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CORNELL UNIVERSny LIBRARY 
 
 3 1924 064 295 615 
 
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 Library 
 
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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924064295615 
 
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HE SPARKS 
 
 LIBRARY. 
 
 Collected by 
 
 JARED SPARKS, LL. D., 
 
 President of Harvard College. 
 
 Purchased by the Cornell University, 
 
 1872. 
 
^efo §0ii |list0rical S>mtii 
 
 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, 
 
 M DCOO LIV. 
 
|pini-(0tnttniiinl cE^BbiirEtinn. 
 
 FIFTIETH ANNIVEESARY 
 
 FOUNDING 
 
 NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 
 
 MONDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1854. 
 
 NEAV YORK: 
 PRINTED FOR THE SOCIETY 
 
 M DCCO UV. 
 
JOHN F. TEOW, PRINTER, 
 49 Ann street. 
 
(Dffirns a( i\t Batitt^ 
 
 1854. 
 
 PRESIDENT, 
 
 LUTHER BEADISIL 
 
 FIRST TICE-PRESIDEXT, 
 
 THOMAS DE WITT, D. D. 
 
 SECOND VICE-PEKSIDEXT, 
 
 FEEDERIC DE PEYSTER. 
 
 FOREIGN OOERESPONDIJfG SECRETAI'.T, 
 
 EDWARD ROBINSON-, D. D. 
 
 DOMESTIC CORRESPONDING SECIiETARY, 
 
 JAMES WILLIAM BEEKMAN. 
 
 RECORDING 6ECRETART, 
 
 ANDREW WARNER. 
 
 TREASURER, 
 
 WILLIAM CHAUNCEY. 
 
 LIBRARIAN, 
 
 GEORGE HENRY MOORE. 
 
 (Bsetrntibt €ammitttt. 
 
 AUGUSTUS SCHELL, Chairman. 
 MARSHALL S. BIDWELL. 
 BENJAMIN H. FIELD. 
 FRANCIS L. HAWKS, D. D. 
 JOHN ROMEYN BRODHEAD. 
 ERASTUS 0. BENEDICT. 
 MAUNSELL B. FIELD. 
 
 Sttntsxs Bi ilt 3£ittutiit Committtt 
 GEORGE HENRY MOORE. 
 
60mmittee of Jtmngtmetits 
 
 FOR THE ANNIVEKSARY, 1854. 
 
 LUTHER BRADISH. 
 THOMAS DE WITT, D. D. 
 FEEDERIO DE PEYSTER. 
 EDWARD ROBINSON. 
 JAMES WILLIAM BEEKMAN. 
 ANDREW WARNER. 
 WILLIAM OHAUNCEY. 
 GEORGE HENRY MOORE. 
 AUGUSTUS SCHELL. 
 MARSHALL S. BIDWELL. 
 BENJAMIN H. FIELD. 
 FRANCIS L. HAWKS, D. D. 
 JOHN ROMEYN BRODHEAD. 
 ERASTUS 0. BENEDICT. 
 MAUNSELL B. FIELD. 
 PROSPER M. WETMORE. 
 WILLIAM W. CAMPBELL. 
 BENJAMIN R. WINTHROP. 
 LUTHER R. MARSH. 
 GEORGE BANCROFT. 
 WILLIAM ADAMS, D.D. 
 
THE NECESSITY, THE REALITY, AND THE PROMISE 
 OF THE PROGRESS OF THE HUMAN RACE. 
 
 ORATION 
 
 DEUVEBED BEFORE THE 
 
 NEW TORS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 
 
 NOVEMBER 20, 1854. 
 
 GEORGE BANCROFT, 
 
 A MEMBER OF THE SOCIETY. 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 PRINTED FOR THE SOCIETY. 
 
 U DCCO LIT. 
 
At a meeting of the New York Historical Society, held at Niblo's Sa- 
 loon in the city of New York, for the celebration of the Fiftieth Anniver- 
 sary, on Monday afternoon, November 20, 1854, 
 
 "The Rev. George W. Bethune, D. D., submitted the following resolu- 
 tion, which waa seconded by the Hon. William W. Campbell, and unani- 
 mously adopted : 
 
 " Resolved, That the thanks of the Society be tendered to the Hon. 
 George Bancroft for the able, interesting, and highly instructive address 
 which he has delivered on this occasion, and that a copy be requested for 
 publication." 
 
 Extract from the Minutes : 
 
 ANDREW WARNER, 
 
 Recoeding Seckktart. 
 
 ^tered iiocordliig to Act of Congress, iii the yCA^ 18S4, b; GsoKok BiKCHon^ in the Clerk'i Office of the District 
 Court of the Uuited Suites for the Southern Distriet of New York. 
 
ORATION. 
 
 Bkotheks, Guests, anu Friends of the New Yohk 
 Historical Society : 
 
 We are assembled to celebrate the completion of a 
 half century, unequalled in its discoveries and its deeds. 
 Man is but the creature of yesterday, and fifty yeai-s 
 form a great length in the chain of his entire existence. 
 Inferior objects attract the inquirer who would go back 
 to remotest antiquity. The student of the chronology 
 of the earth may sit on the bluffs that overhang the 
 Mississippi, and muse on the myriads of years during 
 which the powers of nature have been depositing the 
 materials of its delta. lie may then, by the aid of in- 
 duction, draw nearer to the beginnings of time, as 
 he meditates on the succession of ages that assisted to 
 construct the clifis which raise their bastions over the 
 stream ; or to bury in compact layei'S the fern-like 
 forests that have stored the bosom of the great valley 
 with coal ; or to crystallize the ancient limestone into 
 marble ; or, at a still earlier epoch, to compress liquid 
 masses of the globe into seams of granite. But the 
 records of these transitions gain their chief interest 
 from their illustrating the revolutions through which our 
 
planet was fashioned into a residence for man. Science 
 may roam into the abysses of the past, when the earth 
 moved silently in its courses without observers ; just as 
 it may reach those far-off regions of nebular fields of 
 light, whose distance no numbers that the human facul- 
 ties may grasp can intelligibly express. But as the 
 sublime dwells not in space, so it dwells not in dura- 
 tion. To search for it aright, we must contemplate the 
 higher subject of man. It is but a few centuries since 
 he came . into life ; and yet the study of his nature 
 and his destiny surpasses all else that can engage 
 his thoughts. At tlie close of a period which has 
 given new proof that unceasing movement is the law 
 of all that is finite, we are called upon to observe 
 the general character of the changes in his state. Our 
 minds irresistibly turn to consider the laws, the cir- 
 cumstances and the prospects of his career ; we are led 
 to inquire whether his faculties and his relations to the 
 universe compel him to a steady course of improve- 
 ment ; whether, in the aggregate, he has actually made 
 advances ; and what hopes we may cherish respecting 
 his future. The occasion invites me to speak to you of 
 the NECESSiTT, the reality, and the peoiiise of the pro- 
 gress of mankind. 
 
 Since every thing that is limited suffers perpetual 
 alteration, the condition of our race is one of growth or 
 of decay. It is the glory of man that he is conscious of 
 this law of his existence. He alone is gifted with reason 
 which looks upward as well as before and after, and 
 connects him with the world that is not discerned by 
 the senses. He alone has the faculty so to combine 
 thought with affection, that he can lift up his heart and 
 feel not for himself only, but for his brethren and his 
 
9 
 
 kind. Every man is in substance equal to his fellow 
 man. His nature is changed neither by time nor by 
 country. He beare no marks of having risen to his 
 present degree of perfection by successive transmuta- 
 tions from inferior forms ; but by the peculiarity and 
 buperiority of his powers he shows himself to have been 
 created separate and distinct from all other classes of 
 animal life. He is neither degenerating into such dif- 
 ferences as could in the end no longer be classified to- 
 gether, nor rising into a higher species. Each mem- 
 ber of the race is in will, affection and intellect, consub- 
 stantial with every other ; no passion, no noble oi- de- 
 gi-ading affection, no generous or selfish impulse, has 
 ever appeared, of which the germ does not exist in 
 every breast. No science has been reached, no thought 
 generated, no truth discovered, which has not from all 
 time existed potentially in every human mind. The 
 belief in the progress of the race does not, therefore, 
 spring from the supposed possibility of his acquiring 
 new faculties, or coming into the possession of a new 
 nature. 
 
 Still less does truth vary. They speak falsely 
 who say that truth is the daughter of time ; it is the 
 child of eternity, and as old as the Divine mind. The 
 perception of it takes place in the order of time ; truth 
 itself knows nothing of the succession of ages. Neither 
 does morality need to perfect itself ; it is what it al- 
 ways has been, and always will be. Its distinctions 
 are older than the sea or the dry land, than the earth 
 or the sun. The relation of good to evil is from the 
 beginning, and is unalterable. 
 
 The progress of man consists in this, thai'the him- 
 self arrives at the perception of truth. The Divine 
 mind, which is its source, left it to be discovered, ap- 
 propriated and developed by finite creatures. 
 
10 
 
 The life of an individual is but a breath ; it comes 
 forth like a flower, and flees like a shadow. Were no 
 other progress, therefore, possible than that of the in- 
 dividual, one period would have little advantage over 
 another. But as every man partakes of the same fac- 
 ulties and is consubstantial with all, it follows that the 
 race also has an existence of its own ; and this existence 
 becomes richer, more varied, free and complete, as time 
 advances. Cojnioisr seistse implies by its very name, 
 that each individual is to contribute some share toward 
 the general intelligence. The many are wiser than the 
 few; the multitude than the philosopher; the race 
 than the individual ; and each successive generation 
 than its predecessor. 
 
 The social condition of a century, its faith and its 
 institutions, are always analogous to its acquisitions. 
 Neither philosophy, nor government, nor political in- 
 stitutions, nor religious knowledge, can remain much 
 Vjehind, or go much in advance, of the totality of con- 
 temporary intelligence. The age furnishes to the mas- 
 ter-workman the materials with which he builds. The 
 outbreak of a revolution is the pulsation of the time, 
 healthful or spasmodic, according to its harmony with 
 the civilization from which it springs. Each new philo- 
 sophical system is the heliograph of an evanescent con- 
 dition of public thought. The state in which we are, is 
 man's natural state at this moment; but it neither 
 should be nor can be his permanent state, for his exist- 
 ence is flowing on in eternal motion, with nothing fixed 
 but the certainty of change. Now, by the necessity of 
 the case, the movement of the human mind, taken collec- 
 tively, is always toward something better. There ex- 
 ists in each individual, alongside of his own personality, 
 the ideal man who represents the race. Every one bears 
 
11 
 
 about within himself the consciousness that his course is 
 a struggle ; and perpetually feels the contrast between 
 his own limited nature and the better life of which 
 he conceives. He cannot state a proposition respect- 
 ing a finite object, but it includes also a reference 
 to the infinite. He cannot form a judgment, but it 
 combines ideal truth and partial error, and, as a conse- 
 quence, sets in action the antagonism between the true 
 and the perfect on the one side, and the false and the 
 imperfect on the other ; and in this contest the true and 
 the perfect must prevail, for they have the advantage 
 of being perennial. 
 
 In public life, by the side of the actual state of the 
 world, there exists the ideal state toward which it 
 should tend. This antagonism lies at the root of all 
 political combinations that ever have been or ever can 
 be formed. The elements on which they rest, whether 
 in monarchies, aristocracies, or in republics, are but 
 three, not one of which can be wanting, or society falls 
 to ruin. The course of human destiny is ever a rope of 
 three strands. One party may found itself on things as 
 they are, and strive for their unaltered perpetuity ; this 
 is conservatism, always appearing wherever established 
 interests exist, and never capable of unmingled success, 
 because finite things are ceaselessly in motion. Another 
 may be based on theoretic principles, and struggle un- 
 relentingly to conform society to the absolute law q^ 
 Truth and Justice ; and this, though it kindle the purest 
 enthusiasm, can likewise never perfectly succeed, because 
 the materials of which society is composed partake of 
 imperfection, and to extirpate all that is imperfect would 
 lead to the destruction of society itself. And there 
 may be a third, which seeks to reconcile the two, but 
 wliich yet can never thrive by itself, since it depends 
 
12 
 
 for its activity on the clasWng between the fact and 
 the higher law. Without all the three, the fates could 
 not spin their thread. As the motions of the solar 
 world require the centripetal force, which, by itself 
 alone, would consolidate all things in one massive con- 
 fusion ; the centrifugal force, which, if uncontrolled, 
 would hurl the planets on a tangent into infinite space ; 
 and lastly, that reconciling adjustment, which preserves 
 the two powers in harmony; so society always has 
 within itself the elements of conservatism, of absolute 
 right, and of reform. 
 
 The present state of the world is accepted by the 
 wise and benevolent as the necessary and natural re- 
 sult of all its antecedents. But the statesman, whose 
 heart has been purified by the love of his kind, and 
 whose purpose solemnized by faith in the immutability 
 of justice, seeks to apply every principle which former 
 ages or his own may have mastered, and to make every 
 advancement that the culture of his time will sustain. 
 In a word, he will never omit aii opportunity to lift 
 his country out of the inferior sphere of its actual 
 condition, into the higher and better sphere that is 
 nearer to ideal perfection. 
 
 The merits of great men are to be tested by this cri- 
 terion. I speak of the judgment of the race, not of 
 the opinion of classes. The latter exalt, and even deify 
 the advocates of their selfishness ; and often proportion 
 their praise to the daring, with which right and truth 
 have been made to succumb to their interests. They 
 lavish laurels all the more profusely to hide the bald- 
 ness of their heroes. But reputation so imparted is 
 like every thing else that rests only on the finite. Vain 
 is the applause of factions, or the suffrages of those 
 whose fortunes are benefited ; fame so attained, must 
 
13 
 
 pass away like tlie interests of classes ; but the name 
 of those who have studied the well-being of their fel- 
 low-men, and in their generation have assisted to raise 
 the M^orld from the actual toward the ideal, is repeated 
 in all the temples of humanity, and lives not only in its 
 intelligence, but in its heart. These are they, whose 
 glory calumny cannot tarnish, nor pride beat down. 
 Connecting themselves with man's advancement, their 
 example never loses its lustre ; and the echo of their 
 footsteps is heard throughout all time with sympathy 
 and love. 
 
 The necessity of the progress of the race follows, 
 therefore, from the fact, that the great Author of all 
 life has left truth in its immutability to be observed, 
 and has endowed man with the power of observation 
 and generalization. Precisely the same conclusions will 
 appear, if we contemplate society from the point of 
 view of the unity of the universe. The unchanging 
 character of law is the only basis on which continuous 
 action can rest. Without it man would be but as the 
 traveller over endless morasses ; the builder on quick- 
 sands ; the mariner without compass or rudder, driven 
 successively whithersoever changing winds may blow. 
 The universe is the reflex and image of its Creator. 
 " The true work of art," says Michael Angelo, " is but 
 a shadow of the Divine perfections." We may say in 
 a more general manner, that beauty itself is but the 
 SENSIBLE IMAGE OF THE INFINITE ; that all creation is 
 a manifestation of the Almighty ; not the result of 
 caprice, but the glorious display of his perfection ; and 
 as the universe thus produced, is always in the course 
 of change, so its regulating mind is a living Provi- 
 dence, perpetually exerting itself anew. If his de- 
 signs could be thwarted, we should lose the great evi- 
 
14 
 
 dence of his unity, as well as the anchor of our own 
 hope. 
 
