Success of our republic : an oration

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No. 14. Serial. Price, 10 Cents.

THE

PULPIT AND ROSTRUM.

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PHONOGRAPHICALLY REPORTED BY ANDREW J. GRAHAM AND CHARLES B. COLLAR.

Success of our Republic;

A.N" OEATION

Hon. EDWARD .EVERETT,

DELIVERED IN BOSTON, MASS., JULY 4, 1860.

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SUCCESS OF OUR REPUBLIC.

Oration delivered by Him. Edward Everett, at Boston, July 4, 1860.

Eighty-four years ago this day, the Anglo-American Colonies,
acting by their delegates to the Congress at Philadelphia, formally
renounced their allegiance to the British Crown, and declared their
Independence. We are assembled, Fellow- Citizens, to commemo-
rate the Anniversary of that great day, and the utterance of that
momentous declaration. The hand that penned its mighty sentences,
and the tongue which, with an eloquence that swept all before it,
sustained it on the floor of the Congress, ceased from among the
living at the end of half a century, on the same day, almost at the
same hour, thirty-four years ago. The last survivor of the signers
closed his venerable career six years later ; and of the generation
sufficiently advanced in life to take part in public affairs on the 4th
of July, 1770, not one probably survives to hail this eighty-fourth
anniversary. They are gone, but their work remains. It has
grown in interest with the lapse of years, beginning already to add
to its intrinsic importance those titles to respect which time confers
on great events and memorable eras, as it hangs its ivy and plants
its mosses on the solid structures of the past, and we have come to-
gether to bear our testimony to the Day, the Deed, and the Men. "We
have shut up our offices, our warehouses, our workshops, we have
escaped from the cares of business, may I not add from the dis-
sensions of party, from all that occupies and all that divides us, to

ivi23(;

2 SUCCESS OF OUR REPUBLIC.

celebrate, to join in celebrating, the Birthday of the Nation with
one heart and with one voice. We have come for this year 1860
to do our part in fulfilling the remarkable prediction of that noble
son of Massachusetts, John Adams — who, in the language of Mr.
Jefferson, was " the Colossus of Independence, the pillar of its sup-
port on the floor of Congress."

Although the Declaration was not adopted by Congress till the
4th of July (which has accordingly become the day of the An-
niversary), the resolution on which it was founded passed on the
2d inst. On the following day accordingly, John Adams, in a
letter to his wife, says : " Yesterday the greatest question was de-
cided that was ever debated in America, and greater perhaps never
was nor will be decided among men. A resolution was passed
without one dissenting colony, that these United States are and of
right ought to be free and independent States." Unable to restrain
the fullness of his emotions, in another letter to his wife, but of
the same date, naturally assuming that the day on which the res-
olution was passed would be the day hereafter commemorated, he
burst out in this all but inspired strain :

" The day is passed ; the 2d of July, 1776, will be the most mem-
orable epoch 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 as the day
of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It
ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games,
sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this
continent to the other, from this time forward for evermore !

" You will think me transported with enthusiasm, but I am not.
I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure that it will cost
to maintain this Declaration and support and defend these States.
Yet through all the gloom, I can see the rays of ravishing light
and glory. I can see that the end is more than worth all the
means ; that posterity will triumph in that day's transaction, even
although we should rue it — which I trust in God we shall not."

SUCCESS OF OUE KEPUBLIC. 3

The time which has elapsed since the great event took place is
so considerable — the national experience which has since accrued
is so varied and significant — the changes in our condition at home
and our relations abroad are so vast, as to make it a natural and
highly appropriate subject of inquiry, on the recurrence of the Ad-
niversary, how far the hopeful auguries, with which our Independ-
ence was declared, have been fulfilled. Has " the gloom," which,
in the language of Adams, shrouded the 4th of July, 1776, given
way on this 4th of July, I860, "to those rays of light and glory"
which he predicted? Has "the end," as he fondly believed it
would do, proved thus to be far more than " worth all the means?"
Most signally, as far as he individually was concerned. He lived
himself to enjoy more than a Koman triumph, in the result of that
day's transaction ; to sign with his brother envoys the treaty of
peace, by which Great Britain acknowledged the independence of
her ancient Colonies ; to stand before the British throne, the first
representative of the newly-constituted Republic ; and after having
filled its second office in connection with him, who, whether in
peace or in war, could never fill any place but the first — in office as
in the hearts of his countrymen — he lived to succeed to the great
Chief, and closed his honored career, as the elective Chief Magistrate
of those United States, whose independence he had done so much
to establish, with the rare additional felicity at the last of seeing
his son elevated to the same station.

But the life of an individual is but a span in the life of a Nation ;
the fortunes of individuals, for good or for evil, are but as dust in
the balance, compared with the growth and prosperity, or the de-
cline and fall, of that greatest of human personalities, a Common-
wealth. It is, therefore, a more momentous inquiry, whether the
great design of Providence, with reference to our beloved country,
of which we trace the indications in the recent discovery of the
continent, the manner of its settlement by the civilized nations of
the earth, the colonial struggles, the establishment of Independence,
the formation of a Constitution of Republican Government, and

4 SUCCESS OF OUE EEPUBLIC.

its administration in peace and war for seventy years — I say, it is
a far more important inquiry whether this great design of Prov-
idence is in a course of steady and progressive fulfillment— marked
only by the fluctuations, ever visible in the march of human affairs,
and authorizing a well-grounded hope of further development, in
harmony with these auspicious beginnings — or whether there is
reason, on the other hand, to fear that our short-lived prosperity is
already (as misgivings at home and disparagement abroad have
sometimes whispered) on the wane — that we have reached, that
we have passed the meridian — and have now to look forward to an
evening of degeneracy, and the closing in of a ray less and hopeless
night of political decline.

You are justly shocked, fellow-citizens, at the bare statement
of the ill-omened alternative; and yet the inquiry seems forced
upon us, by opinions that have recently been advanced in high
places abroad. In a debate in the House of Lords, on the 19th of
April, on a question relative to the extension of the elective fran-
chise in England — the principle which certainly lies at the basis of
popular government — the example of the United States, instead of
being held up for imitation in this respect, as has generally been the
case, with reference to popular reforms, was referred to as showing,
not the advantage, but the evils of an enlarged suffrage. It was
emphatically asserted, or plainly intimated, by the person who took
the lead in the debate (Earl Grey), whose family traditions might
be expected to be strongly on the side of popular right, that in the
United States, since the Eevolutionary period, and by the undue
extension of the right of suffrage, our elections have become a
mockery, our legislatures venal, our courts tainted with party
spirit, our laws " cobwebs," which the rich and poor alike break
through, and the country, and the Government in all its branches^
given over to corruption, violence, and a general disregard of publio
morality.

