Oration delivered before the Beaufort volunteer artillery, on July 4th, 1850

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•ORATION

DELIVERED BEFORE THE

BEAUFORT VOLUNTEER ARTILLERY,

ON JULY 4th, 1850.

BV

WILLIAM HENRY TRESCOT.

f LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

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ORATION

ELIVERED BEFORE THE

BEAUFORT VOLUNTEER ARTILLERY,

ON JULY 4th, 1850.

BY

WILLIAM HENRY TREvSCOT.

CHARLESTON:

STEAM-POWER PRESS OF WALKER AND JAMES,
No. lai, East-Bay.

1850.

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Beaufort, bth of July, 1850.
Wm, H. Trescot. ftsq.

Dear Sir . We were appointed a Committee of the Beau-
fort Voltinte<'i Artitieiy to request of you a copy of your Oration for publicatioc.
Respectfully yours,

JNO. M. BAKER, 1

T. A. BELL, [ r, ■

E. B. MEANS, \ <^'07nnnttee.

T. O. BARNWELL. J

Beaufort S. 61, July U/t, 1860.
To Memru. J. M. Bakek, T. A. Bell,

E. B. Mean.s, T. O. Barnwell — Committee.
Gentlemen : Enclosed I send you the MS. of tJie Speech, as you desire, and
take the same opportunity to express my acknowledgment of the compliment
which tlia,t request conveys.

With respect,

WM. HENRY TRESCOT.

ORATION.

Familiar, as wt; are, with the presence of nature, few
realize that what appears so constant is but one perpetual
change. Dawn and twilight brighten and fade — seasons come
and go — vegetation blooms and dies — the mysterious tides
ebb and flow — but all the while old currents are widening —
new soils are forming — climates are changing — old lands dis-
appear— new lands rise to light, and at the interval of centu-
ries, the scientific observer notes that a great change has been
effected. So it is in the political world — administrations
change — diplomatists plot and plan — great battles are fought;
but all the while opinions are altering — commerce is chang-
ing its course — productions are varying — old States shrink
away — nevv- States grow into power, and again at the inter-
val of centuries the student of history sees that a great revo-
lution has been accomplished. And although there are in
the political, as in the natural world, abrupt and terrible de-
partures from this constant and gradual progress ; yet, the
general order of Providence by a sure and almost impercep-
tible change works out its great modifications without ap-
prehension or disturbance. Situated thus in the midst of
changes to which we are, ourselves, invohmtary contributors,
it is impossible for any human mind to compass the scope of
the world's history. Indeed, to us, all history can be but a
half-read play, the events and characters of which are beyond
our criticism as they will be beyond our knowledge, until the
closing of life's drama — that solemn tragedy, of which the
theatre is earth, mankind the actors, and the audience — God.
And the fact that it is thus impossible to guide our conduct
with a view to positive results in the future, proves that we
have long placed an exaggerated estimate on the influence
of individual intellect in the history of the world. Political

foresight is the vainest of human pretensions, and it may
safely be asserted that in the history of the world, during its
most active period, there is no record of a solitary permanent
achievement by the political intellects of the times. And it
may further be added that all the great political results of
the world's history have been developed in the past without
the aid of, and often in contradiction to, the cabinet wisdom
of the nations. Look at two of the most important of mod-
ern events, the growth of the English colonial system and
the formation of the Federal Union. Examine the former
particularly. To what political intellect is it due ? Who
conceived and executed this grand creation ' Yet, look back
upon the past, and you can trace the great plan there- You
can see the first timid ship stealing into unknown seas — the
first hesitating barter between the curious native and the
cunning white — the first factory founded — the first fort built —
the first war waged, and then the vessels multiply into
fleets — the guns of the single fort are re-echoed from fortress
to fortress — solitary factories have spread into gorgeous cities,
and England owns another empire. The same process may
be traced in the growth of the Union, and here are two great
political results which have been eflected, not by the exer-
cise of a few pre-eminent intellects, but b}' the steady action
of national instinct, not endeavoring to provide for the future,
but accepting and accomplishing the consequences of the
past. If. then, we cannot act for the future, we are yet fur-
nished with a test to determine the character of those politi-
cal changes to which we may be parties, and the past, if it
does not aid us to prophesy, at least enables us to interpret
the present. The tests by which to judge the character of
any great political change may be stated briefly and gene-
rally. 1st. That when accomplished it is seen to be the ne-
cessary consequence of past events, which, when interpreted
by it, fall into the symmetry of a well ordered plan ; and 2d.
That it is not the work of a few superior intellects, moulding-
public opinion into conformity with political theories; but
that it is the action of a strong national sentiment. And here
it may be expected that, in accordance with the established
usage of the day, 1 should seek to illustrate these conditions