 Harmony is the characteristic of the intellectual 
 system of the universe ; and immutable laws of moral 
 existence must pervade all time and all space, all ages 
 and all worlds. The comparative anatomist has studied, 
 analyzed and classified every species of vertebrate ex- 
 istence that now walks, or flies, or creeps, or swims, or 
 reposes among the fossil remains of lost, forms of being ; 
 and he discovers that they all without exception are 
 analogous ; so that the induction becomes irresistible, 
 that an archetype existed previous to the creation of 
 the first of the kind. Shall we then hesitate to believe 
 that the fixedness of law likewise pervades the moral 
 world ? We cannot shut our eyes to the established 
 tact, that an ideal, or archetype, prescribed the foi'm of 
 animal life ; and shall we not believe that the type of 
 all intellectual life likewise exists in the Divine mind ? 
 
 I know that there is a pride which calls this fatal- 
 ism, and which rebels at the thought that the Father 
 of life should control what he has made. There are 
 those who must needs assert for their individual selves 
 the constant possession of that power which the great 
 English poet represents the bad angels to have lost 
 heaven for once attempting to usurp ; they- are not 
 content with being gifted with the faculty of discern- 
 ing the counsels of God, and becoming happy by 
 conforming to his decrees, but claim the privilege 
 of acting irrespective of those decrees. Unsatisfied 
 with having been created in his image, they assume the 
 liberty to counteract his will. They do not perceive 
 that cosmical order depends on the universality and 
 absolute certainty of law ; that for that end, events in 
 their course are not merely as fixed as Ararat and the 
 
15 
 
 Andes, but follow laws that are much older than 
 Andes or Ararat, that are as old as those which up- 
 heaved the mountains. The glory of God is not con- 
 tingent on man's good will, but all existence subserves 
 his purposes. ^ The system of the universe is as a celes- 
 tial poem, whose beauty is from all eternity, and must 
 not be marred by human interpolations. Things pro- 
 ceed as they were ordered, in their nice, and well-ad- 
 justed, and perfect harmony ; so tliat as the hand of 
 the skilful artist gathers music from the harp-strings, 
 history calls it forth from the well-tuned chords of time. 
 Not that this harmony can be heard during the tumult 
 of action. Philosophy comes after events, and gives 
 the reason of them, and describes the nature of their 
 results. The great mind of collective mau may, one 
 day, so improve in self-consciousness, as to interpret the 
 present and foretell the future; but as yet, the end of 
 what is now haiDpening, though we ourselves partake 
 in it, seems to fall out by chance. All is nevertheless one 
 whole; individuals, families, peoples, the race, march in 
 accord with the Divine will ; and when any part of 
 the destiny of humanity is fulfilled, we see the ways 
 of Providence vindicated. The antagonisms of im- 
 perfect matter and the perfect idea, of liberty and 
 necessary law, become reconciled. What seemed irra- 
 tional confusion, appears as the web woven by light, 
 liberty and love. But this is not perceived till a great 
 act in the drama of life is finished. The prayer of the 
 patriarch, when he desired to behold the Divinity face 
 to face, was denied ; but he was able to catch a glimpse 
 of Jehovah, after He had passed by ; and so it fares 
 with our search for Him in the wrestlings of the world. 
 It is when the 'hour of conflict is over, that history 
 comes to a right understanding of the strife, and is 
 
16 
 
 ready to exclaim : " Lo ! God is here, and we knew 
 it not." At the foot of every page in the annals of 
 nations, may be written, " God reigns." Events, as they 
 pass away, " proclaim their Great Original ; " and if you 
 will but listen reverently, you may hear the receding 
 centuries as they roll into the dim distances of departed 
 time, perpetually chanting "Te Deum Lattdamus," with 
 all the choral voices of the countless congregations of 
 the ages. 
 
 It is because God is visible in History that its office 
 is the noblest except that of the poet. The poet is at 
 once the interpreter and the favorite of Heaven. He 
 catches the first beam of light that flows from its un- 
 created source. He repeats the message of the Infinite, 
 without always being able to analyze it, and often without 
 knowing how he received it, or why he was selected for 
 its utterance. To him and to him alone history yields in 
 dignity ; for she not only watches the great encounters 
 of life, but recalls what had vanished, and partaking of a 
 bliss like that of creating, restores it to animated being. 
 The mineralogist takes special delight in contemplating 
 the process of crystallization, as though he had caught 
 nature at her work as a geometrician ; giving herself 
 up to be gazed at without concealment such as she ap- 
 pears in the very moment of exertion. But history, as 
 she reclines in the lap of eternity, sees the mind of 
 humanity itself engaged in formative efforts, construct- 
 ing sciences, promulgating laws, organizing common- 
 wealths, and displaying its energies in the visible 
 movement of its intelligence. Of all pursuits that 
 require analysis, historj'-, therefore, stands first. It is 
 equal to philosophy ; for as certainly as the actual 
 bodies forth the ideal, so certainly does history contain 
 
lY 
 
 philosophy. It is grander than the natural sciences ; 
 for its study is man, the last work of creation, and the 
 most perfect in its relations with the Infinite. 
 
 In surveying the short period since man was created, 
 the proofs of progress are so abundant that we do not 
 know with which of them to begin, or how they should 
 be classified. He is seen in the earliest stages of society, 
 bare of abstract truth, unskilled in the methods of 
 induction, and hardly emancipated from bondage to 
 the material universe. How wonderful is it, then, that 
 a being whose first condition was so weak, so humble, 
 and so naked, and of whom no monument older than 
 forty centuries can be found, should have accumulated 
 such fruitful stores of intelligence and have attained 
 such perfection of culture ! 
 
 Look round upon this beautiful earth, this tempe- 
 rate zone of the solar system, and see how much man 
 has done for its subjection and adornment ; making 
 the wilderness blossonN .with cities, and the seemingly 
 inhospitable sea cheeifully social with the richly- 
 freighted fleets of world-wide commerce. Look also 
 at the condition of society, and consider by what 
 amenities barbarism has been softened and refined; 
 what guarantees of intelligence and liberty have super- 
 seded the lawlessness of brute force, and what copious 
 interchanges of thought and love have taken the place 
 of the sombre stolidity of the savage. The wander- 
 ings of the nations are greater now than ever in time 
 past, and productive of happier results. Peaceful emi- 
 gration sets more myriads in motion than all the hordes 
 of armed barbarians, whether Gauls or Scythians, Goths 
 or Huns, Scandinavians or Saracens, that ever burst 
 from the steppes of Asia and the Northern nurseries 
 of men. Our own city gives evidence that the civilizea 
 
 2 
 
18 
 
 world is becoming one federation ; for, its storehouses 
 exhibit all products, from furs that are whitened by- 
 Arctic snows, to spices ripened by the burning sun 
 of the equator; and its people is the representative 
 of all the cultivated nations of Europe. 
 
 Every clime is tasked also to enlarge the boundaries 
 of knowledge. Minerals that lie on the peaks of the 
 Himalayas, animals that hide in the densest jungles of 
 Africa, flowers that bloom in the solitudes of Sumatra, 
 or the trackless swamps along the Amazpn, are brought 
 within the observation and domain of science. 
 
 With equal diligence the internal structure of plants 
 and animals has been subjected to examination. We 
 may gaze with astonishment at the advances which the 
 past fifty years have made in the science of compara- 
 tive physiology. By a most laborious and long con- 
 tinued use of the microscope, and by a vast number of 
 careful and minute dissections, man has gained such 
 insight into animal being, as not only to define its 
 primary groups, but almost to draw the ideal archetype 
 that preceded their creation. Not content with the 
 study of his own organization and the comparison of 
 it with the Fauna of every zone, he has been able to 
 count the pulsations of the heart of a caterpillar ; to 
 watch the flow of blood through the veins of the silk- 
 worm ; to enumerate the millions of living things that 
 dwell in a drop of water ; to take the census of crea- 
 tures so small, that parts of their members remain in- 
 visible to the most powerful microscope ; to trace the 
 lungs of the insect which floats so gayly on the limber 
 fans of its wings, and revels in the full fruition of its 
 transcendent powers of motion. 
 
 The astronomer, too, has so perfected his skill, that 
 Jie has weighed in the balance some, even, of the stars. 
 
19 
 
 and marked the course and the period of their revolu- 
 tions ; while, within the limits of our own system, he 
 has watched the perturbations of the wandering fires, 
 till he has achieved his crowning victory by discover- 
 ing a priori the existence and the place of an exterior 
 planet. " 
 
 I have reminded you of the few hundreds of years 
 during which man has been a tenant of earth, and of 
 the great proportion that the last half century bears to 
 the whole of his existence. Let us consider this more 
 closely ; for I dare assert that, in some branches of 
 human activity, the period we commemorate has done 
 more for his instruction and improvement than all 
 which went before. 
 
 I do not here refer to our own country, because it 
 is altogether new, though its growth merits a passing 
 remark ; for within this time the area of our land has 
 been so extended that a similar increase, twice re- 
 peated, would carry the stars and stetpes to the 
 polar ice and to the isthmus; while our population 
 now exceeds fivefold all who existed at the end of the 
 two previous centuries, and probably outnumbers aU 
 the generations that sleep beneath the soil. I speak 
 rather of results in which the old Avorld takes its share ; 
 and I will begin the enumeration by reference to an 
 improvement which we may delight to consider our 
 own. Your thoughts go in advance of me to recall 
 the fact, that since our Society wsis organised, steam 'i 
 was first employed for both interior and oceanic 
 navigation. "We, brothers of the New York His- 
 torical SocrETT, remember with pride that this great 
 achievement in behalf of the connection and the unity 
 of the world, is due to the genius of one of our mem- 
 bers, and the encouragement of another, to Egbert 
 Fulton and to Robert K Livingston. 
 
20 
 
 The same superiority belongs to this age in refer- 
 ence to the construction of the means of internal 
 communication. What are all the artificial channels 
 of travel and of commerce that previously existed, 
 compared with the canals and railroads constructed 
 in our time ? I shall not pause to estimate the 
 number of these newly made highways ; their col- 
 lective length; their capacity for journeyings and 
 for trade; I leave to others to contrast the occa- 
 sional Oriental or African caravan with the daUy 
 freight-train on one of our iron pathways; the post- 
 chaise, the stage-coach, and the diligence with the 
 incessant movement in the canal boats and the flying 
 cars of the railroad. Yet in your presence, mt beoth- 
 EES, remembering the eleven men who, fifty years ago, 
 met and organized our society, I must for an instant 
 direct attention to the system which connects our own 
 Hudson with the basins of the St. Lawrence, of the 
 Delaware, of the Susquehanna and of the Mississippi 
 This magnificent work, one of the noblest triumphs 
 of civilized man, so friendly to peace and industry, to 
 national union and true glory, was efiected through 
 the special instrumentality of one of our original foun- 
 ders and most active members ; the same De Witt 
 Clintoit, who in days when the city of New York was 
 proud of her enlightened magistracy, was at the head 
 of her municipal government, esteeming it a part of 
 his public duty to care disinterestedly for the welfare 
 of science, and|the fame of the great men of the 
 country. 
 
 The half century which now closes, is likewise 
 found to surpass all others, if we consider the extent 
 of its investigations into the history of the earth. 
 Geology, in that time, has assumed a severe scientific 
 
21 
 
 form, doing the highest honor, not merely to the in- 
 dividual men who have engaged in the pursuit, but to 
 human nature itself, by the persevering application of 
 inductive reasoning, and the imperturbable serenity 
 with which seeming contradictions have been studied 
 till they have been found to confirm the general laws. 
 Thus the geologist has been able to ascertain, in some 
 degree, the chronology of our planet ; to 'demonstrate 
 the regularity of its structure where it seemed most 
 disturbed ; and where nature herself was at fault, and 
 the trail of her footsteps broken, to restore the just ar- 
 rangement of strata that had been crushed into confu- 
 sion, or turned over in apparently inexplicable and in- 
 congruous folds. He has perused the rocky tablets on 
 which time-honored nature has set her inscriptions. He 
 has opened the massive sepulchres of departed forms of 
 being, and pored over the copious records preserved 
 there in stone, till they have revealed the majestic 
 march of creative power, from the organism of the 
 zoophyte entombed in the lowest depths of Siluria, 
 through all the rising gradations of animal life, up to 
 its sublimest result in God-like man. 
 
 Again : It is only in our day that the sun has been 
 taught to do the work of an artist, and in obedience to 
 man's will, the great wave of light in its inconceivable 
 swiftness is compelled to delineate with inimitable ex- 
 actness any object that the eye of day looks upon. 
 
 Of the nature of electricity, more has been discov- 
 ered in the last fifty years than in all past time, not 
 even excepting the age when our own Franklin called 
 it from the clouds. This aerial invisible power has 
 learnt to fly as man's faithful messenger, till the mystic 
 wires tremble with his passions and bear his errands 
 on the wings of lightning. He divines how this agen- 
 
22 
 
 cy which holds the globe in its invisible embrace, guides 
 floating atoms to their places in the crystal ; or teaches 
 the mineral ores the lines in which they should move, 
 where to assemble together, and where to lie down and 
 take their rest. It whispers to the meteorologist the 
 secrets of the atmosphere and the skies. For the' 
 chemist in his laboratory it perfects the instruments of 
 heat, dissolves the closest affinities, and reunites the sun- 
 dered elements. It joins the artisan at his toil, and 
 busily employed at his side, this subtlest and swiftest 
 of existences tamely applies itself to its task, with pa- 
 tient care reproduces the designs of the engraver or 
 the plastic art, and disposes the metal with a skilful 
 delicacy and exactness which the best workman cannot 
 rival. Nay more : it enters into the composition of 
 man himself, and is ever present as the inmost witness 
 of his thoughts and volitions. These are discoveries 
 of our time. 
 
 But enough of this contrast of the achievement of 
 one age with that of all preceding ones. It may seem 
 to be at variance with our theme, that as republican 
 institutions gain ground, woman appears less on the 
 theatre of events. She, whose presence in this briary 
 world is as a lily among thorns, whose smile is pleasant 
 hke the light of morning, and whose eye is the gate of 
 heaven ; she, whom nature so reveres, that the lovely 
 veil of her spirit is the best terrestrial emblem of beauty, 
 must cease to command armies or reign supreme over 
 nations. Yet the progress of liberty, while it has 
 made her less conspicuous, has redeemed her into 
 the possession of the full dignity of her nature, has 
 made her not man's slave, but his companion, his 
 counsellor, and fellow-martyr ; and, for an occasional 
 ascendency in political affairs has substituted the uni- 
 
28 
 
 form enjoyment of domestic equality. The avenue to 
 active public life seems closed against her, but without 
 impairing her power over mind, or her fame. The lyre 
 is as obedient to her touch, the muse as coming to her 
 call, as to that of man ; and truth in its purity finds no 
 more honored interpreter. 
 
 When comparisons are drawn between longer pe- 
 riods, the progress, of the race appears from the change 
 in the condition of its classes. Time knows no holier 
 mission ' than to assert the rights of labor, and it 
 has, in some measure, been mindful of the duty. 
 Were Aristotle and Plato to come among us, they 
 would find no contrast more complete than between 
 the workshops of their Athens, and those of New 
 York. In their day the bondman practised the me- 
 chanic arts ; nor was it conceived that the world could 
 do its work except by the use of slaves. But labor de- 
 serves and has the right to be dignified and ennobled, 
 and the auspicious revolution in its condition has begun. 
 Here the mechanic, at the shipyard, or the iron-works, 
 or wherever may be the task of his choice, owns no 
 master on earth ; and while, by the careful study and 
 employment of the forces of nature, he multiplies his 
 powers, he sweetens his daily toil by the consciousness 
 of personal independence, and the enjoyment of his 
 acknowledged claim to honor no less than to reward. 
 
 The fifty years which we celebrate, have taken 
 mighty strides toward the abolition of servitude. 
 Prussia, in the hour of its sufferings and its greatest ca- 
 lamities, renovated its existence partly by the estab- 
 lishment of schools, and partly by changing its serfs 
 into a proprietary peasantry. In Hungary the attempt 
 toward preserving the nationality of the Magyars may 
 have failed ; but the last vestiges of bondage have been 
 
24 
 
 efiFaced, and the holders of the plough have become the 
 owners of themselves and of its soil. 
 