If these opinions are well founded, then certainly we labor under
a great delusion in celebrating the National Anniversary. Instead

SUCCESS OF OUR REPUBLIC. 5

of joyous chimes and merry peals, responding to the triumphant
salvos which ushered in the day, the 4th of July ought rather to
be commemorated by funeral bells, and minute guns, and dead
marches; and we, instead of assembling in this festal hall to
congratulate each other on its happy return, should have been
better found in sackcloth and ashes, in the house of penitence and
prayer.

I believe I shall not wander from the line of remark appropriate
to the occasion, if I invite you to join me in a hasty inquiry,
'whether these charges and intimations are well founded ; whether
we have thus degenerated from the standard of the Revolutionary
age ; whether the salutary checks of our system have been swept
away, and our experiment of elective self-government has con-
sequently become a failure ; whether, in a word, the great design
of Providence in the discovery, settlement, political independence,
and national growth of the United States has been prematurely ar-
rested by our perversity ; or whether, on the contrary, that design
is not — with those vicissitudes, and drawbacks, and human infirm-
ities of character, and uncertainties of fortune, which beset alike
the individual man and the societies of men, in the Old World and
the New — in a train of satisfactory, hopeful, nay, triumphant and
glorious fulfillment.

And in the first place I will say that, in my judgment, great del-
icacy ought to be observed, and much caution practiced in these
disparaging commentaries on the constitution, laws, and adminis-
tration of friendly States ; and especially on the part of British and
American statesmen in their comments on the systems of their
two countries, between which there is a more intimate connection
of national sympathy than between any other two nations. I
must say that, as a matter of taste and expediency, these specific
arraignments of a foreign friendly country had better be left to the
public Press. Without wishing to put any limit to free discussion,
or to proscribe any expression of the patriotic complacency with
which the citizens of one country are apt to assert the superiority

(5 SUCCESS OF OUR REPUBLIC.

of their own systems over those of all others, it appears to me that
pungent criticisms on the constitutions and laws of foreign States,
supported by direct personal allusions to those called to administer
them, are nearly as much out of place on the part of the legislative
as of the executive branch of a government. On the part of the
latter they would be resented as an intolerable insult; they can
not be deemed less than offensive on the part of the former.

If there were no other objection to this practice, it would be
sufficient that its direct tendency is to recrimination ; a warfare of
reciprocal disparagement on the part of conspicuous members of
the legislatures of friendly States. It is plain that a parliamentary
warfare of this kind must greatly increase the difficulty of carrying
on the diplomatic discussions which necessarily occur between
States whose commercial and territorial interests touch and clash
at so many points ; and the war of words is but too well adapted
to prepare the public mind for more deplorable struggles.

Let me further also remark, that the suggestion which I propose
to combat, viz., that the experiment of self-government on the
basis of an extensive electoral franchise is substantially a failure in
the United States, and that the country has entered upon a course
of rapid degeneracy since the days of Washington, is not only one
of great antecedent improbability, but it is one which it might be
expected our brethren in England would be slow to admit. The
mass of the population was originally of British origin, and the ad-
ditional elements of which it is* made up are from the other most
intelligent and improvable races of Europe. The settlers of this
continent have been providentially conducted to it, or have grown
up upon it, within a comparatively recent and highly enlightened
period, viz., the last two hundred and fifty years. Much of it they
found lying in a state of nature, with no time-honored abuses
to eradicate, abounding in most of the physical conditions of pros-
perous existence, with no drawbacks but those necessarily incident
to new countries, or inseparable from human imperfection. Even
the hardships they encountered, severe as they were, were well

SUCCESS OF OUR REPUBLIC. 7

calculated to promote the growth of the manly virtues. In this
great and promising field of social progress they have planted, in
the main, those political institutions which have approved them-
selves in the experience of modern Europe, and especially of Eng-
land, as most favorable to the prosperity of a State ; free represen-
tative governments ; written constitutions and laws, greatly model-
ed upon hers, especially the trial by jury ; a free and a cheap, and
consequently all-pervading Press ; responsibility of the ruler to the
people ; liberal provision for popular education, and very general
voluntary and bountiful expenditure for the support of religion.
If, under these circumstances, the people of America, springing
from such a stock, and trained in such a school, have failed to work
out a satisfactory and a hopeful result; and especially if within
the last sixty years (for that is the distinct allegation), and conse-
quently since, from the increase of numbers, wealth, and national
power, all the social forces of the country have, for good or evil,
been in higher action than ever before, there has been such mark-
ed degeneracy that we are now fit to be held up, not as a model to
be imitated, but as an example to be shunned — not for the credit,
but for the discredit of popular institutions — then, indeed, the case
must be admitted to be a strange phenomenon in human affairs —
disgraceful, it is true, in the highest degree to us, but not reflect-
ing credit on the race from which we are descended, nor holding
out encouragement anywhere for the adoption of liberal principles
of government. If there is any feeling in England that can wel-
come the thought that Americans have degenerated, the further
reflection that it is the sons of Englishmen who have degenerated,
must chasten the sentiment. If there is any country, or any
place, where this supposed state of things can be readily believed
to exist, surely it can not be the parent country ; it can not be in
that House of Commons, where Burke uttered those golden words,
" My hold of the colonies is in the close affection which grows
from common names, from kindred blood, from similar privileges,
and equal protection." It can not be in that House of Peers, where

8 SUCCESS OF OUR REPUBLIC.

Chatham, conscious that the colonies were fighting the battle not
only of American but of English liberty, exclaimed, " I rejoice that
America has resisted." It must be in Venice, it must be in Naples,
or wherever else on the face of the earth liberal principles are
scoffed at and constitutional freedom is known to exist only as
her crushed and mangled form is seen to twitch and quiver under
the dark pall of arbitrary power.

Before admitting the truth of such a supposition, in itself so
paradoxical, in its moral aspects so mournful, in its natural in-
fluence on the progress of liberal ideas so discouraging, let us, for a
few moments, look at facts.

