was
better, not to see or hear him, unless you could hear or see him fre-
quently, and in various modes of exhibition; for undoubtedly there
was something in his countenance and bearing so expressive of com-
mand ; something even in his conversational language when saying
parva summisse et modica temperate, so exquisitely plausible, embody-
ing the likeness, at least, of a rich truth, the forms, at least, of a
large generalization, in an epithet, an antithesis, a pointed phrase, a
broad and peremptory thesis — and something in his grander forth-
putting when roused by a great subject or occasion exciting his
reason and touching his moral sentiments and his heart, so difficult to
b^ resisted, approaching so near, going so. far beyond, the higher
s.yle of man, that altl o lgh it left you a very good witness of his
power of influencing others, you were not in the best condition, im-
mediately, to pronounce on the quality, or the source of the influence.
You saw the flash and heard the peal; and felt the admiration and
fear; but from what region it was launched, and by what divinity, and
from what Olympian seat, you could not certainly yet tell. To do
that you must, if you saw him at all, see him many times; com-
pare him with himself,- and with others; follow his dazzling career
from his father's house; observe from what competitors he won those
laurels; study his discourses, study them by the side of those of other
great men of this country and time, and of other countries and times;
conspicuous in the same fields of mental achievement; look through
the crystal water of the style down to the golden sands of thought;
analyze and contrast intellectual power somewhat ; consider what
kind, and what quantity of it has been held by students of mind
needful in order to great eminence in the higher mathematics, or
metaphysics, or reason, of the law ; what capacity to analyze,
through and through, to the primordial elements of the truths of
that science ; yet what wisdom and sobriety, in order to control
the wantonness and shun the absurdities of a mere scholastic
logic, by systematizing ideas, and combining them, and repressing
one by another, thus producing, not a collection of intense and con-
flicting paradoxes, but a code — scientifically coherent, and practically
useful — consider what description and what quantity of mind have
been held needful by students of mind in order to conspicuous emi-
nence, long maintained, in statesmanship; that great practical science,
that great philosophical art — whose ends are the existence, happiness,

426 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

and honor of a nation: whose truths are to be drawn from the widest
survey of man; of social man; of the particular race, and particular
community for which a government is to be made, or kept, or a policy
to be provided; " philosophy in. action," demanding at once, or afford-
ing place for, the highest speculative genius, and the most skilful con-
duct of men and of affairs; and, finally, consider what degree and
kind of mental power has been found to be required in order tc? influ-
ence the reason of an audience and a nation by speech — not magnetiz-
ing the mere nervous or emotional nature by an effort of that nature
j — but operating on reason by reason— a great reputation in forensic
and deliberative eloquence, maintained and advancing for a life time
— it is thus that we come to be sure that his intellectual power was
as real and as uniform, as its very happiest particular display had
been imposing and remarkable.

It was not quite so easy to analyze that power, to compare or con-
trast it with that of other mental celebrities, and show how it differed
or resembled, as it was to discern its existence.

Whether he would have excelled as much in other fields of exertion
-—in speculative philosophy, for example, in any of its departments —
is a problem impossible to determine and needless to move. To me
it seems quite clear that the whole wealth of his powers, his whole
emotional nature, his eloquent feeling, his matchless capacity to affect
others' conduct by affecting their practical judgments, could not have
been known, could not have been poured forth in a stream so rich and
strong and full, could not have so reacted on, and aided and winged the
mighty intelligence, in any other walk of mind, or life, than that he
chose — that in any other there must have been some disjoining of
qualities which God had united — some divorce of pure intellect from
the help or hindrances or companionship of common sense and beauti-
ful genius; and that in any field of speculative ideas but half of him,
or part of him, could have found its sphere. What that part might
have been or done, it is vain to inquire.

I have been told that the assertion has been hazarded that he " was
great in understanding; deficient in the large reason ;" and to prove
this distinction he is compared disadvantageously, with "Socrates, Ar-
istotle, Plato, Leibnitz, Newton, and Descartes," if this means that
he did not devote his mind, such as it was, to their speculations, it is
true, but that would not prove that he had not as much " higher
reason.' Where was Bacon's higher reason when he was composing
his reading on the Statue of Uses ? Had he lost it? or was he only
not employing it ? or was he employing it on investigation of law ?
If it means that he had not as much absolute intellectual power as
they, or could not, in their departments, have done what they did, it
may be dismissed as a dogma, incapable of proof, and incapable of
refutation; ineffectual as a disparagement; unphilosophical as a
comparison.

RUFUS CIIO ATE. 42)

It is too common with those who come from the reveries of clois-
tered speculation, to judge a practical life, to say of him and such as
he, that "they do not enlarge universal law, and first principles, and
philosophical ideas;" that "they add no new maxim formed by in-
duction out of human history and old thought." In this there is some
truth, and yet it totally fails to prove that they do not possess all the
intellectual power, and all the specific form and intellectual power re-
quired for such a description of achievement; and it totally fails, too,
to proves that they do not use it quite as truly to " the glory of God,
and the bettering of man's estate." Whether they possess such power
or not, the evidence does not disprove; and it is a pedantic dogmatism,
if it is not a malignant dogmatism, which, from such evidence, pronoun-
ces that they do not; but it is doubtless so, that by an original bias, by
accidental circumstances or deliberate choice, he determined early to
devote himself to a practical and great duty, and that was to uphold are-
cent, delicate, and complex political system, which his studies, his saga-
city, taught him, as Solon. learned, was the best the people could bear; to
uphold it; to adapt its essential principles and its actual organism to
the great changes of his time; the enlarging territory; enlarging num-
bers; sharper antagonisms ; mightier passions; a new nationality; and
under it, and by means of it, and by a steady government, a wise
policy of business, a temperate conduct of foreign relations, to enable a
people to develop their resources, and fulfil their mission. This he
selected as his work on earth; this his task; this, if well done, his
consolation, his joy, his triumph! To this, call it, in comparison with
the meditations of philosophy, humble or high, he brought all the vast
gifts of intellect, whatever they were, wherewith God had enriched
him. And now, do they infer that, because he selected such a work
to do, he could not have possessed the higher form of intellectual
power? or do they say that, because having selected it, he performed
it with a masterly and uniform sagacity, and prudence, and good
sense; using ever the appropriate means to the selected end; that
therefore he could not have possessed the higher form of intellectual
power ? Because all his life long, he recognized that his vocation was
that of a statesman and a jurist, not that of a thinker and dreamer in
the shade, still less of a general agitator; that his duties connected
themselves mainly with an existing stupendous political order of
things, to be kept — to be adapted with all possible civil discretion and
temper to the growth of the nation — but by no means to be exchanged
for any quantity of amorphous matter in the form of " universal law,"
or new maxims and great ideas born since the last change of the moon
— because he quite habitually spoke the language of the Constitution
and the law, not the phraseology of a new philosophy; confining him-
self very much to inculcating historical, traditional, and indispensable
maxims— neutrality, justice, good faith, observance of fundamental
compacts of union and the like — because it was America — our America

428 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

— he sought to preserve, and to set forward to her glory— not so rmich
an abstract conception of humanity; because he could combine many
ideas, many events, many antagonisms, in a harmonious and noble
practical politics, instead of fastening on one only and— that suresigrr
of small or perverted ability — aggravating to disease and falsehood-
it is therefore inferred that he had not the larger form of intellectual
power.

And this power was not oppressed, but aided and accomplished by
exercise the most constant, the most severe, the most stimulant, and
by a force of will as remarkable as his genius, and by adequate mental
and tasteful culture. How much the eminent greatness it reached is
due to the various and lofty competition to which he brought, if he
could, the most careful preparation-— competition with adversaries cum
qnibus certare erat gloriosius, quam omnino adversaries non habere, cum
praesertim non modo, nunqudm sit aut illorum ab ipso cursus impeditus,
aui ab ipsis suits, sed contra semper alter ab altera adjustus, et communi-
cando, et monendo, et favendp, you may Well appreciate.

I claim much, too, under the name of mere mental culture, Remark
his style. I allow its full weight to the Horatian maxim scribendi recte
sapereest et princrpium et foils, and I admit that he had deep and exqui-
site judgment, largely of the gift of God. But such a style as his is
due also to art, to practice — in the matter of style, incessant to great
examples of fine writing turned by the nightly and the daily hand ; to
Cicero, through whose pellucid deep seas the pearl shows distinct, and
large and near, as if within the arm's reach; to Virgil, whose magic
of words, whose exquisite structure and " rich economy of expression,"
no other writer ever equalled ; to our English Bible, and especially to
the prophetical writings, and of these especially to Ezekiel, of some of
whose peculiarities, among them that of the repetition of single words,
or phrases for emphasis and impression, a friend has called my atten-
tion to some very striking illustrations; to Shakespere, of the style of
whose comic dialogue we may, in the language of the great Critic, assert
'! that it is that which in the English nation is never to become obso-
lete, a certain mode of phraseology so consonant and congenial to
analogy, to principles of the language, as to remain settled and unal-
tered—a style above grossness, below modish and pedantic forms of
speech, where propriety resides;" to Addison, whom Johnson, Mack-
intosh and Macaulay, concur to put at the head of all fine Writers, for
the amenity, delicacy, and unostentatious elegance of his English ;
to Pope, polished, condensed, sententious; to Johnson and Burke, in
whom all the affluence and all the energy of our tongue in both its
great elements of Saxon and Latin, might be exemplified; to the study
and comparison, but not the copying of authors such as these; to habits
of writing and speaking and conversing on the capital theory of always
doing his best — thus, somewhat, I think, was acquired that remark-
able production, '* the last work of combined study and genius," his
rich, clear, correct, harmonious, and weighty style of prose.

RUFUS CHOATE. 4^9

Beyond these studies and exercises of taste, he had read variously
and judiciously. If any public man, or any man, had more thoroughly
mastered British constitutional and general history, or the history of
British legis'ation, or could deduce the progre s, errors, causes, and
hindrances of British liberty in more prompt, exact, and copious de-
tail, or had in his memory, at any given moment, a more ample politi-
cal biography, or political literature, I do not know him. His library
of English history, and of all history, was always rich, select, and
catholic, and I well recollect hearing him in 18 19, while attending
a commencement of this college at an evening party, sketch, with
great emphasis and interest of manner, the merits of George Buchanan,
the historian of Scotland — his latinity and eloquence almost equal to
Livy's, his love of liberty and his genius greater, and his title to credit
not much worse. American history and American political literature
he had by heart. The long series of influences that trained us for
representative and free government; that other series of influences
which moulded us into a united government — the colonial era — the
the age of controversy before the revolution; every scene and every
person in that great tragic action — the age of controversy following
the revolution, and preceding the Constitution, unlike the earlier, in
which we divided among ourselves on the greatest questions which
can engage the mind of America — the questions of the existence of a
national government, of the continued existence of the state govern-
ment, on the partition of powers, on the umpirage of disputes between
them-^a controversy on which the destiny of the New World was
staked; every problem, which has successively engaged our politics,
and every name which has figured in them, the whole stream of our
time was open, clear, and present ever to his eye.

I think, too, that, though not a frequent and ambitious citer of au-
thorities, he had read, in the course of the study of his profession or
politics, and had meditated all the great writers and thinkers by whom
the principles of republican government, and all free governments,
are most authoritatively expounded. Aristotle, Cicero, Machiavel,
one of whose discourses on Livy maintains in so masterly an argu-
ment how much wiser and more constant are the people than the
princes — a doctrine of liberty consolatory and full of joy — Harrington,
Milton, Sidney, Locke, I know he had read and weighed.

Other classes of information there were, partly obtained from books,
partly from observation— to some extent referable to his two main
employments of politics and law — by which he was distinguished re-
markably. Thus, nobody but was struck with his knowledge of civil and
physical geography, and, to a less extent, of geology and races ; of all
the great routes and marts of our foreign, coastwise, and interior com-,
merce; the subjects which it exchanges, the whole circle of industry it
comprehended and passes around; the kinds of our mechanical and
manufacturing productions, and their relations to all labor, and life;
the history, theories, and practice of agriculture, our own and that of

430 AMERICAX PATRIOTISM.

other countries, and its relations to government, liberty, happiness,
and the character of nations. This kind of information enriched and
assisted all his public efforts; but to appreciate the variety and ac-
curacy of his knowledge, and even the true compass of his mind, you
must have had some familiarity with his friendiy-written correspond-
ence, and you must have w n.crsed with him, with some degree cf
freedom. There more than in scnatiorial or forensic debate,
gleamed the true riches of his genius, as well as the goodness of his
large heart, and the kindness of his noble nature. There, with no
> longer a great part to discharge, no longer compelled to weigh and
1 measure propositions, to tread the dizzy heights which part the antago-
nism of the Constitution, to put aside illusions and illustrations, which
crowded on his mind in action, but which the dignity of a public ap-
pearance had to reject — in the confidence of hospitality, which ever
he dispensed as a prince who also was a friend — his memory, one oi
his most extraordinary faculties, quite in proportion to all the rest,
swept free over the readings and labors of more than half a century;
and, then, allusions, direct and ready quotations, a passing, mature
criticism, sometimes only a recollection of the mere emotions which a
glorious passage or interesting event had once excited, darkening for
a moment the face, and filling the eye — often an instructive exposition
of a current maxim of philosophy or politics, the history of an inven-
tion, the recital of some incident casting a new light on some trans-
action or some institution — this flow of unstudied conversation, quite
as remarkable as any other exhibition of his mind, better than any
other, perhaps, at once opened an unexpected glimpse of his various
acquirements, and gave you to experience delightedly that the " mild
sentiments have their eloquence as well as the stormy passions."

There must be added next the element of an impressive character,
inspiring regard, trust, and admiration, not unmingied with love. It
had, I think, intrinsically a charm such as belongs only to a good, noble,
and beautiful nature. In its combination with so much fame, so much
force of will, and so much intellect, it filled and fascinated the imagi-
nation and heart. It was affectionate in childhood and youth, and it was
more than ever so in the few last months of his life. It is the universal
testimony that he gave to his parents, in largest measure, honor, love,
obedience; that he eagerly appropriated the first means which he could
command to relieve the father from the debts contracted to educate
his brother and himself — that he selected his first place of professional
practice that he might soothe the coming on of his old age — that all
through life he neglected no occasion, sometimes when leaning on the
arm of a friend, alone, with faltering voice, sometimes in the presence
of great assemblies, where the tide of general emotion made it grace-
ful, to express his " affectionate veneration of him who reared and
defended the log cabin in which his elder brothers and sisters were
born, against savage violence and destruction; cherished all the

KUFUS CIIO ATE. 431

domcrtic virtues beneath its roof, and through the fire and blood of
pome years of Revolutionary war, shrank from no danger, no toil, no
sacrifice, to serve his country, and to raise his children to a condition
better than his own."

Equally beautiful was his love of all his kindred, and of all his
friends. When I hear him accused of selfishness, and a cold, bad
nature, I recall him lying sleepless all night, not without tears of boy-
hood, conferring with Ezekiel how the darling desire of both hearts
should be compassed, and he too admitted to the precious privileges
of education; courageously pleading the cause of both brothers in the
morning; prevailing by the wise and discerning affection of the
mother; suspending his studies of the law, and registering deeds, and
teaching school, to earn the means, for both, of availing themselves of
the opportunity which the parental self-sacrifice had placed within
their reach — loving him through life, mourning him when dead, with
a love and a sorrow very wonderful — passing the sorrow of woman; I
recall the husband, the father of the living and of the early departed, the
friend, the counsellor, of many years, and my heart grows too full
an 1 liquid for the refutation of words.

His affectionate nature, craving ever friendship, as well as the
presence of kindred blood, diffused itself through all his private life,
gave sincerity to all his hospitalities, kindness to his eye, warmth to
the pressure of his hand; made his greatness and genius unbend them-
selves to the playfulness of childhood, flowed out in graceful memo-
ries indulged of the past or the dead, of incidents when life was young
and promised to be happy — gave generous sketches of his rivals — the
high contention now hidden by the handful of earth — hours passed
fifty years years ago with great authors, recalled for the vernal emo-
tions which then they made to live and revel in the soul. And from
these conversations of friendship, no man — no man, old or young —
went away to remember one word of profaneness, one allusion of in-
delicacy, one impure thought, one unbelieving suggestion, one doubt
cast on the reality of virtue, of patriotism, of enthusiasm, of the
progress of man — one doubt cast on righteousness, or. temperance, or
judgment to come.

Every one of his tastes and recreations announced the same type of
character. His love of agriculture, of sports in the open air, of the
outward world in starlight and storms, and sea and boundless wilder-
ness— partly a result of the influences of the first fourteen years of his
life, perpetuated, like its other affections and its other lessons of a
mother's love, the Psalms, the Bible, the stories of the wars — partly
the return of an unsophisticated and healthful nature, tiring, for a
space, of the idle business of political life, its distinctions, its arti-
ficialities, to employments, to sensations which interest without agi-
tating the universal race alike, as God has framed it; in which one
feels himself only a man, fashioned from the earth, set to till it, ap-

432 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

pointed to return to it, yet made in the image of his Maker, and with
a spirit that shall not die — all displayed a man whom the most various
intercourse with the world, the longest career of strife and honors, the
consciousness of intellectual supremacy, the coming in of a wide fame,
constantly enlarging, left as he was at first, natural, simple, manly,
genial, kind.

You will all concur, I think, with a learned friend who thus calls my
attention to the resemblance of his character, in some of these partic-
ulars, to that of Walter Scott.

Nature endowed both with athletic frames and a noble presence;
both passionately loved rural life, its labors, and sports; possessed a
manly simplicity free from all affectation, genial and social tastes, full
minds, and happy elocution; both stamped themselves with indelible
marks upon the age in which they lived; both were laborious, and al-
ways with high and virtuous aims, ardent in patriotism, overflowing
with love of kindred blood, and, above all, frank and unostentatious
Christians.

I have learned by evidence the most direct and satisfactory, that in
the last months of his life, the whole affectionateness of his nature;
his consideration of others; his gentleness; his desire to make them
happy and to see them happy, seemed to come out in more and more
beautiful and habitual expression than ever before. The long day's
public tasks were felt to be done; the cares, the uncertainties, the
mental conflicts of high place, were ended; and he came home to re-
cover himself for the few years which he might still expect would be
his before he should go hence to be here no more. And there, I am
assured and fully believe, no unbecoming regrets pursued him; no dis-
content, as for injustice suffered or expectations unfulfilled; no self"
reproach for anything done or anything omitted by himself ; no irri-
tation, no peevishness unworthy of his noble nature; but instead, love
and hope for his country, when she became the subject of conversa-
tion: and for all around him, the dearest and most indifferent, for all
breathing things about him, the overflow of the kindest heart growing
in gentleness and benevolence; paternal, patriarchal affections, seem-
ing to become more natural, warm, and communicative every hour.
Softer and yet brighter grew the tints on the sky of parting day; and
the last lingering rays, more even than the glories of noon, announced
how divine was the source from which they proceeded; how incapable
to be quenched; how certain to rise on a morning which no night
should follow.

Such a character was made to be loved. It was loved. Those who
knew and saw it in its hour of calm — those who could repose on that
soft green, loved him. His plain neighbors loved him; and one said,
wThen he was laid in his grave, "How lonesome the world seems!"
Educated young men loved him. The ministers of the gospel, the
general intelligence of the country, the masses afar off, loved him.

RUFUS CIIO ATE. 433

Erue, they had not found in his speeches, read by millions, so much
adulation of the people; so much of the music which robs the public
reason of itself; so many phrases of humanity and philanthropy; and
some had told them he was lofty and cold — solitary in his greatness;
but every year they came nearer and nearer to him, and as they came
nearer they loved him better; they heard how tender the son had
vbeen; the husband, the brother, the father, the friend, the neighbor;
that he was plain, simple, natural, generous, hospitable— the heart
larger than the brain; that he loved little children and reverenced God,
the Scriptures, the Sabbath day, the Constitution, and the law — and
their hearts clave unto him. More truly of him than even of the great
naval darling of England might it be said, that " his presence would
Set the church-bells ringing, and give school-boys a holiday— would
bring children from school and old men from the chimney-corner, to
:gaze on him ere he died." The great and unavailing lamentation first
revealed the deep place he had in the hearts of his countrymen.

You are now to add to this his extraordinary power of influencing
the convictions of others by speech, and you have completed the survey
of the means of his greatness. And here again I begin by admir-
ing an aggregate, made up of excellencies and triumphs, ordinarily
deemed incompatible. He spoke with consummate ability to the
bench, and yet exactly as, according to every sound canon of taste
and ethics, the bench ought to be addressed. He spoke with consum-
mate ability to the jury, and yet exactly as, according to every sound
canon, that totally different tribunal ought to be addressed. In the
hails of Congress, before the people assembled for political discussion in
masses, before audiences smaller and more select, assembled for some
solemn commemoration of the past or of the dead; in each of these,
again, his speech, of the first form of ability, was exactly adapted also
to the critical proprieties of the place; each achieved, when delivered,
the most instant and specific success of eloquence, some of them in a
Splendid and remarkable degree, and yet stranger still, when reduced
to writing as they fell from his lips, they compose a body of reading,
in many volumes, solid, clear, rich, and full of harmony, a classical
and permanent political literature.

And yet all these modes of his eloquence, exactly adapted each to
its stage and its end, were stamped with its image and superscription,
identified by characteristics incapable to be counterfeited, and impos-
sible to be mistaken. The same high power of reason, intent in every
one to explore and display some truth; some truth of judicial, or his-
torical, or biographical fact; some truth of law, reduced by construc-
tion, perhaps, or by illation; some truth of policy, for want whereof a
nation, generations, may be the worse; reason seeking and unfolding
truth ; the same tone in all of deep earnestness, expressive of strong desire
that that which he felt to be important should be accepted as true and
spring up to action, the same transparent, plain, forcible, and direct

434 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

speech, conveying his exact thought to the mind, not something less
or more; the same sovereignty of form, of brow, and eye, and man-
ner— everywhere the intellectual king of men, standing before you —
that same marvelousness of qualities and results, residing, I know not
where, in words, in pictures, in the order of ideas, in felicities indes-
cribable, by means whereof, coming from his tongue, all things seemed
mended, truth seemed more true, probability more plausible, greatness
more grand, goodness more awful, every affection more tender than
.when coming from other tongues — these are in all his eloquence,
But sometimes it became individualized and discriminated even from
itself; sometimes place and circumstances, great interests at stake,
and stage, an audience fitted for the highest historical action, a crisis,
personal or national, upon him, stirred the depths of that emotional
nature as the anger of the goddess stirs the sea on which the great
epic is beginning; strong passions, themselves kindled to intensity
quickened every faculty to a new life; the stimulated associations of ideas
brought all treasures of thought and knowledge, within command, the
spell, which often held his imagination fast, dissolved, and she arose and
gave him to choose of her urn of gold, earnestness became vehemence,
the simple, perspicuous, measured and direct language became ahead-
long, full, and burning tide of speech, the discourse of reason, wisdom,
gravity, and beauty, changed to that A f.i vo tjj?, that rarest consum-
mate eloquence, grand, rapid, pathetic, terrible, the aliquid i-nimen-
swn injinitianqtie that Cicero might have recognized; the master
triumph of man in the rarest opportunity of his noblest power.

Such elevation above himself, in Congressional debate, was most un-
common. Some such there were in the great discussions of executive
power following the removal of the deposits, which they who heard
them will never forget, and some which rest in the tradition of hearers
only. But there were other fields of oratory on which, under the in-
fluence of more uncommon springs of inspiration, he exemplified in still
other forms, an eloquence in which I do not know that he has had a
superior among men. Addressing masses by tens of thousands in the
open air, on the urgent political questions of the day ; or designated to
lead the meditations of an hour devoted to the remembrance of some
national era, or of some incident marking the progress of the nation,
lifting him up to a view of what is and what is past, and some indistinct
rovelation of the glory that lies in the future, or of some great historical
name, just borne by the nation to his tomb — Ave have learned that then
and there, at the base of Bunker Hill, before the corner stone was laid,
and again when from the finished column the centuries looked on him ; in
Faneui! Hall, mourning for those with whose spoken or written elo-
quence of freedom its arches had so often resounded ; on the rock of
Plymouth ; before the Capitol, of which there shall not be one stone left
on another, before his memory shall have ceased to live — in such scenes,
unfettered by the laws of forensic or parliamentary debate, multitudes

RUFUS CIIO ATE. 435

uncounted lifting up their eyes to him ; some great historical scene of
America around — all symbols of her glory, and art, and power, and for-
tune, there — voices of the past, not unheard — shapes beckoning from
the future, not unseen — sometimes that mighty intellect, borne upwards
to a height and kindled to an illumination which we shall see no more,
wrought out, as it were, in an instant, a picture of vision, warning, pre-
diction ; the progress of the nation ; the contrasts of its eras ; the heroic
deaths ; the motives to patriotism ; the maxims and arts imperial by
which the glory has been gathered and may be heightened, wrought out
in an instant, a picture to fade only when all record of our mind shall
die.

In looking over the public remains of his oratory, it is striking to re-
mark how, even in that most sober, and massive understanding and
nature, you see gathered and expressed the characteristic sentiments and
the passing time of our America. It is the strong old oak, which
ascends before you ; yet our soil, our heaven, are attested in it, as per-
fectly as if it were a flower that could ^row in no other climate,
and in no other hour of the year or day. Let me instance in one thing
only. It is a peculiarity of some schools of eloquence, that they embody
and utter, not merely the individual genius and character of the speaker
but a national consciousness, a national era, a mood, a hope, a dread,
a despair, in which you listen to the spoken history of the time. There
is an eloquence of an expiring nation ; such as seems to sadden the
glorious speech of Demosthenes ; such as breathes grand and gloomy
from the visions of the prophets of the last days of Israel and Judah ;
such as gave a spell to the expression of Grattan, and of Kossuth — the
sweetest, most mournful, most awful of the words which man may utter,
or which man may hear, the eloquence of a perishing nation. There is
another eloquence, in which the national consciousness of a young or
renewed and vast strength ; or trust in a dazzling, certain, and limitless
future ; an inward glorying in victories yet to be won, sounds out as by
voice of clarion, challenging to contest for the high prize of earth —
such as that in which the leader of Israel in its first days holds up
to the new nation the land of promise ; such as that which in
well imagined speeches scattered by Livy, over the history of the "ma-
jestic series of victories," speaks the Roman consciousness of growing
aggrandizement which should subject the world; such as that, through
which, at the tribunes of her revolution, in the bulletins of her rising
roldier, France told to the world her dream of glory. And of this
kind, somewhat, is ours; cheerful, hopeful, trusting, as befits youth
and spring; the eloquence of a state beginning to ascend to the first
class of power, eminence and consideration, and conscious of itself.
It is to no purpose that they tell you it is in bad taste; that it partakes
of arrogance, and vanity; that a true national good breeding would
not know or seem to know, whether the nation is old or your.";;
whether the tides of being are in their flow or ebb; whether these

43 6 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

courses of the sun are sinking slowly to rest, weaned with a journey
of a thousand years, or just bounding from the Orient unbreathed,
Higher laws than those of taste determine the consciousness of na-
tions. Higher laws than those of taste determine the general forms of
the expression of that consciousness. Let the downward age of
America find its orators, and poets, and artists., to erect its spirit, or
grace and sooth its dying: be it ours to go up with Webster to the rock,
the monument, the Capitol, and bid " the distant generations hail!"

In this connection remark, somewhat more generally, to how extra-
ordinary an extent he had, by his acts, words, thoughts, or the events of
his life, associated himself forever, in the memory of all of us, with
every historical incident, or at least with every historical epoch; with
every policy, with every glory, with every great name and fundamental
institution, and grand or beautiful image, which are peculiarly and
properly American. Look backward to the planting of Plymouth, and
Jamestown; to the various scenes of colonial life in peace and war; to
the opening and march, and close of the revolutionary drama — to the
age of the Constitution, to Washington and Franklin and Adams and
Jefferson; to the whole train of causes from the Reformation down-
wards, which prepared us to be Republicans; to that other train of
causes which led us to be Unionists, — look around on the field, work-,
shop, and deck, and hear the music of labor rewarded, fed and pro-
tected— look on the bright sisterhood of the states, each singing as a
seraph in her motion, yet blending in a common beam and swelling a
common harmony — and there is nothing which does not bring him by
some tie to the memory of America.

We seem to. see his form and hear his deep grave speech every-
where. By some felicity of his personal life; by some wise, deep, or
beautiful word spoken or written; by some service of his own, or some
commemoration of the services of others, it has come to pass that
" our granite hills, our inland seas and prairies, and fresh, unbounded,
magnificent wilderness;" our encircling ocean, the resting-place of the
pilgrims, our new born sister of the Pacific; our popular assemblies,
our free schools, all our cherished doctrines of education, and of. the
influence of religion, a material policy and law, and the Constitution,
give us back his name. What American landscape will you look on—
what subject of American interest will you study — what source of hope
or of anxiety, as an American, will you acknowledge that it does not
recall him?

I have reserved, until I could treat it as a separate and final topic,
the consideration of the morality of Mr. Webster's public character
and life. To his true fame, to the kind and degree of influence which
that large series of great actions, and those embodied thoughts of great
intellect are to exert on the future — this is the all-important consid-
eration. In the last speech which he made in the Senate — the last of
those which he made, as he said, f*_r the Constitution and the Union,

RUFUS CI10 ATE. 437

and which he might have commended, as Bacon his name and memory,
"to men's charitable speeches, to foreign nations, and the next ages,"
yet with a better hope he asserted — the ends I aim at shall be those
of my country, my God and truth." Is that his praise ?

Until the seventh day of March, 1850, I think it would have been
accorded to him by an almost universal acclaim, as general, and as
expressive of profound and indulgent conviction, and of enthusiasm,
love, and trust, as ever saluted conspicuous statesmanship, tried by
many crises of affairs in a great nation, agitated ever by parties, and
wholly free.

That he had admitted into his heart a desire to win, by deserving
them-, the highest forms of public honor, many would have said; and
they who loved him most fondly, and felt the truest solicitude that he
should carry a good conscience and pure fame brightening to the end,
would not have feared to concede. For he was not ignorant of him-
self, and he therefore knew that there was nothing within the Union,
Constitution and law, too high, or too large, or too difficult for him.
He believed that his natural or his acquired abilities, and his policy
of administration, would contribute to the true glory of America; and
he held no theory of ethics which required him to disparage, to sup-
press, to ignore vast capacities of public service merely because they
wrere his own. If the fleets of Greece were assembling, and her tribes
buckling on their arms from Laconia to Mount Olympus, from the
promontory of Sunium to the isle farthest to the west, and the
great epic action was opening, it was not for him to feign insanity
or idiocy, to escape the perils and the honor of command. But that
all this in him had- been ever in subordination to a principled and
beautiful public virtue; that every sectional bias, every party tie, as
well as every personal aspiring, had been uniformly held by him for
nothing against the claims of country, that nothing lower than coun-
try seemed worthy enough — nothing smaller than country large enough
— for that great heart, would not ha\Te been questioned by a whisper.
Ah! if at any hour before that day he had died, how would then the
great procession of the people of America- — the great triumphal pro-
cession of the dead — have moved onward to his grave— the sublimity
<f national sorrow, not contrasted, not outraged by one feeble voice
of calumny!

In that antecedent public life, embracing from 1812 to 1850 — a
period of thirty-eight years — I find grandest proofs of the genuineness
and comprehensiveness of his patriotism, and the boldness and man-
liness of his public virtue. He began his career of politics as a fed-
eralist. Such was his father — so beloved and revered ; such his
literary and professional companions ; such, although by no very
decisive or certain preponderance, the community in which he was
bred and was to live. Under that name of party he entered Congress,
personally, and by connection, opposed to the war, which was thought

438 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM. 1

to bear with such extreme sectional severity upon the North and the
East. And yet, one might almost say, that the only thing- he imbibed
from federalists or federalism was love and admiration for the Con-
stitution as the means of union. That passion he did inherit from
them; that he cherished.

He came into Congress, opposed, as I have said, to the war ; and
behold him, if you would judge of the quality of his political ethics, in
opposition. . Did those eloquent lips, at a time of life when vehem-
ence and imprudence are expected, if ever, and not ungraceful, let fall
ever one word of faction? Did he ever deny one power to the gen-
eral government, which, the soundest expositors of all creeds have
allowed it? Did he ever breathe a syllable which could excite a
region, a state, a family of states, against the Union — which could
hold out hope or aid to the enemy ? — which sought or tended to turn
back or to chill the fiery tide of a. new and intense nationality, then
bursting up,~to flow and burn till all things appointed to America to
do shall be fulfilled ? These questions in their substance, he put to
Mr. Calhoun, in 1838, in the Senate/and that great man — one of the
authors of the war— just then, only then, in relations 'unfriendly to
Mr. Webster, and who had just insinuated a reproach on his conduct
in the war, was silent. Did Mr. Webster content himself even with
objecting to the details of the mode jn which the administration waged
war? No, indeed. Taught by his constitutional studies that the
Union was made; in part for commerce, familiar with the habits of our
long line of coast, knowing well how many sailors and fishermen,
driven from every sea by embargo and war, burned to go to the gun-
deck and avenge the long wrongs of England on the element where
she had inflicted them, his opposition to the war manifested itself by
teaching the nation that the deck was her field of fame. Non till im-
perium pelagi s&vumqne tridenhim sed nobis, sorte datum.

But I might recall other evidence of the sterling and unusual quali-
ties of his public virtue. Look in how manly a sort he, not merely
conducted a particular argument or a particular speech, but in how
manly a sort, in how high a moral tone, he uniformly dealt with the
mind of his country. Politicians got an advantage of him for this
while he lived; let the dead have just praise to-day. Our public life
is one long electioneering, and even Burke tells you that at popular
elections the most rigorous casuists will remit something of their
severity. But where do you find him flattering his countrymen, in-
directly or directly, for a vote ! On what did he ever place himself but
good counsels and useful service ? His arts were manly arts, and he
never saw a day of temptation when he would not rather fall than
stand on any other. Who ever heard that voice cheering the people
on to rapacity, to injustice, to a vain and guilty glory ? Who ever
saw that pencil of light hold up a picture of manifest destiny to dazzle
the fancy ? How anxiously rather, in season and out, by the energetic

RUFUS CIIO ATE, 439

eloquence of his youth, by his counsels bequeathed on the verge of a
timely grave, he preferred to teach that by all possible acquired sobri-
ety of mind, by asking reverently of the past, by obedience to the law,
by habits of patient and legitimate labor, by the cultivation of the
mind, by the fear and worship of God, we educate ourselves for the
future that is revealing. Men said he did not sympathize with the
inasses, because his phraseology was rather of an old and simple
school, rejecting the nauseous and vain repetitions of humanity and
philanthropy, and progress and brotherhood, in which may lurk
heresies so dreadful, of socialism or disunion; in which a selfish, hol-
low, and shallow ambition may mask itself; — the syren song which
would lure the pilot from his course. But I say that he did sympathize
with them; and, because he did, he came to them not with adulation,
but with truth; not with words to please, but with measures to serve
them; not that his popular sympathies were less, but that his personal
and intellectual dignity and his public morality were greater.

And on the seventh of March, and down to the final scene, might he
not still say as ever before, that "all the ends he aimed at were his
country, his God's, and truth's." He declared, 4< I speak to-day for
the preservation of the Union. Here me for my cause. I speak to-
day out of a solicitous and anxious heart for the restoration to the
country of that quiet and harmony, which make the blessings of this
Union so rich and so dear to us all. These are the motives, and the
sole motives, that influence me." If in that declaration he was sin-
cere, was he not bound in conscience to give the counsels of that day?
What were they ? What was the single one for which his political
morality was called in question ? Only that a provision of the Federal
Constitution^ ordaining the restitution of fugitive slaves, should be ex-
ecuted according to its true meaning. This only. And might he not
in good conscience keep the Constitution in this part, and in all, for
the preservation of the Union ?

Under his oath to support it, and to support it all, and with his
opinions of that duty so long held, proclaimed uniformly, in whose vin-
dication on some great days he had found the chief opportunity of his
personal glory, might he not, in good conscience support it, and all of
it, even if he could not — and no human intelligence could, certainly —
know that the extreme evil would follow, in immediate consequence,
its violation ? Was it so recent a doctrine of his that the Constitution
was obligatory upon the national and individual conscience, that you
should ascribe it to sudden and irresistible temptation ? Why, what
had he, quite down to the seventh of March, that more truly individ-
ualized him — what had he more characteristically his own — where-
withal had he to glory more or other than all beside, than this very
doctrine of the sacred and permanent obligation to support each and
all parts of that great compact of union and justice? Had not this
been his distinction, his specialty — almost the foible of his greatness —
A. P.-15.

44° AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

the darling and master passion ever ? Consider that that was a senti-
ment which had been part of his conscious nature for more than sixty
3'ears ; that from the time he bought his first copy of the Constitution
on the handkerchief, and revered parental lips had commended it to
him, with all other holy and beautiful things, along with lessons of
reverence to God, and the belief and love of His Scriptures, along with
the doctrine of the catechism, the unequalled music of Watts, the name
of Washington — there had never been an hour that he had not held it
the master work of man — just in its ethics, consummate in its practi-
■ cal wisdom, paramount in its injunctions ; that every year of life had
deepened the original impression ; that as his mind opened, and his
associations widened, he found that every one for whom he felt re-
spect, instructors, theological and moral teachers, his entire party con-
nection, the opposite party, and the whole country, so held it too; that
its fruits of more than half a century of union, of happiness, of re-
nown, bore constant and clear witness to it in his mind, and that it
chanced that certain emergent and rare actions had devolved on him
to stand forth to maintain it, to vindicate its interpretation, to vindi-
cate its authority, to unfold its workings and uses ; that he had so ac-
quitted himself of that opportunity as to have won the title of its ex-
pounder and defender, so that his proudest memories, his most prized
renown, referred to it, and were entwined with it — and say whether
with such antecedents, readiness to execute, or disposition to evade,
would have been the hardest to explain, likeliest to suggest the sur-
mise of a new temptation ! He who knows anything of the man, knows
that his vote for beginning the restoration of harmony by keeping the
whole Constitution, was determined, was necessitated by the great
law of sequences — a great law of cause and effect, running back to his
mother's arms, as resistless as the law which moves the system about
the sun — and that he must have given it, although it had been opened
to him in vision that within the next natural day his "eyes should be
turned to behold for the last time the sun in Heaven,"

To accuse him in that act of " sinning against his own conscience,"
is to charge one of these things: either that no well instructed con-
science can approve and maintain the Constitution and each of its
parts; and therefore thac his, by inference, did not approve it; or that
he had never employed the proper means of instructing his conscience;

'• and therefore its approval, if it were given, was itself an immorality.

'' The accuser must assert one of these propositions. He will not deny,
I take it for granted, that the conscience requires to be instructed by
political teaching in order to guide the citizen or the public man aright
in the matter of political duties. Will he say that the moral senti-
ments alone, whatever their origin; whether factitious and derivative,
or parcel of the spirit of the child and born with it; that they alone, by
force of strict and mere ethical training, become qualified to pronounce

. authoritatively whether the Constitution, or any other vast and com-

AUFUS CIIO ATE. 441

plex civil policy, as a whole, whereby a nation is created and pre-
served, ought to have been made, or ought to be executed? Will he
venture to tell you that if your conscience approves the Union, the
Constitution in all its parts, and the law which administers it, that
you are bound to obey and uphold them; and if it disapproves, you
must, according to your measure, and in your circles of agitation, dis-
obey and subvert them, and leave the matter there — forgetting or de-
signedly omitting to tell you also that you are bound in all good faith
and diligence to resort to studies and to teachers ab extra — -in order to
determine whether the conscience ought to approve or disapprove the
Union, the Constitution and the law, in view of the whole aggregate of
their nature and fruits ? Does he not perfectly know that this moral fac-
ulty, however trained by mere moral instruction, specifically directed
to that end, to be tender, sensitive, and peremptory, is totally unequal
to decide on any action, or anything, but the very simplest; that which
produces the most palpable and immediate result of unmixed good, or
unmixed evil; and that when it comes to judge on the great mixed
cases of the world, where the consequences are numerous, their devel-
opments slow and successive, the light and shadow of a blended and
multiform good and evil spread out on the lifetime of a nation, that
then morality must borrow from history; from politics; from reason
operating on history and politics, her elements of determination. I
think he must agree to this. He must agree, I think, that to single
out one provision in a political system of many parts and of elaborate
interdependence, to take it all alone, exactly as it stands, and without
attention to its origin and history; the necessities, morally resistless,
which prescribe its introduction into the system, the unmeasured good
in other forms which its allowance buys, the unmeasured evil in other
forms which its allowance hinders — without attention to these, to pre-
sent it in all "the nakedness of a metaphysical abstraction to the mere
sensibilities ;" and ask if it is not. inhuman, and if they answer accord-
ing to their kind that it is, then to say that the problem is solved, and
the right of disobedience is made clear — he must agree that this is not
to exalt reason and conscience, but to outrage both. He must agree that
although the supremacy of conscience is absolute whether the decision
be right or wrong, that is, according to the real qualities of things or
not, that there lies back of the actual conscience and its actual decisions,
the great anterior duty of having a conscience that shall decide accord- ■
ing to the real qualities of things, that to this vast attainment some ado- .
quate knowledge of the real qualities of things which are to be subjected *
to its inspection is indispensable ; that if the matter to be judged of is any
thing so large, complex, aud conventional as the duty of the citizen, or
the public man to the state; the duty of preserving or destroying the or-
der of things in which we are born; the duty of executing or violating
one of the provisions of organic law which the country, having a wide
and clear view of before and after, had deemed a needful instrumental

442 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM-

;. - _.--■■ - - . . . - ,.

means for the preservation of that order; that then it is not enough to
relegate the citizen, or the public man, to a higher law, and an in-
terior illumination, and leave him there. Such discourse is "as the
stars, which give so little light because they are so high." He -must
agree that in such case, morality itself should goto school. There
must be science as well as conscience, an old Fuller has said. She
must herself learn of history; she must learn of politics; she must
consult the builders of the state, the Irving and the dead, to know its
value, its aspects in the long run, on happiness and morals; its dan-
gers; the means of the preservation; the maxims and arts imperial of
its glory. To fit her to be the mistress of civil life, he will agree, that
she must come out for a space from the interior round of emotions,
and subjective states and contemplations, and introspection, clois-
tered, unexercised, unbreathed— and, carrying with her nothing but
her tenderness, her scrupulosity, and her love of truth, survey the ob-
jective realities of the state; ponder thoughtfully on the complications
and impediments, and antagonisms which make the noblest politics
but an aspiring, an approximation, a compromise, a type, a shadow of
good to come, "the buying of great blessings at great prices" — and
there learn civil duty secundum stibjectam mateiiam. " Add to your
virtue knowledge" — or it is no virtue.

And now, is he who accuses Mr. Webster of "sinning against his
own conscience," quite sure that he knows that that conscience — well
instructed by profoundest political studies, and thoughts of the reason;
well instructed by an appropriate moral institution sedulously applied,
did not commend and approve his conduct to himself ? Does he know,
that he had not anxiously, and maturely, studied the ethics of the
Constitution; and as a question of ethics, but of ethics applied to a
stupendous problem of practical life, and had not become satisfied that
they were right? Does he know that he had not done this, when his
faculties were all at their best; and his motives under no suspicion?
May not such an inquirer, for aught you can know; may not that
great mind have verily and conscientiously thought that he had learned
in that investigation many things? May he not have thought that he
learned that the duty of the inhabitants of the free states, in that
day's extremity, to the republic, the duty at all events of statesmen, to
the republic, is a little too large, and delicate, and difficult, to be all
comprehended in the single emotion of compassion for one class, of
persons in the commonwealth, or in carrying out the single principle
of abstract, and natural, and violent justice to one class? May he not
have thought that he found there some stupendous exemplifications of
what we read of in books of casuistry, the " dialectics of conscience,"
as conflicts of duties; such things es the conflicts of the greater with
the less; conflicts of the attainable with the visionary; conflicts of the
real with the seeming; and may he not have been soothed to lerirn
that the evil which he found in this part of the Constitution was the

$UFUS CIIO ATE. 443

least of two; was unavoidable; was compensated; was justified; was
commanded, as by a voice from the mount, by a mote exceeding and
enduring good ? May he not have thought that he had learned that
the grandest, most difficult, most pleasing to God of the achievements
of secular wisdom and philanthropy, is the building of a state; that
of the first class of grandeur and difficulty, and acceptableness to Him,
in this kind, was the building of our own; that unless everybody of
consequence enough to be heard of in the age and generation of
Washington — unless that whole age and generation were in a con-
spiracy to cheat themselves, and history, and posterity, a certain
policy of concession and forbearance of region to region, was indis-
pensable to rear that master work of man; and that that same policy
of concession and forbearance is as indispensable, more so, now, to
afford a rational ground of hope for its preservation? May he not
have thought that he had learned that the obligation, if such in any
sense you may call it, of one state to allow itself to become an asy-
lum for those flying from slavery into another state, was an obli-
gation of benevolence^ of humanity only, not of justice; that it
must, therefore, on ethical principles, be exercised under all the limi-
itations which regulate and condition the benevolence of states; that,
j therefore, each is to exercise it in strict subordination to its own in-
terests, estimated by a wise statesmanship, and a well instructed pub-
| lie conscience; that benevolence itself, even its ministrations of mere
(good will, is an affair of measure and of proportions; and must choose
! sometimes between the greater good, and the less; that if, to the
ihighest degree, and widest diffusion of human happiness, union of
istates such as ours, some free, some not so, was necessary; and to
i such union the Constitution was necessary; and to such a Constitu-
tion this clause was necessary, humanity itself prescribes it, and pre-
| sides in it? May he not have thought that he learned that there are
proposed to humanity in this world many fields of beneficent exertion;
some larger, some smaller, some more, some less expensive and
profitable to till; that among these it is always lawful, and often indis-
pensable to make a choice; that sometimes, to acquire the right, or
the ability to laoor in one, it is needful to covenant not to invade
another; and that such covenant, in partial restraint, rather in rea-
sonable direction of philanthropy, is good in the forum of conscience ?
And setting out with these very elementary maxims of practical morals,
may he not have thought that he learned fram the careful study of the
facts of our history and opinions, that to acquire the power of advan-
cing the dearest interests of man, through generations countless, by
that unequal security of peace and progress, the Union; the power of
advancing the interest of each state, each region, each relation — the
slave and the master; the power subjecting the whole continent all
iastir, and on fire with the emulation of young republics; of subjecting
it, through ages of household calm, to the sweet influences of Christi-

444 AMERICA X PATRIOT.

ISM.

anity, of culture, of the great, gentle, and sure reformer, time; that t©

enable us to do this, to'enable us "to grasp this boundless and' ever-
renevtfirig harvest of philanthropy, it would have been agOod bar-
gain—that humanity itself" would have approved it — to have bound
ourselves never so much as to look across the line into the inclosure of
Southern municipal slavery; certainly never to enter it; still less, still
less to

11 Pluck its berries harsh and crude ' 2E5J5

And with forced fingers rude '
Shatter its leaves before the mellowing year."

Until the accuser who charges him, now that he is in his grave, with
5 • having sinned against his conscience, " will assert that the conscience
of a public man may not, must not, be instructed by profound knowl-
edge of the vast subject-matter with which public life is conversant —
even as the conscience of the mariner may be and must be instructed
by the knowledge of navigation; and that of the pilot by the knowl-
edge of the depths and shallows of the coast; and that of the engi-
neer of the boat and the train, by the knowledge of the capacities of
his mechanism, to achieve a proposed velocity; and will assert that
he is certain that the consummate science of our great statesman was
felt by himself to prescribe to his morality another conduct than that
which he adopted, and that he thus consciously outraged that "sense
of duty which pursues us ever" — is he not inexcusable, whoever he is,
that so judges another ?

But it is time that this eulogy was spoken. My heart goes back into
the coffin there with him, and I would pause. I went — it is a day or
two since — alone, to see again the home which he so dearly loved,
the chamber where he died, the grave in which they laid him — all
habited as when

" His look drew audience still as night,
Or summer's noontide air,''

till the heavens be no more. Throughout that spacious and calm
scene all things to the eye showed at first unchanged. The books in
the library, the portraits, the table at which he wrote, the scientific
culture of the land, the course of agricultural occupation, the coming
in of the harvest, fruit of the seed his own hand had scattered; the
animals and implements of husbandry, the trees planted by him in
lines, in copses, in orchards, by thousands; the seat under the noble
elm on which he used to sit to feel the southwest wind at evening, or
hear the breathings of the sea, or the not less audible music of the
starry heavens, all seemed at first unchanged. The sun of a bright
day, from which, however, something of the fervors of midsummer
were wanting, fell temperately on them all, filled the air on all sides
with the utterances of life, and gleamed on the long line of ocean.
Some of those whom on earth he loved best, still were there. The

R.UFUS CHOATE. 445

great mind still seemed to preside; the great presence to be with you;
you might expect to hear again the rich and playful tones of the voice
of the old hospitality. Yet a moment more, and all the scene took on
the aspect of one great monument, inscribed with his name, and sa-
cred to his memory. And such it shall be in all the future of America!
The sensation of desolateness, and loneliness, and darkness, with
which you see it now, will pass away; the sharp grief of love and
friendship will become soothed; men will repair thither as they are
wont to commemorate the great days of history; the same glance shall
take in, and the same emotions shall greet and bless the Harbor of the
Pilgrims and the Tomb of Webster.

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PRESE R VAT I ON.

BATTLE-HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC.

Mine eves have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord :
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored /
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword:
. His truth is marching on.

I have seen him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps ;
They have builded him an altar in the evening dews and damps ;
I can read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps.
His day is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel :
"As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal:
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on."

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shalt never call retreat ;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment-seat .
Oh/ be swift, my soul, to answer him! be jubilant, my feet I
Our God is marching on.

In the ieauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,

With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me:

As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free.

While God is marching on.

Julia Ward Howe.

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WILLIAM ELLERY CHAINING. 449

THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES.
WILLIAM ELLERY MANNING-

Boston, March 26, 1842.

I respectfully ask your attention, fellow-citizens of the free states,
to a subject of great and pressing importance.

The case of the Creole, taken by itself, or separated from the prin-
ciples which are complicated with it, however it might engage
my feelings, would not have moved me to the present address.

I am not writing to plead the cause of a hundred or more men scat-
tered through the West Indies, and claimed as slaves. In a world
abounding with so much wrong and woe, we at this distance can
spend but a few thoughts on these strangers. I rejoice that they are
free; I trust that they will remain so; and with these feelings I dis-
miss them from my thoughts. The case of the Creole involves great
and vital principles, and as such I now invite to it your serious con-
sideration.

The case is thus stated in the letter of the American Secretary of
State to the American Minister in London:

" It appears that the brig Creole, of Richmond, Va., Ensor, master,
bound to New Orleans, sailed from Hampton Roads with a cargo of
merchandise, principally tobacco, and slaves, about one hundred and
thirty-five in number; that, on the evening of the 7th of November,
some of the slaves rose upon the crew of the vessel, murdered a pas-
senger named Hewell, who owned some of the negroes, wounded the
captain dangerously, and the first mate and two of the crew severely,
that the slaves soon obtained complete possession of the brig, which,
under their direction, was taken into the port of Nassau, in the island
of New Providence, where she arrived on the morning of the 9th of
the same month; that, at the request of the American consul in that
place, the governor ordered a guard on board, to prevent the escape
of the mutineers, and with a view to an investigation of the circum-
stances of the case; that such investigation was accordingly made by
two British magistrates, and that an examination also took place by
the consul; that, on the report of the magistrates, nineteen of the
slaves were imprisoned by the local authorities, as having been con-
cerned in the mutiny and murder; and their surrender to the consul,
to be sent to the United States for trial for these crimes, was refused,
on the ground that the governor wished first to communicate with the
government in England on the subject; that, through the interference
of the colonial authorities, and even before the military guard was re-
moved, the greater number of the slaves were liberated, and encour-
aged to go beyond the power of the master of the vessel, or the

45° AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

»t mi i

American consul, by proceedings which neither of them could controlJ
This is the substance of the case, as stated in two protests, one made!
at Nassau and one at New Orleans^ and the consul's letters, together
with sundry depositions taken by him; copies of all which are heieJ
with transmitted." ;

This statement of the case of the Creole is derived chiefly from the
testimony of the officers and crew of the vessel, and very naturally:
falls under suspicion of being colored, in part, by prejudice and pas-
sion. We must hear the other side, and compare all the witnesses,
before we can understand the whole case.

The main facts, however, Cannot be misunderstood. The shipping
of the slaves at Norfolk, the rising of apart of their number against
the officers of the vessel, the success of the insurrection, the carrying
of the vessel into the port of Nassau, and the recognition and treaty
ment of the slaves as free by the British authorities of that place—
these material points of the case cannot be questioned. The letter of
our government, stating these facts as grounds of complaint against
England, is written with much caution, and seems wanting in the tone
of earnestness and confidence which naturally belongs to a good
cause. It does not goto the heart of the case. It relies more on
the comity of nations than on principles of justice and natural
law.

Still, in one respect it is decided. It protests against, and com-
plains of, the British authorities, and "calls loudly for redress." It
maintains that "it was the plain and obvious duty" of the authorities
at Nassau to give aid and succor to the officers of the Creole in re-
ducing the slaves to subjection, in resuming their voyage with their
cargo of men as well as of tobacco, and in bringing the insurgents to
trial in this country. It maintains that the claims of the American
masters to their slaves existed and were in force in the British port,
and that these claims ought to have been acknowledged and sustained
by the British magistrate. The plain inference is, that the govern-
ment of the United States is bound to spread a shield over American
slavery abroad as well as at home. Such is the letter.

This document I propose to examine, and I shall do so chiefly for
two reasons; first, because it maintains morally unsound and perni-
cious doctrines, and is fitted to deprave the public mind; and secondly,
because it tends to commit the free states to the defence and support
of slavery. This last point is at this moment of -peculiar importance.
The free states are gradually and silently coming more and more into
connexion with slavery; are unconsciously learning to regard it as a
national interest; and are about to pledge their wealth and strength,
their bones and muscles and lives, to its defence. Slavery is mingling
more and more with the politics-of the country, determining more and
more the individuals who- shall hold office, ~and the great measures on
which the public weal depends. It is time for the free states to wake

WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING. 45 l

up to the subject; to weigh it deliberately: to think of it, not casually,
when some startling fact forces it up into notice; but with earnest,
continued, solemn attention, to inquire into their duties in regard to
it; to lay down their principles; to mark out their course: and to re-
solve on acquitting themselves righteously towards God, towards the
South, and towards themselves. The North has never come to this
great matter in earnest. We have trifled with it. We have left things
to take their course. We have been too much absorbed in pecuniary
interests to watch the bearing of slavery on the government. Perhaps
we have wanted the spirit, the manliness, to look the subject fully ia
the face. Accordingly, the «lave-power has been allowed to stamp it-
self on the national policy, and to fortify itself with the national arm.
For the pecuniary injury to our prosperity which may be traced to this
source I care little or nothing. There is a higher view of the case.
There is a more vital question to be settled than that of interest — the
question of duty — and So this my remarks will be confined.

The letter which is now to be examined may be regarded either as
the work of an individual, or as the work of the government. I shall
regard it in the latter light alone. Its personal bearings are of no mo-
ment. No individual will enter my thoughts in this discussion. I re-
gard the letter as issuing from the Cabinet, as an executive document,
as laying down the principles to which the public policy is in danger
of being conformed, as fitted to draw the whole country into support
of an institution which the free states abhor. With the opinions of an
individual I have nothing to do. Corrupt principles adopted by the
government — these, and these alone, it will be my object to expose.

There is a difficulty lying at the threshold of such a discussion, which
I should be glad to remove. A northern man writing on slavery is
supposed to write as a northern man, to be swayed by state feelings
and local biasses; and the distrust thus engendered is a bar to the con-
viction which he might otherwise produce. But the prejudices which
grow out of the spot where we live are far from being necessary or
universal. There are persons whose peculiarity, perhaps whose in-
firmity it is, to be exceedingly alive to evils in their neighborhood, to
defects in the state of society m which they live, whilst their imagina-
tions are apt to cast rosy hues over distant scenes. There are per-
sons who, by living in retirement and holding intercourse with gifted
minds in other regions, are even in danger of wanting a proper local
attachment, and of being unjust to their own homes. There are also
worthier causes which counteract the bigotry of provincial feelings. A
man, then is not necessarily presumptuous in thinking himself free
from local biasses. In truth, slavery' never presents itself to me as be-
longing to one or another part of the country. It does not come to
me in its foreign relations. I regard it simply and nakedly in itself,
and on this account feel that I have a right to discuss it.

May I be allowed one more preliminary remark ? The subject of

45 2 A M ERIC AN PA TRIO TISM.

slavery is separated in my mind not only from local considerations, but
from all thought of the individuals by whom it is sustained. I speak
against this institution freely, earnestly, some may think Vehemently;
but I have no thought of attaching the same reproach to those who
uphold it; and this I say, not to propitiate the slave-holder, who can-
not easily forgive the irreconcilable enemy of his wrong-doing, but to
meet the prepossessions of not a few among ourselves, who, from es-
teem towards the slave-holder, repel what seems to them to involve
an assault on his character. I do, indeed, use, and cannot but use,
strong language against slavery. No greater wrong, no grosser insult
on humanity can well be conceived; nor can it be softened by the cus-
tomary plea of the slave-holder's kindness. The first and most essen-
tial exercise of love towards a human being, is to respect his rights.
It is idle to talk of kindness to a human being whose rights we habit-
ually trample underfoot. "Be just before you are generous." A
human being is not to be loved as a horse or a dog, but as a being
having rights; and his first grand right is that of free action; the right
to use and expand his powers; to improve and obey his higher facul-
ties; to seek his own and others' good; to better his lot; to make him-
self a home; to enjoy inviolate the relations of husband and parent;
to live the life of a man. An institution denying to a being this right,
and virtually all rights, which degrades him into a chattel, and puts
him beneath the level of his race, is more shocking to a calm, enlightened
philanthropy than most of the atrocities which we shudder at in history;
and this for a plain reason. These atrocities, such as the burning of
heretics, and the immolation of the Indian woman on the funeral pile
of her husband, have generally some foundation in ideas of duty and
religion. The inquisitor murders to do God service; and the Hindoo
widow is often fortified against the flames by motives of inviolable
constancy and general self-sacrifice. The Indian in our wilderness,
when he tortures his captives, thinks of making an offering, of making
compensation, to his own tortured friend?. But in slavery, man seizes
his brother, subjects him to brute force, robs him of all his rights, for
purely selfish ends — as selfishly as the robber fastens on his prey. No
generous affections, no ideas of religion and self-sacrifice throw a,
gleam of light over its horrors.

As such I must speak of slavery, when regarded in its own nature,
and especially when regarded in its origin. But when I look on a
community among whom this evil exists, but who did not originate it,
who grew up in the midst of it, who connect it with parents and friends,
who see it intimately entwined with the whole system of domestic, so-
cial, industrial, and political life, who are blinded by long habit to its
evils and abuses, and who are alarmed by the possible evils of the
mighty change involved in its abolition, I shrink from passing on such
a community the sentence which is due to the guilty institution. All
history furnishes instances of vast iuCihs inflicted, of cruel institu-

WILLIAM ELLERY CIIANNING. 453

tions upheld, by nations or individuals who in otter relations manifest
respect for duty. That slavery has a blighting moral influence where
it exists, is, indeed, unquestionable; but in that bad atmosphere so
much that is good and pure may and does grow up as to forbid us to
deny. esteem and respect to a man simply because he is a slave-holder.
I offer these remarks because I wish that the subject may be ap-
proached without the association of it with individuals, parties, or local
divisions, which blind the mind to the truth.

I now return to the executive document with which I began. I am
first to consi.isr its doctrines, to show their moral unsoundness and
inhumanity: and then I shall consider the bearing of these doctrines
on the free states in general, and the interest which the free states have
at this critical moment in the subject of slavery. Thus my work
divides itself into two parts; the first of which is now offered to the
public.

In regard to the reasonings and doctrines of the document, it is a
happy circumstance, that they come within the comprehension of the
mass of the people. The case of the Creole is a simple one, which re-
quires no extensive legal study' to be understood. A man who has had
Httie connexion with public affairs is as able to decide on it as the bulk
of politicians. The elements of the case are so few, and the principles
o:i which its determination rests are so obvious, that nothing but a
sound moral judgment is necessary to the discussion. Nothing can
darken it but legal subtlety. None can easily doubt it, but those who
surrender conscience and reason to arbitrary rules.

The question between the American and English governments turns
mainly on one point. The English government does not recognize
within its bounds any property in man. It maintains that slavery
rests wholly on local, municipal legislation; that it it is an institution
not sustained and enforced by the law of nature, and still more, that it
is repugnant to this law; and that, of course, no man who enters the
territory or is placed under the jurisdiction of England can be regarded
as a slave, but must be treated as free. The law creating slavery, it is
maintained, has and can have no force beyond the state which creates
it. No other nation can be bound by it. Whatever validity this ordi-
nance, which deprives a man of all his rights, may have within the
jurisdiction of the community in which it had its birth, it can have no
validity anywhere else. This is the principle on which the English
government founds itself.

This principle is so plain that it has been established and is acted
upon among ourselves, and in the neighboring British provinces.
When a slave is brought by his master into Massachusetts, he is pro-
nounced free, on the ground that the law of slavery has no force be-
yond the state which ordains it, and that the right of every man to
liberty is recognized as one of the fundamental laws of the Common-
wealth. A slave flying from his master to this Commonwealth is,

454 A M ERICA N PA TRIO TISM.

indeed, restored, but not on account of the validity of the legislation
of the South on this point, but solely on the ground of a posi-
tive provision of the Constitution of the United States; and he
is delivered, not as a slave, but as a " person held to servicer by-
law in another State." We should not think for a moment, of restor-
ing a slave flying to us from Cuba or Turkey. We recognize no right
of a foreign master on this soil. The moment he brings his slave here
his claim vanishes into air; and this takes place because we recognize
■ reedora as the right of every human being.

By the provision of the Constitution, as we have said* the fugitive
slave from the South is restored by us, or, at least, his master's claim
is not annulled. But we have proof at our door that this exception
rests on positive, not natural law. Suppose the fugitive to pass through
our territory undiscovered, and to reach the soikof Canada. The ■
moment he touches it he is free. The master finds there an equal in
his slave. The British authority extends the same protection over
both. Accordingly, a colony of fugitive slaves is growing up securely,
beyond our border, in the enjoyment of all the rights of British sub*
jects. And this good work has been going on for years without any
complaint against England as violating the national law, and without
any claim for compensation. These are plain facts. We ourselves
construe the law of nature and nations as England does. But the
question is not to be settled on the narrow ground of precedent alone.
Let us view it in the light of eternal, universal truth. A grand prin-
ciple is involved in the case, or rather lies at its very foundation, and
to this I ask particular attention. This principle is, that a man, as a
man, has rights, has claims on his race, which are in no degree touched
or impaired on account of the manner in which he may be regarded or
treated by a particular clan, tribe or nation of his fellow- creatures.
A man, by his very nature, as an intelligent, moral creature of God,
has claims to aid and kind regard from all other men. There is a
grand law of humanity more comprehensive than all others, and under
which every man should find shelter. He has not only a right, but is
bound to use freely and improve the powers which God has given
him, and other men, instead of obstructing, are bound to assist their
development and exertion. These claims a man does not derive from
the family or tribe in which he began his being. They are not the
growth of a particular soil; they are not ripened under a peculiar
sky; they are not written on a particular complexion; they belong to
human nature. The ground on which one man asserts them all men
stand on. nor can they be denied to one without being denied ,to all.
We have here a common interest. We must all stand or fall together.
We all have claims on our race, claims of kindness and justice, claims
grounded on our relation to our common Father, and on the inheri-
tance of a common nature.

Because a number of men invade the rights of a fellow-creature, and

WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING. 455

pronounce him destitute of rights, his claims are not a whit touched
by this. He is as much a man as before. Not a single gift of God on
which his rights rest is taken away. His relations to the rest of his
race are in no measure affected. He is as truly their brother as if his
tribe had not pronounced him a brute. If, indeed, any change takes
place, his claims are enhanced, on the ground that the suffering and in-
jured are entitled to peculiar regard. If any rights should be singularly
sacred in our sight, they are those which are denied and trodden in the
dust.

It seems to be thought by some that a man derives all his rights
from the nation to which he belongs. They are gifts of the state, and
the state may take them away if it will. A man, it is thought, has
claims on other men, not as a man, but. as an Englishman, an Ameri-
can, or a subject of some other state. He must produce his parch-
ment of citizenship before he binds other men to protect him, to re-
spect his free agency, to leave him the use of his powers according to
his own will. Local, municipal law is thus made the fountain and
measure of rights. The stranger must tell us where he was born,
what privileges he enjoyed at home, or no tie links us to one another.

In conformity to these views, it is thought, that, when one eommu.
nity declares a man to be a slave, other communities must respect this
decree; that the duties of a foreign nation to an individual are to be
determined by a brand set on him on his own shores; that his relations
to the whole race may be affected by the local act of a community, no
matter how small or how unjust.

This is a terrible doctrine. It strikes a blow at all the rights of
human nature. It enables the political body to which we belong, no
matter how wicked or weak, to make each of us an outcast from his
race. It makes a man nothing in himself. As a man, he has no sig-
nificance. He is sacred only as far as some state has taken him under
its care. Stripped of his nationality, he is at the mercy of all who
may incline to lay hold on him. He may be seized, imprisoned, sent
to work in galleys or mines, unless some foreign state spreads its
shield over him as one of its citizens.

This doctrine is as false as it is terrible. Man is not the mere crea-
ture of the state. Man is older than nations, and he is to survive
nations. There is a law of humanity more primitive and divine than
the law of the land. He has higher claims than those of a citizen. He
has rights which date before all charters and communities; not con-
ventional, not repealable, but as eternal as the powers and laws of his
being.

This annihilation of the individual by merging him in the
state lies at the foundation of despotism. The nation is too
often the grave of the man. This is the more monstrous, because the
very end of the state, of the organization of the nation, is
to secure the individual in all his rights, and especially to se-

45 6 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

cure the rights of the weak. Here is the fundamental idea of political
association. In an unorganized society, with no legislation, no
tribunal, no empire, rights have no security. Force predominates
over right. This is the grand evil of what is called the state of
nature. To repress this, to give right the ascendancy over force,
this is the grand idea and end of government, of country, of
political constitutions. And yet we are taught that it depends on
the law of a man's country, whether he shall have rights, and whether
other states shall regard him as a man. When cast on a foreign shore,
his country, and not his humanity, is to be inquired into, and the
treatment he receives is to be proportioned to what he meets at
home. Men worship power, worship great organizations, and over-
look the individual; and few things have depraved the moral senti-
ment of men mere, or brought greater woes on the race. ' The state,
or the ruler in whom the state is embodied, continues to be worshipped,
notwithstanding the commission of crimes which would inspire horror
in the private man. How insignificant are the robberies, murders,
piracies, which the law makes capital, in comparison with an unjust or
unnecessary war, dooming thousands, perhaps millions, of the inno-
cent to the most torturing forms of death, or with the law of an auto-
crat or of a public body, depriving millions of all the rights of men !
But these, because the acts of the state, escape the execrations of the
world.

In consequence of this worship of governments it is thought that
their relations to one another are alone important. A government
is too great to look at a stranger, except as he is incorporated
with some state. It can have nothing to do but with political or-
ganizations like itself. But the humble stranger has a claim on
it as sacred as another state. Standing alone, he yet has rights, and to
violate them is as criminal as to violate the stipulations with a foreign
power. In one view it is baser. It is as true of governments as of
individuals, that it is base and unmanly to trample on the weak. He
who invades the strong shows a courage which does something to re-
deem his violence; but to tread on the neck of a helpless, friendless
fellow-creature is to add meanness to wrong.

If the doctrine be true, that the character impressed on a man at
home follows him abroad, and that he is to be regarded, not as a man,
but as the local laws which he has left regard him, why shall not this
apply to the peculiar advantages as well as disadvantages which a man
enjoys in his own land ? Why shall not he whom the laws invest with
'a right to universal homage at home receive the same tribute abroad ?
Why shall not he whose rank exempts him from the ordinary restraints
of law on his own shores claim the same lawlessness elsewhere ?
Abroad these distinctions avail him nothing. The local law which
makes him a kind of deity deserts him the moment he takes a step
beyond his country's borders; and why shall the disadvantages, the

WILLIAM ELLERY CHANGING. 457 .

terrible wrongs, which that law inflicts, follow the poor sufferer to the
fend of the earth ?

I repeat it, for the truth deserves reiteration, that all nations are
bound to respect the rights of every human being. This is God's law,
as old as the world. No local law can touch it. No ordinance of a
particular state, degrading a set of men to chattels, can absolve z\\
nations from the obligation of regarding the injured beings as men. or
bind them to send back the injured to their chains. The character of
a slave, attached to a man by a local government, is not and cannot be
incorporated into his nature. It does not cling to him, go where he
will. The scar of slavery on his back does not reach his soul. The
arbitrary relation between him and his master cannot suspend the
primitive, indestructible relation by which God binds him to his kind.

The idea, that a particular state may fix enduringly this stigma on a
human being, and can bind the most just and generous men to respect
it, should be rejected with scorn and indignation. It reminds us of
those horrible fictions in which some demon is described as stamping
an indelible mark of hell on his helpless victims. It was the horrible
peculiarity of the world in the reign of Tiberius, that it had become
one vast prison. The unhappy man on whom the blighting suspicion
of the tyrant had fallen could find no shelter or escape through the
whole civilized regions of the globe. Everywhere his sentence fol-
lowed him like fate. And can the law of a despot, or of a chamber of
despots, extend now the same fearful doom to the ends of the earth ?
Can a little state at the South spread its web of cruel, wrongful legis-
lation over both continents ? Do all communities become spellbound
by a law in a single country creating slavery ? Must they become the
slave's jailers? Must they be less merciful than the storm which
irives off the bondsmen from the detested shore of servitude and
:asts him on the soil of freedom? Must even that soil become tainted
3y an ordinance passed perhaps in another hemisphere? Has oppres-
sion this terrible omnipresence ? Must the whole earth register the
slaveholder's decree ? Then the earth is blighted indeed. Then, as
iome ancient sects taught; it is truly the empire of the principles of
wil, of the power of darkness. Then God is dethroned here; for
ivhere injustice and oppression are omnipotent God has no empire.

I have thus stated the great principles on which the English authori-
ties acted in the case of the Creole, and on which all nations are bound
p act. Slavery is the creature of local law, having power not a
iiiandbreadth beyond the jurisdiction of the country which ordains it.
b)ther nations know nothing of it, are bound to pay it no heed. I
anight add that other nations are bound to tolerate it within the bounds
i'f a particular state only on the grounds on which they suffer a par-
ticular state to establish bloody superstitions, to use the rack in juris-
Brudence, or to practise other enormities. They might much more
pstifiably put down slavery where it exists than enforce a foreign slave

45 8 ■ AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

code within their own bounds. Such is the impregnable princip'
which we of the free states should recognize and earnestly sustai
This principle our government has not explicitly denied in its letter
our minister in London. The letter is chiefly employed in dilating o!
various particular circumstances which, it is said, entitled the Creole W
assistance from the British authorities in the prosecution of the voyagi
with her original freight and passengers. The strength of the docil
ment lies altogether in the skilful manner in which these circumstances
are put together. I shall therefore proceed to consider them wit*
some minuteness. They are briefly these. The vessel was engageq
in a voyage " perfectly lawful." She was taken to a British portj
"not voluntarily, by those who had the lawful authority over her,1
but forcibly and violently, " against the master's will, without an4
agency or solicitation on the part of the great majority of the slaves,
and, indeed solely by the few "mutineers" who had gained possession
of her by violence and bloodshed. The slaves were "still on board*
the American vessel. They had not become " incorporated with the
English population ;" and frbm these facts it is argued that they had
not changed their original character, that the vessel containing thetg
ought to have been regarded as "still on her voyage," and should
have been aided to resume it, according to that law of comity and
hospitality by which nations are bound to aid one another's vessels ic
distress.

It is encouraging to see in this reasoning of the letter a latenl
acknowledgment, that, had the vessel been carried with the slaves
into the British port by the free will of the captain, the slaves woulc
have been entitled to liberty. The force and crime involved in th*
transaction form the strength of the case as stated by ourselves. Til
whole tone of the communication undesignedly recognizes important
rights in a foreign state in regard to slaves carried voluntarily to theii
shores; and by this concession it virtually abandons the whole ground

But let us look at the circumstances, which, it is said, bound th<
British authorities to assist the captain in sending back the slaves t<
their chains ; and one general remark immediately occurs. Thea
circumstances do not touch, in the slightest degree, the great principle
on which the authorities were bound by British and natural law to aci
This principle, as we have stated, is, that a nation is bound by thi
law of nature to respect the rights of every human being, that even
man within its jurisdiction is entitled to its protection as long as h*l
obeys its laws, that the private individual may appeal to the broafc
law of humanity and claim hospitality as truly as a state.