 If events do, as I believe, correspond to the Divine 
 idea ; if God is the fountain of all goodness, the in- 
 spirer of true affection, the source of all intelligence ; 
 there is nothing of so great moment to the race as the 
 conception of his existence ; and a true apprehension 
 of his relations to man must constitute the turning 
 point in the progress of the world. And it has been 
 so. A better knowledge of his nature is the dividing 
 line that separates ancient history from modern ; the 
 old time from the new. The thought of Divine unity 
 as an absolute cause was familiar to antiquity ; but the 
 undivided testimony of the records of all cultivated na- 
 tions shows that it took no hold of the popular affec- 
 tions. Philosophers might conceive this Divine unity 
 as purest action, unmixed with matter ; as fate, holding 
 the universe in its invincible, unrelenting grasp ; as, 
 reason, going forth to the work of creation ; as the 
 primal source of the ideal archetypes, according to 
 which the world was fashioned ; as boundless power, 
 careless of boundless existence ; as the infinite one, slum- 
 bering unconsciously in the infinite all. Nothing of 
 this could take hold of the common mind, or make 
 
 '- Peor and Baalim 
 ; Forsake their temples dim," 
 
 or throw down the altars of superstition. 
 
 For the regeneration of the world, it was requisite 
 that the Divine Being should enter into the abodes and 
 the hearts of men, and dwell there ; that a belief in 
 him should be received, which should include all truth 
 respecting his essence ; that he should be known not 
 only as an abstract and absolute cause, but as the infi- 
 
26 
 
 nite fountain of moral excellence and beauty ; not as a 
 distant Providence of boundless power, and uncertain 
 or inactive will, but as God present in the flesh ; not as 
 an absolute lawgiver, holding the material world and 
 all intelligent existence in the chains of necessity, but 
 as a creative spirit, indwelling in man, his fellow- 
 worker and guide. 
 
 When the Divine Being was thus presented to the 
 soul, he touched at once man's aspirations, affections 
 and intelligence, and faith in him sunk into the in- 
 most heart of humanity. In vain did restless pride, as 
 that of Aeius, seek to paganize Christianity and make 
 it the ally of imperial despotism ; to prefer a belief 
 resting on authority and unsupported by an inward 
 witness, over the clear revelation of which the millions 
 might see and feel and know the divine glory ; to sub- 
 stitute the conception, framed after the pattern of hea- 
 thenism, of an agent, superhuman yet finite, for faith in 
 the ever-continuing presence of God with man; to 
 wrong the greatness and sanctity of the Spirit of God 
 by representing it as a birth of time. Against these 
 attempts to subordinate the enfranchising virtue of 
 truth to false worship and to arbitrary power, rea- 
 son asserted its supremacy, and the party of super- 
 stition was driven from the field. Then mooned 
 Ashtaroth was eclipsed, and Osiris was seen no more 
 in Memphian grove; then might have been heard 
 the crash of the falling temples of Polytheism ; and, 
 instead of them, came that harmony which holds 
 Heaven and Earth in happiest union. 
 
 Amid the deep sorrows of humanity during the 
 sad conflict which was protracted through centuries for 
 the overthrow of the past and the reconstruction of 
 society, the consciousness of an incarnate God carried 
 
26 
 
 peace into the bosom of mankind. That faith emanci- 
 pated the slave, broke the bondage of woman, re- 
 deemed the captive, elevated the low, lifted up the op- 
 pressed, consoled the wretched, inspired alike the heroes 
 of thought and the countless masses. The downtrod- 
 den nations clung to it as to the certainty of their future 
 emancipation ; and it so filled the heart of the greatest 
 poet of the Middle Ages — ^perhaps the greatest poet of 
 all time — that he had no prayer so earnest as to behold 
 in the profound and clear substance of the eternal light, 
 that circling of reflected glory which showed the image 
 of man. 
 
 From the time that this truth of the triune God 
 was clearly announced, he was no longer dimly con- 
 ceived as a remote and shadowy causality, but appeared 
 as all that is good and beautiful and true ; as goodness 
 itself, incarnate and interceding, redeeming and inspir- 
 ing ; the union of liberty, love, and light ; the infinite 
 cause, the infinite mediator, the infinite in and with the 
 universe, as the paraclete and comforter. The doctrine 
 once communicated to man, was not to be eradicated. 
 It spread as widely, as swiftly, and as silently as light, 
 and the idea of God with its "dwelt and dwells in every 
 system of thought that can pretend to vitality; in 
 every oppressed people, whose struggles to be free have 
 the promise of success ; in every soul that sighs for re- 
 demption. 
 
 This brings me to the last division of my subject. 
 That God has dwelt and dwells with humanity is not 
 only the noblest illustration of its nature, but the per- 
 fect guarantee for its progress. We are entering on a 
 new era in the history of the race, and though we can- 
 not cast its horoscope, we at least may in some measure 
 discern the course of its motion. 
 
27 
 
 Here we are met at the very threshold of our 
 argument by an afterbirth of the materiahsm of the 
 last century. A system which professes to re-construct 
 society on the simple observation of the laws of the 
 visible universe, and which is presented with arrogant 
 pretension under the name of the "Positive Philoso- 
 phy," scoflfe at all questions of metaphysics and reli- 
 gious faith as insoluble and unworthy of human atten- 
 tion; and affects to raise the banner of an affirming 
 belief in the very moment that it describes its main 
 characteristic as a refusal to recognise the infinite. 
 How those who own no source of knowledge but the 
 senses, can escape its humiliating yoke, I leave them to 
 discover. But it is as little entitled to be feared as to 
 be received. When it has put together all that it can 
 collect of the laws of the material universe, it can ad- 
 vance no further toward the explanation of existence, 
 morals, or reason. They who listen to the instructions 
 of inward experience, 'may smile at the air of wisdom 
 with which a scheme that has no basis in the soul is 
 presented to the world as a new universal creed, the 
 Catholic Church of the materialist. Its handful of 
 acolytes wonder why they remain so few. But Athe- 
 ism never holds sway over human thought except as 
 a usurper ; no child of its own succeeding. Error is a 
 convertible term with decay. Falsehood and death are 
 synonymes. Falsehood can gain no permanent foot- 
 hold in the immortal soul ; for there can be no abiding 
 or real faith, except in that which is eternally and uni- 
 versally true. The future will never produce a race of 
 atheists, and their casual appearance is but the evi- 
 dence of some ill-understood truth ; some mistaken di- 
 rection of the human mind ; some perverse or imper- 
 fect view of creation. The atheist denies the life of 
 
28 
 
 life, which is the source of liberty. Proclainiing him- 
 self a mere finite thing of to-day, he rejects all con- 
 nection with the infinite. Pretending to search for 
 truth, he abjures the spirit of truth. Were it possible 
 that the world of mankind could become without God, 
 that greatest death, the death of the race would ensue. 
 It is because man cannot separate himself from his 
 inward experience and his yearning after the infinite, 
 that he is capable of progress ; that he can receive a 
 religion whose history is the triumph of right over 
 evil, whose symbol is the resurrection. 
 
 The reciprocal relation between God and hunia,nity 
 constitutes the unity of the race. The more complete 
 recognition of that unity is the first great , promise 
 which we receive from the future. Nations have, in- 
 deed, had their separate creeds and institutions and 
 homes. The commonwealth of mankind, as a gi-eat 
 whole, was not to be constructed in one generation. 
 But the different peoples are to be considered as 
 its component parts, prepared, like so many springs 
 and wheels, one day to be put together. 
 
 Every thing tends to that consummation. Geogra- 
 phical research has penetrated nearly every part of the 
 world, revealed the paths of the ocean, and chronicled 
 even the varying courses of the winds ; while commerce 
 circles the globe. At our Antipodes, a new continent, 
 lately tenanted only by the wildest of men and the 
 strangest products of nature, the kangaroo and the 
 quadruped with the bill of a bird, becomes an outpost 
 of civilization, one day to do service in regenerating 
 the world. 
 
 In this great work our country holds the no- 
 blest rank. Rome subdued the regions round the 
 Mediterranean and the Euxine-, both inland seas ; the 
 
29 
 
 German Empire spread from the German Ocean to the 
 Adriatic. Our land extends far into the wilderness, 
 and beyond the wilderness ; and while on this side the 
 great mountains it gives the Western nations of Europe 
 a theatre for the renewal of their youth, on the trans- 
 montane side, the hoary civilization of the farthest 
 antiquity leans forward from Asia to receive the glad 
 tidings of the messenger of freedom. The islands of 
 the Pacific entreat our protection, and at our suit the 
 Empire of Japan breaks down its wall of exclusion. 
 
 Our land is not more the recipient of the men of 
 all countries than of their ideas. Annihilate the past 
 of any one leading nation of the world, and our des- 
 tiny would have been changed. Italy and Spain, in 
 the persons of Columbus and Isabella, joined together 
 for the great discovery that opened America to emi- 
 gration and commerce ; France contributed to its inde- 
 pendence ; the search for the origin of the language 
 we speak carries us to India; our religion is from 
 Palestine ; of the hymns sung in our churches, some 
 were first heard in Italy, some in the deserts of Arabia, 
 some on the banks of the Euphrates ; our arts come 
 from Greece; our jurisprudence from Rome; our mari- 
 time code from Russia ; England taught us the system 
 of Representative Government; the noble Republic 
 pf the United Provinces bequeathed to us in the world 
 of thought, the great idea of the toleration of all 
 opinions ; in the world of action, the prolific principle 
 of federal union. Our country stands, therefore, more 
 than any other as the realization of the unity of the race. 
 
 There is one institution so wide in its influence and 
 its connections, that it may already be said to represent 
 the intelligence of universal man. I have reserved to 
 this place a reference to the power, which has obtained 
 
30 
 
 its majestic development within the last fifty years, 
 till it now forms the controlling agency in renovating 
 civilization ; surpassing in the extent and effectiveness 
 of its teachings the lessons of the Academy and of 
 the pulpit. The invisible force of the magnetic ether 
 does not more certainly extend throughout the air and 
 the earth, than the press gives an impulse to the wave 
 of thought, so that it vibrates round the globe. The 
 diversity of nationalities and of governments continues ; 
 the press illustrates the unity of our intellectual world, 
 and constitutes itself the organ of collective humanity. 
 By the side of the press, the system of free schools, 
 though still very imperfectly developed, has made such 
 progress since it first dawned in Geneva and in parishes 
 of Scotland, that we are authorized to claim it of the 
 future as a universal institution. 
 
 The moment we enter upon an enlarged considera- 
 tion of existence, we may as well believe in beings 
 that are higher than ourselves, as in those that are 
 lower ; nor is it absurd to inquire whether there is a 
 plurality of worlds. Induction warrants the opinion, 
 that the planets and the stars are tenanted or are to 
 be tenanted, by inhabitants endowed with reason ; for 
 though man is but a new comer upon earth, the lower 
 animals had appeared through unnumbered ages, like 
 a long twilight before the day. Some indeed tremu- 
 lously inquire, how it may be in those distant spheres 
 with regard to redemption? But the scruple is un- 
 called for. Since the Mediator is from the begin- 
 ning, he exists for all intelligent creatures not less 
 than for all time. It is very narrow and contradictory 
 to confine his office to the planet on which we dwell. 
 In other worlds the facts of history may be, or rather, 
 by all the laws of induction, will be different ; but the 
 
31 
 
 essential relations of the finite to the infinite are, and 
 must be, invariable. It is not more certain that the 
 power of gravity extends through the visible universe, 
 than that throughout all time and all space, there is 
 but one mediation between God and created reason. 
 But leaving aside the question, how far rational life 
 extends, it is certain that on earth the capacity of coming 
 into connection with the infinite is the distinguishing 
 mark of our kind, and proves it to be one. Here, too, 
 is our solace for the indisputable fact, that humanity in 
 its upward course passes through the shadows of death, 
 and over the relics of decay. Its march is strown 
 with the ruins of formative efforts, that were never 
 crowned with success. How often does the just man 
 suffer, and sometimes suffer most for his brightest vir- 
 tues ! How often do noblest sacrifices to regenerate a 
 nation seem to have been offered in vain ! How often 
 is the champion of liberty struck down in the battle, 
 and the symbol which he uplifted, trampled under 
 foot ! But what is the life of an individual to that of 
 his country ? Of a state, or a nation, at a given mo- 
 ment, to that of the race ? The just man would cease 
 to be just, if he were not willing to perish for his kind. 
 The scoria that fly from the iron at the stroke of the 
 a!rtisan, show how busily he plies his task ; the clay 
 which is rejected from the potter's wheel, proves the 
 progress of his work; the chips of marble that are 
 thrown off by the chisel of the sculptor, leave the mir- 
 acle of beauty to grow under his hand. Nothing is 
 lost. I leave to others the questioning of Infinite 
 power, why the parts are distributed as they are, and 
 not otherwise. Humanity nsoves on, attended by its 
 glorious company of martyrs. It is our consolation, 
 that their sorrows and persecution and death are en- 
 countered in the common cause, and not in vain. 
 
32 
 
 The world is just begmning to take to heart this 
 principle of the unity of the race, and to discover how 
 folly and how beneficently it is fraught with interna- 
 tional, political, and social revolutions. Without at- 
 tempting to unfold what the greater wisdom of coming 
 generations can alone adequately conceive and practi- 
 cally apply, we may observe, that the human mind 
 tends not only toward unity, but univeesalitt. 
 
 Infinite truth is never received without some ad- 
 mixture of error, and in the struggle which necessarily 
 ensues between the two, the error constantly undergoes 
 the process of elimination. Investigations are con- 
 tinued without a pause. The explanatory hypothesis, 
 perpetually renewed, receives perpetual correction. 
 Fresh observations detect the fallacies in the former 
 hypothesis ; again, mind, acting a priori^ revises its 
 theory, of which it repeats and multiplies the tests. 
 Thus it proceeds from observation to hypothesis, and 
 from hypothesis to observation, progressively gaining 
 clearer perceptions, and more perfectly mastering its 
 stores of accumulated knowledge by generalizations 
 which approximate nearer and nearer to absolute truth. 
 "With each successive year, a larger number of 
 minds in each separate nationality inquires into man's 
 end and nature ; and as truth and the laws of God are 
 unchangeable, the more that engage in their study, the 
 greater will be the harvest. Nor is this all ; the na- 
 tions are drawn to each other as members of one fami- 
 ly; and their mutual acquisitions become a common 
 property. 
 
 In this manner, truth, as discerned by the mind of 
 man, is constantly recovering its primal lustre, and 
 is steadily making its way toward general accept- 
 ance. Not that gi'eater men will appear. Who can 
 
33 
 
 ever embody the high creative imagination of the poet 
 more perfectly than Homer, or Dante, or Shake- 
 SPEAEE? Who can discern "the ideas" of existences 
 more clearly than Plato, or be furnished with all the 
 instruments of thought and scientific attainment more 
 completely than Aristotle ? To what future artist 
 will beauty be more intimately present, than to Phidias 
 or Raphael ? In universality of mind, who will sur- 
 pass Bacon, or Leibnitz, or Kant ? Indeed, the world 
 may never again see their peers. There ai-e not want- 
 ing those who believe, that the more intelligence is dif- 
 fused, the less will the intelligent be distinguished from 
 one another ; that the colossal greatness of individuals 
 implies a general inferiority ; just as the solitary tree 
 on the plain alone reaches the fullest development ; or 
 as the rock that stands by itself in the wilderness, 
 seems to cast the widest and most grateful shade ; in 
 a word, that the day of mediocrity attends the day 
 of general culture. But if wiser men do not arise, 
 there will certainly be more wisdom. The collec- 
 tive man of the future M'ill see further, and see more 
 clearly, than the collective man of to-day, and he will 
 share his superior power of vision and his attain- 
 ments with every one of his time. Thus it has com^ 
 to pass, that the child now at school could instruct 
 Columbus respecting the figure of the earth, or Newton 
 respecting light, or Franklin on electricity ; that the 
 husbandman or the mechanic of a Christian congrega- 
 tion solves questions respecting God and man and 
 man's destiny, which perplexed the most gifted phi- 
 losophers of ancient Greece. 
 