The first object in the order of events, after the discovery of
America, was, of course, its settlement by civilized man. It was
not an easy task ; a mighty ocean separated the continent from
the elder world — a savage wilderness covereel most of the country
— its barbarous and warlike inhabitants resisted from the first all
coalescence with the new-comers. To subdue this waste — to plant
corn-fields in the primeval forest, to transfer the civilization of
Europe to the New World, and to make safe and sufficient arrange-
ments, under political institutions, for the growth of free principles
— was the great problem to be solved. It was no holiday pastime ;
no gainful speculation ; no romantic adventure ; but grim, persist-
ent, w^eary toil and danger. That it has been upon the whole per-
formed with wonderful success, who will deny ? Where else in
the history of the world have such results been brought about in
so short a time ? And if I desired, as I do not, to give this discus-
sion the character of recrimination, might I not, dividing the
period which has elapsed since the commencement of the European
settlements in America into two portions, viz. : the one which pre-
ceded and the one which has followed the Declaration of Indepen-
dence ; the former under the sway of European Governments —
England, Holland, France, Spain — the latter under the Government
of the independent United States — might I not claim for the latter,
under all the disadvantages of a new Government and limited re-
sources, the credit of greatly superior energy and practical wisdom,
in carrying on this magnificent work? It was the inherent vice
of the colonial system, that the growth of the American Colonies
was greatly retarded for a century, in consequence of their being
involved in all the wars of Europe. There never was a period
since Columbus sailed from Palos, in which the settlement of the

SUCCESS OF OUR REPUBLIC. 9

country has advanced with sucli rapidity as within the last sixty
years. The commencement of the Revolution found us with a
population not greatly exceeding two millions ; the census of 1800
little exceeded five millions ; that of the present year will not
probably foil short of thirty-two millions. The two centuries and
a half which preceded the Revolution witnessed the organization
of thirteen colonies, to which the period that has since elapsed has
added tAvcnty States. 1 own it has filled me with amazement to
find cities like Cincinnati and Louisville, Detroit, Chicago, and St.
Louis, not to mention those still more remote, on spots which with-
in the memory of man were frontier military posts, to find rail-
roads and electric telegraphs traversing forests, in whose gloomy
shades, as late as 1789, the wild savage still burned his captive at
the stake.

The desponding or the unfriendly censor will remind me of the
blemishes of this tumultuous civilization : outbreaks of frontier
violence in earlier and later times ; acts of injustice to the native
tribes (though the policy of the Government toward them has in
the main been paternal, and conscientiously administered) ; the
roughness of manners in infant settlements ; the collisions of ad-
venturers not yet compacted into a stable society — deeds of wild
justice and wilder injustice — border license, lynch law. All these
I admit and I lament ; but a community can not grow up at once
from a log-cabin, with the wolf at the door and the savage in the
neighboring thicket, into the order and beauty of communities,
which have been maturing for centuries. We must remember,
too, that all these blemishes of an infant settlement, the inseparable
accompaniment of that stage of progress and phase of society and
life, have their counterpart at the other end of the scale, in the
festering iniquities of large cities, the gigantic frauds of specula-
tion and trade, the wholesale corruptions, in a word, of older so-
cieties. "When I reflect that the day we celebrate found us a
feeble strip of thirteen colonies along the coast, averaging at most
a little more than 150,000 inhabitants each ; and that this, its
eighty-fourth return, sees us grown to thirty-three States, scattered
through the interior and pushed to the Pacific, averaging nearly
a million of inhabitants, each a well-compacted representative
republic, securing to its citizens a larger amount of the substantial
blessings of life than are enjoyed by equal numbers of people in
the oldest and most prosperous States of Europe, I am lost in won-

10 SUCCESS OF OUE EEPUBLIC.

der; and, as a sufficient answer to the charge of degeneracy, I am
tempted to exclaim, Look around you !

But, merely to fill up the wilderness with a population provided
with the ordinary institutions and carrying on the customary pur-
suits of civilized life — though surely no mean achievement — was by
no means the whole of the work allotted to the United States, and
thus far performed with signal activity, intelligence, and success.
The Founders of America and their descendants have accomplished
more and better things. On the basis of a rapid geographical ex-
tension, and with the force of teeming numbers, they have, in the
very infancy of their political existence, successfully aimed at higher
progress in a generous civilization. The mechanical arts have been
cultivated with unusual aptitude. Agriculture, manufactures, com-
merce, navigation, whether by sails or steam, and the art of print-
ing in all its forms, have been pursued with surprising skill. Great
improvements have been made in all these branches of industry,
and in the machinery pertaining to them, which have been eagerly
adopted in Europe. A more adequate provision has been made for
popular education than in almost any other country. I believe that
in the cities of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia more money,
in proportion to the population, is raised by taxation for the support
of common schools, than in any other cities in the world. There are
more seminaries in the United States where a respectable academi-
cal education can be obtained — more, I still mean, in proportion to
the population — than in any other country, except Germany. The
Fine Arts have reached a high degree of excellence. The taste for
music is rapidly spreading in town and country ; and every year
witnesses productions from the pencil and the chisel of American
sculptors and painters which would adorn any gallery in the world.
Our astronomers, mathematicians, naturalists, chemists, engineers,
jurists, publicists, historians, poets, novelists, and lexicographers
have placed themselves on a level with those of the elder world.
The best dictionaries of the English language, since Johnson, are
those published in America. Our constitutions, whether of the
United States or of the separate States, exclude all public provision
for the maintenance of religion, but in no part of Christendom is it
more generously supported. Sacred science is pursued as diligently,
and the pulpit commands as high a degree of respect in the United
States as in those countries where the Church is publicly endowed ;
while the American missionary operations have won the admira*

SUCCESS OF OUli REPUBLIC. \\

tion of the civilized world. Nowhere, I am persuaded, are there
more liberal contributions to public-spirited and charitable objects.
In a word, there is no branch of the mechanical or fine arts, no
department of science, exact or applied, no form of polite litera-
ture, no description of social improvement, in which, due allow-
ance being made for the means and resources at command, the pro-
gress of the United States has not been satisfactory, and, in some-
respects, astonishing. At this moment, the rivers and seas of the
globe are navigated with that marvelous application of steam as a
propelling power which was first effected by Fulton ; the monster
steamship, which has just reached our shores, rides at anchor in
the waters in which the first successful experiment of steam navi-
gation was made. The harvests of the civilized world are gathered
by American reapers ; the newspapers which lead the journalism
of Europe are printed on American presses ; there are railroads in
Europe constructed by American engineers and traveled by Ameri-
can locomotives ; troops armed with American weapons, and ships
of war built in American dock-yards. In the factories of Europe
there is machinery of American invention or improvement ; in
their observatories, telescopes of American construction ; and appa-
ratus of American invention for recording the celestial phenomena.
America contests with Europe the introduction into actual use of
the electric telegraph, and her mode of operating it is adopted
throughout the French empire. American authors in almost every
department are found on the shelves of European libraries. It is
true no American Homer, Virgil, Dante, Copernicus, Shakspeare,
Bacon, Milton, Newton has risen on the world. These mighty
genuises seem to be exceptions in the history of the human mind.
Favorable circumstances do not produce them, nor does the ab-
sence of favorable circumstances prevent their appearance. Homer
rose in the dawn of Grecian culture ; Virgil flourished in the court
of Augustus ; Dante ushered in the birth of the new European civ-
ilization ; Copernicus was reared in a Polish cloister ; Shakspeare
was trained in the green-room of the theater ; Milton was formed
while the elements of English thought and life were fermenting
toward a great political and moral revolution ; Newton, under the
profligacy of the Restoration. Ages may elapse before any coun-
try will produce a man like these, as two centuries nave passed
since the last mentioned of them was born. But if it is really a
matter of reproach to the United States that, in the comparatively