Now how did the peculiar circumstances of the Creole bear on this
fundamental view of the case ? Did the manner in which the slaves o
the Creole were carried to Nassau in any measure affect their char
acter as men. Did they cease to be men, because the ship was seizec
by violence, the captain imprisoned, and* the vessel turned from it

> WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING. 459

original destination ? Did the shifting of the vessel's course by a few
points of the compass, or did the government of the helm by a "mu-
tineer," transmute a hundred or more men into chattels? To the
eye of the British officer, the slaves looked precisely as they would
have done, had they been brought to the island by any other means.
He could see nothing but human beings ; and no circumstances leav-
ing this character on them, could have authorized him to deny them
human rights. It mattered nothing to him how they came to the
island ; ior this did not touch at all the ground of their claim to pro-
tection.

A case, indeed, is imagined in the document, in which it is said that
the manner of transportation of slaves to a foreign port must deter-
mine the character in which they shall be viewed. "Suppose an
American vessel with slaves lawfully on board were to be captured by
a British cruiser, as belonging to some belligerent, while the United
States were at peace ; suppose such prize carried into England, and
the neutrality of the vessel fully made out in the proceedings in Ad-
miralty, and a restoration consequently decreed; in such case must
not the slaves be restored exactly in the condition in which they were
when the capture was made ? Would any one contend that the fact
of their having been carried into England by force set them free ?" I
reply, undoubtedly they would be free the moment they should enter
English jurisdiction. A writ of habeas corpus could and would and
must be granted them, if demanded by themselves or their friends, and
no court would dare to remit them to their chains; and this is not only
English law, but in the spirit of universal law. In this case, however,
compensation would undoubtedly be made by the captors for the
slaves, not on the ground of any claim in the slave-holder, but be-
cause of the original wrong by the captors, and of their consequent
obligation to replace the vessel, as much as possible, in the condition
in which she was found at the moment of being seized on the open
ocean, where she was captured on groundless suspicion, where she had
a right to prosecute her voyage without obstruction, and whence she
ought not to have been brought by the capturing state within its juris-
diction and made subject to its laws.

Let us now consider particularly the circumstances on which the
United States maintain that the British authorities were bound to re-
place the slaves under the master of the Creole, and violated their
duty in setting them free.

k is insisted, first, that j ' the Creole was passing from one port to
another in a voyage perfectly lawful." We cannot but lament, that,
to sustain this point of the lawfulness of the voyage, it is affirmed that
% slaves are recognized as property by the Constitution of the United
States in those.states in which slavery exists." Were this true, it is
. one of those truths which respect for our country should prevent our
intruding on the notice of strangers. A child should throw a mantle

4§P AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

OA?er the nakedness of his parent. But the language seems to me
stronger than the truth. The Constitution was intended not to inter-
fere with the laws of property in the states where slaves had been
held. But the recognition of a moral right in the slave-holder is most
carefully avoided in that instrument. Slaves are three times re-
ferred to, but always as persons, not as property. The free states
are, indeed, bound to deliver up fugitive slaves; but these are to be
surrendered, not as slaves, but as "persons held to service:"
The clause applies as much to fugitive apprentices from the
North as to fugitive slaves from the South. The history of
this clause is singular. In the first draft of the Constitution it
stood thus: " No person, legally held to service or labor in one state,
escaping into another, shall, in consequence of regulations subsisting
therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be deliv-
ered tip," etc. Mr. Madison tells us that "the term ' legally ' was
struck out; and the words, ' under the laws thereof ' inserted after the
word 'state,' in compliance with the wish of some who thought the
term legal equivocal, and favoring the idea that slavery was legal in a.
moral view. It ought also to be added, that, in the debate in the
convention on that clause of the Constitution which conferred power
on Congress to abolish the importation of slaves in 1808, " Mr Madi-
son thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that there
could be property in men." Most memorable testimony to the truth
from this greatest constitutional authority! With the knowledge of
these facts our government had no apology for holding up the great
national charter as recognizing property in man. The phraseology
and history of the Constitution afford us some shelter, however in-
sufficient, from the moral condemnation of the world; and we should
not gratuitiously cast it away.

Whilst, however, we censure this clause in the executive document,
we rejoice that on one point it is explicit. It affirms that " slaves are
recognized as property by the Constitution of the United States in
those states in which slavery exists." Here we have the limit pre-
cisely defined within which the Constitution spreads its shield over
slavery. These limits are, "the states in which slavery exists."
Beyond these it recognizes no property in man, and, of course, be-
yond these it cannot take this property under its protection. The
moment the slave leaves the states within which slavery exists, the
Constitution knows nothing of him as property. Of consequence, the'
national government has no right to touch the case of the Creole. As
soon as that vessel passed beyond the jurisdiction of the state where
she received her passengers, the slaves ceased to be property, in the
eye of the Constitution. The national authorities were no longer
bound to interfere with and to claim them as such. The nation's
force was no longer pledged to subject them to their masters. Its re-
lation to them had wholly ceased. On this point we are bound to

WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING. 461

adopt the strictest construction of the instrument. The free States
should not suffer themselves to be carried a hair's breadth beyond the
line within which they are pledged to the dishonorable office of pro-
tecting slavery.

But, leaving this clause, I return to the first consideration adduced
to substantiate the claim of the Creole to the assistance of the British
authorities. The voyage, we are told, was " perfectly lawful." Beit
so. But this circumstance, according to the principles of the free
states, involves no obligation of another community to enforce sla-
very, or to withhold from the slave the rights of a man. Suppose the
Creole had sailed to Massachusetts with her slaves. The voyage
would have been "lawful;" but on entering the port of Boston her
slaves would have been pronounced free. The " right of property" in
them conferred by a slave state would have ceased. The lawfulness
of the voyage, then, gives the slave-holder no claim on another gov-
ernment into the ports of which his slave may be carried.

Again, what is meant by the " perfect lawfulness" of the voyage?
Does it mean that the Creole shipped the slaves under the law of na-
ture or the law of Great Britain ? Certainly not, but solely under the
law of America; so that the old question recurs, whether a local, mu-
nicipal law, authorizing an American vessel to convey slaves, binds all
nations, to whose territory these unhappy persons may be carried, to
regard, them as property, to treat them as the pariahs of the human
race. This is the simple question, and one not hard of solution.

" The voyage was perfectly lawful," we are told. So would be the
voyage of a Turkish ship freighted with Christian slaves from Con-
stantinople. Suppose such a vessel driven by storms or carried by
force into a Christian port. Would any nation in Europe, or would
America, feel itself bound to assist the Turkish slaver to replace the
chains on Christian captives whom the elements or their own courage
had set free, to sacrifice to the comity and hospitality and usages of
nations the law of humanity and Christian brotherhood ?

"The voyage," we are told, " was perfectly lawful." Suppose now
that a slave-holding country should pass a law ordaining and describ-
ing a chain as a badge of bondage, and authorizing the owner to carry
about his slave fastened to himself by this sign of property. Suppose
the master to go with slave and chain to a foreign country. His jour-
ney would be " lawful;" but would the foreign government be bound
to respect this ordinance of the distant state ? Would the authorized
chain establish property in the slave over the whole earth ? We know
it would not; and why should the authorized vessel impose a more real
obligation ?

It seems to be supposed by some that there is a peculiar sacredness
in a vessel, which exempts it from all control in the ports of other
I nations. A vessel is sometimes said to be "an extension of the terri-
tory" to which it belongs. The nation, we are told, is present in the

462 A ME RICA N PA TRIO TISM.

vessel, and its honor and rights are involved in the treatment which
its flag receives abroad. Those ideas are in the main true in regard
to ships on the high seas. The sea is the exclusive property of no
nation. It is subject to none. It is the common and equal property
of all. No state has jurisdiction over it. No state can write its laws
on that restless surface. A ship at sea carries with her and represents
the rights of her country, rights equal to those which any other enjoys.
The slightest application of the laws of another nation to her is to be
resisted. She is subjected to no law but that of her own country, and
to the law of nations, which presses equally on all states. She may
thus be called, with no violence to language, an extension of the terri-
tory to which she belongs. But suppose her to quit the open sea and
enter a port. What a change is produced in her condition ! At sea
she sustained the same relations to all nations, those of an equal. Now
she sustains a new and peculiar relation to the nation which she has
entered. She passes at once under its jurisdiction. She is subject to
its laws. She is entered by its officers. If a criminal flies to her for
shelter, he may be pursued and apprehended. If her own men violate
the laws of the land, they may be seized and punished. The nation is
not present in her. She has left the open highway of the ocean,
where all nations are equals, and entered a port where one nation
alone is clothed with authority. What matters it that a vessel in the
harbor of Nassau is owned in America? This does not change her
localit)'. She has contracted new duties and obligations by being
placed under a new jurisdiction. Her relations differ essentially from
those which she sustained at home or on the open sea. These re-
marks apply, of course, to merchant vessels alone. A ship of war is
"an extension of the territory" to which she belongs not only when
she is on the ocean, but in a foreign port. In this respect she resem-
bles an army marching by consent through a neutral country. Neither
ship of war nor army falls under the jurisdiction of foreign states.
Merchant vessels resemble individuals. Both become subject to the
laws of the land which they enter.

We are now prepared to consider the next circumstance, on which

much stress is laid to substantiate the claim of our government. "The

vessel was taken to a British port, not voluntarily, by those who had

(the lawful authority over her, but forcibly and violently, against the

master's will, by mutineers and murderers," etc.

To this various replies are contained in the preceding remarks. The
first is, that the local laws of one country are not transported to an-
other, and do not become of force there, because a vessel of the for-
mer is carried by violence into the ports of the latter. Another is, that a
vessel entering the harbor of a foreign state, through mutiny or vio-
lence, is not on this account exempted from its jurisdiction or laws.
She may not set its authorities at defiance because brought within its
waters against her own will. There may, indeed, be local laws in- '

WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING. 463

tended to exc'ude foreigners, which it would be manifestly unjust and
inhuman to enforce on such as may be driven to the excluding state
against their own consent. But as to the laws of a country founded on
the universal principles of justice and humanity, these are binding on
foreign vessels under whatever circumstances they may be brought
within its jurisdiction. There is still another view of this subject,
which I have already urged, but which is so important as to deserve
repetition. The right of the slaves of the Creole to liberation was not
at all touched by the mode in which they were brought to Nassau.
No matter how they got there, whether by sea, land, or air, whether
by help of saint or sinner." A man's right to freedom is derived from
none of these accidents, but inheres in him as a man, and nothing
which does not touch his humanity can impair it. The slaves of the
Creole were not a whit the less men because "mutiny" had changed
their course on the ocean. They stood up in the port of Nassau with
all the attributes of men, and the government could not without wrong
have denied their character and corresponding claims.

We are now prepared for the consideration of another circumstance
in the case of the Creole on Which stress is laid. We are told by our
government that they were ' ' still in the ship" when they were declared
free, and on this account their American character, that is, the char-
acter of slavery, adhered to them. This is a view of the case more
fitted perhaps than any other to impress the inconsiderate. The. slaves
had not changed their position, had not touched the shore. The ves-
sel was American. They trod on American planks; they slept within
American walls. They of course belonged to America, and were to
be viewed only in their American character. To this reasoning the
principles already laid down furnish an easy answer. It is true that
the slaves were in an American ship; but there is another truth more
pregnant; they were also in another country, where American law has
no power. The vessel had not carried America to the port of Nassau.
The slaves had changed countries. What though they were there in an
American ship ? They were therefore not the less within English ter-
ritory and English jurisdiction. The two or three inches of plank
which separated them from the waves had no miraculous power to pre-
vent them from being where they were. The water which embosomed
the vessel was English, The air they breathed was English. The laws
under which they had passed were English. One would think, from
the reasoning to which I am replying, that the space occupied by a
vessel in a foreign port is separated for a time from the country to which
it formerly belonged, that it takes the character cf the vessel, and falls
under the laws of the land to which she appertains; that the authorities
which have controlled it for ages must not enter it, whilst the foreign
planks are floating in it, to repress crime or enforce justice. But this
is all a fiction. The slaves, whilst in the ship, were in a foreign country
as truly as if they had plunged into the waves or set foot on shore.

464 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

We will now consider another circumstance to which importance is
attached in the document of our executive. We are told that " the
slaves could not be regarded as having become mixed up or incorpor-
ated with the British population, or as having changed character at all,
either in regard to country or personal condition." To this it is
replied, that no one pretends that the slaves had become Englishmen,
or had formed a special relation to Great Britain, on account oi which
she was compelled to liberate them. It was not as a part of the Brit-
ish population that they were declared free. Had the authorities at
Nassau taken this ground, they might have been open to the com-
plaints of our government. The slaves were pronounced free, not
because of any national character which they sustained, but because
they were men, and because Great Britain held itself bound to respect
the law of nature with regard to men. It was not necessary for them
to be incorporated with the British population in order to acquire the
common rights of human beings. One great error iu the document is,
that a government is supposed to owe nothing to a human being who
lands on its shores, any farther than his nation may require. It is
thought to have nothing to do but to inquire into his nationality and
to fulfil the obligations which this imposes. He has no rights to set
up, unless his own government stand by him. Thus the fundamental
principles of the law of nature are set at naught. Thus all rights are
resolved into benefactions of the state, and man is nothing, unless
incorporated, mixed up, with the population of a particular country.
This doctrine is too monstrous to be openly avowed, but it lies at the
foundation of most of the reasonings of the document. The man,. I
repeat it, is older and more sacred than the citizen. The slave of the
Creole had no other name to take. His own country had declared
him not to be a citizen. He had been scornfully refused a place
among the American people. He was only a Man; and was that a
low title on which to stand up among men ? Nature knows no higher
on earth. English law knows no higher. Shall we find fault with a
country, because an outcast man landing on its shore is declared free
without the formality of becoming incorporated with its population ?

The slaves, we are told in the argument which we are considering,
as they had no claim to be considered as mixed up with the British
population, had not, therefore, changed their character either in regard
to "country or condition." The old sophistry reigns here. It is
taken for granted that a man has no character but that of country and
condition. In other words, he must be regarded by foreign states as
belonging to a particular nation, and treated according to this view,
and no other. Now the "truth is, that there is a primitive, indelible
"character" fastened on a man, far more important than that of
"country or condition;'' and, looking at this, I joyfully accord with
our Cabinet in saying that the slaves of the Creole did not "change
their character" by touching Biitish soil. There they stood with the

WILLIAM ELLERY CIIANNING. 465

character which God impressed on them, and which man can never
efface. The British authorities gave them no new character, but
simply recognized that which they had worn from the day of their
birth, the only one which cannot pass away.

I have now considered all the circumstances stated in the document
as grounds of complaint, with one exception, and this I have deferred
on account of its uncertainty, and in the hope of obtaining more satis-
factory information. The circumstance is this, "that the slaves
were liberated by the interference of the colonial authorities;" that
these I ' not only gave no aid, but did actually interfere to set free the
slaves, and to enable them to disperse themselves beyond the reach
of the master of their vessel or their owners." This statement is taken
from the protest of the captain and crew made at New Orleans, which
indeed, uses much stronger language, and charges on the British
authorities much more exceptional interference. This, as I have said,
is to be suspected of exaggeration or unjust coloring, not on the
ground of any peculiar falseness in the men who signed it, but because
of the tendency of passion and interest to misconstrue the offensive
conduct of others. But admitting the correctness of the protest, we
cannot attach importance to the complaint of the document. This
insists that the English authorities " interfered to set free the slaves."
I reply that the authorities did not and could not set the colored men
free, and for the plain reason, that they were in no sense slaves in the
British port. The authorities found them in the first instance both
legally and actually free. How, then, could they be liberated ? They
stood before the magistrates free at the first moment. They had
passed beyond, the legislation of the state which had imposed their
chains. They had come under a jurisdiction which knew nothing of
the property in man, nothing of the relation of master and slave. As
soon as they entered the British waters the legal power of the captain
over them, whatever it might have been, ceased. They were virtually
4< beyond his reach," even whilst on board. Of course, no act of the
authorities was needed for their liberation.

But this is not all The colored men were not only legally free on
entering the British port, they were so actually and as a matter of
fact. The British authorities had not the merit of exerting the least
physical power to secure to them their right to liberty. The slaves
had liberated themselves. They had imprisoned the captain. They g
had taken command of the vessel. The British authorities interfered
to liberate, not the colored people, but the captain; not to uphold, but
arrest, the " mutineers." Their action was friendly to the officers and
crew. In all this action, however, they did nothing, of course, to re-
duce the slaves a second time to bondage. Had they, in restoring the
vessel to the captain, replaced, directly or indirectly, the liberated
slaves under the yoke, they would have done so at their peril. How,
then, could they free those whom they knew only as free? They

466 AMERICAN PA TRIO TISM.

simply declared them free, declared a matter of fact which could not
be gainsaid. If they persuaded them to leave the ship, they plainly
acted in this as counsellors and friends, and. exerted no official
power.

It is said, indeed, in the protest, that the magistrates " commanded "
the slaves to go on shore. If this be true, and if the command were
accompanied with any force, they indeed committed a wrong; but one,
I fear, for which our government will be slow to seek redress. They
wronged the liberated slaves. These were free, and owed no obedi-
ence to such command. They had a right to stay where they were;
a right to return to America; and in being compelled to go on shore
they received an injury for which our government, if so disposed, may
make complaint. But the slaves alone were the injured party. The
right of the owner was not violated, for he had no right. His claim
was a nullity in the British port. He was not known there. The law
on which he stood in his own country was there a dead letter. Who
can found on it a complaint against the British government?

It is said that the " comity of nations" forbade this interference.
But this comity is a vague, unsettled law, and ought not to come into
competition with the obligations of a state to injured men thrown on
its protection, and whose lives and liberties are at stake. We must
wait, however, for farther light from Nassau, to comprehend the
whole case It is not impossible that the authorities at that port ex-
erted an undue influence and took on themselves an undue responsi-
bility. Among the liberated slaves there were undoubtedly not a few
so ignorant and helpless as to be poorly fitted to seek their fortune in
the West Indies, among strangers little disposed to sympathize with;
their sufferings or aid their inexperience. These ought to have been
assured of their liberty; but they should have been left to follow, with-
out any kind of resistance, their shrinking from an unknown shore,
and their desire to return to the land of their birth, whenever these
feelings were expressed.

I know not that I have overlooked any of the considerations which
are urged in the executive document in support of our complaints
against Great Britian in the case of the Creole. I have labored to
understand and meet their full force. I am sorry to have been obliged
to enter into these so minutely, and to repeat what I deem true prin-
ciples so often. But the necessity was laid on me. The document
does not lay down explicitly any great principle with which our claim
must stand or fall. Its strength lies in the skilful suggestion of various
circumstances which strike the common reader, and which irust succes-
sively be examined, to show their insufficiency to the end for which
they are adduced. It is possible, however, to give something of a
general form to the opinions expressed in it, and to detect under these
a general principle. This I shall proceed to do, as necessary to the
full comprehension of this paper. The opinions scattered through the

WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING. 467

ocument may be thus expressed: — " Slaves, pronounced to be prop-
rty by American law, and shipped as such, ought to be so regarded
jy a foreign government on whose shores they may be thrown. This
lovernment is bound to regard the national stamp set on them. It
as no right to inquire into the condition of these persons. It can-
ot give to them the character or privileges of the country to which
iey are carried. Suppose a government to have declared opium a
ning in which no property can lawfully exist or be asserted. Would
therefore, have a right to take the character of property from
Ipium, when driven in a foreign ship into its ports, and to cast
\ into the sea? Certainly not. Neither, because it declares
Rat men cannot be property, can it take this character from slaves,
men they are driven into its ports from a country which makes them
ropertyby its laws. They still belong to the distant claimant; his
ight must not be questioned or disturbed; and he must be aided in
olding them in bondage, if his power over them is endangered by dis-
jress or mutiny." Such are the opinions of the document, in a con-
ensed form, and they involve one great principle, namely this: that
roperty is an arbitrary thing, created by governments: that a gov-
rnment may make anything property at its will; and that what its
itizens or subjects hold as property, under this sanction, must be re-
;arded as such, without inquiry, by the civilized world. According to
he document, a nation may attach the character of property to whatever
I pleases; may attach it alike to men and women, beef and pork, cotton
.nd rice; and other nations, into whose ports its vessels may pass, are
,>ound to respect its laws in these particulars, and in case of distress
o assist in enforcing them. Let our country, through its established
;;overnment, declare our fathers or mothers, sons or daughters, to be
>roperty; and they become such, and the right of the master must
lot be questioned at home or abroad.

Now this doctrine, stated in plain language, needs no labored ref-
lation; it is disproved by the immediate testimony of conscience and
:ommon sense. Property is not an arbitrary thing, dependent wholly
m man's will. It has its foundation and great laws in nature, and
hose cannot be violated without crime. It is plainly the intention of
Providence that certain things should be owned, should be held as
jroperty. They fulfil their end only by such appropriation. The ma-
:erial world was plainly made to be subjected to human labor, and its
Droducts to be moulded by skill to human use. He who wins them by
lonest toil, has a right to them, and is wronged when others seize and
ronsume them. The document supposes a government to declare
iat opium is an article in which property cannot exist or be asserted,
ind on this ground to wrest it from the owner and throw it into the
$ea ; and this it considers a parallel case to the declaration that
property in man cannot exist. But who does not see that the parallel
is absurd ? The poppy, which contains the opium, is by its nature

463 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

fitted and designed to be held as property. The man who rears
by his capital, industry, and skill, thus establishes a right to it, and i<
injured if it be torn from him, except in the special case where som<
higher right supersedes that of property. The poppy is not wrongcc
by being owned and consumed. It has no intelligence, no conscience
for its own direction, no destiny to fulfil by the wise use and culture o:
its powers. It has therefore no rights. By being appropriated to at
individual it does good, it suffers no wrong.

Here are the grounds of property. They are found in the nature
of the article so used; and where these grounds are wholly wanting,
as in the case of human beings, it cannot exist or be asserted. A mat)
was made to be an owner, not to be owned; to acquire, not to become
property. He has faculties for the government of himself. He has a
great destiny. He sustains tender and sacred relations, especially
those of parent and husband, and with the duties and blessings of these
no one must interfere. As such a being, he has rights. These be-
long to his very nature. They belong to every one who partakes it
all here are equal. He therefore may be wronged, and is most griev-
ously wronged, when forcibly seized by a fellow-creature, who has no
other nature and rights than his own, and seized by such a one to live,
for his pleasure, to be bowed to his absolute will, to be placed under
his lash, to be sold, driven from home, and torn from parent, wife,'
and child, for another's gain. Does any parallel exist between such a
being and opium? Can we help seeing a distinction between the
nature of a plant and a man which forbids their being confounded
under the same character of property ? Is not the distinction recog-
nized by us in the administration of our laws ? When a man from
the South brings hither his watch and trunk, is his right to them
deemed a whit the less sacred because the laws of his state cease to,
protect them ? Do we not recognize them as his, as intuitively and
cheerfully as if they belong to a citizen of our own state ? Are they,
not his, here and everywhere ? Do we not feel that he would be
wronged were they torn from him ? But when he brings a slave, we
do not recognize his property in our fellow-creature. We pronounce
the slave free. Whose reason and conscience do not intuitively pro-
nounce this distinction between a man and a watch to be just ?

It maybe urged, however, that this is a distinction for moralists,
not for governments; that if a government establishes property, how|
ever unjustly, in human beings, this is its own concern, and the con-
cern of no other; and that articles on board its vessels must Le
recognized by other nations as what it declares them to be without anj
question as to the morality or fitness of its measures. One nation, we
are told, is not to interfere with another. I need not repeat, in reply,
what I have so often said, that a government has solemn duties to-
wards every human being entering its ports, duties which no local
law about property in another country can in any degree impair. I

WILLIAM ELLERY CIIANNING. 469

would only say, that a government is not bound in all possible cases to
respect the stamps put by another government on articles transported
in the vessels of the latter. The comity of nations supposes that in
all such transactions respect is paid to common sense and common
justice. Suppose a government to declare cotton to be horses, to
write 0 horse" on all the bales within its limits, and to set these down
as horses in its custom-house papers; and suppose a cargo of these to
enter a port where the importation of cotton is forbidden. Will
the comity of nations forbid the foreign nation to question the char-
acter which has been affixed by law to the bales in the country to
which they belong? Can a law change the nature of things, in the in-
tercourse of nations ? Must officers be stone-blind through " comity?"
Would it avail anything to say, that, by an old domestic institution in
the exporting country, cotton was pronounced horse, and that such in-
stitution must not be interfered with by foreigners ? Now, in the es-
timation of England and of sound morality, it is as hard to turn man
into property as horses into cotton, and this estimation England has
embodied in its laws. Can we expect such a country to reverence the
stamp of property on men, because attached to them by a foreign land?

The executive document not only maintains the obligation of the
English authorities to respect what the South had stamped on the
slave, but maintains earnestly that "the English authorities had no
right to inquire into the cargo of the vessel, or the condition of
persons on board." Now it is unnecessary to dispute, about this
right; for the British authorities did not exercise it, did not need
it, The truth of the case, and the whole truth, they could not help
seeing, even had they wished to remain blind. Master, crew, pass-
engers, colored people, declared with one voice that the latter were
shipped as slave's. Their character was thus forced on the gov-
ernment, which of course had no liberty of action in the case. By
the laws of England, slavery could not be recognized within its juris-
diction. No human being could be recognized as property. The
authorities had but orte question to ask: Are these poor creatures
men? and to solve. this question no right of search was needed. It
solved itself. A single glance settled the point. Of course we have
no ground to complain of a busy intermeddling with cargo and persons,
to determine their character, by British authorities.

I have thus finished my examination of the document, and shall
conclude by some general remarks. And first, J cannot but express
my sorrow at the tone of inhumanity which pervades it. I have said
at the beginning that I should make no personal strictures; and I have
no thought of charging on our Cabinet any singular want of human
feeling. The document bears witness, not 'to individual hardness of
heart, but to the callousness, the cruel insensibility, which has seized the
community at large. Our contact with slavery has seared in a meas-
ure almost all hearts. Were there a healthy tone of feeling among

47 ° AMERICAN: PA TRIO TISM.

us, certain passages in this document. would .call, forth a burst .of dis-
... pleasure. For example, what an outrage is offered to humanity in. in-
stituting a comparison between man and opiumv in treating these as
having equal rights and having equal sanctity, in degrading an im-
mortal child of God to the level of a drug, in placing both equally at the
mercy of .selfish legislators ! To an unsophisticated man there is rot
only inhumanity, but irreligion, in thus treating a being made in the
image of God and infinitely dear to the Universal Father.

In the same, tone, the slaves, who regained their freedom by a
struggle which cost the life of a white man, and by which one of their
own number perished, are set down as "mutineers and murderers."
Be it granted that their violence is condemned by the Christian law.
Be it granted that the assertion of our rights must not be stained with
cruelty ; that it is better lor us to die slaves than to inflict death on our
oppressor. But is there a man, haying a manly spirit, who can with-
hold'all sympathy and admiration for men who, having grown up
tinder the blighting influence of slavery, yet had the courage to put life
to hazard for liberty? Are freemen slow to comprehend and honor
the impulse which stirs men to break an unjust and degrading chain?
"Would the laws of any free state pronounce the taking of life in such a
case "murder?" Because a man, under coercion, whilst on his way'
to a new yoke, and in the act of being Carried by force from wife and
children and home, sheds blood to escape his oppressor/ is he to be
confounded with the vilest criminals? Does a republic, whose heroic
age was the "Revolution of 1776, and whose illustrious men earned
their glory in a sanguinary conflict for rights, find no mitigation of ]
this bloodshed in the greater wrongs to which the slave is subjected?
This letter would have lost nothing Of its force, it would at least have
shown better taste, had it consulted humanity enough to be silent .
about \ ' opium" and ! ' murder. "

I.. cannot refrain from another view of the document. This declara-
tion of national principles cannot be too much lamented and disap-
proved for the dishonor it has brought on our country. It openly :
arrays us, as a people, against the cause of human freedom. It \
throws us in the way of the progress of liberal principles through ]
the earth. The grand distinction of our Revolution was, that it not:
only secured the independence of a single nation, but asserted the J
rights of mankind. It gave to the spirit of freedom an impulse, which, j
notwithstanding the dishonor cast on the cause by the excesses ofj
France, is still acting deeply and broadly on the civilized world. Since 1
that period a new consciousness of what is due to a human being has J
been working its way. It has penetrated into despotic states. Even
in countries where the individual has no constitutional means of con- J
trolling government personal liberty has a sacredness and protection!
never known before. Among the triumphs of this spirit of freedom
and humanity, one of the most signal is the desire to put an end to |

WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING. 471

slavery. The cry for emancipation swells and spreads from land to
Land. And from whence comes the opposing cry ? From St. Peters-
burgh ? From Constantinople ? From the gloomy, jealous cabinets
of despotism ? No; but from republican America ! from that country
whose Declaration of Independence was an era in human history I
The nations of the earth are beginning to proclaim that slaves shah
not breathe their air, that whoever touches their soil shall be free. Re-
publican America protests against this reverence for right and human-
ity, and summons the nations to enforce her laws against the slave.
O my country ! hailed once as the asylum of the oppressed, once con-
secrated to liberty, once a name pronounced with tears of joy and
hope! now a by-word among the nations, the scorn of the very sub-
jects of despotism ! How art thou fallen, morning-star of freedom !
And has it come to this ? Must thy children blush to pronounce thy
name ? Must we cower in the presence of the Christian world ? Must
we be degraded to the lowest place among Christian nations ? Is the
sword which wrought out our liberties to be unsheathed now to en-
force the claims of slavery on foreign states ? Can we bear this burn-
ing shame ? Are the free states prepared to incur this infamy and
crime !

"" Slaves cannot breathe in England." I learned this line when I
was a boy, and in imagination I took flight to the soil which could
never be tainted by slaves. Through the spirit which spoke in that
line England has decreed that slaves cannot breathe in her islands.
Ought we not to rejoice in this new conquest of humanity ? Ought not
the tidings of it to have been received with beaming eyes and beating
hearts ? Instead of this we demand that humanity shall retrace her
steps, and liberty resign her trophies. We call on a great nation to
abandon its solemnly pronounced conviction of duty, its solemnly
pledged respect for human rights, and to do what it believes to be un-
just, inhuman and base. Is there nothing of insult in such a demand ?
This case is no common one. It is not a question of policy, not an
ordinary diplomatic concern. A whole people, from no thought of
policy, but planting itself on the ground of justice and of Christianity,
sweeps slavery from its soil, and declares that no slave shall tread
there. This profound religious conviction, in which all Christian na-
tions are joining her, we come in conflict with, openly and without
shame. Is this an enviable position for a country which would respect
itself or be respected by the world? It is idle, and worse than idle, to
say, as is sometimes said, that England has no motive but policy in
her movements about slavery. He who says so talks ignorantly or
recklessly. I have studied abolitionism in England enough to assure
those who have neglected it that it was the act, not of the politician,
but of the people. In this respect it stands alone in history. It was
a disinterested movement of a Christian nation in behalf of oppressed
strangers, beginning with Christians, carried through by Christians.
A. P.— 16.

47 2 AMERICA X PATRIOTISM.

The government resisted it for years. The government was compelled
to yield to the voice of the people. No act of the English nation -was
ever so national, so truly the people's act, as this. And can we hope
to conquer the conscience as well as the now solemnly adopted policy
of a great nation ? Were England to concede this point, she would
prove herself false to known, acknowledged truth and duty. Her
freshest, proudest laurel would wither. The toils and prayers of her
V/ilberforces, Clarksons, and a host of holy men, which now invoke
God's blessings on her, would be turned to her reproach and shame,
and call down the vengeance of Heaven.

- In bearing this testimony to the spirit of the English people in the
abolition of the slave-trade and of slavery, nothing is farther from my
mind than a disposition to defend the public policy or institutions of
that country. In this case, as in most others, the people are better
than their rulers. England is one of the last countries of which I am
ready to become a partisan. There must be something radically wrong
in the policy, institutions, and spirit of a nation which all other nations
regard with jealousy and dislike. Great Britain, with all her progress
in the arts, has not learned the art of inspiring confidence and love.
She sends forth her bounty over the earth, but, politically considered,
has made the world her foe. Her Chinese war, and her wild extension
of dominion over vast regions which she cannot rule well or retain,
give reason to fear that she is falling a prey to the disease under which
great nations have so often perished.

To a man who looks with sympathy and brotherly regard on the
mass of the people, who is chiefly interested in the "lower classes,"
England must present much which is repulsive. Though a monarchy
in name, she is an aristocracy in faet; and an aristocratical caste,
however adorned by private virtue, can hardly help sinking an infinite
chasm between itself and the multitude of men. A privileged order,
possessing the chief power of the state, cannot but rule in the spirit of
an order, cannot respect the mass of the people, cannot feel that for
them government chiefly exists and ought to be administered, and that
for them the nobleman holds his rank as a trust. The condition of
the lower orders at the present moment is a mournful commentary on
English institutions and civilization. The multitude are depressed in
that country to a degree of ignorance, want, and misery, which must
touch every heart not made of stone. In the civilized world there are
few sadder spectacles than the contrast now presented in Great Britain
of unbounded wealth and luxury with the starvation of thousands and
ten thousands, crowded into cellars and dens without ventilation or
light, compared with which the wigwam of the Indian is a palaee.
Misery, famine, brutal degradation, in the neighborhood and presence
of stately mansions which ring with gayety and dazzle with pomp and
unbounded profusion, shock us as no other wretchedness does; and
this is not an accidental, but an almost necessary "effect of the spirit of

WILLIAM ELLERY CIIAXXIXG. 473

aristocracy and the spirit of trade acting intensely together. It is a
striking fact, that the private charity of England, though almost incredi-
ble, makes but little impression on this mass of misery; thus teaching
the rich and titled to be "just before being generous," and not to look
to private munificence as a remedy for the evils of selfish institutions.

Notwithstanding my admiration of the course of England in refer-
ence to slavery,' I see as plainly as any the wrongs and miseries under
which her lower classes groan. I do not on this account, however,
subscribe to a doctrine very common in this country, that the poor
Chartists of England are more to be pitied than our slaves. Ah. no!
Misery is not slavery; and were it greater than it is-, it would afford
the slave-holder no warrant for trampling on the rights and the souls
of his fellow-creatures. The Chartist, depressed as he is, is not a
slave. The blood would rush to his cheek, and the spirit of a man
swell his emaciated form at the suggestion of relieving his misery by
reducing him to bondage, and this sensibility shows the immeasurable
distance between him and the slave. He has rights, and knows them.
He pleads his own cause, and just and good men plead it for him.
According to the best testimony, intelligence is spreading among the
Chartists; so is temperance; so is self-restraint. They feel themselves
to be men. Their wives and children do not belong to another. They
meet together for free discussion, and their speeches are not wanting
in strong sense and strong expression. Not a few among them have
seized on the idea of the elevation of their class by a new intellectual
and moral culture, and here is a living seed, the promise of immeas-
urable good. Shall such men, who aspire after a better lot, and
among whom strong and generous spirits are springing up, be con-
founded with slaves, whose lot admits no change, who must not speak
of wrongs or think of redress, whom it is a crime to teach to read, to
whom even the Bible is a sealed book, who have no future, no hope
on this side death?

I have spoken freely of England ; yet I do not forget our debt or the
debt of the world to her. She was the mother of our freedom. She
has been the bulwark of Protestantism. What nation has been more
fruitful in great men, in men of genius? What nation can compare
with her in munificence ? What nation but must now acknowledge her
unrivalled greatness? That little island sways a wider empire than the
Roman, and has a power of blessing mankind never before conferred o-i
a people. Would to God she could learn, what nation never yet
learned, so to use power as to inspire confidence, not fear, so as to '
awaken the world's gratitude, not its jealousy and revenge !

But whatever be the claims of England or of any other state, I must
cling to my own country with strong preference, and cling to it even
now, in this dark day, this day of her humiliation, when she stands be-
fore the world branded, beyond the truth, with dishonesty, and, too
truly, with the crime of resisting the progress of freedom on the earth,

474 AMERICAN PA TRIOTJSM.

. . - . ■

After all, she has her glory.. After all, in these free states a man is still
a man. He knows his rights, he respects himself, and acknowledges
the equal claim of his brother. Wfe have order without the display of
force. We have government without soldiers, spies, or the constant
presence of coercion. The rights of thought, of speech, of the press, of
conscience, of worship _ are enjoyed to the full without violence or
dangerous excess. We are even distinguished by kindliness and good
temper amidst this unbounded freedom. The individual is not lost in
the mass, but has a consciousness of self-subsistence, and stands erect.
That character which we call manliness is stamped on the multitude
here as nowhere else. No aristocracy interferes with the natural rela-
tions of men to one another. No hierarchy weighs down the intellect,
and makes the church a prison to the soul, from which it ought to break
every chain. I make no boast of my country's progress, marvellous as
it has been. I feel deeply her defects. But, in the language of Cowper,
I can say to her,—

* Yet, being free, I love thee ; for the sake
Of that one feature can be well content,
Disgraced as thou hast been, poor as thou art,
To seek no sublunary rest beside."

Our country is free ; this is its glory. How deeply to be lamented is
it that this glory is obscured by the presence of slavery in any part of
bur territory ! The distant foreigner, to whom America is a point, and
who communicates the taint of a part to the whole, hears with derision
our boast of liberty, and points with a sneer to our ministers in London
not ashamed to plead the rights of slavery before the civilized world.
He ought to learn that America, which shrinks in his mind into a nar-
row unity, is a league of sovereignties stretching from the Bay of Fundy
to the Gulf of Mexico, and destined, unless disunited, to spread from
ocean to ocean ; that a great majority of its citizens hold no slaves ;
that a vast proportion of its wealth, commerce, manufactures, and arts
belongs to the wide region not blighted by this evil; that we of the free
states cannot touch slavery, where it exists, with one of our fingers ;
that it exists without and against our will ; and that our necessity is not
our choice and crime. Still, the cloud hangs over us as a people, the
only dark and menacing cloud. Can it not be dispersed ? Will not the
South, so alive to honor, so ardent and fearless, and containing so many
elements of greatness, resolve on the destruction of what does not' profit
and cannot but degrade it ? Must slavery still continue to exist, a fire-
brand at home and our shame abroad ? Can we of the free states
brook that it should be thrust perpetually by our diplomacy on the no-
tice of a reproving world? that it should become our distinction among
nations? that it should place us behind all? Can we endure that it
should control our public councils, that it should threaten war, should
threaten to assert its claims in the thunder of our artillery? Can we
endure that our peace should be broken, our country exposed to inva-

WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 475

sion, our cities stormed, our fields ravaged, our prosperity withered,
our progress arrested, our sons slain, our homes turned into de-
serts, not for rights, not for liberty, not for a cause which humanity
smiles on and God will bless, but to rivet chains on fellow-crea-
tures, to extend the law of slavery throughout the earth? These are
great questions for the free states. The duties of the free states in rela-
tion to slavery deserve the most serious regard. Let us implore Him
who was the God of our fathers, and who has shielded us in so many
perils, to open our minds and hearts to what is true and just and good,
to continue our union at home and our peace abroad, and to make our
country a living witness to the blessings of freedom, of reverence for
right on our own shores and in our intercourse with all nations.

THE LESSONS OF INDEPENDENCE DAY.
WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON.

July 4, i342.

I present myself as the advocate of my enslaved countrymen, at a
time when their claims cannot be shuffled. out. of. sight," and . on an oc-
casion which entitles me. to a respectful hearing in their behalf. If I,
am asked to prove their title to liberty, my answer is, that the fourth
of July is not a day to be wasted, in establishing " self-evident truths."
In the name of the God who has made us of one blood, and in whose
image we are created; in the name of the Messiah, who came to bind
up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the
opening of a prison to them that are bound; I demand the immediate
emancipation of those who are pining in slavery on the American
soil, whether, they are fattening for the shambles in Maryland and
Virginia, or are wasting, as with a pestilent disease, on the cottoa
and sugar plantations of Alabama and Louisiana; whether they are,
male or female, young or old, vigorous or infirm. I make this de-
mand, not for the children merely, but the parents also; not for one,
but for all; not with restrictions and limitations, but unconditionally.;
I assert their perfect equality with ourselves, as apart of the human
race, and their inalienable right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
That this demand is founded in justice, and is therefore irresistible,
the whole nation is this day acknowledging, as upon oath at the bar of
the world. And not until, by a formal vote, the people repudiate the
declaration of independence as a false and dangerous instrument, and
cease to keep this festival in honor of liberty, as unworthy of note or
remembrance; not until they spike every cannon, and muffle every
bell, and disband every procession, and quench every bonfire, and
gag every orator; not until they brand Washington, and Adams, and

4 7 6 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

Jefferson, and Hancock, as fanatics and madmen; not until the}' place
themselves again in the condition of colonial subserviency to Great
]>iuun, or transform this republic into an imperial government; not
until they cease pointing exullingly to Hunker Hill, and the plains of
Concord and Lexington; not, in fine, until they deny the authority of
God, and proclaim themselves to be destitute of principle and hu-
manity, will I argue the question, as one of doubtful disputation, on
an occasion like this, whether our slaves are entitled to the rights and
privileges of freemen. That question is settled irrevocably. There is
no man to be found, unless he has a brow of brass and a heart of
stone, who will dare to contest it on a day like this. A state of vas-
salage is pronounced, by universal acclamation, to be such as no man,
or body of men, ought to submit to for one moment. I therefore tell
the American slaves, that the time for their emancipation is come;
that, their own taskmasters being witnesses, they are created equal to
the rest of mankind, and possess an inalienable right to liberty; and
that no man has a right to hold them in bondage. I counsel them not
to fight for their freedom, both on account of the hopelessness of the
effort, and because it is rendering evil for evil; but I tell them, not
less emphatically, it is not wrong for them to refuse to wear the yoke
of slavery any longer. Let them shed no blood — enter into no con-
spiracies— raise no murderous revolts; but, whenever and wherever
they can break their fetters, God give them courage to do so! And
should they attempt to elope from their house of bondage, and come
to the north, may each of them find a covert from the search of the
spoiler, and an invincible public sentiment to shield them from the
grasp of the kidnapper! Success attend them in their flight to Canada,
to touch whose monarchical soil insures freedom to every republican
slave !

Is this preaching sedition? Sedition against what? Not the lives
of the Southern oppressors for — I renew the solemn injunction, " Shed
no blood!" — but against unlawful authority, and barbarous usage, and
unrequited toil. If slave-holders are still obstinately bent upon plun-
dering and starving their long-suffering victims, why, let them look
well to consequences! To save them from danger, I am not obligated
to suppress the truth, or to stop proclaiming liberty " throughout all the
land, unto all the inhabitants thereof." No, indeed. There are two
important truths, which, as far as practicable, I mean every slave
shall be made to understand. The first is, that he has a right to his
freedom now; the other is, that this is recognized as a self-evident
truth in the Declaration of Independence. Sedition, forsooth! Why,
what are the American people doing this day ? In theory, maintain-
ing the freedom and equality of the human race; and in practice, de-
claring that all tyrants ought to be extirpated from the face of the
earth ! We are giving to our slaves the following easy sums for solu-
tion : — If the principle involved in a threepenny tax on tea justified a

WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISOX. 477

seven years' war, how much blood may be lawfully spilt in resisting
the principle, that one human being has a right to the body and soul
of another, on account of the color of his skin? Again, If the im-
pressment of six thousand American seamen, by Great Britain, fur-
nished sufficient cause for a bloody struggle with that nation, and the
sacrifice of hundreds of millions of capital, in self-defence, how many
lives may be taken, by way of retribution, on account of the enslave-
ment, as chattels, of more than two millions of American laborers?

Oppression and insurrection go hand in hand, as cause and effect
are allied together. In what age of the world have tyrants reigned
with impunity, or the victims of tyranny not resisted unto blood ? Be-
sides our own grand insurrection against the authority of the mother
country, there have been many insurrec:ions, during the last two
hundred years, in various sections of the land, on the part of the vic-
tims of our tyranny, but without the success that attended our own
struggle. The last was the memorable one in Southampton, Vir-
ginia, headed by a black patriot, nicknamed, in the contemptuous no-
menclature of slavery, Nat Turner. The name does not strike the ear
so harmoniously as that of Washington, or Lafayette, or Hancock, or
Warren; but the name is nothing. It is not in the power of ail the
slave-holders upon earth, to render odious the memory of that sable
chieftain. " Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God," was our revo-
lutionary motto. We acted upon that motto — what more did Nat
Turner? Says George McDuffie, "A people who deliberately submit
to oppression, with a full knowledge that they are oppressed, are fit
only to be slaves. No tyrant ever made a slave — no community, how-
ever small, having the spirit of freemen, ever yet had a master. It
does not belong to men to count the costs, and calculate the hazards
of vindicating their rights, and defending their liberties." So reasoned
Nat Turner, and acted accordingly. Was he a patriot, or a monster ?
Do we mean to say to the oppressed of all nations, in the 62d year
of our independence, and on the 4th of July, that our example in 1770
was a bad one, and ought not to be followed ? As a Christian non-
resident, I, for one, am prepared to say so; but are the people ready
to sav, no chains ought to be broken by the hand of violence, and no
blood spilt in defence of inalienable human rights, in any quarter of
the globe? If not, then our slaves will peradventure take us at our
word, and there will be given unto us blood to drink, for we are
worthv. Why accuse abolitionists of stirring them up to insurrection?
The charge is false; but what if it were true? If any man has a right
to fight for liberty, this light equally extends to all men subjected to
bondage. In claiming this right for themselves, the American people
necessarily concede it to all mankind. If, therefore, they are found
tyrannizing over any part of the human race, they voluntarily seal
their own death-warrant, and confess that they deserve to perish.

478 AMERICAN PA TRIOTISM.

" What are the banners ye exalt?— the deeds

That raised your fathers'- pyramid of fame ?
Ye show the wound that still in history bleeds,

And talk exulting of the patriot's name-
Then, when your words have waked a kindred flame

And slaves behold the freedom ye adore.
And deeper feel their sorrow and their shame,
■ Ye double all the fetters that they wore.
And press them down to earth, till hope exults no more !"
-
But, it seems, abolitionists have the audacity to tell the slaves, not
only of their rights, but also of their wrongs ! That must be a rare
piece of information to them truly ! Tell a man who has just had his
back flayed by the lash, till a pool of blood is at his feet, that some-
body has flogged him ! Tell him who wears an iron collar upon his
neck, and a chain upon his heels, that his limbs are fettered, as if he
knew it not ! Tell those who receive no compensation for their toil,
that they are unrighteously defrauded ! In spite of all their whippings,
and deprivations, and forcible separations, like cattle in the market, it
seems that the poor slaves realized a heaven of blissful ignorance,
until their halcyon dreams were disturbed by the pictorial representa-
tions and exciting descriptions of the abolitionists ! What ! have not
the slaves eyes? have they not hands, organs, dimensions, senses,
affections, passions ? Are they not fed with the same food, hurt with
the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same
means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as free-
men are ? "If we prick them, do they not bleed ? if we tickle them,
do they not laugh? if we poison them, do they not die? and if we
wrong them, will they not be revenged?"

" For the slaveholders," we are told, "there is no peace, by night
or day ; but every moment is a moment of alarm, and their enemies
are of their own household !" It is the hand of a friendly vindicator,
moreover, that rolls up the curtain ! What but the most atrocious
tyranny on the part of the masters, and the most terrible sufferings on
the past of the slaves, can account for such alarm, such insecurity, such
apprehensions that " even a more horrible catastrophe" than that of
arson and murder may transpire nightly ? It requires all the villany
that has ever been charged upon Southern oppressors, and all the
wretchedness that has ever been ascribed to the oppressed, to work
out so fearful a result ; — and that the statement is true, the most
distinguished slaveholders have more than once certified. That it
is true, the entire code of slave laws — whips and yokes and fetters —
the nightly patrol — restriction of locomotion on the part of the slaves,
except with passes — muskets, pistols, and bowie knives in the bed-
chambers during the hours of rest — the fear of inter-communication of
colored freemen and the slaves- — the prohibition of even alphabetical
instruction, under pains and penalties, to the victims of wrong — the
refusal to admit their testimony against persons of a white com-

WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 479

plexion — the wild consternation and furious gnashing of teeth exhib-
ited by the chivalric oppressors, at the sight of an anti-slavery publi-
cation— the rewards offered for the persons of abolitionists — the whip-
ping of Dresser, and the murder of Lovejoy — the plundering of the
United States mail — the application of lynch law to all who are found
sympathizing with the slave population as men, south of the Potomac —
the reign of mobocracy in place of constitutional law — and, finally, the
Pharaoh-like conduct of the masters, in imposing new burdens and
heavier fetters upon their down-trodden vassals — all these things, to-
gether with a long catalogue of others, prove that the abolitionists
have not " set down aught in malice" against the South — that they
have exaggerated nothing. They warn us, as with miraculous speech,
that, unless justice be speedily done, a bloody catastrophe is to come,
which will roll a gory tide of desolation through the land, and may
peradventure blot out the memory of the scenes of St. Domingo.
They are the premonitory rumblings of a great earthquake — the lava
token of a heaving volcano ! God grant, that while there is time and
a way to escape, we may give heed to these signals of impending
retribution !

One thing I know full well. Calumniated, abhorred, persecuted as
the abolitionists have been, they constitute the body-guard of the
slaveholders, not to strengthen their oppression, but to shield them
from the vengeance of their slaves.

Instead of seeking their destruction, abolitionists are endeavoring to
save them from midnight conflagration and sudden death, by beseech-
ing them to remove the cause of insurrection; and by holding out to
their slaves the hope of a peaceful deliverance. We do not desire
that any should perish. Having a conscience void of offence in this
matter, and cherishing a love for our race which is "without partiality
and without hypocrisy,' no impeachment of our motives, or assault
upon our character, can disturb the serenity of our minds; nor can
any threats of violence, or prospect of suffering, deter us from our
purpose. That we manifest a bad spirit, is not to be decided on the
testimony of the Southern slave-driver, or his Northern apologist.
That our philanthropy is exclusive, in favor of but one party, is not
proved by our denouncing the oppressor, and sympathizing with his
victim. That we are seeking popularity, is not apparent from cur ad-
vocating an odious and unpopular cause, and vindicating, at the loss
of our reputation, the rights of a people who are reckoned among the
offscouring of all things. That our motives are not disinterested,
they who swim with the popular current, and partake of the g ins of
unrighteousness, and plunder the laborers of their wages, arc not
competent to determine. That our language is uncharitable and un-
christian, they who revile us as madmen, fanatics, incenaiai ies, trait-
ors, cut-throats, etc., etc., cannot be allowed to testify. That our
measures are violent, is not demonstrated by the fact that we wield

480 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

no physical weapons, pledge ourselves not to countenance insurrec-
tion, and present the peaceful front of non-resistance to those who put
our lives in peril. That our object is chimerical or unrighteous, is not
substantiated by the fact of its being commended by Almighty God,
and supported by his omnipotence, as well as approved by the wise
and good in every age and in all countries. If the charge, so often
brought against us, be true, that our temper is rancorous and our
spirit turbulent, how has it happened, that, during so long a conflict
with slavery, not a single instance can be found in which an abolitionist
has committed a breach of the peace, or violated any law of his country ?
If it be true, that we are not actuated by the highest principles of rec-
titude, nor governed by the spirit of forbearance, I ask, once more,
how it has come to pass, that when our meetings have been repeatedly
broken up by lawless men, our property burnt in the streets, our
dwellings sacked, our persons brutally assailed, and our lives put in
imminent peril, we have refused to lift a finger in self-defence, or to
maintain our rights in the spirit of worldly patriotism ?

Will it be retorted, that we dare not resist — that we are cowards ?
Cowards ! no man believes it. They are the dastards who maintain
might makes right; whose arguments are brickbats and rotten eggs;
whose weapons are dirks and bowie-knives; and whose code of jus-
tice is lynch law. A love of liberty, instead of unnerving men,
makes them intrepid, heroic, invincible. It was so at Thermopylae —
it was so on Bunker Hill.

Who so tranquil, who so little agitated, in storm or sunshine, as the
abolitionists? But what consternation, what running to and fro like
men at their wits' end, what trepidation, what anguish of spirit, on
the part of their enemies ! How southern slavemongers quake and
tremble at the faintest whisperings of an abolitionist ! For, truly,*
"the thief doth fear each bush an officer." Oh! the great poet of
nature is right —

" Thrice is he armed who hath his quarrel just— j
And he but naked, thoug-h locked up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupt !"

A greater than Shakespeare certifies the " wicked flee when no man
pursueth; but the righteous are bold as a lion." In this great contest
of right against wrong, of liberty against slavery, who are the wicked,
if they be not those who, like vultures and vampyres, are gorging
themselves with human blood ? if they be not the plunderers of the
poor, the spoilers of the defenceless, the traffickers in "slaves and
the souls of men ?" WTho are the cowards, if not those who shrink
from manly argumentation, the light of truth, the concussion of mind,
and a fair field ? if not those whose prowess, stimulated by whisky
potations or the spirit of murder, grows rampant as the darkness of
night approaches; whose shouts and yells are savage and fiend-like;

WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 481

who furiously exclaim: " Down with free discussion ! down with the
liberty of the press i down with the right of petition ! down with con-
stitutional law !" who rifle mail-bags, throw types and priating presses
into the river, burn public halls dedicated to " virtue, liberty, and in-
dependence,'' and assassinate the defenders of inalienable human
rights?

And who are the righteous, in this case, if they be not those who
will "have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but
rather reprove them;" who maintain that the laborer is worthy of his
hire, that the marriage institution is sacred, that slavery is a system
accursed of God, that tyrants are the enemies of mankind, and that
immediate emancipation should be given to all who are pining in
bondage? Who are the truly brave, if not those who demand for
truth and error alike, free speech, a free press, an open arena, the
right of petition, and no quarter? If not those, who, instead of
skulking from the light, stand forth in the noontide blaze of day, and
challenge their opponents to emerge from their wolf-like dens, that,
by a rigid examination, it may be seen who has stolen the wedge of
gold, in whose pocket are the thirty pieces of silver, and whose gar-
ments are stained with the blood of innocence ?

The charge, then, that we are beside ourselves, that we are both
violent and cowardly, is demonstrated to be false, in a signal manner.
I thank God, that "the weapons of our warfare are not carnal," but
spiritual. I thank him, that by his grace, and by our deep concern
for the oppressed, we have been enabled, in Christian magnanimity, to
pity and pray for our enemies, and to overcome their evil with good.
Overcome, I say : not merely suffered unresistingly, but conquered glo-
riously.

If it must be so, let the defenders of slavery still have all the brick-
bats, bowie-knives, and pistols, which the land can furnish ; but let us
possess all the arguments, facts, warnings, and promises which insure the
final triumph of our holy cause.

Nothing is easier than for the abolitionists, if they were so disposed,
as it were in the twinkling of an eye, to " cry havoc and let slip the dogs
of war,"' and fill this whole land with the horrors of a civil and servile
commotion. It is only for them to hoist but one signal, to kindle but a
single torch, to give but a single bugle-call, and the three millions of
colored victims of oppression, both bond and free, would start up as one
man, and make the American soil drunk with the blood of the slain.
How fearful and tremendous is the power, for good and evil, thus lodged
in their hands ! Besides being stimulated by a desire to redress the
wrongs of their enslaved countrymen, they could plead in extenuation
of their conduct for resorting to arms (and their plea would be valid,
according to the theory and practice of republicanism), that they had
cruel wrongs of their own to avenge, and sacred rights to secure,
inasmuch as they are thrust out beyond the pale of the Constitution,

482 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

excluded from one half, of ike Union by the fiat .-.-of- the -lynch- code, de-
prived of the protection of the law, and branded as traitors, because
they dare to assert that God wills all men to be free ! Now, I frankly
put it to the understandings of Southern men, whether, in view of these
considerations, it is adding any thing to their safety, or postponing the
njuth dreaded catastrophe a single hour,- — whether, in fact, it is not in-
creasing their, peril, and rendering an early explosion more probable,—
for them to persevere in aggravating the condition of their slaves by
tightening their chains and increasing the heavy burdens- — or wreaking
their malice upon the free people of color— or in adopting every base
an;d unlawful measure to wound the character, destroy the property,
and jeopard the lives of abolitionists, and thus leaving no stone unturned
to inflame them to desperation? AIL this, Southern men have done,
and are still doing, as if animated by an insane desire to be destroyed.

The abject of the Anti-Slavery association is not to destroy men's
lives, — despots though they be, — but to prevent the spilling of human
blood. It isjtp enlighten the understanding, arouse the conscience,
affect the heart. We rely upon moral power alone for success. The
ground upon which we stand belongs to no sect or party — it is holy
ground. Whatever else may divide us in opinion, in this one thing
we are agreed — that slaveholding is a crime under all circumstances,
and ought to be immediately and unconditionally abandoned. We
enforce upon no man either a political or a religious test, as a con-
dition of membership; but at the same time, we expect every aboli-
tionist to carry out his principles consistently, impartially, faithfully,
in whatever station he may be called to act, or wherever conscience
may lead him to go. I hail this union of hearts as a bright omen, that
all is not lost. To the slaveholding South, if is more terrible than a
military army- with banners. It is indeed a sublime spectacle to see
men forgetting their jarring creeds and party affinities, and embracing
each other as one and indivisible, in a struggle in behalf of our common
Christianity and our common nature. God grant that no root of bit-
terness may spring up to divide us asunder! V United we stand,
divided we fall "-—and if we fall, what remains for our country but a
fearful looking for of judgment and of fiery indignation, that shall con-
sume it ? Fall we cannot, if our trust be in the Lord of hosts, and in
the power of his might— not in man, nor any body of men. Divided
we cannot be, if we truly " remember them that are in bonds as bound
with them," and love our neighbors as ourselves.

Genuine abolitionism is not a hobby, got up for personal or asso-
ciated aggrandizement; it is not a political ruse; it is not a spasm of
sj^mpathy, which lasts but for a moment, leaving the system weak and
worn; it is not a fever of enthusiasm; it is not the fruit of fanaticism ;
it is not a spirit of faction. It is of heaven, not of men. It lives in
the heart as a vital principle. It is an essential part of Christianity,
and aside.from it; there can be.no humanity. Its scope is not; confined

HENRY CLAY. 483

to the slave population of the United States, but embraces mankind.
Opposition cannot weary it out, force cannot put it down, fire cannot
consume it. It is the spirit of Jesus, who was sent " to bind up the
broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of
the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable yeai
of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God." Its prin-
ciples are self-evident, its measures rational, its purposes mer-
ciful and just It cannot be diverted from the path of duty, though
all earth and hell oppose; for it is lifted far above all earth-born fear.
When it fairly takes possession of the soul, you may trust the soul-
carrier anywhere, that he will not be recreant to humanity. In short,
it is a life, not an impulse — a quenchless flame of philanthropy, not a
transient spark of sentimentalism.

■

1 i

THE CONSEQUENCES OF SECESSION.
nci
HENRY CLAY.

Senate Chamber, Feb. 6, 1850.

Sir, This Union is threatened with subversion. I want, Mr. Presi-
dent, to take a very rapid glance at the course of public measures in
this Union presently. I want, however, before I do that, to ask the
Senate to look back upon the career which this country has run since
the adoption of this constitution down to the present day. Was there
ever a nation upon which the sun of heaven has shone that has exhib-
ited so much of prosperity ? At the commencement of this Govern-
ment our population amounted to about four millions; it has now
reached upward of twenty millions. Our territory was limited chiefly
and principally to the border upon the Atlantic ocean, and that which
includes the southern shores of the interior lakes of our country.

Our country now extends from the northern provinces of Great
Britain to the Rio Grande and the Gulf of Mexico on one side, and
from the Atlantic ocean to the Pacific on the other side — the largest
extent of territory under any government that exists on the face of
the earth, with only two solitary exceptions. Our tonnage, from being
nothing, has risen in magnitude and amount so as to rival that of the
nation who has been proudly characterized "the mistress of the
ocean." We have gone through many wars — wars too with the very
nation from whom we broke off in 1776, as weak and feeble ecl mies,
and asserted our independence as a member of the family of nations.
And, sir, we came out of that struggle, unequal as it was — armed as
she was at all points, in consequence of just having come out of her
long struggles with other European nations, and unarmed as we were
at all points, in consequence of the habits and nature of our country

484 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

and its institutions — we came, I say, out of that war without any loss
of honor whatever — we emerged from it gloriously.

In every Indian war— and we have been engaged in many of them
—our armies have triumphed; and without speaking at all as to the
causes of the recent war with Mexico, whether it was right or wrong,
and abstaining from any expression of opinion as to the justice or
propriety of the war, when once commenced all must admit that,
with respect to the gallantry of our armies, the glory of our triumphs,
there is no page or pages of history which record more brilliant suc-
cesses. With respect to one commander of an important portion of
pur army I need say nothing here; no praise is necessary in behalf of
one who has been elevated by the voice of his country to the highest
station she could place him in, mainly on account of his glorious mil-
itary career. And of another, less fortunate in many respects than
some other military commanders, I must take the opportunity of say-
ing, that for skill, for science, for strategy, for ability and daring fight-
ing, for chivalry of individuals and of masses, that portion of the
American army which was conducted by the gallant Scott, as the chief
commander, stands unrivalled either by the deeds of Cortez himself,
or by those of any other commander in ancient or modern times.

Sir, our prosperity is unbounded — nay, Mr. President, I sometimes
fear that it is in the wantonness of that prosperity that many of the
threatening ills of the moment have arisen. Wild and erratic schemes
have sprung up throughout the whole country, some of which have
even found their way into legislative halls; and there is a restlessness
existing among us which I fear will require the chastisement of Heaven
to bring us back to a sense of the immeasurable benefits and bless-
ings which have been bestowed upon us by Providence. At this mo-
ment— with the exception of here and there a particular department in
the manufacturing business of the country — all is prosperity and peace,
and the nation is rich and powerful. Our country has grown to a
magnitude, to a power and greatness, such as to command the respect,
if it does not awe the apprehensions, of the powers of the earth, with
whom we come in contact.

Sir. do I depict with colors too lively the prosperity which has re-
sulted to us from the operations of this Union ? Have I exaggerated
in any particular her power, her prosperity, or her greatness ? And
now, sir, let me go a little into detail with respect to sway in the coun-
cils of the nation, whether from the North or the South, during the
sixty years of unparalleled prosperity that we have enjoyed. During
ihe first twelve years of the administration of the government Northern
counsels rather prevailed; and out of them sprang the Bank of the
United States, the assumption of the state debts, bounties to the fisheries,
protection to our domestic manufactures — I allude to the act of 1789 —
neutrality in the wars of Europe; Jay's treaty, the alien and sedition
laws, and war with France, I do not say, sir, that these, the leading and

HENRY CLAY. 4§5

prominent measures which were adopted during the administrations of
Washington and the elder Adams, were carried exclusively by North-
ern counsels — they'could not have been — but mainly by the ascendancy
which Northern counsels had obtained in the affairs of the nation. So,
sir, of the later period— for the last fifty years.

I do not mean to say that .Southern counsels alone have carried the
measures which I am about to enumerate. I know they could not
exclusively have carried them, but I say that they have been carried
by their preponderating influence, with the co-operation, it is true — the
large co-operation in some instances — of the Northern section of the
Union. And what are those measures? During that fifty years, or
nearly that period, in which Southern counsels have preponderated, the
embargo aad other commercial restrictions cf non-intercourse and
non-importation were imposed; war with Great Britain, the' Bank of
the United States overthrown, protection enlarged and extended to do-
mestic manufactures— I allude to the passage of the act of 1815 or 1816
— the Bank of the United States re-established, the same bank put down,
re-established by Southern counsels and put down by Southern counsels,
Louisiana acquired, Florida bought, Texas annexed, war with Mexico,
California and other territories acquired from Mexico by conquest and
purchase, protection superseded, and free trade established, Indians
removed West of the Mississippi, and fifteen new states admitted into
the Union. It is very possible, sir, that in this enumeration I may have
omitted some of the important measures which have been adopted dur
mg this later period of time — the last fifty years — but these I believe
to be the most prominent ones.

Now, sir, I do not deduce from the enumeration of the measures
adopted by the one side or the other any just cause of reproach either
upon one side or the other; though one side or the other has predom-
inated in the two periods to which I have referred. These measures
were, to say the least, the joint work of both parties, and neither of
them have any just cause to reproach the other. But, sir, I must say, in
all kindness and sincerity 5 that least of all ought the South to reproach
the North, when we look at the long list of measures which, under her
sway in the counsels of the nation, have been adopted; when we
reflect that even opposite doctrines have been from time to time
advanced by her ; that- the establishment of the Bank of the
United States, which was done under the administration of Mr.
Madison, met with the co-operation of the South — I do not say
the whole South — I do not, when I speak of the South or the
North, speak of the entire South or the entire North ; I speak of
the prominent and larger proportions of Southern and Northern men.
It was during Mr. Madison's administration that the Bank of the
United States was established. My friend, whose sickness — which
I very much deplore — prevents us from having his attendance upon
this occasion (Mr. Calhoun), was the chairman of the committee, and

4S6 AM ERIC AX PATRIOTISM.

carried the measure through Congress. I voted for it with all mj
heart. Although I had been instrumental with other Southern votes
in putting down the Bank of the United States, I changed my opinion
and co-operated in the establishment of the bank of 1S16. The same
bank was again put down by Southern counsels, with General Jackson
at their head, at a later period. Again, with respect to the policy of
protection. The South in 1S15— I mean the prominent Southern men,
the lamented Lowndes, Mr. Calhoun and others — united in extending
a certain measure of protection to domestic manufactures as well as
the North.

We find a few years afterward the South interposing most serious
objections to this policy, and one member of the South, threatening
on that occasion, a dissolution of the Union or separation. Now, sir,
let us take another view of the question — and I would remark that all
these views are brought forward not in a spirit of reproach, but of con-
ciliation— not to provoke, or exasperate, but to quiet, to produce har-
mony and repose, if possible. What have been the territorial acquisi-
tions made by this country, and to what interests have they conduced?
Florida, where slavery exists, has been introduced; Louisiana, or all the
most valuable part of that state — for although there is a large extent of
territory north of the line 36° 30, in point of intrinsic value and import-
ance, I would not give the single state of Louisania for the whole of it
— all Louisania, I say, with the exception of that which lies north 36°30,
including Oregon, to which we obtained title mainly on the ground
of its being a part of the acquisition of Louisania; all Texas; all the
territories which have been acquired by the government of the United
States during its sixty years operation have been slave territories, the
theatre of slavery, with the exception that I have mentioned of that
lying north of the line 56* 30,

And here, in the case of a war made essentially by the South-
growing out of the annexation of Texas, which was a measure pro-
posed by the South in the councus of the country, and which led to the
war with Mexico — I do not say all of the South, but the major portion
of the South pressed the annexation of Te&us upon the country — that
measure, as I have said, led to the war with Me&jeo, and the war with
Mexico led to the acquisition of those territories which now constitute
the bone of contention between the different members oi the Con-
federacy. And now, sir, for the first time after the three great ac-
quisitions oi Texas, Florida and Louisiana have been made and have
redounded to the benefit of the South — now, for the first time, when
three territories are attempted to t>e introduced without the institution
of slavery, I put it to the fefOffip of my countrymen of the South, if i£ js
right to press jnatters to the disastrous consequences which have been
indicated no longer ago than thfe very morning, pn the occasion of
the presentation oi certain resolutions — even extending to a dissoilT
tioflof the Union, Mr, President, I cannot believe \tf

IIEXK Y CLA Y. 4^7

Such is the Union, and such are the glorious fruits which are now
th eatened with subversion and destruction. Well, sir, the first ques-
tion which naturally arises, is, supposing the Union to be dissolved
tor any of the causes or grievances which are complained Gf, how far
will dissolution furnish a remedy for those grievances? If the Union
is to be dissolved for any existing cause, it will be because slavery is
interdicted or not allowed to be introduced into the ceded territories,-
or because slavery is threatened to be abolished in the District Of Co-
lumbia; or because fugitive slaves are not restored, as in my opinion
they ought to be. to their masters. These, I believe, would be the
causes, if there be any causes which can lead to the dreadful event to
which I have referred. Let us suppose the Union dissolved; what
remedy does it, in a severed state, furnish for the grievances com-
plained of in its united condition? Will you be able at the South to
push slavery into the ceded territory ? How are you to do it, suppos-
ing the North, or all the states north of the Potomac, in possession of
the navy and army of the United States? Can you expect, I say,
under these circumstances, that if there is a dissolution of the Union
you can carry slavery intc California and New Mexico ? Sir, you
cannot dream of such an occurrence,

If it were abolished in the District of Columbia and the Union were
dissolved, would the dissolution of the Union restore slavery in the
District of Columbia? Is your chance for the recovery of your fugitive
slaves safer in a state of dissolution or of severance of the Union than
when in the Union itself ? Why, sir, what is the state of the fact ? In
the Union you lose some slaves and recover others j but here let me
revert to a fact which I ought to have noticed before, -because it is
highly creditable to the courts and juries of the free states. In every
instance, as far as my information extends, in which an appeal has
been made to the courts of justice to recover penalties from those who
have assisted in decoying slaves from their masters— in every instance,
as far as I have heard the court has asserted the rights of the owner,
and the jury has promptly returned an adequate verdict on his behalf.
Well, sir, there is then some remedy while you are a part of the
Union for the recovery of your slaves, and some indemnification for
their loss. What would you have, if the Union was severed? Why,
the several parts would be independent of each other— foreign
countries — and slaves escaping from one to the other would be
like slaves escaping from the United States to Canada. There
would be no right of extradition, no right to demand your slaves; no
right to appeal to the courts of justice to indemnify you for the loss
of your slaves. Where one slave escapes now by running
away from his master, hundreds and thousands would escape if
the Union were dissevered — I care not how or where you run the line,
or whether independent sovereignties be established. Well, sir, finally,
will you, in case -of a dissolution of the Union, be safer with your

4S 8 A M ERICA A7 PA TRIO TISM.

slaves within the separated portions of the states than you are now ?
Mr. President, that they will escape much more frequently from the
border states no one will deny.

And, sir, I must take occasion here to say that, in my opinion, there
is no right on the part of any one or more of the states to secede from
the Union. War and dissolution of the Union are identical and in-
evitable, in my opinion. There can be a dissolution of the Union
only by consent or by war. Consent no one can anticipate, from any
existing state of things, is likely to be given, and war is the only alter-
native by which a dissolution could be accomplished. If consent were
given — if it were possible that we were to be separated by one great
line — in less than sixty days after such consent was given Avar would
break out between the slaveholding and non-slaveholding portions of
this Union — between the two independent parts into which it would be
erected in virtue of the act of separation. In less than sixty days, I
believe, our slaves from Kentucky, flocking over in numbers to the
other side of the river, would be pursued by their owners. Our hot
and ardent spirits would be restrained by no sense of the right which
appertains to the independence of the other side of the river, should
that be the line of separation. They would pursue their slaves into
the ajacent free states ; they would be repelled, and the consequence
would be that, in less than sixty days, war would be blazing in every
part of this now happy and peaceful land.

And, sir, how are you going to separate the states of this Confeder-
acy ? In my humble opinion, Mr. President, we should begin with at
least three separate Confederacies. There would be a Confederacy of
the North, a Confederacy of the Southern Atlantic slaveholding states,
and a Confederacy of the valley of the Mississippi. My life upon it,
that the vast population which has already concentrated and will con-
centrate on the head-waters and the tributaries of the Mississippi will
never give their consent that the mouth of that river shall be held
subject to the power of any foreign state or community whatever.
Such, I believe, would be the consequences of a dissolution of the
Union, immediately ensuing ; bnt other Confederacies would spring
up from time to time, as dissatisfaction and discontent were dissem-
inated throughout the country — the Confederacy of the lakes, perhaps
the Confederacy of New England, or of the Middle States. Ah, sir,
the veil which covers these sad and disastrous events that lie beyond
it, is too thick to be penetrated or lifted by any mortal eye or hand.

Mr. President, I am directly opposed to any purpose of secession
or separation. I am for staying within the Union, and defying any
portion of this Confederacy to expel me or drive me out of the Union
I am lor staying within the Union and fighting for my rights, if neces-
sary, with the sword, within the bounds and under the safeguard of the
Union. I am for vindicating those rights, not by being driven out of the
Union harshly and unceremoniously by any portion of this Confederacy,

HEXRY CLAY. 4$9

Here I am within it, and here I mean to stand and die, as far as my
individual wishes or purposes can go — within it to protect my property
and defend myself, defying all the power on earth to expel me cr
drive me from the situation in which I am placed. And would there
not be mo-e safety in fighting within the Union than out of it ? Sup-
pose your rights to be violated, suppose wrong to be done you, aggro -
sions to be perpetrated upon you, can you not better vindicate them
— if you have occasion to resort to the last necessity, the sword, for a
restoration of those rights — within, and with the sympathies of a lar,;c
portion of the population of the Union, than by being without the
Union, when a large portion of the population have sympathies adverse
to your own ? You can vindicate your rights within the Union better
than if expelled from the Union, and driven from it without ceremony
and without authority.