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in the history of the American Union and infer from their
application, a long- and glorious future ; but, fellow-citizens
circumstances warn us with fearful emphasis —

Trust no future, however pleasant ;
Let the dead past bury its dead,
Act — act in the living present.
Heart within and God o'er liead.

And indeed the unquahfied eulogy of seventy-four years
cannot, to-day, be repeated with truth. Three-quarters of a
century have verified the fears of the founders of the Union,
and each year has deepened the lines of sectional division —
roused into fiercer anger, sectional sentiment, and forced into
more fatal conflict sectional issues — until now, when we see
the reckless strife of selfish interest — the quick jealousy — the
strong antipathies that divide section from section and class
from class ; the most hopeful believer in the stability of the
country must acknowledge that while our forefathers framed
a government they failed to create a nation. For what has
been the great political triumph of our domestic legislation,
since the adoption of the Federal Constitution ? Why the
passage of the Missouri compromise. It was carried after
a struggle of unparalleled excitement, and was accepted by a
grateful constituency as the joint victory of wise statesmen
and a conservative people. Now, what is the Missouri compro-
mise but a broad declaration, that in the American Union
there are two people, differing in institutions, feelings, and in
the basis of their political faith— that the government could
not legislate for both on the same principles and on the same
subject, and therefore that as to certain matters of great po-
litical interest, they must, by an imaginary line, be separated.
Since that line has been drawn, the practical separation has
grown wider and wider, and circumstances have again forced
upon us the question— shall it continue ''■ Is there a mode by
which it may be obliterated and the tw'o people be made one ?
or shall this imaginary line become a real boundary, and the
two people, bidding each other a friendly but firm farewell,
enter upon their future paths as separate and independent
nations ?

I propose, therefore, to apply to the present times the tests

I have suggested, and to enquire whether they indicate the
approach of some grave political change, or simply one of
those ordinary party excitements, at once the result and the
evidence of active political life. And the first thought that
strikes us in our endeavour to apply these principles is this :
The history of the world divides itself into certain periods,
ea,ch embracing some one great political system — these pe-
riods divide again into two eras — one in which the principle
of the age builds up one great empire — the other in which
that same principle developes a double nature which dissolves
the unity of the empire into separate nationahties. The em-
pires of ancient and modern times, all repeat the same pro-
cess, revealing, however, another remarkable principle — that
all the great political revolutions have advanced westward.
Beginning in Asia, the history of the world developed itself
by these alternate aggregations and dissolutions until at the
fall of Rome, advancing Westward, it filled up Europe also.
Then came the feudal system, building up all Christendom
into one empire and dissolving again into separate nations,
but completing almost in the moment of its dissolution the
discovery of the Americas, and thus advancing still further
westward. Then rose the colonial systems of the various
European powers followed, finally, by the American Union,
which gathering up into one vast commonwealth the people
of a continent, and still stretching westward, has reached the
Pacific. Thus, although we cannot anticipate our future, we
can trace our progress hither ward : see nation after nation
rise and fall, the great waves of time rolling the wrecks nearer
and nearer to our own shore, until at last acting the same
part they have all played, by the extension of our territory
to the pacific, we complete a great empire and resting upon
the extremest western verge, thus fulfil the circle of Provi-
dence. If then, just at this moment, this vast empire should
dissolve into separate nations, it would be only the fulfilment
of an universal political law — a law, the scope of which we
cannot at present comprehend, but which, through the history
of the whole world, has acted with unfailing regularity — a
law to the action of which we owe our own national exist-

ence, and by which we may, under Providence, give rise to
some better and higher state of political being.