12 SUCCESS OF OUR REPUBLIC.

short period of their existence as a people, they have not added
another name to this illustrious list (which is equally true of all
the other nations of the earth), they may proudly boast of one ex-
ample of life and character, one career of disinterested service, one
model of public virtue, one type of human excellence, of which all
the countries and all the ages may be searched in vain for the par-
allel. I need not — on this day I need not — speak the peerless
name. It is stamped on your hearts, it glistens in your eyes, it is
written on every page of your history, on the battle-fields of the
Bevolution, on the monuments of your fathers, on the portals of
your capitols. It is heard in every breeze that whispers over the
fields of independent America. And he was all our own. He
grew up on the soil of America ; he was nurtured at her bosom.
She loved and trusted him in his youth ; she honored and revered
him in his age, and though she did not wrait for death to canonize
his name, his precious memory, with each succeeding year, has
sunk more deeply into the hearts of his countrymen.

But, as I have already stated, it was urged against us on the oc-
casion alluded to, that within the last sixty years the United States
have degenerated, and that by a series of changes, at first appar-
ently inconsiderable, but all leading by a gradual and steady pro-
gression to the result, a very discreditable condition of things has
been brought about in this country.

"Without stating precisely what these supposed changes are, this
"result" is set forth in a somewhat remarkable series of reproach-
ful allegations, far too numerous to be repeated in detail in what
remains of this address, but implying, in the aggregate, the general
corruption of the country, political, social, and moral. The severity
of these reproaches is not materially softened by a few courteous
words of respect for the American people. I shall in a moment
select for examination two or three of the most serious of these
charges, observing only at present that the prosperous condition
of the country, which I have imperfectly sketched, and especially
its astonishing growth, during the present century, in the richest
products, material and intellectual, of a rapidly maturing civiliza-
tion, furnish a sufficient defense against the general charge. Men
do not gather the grapes and figs of science, art, taste, wealth, and
manners from the thorns and thistles of lawlessness, venality, fraud,
and violence. These fair fruits grow only in the gardens of public
peace and industry, protected by the law.

SUCCESS OF OUE EEPUBLIC. 13

Iii the outset let it be observed, then, that the assumed and as-
signed cause of the reproachful and deplorable state of things alleged
to exist in the United States is as imaginary as the effects are ex-
aggerated or wholly unfounded in fact. The " checks established
by Washington and his associates on an unbalanced democracy in
the General Government" have never, as is alleged, " been swept
away" — not one of them. The great constitutional check of this
kind, as far as the General Government is concerned, is the limita-
tion of the granted powers of Congress; the reservation of the
rights of the States ; and the organization of the Senate as their
representative. These constitutional provisions, little comprehend-
ed abroad, which gives to the smallest States equal weight with
the largest, in one branch of the Legislature, impose a very efficient
check on the power of a numerical majority; and neither in this
nor any other provision <of the Constitution, bearing on the subject,
has the slightest change ever been made. Not only so, but the
prevalent policy since 1860 has been in favor of the reserved rights
of the States, and in consequent derogation of the powers of the
General Government. In fact, when the Reform Bill was agitated
in England, and by the conservative statesmen of that country stig-
matized as " a revolution," it was admitted that the United States
possessed in their written Constitution, and in the difficulty of pro-
curing amendments to it, a conservative principle unknown to the
English Government.

In truth, if by " an unbalanced democracy" is meant such a gov-
ernment as that of Athens, or republican Rome, or the English
Commonwealth, or revolutionary France, there not only never
was, but never can be such a thing in the United States. The very
fact that the great mass of the population is broken up into sepa-
rate States, now thirty-three in number and rapidly multiplying,
each with its local interests and center of political influence, is itself
a very efficient check on such a democracy. Each of these States
is a representative commonwealth, composed of two branches, with
the ordinary divisions of executive, legislative, and judicial power.
It is true that in some of the States some trifling property' qualifi-
cations of the elective franchise have been abrogated, but not with
any perceptible effect on the number or character of the voters.
The system, varying a little in the different States, always made a
near approach to universal suffrage ; and the great increase of
voters has been caused by the increase of population. Under elect-

14

SUCCESS OF OUR REPUBLIC.

ive Governments, with a free press, with ardent party divisions,
and questions that touch the heart of the people, petty limitations
on the right of suffrage are indeed " cobwebs1' which the popular
will breaks through. The voter may be one of ten, or one of fifty
of the citizens, but on such questions he will vote in conformity
with the will and wish of the mass. If he resists it, tke Govern-
ment itself, like that of France in 1848, will go down. Agitation
and popular commotion scoff at checks and balances, and as much
in England as in America. When Nottingham Castle is in ruins
and half Bristol a heap of ashes, monarchs and ministers must
bend. The Reform Bill must then pass " through Parliament or
over it," in the significant words of Lord Macaulay; and that,
whether the constituencies are great or small. That a restricted
suffrage and a limited constituency do not always insure independ-
ence on the part of the representative may be inferred from the
rather remarkable admission of Lord Grey, in this very debate,
that "a large proportion of the members of the present House of
Commons are, from various circumstances, afraid to act on their
real opinions," on the subject of the Reform Bill before them.