 Finally, as a. consequence of the tendency of the 
 race towards unity and universality, the organization 
 of society must more and more conform to the j)i-iuci- 
 
 3 
 
34 
 
 pie of FREEDO^r. This will be the last triumph ; partly 
 because the science of government enters into the 
 sphere of personal interests, and meets resistance from 
 private selfishness ; and partly because society, before 
 it can be constituted aright, must turn its eye upon 
 itself, observe the laws of its own existence, and arrive 
 at the consciousness of its capacities and relations. 
 
 The system of political economy may solve the 
 question of the commercial intercourse of nations, 
 by demonstrating that' they all are naturally fellow- 
 woi-kers and friends ; but its abandonment of labor to 
 the unmitigated effects of personal competition can 
 never be accepted as the rule for the dealings of man 
 with man. The love for others and for the i-ace is as 
 much a part of human nature as the love of self ; it is 
 a common instinct that man is responsible for man. 
 The heart has its oracles, not less than the reason, and 
 this is one of them. No practicable system of social 
 equality has been brought forward, or it should, and it 
 would have been adopted ; it does not follow that none 
 can be devised, for there is no necessary opposition be- 
 tween handcraft and intelligence ; and the masses them- 
 selves will gain the knowledge of their rights, courage 
 to assert them, and self-respect to take nothing less. 
 The good time is coming, when humanity will recog- 
 nise all members of its family as alike entitled to its 
 care ; when the heartless jargon of over-production 
 in the midst of want will end in a better science of 
 distribution ; when man will dwell with man as with 
 his brother ; when political institutions will rest on 
 the basis of equality and freedom. 
 
 But this result must flow from internal activity 
 developed by universal culture ; it cannot be created 
 by the force of exterior philanthropy ; and still less by 
 
35 
 
 the reckless violence of men whose desperate audacity 
 would employ terror as a means to ride on the whirl- 
 wind of civil war. "Where a permanent reform appears 
 to have been instantaneously effected, it will be found 
 that the happy result was but the sudden plucking ©f 
 fruit which had slowly ripened. Successful revolutions 
 proceed like all other formative processes from in- 
 ward germs. The institutions of a people are always 
 the reflection of its heart and its intelligence ; and 
 in proportion as these are purified and enlightened, 
 must its public life manifest the dominion of universal 
 reason. 
 
 The subtle and irresistible movement of mind, 
 silently but thoroughly correcting opinion and chang- 
 ing society, brings liberty both to the soul and to the 
 world. All the despotisms on earth cannot stay its 
 coming. Every fallacy that man discards is an emanci- 
 pation ; every superstition that is thrown by, is a re- 
 deeming from captivity. The tendency towards uni- 
 versality implies necessarily a tendency towards free- 
 dom, alike of thought and in action. The foith of the 
 earliest ages was of all others the grossest. Every cen- 
 tury of the Christian Church is less corrupt and less in 
 bondage than its predecessor. The sum of spiritual 
 knowledge as well as of liberty is greater, and less 
 mixed with error now, than ever before. The future 
 shall surpass the present. The senseless stiife 1)etween 
 rationalism and supernaturalism Avill come to an end ; 
 an age of skepticism will not again be called an age 
 of reason ; and reason and religion will be found in 
 accord. 
 
 In the sphere of politics the Kepublican Govern- 
 ment has long been the aspiration of the wise. " The 
 human race," said Dante, summing up the experience 
 
36 
 
 of the Middle Age, " is in the best condition, when 
 it has the greatest degree of liberty ; " and Kant, 
 in like manner, giving utterance to the last word 
 of Protestantism, declared the republican government 
 to be " the only true civil constitution." Its permanent 
 establishment presupposes meliorating experience and 
 appropriate culture ; but the circumstances under which 
 it becomes possible, prevail more and more. Our coun- 
 try is bound to allure the world to freedom by the 
 beauty of its example. 
 
 The course of civilization flows on like a mighty 
 river through a boundless valley, calling to the streams 
 from every side to swell its current, which is always 
 growing wider, and deeper, and clearer, as it rolls along. 
 Let us trust ourselves upon its bosom without fear ; 
 nay, rather with confidence and joy. Since the pro- 
 gress of the race appears to be the great purpose of 
 Providence, it becomes us all to venerate the future. 
 We must be ready to sacrifice ourselves for our suc- 
 cessors, as they in their turn must live for their pos- 
 terity. We are not to be disheartened, that the in- 
 timate connection of humanity renders it impossible 
 for any one portion of the civilized world to be much 
 in advance of all the rest ; nor are we to grieve be- 
 cause an unalterable condition of perfection can never 
 be attained. Every thing is in movement, and for the 
 better, except only the fixed eternal law by which the 
 necessity of change is established ; or rather except 
 only God, who includes in himself all being, all truth, 
 and all love. The subject of man's thoughts remains 
 the same, but the sum of his acquisitions ever grows 
 with time ; so that his last system of philosophy is 
 the best, for it includes every one that went before. 
 
3T 
 
 The last political state of the world, likewise, is ever 
 more excellent than the old, for it presents in activity 
 the entire inheritance of truth, fructified by the living 
 mind of a more enlightened generation. 
 
 You, BROTHERS, who are joined together for the 
 study of history, receive the lighted torch of civiliza- 
 tion from the departing half-century, and hand it along 
 to the next. In fulfilling this glorious office, remember 
 that the principles of justice and sound philosophy are 
 but the inspirations of common sense, and belong of 
 right to all mankind. Carry them forth, therefore, to 
 the whole people ; for so only can society build itself 
 up on the imperishable groundwork of universal free- 
 dom. 
 
 EKKATUM. 
 Page 27, line 18, for 
 
 morals or reason. They who listen to the instructions, 
 
 read 
 
 morals or reason. 
 
 Philosophy, which leaned on Heaven before, 
 Shrinks to her second cause, and is no more. 
 
 They who listen to the instructions &c. 
 
piioce;edi:n^gs 
 
 NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 
 
 SEMI-CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY, 
 
 MONDAY, N0VI;MBER 20, 1854. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 PRINTED FOR THE SOCIETY 
 
 MDCCOUV. 
 
"gtia fflrfe |ist0rifal ^0tidg. 
 
 OF THB 
 
 FIFTIETH ANNIYERSARY, 
 
 NOVEMBER 20, 1854. 
 
 This being the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Founding of the 
 New York Historical Society, in accordance with previous ar- 
 rangements the officers and members of the Society assembled 
 at their rooms, in the University of the city of New York, at 
 two o'clock, p. M., where their guests were received and intro- 
 duced to the President. 
 
 At half past two o'clock, the officers and members of the So- 
 ciety, with their guests, proceeded to Niblo's Saloon, where a 
 numerous and brilliant audience already occupied the seats in 
 the house not reserved for the Society. After an overture by 
 the orchestra, under the direction of Mr. Harvey B. Dodworth, 
 the exercises of the day were opened by the President, who 
 made the following remarks : 
 
 Fellow-members of the Society, and Ladies and Gentlemen : 
 
 Fifty years have rolled their ceaseless tide along the current of 
 Time, since a few enlightened men laid in weakness, but with wise 
 forecast, the foundations of the New York Historical Society. This 
 
42 
 
 institution, through varying fortunes, but with ever-increasing efforts 
 and expanding usefulness, has already reached the close of the first 
 half century of its existence ; and vee are now assembled to celebrate 
 the first semi-cent<'nnial anniversary of its origin. The anniversary 
 address will be delivered by Mr Banckoft. The exercises of the 
 occasion will coninience with prayer to be ofiered by the liev. Dr. 
 De Witt, first Vice-President of the Society. 
 
 PEAYER. 
 
 thou High, and Holy One, who inhabitest eternity, and im- 
 mensity ; Sovereign Ruler and Lord of All, thine is the kingdom, 
 and power, and glory. We bow before thee at thy footstool. While 
 thy throne is founded in justice, and judgment, we thank thee, that 
 polluted and guilty as we are, we may approach thee with humble 
 confidence in the name of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, who 
 has abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light by 
 his gospel. We thank thee for all the mercies of thy Providence 
 which we partake individually, and in our domestic and social rela- 
 tions. We thank thee especially for all thy favors extended to us, 
 and all the blessings poured forth upon the people of these United 
 States. We revert to a little more than two centuries and a half 
 since, when the first colonists came with the open Bible, the open 
 school, and the open sanctuary, and now realize that the " handful of 
 corn " then sown "shakes like Lebanon," and that the "vine thou 
 didst plant when the heathen were cast before it has taken deep 
 root, has spread its branches from sea to sea," bearing fruit which 
 shall be for the healing of the nations. We hold in memory before 
 thy throne our ancestry, the wise men in counsel, and the valiant in 
 the field, and trace their onward course in the struggle for liberty, 
 the attainment of our independence, and the formation of our Consti- 
 tution under which we have dwelt so quietly and prosperously. We 
 would exclaim, "What hath God wrought?" in view of the wonder- 
 ful growth of our population, the results of active industry in its va- 
 rious departments, and our national influence which is spreading 
 abroad through the world. May wisdom and knowledge be the sta- 
 bility of our times. May righteousness ever exalt us, and sin never 
 be our reproach. We pray for all in authority, and who are in- 
 trusted to bear rule in our national and respective Statie govern- 
 ments. May they be men fearing God, hating covetousness, and 
 prove a blessing to the people over whom they are placed. Assem- 
 bled at the jubilee anniversary of the New York Historical Society, 
 
43 
 
 we thank thee for its institution, and the success which has attended 
 it. Grant thy blessing upon it continually, and bless kindred insti- 
 tutions in search of materials to fill up the history of our country. 
 Bless all institutions designed to spread education, mental, moral, 
 and spiritual, and to remove the sins and suflferings of men. Be 
 with us as now assembled, and be with him who has consented to ad- 
 dress us, and may we feel that the influence and result of this meet- 
 ing is to increase our feelings of Christian patriotism and Christian 
 philanthropy. All we ask is in the name of our adored, and pre- 
 cious Redeemer, who has taught us to pray, " Our Father who art in 
 Heaven, hallowed be thy name ; thy kingdom come ; thy will be 
 done on earth as it is done in Heaven ; give us this day oiir daily 
 bread ; forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass 
 against us ; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from 
 evil ; for thine is the kingdom, and power, and glory, for ever and 
 ever. Amen." 
 
 The prayer being concluded, the oration was delivered by 
 the Hon. George Bancroft. At the conclusion of the ora- 
 tion, which was received with great applause, the Rev. George 
 W. Bethune, D. D., addressed the President as follows : 
 
 Mr. President : — I shrink from following, with my awkward 
 sentences, the eloquent thoughts and diction to which we have been 
 listening with such pleasure and advantage ; but the committee act- 
 ing for the Society to-day, have just now made it my duty to ask 
 through you, sir, permission to express the thanks of this assembly 
 to the gentleman who has conferred so great a kindness upon us. 
 
 It is not necessary to use language for the purpose of telling him 
 our appreciation of his address. The rapt attention with which it 
 has been heard during the hours of its delivery, has testified our 
 sense of its excellence, and I should err in doing more than to move 
 a vote of thanks to our orator. 
 
 Tet, Mr. President, I cannot forget the most pleasing fact, that, 
 however ambitious we may have been to secure one, who, on the 
 present occasion, would do us honor, and give us profit by his emi- 
 nent qualifications, we did not need to go beyond the limits of our 
 own city, or the list of our own members, to find an orator in him, 
 whose magnificent genius has illustrated the annals of our country, 
 and has now taught us how we may act worthily of its citizenship ; 
 for when that gentleman returned from representing with equal dig- 
 nity and diplomatic skill the interests of our government at the first 
 
44 
 
 court in Europe, and not only our government but the educated 
 American mind in its highest accomplishment, he chose our beloved 
 New York as his place of residence, giving to our social circles the 
 welcome presence of a cultivated gentleman, to many of us, a plea- 
 sant friend, and to our Society, a faithful collaborator. 
 
 With these few words. I have the honor to move you. sir, that 
 the thanks of the Society, and of this audience, be presented to the 
 Hon. Mr. Bancroft for his address. 
 
 The resolution was seconded by the Hon. William W. 
 Campbell, and unanimously adopted. 
 
 The exercises at the Saloon were concluded by a benedic- 
 tion, pronounced by the Rev. Dr. Adams. 
 
 The Society, with their guests, then proceeded to the Astor 
 House, where an entertainment had been prepared for them by 
 Messrs. Coleman and Stetson. At six o'clock, Dr. De Witt 
 having asked a blessing, the company sat down to dinner, which 
 was admirably served. The cloth having been removed. Rev. 
 Dr. Mathews returned thanks, and the President introduced 
 the first regular toast, with the following remarks : 
 
 To the members and friends of the New York Historical Society, 
 this its first semi-centennial anniversary is one of great interest. In 
 looking back, through the intervening half century, to the origin of 
 the Society, to the early difficulties it had to encounter, and to its 
 progress through those difficulties to its present condition of high 
 prosperity, we find abundant reasons for congratulation and en- 
 couragement. In looking forward, from this advanced point of pre- 
 sent achievement, to the Future, the horizon of our field of labor 
 becomes enlarged before us, our responsibility increases with our pro- 
 gress, and admonishes us that past success should only serve to stim- 
 ulate future effort ; and that the practical motto of the Society 
 should ever be " to consider nothing as done, while any thing yet re- 
 mains to be done." 
 
 With these preliminary remarks, I have now to propose our first 
 regular toast : 
 
 ]. The 20th November, 1804 — the birth-day of the New Tork Historical 
 Society ; rieli in its memories of the Past, and in its hopes of the Future, may 
 each return of this Anniversary find the Society more abounding in its means, 
 more active in its operations, and more extended in its usefulness. 
 
 This toast having been received with all the honors, the 
 President rose and said : 
 
45 
 
 On an occasion like the present, it is eminently fitting and pro- 
 per that we should not be unmindful of those to whose enlightened 
 wisdom, public spirit, and personal efforts we are indebted for the 
 origin, the progress, and the present prosperity of this Society. 
 Among these are the names of Egbert Benson, Brockholst Living- 
 ston, De Witt Clinton, Samuel Miller, Samuel L. Mitchell, David 
 Hosack, John M. Mason, Charles Wilkes, John Pintard, Peter A. Jay. 
 James Kent, Peter G. Stuyvesant, Albert Gallatin, Samuel Jones, 
 Philip Hone, James G. King, Jonathan M. Wainwright, James 
 Lenox, and other names that not only adorn the annals of this 
 Society, but many of which are high and brilliant on the Records of 
 the History of our State and Country. 
 
 I, therefore, ask you to unite with me in honoring our second re- 
 gular toast : 
 
 2. The memory of the Founders and Benefactors of the Society. 
 
 A call for Dr. John W. Francis being loudly made, he 
 was received with much enthusiasm. He said : 
 
 I wish, Mr. President you had summoned some one more com- 
 petent than myself You will at once perceive that I labor under 
 considerable embarrassment, owing to difficulty of speech caused by 
 a severe cold caught a few evenings ago and not properly attended to. 
 Besides, sir, I do not see how it is possible to gather confidence enough 
 for the evening, surrounded as I am with so much loveliness at this 
 end of the room, and so much talent throughout the entire hall. 
 I am, sir, within an atmosphere of intellect. You have had to-day a 
 blaze of it. You have seen the force of it. You have witnessed 
 its incantation, and you know how wonderfully magnificent its influ- 
 ence has been. How then can a farthing rush-light display any de- 
 monstration on this occasion ? Your toast is one of most copious 
 extent. You have demanded of me that I should say something re- 
 lative to the commencement of the Society. I hardly know in what 
 manner to take it up : " The Founders and Benefactors of the New 
 York Historical Society." Were I to descant upon but a few of 
 them it would take all night. However, with great deference to the 
 Society and this large assemblage here this evening, I will make a 
 few passing remarks upon some individuals. 
 