Another general principle in the revolutions of history is
this : that spring from whatever source, embrace interests
however complicated, they have always, in their final settle-
ment, obeyed the geographical requirements of the country
in which they have been accomplished. Rivers, and moun-
tains, and climates are more irresistible agents in the world's
history than we are willing to admit, and a great geographi-
cal division always developes a separate and individual na-
tionality. There is no exception, and the territorial wars
which have distracted Europe are, when properly undet stood,
the expression of a much higher and nobler principle than
mere dynastic ambition. Now assuming what the late speech
of the British Premier, on the colonial system, justifies us in
assuming, that the independence of Canada depends upon
Canada herself, we may look upon the continent as a collec-
tion of independent nations, free to make their own combi-
nations. Let us then unroll the map and examine its great
geographical features ; what are they ( 1. The almost per-
fect separation of the Pacific from the Atlantic shore- 2.
The existence of two great navigable outlets, the Mississippi
and the St. Lawrence, but little separated at their points of
furthest interior communication, and yet debouching at the
extreme ends of the continent, thus furnishing to each great
section its independent highway to the ocean. If we exam-
ine the maps more in detail we will find, and it is a curious
acknowledgment of the lines nature has drawn, that taking
some point about the junction of the Ohio, with the Missis-
sippi as centre, two systems of internal improvement and
communication have, in the few last years, developed them-
selves without any preconcerted plan, but in obedience to the
national instinct ; the one striking from Nashville and its
neighbourhood, southwards, towards the Atlantic at Charles-
ton, the gulf at New Orleans, and further on, through Tex-
as. The other tending northwards towards the Lakes and
through the neighbourhood of Wheeling and the old Cumber'
land Road, to Philadelphia, New-York and Boston.*

* Since writing tlie above I have met with the following passage, in some mea-
sure illustrating the same idea, although from another point of view.

Add to this, the variety of production and the difference
of habits consequent upon that variety, and the conclusions
of the past press irresistibly upon the present. Applying,
then, the first test we suggested, if the present political
changes result in the disruption of this continental Common-
wealth into separate nations, we can accept this revolution
as the necessary consequence of what has gone before, as
the work of a great law — illustrated in th'^ fortunes of an-
cient empires — as the execution of a decree, written by
God on the mountains and rivers and plains of the new
world, in language unchanged from the time when the At-
zec first looked down from the Cordilleras on the table lands
of Mexico, and uninterpreted until the tide of Saxon inva-
sion breasted the surf of the Pacific, and the shout of tri-
umph proclaimed that the American Union had fulfilled its
destiny.

Let us then apply the other test. It is admitted by all
that the public mind is disturbed : that the gentle bond of
old associations is broken ; that old words of traditionary
enthusiasm fall cold on the ear ; that everywhere there is a
feverish anticipation of a great change; — whence is all this?
is it the skili'ul but mischievous work of party leaders, or is it

" It is true that Federal legislation has made a roundabout voyage, by New.
York, shorter for the Southern trade than the straight course to Europe, but there
is no part of the slave States whose natural port is not at home. Two great
lines of rail road will soon connect the Chesapeake Bay with the valley of the
Ohio and the Lakes. A third line wUl stretch through the Southwest to Mempliia
on the Mississippi, wliile a fourth will form a continuous luie parallel to the coast,
from Baltimore and Richmond through Columbia, to Katchez, with numerous
lateral feeders from the Piedmont vallies. Western commeixe can reach the At-
lantic by these Southern lines more quickly than by the Northern, and without
any interruption from ice and snow, in winter. They will concentrate a vast trade
at Norfolk, Charleston and Savannah.'' — The Union, Past and Ftdure, p. 34.