I have already observed that it would be impossible, within the
limits of this address, to enter into a detailed examination of all
the matters laid to our charge on the occasion alluded to. The
Ministerial leader (Lord Granville) candidly admitted, in the course
of the debate, that, though he concurred with his brother Peer in
some of his remarks, "they were generally much exaggerated."
We, too, must admit with regret, that for some of the statements
made to our discredit, there is a greater foundation in fact than
we could wish ; that our political system, like all human institu-
tions, however wise in theory and successful in its general opera-
tion, is liable to abuse ; that party, the bane of all free Govern-
ments, works its mischief here ; that some bad men are raised to
office, and some good men excluded from it; that public virtue
here, as elsewhere, sometimes breaks down under the lust of place
or of gold ; that unwise laws are sometimes passed by our Legis-
latures, and unpopular laws sometimes violated by the mob ; in
short, that the frailties and vice of men and of Governments are
displayed in Republics as they are in Monarchies, in the New
World as in the Old ; whether to a greater, equal, or less degree,
time must show. The question may as pertinently be asked of
nations as of individuals, "Why beholdest thou the mote that is

SUCCESS OF OUR EEPUBLIC. 15

in thy brother's eye, and considerest not the beam that is in thine
own eye?"

An honest and impartial administration of justice is the corner-
stone of the social system. The most serious charges brought
against us, on the occasion alluded to, are, that owing to the all-
pervading corruption of the conntry, the Judges of the Supreme
Court of the United States, who once commanded the public re-
spect at home and abroad, are now appointed for party purposes,
and that some of their decisions have excited the disgust of all
high-minded men ; that the Judges of most of the State Courts
hold their offices by election, some by annual election; that the
undisputed dominion of the numerical majority, which has been
established, will not allow the desires and passions of the hour to
be checked by a firm administration of the law ; and that in con-
sequence the laws in this country have become mere cobwebs to
resist either the rich, or the popular feeling of the moment ; in a
word, that the American Astraea, like the goddess of old, has fled
the stars. I need not say, fellow-citizens, in your hearing, that to
wherever else this may be true (and I believe it to be truo nowhere
in the United States), it is not true in Massachusetts; and that
Westminster Hall never boasted a Court more honored or more
worthy of honor than that which holds its office by a life-tenure
and administers impartial justice, without respect of persons, to
the people of Massachusetts.

Such a Court the people of Massachusetts have no wish to change
for an elective judiciary, holding office by a short tenure. In their
opinion, evinced in their practice, this all-important branch of the
Government ought to be removed, as far as possible, beyond the
reach of political influences ; but it is surely the grossest of errors
to speak of the tribunals of the United States as being generally
tainted with party, or to represent the law, in the main, as having
ceased to be respected and enforced. Taking a comprehensive
view of the subject, and not drawing sweeping inferences from ex-
ceptional occurrences, it may be safely said that the law of the
land is ably, cheaply, and impartially administered in the United
States, and implicitly obeyed. On a few questions, not half a
dozen in number since the organization of the Government, and
those partaking of a political character, the decisions of the Court,
like the questions to which they refer, have divided public opinion.
But there is surelv no tribunal in the world which, like the Su-

IQ SUCCESS OF OUB BEPUBLIC.

preme Court of the United States, has, since the foundation of the
Government, not only efficiently performed the ordinary functions
of a tribunal of the last resort, but which sits in judgment on the
Courts and Legislatures of sovereign States, on acts of Congress
itself, and pronounces the law to a Confederation coextensive with
Europe. I know of no such protection, under any other Govern-
ment, against unconstitutional legislation, if, indeed, any legisla-
tion can be called unconstitutional where Parliament, alike in
theory and practice, is omnipotent.

With respect to the partisan character of our Courts, inferred
from the manner in which the judges are appointed, the judges of
the United States Courts, which are the tribunals specifically re-
flected on, are appointed in the same manner and hold their offices
by the same tenure as the English judges of the Courts of common
law. They are appointed for life, by the executive power, no
doubt from the dominant party of the day, and this equally in both
countries. The presiding magistrate of the other branch of En-
glish jurisprudence — the Lord Chancellor — is displaced with every
change in politics. In seventy-one years, since the adoption of the
Federal Constitution, there have been but four Chief Justices of the
United States, and the fourth is still on the bench. In thirty-three
years there have been nine appointments of a Lord Chancellor, on
as many changes of administration, and seven different individuals
have filled the office, of whom five are living. As a member of
the Cabinet and Speaker of the House of Lords, he is necessarily
deep in all the political controversies of the day, and his vast official
influence and patronage are felt throughout Church and State.
The Chief Justice of England is usually a member of the House of
Lords, sometimes a member of the Cabinet. As a necessary con-
sequence, on all questions of a political nature, the Court is open
to the same suspicion of partisanship as in the United States, and
for a much stronger reason, inasmuch as our Judges can never be
members of the Cabinet or of Congress. During a considerable
part of his career, Lord Mansfield was engaged in an embittered
political warfare with the Earl of Chatham in the House of Lords.
All the resources of the English language were exhausted by Junius
in desolating and unpunished party libels on the Chief Justice of
England ; and when the capital of the British Empire lay at the
mercy of Lord George Gordon's mob, its fury was concentrated
against the same venerable magistrate.

SUCCESS OF OUR REPUBLIC. 17

The jurisprudence of this country strikes its roots deep into that
of England. Her courts, her magistrates, her whole judicial system
are regarded by the profession in America with respect and affec-
tion. But if, beginning at a period coeval with the settlement of
America, we run down the line of the Chancellors and Chief
Justices, from Lord Bacon and Sir Edward Coke to the close of the
last century, it will, in scarce any generation, be found free from
the record of personal, official, and political infirmity, from which
an unfriendly censor might have drawn inferences hostile to the
integrity of the tribunals of England, if not to the soundness of her
public sentiment. But he would have erred. The character of gov-
ernments and of nations must be gathered from a large experience,
from general results, from the testimony of ages. A thousand
years, and a revolution in almost every century, have been neces-
sary to build up the constitutional fabric of England to its present,
proportions and strength. Let her not play the unfriendly censor,
if some portions of our newly-constructed State machinery are
sometimes heard to grate and jar. With respect to the great two-
edged sword with which justice smites the unfaithful public ser-
vant, the present Lord Chancellor (late Chief Justice) of England
observes, of the acquittal of Lord Melville in 180G, that "it showed
that impeachment can no longer be relied upon for the conviction
of State offenses, and can only be considered as a test of party
strength;" while of the standard of professional literature, the
same venerable magistrate, who unites the vigor of youth to the
experience and authority of four-score years, remarks, with a can-
dor not very flattering to the United States, that down to the end
of the reign of George the Third (A. D. 1820), "England was ex-
celled by cotemporary judicial authors, not only in France, Italy,
and Germany, but eve?i in America." I will only add, that, of the
very great number of judges of our Federal and State Courts —
although frugal salaries, short terms of office, and the elective ten-
ure may sometimes have called incompetent men to the bench — it
is not within my recollection that a single individual has been sus-
pected of pecuniary corruption.