 No man who lives in New York — no man who has resided in this 
 city within the last twenty, thirty, forty, or fifty years, who has heard 
 of the Historical Society, can for one moment doubt that John 
 PiNTAED was its founder. — John Pintard was a descendant of that 
 
46 
 
 noble army of Huguenots who fled to this country upon the revoca- 
 tion of the edict of Nantz. He was a native of the city of New 
 York and born May 18, 1759. He studied the elements of general 
 and classical education with the learned Cutting on Long Island ; 
 and afterwards entered Princeton College. His acquisitions were 
 commanding ; and at this early period of his life he studied public 
 men and public measures ; enjoyed the society of the patriotic presi- 
 dent of the college, Dr. Witherspoon ; read the letters of Junius in 
 the public papers of the day, and formed a wide circle of learned 
 and distinguished friends. Upon the Declaration of Independence 
 being announced, he left his classical retreat ; and his relative, Elias 
 Boudinot, being appointed Commissary for American prisoners, 
 Pintard was selected for his Secretary. To his range of elegant 
 literature he added some knowledge of the law, and after the tri- 
 umphs of the revolutionary struggle had been secured, we find him 
 in close employment in the memorable scrip affairs of 1792-93, &c. His 
 interests in these matters proving disastrous, he became a prominent 
 editor in the old Daily Advertiser for several years. He was a- rigid 
 Washingtonian in his politics. Resigning his station as editor, we 
 find him at New Orleans, where he examined so minutely the con- 
 dition of things, that shortly after his return to his native place he 
 published, in 1804, a topographical and medical review of that metro- 
 polis. Again settled in this city, he seems to have been indus- 
 triously and worthily employed in enjoining upon the counsellors 
 of the Municipal Government, the importance of statistical records 
 of Births and Deaths, which was finally adopted by the authorities, 
 and we now possess a series of documentary Reports on that subject, 
 faithfully preserved from 1800, up to the present time. He was ap- 
 pointed the First City Inspector in 1804. But I dare not dwell 
 upon the numerous civic services he rendered this city during his 
 long and industrious life. The First Bank of Savings originated 
 with him. He was conspicuous in the formation of the American 
 Bible Society : he was a main spring in the organization of the 
 Theological Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church : he gave 
 impetus to the revival of the Chamber of Commerce. While a mem- 
 ber of our City Corporation and of our State Legislature, so early as 
 1791-2, when the latter body held its sessions in this city, we find 
 him projecting measures for the improvement of the public affairs of 
 his native place and for incorporating the Bank of New York, the 
 earliest bank in the State. But I have elsewhere already specified 
 most of his useful undertakings of which our people now reap the 
 benefit. 
 
47 
 
 John Pintard was a man of extensive historical, geographical, 
 and above all, didactic information. I hardly speak within the charge 
 of exaggeration, when I affirm that he knew nearly all Dr. Johnson's 
 writings by heart. You could scarcely approach him without having 
 something of Dr. Johnson's thrust on you. He was versed in 
 theological and polemical divinity — Stillingfleet was his idol ; of 
 South he was a great admirer, and in the progress of Church aiFaijs 
 among us, he was ever a devoted disciple. He had read with the dili- 
 gence of a student our historical anuals, and in particular our early 
 State history, our Indian and French wars, the story of the Revolu- 
 tionary contest ; the history of the Iroquois, and the confederated 
 Six Mations. He dwelt like Clinton upon that wonderful orator, Red 
 Jacket, and to all these acquisitions he added much knowledge of the 
 glories and resources of the Empire State. Like Cadwallader 
 D. Colden, John Pintard proved an efficient auxiliary in furtherance 
 of the Canal policy of his illustrious and most intimate friend, De Witt 
 Clinton. The first meeting of our citizens in recommendation of this 
 vast measure was brought together through his instrumentality, at a 
 time when to give it any countenance whatever was sure to bring upon 
 the advocate of the ruinous measure the anathemas of certain of the 
 political leaders of those days, and official proscription. I remember 
 well how cautiously and how secretly many of those incipient meet- 
 ings in favor of the contemplated project were convened ; and how 
 the manly bosom of Clinton often throbbed at the agonizing remarks 
 the opposition muttered in his hearing, and the hazard to his per- 
 sonal security which he sometimes encountered. But Pintard, like 
 Clinton, lived to witness the crowning glory of the vast undertak- 
 ing, and they enjoyed the triumph to their hearts' content at the 
 great celebration in 1824, when the union of the waters of Lake Erie 
 with the Atlantic Ocean was consummated. In the full fruition of 
 the Christian hope, he died June 21st, 1844, in the eighty-sixth year 
 of his age. 
 
 When we consider the disasters of his early life in business, 
 by which he lost his patrimony ; the incessant toil he bestowed 
 to enable him to support and rear up a large family ; his eflforts in 
 public calamities and distress, and in periods of pestilence ; his indi- 
 vidual benefactions to the poor and needy ; his generous support to 
 literature. — we are justified in pronouncing him a noble specimen of 
 the patriotic and the humane. On a particular occasion, an unfortu- 
 nate man, who had suffered the trials of the Jersey prison-ship, ad- 
 dressed, in the presence of Pintard, an affluent individual, for some 
 trifling relief, which was declined : the petitioner turned to Pintard 
 
48 
 
 with like accents, and found succor. " Where do you find authority 
 in Scripture to give alms in your situation ! " asked Croesus of Pin- 
 tard. " Our people, sir," rejoined Pintard, " know not what Ameri- 
 can liberty has cost : The example of the Centurion justifies me : 
 ' Thy prayers and thy alms have come up for a memorial before God.' " 
 The formalist was silenced. He often said to his intimate and con- 
 stant friend, George B. Rapelye, " I shall die my own executor." 
 
 There were periods in his life in which he gave every unappro- 
 priated moment to philological inquiry, and it was curious to see him 
 ransacking his formidable pile of dictionaries for radicals and syno- 
 nymes with an earnestness that would have done honor to the most 
 eminent student in the republic of letters. He could tolerate no in- 
 vasion of his idol. Dr. Johnson. Amidst his most pressing necessi- 
 ties, even in advanced life, his mental energies suffered no detriment ; 
 he took a lively interest in affairs, and was exempt from that indif- 
 ference and sluggishness of mind which too often weigh down the 
 faculties of the aged devoid of intellectual culture. There is a 
 great deal of good picking in the world, he would say, but it is hard 
 to get hold of it. Literary curiosity was the refreshment of his old 
 age : but every physician knows the fact, that in most instances intel- 
 lectual food is the material to mitigate our sufferings in the decrepit 
 years of life. Books, said the benevolent Pintard, give me a downy 
 pillow. 
 
 But I must revert to the Historical Society. Pintard was well 
 acquainted with the valuable labors of the Massachusetts? Historical 
 Society. He knew well that New York was equally rich in mate- 
 rials for the services of a similar institution here. He hardly ques- 
 tioned that her patriotism was less than that of that glorious State. 
 He accordingly, after consultation with several of our prominent in- 
 dividuals, recommended the first regular meeting on the 20th of No- 
 vember, 1804. at the old City Hall, in Wall street, and in that room 
 where Washington had been inaugurated the first President of the 
 United States. Egbert Benson, De Witt Clinton, John M. Mason, 
 William Linn, Samuel Miller, David Hosack, John N. Abeel, Samuel 
 Bayard, Peter G. Stuyvesant, Anthony Bleecker, and John Pintard 
 constituted the first meeting. A committee from those present, con- 
 sisting of Benson, Miller, and Pintard, was appointed to draft a con- 
 stitution ; and the meeting adjourned to meet again on the evening 
 of the 10th of December. At their adjourned meeting the constitu- 
 tion was adopted, and the first meeting convened under it was held 
 on the 14th of January, 1805, when Egbert Benson was elected 
 President, and John Pintard, Becording Secretary. 
 
49 
 
 It can readily be perceived that the Society at its very first in- 
 ception, could boast of strong men : individuals who had already in 
 their course of life manifested enlightened views, a patriotic spirit, a 
 true love of civic distinction, and talents of superior and efficient 
 excellence ; who had studied the annals of their country's struggles, 
 her war of independence, the constitution ; and who were alive to 
 the fact that the preservation of contemporary records was the data 
 from which future history was to receive its true impress. The 
 dreadful perversions of facts and opinions about that particular 
 period when the Society was organized, amidst a great political 
 revolution in the general government and in many of the States of 
 the Union, acted as an additional stimulus to hasten the work of 
 conservatism by fidelity in historical research grounded on docu- 
 mentary testimony. Moreover, many of the great minds who had 
 shed their lustre over oui; annals were either resident among our in- 
 habitants, or engaged in good works in other sections of the Republic. 
 Their very presence admonished the association of the triumphs to 
 be secured by working in the patriotic cause while so many of the 
 actors in our great events were yet among us. Benson was enriched 
 with constitutional laurels, and had distinguished himself in State 
 legislation and in Congress and on the Bench. His integrity was a 
 proverb. He was, moreover, well impregnated with Indian antiquities, 
 Indian names, and a knowledge of the early Dutch occurrences of New 
 York. Benson was a native of this city — educated in King's, now 
 Columbia College, and died, in 1833, aged 87 years. His historical 
 Memoir is not to be overlooked by the curious in antiquarian research. 
 Of Clinton, I need only say, that he held for several years the office of 
 President of the Society, that through his whole life he was devoted 
 to its interests, and added to his own and the Society's renown, by his 
 admirable discourses. John M. Mason was distinguished for his noble 
 and fearless bearing, his erudition, his polemical and pulpit writings, 
 and his marvellous eloquence. It may justly be admitted that he 
 was the greatest pulpit orator of his time. Vigor of thought, energy 
 of diction, were his greatest characteristics. He temporized with no 
 errors, if he deemed them such, and his aphoristic diction left a last- 
 ing impression on every hearer. In controversy he seems to have 
 adopted Priestley's rule, " a fair field, and no quarter." The warmth 
 of his temperament animated all his discourses ; lethargy or indif- 
 ference found no repose within the sound of his voice, and the mul- 
 titudes which crowded to hear him was proof of the popularity of his 
 impressive utterance and the force of the mighty truths he promul- 
 4 
 
50 
 
 gated. To borrow the language of Grattan, when speaking of Dean 
 Kirwan, " He came to interrupt the repose of the pulpit, and shake 
 one world with the thunder of the other : the preacher's desk 
 became the throne of light.'' As no obstacles intimidated him, 
 he was ever ready for every good work. I know that his heart was 
 filled with tenderness ; that his friendship was most tenacious ; and 
 when you heard him speak in laudation of individuals, you were con- 
 scious that it was a heartfelt eulogy. The ardent theological discus- 
 sions in which he so often engaged, and the stern attitude he habit- 
 ually maintained in regard to popular errors, caused him to be gene- 
 rally considered a man of great hardihood and little susceptibility ; 
 but, whoever beheld his eyes (as I have done) fill with tears at the 
 mention of Kobert Hall's eloquent services and useful career, would 
 realize that the strength of his understanding was equalled by the 
 tenderness of his heart. We have a beautiful example of his char- 
 acter in his ministrations at the death-bed of the lamented Hamil- 
 ton, whose last hours were thus solaced by the Christian sympathy 
 of a braVe and devoted soldier of the cross. 
 
 William Linn was an eminent divine of the Dutch Reformed 
 Church, of great pulpit eloquence ; rich in American feelings, well 
 laden with historical materials, patriotic in his sentiments, con- 
 servative in his principles ; and, so far as his professional duties 
 allowed him, gave an impulse to the Society. Of Samuel Miller I 
 might speak at some length. He was a scholar of fair pretensions. 
 His Americanism was indubitable. His leading trait was benignity, 
 and it was no figure of speech which distinguished him from his 
 brother, as the divine Miller ; for such he was in character not less 
 than in profession. Intellectually his mind was historical in ten- 
 dency ; his eloquence was singularly persuasive, and his literary ac- 
 quisitions extensive. His " Brief Retrospect of the Eighteenth Cen- 
 tury " marks an era in our literature, and it was justly observed by 
 a British critic, that by this work he had deserved the praises of 
 both hemispheres. So deeply were his sympathies engaged in the 
 objects of this Society, that he contemplated a history of the State of 
 New York, and had collected materials of some extent for that pur- 
 pose. The records of our Society, and its printed volumes, evince 
 the zeal, ability and devotedness of David Hosack in the promotion 
 of our great design. This eminent physician, professor, and medical 
 writer, whose long professional career has identified his name with 
 most of the great public institutions of our metropolis, literary and 
 Jiumaue, gave much of his time and talents in aid of the great pur- 
 
51 
 
 poses of our incorporation. He justly deemed our association of 
 high value, and his devotion to its interests in the darkest period of 
 its history, is proof of the feelings he cherished in its hehalf 
 
 Another valuable recruit to our primitive corps from the ranks of 
 the church was John N. Abeel, whose high character and large at- 
 tainments rendered him an important auxiliary. He was also the 
 representative of Dutch feelings, and his name is identified with our 
 colonial history. The first meeting was also favored on that occa- 
 sion by the presence of a gentleman of public spirit and benevolence 
 from New Jersey, Samuel Bayard, already known as the promoter 
 of the interests of learning in that State. Most appropriately also 
 was the Society's inauguration assisted by a descendant of one of the 
 patriarchs of New Amsterdam, Peter G. Stdyvesant, whose bene- 
 factions and character aid in the perpetuation of his ancestor's fame. 
 Let me detain you with one other name, Anthony Bleecker, a 
 name familiar to New York for many generations. He was edu- 
 cated for the bar, but like many law-students, with the instinct for 
 belles-lettres strongly developed, gave his time chiefly to literature. 
 His taste and a benevolent heart made him a favorite coadjutor in 
 this enterprise. He courted the muses with no inconsiderable success, 
 and was a frequent contributor to the earliest literary journals pub- 
 lished in this city. He compiled Captain Riley's narrative, a work 
 in its days, of great popularity, and gave him, I believe, the entire 
 benefit of that publication. Bleecker was of the kindest nature, and 
 remarkable for a generous sympathy for literary merit. Few indivi- 
 duals among us ever equalled him in a devotion to the interests and 
 character of New York. In the vigor of his mental powers he died 
 of a disease of the heart. 
 