This passage is in much fuller detail than I felt at liberty to employ. The sub-
ject of the political geography of this continent is one of such vast fertility and
such aboundmg interest, that within the decorous limits of an oration, I could only
refer to it. Indeed, I must ask any chance reader whom these pages may be for-
tunate enough to find, to remember that my limits compel me to be very general
and very brief In making the above extract, I may be permitted to express my
unqualified admiration of the pamphlet from whicli it is taken. If Virginia has
many such sons, the " ti^otlier of States and statesmen" is still n nursinij mother.

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the truthful instinct of national sentiment? To answer this
question, I must indicate briefly the outline of our political
history. When the Federal Constitution was adopted, it
was a compromise between two people, havino; some com-
mon sympathies and very many adverse interests, and who
were compelled into the presence of each other by want of
that great necessary of political life — a Governnjent. Now,
a government which should be only the expression of the
national intellect upon the national interests, cannot, in the
very nature of things, be created in advance. Every con-
stitution that history records, has been the result of tlie na-
tional powers called into exercise by the exigences of na-
tional history. Standing, then, upon the threshold of the
future, with all its magnitude and its mystery, how could
our forefathers pretend to define its course or prescribe its
channel. For just as surely as the germ of the plant con-
tains and compels the character of its growth and the na-
ture of its fruit, which no cultivation can change, so every
nation carries in itself the principles of its coming constitu-
tion, and no political contrivance can prevent its natural and
inevitable development. The constitutional legislation of
our revolutionary leaders must then be regarded simply as
efforts to aid the nation's progress towards its true and natu-
ral condition. To attach a higher consequence to their la-
bours, would be to elevate them above humanity. For it is
the privilege of God only to legislate for eternity, and that
privilege he has shared with no Statesman whom the world
has yet seen. This truth the founders of the Union did not
recognise. They deemed it possible to ocesife a Nation, and
posterity has pronounced the enactment obsolete. And it is
a most striking evidence of their wisdom as legislators, and
their necessary iu)perfection, as statesmen, that the consti-
tution which they formed, while it cannot govern us as one
people, should tlie two sections become separate nations,
would be the mosl admirably adapted form of government
for either. And this fact is in itself a demonstration, that
through the varied fortunes of the Federal Union, we have
been what we were at its organization, Iwo People. The
effort to reconcile these two people, and to sientify the Na-

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tion with the Government, is the key to our pohtical history.
Both parties strove to attain this end ; the Federahsts by
raising" the country up to the constitution, which, in point of
pohtical maturity was in advance of the popular sentiment.
And had it been possible they would have succeeded, for their
policy was unselfish, consistent, and firm; but they failed;
the country's future lay in a different direction. They would
have created a Nation one and indivisible. Providence in-
tended one that in its very extension should draw the lines
of its future dissolution. They having failed, the Republi-
can party reversed the experiment, and sought the same end
by striving to identify the constitution with the popular will,
and we are in the midst of that disastrous experilrient. It
has resulted in the developing of two popular wills — a North-
ern and a Southern — and in spite of the selfislTlwaution of
party zeal, against the vehement protests, and still stronger
example of party leaders, these two wills have concentrated
upon their fundamental principle, and stand opposed in un-
disguised and inextinguishable hostility. Fellow-citizens,
national sentiment is never slightly stirred. The same Prov-
idence who piled up the mountains and poured out the rivers,
in order to divide men into separate nations, has given to each
nation its peculiar institutions, its special character. He
knows when and how to harmonize them for his wise pur-
poses ; it is our duty to preserve those national distinctions
in their vigour and purity. When, then, in any country you
find two [populations characterized by different institutions,
preserving their nebirai characteristics, and yet so resolutely
opposed that a.-.surrender of the one to the other is necessa-
ry to national unanimity, the time for the departure of those
two people is at hand : the language of wisdom will be the
language of experience, " Let there bo no strife, 1 pray thee,
between thee and me, and between thy herdsmen and my
herdsmen ; for we be brethren. Is not the whole land before
thee ? separate thyself, I pray thee, from me ; if thou wilt
take the left hand, then I will go to the right, or if thou de-
part to the right hand, then I will go to the left;" and well
for them, if history adds : " and they separated themselves,
the one from the other."