Next in importance to the integrity of the Courts in a well-gov-
erned State, is the honesty of the Legislature. A remarkable in-
stance of wholesale corruption, in one of the new States of the
"West, consisting of the alleged bribery of a considerable number
of the members of the Legislature, by a corrupt distribution of

1& SUCCESS OF OUR REPUBLIC.

railroad bonds, is quoted by Lord Grey as a specimen of the cor-
ruption which has infected the legislation both of Congress and of
the States, and as showing " the state of things which has arisen
in that country." It was a very discreditable occurrence certainly
(if truly reported, and of that I know nothing), illustrative, I hope,
not of " a state of things," which has arisen in America, but of the
degree to which large bodies of men, of whom better things might
have been expected, may sometimes become so infected, when the
mania of speculation is epidemic, that principle, prudence, and com-
mon sense break down in the eagerness to clutch at sudden wealth.
In a bubble season the ordinary rules of morality lose their con-
trolling power for a while, under the temptation of the day. The
main current of private morality in England probably flowed as
deep and strong as ever, both before and after the South Sea frauds,
when Cabinet ministers and Court ladies, and some of the highest
personages in the realm, ran mad after dishonest gains, and this in
England's Augustan age. Lord Granville, in reply, observed that
the " early legislation of England, in such matters, was not so free
from reproach as to justify us in attributing the bribery in America
solely to the Democratic character of the Government," and the
biographer of George Stephenson furnishes facts which abundantly
confirm the truth of this remark. After describing the extravagant
length to which railway speculation was carried in that country in
1844-45, Mr. Smiles proceeds :

" Parliament, whose previous conduct in connection with railway legislation was
so open to reprehension, interposed no check, attempted no remedy. On the con-
trary, it helped to intensify the evil arising from this unseemly state of things. Many
of its members were themselves involved in the mania, and as much interested in
its continuance as even the vulgar herd of money-grubbers. The railway pro-
spectuses now issued, unlike the Liverpool and Manchester and London and Bir-
mingham schemes, were headed by Peers, Baronets, landed proprietors, and strings
of M. P.'s Thus it was found in 1S45 that not fewer than one hundred and fifty-
seven Members of Parliament were on the list of new Companies, as subscribers
for sums ranging from two hundred and ninety-one thousand pounds sterling (not
far from a million and a half of dollars) downward ! The proprietors of new lines
even came to boast of their Parliamentary strength, and the number of votes they
could command in the House. The influence which land owners had formerly
brought to bear upon Parliament in resisting railways, when called for by the public
necessities, was now employed to carry measmes of a far different kind, originated
by cupidity, knavery, and folly. But these gentlemen had discovered by this time,
that railways were as a golden mine to them. They sat at railway boards, some-
times selling to themselves their own lands, at their own price, and paying them-
selves with the money of the unfortunate stockholders. Others used the railway
mania as a convenient, and to themselves inexj^ensive, mode of purchasing con-

SUCCESS OF OUE EEPUBLIC. 19

stituencies. It was strongly suspected that honorable members adopted what
Yankee legislators call log-rolling;' that is, k You help mc roll my log, and I will
help you to roll yours ' At all events, it is a matter of fact, that, through Parlia-
mentary influence, many utterly ruinous branches and extensions, projected during
the mania, calculated only to benefit the inhabitants of a few miserable old bor-
oughs, accidentally omitted from schedule A, were authorized in the memorable
session of 1844-45. — [Smiles' Life of Stephenson, p. 871.]

These things, be it remembered, took place, not in a newly-
gathered republic, just sprouting, so to say, into existence on the
frontier, inhabited by the pioneers of civilization, who had rather
rushed together, than grown up to the moral traditions of an
ancient community ; but they took place at the metropolis of the
oldest monarchy in Europe, the center of the civilized world, where
public sentiment is propped by the authority of ages; heart of old
English oak encased with the life circles of a thousand years. I
was in London at the height of the mania ; I saw the Eailway
King, as he was called, at the zenith of his power ; a member of
Parliament, through which he walked quietly, it was said, " with
some sixteen railway bills under his arm ;" almost a fourth estate
of the realm ; his receptions crowded like those of a Royal Prince ;
and I saw the gilded bubble burst. But I did not write home to
my Government, that this marvelous " state of things" showed the
corruption which springs from hereditary institutions, nor did I
hint that an extension of the right of suffrage, and a moderate in-
fusion of the democratic principle, was the only remedy.

I have time for a few words only, on the "unscrupulous and
overbearing tone" which is said by Lord Grey to " mark our in-
tercourse with foreign nations."

" If any one European nation," he observes, " were to act in the same manner, it
could not escape war for a single year. We ourselves have been repeatedly on the
verge of a quarrel with the United States. "With no divergence of interest, but the
strongest possible interest on both sides to maintain the closest friendship, we have
more than once been on the eve of a quarrel ; and that great calamity has only
been avoided, because the Government of this country has had the good sense to
treat the Government of the United States much as we should treat spoiled
children, and though the right was clearly on our side, has yielded to the unreason-
able pretensions of the United States. There is danger that this may be pushed too
far, and that a question may arise on which our honor and our interests will make
concession on our part impossible.

No one is an impartial judge in his own case. If we should meet
these rather indiscreet suggestions in the only way in which a
charge without specifications can be met — by a denial as broad as

20 SUCCESS OF OUE EEPUBLIC.

the assertion — the matter would bo left precisely as it stood before ;
that is, each party in its national controversies thinks itself right,
and its opponent wrong, which is not an uncommon case in human
affairs, public and private. This at least may be added, without
fear of contradiction, that the United States, in their intercourse
with foreign Governments, have abstained from all interference in
European politics, and have confined themselves to the protection
of their own rights and interests. As far as concerns theoretical
doctrines on the subjects usually controverted between Govern-
ments, a distinguished English magistrate and civilian pronounces
the authority of the United States " to be always great upon all
questions of International Law." (R. Phillimore's International
Law, Vol. III., page 252.) Many of the questions wmich have
arisen between this country and England have been such as most
keenly touch the national susceptibilities. That in discussing
these questions, at home and abroad, no dispatch has been written,
no word uttered, in a warmer tone than might be wished, is not to
be expected, and is as little likely to have happened on one side of
the water as the other. But that the intercourse of the United
States with Great Britain has, in the main, been conducted, earnestly
indeed, as becomes powerful States treating important subjects, but
courteously, gravely, and temperately, no one well acquainted with
the facts will, I think, deny.