 I have already stated that at the adjourned session held on the 
 10th of Dec, 1804, a constitution was adopted. On consulting the 
 records of the Society, it is ascertained that additional persons at- 
 tended this important meeting ; whose names of great renown add 
 honor to the organization of the association. Now we find Rufus 
 King, Daniel D. Tompkins, and John Henry Hobart, among 
 these individuals of whom it were superfluous at this time to utter 
 more than their names : also John Bowden, William Harris, John 
 Kemp, Peter Wilson, John C. Kunze, all then or subsequently of 
 the Faculty of Columbia College, attesting that that venerable seat 
 of learning sent a powerful deputation for the promotion of the 
 Society. Dr. McVickar, the accomplished Professor of Belles-Lettres, 
 has given us a beautiful tribute to the memory of Bowden, which 
 
52 
 
 every graduate of the College recognizes as justly due his character. 
 Harris was a classical scholar of rare proficiency, versed in eccle- 
 siastical history, and who afterwards held for many years the office 
 of President of Columbia College. Kemp, who died at the early age 
 of fifty years, in New York in 1812, was by birth a Scotchman, and 
 is still well remembered by many surviving graduates of Columbia 
 College as an eminent professor in that institution of Mathematics, 
 Natural Philosophy, Geography and History. His countenance gave 
 aid to the Society ; Professor Kenwick has furnished a short memoir 
 of his life in the American Medical and Philosophical Register. 
 Wilson, long a Professor of the Latin and Greek Languages, had 
 much other knowledge to render him an acceptable co-operator. He 
 was notable as a linguist and verbal writer. Dr. William Duer has not 
 forgotten him in his valuable discourse before the St. Nicholas Society. 
 KuNZG was among the most learned divines and oriental scholars of 
 the day ; his reading embraced a wide scope of knowledge, and 
 he was something of a proficient in his acquaintance with the Legal 
 Medicine of Paulus Zaehias : but he perhaps will hereafter be most 
 distinctly recognized as the Preceptor of the amiable and accom- 
 plished Dr. Stuber, the author of the continuation of the Life of 
 Franklin. We may also notice John Murray, Jun., of the Society 
 of Friends ; a clever man, a lover of the arts, a philanthropist, and 
 an early and ardent promoter of our Free-School system ; and Archi- 
 bald Bruce the first (chronologically speaking) professor of Miner- 
 alogy in this country, and the Editor of the American Mineralogical 
 Journal. In Thacher's Medical Biography, I have written of him at 
 greater length. 
 
 These facts may be of some interest as referring to the early 
 history of the New York Historical Society ; they are related from 
 personal knowledge, although my connection with the Society dates 
 from Miller's masterly discourse in 1809, to which I had the honor 
 and pleasure of listening. I have but briefly indicated as the occa- 
 sion alone permits the prominent traits of the small band who fint 
 gathered to form the Society. They are no more : but their work 
 survives, and we gratefully recall their virtues to-night. You will 
 perceive that though few in number, our founders included a rare 
 amount of influence, such as is derived from practical skill in afiairs 
 an enthusiasm for knowledge, high literary attainments, and a patriotic 
 spirit. — You will easily summon to recollection the many eminent 
 men who have subsequently given dignity and interest to our asso- 
 ciation, and a task more pleasing or grateful could not be undertaken 
 
53 
 
 than a fair record of their character and career did the hour and the 
 occasion tolerate the measure. 
 
 3. The President of the United States. 
 
 4. The Governor of the State of New-Tork. 
 
 The President, on introducing the fifth toast, said : — 
 
 In asking your attention to the suhject of our next toast, I take 
 the occasion to state an historical fact of great interest not only to 
 the City of New York, but to the cause of History. It is a fact 
 much less generally known than, from its general interest, it ought 
 to be. 
 
 It is doubtless well known to many of you, that the history of 
 the Municipal Government of this city, from its first organization 
 under the Burgomasters and Schepens, down to the year 1831, com- 
 prising a period of near two hundred years, and embracing important 
 changes in the Government of the city, the State, and the nation — 
 this history exists only in a single manuscript copy, exposed to 
 destruction by fire, or other accident. This manuscript destroyed, 
 and two centuries of the History of our Municipal Government 
 would become for ever extinct. It would leave behind it no fragments 
 from which that history could be reconstructed. The loss would be 
 entire and irreparable. That the copies of this manuscript history 
 should be, in some way, multiplied, and so disposed of, as to afibrd a 
 reasonable assurance of their preservation, and the perpetuitj' of the 
 history, will be readily conceded by all ; and I trust that it may not 
 be unreasonable to hope that a subject of so much interest to the City 
 of New York, and to the truth of History, may receive the early and 
 effectual attention of our City Government. 
 
 With these remarks I propose to you our fifth regular toast : — 
 
 5. The Mayor and Municipal Government of the City of New York : in the 
 faithful dischai-ge of their high office, they are the guardians of its History, as 
 well as of its character and it« welfare. 
 
 6. The Army and Navy of the United States : each in its turn, has contri- 
 boted to the History of our country some of its brightest pages. 
 
 Hon. Frederick P. Stanton, of Tennessee, being called 
 upon, responded as follows : — 
 
 Gentlemen: — I could not have anticipated the absence of that 
 illustrious citizen of your State, the senior officer of the army of the 
 United States, who was expected to be present and respond to the 
 sentiment just announced. Still less could I have presumed upon 
 
54 
 
 being myself honored with the invitation to respond for the army, in 
 the place of that accomplished and gallant soldier. It is to no merit 
 of my own, and to no personal fitness for the position and the task 
 assigned me, that I can ascribe the compliment implied in your call : 
 it must be only because, upon this interesting occasion, I represent a 
 State whose sons have done something on the field of battle, for the 
 glory of American arms, for the preservation of liberty, and for the 
 inspiration of historic genius. 
 
 If, in this unpremeditated attempt to return the acknowledg- 
 ments of the army for the generous sentiment which has just been 
 received with so much enthusiasm, I could, for the time being, so far 
 elevate myself as to assume the sentiments and feelings which always 
 animate that noble band, I should certainly feel bound to exhibit a 
 becoming modesty in speaking of its glorious deeds. And when I 
 observe the presence in which I stand — the striking array of eminent 
 ability, and established reputation by which I am surrounded ; when 
 I reflect that you, like myself, must be impatient for that " feast of 
 reason " which we are soon to enjoy ; and, especially, when I know 
 that the navy, kindred in glory and fitly sharing the honor of the 
 sentiment announced, is present to answer in the person of one of 
 its most gallant sons — I feel how appropriate it is for me to say only, in 
 the name of the army, that its privilege is to act, and not to speak — 
 to execute, and not to record its own deeds. It presents to you some 
 of the most important materials of history. Take them : make of 
 them what you can. In your labors the army must ever feel the 
 most intense interest ; for it is history, alone, which can erect the 
 monument, "aere perennius," to which the soldier looks as the 
 highest and noblest reward of his labors and sacrifices in the service 
 of his country. 
 
 On the other hand, if for myself and in my own personal cha- 
 racter, I should feel at liberty to say any thing of the splendid 
 achievements of American arms, scattered as they are on this con- 
 tinent from Bunker Hill to Saratoga and Yorktown, and from New 
 Orleans to Buena Vista, Vera Cruz, and Mexico, it would now be no 
 more than this : that if American historians shall prove equal to their 
 glorious theme, and shall worthily record the deeds of the United 
 States army, they will indeed present to the world, and bequeathe to 
 posterity, the highest possible evidence of their own inspired genius. 
 
 Com. J. McKeever, in a brief speech, acknowledged the 
 honor conferred upon that branch of the public service to which 
 he belonged, and expressed the hope that the actions of the 
 
65 
 
 Navy might always speak more eloquently in its behalf, than 
 he possibly could, on that, or any other occasion. 
 
 1. The CommaBding General of the Army of the United States : whose or- 
 ders before the battle, have proved to be a true history of the fight. 
 
 This toast was received with great enthusiasm, and a note 
 from General Scott was read, which will be found among the 
 correspondence reported by the committee. 
 
 The President then gave as the eighth regular toast : — 
 
 8. The Orator of the day : in writing the history of hia country, he has per- 
 petuated his own. 
 
 Mr. Bancroft rose, and replied as follows : — 
 
 Having taken up so much of your time this morning, I have now 
 no right to hold you long ; but my heart leaps to my lips to respond 
 to the cordial manner in which you receive me. The traveller who 
 leaves New York, sees no day so happy as the day of his return. I 
 have every reason to be grateful, that I selected New York for my 
 home ; for where are the greetings of friendship more hearty ? 
 Where are good influences more ready to quicken well-devised de- 
 signs and stimulate honorable action ? Where do thi very eager- 
 ness and multiplied variety of activity better encourage by healthful 
 contrast the quiet occupations of the scholar ? The spirit of univer- 
 sal toleration pervades the city, which is most intimately connected 
 with all parts of the world, and is, as it were, the representative of 
 all times and nations. Nature, too, has lavished around us her ut- 
 most magnificence ; where the Niagara connects our inland seas, or 
 the Genesee cleaves its way down the mountain-ranges ; or where 
 Lake George reposes among our Highlands, or the Hudson crowns 
 its banks with all that is beautiful in scenery, and all that is lovely 
 and generous and refined in hospitality. If, as students of History, 
 we look back upon the past, this commonwealth traces its rise to the 
 home of modern commerce, industry, and enterprise ; to the chosen 
 asylum of the science and liberal culture which the Reformation fos- 
 tered. If we call to mind the deeds that distinguish our own soil, 
 faithful history records, how in the revolutionary struggle, this State, 
 in proportion to its numbers, signalized itself by its contributions of 
 its men and of its substance to the common cause. Of all the mem- 
 bers of the Union, it had the largest frontier exposed to the desola- 
 tions of savage inroads ; and all the way from the shore of Cham- 
 
56 
 
 plain to the cabins on the Susquehanna, its sons poured out their 
 blood like water for the sake of freedom and their country. Here 
 were the outposts, over whose inhabitants sorrows thickened like the 
 cloud and burst like the tempest, and here is the battle-field of Sara- 
 toga, where victory gave Independence its perfect guarantee. But 
 it is not chiefly on these accounts that the State of New York has 
 gained its high position in the career of humanity. She is emphati- 
 cally the foster-parent of Union. The idea of a Federal Union came 
 with the first emigrants from Holland, and ever remained the warm 
 impulse and hope of all their descendants. It was natural for them 
 to desire independence. The Hollander, when once the connection 
 with his own mother country was dissolved, panted for a freer and 
 more prosperous republic than even that of his progenitors, and saw 
 clearly that such a republic could exist in strength, and in varied 
 and expanding culture, only as a cluster of States. Here, therefore, 
 under the influence of geographical position and hereditary wisdom, 
 the first Congress was held in the heart of the Dutch population of 
 New York. Here in this city, Franklin, the great advocate of union, 
 was welcomed with unbounded joy. as he came down our river to re- 
 port the auspicious plan of a federation. The Constitution of the 
 United States was founded on reason ; and made its way to success 
 by appeals to reason ; and the prevailing appeal was made through 
 the press of New York, especially by its own Jay and Hamilton. 
 Here, too, the great Washington — he, who not only stands foremost 
 in the affections of his country, but lives throughout the world as 
 the representative name of all that is most disinterested and most 
 sincere, inaugurated our Bepublic, at the very moment when Europe 
 was rocking with the convulsions of revolution, and France was just 
 entering on that course of change which has not yet terminated. I 
 will not offer as a sentiment that our prosperity should be estab- 
 lished on a rock ; for geologists tell us that rocks are of compara- 
 tively modern origin, and are constantly undergoing the process of 
 decay ; I look for a fit image, to something more enduring, and ask 
 leave to propose : 
 
 Our Union : may it last as long as the empire of love and reason. 
 
 The President then proceeded to welcome the delegates from 
 the various kindred Societies who were present on the occasion, 
 offering them all the right hand of fellowship, and concluding 
 with the following toast : — 
 
 9. Our Sister Societies : co-laborers with us in the cause of historical truth; 
 wa welcome them cordially on this occasion. 
 
57 
 
 The Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, of Massachusetts, as a 
 representative of the oldest Historical Society in the Union, was 
 first called upon to respond to this toast, and his rising was 
 greeted with applause, which indicated what expectations of his 
 eloquence were entertained. He said : — 
 
 I need not assure you, Mr. President, that I am deeply sensible 
 to this kind notice and this cordial reception. It is with real plea- 
 sure that I have found myself able, — somewhat unexpectedly at the 
 last moment, — to be present on this occasion, to participate in these 
 anniversary festivities as one of your invited guests, and to listen to 
 the comprehensive and powerful discourse of one, in whose fame 
 Massachusetts can claim at least an equal share with New York, 
 and who has just presented so brilliant a title to be recognized 
 afresh as the historian of the whole country. 
 
 I feel myself greatly honored, too, in being commissioned as one 
 of the delegates of the Historical Society of Massachusetts, to bear 
 her birthday greetings and congratulations to her sister Society of 
 New York. Your elder sister by a few years, as she is, and by right 
 of seniority the very head of the whole family of American historical 
 associations — she rejoices in every evidence of your superior advan- 
 tages and ampler resources, and I should do great injustice to those 
 who have sent me, as well as to those by whom I am accompanied, if 
 I did not assure you of the sincere and earnest interest which we all 
 take in the signal manifestation of your prosperity and progress 
 which this occasion has afforded. If I may be pardoned for borrow- 
 ing an expressive orientalism, and for playing upon it for an instant 
 after I have borrowed it, I would venture to wish that your associa- 
 tion might not only flourish like the chosen palm-tree of the plain, 
 but that it might never fail to furnish, to all who repose beneath its 
 shade, an abundant supply of dates. For, sir, much as we may sen- 
 timentalize about the historic muse, some of my friends at this end 
 of the table, who have courted her ladyship most successfully, will 
 bear witness that she does not feed upon air, but that, on the con- 
 trary, she has a voracious appetite for precisely this variety of fruit, 
 and cannot live without it — hard and dry and husky, as it is gene, 
 rally considered by other people. 
 
 Sir, the Historical Societies of the different States of the Union — 
 and I am glad to remember that there are now so few States with- 
 out one — are engaged in a common labor of love and loyalty in 
 gathering up materials for the history of our beloved country. But 
 
58 
 
 each one of them has a peculiar province of interest and of effort in 
 illustrating the history of its own State. And how worthy and how 
 wide a field is thus opened to the labors of your own Society ! New 
 York — the truly imperial State of New York — a nation in itself — 
 with a population equal to that of the whole Union in the days of our 
 revolutionary struggle — great in territorial extent — surpassingly 
 rich in every variety of material and of moral resources — unequalled 
 in its external advantages and in its internal improvement of those 
 advantages — ^greatest of all, perhaps, in its commercial emporium, 
 by every token and by all acknowledgment entitled to the crown, as 
 the Queen City of the Western Hemisphere ! What State in the 
 Union is there which combines so many elements of growth and of 
 grandeur ! What State, any where, has been so marked and quoted 
 by nature as the abode of enterprise and the seat of empire ! 
 
 If a stranger from abroad desires to see the beauties or the won- 
 ders of American scenery, where else does he betake himself — as my 
 friend, Mr. Bancroft, has just suggested — but along the charming 
 banks of your Hudson, or through the exquisite passes of your Lake 
 George, or up the romantic ravines of your Trenton, or over the 
 lofty peaks of your Catskill, or upon the sublime and matchless 
 brink of your Niagara? If he comes in search of fountains of 
 health, where can he find them so salubrious and invigorating as at 
 your Saratoga, or your Sharon ? If he is eager to behold the giant 
 causeways of the new world — those massive chains of intercommuni- 
 cation which have married together the lakes and the ocean, even 
 where hills and mountains would seem to have stood ready to forbid 
 the bans —or the hardly inferior triumphs of that earlier art, which 
 has " rolled obedient rivers through the land ; " — where can he behold 
 them on a more gigantic scale, than in your railroads and canals ? 
 And, if he is curious to observe the progress which civilization and 
 refinement, and wealth and luxury, and architecture and science and 
 literature, have made among us, where can he witness an ampler or 
 more brilliant display of them all, than in the saloons and libraries, 
 in the shops and warehouses, in the stately edifices and splendid ave- 
 nues of this magnificent metropolis ? 
 