The tendency and scope ot what 1 have now briefly and
imperfectly said, may be summed up thus : while it is im-
possible for us to foresee the future of our national history,
we can yet see enough to warrant us in believing that if the
alternative placed before us be the abandonment of the insti-
tution of slavery or the dissolution of the Union, that then
the past history of the whole world — the great natural di-
visions of the continent, and the consenting testimony of the
national sentiment, all indicate that the dissolution of the
Union is the next step in the path of our history. And when
1 say the abandonment of the institution, I do not mean the
extreme necessity of emancipating our slaves, deserting our
fields, and diverting our decimated capital into strange and
unnatural channels, but I mean the necessity of exist. ng b\^
toleration in the commonwealth, of yielding one hairbreadth
of our full political equality, as necessary, efficient, honoura-
ble constituents of the great American Empire. We know
our value. The history of past civilization is open for our
study, and we see that every nation that has impressed its
spirit and its institutions in beneficial influence upon the
times — the Arab, the Roman, the Norman — have all been
slaveholders. We see that all the great achievements of
the world's art — the Greek Drama, the Roman Law, the un-
told wealth of modern manufactures — have sprung from, and
been sustained by slaveholding people. We know our value.
The history of our own country is before us ; we know from
which section sprang the great minds of the revolution ; we
know whose blood has illustrated the history of three great
national wars ; we know what great staple feeds the world's
traffic, and we know that without slavery the pride of North-
ern prosperity would be broken, the power of British com-
merce sapped, and millions of so-called freemen would per-
ish in their destitution. We know our value. We know
that we are the great conservative element of this colossal
commonwealth. For all that we are, and all that our North-
ern brethren are, through us, we believe ourselves, under
God, indebted to the institution of slavery ; for a national
existence, a well ordered liberty, a prosperous agriculture,
an exulting commerce, a free people and a firm government ;
and we believe that without slavery, the Union could guaran-

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tee us none of these thinj^s. Thai the resuli of this struggle
will be its dissoluion, no man ventures to prophesy — no man
dares to hope.

" Tlie vast, tiie unbounded future lies before us,
But shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon it."

The consequences of such a consummation no one can fore-
tell, and in the discharge of a paramount duty, no one ought
to regard. We know that Providence has placed us in the
midst of an institution which we cannot, as we value na-
tional existence, destroy. It h;is solved for us in the wisest
manner, that most dangerous of social questions, the relation
of labour to capital, by making that relation a moral one.
It has developed the physical wealth of the country in its
highest — that is, its agricultural branch — in unprecedented
proportion. It has created a civilization combining in admi-
rable measure, energy and refinement. It informs all our
modes of life ; all our habits of thought lies at the basis of
our social existence, and of our political faith. Our first
great national duty is to protect it, at any and every hazard.
If it can be protected and the Union preserved, there will be
nowhere in the land an honester joy than in our borders, for
our memory of the past is proud and our faith in the future
is strong. But if it cannot, if we must surrender the idea
of one great commonwealth, circling the continent with the
protection of its constitution, blending in harmonious energ)^
the varied activity of a thousand interests, moulding into
one majestic nationality the tempered sovereignties of inde-
pendent States, if from this dream we must wake to the
stern reality of conflicting interests and dissevered States —
we, at least, have no responsibility to shun ; we shall enter
upon the untried path confident in the Providence which so
wondrously watched our youth and guided our manhood,
sure that whatever form our national existence may assume,
so long as we are true to the institutions which have made
us what we are, we will proceed in strength to the fulfilment
of our fortunes, to the discharge of that duty which, from
the beginning, has been assigned us among the nations, and
to the vindication of the great truth of all history, that

" In the unreasoning progress of this world,

A wiser spirit is at work, a better eye than ours."

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