It would not be difficult to pass in review our principal contro-
versies with England, and to show that when she has conceded any
portion of our demands, it has not been because they were urged
in " an unscrupulous and overbearing tone" (an idea not very com-
plimentary to herself), but because they were founded on justice
and sustained by argument. This is not the occasion for such a re-
view. In a public address, which I had the honor of delivering
in this Hall last September, I vindicated the negotiations relative to
the Northeastern Boundary from the gross and persistent misrep-
resentations of wrhich they have been the subject ; and I will now
only briefly allude to by far the most important chapter in our dip-
lomatic history. It will show, by a very striking example, whether,
in her intercourse with foreign nations, America has been in the
habit of assuming an unscrupulous and overbearing tone, or whether
she has been the victim of those qualities on the part of others.

After the short-lived peace of Amiens, a new war, of truly
Titanic proportions, broke out between France and England. In

SUCCESS OF OUE REPUBLIC, oj

the progress of this tremendous struggle, and for the purpose of
mutual destruction, a succession of Imperial decrees and orders in
Council were issued by the two powers, by which all neutral com-
merce was annihilated. Each of the great belligerents maintained
that his adversary's decree was a violation of International Law ;
each ustified his own edict on the ground of retaliation; and be-
tween these great conflicting forces the rights of neutrals were
crushed. Under these orders and decrees it is estimated that one
hundred millions of American property were swept from the
ocean ; of the losses and sufferings of our citizens, in weary de-
tention for years at Courts of Admiralty and Vice-Admiralty, all
round the globe, there can be no estimate. But peace returned to
the world ; time wore away ; and after one generation of the ori-
ginal sufferers had sunk, many of them sorrow:stricken and ruined,
into the grave, the Government of King Louis Philippe, in France,
acknowledged the wrong of the Imperial regime, by a late and
partial measure of indemnification.* England, in addition to the
capture of our ships and the confiscation of their cargoes, had sub-
jected the United States to the indignity of taking her seamen by
impressment from our vessels — a practice which, in addition to its
illegality and cruelty, often led to the impressment of our own
citizens, both naturalized and native. For this intolerable wrong
(which England herself would not have endured a day from any
foreign Power), and for the enormous losses accruing under the
orders in Council, the United States not only never received any
indemnification, but the losses and sufferings of a war of two years
and a half duration were superadded. These orders were at the
time regarded by the liberal school of British statesmen as unjust
and oppressive against neutrals ; and though the eminent civilian,
Sir William Scott (afterwards Lord Stowrell), who presided in the
British Court of Admiralty, and who had laid the foundations of a
princely fortune by fees accruing in prize causes, t deemed it " ex-
treme indecency" to admit the possibility, that the orders in Coun-
cil could be in contravention of the public law, it is now the almost
universal admission of the text writers that such was the case. As
lately as 1847, the present Lord Chancellor — then Lord Chief

* By the treaty negotiated with great skill by Hon. W. C. Rives.
t Sketch of the Lives of Lords Stow ell and Eldon, by ¥m. Edward Surtees
D. C. L. (a relative), p. 83.

22 SUCCESS OF OUK KEPUBLIC.

Justice of England — used this remarkable language : " Of these
orders in Council, Napoleon had no right to complain ; but they
were grievously unjust to neutrals; and it is now generally allowed,
that they were contrary to the law of nations, and to our own mu-
nicipal laic /"

These liberal admissions have come too late to repair the ruined
fortunes, or to heal the broken hearts of the sufferers ; they will
not recall to life the thousands who fell on hard-fought fields, in
defense of their country's rights. But they do not come too late
to rebuke the levity with which it is now intimated, that the
United States stand at the august bar of Public Law, not as reason-
ing men, but as spoiled children ; not too late to suggest the possi-
bility to candid minds, that the next generation may do us the
like justice, with reference to more recent controversies.*

Thus, fellow-citizens, I have endeavored, without vain-glorying
with respect to ourselves, or bitterness toward others, but in a
spirit of candor and patriotism, to repel the sinister intimation that
a fatal degeneracy is stealing over the country ; and to show that
the eighty-fourth anniversary finds the United States in the fulfill-
ment of the glowing anticipations with which, in the self-same in-
strument, their Independence was inaugurated, and their Union
first proclaimed. No formal act had as yet bound them together ;
no plan of confederation had even been proposed. A common al-
legiance embraced them, as parts of one metropolitan empire ; but
when that tie was sundered they became a group of insulated and
feeble communities, not politically connected with each other nor
known as yet in the family of nations. Driven by a common ne-
cessity, yearning toward each other with a common sympathy of
trial and of danger, piercing with wise and patriotic foresight into
the depths of ages yet to come — led by a Divine counsel — they
clung together with more than elective affinity, and declared the
independence of the United States. North and South, great and
small, Massachusetts and Virginia, the oldest and then the largest ;
New York and Pennsylvania, unconscious as yet of their destined
preponderance, but already holding the central balance ; Rhode

* Lord Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors, vol. vii., p. 218 ; Stor-ifs Miscel-
laneous Writings, p. 2S3 ; Phillimo.-e's International Late, vol. iii., pp. 250, 589 ;
Manning'* Commentary on the Law of JVations, p. 230 ; Wildman,s Institutes of
International Law, vol. ii., pp. 183, 1S5; also, the French publicists, Hautefeuillo
end Ortolan, under the appropriate heads.

SUCCESS OF OUR REPUBLIC. 23

Island and Delaware, raised by the Union to a political equality
with their powerful neighbors, joined with their sister republics in
the august Declaration for themselves and for the rapidly multi-
plying family of States, which they beheld in prophetic vision.
This great charter of independence was the life of the Kevolution,
the sword of attack, the panoply of defense. Under the consum-
mate guidance of Washington it sustained our fathers under defeat,
and guided them to victory. It gave us the alliance with France,
and her auxiliary armies and navies. It gave us the Confederation
and the Constitution. With successive strides of progress it has
crossed the Alleghanies, the Ohio, the Mississippi, and the Missouri ;
has stretched its living arms almost from the Arctic circle to the
tepid waters of the Gulf; has belted the continent with rising
States; has unlocked the golden treasures of the Sierra Madre;
and flung out the banners of the Eepublic to the gentle breezes of
the Peaceful Sea. Not confined to the continent, the power of the
Union has convoyed our commerce upon the broadest oceans to
the farthest isles ; has opened the gates of the Morning to our
friendly intercourse ; and— sight unseen before in human history —
has, from the legendary Cipango, the original object of the expe-
dition of Columbus, brought their swarthy princes, on friendly em-
bassage, to the western shores of the world-dividing ocean.