Sir, I have said that I thought there was no right on the part of
one or more states to secede from the Union. I think so. The Con-
s.itution of the United States was made not merely for the generation
that then existed, but for posterity — unlimited, undefined, endless,
perpetual posterity. And every state that then came into the Union,
and every state that has since come into the Union, came into it bind-
ing itself, by indissoluble bands, to remain within the Union itself,
and to remain within it by its posterity forever. Like another of the
sacred connections, in private life, it is a marriage which no human
authority can dissolve or divorce the parties from. And if I may be
allowed to refer to some examples in private life, let me say to the
North and to the South, what husband and wife say to each other:
We have mutual faults ; neither of us is perfect ; nothing in the
form of humanity is perfect: let us, then, be kind to each other — for-
bearing, forgiving each other's faults — and above all, let us live in
happiness and peace together.

Mr. President, I have said, what I solemnly believe, that dissolution
of the Union and war are identical and inevitable; that they are con-
vertible terms; and such a war as it would be following a dissolution
of the Union ? Sir, we may search the pages of history, and none so
ferocious, so bloody, so implacable, so exterminating — not even the
wars of Greece, including those of the Commoners of England and
the revolutions of France — none, none of them all would rage with
such violence, or be characterized wTith such bloodshed and enormities
as would the war which must, succeed, if that event ever happens,
the dissolution of the Union. And what would be its termination ?
Standing armies, and navies, to an extent stretching the revenue of
each portion of the dissevered members, would take place. An ex-
terminating war would follow — not, sir, a war of two or three years'
duration, but a war of interminable duration — and exterminating wars
would ensue until, after the struggles and exhaustion of both parties,
some Philip or Alexander, some Caesar or Napoleon, would arise and

49° AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

cut the Gordian knot, and solve the problem of the capacity of man
for self-government, and crush the liberties of both the severed portions
of this common empire. Can you doubt it?

Look at all history— consult her pages, ancient or modern^ — look at
human nature ; look at the contest in which you would be engaged in
the supposition of war following upon the dissolution of the Union,
such as I have suggested ; and I ask you if it is possible for you
to doubt that the final disposition of the whole would be some
despot treading down the liberties of the people — the final result'
would be the extinction of this last and glorious light which is leading
all mankind, who are gazing upon it, in the hope and anxious expec-
tation that the liberty which prevails here will sooner or later be dif-
fused throughout the whole of the civilized world. Sir, can you lightly
contemplate these consequences ? Can you yield yourself to the ty-
ianny of passion, amid dangers which I have depicted in colors far too
tame of what the result would be if that direful event to which I have
referred should ever occur? Sir, I implore gentlemen, I adjure them,
whether from the South or the North, by all that they hold dear in
this world—by all their love of liberty — by all their veneration for
their ancestors — by all their regard for posterity — by all their grati-
tude to Him who has bestowed on them such unnumbered and count-
less blessings — by all the duties which they owe to mankind — -and by
all the duties which they owe to themselves, to pause, solemnly to
pause at the edge of the precipice, before the fearful and dangerous
leap is taken into the yawning abyss below, from which none wha
ever take it shall return in safety.

Finally, Mr. President, and in conclusion, I implore, as the best
blessing which Heaven can bestow upon me, upon earth, that if the
direful event of the dissolution of this Union is to happen, I shall not
survive to behold the sad and heart-rending spectacle.

: -

PROTEST AGAINST SLAVERY IN NEBRASKA AND KANSAS.

CHARLES SUMNER.

The Senate, May 25, 1854.

I hold in my hand, and now present to the Senate, one hundred
and twenty-five separate remonstrances, from clergymen of every
Protestant denomination in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Mas-
sachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, constituting the six New
England States.

With pleasure and pride I now do this service, and at this last stage
interpose the sanctity of the pulpits of New England to arrest an
alarming outrage — believing that the remonstrants, from their emin-

CHARLES SUMNER. 49 1

ent character and influence as representatives of the intelligence and
conscience of the country, are peculiarly entitled to be heard,— and,
further, believing that their remonstrances, while respectful in form,
embody just conclusions, both of opinion and fact. Like them, sir, I
do hot hesitate to protest against the bill yet pending before the
Senate, as a great moral wrong, as a breach of public faith, as a
measure full of danger to the peace, and even existence of our Union.
And, sir, believing in God, as I profoundly do, I cannot doubt that
the opening of an immense region to so great an enormity as slavery
is calculated to draw down upon our country his righteous judg-
ments. .

"In the name of Almighty God, and in his presence," these remon-
strants protest against the Nebraska Bill. In this solemn language,
most strangely pronounced blasphemous on this floor, there is obvi-
ously no assumption of ecclesiastical power, as is perversely charged,
but simply a devout observance of the Scriptural injunction, "What-
soever ye do, in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord." . Let
me add, also, that these remonstrants, in this very language, have
followed the example of the Senate, which at our present session, has
ratified at least one important treaty beginning with these precise
words, " In the name of Almighty God." Surely, if the Senate may
thus assume to speak, the clergy may do likewise, without imputation
of blasphemy, or any just criticism, at least in this body.

I am unwilling, particularly at this time, to be betrayed into anything
like a defence of the clergy. They need no such thing at my hands.
There are men in this Senate justly eminent for eloquence, learning,
and ability ; but there is no man here competent, except in his own
conceit, to sit in judgment on the clergy of New England. Honorable
Senators, so swift with criticism and sarcasm, might profit by their
example. Perhaps the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Butler),
who is not insensible to scholarship, might learn from them some-
thing of its graces. Perhaps the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Mason),
who rinds no sanction under the Constitution for any remonstrance
from clergymen, might learn from them something of the privileges
of an American citizen, And perhaps the Senator from Illinois (Mr.
Douglas), who precipitated this odious measure upon the country,
might learn from them something of political wisdom. Sir, from the
first settlement of these shores, from those early days of struggle and
privation, through the trials of the Revolution, the clergy are associ-
ated not only with the piety and the learning, but with the liberties of
the country. New England for a long time was governed by their
prayers more than by any acts of the Legislature ; and at a later day
their voices aided even the Declaration of Independence. The
clergy of our time speak, then, not only from their own virtues, but
from echoes yet surviving in the pulpits of their fathers.

From myself, I desire to thank them for their generous* interposi-

49 2 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

tion. Already they have done much good in moving the country.
They will not be idle. In the days of the Revolution, John Adams,
yearning for independence, said, "Let the pulpits thunder against
oppression !" And the pulpits thundered. The time has come for
them to thunder again. So famous was John Knox for power in
prayer, that Queen Mary used to say she feared his prayers more
than all the armies of Europe. But our clergy have prayers to be
feared by the upholders of wrong.

- There are lessons taught by these remonstrances, which, at this
moment, should not pass unheeded. The Senator from Ohio (Mr.
Wade), on the other side of the Chamber, has openly declared that
Northern Whigs can never again combine with their Southern breth-
ren in support of slavery. This is a good augury. The clergy of
New England, some of whom, forgetful of the traditions of other
days, once made; their pulpits vocal for the Fugitive Slave Bill, now,
by the voices of learned divines, eminent bishops, accomplished pro-
fessors, and faithful pastors, uttered in solemn remonstrance, unite at
last in putting a permanent brand upon this hateful wrong. Surely,
from this time forward, they can never more render it any support.
Thank God for this ! Here is a sign full of promise for freedom.

These remonstrances have especial significance, when it is urged,
as has been often done in this debate, that the proposition still pend-
ing proceeds from the North. Yes, sir, proceeds from the North ; for
that is its excuse and apology. The ostrich is reputed to hide its head
in the sand, and then vainly imagine its coward body beyond the
reach of pursuers. In similar spirit, honorable Senators seem to shel-
ter themselves behind scanty Northern votes, and then vainly imagine
that they are protected from the judgment of the country. The pul-
pits of New England, representing in unprecedented extent the popu-
lar voice there, now proclaim that six states, with all the fervor of
religious conviction, protest against your outrage. To this extent, at
least, I maintain it does not come from the North.

From these expressions, and other tokens which daily greet us, it is
evident that at last the religious sentiment of the country is touched,
and through this sentiment, I rejoice to believe that the whole North
will be quickened with the true life of freedom. Sir Philip Sidney,
speaking to Queen Elizabeth of the spirit in the Netherlands, anima-
ting every man, woman, and child against the Spanish power,
exclaimed, " It is the spirit of the Lord, and is irresistible." A kin-
dred spirit now animates the free states against the slave power,
breathing everywhere its involuntary inspiration, and forbidding
repose under the attempted usurpation. It is the spirit of the Lord,
and is irresistible. The threat of disunion, too often sounded in our
ears, will be disregarded by an aroused and indignant people. Ah,
sir, Senators vainly expect peace. Not in this way can peace come.
In passing such a bill as is now threatened, you scatter from this dark

CHARLES SUMNER. 493

midnight hour no seeds of harmony ar 1 goodwill, but, broadcast
through the land, dragon's teeth, which haply may not spring up in
direful crops of armed men, yet, I am assured, sir, will fructify ia
civil strife and feud.

From the depths of my sOul, as loyal citizen and as Senator, I plead,
remonstrate, protest against the passage of this bill. I struggle against
it as against death; but, as in death itself corruption puts on incorrup-
tion, and this mortal body puts on immortality, so from the sting of
this hour I find assurance of that triumph by which freedom will be
restored to her immortal birthright in the Republic.

Sir, the bill you are about to pass is at once the worst and the best
on which Congress ever acted. Yes, sir, worst and best at the same
time.

It is the worst bill, inasmuch as it is a present victory of slavery.
In a Christian land, and in an age of civilization, a time-honored sta-
tute of freedom is struck down, opening the way to all the countless
woes and wrongs of human bondage. Among the crimes of history,
another is soon to be recorded, which no tears can blot out, and which
in better days will be read with universal shame. Do not start. The
Tea Tax and Stamp Act, which roused the patriot rage of our father? ,
were virtues by the side of your transgression; nor would it be easy
to imagine, at this day, any measure which more openly and wantonly
defied every sentiment of justice, humanity, and Christianity. Am I
not right, then, in calling it the worst bill on which Congress ever
acted ?

There is another side, to which I gladly turn. Sir, it is the best bill
on which Congress ever acted, for it annuls all past compromises with
slavery, and makes any future compromises impossible. Thus, it puts
freedom and slavery face to face, and bids them grapple. Who can
doubt the result? It opens wide the door of the future, when, at last,
there will really be a North, and the slave power will be broken — when
this wretched despotism will cease to dominate over our government,
no longer impressing itself upon everything at home and abroad —
when the National Government will be divorced in every way from
slavery, and, according to the true intention of our fathers, freedom
will be established by Congress everywhere, at least beyond the local
limits of the states.

Slavery will then be driven from usurped foothold here in the Dis-
trict of Columbia, in the national territories, and elsewhere beneath
the national flag; the Fugitive Slave Bill, as vile as it is unconstitu-
tional, will become a dead letter; and the domestic slave trade, so far
as it can be reached, but especially on the high seas, will be blasted by
Congressional prohibition. Everywhere within the sphere of Congress,
the great Northern hammer will descend to smite the wrong; and the
irresistible cry will break forth, " No more slave states!"

Thus, sir, standing at the very grave of freedom in Nebraska and

494 AMERICAN FA TRIOTISM.

Kansas, I lift myself to the vision of that happy resurrection by which
freedom will be assured, not only in these territories, but everywhere ;
under the national government. More clearly than ever before, I now \
penetrate that great future when slavery must disappear. Proudly I I
discern the flag of my country, as it ripples in every breeze, at last in !
reality, as in name, the flag of freedom — undoubted, purer and irresis-
tible. Am I not right, then, in calling this bill the best on which Con-
gress ever acted?

Sorrowfully I bend before the wrong you commit. Joyfully I wel-
l come the promises of the future.

DEBATE WITH DOUGLAS.

Springfield, Illinois, Jtine 17, 1858.

Mr. President, and Gentlemen of the Convention: — If we
could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could
better judge what to do, and how to do it. We are now far into the
fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object, and
confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the
operation of that policy that agitation has not only not ceased, but has
constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease until a crisis
shall have been reached and passed. " A house divided against itself
cannot stand." I believe this Government cannot endure permanently
half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved, I
do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be
divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the
opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it
where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of
ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward till it shall
become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well
as South.

Have we no tendency to the latter condition ?

Let any one who doubts carefully contemplate that now almost com-
plete legal combination — piece of machinery, so to speak — compound-
ed of the Nebraska doctrine and the Dred Scott decision. Let him
consider not only what work the machinery is adapted to do, and how
well adapted; but also let him study the history of its construction, and
trace, if he can, or rather fail, if he can, to trace the evidences of
design and concert of action among its chief architects from the be-
ginning.

The new year of 1S54 found slavery excluded from more than half
the States by State Constitutions, and from most of the national terri-

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 495

tory by Congressional prohibition. Four days later commenced the
struggle which ended in repealing that Congressional prohibition.
This opened all the national territory to slavery, and was the first point
gained.

But so far Congress only had acted; and an indorsement by the
people, real or apparent, was indispensable, to save the point already
gained and give chance for more.

This necessity had not been overlooked, but had been provided for,
as well as might be, in the notable argument of "squatter sovereignty,"
otherwise called "sacred right of self-government," which latter
phrase, though expressive of the only rightful basis of any government,
was so perverted in this attempted use of it as to amount to just this:
That if any one man choose to enslave another, no third man shall be
allowed to object. That argument was incorporated into the Ne-
braska bill itself, in the language which follows: " It being the true
intent and meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any terri-
tory or state, nor to exclude it therefrom; but to leave the people
thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions
in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States."
Then opened the roar of loose declamation in favor of "squatter
sovereignty," and "sacred right of self-government." "But," said
opposition members, " let us amend the bill so as to expressly declare
that the people of the territory may exclude slavery." " Not we,"
said the friends of the measure; and down they voted the amend-
ment.

While the Nebraska bill was passing through Congress, a law-case,
involving the question of a negro's freedom, by reason of his owner
having voluntarily taken him first into a free state and then into a
territory covered by the Congressional prohibition, and held him as a
slave for a long time in each, was passing through the United States
Circuit Court for the District of Missouri; and both Nebraska bill and
lawsuit were brought to a decision in the same month of May, 1S54.
The negro's name was " Dred Scott," which name now designates the
decision finally made in the case. Before the then next presidential
election, the law-case came to, and was argued in, the Supreme Cor.rt
of the United States; but the decision of it was deferred until after the
election. Still, before the election, Senator Trumbull, on the floor of
the Senate, requested the leading advocate of the Nebraska bill to
state his opinion whether the people of a territory can constitutionally
exclude slavery from their limits; and the latter answers: "That is a
question for the Supreme Court."

The election came. Mr. Buchanan was elected, and the indorse-
ment, such as it was, secured. That was the second point gained.
The indorsement, however, fell short of a clear popular majority by
nearly four hundred thousand votes, and so, perhaps, was not over-
whelmingly reliable and satisfactory. The outgoing President, in his

49° AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

last annual message, as impressively as possible echoed back upon the
people the weight and authority of the indorsement. The Supreme
Court met again; did not announce their decision, but ordered a re-
argument. The presidential inauguration came, and still no decision
of the court; but the incoming President, in his inaugural address,
fervently exhorted the people to abide by the forthcoming decision,
whatever it might be. Then, in a few days, came the decision.

The reputed author of the Nebraska bill finds an early occasion to
make a speech at this capital, indorsing the Dred Scott decision, and
vehemently denouncing all opposition to it. The new President, too,
seizes the early occasion of the Silliman letter to indorse and strongly
construe that decision and to express his astonishment that any dif-
ferent view had ever been entertained.

At length a squabble springs up between the President and the au-
thor of the Nebraska bill, on the mere question of fact, whether the
Lecompton Constitution was or was not, in any just sense, made by
the people of Kansas; and in that quarrel the latter declares that all
he wants is a fair vote for the people, and that he cares not whether
slavery be voted down or voted up. I do not understand his declara-
tion that he cares not whether slavery be voted down or voted up, to
be intended by him other than as an apt definition of the policy he
would impress upon the public mind — the principle for which he de-
clares he has suffered so much, and is ready to suffer to the end. And
well may he cling to that principle. If he has any parental feeling.
well may he cling to it. That principle is the only shred left of his
original Nebraska doctrine. Under the Dred Scott decision " squatter
sovereignty" squatted out of existence, tumbled down, like temporary
scaffolding— like the mould at the foundry served through one blast
and fell back into loose sand — helped to carry an election, and then
was kicked to the winds. His late joint struggle with the Republi-
cans, against the Lecompton Constitution, involves nothing of the
original Nebraska doctrine. That struggle was made on a point — the
right of a people to make their own constitution — upon which he and
the Republicans have never differed.

The several points of the Dred Scott decision, in connection with
Senator Douglas's "care not" policy, constitute the piece of machinery,
in its present state of advancement. This was the third point gained.
The working points of that machinery are: —

First. That no negro slave, imported as such from Africa, and no
descendant of such slave, can ever be a citizen of any state, in the
sense of that term as used in the Constitution of the United States.
This point is made in order to deprive the negro, in every possible
event, of the benefit of that provision of the United States Constitu-
tion, which declares that " The citizens of each state shall be entitled
to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states."

Secondly. That, "subject to the Constitution of the United States,"

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 497

neither Congress nor a territorial legislature can exclude slavery
from any United States territory. This point is made in order that
individual men may fill up the territories with slaves without danger
of losing them as property, and thus to enhance the chances of per-
manency to the institution through all the future.

Tliirdly. That whether the holding a negro in actual slavery in a
free state makes him free, as against the holder, the United States
courts will not decide, but will leave to be decided by the courts of any
slave state the negro may be forced into by the master. This point is
made, not to be pressed immediately; but, if acquiesced in for awhile,
and apparently indorsed by the people at an election, then to sustain
the logi^.^! conclusion that what Dred Scott's master might lawfully do
with Dred Scott, in the free State of Illinois, every other master may
lawfully do with any other one, or one thousand, slaves, in Illinois, or
in any other free state.

Auxiliary to all this, and working hand in hand with it, the Nebraska
doctrine, or what is left of it, is to educate and mould public opinion, at
least Northern public opinion, not to care whether slavery is voted down
or voted up. This shows exactly where we now are ; and partially, also,
whither we are tending.

It will throw additional light on the latter, to go back, and run the
mind over the string of historical facts, already stated. Several things
will now appear less dark and mysterious than they did when they were
transpiring. The people were to be left "perfectly free," >' subject only
to the Constitution." What the Constitution had to do with it, outsiders
could not then see. Plainly enough now, it was an exactly fitted niche
for the Dred Scott decision to afterward come in, and declare the perfect
freedom of the people to be just no freedom at all. Why was the amend-
ment, expressly declaring the right of the people, voted down ? Plainly
enough now : the adoption of it would have spoiled the niche for the
Dred Scott decision. Why was the court decision held up ? Why even
a Senator's individual opinion withheld till after the presidential election ?
Plainly enough now : the speaking out then would have damaged the
perfectly free argument upon which the election was to be carried. Why
the outgoing President's felicitation on the indorsement ? Why the delay
of a re-argument? Why the incoming President's advance exhortation
in favor of the decision ? These things look like the cautious patting
and petting of a spirited horse preparatory to mounting him, when it is
dreaded that he may give the rider a fall. And why the hasty after-in-
dorsement of the decision by the President and others ?

We cannot absolutely know that all these exact adaptations are the
result of preconcert. But when we see a lot of framed timbers, different
portions of which we know have been gotten out at different times and
places, and by different workmen — Stephen, Franklin, Roger, and
James, for instance — and when we see these timbers joined together,
and sec they exactly make the frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons

498 A ME RICA X PA TRIO TISM.

and mortices exactly fitting-, and all the lengths and proportions of the
different pieces exactly adapted to their respective places; and not a
piece too many or too few — not omitting even scaffolding- — or, if a single
piece be lacking, we see the place in the frame exactly fitted and pre-
pared yet to bring such piece in — in such a case, we find it impossible
not to believe that Stephen and Franklin and Roger and James all um
derstood one another from the beginning, and all worked upon a
common plan or draft drawn up before the first blow was struck.

It should not be overlooked that, by the Nebraska bill, the people of
a state, as well as territory, were to be left " perfectly free," "subject
only to the Constitution ." Why mention a state ? They were legisla-
ting for territories, and not for or about states. Certainly, the people
of a state are and ought to be subject to the Constitution of the United
Spates ; but why is mention of this lugged into this merely territorial
law? Why are the people of a territory at) d the people of a state
therein lumped together, and their relation to the Constitution therein
treated as being precisely the same? While the opinion of the court,
by Chief- Justice Taney, in the Dred Scott case, and the separate opin-
ions of all the concurring Judges, expressly declare that the Constitution
of the United States neither permits Congress nor a territorial legisla-
ture to exclude slavery from any United States territory, they all omit
to declare whether or not the same Constitution permits a state, or the
people of a state, to exclude it. Possibly, this is a mere omission ; but
who can be quite sure, if McLean or Curtis had sought to get into the
opinion a declaration of unlimited power in the people of a state to ex-
clude slavery from their limits, just as Chase and Mace sought to get
such declaration, in behalf of the people of a territory, into the Ne-
braska bill ; — I ask, who can be quite sure that it would not have been
voted down in the one case, as it had been in the other? The nearest
approach to the point of declaring the power of a state over slavery, is
made by Judge Nelson. He approaches it more than once, using the
precise idea, and almost the language, too, of the Nebraska act. On
one occasion, his exact language is, * except in cases where the power is
restrained by the Constitution of the United States, the law of
the state is supreme over the subject of slavery within its juris-
diction.1' In what cases the power of the states is so restrained
by the United States Constitution, is left an open question, pre-
cisely as the same question, as to the restraint on the power of the
territories, was left open in the Nebraska act. Put this and that
together, and we have another nice little niche, which we may,
ere long, see filled with another Supreme Court decision, declaring
that the Constitution of the United States does not permit a state to
exclude slavery from its limits. And this may especially be expected,-
if the doctrine of " care not whether slavery be voted down or voted
up," shall gain upon the public mind sufficiently to give promise that
such a decision can be maintained when made.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 499

Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of being alike lawful in
all the states. Welcome or unwelcome, such decision is probably
coming and will soon be upon us, unless the power of the present
political dynasty shall be met and overthrown. We shall lie down
pleasantly dreaming that the people of Missouri are on the verge of
making their state free, and we shall awake to the reality instead, that
the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave state. To meet and
overthrow the power of that dynasty is the work now before all those
who would prevent that consummation. That is what we have to do.
Howcanwebestdoit?

There are those who denounce us openly to their own friends, and
yet whisper us softly, that Senator Douglas is the aptest instrument
there is with which to effect that object. They wish us to infer all,
from the fact that he now has a little quarrel with the present head of
the dynasty, and that he has regularly voted with us on a single point,
upon which he and we have never differed. They remind us that he
is a great man, and that the largest of us are very small ones. Let this
be granted. But "a living dog is better than a dead lion." Judge
Douglas, if not a dead lion, for this work, is at least a caged and tooth-
less one. How can he oppose the advances of slavery? He don't
care any thing about it. His avowed mission is impressing the " pub-
lic heart " to care nothing about it. A leading Douglas democratic
newspaper thinks Douglas's superior talent will be needed to resist
the revival of the African slave-trade. Does Douglas believe an effort
to revive that trade is approaching? He has not said so. Does he
really think so ? But if 'it is, how can he resist it ? For years he has
labored to prove it a sacred right of white men to take negro slaves
into the new territories. Can he possibly show that it is less a sacred
right to buy them where they can be bought cheapest? And unques-
tionably they can be bought cheaper in Africa than in Virginia. He
has done all in his power to reduce the whole question of slavery to
one of a mere right of property; and as such, how can he oppose the
foreign slave-trade — how can he refuse that trade in that " property "
shall be " perfectly free" — unless he does it as a protectiom to the
home production ? And as the home producers will probably not
ask the protection, he will be wholly without a ground of opposition.

Senator Douglas holds, we know, that a man may rightfully be wiser
to-day than he was yesterday — that he may rightfully change when he
finds himself wrong. But can we, for that reason, run ahead, and
infer that he will make any particular change, of which he himself has
given no intimation ? Can we safely base our action upon any such
vague inference ? Now, as ever, I wish not to misrepresent Judge
Douglas's position, question his motives, or do aught that can be per-
sonally offensive to him. Whenever, if ever> he and we can come
together on principle, so that our cause may have assistance from his
great ability, I hope to have interposed no adventitious obstacle. But,

500 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

clearly, he is not now with us — he does not pretend to be — he does not
promise ever to be.

Our cause, then, must be intrusted to, and conducted by, its own
undoubted friends — those whose hands are free, whose hearts are in
the work — who do care for the result. Two years ago, the Republicans
of the nation mustered over thirteen hundred thousand strong. We did
this under the single impulse of resistance to a common danger, with
every external circumstance against us. Of strange, discordant, and
even hostile elements, we gathered from the four winds, and formed
and fought the battle through, under the constant hot fire of a disci-
plined, proud, and pampered enemy. Did we brave all then, to falter
now? — now, when that same enemy is wavering, dissevered, and bel-
ligerent ? The result is not doubtful. We shall not fail — if we stand
firm, we shall not fail. Wise counsels may accelerate, or mistakes
delay it, but, sooner or later, the victory is sure to come.

At Quincy, October 13.

We have in this nation this element of domestic slavery. It is a
matter of absolute certainty that it is a disturbing element. It is the
opinion of all the great men who have expressed an opinion upon it,
that it is a dangerous element. We keep up a controversy in regard
to it. That controversy necessarily springs from difference of opinion,
and if we can learn exactly — can reduce to the lowest elements — what
that difference of opinion is, we perhaps shall be better prepared for
discussing the different systems of policy that we would propose
in regard to that disturbing element. I suggest that the difference of
opinion, reduced to its lowest terms, is no other than the difference
between the men who think slavery a wrong and those who do not
think it wrong. The Republican party think it a wrong — we think it
is a moral, a social, and a political wrong. We think it is a wrong
not confining itself merely to the persons or the states where it exists,
but that it is a Avrong in its tendency, to say the least, that extends it-
self to the existence of the whole nation. Because we think it wronr,
we propose a course of policy that shall deal with it as a wrong.
We deal with it as with any other wrong, in so far as we can prevent
its growing any larger, and so deal with it that in the run of time there
may be some promise of an end to it. We have a due regard to the
actual presence of it amongst us, and the difficulties of getting rid of it
in any satisfactory wray, and" all the constitutional obligations thrown
about it. I suppose that in reference both to its actual existence in
the nation, and to our constitutional obligations, we have no right at
ail to disturb it in the states where it exists, and we profess that we
have no more inclination to disturb it than we have the right to do it.
We go further than that; we don't propose to disturb it where, in one
instance, we think the Constitution would permit us. We think the

ABRAHAM LIXCOLN. 5c I

Constitution would permit us to disturb it in the District of Columbia.
Still we do not propose to do that, unless it should be in terms which
I don't suppose the nation is very likely soon to agree to— the terms
of making the emancipation gradual, and compensating the unwilling
owners. Where we suppose we have the constitutional right, we re-
strain ourselves in reference to the actual existence of the institution
and the difficulties thrown about it. We also oppose it as an evil, so
far as it seeks to spread itself. We insist on the policy that shall re-
strict it to its present limits. We don't suppose that in doing this we
violate any thing due to the actual presence of the institution, or any
thing due to the constitutional guarantees thrown around it.

We oppose the Dred Scott decision in a certain way, upon which I
ought perhaps to address you a few words. We do not propose that
when Dred Scott has been decided to be a slave by the court, we, as a
mob, will decide him to be free. We do not propose that, when any
other one, or one thousand, shall be decided by that court to be slaves,
we will in any violent way disturb the rights of property thus settled;
but we nevertheless do oppose that decision as a political rule, which
shall be binding on the voter to vote for nobody who thinks it wrong,
which shall be binding on the members of Congress or the President
to favor no measure that does not actually concur with the principles
of that decision. We do not propose to be bound by it as a political
rule in that way, because we think it lays the foundation not merely of
enlarging and spreading out what we consider an evil, but it lays the
foundation for spreading that evil into the states themselves. We pro-
pose so resistipg it as to have it reversed if we can, and a new judicial
rule established upon this subject.

I will add this, that if there be any man who does not believe that
slavery is wrong in the three aspects which I have mentioned, or in
any one of them, that man is misplaced, and ought to leave us.
While, on the other hand, if there be any man in the republican party
who is impatient over the necessity springing from its actual preserice,
and is impatient of the constitutional guarantees thrown around it, a-:d
would act in disregard of these, he too is misplaced, standing with us.
He will find his place somewhere else; for we have a due regard, so
far as we are capable of understanding them, for alt these things.
This, gentlemen, as well as I can give it, is a plain statement of our
principles in all their enormity.

At Alton, October 15.

I have intimated that I thought the agitation would not cease until
a crisis should have been reached and passed. I have stated in what
way I thought it would be reached and passed. I have said that it
might go one way or the other. We might, by arresting the further
spread of it, and placing it where the fathers originally placed it, put

502 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

it where the public mind should rest in the belief that it was in the
course of ultimate extinction. Thus the agitation may cease. It may
be pushed forward until it shall become alike lawful in all the states,
old as wteli as new, north as well as south. Ihave said', and I repeat,
my wish is that the' further spread of it may be arrested, and that it
may be placed where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is
in the course of ultimate extinction. I have expressed that as my
wish. I entertain the opinion, upon evidence sufficient to my mind,
that the fathers of this government placed that institution where the
public mind did rest in the belief that it was in the course of ultimate
extinction. Let me ask why they made provision that the source of
slavery— the African slave-trade— should be cut off at the end of
twenty years ? Why did they make provision that in all the new ter-
ritory we owned at that time,' slavery should be forever inhibited?
Why stop its spread in one direction and cut off its source in another,
if they did not look to its being placed in the course of ultimate ex-
tinction?

The sentiment that contemplates the institution of slavery in this
country as a wrong is the sentiment of the republican party. It is the
sentiment around which all their actions— ail their arguments circle —
from which all their propositions radiate. They look upon it as being
a moral, social, and political wrong; and white they contemplate it as
such, they nevertheless have due regard for its actual existence among
us, and the difficulties of getting rid of it in any satisfactory way, and
to all the constitutional obligations thrown about it. Yet, having a
due regard for these, they desire a policy in regard to it that looks to
its not creating any more danger. They insist that k should, as far
as may be, be treated as a wrong, and one of the methods of treating
it as a wrong is to make provision that it shall grow no larger. They
also desire a policy that looks to a peaceful end of slavery at some
time, as being wrong! These are the views they entertain in regard
to it, as I understand them; and all their sentiments— all their argu-
ments and propositions are brought within this range. I have said,
and I repeat it here, that if there be a man amongst us who does not
think that the institution of slavery is wrong, in any one of the aspects
of which I have spoken, he is misplaced, and ought not to be with us.
And if there be a man amongst us who is so impatient of it as a wrong
as to disregard its actual presence among us, and the difficulty of get-
ting rid of it suddenly in a satisfactory way, and to disregard the con-
stitutional obligations thrown about it, that man is misplaced, if he is
ort our platform. We disclaim sympathy with him in practical action.
He is not placed properly with us.

On this subject of treating it as a wrong, and limiting its spread, let
me say a word. Has anything ever threatened the existence of this
Union, save and except this very institution of slavery? What is it
that we hold most dear amongst us ? Our own liberty and prosperity.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 5°3

"\Vihgt has ever threatened our liberty and prosperity, save and except
this institution of slavery? If this is true, how do you propose to im-
prove the condition of things by enlarging slavery — by spreading it
out and making it bigger? You may have a wen or cancer upon your
person and not be able to cut it out lest you bleed to death; but surely
it is no way to cure it, to engraft it and spread it over your whole
bLody. That is no proper way of treating what you regard a wrong.
\ou see this peaceful way of dealing with it as a wrpng — restricting
the spread of it, and not allowing it to go into new countries where it
had not already existed. That is the, peaceful way, the old-fashioned
way, the way in which the fathers themselves set us the example.

On the other hand, I have said there is a sentiment which treats it
as not being wrong. That is the democratic sentiment of this day. I
do not mean to say that every man who stands within that range posi-
tively asserts that it is right, That class will include all who positively
assert that it is right, and all who, like Judge Douglas, treat it as in-
different, and do not say it is either right or wrong. These two classes
<?f:?mea fall within the general class of those who do not look upon it
as a wrong. And if there be among you anybody who supposes that
he, as 2l democrat, can consider himself "as much opposed to sla-
very as anybody," I would like to reason with him. You never treat
it as a wrong. What other thing that you consider as a wrong, do you
deal with as you deal with that ? Perhaps you say it is a wrong, but
your leader never does, and you quarrel with anybody who says it is
wrong. Although you pretend to say so yourself, you can find no fit
place to deal with it as a wrong. You must not say anything about it
in the free states, because it is not here. You must not say anything
about it in the slave states, because it is there. You must not say any-
thing about it in the pulpa, because that, is religion, and has nothing to
do with it. You must not say anything about it in politics, because that
will, disturb the security of "my place." There is no place to talk
about it as being a wrong, although you say yourself it is a wrong.
But, finally, you will screw yourself up to the belief that if the people
of the slave slates should adopt a system of gradual emancipation on
the slavery questiont you would be in favor of itf You say that is
getting it in the right place, and you would be glad to see it succeed.
But you are deceiving yourself. You all 'know that Frank Blair and
Gratz Brown, down there in St. Louis, undertook to introduce that
system into Missouri. They fought as valiantly as they could for the
system of gradual emancipation which you pretend you would be glad
to see succeed. Now I will bring you to the test. After a hard fight
they were beaten, and when the news came over here you threw up
your hats and hurrahed for democracy. More than that; take all the
arguments made in favor of the system you have proposed, and it
carefully excludes the idea that there is anything wrong in the institu-
tion of slavery. The arguments to sustain that policy carefully ex-

504 . AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

eluded it. Even here to-day you heard Judge Douglas quarrel with
me because I uttered a wish that it might some time come to an end.
Although Henry Clay could say he wished every slave in the United
States was in the country of his ancestors, I am denounced by those
pretending to respect Henry Clay for uttering a wish that it might
some time1,, in some peaceful way, come to an end. The democratic
policy in regard to that institution will not tolerate the merest breath,
the slightest hint, of the least degree of wrong about it.

BURIAL OF JOHN BROWN.
WENDELL PHILLIPS.

North Elba, N. V., December 8, 1859..

How feeble words seem here ! How can I hope to utter what your
hearts are full of ? I fear to disturb the harmony which his life breathes
round his home. One and another of you, his neighbors, say, " I
have known him five years;" "I have known him ten years." It
seems to me as if we had none of us known him. How our admir-
ing, loving wonder has grown, day by day, as he has unfolded trait
after trait of earnest, brave, tender, Christian life ! We see him
walking with radiant, serene face to the scaffold, and think what an
iron heart, what devoted faith ! We take up his letters beginning:
" My dear wife and children, every one," — see him stoop on his way
to the scaffold and kiss that negro child — and this iron heart seems all
tenderness. Marvellous old man ! We have hardly said it when the
loved forms of his sons, in the bloom of young devotion, encircle
him, and we remember he is not alone, only the majestic centre of a
i^roup. Your neighbor farmer went, surrounded by his household, to
tell the slaves there were still hearts and right arms ready and nerved
for their service. \ From this roof four, from a neighboring roof two,
to make up that score of heroes. How resolute each looked into the
ir.ee of Virginia, how loyally each stood at his forlorn post, meeting
( oath cheerfully, till that ma.ster-voice said, " It is enough." And these
a eeping children and widow seem so lifted up and consecrated by
long, single-hearted devotion to his great purpose, that we dare, even
at this moment, to remind them how blessed they are in the privilege
of thinking that in the last throbs of those brave young hearts, which
lit buried on the banks of the Shenandoah, thoughts of them mingled
with love to God and hope for the slave.

He has abolished slavery in Virginia. You may say this is too
much. Our neighbors are the last men we know. The hours that
pass us are the ones we appreciate the least. Men walked Boston
streets when night fell -on Bunker's Hill, and pitied Warren, saying,

WE X DELL PHILLIPS. 505

" Foolish man ! Thrown away his life ! Why didn't he measure his
means better ?" Now we see him standing colossal on that blood-
stained sod, and severing that day the tie which bound Boston to
Great Britain. That night George III. ceased to rule in New Eng-
land. History will dale Virginia emancipation from Harper's Ferry.
True, the slave is still there. So, when the tempest uproots a pine
on your hills, it looks green for months, — a year or two. Still, it is
timber, not a tree. John Brown has loosened the roots of the slave
system; it only breathes — it does not live — hereafter.

Men say, " How coolly brave !" But matchless courage seems the
least of his merits. How gentleness graced it ! When the frightened
town wished to bear off the body of the mayor, a man said, " I will
go, Miss Fowke, under their rifles, if you will stand between them and
me." He knew he could trust their gentle respect for a woman. He
was right. He went into the thick of the fight and bore off the body
in safety. That same girl flung herself between Virginia rifles and
your brave young Thompson. They had no pity. The pitiless bullet
reached him, spite of the woman's prayers, though the fight had long
been over. How God has blessed him ! How truly he may say, " I
have fought a good fight, I have finished my course." Truly he has
finished — done his work. God granted him the privilege to look on
his work accomplished. He said,;" I will show the South that twenty
men can take possession of a town, hold it twenty-four hours, and
carry away all the slaves who wish to escape." Did he not do it ? On
Monday night he stood master of Harper's Ferry — could have left
unchecked with a score or a hundred slaves. The wide sympathy and
secret approval are shown by the eager, quivering lips of lovers of
slavery, asking, "Oh' why did he not take his victory and gc
away ?"

Who checked him at last ? Not startled Virginia. Her he had con-
quered. The Union crushed — seemed to crush him. In reality God
said, "That work is done: you have proved that a slave state is only
fear in the mask of despotism; come up higher, and baptize by your
martyrdom a million hearts into holier life." Surely such a life is no
failure. How vast the change in men's hearts! Insurrection was a
harsh, horrid word to millions a month ago.. John Brown went a
whole generation beyond it, claiming the right for white men to help
the slaves to freedom by arms. And now men run up and down, not
disputing his principle, but trying to frame excuses for Virginia's
hanging so pure, honest, high-hearted, and heroic a man. Virginia"
stands at the bar of the civilized world on trial. Round her victim
crowrd the apostles and martyrs, all the brave, high souls who have
said, 4l God is God," and trodden wicked laws under their feet.

As 1 stood looking at his grandfather's gravestone, brought here
from Connecticut, telling, as it does, of his death in the revolution, I
thought I could hear our hero-saint saying, "My fathers gave their

5o6 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

sword to the oppresser — the slave still sinks before the pledged
force of this nation. I give my sword to the slave my fathers
forgot."

If any swords ever reflected the smile of Heaven, surely it was
those drawn at Harper's Ferry. If our God is e^er the Lord of hosts,
making one man chase a thousand, surely that little band might claim
him for their captain. Harper's Ferry was no single hour, standing
alone — taken out from a common life — it was the flowering out of
fifty years of single-hearted devotion. He must have lived wholly for
one great idea, when those who owe their being to him, and those
whom love has joined to the circle, group so harmoniously around him,
each accepting serenely his and her part.

I feel honored to stand under such a roof. Hereafter you will tell
children standing at your knee, '* I saw John Brown buried — I sat
under his roof." Thank God for such a master. Could we have asked
a nobler representative of the Christian North putting her foot on
the accursed system of slavery? As time passes, and these hours
float back into history, men will see against the clear December sky
that gallows, and round it thousands of armed men guarding Virginia
from her slaves! On the other side, the serene brow of that calm old
man, as he stoops to kiss the child of a forlorn race. Thank God for
our emblem. May he soon bring Virginia to blot out hers in repent-
ant shame, and cover that hateful gallows and soldiery with thousands
of broken fetters.

What lesson shall those lips teach us? Before that still, calm brow
let us take a new baptism. How can we stand here without a fresh
and utter consecration ? These tears ! how shall we dare even to of-
fer consolation ? Only lips fresh from such a vow have the right to
mingle their words with your tears. We envy you your nearer place
to these martyred children of God. I do not believe slavery will go
down in blood. Ours is the age of thought. Hearts are stronger
than swords. The last fortnight ! How sublime its lesson ' the Chris-
tian one of conscience — of truth. Virginia is weak, because each
man's heart said amen to John Brown. His words — they are stronger
even than his rifles. These crushed a state. Those have changed
the thoughts of millions, and will yet crush slavery. Men said,
" Would he had died in arms !" God ordered better, and granted to
him and the slave those noble prison hours — that single hour of death;
granted him a higher than a soldier's place, that of teacher; the echoes
of his rifles have died away in the hills — a million hearts guard his
words. God bless this roof — make it bless us. We dare not say
bless you, children of this home ! you stand nearer to one whose lips
God touched, and we rather bend for your blessing. God make us ail
worthier of him whose dust we lay among these hills he loved. Here
he girded himself and went forth to battle. Fuller success than his
heart ever dreamed God granted him. He sleeps in the blessings oi

ABRAHAM LIXCOLX. 507

the crushed and the poor, and men believe more firmly in virtue, now
that such a man has lived. Standing here, let us thank God for a
firmer faith and fuller hope.

AT INDEPENDENCE HALL.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

P.ilaielphiit, Ftb. 21, i?6'.

I am filled with deep emotion at finding myself. standing here in this
place, where were collected together the wisdom, the patriotism, the
devotion to principle from which sprang the institutions under which
we live. You have kindly suggested to me that in my hands is the
task of restoring peace to the present distracted condition of the
country. I can say in return, sir, that all the political sentiments I
entertain have been drawn, so far as I have been able to draw them,
from the sentiments which originated in and were given to the world
from this hall. I have never had a feeling, politically, that did not
spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Indepen-
dence. I have often pondered over the dangers which were incurred
by the men who assembled here, and framed and adopted that Declara-
tion of Independence. I have pondered over the toils that were en-
dured by the officers and soldiers of the army who achieved that
independence. I have often inquired of myself what great principle
or idea it was that kept this confederacy so long together. It was not
the mere matter of the separation of the colonies from the mother-land,
but that sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which gave
liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but, I hope, to the
world, for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in
due time the weight would be lifted from the shoulders of all men.
This is the sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence.
Now, my frends, can this country be saved upon that basis? If it
can, I will consider myself one of the happiest men in the world if I
can help to save it. If it cannot be saved upon that principle, it will
be truly awful. But if this country cannot be saved without giving up
that principle, I was about to say I would rather be assassinated on
this spot than surrender it Now, in my view of the present aspect of
affairs, there need be no bloodshed or war. There is no necessity for
it. I am not in favor of such a course; and I may say in advance that
there will be no bloodshed unless it be forced upon the government,
and then it will be compelled to act in self-defence.

My friends, this is wholly an unexpected speech, and I did not ex-
pect to be called upon to say a word when I came here. I supposed
it was merely to do something towards raising the flag — I may, there-
fore, have said something indiscreet. I have said nothing but what I
am willing to live by, and, if it be the pleasure of Almighty God, die by.

5°8 AMERICA X PATRIOTISM.

FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

March 4, 1861.

Fellow Citizens of the United States — In compliance with a
custom as old as the government itself, I appear before you to address
you briefly, and to take in your presence the oath prescribed bv the
Constitution of the United States to be taken by the President "before
he enters on the execution of his office."

I do not consider it necessary at present for me to discuss those
matters of administration about which there is no special anxiety or
excitement.

Apprehension seems to exist, among the people of the Southern
States, that by the accession of a republican administration their prop-
erty and their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There
has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the
most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been
open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published
speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of
those speeches when I declare that "I have no purpose, directlv or
indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where
it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no in-
clination to do so." Those who nominated and elected me did so with
full knowledge that I had made this and many similar declarations,
and had never recanted them. And more than this, they placed in the
platform for my acceptance, and as a law to themselves and to me, the
clear and emphatic resolution which I now read : —

Resolved— That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the states, and especi-
ally the right of each state to order and control its own domestic institutions
according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to the balance of power on
which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend, and we denounce
the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any state or territory, no matter
under what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes,

I now reiterate these sentiments; and, in doing so, I only press
upon the public attention the most conclusive evidence of which the
case is susceptible, that the property, peace, and security of no section
are to be in anywise endangered by the now incoming administration.
I add, too, that all the protection which, consistently with the Consti-
tution and the laws, can be given, will be cheerfully given to all the
states, when lawfully demanded, for whatever cause — as cheerfully to
one section as to another.

There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives from

ABRAHAM LINCOLN: 509

service or labor. The clause I now read is as plainly written in the
Constitution as any other of its provisions: —

No person held to service or labor in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping
into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be dischar^ • 1
from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom
such service or labor may be due.

It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended by those
who made it for the reclaiming of what we call fugitive slaves; and
the intention of the lawgiver is the law. All members of Congress
swear, their support to the whole Constitution — to this provision as
much as any other. To the proposition, then, that slaves, whose cases
come within the terms of this clause, " shall be delivered up," their
oaths are unanimous. Now, if they would make the effort in good
temper, could they not, with nearly equal unanimity, frame and pass
a law by means of which to keep good that unanimous oath ?

There is some difference of opinion whether this clause should . be
enforced by national or by state authority; but surely that difference
is not a very material one. If the slave is to be surrendered, it can be
of but little consequence to him, or to others, by which authority it is
done. And should any one, in any case, be content that his oath shall
go unkept, on a mere unsubstantial controversy as to how it shall be
kept?

Again, in any law upon the subject, ought not all the safeguards of
liberty known in civilized and human jurisprudence to be introduced,
so that a free man be not, in any case, surrendered as a slave ? And
might it not be well, at the same time, to provide by law for the en-
forcement of that clause in the Constitution which guarantees that "the
citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities
of citizens in the several states?"

I shall take the official oath to-day with no mental reservation, and
with no purpose to construe the Constitution or laws by any hypercriti-
cal rule. And while I do not choose now to specify particular acts of
Congress as proper to be enforced, I do suggest that it Avill be much
safer for all, both in official and private stations, to conform to and
abide by all those acts which stand unrepealed, than to violate any of
them, trusting to find impunity in having them held to be unconstitu-
tional.

It is seventy-two years since the first inauguration of a president
under our national constitution. During that period, fifteen different
and greatly distinguished citizens have, in succession, administered
the executive branch of the government. They have conducted it
through many perils, and generally with great success. Yet, with all
this scope for precedent. I now enter upon the same task for the brief
constitutional term of four years, under great and peculiar difficulty.
A disruption of the Federal Union, heretofore only menaced, is now
formidably attempted.

5IO AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

I hold that, in contemplation of universal law, and of the Constitu-
tion, the union of these states is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if
not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments.
It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in
its organic law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the
express provisions of our national government, and the Union will
endure forever— it being impossible to destroy it, except by some
action not provided for in the instrument itself.

Again, if the United States be not a government proper, but an
association of states in the nature of contract merely, can it, as a con-
tract, be peaceably unmade by less than all the parties who made it ?
One party to a contract may violate it— break it, so to speak; but does
it not require all to lawfully rescind it ?

Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition
that, in legal contemplation, the Union is perpetual, confirmed by the
history of the Union itself. The Union is much older than the Con-
stitution. It was formed in fact, by the articles of association in
1774. It was matured and continued by the Declaration of Indepen-
dence in 1776. It was further matured, and the faith of all the then
thirteen states expressly plighted and engaged that it should be per-
petual, by the articles of confederation in 1778. And, finally, in 1787,
one of the declared objects for ordaining and establishing the Consti-
tution was " to form a more perfect Union."

But if destruction of the Union, by one, or by a part only, of the
states, be lawfully possible, the Union is less perfect than before, the
Constitution having lost the vital element of perpetuity.

It follows, from these views, that no state upon its own mere
motion, can lawfully get out of the Union; that resolves and ordinances
to that effect are legally vpid; and that acts of violence within any state
or states, against the authority of the United States, are insurrection-
ary, or revolutionary, according to circumstances.

I, therefore, consider that, in view of the Constitution and the laws,
the Union is unbroken, and to the extent of my ability I shall take
care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the
laws of the Union be faithfully executed in ail the states. Doing this
I deem to be only a simple duty on my part; and I shall perform it, so
far as practicable, unless my rightful masters, the American people,
shall withhold the requisite means, or, in some authoritative manner,
direct the contrary. I trust this will not be regarded as a menace,
but only as the declared purpose of the Union that it will constitution-
ally defend and maintain itself.

In doing this there need be no bloodshed or violence; and there shall
be none, unless it be forced upon the national authority. The power
confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property
and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and
imposts; but beyond what may be but necessary for these objects,

K ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 511

there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the peo-
ple anywhere. Where hostility to the United States in any interior
locality shall be so great and universal as to prevent competent
resident citizens from holding the federal offices, there will be no
attempt to force obnoxious strangers among the people for that object.
While the strict legal right may exist in the government to enforce the
exercise of these offices, the attempt to do so would be so irritating,
and so nearly impracticable withal, I deem it better to forego, for the
time, the uses of such offices.

The mails, unless repelled, will continue to be furnished in all parts
of the Union. So far as possible, the people everywhere shall have
that sense of perfect security which is most favorable to calm thought
and reflection. The course here indicated will be followed, unless
current events and experience shall show a modification or change to
be proper, and in every case and exigency my best discretion will be
exercised, according to circumstances actually existing, and with a
view and a hope of a peaceful solution of the national troubles, and
the restoration of fraternal sympathies and affections.

That there are persons in one section or another who seek to destroy
the Union at all events, and are glad of any pretext to do it, I will
neither affirm nor deny; but if there be such, I need address no word
to them. To those, however, who really love the Union, may I not
speak ?

Before entering upon so grave a matter as the destruction of our
national fabric, with all its benefits, its memories, and its hopes, would
it not be wise to ascertain precisely why we do it? Will you hazard
so desperate a step while there is any possibility that any portion of
the ills you fly from have no real existence ? Will you, while the cer-
tain ills you fly to are greater than all the real ones you fly from — will
you risk the commission of so fearful a mistake?

All profess to be content in the Union, if all constitutional rights can
be maintained. Is it true, then, that any right, plainly written in
the Constitution, has been denied? I think not. Happily the human
mind is so constituted that no party can reach to the audacity of doing this.
Think, if you can, of a single instance in which a plainly written pro-
vision of the Constitution has ever been denied. If, by the mere force
of numbers, a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written
constitutional right, it might, in a moral point of view, justify revolu-
tion— certain would if such a right were a vital one. But such is not
our case. All the vital rights of minorities and of individuals are so
plainly assured to them by affirmation and negations, guarantees and
prohibitions in the Constitution, that controversies never arise co. seem-
ing them. But no organic law can ever be framed with a provision
specifically applicable to every question which may occur i.i practical
administration. No foresight can anticipate, nor any document of
reasonable length contain, express provisions for all possible questions.

512 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

Shall fugitives from labor be surrendered by national or by state
authority? The Constitution does not expressly say. May Congress
prohibit slavery in the territories? The Constitution does not ex-
pressly say. Must Congress protect slavery in the territories ? The
Constitution does not expressly say.

From questions of this class spring all our constitutional contro-
versies, and we divide upon them into majorities and minorities. If
the minority will not acquiesce, the majority must, or the government
must cease. There is no other alternative; for continuing the govern-
ment is acquiescence on one side or the other. If a minority in such
case will secede rather than acquiesce, they make a precedent which, in
turn, will divide and ruin them; for a minority of their own will secede
from them whenever a majority refuses to be controlled by such
minority. For instance, why may not any portion of a new con-
federacy, a year or two hence, arbitrarily secede again, precisely as
portions of the present Union now claim to secede from it? All who
cherish disunion sentiments are now being educated to the exact tem-
per of doirg this.

Is there such perfect identity of interests among the states to com-
pose a new Union, as to produce harmony only, and prevent renewed
secession ?

Plainly, the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy. A
majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and
always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions
and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever
rejects it, does, of necessity, fly to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity
is impossible; the rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is
wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy
or despotism, in some form, is all that is left.

I do not forget the position assumed by some, that constitutional
questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court; nor do I deny that
such decisions must be binding, in any case, upon the parties to a
suit, as to the object of that suit, while they are also entitled to very
high respect and consideration in all parallel cases, by all other de-
partments of the government. And while it is obviously possible that
such decisions may be erroneous in any given case, still, the evil effect
following it being limited to that particular case, with the chance that
it may be overruled, and never become a precedent for other cases,
can better be borne than could the evils of a different practice. At the '
same time, the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the
government upon vital questions affecting the whole people, is to be
irrevocably lixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they
are made in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions,
the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that ex-
tent practically resigned their government into the hands of that emi-
nent tribunal.

'ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 513

Nor is there in this view any assault upon the Court or the Judges.
It is a duty from which they may not shrink to decide cases properly
brought before them, and it is no fault of theirs if others seek to turn
their decisions to political purposes. One section of our country be-
lieves slavery is right, and ought to be extended, while the other be-
lieves it is wrong, and ought not to be extended. This is the only
substantial dispute. The fugitive slave clause of the Constitution, and
the law for the suppression of the foreign slave-trade, are each as well
enforced, perhaps, as any law can ever be in a community where the
moral sense of the people imperfectly supports the law itself. The
great body of the people abide by the dry legal obligation in both
cases, and a few break over in each. This, I think, cannot be per-
fectly cured; and it would be worse, in both cases, after the separation
of the sections than before. The foreign slave-trade, now imperfectly
suppressed, would be ultimately revived, without restriction, in one
section; while fugitive slaves, now only partially surrendered, would
not be surrendered at all by the other.

Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot remove our
respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall be-
tween them. A husband and wife may be divorced, and go out of the
presence and beyond the reach of each other; but the different parts
of our country cannot do this. They cannot but remain face to face,
and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between
them. It is impossible then, to make that intercourse more advanta-
geous or more satisfactory after separation than before. Can aliens
make treaties easier than friends can make laws ? Can treaties be
more faithfully enforced between aliens than laws can among friends ?
S ppose you go to war, you cannot fight always; and when, after much
loss on both sides, and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the iden-
tical old questions, as to terms of intercourse, are again upon you.

This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit
it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they
can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolu-
tionary right to dismember or overthrow it. I cannot be ignorant of
the fact thai many worthy and patriotic citizens are desirous of having
the National Constitution amended. While I make no recommenda-
tion of amendment, I fully recognize the rightful authority of the
people over the whole subject, to be exercised in either of the modes
prescribed in the instrument itself, and I should, under existing cir-
cumstances, favor, rather than oppose, a fair opportunity being af-
forded the people to act upon it. I will venture to add, that to me the
convention mode seems preferable, in that it allows amendments to
originate with the people themselves, instead of only permitting them
to take or reject propositions originated by others, not especiallychosen
for the purpose, and which might not be precisely such as they would
wish to either accept or refuse. I understand a proposed amendment

•5 T 4 AMERICAN PA TRIO TISM.

to the Constitution— which amendment, however, I have not seen —
has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall
never interfere with the domestic institutions of the states, including
that of persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I
have said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amend-
ments, so far as to say that, holding such a provision now to be im-
plied constitutional law, I have no objections to its being made ex-
press and irrevocable.

The chief magistrate derives all his authority from the people, and
they have conferred none upon him to fix terms for the separation of
the states. The people themselves can do this also if they choose;
but the executive, as such, has nothing to do with it. His duty is to
administer the present government as it came to his hands, and to
transmit it, unimpaired by him, to his successor.

Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice
of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world? In
our present differences, is either party without faith of being in die
right ? If the Almighty Ruler of Nations, with his eternal truth and
justice, be on your side of the North, or on yours of the South, that
truth and that justice will surely prevail, by the judgment of this great
tribunal of the American people.

By the frame of the government under which we five, the same peo-
ple have wisely given their public servants but little power for mis-
chief, and have, with equal wisdom, provided for the return of that
little to their own hands at very short intervals. While the people
retain their virtue and vigilance,, no administration, by any extreme
of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government in the
short space of four years.

My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon this whole
subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time. If there be an
object to hurry any of you in hot haste to a step which you would
never take deliberately, that object will be frustrated by taking time;
but no good object can be frustrated by it. Such of you as are now
dissatisfied, still have the old Constitution unimpaired, and, on the
sensitive point, the laws of your own framing under it; while the new
administration will have no immediate power, if it would, to change
either. If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the right
side in the dispute, there still is no single good reason for precipitate
action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on
Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land, are still competent
to adjust, in the best way, all our present difficulty.

In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine:
is the momentous issues of civil war. The government will not assail
you.

You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors.
You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government;

DANIEL STEVENS DICKINSON. 5*5

while I shall have^the most solemn one to " preserve, protect, and de-
fend " iL

I am loathe to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must
not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not
break our bonds of affection.

The mystic cord of memory, stretching from every battle-field and
patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad
land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as
surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

UNION MASS MEETING.

DANIEL STEVENS DICKINSON.

New York, April 2d, 1861.

I am invited, Mr. President, and my fellow-citizens, to attend and
address this meeting, in the language of its call, " without regard to
previous political opinions or associations, to express our sentiments
in the present crisis in our national affairs, and our determination to
uphold the government of our country, and maintain the authority of
the Constitution and laws " I embraced the opportunity with alacrity,
and have travelled two hundred miles, and upwards, this morning,
that I might do so, for I look with extreme apprehension and alarm
upon the danger which threatens us as a whole, recently a united
people. I would know no sections in this great material heritage of
freedom, which stretches from ocean to ocean, from the far frozen
north to where prevail the gentle breezes of the tropics; no divisions
or strife among or between children of a common father, and brothers
of the same household; but the demon of discord has inaugarated his
fearful court in our midst, and the crisis is to be met like every other
vicissitude.

A somewhat extended service in the national councils, at a period
of unusual interest, gave me an opportunity for much and mature re-
flection, upon the relations between the North and the South; upon
the duties each section owed to itself and the other, and to the cause
of free government, under a hallowed compact, under the constitu-
tional guarantees secured, and that fraternal regard which, by every
consideration that could influence civilized and Christian men, each
section and its people should at all times cultivate toward the other.
I have looked upon all, as regards the Union, its. value and its pre-
servation, as the inheritors of the same catholic faith; and though scat-
tered over an area so vast, divided into sections, subdivided into num-
erous states, and the two sections committed to different systems of
industry, as united in one great interest, as essential to each other te

516 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

promote the common enjoyment; and as bound together to the same
great and immortal destiny. None of these views of what should, and
ought to be, and might have been, have been changed; but recent un-
fortunate events have served to confirm them beyond the shadow of a
doubt, and to increase regrets that efforts costing so little, and of such
incalculable value, could not have been put forth before it was too
late.

But now, in common with every lover of his country, I am called to
lament that we should be aroused from the dream of a people's secur-
ity, happiness, and glory, by a conflict of blood. Until recently, I
had hoped that time, and a returning sense of patriotism, a recurrence
to the scenes and trials of the Revolution, a thought of the great names
and greater memories of those who wrought out the liberties we have
possessed and should enjoy, and above all a sense of duty we owed to
ourselves, to each other, to our country and its Constitution, to our de-
scendants, to the cause of liberty » throughout the earth, would bear
this great question far above and beyond the field of vitiated and de-
moralized politics, and save the Union; not in mere form, but the
Union of our fathers, in the spirit of the Constitution; the Union pur-
chased by the blood poured out at Lexington, Saratoga, and Yorktown,
the Union of the great spirits of '76, the Union of the Stars and Stripes,
which, though torn and disfigured, is dearer than ever; the Union over
which every patriot in every section can exclaim, in the language of
the British poet, " With all thy faults, I love thee still!" the Union
which can never be destroyed in the affections of the American peo-
ple. Yes,

" You may break, you may shatter the vase if you will,
But the scent of the roses will hang round it still."

But these anticipations have not been and are not to be realized.

Six months since, we were enjoying unexampled success, now, ruin
runs riot over this fair land, and all for madness. Numerous States
have passed ordinances of secession from the Union, and have seized
the federal property within their reach; they repudiate and disown its
authority, assault its flag, and defy its power; have deliberately, and
with an overpowering force, attacked and reduced a partially garrison-
ed and unoffending fortification, because they seemed to regard the
gallant Major Anderson, with his loyal men, who reposed in peace, a
kind of minister plenipotentiary of the United States, near, and rather
too near the government of South Carolina, and now they threaten,
as is asserted upon what seems good authority, to march against the
Federal Capital. Troops marching to its defence have been murdered,
and war is therefore upon us, with all its terrible realities; a civil, in-
testine war, against and between brethren !

It were profitless to inquire for original or remote causes ; it is no
time for indecision or inaction ; it is no time for crimination or re-

DANIEL STEVENS DICKINSON. 517

crimination, or for reviving partisan issues ; it is no time to inquire
whose hand holds the helm or who placed him there, if as prescribed
by the Constitution ; or by what name he is known in the political
jargon of the day. But the only question should be : Does he pro-
pose to steer the good ship of state according to the chart of the Con-
stitution, between the Scylla and Charybdis which threaten her path-
way ; and will he uphold the Constitution and administer the laws
with the firmness, justice, and forbearance, with a wisdom, mercy, and
discretion, becoming the Chief Magistrate of such a people ! in such
an exigency ? And if he does that, and that only, he should be, and
will be, triumphantly sustained ; not only by political parties extant
or obsolete, nor time-serving politicians, but by the patriotic pulsa-
tions of the great popular heart. Our troubles are chargeable as well
to a demoralized sentiment as to sectional disturbance. The country
is cursed with the "cankers of a calm world and a long peace ;" rank
with mean ambition ; swarming with office-hunters and plethoric with
treasury-mongers. Like the plagues of Egypt, they have filled the
beds and boards and kneading-troughs of the Republic, and poisoned
the very foundations of political morality.

My desires and efforts, and anxieties and prayers, have been for
peace; that everything might.be yielded that could be, consistently
with a nation's dignity and honor (and our great Republic can yield
much to a portion of its erring people), rather than provoke or even
permit a conflict of hostile forces ; and even yet, I invoke the benign
spirit of conciliation ! But the government must arm ; and that in a
manner commensurate with its vast resources, and becoming the la-
mentable occasion ; yet it should put on its armor for preservation,
not for destruction ; not for aggressive war, but for defensive peace ;
not for subjugation or coercion, but to arrest tumult, lawlessness, and
disorder ; not to despoil others, but to keep its own ; to maintain the
supremacy of the Constitution, and to vindicate the laws ; to put down
fnsurrection, and to repel invasion ; to maintain the power and dig-
nity of the nation and preserve its flag inviolate ; to save, if saved it
can be, the Union, already disserved, from the final overthrow and
destruction with which it is menaced. The contemplation of even the
most brilliant successes upon the field of blood, brings me in this con-
troversy only heart-sickness and sorrow ; for I cannot forget that it is
a war between those who should have loved and cheered and consoled
each other along the bleak and desolate pathway of life's perilous pil-
grimage, and that we may say of him who falls in the wicked and un-
natural strife : •
:

" Another's sword has laid him low ;
Another's and another's,
And every hand that dealt the blow,
Ah me ! it was a brother's."

51S AMERICJ.X PAT/UOTISM.

But I would assert the power of the government over those who
owe it allegiance and attempt its overthrow, as Brutus put his signet
to the death-warrant of his son, that I might exclaim with him, "Jus-
tice is satisfied, .and Rome is free." I would defend our government,
pnd its territory, and its citadel, that we may not weep like women
over that we failed to defend like men.

In this fraternal strife, let us by no means forget the numerous pa-
i : iotic hearts at the South, that beat responsive to the Union senti-
ment. How long and how faithfully they have endured; how much of
assault and contumely they have withstood ; what interests, political,
social, and material, they have sacrificed ; how long and how faith-
fully they have buffeted the angry waves which have beat around
them ! They have loved and cherished the Union, and have clung
with a deathlike tenacity to the pillars of the Constitution, to uphold
and sustain it ; and may God bless them. Let us remember them in
this, the evil day of our common country, and do nothing to cast im-
pediments in the way of their patriotic progress and endurance.

The action of our own noble state may be potential in the gloomy
crisis. She has power, and must interpose it ; wealth, and must prof-
fer it ; men, and must rally them to duty; and should employ her
mighty energies to silence this accursed din of arms and tumult and
murder, at an early moment, in the name of the constitution and the
Union, of jusMce, forbearance, humanity, and peace.

" 'Tis not the whole of hie to live,
Nor all of death to die.''

And this commercial emporium of the western hemisphere, the off-
spring of free government and unrestricted enterprise, under a glor-
ious Union; where the elements of trade concentre and are diffused ;
great in natural advantages and material wealth ; great in architec-
tural magnificence and commercial renown; great in an active and en-
terprising population, in the arts and sciences, in her institutions of
religion, charity, and learning ; but greater in her mighty moral ener-
gies for good, when the waves of madness heave mountain high, and
threaten universal destruction. She can, in the plenitude of her
power, speaking with united voice, do much to silence the war-whoops
which Christian civilization has borrowed, in this day of light, from
savage barbarism. She can do much to roll back and calm the agita-
tion of the waters with the stern commands of peace. Then let her
stretch forth her strong arm in support of the Constitution and the
Union. Let her sustain the government in its lawful authority ; in
upholding inviolate our glorious flag, emblem of a glorious Union ; in
defending its territory, in preserving the Union, if possible, from fur-
ther disruption and destruction, and in reclaiming, by its measures of
justice and wisdom, every disaffected state to the Union it once loved,
and cherished, and adorned. And if, when all efforts at conciliation

DANIEL STEVENS DTCKINSON. 519

have failed, and the surges of intestine passions shall run more madly
still, and armed forces must meet for destruction upon the field of
battle ; when it is covered with the dead and dying, and the shrieks of
the wounded are ascending to heaven ; let us be able to exclaim with
Caesar, when he saw the fields of Pharsalia strewn with his fallen
countrymen, " They would have it so !"

The states of the South alleged common grievances against the free
states, and suggested the necessity of further guaranties. There was
a large and powerful party in the free states in sympathy with them
in this demand, and if all the Southern states had moved with solemn
deliberation, and in concert, it is obvious that satisfactory guaranties
would have been provided, and civilization and Christianity and
freedom have been spared the disgrace which must disfigure the page
of history, so long as ink shall stand a faithful sentirrel on paper, and
darken the dreamy shadows of tradition, when history shall have faded
away. But some rushed hastily to pass ordinances of secession with-
out waking for the concert of aggrieved sisters, or even the sanction
of their own people ; some seized the Federal property within their
reach, and armed for avowed conflict, and menaced the Federal gov-
ernment, and thus reduced all chances for conciliation, either for
restoration or final peaceful separation. One irritation has provoked
another; one false and impetuous movement has initiated another,
until all rational hope of peace has left us, I fear, forever, and we must
drink, drink to the dregs, the cup prepared for us. There was nothing
in the relations of the two sections, unfortunate as they were, which
ever rendered a resort to arms either justifiable or necessary; and the
inauguration of war over questions capable of pacific adjustment, will
be condemned and execrated wherever civilisation finds a resting-
place; and the widow's wail and the orphan's tears will haunt the last
moments of his existence who produced it.

For myself, in our federal relations, I know but one section, one
Union, one flag, one government. That section embraces every
state; that Union is the Union sealed with the blood and consecrated
by the tears of the revolutionary struggle; that flag is the flag known
and honored in every sea under heaven; which has borne off glorious
victory from many a bloody battle-field, and yet stirs with warmer and
quicker pulsations the heart's blood of every true American, when he
looks upon its Stars and Stripes wherever it waves. That government
is the government of Washington, and Adams, and Jefferson, and
Jackson; a government which has shielded and protected not only us,
but God's oppressed children who have gathered under its wings from
every portion of the globe; a government which, from humble begin-
nings, has borne us forward with fabulous celerity, and made us one
of the great and prosperous powers of earth. The union of these
, states was a bright vision of my early years, the pride of my manhood,
the ambition of my public service. I have sacrificed upon its altar the

520 AMERICA X PATRIOTISM.

best energies and choicest hopes of a life checkered by vicissitudes and
trial. I had believed the contemplation of its beauties W6uM be the
companion of approaching age, and the beguiler of my vacant and
sc Etary hours. And now that its integrity is menaced, its fair pro-
portions disfigured, it is still dear to my heart, as a great fountain cf
wisdom, from which incalculable blessings have flowed. I have re-
joiced with it in its hevrday of success and triumph, and will, by the
grace of God, stand by it in its hour of darkness and peril, and by
those who uphold it in the spirit of the Constitution. When the
falter, and the faithless fly; when the skies lower and the winds howl,
the storm descends, and the tempests beat; when the lightnings flash.
the thunders roar, the waves dash high, and the good ship Vv
creaks and groans with the expiring throes of dissolution, I will clthg
to her still as the last refuge of hope from the fury of the storm; and
if she goes down, I will go down with her, rather than revive to tell
the story of her ignoble end. I will sustain that flag of Stars and
Stripes, recently rendered more glorious by Anderson, his officers and
men, wherever it waves — over the sea or over the land. And when it
shall be despoiled and disfigured, I will rally around it still as the star-
spangled banner of my fathers and my country; aud so long as a
single stripe can be discovered, or a single star shall glimmer from
the surrounding darkness, I will cheer it as the emblem of a nation's
glory and a nation's hope. And could I see again my beloved and bleeding
and distracted country all peacefully reposing beneath it, as in days gone
by, I could almost swear, with the devoted Jephtha, that infatuated
leader of the hosts of Israel, that " I would sacrifice to the Lord the
first living thing of my household that I should meet on my return from
victory!"

ADDRESS AT AMHERST.

DANIEL STEVENS DICKINSON.

June ii, i5ai.

"We are admonished by " the divinity that stirs within us," as well
as by all history and experience in human affairs, that there are prin-
ciples which can never be subverted, truths which never die. The
religion of a Saviour, who at his nativity was cradled on the straw
pallet of destitution; -who in declaring and enforcing his divine mis-
sion, was sustained by obscure fishermen; who was spit upon by the
rabble, persecuted by power, and betrayed by treachery to envy, has,
by its inherent forces, subdued, civilized, and conquered a world; not
by the tramp of hostile armies, the roar cf artillery, or the stirring airs
of martial music, but by the swell of the same heavenly harmonies
which aroused the drowsy shepherds at the rock-founded city of Beth-

DAXIEL STEVEXS DICKIXSOX. 521

lehem, proclaiming in their dulcet warblings, "peace on earth and
good will toward men;" not by flashes of contending steel, amidst the
bad passions of the battle-field, the shrieks of the dying and the flames
of subjugated cities, but by the glowing light which shot athwart the
firmament and illumined the whole heavens at his advent. Thus was
ushered in that memorable epoch in the world's eventful history, the
Christian era, an era which closed one volume in the record of man's
existence, and opened another; which drew aside the dark curtain of
death and degradation, exhibiting to life's worn and weary pilgrim
along the wastes of ignorance and barbarism, new domains of hope
and happiness for exploratiou and improvement; new fields for him
to subdue and fertilize and reap, and new triumphs for him to achieve
in the cause of human regeneration. And let him who fails to esti-
mate the priceless value of this divine reformation, in a temporal
sense alone, contrast the condition of man, wherever Christian
civilization has travelled, with a people groping amidst the degrading
darkness of idolatry, or bowing beneath some imposture still more
heaven-daring and impious.

Second only in interest and importance to the religion of Him who
spake as never man spake, is that system of political truth which pro-
claims the doctrine of man's equality, and elevates him in the scale of
being to that dignity of station which Heaven destined him to fill. For
untold centuries, despotism and king-craft had asserted dominion over
the world's masses. Every attempt to break the fetters which held a
people in vassalage had resulted in riveting them more securely upon
the limbs of servitude. Labor had groaned under the exactions, and the
spirit had prayed long and fervently for deliverance, but in vain. The
failure to correct organizations so false, and vicious and cruel, and to
restore the power swayed by the tyrannic few to the plundered many,
had been written in human blood, until

" Hope for a season bade the world farewell."

But our fathers, imbued with the spirit of freedom which a free
respiration of the air of the New World inspired, and goaded to des-
peration by the exactions of oppression, rolled the stone from the door
of the sepulchre, where crucified and entombed liberty was slumbering,
a .id it arose in light and life to cheer, and bless and give hope to the
down-trodden humanity of earth, to emancipate the immortal mind from
the slavery by which it was degraded They asserted the simplest yet
the sublimest of political truths, that all men were created equal. They
arraigned at the bar of a Christian world, trembling, tyrannous, stulti-
fied legitimacy, while asserting its impious dogma of Heaven-descended
rulers, and they repudiated and laughed to scorn the fraudulent
theories, base pretensions, and vain ceremonials of its political hier-
archy. They declared in its broadest sense the right of man's self-
government, and his capacity for its exercise; and sought release from

522 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

a proud and haughty monarchy that they might enjoy upon this con-
tinent a nation's independence, and found a system which recognized
the equality of men, in which their theories should be established.
They trusted the future of their " lives, their fortunes, and their
sacred honor" to the chances of a great experiment; and while the
timid faltered, the treacherous betrayed, the mercenary schemed, and
the unbelieving derided, far-seeing patriotism pressed forward with an
eye of faith, upon its mission of progress, until hope gave place to
fruition; until expectation became success; until the most formidable
power of earth learned the salutary lesson, that a proud nation, mighty
in armed men, and strong in the terrible material of war by sea and by
land, could not conquer the everlasting truth. The experiment, so
full of promise and yet so threatened with dangers, became an accom-
plished fact. Like a grain of mustard, sown in a subdued faith, it
shot upward and became an overshadowing tree, so wide-spread and
luxuriant that the birds of the air could rest in its branches. Would
that none of evil omen had ever taken refuge there.