 Nor, Mr. President, is New York without the noblest monu- 
 ments and the most precious memories of the past. The memorable 
 scenes which have illustrated your soil, and the distinguished men 
 who have been actors in those scenes, come thronging so thickly to 
 one's remembrance as he reflects on your past history, that I know 
 not how to discriminate or what to touch upon. Why, sir, we have 
 
59 
 
 a few things to be proud of, in this way, in our own old Massachu- 
 setts. Notwithstanding the disparagement which your eloquent ora- 
 tor has just thrown upon rocks in general, as of modern origin, I 
 th\nk T may say that we have a Rock which no one will disparage, 
 which has been trodden by the noblest company of men and women 
 that ever braved the perils of a wintry sea, or stemmed the currents 
 of an adverse fortune. We have a Hall, too, which has echoed to as 
 noble voices as ever pleaded the cause of human rights. We have a 
 Hill, also, and a Plain, not unknown to fame — represented at this ta- 
 ble, I am glad to say, by one of my excellent colleagues (Rev. Geo. 
 E. Ellis) — where the first blood for independence was poured out 
 like water from some of the purest veins of our land. We have 
 names, too, both in our later and our earlier history, which we would 
 not willingly admit to be second to any which can be found on the 
 historic roll. But no inordinate appreciation of our own treasures 
 has rendered us insensible, I trust, to the proud associations and 
 memories which are the priceless inheritance of our sister States. 
 We rejoice to remember that they all have something to be proud of 
 — some principle which they were first in asserting, some idea which 
 they were foremost in advancing, some proposal which they were 
 earliest in advocating, some great American event of which their 
 soil was the chosen scene, some great American character to which 
 their institutions gave birth. 
 
 Yes, sir, each one of the old Thirteen at least, — and not a few of 
 the new Eighteen, also, — can point this day to some one or more of 
 the memorable names or deeds or associations of our history, and 
 say : " This is our own — this is our contribution to the glories of 
 America — this institution was the work of our fathers, or this soul 
 was ripened beneath our sky." Virginia, the mother of us all, with 
 her Jamestown and her Yorktown, the Alpha and the Omega, the 
 small beginning and the glorious close, of our colonial career, — and 
 with her transcendent and incomparable Washington, — I wish I 
 could find a title worthy of that name ; — Rhode Island and Maryland, 
 with their Roger Williams and their Calverts, contending nobly to- 
 gether for the earliest assertion of religious toleration ; — Connecti- 
 cut, with her Charter Oak ; — Pennsylvania, with her pure-hearted 
 and philanthropic old Broad-brim Proprietor, and with her Hall of 
 Independence, and her grave of Franklin ; — New Jersey, with her 
 Trenton and Morristown ; — North Carolina, with her Mecklenburg 
 and her Nathaniel Macon ; — South Carolina, with her high-souled 
 Huguenots, and her Marions and Sumpters ; — Georgia, with her be- 
 
60 
 
 nevolent and chivalrous Oglethorpe : — Why, sir, one might run over 
 the whole catalogue of the States, even to the youngest and latest of 
 them, without finding one that is not associated with some name, 
 some story, some event, of a nature not merely to quicken the pulse 
 and gratify the pride of her own people, but to attract the sympathy 
 and kindle the patriotism of every true-hearted American citizen. 
 These stars of our political system, sir, like those of the firmament 
 above us, differ indeed from one another, but only in glory. 
 
 " Facies non omnibus una, 
 Nee diversa tamen ; qualetn decet esse sororum." 
 
 But second to no one of tbem, certainly, in all that constitutes 
 the interest and the pride of history, stands New York — with her 
 gallant English explorer, Henry Hudson, whose fate was even sad- 
 der than that of the lamented navigator of the same land, whom your 
 own Grinnell has so nobly, but alas ! so vainly, sought to succor ; — 
 with her sturdy old Dutch settlers and Dutch governors, whose vir- 
 tues and valor, as well as their peculiarities and oddities, have been 
 immortalized by your own delightful Irving ; — and with her later 
 heroes and patriots, of civil and of military renown, her Livingstons 
 and Clintons, her Philip Schuyler and Alexander Hamilton, her 
 Kents and Gallatins, her John Jay and Bufus King — if, indeed, 
 Massachusetts can allow you to appropriate the fame of Rufus King. 
 We need not quarrel, however, about that, sir — for his fame is wide 
 enough for us both. May his memory ever be a bond of friendship 
 and love between us ! And if it ever fails to be, I doubt not that 
 Maine, which furnished his birth-place, will be quite ready to step in 
 and settle the difference. 
 
 Who can forget, too, that it was upon your soil, at Albany, just 
 a hundred years ago, that Benjamin Franklin submitted the first 
 formal proposition for a union of the colonies ? Wh.o can forget 
 that it was upon your soil, at Saratoga, that the first decisive victory 
 over the British forces was achieved, — that victory which gave the 
 earliest emphatic assurance to the world, that the liberties of Ameri- 
 ca would, in the end, be triumphantly vindicated 1 Or, who can 
 forget, that it was upon your own soil, in this very city, that the 
 Constitution of the United States — the grand consummation of all 
 the toils, and trials, and sacrifices, and sufferings of patriots and pil- 
 grims alike, — was first organized ; — and that the very air we breathe 
 has vibrated to the voice of Washington, as be repeated the oath to 
 
61 
 
 support that Constitution from the lips of your own Chancellor Liv- 
 ingston ? 
 
 No wonder, sir, that your Society is so eagerly and intently en- 
 gaged in illustrating the history of your own State, when you have 
 such a history, so noble and so varied, to illustrate. 
 
 But, Mr. President, let me not draw to a close without remark- 
 ing, that none of us should be unmindful that there is another work 
 going on, in this our day and generation, beside that of writing the 
 history of our fathers, — and that is, the acting of our own history. 
 We cannot live, sir, upon the glories of the past. Historic memo- 
 ries, however precious or however inspiring, will not sustain our in- 
 stitutions or preserve our liberties. 
 
 There is a future history to be composed, to which every State, 
 and every citizen of every State, at this hour, and at every hour, is 
 contributing materials. And the generous rivalry of our societies, 
 and of their respective States, as to which shall furnish the most 
 brilliant record of the past, must not be permitted to render us re- 
 gardless of a yet nobler rivalry, in which it becomes us all even 
 more ardently and more ambitiously to engage. 
 
 I know not of a grander spectacle which the world could furnish, 
 than that of the multiplied States of this mighty Union contending 
 with each other, in a friendly and fraternal competition, which 
 should add the brightest page to the future history of our common 
 country, which should perform the most signal acts of philanthropy 
 or patriotism, which should exhibit the best example of free institu- 
 tions well and wisely administered, which should present to the imi- 
 tation of mankind the purest and most perfect picture of well-regu- 
 lated liberty, which should furnish the most complete illustration of 
 the success of that great Bepublican Experiment, of which our land 
 has been providentially selected as the stage. 
 
 Ah, sir, if the one-and-thirty proud Commonwealths which are 
 now ranged beneath a single banner, from ocean to ocean, could be 
 roused up to such an emulation as this, — if instead of being seen 
 striving for some miserable political mastery, or some selfish, sec- 
 tional ascendency, — if instead of nourishing and cherishing a spirit 
 of mutual jealousy and hate, while struggling to aggrandize them- 
 selves, whether territorially or commercially, at each other's expense, 
 or to each other's injury, — if they could be seen laboring always, 
 side by side, to improve their own condition and character, to elevate 
 their own standard of purity and virtue, to abolish their own abuses, 
 to reform their own institutions, peculiar or otherwise, and to show 
 
62 
 
 forth within themselves the best fruits of civilization, Christianity 
 and freedom, — what a history would there be to be written hereafter 
 for the instruction and encouragement of mankind ! Who would 
 not envy the writer whose privilege it should be to set forth such a 
 record ? 
 
 Surely, sir, he would realize something of the inspiration of the 
 Psalmist : " His heart would be inditing a good matter, and his 
 tongue would be the pen of a ready writer." It would be no subject 
 for any cold and sneering skeptic, however glowing his style, or pol- 
 ished his periods. No Gibbon could tell the story of such a rise and 
 progress. Such a mind may deal better with "the decline and fall" 
 of nations. Methinks, Mr. President, it would be a theme to in- 
 spire fresh faith in him by whom it was treated, and in all by whom 
 it was read, — faith in the capability of man for self-government, faith 
 in human progress and in Divine providence, faith in the ultimate 
 prevalence of that Gospel of Christ, which is, after all, the only sure 
 instrument either of social or of political reform. 
 
 But let us, at least, not fail to remember on such an occasion 
 as this, that whatever be the history which we, in our turn, are to 
 present to the world, and which we are now acting in the sight of 
 men and of angels, — that whatever be the scenes which the daily 
 daguerreotypes of a thousand presses are catching up and collecting 
 for its materials — such a history is to be written ; — and, when writ- 
 ten, it is to exert an influence upon the world, for good or for evil, 
 for encouragement or for warning, such as no other uninspired his- 
 tory has ever yet exerted. Yes, Mr. President, it is not too much 
 to say that American history, the history of these United States, and 
 the history of these separate States, is to be the fountain to man- 
 kind of such a hope — or of such a despair — as they have never yet 
 conceived of 
 
 Not for any mere glorification of men or of States ; not to magni- 
 fy the importance of individuals, or to trace the antiquity of families ; 
 not to gratify the vanity of monarchs, or ministers, or yet of masses, 
 is our history to be written ; — but to exhibit the true and actual 
 workings of the great machinery of free government, and to show how 
 well, and to what results, the people are capable of managing it. 
 This is to be the great lesson of our annals. This is the momentous 
 problem, whose solution we are to unfold — and the world can look 
 for that solution nowhere else than here. 
 
 You liave all observed, I am sure, that the accomplished Lieu- 
 tenant Maury has been gathering up the old log-books of the mer- 
 
63 
 
 chant ships and whalers, and comparing them together to make wind 
 charts and current charts, for rendering your ocean voyages more 
 speedy and more safe. Just so will it be with the log-books of our 
 great Republic, and of the lesser republics which are sailing beneath 
 the same flag. From them is hereafter to be made up the great sail- 
 ing Chart of Freedom, which is to point out the safe channel or the 
 fatal reef to every nation which shall enter on the same great voyage 
 of liberty. God grant that on no corner or margin of that chart 
 may ever appear the sad record : " Here, upon this sunken ledge, or 
 there upon those open breakers, or yonder, in some fatal fog, by the 
 desertion of some cowardly crew, or the rashness of some reckless 
 helmsman, our great New Era struck, foundered, and went to 
 pieces" — to the exultation of despots, and to the perpetual conster- 
 nation and despair of the lovers of freedom throughout the world. 
 Let that chart rather, I pray Heaven, bear down to a thousand gene- 
 rations the plain and unmistakable track of an ever smoother and 
 more prosperous progress, giving hope and trust and confidence and 
 assurance to all who shall launch out upon the same sea, that a safe 
 and glorious voyage is before them, a safe and glorious haven within 
 reach. 
 
 Thus far, certainly, Mr. President, there has been no lack of 
 speed in our own course. We are advancing rapidly enough, no 
 man will deny, to no second place among the nations of the earth. 
 What other country beneath the sun has ever exhibited so vast an 
 extension of its territory, its population, its power, within the same 
 period of its existence ? I saw an official announcement, a few days 
 since, that one of the astronomers at our National Observatory, in 
 looking at the thirteenth asteroid of that fragmentary system which 
 was once thought to be composed of only four or five inferior planets, 
 found suddenly a strange visitor within the field of his telescope, 
 which proved to be the thirty-first asteroid of that same mysterious 
 system. It was a fact not a little emblematic of our own national 
 history. 
 
 While the historic observer of America has been turning his 
 glass and fixing his gaze upon our Old Thirteen, he has suddenly 
 seen the system increasing and multiplying beneath his view, until 
 the thirty-first star has already appeared in the same marvellous con- 
 stellation. The war with Mexico, — of which the gallant hero is your 
 fellow-citizen, whose absence at this board has just been so much 
 regretted, — in adding this thirty-first star to our flag, has opened to 
 us the vast mineral treasures of the Pacific coast ; — and as Congress 
 
64 
 
 was bestowing upon the veteran victor the commemorative medal 
 which he so well deserved, but which was so meagre a memorial 
 of his merits, we could not but recall the noble lines of a great 
 English poet — 
 
 "In living medals see our wars enrolled, 
 And vanquished realms supply recording gold! " 
 
 But this is but of yesterday. If we would realize the rapidity of 
 our country's progress, we must go a little farther back. We must 
 go back to the beginning of that very half century over which the 
 existence of your Society has now extended. Fifty years ago ! 
 What was our country then ? — what is it now? Look on that pic- 
 ture and on this ! Ohio but just admitted, with a single representa- 
 tive in the national councils. Louisiana just annexed, most of it a 
 bare, untenanted, unexplored wilderness. Not a steamboat on the 
 Hudson, or any where else except in the brain of some scheming 
 Fitch or bare-brained Fulton. Not a railroad or a telegraph 
 within twenty years of being dreamed of The cotton crop still in 
 its infancy. N«w York hardly yet one of the great States ; for you 
 will remember that Virginia and Pennsylvania and Massachusetts 
 were the three great States of the revolutionary and constitutional 
 periods. By the constitutional apportionment, Virginia had ten repre- 
 sentatives, and Massachusetts and Pennsylvania eight each, while 
 New York was allowed but six. Sir, we must look on this picture of 
 our country, and then upon that presented in the statistics of the 
 census just completed, if we would appreciate in any degree the 
 railroad rapidity, I had almost said the lightning-line velocity, of 
 our national career. 
 
 And where, where is it all to end ? That, sir, is to be written 
 hereafter. But let us not forget that, in part, at least, it is to be de- 
 cided now. It requires no ghost to tell us, no second-sight or spirit- 
 ual communication to assure us, that if we are true to ourselves, true 
 to the principles and examples of our fathers, and true to the insti- 
 tutions which they founded, our country may go forward, with the 
 blessing of God, to higher and higher degrees of prosperity and power 
 in safety and in peace ; its destiny ever written in the motto of its 
 greatest state — Excelsior — Excelsior ! While if we are faithless to 
 our trust, — if, lulled into a false security by long-continued and unin- 
 terrupted success, we suffer the public vigilance to be relaxed, and 
 the public virtue to be corrupted — or, if dizzied by the rapid whirl 
 of our career, and yielding to the rash impulses of the hour, we per- 
 
65 
 
 mit our country to be dragged to the verge, and even plunged into 
 the vortex of domestic discord or foreign strife, — it may be even our 
 own ignoble and ignominious distinction, in some volume of history 
 to be written at no distant day, — that we helped to make shipwreck 
 of the noblest bark that was ever launched on the tide of time. 
 
 Sir, I beg pardon for detaining you so long. Let me only sum 
 up all that I have said, and all that I feel in the concluding sen- 
 timent : — 
 
 Tlie State of New Tork: — Upon her soil the finit formal proposition of 
 Union was made ; upon her soil the first victoiy which gave assurance of Liberty 
 was won ; upon her soil the Constitution of the United States was originally or- 
 ganized. May history record that her example and her infiaence were always 
 given to the support of Union, Liberty, and the Constitution ! 
 
 Mr. WiNTHROP resumed his seat amid enthusiastic ap- 
 plause, and his complimentary sentiment was received with 
 all the honors. 
 
 The Hon. John Cadwallader responded for the Pennsyl- 
 vania Historical Society, and gave as a sentiment : — 
 
 The Ancient Dominion, and her historical representative here to-night. 
 