Meantime, the gallant Frenchmen, who fought the battles of
liberty on this continent, carried back the generous contagion to
their own fair land. Would that they could have carried with it
the moderation and the wisdom that tempered our revolution!
The great idea of constitutional reform in England, a brighter jewel
in her crown than that of which our fathers bereft it, i3 coeval with
the successful issue of the American struggle. The first appeal of
revolutionary Greece— an appeal not made in vain— was for Ameri-
can sympathy and aid. The golden vice-royalties of Spain on this
continent asserted their independence, in imitation of our example,
though sadly deficient in previous training in the school of regu-
lated liberty; and now, at length, the fair "Niobe of Nations," ac-
cepting a constitutional monarchy as an installment of the long-de-
ferred debt of freedom, sighs through all her liberated States for a
representative confederation, and claims the title of the Italian
Washington for her heroic Garibaldi.

Here then, fellow-citizens, I close where I began ; the noble pre-
diction of Adams is fulfilled. The question decided eighty-four

24

SUCCESS OF QUE REPUBLIC.

years ago in Philadelphia was the greatest question ever decided in
America; and the event has shown that greater, perhaps, never
was nor never will be decided among men. The great Declaration,
with its life-giving principles, has, within that interval, exerted its
influence, from the central plains of America to the eternal snows
of the Cordilleras, from the Western shores of the Atlantic to the
farthest East, crossed the earth and the ocean, and circled the
globe. Nor let us fear that its force is exhausted, for its principles
are broad as humanity— as eternal as truth. And if the visions
of patriotic seers are destined to be fulfilled ; if it is the will of
Providence that the lands which now sit in darkness shall see the
day ; that the South and East of Europe and the West of Asia shall
be regenerated ; and the ancient and mysterious regions of the East,
the cradle of mankind, shall receive back in these latter days from
the West the rich repayment of the early debt of civilization, and
rejoice in the cheerful light of constitutional freedom, that light
will go forth from Independence Hall in Philadelphia ; that lesson
of constitutional freedom they will learn from this day's declaration.

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Calico Dress
Chemise
Moreen Skirt
Muslin "
Night Dress
Drawers -
Silk Apron
Plafn " -

BY MACHINE.
Hours. Min's.

BY HAND.
Hours. Min's

Seams of any considerable length ai e stitched ordinarily, at the rate of a yard a minute.

Sewing Machines Awards by the American Institute, 1ST. Y.

Sewing Machines, considered in their social, industrial, physiogical bearings upon society, are second in impor
tance to no material agentof the day. Economizing nme-tenths of the time required for sewing by hand; eliminat
ing most of the evils of needlework ; enlarging the sphere of woman's employment by creating new and profitable
branches of industry ; relieving the housekeeper of her most grievous burden, the Sewing Machines rank with
the fabled deities as benefactors of humanity.

Tne committee of the American Institute, N. Y. , appointed at the late exebition at Palace Garden, to
examine (Sewing Machines, have made a long, elaborate, and able report, of much interest to the public.
Although the utility of the invention is established beyond all question yet, for the various purposes of its
application, ignorance exists as to the particular patent best for a specific purpose. Committees heretofore
have not discriminated and classified sufficiently. This report is free from these faults. The Machines are
arranged according to the stitch made, and the purpose to which the machine is to be applied, in four classes
1st, 2d, 2rd and 4th ; a classification indicating the general order of merit and importance :

Class 1st, includes the Shuttle or Lock Stitch Macnines for family use, and for manufacturers in the same
range of purpose and material. The Commitee has assigned this class the highest rank, on account of the
"elasticity, permanence, beautv, and general desirableness of the shtching when done," and the wide range of
application. At the head of this class tney piace the Wheeler & Wilson Machine, and award it the highest

liura. This has been the uniform reward for this Mac hiue. throughout the Country for several years, and
irson will dispute its justice au).i propriety

NEW BOOKS

PUBLISHED BY CARLTON & PORTER,

200 Mulberry-street, New York.

PRONOUNCING BIBLE.

Large 8vo. Price $2 50 to $7 00

We have lately issued the best Bible in
print, A Pronouncing Bible, having these

advantages : 1. The proper names are
divided and accented, so that a child can
pronounce them correctly. 2. Each book
has a short introduction, showing just

what every reader ought to know about
it. 3. It has a much improved class of
references. 4. It contains a map of Old
Canaan aud its surroundings, and one of_
Palestine, according to the latest dis-""
coveries.

WHEDON'S COMMENTARY.

A Commentary on the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. Intended
for popular use. By D. D. Whedon, D. D.
12mo. Price $1 00

The first volume of this long-promised
work is now ready. It is a 12mo. of 422
closely printed pages, embracing a fine
map of Palestine and other valuable illus-
trations. If it shall fail to meet with gen- many mon

eral favor we shall be greatly disappointed.
Tens of thousands of copies should be put
in immediate circulation. The cheapest
book for the price thai we have issued in

LIFE 0E JACOB GRUBER.

An interesting biography of one of the most remarkable preachers
of his day. By W. P. Strickland.
12mo. Price $100

It is a rare book, full of wit and wisdom.
It contains his memorable sermon for
which he was indicted by the grand jury
of Frederic county, Maryland, and charged
with inciting an Insurrection among the
slaves.

It also contains a full account of the
trial, and the defense of Roger B. Taney,
the present Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court of the United States. A finely en-
graved portrait by Ritchie is in the volume.
Send on your orders.

" It is a perfect photograph of the most

unique man that ever trod American soil.
We advise all who purchase this book to
see to it that their vest buttons are ready
for severe service. Laugh you must —
laugh you will — laugh in spite of your
gravity or yourself." — Daily Advocate.

Yet when the good man was near death
he said : " When you think I am going see
me safe off, and sing in full chorus :

' On Jordan's stormy banks I stand.' "

" It will be read with peculiar interest."
— N. Y. Evangelist.

" A charming book."— Ziori's Herald.

THE H0MILIST:

A series of Sermons for Preachers and Laymen, original and

selected. By Erwin House, A. M.

12mo. Price $1 00

brace the very best contained in the
numerous volumes from which it is com-
piled, as well as a number of original dis-
courses. We hope that it will find fav«*
and prove a blessing to many.

The Ilomilist, just issued, is a compila-
tion of sermons, and sketches of sermons,
selected from the vast reservoir of such
kind of literature published in England
under the same title. It is said to em-

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RETURN TO Dll^Y USE

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...General library