Thus was planted the germ of liberty in this holy land of freedom.
It was nurtured in the warm heart's blood of patriots, and watered by
the tears of widows and orphans; but for a time it was tremulous and
slender, and like a frail reed it bowed before every breeze. Oh, what in-
vocations ascended to Him "who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb."
for that cherished shoot, that the "winds of Heaven might not visit
it too roughly." With the fathers of the Revolution, it was remem-
bered at the morning and evening sacrifice. " When its leaves withered
they mourned, and when it rejoiced, they rejoiced with it." But those
who planted it, and watched over its spring-time with more than a
father's solicitude, have gone up to loftier courts, and repose under
the fadeless foliage of the tree of life. The gray-haired minister
who craved for it God's blessing, has been wafted away like the
prophet of old, in a chariot of fire, and the children who sported to-
gether on the grass beneath it, now slumber with their fathers. The
last revolutionary soldier who rejoiced in its pride, and told with
tears its early trials, "shouldered his crutch and showed how fields
were won," has been mustered into the service of his Lord and master,
where the tramp of cavalry and the shock of armies, the neighing of
chargers, and the blast of bugles shall be heard no more. But the
slender shoot of other times has become a giant in the world's extended
forest. Its roots have sunk deep in earth; its top has stretched beyond
the clouds, and its branches have spanned the continent; its form is
graceful, its foliage bright and beautiful, and its fruits have carried
gladness to every quarter of the globe. The oppressed of other lands,
finding, like the wearied dove, no rest amid the old world's desolation
have conquered the noblest instincts of the soul, the love of early
home, of birth-place, of the streams of childhood, of the graves of
their beloved dead, and have sought a gathering place of affection

DANIEL STEVEXS DICK IX SOX. 523

under its protecting branches. Here they have reposed in peace
and plenty, and fancied security, from the struggles which cursed
their native land. No groans of oppression are heard beneath
it. no deadly malaria sickens in its shade, but its sheltering influen-
ces, refreshing as the dews, and genial as the sunshine, have blessed
and cherished all.

Ah ! what government has so protected its children, so ennobled
man, so elevated woman, so inspired youth, so given hope and prom-
ise to budding childhood, so smoothed the descent of dreary age: has
so guarded freedom of conscience, so diffused intelligence, so fostered
letters and the arts, so secured to all " life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness." The triumphs of freedom, moral and material, under
this new dispensation, have excelled the hope of the most sanguine.
From three our population has increased to thirty millions, from thir-
teen feeble colonies along the Atlantic slope to thirty-four powerful
states, with numerous others in the process of formation and on their
way for admittance to the Union. Two strong European powers have
withdrawn from the continent, leaving us the fruits of their possess-
ions. Great and prosperous states and cities and towns, teeming with
the elements of enterprise and social culture, and abounding with in-
stitutions of religion and learning, have arisen as if by magic on the
far distant Pacific, where we have only paused, lest to cross it might
put us on our return voyage and bring us nearer home; and the river
which the ambition of our early history essayed to fix for our western
limit now runs nearest our eastern boundary. Numerous aboriginal
nations have been displaced before the prevailing current of our ars
and arms and free principles. He who listens may hear the pattering
feet of coming millions; and whoever will look back upon the past and
forward upon the future must see that there are further races for us to
civilize, educate, and absorb, and that new triumphs await us in the
cause of progress and civilization. Thus have we passed from infancy
to childhood, from childhood to robust and buoyant youth, and from
youth to vigorous manhood; and with an overgrowth so superabund-
ant we should neither be surprised nor alarmed that we have provoked
foreign envy as well as unwilling admiration; that cankers of discon-
tent are gnawing at our heartstrings, and that we are threatened with
checks and trials and reverses.

The continent of North America presents to the observing mind one
great geographical system, every portion of which, under the present
facilities for intercommunication, may be more accessible to every
other than were the original states to each other at the time the con-
federacy was formed. It is destined at no distant day to become per-
manently the commercial centre, when France and England will pay
tribute to New York, and the Rothschilds and the Barings will sell
exchange on Wall Street at a premium. And it requires no romantic
stretch of the imagination to believe that the time is at hand, when

524 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

man, regarding his own wants, yielding to his own1 impulses, and act-
ing in obedience to laws more potent than the laws of a blind ambi-
ion, will ordain that the continent shall be united in political as well
as natural bonds, and form but one great Union — a free, self-governed,
confederated republic, exhibiting to an admiring world the results which
have been achieved for man's freedom and elevation in this western
hemisphere.

In ordinary times, a correct taste would suggest that upon occasions
like the present all subjects of political concern, however measured by
moderation and seasoned with philosophy and historic truth, should be
left for discussion to some appropriate forum, and those only consid-
ered which are more in sympathy with the objects of the societies of
Amherst; but when the glorious edifice which protects and shelters all
is threatened with the fate of the Ephesian dome, the patriotic scholar,
before he sits down to his favorite banquet, will raise his voice and
nerve his arm to aid in extinguishing the flames, that he may preserve
to posterity institutions without which all the learning of the schools
would be but mockery, and give place to violence and ignorance and
barbarism. This is emphatically a utilitarian and practical age, and
when the foundations upon which the ark of our political safety rests
are threatened, when rebellion is wafted on every breeze, and the rude
din of arms greets us on either hand, menacing our very existence as
a great and prosperous people, letters as well as laws may sympathize
with the danger and become silent in our midst.

Bad government is the foe of knowledge. Under its destructive
reign, learning is neglected, ignorance is honored and commended,
and free opinion is persecuted as an enemy of state. Its schools are
military despotisms, and the dungeon, the rack, and ihe gibbet are its
teachers. Under its haughty sway, the energies of mind are bowed
and broken, the spirit subdued and restrained in its search for suste-
nance, and literature and the sciences droop, languish, and die. This
glorious Union is our world; while we maintain its integrity, all the
nations of the earth must recognize our supremacy and pay us homage;
disjointed, forming two or more fragmentary republics, we shall de-
serve and receive less consideration than the states of Barbary. And
now that it is threatened with destruction, let us as one people, from
the North and the South, the East and the West, rising above the nar-
row instincts of parties and associations, relume our lamps of liberty
as the vestals replenished their sacred fire, though not extinguished,
from the rays of the morning sun. Let us renew our covenant, and
swear upon the holy altars of our faith to maintain and defend it and
its glorious emblem, the Stars and Stripes, so replete with pleasing
memories; and if there are any who distrust their own firmness, and
fear that they may be seduced, or fall out by the wayside, or be fright-
ened from their purpose, let them, like Fernando Cor&ez, destroy
the means of retreat behind them, that they may remain faithful to
the end.

DANIEL STEVENS DICKINSON. 525

When the sunlight of the last autumn was supplanted by the premo-
nitions of winter, by drifting clouds, and eddying leaves, and the flight
of birds to a milder clime, our land was emphatically blessed. We
were at peace with all the powers of earth, and enjoying undisturbed
domestic repose. A beneficent Providence had smiled upon the labors
of the. husbandman, and our granaries groaned under the burden of
their golden treasures. Industry found labor and compensation; and
the poor man's latch was never raised except in the sacred name of
friendship or by the authority of law. No taxation consumed, no des-
titution appalled, no sickness wasted, but health and joy beamed from
every face. The fruits of toil from the North and the South, the East
and the West, were bringing to our feet the contributions of the earth;
and trade, which for a time had fallen back to recover breath from pre-
vious over-exertion, had resumed her place "where merchants most
do congregate." The land was replete with gladness, and vocal with
thanksgiving of its sons and daughters, up its sunny hill-slopes and
through its smiling valleys, out upon its vast prairies, along its majes-
tic rivers, and down its meandering streamlets; and its institutions of
religion and learning and charity echoed back the sound.

" But bringing up the rear of this bright host,

A spirit of a different aspect waved
His wings, like thunder clouds above some coast,

Whose barren beach with frequent wrecks is paved.
His brow was like the deep when tempest-tost ;

Fierce and unfathomable thoughts engraved
Eternal wrath on his immortal face,

And where he gazed, a gloom pervaded space."

Yes, in the moment of our country's triumph, in the plenitude of
its pride, in the hey-day of its hope, and the fulness of its beauty, the
serpent which crawled into Eden and whispered his glozing story of
delusion to the unsuspecting victim of his guile, unable to rise from
the original curse which rests upon him, sought to coil its snaky folds
around it, and sting it to the heart. From the arts and the enjoy-
ments of peace we have plunged deep into the horrors of civil war.
Our once happy land resounds with the clangor of rebellious arms, and
is polluted with the dead bodies of its children; some seeking to de-
stroy, some struggling to maintain the common beneficent government
of all, established by our fathers.

This effort to divide the Union and subvert the government, what-
ever may be the pretence, is, in fact, a dangerous and daring crusade
against free institutions. It should be opposed by the whole power of
a patriotic people, and crushed beyond the prospect of a resurrection ;
and to attain that end, the government should be sustained in every
just and reasonable effort to maintain the authority and integrity of
the nation; to uphold and vindicate the supremacy of the Constitution
and the majesty of the laws by all lawful means; not grudgingly

S26 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

sustained, with one hesitating, shuffling, unwilling step forward to
save appearances, and two stealthy ones backward to secure a sea-
sonable retreat; nor with the shallow craft of a mercenary politician,
calculating chances and balancing between expedients; but with the
generous alacrity arid energy which have a meaning, and prove a
loyal, a patriotic, and a willing heart. It is not a question of admin-
istration, but of government; not of politics, but of patriotism; not of
policy, but of principles, which uphold us all; a question too great for
party; between the Constitution and the laws on one hand, and mis-
rule and anarchy on the other; between existence and destruction,
i The Union was formed under the Constitution by an association of
equals; like the temple of Diana, every pillar which upholds its arches
was the gift of a sovereign; not a sovereign created by man's usurpa-
tion, and serving upon gala-days to exhibit to plundered subjects the
diadems and diamonds and gorgeous trappings of royalty, but of a
sovereign people, created in the image of their Maker, and bearing in
their bosoms the crown jewels of immortality. In the administration
of its government, and in the relations of its members with each other,
each and every one is entitled to complete equality; the right to enjoy
unmolested all the privileges of the compact, in their full length and
breadth, in letter and in spirit. Whenever and wherever there has
been a departure from this plain and just stipulation, in theory or in
practice, in either section; or where either party has employed means
or agencies calculated to disturb or irritate or annoy the other, there
has been error and cause of grievance which demand redress and
restitution; and when rebellion has sheathed its sword and lowered
. its front, and the obligations of the Constitution are again recognized
by all who owe it obedience, may every true friend of the Constitution
and Union unite in a common purpose and an earnest effort in seeing
that there remains no just cause of complaint unredressed in any por-
tion of the confederacy. But there has been no grievance alleged
which, if true, could justify armed rebellion and disunion. The Con-
stitution, with defects and imperfections from which human creations
are inseparable, bears upon its bosom remedies for every abuse which
is practised in its name, and power to punish every violation of its
salutary provisions; and those who are unable to "bear the ills they
have" should invoke its spirit rather than "fly to others which they
know not of." And the government, though it has by no means been
exempt from maladministration throughout its eventful history, has
been less arraigned for injustice than any other government on earth.
Time and patience and a sense of popular justice, the ebbs and flows
and currents of opinion, would have proved a corrective of all serious
causes of disturbance. But efforts to divide the Union and destroy
the government, besides being intrinsically atrocious, instead of cor-
recting the alleged grievances, are calculated to aggravate them more
than an hundred fold, and, if successful, to close a day of humanities,

DANIEL STEVENS DICKINSON. 527

hope and promise in this refuge of liberty, in blood and darkness.
No one denies to an oppressed people the right of revolution as the
last dreadful resort of man seeking emancipation when all other efforts
have proved unavailing— never to be entered upon except as a terrible
necessity. But secession is a bold and bald and wicked imposture
with its authors; a chimera, an illusion, and cheat with those who are
betrayed into its support; and it exhibits the worst features of the
basest despotism in enforcing obedience to its reign of terror. It is
but a synonym for disunion by violence, under the pretence of rights
reserved to states, and must have sprung, like the voluptuous god-
dess, from froth, so little of right or reason or remedy or good sense
is there in or about it; though, like the contents of her mystic girdle,
it promised to its votaries a surfeit of hidden pleasures.

The attempt to liken this wicked and corrupt rebellion to the
American Revolution requires an assurance of brass sufficient to
reconstruct the Colossus of Rhodes. While the colonies were petition-
ing for a redress of grievances, war was precipitated upon them by the
British Crown to compel their submission and silence. While Con-
gress was canvassing the alleged grievances of a portion of the states
of the confederacy, and while its legislation upon the subject of the
territories was proceeding in harmony with their professed wishes,
members representing such aggrieved states withdrew, and precipita-
ted disunion in hot haste, before the result of proposed conciliatory
efforts could be ascertained ; as though they feared, if they awaited
the developments of events in progress, they might be more seriously
aggrieved by a redress of grievances ! The colonies had neither sup-
port nor sympathy nor representation in any department of the British
Government, but they persevered in their efforts to obtain justice and
recognition so long as a single ray of hope gave promise, and until
they were silenced by the presence of British troops, and were com-
pelled to submit to slavery and degradation, or appeal to the last
refuge of an oppressed people — the arbitrament of the field. They
claimed no false or fabricated reading of the British constitution which
enabled them to sever their connection with the Crown and avoid the
responsibility of revolution, but they manfully took their stand upon
the ultima ratio of nations. They received a world's sympatnv,
because their revolt was an imperious necessity, and heaven smiled
upon their efforts for deliverance and independence. But if they fe.id
connived at the accession of the selfish, perverse, and bigoted George
to the Crown, that they might be aDle to complain of the reigning
monarch, and, above all, if they had controlled the ministry and held
a majority in Parliament, and had vacated their seats and had yielded
up the power to their opponents, and had then cried out oppression,,
to cover schemes of political ambition, they would have both deserved
and received, instead of sympathy or confidence or countenance, the
scorn and contempt of Christendom.

523 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

The Declaration of American Independence, the modern Magna
Charta of human rights, evolved the idea, so cheering to the cause of
freedom and yet so startling to monarchy, that governments derived
their just powers from the consent of the governed, and that although
governments long established should not be changed for light or trans-
ient causes, yet when they became subversive of the ends for which
they were established, and "when a long train of abuses and usurpa-
tions, pursuing invariably the same object, evinced the design to reduce
them under absolute despotism, it was their right, their duty, to throw
off such government, and to provide new guards for their future
security." But it nowhere declares that a knot of conspiring pol-
iticians, foiled in their schemes of ambition and plunder, and chafing
under disappointment, like a tiger cheated in his foray, may, without
the popular support or sympathy, but in defiance of both, assert that
the election of a political opponent, whose success they might have
prevented, is a sufficient cause for rebellion, or that a party or an
interest which has the majority in both branches of the representative
government, and is protected by the opinions of the judiciary of the
nation, can withdraw, so as to give its opponents the power, and then
set on foot a rebellion, and seek to destroy an edifice which stands as
the last best hopes of man, because they fear that they may be visited
with political oppression ! Those who practise such shallow devices
before the world in the latter part of the nineteenth century should
remember that they but copy the stupid instincts of the bird which
buries its head in the sand, and then indulges the conceit that its
ungainly body is concealed also. Whatever causes of disturbance and
disaffection existed between the North and the South, the public judg-
ment has rendered its verdict upon abundant evidence, and with extra-
ordinary unanimity ; deciding that such formed a remote and feeble
element in inducing disunion, but that it was a foregone conclusion
with those who urged it forward ; darkly designed and deliberately
determined, for the purpose of securing personal &Ht and self-aggran-
dizement, rather than of securing rights and privileges to an op-
pressed section of people.

" Order is heaven's first law."

It is coeval with being. No people, civilized or savage, ever
existed without a government for their guidance and regulation,
Beasts of the field and forest, birds of the air, fishes of the
sea, and insects which inhabit all, form their colonies and associ-
ations, and arrange themselves in obedience to some recognized rule;
and even inanimate objects obey with unerring certainty the hand
which guides them. Nor do the lights of history the lessons of ex-
perience, or the flickering shadows of tradition tell of a government,
which voluntarily and by design planted the seeds of its own decay in
its bosom, or provided for its own destruction and overthrow, by com-

DANIEL STEVENS DICKINSON. 529

mitting its life and destiny to other hands. The Constitution forming
the Union and erecting its government was an emanation of the
people of the United States. It was adopted, as declared in its pre-
amble, " to form a more perfect Union, to establish justice, insure do-
mestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, to promote the
general welfare, and to secure the blessings of liberty to the people
who ordained it, and their posterity." But if the instrument which
formed the more perfect Union with becoming solemnity, contem-
plated its dismemberment and overthrow by the withdrawal of all or
any of the states therefrom, at the pleasure of their capricious politi-
cians, it remained a most imperfect and pitiable Union still. If the
justice it established was but temporary; if the domestic tranquillity
it insured was but for the time being only; if the common defence it
provided for was until some of the states should withdraw from the
Union and make war upon it; and if the blessings of liberty it secured
to posterity were upon condition that those who enjoyed them should
not wish to subvert the liberty thus secured by armed force; then
our boasted Constitution, which has been hailed throughout the earth
as one of the wisest emanations of man, and enjoys a world-wide
fame for its humane provisions and lofty conceptions of statesmanship,
should be scouted as a fraud, a delusion, and an imposture possessing
much more sound than substance, and carrying by design in its own
bosom the seeds of its dissolution. But no sentence or word or syl-
lable can be found in the federal constitution, sustaining an idea at
once so puerile and monstrous. It provides for the admission to the
Union of new states, but not the withdrawal therefrom of those al-
ready members. To gain such admission the state must apply to
Congress with a constitution republican in form; and, upon an act of
Congress authorizing such admission, duly approved and signed by
the President of the United States, such state becomes a member of
the confederacy. If one state, being thus admitted, can withdraw at
pleasure by passing an act or ordinance of secession, and cancel a
solemn covenant by one party alone, which it required two to make,
and in which both remain interested, any or all may do the same, and
the rich harvest of liberty and its attending blessings, which our fore-
fathers professed to secure to posterity, may prove a barren and a
blasted field, when those for whom it was designed prepare to reap
their inheritance.

It is a familiar principle of law, that a repealing statute, itself re-
pealed, revives and puts in full force the former law. So long then as
Congress permits its several a'cts for the admission of the revolted
states to the Union, to stand, according to secession law and logic,
these states can go out and in at pleasure; and if they may withdraw
by an ordinance of their own, by the same rule Congress may expel
them by repealing its act of admission. To go out of the Union, as
they insist, they have only to pass an act or ordinance of secession,

53° AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

without the knowledge, privity, or consent of the government of the
Union. To return they would have only to repeal it. They can then
go out when it suits principle, and return when it favors interest; or
they can alternate, like migratory birds, with the seasons, hatching
disunion in the confederacy and rearing it without: and as thus far its
managers have, in most instances, generously relieved the people of
participation in the matter, the destruction of old governments, and
the erection of new ones, would occasion little inconvenience.

The war goddess, according to mythology, and that is an authority
not easily refuted, leaped fully armed from the brain of Jove ; but
stranger still, the founders of the government -of the Southern Confede-
racy leaped fully armed, with high sounding titles of official station, from
their own, and brought their government with them ; an emanation
neither suggested nor approved by the popular voice, but the creation of
those Avho, like the renowned Peter Brush, wanted "something to have
rather than something to do," and almost universally repudiated wher-
ever opportunity has been afforded. A government purporting to be of
the people, without permitting them to have a voice in constructing it ;
without a "local habitation;-' of departments in the abstract, and
offices with more titles than duties; a president without an election, a
treasury without money or resources of revenue, a navy without ships, a
post-office without mails, a minister of foreign relations, whose relations
abroad decline to acknowledge the connection, a department of the in-
terior representing a nature-abhorred vacuum, an attorney-general with-
out law, and a patent office which, in the absence of other business,
should issue letters securing the exclusive right of this new-fledged con-
federacy to those who invented it, for its extraordinary novelty rather
than, its acknowledged, utility, that it may be preserved to after times
in the world's curiosity shop, with Law's scheme of banking, the moon-
hoax of Locke, and Redheiffer's perpetual motion.

The advocates of the right of secession, in claiming that a state, after
its solemn admission and while enjoying the protection and participating
in the fruits of the Union, may at its pleasure and by its own act secede,
to be consistent, should hold that a nation may at pleasure withdraw
from its treaty obligations without previous provision or consent of the
other side ; that one who has conveyed an estate and received the con-
sideration, may resume it when it suits his necessity or convenience;
that the husband or wife may repudiate the marriage obligation without
detriment or a disregard of marital faith ; and. in short, that a covenant
made by two parties, and in which both are interested, may be cancelled
by one. The right thus to secede must rest upon a political free love,
where States unequally united may, on discovering their true affinities,
dissolve the first connection and become sealed in confederate wedlock
to their chosen companions during pleasure ; and the authors of the
discovery should go down to posterity as the Brigham Youngs of modern
confederacies.

DANIEL STEVENS DICKINSON. . 53 *

Most events of modern times find their parallel in early history ; and
this attempt to extemporize a government upon the elements of political
disquietude, so that, like sets of dollar jewelry, every one can have one
of his own, does not form an exceptional case. When David swayed
the sceptre of Judah, the comely Absalom, a bright star of the morning,
whose moral was obscured by his intellectual light, finding such amuse-
ments as the slaying of his brother and burning the barley fields of Joab
too tame for his ambition, conceived the patriotic idea of driving his
father from the throne, of usurping the regal authority and relieving
the people, unasked, from the oppressions under which he had discovered
they were groaning. Like modern demagogues, he commenced with
disaffection ; advised all that came with complaints, that from royal in-
attention, no one was deputed to hear them ; greeted those who passed
the king's gate with a kiss, that he might steal away their hearts;
he lamented that he was not a judge in the land, so that any
one who had a cause or suit might come to him, and he would
do him justice. Under pretence of going to Hebron, the royal
residence in the early reign of David, to pay his vows (for he
was as conscientious in the matter of vows as Herod), he raised
a rebellious army, and sent spies through the land to proclaim him
king and reigning in Hebron, when the trumpet should sound upon
the air. The conspiracy, says sacred history, was strong, and the re-
bellion was so artfully contrived, so stealthily inaugurated, that it gave
high promise of success. The king, although in obedience to the stern
dictates of duty he sent forth his armies by hundreds and by thousands
to assert and maintain his prerogative, exhibited the heart of a good
prince and an affectionate father, in beseeching them for his sake to
deal gently with the young man, even Absalom; and when the con-
flict was over, his first inquiry, with anxious solicitude, was, is the
young man Absalom safe ? And yet, this ambitious rebel, in raising
a numerous and powerful army, and endeavoring to wrest the govern-
ment from the rightful monarch, would doubtless have claimed, ac-
cording to modern acceptation, that he was acting from high convic-
tions of duty; from a power of necessity; and fighting purely in self-
defence. And when the great battle was set in array in the wood of
Ephraim, where twenty thousand were slaughtered, and the wood de-
voured that day more than the sword devoured, there was evidently
nothing that he so much desired, when he saw exposure and overthrow
inevitable, as to be let alone. But that short struggle subdued the
aspirations, and closed forever the ignoble career of this ambitious
leader in Israel; — a warning to those who would become judges before
their time, or be made kings upon the sound of a trumpet, blown by
their own directions. Let all such remember the wood of Ephraim,
the wide spreading branches of the oak, the painful suspense which
came over the author of the rebellion, the darts of Joab, and the dark
pit into which this prince of the royal household was cast for his folly,

S32 A ME RICA N PA TRJO TISM.

and wickedness, and treachery. And when those charged with the
administration of our government send forth its armies by hundreds
and by thousands to maintain and vindicate the Constitution and the
Union o? our father.- , may they imitate the example of the wise king
of Judah, and beseech the captains of the hosts to deal gently with the
young Absaloms of secession, and by all means inquire for their safety
when their armies have been completely routed, and the rebellion put
down forever.

Secession either peaceable or violent, if crowned with complete suc-
cess, can furnish no lemedy for sectional grievances, real or imaginary.
It would be as destructive of Southern as of Northern interests, for
both are alike concerned in the maintenance and prosperity of the
Union. It would increase every evil, aggravate every cause of dis-
turbance, and render every acute complaint hopelessly chronic. Look
at miserable, misguided, misgoverned Mexico, and receive a lesson of
instruction. She has been seceding, and dividing, and pronouncing
and fighting for her rights, and in self-defence of aggressive leaders,
from the day of her nominal independence; and she has reaped an
abundant harvest of degradation and shame. No president of the
Republic has ever served a full term for which he was elected, and
generally, had his successor had more fitness than himself, it would
have occasioned no detriment. When the population of the United
States was three millions, that of Mexico was five, and when that of
the United States is thirty, the population of Mexico is only eight;
and while the United States has gained the highest rank among the
nations of the earth, by common consent, Mexico has descended to
the lowest. Her people have been the dupes and slaves and footballs
of aspiring leaders, mad with a reckless and mean ambition; inflated
with self-importance and conceit, and destitute of patriotism and states-
manship. But as a clown with a pick-axe can demolish the choicest
productions of art, so can the demagogue overthrow the loftiest insti-
tutions of wisdom. Thus has poor, despised, dwTarfed, and down-
trodden Mexico been crushed under the iron heel of her own insane
despoilers; a memorable but melancholy illustration of a people with-
out a fixed and stable government; the sport of the profligate and de-
signing, the victims of fraud and violence.

Southern States along the free border had felt most seriously
all the injury and irritation produced by inharmonious and conflict-
ing relations between them and their brethren of the North ; and
yet the people of these states shrunk from the remedy of secession
as from the smoke of the bottomless pit. They saw in it nothing
but swift and hopeless destruction ; and believed that the desire
for disunion had originated more in ultra ambitious schemes, than in
a determination to protect their peculiar system of domestic servitude
from encroachment. Rut states with which the heresy originated and
had been cherished had long reveled in dreamy theories and vague

DANIEL STEVENS DICKINSON. 533

notions of benefits which would flow to them from a dissevered Union;
and madly hastened to destroy the fabric of their fathers before it
could be rescued. The most sordid passions of men, seeking indul-
gence of their appetites in the promised land of secession, lent their ab-
sorbing stimulants to urge forward the catastrophe. Avarice clanking
her chains for the necessitous and mercenary, and fortunes sprung up
unbidden, on either hand, to greet them, seeking masters and service.
Ports and harbors, and marts and entrepots rushed in upon their
heated imaginations, as they heard in the distance the knell of the
Union tolling; they beckoned, and the contributions of a world's com-
merce was poured into their lap by direct trade, and universal expan-
sion came over all the votaries of disunion as if by magic. "The
three hooped pot had ten hoops," and what was "Goose Creek once
was Tiber now." Mammon erected his court, and they heard the
clinking of gold in the world's exchequer, as it accumulated at the
counters of their exchange. Ambition kindled her torch, which like the
bush in Horeb, burned and was not consumed; and rank and place
and station, and stars and garters, and the gew-gaw trappings of nobility
were showered in promiscuous profusion; wreaths of laurel adorned
the brows of the brave, and the devotees of pleasure danced to the
music of the secession sackbut and psaltery and harp, " and all went
merry as a marriage bell."

Though sectional feeling had, after many years of profitless conflict,
culminated, and the wise and union-loving were engaged in restoring
friendly relations, under circumstances more favorable to success than
thirty years of struggle had furnished; and though Congress was or-
ganizing the territories without restriction upon domestic institutions,
yet the time for disunion, so long invoked, had come; and one state,
so far as in her power, sundered the bonds that made her a member of
the Union before the result of the presidential election had been de-
clared by Congress. They turned their backs upon friends and sym-
pathizers; denounced laggards in the cause; declared their repudiation
of the Constitution; and applied the torch to the temple of free govern-
ment and the Union with as little solemnity as they would have re-
pealed an act of ordinary legislation. The property of the United
States, by sea and by land, was seized, and the government was
defied and menaced by armed forces and avowed preparations for
war; other states followed, in form, if not in substance, by the
action of politicians if not people, some half willing, others more
than half forced; those who should have stood with sleepless zeal upon
the ramparts of the Constitution, ingloriously surrendered their posts,
and the reign of anarchy was thus inaugurated in our once happy land.

All this increased, and seriously, too, the embarrassments which
surrounded the question. But still the spirit of the times, the voice
of the people in every section, South as well as North, demanded

534 AMERICAN PA TRIO TISM.

peace: that abstractions should be laid aside, that every substantial
cause of grievance should be redressed, and that the interests of a
great and prosperous nation should not be disturbed, nor the moral
sense of the world shocked by a conflict of arms amongst brethren.
There was yet hope that the cup of intestine war might, in mercy, be
permitted to pass. The report of the first hostile gun which was dis-
charged, however, proclaimed to the world that all chances of peace-
ful adjustment were over, that " Heaven in anger, for a dreadful mo-
ment, had suffered hell to take the reins;" that Pandora's box. was
open again, and the deadliest plagues known to earth let loose to
curse it; but, as of old, with that repository of evil, hope yet smiled
at the bottom. \ ~ .

Argument and opinion were thrust, aside for violence' and bipod,
with deliberate preparation. Is it strange that natural elements sym-
pathized with the occasion, as the intelligence was flashed through ihe
land? .. ;. ■ _

A sheet of Cimmerian darkness, near midnight, hung like a death-
pall Over the earth, the winds moaned heavily, like the wail of spirits
lost, doors creaked and windows clattered, driving currents and coun-
ter-currents of sleet and rain descended like roaring cataracts; but the
hoarse and startling shriek of the newsboy, rising above all with the
appalling cry, " The bombardment of Fort Sumter !" ,

" Gave signs of woe
That all was lost."

The blood-fiend laughed loud, the evil genius of humanity elapped
his hands in triumph, monarchy " grinned horrible a ghastly smile,"
but Liberty, bathed in tears, was bowed in shame, for the madness of
her degenerate children ! But the first flash of artillery kindled anew
a flame of patriotic devotion to country, which will burn with a pure
and constant glow, when the lamp of mortal existence shall pale and
flicker in death. Its first reverberations upon the air aroused a slum-
bering love of our Constitution, of the Union, and of the cherished
emblem of all, the Stars and Stripes, which will not again seek re-
pose until the roar of hostile guns shall be silenced. It started to
their feet, as if by a common impulse, twenty millions of freemen, to
guard the citadel of their faith from destruction, as war was driving
his ebon car upon his remorseless mission.

This civil intestine war is one of the most fearful and ferocious that
ever desolated earth, and its authors will be cursed when the atroci-
ties of Bajaset and Tamerlane and the Khans of Tartary and India,
and other despoilers of the earth, shall be forgotten. It is a war be-
tween and amongst brethren. Those whose eyes should have beamed
in friendship now gleam in war; those who close in the death-strug-
gle upon the battle-field , were children of the same household and

DANIEL STEVENS DICKINSON. 535

nurtured at the same gathering-place of affection, baptized at the same
font, and confirmed at the same chanCel :

" They grew in beauty side by side,
They filled one house with giee ,

Whose voices mingled as they prayed
Round the same parent knee."

But while we express deep humiliation for the depravity of our
"kind, and are shocked and sickened at a spectacle so revolting, we
should not abandon the dear^old mansion to the flames, even though
kindred by brethren who should have watched over it with us and
guarded it from harm. And while; we should not raise our hand to
shed a brother's blood, we may turn aside his insane blow, aimed at
the heart of the venerated mother of all. And if a great power of
Europe, with or without the aid of other nations, is disposed to
sympathize with rebellion, and believes this government and this peo-
ple can be driven, by the menaces of foreign and domestic forces com-
bined, to avoid the curses of war, let her try the experiment. But
when they come, to save time and travel, let them bring with them a
duly-executed quit-claim to the Union, for such portions of the North
American continent as they have not surrendered to it in former con-
flicts, for they will have occasion for 'just such an instrument, when-
ever their impertinent interference is manifested practically in our
domestic affairs.

Conspicuous in this strange passage of the New World's history is the
secession of Texas. A state with extended territories and the right to
form four more states from them without restriction, south of the old
Missouri line; a state requiring the protection of the federal govern-
ment to guard it from marauding savages and other hostile bands; a
state which was never wronged by a northern state, nor by the gov-
ernment of the Union, in theory or in practice. This state was the
last southern state gathered under the flag of the Union, admitted
in 1845, more as a southern than a northern measure; admitted too,
under peculiar circumstances, after a most memorable struggle, and in
the highest branch of the national legislature by a single vote.

"Sir John of Hynford, 'twas my blade
That knighthood on thy shoulder laid;
For this good deed permit me then,
A word to these misguided men."

I would say to the people of Texas and the whole South — not those
who seek to maintain, but those who labor to destroy the Union
— you have widely mistaken both the temper and the purpose of
the great body of people of the free states in the present crisis,
In this unnatural struggle which your leaders have forced upon
them, they seek only to uphold and maintain and preserve from de-
A. P.-18.

536 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

struction a government which is a common inheritance, and in die
preservation of which you are equally interested. They seek not to
despoil your state, nor to disturb your internal relations, but to pre-
serve the Urion which shelters and protects all, and vindicate the Con-
stitution which is especially your only defence against aggression— is
both your sword and shield. They war not upon your peculiar sys-
tem of domestic servitude, nor will they ; but they admonish you in a
spirit of kindness, that during this brief struggle its friends and advo-
cates have been its worst enemies, and have furnished arguments
against it which will weaken its foundations; when the denunciations
of its most persistent anti-slavery foes are forgotten forever. You ar-
raign the people of the free states for rallying around the government
of the Union, of which a few months since you were members, sus-
taining it yourselves; and which at the time of your alleged secession,
had experienced no change beyond one of political administration.
You rebuke those who stood with you through good and evil report in
defence of the Constitution, and all its guaranties, in its dark days of
trial, when menaced only by opinion, for sustaining it now, when it
is assailed by armed forces; and insist that, after having defended
that sacred instrument so long and so faithfully, they are bound to
assist in its overthrow — a system of law, logic and morality, peculiar
to disunion ethics alone. You repudiate the Constitution with no suf-
ficient cause of revolution; for all the alleged causes of grievance, as
stated, were insufficient to justify it; and proclaimed a dissolution of
the Union, defied and dishonored its flag, and menaced the govern-
ment by denouncing actual war. You seized by violence its fortresses,
armories, ships, mints, custom-houses, navy-yards, and other prop-
erty, to which you had not even a pretence of right, and threatened to
take possession of the national capital. You bombarded Fort Sumter,
a fortress of the United States, garrisoned as a peace establishment
only, and in a state of starvation, from batteries which the United
States, in its extreme desire for peace, permitted you to erect for that
purpose, under the guns of the same fortification, a proceeding never
heard of before and never to be repeated hereafter; bombarded it,
too, because the flag of the Union under which your fathers and
yourselves had fought with us the battles of the Constitution, a flag
which a few days previously you had hailed with pride ; because
the Stars and Stripes, the joy of every American heart, full of
glowing histories and lofty recollections, which was f oating over it
according to the custom of every nation and people under heaven,
was hateful in your sight. The Athenians were tired of hearing
their great leader called the just, and consigned him to banish-
ment. You were annoyed at the sight of the noblest emblem
which floats under the sun; when unfurled, where by your consent
and for a consideration too, the government of the United States held
exclusive jurisdiction, and where it properly belonged, and for this

1)AXIEL STEVEXS DICX/XSOX. 537

vou commenced a war promising to be more ferocious and extermin-
ating throughout the Republic than was 'he atrocious decree of Herod
in a single village. Sumter was not erected for the exclusive defence
of the harbor of Charleston, but for the purpose of preventing a for-
eign enemy from making a lodgment there, and from that point levy-
ing successful maritime war upon New York, Boston, Philadelphia,
Baltimore, New Orleans, and other towns and cities. And the un-
friendly relations, which sprung up between the southern states and
the government of the Union, made its retention and occupation more
necessary than before.

You will not consent that the general government, the government
of the whole people, should march forces over the "sacred soil of a
state" of the confederacy, to maintain its own dignity and authority,
to check rebellion and save the capital from conflagration and its
archives from destructiou; but you should stand admonished that there
is no soil sufficiently sacred under the broad aegis of the Constitution
to shelter armed rebellion or secret treason, and that the government
of the United States has not only full right and lawful authority to
march its forces over every inch of territory between the St. Lawrence
and the Pacific, to stop the progress of enemies, foreign or domestic,
to put down rebellion, to arrest those who despoil its property, or re-
sist the execution of the laws, but it is its first and most solemn duty
to do so. Should the general government enter a state for the purpose
of interference with its domestic policy, it would be usurpation and an
unwarrantable invasion; a neglect to employ its power to enforce its
constitutional prerogative would be a culpable disregard of official ob-
ligation. You profess to defend your home-hearths, your firesides,
your porches, your altars, your wives and your children, your house-
hold gods, and those resolves sound well indeed, even in the abstract ;
but practically the defence will be in time when they are assailed, or
at least thieatened. And you may rest with the assurance, that, when
either of these sacred and cherished interests shall be desecrated or
placed in danger or in jeopardy from any vandal spirit on the globe,
you shall not defend them alone; for an army from the free states
mightier than that which rose up to crush your rebellion, aye "a great
multitude, which no man can number," will defend them for you. But
the issue must not be changed nor frittered away. Sumter was not
your home-hearth, Pickens your fireside, Harper's Ferry your porch,
the navy yards your altars, the custom-houses and post-offices and
revenue cutters your wives and children, nor the mints your house-
hold gods ! The government has no right to desecrate your homes,
nor have you the right to seize upon and appropriate to yourselves
under any name, however specious, what is not your own, but the prop-
erty of the whole people of the United States; not of those in array
against it as enemies, defying its laws, but those who acknowledge and
defer to its authority.

S3S A M ERICA N PA TRIO TISM.

You desire peace. Then lay down your arms, and you will have it.
It was peace when you took them up; it will be peace when you lay
them down It will be peace when you abandon war and return to
your accustomed pursuits. Honorable, enduring, pacific relations
will be found in complete obedience to the provisions of the Constitu-
tion, and not in their violations or destruction. The government is
sustained by the people, not for the purpose of coercing states in their
comestic policy; not for the purpose of crushing members of the con-
federacy because they fail to conform to the federal standard; not for
the purpose of despoiling their people, and least of all not for the pur-
pose of disturbing or in any degree intefering with the system of
southern servitude; but for the sole and only purpose of putting down
an unholy, armed rebellion, which has defied the authority of the gov-
ernment and seeks its destruction; and in this their determination is
taken with a resolution compared with which the edicts of the Medes
and Persians were yielding and temporary. When the government
of our fathers shall be again recognized, when the Constitution and
the laws, to which every citizen owes allegiance, shall be observed and
obeyed, then will the armies of the Constitution and the Union disband
by a common impulse, in obedience to an unanimous popular will.
And should the present or any succeeding administration attempt to
employ the authority of the government and people to coerce states,
or mould their internal affairs in derogation of the Constitution, the
same array of armed forces would again take the field, but it would be
to arrest federal assumption and usurpation, and protect the domestic
rights of the states.

War is emphatically, and more especially a war between brethren, a
disgrace to civilization; and any war is a drain upon the life-blood,
and originates in wrong. Evil spirits give power to evil men for its
inauguration, that amidst conflicts of blood they may cast all down to
the dark regions where the waves of oblivion will close over them.
Its evils cannot be written, even in human blood. It sweeps our race
from earth, as if heaven had repented the making of man. It lays its
skinny hand upon society, and leaves it deformed by wretchedness
and black with gore. It marches on its mission of destruction through
a red sea of blood, and tinges the fruits of earth with a sanguine hue,
as the mulberry reddened in sympathy with the romantic fate of the
devoted lovers. It " spoils the dance of youthful blood," and writes
sorrow and grief prematurely upon the glad brow of childhood ; it
chills the heart and hope of youth; it drinks the life-current of early
manhood, and brings down the gray hair of the aged with sorrow to
the grave; it weaves the widow's weeds with the bridal wreath, and
the land, like Rama, is filled with wailing and lamentation. It lights
up the darkness with the flames of happy homes. It consumes, like
the locusts of Egypt, every living thing in its pathway ? It wrecks
fortunes, brings bankruptcy and repudiation, and blasts the fields of
the husbandman; it depopulates towns, and leaves the cities a modern

DANIEL STEVENS DICKINSON. 539

Herculaneum. It desolates the fireside and covers the family dwell*
ing with gloom, and an awful vacancy rests, where, like a haunted
mansion,

*l No human figure stirred to go or come,

No face looked forth from shut or open casement ;
No chimney smoked ; there was no sign of home
From parapet to basement.

No dog was on the threshold, great or small,
No pigeon on the roof, no household creature,

No eat demurely dozing on the wall,
Not one domestic feature."

It loads the people with debt, to pass down from one generation to
another like the curse of original sin. Upon its merciless errand of
VicKen.ce it fills the land with crime and tumult and rapine and it " gluts
the grave with untimely victims and peoples the world of perdition."'
In the struggle of its death throes, it heaves the moral elements with
convulsions, and leaves few traces of utility behind it to mitigate its
curse; and he who inaugurates it, like the ferocious Hun, should be
denominated the scourge of God ; and when his day of reckoning
shall come, he will call upon the rocks and mountains to hide him from
popular indignation.

But with all its attending evils, this Union cannot be yielded to its
demands nor to avoid its terrors; even though, like the republic of
France, we may exchange for a time" liberty, equality, fraternity,"
for infantry, cavalry, and artillery. Nor are tame and timid measures
the guarantees of peace. It is as much the nature of faction to be
base as of patriotism to be noble; a divided Union, instead of securing
peace, would present constant occasion for conflict and be a fruitful
source of war. Let the rabble cry of divide and crucify go on from
the throat of faction; and the cold and calculating political Pilates
wash their hands and proclaim their innocence, while their souls are
stained with guilt and crime for urging it forward ; but let the faithful,
conscious of their integrity and strong in truth, endure to the end.
Ruthless as is the sway and devastating as is the course of war, it is
not the greatest of evils nor the last lesson in humiliation. " Sweet
are the uses of adversity." In its currents of violence and blood it
may purify an atmosphere too long surcharged with discontent and
corruption and apostasy and treachery and littleness; and prove how'
poor a remedy it is for social grievances. It may correct the dry rot
of demoralization in public station, and raise us as a people above the
dead level of a mean and sordid ambition. It may scatter the tribe of
bloated hangers-on, who seek to serve their country that they may
plunder and betray it; and above all it may arouse the popular mind
to a just sense of its responsibility, until it shall select its servants with
care and hold them to a faithful discharge cf their duties; until defi-
cient morals shall be held questionable, falsehood a social fault, viola-

54° AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

tions of truth a disqualification, and bribery a disgrace; until integrity
shy 11 be a recommendation, and treason and larceny crimes.

Can a Union dissevered be reconstructed by the arrangement of all
parties concerned in its formation ? No ! When it is once destroyed,
it is destroyed forever. Let those who believe it can be, first raise the
dead, place the dimpling laugh of childhood upon the lip of age, gather
up the petals of May flowers and bind them upon their native stems in
primeval freshness amidst the frosts of December, bring back the
withered leaves of autumn and breathe into them their early luxur-
iance, and then gather again the scattered elements of a dissevered
Union when the generous springtime of our republic has passed away,
and selfishness and ambition have come upon us with their premature
frosts and "winter of discontent." Shall we then surrender to turbu-
lence and faction and rebellion, and give up the Union with all its
elements of good, all its holy memories, all its hallowed associations,
all its blood-bought history ?

No ! let the eagle change its plume.
The leaf its hue, the flower its bloom,"

But do not give up the Union ! Preserve it to "flourish in immortal
youth," until it dissolves in the "wreck of matter and crash of
worlds." Let the patriot and statesman stand by it to the last,
whether assailed by foreign or domestic foes; and if he perishes in
the conflict, let him fall like Rienzi, the last of the Tribunes, upon the
same stand where he preached liberty and equality to his countrymen.
Preserve it in the name of the Fathers of the Revolution, preserve it
for its great elements of good, preserve it in the sacred name of liberty,
preserve it for the faithful and devoted lovers of the Constitution in the
rebellious states — those who are persecuted for its support, and are
dying in its defence. Rebellion can lay down its arms to government
— government cannot surrender to rebellion.

Give up the Union, "this fair and fertile plain, to batten on that
moor !" Divide the Atlantic, so that its tides shall beat in sections,
that some spurious Neptune may rule an ocean of his own ! Draw a
line upon the sun's disc, that it may cast its beams upon earth in di-
vision ! Let the moon, like Bottom in the play, show but half its face!
Separate the constellation of the Pleiades and sunder the bands of
Orion ! but retain the Union.

Give up the Union, with its glorious flag, its Stars and Stripes, full
of proud and pleasing and honorable recollections, for the spurious
invention, with no antecedents but the history of a violated Consti-
tution and of lawless ambition ? No I let us stand by the emblem of
our fathers: —

V Flag of the free heart's hope and home,
By angels' hands to valor given,
Thy stars have lit the welkin dome
And all thy hues were born in heaven."

CHARLES SUMNER. 541

Ask the Christian to exchange the cross, with the cherished memo-
ries of a Saviour's love, for the crescent of the impostor, or to address
his prayers to the Juggernaut or Josh instead of to the living and
true God ! but sustain the emblem your fathers loved and cherished.
Give up the Union? Never! The Union shall endure, and. its
praises shall be heard, when its friends and its foes, those who support
and those who assail, those who bare their bosoms in its defence, and
those who aim their daggers at its heart, shall all sleep in the dust to-
gether. Its name shall be heard with veneration amidst the roar of
Pacific's waves, away upon the rivers of the north and east, where
liberty is divided from monarchy, and be wafted in gentle breezes upon
the Rio Grande. It shall rustle in the harvest, and wave in the stand-
ing corn, on the extended prairies of the West, and be heard in the
bleating folds and lowing herds upon a thousand hills. It shall be
with those who delve in mines, and shall hum in the manufactories of
New England, and in the cotton-gins of the South. It shall be pro-
claimed by the Stars and Stripes in every sea of earth, as the. American
Union, one and indivisible, Upon the great thoroughfares, wherever
steam drives and engines throb and shriek, its greatness and perpet-
uity shall be hailed with gladness. It shall be lisped in the earliest
words, and ring in the merry voices of childhood, and swell to Heaven
upon the song of maidens. It shall live in the stern resolve of man-
hood, and rise to the mercy-seat upon woman's gentle availing prayer.
Holy men shall invoke its perpetuity at the altars of religion, and it
shall be whispered in the last accents of expiring age. Thus shall
survive and be perpetuated the American Union, and when it shall be
proclaimed that time shall be no more, and the curtain shall fall, and
the good shall be gathered to a more perfect union still, may the des'
tiny of our dear land realize the poetic conception: —

" Perfumes as of Eden flowed sweetly along,
And a voice as of angels, enchantingly sung,
Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise,
The queen of the world and the child of the skies."

THE REBELLION: ITS ORIGIN AND MAINSPRING.

CHARLES SUMNER.
New York, November 27, 1861.

On the sixth of November last, the people of the United States act'
ing in pursuance of the Constitution and laws, chose Abraham Lin-
coln President. Of course this choice was in every particular perfectly
constitutional and legal. As such, it was entitled to the respect and
acquiescence of every good citizen. It is vain to say that the candidate
represented opinions obnoxious to a considerable section of the coun-

542 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

try, or that he was chosen by votes confined to a special section. It
s enough that he was duly chosen. You cannot set aside or deny
such an election, without assailing not only the whole framework of
the Constitution, but also the primal principle of American institu-
tions. You become a traitor at once to the existing government and
to the very idea of popular rule. You snatch a principle from the red
book of despotism, and openly substitute the cartridge-box for the
ballot-box.

And yet scarcely had this intelligence flashed across the country be-
fore the mutterings of sedition and treason began to reach us from an
opposite quarter. The Union was menaced; and here the first dis-
tinct voice came from South Carolina. A Senator from that state, one
of the largest slaveholders of the country, and a most strenuous parti-
san of slavery (Mr. Hammond), openly declared, in language not
easily forgotten, that before the 18th of December South Carolina
would be " out of the Union, high and dry and forever." These words
heralded the outbreak. With the pertinacity of demons its leaders
pushed forward. Their avowed object was the dismemberment of the
Republic, by detaching state after state, in order to found a slavehold-
ing confederacy. And here the clearest utterance came from a late
representative of Georgia (Mr. Stephens), now Vice-President of the
Rebel States, who did not hesitate to proclaim that " the foundations
of the new government are laid upon the great truth, that slavery,
subordination to the superior race, is the negro's natural and moral
condition/' — that "it is the first government in the history of the
world based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth,"
—and that " the stone which was rejected by the first builders is in
the new edifice become the chief stone of the corner." Here is a
savage frankness, with insensibility to shame. The object avowed is
hideous in every aspect, whether we regard it as treason to our pa-
ternal government, as treason to the idea of American institutions, or
as treason to those commanding principles of economy, morals, and
Christianity, without which civilization is no better than barbarism.

And now we stand front to front in deadly conflict with this double-
headed, triple-headed treason. Beginning with those states most
peculiarly interested in slavery, and operating always with intensity
proportioned to the prevalence of slavery, it fastens upon other states
less interested, — Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, — and with
much difficulty is prevented from enveloping every state containing
slaves, no matter how few; for such is the malignant poison of slavery
that only a few slaves constitute a slave state with all the sympathies
and animosities of slavery. This is the rebellion which I am to un-
mask. Bad as it is on its face, it becomes aggravated, when we con-
sider its origin, and the agencies by which it is conducted. It is not
merely a rebellion, but it is a rebellion begun in conspiracy; nor, in
all history, ancient or modern, is there any record of conspiracy so

CHARLES SUMNER. 543

vast and so wicked, ranging over such spaces both of time and terri-
tory, and forecasting such results. A conspiracy to seize a castle, 01
- to assassinate a prince is petty by the side of this enormous, pro-
tracted treason, where half a continent is seized, studded with castles,
fortresses, and public edifices, where the government itself is over-
thrown, and the President, on his way to the national capital, nar-
rowly escapes most cruel assassination.

But no conspiracy could ripen such pernicious fruit, if not rooted in
a soil of congenial malignity. To appreciate properly this influence,
we must go back to the beginning of the government.

South Carolina, which takes so forward a part in this treason, hesi-
tated originally, as is well known, with regard to the Declaration of
Independence. Once her vote was recorded against this act; and
when it finally prevailed, her vote was given for it only formally and
for the sake of seeming unanimity. But so little was she inspired by
the Declaration, that, in the contest which ensued, her commissioners
made a proposition to the British commander Which is properly char-
acterized by an able historian as " equivalent to an offer from the
state to return to its allegiance to the British crown." The hesitation
with regard to the Declaration of Independence was renewed with re-
gard to the National Constitution; and here it was shared by another
state. Notoriously, both South Carolina and Georgia, which with the
states carved from their original territory, Alabama and Mississippi,
constitute the chief seat of the conspiracy, hesitated in becoming par-
ties to the Union, and stipulated expressly for recognition of the slave
trade in the National Constitution as an indispensable condition. In
the Convention, Mr. Rutledge, of South Carolina, while opposing a
tax on the importation of slaves, said: " The true question at present
is, whether the Southern States shall or shall not be parties to the
Union." Mr. Pinckney, also of South Carolina, followed with the un-
blushing declaration: " South Carolina can never receive the plan (of
the Constitution), if it prohibits the slave trade." I quote now
from Mr. Madison's authentic report of these important debates.
With shame let it be confessed, that, instead of repelling this disgraceful
overture, our fathers submitted to it, ?nd in that submission you find
the beginning of present sorrows. The slave trade, whose annual
iniquity no tongue can tell, was placed for twenty years under the
safeguard of the Constitution, thus giving sanction, support, and in-
crease to slavery itself. The language is modest, but the intent was
complete. South Carolina and Georgia were pacified, and took their
places in the Union, to which they were openly bound only by a most
hateful tie. Regrets for the past are not entirely useless, if out of
them we get wisdom for the future, and learn to be brave. It is easy
to see now, that, had the unnatural pretensions of these States been
originally encountered by stern resistance worthy of an hone st people,
the present conspiracy would been crushed before it saw the light. Its

544 • AMERICAN PA TRIO TISM.

whole success, from its distant beginning down to this hour, has been
from our timidity.

There was also another sentiment, of kindred perversity, which pre-
vailed in the same quarter. This is vividly portrayed by John Adams,
in a letter to General Gates, dated at Philadelphia, 23d March, 1776:—

" However, my dear friend Gates, all our misfortunes arise from a
single source: the reluctance of the Southern Colonies to Republican
Government." And he proceeds to declare in strong language that
" popular principles and axioms are abhorrent to the inclinations of the
barons of the South." This letter was written in the early days of the
revolution. At a later date John Adams testifies again to the discord
between the North and the South, and refers particularly to the period
after trie National Constitution, saying: "The Northern and the
Southern states were immovably fixed in opposition to each other."
This was before any question of tariff or free trade, and before the
growing fortunes of the North had awakened Southern jealousy. The
whole opposition had its root in slavery,— as also had the earlier re-
sistance to Republican government.

In the face of these influences the Union was formed, but the seeds
of conspiracy were latent in its bosom. The spirit already revealed
was scarcely silenced ; it was not destroyed. It still existed, rankling,
festering, burning to make itself manifest. At the mention of slavery
it always appeared full-armed with barbarous pretensions. Even in
the first Congress under the Constitution, at the presentation of that
famous petition where Benjamin Franklin simply called upon Congress
to step to the verge of its power to discourage every species of traffic
in the persons of our fellow-men, this spirit broke forth in violent
threats. With kindred lawlessness it early embraced that extravagant
dogma of state rights which has been ever since the convenient cloak
of treason and conspiracy. At the Missouri question, in 1820, it
openly menaced dissolution of the Union. Instead of throttling the
monster, we submitted to feed it with new concessions. Meanwhile
the conspiracy grew, until, at last, in 1830, under the influence of Mr.
Calhoun, it assumed the defiant front of Nullification; nor did it yield
to the irresistible logic of Webster or the stern will of Jackson without
a compromise. The pretended ground of complaint was the tariff ;
but Andrew Jackson, himself a patriot slaveholder, at that time Presi-
dent, saw the hollowness of the complaint. In a confidential letter,
only recently brought to light; dated at Washington, May 1, 1S33, and
which during the last winter I had the honor of reading and holding
up before the Senatorial conspirators in the original autograph, he
says: —

" The. tariff was only the pretext, and disunion and a Southern
Confederacy the real object. The next pretext will be the negro or
slavery question."

Jackson was undoubtedly right; but the pete .: which he denounced

CHARLES SUMNER. 545

in advance was employed so constantly afterwards as to become thread-
bare. At the earliest presentation of abolition petitions, — at the Texas
question, — at the compromises of 1850, — at the Kansas question, — at
the possible election of Fremont, — on all these occasions, the Union
was threatened by angry slave-masters.

The conspiracy is unblushingly confessed by recent parties to it.
Especially was this done in the rebel convention of South Carolina,
where, one after another, the witnesses testified all the same way.

Mr. Parker said : " Secession is no spasmodic effort that has come
suddenly upon us. It has been gradually culminating for a long pe-
riod of thirty years."

Mr. Inglis followed: "Most of us have had this matter under con-
sideration for the last twenty years."

Mr. Keitt, Representative in Congress, gloried in his work, saying:
" I have been engaged in this movement ever since I entered political
life."

Mr. Rhett, who was in the Senate when I first entered that body,
and did not hesitate then to avow himself a disunionist, declared
in the same convention: " It is not anything produced by Mr. Lincoln's
election, or by the non-execution of the Fugitive Slave Law; it is a
matter Which has been gathering head for thirty years."

The conspiracy, thus exposed by Jackson, and confessed by recent
parties to it, was quickened by the growing passion for slavery through-
out the slave states. The well-knbwn opinions of the fathers, the de-
clared convictions of all most valued at the foundation of the govern-
ment, and the example of Washington were discarded, and it was
recklessly avowed that slavery is a divine institution, the highest type
of civilization, a blessing to master and slave alike, and the very key-
stone of our national arch. A generation has grown up with this
teaching, so that it is now ready to say with Satan, —

'' Evil, be thou my good ! by the at least
Divided empire with Heaven's king I hold;
By thee, and more than half perhaps, will reign:
As man, ere long, and this new world, shall know."

It is natural that a people thus trained should listen to the voice of
conspiracy. Slavery itself is a constant conspiracy; and its support-
ers, whether in the slave states, or elsewhere, easily become indifferent
to all rights and principles by which it may be constrained.

This rage for slavery was quickened by two influences, which have
exhibited themselves since the formation of our Union, — one econom-
ical, and the other political. The first was the unexpected importance
of the cotton crop, which, through the labor of slaves and the genius
of a New England inventor, passed into an extraordinary element of
wealth and of imagined strength, so that we have all been summoned
to do homage to cotton as king. The second was the temptation of
political power than which no influence is more potent, — for it became

54<> • AMERICAN PA TRIO TISM.

obvious that this could be assured to slavery only through the perma-
nent preponderance of its representatives in the Senate; so that the
continued control of all offices and honors was made to depend upon
the extension of slavery; thus, through two strong appetites, one for
gain and the other for power, was slavery stimulated, but the conspir-
acy was strong only through slavery.

Even this conspiracy, thus supported and nurtured, would have been
more wicked than strong, if it had not found perfidious aids in the
very cabinet of the President. The Secretary of the Treasury, a slave-
master from Georgia, the Secretary of the Interior, a slavemaster from
Mississippi, the Secretary of War, the notorious Floyd, a slavemaster
from Virginia, and I fear also the Secretary of the Navy, who was a
Northern man with Southern principles^ lent their active exertions.
Through these eminent functionaries the treason was organized and di-
rected, while their important posts were prostituted to its infamy. Here
again you see the extent of the conspiracy. Never before, in any
country, was there a similar crime which embraced so many persons in
the highest places of power, or took within its grasp so large a theatre
of human action. Anticipating the election of Mr. Lincoln, the cabinet
conspirators prepared the way for rebellion.

First, the army of the United States was so far dispersed and exiled,
that the commander-in-chief found it difficult, during the recent anxious
winter, to bring together a thousand troops for the defence of the na-
tional capital, menaced by the conspirators.

. Secondly, the navy was so far scattered or dismantled, that on the 4-th
of March, when the new administration eame into power, there were no
ships to enforce the laws, collect the revenues, or protect the national
property in the rebel ports. Out of seventy-two vessels of war, counted
as our navy, it appears that the whole available force at home was re-
duced to the steamer Brooklyn, carrying twenty-five guns, and the store-
ship Relief, carrying two guns.

Thirdly, the forts on the extensive Southern coast were so far aban-
doned by the public force, that the larger part, counting upwards of
1,200 cannon, and built at a cost of more than six million dollars, be-
came at once an easy prey to the rebels.

Fourthly, national arms were transferred from Northern to Southern
arsenals, so as to disarm the free states and equip the slave states. This
was done on a large scale. Upwards of 115,000 arms, of the latest and
most approved pattern, were transferred from the Springfield andWater-
vliet arsenals to different arsenals in the slave states, where they were
seized by the rebels; and a quarter of a million percussion muskets
were sold to various slave states for $2.50 a musket, when they were
worth, it is said, on an average, $12. Large quantities of cannon, mor-
tars, powder, ball, and shell received the same direction.

Fifthly, the National Treasury, so recently prosperous beyond ex-
ample, was disorganized and plundered even to the verge of bankruptcy.

CHARLES SUMNER. 547

Upwards of six millions are supposed to have been stolen, and much of
this treasure doubtless went to help the work of rebellion.

Thus, even before its outbreak, the conspiracy contrived to degrade
and despoil the Government, so as to secure free course for the projected
rebellion. The story seems incredible. But it was not enough to dis-
perse the army, to scatter the navy, to abandon forts, to disarm the free
states, and to rob the treasury. The President of the United States,
solemnly sworn to execute the laws, was won into a system of inactivity
amounting to practical abdication of his great trust. He saw treason
plotting to stab at the heart of his country; saw conspiracy, daily, hourly,
putting on the harness of rebellion, but, though warned by the watchful
general-in-chief, he did nothing to arrest it, standing always,

"like a painted Jove,
With idle thunder in his lifted hand."

Ay, more ; instead of instant lightnings, smiting and blasting in their
fiery crash, which an indignant patriotism would have hurled, he nodded
sympathy and acquiescence. No page of history is more melanchuly,
because nowhere do we find a ruler who so completely abandoned his
country , not Charles the First in his tyranny, not Louis the Sixteenth in
his weakness. Mr. Buchanan was advanced to power by slave-masters,
who knew well that he could be used for slavery. The slaveholding
conspirators were encouraged to sit in his cabinet, where they doubly
betrayed their country, first by evil counsels, and then by disclosing
what passed to distant slaveholding confederates. The sudden act of
Major Anderson, in removing from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter, and
the sympathetic response of an aroused people, compelled a change of
policy, and the rebellion received its first check. After painful struggle,
it was decided at last that Fort Sumter should be maintained. It is
difficult to exaggerate the importance of that decision, which, I believe,
was due mainly to an eminent Democrat, — General Cass. This, at
least, is true — it saved the national capital.

Meanwhile the conspiracy increased in activity, mastering state after
state, gathering its forces and building its batteries. The time had come
for the great tragedy to begin. " At Nottingham,'' says the great Eng-
lish historian, speaking of King Charles the First, "he erected his royal
standard, the open signal of discord and civil war throughout the king-
dom." The same open signal now came from Charleston, when the
conspirators ran up the rattlesnake flag, and directed their wicked can-
nonade upon the small, half-famished garrison of Sumter.

Were this done in the name of revolution, or by virtue of any revolu-
tionary principle, it would assume a familiar character. But such is not
the case. It is all done under pretence of constitutional right. The
forms of the Constitution are seized by the conspirators, as they have
already seized everything else, and wrested to the purposes of treason.
It is audaciously declared, that, under the existing Constitution, each

54^ AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

state, in the exercise of its own discretion, may withdraw from the
Union ; and this asserted right of secession is invoked as cover for
rebellion begun in conspiracy. The election of Mr. Lincoln is made the
occasion for the exercise of this pretended right ; certain opinions at
the North on the subject of slavery are made the pretext.

Who will not deny that this election can be a just occasion ?

Who will not condemn the pretext?

But both occasion and pretext are determined by slavery, and thus
testify to the part it constantly performs.

The pretended right of secession is not less monstrous than the pre-
text or the occasion; and this, too, is born of slavery. It belongs to
that brood of assumptions and perversions of which slavery is proline
parent. Wherever slavery prevails, this pretended right is recognized,
and generally with an intensity proportioned to the prevalence of
slavery — as, for instance, in South Carolina and Mississippi more in-
tensely than in Tennessee and Kentucky. It may be considered a
fixed part of the slave-holding system. A pretended right to set aside
the Constitution, to the extent of breaking up the government, is the
natural companion of the pretended right to set aside human nature,
making merchandise of men. They form a well-matched couple, and
travel well together, — destined to perish together. If we do not over-
flow toward the former with the same indignation which we feel for the
latter, it is because its absurdity awakens our contempt. An English
poet of the last century exclaims, in mocking verses, —

" Crowned be the man with lasting praise
Who first contrived the pin,
To loose mad horses from the chaise,
And save the necks within."

Such is the impossible contrivance now attempted. Nothing is clearer
than that this pretension, if acknowledged, leaves to every state the
right to play the "mad horse," with very little chance of saving any-
thing. It takes from the government not merely unity, but all se-
curity of national life, and reduces it to the shadow of a name, or, at
best, a mere tenancy at will — an unsubstantial form, to be decomposed
at the touch of a single state. Of course, such an anarchical preten-
sion, so instinct with all the lawlessness of slavery, must be encoun-
tered peremptorily. It is not enough to declare dissent. We must so
conduct as not to give it recognition or foothold.

Instead of scouting this pretension, and utterly spurning it, new
concessions to slavery were gravely propounded as the means of paci-
fication— like a new sacrifice offered to an obscene divinity. It was
argued, that in this way the border states at least might be preserved
to the Union, and some of the cotton states perhaps won back to duty
in other words, that, in consideration of such concessions, these states
would consent to waive a present exercise of the pretended right of
secession. Against all such propo: Irion's, without considering their

CHARLES SUMNER. 549

character, stands on the threshold one obvious and imperative objec-
tion. It is clear that the very bargain or understanding, whether ex-
press or implied, is a recognition of this pretended right, and that a
state yielding only to such appeal, and detained through concessions,
practically asserts the claim, and holds it for future exercise. Thus a
concession called small becomes infinite; for it concedes the pretended
right of secession, and makes the permanence of the national govern-
ment impossible. Amidst all the grave responsibilities of the hour,
we must take care that the life of the republic is sacredly preserved.
But this would be sacrificed at once, did we submit its existence to the
conditions proposed.

Looking at these concessions, I have always found them utterly un-
reasonable and indefensible. I should not expose them now, if they
did not testify constantly to the origin and mainspring of this rebel-
lion. Slavery was always the single subject-matter, and nothing else.
Slavery was not only an integral part of every concession, but the
single integer. The one idea was to give some new security, in some
form, to slavery. That brilliant statesman, Mr. Canning, in one of
those eloquent speeches which charm so much by style, said that he
was "tired of being a security-grinder;" but his experience was not
comparable to ours. "Security-grinding," in the name of slavery,
has been for years the way in which we have wrestled with this con-
spiracy !

The propositions at the last Congress began with the President's
Message, which in itself was one tedious concession. You cannot
forget his sympathetic portraiture of the disaffection throughout the
slave states, or his testimony to the cause. Notoriously and shame-
fully his heart was with the conspirators, and he knew intimately the
mainspring of their conduct. He proposed nothing short of general
surrender; and thus did he proclaim slavery as the head and front,
the very causa causans, of the whole crime.

Nor have you forgotten the Peace Conference, as it was delusively
styled, convened at Washington on the summons of Virginia, with
John Tyler in the chair, where New York, as well as Massachusetts,
was represented by her ablest and most honored citizens. The ses-
sions were with closed doors; but it is now known that throughout
the proceedings, lasting for weeks, nothing was discussed but slavery.
And the propositions finally adopted by the convention were confined
to slavery. Forbearing all detail, it will be enough to say that they
undertook to provide positive protection for slavery under the Consti-
tution, with new sanction and immunity — making it, notwithstanding
the determination of our fathers, national instead of sectional; and
even more, making it an essential and permanent part of our repub-
lican system. Slavery is sometimes deceitful, as at other times bold;
and these propositions were still further offensive from their studied
uncertainty, amounting to positive duplicity. At a moment when

55° AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

frankness was needed above all things, we were treated to phrases
pregnant with doubt and controversy, and were gravely asked, in the
name of slavery, to embody them hi the national Constitution.

There was another string of propositions much discussed during the
last winter, which acquired the name of the venerable senator from
whom they came — Mr. Crittenden, of Kentucky. These also related to
slavery, and nothing else. They were more obnoxious even than
those from the Peace Conference. And yet there were petitioners from
the North, even from Massachusetts, who prayed for this great sur-
render. Considering the character of these propositions— that they
sought to change the Constitution in a manner revolting to the moral
sense, to foist into its very body the idea of property in man, to pro-
tect slavery in all present territory south of 36 degrees, 50 minutes,
and to carry it into all territory hereafter acquired south of that line,
and thus to make our beautiful Stars and Stripes in their southern
march the flag of infamy — considering that they provided new consti-
tutional securities for slavery in the national capital and in other places
within the exclusive national jurisdiction, new constitutional securities
for the transit of slaves from state to state, opening the way to a roll-
call of slaves at the foot of Bunker Hill or the door of Faneuil Hall,
and also the disfranchisement of nearly ten thousand of my fellow-
citizens in Massachusetts, whose rights are fixed b)?- the constitution
of that commonwealth, drawn by John Adams — considering these
things, I felt at the time, and I still feel, that the best apology of these
petitioners was that they were ignorant of their true character, and
that in signing the petition they knew not what they did. But even
in their ignorance they bore witness to slavery, while the propositions
were the familiar voice of slavery crying, "Give ! give !"

There was another single proposition from still another quarter, but,
like all the rest, it related exclusively to slavery. It was to insert in
the text of the Constitution a stipulation against any future amend-
ment authorizing Congress to interfere with slavery in the states. If
you read this proposition, you will find it crude and ill-shaped — a jar-
gon of bad grammar, a jumble and hodge-podge of words — harmoniz-
ing poorly with the accurate text of our Constitution. But even if
tolerable in form, it was obnoxious, like the rest, as a fresh stipulation
in favor of slavery. Sufficient, surely, in this respect, is the actual
Constitution. Beyond this I cannot, I will not go. What Wash-
ington, Franklin, Madison, and Hamilton would not insert we cannot
err in reject "n.j.

I do not dwell on other propositions, because they attracted less at-
tention; and yet among these was one to overturn the glorious safe-
guards of freedom set up in the free states, known as the Personal
Liberty Laws. Here again was slavery — with a vengeance.

There is one remark which I desire to make with regard to all these
propositions. It was sometimes said that the concessions they offered

CHARLES SUMNER. 55 1

were " small." What a mistake is this ! No concession to slavery
can be "small." Freedom is priceless, and in this simple rule alike of
morals and jurisprudence you find the just measure of any concession,
how small soever it may seem, by which freedom is sacrificed. Tell me
not that it concers a few only. I do not forget the saying of antiquity,
that the best government is where an injury to a single individual is
resented as an injury to the whole state; nor am I indifferent to that
memorable instance of our own recent history, where, in a distant sea,
the thunders of our navy, with all the hazards of war, were arOused to
protect the liberty of a solitary person claiming the rights of an Ameri-
can citizen. By such examples let me be guided, rather than by the
suggestion, that human freedom, whether in many or in few, is of so
little value that it may be put in the market to appease a traitorous
conspiracy, or soothe accessories, who, without such concession,
threaten to join the conspirators.

And now, after this review, I am brought again to the significance
of that Presidential election with which I began. The slave-masters
entered into that election with Mr. Breckinridge as their candidate,
and their platform claimed constitutional protection for slavery in all
territories, whether now belonging to the Republic or hereafter ac-
quired. This concession was the ultimatum on which was staked
their continued loyalty to the Union, — as the continuance of the slave-
trade was the original condition on which South Carolina and Georgia
entered the Union. And the reason, though criminal, was obvious.
It was because without such opportunity of expansion slavery would
be stationary, while the free states, increasing in number, would ob-
tain a fixed preponderance in the National Government, assuring to
them the political power. Thus at that election the banner of the
slave-masters had for open device, not the Union as it is, but the ex-
tension and perpetuation of human bondage. The popular vote was
against further concession, and the conspirators proceeded with their
crime. The occasion so long sought had come. The pretext fore-
seen by Andrew Jackson was the motive power.

Here mark well, that, in their whole conduct, the conspirators acted
naturally, under instincts implanted by slavery ; nay, they acted logi-
cally even. Such is slavery, that it cannot exist, unless it owns the
Government. An injustice so plain can find protection only from a
Government which is a reflection of itself. Cannibalism cannot exist
except under a government of cannibals. Idolatry cannot exist ex-
cept under a government of idolaters. And slavery cannot exist ex-
cept under a government of slave-masters. This is positive, universal
truth,— at St. Petersburg, Constantinople, Timbuctoo, or Washington.
The slave-masters of our country saw that they were dislodged from
the national government, and straightway they rebelled. The Re-
public, which they could no longer rule, they determined to ruin. And
-now the issue is joined. Slavery must either rule or die.

„ 2 AMERICAN PA TRIO TISM.

Though thus audaciously criminal, the slave-masters are not strong
in numbers. The whole number, great and small, according to the
recent census, is not more than four hundred thousand, of whom there
are less than one hundred thousand interested to any considerable ex-
tent in this peculiar species of property. And yet this petty oligarchy
—itself controlled by a squad still more petty — in a population of many
millions, has aroused and organized this gigantic rebellion. But suc-
cess is explained by two considerations. First, the asserted value of
the slaves, reaching at this date to the enormous sum-total of two
thousand millions of dollars, constitutes an overpowering property
interest, one of the largest in the world — -greatly increased by the in-
tensity and unity of purpose naturally belonging to the representa-
tives of such a sum-total, stimulated by the questionable character of
the property. But, secondly, it is a phenomenon attested by the his-
tory of revolutions, that all such movements, at least in their early
days, are controlled by minorities. This is because a revolutionary
minority, once embarked, has before it only the single, simple path of
unhesitating action. While others doubt or hold back, the minority
strikes and goes forward. Audacity then counts more than numbers,
and crime counts more than virtue. This phenomenon has been ob-
served before. " Often have I reflected with awe," says Coleridge,
' ' on the great and disproportionate power which an individual of no ex-
traordinary talents or attainments may exert by merely throwing off
all restraint of conscience. . . . The abandonment of all principle of
right enables the soul to choose and act upon a principle of wrong,
and to subordinate to this one principle all the various vices of human
nature." These are remarkable and most suggestive words. But
when was a " principle of wrong" followed with more devotion than
by our rebels ?

The French Revolution furnishes authentic illustration of a few pre-
dominating over a great change. Among the good men at that time
who followed # principles of right" were others with whom success
was the primary object, while even good men sometimes forgot good-
ness ; but at each stage a minority gave the law. Petion, the famous
mayor of Paris, boasted, that, when he began, " there were but five
men in France who wished a republic." From a contemporary de-
bate in the British Parliament, it appears that the asserted power of a
minority was made the express ground of appeal by French revolu-
tionists to the people of other countries. Sheridan, in a brilliant
speech, dwells on this appeal, and by mistake ascribes to Condorcet
the unequivocal utterances, that ' ' revolutions must always be the
work of the minority,"— that " every revolution is the work of a min-
ority,"— that " the French Revolution was accomplished by the min-
ority." This philosopher, who sealed his principles by a tragical
death, did say, in an address to the parliamentary reformers of Eng-
land, that from parliamentary reform " the passage to the complete

CHARLES SUMNER. ^-- 553

establishment of a republic would be short and easy;" but it was Cam-
bort, the financier of the Revolution, and one of its active supporters,
who, in the National Convention, put forth the cries attributed to Con-
dorcet. The part of the minority was also attested by Brissot de
Warville, who imputed the triumph of the Jacobins, under whose
bloody sway his own life became a sacrifice, to " some twenty men,"
or, as he says in another place, " a score of anarchists," and then
ae-ain, " a club, or rather a score of those robbers who direct that
club "

The future historian will record, that the present rebellion, notwith-
standing its protracted origin, the multitudes it enlisted, and its ex-
tensive sweep, was at last precipitated by fewer than twenty men, —
Mr. Everett says by as few as eight or ten. It is certain that thus far
it has been the triumph of a minority,— but of a minority moved, in-
spired, combined, and aggrandized by slavery.

And now this traitorous minority, putting aside the sneaking, slimy
devices of conspiracy, steps forth in full panoply of war. Assuming
all functions of government, it organizes states under a common heaa,
— -sends ambassadors into foreign countries, — levies taxes,— borrows
money,— issues letters of marque, — and sets armies in the field, sum-
moned from distant Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas, as well as from
nearer Virginia, and composed of the whole lawless population, the
poor who Cannot own slaves as well as the rich who pretend to own
them, throughout the extensive region where with Satanic grasp this
Slave-Master minority claims for itself

M ample room and verge enough
The characters of Hell to trace."

Pardon the language I employ. The words of the poet picture not
too strongly the object proposed. And now these parricidal hosts
stand arrayed against that paternal government to which they owe
loyalty, defence, and affection. Never in history did rebellion assume
such front. Call their number 400,000 or 200,000, — what you will, —
they far surpass any armed forces ever before marshalled in rebellion ;
they are among the largest ever marshalled in war.

All this is in the name of slavery, and for the sake of slavery, and at
the bidding of slavery. The profligate favorite of the English mon-
arch, the famous Duke of Buckingham, was not more exclusively
supreme, even according to the words by which he was placarded to
the judgment of his contemporaries: —

14 Who rules the kingdom ? The King.
Who rules the King ? The Duke.
Who rules the Duke ? The Devil.

Nor according to that decree by which the House of Commons declared
him " the cause of all the national calamities." The dominant part of

554 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM. '"

the royal favorite belongs now to slavery, which is the cause of all the
national calamities, while in the Rebel States it is a more than royal
favorite.

" Who rules the Rebel States ? The President.

Who rales the President ? Slavery.
Who rules Slavery.

. ■ -

The last question I need not answer. But ail must see — and nobody
will deny — that slavery is the ruling idea of this rebellion. It is sla-
very that marshals these hosts and breathes into their embattled ranks
its own, barbarous fire. It is slavery that stamps its character alike
upon officers and men. It is slavery that inspires all, from general to
trumpeter. It is slavery that speaks in the word of command and
sounds in the morning drum-beat. It is slavery that digs trenches and
builds hostile forts. It is slavery that pitches its wicked tents and sta-
tions its sentries over against the national capital. It is slavery that
sharpens the bayonet and runs the bullet, — that points the cannon and
scatters the shell, blazing, bursting with death. Wherever this rebel-
lion shows itself, whatever form it takes, whatever thing it does, what-
ever it meditates, it is moved by slavery; nay, the rebellion is slavery
itself, incarnate, living, acting, raging, robbing, murdering, according
to the essential law of its being.

Not this is all. The rebellion is not only ruled by slavery but,
owing to the peculiar condition of the slave states, it is for the moment,
according to their instinctive boast, actually reinforced by this institu-
tion. As the fields of the South are cultivated by slaves, and labor
there is performed by this class, the white freemen are at liberty to
play the part of rebels. The slaves toil at home, while the masters
work at rebellion; and thus, by singular fatality, is this doomed race,
without taking up arms, actually engaged in feeding, supporting, suc-
coring, invigorating those battling for their enslavement.

But slavery must be seen not only in what it does for the rebellion,
of which it is indisputable head, fountain and life, but also in what it
inflicts upon us. There is not a community, not a family, not an in-
dividual, man, woman, or child, that does not feel its heavy, bloody
hand. Why these mustering armies? Why this drum-beat in your
peaceful streets ? Why these gathering means of war ? Why these
swelling taxes ? WThy these unprecedented loans ? Why this derange-
ment of business ? Why among us habeas corpus suspended, and alt
safeguards of freedom prostrate ? Why this constant solicitude visi-
ble in your faces ? The answer is clear. Slavery is author, agent,
cause. The anxious hours that you pass are darkened by slavery.
Habeas corpus and the safeguards of freedom which you deplore are
ravished by slavery. The business you have lost is filched by slavery.
The millions now amassed by patriotic offerings are all snatched by
slavery. The taxes now wrung out of diminished means are all con-
sumed by slavery. And all these multiplying means of war, this drum-

CHARLES SUMNER. 555

call in your peaceful streets, and these gathering armies, are on ac-
count of slavery, and that alone. Are the poor constrained to forego
their customary tea, or coffee, or sugar, now burdened by intolerable
taxation ? Let them vow themselves anew against the criminal giant
taxgatherer. Does any community mourn gallant men, who, going
forth joyous and proud beneath their country's flag, have been brought
home cold and stiff, with its folds wrapped about them for. a shroud-
Let all mourning the patriot aead be aroused against slavery. Does
a mother drop tears for her son in the beautiful morning of his days
cut down upon the distant battle-field, which he moistens with his
youthful, generous blood ? Let her feel that slavery dealt the deadly
blow which took at once his life and her peace.

I hear a strange, discordant voice saying that all this proceeds not
from slavery, — oh, no ! — but from anti-slavery, — that the Republicans,
who hate slavery, that the Abolitionists, are authors of this terrible
calamity. You must suspect the sense of loyalty of him who puts
forth this irrational and utterly wicked imputation. As well say that the
early Christians were authors of the heathen enormities against which
they bore martyr testimony, and that the cross, the axe, the gridiron,
and the boiling oil, by which they suffered, were part of the Christian
dispensation But the early Christians were misrepresented and
falsely charged with crime, even as you are. The tyrant Nero, after
burning Rome and dancing at the conflagration, denounced Christians
as the guilty authors. Here are authentic words by the historian
Tacitus. —

''So, for the quieting of this rumor, Nero judicially charged with the
crime, and punished with most studied severities, that class, hated for
their general wickedness, whom the vulgar call Christians. The origi-
nater of that name was one Christ, who, in the reign of Tiberius, suf-
fered death by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilate. The bane-
ful superstition, thereby repressed for the time, again broke out, not
only over Judea, the native soil of that mischief, but in the city also,
where from every side all atrocious and abominable things collect and
flourish."

The writer of this remarkable passage was the wisest and most
penetrating mind of his generation, and he lived close upon the events
which he describes. Listening to him, you may find apology for those
among us who heap upon contemporaries similar obloquy. Abolition-
ists need no defence from me. It is to their praise — destined to fill
an immortal page — that from the beginning they saw the true charac-
ter of slavery, and warned against its threatening domination.
Through them the fires of liberty have been kept alive in our country
—as Hume is conscrained to confess, that these same fires were kept
alive in England by the Puritans, whom this great historian never
praised, if he could help it. And yet they are charged with this rebellion.
Can this be serious ? Even at the beginning of the Republic the seeds

5 5 6 A M ERICA N PA TRIO TISM.

of the conspiracy were planted, and in 1820, and again in 1830, it ap-
peared—-while nearly thirty years- ago Andrew Jackson denounced it,
and one of its leading spirits recently boasted that it has been gath-
ering head for this full time, thus, not only in distant embryo, but in
well- attested development, antedating those Abolitionists whose
prophetic patriotism is made an apology for the crime. As
well, when the prudent passenger warns the ship's crew of- the
fatal lee-shore, arraign him for the wreck which engulfs all; as well
cry oitt, that the philosopher who foresees the storm is responsible for
the desolation which ensues ; or that the astronomer, who cal-
culates the eclipse, is the author of the darkness which covers the
earth.

Nothing can surpass that early contumely to which Christians were
exposed. To the polite heathen, they were only "workers in wool,
cobblers, fullers, the rudest and most illiterate persons;" or they were
men and women " from the lowest dregs." Persecution naturally
followed, not only local, but general. As many as ten persecutions
are cited— two under mild rulers like Trajan and Hadrian — while at
the atrocious command of Nero, Christians, wrapped in pitch, were
Ret on fire as lights to illumine the public gardens. And yet against
contumely and persecution Christianity prevailed, and the name of
Christian became an honor which confessors and martyrs wore as a
crown. But this painful history prefigures that of our Abolitionists,
who have been treated with similar contumely ; nor have they escaped
persecution.

At last the time has come when their cause must prevail, and their
name become an honor.

And now, that I may give practical character to this whole history,
I bring it all to bear upon our present situation, and its duties. You
have discerned slavery, even before the National Union, not only a
disturbing influence, but an actual bar to union, except on condition of
surrender to its immoral behests. You have watched slavery con-
stantly militant on the presentation of any proposition with regard to
it, and more than once threatening dissolution of the Union. You
have discovered slavery-for many )^ears the animating principle of a
conspiracy against the Union, while it matured flagitious plans and
obtained the mastery of Cabinet and President. And when the con-
spiracy had banefully ripened, you have seen how only by concessions
to slavery it was encountered, as by similar concessions it had from
the beginning been encouraged. Now you behold rebellion every-
where throughout the slave states elevating its bloody crest and threat-
ening the existence of the national government, and all in the name
of slavery, while it sets up a pretended government whose corner-
stone is slavery.

Against this rebellion we wage war. It is our determination, as it
is our duty, to crush it; and this will be done. Nor am I disturbed by

CHARLES SUMNER. 557

any success which the rebels may seem to obtain. The ancient Ro-
man, who, confident in the destiny of the Republic, bought the field
on which the conquering Hannibal was encamped, is a fit example (or
us. I would not have less trust than his. The rebel states are our
fields. The region now contested by the rebels belongs to the United
States by every tie of government and of right. Some of it has been
bought with our money, while all of it, with the rivers, harbors, and
extensive coast, has become essential to our business in peace and to
our defence in war. Union is a geographical, economical, commercial,
political, military, and (if I may so say) even a fluvial necessity. With-
out union, peace on this continent is impossible; but life without peace
is impossible also.

Only by crushing this rebellion can union and peace be restored.
Let this be seen in its reality, and who can hesitate ? If this were
done instantly, without further contest, then, besides all the countless
advantages of every kind obtained by such restoration, two special
goods will be accomplished — one political, and the other moral as well
as political. First, the pretended right of secession, with the whole
pestilent extravagance of state sovereignty, supplying the machinery
for this rebellion, and affording a delusive cover for treason, will be
trampled out, never again to disturb the majestic unity of the Repub-
lic; and, secondly, the unrighteous attempt to organize a new confed-
eracy, solely for the sake of slavery, and with slavery as its corner-
stone, will be overthrown.

These two pretensions, one so shocking to our reason and the
other so shocking to our moral nature, will disappear forever And
with their disappearance will date a new epoch, the beginning of a
grander age. If by any accident the rebellion should prevail, then,
just in proportion to its triumph, through concession on our part or
successful force on the other part, will the Union be impaired and
peace be impossible. Therefore, in the name of the Union and for
the sake of peace are you summoned to the work.

But how shall the rebellion be crushed? That is the question
Men, money, munitions of war, a well-supplied commissariat, means
of transportation — all these you have in abundance, in some particu
lars. beyond the rebels. You have, too, the consciousness of a good
cause, which in itself is an army. And yet thus far, until within a
few days, the advantage has not been on our side. The explanation
is easy. The rebels are combating at home, on their own soil,
strengthened and maddened by slavery, which is to them ally and fa-
naticism. More thoroughly aroused than ourselves, more terribly in
earnest, with every sinew vindictively strained to its most perfect
work, they freely use all the means that circumstances put into their
hands — not only raising against us their white population, but fellow-
shiping the savagery of the Indian, cruising upon the sea in pirate
ships to despoil our commerce, and at one swoop confiscating our

558 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

property to the amount of hundreds of millions, while all this time
their four million slaves undisturbed at home freely contribute by their
labor to sustain the war, which without them must soon expire.

It remains for us to encounter the rebellion calmly and surely by a
force superior to its own. To this end, something more is needed
than men or money. Our battalions must be reinforced by ideas, and
Ave must strike directly at the origin and mainspring. I do not say
now in what way or to what extent ; but only that we must strike : it
may be by the system of a Massachusetts general— Butler; it may be
by that of Fremont, or it maybe by the grander system of John Quincy
Adams.

Reason and sentiment both concur in this policy, which is ac-
cording to the most common principles of human conduct. In no
way Can we do so much at so little cost. To the enemy such a blow
will be a terror, to good men it will appear to be an encouragement,
and to foreign nations watching this contest it will be an earnest of
something beyond a mere carnival of battle. There has been the cry,
" On to Richmond !" and still another worse cry, " On to England ! '
Better than either is the cry, "On to Freedom !" Let this be heard
in the voices of our soldiers, ay, let it resound in the purposes of the
government, and victory must be near.

With no little happiness I make known that this cry begins at last
to be adopted. It is in the instructions from the Secretary of War,
dated War Department, October 14th, 1861, and addressed to the
general commanding the forces about to embark for South Carolina.
Here are the important words :

i You will, however, in general avail yourself of the services of any
persons, whether fugitives from labor or not, who may offer them to
the national government; you will employ such persons in such servi-
ces as they may be fitted for, either as ordinary employes, or, if special
circumstances seem to require it, in any other capacity, with such
organization, in squads, companies, or otherwise, as you deem most
beneficial to the service. This, however, not to mean a general
arming of them for military service. You will assure all loyal masters
that Congress will provide just compensation to them for the loss of
the services of the persons so employed."

This is not the positive form of proclamation, but analyze the words,
and you will find them full of meaning. First, martial law is declared,
for the powers committed to the discretion of the general are derived
from that law and not from the late Confiscation Act of Congress.
Secondly, fugitive slaves are not to be surrendered. Thirdly all
coming within the camp are to be treated as freemen. Fourthly, they
may be employed in such service as they are fitted for. Fifthly, in
squads, companies, or otherwise, with the single slight limitation that
this is not to mean " a general arming of them for military' service.''
And sixthly, compensation, through Congress, is promised to loyal

CHARLES SUMNER. 559

masters — saying nothing of rebel masters. All this falls little short of
a proclamation of emancipation — not unlike that of old Caius Marius,
when, landing on the coast of Etruria, according to Plutarch, he pro-
claimed liberty to the slaves. As such, I do not err, when I call it,
thus far, the most important event of the war — more important because
understood to have the deliberate sanction of the President as weii as
of the Secretary, and therefore marking the policy of the Administra-
tion. That this policy should be first applied to South Carolina is
just. As the great rebellion began in this state, so should the great
remedy.

Slavery is the inveterate culprit, the transcendent criminal, the per-
severing traitor, the wicked parricide, the arch rebel, the open outlaw.
As the less is contained in the greater, so the rebellion is all contained
in slavery. The tenderness which you show to slavery is. therefore,
indulgence to the rebellion itself. The pious caution with which you
avoid harming slavery exceeds that ancient superstition which made
the wolf sacred among the Romans and the crocodile sacred among
the Egyptians; nor shall I hesitate to declare that every surrender of a
slave back to bondage is an offering of human sacrifice, whose shame
is too great for any army to bear. That men should hesitate to strike
at slavery is only another illustration of human weakness. The
English republicans, in bloody contest with the Crown, hesitated for a
long time to fire upon the King; but under the valiant lead of Crom-
well, surrounded by his well-trained Ironsides, they banished all such
scruple, and you know the result. The King was not shot, but his
head was brought to the block.

The duty which I announce, if not urgent now, as a military neces-
sity, in just self-defence, will present itself constantly, as our armies
advance in the slave states or land on their coasts. If it does not stare
us in the face at this moment, it is because Unhappily we are still
everywhere on the defensive. As we begin to be successful, it must
rise before us for practical decision, and we cannot avoid it. There
wi'i be slaves in our camps, or within our extended lines, whose con-
d. i >n we must determine. There will be slaves also claimed by rebels,
whose continued chattelhood we should scorn to recognize. The
decision of these two cases will settle the whole great question. Nor
can the rebels complain. They challenge our armies to enter upon
their territory in the free exercise of all the powers of war — according
to which, as you well know, all private interests are subordi iated to
the public safety, which, for the time, becomes the supreme law above
all other laws and above the Constitution itself. If everywhere under
the flag of the Union, in its triumphant march, freedom is substituted
for slavery, this outrageous rebellion will not be the first instance in
history where God has turned the wickedness of man into a blessing;
nor will the example of Samson stand alone, when he gathered honey
from the carcass of the dead and rotten lion.

560 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

Pardon me, if I speak in hints only, and do not stop to argue or
explain. Not now, at the close of an evening devoted to the rebellion
in its origin and mainspring, can I enter upon this great question of
military duty in its details. There is another place where this discus-
sion will be open for me.

It is enough now, if I indicate the simple principle which is the
natural guide of all really in earnest, of all whose desire to save their
country is stronger than the desire to save slavery. You will strike
Where the blow is most felt; nor will you miss the precious oppor-
tunity. The enemy is before you, nay, he comes out in ostentatious
challenge, and his name is slavery: You can vindicate the Union
only by his prostration. Slavery is the very Goliath of the rebellion,
armed with coat of mail, with helmet of brass upon the head, greaves
of brass upon the legs, target of brass between the shoulders, and
with the staff of his spear like a weaver's beam. But a stone from a
simple sling will make the giant fall upon his face to the earth.

Thank God, our government is strong; but thus far all signs denote
that it is not strong enough to save the Union, and at the same time
save slavery. One or the other must suffer; and just in proportion as
you reach forth to protect slavery do you protect this accursed rebel-
lion, nay, you give to it that vCry aid and comfort which are the con-
stitutional synonym for treason itself. Perversely and pitifully do
you postpone that sure period of reconciliation, not only between the
two sections, not only between the men of the North and the men of
the South, but, more necessary still, between slave and master, with-
out which the true tranquillity we all seek cannot be permanently as-
sured. Believe it, only through such reconciliation, under sanction of
freedom, can you remove all occasion of conflict hereafter; only in
this1 way can you cut off the head of this great Hydra, and at the same
time extirpate that principle of evil, which, if allowed to remain, must
shoot forth in perpetual discord, if not in other rebellions; only in this
way can you command that safe victo^, without which this contest is
vain, which will have among its conquests indemnity for the past and
security for the future — the noblest indemnity and the strongest se-
curity ever won, because founded in the redemption of the race.

Full well I know the doubts, cavils, and misrepresentations to which
this argument for the integrity of the nation is exposed; but I turn
with confidence to the people. The heart of the people is right, and
all great thoughts come from the heart. All hating slavery and true
to freedom will join in effort, paying with person, time, talent, purse.
They are our minute-men, always ready — and yet more ready just in
proportion as the war is truly inspired. They, at least, are sure. It
remains that others not sharing this animosity, merchants who study
their ledgers, bankers who study their discounts, and politicians who
study success, should see that only by prompt and united effort against
slavery can the war be brought to a speedy and triumphant close,

CHARLES SUMNER. 561

without which, merchant, banker, and politicians all suffer alike.
Ledger, discount, and political aspiration will have small value, if the
war continues its lava flood, shrivelling and stifling everything but it-
self. Therefore, under the spur of self-interest, if not under the ne-
cessities of self-defence, we must act together. Humanity, too, joins
in this appeal. Blood enough has been shed, victims enough have
bled at the altar, even if you are willing to lavish upon slavery the
tribute now paying of more than a million dollars a day.

Events, too, under Providence, are our masters. For the rebels
there can be no success. For them every road leads to disaster. For
them defeat is bad, but victory worse; for then will the North be in-
spired to sublimer energy. The proposal of emancipation which
shook ancient Athens followed close upon the disaster at Chaeronea;
and the statesman who moved it vindicated himself by saying that it
proceeded not from him, but from Chaeronea. The triumph of Han-
nibal at Cannae drove the Roman republic to the enlistment and en-
franchisement of eight thousand slaves. Such is history, which we
are now repeating. The recent act of Congress, giving freedom to
slaves employed against us, familiarly known as the confiscation act,
passed the Senate on the morning after the disaster at Manassas. In
the providence of God there are no accidents; and this seeming re-
verse helped to the greatest victory which can be won.

Do not forget, I pray you, that classical story of the mighty hunter
whose life in the book of fate was made to depend upon the existence
of a brand burning at his birth. The brand, so full of destiny, was
snatched from the flames and carefully preserved by his prudent
mother. Meanwhile the hunter became powerful and invulnerable to
mortal weapon. But at length the mother, indignant at his cruelty to
her own family, flung the brand upon the flames and the hunter died.
The life of Meleager, so powerful and invulnerable to mortal weapon,
is now revived in this rebellion, and slavery is the fatal brand. Let
the national government, whose maternal care is still continued to
slavery, simply throw the thing upon the flames madly kindled by it-
self, and the rebellion will die at once.

Amidst all surrounding perils there is one only which I dread. It is
the peril from some new surrender to slavery, some fresh recognition
of its power, some present dalliance with its intolerable pretensions.
Worse than any defeat, or even the flight of an army, would be this
abandonment of principle. From all such peril, good Lord, deliver
us ! And there is one way of safety, clear as sunlight, pleasant as the
paths of peace. Over its broad and open gate is written justice. In
that little word is victory. Do justice and you will be twice victors;
for so will you subdue the rebel master, while you elevate the slave.
Do justice frankly, generously, nobly, and you will find strength in-
stead of weakness, while all seeming responsibility disappears in obe-
dience to God's eternal law. Do justice, though the heavens fall.

562

AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

But they will not fail. Every act of justice becomes a newj>illar of
the Universe, or it may be a new link of that

14 Golden everlasting- chain
Whose strong embrace holds heaven and earth and main."

THE WAR FOR THE UNION.

WENDELL PHILLIPS.

j
Boston, December, 1861.

Ladies and Gentlemen: — It would be impossible for me fitly to thank
you for this welcome; you will allow me, therefore, not to attempt it,
but to avail myself of your patience to speak to you, as I have been
invited to do, upon the war.

I know, ladies and gentlemen, that actions — deeds, not words — are
the fitting duty of the hour. Yet, still, cannon think in this day of
ours, and it is only by putting thought behind arms that we render
them worthy, in any degree, of the civilization of the nineteenth cent-
ury. Besides, the government has two-thirds of a million of soldiers,
and it has ships sufficient for its purpose. The Only question seems
to be, what the government is to do with these forces — in what path,
and how far it shall tread. You and I come here to-night, not to
criticise, not to find fault with the Cabinet. We come here to recog-
nize the fact, that in moments like these the statesmanship of the
Cabinet is but a pine shingle upon the rapids of Niagara, borne which
way the great popular heart and the national purpose direct. It is in
vain now, with these scenes about us, in this crisis, to endeavor to
create public opinion; too late now to educate twenty millions of
people. Our object now is to concentrate and to manifest, to make
evident and to make intense, the matured purpose of the nation. We
are to show the world, if it be indeed so, that democratic institutions
are strong enough for such an hour as this. Very terrible as is the
conspiracy, momentous as is the peril, democracy welcomes the strug-
gle, confident that she stands like no delicately-poised throne in.
the Old World, but, like the pyramid, on its broadest base, able to be
patient with national evils— generously patient with the long forbear-
ance of three generations — and strong enough when, after that they
reveal themselves in their own inevitable and hideous proportions, to
pronounce and execute the unanimous verdict — death !

Now, gentlemen, it is in such a spirit, with such a purpose, that I
came before you to-night to sustain this war. Whence came this war?
You and I need not curiously investigate. While Mr. Everett on one
side, and Mr. Sumner on the other, agree, you and I may take for
granted the opinion of two such opposite statesmen — the result of the

WENDELL PHILLIPS. 563

common sense of this side of the water and the other — that slavery is
the root of this war. I know some men have loved to trace it to dis-
appointed ambition, to the success of the republican party, convincing
three hundred thousand nobles at the South, who have hitherto fur-
nished us the most of the presidents, generals, judges, and ambassa-
dors we needed, that they would have leave to stay at home, and that
twenty millions of northeners would take their share in public affairs.
I do not think that cause equal to the result. Other men before Jef-
ferson Davis and Governor Wise have been disappointed of the presi-
dency. Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and Stephen A. Douglas were
more than once disappointed, and yet who believes that either of these
great men could have armed the North to avenge his wrongs ? Why,
then, should these pigmies of the South be able to do what the giants
I have named could never achieve ? Simply because there is a radical
difference between the two sections, and that difference is slavery. A
party victory may have been the occasion of this outbreak. So a tea-
chest was the occasion of the revolution, and it went to the boitom of
Boston harbor on the night of the 16th of December, 1773; but that
tea-chest was not the cause of the revolution, neither is Jefferson
Davis the cause of the rebellion. If you will look upon the map, and
notice that every slave state has joined or tried to join the rebellion,
and no free state has done so, I think you will not doubt substantially
the origin of this convulsion.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, you know me — those of you who know
me at. all — simply as an abolitionist. I am proud and glad that you
should have known me as such. In the twenty -five years that are gone —
I say it with no wish to offend any man before me — but in the quarter
of a century that has passed, I could find no place where an American
could stand with decent self-respect, except in constant, uncontrolla-
ble, and loud protest against the sin of his native land. But, ladies
and gentlemen, do not imagine that I come here to-night to speak
simply and exclusively as an abolitionist. My interest in this war,
simply and exclusively as an abolitionist, is about as much gone as
yours in a novel where the hero has won the lady, and the marriage
has been comfortably celebrated in the last chapter. I know the dan-
ger of a political prophecy — a kaleidoscope of which not even a
Yankee can guess the next combination — but for all that, I venture to
offer my opinion, that on this continent the system of domestic slavery
has received its death-blow. Let me tell you why I think so. Leav-
ing out of view the war with England, which I do not expect, there
are but three paths out of this war. One is, the North conquers; the
other is, the South conquers; the third is, a compromise. Now, if the
North conquers, or there be a compromise, one or the other of two
things must come — either the old Constitution or a new one. I believe
that, so far as the slavery clauses of the Constitution of '89 are con-
cerned, it is dead. It seems to me impossible that the thrifty and pain^;-

taking North, after keeping six hundred thousand men idle for two or
three years, at a cost of two million dollars a day; after that flag low-
ered at Sumter; after Baker, and Lyon, and Ellsworth, and Winthrop,
and Putnam, and Wesselhoeft have given their lives to quell the rebel-
lion; after our Massachusetts boys, hurrying through ploughed field
and workshop to save the capital, have been foully murdered on the
pavements of Baltimore — I cannot believe in a North so lost, so
craven as to put back slavery where it stood on the 4th of March
last. But if there be reconstruction without those slave clauses, then
in a little while, longer or shorter, slavery dies — indeed, on other
basis but the basis' of '89, she has nothing else to do but to die. On the
contrary, if the South — no, I cannot say conquers — my lips will not
form the word — but if she balks us of victory; the only way she can do
it is to write Emancipation on her banner, and thus bribe the friends of
liberty in Europe to allow its aristocrats and traders to divide the
majestic Republic whose growth and trade they fear and envy. Either
way, the slave goes free. Unless England flings her fleets along the
coast, the South can never spring into separate existence, except from
the basis of negro freedom; and I for one cannot yet believe that the
North will consent again to share his chains. Exclusively as an
abolitionist, therefore, I have little more interest in this war than the
frontiersman's wife had, in his struggle with the bear, when she didn't
care which whipped. But before I leave the abolitionists let me say
one word. Some men say we are the cause of this war. Gentlemen,
you do us too much honor ! If it be so, we have reason to be proud
of it; for in my heart, as an American, I believe this year the most
glorious of the Republic since '76. The North, craven and contented
until now, like Mammon, saw nothing even in heaven but the golden
pavement; to-day she throws off her chains. We have a North, as
Daniel Webster said. This is no epoch for nations to blush at.
England might blush in 1620, when Englishmen trembled at a fool's
frown, and were silent when James forbade them to think; but not in
1649, when an outraged people cut off his son's head. Massachusetts
might have blushed a year or two ago, when an insolent Virgin-
ian, standing on Bunker Hill, insulted the Commonwealth, and then
dragged her citizens to Washington to tell what they knew about John
Brown; but she has no reason to blush to-day, when she holds that
same impudent Senator an acknowledged felon in her prison-fort. In
my view, the bloodiest war ever waged is infinitely better than the
happiest slavery which ever fattened man into obedience. And yet I
love peace. But it is real peace; not peace such as we have had, not
peace that meant lynch-law in the Carolinas and mob-law in Xcw
York; not peace that meant chains around Boston court-house, a gag
on the lips of statesmen, and the slave sobbing himself to sleep in
curses. No more such peace for me; no peace that is not born of
justice, and does not recognize the rights of every race and every man.

WENDELL PLILLLLPS. 5^5

Some men say they would view this war as white men. I con-
descend to no such narrowness. I view it as an American citizen,
proud to be the citizen of an empire that knows neither black
nor white, neither Saxon nor Indian, but holds an equal sceptre
over all. If I am to love my country, is must be lovable;
if I am to honor it, it must be worthy of respect. What is
the function God gives us — what is the breadth of responsibility
he lays upon us ? An empire, the home of every race, every creed,
every tongue, to whose citizens is committed, if not the only, then the
grandest system of pure self-government. Toqueville tells us that all
nations and all ages tend with inevitable certainty to this result ; but
he points out, as history does, this land as the normal school of the
nations, set by God to try the experiment of popular education and
popular government, to remove the obstacles, point out the dangers,
find the. best way, encourage the timid and hasten the world's pro-
gress. Let us see to it, that with such a crisis and such a past,
neither the ignorance nor the heedlessness, nor the cowardice of
Americans forfeit this high honor, won for us by the toils of two gen-
erations, given to us by the blessings of Providence. It is as a citizen
of the leading state of this Western continent, vast in territory, and
yet its territory nothing when compared with the grandeur of its past
and the majesty of its future, — it is as such a citizen that I wrish, for
one, to find out my duty, express as an individual my opinion, and
aid thereby the Cabinet in doing its duty under such responsibility.
It does not lie in one man to ruin us, nor in one man to save us, nor
in a dozen. It lies in the twenty millions, in the thirty millions, of
thirty-four states.

Now how do we stand? In a war, — not only that, but a terrific
war, — not a war sprung from the caprice of a woman, the spite of a
priest, the flickering ambition of a prince, as wars usually have ; but
a war inevitable ; in one sense, nobody's fault ; the inevitable result
of past training, the conflict of ideas, millions of people grappling
each other's throats, every soldier in each camp certain that he is fight-
ing for an idea which holds the salvation of the world, — every drop of
his biood in earnest. Such a war finds no parallel nearer than that of
the Catholic and the Huguenot of France, or that of Aristocrat and
Republicans in 1790, or of Cromwell and the Irish, when victory
meant extermination. Such is our war. I look upon it as the com-
mencement of the great struggle between the disguised aristocracy
and the democracy of America. You are to say to-day whether it shall
last ten years or seventy, as it usually has done. It resembles closely
that struggle between aristocrat and democrat which began in France
in 1789, and continues still. While it lasts, it will have the same
effect on the nation as that war between blind loyalty, represented by
the Stuart family, and the free spirit of the English Constitution,
which lasted from 1660 to 1760, and kept England a second-rate power
almost all that century.

„5<?<5 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

Such is the, era on which you. are entering. I will nqt speak of.w&r
in itself,— I have no time '; I willnot say with Napoleon, that it is the
practice of barbarians ; I will hot say .that" it is good. It is better
tS3H the past. A thing may be better, and yet not good. This war
is better than the past, but there is not an element of good in itt I
mean, there is nothing in it which we might not have gotten better,
fulier, and more perfectly in other ways. And )-et it is better than
the craven past, infinitely better than a peace which had pride for
its father and subserviency for its mother. Neither will I speak of
the cost of war, although you know we .shall never get out of this one
without "a debt of at least two or three thousand millions of dollars.
For if the prevalent theory proves .correct, and the country, comes
together again1 on anything like "the old basis, we pay Jeff Davis's
debts as well as our own. Neither will I remind you that debt is the
fatal disease of republics, the" first thing and the mightiest to under-
mine government and corrupt the people. ' The great debt of England
has kept her back in civil progress at least a hundred years. Neither
will I remind you that, when we "go out of this war, we go out with
an immense disbanded army, an intense military spirit embodied in
two thirds of a million of soldiers, the fruitful, the inevitable source
of fresh debts and hew wars. I pass by all that ; yet lying "within
those causes are things enough to make the" most sanguine friends of
free institutions tremble for our future. I pass those by. But let me
remind you of another tendency of the time. You, know, lor instance,
that the wirit of habeas corpus, by .which government is bound to
render a reason to the judiciary before it lays its hands upon a citizen,
has been called the high-Water mark of English liberty. Jefferson in
his calm moments, dreaded the ppwerto suspend it in any. emergency
whatever, and wished to have it in " eternal and unremitting 'force.',!.
The present Napoleon, in his treatise oh the English Constitution,
calls it the gem of English institutions. Lieber says that the habeas
corpus, free meetings like this, and a free press, are the three elements
which distinguish liberty from despotism. All that Saxon blood has
gained in the battles and toils Of two hundred 3-ears are these three
things. But to-day, Mr. Chairman, every one of them— habeas cor-
pus, the right of free meeting, and a free press— is annihilated in every
square mile of the Republic. We live to-day, every one" of us, under
martial law. The Secretary of State puts into his bastile, with a war-
rant as irresponsible as that of Louis, any man whom he pleases. And
you know that neither press nor lips may venture to arraign the gov-
ernment without being silenced. At this moment one thousand men,
at least, are s< bastiled" by an authority, as despotic as that of Louis,
— :three times as many as Eldon and George III. seized when they
trembled for his throne. Mark me, I am not complaining.; I do not
say it is not necessary. It is necessary to do anything to save the ship
It is necessary to throw everything overboard in order that we may

WENDELL PHILLIPS. 567

float. It is a mere question whether you prefer the despotism of
Washington or that of Richmond. I prefer that of Washington. But,
nevertheless, I point out to you this tendency, because it is momen-
tous in its significance. We are tending with rapid strides, you say
inevitably, — I do not deny it ; necessarily, — I do not question it ; we
are tending toward that strong government which frightened Jeffer-
son ; towards that unlimited debt, that endless army. We have
already those alien and sedition laws which, in 179S, wrecked
the Federal party, and summoned the Democratic into existence. For
the first time on this continent we have passports, which even Louis
Napoleon pronounces useless and odious. For the first time in our
history government spies frequent our great cities. And this model of
a strong government, if you reconstruct on the old basis, is to be
handed into the keeping of whom ? If you compromise it by recon-
struction, to whom are you to give these delicate and grave powers?
To compromisers. Reconstruct this government, and for twenty
years' you can never elect a Republican. Presidents must be wholly
without character or principle, that two angry parties, each hopeless
of success, contemptuously tolerate them as neutrals. Now I am not
exaggerating the moment. I can parallel it entirely. It is the same
position that England held in the times of Eldon and Fox, when Hoi-
croft and Montgomery, the poet Home Tooke and Frost and Hardy,
went into dungeons, under laws which Pitt executed and Burke
praised, — times when Fox said he despaired of English liberty but for
the power of insurrection,— -times which Sidney Smith said he remem-
bered, when no man was entitled to an opinion who had not .£3,000
a year. Why ! there is no right — -do I exaggerate when I say there is
no single right ? — which government is scrupulous and finds itself
able to protect, except the pretended right of a man to his slaves !
Every other right has fallen now before the necessities of the hour.

Understand me, I do not complain of this state of things; but it is
momentous. I only ask you^ that out of this peril you be sure to get
something worthy of the crisis through which you have passed. No
government of free make could stand three such trials as this. I only
paint you the picture, in order, lilfe Hotspur, to say: "Out of this
nettle, danger, be you right eminently sure that you pluck the flower,
safety." Standing in such a crisis, certainly it commands us that we
should endeavor to find the root of the difficulty, and that now, once
fbr all, we should put it beyond the possibility of troubling our peace
again. We cannot afford' as Republicans, to run that risk. The
vessel of state, — her timbers are strained beyond almost the possi-
bility of surviving. The tempest is one which it demands the war-
iest pilot to outlive. We cannot afford, thus warned, to omit any-
thing which can save this ship of state from a second danger of the
kind.

What shall we do ? The answer to that question comes partly from
A. P.-19.

563 ^...., AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

what we think has been the cause of this convulsion. Some men
think — some of your editors think — many of ours, too — that this war is
nothing but the disappointment of one or two thousand angered politic-
ians, who have persuaded eight millions of Southerners, against their
convictions, to take up arms and rush to the battlefield;— no great
compliment to Southern sense ! They think that, if the Federal army
could only appear in the midst of this demented mass, the eight mil-
lions will find out for the first time in their lives that they have got
souls of their own, tell us so, and then we shall all be piloted back,
float back, drift back into the good old times of Franklin Pierce and
James Buchanan. There is a measure of truth in that. I believe that
if, a year ago, when the thing first showed itself, Jefferson Davis and
Toombs and Keitt and Wise, and the rest, had been hung for traitors at
Washington, and a couple of frigates anchored at Charleston, another
couple in Savannah, and a half dozen in New Orleans, with orders to shell
those cities on the first note of resistance, there never would have
been this outbreak, or it would have been postponed at least a dozen
years; and if that interval had been used to get rid of slavery, we
never should have heard of the convulsion. But you know we had
nothing of the kind, and the consequence is, what ? Why, the amazed
North has been summoned by every defeat and every success, from
its workshops and its factories, to gaze with wide-opened eyes at the
lurid heavens, until at last, divided, bewildered, confounded, as this
twenty millions were, we have all of us fused into one idea, that the
Union meant justice, shall mean justice — owns down to the Gulf, and
we will have it. What has taken place meanwhile at the South ? Why,
the same thing. The divided, bewildered South has been summoned
also out of her divisions by every success and every defeat (and she
has had more of the first than we have), and the consequence is,
that she too is fused into a swelling sea of state pride, hate of the
North,—

" Unconquerable will,

And sturdy of revenge, immortal hate,

And courage never to submit nor yield."
♦
She is in earnest, every man, and she is unanimous as the colonies were
in the Revolution. In fact the South recognizes more intelligibly than we
do the necessities of her position. I do not consider this a secession. It is
no secession. I agree with Bishop-General Polk — it is a conspiracy, not
a secession. There is no wish, no intention to go peaceably and per-
manently off. It is a conspiracy to make the government do the will
and accept the policy of the slaveholders. Its root is at the South, but
it has many a branch at Wall street and in State street. It is a conspiracy,
and on the one side is every man who still thinks that he that steals
his brother is a gentleman, and he that makes his living is not. It is
the aristocratic element which survived the Constitution, which our
fathers thought could be safely left under it, and the South to-day is

WENDELL PHILLIPS. 569

forced into this war by the natural growth of the antagonistic principle.
You may pledge whatever submission and patience of Southern insti-
tutions you please, it is not enough. South Carolina said to Massa-
chusetts in 1S35, when Edward Everett was governor, "Abolish free
speech, — it is a nuisance." She is right, — from her standpoint it
is. That is, it is not possible to preserve the quiet of South Carolina
consistently with free speech; but you know the story Sir Walter Scott
told of the Scotch laird, who said to his old butler, " Jock, you and I
can't live under this roof." "And where does your honor think of
going?" So free speech says of South Carolina to-day. Now I say
you may pledge, compromise, guarantee what you please. The South
well knows that it is not your purpose, — it is your character she
dreads. It is the nature of Northern institutions, the perilous freedom
of discussion, the flavor of our ideas, the sight of our growth, the very
neighborhood of such states, that constitutes the danger. It is like
the two vases launched on the stormy sea. The iron said to the crock-
ery, " I wont Come near you." " Thank you," said the weaker vessel;
" there is just as much danger in my coming near you." This the South
feels; hence her determination; hence, indeed, the imperious necessity
that she should rule and shape our government, or of sailing out of it.
I do not mean that she plans to take possession of the North, and
choose our Northern mayors; though she has done that in Boston for
the last dozen years, and here till this fall. But she conspires and
aims to control just so much of our policy, trade, offices, presses, pul-
pits, cities, as is sufficient to insure the undisturbed existence of slavery.
She conspires with the full intent so to mould this government as to
keep it what it has been for thirty years, according to John Quincy
Adams, — a plot for the extension and perpetuation of slavery. As the
world advances, fresh guarantees are demanded. The nineteenth cen-
tury requires sterner gags than the eighteenth. Often as the peace of
Virginia is in danger, you must be willing that a Virginia Mason shall
drag your citizens to Washington, and imprison them at his pleasure.
So long as Carolina needs it, you must submit that your ships be
searched for dangerous passengers, and every Northern man lynched.
No more Kansas rebellions. It is a conflict between the two powers,
aristocracy and democracy, which shall hold this belt of the continent.
You may live here, New York men, but it must be in submission to
such rules as the quiet of Carolina requires. That is the meaning
of the oft-repeated threat to call the roll of one's slaves on Bunker i
Hill, and dictate peace in Faneuil Hall. Now, in that fight, I go lor
the North, — for the Union.

In order to make out this theory of " irrepressible conflict" it is not
necessary to suppose that every Southerner hates every Northerner
(as the Atlantic Monthly urges). But this much is true: some three
hundred thousand slaveholders at the South, holding two thousand
millions of so-called property in their hands, controlling the blacks,

57° AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

and befooling the seven millions of poor whites into being their tools,
— into believing that their interest is opposed' to oms,— this order of
nobles, this privileged class, has been able for forty years to keep the
government in dread, dictate terms by threatening disunion, bring us
to its verge at least twice, and now almost break the Union in pieces.
A power thus consolidated, which has existed seventy years, setting
up and pulling down parties, controlling the policy of the government,
and changing our religion, and is emboldened by uniform success, will
not burst like a bubble in an hour. For all practical purposes, it is
safe to speak of it as the South; no other South exists, or will exist,
till our policy develops it into being. This is what I mean. An aris-
tocracy rooted in wealth, with its net-work spread over all social life,
its poison penetrating every fibre of society, is the hardest possible evil
to destroy. Its one influenr e, fashion, is often able to mock at relig-
ion, trade, literature, and politics combined. One half the reason
why Washington has been and is in peril, — why every move is revealed
and checkmated, — is that your President rs unfashionable, and Mrs.
Jefferson Davis is not. Unseen chains are sometimes stronger than
those of iron, and heavier than those of gold.

It is not in the plots, it is in the inevitable character of the northern
states, that the South sees her danger. And the struggle is between
these two ideas. Our fathers, as I said, thought they could safely be
left, one to outgrow the other. They look gunpowder and lighted a
match, forced them into a stalwart cannon, screwed down the muzzle,
and thought they could secure peace. But it has resulted differently;
their cannon has exploded, and we stand among fragments.

Now some Republicans and some Democrats — not Butler and Bry-
ant and Cochrane and Cameron, not Boutwell and Bancroft and Dick-
inson, and others — but the old set — the old set say to the Republicans,
" Lay the pieces carefully together in their places ; put the gunpow-
der and the match in again, say the Constitution backward instead of
your prayers, and there will never be another rebellion !" I doubt it.
It seems to me that like causes will produce like effects. If the reason
of the war is because we are two nations, then the cure must be to
make us one nation, to remove that cause which divides us, to make
our institutions homogeneous. If it were possible to subjugate' the
South, and leave slavery just as it is, where is the security that we
should not have another war in ten years ? Indeed, such a course in-
vites another war, whenever demagogues please. I believe the policy
of reconstruction is impossible. If it were possible, it would be the
greatest mistake that Northern men could commit. I will not stop to
remind you that, standing as we do to-day, with the full Constitu-
tional right to abolish slavery, — a right Southern treason has just
given us, — a right, the use of which is enjoined by the sternest neces-
sity,— if after that, the North goes back to the Constitution of '89, she
assumes, a second time, afresh, unnecessarily, a criminal responsi-

WENDELL FIIILLirS. 5.71'

bility for slavery. Hereafter no old excuse; will avail us. , A second
time, with open eyes, against our highest interest, we clasp bloody
hands with tyrants to uphold an acknowledged sin, whose fell evil we
have fully proved.

But that aside, peace with an unchanged Constitution would leave
us to stand like Mexico. States married, not matched; chained to-
gether, not melted into one; foreign nations aware of our. hostility,
and interfering to embroil, rob, and control us. We should be what
Greece was under the intrigues of Philip, and Germany when Louis
XIV. was in fact her dictator. We may see -our likeness in Austria,
every fretful. province- an addition of weakness; in Italy, twenty years
ago, a leash of angry hounds. A Union with unwilling and subju-
gated states, smarting Avith defeat, and yet holding the powerful and
dangerous element of slavery in it, and an army disbanded into labor-
ers> food for constant disturbance, would be a standing invitation to
France, and England to insult and dictate, to thwart our policy, de-
mand changes in our laws, and trample on us continually.

-Reconstruction is but another name for the submission of the North.
It is her subjugation under a. mask. It is nothing but the confession
of defeat. Every merchant, in such a case,, puts everything he has at
the bidding of Wigfall and Toombs in every cross-road bar-room at
the South. For, you see, never till now did. anybody but a few Aboli-
tionists .believe that this nation could be marshalled, one section
against the other in arms. But the secret is out. The- weak point is
discovered. Why does the London press lecture us like a schoolmaster
his seven-year old boy? Why does England use a tone such as she
has. not used for half, a century to any power? -Because she knows
us; as she knows Mexico., as all Europe knows Austria, — that we have
the cancer concealed in our very vitals. Slavery, left where it is, after
having created such a war as this, would leave our commerce and all
our foreign relations at the mercy of any Keitt, Wigfall, Wise or
Toombs. Any demagogue has only to stir up a pro-slavery crusade,
point back, to the safe experiments of 1861; and lash the passions, of
the aristocrat, to cover the sea with privateers, put in jeopardy the
trade of twenty states, plunge the country into millions oi debt, send
our stock down fifty, per cent, and cost thousands of lives. Recon-
struction is but making chronic what now is transient. . What that
is, this week shows.. What that is, we learn from, the tone England
dares to assume towards this divided republic. I do not believe re-
construction possible. I do not believe the Cabinet intend it. True,
I should care little if they did, since I believe the administration can
no more resist the progress of events, than a spear of grass can retard
the step of an avalanche. But if they do, allow me to say, for ouc,
that every dollar spent in this war is worse than wasted, that every
life lost is a public murder, and that every statesman, who leads states
back to reconstruction will be damned to an infamy compared wi:Ii

5 7 2 A M ERICA N PA TRIO TISM.

which Arnold was a saint and James Buchanan a public benefactor.
I said reconstruction is not possible. I do not believe it is, for this
reason; the moment these states begin to appear victorious, the mo-
ment our armies do anything that evinces final succes, the wily states-
manship and unconquerable hate of the South will write " Emancipa-
tion" on her banner, and welcome the protectorate of a European
power. And if you read the European papers of to-day, you need not
doubt that she will have it. Intelligent men agree that the North stands
better with Palmerston for minister, than she would with any minister
likely to succceed him. And who is Palmerston? While he was Foreign
Secretary, from 1848 to 185 1, the British press ridiculed every effort of the
French Republicans, — sneered at Cavaignac and Ledru Rollin, Lamar-
tine and Hugo,— while they cheered Napoleon on to his usurpation ; and
Lord Normanby, then minister at Paris, early in December, while Napo-
leon's hand was still wet with the besLblood of France, congratulated
the despot on his victory over the Reds, applying to the friends of lib-
erty the worst epithet that an Englishman knows. This last outi'age
lost Palmerston his place; but he rules to-day, though rebuked, not
changed.

The value of the English news this week is the indication of the -. na-
tion's mind. No one doubts now, that should the South emancipate,
England would make haste to recognize and help her. In ordinary
times, the government and aristocracy of England dread American
example. They may well admire and envy the strength of our gov-
ernment, when, instead of England's impressment and pinched levies,
patriotism marshals six hundred thousand volunteers in six months.
The English merchant is jealous of our growth; only the liberal mid-
dle classes sympathize with us. When the two other classes are di-
vided, this middle class rules. But now Herod and Pilate are agreed.
The aristocrat, who usually despises a trader, whether of Manchester
or Liverpool, as the South does a negro, now is secessionist from sym-
pathy, as the trader is from interest. Such a union no middle class
can checkmate. The only danger of war with England is, that, as
soon as England declared war with us, she would recognize the South-
ern Confederacy immediately, just as she stands, slavery and all, as a
military measure. As such, in the heat of passion, in the smoke of
war, the English people, all of them, would allow such a recognition
even of a slaveholding empire. War with England insures disunion.
When England declares war, she gives slavery a fresh lease of fifty
years. Even if we had no war with England, let another eight or ten
months be as little successful as the last, and Europe will acknowledge
the Southern Confederacy, slavery and all, as a matter of course.
Further, any approach toward victory on our part, without freeing the
slave, gives him free to Davis. So far, the South is sure to succeed,
either by victory or defeat, unless we anticipate her. Indeed, the only
way, the only sure way, to break this Union, is to try to save it by

_ WENDELL PHILLIPS. 573

protecting slavery. " Every moment lost," as Napoleon said, " is an
opportunity for misfortune." Unless we emancipate the slave, we shall
never conquer the South without her trying emancipation. Every
Southerner, from Toombs up to Fremont, has acknowledged it. Do
you suppose that Davis and Beauregard, and the rest, mean to be ex-
iles, wandering contemned in every great city in Europe, in order that
they may maintain slavery and the constitution of 'Sg ? They, like
ourselves, will throw everything overboard before they Avill submit to
defeat, — defeat from Yankees. I do not believe, therefore, that recon-
ciliation is possible, nor do I believe the Cabinet have any such hopes.
Indeed, I do not know where you will find the evidence of any pur-
pose in the administration at Washington. If we look to the West, if
we look to the Potomac, what is the policy? If, on the Potomac, with
the aid of twenty governors, you assemble an army and do
nothing but return fugitive slaves, that proves you competent and effi-
cient. If, on the banks of the Mississippi, unaided, the magic of your
presence summons an army into existence, and you drive your enemy
before you a hundred miles farther than your second in command
thought it possible for you to advance, that proves you incompetent,
and entitles your second in command to succeed you.

Looking in another diretion, you see the government announcing
a policy in South Carolina. What is it ? Well, Mr. Secretary Cam-
eron says to the general in command there: " Vou are to welcome
into your camp all comers; you are to organize them into squads and
companies; use them any way you please, — but there is to be no
general arming." That is a very significant exception. The hint is
broad enough for the dullest brain. In one of Charles Reade's novels,
the heroine flies away to hide from the hero, announcing that she never
shall see him again. Her letter says: if. I will never see you again,
David. You of course, won't come to see me at my old nurse's little cot-
tage, between eleven in the morning and four in the afternoon, because
I shan't see you. " So Mr. Cameron says there is to be no general arm-
ing, but I suppose there is to be a very particular arming But he goes
on to add: "This is no greater interference with the institutions
of South Carolina than is necessary, — than the war will cure."
Does he mean he will give the slaves back after the war is over ? I
don't know. All I know is, that the Port Royal expedition proved
one thing — it laid forever that ghost of an argument, that the blacks
loved their masters — it settled forever the question whether the blacks
were with us or with the South. My opinion is that the blacks are the
key of our position. He that gets them wins, and he that loses them
goes to the wall. Port Royal settled one thing — the blacks are with us,
and not with the South. At present they are the only Unionists. I know
nothing more touching in history, nothing that art v/ill immortalize
and poetry dwell upon more fondly — I know no tribute to the Stars
and Stripes more impressive than that incident of the blacks coming to

574 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

the water-side with, their little bundles, in that simple -faith which had
endured through the long night of so many bitter years. They pre-
ferred to be shot rather than driven from the sight of that banner they
had so long prayed to see. And if that was the result when nothing
but General Sherman's equivocal proclamation was landed on the Cai-
olinas, what should we have seen if there had been eighteen thousand
veterans with Fremont, the statesman-soldier of this war, at their head,
and over them the Stars and Stripes* gorgeous with the motto, " Free-
dom for all ! freedom forever !" If that had gone before them, in my
opinion they would have marched across the Carolinas and joined
Brownlow in East Tennessee. The bulwark on each side of them
would been one hundred thousand , grateful blacks; they would have
cut this rebellion in halves, and while our fleets fired salutes across
New Orleans, Beauregard would have been ground to powder between
the upper millstone of McClellan and the lower of a quarter-million of
blacks rising to greet the Stars and Stripes. McClellan may drill a
better army — more perfect soldiers. He will never marshal a stronger
force than those grateful thousands. That is the way to save insur-
rection. He is an enemy to civil liberty, the worst enemy to his own
land, who asks for such delay or perversion of government policy as
is sure to result in insurrection. Our duty is to save these four millions
of blacks from their own passions, from their -.own confusion, and
eight millions of whites from the consequences of it. And in order
to do it, we nineteen millions of educated, Christian Americans are not
to wait for the will or the wisdom, of a single man— we are not to wait
for Fremont or McClellan; the government is our dictator. It might
do for Rome, a herd of beggars and soldiers, kept quiet only by the
weight of despotism— it might do for Rome, in moments of danger,
to hurl all responsibility into the hands of a dictator. But for us
educated, thoughtful men, with" institutions modelled and matured
by the experience of two hundred years— it is not for us to evade the
responsibility by deferring to a single man. I demand of the govern-
ment a policy. I demand of the government to show the doubting in-
fidels of Europe that democracy is not only strong enough for the
trial, but that she breeds men with brains large enough to comprehend
the hour, and wills hot enough to fuse the purpose of nineteen
millions of people into one decisive blow for safety and for union. You
will ask me how it is to be done. I would have it done by Congress.
We have the power.

When Congess declares war, says John Quincy Adams, Congress
has all the power incident to carrying on war. It is not an unconsti-
tutional power — it is a power conferred by the Constitution; but the
moment it comes into play it rises beyond the limit of constitutional
checks. I know it is a grave power, this trusting the government
With despotism. But what is the use of government, except just to
help us in critical times? All the checks and ingenuity of our institu-

WE X DELL PLLILLLPS. 575

lions are arranged to secure for us men wise and able enough
to be trusted with grave powers — bold enough to use them when the
times require. Lancets and knives are dangerous instruments. The
use of the surgeon is, that when lancets are needed, somebody may-
know how to use them, and save life. One great merit of democratic
institutions is, that, resting as they must on educated masses, the gov-
ernment may safely be trusted in a great emergency, with despotic
power, without fear of harm or of wrecking the state. No other form of
government can venture such confidence without risk of national ruin.
Doubtless the war power is a very grave power; so are some ordinary
peace powers. I will not cite extreme cases — Louisiana and Texas.
We obtained the first by treaty, the second by joint resolutions; each
case an exercise of power as grave and despotic as the abolition of
slavery would be, and, unlike that, plainly unconstitutional, — one
which nothing but stem necessity and subsequent acquiescence by the
nation could make valid. Let me remind you that seventy years prac-
tice has incorporated it as a principle in our constitutional law, that
what the necessity of the hour demands, and the continued assent of
the people ratifies, is law. Slavery has established that rule. We
might surely use it in the cause of justice. But I will cite an unques-
tionable precedent. It was a grave power, in 1807, in time of peace,
when Congress abolished commerce; when, by the embargo of Jeffer-
son, no ship could quit New York or Boston, and Congress set ho
limit to the prohibition. It annihilated commerce. New England
asked, " Is it constitutional 1" The Supreme Court said Yes." New
England sat down and starved. Her wharfs were worthless, her ships
rotted, her merchants beggared. She asked no compensation. The
powers of Congress carried bankruptcy from New Haven to Portland;
but the Supreme Court said, " It is legal," and New England bowed
her head. We commend the same cup to the Carolinas to-day. We
say to them that, in order to save the government, there resides some-
where despotism. It is in the war powers of Congress. That des-
potism can change the social arrangement of the Southern States,
and has a right to do it. Every man of you who. speaks of emanci-
pation of the negroes allows it would be decisive if it were used.
You allow that, when it is a military necessity, we may use it. What I
claim is, in honor of our iastitutions, that we are not put to wait for the
wisdom or the courage of a general. Our fathers left us with no such
miserable plan of government. They gave us a government with the
power, in such times as these, of doing something that would save the
helm of the state in the hands of its citizens. We could cede the Car-
olinas; I have sometimes wished we could shove them into the Atlan-
tic. We can cede a state. We can do anything for the tirr-e heing;
and no theory of government can deny its power to make the most
unlimited change. The only alternative is this: Do you prefer ihe des-
potism of your own citizens or of foreigners ? That is the ci.ly ques-

5 7 6 AMERICAN PA TRIO TISM.

tion in war. In peace no man may be deprived of his life but "by
the -judgment of his peers, or the law of the land." To touch life, you
must have a-grand jury to present, a petit jury to indict, a judge to
condemn, and a sheriff to execute. This is constitutional, the neces-
sary and invaluable bulwark of liberty, in peace. But in war the gov-
ernment bids Sigel shoot Lee, and the German is at once grand jury,
petit jury, judge and executioner. That, too, is constitutional, neces-
sary, and invaluable, protecting a nation's rights and life.

Now this government, which abolishes my right of habeas corpus,—
which strikes down, because it is necessary, every Saxon bulwark of
liberty,— which proclaims martial law, and holds every dollar and
every man at the will of the Cabinet,— do you turn round and tell me
that this same government has no rightful power to break the cobweb
— it is but a cobweb — which binds a slave to his master,— to stretch its,
hands across the Potomac, and root up the evil which, for seventy
years, has troubled its peace, and now culminates in rebellion ? I main-
tain, therefore, the power of the government itself to inaugurate such
a policy; and I say in order to save the Union, do justice to the black.

I would claim of Congress — in the exact language of Adams, of the
'1 government" — a solemn act abolishing slavery throughout the Union,
securing compensation to the loyal slave-holders. As the Constitution
forbids the States to make and allow nobles, I would now, by equal
authority, fordid them to make slaves or allow slave-holders.

This has been the usual course at such times. Nations convulsed
and broken by too powerful elements or institutions, have used the
first moment of assured power — the first moment that they clearly saw;
and fully appreciated the evil — to cut up the dangerous tree by the
roots. So France expelled the Jesuits, and the Middle Ages the Tem-
plars. So England, in he.r great rebellion, abolished nobility and the
established church; and the French Revolution did the same, and finally
gave to each child an equal share in his deceased father's lands. For
the same purpose, England, in 1745, abolished clanship in Scotland,
the root of the Stuart faction; and wre, irt '76, abolished nobles and all
tenure of estate savoring of privileged classes. Such a measure sup-
plies the South just what she needs, — capital. That sum which the
North gives the loyal slave-holder, not as acknowledging his property
in the slave, but as measure of conciliation, — perhaps an acknowl-
edgment of its share of the guilt, — will call mills, ships, agriculture,
into being. The free regro will redeem to use lands never touched,
whose fertility laughs Illinois to scorn, and finds no rival but Egypt.
And remember, besides, as Montesquieu says, " The yield of land de-
pends less on its fertility than on the freedom of its inhabitants." Such
a measure binds the negro to us by the indissoluble tie of gratitude;
the loyal slave-holder, by strong self-interest, — our bonds are all his
property, — the other whites, by prosperity, they are lifted in the scale
of civilization and activity, educated and. enriched. Our institutions

IV EX DELL PHILLIPS, 577

are then homogeneous. We grapple the Union together with hooks of
steel, — make it as lasting as the granite which underlies the con-
tinent.

People may say this is a strange language for me, — a disuninnist.
Well, I was a disunionist, sincerely, for twenty years: I did hate
the Union, when Union meant lies in the pulpit and mobs in the
street, when Union meant making white men hypocrites and black
men slaves. I did prefer purity to peace, — I acknowledge it. The
child of six generations of Puritans, knowing well the value of Union.
I did prefer disunion to being the accomplice of tyrants. But now I
when I see what the Union must mean in order to last, when I see
that you cannot have Union without meaning justice, and when I see
twenty millions of people, with a current as swift and as inevitable as
Niagara, determined that this Union shall mean justice, why should I
object to it ? I endeavored honestly, and am not ashamed of it, to
take nineteen states out of this Union, and consecrate them to liberty,
and twenty millions of people answer me back. " We like your motto,
only we mean to keep thirty-four states under it." Do you suppose I
am not Yankee enough to buy Union when I can have it a fair price ? I
know the value of Union; and the reason why I claim that Carolina has
no right to secede is this: we are not a partnership, Ave are a marriage,
and we have done a great many things since we were married in 17S9
which render it unjust for a State to exercise the right of revolution
on any ground now alleged. I admit the right. I acknowledge the
great principles of the Declaration of Independence, that a state ex-
ists for the liberty and happiness of the people, that these are the ends
of government, and that, when government ceases to promote those
ends, the people have a right to remodel their institutions. I acknow-
ledge the right of revolution in South Carolina, but at the same time
I acknowledge that right of revolution only when government has
ceased to promote those ends. Now we have been married for seventy
years. We have bought Florida. We rounded the Union to the Gulf.
We bought the Mississippi for commercial purposes. We stole
Texas for slave purposes. Great commercial interests, great interests
of peace, have been subserved by rounding the Union into a perfect
shape; and the money and sacrifices of two generations have been
given for this purpose. To break up that Union, now. is to defraud
us of mutual advantages relating to peace, trade, national security,
which cannot survive disunion. The right of revolution is not matter
of caprice. " Governments long established," says our Declaration of
Independence, " are not to be changed for light and transient causes."
When so many important interests and benefits, in their nature indivi-
sible and which disunion destroys, have been secured by common toils
and cost, the South must vindicate her revolution by showing that our
government has become destructive of its proper ends, else the right of
revolution does not exist. Whv did we steal Texas ? Why have v.c

5 73 AMERICA^ PA TR/aTTSM.

ui }%l c .u \ A €jfiXi. ■zqttoiv./q t Ita enoiriifri iwo* Iq^&Ii&w ?rfj

helped the South to strengthen, herself? Because she said that slavery

within the girdle of the Constitution, would die out through the influ-
ence of natural principles/ She said: " We acknowledge it to be an
evil; but at the same time it will end by the spread of free principles
and the influence of free institutions.'1. ; And. the North said: "Yes;
we will give you- privileges on that account, and We will return your
slaves for you." Every slave, sent. back, from a Northern State is a
fresh oath of the South that she would not secede. Our fathers trusted
■to- the promise that this race should be left under the influence of the
Union, until, in the maturity of time,.. the day .should arrive When they
would be lifted into the sunlight of God's equality. I claim it of Somh
Carolina. By virtue of that pledge she took Boston and put a rope
round her neck in that infamous compromise which consigned to sla-
very Anthony Burns, I demand the fulfilment" on her part even of
that infamous pledge. Until South Carolina allows me all the influence
that nineteen millionsVof Yankee lips, asking infinite questions, have
upon the welfare of those four millions of, bondsmen, I d^ny her right
to secede. Seventy years has the Union postponed the negro. For
seventy years has he been beguiled with the promise, as she erected
one bulwark after another around slavery, that he should have the
influence of our common institutions.. I claim it to-day. Never, with
my consent, while, the North thinks that the Union can or shall mean
justice, shall those four hundred thousand South Carolina slaves go
beyond the influence of Boston ideas. That is my strong reason for
clinging to the Union. . This is also one main reason why, unless upon
most imperative and manifest grounds of need and right, South Caro-
lina has no right of revolution; none till she fulfils her promise in this
respect.

! I know how we stand to-day, with the frowning cannon of the Eng-
lish fleet ready to be thrust out of the port-holes against us. But I
can answer England with a better answer than. William H. Seward
can write, j can answer her with a more statesmanlike paper than
Simon Cameron can indite. I would answer her with the Stars and
Stripes floating over. Charleston and New Orleans, and the itinerant
Cabinet of Richmond packing up archives _and wearing apparel to ride
back to Montgomery. There is one thing and only one, which John
Bull respects,, and that is success. It is not for us to give counsel to
the government on points of diplomatic propriety, but I suppose we
may express our opinions., and my opinion is, that, if I were the Presi-
dent of these thirty-four states, while J was, I should wTant Mason and
Slidell to stay with me. I say, then, first, as a matter of justice to the
slave, we owe it to him; the day of his deliverance has come. The
long promise of seventy years is to be fulfilled. The South
draws back from the pledge. The North is bound, in honor of the
memory of her fathers, to demand its exact fulfilment, and in order to
save this Union, which now mcani justice and" peace, to recognize

WENDELL PHILLIPS. 579

the rights of four millions of its victims. This is the dictate of justice
—justice, which at this hour is craftier than Seward, more statesman-
like than Cameron; justice, which appeals from the cabinets of Europe
to the people; justice, which abases the proud and lifts up the hum-
ble; justice, which disarms England, saves the slaves from insurrec-
tion, and sends home the Confederate army of the Potomac to guard
its own hearths; justice, which gives us four millions of friends, spies,
soldiers in the enemy's country, planted each one at their very hearth-
sides; justice, which inscribes every cannon wuth "Holiness to the
Lord!" and puts a Northern heart behind every musket; justice, which
means victory now and peace forever. To all cry of demagogues ask-
ing for boldness, I respond with the cry of "justice, immediate, abso-
lute justice!" And if I dared to descend to a lower level, I should say
to the merchants of this metropolis, Demand of the government a
speedy settlement of this question. Every hour of delay is big with
risk. Remember, as Governor Boutwell suggests, that our present
financial prosperity comes because we have corn to export in place of
cotton; and that another year, should Europe have a good harvest and
we an ordinary one, while an inflated currency tempts extravagance
and large imports, general bankruptcy stares us in the face. Do you
love the Union? Do you really think that on the other side of the
Potomac are the natural brothers and customers of the manufacturing
ingenuity of the North ? I tell you, certain as fate, God has written
the safety of that relation in the same scroll with justice to the negro.
The hour strikes. You may win him to your side; you may anticipate
the South; you may save twelve millions of customers. Delay it, let
God grant McClellan victory, let God grant the Stars and Stripes over
New Orleans, and it is too late.

Jeff Davis will then summon that same element to his side,
and twelve millions of customers are added to Lancashire and Lyons,
Then commences a war of tariffs, embittered by that other war of
angered nationalities, which are to hand this and the other Con-
federacy down for twenty-five or thirty years, divided, weakened; and
bloody with intestine struggle. And what will be our character? I
do not wholly agree with Edward Everett, in that very able and elo-
quent address which he delivered in Boston, in which, however, he
said one thing pre-eminently true — he, the compromiser — that if, in
1830-31, nullification, under Jackson, had been hung instead of com-
promised, we never should have had Jeff Davis. I agree with him,
and hope we shall make no second mistake of the kind. But I do
not agree with him in the conclusion that these nineteen states, 'left
alone, would be of necessity a second-rate power. No. I believe in
brains; and I know these northern men have more brains in their
right hands than others have in their heads. I know that we mix our
soil with brains, and that, consequently, we are bound, to conquer.
Why, the waves of the ocean might as well rebel against our granite

580 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

coast, or the wild bulls of the prairies against man, as either, England
or the South undertake to stop the march of the nineteen free states of
this continent.

It is not power that we should lose, but it is character. How should
we stand when Jeff Davis has turned that corner upon us— abolished
slavery, won European sympathy, and established his Confederacy?
Bankrupt in character — outwitted in statesmanship. Our record would
be, as we entered the sisterhood of nations- — " Longed and struggled
and begged to be admitted into the partnership of tyrants, and they
were kicked out !" And the South would spring into the same arena,
bearing on her brow — " She flung away what she thought gainful and
honest, in order to gain her independence !" A record better than the
gold of California or all the brains of the Yankee.

Righteousness, is preservation. You who are not abolitionists do
not come to this question as I did — from an interest in these four
millions of black men. I came on this platform from sympathy with
the negro. I acknowledge it. You come to this question from an idola-
trous regard for the Constitution of '89. But here we stand. On the
other side of the ocean is England, holding out, not I think a threat
of war — I do not fear it — but holding out to the South the intimation
of a willingness, if she will but change her garments, and make her-
self decent, to take her in charge, and give her assistance and protec-
tion. There stands England, the most selfish and treacherous of
modern governments. On the other side of the Potomac stands a
statesmanship, urged by personal and selfish interests, which cannot
be matched, and between them they have but one object — it is in the
end to divide the Union.

Hitherto the negro has been abated question. The Union moved
majestic on its path, and shut him out, eclipsing him from the sun of
equality and happiness. He has changed his position to-day. He
now stands between us and the sun of our safety and prosperity, and
you and I are together on the same platform — the same plank — our
object to save the institutions which our fathers planted. Save them;
in the service of justice, in the service of peace, in the service of lib-,
erty; and in that service demand of the government at Washington
that they shall mature and announce a purpose. That flag lowered at
Sumter, that flight at Bull Run, will rankle in the hearts of the repub-
lic for centuries. Nothing will ever medicine that wound but the gov-
ernment announcing to the world that it knows well whence came its,
trouble, and is determined to effect its cure, and, consecrating the.
banner to liberty, to plant it on the shores of the Gulf. . I say in the.
service of the negro; but I do not forget the white man, the eight
millions of poor whites, thinking themselves our enemies, but who
are really our friends. Their interests are identical with our own.
An Alabama slave-holder, sitting with me a year or two ago, said;—
" In our northern counties they are your friends. A man owns one

WENDELL PILILLIL'S. 581

slave or two slaves, and he eats with them, and sleeps in the same
room (they have but one), much as a hired man here eats with the far-
mer he serves. There is no difference. They are too poor to send
their sons north for education. They have no newspapers, and they
know nothing but what they are told by us. If you could get at them,
they would be on your side, but we mean you never shall."

In Paris there are one hundred thousand men whom ca'ricature or
epigram can at any time raise to barricade the streets. Whose fault is
it that such men exist? The government's; and the government
under which such a mass of ignorance exists deserves to be barri-
caded. The government under which eight millions of people exist,
so ignorant that two thousand politicians and a hundred thousand aris-
tocrats can pervert them into rebellion, deserves to be rebelled against.
In the service of those men I mean, for one, to try to fulfil the pledge
my fathers made when they said, "We will guarantee to every state
a republican form of government." A privileged class, grown strong
by the help and forbearance of the North, plots the establishment of
aristocratic government in form as well as essence — conspires to rob
the non-slaveholders of their civil rights. This is just the danger our na-
tional pledge was meant to meet. Our fathers' honor, national good
faith, the cause of free institutions, the peace of the continent, bid us
fulfil this pledge — insist on using the right it gives us to preserve the
Union.

I mean to fulfil the pledge that free institutions shall be preserved
in the several states, and I demand it of the government. I would
have them, therefore, announce to the world what they have never
yet done. I do not wonder at the want of sympathy on the part of
England with us. The South says, " I am fighting for slavery." The
North says, " I am not fighting against it." Why should England in-
terfere ? The people have nothing on which to hang their sympathy.

I would have government announce to the world that we understand
the evil which has troubled our peace for seventy years, thwarting the
natural tendency of our institutions, sending ruin along our wharves
and through our workshops every ten years, poisoning the national
conscience. We well know its character. But democracy, unlike other
governments, is strong enough to let evils work out their own death —
strong enough to face them When they reveal their proportions. It
was in this sublime consciousness of strength, not of weakness, that
our fathers submitted to the well-known evil of slavery, and tolerated,
until the viper we thought we could safely tread on, at the touch of
disappointment starts up a fiend whose stature reaches the sky. But
our cheeks do not blanch. Democracy accepts the struggle. After
this forbearance of three generations, confident that she has yet power
to execute her will, she sends her proclamation down to the Gulf —
Freedom to every man beneath the Stars, and death to every institu-
tion that disturbs our peace or threatens the future of the Republic.

&8Z AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

- '^ - "- - I

EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

(riJuooi

Washington, Jan. i, i3C3. boiq airfl Yl

Whereas, on the 22a day of September, in the year of our Lord one
thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by
the President of the United States, containing-, among other things,
the following, to wit:-

That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thou-
sand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within
any states or designated part of a state, the people whereof shall then
be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward,
and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States,
including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize -and
maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts tore-
press such persons, or afiy of them, in any efforts they may make for
their actual freedom.

That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by
proclamation, designate the states and parts of states, if any, in which
the people thereof respectively shall then be in rebellion against the
United States; and the fact that any state, or the people thereof, shall
on that day be in good faith represented in the Congress of the United
States, by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of
the qualified voters of such state shall have participated, shall, 4ft the
absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evi-
dence that such state, and the people thereof^ are not then in rebellion
against the United States.

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States,
by virtue of the power in me vested as commander-in-chief of the
army and navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion
against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit
and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this
first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hun--
dred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do,
publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days from the
day first above mentioned, order and designate, as the states and parts
of states wherein the people thereof respectively are this day in rebel-
lion against the United States, the following, to wit ;

Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard,
Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension,
Assumption, Terre Bonne, Lafourche, Ste. Marie, St. Martin, and Or-
leans, including the City of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama,

CHARGES SUMXER. 583

Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (except
the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the
counties of Berkeley, Accornae, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York,
Princess Anne, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Ports-
mouth), and which excepted parts are for the present left precisely as
if this proclamation were riot issued.

And by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order
and declare that all persons held as slaves within said design ated'statcs
and parts of states are, and henceforward shall be, free; and that the
Executive Government:of the United States, including the military and
naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of
said persons.

And I .hereby enjoin .upon the people so declared to be free to ab-
stain from all violence, ynless in necessary self-defence; and I recom-
mend to them that, in all, cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for
reasonable wages.

And I further declare and make known that such persons, of suita-
ble condition^ will be received into the armed service of the United
States, to garrison forts,; positions, stations, and other places, and to
man vessels of all sorts in said service.

And upon, this act,; sincerely believed to be an act of justice, war-
ranted by the Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke the con-
siderate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my name, and caused the
tsea.1 of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this first day of January, in the
year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three,
[l, s.] and of the independence of the United States the eighty-
seventh.
By the President : Abraham Lincoln.

William EL Seward, Secretary of State.

:.--...■

-:;jjs Io.3»r;l: — i — j — ,

ift s:

EMANCIPATION IMMEDIATE-^NOT GRADUAL.

« - = . juo k

CHARLES SUMNER.

The Senate, February,.,^.

Mr. President:— If I speak tardily in this debate, I hope for the in-
dulgence of the Senate. Had I been able to speak earlier, I should
have spoken ; but, though present in the Chamber, and voting when this
bill was under consideration formerly, I was at the time too much of an
invalid to take an active part in the debate. In justice to myself and to
the great question, I cannot be silent. .

5§4

A ME RICA N PA TRIO TISM.

I have already voted to give Missouri twenty million dollars to secure
freedom at once for her slaves, and to make her at once a free state. I
am ready to vote more, if more be needed for this good purpose ; but I
will not vote money to be sunk and lost in an uncertain scheme of pro-
spective emancipation, where freedom is a jack-o'-lantern, and the
only certainty is the Congressional appropriation. For money paid
down, freedom must be delivered.

Notwithstanding all differences of opinion on this important question,
there is much occasion for congratulation in the progress made.

Thank God, on one point the Senate is substantially united. A large
majority will vote for emancipation. This is much, both as a sign
of the present and a prophecy of the future. A large majority, in the
name of Congress, will offer pecuniary aid. This is a further sign and
prophecy. Such a vote, and such an appropriation, will constitute an
epoch. Only a few short years ago the very mention of slavery in Con-
gress was forbidden, and all discussion of it was stifled. Now eman-
cipation is an accepted watchword, while slavery is openly denounced
as a guilty thing worthy of death.

It is admitted, that now, under the exigency of war, the United States
ought to co-operate with any state in the abolition of slavery, giving it
pecuniary aid ; and it is proposed to apply this principle practically in
Missouri. It was fit that emancipation, destined to end the rebellion,
should begin in South Carolina, where the rebellion began. It is also
fit that the action of Congress in behalf of emancipation should begin
in Missouri, which, through the faint-hearted remissness of Congress,
as late as 1820, was opened to slavery. Had Congress at that time
firmly insisted that Missouri should enter the Union as a free state, the
vast appropriation now proposed would have been saved, and, better
still, this vaster civil war would have been prevented. The whole
country is now paying with treasure and blood for that fatal surrender.
Alas, that men should forget that God is bound by no compromise, and
that, sooner or later, He will insist that justice shall be done ! There
is not a dollar spent, and not a life sacrificed, in this calamitous
war, which does not plead against any repetition of that wicked folly.
Palsied be the tongue that speaks of compromise with slavery !
Though, happily, compromise is no longer openly mentioned, yet it in-
sinuates itself in this debate. In former times it took the shape of
barefaced concession, as in the admission of Missouri with slavery, in
the annexation of Texas with slavery, the waiver of the prohibition of
slavery in the territories, the atrocious bill for the renslavement of
fugitives, and the opening of Kansas to slavery, first by the Kansas
Bill, and then by the Lecompton Constitution. In each of these cases
there was concession to slavery which history records with shame, and
it was by this that your wicked slaveholding conspiracy waxed confident
and strong, till at last it .became ripe for war.

And now it is proposed, as an agency in the suppression of the Re-

CHARLES SUMNER. 585

bellion, to make an end of slavery. By pi'oclamation of the President,
all slaves in certain states and designated parts of states are declared
free. Of course this proclamation is a war measure, rendered just and
necessary by exigencies of war. As such, it is summary and instant m
operation, not prospective or procrastinating. A proclamation of pro-
spective emancipation would have been an absurdity, — like a proclama-
tion of a prospective battle, where not a blow was to be struck or a
cannon pointed before 1876, unless, meanwhile, the enemy desired it.
What is done in war must be done promptly, except, perhaps, under
the policy of defence. Gradualism is delay, and delay is the betrayal of
victory. If you would be triumphant, strike quickly, let your blows be
felt at once, without notice or premonition, and especially without tim?
for resistance or debate. Time deserts all who do not appreciate its
value. Strike promptly, and time becomes your invaluable ally ; strike
slowly, gradually, prospectively, and time goes over to the enemy.

But every argument for the instant carrying out of the proclamation,
every consideration in favor of despatch in war, is especially applicable
to whatever is done by Congress as a war measure. In a period of
peace Congress might fitly consider whether emancipation should be im-
mediate or prospective, and we could listen with patience to the in-
stances adduced by the Senator from Wisconsin (Mr. Doolittle) in
favor of delay, — to the case of Pennsylvania, and to the case of New
York, where slaves were tardily admitted to their birthright. Such ar-
guments, though, to my judgment of little value at any time, might then
be legitimate. But now, when we are considering how to put down the
rebellion, they are not even legitimate. There is but one way to put
down the rebellion, and that is instant action ; and all that is done,
whether in the field, in the Cabinet, or in Congress, must partake of
this character. Whatever is postponed for twenty years, or ten years,
may seem abstractedly politic or wise ; but it is in no sense a war meas-
ure nor can it contribute essentially to the suppression of the rebellion.

I think I may assume, without contradiction, that the tender of
money to Missouri for the sake of emancipation is a war measure, to
be vindicated as such under the Constitution of the United States. It
is also an act of justice to an oppressed race. But it is not in this
unquestionable character that it is now commended. If it was urged
on no other ground, even if every consideration of philanthropy and
of religion pleaded for it with rarest eloquence, I fear it would stand
but little chance in either house of Congress. Let us not disguise the
truth. Except as a war measure to aid in putting down the rebellion,
this proposition could expect little hospitality here. Senators are
ready to vote money — as the British Parliament voted subsidies — to
supply the place of soldiers, or to remove a stronghold of the rebellion,
all of which is done by emancipation. I do not overstate the case.
Slavery is a stronghold, .which through emancipation will be removed,
wliile every slave, if not every slave-master, becomes an ally of the

586 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

government. Therefore, emancipation is a war measure, and consti-
tutional as the raising of armies or the occupation of hostile territory.
In vindicating emancipation as a war measure, we must see that it
is made under such conditions as- to exercise a present, instant influ-
ence. It must be immediate, not prospective. In proposing prospec-
tive emancipation, you propose a measure which can have little or no
influence in the war. Abstractly senators may prefer that emancipa-
tion shall be prospective rather than immediate; but this is not the
time for the exercise of any abstract reference. Whatever is done as
a war measure must be immediate, or it will cease to have this charac-
ter, whatever you call it.

If I am correct in this statement— and I do not see how it can be
questioned, — then is the appropriation for immediate emancipation
just and proper under the Constitution, while that for prospective
emancipation is without sanction, except what it finds in the senti-
ments of justice and humanity.

It is proposed to vote- ten million dollars to promote emancipation
ten years from now. Perhaps I am sanguine, but I cannot doubt that
before the expiration of that period slavery will die in Missouri under
the awakened judgment of the people, even without the sanction of
Congress. If our resources were infinite, we might tender this large
sum by way of experiment; but with a treasury drained to the bot-
tom, and a debt accumulating in fabulous proportions, I do not un-
derstand how we can vote millions, which, in the first place, will be of
little or no service in the suppression of the rebellion, and, in the sec-
ond place, will be simply a largess in no way essential to the subver-
sion of slavery.

Whatever is given for immediate emancipation is given for the na-
tional defence, and for the . safety and honor of the republic. If will
be a blow at the rebellion. Whatever is given for prospective eman-
cipation will be a gratuity to slaveholders and a tribute to slavery.
Pardon me, if I repeat what I have already said on this question:

Millions for defence, but not a cent for tribute;" millions for defence
against peril, from whatever quarter it may come, but not a cent for
tribute in any quarter,— especially not a cent for tribute to the loath-
some tyranny of slavery.

I know it is sometimes said that even prospective emancipation will
help weaken the rebellion. That it will impair the confidence in
slavery, and also its value, I cannot doubt. But it is equally clear
that it will leave slavery stilL alive and on its legs; and just so long as
this is the case, there must be a controversy and debate, with attend-
ing weakness, while reaction perpetually lifts its crest. Instead of
tranquillity, which we all seek from Missouri, we shall have conten-
tion. Instead of peace, we shall have prolonged war. Every year's '
delay, ay, sir, every week's delay, in dealing death to slavery leaves
just so much of opportunity to the rebellion; for so long as slavery is

CHARLES SUMNER. 587

allowed to exist in Missouri the rebellion will struggle, not without
hope, for its ancient mastery. But let slavery cease at once and all
wjtlbe changed. There will be no room for controversy or debate
with attending weakness; nor can reaction lift its crest. There will
be no opportunity to the rebellion, which must cease all effort there,
when Missouri can no longer be a slave state. . - Freedom will become
pur watchful, generous, and invincible ally, while the well-being, the
happiness, the repose, and the renown of Missouri will be established
forever. -' •

Thus far, sir, I have presented the argument on grounds peculiar to
this case; and here I might stop. Having shown, that as a military
necessity, and for the sake of that economy which it is our duty to
cultivate, emancipation must be immediate, I need not go further.
But I do not content myself here. The whole question is opened be-
tween immediate emancipation and prospective emancipation, — or, in
other words, between doing right at once and doing right at some
future, distant day. Procrastination is the thief, not only of time,
but of virtue itself. Yet such is the nature of man that he is disposed
always to delay, so that he does nothing to-day which he can put off
till to-morrow. Perhaps in no single matter is the disposition more
apparent than with regard to slavery, Every consideration of hu-
manity, religion, reason, common Sense, and history, all demanded
the instant cessation of an intolerable wrong, without procrastination
or delay. But human nature would not yield, and we have been
driven to argue the question, whether an outrage, asserting property
in man, denying the Conjugal relation, annulling the parental relation,
shutting out human improvement, and robbing its victim of all the
fruits of his industry,— the whole to compel work without wages — ■
should be stopped instantly or gradually. It. is only when we regard
slavery in its essential elements* and look at its unutterable and un-
questionable atrocity, that we fully comprehend the mingled folly and
wickedness of this question. If it were merely a question of economy,
or a question of policy, then the Senate might properly debate whether
the change should be instant or gradual; but considerations of econo-
my and policy are all absorbed in the higher claims of justice and hu-
manity. There is no question whether justice and humanity shall be
immediate or gradual. Men are to cease at once from wrong; they
are to obey the ten commandments instantly, and not gradually.

Senators who argue for prospective emancipation show themselves
insensible to the true character of slavery, or insensible to the require-
ments of reason. One or the other of these alternatives must be /
accepted.

Shall property in man be disowned immediately, or only prospec-
tively ? Reason answers — immediately.

Shall the conjugal relation be maintained immediately, or only pros-
pectively? Reason recoils from the wicked absurdity of the inquiry.

588 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

Shall the parental relation be recognized immediately, or only pros-
pectively ? Reason is indignant at the question.

Shall the opportunities of knowledge, including the right to read the
Book of Life, be opened immediately or prospectively ? Reason brands
the idea of delay as impious.

Shall the fruits of his own industry be given to a fellow-man immedi-
ately or prospectively ? Reason insists that every man shall have his
own without postponement.

And history, thank God, speaking by example, testifies in conform-
ity with reason. The conclusion is irresistible. If you would con-
tribute to the strength and honor of the nation, if you would bless
Missouri, if you would benefit the slave-master, if you would elevate
the slave, and still further, if you would afford an example which shall
fortify and consecrate the Republic, making it at once citadel and tem-
ple, do not put off the day of freedom. In this case, more than in any
other, he gives twice who quickly gives,

s •
NATIONAL CEMETERY AT GETTYSBURG.

mmmu

November 19, 1863.

Standing beneath this serene sky, overlooking these broad fields now
reposing from the labors of the waning year, the mighty Alleghanies
dimly towering before us, the graves of our brethren beneath our feet,
it is with hesitation that I raise my poor voice to break the eloquent
silence of God and Nature. But the duty to which you have called me
must be performed ; — grant me, I pray you, your indulgence and your
sympathy.

It was appointed by law in Athens, that the obsequies of the citizens
who fell in battle should be performed at the public expense, and in
the most honorable manner. Their bones were carefully gathered up
from the funeral pyre where their bodies were consumed, and brought
home to the city. There, for three days before the interment, they lay
in state, beneath tents of honor, to receive the votive offerings of
friends and relatives, — flowers, weapons, precious ornaments, painted
vases, wonders of art, which after two thousand years adorn the
museums of modern Europe, — the last tributes of surviving affection.
Ten coffins of funeral cypress received the honorable deposit, one for
each of the tribes of the city, ami an eleventh in memory of the un-
recognized, but not therefore unhonored, dead, and of those whose
remains could not be recovered. On the fourth day the mournful
procession was formed : mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, led the
wayr and to them it was permitted by the simplicity of ancient man-

EDWARD EVERETT. 5 89

ners to utter aloud their lamentations for the beloved and the lost; the
male relatives and friends of the deceased followed ; citizens and
strangers closed the train. Thus marshalled, they moved to the place
of interment in that famous Ceramicus, the most beautiful suburb of
Athens, which had been adorned by Cimon, the son of Miltiades, with
walks and fountains and columns, — whose groves were filled with
altars, shrines, and temples, — whose gardens were kept forever green
by the streams from the neighboring hills, and shaded with the trees
sacred to Minerva and coeval with the foundation of the city, — whose
circuit enclosed

" the olive grove of Academe,

Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird

Trilled his thick-warbled note the summer long," —

whose pathways gleamed with the monuments of the illustrious dead,
the work of the most consummate masters that ever gave life to marble.
There, beneath the overarching plane-trees, upon a lofty stage erected
for the purpose, it was ordained that a funeral oration should be pro-
nounced by some citizen of Athens, in the presence of the assembled
multitude.

Such were the tokens of respect required to be paid at Athens to the
memory of those who had fallen in the cause of their country. For
those alone who fell at Marathon a peculiar honor was reserved. As
the battle fought upon that immortal field was distinguished from all
others in Grecian history for its influence over the fortunes of Hellas,
— as it depended upon the event of that day whether Greece should
live, a glory and a light to all coming time, or should expire, like the
meteor of a moment; so the honors awarded to its martyr-heroes were
such as were bestowed by Athens on no other occasion. They alone
of all her sons were entombed upon the spot which they had forever
rendered famous. Their names were inscribed upon ten pillars erected
upon the monumental tumulus which covered their ashes (where, after
six hundred years, they were read by the traveller Pausanias), and
although the columns, beneath the hand of time and barbaric violence,
have long since disappeared, the venerable mound still marks the spot
where they fought and fell, —

" That battle-field where Persia's victim-horde
First bowed beneath the brunt of Hellas' sword."

And shall I, fellow-citizens, who, after an interval of twenty-three
centuries, a youthful pilgrim from the world unknown to ancient
Greece, have wandered over that illustrious plain, ready to put off the
shoes from off my feet, as one that stands on holy ground — who have
gazed with respectful emotion on the mound which still protects the
dust of those who rolled back the tide of Persian invasion, and res-
cued the land of popular liberty, of letters, and of arts, from the
ruthless foe — stand unmoved over the graves of our dear brethren,

59^

■

AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

who so lately, on three of those all-important days which decide a na-
tion's history— days on whose issue it depended whether this august
Republican Union, founded by some of the wisest statesmen that ever
lived, cemented with the blood of some of the purest patriots that
ever died, should. perish or endure — rolled back the tide of an inva-
sion, not less unprovoked, not less ruthless, than that which came to
plant the dark banner of Asiatic despotism and slavery on the free
soil of Greece? Heaven forbid ! And could I prove so insensible to
every prompting of patriotic duty and affection, not only would you,
fellow-citizens, gathered many of you from distant states, who have
come to take part in these pious offices of gratitude — you respected
fathers, brethren, matrons, sisters, who surround me— cry out for
shame, but the forms of brave and patriotic men who fill these hon-
ored graves would heave with indignation beneath the sod.

We have assembled, friends, fellow-citizens, at the invitation of the
Executive of the great central State of Pennsylvania, seconded by
the Governors of seventeen other loyal states of the Union, to pay
the last tribute of respect to the brave men who, in the hard-fought
battles of the first, second, and third days , of July last, laid down
their lives for the country on these hillsides and the plains before us,
and whose remains have been gathered into the cemetery which we
consecrate this da}v As my eye ranges over the fields whose sods
were so lately moistened by the blood of gallant and loyal men, I feel,
as never before, how truly it was said of old that it is sweet and be-
coming to die for one's country. I feel, as never before, how justly,
from the dawn of history to the present time, men have paid the hom-
age of their gratitude and admiration to the memory of those who
nobly sacrificed their lives that their fellow-men may live in safety and
in honor. And if this tribute were ever due, to whom could it be
more justly paid than to those whose last resting-place we this day
commend to the blessing of Heaven and of men ?

For consider, my friends what would have been the consequences
to the country, to yourselves, and to all you hold dear, if those who
sleep beneath our feet, and their gallant comrades who survive to
serve their country on other fields of danger, had failed in their duty
on those memorable days. Consider what, at this moment, would be
the condition of the United States, if that noble Army of the Poto-
mac, instead of gallantly and for the second time beating back the
tide of invasion from Maryland and Pennsylvania, had been itself
driven from these well-contested heights, thrown back in confusion on
Baltimore, or trampled down, discomfited, scattered to the four
winds. What, in that sad event, would not have been the fate of the
monumental city of Harrisburg, of Philadelphia, of Washington, the
capital of the Union, each and every one of which would have lain at
the mercy of the enemy, accordingly as it might have pleased him,
spurred by passion, flushed with victory, and confident of continued
success, to direct his course ?

EDWARD EVERETT. 591

For this wc must bear in mind — it is one of the great lessons of the
war, indeed of every war, that it is impossible for a people without
military organization, inhabiting the cities, towns, and villages of an
open country, including, of course, the natural proportion of non-
combatants of either sex and of every age, to withstand the inroad
of a veteran army. What defence can be made by the inhabitants of
villages mostly built of wood, of cities unprotected by walls, nay, by
a population of men, however high-toned and resolute, whose aged
parents demand their care, whose wives and children are clustering
about them, against the charge of the war-horse whose neck is clothed
with thunder — against flying artillery and batteries of rifled cannon
planted on every commanding eminence — against the onset of trained
veterans led by skilful chiefs ?

No, my friends, army must be met by army, battery by battery,
squadron by squadron; and the shock of organized thousands must be
encountered by the firm breasts and valiant arms of other thousands,
as well organized and as skilfully. led. It is no reproach, therefore, to
the unarmed population of the country to sav, that we owe it to the
brave men who sleep in their beds of honor before us, and to their
gallant surviving associates, not merely that your . fertile fields, my
friends of Pennsylvania and Maryland, were redeemed from the
presence of the invader, but that, your beautiful capitals were not
given up to the threatened plunder, perhaps laid in ashes, Wash-
ington, seized by the enemy, and a blow struck at the heart of the
nation.

Who that hears me has forgotten the thrill of joy that ran through
the country on the fourth of July — auspicious day for the glorious
tidings, and rendered still more so by the simultaneous fall of Vicks-
burg — when the telegraph flashed through the land the assurance from
the President of the United States that the Army of the Potomac,
under General Meade, had again smitten the invader? Sure I am,
that with the ascriptions of praise that rose to Heaven from twenty
millions of freemen, with the acknowledgements that breathed from
patriotic lips throughout the length and breadth of America, to the
surviving officers and men who had rendered the country this inesti-
mable service, there beat in every loyal bosom a throb of tender and
sorrowful gratitude to the martyrs who had fallen on the sternly-con-
tested field.

Let a nation's fervent thanks make some amends for the toils
and sufferings of those who survive. Would that the heart-felt
tribute could penetrate these honored graves !

In order that we may comprehend, to their full extent, our obliga-
tions to the martyrs and surviving heroes of the Army of the Poto-
mac, let us contemplate for a few moments the train of events which
culminated in the battles of the first days of July. Of this stupendous
rebellion, planned, as its originators boast, more than thirty years
ago, matured and prepared for during an entire generation, finally

592 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

commenced, because, for the first time since the adoption of the Con-
stitution, an election of President had been effected without the votes
of the South (which retained, however, the control of the two other
branches of the government), the occupation of the national capital,
with the seizure of the public archives and of the treaties with foreign
powers, was an essential feature. This was, in substance, within my
personal knowledge, admitted, in the winter of 1860-61, by one of the
most influential leaders of the rebellion ; and it was fondly thought
that this object could be effected by a bold and sudden movement on
the 4th of March, 1861. There is abundant proof, also; that a darker
project was contemplated, if not by the responsible chiefs of the
rebellion, yet by nameless ruffians, willing to play a subsidiary and
murderous part in the treasonable drama. It was accordingly main-
tained by the rebel emissaries in England, in fnc c rcles t \ v hi:h they
found access, that the new American Minister ought not, when he
arrived, to be received as the envoy of the Unit d States, inasmuch as
before that time Washington would be captured, and the capital of the
nation and the archives and muniments of the government would be
in the possession of the Confederates. In full accordance also with
this threat, it was declared by the Rebel Secretary of War, at Mont-
gomery, in the presence of his chief and of his colleagues, and of five
thousand hearers, while the tidings of the assault on Sumter were
travelling over the wires on that fatal 12th of April, 1S61, that before
the end of May "the flag which then flaunted the breeze," as he
expressed it, "would float over the dome of the Capitol at Washing-
ton."

At the time this threat was made the rebellion was confined to the
cotton-growing states, and it was well understood by them, that the
only hope of drawing any of the other slaveholding states into the
conspiracy was in bringing about a conflict of arms, and " firing the
heart of the South" by the effusion of blood. This was declared by
the Charleston press to be the object for which Sumter was to be
assaulted ; and the emissaries sent from Richmond, to urge on the
tmhallowed work, gave the promise, that, with the first drop of blood
that should be shed, Virginia would place herself by the side of South
Carolina.

In pursuance of this original plan of the leaders of the rebellion, the
capture of Washington has been continually had in view, not merely
for the sake of its public buildings, as the capital of the Confederacy,
but as the necessary preliminary to the absorption of the border states,
and for the moral effect in the eyes of Europe of possessing the
metropolis of the Union.

I allude to these facts, not perhaps enough borne in mind, as a suf-
ficient refutation of the pretence, on the part cf the rebels, that the
war is one of self-defence, waged for the right of self-government. It
is in reality a war originally levied by ambitious men in the cotton-

EDWARD EVERETT. 593

growing states, for the purpose of drawing the slaveholding border
states into the vortex of the conspiracy, first by sympathy, — which in
the case of Southeastern Virginia, North Carolina, part of Tennessee,
and Arkansas succeeded, — and then by force, and for the purpose of
subjugation, Maryland, Western Virginia, Kentucky, Eastern Tennes-
see, Missouri ; and it is a most extraordinary fact, considering the
clamors of the rebel chiefs on the subject of invasion, that not a soldier
of the United States has entered the states last named, except to
defend their Union-loving inhabitants from the armies and guerillas
of the rebels.

In Conformity with these designs on the city of Washington, and
notwithstanding the disastrous results of the invasion of 1862, it was
determined by the rebel government last summer to resume the offen-
sive in that direction. Unable to force the passage of the Rappa-
hannock where General Hooker, notwithstanding the reverse at
Chancellorsville in May, was strongly posted, the Confederate Gene-
ral resorted to strategy. He had two objects in view. The first was,
by a rapid movement northward, and by manoeuvring with a portion

f his army on the east side of the Blue Ridge, to tempt Hooker from
his base of operations, thus leading him to uncover the approaches to
Washington, to throw it open to a raid by Stuart's cavalry, and to
enable Lee himself to cross the Potomac in the neighborhood of
Poolesville and thus fall upon the capital. This- plan of operations
was wholly frustrated. The design of the rebel general was promptly
discovered by General Hooker, and, moving with great rapidity from
Fredricksburgh, he preserved unbroken the inner line, and stationed
the various corps of his army at all the points protecting the approach
to Washington, from Centreville up to Leesburg. From this vantage
ground the rebel general in vain attempted to draw him. In the
meantime, by the vigorous operation of Pleasonton's cavalry, the
cavalry of Stuart, though greatly superior in numbers, was so crippled
as to be disabled from performing the part assigned it in the campaign.
In this manner General Lee's first object, namely, the defeat of
Hooker's army on the south of the Potomac, and a direct march on
Washington, was baffled.

The second part of the Confederate plan, which is supposed to have
been undertaken in opposition to the views of General Lee, was to .
turn the demonstration northward into a real invasion of Maryland -J
and Pennsylvania, in the hope that, in this way, General Hooker/
Would be drawn to a distance from the capital, and that some oppor-
tunity would occur of taking him at a disadvantage, and, after defeat-
ing his army, of making a descent upon Baltimore and Washington.
This part of General Lee's plan, which was substantially the repeti-
tion of that of 1S62, was not less signally defeated, with what honor to
the arms of the Union the heights on which we are this day assembled
will forever attest.

594 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

Much time had been uselessly consumed by the Rebel general in
his unavailing attempts to out-mariceuvre General Hooker. Although
General Lee broke up from Fredricksburg on the 3d of June, it Was
not till the 24th that the main body of his army entered Maryland.
Instead of crossing the Potomac, as he had intended, east of the Blue
Ridge, he was compelled to do it at Sheppardstown and Williamsport,
thus materially deranging his entire plan of campaign north of the
river. . Stuart, who had been sent with his cavalry to the east of the
Blue Ridge, to guard the passes of the mountains, to mask the move-
ments of Lee, and to harass the LTnion general in crossing the- river,"
having been very severely handled by Pleasbnton at Beverly Pord,
Aldie, and Upperville, instead of being able to retard General Hook-
er's advance, was driven himself away from his connection with the
army of Lee, and cut off for a fortnight from till communication with
it, — a circumstance to which General Lee in his report, alludes^ more
than once, with evident displeasure. Let us now rapidly glance at
the incidents of the eventful campaign,

A detachment from Eweil's corps, under Jenkins, "had penetrated
on the 15th of June, as far as Chambersburg. This movement was
intended at first merely as a demonstration, and as a marauding ex-
pedition for supplies. It had, however, the salutary effect of alarrhV
ing the country ; and vigorous preparations were made, not only by
the General Government, but here in Pennsylvania and in the Sister
states,' to repel the inroad. After two days passed at Chambersburg,
Jenkins, anxious for his communication with Ewell, fell back with his
plunder to Hagerstown. Here he remained for several days, and
then, having swept the recesses- of the Cumberland valley, came
down upon the eastern flank of the South Mountain, and pushed his
marauding parties as far as Waynesboro. On the-22dthe remainder
of Eweil's corps crossed the river and moved -tip the valLey.: They
were followed on the 24th by Longstreeet and Hill, who -crossed at
Williamsport and Sheppardstown, arid pushing up the valley, en.
camped at Chambersburg on the 2:7th. In this way the whole Rebel
army, estimated at 90,000 infantry, upwards : of 10,000 cavalry, and7
4,00b or 5,000 artillery, making a total of 105,000 of all arms, was
concentrated in Pennsylvania.

Up to this time no report of Hooker's movements had been receivc-d
by General Lee, who, having been deprived of his cavalry, had no
means of obtaining information. Rightly judging, however, that no
time would be lost by the Un"on ; rmy in the pursuit, in o dor to detain
it On the eastern side of the mountains in Maryland and Pennsylvania,
and thus preserve his communications by the way of Williamsport,
he had, before his own arrival at Chambersburg, directedEwell to send
detachments from his corps to Carlisle and York. The latter "detach-
ment, under Early, passed through this place on the 26th of June.
You need not, fellow-citizens of Gettysburg, that I should recall to

EDWARD EVERETT. 595

you those moments of alarm and distress, precursors as they were of
the more trying scenes which were so soon to follow.

As soon as General Hooker perceived that the advance of the Con-
federates into the Cumberland valley was not a mere feint to draw
him away from Washington, he moved rapidly in pursuit. Attempts,
as we have seen, were made to harass and retard his passage across
the Potomac. These attempts were not only altogether unsuccessful,
but were so unskilfully made as to place the entire Federal army be-
tween the cavalry of Stuart and the army of Lee. While the latter
was massed in the Cumberland valley, Stuart was east of the mount- .
ains, with Hooker's army between, and Gregg's cavalry in close pur-
suit. Stuart was accordingly compelled to force a march northward,
which was destitute of strategical character, and which deprived his
chief of all means of obtaining intelligence.

Not a moment had been lost by General Hooker in the pursuit of
Lee. The day after the Rebel army entered Maryland the Union
army crossed the Potomac at Edward's Ferry, and by the 23th of June
lay between Harper's Ferry and Frederick. The force of the enemy
on that day was partly at Chambersburg, and partly moving on the
Cashtown road in the direction of Gettysburg, while the detachments
from Ewell's corps, of which mention has been made, had reached the
Susquehanna opposite Harrisburg and Columbia. That a great battle
must soon be fought no one could doubt; but, in the apparent and
perhaps real absence of plan on the part of Lee, it was impossible to
foretell the precise scene of the encounter. Wherever fought, conse-
quences the most momentous hung upon the result.

In this critical and anxious state of affairs General Hooker was re-
lieved, and General Meade was summoned to the chief command of
the army. It appears to my unmilitary judgment to reflect the high-
est credit upon him, upon his predecessor, and upon the corps com-
manders of the Army of the Potomac, that a change could take place
in the chief command of so large a force on the eve of a general battle,
—the various corps necessarily moving on lines somewhat divergent,
and all in ignorance of the enemy's intended point of concentration,—
and that not an hour's hesitation should ensue in the advance of any
portion of the entire army.

Having assumed the chief command on the 28th, General Meade
directed his left wing, under Reynolds, upon Emrnettsburg and his
right upon New Windsor, leaving General French with 11,000 men
to protect the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and convoy the public
property from Harper's Ferry to Washington. Buford's cavalry was
then at this place, and Kilpatrick's at Hanover, where he encountered
and defeated the rear of Stuart's cavalry, who was roving the country
in search of the main army of Lee. On the Rebel side, Hill had
reached Fayetteville on the Cashtown road on the 28th, and was fol-
lowed on the same road by Longstreet on the 29th. The eastern side

596 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM,

of the mountain, as seen from Gettysburg, was lighted up at night by
the camp-fires of the enemy's advance, and the country swarmed with
his foraging parties. It was now too evident to be questioned, that
the thunder-cioud, so long gathering in blackness, would soon burst
on some part of the devoted vicinity of Gettysburg.

The 30th of June was a day of important preparation. At half-past
eleven o'clock in the morning General Buford passed through Gettys-
burg upon a reconnoisance in force, with his cavalry, upon the Cham-
bersburg road. The information obtained by him was immediately
communicated to General Reynolds, who was, in consequence, di-
rected to occupy Gettysburg. That gallant officer accordingly, with
the first corps, marched from Emmettsburg to within six or seven
miles of this place, and encamped on the right bank of Marsh's Creek.
Our right wing, meantime, was moved to Manchester. On the same
day the corps of Hill and Longstreet were pushed still farther forward
on the Chambersburg road, and distributed in the vicinity of Marsh's
Creek, while a reconnoissance was made by the Confederate General
Petigru up to a very short distance from this place. Thus at nightfall
on the 30th of June the greater part of the Rebel force was concentrated
in the immediate vicinity of two corps of the Union army, the former
refreshed by two days passed in comparative repose and deliberate
preparation for the encounter, the latter separated by a march of one
or two days from their supporting corps, and doubtful at what precise
point they were to expect an attack.

And now the momentous day, a day to be forever remembered in
the annals of the country, arrived. Early in the morning of the 1st
of July the conflict began. I need not say that it would be impossible for
me to comprise, within the limits of the hour, such a narrative as would
do anything like full justice to the all-important events of these three
great days, or to the merit of the brave officers and men of every rank,
of every arm of the service, and of every loyal state, who bote their
part in the tremendous struggle, — alike those who nobly sacrificed
their lives for their country, and those who survive, many of them
scarred with honorable wounds, the objects of our admiration and
gratitude. The astonishingly minute, accurate and graphic accounts
contained in the journals of the day, prepared from personal observa-
tion by reporters who witnessed the scenes and often shared the perils
which they describe, and the highly valuable " notes" of Professor
Jacobs, of the University in this place, to which I am greatly indebted,
will abundantly supply the deficiency of my necessarily too condensed
statement.

General Reynolds, on arriving at Gettysburg in the morning of the
1st, found Buford with his cavalry warmly engaged with the enemy,
whom he held most gallantly in check. Hastening himself to the
front, General Reynolds directed his men to be moved over the fields
from the Emmettsburs: road, in front of McMillan's and Dr. Schu-

EDWARD EVERETT. 597

mucker's, under cover of the Seminary Ridge. Without a moment's
hesitation, he attacked the enemy, at the same time sending orders to
the Eleventh Corps (General Howard's) to advance as promptly as possi-
ble. General Reynolds immediately found himself engaged with a force
which greatly outnumbered his own, and had scarcely made his dis-
positions for the action when he fell, mortally wounded, at the head of
his advance. The command of the First Corps devolved on General
Doubleday, and that of the field on General Howard, who arrived at
11-30 with Schurz's and Barlow's divisions of the Eleventh Corps, the
latter of whom received a severe wound. Thus strengthened, the ad-
vantage of the battle was for some time on our side. The attacks of
the Rebels were vigorously repulsed by Wadsworth's division of the
First Corps, and a large number of prisoners, including General
Archer, were captured, At length, however, the continued reinforce-
ment of the Confederates from the main body in the neighborhood,
and by the divisions of Rhodes and Early, coming down by separate
lines from Heidlersberg and taking post on our extreme right, turned
the fortunes of the day. Our army, after contesting the ground for
five hours, was obliged to yield to the enemy, whose force outnum
bered them two to one; and towards the close of the afternoon Gen-
eral Howard deemed it prudent to withdraw the two corps to the
heights where we are now assembled. The greater part of the First
Corps passed through the outskirts of the town, and reached the hill
without serious loss or molestation. The Eleventh Corps and portions
of the First, not being aware that the enemy had already entered the
town from the north, attempted to force their way through Washing-
ton and Baltimore streets, which, in the crowd and confusion of the
scene, the}'- did, with a heavy loss in prisoners.

General Howard was not unprepared for this turn in the fortunes of
the day. He had in the course of the morning caused Cemetery Hill
to be occupied by General Steinwehr with the second division of the
Eleventh Corps. About the time of the withdrawal of our troops to
the hill General Hancock arrived, having been sent by General Meade,
on hearing of the death of Reynolds, to assume the command of the
field until he himself could reach the front. In conjunction with Gen-
eral Howard, General Hancock immediately proceeded to post troops
and to repel an attack on our right flank. This attack was feebly
made and promptly repulsed. At nightfall, our troops on the hill,
who had so gallantly sustained themselves during the toil and peril of
the day, were cheered by the arrival of General Slocum with the
Twelfth Corps and of General Sickles with a part of the Third.

Such was the fortune of the first day, commencing with decided suc-
cess to our arms, followed by a check, but ending in the occupation of
this all-important position. To you, fellow-citizens of Gettysburg, I
need not attempt to portray the anxieties of the ensuing night. Wit-
nessing as you had done with sorrow the withdrawal of our

598

AMERICAN PA TRIO TISM.

army through your streets, with a considerable "loss of prisoners,—
mourning as you did over the brave men who had fallen, shocked with
the wide-spread desolation around you, of which the wanton burning
of the Harman House had given the signal, — ignorant of the near ap-
proach of General Meade, you passed the weary hours of the night in
painful expectation.

Long before the dawn of the 2d of July, the new Commander-in
Chief had reached the ever-memorable field of service and glory.
Having received intelligence of the events in progress, and informed
by the reports of Generals Hancock and Howard of the favorable
character of the position, he determined to give battle to the enemy at
this point. He accordingly directed the remaining corps of the army
to concentrate at Gettysburg with alt possible expedition, and break-
ing up his headquarters at Taneytown at 10 P.M., he arrived at the
front at one o'clock in the morning of the 2d of July. Few were the
moments given to sleep, during the rapid watches of that brief mid-
summer's night, by officers or men, though half of our troops were ex-
hausted by the conflict of the day, and the residue wearied by the
forced marches which had brought them to the rescue. The full moon ,
veiled by thin clouds, shone down that night on a strangely unwonted
scene. The silence of the graveyard was broken by the heavy tramp
of armed men, by the neigh of the war-horse, the harsh rattle of the
wheels of artillery hurrying to their stations, and all the indescribable
tumult of preparation. The various corps of the army, as they ar-
rived, were moved to their positions, on the spot where we are assem-
bled and the ridges that extend southeast and southwest; batteries
were planted, and breastworks thrown up. The Second and Fifth corps,
with the rest of the Third, had reached the ground by- seven o'clock,
a.m.; but it was not till two o'clock in the afternoon that Sedgwick
arrived with the Sixth corps. He had marched thirty-four miles
since nine o'clock on the evening before. It was only on his ar-
rival that the Union army approached an equality of numbers with
that of the rebels, who were posted upon the opposite and parallel
ridge, distant from a mile to a mile and a half, overlapping our
position on either wing, and probably exceeding by ten thousand the
army of General Meade.

And here I cannot but remark on the providential inaction of the
rebel army. Had the contest been renewed by it at daylight on the
2d of Juiy, with the First and Eleventh corps exhausted by the battle
and the retreat, the Third and Twelfth weary from their forced march,
and the Second, Fifth, and Sixth not yet arrived, nothing but a miracle
could have saved the army from a great disaster. Instead of this,
the day dawned, the sun rose, the cool hours of the morning passed,
the forenoon and a considerable part of the afternoon wore away,
without the slightest aggressive movement on the part of the enemy.
Thus time was given for half of our forces to arrive and take their

EDWARD EVERETT. 599

pla-ce in the lines, while the rest of the army enjoyed a much-needed-
haW-day's repose.

At length, between three and four o'clock in the afternoon, the work
of death began n A signal gun from the hostile batteries was followed
by a. tremendous cannonade along the rebel lines, and this by a heavy
advance of infantry, brigade after brigade, commencing on the
enemy's right against the left of our army, and so onward to the left
centre, A forward movement of General Sickles, to gain a command-
ing position from which to repel the rebel attack, drew upon him a
destructive fire from the enemy's batteries, and a furious assault from
Langstreet's and Hill's advancing troops After a brave resistance on
the: part of his corps, he was forced back, himself failing severely
wounded. This was the critical moment of the second day; but the
Fifth and a part of the Sixth corps, with portions of the First and
Second, were promptly brought to the support of the Third. The strug-
gle was fierce and murderous, but by sunset our success was decisive,
and the enemy was driven back in confusion. The most important
.service was rendered toward the close of the day, in the memorable
advance between Round Top and Little Round Top, by General Craw-
ford's division of the Fifth corps, consisting of two brigades of the
Pennsylvania Reserves, of which one company was from this town
and 'neighborhood. The rebel force -was driven back with great loss
in killed and prisoners. At eight o'clock in the evening a desperate
attempt was made by the enemy to storm the position of the Eleventh
corps on Cemetery Hill , but here; too* after a terrible conflict, he
was repulsed with immense loss. Ewell, On our extreme right,
which had been weakened by the withdrawal of the troops sent
over to support our left, had succeeded in gaining a foothold
wi-th in a portion of our lines, near Spangier's Spring. This was
the only advantage obtained by the rebels to compensate them for
the disasters of the day, and of this, as we shall see, they were soon
deprived.

Such was the result of the second act of this eventful drama, — a
day hard fought, and at one moment anxious, but, with the excep-
tion of the slight reverse just named, crowned with dearly earned but
uniform success to our arms, auspicious of a glorious termination of
the final struggle. On these good omen 5 the night fell.

In the. course of the night General Geary returned to his position on
the right, from which he had hastened the day before to strengthen the
Third Corps. He immediately engaged the enemy, and after a sharp
and' decisive action, drove them out of our lines, recovering the ground
which had been lost on the preceding day. A spirited contest was
kept up all the morning on this part of the line; but General Geary,
reinforced by Wheaton's brigade of the Sixth Corps, maintained his
position, and inflicted very severe losses on the Rebels.

Such was the cheering commencement of the third day';- work, and
A. P.— 20.

600 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

with it ended all serious attempts of the enemy on our right. As on
the preceding day, his efforts were now mainly directed against our
left centre and left wing. From eleven till half-past one o'clock all
was still, a solemn pause of preparation, as if both armies were nerv-
ing themselves for the supreme effort. At length, the awful silence,
more terrible than the wildest tumult of battle, was broken by the
roar of two hundred and fifty pieces of artillery from the opposite
ridges, joining in a cannonade of unsurpassed violence — the Rebel
batteries along two-thirds of their line pouring their fire upon Cemetery
Hill and the centre and left wing of our army. Having attempted in
this way for two hours, but without success, to shake the steadiness of
our lines, the enemy rallied his forces for a last grand assault. Their
attack was principally directed against the position of our Second
Corps. Successive lines of rebel infantry moved forward with equal
spirit and steadiness from their cover on the wooded crest of Seminary
Ridge, crossing the intervening plain, and, supported right and left
by their choicest brigades, charged furiously up to our batteries. Our
own brave troops of the Second Corps, supported by Doubleday's
division and Stannard's brigade of the First, received the shock with
firmness; the ground on both sides was long and fiercely contested,
and was covered with the killed and the wounded; the tide of battle
flowed and ebbed across the plain, till, after "a determined and
gallant struggle, " as it is pronounced by General Lee, the rebel ad-
vance, consisting of two-thirds of Hill's Corps and the whole of Long-
street's — including Pickett's division, the elite of his corps, which had
not yet been under fire, and was now depended upon to decide the
fortune of this last eventful day — was driven back with prodigious
slaughter, discomfited and broken. While these events were in pro-
gress at our left centre, the enemy was driven, with a considerable
loss of prisoners, from a strong position on our extreme left, from
which he was annoying our forces on Little Round Top. In the terrific
assault on our centre Generals Hancock and Gibbon were wounded,
In the Rebel army, Generals Armistead, Kemper, Petigru, and Trim-
ble were wounded, the first-named mortally, the latter also made
prisoner, General Garnett was killed, and thirty-five hundred officers
and men made prisoners.

These were the expiring agonies of the three days' conflict, and with
them the battle ceased. It was fought by the Union army with cour-
age and skill, from the first cavalry skirmish on Wednesday morning
to the fearful rout of the enemy on Friday afternoon, by every arm
and every rank of the service, by officers and men, by cavalry* artil-
lery, and infantry. The superiority of numbers was with the eneim',
who were led by the ablest commanders in their service; and if the
Union force had the advantage of a strong position, the Confederates
had that of choosing time and place, the prestige of former victories
over the Army of the Potomac, and of the success of the first day.

EDWARD EVERETT. 60 1

■

Victory does not always fall to the lot of those who deserve it; but
that so decisive a triumph, under circumstances like these, was gained
by our troops, I would ascribe, under Providence, to that spirit of
exalted patriotism that animated them, and a consicousness that they
were fighting in a righteous cause.

All hope of defeating our army, and securing what General Lee calls
"the valuable results" of such an achievement having vanished, he
thought only of rescuing from destruction the remains of his shattered
forces. In killed, wounded, and missing he had, as far as can be as-
certained, suffered a loss of about 37,000 men — rather more than one-
third of the army with which he is supposed to have marched into
Pennsylvania. Perceiving that his only safety was in rapid retreat,
he commenced withdrawing his troops at daybreak on the 4th, throw-
ing up field-works in front of our left, which, assuming the appearance
of a new position, were intended probably to protect the rear of his
army in their retreat. That day, sad celebration of the 4th of July
for an army of Americans ! was passed by him in hurrying off his
trains. By nightfall the main army was in full retreat on the Cashtown
and Fairfield roads, and it moved with such precipitation, that, short
as the nights were, by daylight the following morning, notwithstand-
ing a heavy rain, the rear-guard had left its position. The struggle
of the last two days resembled in many respects the Battle of Waterloo;
and if, on the evening of the third day. General Meade, like the Duke
of Wellington, had had the assistance of a powerful auxiliary army to
take up the pursuit, the rout of the Rebels would have been as com-
plete as that of Napoleon.

Owing to the circumstance just named, the intentions of the enemy
were not apparent on the 4th. The moment his retreat was discovered,
the following morning, he was pursued by our cavalry on the Cash-
town road and through the Emmettsburg and Monterey passes, and
by Sedgwick's corps on the Fairfield road; his rear guard was briskly
attacked at Fairfield; a great number of wagons and ambulances were
captured in the passes of the mountains; the country swarmed with
his stragglers and his wounded were literally emptied from the
vehicles containing them into the farm-houses on the road. General
Lee, in his report, makes repeated mention of the Union prisoners
whom he conveyed into Virginia, somewhat overstating their number.
He states, also, that "such of his wounded as were in a condition to
be removed" were forwarded to Williamsport. He does not men lion
that the number of his wounded not removed, and left to the Christian
care of the victors, was 7,540, not one of whom failed of any atten-
tion which it was possible, under the circumstances of the case, to
afford them; not one of whom, certainly, has been put upon Libby
Prison fare — lingering death by starvation. Heaven forbid, however,
that we should claim any merit for the exercise of common humanity '

Under the protection of the mountain ridge, whose narrow passes

602 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

are easily held even by a retreating army, General Lee reached Wil-
liamsport in safety, and took up a strong position opposite to that
place. General Meade necessarily pursued with the main army by a
flank movement through Middletown, Turner's pass having been se-
cured by General French. Passing through the South Mountain, the
Union army came up with that of the Rebels on the 12th, and found
it securely posted on the heights of Marsh Run. The position was
reconnoitred, and preparations made for an attack on the 13th. The
depth of the river, swollen by the recent rains, authorized the expec-
tation that the enemy would be brought to a general engagement the
following day. An advance was accordingly made by General Meade
on the morning of the 14th; but it was soon found that the Rebels had
escaped in the night, with such haste that £ well's Corps forded the river
where the water was breast high. The cavalry, which had rendered
the most important services during the three days, and in harassing
the enemy's retreat, was now sent in pursuit, and captured two guns
and a large number of prisoners. In an action which took place at
Falling Waters, General Petigru was mortally wounded. General
Meade, in further pursuit of the Rebels, crossed the Potomac at Ber-
lin. Thus again covering the approaches to Washington, he com-
pelled the enemy to pass the Blue Ridge at one of the upper gaps; and
in about six weeks from the commencement of the campaign, General
Lee found himself again on the south side of the Rappahannock, with
the probable loss of about a third part of his army.

Such, most inadequately recounted, is the history of the ever-memo-
rable three days, and of the events immediately preceding and follow-
ing. It has been pretended, in order to diminish the magnitude of
this disaster to the rebel cause, that it was merely the repulse of an
attack on a strongly defended position. The tremendous losses on
both sides are a sufficient answer to this misrepresentation, and attest
the courage and obstinacy with which the three days' battle was
waged. Few of the great conflicts of modern times have cost victors
and vanquished so great a sacrifice. On the Union side, there fell, in
the whole campaign, of generals killed, Reynolds, Weed, and Zook,
and wounded, Barlow, Barnes, Butterfield, Doubleday, Gibbon,
Graham, Hancock, Sickles, and Warren; while of officers below the
rank of general, and men, there Avere 2834 killed, 13,709 wounded,
and 6643 missing. On the Confederate side, there were killed on the
field or mortally wounded, Generals Armistead, Barksdale, Garnett,
Pender, Petigru, and Semmes, and wounded, Heth, Hood, Johnson,
Kemper, Kimball, and Trimble. Of officers below the rank of gen-
eral, and men, there were taken prisoners, including the wounded,
13,621, an amount ascertained officially. Of the wounded in a condi-
tion to be removed, of the killed, and the missing, the enemy has
made no return. They are estimated from the best data which the
nature of the case admits, at 23,000. General Meade also captured

EDWARD EVERETT. 603

three cannon and forty-one standards; and 24,978 small arms were
collected on the battle-field.

I must leave to others, who can do it from personal observation, to
describe the mournful spectacle presented by these hillsides and plains
at the close of the terrible conflict. It was a saying of the Duke of
Wellington, that, next to a defeat, the saddest thing is a victory. The
horrors of the battle-field, after the contest is over, the sights and
sounds of woe— let me throw a pail over the scene, which no words
can adequately depict to those who have not witnessed it, on which no
one who has witnessed it, and who has a heart in his bosom, can bear
to dwell. One drop of balm alone, one drop of heavenly life-giving
balm, mingles in this bitter cup of misery. Scarcely has the cannon
ceased to roar, when the brethren and sisters of Christian benevo-
lence, ministers of compassion, angels of pity, hasten to the field and
the hospital to moisten the parched tongue, to bind the ghastly
wounds, to soothe the parting agonies alike of friend and foe, and to
catch.the last whispered messages of love from dying lips. ' "Carry
this miniature back to my dear wife, but do not take it from my bosom
till I am gone." "Tell, my little, sister not to grieve for me; I am
willing to die for my country." " O thai my mother were here!"
When, since Aaron stood between the living and the dead, was there
ever so gracious a ministry as this? it has been said that it is char-
acteristic of Americans to treat womenWith a deference not paid to
them in any other country. I will not undertake to say whether this
is so; but 1 will say, that, since this terrible war has been waged, the
women of the loyal states, if never before, have entitled themselves to
our highest admiration and gratitude— alike those who at home, often
with fingers- unused to the toil, often bowed beneath their own domes-
tic cares, have performed an amount of daily labor not exceeded by
those who work for their daily bread, and those who, in the hospital
and the tents of the sanitary and Christian commissions, have ren-
dered services which millions could not buy. Happily, the labor and
the service are their own reward. Thousands of matrons and thou-
sands of maidens have experienced a delight in these homely toils and
services, compared with which the pleasures of the ball-room and the
opera-house are tame and unsatisfactory. This on earth is reward
enough, but a richer is in store for them. Yes, brothers, sisters of
charity, while you bind up the wounds of the poor sufferers — the hum-
blest, perhaps, that have she*d their blood for the country — forget not
who it is that will hereafter say to you, " Inasmuch as ye have done
it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."

And now, friends, fellow-citizens, as we stand among these honored
graves, the momentous question presents itself, which of the two par-
tics to the war is responsible for all this suffering, for this dreadful
sacrifice of life — the lawful and constituted government of the United
States, or the ambitious men who have .•ebellcd against it? I say

604 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

" rebelled" against it, although Earl Russell, the British Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs, in his recent temperate and conciliatory
speech in Scotland, seems to intimate that no prejudice ought to at-
tach to that word, inasmuch as our English forefathers rebelled against
Charles I. and James II., and our American fathers rebelled against
George III. These certainly are venerable precepts, but they prove
only that it is just and proper to rebel against oppressive govern-
ments. They do not prove that it was just and proper for the son of
James II. to rebel against George I., or his grandson Charles Edward
to rebel against George II.; nor, as it seems to me, ought these dy-
nastic straggles, little better than family quarrels, to be compared with
this monstrous conspiracy against the American Union. These pre-
cedents do not prove that it was just and proper for the " disappointed
great men" of the cotton-growing states to rebel against" the most
beneficent government of which history gives us any account," as the
Vice-President of the Confederacy, in November, i860, charged them
with doing. They do not create a presumption even in favor of the
disloyal slave-holders of the South, who, living under a government
of which Mr. Jefferson Davis, in the session of 1860-61, said that it
was " the best government ever instituted by man, unexceptionally
administered, and under which the people have been prosperous be-
yond comparison with any other people whose career has been re-
corded in history," rebelled against it because their aspiring politi-
cians, himself among the rest, were in danger of losing their monopoly
of its offices. What would have been thought by an impartial pos-
terity of the American rebellion against George III., if the colonists
had at all times been more than equally represented in Parliament,
and James Otis and Patrick Henry and Washington and Franklin and
the Adamses and Hancock and Jefferson, and men of their stamp, had
for two generations enjoyed the confidence of the sovereign and ad-
ministered the government of the empire? What would have been
thought of the rebellion against Charles I., if Cromwell and the men of
his school had been the responsible advisers of that prince from his
accession to the throne, and then, on account of a partial change in the
ministry, had brought his head to the block, and involved the country
in a desolating war, for the sake of dismembering it and establishing
a new government south of the Trent? What would have been
thought of the Whigs of 1688, if they had themselves composed the
Cabinet of James II., and been the advisers of the measures and the
promoters of the policy which drove him into exile? The Puritans of
1640 and the Whigs of 1688 rebelled against arbitrary power in order
to establish constitutional liberty. If they had risen against Charles
and James because those monarchs favored equal rights, and in order
themselves " for the first time in the history of the world" to establish
an oligarchy "founded on the corner-stone of slavery," they would
truly have furnished a precedent for the rebels of the South, but their

EDWARD EVERETT. 605

cause would not have been sustained by the eloquence of Pym or of
Somers, nor sealed with the blood of Hampden or Russell.

I call the war which the Confederates are waging against the Union
a "rebellion," because it is one, and in grave matters it is best to
call things by their right names. I speak of it as a crime, because the
Constitution of the United States so regards it, and puts "rebellion"
on a par with "invasion." The constitution and lav;, not only of
England, but of every civilized country, regard them in the same
light; or rather they consider the rebel in arms as far worse than the
alien enemy. To levy war against the United States is the constitu-
tional definition of treason, and that crime is by every civilized gov-
ernment regarded as the highest which citizen or subject can commit.
Not content with the sanctions of human justice, of all the crimes
against the law of the land it is singled out for the denunciations of
religion. The litanies of every church in Christendom whose ritual
embraces that office, as far as I am aware, from the metropolitan
cathedrals of Europe to the humblest missionary chapel in the islands
of the sea, concur with the Church of England in imploring the Sover-
eign of the universe, by the most awful adjurations which the heart of
nun can conceive or his tongue utter, to "deliver us from sedition,
privy conspiracy, and rebellion." And reason good ; for while a
rebellion against tyranny — a rebellion designed, after prostrating arbi-
trary power, to establish free government on the basis of justice and
truth — is an enterprise on which good men and angels may look with
complacency, an unprovoked rebellion of ambitious men against a
beneficent government, for the purpose — the avowed purpose — of es-
tablishing, extending, and perpetuating any form of injustice and
wrong, is an imitation on earth of that first foul revolt of "the infernal
serpent," against which the Supreme Majesty of heaven sent forth the
armed myriads of his angels, and clothed the right arm of his Son with
the three-bolted thunders of omnipotence.

Lord Bacon, in "the true marshalling of the sovereign degrees of
honor," assigns the first place to the " conditores imperiorum, founders
of states and commonwealths;" and, truly, to build up from the dis-
cordant elements of our nature, the passions, the interests, and the
opinions of the individual man, the rivalries of family, clan and tribe,
the influences of climate and geographical position, the accidents of
peace and war accumulated for ages, — to build up from these often-
times warring elements a well-compacted, prosperous, and powerful
state, if it were to be accomplished by one effort or in one generation
would require a more than mortal skill. To contribute in some nota-
ble degree to this, the greatest work of man, by wise and patriotic
counsel in peace and loyal heroism in war, is as high as human merit
can well rise, and far more than to any of those to whom Bacon assigns
this highest place of honor, whose names can hardly be repeated with-
out a wondering smile, — Romulus, Cvrus, Csesar, Gothman, Ismael, —

606 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

it is due to our Washington as the founder of the American Union.
But if to achieve, or help to achieve, this greatest work of man's wisdom
and virtue gives title to a place among the chi:f benefactors, rightful
heirs of the benedictions of mankind, by equal reason shfel the bold,
bad men who seek to undo the noble work, eversores imp<>rionim, de-
stroyers of states, who for base and selfish ends rebel against beneficent
governments, seek to overturn wise constitutions, to lay powerful re-
publican Unions at the foot of foreign thrones, to bring on civil and
foreign war, anarchy at home, dictation abroad, desolation, ruin, — bv
equal reason, I say, yes, a thousand-fold stronger, shall they inherit
the execrations of the ages.

But to hide the deformity of the crime under the cloak of that sophis-
try which strives to make the worse appear the better reason, we are
told by the leaders of the rebellion that in our complex system of gov-
ernment the separate states are " sovereigns" and that the central power
is only an " agency," established by these sovereigns to manage certain
little affairs, — such, forsooth, as peaceT -war, army, navy, finance, ter-
ritory, and relations with the native tribes, which they could not so
conveniently administer themselves. It happens, unfortunately for this
theory, that the Federal Constitution (which has been adopted by the
people of every state of the Union as much as their own state constitu-
tions have been adopted, and is declared to be paramount to them) no-
where recognizes the states as "sovereigns," — in fact, that, by their
names it does not recognize them at all ; while the authority estab-
lished by that instrument is recognized, in its text, not as an " agency,"
but as " the government of the United States." By that Constitution,
moreover, which purports in its preamble to be ordained and esrab^i hed
by " the people of the United States," it is expressly provided, that " the
members of the state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers,
shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support the Constitution v
Now it is a common thing, under all governments, for an agent to be
bound by oath to be faithful to his sovereign ; but I never heard before
of sovereigns being bound by oath to be faithful to their agency.

Certainly I do not deny that the separate states are clothed with
sovereign powers for the administration of local affah-s ; it is one of the
most beautiful features of our mixed system of government. But it is
equally true, that, in adopting the federal Constitution, the states abdi-
cated, by express renunciation, all the most important functions of na-
tional sovereignty, and, by one comprehensive, self-denying clause, gave
up all right to contravene the Constitution of the United States. Spe-
cifically, and by enumeration, they renounced all the most important
pr i-ogatives of independent states for peace and for war, — the right to
keep troops or ships of war in time of peace, or to engage in war unless
actually invaded ; to enter into compact with another state or a foreign
power ; to lay any duty on tonnage, or any impost on exports or imports,
without the consent of Congress ; to enter into any treaty, alliance, or

EDWARD EVERETT. 607

confederation, to grant letters of marque or reprisal, and to emit bills of
credit, — while all these powers and many others are expressly vested in
the general government, to ascribe to political communities, thus
limited in their jurisdiction, — who cannot even establish a post-office on
their own soil, — the character of independent sovereignty, and to reduce
a national organization, clothed with all the transcendent powers of gov-
ernment, to the name and condition of an " agency'' of the states,
proves nothing but that the logic of secession is on a par with its loyalty
and patriotism.

Oh, but "the reserved rights !" And what of the reserved rights ?
The Tenth Amendment of the Constitution, supposed to provide for
" reserved rights," is constantly misquoted. By that amendment,
" the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution,
nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respec-
tively, or to the people." The " powers" reserved must of course be
such as could have been, but were not, delegated to the United States
— could have been, but were not, prohibited to the states; but to speak
of the right of an individual state to secede, as a power that could
have been, though it was not delegated to the United States, is simply
nonsense.

But, waiving this obvious absurdity, can it need a serious argument
to prove that there can be no state right to enter into a new confedera-
tion reserved under a Constitution which expressly prohibits a state
to " enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation," or any " agree-
ment or compact with another state or a foreign power?" To sa}' that
the state may, by enacting the preliminary farce of secession, acquire
the right to do the prohibited things — to say, for instance, that though
the states in forming the Constitution delegated to the United States,
and prohibited to themselves, the power of declaring war, there was
by implication reserved to each state the right of seceding and then
declaring w<*r; that, though they expressly prohibited to the states and
delegated to the United States the entire treaty-making power, they
reserved by implication (for an express reservation is not pretended)
to the individual states, to Florida, for instance, the right to secede,
and then to make a treaty with Spain retroceding that Spanish colon}',
and thus surrendering to a foreign power the key to the Gulf of Mex-
ico— to maintain propositions like these, with whatever affected seri-
.ousness it is done, appears to me egregious trifling.

Pardon me, my friends, for dwelling on these wretched sophistries.
But it is these which conducted the armed hosts of rebellion to your
doors on the terrible and glorious days of July, and which have
brought upon the whole land the scourge of an aggressive and kicked
war — a war which can have no other termination compatible v\A\ the
permanent safety and welfare of the country but the complete cootruc-
tion of the military power of the enemy. I have, on other oi casions,
attempted to show that to yield to his demands and acknowledge his

608 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

independence, thus resolving the Union at once into two hostile gov-
ernments, with a certainty of further disintegration, would annihilate
the strength and the influence of the country as a member of the fam-
ily of nations; afford to foreign powers the opportunity and the temp-
tation for humiliating and disastrous interference in our affairs; wrest
from the Middle and Western States some of their great natural out
lets to the sea and of their most important lines of internal communi-
cation; deprive the commerce and navigation of the country of two
thirds of our sea-coast and of the fortresses which protect it: not only
so, but would enable each individual state — some of them with a white
population equal to a good-sized northern county ; or rather the
dominant party in each state, to cede its territory, its harbors, its fort-
resses, the mouths of its rivers, to any foreign power. It cannot be
that the people of the loyal states — that twenty-two millions of
brave and prosperous freemen — will, for the temptations of a brief
truce in an eternal border war, consent to this hideous national sui-
cide.

Do not think that I exaggerate the consequences of yielding to the
demands of the leaders of the rebellion. I understate them. They
require of us, not only all the sacrifices I have named, not only the
cession to them, a foreign and hostile power, of all the territory of the
United States at present occupied by the rebel forces, but the aban-
donment to them of the vast regions we have rescued from their
grasp — of Maryland, of a part of Eastern Virginia, and the whole of
Western Virginia; the sea-coast of North and South Carolina, Geor-
gia, and Florida; Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri; Arkansas and
the larger portion of Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas — in most of
which, with the exception of lawless guerillas, there is not a rebel in
arms; in all of which the great majority of the people are loyal to the
Union.

We must give back, too, the helpless colored population, thou-
sands of whom are perilling their lives in the ranks of our armies, to
a bondage rendered tenfold more bitter by the momentary enjoyment
of freedom. Finally, we must surrender every man in the southern
country, white or black, who has moved a finger or spoken a word for
the restoration of the Union, to a reign of terror as remorseless as
that of Robespierre, which has been the chief instrument by which
the rebellion has been organized and sustained, and which has already
filled the prisons of the South with noble men, whose only crime is,
that they are not the worst of criminals. The South is full of such
men.

I do not believe there has been a day since the election of Presi-
dent Lincoln, when, if an ordinance of secession could have been
fairly submitted, after a free discussion, to the mass of the people in
any single southern state, a majority of ballots would have been given
in its favor. No, not in South Carolina. It is not possible that the

ED IF A RD E VERE TT. 609

majority of the people, even of that state, if permitted, without fear
or favor, to give a ballot on the question, would have abandoned a
leader like Petigru, and all the memories of the Gadsdens, the Rut-
ledges, and the Cotesworth Pinckneys of the Revolutionary and Con-
stitutional age to follow the agitators of the present day.

Nor must we be deterred from the vigorous prosecution of the war
by the suggestion continually thrown out by the rebels and those who
sympathize with them, that, however it might have been at an earlier
stage, there has been engendered by the operations of the war a state
of exasperation and bitterness, which, independent of all reference to
the original nature of the matters in controversy, will forever pre-
vent the restoration of the Union and the return of harmony between
the two great sections of the country. This opinion I take to be en-
tirely without foundation.

No man can deplore more than I do the miseries of every kind un-
avoidably incident to the war. Who could stand on this spot and call
to mind the scenes of the first days of July Avithout any feeling ? A
sad foreboding of what would ensue, if war should break out be-
tween North and South, has haunted me through life, and led me,
perhaps toe long, to tread in the path of hopeless compromise, in the
fond endeavor to conciliate those who were predetermined not to be
conciliated.

But it is not true, as is pretended by the rebels and their
sympathizers, that the war has been carried on by the United States
without entire regard to those temperaments which are enjoined by
the law of nations, by our modern civilization, and by the spirit of
Christianity. It would be quite easy to point out, in the recent mili-
tary history of the leading European powers, acts of violence and
cruelty, in the prosecution of their wars, to which no parallel can be
found among us. In fact, when we consider the peculiar bitterness
with which civil wars are almost invariably waged, we may justly
boast of the manner in which the United States have carried on the
contest.

It is, of course, impossible to prevent the lawless acts of
stragglers and deserters, or the occasional unwarrantable proceed-
ings of subordinates on distant stations; but I do not believe there
is, in all history, the record of a civil war of such gigantic dimensions
where so little has been done in the spirit of vindictiveness as in this
war, by the government and commanders of the United States ; and
this notwithstanding the provocation given by the rebel government
by assuming the responsibility of wretches like Quantrell, refusing
quarter to colored troops, and scourging and selling into slavery free
colored men from the North who fell into their hands, by covering the
sea with pirates, refusing a just exchange of prisoners, while they
crowd their armies with paroled prisoners not exchanged, and starv-
ing prisoners of war to death.

6 1 o AMERICAN PA TRIO TISM.

In the next place, If there are any present" who believe, that, in ad-
dition to the effect of the military operations of the war, the confisca-
tion acts and emancipation proclamations have embittered the Rebels
beyond the possibility of .reconciliation, I would request them to reflect
that the tone of the Rebel leaders and Rebel press was just as bitter
in the first months, of the War, nay, before a gun was fired, as it is
now. There were sp'eeches. made in Congress in the very last session
before the outbreak of the rebellion, so ferocious as to show that their
authors were under the Influence of a real frenzy.

At the present day, if there is any discrimination made fry the Con-
federate press in the affected scorn, hatred, and contumely with which
every. shade of opinion and sentiment in the loyal states is treated.
the bitterest contempt is bestowed upon those at the North who still
speak the language of compromise, and who condemn those measures
of the administration which are alleged. to have rendered the return of
peace hopeless.

No, my friends, that gracious providence which overrules all things
for the best, " from seeming evil still educing good," has so constituted
our natures, that the violent excitement of the passions in one direction
is generally followed by a reaction in an opposite direction, and the
sooner for the violence. If it were not so, if injuries inflicted and
retaliated of necessity led to new retaliations, with forever accumulat-
ing compound interest of revenge, then the world, thousands of years
ago, would have been turned info an earthly hell, and the nations of
the earth would. have been resolved into ^lans of furies and demons,
each forever warring with his neighbor. But it is not so; all history
teaches a different lesson. The wars of the Roses in England lasted
an entire generation, from the battle of St. Albans in 1455 to that of
Bosworth Field in 14S5. Speaking of the former. Hume says: "This
was the first blood spilt in that fatal quarrel, which was not finished
in less than a course of thirty years; which was signalized by twelve
pitched battles; which opened a scene of extraordinary fierceness and
cruelty; is computed to have cost the lives of eighty princes of the
blood; and almost entirely annihilated the ancient nobility of England.
The strong attachments which, at that time, men of the same kindred
bore to each other, and the vindictive spirit which was considered a
point of honor, rendered the great families implacable in their resent-
ments, and widened every moment the breach between the parties."
Such was the state of things in England under which an entire genera-
tion, grew up; but when Henry VII., in whom the titles of the two
houses were united, went up to London after the battle of Eosworth
Field, to mount the throne, he was everywhere received with joyous
acclamations, " as one ordained and sent from heaven to put an end
to the dissensions " which had so long afflicted the country.

The great rebellion in England of the seventeenth century, after
long and angry premonitions, may be said to have begun with the

EDWARD EVERETT. 611

calling of the Long Parliament in 1640, and to have ended with the
return of Charles II., in r66o ; twenty years of discord, conflict, and
civil war; of confiscation, plunder, havoc; a proud hereditary peerage
trampled in the dust; a national church' overturned, its clergy beg-
gared, its most eminent prelate put to death; a military despotism
established on the ruins of a monarchy which had subsisted seven
hundred years, and the legitimate sovereign brought to the block; the
great families which adhered to the king proscribed, impoverished,
ruined; prisoners of war — a fate worse than starvation in Libby — sold
to slavery in the West Indies; in a word, everything that can embitter
and madden contending factions. Such was the state of things for
twenty years; and yet, by no gentle transition, but suddenly, and
"when the restoration of affairs appeared most hopeless," the son of
the beheaded sovereign was brought back to his father's blood-stained
thrme, with such "unexpressible and universal joy" as led the merry
monarch to exclaim" he doubted it had been his own fault he had been
absent so long, for he saw nobody who did not protest he had ever
wished for his return " " In this wonderful manner," says Clarendon,
"and with this incredible expedition, did God put an end to a rebel-
lion that had raged for twenty years, and had been carried on with all
the horrid circumstances of murder, devastation, and parricide, that
fire and sword in the hands of the most wicked men in the world" (it
is a royalist that is speaking) "could be instruments of, almost to the
desolation of two kingdoms, and the exceeding defacing and deform-
ing of the third. . . . By these remarkable steps did the merciful
hand of God, in this short space of time, not only bind up and heal all
those wounds, bat even made the scar as undiscernible as, in respect
»>f the deepness, was possible, which was a glorious addition to the
deliverance."

In Germany, the wars of the Reformation and of Charles V. in the
sixteenth century, the Thirty Years' War in the seventeenth century,
the Seven Years' War in the eighteenth century, not to speak of other
less celebrated contests, entailed upon that country all the miseries of
intestine strife for more than three centuries. At the close of the
last named war, — which was the shortest of all and waged in the most
civilized age, — "an officer," says Archenholz, "rode through seven
villages in Hesse, and found in them but one human being." More
than three hundred principalities, comprehended in the empire, ferment-
ed with the fierce passions of proud and petty s'ates; at the commence-
ment of this period the castles of robber counts frowned upon every
hill-top ; a dreadful secret tribunal, whose seat no one knew, whose
power none could escape, froze the hearts of men with terror through-
out the land; religious hatred mingled its bitter poison in the seething
caldron of provincial animosity; but of all these deadly enmities be-
tween the states of Germany scarcely the memory remains. There
are controversies in that country, at the present day, but they grow

6 1 2 A M ERICA N PA TRIO TISM.

mainly out of the rivalry of the two leading powers. There is no
country in the world in which the sentiment of national brotherhood is
stronger.

In Italy, on the breaking up of the Roman Empire, society might
be said to be resolved into its original elements, — into hostile atoms,
whose only movement was that of mutual repulsion. Ruthless bar-
barians had destroyed the old organizations, and covered the land
with a merciless feudalism. As the new civilization grew up, under
the wing of the Church, the noble families and the walled towns fell
madly into conflict with each other; the secular feud of Pope and Em-
peror scourged the land; province against province, city against city,
street against street, waged remorseless war with each other from father
to son, till Dante was able to fill his imaginary hell with the real de-
mons of Italian history. So ferocious had the factions become, that
the great poet exile himself, the glory of his native city and of his
native language, was, by a decree of the municipality, condemned to
be burned alive if found in the city of Florence. But these deadly
feuds and hatreds yielded to political influences, as the hostile cities
were grouped into states under stable- governments; the lingering
traditions of the ancient animosities gradually died away, and now
Tuscan and Lombard, Sardinian and Neapolitan, as if to shame the
degenerate sons of America, are joining in one cry for a united Italy.

In France, not to go back to the civil wars of the League in the six-
teenth centurj'- and of the Fronde in the seventeenth; not to speak of
the dreadful scenes throughout the kingdom which followed the revo-
cation of the edict of Nantes; we have, in the great revolution which
commenced at the close of the last century, seen the bloodhounds of
civil strife let loose as rarely before in the history of the world. The
reign of terror established at Paris stretched its bloody Briarean arms
to every city and village in the land; and if the most deadly feuds
which ever divided a people had the power to cause permanent aliena-
tion and hatred, this surely was the occasion. But far otherwise the
fact. In seven years from the fall of Robespierre, the strong arm of
the youthful conqueror brought order out of this chaos of crime and
woe; Jacobins whose hands were scarcely cleansed from the best
blood of France met the returning emigrants; whose estates they had
confiscated and whose kindred they had dragged to the guillotine, in
the Imperial ante-chambers; and when, after another turn of the wheel
of fortune, Louis XVIII. was restored to his throne, he took the regi-
cide Fouche, who had voted for his brother's death, to his cabinet and
confidence.

The people of loyal America will never ask you, sir, to take to your
confidence or admit again to share in the government the hard-hearted
men whose cruel lust of power has brought this desolating war upon
the land, but there is no personal bitterness felt even, against them.
They may live, if they can bear to live after wantonly causing the

EDWARD EVERETT. 613

death of so many of their fellow-men ; they may live in safe obscurity
beneath the shelter of the government they have sought to overthrow,
or they may fly to the protection of the governments of Europe, — some
of them are already there seeking, happily in vain, to obtain the aid
of foreign power in furtherance of their own treason. There let them
stay. The humblest dead soldier, that lies cold and stiff in his grave
before us, is an object of envy beneath the clods that cover him, in
comparison with the living man, I care not with what trumpery cre-
dentials he m.iy be furnished, who is willing to grovel at the foot of a
foreign throne for assistance in compassing the ruin of his country.

But the ho iris coming and now is, when the power of the leaders
of the Rebellion to delude and inflame must cease. There is no bit-
terness on the part of the masses. The people of the South are not
going to wage an eternal war for the wretched pretexts by which this
rebellion is sought to be justified. The bonds that unite us as one
people, — a substantial community of origin, language, belief, and law
(the four great ties that hold the societies of men together); common
national and political interests; a common history; a common pride in
a glorious ancestry; a common interest in this great heritage of bless-
ings; the very geographical features of the country; the mighty rivers
that cross the lines of climate, and thus facilitate the interchange of
natural and industrial products, while the wonder-working arm of the
engineer has levelled the mountain-walls which separate the East and
the West, compelling your own Alleghanies, my Maryland and Penn-
sylvania friends, to open wide their everlasting doors to the char-
iot wheels of traffic and travel, — these bonds of union are of perennial
force and energy, while the causes of alienation are imaginary, facti-
tious, and transient. The heart of the people, North and South, is for
union. Indications, too plain to be mistaken, announce the fact,
both in the East and the West of the states in rebellion. In North
Carolina and Arkansas the fatal charm at length is broken. At Ra-
leigh and Little Rock the lips of honest and brave men are unsealed,
and an independent press is unlimbering its artillery. When its rifled
cannon shall begin to roar, the hosts of treasonable sophistry, the mad
delusions of the day, will fly like the rebel army through the passes of
yonder mountain. The weary masses of the people are yearning to
see the dear old flag again floating upon their capitols, and they sigh
for the return of the peace, prosperity, and happiness which they
enjoyed under a government whose power was felt only in its bless-
ings.

And now, friends, fellow-citizens of Gettysburg and Pennsylvania,
and you from remoter states, let me again, as we part, invoke your
benediction on these honored graves. You feel, though the occasion
is mournful, that it is good to be here. You feel that it was greatly
auspicious for the cause of the country, that the men of the East and
the men of the West, the men of nineteen sister states, stood side by

6 14 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

side, on the perilous ridges of the battle. You new feel it a new bond
of union, that they, shall lie side by side, till a clarion, louder than that
which marshalled ihern to the combat, shall awake their slumbers.
God bless the Union; it is dearer to us for the blood of the brave men
which has been shed in its defence. The spots on which they stood
and fell; these pleasant heights; the fertile plain beneath them; the
thriving village whose streets so lately rang with the strange din of
v ctr; the fields beyond the ridge, where the noble Reynolds held the
;dvancing foe at bay, and, while he gave up his own lifer assured by
Lis forethought and self-sacrifice the triumph of the two succeeding
days; the little streams which winds through the hills, on whose banks
in ; fier time the wondering ploughman will turn up, with the rude
weapons of savage warfare, the fearful missiles of modern artillery;
Seminary Ridge, the Peach Orchard, Cemetery, Culp and Wolf Hill,
Round Top, Little Round Top — humble names, henceforward dear
and famous, no lapse of time, no distance of space, shall cause ycu to
be forgotten. " The whole earth," said Pericles, as he stood over the
remains of his fellow-citizens, who had fallen in the first year of the
Peloponnesian War, " the whole earth is the sepulchre of illustrious
men." All time, he might have added, is the millennium of their
glory. Surely I would do no injustice to the other noble achievements
of the war, which have reflected such honor on both arms of the ser-
vice,rand have entitled the armies and the navy of the United States,
their officers and men, to the warmest thanks and the richest-rewards
which a grateful people can pay. But they, I am sure, will join us in
saying, as we bid farewell to the dust of these martyr heroes, that
wheresoever throughout the civilized world the accounts of this great
warfare are read, and down to the latest period of recorded time, in
the glorious annals of our common country there will be no brighter
page than that which relates the battles of Gettysburg.
-

j . £ 'ISfi

\/ SPEECH AT GETTYSBURG.

" K \

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

November 10, 1863.

3
Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this
continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the pro-
position that ail men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a
great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived
and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field
of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a
final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation
might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

, CARL SCHURZ. 615

But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we
cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who
struggled here, have consecrated it far above our power to add or de-
tract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say
here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the liv-
ing, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who
fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be
here dedicated to the great task, remaining before us, that from these
honored, dead we take increased devotion to that, cause for which they
gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve
that these dead shnll not have died in vain; that this nation,. under
God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the
people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from; the
earth.

rc.sldn iiJ ,qoT I

i ~ ~-~" -

bdJ T9V1

THE TREASON OF SLAVERY,

'ijuhjaulii \o a:fi:

CARL SCHURZ.

Brooklyn, Jctobcr 7, 1804.

nan

Mr. President and Fellow-Citizens-— To ascribe great effects to
small, far-fetched, and merely incidental causes, is a manner of ex
plaining historical events which weak minds pass off, and weaker
minds take, as an evidence of superior sagacity. Even in those cases
where individuals are powerful enough to produce great commotions
on their own private motives, such an historical theory is but rarely
admissible; but where a nation acts upon the impulses of the popular
heart it is never so There are those who find the cause of the down-
fall of the Roman republic in the financial embarrassments of some of
her ambitious men. There are those who find the origin of the
great religious reformation of the sixteenth century in the desire of
some German ecclesiastics to get married. There are those who tell
us that the French Revolution would never have happened but for the
secret organization of the Freemasons. Such ridiculous exhibitions of
human ingenuity might amuse us had they not frequently exercised a
most dangerous influence upon the actions of large classes of people;
for even in our days there are those who pretend to find the origin of
the great struggle which it now convulsing this country in a few anti-
slavery tracts circulated --by a few abolitionists from New England; and
what is worse, there are many who believe it; and what is still worse,
there are many who are prepared to act upon that belief.

True, the first origin of great developments is sometimes appar-
ently small, but only apparently so. It requires an acorn fallen from
an oak-tree to make another oak-tree grow. Ever so large a quantity

616 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

of mustard-seed will never do it. And even an acorn will not, if it
falls upon a rock.

In order to make clear to our minds the true nature of ;he struggle
in which we are engaged, you must suffer me to look back upon the
original composition of American society. The men who established
the first settlements in New England were almost all plebeians — true
children of the people. They had not abandoned their old homes
merely for the purpose of seeking in the wilds of the new world a
material fortune, which the old world had refused them. They were
the earnest champions of a principle, and they left their native shore s
because there that principle was persecuted and oppressed. They
sought and found upon the rocky soil of New England a place where
they could conform their social condition to their religious belief.
Equal in their origin and social standing, inspired by the same mo-
tives, engaged with equal interest in the same enterprise, pur-
suing the same ends, and sharing the same fortunes — their
instincts, however crudely developed, were necessarily all demo-
cratic. Their natural tendency was not to produce in the new
world a social inequality, which in the old world had heavily weighed
upon them but had never existed among themselves. Every institu-
tion they founded had in view the equality of the citizens, and by orig-
inating a system of public education for all the children of the people,
they endeavored to perpetuate that equality which originally was the
characteristic feature of their society. It is true, there was a great va-
riety in their occupations: agriculture, handicraft, commerce, industry,
learned professions; but all these occupations being equally respecta-
ble, they produced no permanent distinctions in society; for, what one
might be, another might become. Equality, and the democratic spirit
arising from it, was the basis of their whole social and political organ-
ization. These tendencies they and their descendants carried all over
the Northern States, and although the Puritans gradually dropped
most of their religious and social peculiarities, although they, as a
race, became largely intermingled with other classes of people, yet
those original tendencies pervaded the whole social and political sys-
tem as a powerful leaven, and thus determined the character of North-
ern society and civilization.

This is the spirit to which the North owes her thrift and industry,
her education, her liberty, her progressive enterprise, her prosperity,
and her greatness.

It was not so with the original settlers of the Southern country, es-
pecially Virginia. Some of them were scions of the noble houses of
England; they belonged to the privileged class at home. They went
to the new country, those that were rich and powerful, in order to in-
crease their wealth and power, and those that Were poor and insignifi-
cant, in order to gain in the new world what they had been vainly
striving to find in the old. All were seeking new fortunes upon a new

CARL SCHURZ, 617

field of action. Such were the cavaliers; and those who followed
them were not permitted to forget here the difference of station which
had separated them from their patrons at home. The aristocratic
gradations of European society, naturally modified by the necessities
of American life, were as much as possible imitated, or rather retained,
and the general tendency of things was more favorable to the prcscr.
vation than to the abolition of social distinctions. This manifested
itself clearly in the business enterprises of the new world aristocracy.
Large landed estates were formed, the cultivation of which required
the labor of a vast number of subordinates. Various ways were de-
vised in which this labor could be made obligatory; a peculiar system
of white serfdom was attempted, and everything seemed to concur in
making the superiority of the few over the many an hereditary and
permanent institution. This tendency fixed the character of Southern
society and civilization. This is the spirit to which the South owes
her domestic tyranny, her lack of enterprise, the poverty and ignor-
ance of her masses, the slowness of her progress.

It is probable — nay it is almost certain — that the aristocratic char-
acter of Southern society would have been unable to maintain itself,
and to impress its mark permanently upon their political institutions,
had not the importation of a class of person, of whom it was taken
for granted that they had to labor, not for themselves, but for others,
furnished a welcome expedient.

But for the introduction of negro slavery, the aristocratic land-
holders of the South would not have succeeded in fastening upon any
class of people the burden of obligatory labor; aristocracy would have
lost its foundation, and been obliged to yield to the democratic spirit
natural to the- inhabitants of a new country. But in negro slavery it
found a congenial element; slavery was the soil which nourished and
fostered and sustained the roots of aristocracy against the democratic
breeze.

I may remark here, by the way, that by tracing the aristocratic
tendency of Southern "society back to the cavaliers who founded the
settlements in Virginia, I do not mean to admit the ridiculous claim of
the latter-day chivalry, that they are a superior race of people, and
have all sorts of noble blood in their veins. Society became some-
what mixed, and among the proudest slave-barons of to-day, there are
certainly a good many descendants of men who, if England had to
dispose of them again, would be sent to Botany Bay instead of Vir-
ginia, while other Southern nobles may run up their pedigree to some
speculative Yankee pedlar.

What I mean to say is, that the character of the original settlers de-
termined the character of the social and political institutions, while
subsequently these institutions in their turn determined the character
of the inhabitants. I am also well aware that political dqctrines were
cultivated in the two groups of colonies aud states which apparently

618 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

contradict this representation, but only apparently, for in democracies
practice frequently goes ahead of theory, while in aristocracies fre-
quently theories are cherished, the full realization of which would
greatly disturb the society which cherishes them.

Thus we trace in the first stages of American history two distinct
currents, one running in the direction of social and political equality,
and the other in the direction of permanent social and political distinc-
tions— the one essentially democratic, the other essentially aristo-
cratic. These currents were running smoothly side by side as long as
they were kept asunder by the separate colonial governments. But
they became directly antagonistic as soon as, by the organization of
the different colonies into one republic, a field of common problems
was opened to them where they had to meet. Then the question
arose, which of the two currents should determine the character of the
future development of the American republic ?— and this question,
meanwhile expanded to gigantic dimensions, is the one we have been
so Avarmly discussing these forty cr fifty years, and which we are now
about to decide.

Pardon me for having commenced my speech with the pilgrim
fathers and the first settlers of Virginia. I desired to show that Wil-
liam Llo5rd Garrison and Gerrit Smith are not altogether responsible
for the great rebellion. And if you give me leave I will proceed to
show that the Republican party is not altogether responsible for that
event either. I may then arrive at some conclusions having a direct
bearing upon the burning questions we have at present to solve.

The struggle against Great Britain commenced, and the two great
elements, the democratic and aristocratic, went harmoniously together.
They had one great common problem to solve — that was the problem
of the first historical period of the American people, the achievement
of political independence, the foundation of the new American nation-
ality, and the defence of that incipient nationality against its enemies
abroad. While struggling together for that common object, they had
every conceivable inducement for going hand in hand. The natural:
antagonism has as yet but imperfectly disclosed itself. And, indeed,
at that time, there was another possibility of permanently harmoniz-
ing the conflicting elements.

The spirit of the leaders, as well as the instincts of the mas-
ses, had risen above the range of ordinary feelings. The phil-
osophy of the eighteenth century had made the statesmen of the
Revolution anti-slavery men on principle. The elevation of mind
and the " generous emotions nourished by that great straggle
for liberty had confirmed them in their faith. They had expanded
their desire for colonial independence into a broad assertion of
the rights of human nature. From such convictions and impulses
grew that grand platform of human liberty and equality — the Declara-
tion of Independence. All their public acts relating to the subject

CARL SCI1URZ. 619

were based upon the conviction that the abnormity of slavery was to
be put upon the course of ultimate extinction. Hence the great ordi-
nance of 1787, and the legislation about the slave trade. And, indeed,
had that spirit continued to govern the destinies of this Republic,
slavery would have been gradually abolished, the foundations of the
aristocratic tendency would, have been taken away, and the future de-
velopment of the country would have been placed upon the solid and
fertile ground of social and political harmony embodied in truly demo-
cratic institutions.

But this healthy development was suddenly interfered with — "by
the Abolutionists" — our opponents will say. No, not by the Aboli-
tionists, for the general abolition spirit of that period had brought
slavery near its death. No, it was interfered with by the invention of
the cotton-gin; and, strange. enough, a progress in manufacturing in-
dustry worked a most deplorable reaction in moral and political ideas.
Slavery, drooping in most of the states, became suddenly profitable,
and the sordid greediness of gain crushed down in a great many hearts
the love of principle. Slavery," instead of being an evil, a scourge, and
a disgrace, became suddenly. a great, economical, moral, and political
blessing. New theories of government sprang out of this economical
revolution, and the same system of social organization, which, but a
short time before, had been the foulest blot on the American name,
was suddenly discovered to be the corner-stone of democratic institu-
tions. Even ministers of Christianity joined in the frantic dance
around the golden calf, and anointed the idol with the sanction of divine
origin.

Such was the interference which prevented the abolition of slavery.
Then. the aristocratic character of Southern society was developed to
a stronger and more obnoxious form. The old Cavalier element lost
most of its best attributes; but its worst impulses found a congenial
institution to feed upon, and out of the Cavalier grew the Slave-Lord.
The struggle between the two antagonistic elements began now in
earnest, and out of it grew the germs of the Rebellion as an almost
inevitable consequence.

Permit me to show the most characteristic features of this strange
history. Slavery, finding itself condemned by the universal opinion
of mankind, wanted power in order to stand against so formidable an
adversary. There was method in its proceedings. First it console
dated itself at home. To this end it planted itself upon the doctrine
of state-rights, in the Southern acceptation of the word. I will call it
the doctrine of Slave-States-Rights, for the rights of the free states was
a thing which the doctrine did not include. It did this in order to pro-
tect itself from outside interference while adapting the laws and insti-
tutions of the several slave states completely to its interests and aspi-
rations. Whenever the rights of man, and the fundamental liberties
of the people — free speech, free press, trial by jury, writ of habeas

6 2 o A M ERICA N PA TRIO TISM.

corptts— came into conflict with the ruling interest, they were, in the
slave states, most unceremoniously overridden. The possession of
slaves became an indispensable qualification for office — in some states
by law, in others by custom. The exceptions were rare. The slave
power assumed a most absolute dictatorship, which gradually absorbed
all the guarantees of popular liberty. So much for its home policy.

But it did not stop there. Finding that the democratic element of
free-labor society, with which it. was yoked together, by the national
organization of this Republic, had an expansive tendency, and was
growing stronger every day out of all proportion, and fearing to be
crowded out and overwhelmed by it, the slave power deemed it neces-
sary either to control or to suppress that element. Its states-rights
doctrine was an intrenched position, from which it now commenced
making aggressive sallies. Morbidly sensitive of the rights of its own
states, it asked that for its benefit the rights of the people of the free
states should be put down; it imperiously demanded the suppression
of anti-slavery papers, and the punishment of anti-slavery speakers; in
some. cases it enforced its demand by arson and murder. This tendency
brought forth, at a later period, the most flagrant violation of the
rights of the free states^ -the monstrous fugitive slave-law, which, set-
ting aside trial by jury and habeas corpus, demanded the rendition of
fugitives, not accoi-ding to the laws and forms of justice prevailing in
the states where the fugitives were caught, but by a rule of summary
and arbitrary proceedings dictated to Congress by the slave power,
and by Congress, thus ruled, to the people. These proceedings made
it necessary for the people of the North to stand up in defence of
the rights of their own states. Thus the slave power, while insisting
upon state rights for itself, endeavored to accumulate power in its
own hands to control the rest of the states according to its interests.

But the accumulation of power was not complete. The slave power
wanted to rule the whole machinery, not only of its own states, but
of the general government also, for its own purposes. It wanted to
adapt the whole of our national institutions to its own interests. It
wanted a permanent controlling influence in our national legislature.
Hence its cry for a " balance of power," which meant either a per-
manent majority in Congress, or, if that could not be had, a vote
strong enough to constitute a power of veto on all legislative acts.
Hence its opposition to the admission of new free states; hence its de-
mand that slavery should take possession of all the national territories,
out of which new slave states might be formed. In this manner
the slave power worked steadily for the conquest of supreme and ab-
solute control of our national affairs ; and had it succeeded, this repub-
lic would now lie at its feet bound hand and foot, and the aristocratic
element in this country would have achieved one of the strangest vic-
tories over the progressive spirit of this age.

It must be admitted, the slave power carried out its policy with

CARL SCHURZ. 621

such consummate acuteness, that Machiavelli himself, if he lived to-
day, might profit from its teachings. The South was weak, itis
North was strong; but the South was united, and the North divided.
The slave interest held the balance of power between the political
parties of the country. In an evil hour — an evil hour, indeed, for this
republic — a political party inaugurated that most demoralizing, tk:.t
most pernicious principle, that to the victor belong the spoils. And
the slave power rose up and said, " Only to him will I give these
things who falls down and worships me." And they fell down snd
worshipped in turn, but the " Democratic" party worshipped most.
To the victors belonged the spoils, and victory with the spoils could
only be obtained by co-operation with an untiring subserviency to the
slave power.

This was one of those dark periods in our political history which
may send a blush to every manly cheek, and make us almost doubt
of the innate nobility of human nature. The fate of a democratic re-
public seemed almost decided by the self-degradation of freemen.
What the united energy of the slave power might have vainly at-
tempted, the inexhaustible obsequiousness of its Northern allies would
have accomplished, had there not been a residue of virtue in the
people.

But in the course of this struggle for absolute dominion, the slave
power showed one tendency which gave it an entirely new aspect. At
the time when it had intrenched itself in its doctrine of state rights,
and was about to try its strength in offensive operations, it raised the
threat of separation, secession, disunion, in order to enforce its de-
mands. And that cry remained ever since its staple threat ; and, fos-
tered and strengthened by Northern obsequiousness, it became its
most formidable weapon. What did this cry mean ? It meant this:
" If you will not permit us to rule this nation, we are determined to
ruin it." This cry was raised and reiterated again and again, long
before you heard of a Republican party. Then the slave power
established its disloyal character, its anti-national tendency. It was
then— mark what I say — it was then the great rebellion began.

The slave power, which formerly had been only the adversary of an
opposite element in the nation, became then the enemy of the nation
itself. To be ruled by one who continually threatened to murder her
— that was the situation of the American Republic. Then the Nor-
thern people had to struggle, not only for their rights and liberties.
their dignity and prosperity, but in struggling against the pretensions
of the slave power they fought for the life of American nationality.
By one of the most singular perversions of human logic, the party of
the slave power called itself the National party. While it was admit-
ted in the North, that freedom was national and slavery was sectional,
the party of freedom was stigmatized as sectional, the party of slavery
eulogized as national. A party, the main body of which continually

622 A ME RICA N PA TRIO TISM.

flourished the knife of the assassin over the head of the navfon- — that
party national ! A truly loyal and national man will never feel tempted
even to threaten the life of the nation. The slave power disclosed its
enmity to the nationality, first by the threat, and then the earnestness
of the threat by the attempt. At last, when under Buchanan's Admin-
istration the assumptions and usurpations of the slave power culmina-
ted in the Dred Scott and Lecompton policy, the people of the North,
the democratic element of the country, rose up, and at the. election of
1.860 it vindicated its liberties and its manhood. It rescued the Repub-
lic from the grasp of an anti-democratic us well as an anti-national
power. Then the second great period of the history of the American
people arrived at the crisis of its development. The first had solved
the problem of achieving the foundation of the new nationality and
defending it against its great enemy abroad; the problem of the sec-
ond is to maintain the American nationality by defending it against its
great enemy at home. The election of i860 was a notice given to the
slave power that the American nation meant no longer to live in cow-
ardly fear of the murderous knife pointed at its heart by a set of im-
perious aristocrats, but that it meant to take its government into its
own hands.

This was the first grand uprising of the democratic spirit of the
people against the absolute control of the slave power. The high-
handed attempt of the latter to force the people to surrender the attri-
butes of our Government, springing from the Northern spirit of equal-
ity, to the Southern spirit of aristocratic dominion, was foiled, and the
slave power, seeing that its arrogated privilege to rule the nation was
denied, began to execute its threat to ruin it It withdrew at once
into its doctrine of slave-states-rights, and, carrying it to the criminal
extent of secession, struck its murderous blow at the life of the nation.
It transferred the contest from the forum to the battle-field, and once
more Roundheads and Cavaliers, Democracy and Aristocracy, meet
each other in arms. This is the history of the origin of this revolu-
tion. I call it a revolution, for it is a rebellion only on their side, it is
a revolution for the American people. This is the true character of
the great struggle for the preservation of our nationality, a struggle
which was initiated, not when the first gun was fired upon Fort Sum-
ter, but when the slave aristocracy uttered the first threat of disunion,
which arrived at its crisis when the slave aristocracy failed to obtain
complete control of our national government, and struck the blow
against the life of the nation, and which cannot end until the anti-
national spirit is extinguished by the destruction of the institution
which begot and fostered it.

I have led you through this long, and perhaps tedious, summary of
our social and political history for the purpose of showing that our pres-
ent struggle is the natural outgrowth of an antagonism of which we find
thegerms in the first organisation of American tocicly. I have shown,

CARL SCIIURZ. 623

also, that the aristocratic element, after having identified itself with
the system of slavery, acted upon the command of its necessities.
Ico principal crime consisted at the beginning, and consists to-day, in
its identifying itself with slavery instead of yielding to the democratic
principles upon which a healthy national organization could be found-
ed. But remaining faithful to slavery, it was impelled by the irresist-
ible power of logic, from step to step, until at last it landed in the do-
main of high treason. Finding slavery endangered by public opinion,
it was natural that it should shut itself up against that dangerous influ-
ence. But being yoked together in a common national organization with
the threatening influence of the expansive democratic element, it was
natural that it should endeavor to control or suppress it by all the ex-
pedients of corruption and intimidation. But failing in this finally*
and still insisting upon the perpetuation of slaver}'', it was natural that
it should try to shut itself up more effectually — to isolate itself com-
pletely, by breaking up the national organization which held it under
an influence so dangerous to its existsnee. Thus slavery, impelled by
its necessities from step to step, was the real, the natural traitor
against the American nationality, and the Southern people are only
the victims of its inevitable treason. But if slavery, the enemy of Amer-
ican nationality, could not act otherwise without giving itself up, how
are you to act, the defenders of American nationality ?

The answer would seem to every unprejudiced mind as plain as the
question. Still, strange as it may appear at first sight, there is a dif-
ference of opinion. Only three lines of policy suggest themselves.
The most fertile ingenuity could not invent any beyond these three.
Either We must permit the slave aristocracy to isolate itself territor-
ially as well as politically — that is, we must consent to the breaking
up of the American nationality; or secondly, we must preserve our
Union and nationality by striking down its enemies in arms and
by extinguishing the social and political agency which in its nature is
disloyal and anti-national; or, thirdly, we must invite the slave aris-
tocracy back into the national organization, offering to it that supreme
and absolute control of our national concerns without which it cannot
insure its permanency in the Union.

On the first proposition the people have already pronounced thcT
judgment. To accept it was impossible. The question has been dis-
cussed thousands of times; and every enlightened mind, every true
American heart, has always arrived at the same conclusion. Consid-
erations of policy, national existence, safety, liberty, civilization,
peace, all lead to the same result. The old cry, "The Union must
and shall be preserved :" is not a mere watch-word of party. It is the
instinctive outcry of the deepest convictions, of the immovable reli-
gious faith of the American mind. • This conviction, this faith, is pro-
claimed by the thunder of our artillery; it is confirmed by our victories;
it is sealed with the blood of the people. This question is no longer
open to discussion.

624 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM. gr

But the conflict between the two other propositions is the real point
at issue in our present controversy. Our opponents may speak of
tyranny, but the violence of their own denunciations gives the lie to
their own assertions. It is dust thrown into the eyes of a deluded
multitude. They may no longer have the courage to say that they are
for slavery: they are still base enough to say that they are not against
it. All their tirades and declamations hang loosely around this senti-
ment. The true issue, divested of all its incidental questions, is this:
A nation ruled by the slave power, or a nation governing itself. For
the first, they are ready to imperil victory and peace and union: for
the second, we are ready to destroy slavery forever.

The second line of policy before mentioned has been consistently
acted upon by the party holding the reins of government during the
struggle. On some occasion President Lincoln uttered the follow-
ing words : " I am not controlling events, but events control me."
These words, applicable of course only to the leading measures of pol-
icy, have been denounced and ridiculed as a confession of weakness;
I see in them a sign of a just understanding of his situation. Revolu-
tionary developments are never governed by the preconceived plans of
individuals. Individuals may understand them, and shape their course
according; they may aid in their execution and facilitate their progress;
they may fix their results in the form of permanent laws and institu-
tions— but individuals will never be able to determine their character
by their own conceptions. Every such attempt will prove abortive,
and lead to violent reactions. A policy which is so controlled by the
spirit of the times, and is based upon a just appreciation of circum-
stances, may, perhaps, not be very brilliant, but it will be safe, and
above all, eminently democratic. And I venture to suggest that a great
many of those who indulge in the highest sounding figures of speech
as to what great things they would do, if they had the power, would
hardly be capable of conceiving so wise an idea as that which the Pres-
ident expressed in language so simple and so modest.

And thus the Government has steadily followed the voice of events
— slowly, indeed, but never retracing a step. Slowly, did I say ? We
are apt to forget the ordinary relations of time, at a moment when the
struggle of a century is compressing itself into the narrow compass of
days and hours. What was to be done, and what was done, is plain.
I showed you how, after the establishment of the first colonies the
democratic spirit natural to new organizations failed to absorb the
aristocratic element, on account of the introduction of slavery. I
showed you how the philosophy of the eighteenth century, and the
lofty spirit of the Revolutionary period, failed in gradually abolishing
slavery in consequence of an economical innovation. Those two great
opportunities were lost; the full bearing of the question was not un-
derstood. But now the slave power itself has m»de us understand it.
Now, at last, slavery has risen in arms against our nationality. It has

CARL SCHURZ. 625

defied us, for our own salvation, to destroy it. Slavery itself, with its
defiance, has put the weapon into our hands, and in obedience to the
command of events of the Government of the Republic has at last
struck the blow. Treason has defied us, obliged us to strike it,
and we have strack it on the head. The Government has not con-
trolled events, but, resolutely following their control, proclaimed the
emancipation of the slave. Mr. Lincoln was not the originator of
the decree> he was the recorder of it. The executors are the people in
arms.

But the opponents of the government say by this act the war was
diverted from its original object; that it was commenced for the res-
toration of the Union only, but was made a war for the abolition of
slavery. It will not be difficult to show the shallowness of this subter-
fuge of bad consciences. Those who read history understandingly
will know that revolutionary movements run in a certain determined
direction; that the point from which they start may be ascertained, but
that you cannot tell beforehand how far they will go. The extent of
their progress depends upon the strength of the opposition they meet;
if the opposition is weak and short, the revolution will stop short also;
but if the opposition is strong and stubborn, the movement will roll
on until every opposing element in its path is trodden down and
crushed.

I invite our opponents to look back upon the war of the Revolution.
Was the Revolution commenced for the achievement of independence
from Great Britain? No; it was commenced in opposition to the
arbitrary acts of the British Government; it was commenced for the
redress of specified grievancies, and in vindication of colonial rights
and liberties. Far-reaching minds may have foreseen the ultimate
development, but it is well known that some of the most energetic rev-
olutionary characters disclaimed most emphatically all intention to
make the colonies independent not long before independence was act-
ually declared. And how did they come to divert the Revolutionary
War from its original object ? The process was- simple. They per-
mitted themselves to be controlled by events. In the course of the
struggle they came to the conclusion that the rights and liberties of the
colonies would not be secure as long as the British Government had
the power to enforce arbitrary measures in this country; they saw that
British dominion was incompatible with American liberty. Then
independence was declared. It was decreed by the logic of events; it
was recorded by Jefferson; it was enforced by Washington.

This was the way in which a struggle for a mere redress of grievan-
cies was " perverted " into a struggle for the abolition of British domin-
ion. Is there anybody, to-day, bold enough to assert that this perver-
sion was illegitimate ? Let us return to the crisis in which we are
engaged

We went into the war for the purpose of maintaining the Union,

626 A M ERICA N PA TRIO TISM.

and preserving1 our nationality. Although it was the slave power
which had attempted to break up the Union, .we did,; at first, not -tourh
slavery in defending the Union. No, with a scrupulousness of very
doubtful merit, slavery was protected by many of our leaders— especi-
ally one of them, who at that time held the highest military command,
made it a particular object not to hurt slavery while fighting against the
rebellious slaveholder^ and he exhausted all the resources of his states-
manship for that purpose. It is true he exhausted, at the same: time,
the patience of the people.

That statesmanship threatened to exhaust all our military and finan-
cial-resources; but if, indeed, it did threaten to exhaust the resources of the
rebellion, the threat was very gentle. You remember the results of that
period of kid-glove policy, which the South found so veiy gentlemanly *
reverse after reverse; popular discontent rising to despondency ; ruin
staring us in the face. The war threatened, indeed,, to become a failure ;
and if the resolution of the Chicago Convention, which declared the
war a failure, had special reference to the period when the distinguished
candidate of the Democratic party was General-in-Chief, then, it must
be confessed, the Chicago- Convention /showed, a certain degree of judg-
ment.

Gradually it became clear to every candid mind that slavery, un-
touched, constituted the strength of the rebellion; but that slavery,
touched, would constitute its weakness. The negro- tilled its fields, and
fed its armies; the negro carried its. baggage and dug its-trenehes:;
and the same negro was longing for the day when he would
be permitted to fight for the Union, instead of being forced to
work for the rebellion. To oblige him to .work for the rebellion, in-
stead of permitting him to fight for the Union, would have been more
than folly — it would have been a crime against the nation. To give him
his freedom, then, was an act of justice not only to him, but to the
American Republic. ; - ;

If the rebellious slave power had submitted, after the first six months
of the war, it is possible that slavery might have. had another lease of
life. But its resistance being vigorous and stubborn, and not only that,
its resistance being crowned with success, it became a question of life or
death— the death of the nation, or the death of slavery. Then the gov-
ernment chose. It chose the life of the nation by the death of slavery ;
and the revolution rolled over the treasonable, institution, and crushed it-
wherever it found it.

Could an act which undermined the strength of the enemy, and in the
same measure added to our own — could that be called diverting the wr.r
from its original purpose ? Was not the object of the war to restore the
Union? How then could we refrain from using for our pu- poses an
element which was certain to contribute most powerfully to that end?
Was it not the object of the war to make the Union permano.t by re-
storing loyalty to the Union ? But by what means in the world can

CARL SCIIURZ. 627

loyalty be restored, if it is not by crushing out the element which breeds
disloyalty and treason as its natural offspring?

But if it is the opinion of our opponents that it was the original ob-
ject of the war to lay the North helpless at the feet of the South, then it
must be admitted the war is now much perverted from its original cbjec'.

The matter stands clear in the light of experience. Every man who
professes to be for the Union, and ihows any tenderness for an agency
which is bound to destroy the Union, has in his heart a dark corner
into which the spirit of true loyalty has not yet penetrated. And on
the other hand, every man, whatever his opinions may have been, as
soon as he throw's his whole heart into the struggle for the Union,
throws at the same time his whole heart into the struggle against
slavery.

Look at some of the brightest names which the history of this period
will hand down to posterity; your own Daniel S. Dickinson, Benjamin
F. Butler of Massachusetts, the venerable Breckinridge of Kentucky,
the brave Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, and many thousands of
brave spirits of less note. You cannot say that they w*ere abolition-
ists; but they are honestly for the death of skrvery, because they are
honestly for the life of the nation.

Emancipation would have been declared in this war, even if there
had not been a single abolitionist in America before the war. The
measure followed as naturally, as necessarily, upon the first threaten-
ing successes of the rebellion, as a clap of thunder follows upon a flash
of lightning. Nay, if there had been a life-long pro-slavery man in
the presidential chair, but a Union man of a true heart and a clear
head— such a man as will lay his hand to the plough without look-
ing back — he would, after the first year of the rebellion, have
stretched out his hand to William Lloyd Garrison, and would have
said to him, "Thou art my man." Listening to the voice of reason,
duty, conscience, he would have torn the inveterate prejudice from
his heart, and with an eager hand he would have signed the death-
warrant of the treacherous idol.

And you speak of diverting the war from its legitimate object ! As
in the war of the revolution no true patriot shrank back from the con-
clusion that colonial rights and liberties could not be permanently se-
cured, but by the abolition of British dominion, so in our times no
true Union man can shrink back from the equally imperative conclu-
sion that the permanency of the Union cannot be secured, but by the
abolition of its arch-enemy — which is slavery. The Declaration of In-
dependence was no more the natural, logical, and legitimate conse-
quence of the struggle for colonial rights and liberties than the Emanci-
pation proclamation is the natural, logical, and legitimate consequence
of our struggle for the Union. The Emancipation proclamation
is the true sister of the Declaration of Independence; it is the supple-
mentary act; it is the Declaration of Independence translated from

628 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

universal principle into universal fact. And the two great state
papers will stand in the history of this country as the proudest monu-
ments not only of American statesmanship, American spirit, and
American virtue, but also of the earnestness and good faith of the
American heart. The fourth of July, 1776, will shine with tenfold
lustre, for its glory is at last completed by the first of January, 1S63.

Thus the same logic of things which had driven the naturally dis-
loyal slave aristocracy to attempt the destruction of the Union, impelled
the earnest defenders of the Union to destroy slavery.

Still, we are told that the Emancipation proclamation had an injur-
ious effect upon the conduct of the war. This may sound supremely
ridiculous at this moment, but it seems there is nothing too ridic-
ulous for the leaders of the opposition to assert, and nothing too
ridiculous for their followers to believe. Still let us hear them. They
say that the anti-slavery policy of the government divided the
North and united the South. And who were these patriots who so
clamorously complained of the divisions in the North ? They were
the same men who divided.

I will tell them what the anti-slavery policy of the government did
do.

It furnished a welcome pretext for those in the North whose loy-
alty was shaky, and it permanently attached to our colors four mil-
lions of hearts in the South whose loyalty was sound. It brought
every man down to his true level. It made the negro a fighting
patriot, and it made the pro-slavery peace democrat a skulking tory.
It added two hundred thousand black soldiers to our armies, and it
increases their number daily.

I wish to call your special attention to this point. I will not
discuss the soldierly qualities of the negro. Although on many
bloody fields he has proved them, and although I consider a black
man fighting for his own and our liberty far superior, as a sol-
dier, to a white man who dodges a fight against slavery, yet, for
argument's sake, I am willing to suppose that the negro soldier is
best to be used as a garrison and guard soldier on our immense lines
of railroads, in fortified places and posts. This, not even our oppon-
ents will deny. But do they not see that, in using him thus, we can
release so many white veterans from such duty and send them forward
to the battle-field ? Do they not see that only in this way, it becomes
possible to effect those formidable concentrations of military power,
and thus to achieve those glorious results, which have made the rebel-
lion reel and the hearts of the Northern traitors quake ? Do they not
see that, while it may not be the negro who beats the enemy on the
battle-field, it is more than doubtful whether, without the negro re-
inforcements, we could hurl such strength against the enemy as
makes victory sure? No wonder that there are opposed to the negro
so!d; ,rs those whose checks grew pale when they heard of the taking

CARL SCIIURZ. 629

of Atlanta, and of Sheridan whirling the rebels out of the Valley of
Virginia.

The emancipation proclamation, I say, added two hundred thousand
black soldiers to our armies, and it may indeed have kept some white
ones away, who merely wanted an excuse for not going anyhow.
They say a white soldier cannot fight by the side of the negro. I
know of white soldiers who were very glad to see the negro fight by
their side. Ask our brave men at Petersburg, along the Mississippi,
and on the Southern coast. Their cheers, when they saw the black
" columns dash upon the works of the enemy, did not sound like indig-
nant protest against the companionship. But those dainty folks who
raise the objection as a point of honor, will, I candidly believe, indeed
not fight by the side of the negro, for they are just the men who will
not fight at all.

The Emancipation proclamation and the enlistment of negroes had
an injurious effect upon the war ! and because the emancipation de-
cree had an injurious effect upon the war, the war is a "failure !" In-
deed, it looks much like it ! The peace Democrats may call a man
who undoubtedly is high authority with them, they may call Jefferson
Davis himself upon the stand as a witness, to say what he thinks of
this failure; they may call for the professional opinions of Lee, John-
ston, Hood, and Early, and I am willing to abide by it. Attorneys
Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, and Farragut have already entered their
pleas in the case, and, methinks, the judicial bench of history is about
to pronounce the final verdict. And when that verdict is out, the genius
of justice will rejoice that the power of the slave aristocracy could be
beaten down in spite of the united efforts and of the exhaustion of all
its resources, and that the cause of liberty and union could triumph
without the support of those whose hearts were divided between God
and mammon. Yes, freedom will at one blow have conquered the
whole force of its adversaries — those that were in arms against it as
open enemies, and those that imperilled its success as uncertain
friends.

But the Emancipation proclamation did us still another service It
is well known that at the beginning of the war not only the sympa-
thies of the most powerful European governments were against us,
but that the sympathies of European nations were doubtful. Our
armies were beaten, our prospects looked hopeless, and to the current
running against us we had to offer no counterpoise. The nations of
Europe looked across the ocean with anxious eyes, and asked : " Will
not now, at last, the great blow be struck against the most hideous
abomination of this age? Are they so in love with it that they will
not even destroy it to save themselves?" For you must know every
enlightened European is a natural anti-slavery man. His heart, al-
though burdened with so many loads, has not been corrupted by the
foul touch of that institution, which seems to demoralize everything

a 630 AJlf£M€MmiPAm2o TISM.

- that breathes fits atmosphere. - ' Ahd"wherF they^saw,'to their -utfer'as^

- toni .-foment -and 'disgust,: that at first slavery Was not touched, their
: hearts sunk: within them, and they -began to explain the reverses we

sulTered hy-the moral Aveakness^ of "our cause. "•"'

At; last the Emancipation •■proclamation' came. A shout "of-triufhph
vent up ; from. every liberty- loving, heart. -Once "more the friends of
freedom in each hemisphere joined ,&&'<■&■ common sympathy. 'Once
more the cause of the American people became* the'eause of :Iibettythe

!i^©afclc4lgprri73'£>nGe more our. stwggie'Was- identified with the noblest
a':pirauoatts .of :the: human race. Once: more our : reverses found' "a re-
sponse of li sorrow in the great 'heart .of mafikifjdy : andc our "victories

: aroused a jubilant acclaim 'which '-roiled around the globe. 'Do you re-
member the "touching address7 of ; the' working-men "of ■ Manchester ?
"While the instincts of despotism everywhere conspired against us, while
the aristocracy of, Great Britain covered us with ftheif, Sneering ''con-
tempt^ while the laboring men in England began to suffer by't-he-stop-

-ping-of the cotton supply, and the nobility and the princes of industry
told them that their misery was our fault, the. 'groat heart of the "poor
man rose in rits magnificence, rand the English laborer stretched his
hard hand. across;. the Atlanticfo grasp, that of :©ur "Bfcsident, and he
said : AH hail, Liberator I Although Want and- misery^ may knoekf-at
my doors, mincbit not; I may suffer, but be you firm ! 'Let the slave
be free, let the dignity of human nature 'be. vindicated, let universal
liberty triumph ! All hail,' American people: I we are your, brothers -P
And this ; sympathy -did not.remain a rriere idle exchange of friendly

-feelings. That i sympathy : controlled" public opinion in Europe, and
that -public opinion held in check the secret 'desires of : unfriendly gov-
ernments,.. Mason and Slidell slink from ante-chamber to ante-cham-
ber like two ticket-of-leave men \> and- they find" "written above every
door the inscription : ',' No slaveryhere !". No government would dare
to rec°gnize; the;slaveholding Confederacy without loading itself down
with the contempt and curses of : the people, g The irresistible" moral
power of a great and good1 cause, has; achieved for us victories abroad
no less signal than .the victories our: arms :have achieved for tis at
home. Our arms will lay the enemies of the nation helpless at our feet,
l'i:t Emancipation has .pressed the heart of the world to our hearts.

But our opponents are not moved by all this. They come with their
last pitiable quibble, and I beg your pardon Tor answering that also.
They say: ''Your Emancipation proclamation was nothing but wind
after all. The proclamation, did not • effect the emancipation of the
slaves." It is true, slavery is not abolished by the proclamation alone,
just as little as by the mere Declaration of Independence the British
armies were driven away and the independence of the colonies estab-
lished. But that declaration was made good forever by the taking of
Yorktown, and I feel safe in predicting that our proclamation will be
made as good forever bv the taking of Richmond. But there is one

CARL SCHURZ. 631

-point at which all parallel with the Revolution fails. If in those times
a person had proposed to make an anti-independence man commander-
in-chief, he would have been put into the mad-house, while in our days
those are running around loose who seriously try to persuade the peo-
ple to make an anti-emancipation man president of the United States.

Yes, incredible as it may seem to all who are not initiated into the
mysteries of American politics, the idea is seriously entertained to
carry out that third line of policy of which I spoke before — to invite
the slave power back into the national organization, offering to it that
supreme and absolute control of our national concerns without which
it cannot insure its permanancy in the Union, and, adroitly enough,
this programme has been condensed into a single euphonious sentence
which is well apt to" serve as the campaign cry of a party. It is this:
The Union must be restored "as it was."

We are frequently cautioned against visionaries in politics, because
with their extravagant schemes they are apt to lead people into danger-
ous and costly experiments. But the visionaries in innovations are
harmless compared with the visionaries who set their hearts upon re-
storing what is definitively gone, and has become morally impossible;
for while the former may find it difficult to make the people believe in
the practicability of their novel ideas, the latter not rarely succeed in
persuading the multitude that what had been may be again. Such a
visionary was Napoleon, who planned the restoration of the empire of
Charlemagne; he flooded Europe with blood, and failed. But the
restoration of the empire of Charlemagne was mere child's play in
comparison with the restoration of the Union " as it was," and a task
far more difficult than that to which the genius of old Napoleon suc-
cumbed, is by a discriraraxting fate wisely ,set apart for our "young
Napoleon" to perform. We are, indeed, assured by his friends that
he will again exhaust all the resources of his statesmanship for that
purpose. This statesmanship is indeed very obliging. It can hardly
have recovered from its first exhaustion, and now it tells us kindly
that it is ready to exhaust itself once more. It would be uncivil to
accept the sacrifice. We will take the good will for the deed and dis-
pense with it. Still, I consider it an evidence of appreciative judg-
ment on the part of his friends to have selected just that candidate for
a task which can be performed only in his characteristic manner; set-
ting out with a grand flourish of promises and coming back with a
grander flourish of apologies.

Restore the Union " as it was!" Did you ever hear of a great war
that left a country in the same condition in which it had found it? Did
you ever hear of a great revolution which left the political and social
relations of the contending parties as they had been before the strug-
gle ? And there are visionaries who believe that relations which rested
Upon mutual confidence can be restored when that confidence has
been drowned in a sea of blood. Do you really think you can ever
A. P.— 21.

6 $2 AM ERICA X PATRIOTISM.

restore the confidence "as it was" between two companions, one of
whom has been detected in an attempt t'o rob and murder the other in
'his sleep ? By no process of reasoning; can you prove — nay, not even
in the wildest flights of yOur imagination can you conceive, the possi-
bility that the relations between a dominant and an enslaved race can
be placed upon the ancient footing, when two hundred thousand men
of the enslaved race have'been in arms against their masters, and in
arms, too, at the call of the supreme authority of the Republic. You"
'cannot leave them such as they are ; you cannot permit them even to
remember that they have fought for us as well as for themselves, with-
out following up the events which made them what they are, to the
full consummation of the freedom of the race. .And, on" the other
hand, you cannot keep the race in bondage without reducing those
who are now fighting for their Own and our freedom to their former
state of subjection; and you cannot do this without inaugurating the
most sweeping, the most violent and bloody reaction against justice
and liberty the world ever witnessed. And you cannot provoke that
reaction without provoking another revolution on its heels. And now
you speak of restoring the Union "as it was!"

Such' things ha'tfe been tried before, and we find the consequences on
the records of history. England had her restoratipn 'of the Stuart
'dynasty, and it led to the revolution of 1688. France had her restora-
tion of the Bourbon dynasty, and it led to the revolution of 1830.
And why these revolutions? Because the Stuarts tried a reaction
against the principle's sealed with English blood at Xaseby; because the
Bourbons tried a reaction against the principles sealed with French
blood at the Bastile, and on a hundred battle-fields. Might nofr
America profit by the' example? ' You think you can restore the cotton
dynasty without provoking reaction and another'revolution?

But for our- opponents, it seems, history has no intelligible voice.
We have only to shake hands with the rebels, and the past is bloued
out. We have only to act as if nothing had happened, and all will be
as it was before something did happen. This is their promise. I ap-
pealto the people. If your leaders promised you to revive all those
fallen in battle, and to gather up the blood spilt on so many fields, and
to infuse it into the veins of the resurrected^ the presumption upon
your credulity could not be more extravagant. 'Are you so devoid of
pride, are you so completely without self-respect, as to permit so gross
an imposition to be presented to you, as if you were capable of being
trapped by it? Will you suffer them to insult your understanding,
and to stamp you as incorrigible fools, with impunity ? This, indeed,
is one of the cases in which we do not know what to admire most —
the towering impudence of the impostors, or the unfathomable stu-
pidity of the victims. Let those who go into the open trap of the
jugglers glory in the reputation of the folly. But a man of sense can-
not permit himself to-be gulled by so transparent an absurdity with-

CARL SCIIURZ. 633

out despising himself., I call upon you to vindicate the fair fame of
the Americans, as an intelligent people!

But it would be unfair to presume that those who raised the artful
cry have merely done so, (or the purpose of setting a trap for
political idiots. There is really something which they do want to re-
store, and there they are in earnest. , They really do mean to revive
one feature of the old Union; not that fidelity to the eternal prin-
ciples of justice and liberty, which in the early times of this Republic
was the admiration of mankind, but another thing, which has become
an object of disgust to every patriotic heart, and has succeeded in
creating doubts in the practicability of democratic institutions. I have
spoken of the demoralizing principle: "To the victors belong the
spoils;" and how, during, the most, disgraceful period of our history,
victory with the spoils could only be obtained by abject .subserviency
to the slave aristocracy. And now, what they mean to restore, is
slavery to its former power. Again the South is to be a unit for the
interests of slavery; again the united Southern vote, with a few
Northern states, is to command our elections; again the knife of seces-
sion is to be flourished over the head of the nation; again our legisla-
tors and the people are to be terrorized wjth the cry : " Do what our
Southern brethren want you to do, or they will dissolve the Union
once more!" and the terrors of the past are to be used as a powerful
means of intimidation for the future.- Again this great nation is to be
swayed, not by reason, but by fear; and again the interests and the
virtue of the people are to be traded away for public plunder. And
so they stand before the rebels as humble suppliants with this igno
minious appeal :" We are tired of being our own masters; come
back and rule us. We. are tired of our manhood; come back, and de-
grade us! We do feel well in a Union firmly established; come back
and threaten us! We are eager, once more to sell out. the liberties and
honor of the people for the sweets of public plunder; come, oh! come
back and corrupt us!"

And in this disgraceful supplication they call upon a great and noble
people to join them; to join after deeds and sacrifices so heroic, after
a struggle for the nation's free and great future, so glorious; to join
at a moment when at last victory crowns our helmets, and when the
day of peace, bright and warm, dawns upon our dark and bloody field.
Ah, if.it could be, if the nation could so basely forget her great, pa? t,
and her greater future; if the nation could so wantonly denude herself
of all self-respect and shame and decency, and plunge into the mire of
this most foul prostitution; if this could be, then, indeed, betrayed
mankind could not hate, us with a resentment too deep; all future gen
erations could not despise us with a contempt too scorching; there
would be no outrage on the dignity of human nature in the annals of
the world for which this base surrender would not furnish a full apolo-
gy. If it could be so, thon every one of your greaj battles would be

634 AMERICAN PA TRIO TISM.

nothing but a mass-murder of the first degree; the war with its ruia
and desolation would have been nothing but an act of wanton barbar-
ism. Then be silent of your glorious exploits, you soldiers in the
field; conceal your scars and mangled limbs, you wounded heroes:
you mothers and wives and sisters, who wear your mourning with
pride, hide your heads in shame — -for the triumphant rebel sits upon
the graves of our dead victories, whip in hand, and with a mocking
grin laughs at the dastardly self-degradation of his conquerors.

It is difficult to speak about this with calmness; yet we must make
the effort.

This, then, is our situation: We have to choose between two lines
of policy, represented by two parties — the one fully appreciating the
tendency of the movement, and resolutely following the call of the
times; fully and honestly determined to achieve the" great object of
preserving the nation, and with consistent energy using every means
necessary for that purpose; striking the rebellion by crippling the
strength of the traitors, and restoring loyalty by stopping the source
of treason; a party, not infallible indeed, but inspired by the noblest
impulses of the human heart, and impelled by the dearest interests of
humanity; in full harmony with the moral laws of the universe, in
warm sympathy with the humane and progressive spirit of our age.
Let its policy De judged by its fruits; the heart of mankind beating for
our cause; the once down-trodden and degraded doing inestimable
service for our liberty as well as their own;7 the armies of the Union
sweeping like a whirlwind over rebeldom, and the rebellion crumb-
ling to pieces wherever we touch it. Would it be wise to abandon a
course of policy, which, aside of our moral satisfaction, has given us
such material guarantees of our success? And what inducement is
offered to us for leaving it ? Is it a policy still clearer and more satis-
factory to our moral nature? Is its success still more certain, a re-
sult "still more glorious ? Let us see what they present us ?

A party which does not dare to advance a single clear and positive
principle upon which it proposes to act ; a party which give* us nothing
but a vague assurance of its fidelity to the Union coupled with the pro-
position of stopping the war, which alone can lead to the restoration of
the Union ; giving us a platform which its candidate does not dare to
stand upon, and a candidate who quietly submits to the assertions of
his supporters that he will be obliged to stand on the platform ; a party
which was waiting two months for a policy, and then found its policy up-
set by events two days after it had been declared ; a party floundering
like a drunken man between a treacherous peace and a faithless war,
between disunion that shall not be and a kind of union that cannot be ;
a party which is like a ship without compass and rudder, with a captain
who declares that he will not do what he is hired to do, with a set of
officers who swear that he shall do it, with a crew who were enticed on
board by false pretences, and who are kept by the vague impression that

CARL SCHURZ. 635

there is something good in the kitchen, and that vessel bound for a port
which does not exist on the map.

And why all this wild confusion of ideas and cross purposes ? Why
all these ridiculous absurdities in its propositions? Simply because that
party refu--.es to stand upon the clear and - irrevocable developments of
history, and denies the stern reality of accomplished facts ; because it
repudiates the great and inexorable laws by which human events are
governed : because it shuts its eyes against the manifest signs of the
times ; because, while pretending to save the Union, it protects the
Union's sworn enemy; because it deems it consistent with loyalty to
keep alive the mother of treason ; in one word, because it insists upon
saving slavery in spite of its suicidal crime. And to this most detes-
table monomania it is ready to. subordinate every other principle, every
other interest, every other consideration of policy. To save slavery
it throws all imaginable impediments in the way of every measure of the
government directed against the main strength of the rebellion ; to save
slavery it would rather have seen our armies doomed to defeat by weak-
ness than strengthened for victory by the colored element ; to save sla-
very it would rather have seen foreign governments interfere in favor of
the rebellion than the heart of mankind attached to our cause by the
glorious decree of liberty ;. to save slavery it insists upon interrupting
the magnificent course of our victories by a cessation of hostilities,
which would save the rebellion from speedy and certain ruin ; to save
slavery it is ready to sacrifice the manhood of the people, and to lay
them at the feet of. the rebel aristocracy as humble suppliants for an ig-
nominious rule. And this rank madness you would think of placing at
the helm of affairs in a crisis which will decide our future forever?

I invite those of our opponents whose heads and hearts are not ir-
retrievably wrapt in self-deception, to mount with me for a moment a
higher watch-tower than that of party. Look once more up and down
the broad avenues of your history. Show me your men in the. first
great days of the republic whose names shine with untarnished lustre,
the men whom you parade in the foremost ranks wrhen you boast be-
fore the world abroad of your nation's greatness; there is not one of
them who did not rack his brain to find a way in which the republic
could be delivered of the incubus of slavery. But their endeavors
were in vain. The masses of the people did not see the greatness of
the danger; their eyes were blinded by the seductive shine of moment-
ary advantages. Then at once began one of those great laws by
which human affairs right themselves, to operate. It is the law that a
great abuse, urged on by its necessities, must render itself insupport-
able and defy destruction. Slavery grew up under your fostering
care; with its dimensions grew its necessities. It asked for security at
home, and what it asked was given. It asked for its share in what we
held in common; and what it asked was given. It asked for the lion's
share, and accompanied its demand with a threat, and what it asked

636 A M ERICA N- PA TRIO TISM.

Was given. Then it asked all that we held in common. It asked for a
dictatorship, and the accompanying threat became a defiance. The peo-
ple of the North rose up and said: " So far and no farther !" Then
slavery, with fatal madness, raised its arm against the palladium which
cannot be touched with impunity; it urged into our hands the sword of
self-defence; with blind insolence it threw into the face of the nation
the final challenge: "Kill me or I will kill thee !" The challenge
could not be declined; the nation refused to be killed, and slavery
had the full 'benefit of its defiance. Do you not see that this decree of
self-destruction was written by a hand mightier than that of mortal man ?

And you will stand up against it? What are you about to do ? *
Stop and consider ! Slavery is dying fast. Its life is ebbing out of a
thousand mortal wounds. Even its nearest friends in rebeldom are
standing around its death-bed in utter despair; even they give it up.
Hardly anything remains to be done but to close its eyelids, and to
write the coroner's verdict: " Slavery having challenged the American
nation to mortal combat, killed itself by running madly into the
sword of its antagonist." There it lies. And you— you would revive
it ? What? That you should have served it when it was in the fulness
of its power, that, with a violent stretch of charity, we may understand,
although it revolted our hearts. But to revive it when it is dying!.
To think of galvanizing into new life the hideous carcass whose vi-
tality is being extinguished by the hand of fate ! \ To attempt to fasten
anew and artificially upon the nation a curse of which for a century
she longed in vain to be rid,, and which at last is being wiped out by
the great process of providential retribution ! To resuscitate and
nurse to new power of mischief the traitress that fell in an attempt to
assassinate the republic ! Revive slavery in the midst of the nineteenth
century !

Have you considered the enormity of the undertaking ! Look around
you!- You see a great republic purified of her blackest stain, which
sent a blush of shame to her cheeks when the world abroad pointed to
it; you see the heart of a noble people relieved of the galling burden
of wrong and guilt; you see the nations of the world stretching out to
us their brotherly hands and cheering us on with their inspiriting ac-
clamations; from the downtrodden and degraded on earth to the very
angels in heaven you hear all good and generous hearts join in swell-
ing chorus of gratitude and joy, for at last the great iniquity is tum-
bling down — and now strike heaven and earth in the face. Now
poison the future of the republic again, now imperii the life of the
nation again and revive it? Are you in earnest ? Here we stand be-
fore an atrocity so appalling that we seek *.h vain for a parallel on
the darkest pages of history; we search in vain the darkest corners
of the human heart to find a motive or reason that might excuse a
crime so ridiculous for its folly, a folly so disgraceful for its wicked-
ness.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. , 637

But, thank God, it is impossible ! You think you can stem the
irresistible current of events with your contrivances of political leger-
demain, with your peace-cry, which is treason, and your war-cry, which
is fraud; with your hypocritical protests against a tyranny which does
not exist, and your artful imposition of a " Union as it was," and cannot
again be ! With these pigmy weapons you think you can avert the
sweep of gigantic forces ! Poor schemers, you might as well try to
bring a railroad train, running at full speed, back to its starting-point,
by butting your little heads against the locomotive. You might as
well try to catch in your arms the falling waters of the Niagara in the
midst of the cataract, to carry them back to their source. In vain
you sacrifice your honor for what is infamous. In vain you jeopardize
the life of the nation for what is dead ! The doom of your cause is
written in the stars. If you love yourselves, and want to secure the
respect of your children, then, I beseech you, leave the scandalous
and hopeless task to the ignorant and brainless, who may show as an
excuse for the mad attempt, the weakness of their minds; and to those
hardened villains who have become as insensible to the secret lash
of conscience as to the open contempt of mankind. But if you will
not, then happy those of you whose names will sink into utter ob-
livion, for only they will escape the ignominious distinction of becom-
ing a mark for the detestation of posterity.

Revive slavery in the midst of the nineteenth century ! And you
dare to hope that the American people will aid in this crazy attempt?
In this crime against justice, liberty and civilization ? in this treason
against future generations ? You dare to expect the American nation
to commit, suicide that slavery may live ? Poor man, desist ! You are
undone. You do not seem to know that he must fail who appeals to
ihe cowardice of the American people. Step out of the way of the
nation who marches with firm step and a proud heart after the martial
drum-beat of her destiny. She feels that the struggle of ages com-
presses itself into the portentous crisis of this hour". It is for coming
centuries she fights; and already she sees before her what was once
only a patriotic dream rise into magnificent, sunlit reality ! Liberty !
Liberty and Union ! one and inseparable ! now and forever !

SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

March 4, 1865

Fellow-Countrymen : — At this second appearing to take the oath
of the Presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address
than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of v.

638 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM,

course to be pursued seemed very fitting and proper. Now, at the
expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been
constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest
which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the na-
tion, little that is new could be presented.

The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is
as Well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably
satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no
prediction in regard to it is ventured. \

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts
^ere anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it,
a'l sought to avoid it. While the inaugural address was being deliv-
ered from this place, devoted altogether to- saving the Union without
war, insurgent agents were in the city, seeking to destroy it with war
— -seeking to dissolve the Union and divide the effects by negotiation.s
Both parties deprecated war, but one of ,them would make war rather \
th'in let the nation survive, and the other ^.vould accept war rather than j
lei it perish, and the war came. One-eighth of the whole population
w. re colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but lo-
v& ized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar
and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the
cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest
Was the object for which the insurgents Would rend the Union by warX
while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the \
territorial enlargement of it.

Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which
it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the con-
flict might cease, or even before the Conflict itself should cease. Each
looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and as-
tounding.
/ Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each in-
\ vokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men
should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from
the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not
judged. The prayer of both could not be answered. That of neither
has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. Woe
unto the world because of offences, for it must needs be that offences
come, but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh. If we shall
suppose that American slavery is one of these offences which, in the
providence of God, must needs come, but which having continued
through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives
to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by
whom the offence came, shall we discern there any departure from
those Divine attributes which the believers in a living God always as-
cribe to Him ? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this
mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that

MtfRV IVARB BEECHER. 639

it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred
and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop
of blood drawn With the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the
sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so, still it must be said,
that the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.

With malice towards none, with charity for all, with firmness in the \
right as God gives us too see the right, let us finish the work we are \
in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have ■
borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphans, to do all which
may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves

and with all nations.

- ■

THE MARTYR PRESIDENT.
HENRY WARD BEECHER.

Brooklyn, April 15, i%6s.

li And Moses went up- from the plains of Moab, unto the mountain of Nebo, to
the top of Pisgah, that" is over against Jericho ; and the Lord showed him all the
land of Gi lead, unto Dan, and all Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim, and Manas-
seh, and all the land of Judah, unto the utmost sea, and the south, and the plain of
the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees, unto Zoor. And the Lord said unto
him, this is the land which I swear unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, say-
ing, I will give it unto thy seed : I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but
thou shalt not go over thither. So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in
the land. of Moab, according to the word of the Lord." — Deut. 34 • 1-5.

There is no historic figure more noble than that of the Jewish law-
giver. After so many thousand years, the figure of Moses is not di-
minished, but stands up against the background of early days, distinct
and individual as if he had lived but yesterday. There is scarcely
another event in history more touching than his death. He had
borne the great burdens of state for forty years, shaped the Jews to
a nation, filled out their civil and religious poltty, administered their
laws, guided their steps, or dwelt with them in all their journey ings
in the wilderness; had mourned in their punishment, kept step with
their march, and led them in wars, until the end of their labors drew
nigh. The last stage was reached. Jordan only lay between them
and the promised land. The promised land! — oh, what yearnings had
heaved his breast for that divinely promised place! He had dreamed
of it by night, and mused by day. It was holy and endeared as God's
favored spot. It was to be the cradle of an illustrious history. All
his long, laborious, and now weary life, he had aimed at this r s the
consummation of every desire, the reward of every toil and pain.
Then came the word of the Lord to him, " Thou mayest not go over:
Get thee up into the mountain, look upon it, and die."

From that silent summit, the hoary leader gazed to the norLh, to the

640 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

south, to the west, with hungry eyes. The dim outlines rose up. The
hazy recesses spoke of quiet valleys between the hills. With eager
longing, with sad resignation, he looked upon the promised land. It
was now to him a forbidden Jand. It was a moment's anguish. He
forgot all his personal wants, and drank in the vision of his people's
home. His work was done. There lay God's promise fulfilled. There
was the seat of coming Jerusalem; there the city of Judah's King;
the sphere of judges and prophets ; the mount of sorrow and salva-
tion; the nest whence were to fly blessings innumerable to all man-
kind. Joy chased sadness from every feature, and the prophet laid
him down and died.

Again a great leader of the people has passed through toil, sorrow,
battle, and war, and come near to the promised land of peace, into
which he might not pass over. Who shall recount our martyr's suf-
ferings for this people? Since the November of i860, his 1 orizon
has been black with storms. By day and by night, he trod a way
of danger and darkness. On his shoulders rested a govern-
ment dearer to him than his own life. At its integrity millions of men
were striking at home. Upon this government foreign eyes lowered.
It stood like a lone island in a sea full of storms; and every tide and
wave seemed eager to devour it. Upon thousands of hearts great
sorrows and anxieties have rested, but not on one such, and in such
measure, as upon that simple, truthful, noble soul, our faithful and
sainted Lincoln. Never rising to the enthusiasm of more impas-
sioned natures in hours of hope, and never sinking with the mercu-
rial in hours of defeat to the depths of despondency, he held on with
unmovable patience and fortitude, putting caution against hope, that
it might not be premature, and hope against caution, that it might riot
yield to dread and danger. He wrestled ceaselessly, through four
black and dreadful purgatorial years, wherein God was cleansing the
sin of his people as by fire.

At last, the watcher beheld the gray dawn for the country. The
mountains began to give forth their forms from out the darkness; and
the East came rushing toward us with arms full of joy £or all our sor-
rows. Then it was for him to be glad exceedingly, that had sorrowed
immeasurably. Peace could bring to no other heart such joy, such
rest, such honor, such trust, such gratitude. But he looked upon it
as Moses looked upon the promised land. Then the wail of a nation ,
proclaimed that he had gone from among us. Not thine the sorrow, j
but ours, sainted soul. Thou hast indeed entered the promised land, I
while we are yet on the march. To us remains the rocking of the
deep, the storm upon the land, days of duty and nights of watching;
but thou art sphered high above all darkness and fear, beyond all sor-
row and weariness. Rest, O weary heart ! Rejoice exceedingly,
thou that hast enough suffered ! Thou hast beheld Him who invisibly
led thee in this great wilderness. Thou standest among the elect.

HENRY WARD BEECIIER. 64 1

Around thee are the royal men that have ennobled human life in
every age. Kingly art thou, with glory on thy brow as a diadem.
And joy is upon thee for evermore. Over all this land, over all the
little cloud of years that now from thine infinite horizon moves back
as a speck, thou art lifted up as high as the star is above the clouds
that hide us, but never reach it. In the goodly company of Mount
Zion thou shalt find that rest which thou hast sorrowing sought in
vain; and thy name, an everlasting name in heaven, shall flourish in
fragrance and beauty as long as men shall last upon the earth, or
hearts remain, to revere truth, fidelity, and goodness.

Never did two such orbs of experience meet in one hemisphere, as
the joy and the sorrow of the same week in this land. The joy was
as sudden as if no man had expected it, and as entrancing as if it had
fallen a sphere from heaven. It rose up over sobriety, and swept busi-
ness from its moorings, and ran down through the land in irresistible
course. Men embraced each Other in brotherhood that were strangers
in the flesh. They sang, or prayed, or, deeper yet, many could only
think thanksgiving and weep gladness. That peace was sure; that
government was firmer than ever; that the land was cleansed of
plague; that the ages were opening to our footsteps, and we were to
begin a march of blessings; that blood was staunched, and scowling
enmities were sinking like storms beneath the horizon; that the dear
fatherland, nothing lost, much gained, was to rise up in unexampled
honor among the nations of the earth — these thoughts, and that un-
distinguishable throng of fancies, and hopes, and desires, and yearn-
ings, that filled the soul with tremblings like the heated air of mid-
summer days — all these kindled up such a surge of joy as no words
may describe.

In one hour joy lay without a pulse, without a gleam, or breath. A
sorrow came that swept through the land as huge storms sweep
through the forest and field, rolling thunder along the sky, disheveling
the flowers, daunting every singer in thicket or forest, and pouring
blackness and darkness across the land and up the mountains. Did
ever so many hearts, in so brief a time, touch two such boundless
feelings? It was the uttermost of joy; it was the uttermost of sorrow
— noon and midnight, without a space between.

The blow brought not a sharp pang. It was so terrible that at first
it stunned sensibility. Citizens were like men awakened at midnight
by an earthquake, and bewildered to find everything that they were
accustomed to trust wavering and falling. The very earth was no
longer solid. The first feeling was the least. Men waited to get
straight to feel. They wandered in the streets as if groping after some
impending dread, or undeveloped sorrow, or some one to tell them
what ailed them. They met each ether as if each would ask the other,
"Am I awake, or do I dream?" There was a piteous helplessness.
Streng men bowed down and wept. Other and common griefs be-

6 42 AMERICAN -PATRIQ-TISM,

longed to some one ,. in chief; ,:this belonged to all. It was each and
every mail's. Every virtuous household in the land felt as if its first-
born were gone. Men were bereaved, and walked for days as if a
corpse lay unburied in their dwellings. There was nothing else to
think of. They could speak of nothing but that; and yet, of that they -
could speak only falteringly. All business was laid aside. . Pleasure
forgot, to. smile. The city for .nearly a week ceased to roar. The
great Leviathan lay down, and was still. ., JEven avarice stood still,
and greed was strangely moved to -generous sympathy and universal
sorrow. Rear to his name monuments, found charitable institutions,
and write his name above their lintels; but no monument will ever
equal the universal, spontaneous, and sublime sorrow that in a
moment swept down lines and parties, and - covered up animosities,
and in an hour brought a divided people into unity of grief and in-
divisible fellowship of anguish. . . .

For myself, I cannot yet command that quietness of spirit . needed
for a- just and temperate delineation of a man whom goodness .has
made great. Leaving that, if it please. God, to some other occasion,
I pass to some considerations, aside from" the martyr President's
character, which may be fit ior this, hour's instruction.

I. Let us not mourn, that his departure was so sudden, nor fill our
imagination with horror at. its method. Men, long eluding and evad-
ing sorrow, when at last they are overtaken by it, seem, enchanted,
and seek to make their sorrow sorrowful to the very uttermost, and to
bring out every drop of suffering which they possibly can. This is
not Christian, though it may be natural. When good men pray for
deliverance from sudden_death, it is only that they may not be plunged
without preparation, all disrobed, into the presence x>f their Judge.
When one is ready to depart, suddenness of death is a blessing. It is
a painful sight to ."see.. a tree overthrown by a tornado, wrenched from
its foundations, and broken down like a weed; but it is yet more
painful to see a vast and venerable tree lingering with vain strife
against decay, which age and infirmity have marked for destruction.
The process by which strength wastes,, and the rnind is obscured, and
the tabernacle is taken down, is humiliating and painful; and it is good
and grand when a man departs to his rest from out of the midst of
duty, full-armed and strong, with pulse beating time. For such an
one to go suddenly, if he be prepared to go, is but. to terminate a most
noble life in its most noble manner. Mark the words of the Master :

" Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning; and ye
yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return
from the wedding ; that when he cometh and knocketh they may open
unto him immediately. Blessed are those servants whom the lord
when he cometh shall find watching."

Not they that go in a stupor, but they that go with all their powers
about them, and wide awake, to meet their Master, as to a wedding,

HENRY WARD BEECITER. 643

are blessed. He died watching. He died with his armor on. In the
midst of hours of labors, in the very heart of patriotic consultations,
just returned from camps and councils, he was stricken down. No
fever dried his blood. No slow waste consumed him. All at once, in
full strength and manhood, with his girdle tight about him, he depart-
ed, and walks with God.

Nor was the manner of his death more shocking, if we divest it of
the malignity of the motives which caused it. The mere instrument
itself is not one that we should shrink from contemplating. Have not
thousands of soldiers fallen on the field of battle by the bullets of the
enemy ? Is being killed in battle counted to be a dreadful mode of
dying? It was as if he had died in battle. Do not all soldiers that
must fall ask to depart in the hour of battle and victory ? He went in
the hour of victory.

There has not been a poor drummer-boy in all this war that has
fallen for whom the great heart of Lincoln would not have bled; there
has not been one private soldier, without note or name, slain among
thousands, and hid in the pit among hundreds, without even the me-
morial of a separate burial, for whom the President would not have
wept. He was a man from the common people, that never forgot his
kind. And now that he who might not bear the march, and toil, and
battles with these humble citizens has been called to die by the bullet,
as they were, do you not feel that there was a peculiar fitness to his
nature and life, that he should in death be joined with them, in a final
common experience, to whom he had been joined in all his sympa-
thies.

For myself, when any event is susceptible of a higher and nobler
garnishing. I know not what that disposition is that should seek to
drag it down to the depths of gloom, and write it all over with the
scrawls of horror or fear. I let the light of nobler thoughts fall upon
his departure, and bless God that there is some argument of consola-
tion in the matter and "manner of his going, as there was in the matter
and manner of his staying.

2. This blow was but the expiring rebellion. As a miniature gives
all the form and features of its subject, so, epitomized in this foul act,
we find the whole nature and disposition of slavery. It begins in a
wanton destruction of all human rights, and in a desecration of all the
sanctities of heart and home; and it is the universal enemy of man-
kind, and of God, who made man. It can be maintained only at the
sacrifice of every right and moral feeling in its abettors and uphold-
ers. I deride the man that points me to any man bred amid slavery,
believing in it, and willingly practicing it, and tells me that he is a
man. I shall find saints in perdition sooner than I shall find true
manhood under the influences of so accursed a system as this. It is a
two-edged sword, cutting both ways, violently destroying manhood in
the oppressed, and insidiously destroying manhood in the oppressor.

644 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

The problem is solved, the demonstration is completed, in our land.
Slavery wastes its victims; and it destroys the masters, ft destroys
public morality, and the possibility of it. It Corrupts manhood m its
very centre and elements. Communities in which it exists are not to
be trusted. They are rotten. Nor can you find timber grown in this
accursed soil of iniquity that is fit to build our ship of state, or lay the
foundation of our households. The patriotism that grows up under
this blight, when put to proof, is selfish and brittle; and he that leans
upon it shall be pierced. The honor that grows up in the midst cf
slavery is not honor, but a bastard quality that usurps the place of its
better, only to disgrace the name of honor. And, as long as there is
conscience, or reason, or Christianity, the honor that slavery begets
will be be a by€-word and a hissing. The whole moral nature of men
reared to familiarity and connivance with slavery is death-smitten.
The needless rebellion; the treachery of its leaders to oaths and
solemn trusts; their violation of the commonest principles of fidelity,
sitting in senates, in councils, in places of public confidence, only to
betray and to destroy; the long, general, and unparalleled cruelty to
prisoners,' without provocation, and utterly without excuse: the un-
reasoning malignity and fierceness — these all mark the symptoms of
that disease of slavery which is a deadly poison to soul and body.

1. I do riot say that there are not single natures, here and there, *
scattered • through the vast wilderness which is covered with this poi-
sonous vine, who escape the poison. There are, but they are not to
be found, among the men that believe in it, and that have been
moulded 'by it. They are the exceptions. Slavery is itself barbarity.
That nation which cherishes it is barbarous; and no outward tinsel or
glitter can redeem it from the charge of barbarism. And it was fit
that its expiring blow should be such as to take away from men the
last forbearance, the last pity, and fire the soul with an invincible;de-
cermination that the breeding-ground of such mischiefs and monsters
shall be utterly and forever destroyed. -- -■; « -. - ■ .

2. We needed not that he should put on paper that he believed in
slavery, who, with treason, with murder, with cruelty infernal,-
hovered around that majestic man to destroy his life. He was him-
self but the long sting with which slavery struck at liberty; and he
carried the poison that belonged to slavery. And as long as this
nation lasts, it will never be forgotten that we have had one martyred
President — never !. Never, while time lasts, while heaven lasts, while
hell rocks and groans, will it be forgotten that slavery, by its minions,
slew him, and, in slaying him, made manifest its whole nature and
tendency. .

3. This blow was aimed at the life of the Government and of the
nation. Lincoln was slain; America was meant. The man was cast
down; the Government was smitten at. The President was killed: it
w»s national life, breathing freedom, and meaning beneficence, that

HENRY WARD BEECH ER. 645

was sought. He, the man of Illinois, the private man, divested of :
robes and the insignia of authority, representing nothing but his per-
sonal self, might have been hated; but it was not that that ever would
have called forth the murderer's blow. It was because he stood in
the place, of government, representing government, and a government
that represented right and liberty, that he was singled out.

This, then, is a crime against universal government. It is not a
blow at the foundations of our government, more than at the founda-
tions of the English Government, of the French Government, of every
compacted and well-organized government. It was a crime against
mankind. The whole world will repudiate and stigmatize it as a deed
without a shade of redeeming light. For this was not the oppressed,
goaded to extremity, turning on his oppressor. Not the shadow of a
cloud, even, has rested on the south, of wrong; and they knew it right
well.

In a council held in the City of Charleston, just preceding to the
attack on Fort Sumter, two Commissions were appointed to go to
Washington; one on the part of the army from Fort Sumter, and one
on the part of_ the Confederates. The lieutenant that was designated
to go for us said it seemed to him. that it would be. of little use for him
to go, as his opinion was immovably fixed in favor of maintaining the
Government in whose service he was employed. Then Gov. Pickens
took him aside, detaining, for an hour and a half, the railroad train that
was to convey them on. their errand. „ He opened to him .the whole
plan and secret of the Southern conspiracy; and said to him, distinctly
and repeatedly (for, it. was needful, he said, to lay aside disguises), that
the South had never been wronged, and that all their pretences of griev-
ance in the matter of tariffs, or anything else, were invalid. " But,"
said he, "we must carry the people with us; and we allege these
things, as all statesmen do many things that they do not believe, be-
cause they are the only instruments by which the people can be man-
aged." He then and there declared that the. two sections of country
were so antagonistic injdeas and policies that they could not live to-
gether, that it was foreordained that Northern and Southern men must
keep apart on account of differences in ideas and policies, and that all
the pretences of the South about wrongs suffered were but pretences,
as they very well knew. This is testimony which was given by one
of the leaders in the rebellion, and which will, probably, ere long, be
given under hand and seal to the public. So the South has never had
wrong visited upon it except by that which was inherent in it.

This was not, then, the avenging hand of one goaded by tyranny.
It was not a despot turned on by his victim. It was the venomous
hatred of liberty wielded by an avowed advocate of slavery. And,
though there may have been cases of murder in which there were
shades of palliation, yet this murder was without provocation, without
temptation, without reason, sprung from the fury of a heart cankered

646 AMERICAN PA TRIO TISAI

to all that was just and good, and corrupt^ b^^
foul.

4. The blow has signally failed. The cause is not stricken; it is.
strengthened. This nation has dissolved— but in tears only. It stands
four-square, more solid, to-day, than any pyramid in Egypt. This
people are neither wasted, nor daunted, nor disordered. Men hate-
slavery and love liberty with stronger hate and love to-day than ever-
before. The Government is not weakened, it is made stronger. How
naturally and easily were the ranks closed ! Another steps forward, in
the hour that the one fell, to take his place and his mantle; and I
avow ray belief that he will be found a man true to every instinct of
liberty; true to the whole trust that is reposed in him; vigilant of '-, the
Constitution; careful of the laws; wise for liberty, in that he himself,
through his life, has known what it was to suffer from the .stings of
slavery, and to prize liberty, from bitter personal experiences.

Where could the head of government in any monarchy be smitten
down by the hand of an assassin, and the funt!-> not quiver or fall one-
half of one per cent? After a long period of national disturbance,
after four years of drastic war, after tremendous drafts on the .resour-
ces of the country, in the height and top of our burdens, the heart of
this people is such that now, when the head of government is stricken,
down, the public funds do not waver, but stand as the grarite ribs in
our mountains.

Republican institutions have been vindicated in this experience as
they never were before; and the whole history of the last four yearSj -.
rounded up by this cruel stroke, seems, in the providence of God, to
have been clothed, now, with- an illustration, with a sympathy, with
an aptness, and with a significance, such as we never could have ex-
pected nor imagined. God, I think, has said, by the voice of this event,
to all nations of the earth, " Republican liberty, based upon true
Christianity, is firm as the foundation of the globe. "

5. Even he who now sleeps has, by this event, been clothed with
new influence. Dead, he speaks to men who now willingly hear what
before they refused to listen to. Now his simple and weighty words
will be gathered like those of Washington, and your children, and
your children's children, shall be taught to ponder the simplicity and
deep wisdom of utterances which, in their time, passed, in party heat,
as idle words. Men will receive a new impulse of patriotism for his
sake and will guard with zeal the whole country which he loved so
well. I swear you, on the altar of his memory, to be more faithful to
the country for which he has perished. They will, as they follow his
hearse, swear a new hatred to that slavery against which he warred,
and which, in vanquishing him, has made him a martyr and a con-
queror. I swear you, by the memory of this martyr, to hate slavery
with an unappeasable hatred. They will admire and imitate the firm-
ness of this man, his inflexible conscience for the right; and yet his

GEORGE BANCROFT. 647

gentleness; as tender as a woman's, his moderation of spirit, which,
not all the heat of party could inflame, nor all the jars and disturbances
of his country shake out of its place. I swear you to an emulation bf
his justice, his moderation, and his mercy.

You I can comfort; but how can I speak to that twilight million to
whom his name was as the name of an angel of God? There -wi'rl be
wariing in places which no minister shall be able to reach. When, in
hovel and in cot, in wood and in wilderness, in the field throughout
the South, the dusky children, who looked Upon him as that Moses
whom God sent before them to lead them out of the land of bondage,
learn that he has fallen, who shall comfort them? O, thou Shepherd
of -Israel, that didst ; comfort thy people of old, to thy care we commit
the helpless, the long-wronged, and grieved.

: And now the martyr is moving in triumphal march, mightier than
when alive. The nation rises up at every stage of his coming. Cities
and states are his paH-bearers, and the cannon beats the hours with
solemn progression. Dead, dead, dead, he yet speaketh ! Is Wash-
ington dead ? -Is Hampden dead ? Is David dead ? Is any man that
ever1 Was fit to live dead? Disenthralled of flesh, and risen in the un-
obstructed sphere where passion never comes, he begins his illimitable
work. His life now is -grafted upon the infinite, and will be fruitful
as no earthly life can be. Pass on, thou that hast overcome ! Your sor-
rows, oh people, are his peace ! Your . bells, and bands, and muffled
drums, sound triumph in his ear. Wail and weep here; God made it
echo joy and triumph there Pass on1

Four years ago, oh, Illinois, we took from your midst an untried
man, and from among the people. We return him to you a mighty
conquerer. Not thine any more, but the nation's; not ours, but the
world's. Give him place, oh, 3'e prairies ! In the midst of this great
continent his dust shall rest; a sacred treasure to myriads who shall
pilgrim to that shrine to kindle anew their zeal and patriotism. Ye
winds that move over the mighty places of the West, chant his requiem !
Ye oeople, behold a martyr whose blood, as so many articulate words,
pleads for fidelity, for law, for liberty !

THE DEATH OF LINCOLN.

GEORGE BANCROFT. UKJW2 I

-
New York^ April, 1865.

Our grief and horror at the crime which has clothed the continent in
mourning, find no adequate expression in words, and no relief in tears.
The President of the United States of America has fallen by the hands
0} an assassin. Neither the office with which he was invested by the

648 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

approved choice of a mighty people, nor the most simple-hearted
kindliness of nature, could save him from the fiendish passions of
relentless fanaticism. The wailings of the millions attend his remains
as they are borne in solemn procession over our great rivers, along
the seaside, beyond the mountains, across the prairie, to their resting-
place in the valley of the Mississippi. His funeral knell vibrates
through the world, and the friends of freedom of every tongue and in
every clime are his mourners.

Too few days have passed away since Abraham Lincoln stood in
the flush of vigorous manhood, to permit any attempt at an analysis
of his character or an exposition of his career. We find, it hard to be-
lieve that his large eyes, which in their softness and beauty expressed
nothing but benevolence and gentleness, are closed in death; we
almost look for the pleasant smile that brought out more vividly the
earnest cast of his features, which were serious even to sadness. A
few years ago he was a village attorney, engaged in the support of a
rising family, unknown to fame, scarcely named beyond his neighbor-
hood; his administration made him the most conspicuous man. in his
country, and drew on him first the astonished gaze, and then the
respect and admiration of the world.

Those who come after us will decide how much of the wonderful
results of his public career is due to his own good common sense, his
shrewd sagacity, readiness of wit, quick interpretation of the public
mind, his rare combination of fixedness and pliancy, his steady ten-
dency of purpose; how much to the American people, who, as he
walked with them side by side, inspired him with their own wisdom
and energy; and how much to the overruling laws of the moral world,
by which the selfishness of evil is made to defeat itself. But after
every allowance, it will remain that members of the government
which preceded his administration opened the gates to treason, and he
closed them; that when he went- to Washington the ground on which
he trod shook under his feet, and he left the Republic on a solid foun-
dation; that traitors had seized public forts and arsenals, and he re-
covered them for the United States, to whom they belonged; that the
capital, which he found the abode of slaves, is now the home only of
the free; that the boundless public domain which was grasped at, and,
in a great measure, held, for the diffusion of slavery, is now irrevoca-j
bly devoted to freedom; that then men talked a jargon of a balance off
power in a republic between slave states and free states, and now the
foolish words are blown away forever by the breath of Maryland, Mis-
souri and Tennessee; that a terrible cloud of political heresy rose from
the abyss, threatening to hide the light of the sun, and under its darkness a
rebellion was growing into indefinable proportions ; now the atmosphere
is purer than ever before, and the insurrection is vanishing away; the
country is cast into another mould, and the gigantic system of. wrong,
which had been the work of more than two centuries, is dashed down,

GEORGE BANCROFT. ' 649

we hope, forever. And as to himself, personally: he was then scoffed
at by the proud as unfit for his station, and now against usage of later
years and in spite of numerous competitors he was the unbiased and
undoubted. choice of the American people for a second term of service.
Through all the mad.business of treason he retained the sweetness of
a most placable disposition; and the slaughter of myriads of the bcrt
on the battle-field, and the more terrible destruction of our men in
captivity by the slow torture of exposure and starvation, had. never
been able to provoke him into harboring one vengeful feeling or one
purpose of cruelty.

How shall the nation most completely show its sorrow at Mr. Lin-
coln's death? How shall it best honOr his memory? There can be
bui one answer. He was struck down when he was highest in its
service, and in strict conformity with duty was engaged in carrying
out principles affecting its life, its good name, and its relations to the
cause of freedom and the progress of mankind. Grief must take the
character of action, and breathe itself forth in the assertion of the
policy to which he fell a victim. The standard which he held in his
hand' must be uplifted again higher and more firmiy than before, and
must be carried on to triumph Above everything else, his procla-
mation cf the first day of January, 1863, declaring throughout the
parts of the country in rebellion, the freedom of all persons who had
been held as slaves, must be affirmed and maintained.

Events, as they rolled onward, have removed every doubt of the le-
gality and binding force of that proclamation The country and the
rebel government have each laid claim to the public service of the
slave, and yet but one of the two can have a rightful claim to such
service. That 'rightful claim belongs to the United States, because
every one born oh their soil, with the fewT exceptions of the children
of travellers and transient residents, owes them a primary allegiance.
Every one so born has been counted among those represented hi Con-
gress; every slave has ever been represented in Congress; imperfectly
and wrongly it may be — but still has been counted and represented.
The slave born on our soil always owed allegiance to the general gov-
ernment. It may in time past have been a qualified allegiance, mani-
fested through his master, as the allegiance of a ward through its
guardian, or of an infant through its parent. But when the master
became false to his allegiance, the slav*. stood face to face with his
country; and his allegiance, which may before have been a qualified
one, became direct and immediate. His chains fell off, and he rose at
once in the presence of the nation, bound, like the rest of us, to its
defence. Mr. Lincoln's proclamation did but take notice of the al-
ready existing right of the bondman to freedom. The treason of the
master made it a public crime for the slave to continue his obedience *
the treason of a state set free the collective bondmen of that state.

This doctrine is supported by the analogy of precedents. In the

650 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

times of 'feudalism the treason of the lord of the manor deprived him
of his serfs; the spurious feudalism that existed among us differs in
many respects from the feudalism of the middle ages, but so far the
precedent runs parallel with the present case; for treason the master
then, for treason the master now, loses his slaves.

In the middle ages the sovereign appointed another lord over the
serfs and the lands which they cultivated ; in cur day the sovereign
makes them masters of their own persons, lords over themselves.
. It has been said that we are at war, and that emancipation is not a
belligerent right. The objection disappears before analysis. In a
war between independent powers the invading foreigner invites to his
standard all who will give him aid, whether bond or free, and he re-
wards them according to his ability and his pleasure, with gifts or free-
dom : but when at a peace, he withdraws from the invaded country,
he must take his aiders and comforters with him; or if he leaves them
behind, where he has no court to enforce his decrees, he can give them
no security, unless it be by the stipulations of a treaty. In a civil war
it is altogether different. There, when rebellion is crushed, the old
government is restored, and its courts resume their jurisdiction. So
it is with us; the United States have courts of their own, that must
punish the guilt of treason and vindicate the freedom of persons
whom the fact of rebellion has set free.

Nor may it be said, that because slavery existed in most of the
states when the Union was formed, it cannot rightfully be interfered
with now. A change has taken place, such as Madison foresaw, and
for which he pointed out the remedy. The constitutions of states had
been transformed before the plotters of treason carried them away
into rebellion. When the Federal Constitution was framed, general
emancipation was thought to be near ; and everywhere the respective
legislatures had authority, in the exercise of their ordinary functions,
to do away with slavery. Since that time the attempt has been made
in what are called slave states, to render the condition of slavery per-
petual; and events have proved, with the clearness of demonstration,
that a constitution which seeks to continue a caste of hereditary 'bond-
men through endless generations is inconsistent with the existence of
republican institutions.

So, then, the new President and the people of the United States
must insist that the proclamation of freedom shall stand as a reality.
And, moreover, the people must never cease to insist that the Consti-
tution shall be so amended as utterly to prohibit slavery on any part
of our soil for evermore.

Alas! that a state in our vicinity should withhold its assent to this last
beneficent measure : its refusal was an encouragement to our ene-
mies equal to the gain of a pitched battle; and delays the only hopeful
method of pacification. The removal of the cause of the rebellion is
not only demanded by justice; it is the policy of mercy, making room

GEORGE BANCROFT. _ 651

for a wider clemency; it is the part of order against a chaos of contro-
versy; its success brings with it true reconcilement, a lasting peace, a
continuous growth of confidence through an assimilation of the social
condition.

Here is the fitting expression of the mourning of to-day.

And let no lover of his country say that this warning is uncalled for.
The cry is delusive that slavery is dead. Even now it is nerving itself
for a fresh struggle for continuance. The last winds from the South
waft to us the sad intelligence that a man who had surrounded him-
self with the glory of the most brilliant and most varied achievements,
who but a week ago was: counted with affectionate pride among the
greatest benefactors of his country and the ablest generals of all time,
has initiated the exercise of more than the whole power of the Execu-
tive, and under the name of peace has, perhaps unconsciously, revived
slavery, and given the hope of security and political power to traitors,
from the Chesapeake to the Rio Grande. Why could he not remem-
ber the dying advice of Washington, never to draw the sword but for
self-defence or the rights of his country, and when drawn, never to
sheath it till its work should be accomplished? And, yet, from this
ill-considered act, which the people with one united voice condemn,
no great evil will follow save the shadow on his own fame, and that,
also, we hope will pass away. The individual, even in the greatness
of military glory, sinks into insignificance before the resistless move-
ments of ideas in the history of man. No one can turn back or stay
the march of Providence. ;a ,3:

No sentiment of despair may mix with our sorrow. We owe it to
the memory of the dead, we owe it to the cause of popular liberty
throughout the world, that the sudden crime which has taken the life
of the President of the United States shall not produce the least im-
pediment in the smooth course of public affairs. This great city, in
the midst of unexampled emblems of deeply-seated grief, has sus-
tained itself with composure and magnanimity. It has nobly done its
part in guarding against the derangement of business or the slightest
shock ta public credit. The enemies of the republic put it to the se-
verest trial; but the voice of faction has not been heard; doubt and
despondency have been unknown. In serene majesty the country
rises in the beauty and strength and hope of youth, and proves to the
world the quiet energy and the durability of institutions growing out
of the reason and affections of the people.

Heaven has willed it that the United States shall live. The nations
of the earth cannot spare them. All the worn-out aristocracies of
Europe saw in the spurious feudalism of slaveholding, their strong-
est outpost, and banded themselves together with the deadly enemies
of our national life. If the Old World will discuss the respective ad-
vantages of oligarchy or equality; of the union of church and state,
or *he rightful freedom of religion; of land accessible to the many, or

652 A M ERICA N PA TRIO TISM.

of land monopolized by an ever-decreasing number of the few, the
United States must live to control the decision by their quiet and un-
obtrusive example. It has often and truly been observed, that the
trust and affection of the masses gather naturally round an individual;
if the inquiry is made, whether the man so trusted and beloved shall
elicit from the reason of the people, enduring institutions of theirown,
or shall sequester political power for a superintending dynasty, the
United States must live to solve the problem. If a question is raised
on the respective merits of Timoleon or Julius Caesar, or Washington
or Napoleon, the United States must be there to call to mind that
there were twelve Csesars, most of them the opprobrium of the
human race, and to contrast with them the line of American Presi-
dents.

The duty of the hour is incomplete, our mowrning is insincere, if,
while we express unwavering trust in the great principles that under-
lie our government, we do not also give our support to the man to
whom the people have entrusted its administration.

Andrew Johnson is now, by the Constitution, the President of the
United States, and he stands before the world as the most conspicuous
representative of the industrial classes. Left an orphan at four years
old, poverty and toil were his steps to honor. His youth Was not
passed in the halls of colleges; nevertheless he has received a thor-
ough political education in statesmanship; in the school of the people,
and by long experience of public life. A village functionary; mem-
ber successively of each branch of the Tennessee Legislature, hearing
with a thrill of joy, the words, " the Union, it must be preserved;"
a representative in Congress for successive years; Governor of the
great State of Tennessee, approved as its Governor by re-election; be
was at the opening of the rebellion a senator from that state in Con-
gress. Then at the Capitol, when senators, unrebuked by the gov-
ernment, sent word by telegram to seize forts and arsenals, he alone
from that southern region told them what the government did not
dare to tell them, that they were traitors, and deserved the punish-
ment of treason. Undismayed by a perpetual purpose of public ene-
mies to take his life, bearing up against the still greater trial of the
persecution of his wife and children, in due time he went back to his
state, determined to restore it to the Union, or die with the American
flag for his winding sheet. And now, at the call of the United States,
he has returned to Washington as a conqueror, with Tennessee as a
free state for his trophy. It remains for him to consummate the vin-
dication of the Union.

To that Union Abraham Lincoln has fallen a martyr. His death,
which was meant to sever it beyond repair, binds it more closely and
more firmly than ever. The blow aimed at him, was aimed not at the
native of Kentucky, not at the citizen of Illinois, but at the man, who,
as President, in the executive branch of the government, stood as the

MATTHEW SIMPSON. 653

representative of every man in the United States. The object of the
crime was the life of the whole people; and it wounds the affections
of the whole people. From Maine to the southwest boundary of the
Pacific, it makes us one. The country may have needed an imperish-
able grief to touch its inmost feeling. The grave that receives the
remains of Lincoln, receives the costly sacrifice to the Union; the
monument which will rise over his body will bear witness to the Union;
his enduring memory will assist during countless ages to bind the
states together, and to incite to the love of our one undivided, indi-
visible country. Peace to the ashes of our departed friend, the frieivl
of his country and of his race. He was happy in his life, for he was
the restorer of the republic; he was happy in his death, for his mar-
tyrdom will plead forever for the Union of the states and the freedom
of man.

THE BURIAL OF LINCOLN.
MATTHEW SIMPSON.

Springfield, III., May 4, 1865.

Near the capital of this large and growing state of Illinois, in the
midst of this beautiful grove, and at the open mouth of the vault which
has just received the remains of our fallen chieftain, we gather to pay
a tribute of respect and to drop the tears of sorrow around the ashes
of the mighty dead. A little more than four years ago he left his plain
and quiet home in yonder city, receiving the parting words of the con-
course of friends who, in the midst of the dropping of the gentle
shower, gathered around him. He spoke of the pain of parting from
the plaee where he had lived for a quarter of a century, where his
children had been born, and his home had been rendered pleasant by
friendly associations, and, as he left, he made an earnest request, in
the hearing of some who are present at this hour, that, as he was
about to enter upon responsibilities which he believed to be greater
than any which had fallen upon any man since the days of Washing-
ton, the people would offer up prayers that God would aid and sustain
him in the work which they had given him to do. His company left
your quiet city, but, as it went, snares were in waiting for the chief
magistrate. Scarcely did he escape the dangers of the way or the
hands of the assassin, as he neared Washington; and I believe he es-
caped only through the vigilance of officers and the prayers of his peo-
ple, so that the blow was suspended for more than four years, which
was at last permitted, through the providence of God, to fall.

How different the occasion which witnessed his departure from that
which witnessed his return. Doubtless you expected to take him by the

654

AMERICAN PA TRIOTISM.

hand, and to feel the warm grasp which you had felt in other days, and
to see the tall form walking among you which you had delighted to hcnor
in years past. But he was never permitted to come until he came with
lips mute and silent, the frame encoffined, and a weeping nation fol-
lowing as his mourners. Such a scene as his return to you was never
witnessed. Among the events of history there have been great pro-
cessions of mourners. There was one for the patriarch Jacob, which
went up from Egypt, and the Egyptians wondered at the evidences of
reverence and filial affection which came from the hearts of the Israel-
ites. There was mourning when Moses fell upon the heights of Pis-
gah and was hid from human view. There have been mournings in
the kingdoms of the earth when kings and princes have fallen, but
never was there, iu the history of man, such mourning as that which
has accompanied this funeral procession, and has gathered around the
mortal remains of him who was our loved one, and who now sleeps
among us. If we glance at the procession which followed him, we see
how the nation stood aghast. Tears filled the eyes of manly, sun-
burnt faces. Strong men, as they clasped the hands of their friends,
were unable to find vent for their grief in words. Women and little
children caught up the tidings as they ran through the land, and were
melted into tears. The nation stood still. Men left their ploughs in
the field and asked what the end should be. The hum of manufacto-
ries ceased, and the sound of the hammer was not heard. Busy mer-
chants closed their doors, and in the exchange gold passed no more
from hand to hand. Though three weeks have elapsed, the nation
has scarcely breathed easily yet. A mournful silence is abroad upon
the land; nor is this mourning confined to any class or to any district
of country. Men of all political parties, and of all religious creeds,
have united in paying this mournful tribute. The archbishop of the
Roman Catholic Church in New York and a Protestant minister walked
side by side in the sad procession, and a Jewish Rabbi performed a
part of the solemn services.

Here are gathered around his tomb the representatives of the army
and navy, senators, judges, governors, and officers of all the branches
of the government. Here, too, are members of civic processions, with
men and women from the humblest as well as the highest occupations.
Here and there, too, are tears, as sincere and warm as any that drop,
which come from the eyes of those whose kindred and whose race
have been freed from their chains by him whom they mourn as their
deliverer. More persons have gazed on the face of the departed than
ever looked upon the face of any other departed man. More races
have looked on the procession for 1600 miles or more — by night and
by day — by sunlight, dawn, twilight, and by torchlight, than ever be-
fore watched the progress of a procession.

We ask why this wonderful mourning — this great procession ? I
answer, first, a part of the interest has arisen from the times in which

MA TTI/E IV SIMPSON; 655

we live, and in which he that had fallen was a principal actor. It is a
principle of our nature that feelings, once excited, turn readily from
the object by which they are excited, to some other object which may
for the time being take possession of the mind. Another principle is,
the deepest affections of our hearts gather around some human form
in which are incarnated the living thoughts and ideas of the passing
age. If we look then at the times, we see an age of excitement. For
four years the popular heart has been stirred to its inmost depth. War
had come upon us, dividing families, separating nearest and dearest
friends — a war, the extent and magnitude of which no one could esti-
mate— a war :n which the blood of brethren was shed by a brother's
hand. A call for soldiers was made by this voice now hushed, and all
over the land, from hill and mountain, from plain to valley, there
sprang up thousands of bold hearts, ready to go forth and save our
national Union. This feeling of excitement was transferred next into
a feeling of deep grief because of the dangers in which our country
was placed. Many said, "Is it possible to save our nation?" Some in
our country, and nearly all the leading men in other countries, de-
clared it to be impossible to maintain the Union; and many an honest
and patriotic heart was deeply pained with apprehensions of common
ruin; and many, in grief and almost in despair, anxiously inquired,
What shall the end of these things be? In addition to this wives had
given their husbands, mothers their sons, the pride and joy of their
hearts. They saw them put on the uniform, they saw them take the
martial step, and they tried to hide their deep feeling of sadness.
Many dear ones slept upon the battle-field never to return again, and
there was mourning in every mansion and in every cabin in our broad
land. Then came a feeling of deeper sadness as the story came of
prisoners tortured to death or starved through the mandates of those
who are called the representatives of the chivalry, and who claimed to
be the honorable ones of the earth; and as we read the stories of frames
attenuated and reduced to mere skeletons, our grief turned partly into
horror and partly into aery for vengeance

Then this feeling was changed to one cf joy. There came signs of
the end of this rebellion. We followed the career of our glorious gen-
erals. We saw our army, under the command of the brave officer
who is guiding this procession, climb up the heights of Lookout Moun-
tain and drive the rebels from their strongholds. Another brave gen-
eral swept through Georgia, South and North Carolina, and drove the
combined armies of the rebels before him, while the honored Lieuten-
ant-General held Lee and his hosts in a death-grasp.

Then the tidings came that Richmond was evacuated, and that Lee
had surrendered. The bells rang merrily all over the land. The
booming of cannon was heard; illuminations and torchlight proces-
sions manifested the general joy, and families were looking for the
speedy return of their loved ones from the field of battle. Just in the

656 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

midst of this wildest joy, in one hour — nay, in one moment — the
tidings thrilled throughout the land that Abraham Lincoln, the best of
Presidents, had perished by the hands of an assassin; and then ail the
feelings which had been gathering for four years, in forms of excite-
ment, grief, horror, and joy, turned into one wail of woe — a sadness
inexpressible — -an anguish unutterable. But it is not the times merely
which caused this mourning. The mode of his death must be taken
into the account. Had he died on a bed of illness, with kind friends
around him; had the sweat of death been wiped from his brow by gen-
tle hands, while he was yet conscious; could he have had power to
speak words of affection to his stricken widow, or words of counsel to
us like those which we heard in his parting inaugural at Washington,
which shall now be immortal — how it would have softened or assuaged
something of the grief. There might, at least, have been preparation
for the event. But no moment of warning was given to him or to us.
He was stricken down, too, when his hopesfor the end of the rebel-
lion were bright, and prospects of a joyous life were before him.
There was a cabinet meeting that day, said to have been the most
cheerful and happy of any held since the beginning of the rebellion.
After this meeting he talked with his friends, and spoke of the four
years of tempest, of the storm being over, and of the four years of
pleasure and joy now awaiting him, as the weight of care and anxiety
would be taken from his mind, and he could have happy days with his
family again. In the midst of these anticipations he left his house
never to return alive. The evening was Good Friday, the saddest day
in the whole calendar for the Christian Church — henceforth in this
country to be made sadder, if possible, by the memory of our nation's
loss; and so filled with grief was every Christian heart that even all
the joyous thoughts of Easter Sunday failed to remove the crushing
sorrow under which the true worshipper bowed in the house of God.

But the great cause of this mourning is to be found in the man him-
self. : Mr. Lincoln was no ordinary man, I believe the conviction has
been growing on the nation's mind, as it certainly has been on my
own, especially in the last year of his administration, that, by the
hand of God, he was especially singled out to guide our Government
in these troublesome times, and it seems to me that the hand of God
may be traced in many of the events connected with his history.
First, then, I recognize this in the physical education which he re-
ceived, and which prepared him for enduring herculean labors. In
the toils of his boyhood and the labors of his manhood, God was giv-
ing him an iron frame. Next to this was his identification with the
heart of the great people, understanding their feelings because he was
one of them, and connected with them in their movements and life.
His education was simple. A few months spent in the schoolhouse
gave him the elements of education. He read few books, but mas-
tered all he read. Bunyan's Progress, CEsop's Fables, and the Life of

MATTHEW SIMP SON. 657

Washington were his favorites. In these we recognize the works
which gave bias to his character, and which partly moulded his style.
His early life, with its varied struggles, joined him indissolubly to the
working masses, and no elevation in society diminished his respect for
the sons of toil. He knew what it was to fell the tall trees of the for-
est and to stem the current of the broad Mississippi. His home was
in the growing West, the heart of the Republic, and, invigorated by
the wind which swept over its prairies, he learned lessons of self-re-
liance which sustained him in seasons of adversity.

His genius was soon recognized, as true genius always will be, and
he was placed in the Legislature of his state. Already acquainted with
the principles of law, be devoted his thoughts to matters of public in-
terest, and began to be looked on as the coming statesman. As early
as 1S39 he presented resolutions in the Legislature, asking for eman-
cipation in the District of Columbia, when, with but rare exceptions,
the whole popular mind of his state was opposed to the measure.
From that hour he was a steady and uniform friend of humanity, and
was preparing for the conflict of latter years.

If you ask me on what mental characteristic his greatness rested, I
answer, on a quick and ready perception of facts; on a memory un-
usually tenacious and retentive; and on a logical turn of mind, which
followed sternly and unwaveringly every link in the chain of thought
on every subject which he was called to investigate. I think there
have been minds more broad in their character, more comprehensive
in their scope, but I doubt if ever there has been a man who could
follow step by step, with more logical power, the points which he de-
sired to illustrate. He gained this power by the close study of geome-
try, and by a determination to perceive the truth in all its relations
and simplicity, and, when found, to utter it.

It is said of him that in childhood, when he had any difficulty in
listening to a conversation to ascertain what people meant, if he re-
tired to rest he could not sleep till he tried to understand the precise
points intended, and, when understood, to frame language to convey
it in a clearer manner to others. Who that has read his messages fails
to perceive the directness and the simplicity of his style? And this
very trait, which was scoffed at and decried by opponents, is now
recognized as one of the strong points of that mighty mind which
has so powerfully influenced the destiny of this nation, and which
shall, for ages to come, influence the destiny of humanity.

It was not, however, chiefly by his mental faculties that he gained
such control over mankind. His moral power gave him pre-eminence.
The convictions of men that Abraham Lincoln was an honest man led
them to yield to his guidance. As has been said of Cobden, whom
he greatly resembled, he made all men feel a sense of himself — a
recognition of individuality — a self-relying power. They saw in him
a man whom they believed would do what is right, regardless of all

6$& AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

consequence's. v It was this roor al feeling which gave him the greatest
hold on the people, arid made his utterances almost oracular. When
the nation was angered by the perfidy of foreign nations in allowing
privateers to be fitted out, he uttered the significant expression,
" One war at a time," and it stilled the national heart. When his own
friends were divided as to what steps should be taken as to slavery,
that simple utterance, " I will save the Union, if I can, with slavery;
if not, slavery must perish, for the Union must be preserved," became
the rallying word. Men felt the struggle was for the Union, and all
other questions must he subsidiary.

But, after all, by the acts of a man shall his fame be perpetuated.
What are his acts ? Much praise is due to the men who aided hirriV
He called able counselors around him — some of whom have displayed
the highest order of talent, united with- the purest land most devOted1
patriotisrm He summoned able generals into the field — men who
have borne the sword as bravely as ever anyhuman arm has borne it.
He had the aid of prayerful and thoughtful men everywhere. But,
under his own guiding hands-, wise counsels were combined and great
movements conducted.

Turn towards the different departments! We had an unorganized;
militia, a mere skeleton army, yet, under his care, that army has been
enlarged into a force which, for skill, intelligence, efficiency; arid
bravery, surpasses any which the world had ever seen. Before its
veterans the fame of even the renowned veterans of Napoleon.
shall pale, and the mothers arid sisters on these hill sides, and
all over the land, shall take to their arms again braver: sons and.
brothers than ever fought in European wars. The reason is obvious.
Money, or a desire for fame, collected those armies, or they were
rallied to sustain favorite thrones or dynasties; but the armies he called
into being fought for liberty, for the Union, and for the right of self-
government; and many of them felt that the battles they won were -
for humanity everywhere and for all time; fori believe that- God has
not suffered this terrible rebellion to come upon our land merely for
a chastisement to us, or as a lesson to our age. There are moments
which involve in themselves eternities. There are instants which
seem to contain germs which shall develop and bloom forever. Such
a moment came in the tide of time to our land, when a question must
be settled which affected all the earth. The contest was for human
freedom, not for this Republic merely, not for the Union simply, bra:
to decide whether the people, as. a people, in their entire majesty,
were destined to be the government, or whether they were to be sub-
ject to tyrants or aristocrats, or to class-rule of any kind. This is the
great question for which we have been fighting, and its decision is at
hand, and the result of the contest will affect the ages to come. If
successful, republics will spread in spite of monarch, all over this
earth.

MATTHEW SIMPSON. 659

I turn from the army to the navy. What was it when the war com-
menced? Now we have our ships-of-war at home and abroad, to
guard privateers in foreign sympathizing ports, as well as to care for
every part of our own coast. They have taken forts that military men
said could not be taken,, and a brave admiral, for the first time in the
world's history, lashed himself to the mast, there to remain as long as
he had a particle of skill or strength to watch over his ship, while it
engaged in the perilous contest of taking the strong forts of the rebels.

Then, again, I turn to the treasury department. Where should the
money come from ? Wise men predicted ruin, but our national credit
has been maintained, and our currency is safer to-day than it ever was
before. Not only so, but through our national bonds, if properly used,
we shall have a permanent basis for our currency, and an investment
so desirable for capitalists pf other nations that, under the laws of
trade, I believe the centre of exchange will speedily be transferred
from England to the United States.

But the great act of the. mighty chieftain, on which his fame shall
rest long after his frame shall molder away, is that of giving freedom
to a pace. We have all been taught to revere the sacred characters.
Among them Moses stands pre-eminently high. He received the law
from God, and his name is honored among the hosts of heaven. Was
not his greatest act the delivering of three millions of his kindred out
of bondage? Yet we may assert that Abraham Lincoln, by his proc-
lamation, liberated more enslaved people than ever Moses set free,
and those not of his kindred or his race. Such a power, or such an
opportunity, God has seldom given to man. When other events shall
have been forgotten; when this world shall have become a network of
republics; when every throne shall be swept from the face of the
earth; when literature shall enlighten all minds; when the claims of
humanity shall be recognized everywhere, this act shall still be con-
spicuous on the pages of history. We are thankful that God gave to
Abraham Lincoln the decision and wisdom and grace to issue that
proclamation, which stands high above all other papers which have
been penned by uninspired men.

Abraham Lincoln was a good man. He was known as an honest,
temperate, forgiving man; a just man; a man of noble heart in every
way. As to his religious experience, I cannot speak definitely, be-
cause I was not privileged to know much of his private sentiments.
My acquaintance with him did not give me the opportunity to hear
him speak on those topics. This I know, however, he read the Bible
frequently; loved it for its great truths and its profound teachings; and
he tried to be guided by its precepts. He believed in Christ the
Saviour of sinners; and I think he was sincere in trying to bring his
life into harmony with the principles of revealed religion. Certainly
if there ever was a man who illustrated some of the principles of pure
religion, that man was our departed President. Look over all his

6tk> AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

speeches, listen to his utterances. He never spoke unkindly of any
man. Even the rebels received no word of anger from him, and his
last day illustrated in a remarkable manner his forgiving disposition.
A dispatch was received that afternoon that Thompson and Tucker
were trying to make their escape through Maine, and it was proposed
to arrest them. Mr. Lincoln, however, preferred rather to let them
quietly escape. He was seeking to save the very men who had been
plotting his destruction. This morning we read a proclamation offer-
ing $25,000 for the arrest of these men as aiders and abbetors of his
assassination; so that, in his expiring acts, he was saying, "Father,
forgive them, they know not what they do."

As a ruler, I doubt if any President has ever shown such trust in God,
or in public documents so frequently referred to Divine aid. Often did
he remark to friends and to delegations that his hope for our success
rested in his conviction that God would bless our efforts, because we
were trying to do right. To the address of a large religious body he
replied, " Thanks be unto God, who, in our national trials, giveth us the
churches." To a minister who said he hoped the Lord was on our side,
he replied that it gave him no concern whether the Lord was on our side
or not, for, he added, " I know the Lord is always on the side of right,"
and with deep feeling added, " But God is my witness that it is my con-
stant anxiety and prayer that both myself and this nation should be on
the Lord's side.''

In his domestic life he was exceedingly kind and affectionate. He
was a devoted husband and father. During his presidential term he lost
his second son, Willie. To an officer of the army he said, not long
since^ " Do you ever find yourself talking with the dead?" and added,
" Since Willie's death I catch myself every day involuntarily talking
with him, as if he were with me." On his widow, who is unable- to be
here, I need only invoke the blessing of Almighty God that she may be
comforted and sustained. For his son, who has witnessed the exercises
of this hour, all that I can desire is that the mantle of his father may
fall upon him.

Let us pause a moment in the lesson of the hour before we part.
This man, though he fell by an assassin, still fell under the permissive
hand of God. He had some wise purpose in allowing him so to fail.
What more could he have desired of life for himself? Were not his
honors full ? There was no office to which he could not aspire. The
popular heart clung around him as around no other man. The nations
of the world had learned to honor our chief magistrate. If rumors of a
desired alliance with England be true, Napoleon trembled when he
heard of the fall of Richmond, and asked what nation would join -him
to protect him against our government under the guidance of such a man.
His fame was full, his work was done, and he sealed his glory by be-
comhig the nation's great martyr for liberty.

He appears to have had a strange presentiment, early in political life,

MA TTIIE IV SIMPSON. 66 1

that some day he would be President. You see it indicated in 1839.
Of the slave power he said, " Broken by it I too may be ; bow to it I
never will. The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not
to deter us from the support of a cause which we deem to be just. It
shall not deter' me. If ever I feel the soul within me elevate and ex-
pand to those dimensions not wholly unworthy of its Almighty architect,
it is when 1 contemplate the cause of my country/deserted by all the
world besides, and I standing up boldly and alone and hurling defiance
at her victorious oppressors. Here without contemplating consequences,
"before high Heaven and in the face of the world, I swear eternal fidelity,
to the just cause, as I deem it, of the land of my life, my liberty, and
my love." And yet, secretly, he said to more than one; " I never shall
live out the four years of my term. When the rebellion is crushed my
work is done.'' So it was. He lived to see the last battle fought,' and
dictate a despatch from the home of Jefferson Davis ; lived till the
power of the rebellion was broken ; and then, having done the work
for which God had sent him, angels, I trust, were sent to shield him
from one moment of pain or suffering, and to bear him from this
world to the high and glorious realm where the patriot and the good
shall live forever.

His career teaches young men that every position of eminence is open
before the diligent and the worthy. To the active men of the country,
his example is an incentive to trust in God and do right.

Standing,, as we do to-day, by his coffin and his sepulchre, let us re-
solve to carry forward the policy which he so nobly began. Let us do
right to all men. To the ambitious there is this fearful lesson : Of the
four candidates for presidential honors in i860, two of them — Douglas
and Lincoln— once competitors, but now sleeping patriots, rest from
their labors ; Bell perished in poverty and misery, as a traitor might
perish ; and Breckinridge is a frightened fugitive, with the brand of
traitor on his brow. Let us vow, in the sight of Heaven, to eradicate
every vestige of human slavery ; to give every human being his true
position before God and man ; to crush every form of rebellion, and to
stand by the flag which God has given us. How joyful that it floated
over parts of every State before Mr. Lincoln's career was ended. How
singular that, to the fact of the assassin's heels: being caught in the
folds of the flag, we are probably indebted for his capture. The flag
and the traitor must ever be enemies.

Traitors will probably suffer by the change of rulers, for one of
sterner mould, and who himself has deeply suffered from the rebellion,
now wields the sword of justice. Our country, too, is stronger for the
trial. A republic was declared by monarchists too weak to endure a
civil war ; yet we have crushed the most gigantic rebellion in history,
and have grown in strength and population every year of the struggle.
We have passed through the ordeal of a popular election while swords
and bayonets were in the field, and have come out unharmed. And

662 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

now, in an hour of excitement, with a large majority having preferred
another man for president, when the bullet of the assassin has laid our
president prostrate, has there been a mutiny ? Has any rival proffered
his claims ? Out of an army of near a million, no officer or soldier ut-
tered one note of dissent, and, in an hour or two after Mr. Lincoln's
death, another leader under constitutional forms, occupied his chair, and
the government moved forward without one single jar. The world will
learn that republics are the strongest governments on earth.

And now, my friends,, in the words of the departed, "with malice
towards none," free from all feelings of personal vengeance, yet be-
lieving that the sword must not be borne in vain, let us go forward
even in painful duty. Let every man who was a Senator or Repre-
sentative in Congress, and who aided in beginning this rebellion, and
thus led to the slaughter of our sons and daughters, be brought to
speedy and to certain punishment. Let every officer educated at the
public expense, and who, having been advanced to position, perjured
himself and turned his sword against the vitals of his country, be
doomed to a traitor's death. This, I believe, is the will of the
American people. Men may attempt to compromise, and to re-
store these traitors and murderers to society again. Vainly may they
talk of the fancied honor or chivalry of these murderers of our sons —
these starvers of our prisoners — these officers who mined i their
prison and placed kegs of powder to destroy our captive officers.
But the American people will rise in their majesty and sweep all such
compromises and compromisers away, and will declare that there shall
be no safety for rebel leaders. But to the deluded masses we will ex-
tend the arms of forgiveness. We will take them to our hearts, and
walk with them side by side: as we go forward to work out a glorious
destiny.

The time will come when, in the beautiful words of him whose lips
are now forever sealed, "the mystic chords of memory which stretch
from every battle-field, and from every patriot's grave, shall yield a
sweeter music when touched by the angels of our better nature."

Chieftain ! farewell ! The nation mourns thee. Mothers shall
teach thy name to their lisping children. The youth of our land
shall emulate thy virtues. Statesmen shall study thy record and
learn lessons of wisdom. Mute though thy lips be, yet they still
speak. Hushed is thy voice, but its echoes of liberty are ringing
through the world, and the sons of bondage listen with joy. Prisoned
thou art in death, and yet thou art marching abroad, and chains
and manacles are bursting at thy touch. Thou didst fall not
for thyself. The assassin had no hate for thee. Our hearts were
aimed at, our national life was sought. We crown thee as our
martyr — and humanity enthrones thee as her triumphant son. Hero.
Martyr, Friend, Farewell !

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, JR. 663

THE DOUBLE ANNIVERSARY; '76 AND '63.
CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, JR.

Quzncy, ~MassackuseteS, July 4, 1869.

• - ' ,i :■ ' - .

Six years ago on this anniversary we- ^and not only we who stood
upon the scared and furrowed field of battle, but you and our whole
country were drawing breath after the struggle of Gettysburg. For
three long days we had stpod the strain of conflict, and now, at last,
t when the nation's birthday dawned, the shattered rebel columns had
sullenly withdrawn from our front, and we drew that long breath of
deep relief which none "have ever drawn who have not passed in safety
through the shock of doubtful battle. -Nor was our country gladdened
then by news from Gettysburg alone. The army that day twined
noble laurel garlands round the J proud brow of the mother land,
Vicfcsburg was, -thereafter, to be forever associated with the Declara-
tion of Independence, arid the glad anniversary rejoicings as they rose
froth every town and village -and city of the loyal North mingled with
the last sullen echoes that died away: from our cannon over the Ceme-
tery Ridge, arid were answered by glad shouts of victory from the far
Southwest. To all of us of this generation— and especially to such
of us as were ourselves part of those great events— this celebration,
therefore, now has and must ever retain a special significance. It
belongs to us; as well as to our fathers. As upon this day ninety-
three years ago this nation was brought iritb existence through the
efforts of others, so, upon this day six years ago, I am disposed to be-
lieve, through our own efforts, it drarnatically touched the climax
of its great argument.

The tiriie that has since elapsed enables us now to look hack and to
see things' itt their true proportions. We begin to realize that the
years we have so recently passed through, though we did not appreci-
ate it at the time, were the heroic years of American history. Now
that their passionate excitement is over, it is pleasnt to dwell upon them
—to recall the rising of a great people— the call to arms as it boomed
from our hill tops and clashed from our steeples— the eager patriotism
of that fierce April which latndled new sympathies in every bosom,
which caused the miser to give freely of his wealth, the wife with eager
hands to pack the knapsack of her husband, and mothers, with eyes
glistening with tears of pride, to look out upon the glistening bayonets
of their boys; then came the frenzy of impatience and the defeat en-
tailed upon us by rashness and inexperience, before our nation
settled down, solidly and patiently, to its work, determined to save
itself from destruction; and then, followed the long weary years of
doubt and mingled fear and hope, until at last that day came six
A. P. -22.

664 AMERICA Ar PA TAVO TISM.

years ago which we now celebrate— -the day which saw the flood-tide
of rebellion reach high-water mark, whence it never after ceased to
recede. At the moment, probably, none of us, cither at home or at the
seat of war, realized .the grandeur of the situation— the dramatic
power of the incidents, or the Titanic nature of the conflict. To 'tyou
who were at home— mothers, fathers, wives, sisters, brothers, citizens
of the common country if nothing else — the agony of suspense, the
anxiety, the joy and, too often, the grief which was to know no end,
which marked the passage of those days, left little either of time or
inclination to dwell upon aught save the. horrid reality Of the drama.
To others, who more immediately participated in those great events,
the daily vexations and annoyances — the hot and dusty ' day — the
sleepless, anxious night — the rain upon the unsheltered bivouac— the
dead lassitude which succeeded the excitement of action— the cruel
orders which recognized no fatigue and made no allowance for labors
undergone- — all these small trials of the soldier's life made it possible
to but few to realize the grandeur, of the drama in which they were
playing a part. -Yet we were not wholly oblivious of it. Now and
then I come across strange evidences of this in turning'over the leaves of
the few weather-stained, dog-eared volumes which were the companions
of my life in .-camp. The title page of one bears witness to the fact
that it was my companion at Gettysburg, and in it I recently found
some lin&s of Browning's noble poem of Saul marked and altered to
express my sense of our sitiuation, and bearing date upon this very
5th of July. The poet had described in them the fall of snow in the
spring time from a mountain, under which nestled a valley; the alter-
ing of a few words made them well describe the approach of our army
to Gettysburg:

. Fold on fold, all at once, we crowd thundrously down to your feet.
And there fronts you, stark, black but alive .yet, your army of old
With its rents, the successive bequeathing- of conflicts untold,
Yea!— each harm got in flghting' your battles, eaen furrow and scar
Of its head thrust twixt you and the tempest — all hail! here we are!"

And there we were, indeed, and then and there was enacted such a
celebration as I hope may never again be witnessed there or elsewhere
on another 4th of July. Even as I stand here before you, through the
lapse of years and the -shifting experiences, of the recent past visions
and memories of those days rise thick and fast before me. We did in-
deed crowd thundrously down , to their feet ! Of the events of those
three terrible days I may speak with feeling and yet with modesty, for
small indeed was the part which those with whom I served were called
upon to play. When those great bodies of infantry drove together in
the crash of battle, the clouds of cavalry which had hitherto covered
up their movements were swept aside, to the flanks. Our work for
the time was done,. nor had it been an easy or a pleascnt work. The
road, to Gettysburg had been paved .".with our bodies and' watered with

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, JR. 665

our blood. Three weeks before, in the middle days of June, I, a cap-
tain of cavalry, had taken the field at the head of one hundred mounted
men, the joy and pride of my life. Through ;twenty days of almost
incessant conflict the hand of death had been heavy upon us, and now,
upon the. eve of Gettysburg, thirty-four of the hundred only remained,
and our comrades were dead on the field of battle, Or languishing in
hospitals, or prisoners in the hands of the enemy. Six brave young
fellows we had buried in one grave where they fell on the heights of
Aldie. It was late on the evening of the first of July, that there came
to us rumors of heavy fighting at Gettysburg, near forty miles away.
The regiment happened then to be detached, and its orders for the
second were to; move in the rear of Sedgwick's corps and see that no
man left the column. All that day we marched to the sound of the
cannon; Sedgwick, very grim and stern, was pressing forward his tired
men, and we soon saw that for once there would be no stragglers from
the ranks. As the day grew old and as we passed rapidly up from the
rear to the head of the hurrying column, the roar of battle grew more
distinct, until at last we crowned a hill, and the contest broke upon us.
Across the deep valley, some two miles away, we could see the white
smoke of the bursting shells, while below the sharp incessant rattle
of the musketry told of the fierce struggle that was going on, Before
us ran the straight, white, dusty road, choked with artillery,, ambu-
lances, caissons, ammunition trains, all pressing forward to the field
of battle, while mixed among them, their bayonets gleaming through
the dust like wavelets on a river of steel, tired, foot-sore, hungry,
thirsty, begrimed with sweat and dust, the gallant infantry of Sedg-
wick's corps hurried to the sound of the eartnon as men might have
flocked to a feast. Moving rapidly forward, we crossed the brook
Avliich runs so prominently across the map of the field of battle and
halted on its further side to await our orders. Hardly had I dis-
mounted from my horse when, looking back, I saw that the head of
the column had reached the brook, and deployed and halted on its
other bank, and already the stream was filled with naked men shout-
ing with pleasure as they washed off the sweat of their long day's
march. Even as I looked, the noise of the battle grew louder, and
soon the symptoms of movement were evident. The rappel was heard,
the bathers hurriedly clad themselves, the ranks were formed, and the
sharp, quick snap of the percussion caps told us the men were prepar-
ing their weapons for action. Almost immediately a general officer
rode rapidly to the front of the line, addressed to it a few brief ener-
getic words, the short sharp order to move by the flank was given,
followed immediately by the "double quick," the officer placed him-
self at the head of the column, and that brave infantry which had
marched almost forty miles since the setting of yesterday's sun, —
which during that day had hardly known either sleep, or food, or rest,
or shelter from the July heat, — now, as the shadows grew long, hur-

666 AMERICAN PA TRIO TISJII.

rieel forward ori the run to take its' place in the front of battle and to
beat 'up the reeling fortunes of the day.

It is said that at the crisis of Solferino, Marshal McMahon appeared
with his corps upon the field of battle, his men having run for seven
miles. We need not go abroad for examples of endurance and soldierly
bearing. The achievement of Sedgwick and the brave Sixth Corps,
as they marched upon the field of Gettysburg on that second day of
July, far excels the vaunted efforts of the French Zouaves.

Twenty-four hours later we stood on that same ground,— -many
dear friends had yielded up their young lives during the hours which
had elapsed, but, though twenty thousand fellow creatures were
wounded or dead around us, though the flood gates of heaven seemed
open and the torrents fell upon the quick and the dead, yet the elements
seemed electrified with a certain magnetic influence of victory, and, as
the great army sank down overwearied in its tracks, it felt that the
crisis and danger was passed,— that Gettysburg was immortal.

May I not then well express the hope that never again may we qr
ours be called upon so to celebrate this anniversary? And yet now
that the passionate hopes and fears of those days are all over, — now
that the grief which can never be forgotten is softened and modified
by the soothing hand of time,— tiow that the distracting doubts and
untold anxieties are buried and almost forgotten, we love to remem-
ber the gathering of the hosts, — to hear again in memory the shock of
battle, and to wonder at the magnificence of the drama. The passion
and the excitement is gone and we can look at the work we have done
and pronounce upon it. I do not fear the sober second judgment
Our work was a good work, — it was well done, and it was done thor-
oughly, i Some one has said — " Happy is the people which has no his-
tory." Not so ■!— As it is better to have loved and lost than never to
have loved at all, so it is better to have lived greatly, even though we
have suffered greatly, than to have passed a long life of inglorious
ease. Our generation, — yes ! we ourselves have been a part of great
things. We have suffered greatly and greatly rejoiced;— we have drunk
deep of the cup of -joy -and of sorrow; — we have tasted the agony of
defeat and we have supped full with the pleasures of victory. Wehave
proved ourselves equal to great deeds, and have learnt what qualities
were in us, which, in more peaceful times, we ourselves did not
suspect.

And, indeed, I would here in closing fain address a few words to
such of you, if any such are here, who like myself may have been sol-
diers during the war of the Rebellion. We should never more be par-
tizans. We have been a part of great events in the service of the com-
mon country, we have worn her uniform, we have received her pay,
and devoted ourselves, to the death if need be, in her service. When
we were blackened bv the smoke of Antietam, we did not ask or care

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, JR. 667

whether those who stood shoulder to shoulder beside us, — whether he
who led us, — whether those who sustained us, were Democrats or
Republicans, conservatives or radicals; we asked only that they might
prove as true as was the steel we grasped, and as brave as we our-
selves would fain have been. When we stood like a wall of stone
vomiting fire from the heights of Gettsburg, — nailed to our position
through three long days of mortal Hell, — did we ask each other wheth-
er that brave officer who fell while gallantly leading the counter-charge
— whether that cool gunner steadily serving his piece before us midst
the storm" of shot and shell, — whether the poor wounded, mangled,
gasping comrades, crushed and torn, and dying in agony around us,
had voted for Lincoln or Douglas, for Breckenridge or Bell ? We then
■were full of other thoughts. We prized men for what they were worth
to the common country of us all, and recked not of empty words. Was
the man true, was he brave, was he earnest,— was all we thought of
then, — not, did he vote or think with us, or label himself with our
party name. This lessen let us try to remember. We cannot give to
party all that we once offered to country, but our duty is not yet done.
We are no longer, what we have been, the young guard of the Repub-
lic;— we have earned an exemption from the dangers of the field and
camp, and the old musket or the crossed sabres hang harmless over
our winter fires, never more to be grasped in these hands henceforth
devoted to more peaceful labors; but the duties of the citizen, and of
the citizen who has received his baptism in fire, are still incumbent
upon us. Though young in years, we should remember that hence-
forth, and as long as we live in the land we are the ancients, — the vet-
erans of the Republic. As such, it is for us to protect in peace what
we preserved in war, — it is for us to look at all things with a view to
the common country and not to the exigencies of party politics, — it is
for us ever to bear in mind the higher allegiance we have sworn, and
to remember that he who has once been a soldier of the mother-land
degrades himself forever when he becomes the slave of faction. Then
at last, if through life we ever bear these lessons freshly in mind, will
it be well for us, — will it be well for our country, — will it be well for
those whose names we bear, that our bones also do not moulder with
those of our brave comrades beneath the sods of Gettysburg, or that
our graves do not look down on the swift flowing Mississippi from the
historic heights of Vicksburg.

6(58 AMERICAN PATRIOTISM,

CENTENNIAL ORATION.

ROBERT CHARLES WINTHROP.

.:. ' - - - luprfg a ,Bni

,;:. Boston, July 4, rt76.

Our fathers were no propagandists of republican institutions in the
abstract. Their own adoption of a republican form was, at the mo-
ment, almost as much a matter of chance as of choice, of necessity as
of preference. The thirteen colonies had, happily, been too long ac-
customed to manage their own affairs, and were too widely jealous of
each other, also; to admit for an instant any idea of centralization;
and without- centralization a monarchy, or any other form of arbitrary
government, was out of the question, Union wa:; then, as it is now,
the only safety for liberty; but it could only be a Constitutional union,
a limited and restricted union, founded on compromises and mutual
concessions; a union recognizing a large measure of state rights —
resting not only on the division of powers among legislative and ex-
ecutive departments but resting also on the distribution of powers be-
tween the states and the nation, both deriving their original authority
from the people, and exercising that authority for the people. This
was the system contemplated by the declaration of 1776. This was
the system approximated to by the confederation of; 1778-81. This
was the system finally consummated by the constitution of 1789. And
under this system our great example of self-government has been held
up before the nations, fulfilling, so far as it has fulfilled it, that lofty
mission which is recognized to-day, as " liberty enlightening the
Avorld," .

Let me not speak of that example in any vain-glorious spirit. Let
me not seem to arrogate for my country anything of superior wisdom
or virtue. Who will pretend that we have always made the most of
our independence, or the best of our liberty? Who will maintain that
we have always exhibited the brightest side of our institutions, or
always entrusted their administration to the wisest or worthiest men?
Who will deny that we have sometimes taught the world what to
avoid, as well as what to imitate; and that the cause of freedom and
reform has sometimes been discouraged and put back by our short-
1 comings, or by our excesses ? Our light has been, at best, but a re-
volving light; warning by its darker intervals or its sombre shades,
as well as cheering by its flashes of brilliancy, or by the clear lustre of
its steadier shining. Yet, in spite of all its imperfections and irregu-
larities, to no other earthly light have so many eyes been turned;
from no other earthly illumination have so many hearts drawn hope
and courage. It has breasted the tides of sectional and of party sLrife.
It has stood the shock of foreign and of civil war. It will ft ill hold
on, erect and unextinguished, defying, "the returning wave'' of de-

ROBERT CHARLES WINTHROP. 669

raoralization and corruption. Millions of young hearts, in all quar-
ters of our land, are awakening at this moment to the responsibility
which rests peculiarly upon them, for rendering its radiance purer
and brighter and more constant. Millions of young .hearts are resolv-
ing, at this hour, that it shall not be their fault if it do not stand for a
century to come, as it has stood for a century past, a beacon of lib-
erty to mankind! Their little flags of hope and promise are floating
to-day from every cottage window along the road side. With those
young hearts it is safe.

Meantime, we may all rejoice and take courage, as we remember of
how great a drawback and obstruction our example has been disem-
barrassed and relieved within a few years past. Certainly, we cannot
forget this day, in looking back over the century which is gone, how
long that example was overshadowed, in the eyes of our men, by the
existence of African slavery in so considerable a portion of our coun-
try. Never, never, however— it maybe safely said— was there a more
tremendous, a more dreadful, problem submitted to a nation for solu-
tion, than that which this institution involved for the United States of
America. Nor were we alone responsible for its existence. I do not
speak of it in the way of apology for ourselves. Still less would I
refer to it in the way Of crimination or reproach towards others,
abroad or at home. But the well-known paragraph on this subject, in
the original draught of the declaration, is quite too notable a reminis-
cence of the little desk * before me, to be forgotten on such an occa-
sion as this. That omitted clause — which, as Mr. Jefferson tells us,
"was struck out in compliance _ to South Carolina and Georgia," not
without " tenderness," too, as he adds, to some "northern brethren,
who, though they had very few slaves themselves, had been pretty
considerable carriers of them to others,"— contained the direct allega-
tion that the king had " prostituted his negative for suppressing everv
legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce."
That memorable clause, omitted for prudential reasons only, has
passed into history, and its truth can never be disputed, ft recalls to
us, and recalls to the world, the historical fact— which we certainly
have a special right to remember this day— -that not only had African
slavery found its portentous and pernicious way into our colonies in
their very earliest settlement, but that it had been fixed and fastened
upon some of them by royal vetoes, prohibiting the passage of laws
to restrain its further introduction. It had thus not only entwined
and entangled itself about the very roots of our choicest harvests —
until slavery and cotton at last seemed as inseparable as the tares and
wheat of the sacred parable — but it had engrafted itself upon the very
fabric of our government. We all know, the world knows, that our
independence could not have been achieved, our Union could not

* The desk on which Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence.

670 AMERICAN FATRTQ TTSM.

haye been maintained, our constitution could not have been .estab-
lished, without the adoption of those compromises which recognized
its continued existence, and left it to the responsibility of the states of
which it was the grievous, inheritance. And from that day forward,
the method of dealing with it, of disposing of it, and of extinguishing
it, became more and more a problem full of terrible perplexity, and
seemingly incapable of human solution.

Oh, that it could have been solved at last by some process less de-
plorable and dreadful than ciyil war ! How unspeakably glorious it
would have been, for us this day, could the great emancipation have
been concerted, arranged, and ultimately effected, without violence or
bloodshed, as a simple and sublime act of philanthropy and justice !

But it was not in the divine economy that so huge an original wrong
should be righted by an easy process. The decree seemed to have
gctne forth from the very registries of heaven:

Luncta pnus tentanda. sea tmmedicahile vulnus
n mm reddendum MP

■ .,.■-:- .:,..'

The immedicable wound must be cut away by the sword ! Again
and again as that terrible war went on, we might almost hear voices
crying out, in the words of the old prophet; "O thou sword of the
Lord, how long will it be ere thou be quiet? Put up thyself into thy
scabbard; rest, and be still." But the -answering voice seemed not
less audible: "How can it be quiet, seeing the Lord hath given it a
charge ?".'

And the war went on — bravely fought on both sides, as we all
know— until, as one of its necessities^ slavery was abolished. It fell
at last under that right of war to abolish it, which the late John
Quincy Adams had been the first to announce in the way of warning,
more than twenty years before, in my own hearing, on the floor of
Congress, while I was your representative. I remember well the
burst of indignation and derision with which that warning was re-
ceived. No prediction of Cassandra was ever more scorned than his,
and he did not live to witness its verification. But whoever else may
have been more immediately and personally instrumental in the final
result — the brave soldiers who fought the battles, or the gallant gen-
erals who led them — the devoted philanthropists, or the ardent states-
men, who, in season and out of season, labored for it— the martyr-
president who proclaimed it — the true story of Emancipation can
never be fairly and fully told without . the "old man eloquent," who
died beneath the roof of the Capitol nearly thirty years ago, being
recognized as one of the leading figures of the narrative.

But, thanks be to God, who overrules everything for good, that
great event, the grandest of our American age — great enough, alone
and by itself to give a name and a character to any age — has been ac-
complished, and, by His blessing, we present our country to the

ROBERT CHARLES WINTHROP. 67 X

world this day without a slave, white or black, upon its soil ! Thanks
be to God, not only that our beloved Union has been saved, but that
it has been made both easier to save, and better worth saving, here-
after, by the final solution of a problem, before which all human wis-
dom had stood aghast and confounded for so many generations.
Thanks be to God, and to him be all the praise and the glory, we
can read the great words of the Declaration, on this centennial anni-
versary, without reservation or evasion: " We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed
by their Creator with- certain unalienable rights; that among these are
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." The legend on that new
colossal pharos, at Long Island, may now indeed be, "Liberty en-
lightening the world !"

We come, then, to-day, fellow-citizens, with hearts full of gratitude
to God and man, to pass down our country, and its institutions — not
only wholly without scars and blemishes upon their front — not with-
out shadoAvs on the past or clouds on the future — but freed forever
from at least one great stain, and firmly rooted in the love and loyalty
of a united people — to the generations which are to succeed us.

And what shall we say to those succeeding generations, as we com-
mit the sacred trust to their keeping and guardianship ?

If I could hope, without presumption, that any humble counsels of
mind, on this hallowed anniversary, could be remembered beyond the
hour of their utterance, and reach the ears of my countrymen in future
days; if I could borrow "the masterly pen" of Jefferson, and produce
words which should partake of the immortality of those which he
wrote on this little desk; if I could command the matchless tongue of
John Adams, when he poured out appeals and arguments which
moved men from their seats, and settled the destinies of a nation; if
I could catch but a single spark of those electric fires which Franklin
wrestled from the skies, and flash down a phrase, a word, a thought,
along the magic chords which stretch across the ocean of the future—
what could I, what would I, say?

I could not omit, certainly, to reiterate the solemn obligations which
rest on every citizen of this Republic to cherish and enforce the great
principles of our Colonial and Revolutionary Fathers, — the principles
of liberty and law, one and inseparable — the principles of the Consti-
tution and the Union.

I could not omit to urge on every man to remember that self-gov-
ernment politically can be successful, only if it be accompanied by
self-government personally; that there must be government some-
where; and that, if the people are indeed to be sovereigns, they must
exercise their sovereignty over themselves individually, as well as over
themselves in the aggregate — regulating their own lives, resisting their
own temptations, subduing their own passions, and • voluntarily im-

6$$ AMERICAN PA TRIO TISM.

ppging upon themselves some measure of that restraint and discipline
which, under other systems, is supplied from the armories of arbitrary
power— [ the discipline of virtue, in the plaee.of the discipline of slavery.

I could not omit to caution them against the corrupting influences of
intemperance, extravagance, and luxury. I could not omit to warn
them against political intrigue, as well as against personal licentious-
ness ; and to implore them to regard principle and character, rather
than mere party allegiance, in the choice of men to rule over them.

I could not omit to call upon them to foster and further the cause of
universal education ; to give a liberal support to our schools and col-
leges; to promote the advancement of science and of art, in all their
multiplied divisions and relations; and to encourage and sustain all
those noble institutions of charity, which, in our own land above all
others, have given the crowning grace and glory to modern civiliza-
tion.

I could not refrain from pressing upon them a just and generous
consideration for the interests and the rights of their fellow-men every-
where, and an earnest effort to promote peace and good-will among
the nations of the earth.
. I could not refrain from reminding them of the shame, the unspeak-
able shame and ignominy, which would attach to those who should
show themselves unable to uphold the glorious fabric of self-govern-
ment which had been formed for them at such a cost by their fathers:
" Videte, videte, ne, ut illis p,ulcJier?:ium ftiit tantam vobis imperii
gloriam, rdinqtiere, sic vobis Utrpissimum sit, Mud quod accepistis, tue?i
et conservare jwn. posse J"

And surely,; most surely, I could not fail to invoke them to imitate
and emulate the example of virtue and purity and patriotism, which
the great founders of our colonies and of our nations had so abundant-
ly-left them.

: -But could I stop there ? Could I hold out to them, as the results of a
long. life of observation and experience, nothing but the principles and
examples of great men ?

Who and what are great men? "Woe to the country," said Met-
ternich to our own Ticknor, forty years ago, "whose condition and
institutions no longer produce great men to manage its affairs." The
wily Austrian applied his remark to England at that day; but his woe
— if it be a woe — would have a wider range in our time, and leave
hardly any land unreached. Certainly we hear it now-a-days, at every
turn, that never before has there been so striking a disproportion be-
tween supply and demand, as at this moment, the world over, in the
commodity of great men.

But who, and what, are great men? "And now stand forth," says
an eminent Swiss, historian, who had completed a survey of the whole
history of mankind, at the very moment when, ask says, "a blaze
of freedom is just burstingforth beyond the ocean,''-— "And now stand

ROBERT CHARLES IVL^fllROP. 673

forth, ye gigantic forms, shades of the first chieftains, and sons of I
God, who glimmer among the rocky halls and mountain fortresses of
the ancient world; and you conquerors of the world from Babylon and
from Macedonia; ye dynasties of Caesars, of Huns, Arabs, Moguls
and Tartars; ye commanders of the faithful on the Tigris, and com-
manders of the faithful on the Tiber; you hoary counsellors of kings,
and peers of sovereigns; warriors on the car of triumph, covered with
scars, and crowned with laurels; ye long rows of consuls and dictators,
famedfor your lofty minds, your unshaken constancy, your ungovern-
able spirit;— stand forth, and let us survey for a while your assembly,
like a Council of the Gods ! what were ye ? The first among mortals ?
Seldom can you claim that title ! The best of men? Still fewer of
you have deserved such praise! Were ye the compellers, the instigators
of the human race, the prime movers of all their works ? Rather let us
say that you were the instruments, that you were the wheels, by whose
means the Invisible Being has conducted the incomprehensible fabric
of universal government across the ocean of time !"

Instruments and wheels of the Invisible Governor of the universe!
This is indeed all which, the greatest men ever have been, or ever can
be. No flatteries of courtiers, no adulations of the multitude, no au-
dacity of self-reliance, no intoxications of success, no evolutions or
developments of science, can make more or other of them. This is
" the sea-mark of their utmost sail," the goal of their farthest run, the
very round and top of their highest soaring. .

Oh, if there could be, to-day, a deeper and more pervading impres-
sion of this great truth throughout our land, and a more pievailing
conformity of our thoughts and words and acts to the lessons which it
involves — if we could lift ourselves to a loftier sense of our relations
to the invisible— if in surveying our past history, we could catch lar-
ger and more exalted views of our destinies and our responsibilities —
if We could realize that the want of good men may be a heavier woe to
a land than any want of what the world calls great men— our centen-
nial year would not only be signalized by splendid ceremonials and
magnificent commemorations and gorgeous expositions, but it would
go far towards fulfilling something of the grandeur of that *' acceptable
year " which was announced by higher than human lips, and would be
the auspicious promise and pledge of a glorious second century of
independence and freedom for our Country !

For, if that second century of self-government is to go on safely to
its close, oris to go on safely and prosperously at all, there must be
some renewal of that old spirit of subordination and obedience to di-
vine, as well as human, laws, which has been our security in the past.
There must be faith in something higher and better than ourselves.
There must be a reverent acknowledgment of an unseen, but all-seeing,
all-controlling Ruler of the universe. His word, His day, His house,
His worship, must be sacred to our children, as they have been to

674 AMERICAN ■ PA TRIO TISM. s

their fathers; and His blessing must never fail to be invoked upon our
land and upon our liberties. The patriot voice, which cried from the
balcony of yonder old State House, when the Declaration had been
originally proclaimed ''stability and perpetuity to American indepen-
dence," did not fail to add "God save our American states." I would
prolong that ancestral prayer. And the last phrase to pass my lips at
this hour, and to take its chance for remembrance or oblivion in years
to come, as the conclusion of this centennial oration, and as the sum
and summing up, of all I can say to the present or the future, shall be:
— there is, there can be, no independence of God: in Him, as a nation,
no less than in Him, as individuals, " we live, and move, and have our
being ! God save our American States !

■

........

. . . - . ■ - -'-■■- - - ■

0$<f. 6.5 7V

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Full text of "American patriotism : speeches, letters, and other papers which illustrate the foundation, the development, the preservation of the United States of America"

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