 Prof. George Tucker, formerly of the University of Vir- 
 ginia, responded for the American Philosophical Society. He 
 said : — 
 
 Mr. President, — After the wisdom and eloquence to which we 
 have listened this day, I feel unwilling to trespass on your time. I 
 did not know until a few minutes before I took my seat at this table 
 that I was expected to represent the Philosophical Society of Pennsyl- 
 vania, Another gentleman, Judge Kane,* was appointed to dis- 
 charge that office, and before I left Philadelphia, I was told be cer- 
 tainly would attend. Under these circumstances, I can do little 
 more than express our kind feelings towards the society over which you 
 preside, and our congratulations on its extraordinary success, as I 
 understood from you this, morning, that it now consists of twelve 
 hundred members. Mr. President, it has often been a matter of 
 wonder to me, that a State which has achieved so much as New York, 
 should have produced no recent history of her progress, especially 
 as she is almost as pre-eminent over her sister States, in letters as in 
 
 * The father of the gallant o£Scer, whose generous enterprise in search of Sir 
 John Franklin now fills America and Europe with anxious interest 
 5 
 
66 
 
 commerce. In three departments, in humor, in poetry, and in fiction, 
 she can boast of three sons,* who, perhaps, have no equals in Ameri- 
 can literature. Probably your writers have been deterred by the 
 success of the great Knickerbocker, from making the attempt, but the 
 events since his day are of still greater interest than those he has so 
 ably chronicled. Long after he wrote, the great canal brought the 
 commerce of the lakes to this city, and Fulton gave steam navigation 
 to the world. The history of your political parties, too, presents a 
 theme equally curious, copious, and instructive. There have been 
 your Hamiltonians and Burrites, your Clintonians and adherents of 
 Van Buren — your old Hunkers and Barnburners, your Hards and 
 your Softs, your Silver Greys and your Know Nothings, by which 
 New York politicians mystify Europe, and bewilder the citizens of 
 other States. The history of your great State invites the efforts of 
 her most gifted sons. But let me, in their behalf, invoke the aid of 
 the booksellers, who render the same service to authors as merchants 
 do to farmers, by finding them a market. But they have strong in- 
 ducements to reprint European books which cost them nothing rather 
 than to pay for American works. I am anxious to see this bounty 
 on the works of foreign authors removed ; but until it is removed by 
 the national legislature, let me appeal to their patriotism and ask 
 those who have enriched themselves by reprinting European produc- 
 tions to use the means they so amply possess to cherish American liter- 
 ature. I know that much has already been done in this way, but they 
 may do more ; and though at first they may make less money, they 
 would by a liberal outlay at present sow the seed from which they 
 would reap a rich future harvest. They would moreover have the gra- 
 tifying consciousness of encouraging that class of domestic products 
 of which every nation is most justly proud, and they would, moreover, 
 thus escape the taunts of their transatlantic rivals. Mr. President, allow 
 me to tell you a story ; I promise you it shall not be a long one. 
 
 In those days when piracy on the high seas was more common 
 than at present, one who had been very successful in this line having 
 been smitten by a fair damsel, married her, and under her influence, 
 quitted his roving life, bought a fine house, furnished it in suitable 
 style, and in no long time gave dinners and parties, and became one 
 of the leaders of fashion. Even his frank, sailor-like manners had 
 their admirers and imitators. In the midst of this new greatness, 
 one who had been an officer under him made him a visit. The lieu- 
 
 * It is scarcely necessary to gay that Irving, Bryant^ and Cooper are here 
 adverted to. 
 
67 
 
 tenant was invited to dinner, but no one, I imagine, was invited to 
 meet him. In the afternoon, as they sat regaling themselves with gin 
 twist, their favorite beverage, said the guest, " Captain, don't you 
 sometimes wish yourself again in the Salamander, scouring the seas, 
 one day ankle deep in blood, and the next wallowing in gold? " 
 '' Those were glorious times to be sure," said the other, " money does 
 not come in now as fast as it did then, and as to blood, I seldom see 
 it, except when I cut myself in shaving — but after all, Ben, I don't 
 know but that the life of a gentleman is as happy as that of a pirate, 
 and it is a damned deal more respected." 
 
 Allow me then, Mr. President, to offer the following toast : — 
 
 " The speedy adoption of an international copyright." 
 
 10. An enlightened and independent Jndiciary : the strongest bulwark of 
 Liberty and Order. 
 
 Judge William W. Campbell responded : — 
 
 Mr. President, — Another and a better man should have re- 
 sponded to this toast. Since I came here to-night, your wishes have 
 been communicated to me, and in all matters connected with the 
 Historical Society, my obedience is due and is cheerfully yielded. I 
 am to speak for the profession to which I belong, and which without 
 vanity may be said to have acted no inferior part in the world's his- 
 tory. 
 
 Eight hundred years ago, the first Chief Justice of England 
 wrapping his priestly garments over his coat of mail, celebrated Mass, 
 and then mounting his charger, with baton in hand, led on the Nor- 
 man Cavalry on the field of Hastings. A half a century afterwards 
 the foundations of Westminster Hall were laid. The court was 
 transferred from the aula regis to its own chosen and independent 
 home. The judicial ermine, though it might sometimes cover the 
 sword of state, seldom, if ever, covered again the sword of battle, 
 and from that time down through all the ages of English and Amer- 
 ican judicial history, the men who have been called upon to adminis- 
 ter the laws, with a few unamiable exceptions, have generally been 
 found in the ranks of those contending for freedom and the right. 
 He whose name and memory every American lawyer delights to ho- 
 nor and to cherish, who more than any other man illustrated judi- 
 cially the Constitution of the United States, who was emphatically 
 the great Chief Justice, combined in himself the soldier and states- 
 man, the historian and the judge. Commencing his career as a sub- 
 
68 
 
 altern in the first Virginia regiment, afterwards a member of the 
 House of Burgesses of his native State — the author of the life of 
 Washington — member of the Senate of the United States — ^foreign 
 minister — and for more than a quarter of a century Chief Justice — 
 John Marshall did all things well, and justly has become a great 
 subject of history. 
 
 The judges and lawyers led on the American Revolution. They 
 drew up those great state papers which issued from the old Conti- 
 nental Congress, and which challenged the admiration of even the 
 enemies of the country. 
 
 In later days Story and Kent have shed new lustre on the 
 learning of the law, and have made the names of American judges 
 familiar wherever the English and American common law finds a 
 home on the earth. Chancellor Kent was an early friend and active 
 member and president of this society, and it is but fitting on this oc- 
 casion that a passing tribute should be paid to his memory. New 
 York was the State where he was born, and was the theatre of his 
 labors, and where he achieved his judicial greatness. Never had 
 the State a truer son. The past history, and the present commanding 
 position of the State were topics on which he delighted to discourse. 
 It was my good fortune to make his acquaintance soon after I came 
 to this city, many years ago, a stranger youth, and from that time 
 down to the close of his life I was permitted to share somewhat of 
 his confidence and his friendship. He was familiar with the entire 
 range of the political and judicial history of the State, and his con- 
 versation was enriched with the stores of varied learning. He was 
 pre-eminently one of the great champions of liberty and order to 
 which your toast refers. 
 
 Mr. President, the year 1804, the year of the formation of this 
 Historical Society, was memorable in the legal annals of New York. 
 Hamilton fell, Thomas Addis Emmet landed in our city, John Wells 
 by a great effort at the bar took his place in the front rank of 
 American lawyers, and James Kent became the Chief Justice of the 
 State. Spencer and Van Ness and Piatt were about that time enter- 
 ing on their judicial careers. They are all gone. The stars which 
 formed that splendid galaxy have all set. Their learning, patriot- 
 ism, and fearless independence of character remain for our imitation. 
 Like the Trojan youth, we may follow on, h<xud aquis passiius. On 
 occasions like the present, as we bring up in brief review tho 
 virtues and the services of the great and the good who have gone be- 
 fore us, these memories of the past sweep over us like the music of 
 
69 
 
 Ossian — '' sweet and mournful to the soul." The pen of the historian 
 must embalm them for the benefit of future generations. 
 
 The eleventh, regular toast was as follows : — 
 II. A well-conducted Press : the efficient agent of eivilizatioD. 
 
 Mr. William C. Bryant was called by the President to 
 answer this toast, and said : — 
 
 In behalf of the conductors of the press, I thank the company 
 for the kind manner in which this toast has been received. Between 
 the newspaper press and historical societies there is a natural con- 
 sanguinity. Newspapers are the chroniclers of the day. The sheets 
 which their conductors issue are like the Sibylline leaves, cast on 
 the four winds, dispersed, and sure to be lost but for the care of his- 
 torical societies, which collect, reposite, preserve them. There they 
 are found by the historian, who examines, selects, combines the ma- 
 terials they supply him, connects them into a series, a system, ex- 
 tracts their philosophy, their divine essenee, and gives them as ora- 
 cles to all nations and ages. 
 
 But, Mr. President, I will not weary those who listen to me with 
 a long comment on a toast. On an anniversary like this, which 
 looks back to the fourth year of the present century, it seems to me 
 that it is well to remember those who, at an earlier period of our ex- 
 istence as a nation, set themselves to study and compile its history. 
 A distinguished gentleman of the eastern States has this evening ad- 
 dressed us as the representative of the Massachusetts Historical So- 
 ciety. Several years before your institution had an existence, the 
 hand of the founder of the Massachusetts Historical Society — Dr. 
 Belknap, the historian — had traced its last lines, and he slept with 
 Herodotus and Xenophon. I remember his "American Biography" 
 among my earliest reading ; it consists of accounts of personages 
 whose names are distinguished in the annals of our country, and is 
 written with a simplicity engaging to persons of all ages. Greatly 
 as he has since been surpassed in historical research, in philosophy 
 and narrative skill, by his countrymen of the present time — of which 
 we have a shining example in the great historian who has so elo- 
 quently addressed us today — he has the high merit of being the 
 first to make American history attractive. Sixty-two years ago he 
 published " The Foresters," long a favorite at New England firesides. 
 In this work the story of Virginia is pleasantly shadowed out in the 
 adventures of Walter Pipeweed — that of Massachusetts in the for- 
 
70 
 
 tunes of John Codline ; New York figures as Peter Bullfrog ; Con- 
 necticut is personated by Humphrey Ploughshare, South Carolina 
 by Charles Indigo, and the quarrel between Mr. Bull, the clothier, 
 and his refractory apprentices, who had established themselves in the 
 forest, closes with a quit claim from Mr. Bull, renouncing all title to 
 the lands on which they had settled. On this festive occasion the 
 mention of a work which sought to embellish our history with the 
 charms of wit and humor, I trust, will not be deemed out of place, 
 although, in these respects, its fame has been eclipsed by the inimi- 
 table writings of our own Diedrich Knickerbocker, whose memory at 
 the next semi-centennial anniversary will, I am certain, be as fresh 
 as it is to-day. 
 
 Let me close by a toast : — 
 
 Dr. Belknap and his Associates : the founders of the Massachusetts Histori- 
 cal Society. 
 
 12. Popular Education: the great Interest of a Free People, and indispensa- 
 ble to the continued existence of free goTernment. 
 
 President King of Columbia College said : — 
 
 Galled upon to speak to the toast just given, I cannot refuse to 
 bear my testimony to the value and indispensableness of " popular 
 education.'' 
 
 It is the forming agency which moulds at will the individual 
 man, the social man, and the political man, and which, therefore, 
 more than all other agencies, determines the character alike of men 
 and their institutions. 
 
 When, then, we speak of "popular education" we speak of the 
 greatest known power over human actions and their results. But 
 all is not education which is so called — nor indeed are the ends 
 aimed at by popular education the same in all countries, any more 
 than the means of imparting it are the same. 
 
 There is no more universal, nor in the sense in which it is given, 
 more thorough popular education than in Austria, but that educa- 
 tion, popular though it be, includes no hint that the people should 
 have any part in public affairs, or in the control of the government. 
 Letters, science, art, all throughout the wide domain are taught, 
 but nothing of human rights, nor of popular sovereignty, nor of the 
 power of majorities. All other subjects of human inquiry may be 
 investigated with the utmost freedom and to the widest extent ; but 
 the political domain is a closed field ; there no inquiry, no discussion 
 of any sort is permitted. 
 
n 
 
 Popular education with us is just the reverse ; with less of art, 
 less of science, less even of letters than are taught in the Austrian 
 public schools ; we found our system upon the equal rights of all ; 
 upon the capacity of the people for self-government, and upon their 
 exclusive and inalienable right to such government. 
 
 And each scheme produces its designed effect. Austria educates 
 intelligent, quiet, obedient subjects. We educate a restless, ques- 
 tioning generation of citizens, which takes nothing for granted, 
 nothing for settled, and which especially claims and exercises the 
 right to make and unmake its laws and government at its own good 
 pleasure. I make this brief and rapid comparison to illustrate edu- 
 cation as a, power that moulds men and nations at will, and thence to 
 infer the importance, the vital importance, in our land of giving to 
 education its proper aims and aids. 
 
 All admit its necessity, all feci its want. It is the instinct of 
 our common humanity, groping in darkness after better and brighter 
 things, to pray for light. The strong, brave man of Homer's glo- 
 rious epic, contending under a cloud of darkness against adverse 
 fate, exclaiming, " Give us but light, and Ajax asks no more ! " is 
 the type of all strong, brave natures, as yet shrouded in the darkness 
 and delusions of ignorance ; and striving upward and onward for 
 light! light! light! 
 
 Education, gentlemen, is that light ; wide-spread popular educa- 
 tion. It has that choicest quality of mercy, " it is twice blest, it 
 blesseth him that gives and him that takes ; it is mightiest in the 
 mightiest." If the one, in the language of our great bard, " be- 
 comes the throned monarch better than his crown," so the other 
 does equally become the enthroned people as investing them with 
 the crown immortal and imperishable ; of knowledge taught and 
 used in the love and the fear of God. For, gentlemen, in the Book 
 of Truth there is no more certain and solemn truth than that " in 
 the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." I dare hardly 
 think of how little our system of popular education is founded on 
 this great truth. 
 
 How few comparatively of the more enlightened and wealthy of 
 our people seem to be duly impressed with the immense interest that 
 belongs to common-school education, which for four out of five of our 
 population is all the education they ever receive. It is in our 
 "common schools that the nation receives its character." It has 
 been well said that " mothers and schoolmasters sow the seeds either 
 of anarchy, tyranny, or liberty, for the strength and destiny of any 
 
72 
 
 community lies in the virtue and intelligence of its younger mem- 
 bers." But this would lead us into long digression, and this is not 
 a fitting occasion to develope such fruitful and significant topics, but 
 I could not, in such a presence as this, allude at all to popular edu- 
 cation without expressing my conviction as to its only safe, abiding, 
 and enduring corner-stone, the knowledge, the love, and the fear of 
 God. 
 
 Assembled, as here we are, to commemorate the half-century an- 
 niversary of the Historical Society, it seems natural to revert to the 
 state of things as to popular education existing in our city at the 
 time of the organization of this Society, and to compare it with what 
 now exists. 
 
 In 1804, when the Historical Society had its birth, no common- 
 school instruction was known in New York. 
 
 It was not till the year 1 805 that the New York Public School 
 Society was incorporated under the name of the " Free School Socie- 
 ty," and it is not without interest to add, that one of the most active 
 and influential persons in organizing the Historical Society, was also 
 very active and influential in aiding the incorporation of the Free 
 School Society, De Witt Clinton. The association was a natural 
 one, for History is one of the Muses — and all the Nine co-operate in 
 the education of min — though it belongs to Clio alone to preserve 
 the records of their acts and thoughts. 
 
 And especially must popular education and such an association 
 as this, whose honored birthday we are celebrating, act and react 
 upon each other and grow, each by the growth of the other ; and so 
 measurably it is now. The Historical Society, feeble at its com- 
 mencement, and long feeling obscurely its way along ; slow in growth 
 like the oak and all things destined to endure, has now revealed it- 
 self in grand proportions, as a successful collector and conservator of 
 precious archives, as the founder of a valuable library, and as the 
 centre of a large circle of educated and distinguished men. In like 
 manner, during the same time, the free schools from nothing have 
 risen, in this city alone, to two hundred and twenty -five in number, 
 and the aggregate of those taught therein during the last year ex- 
 ceeds one hundred and twenty-three thousand. 
 
 This has not been without cost, large cost — I am almost tempted 
 to say, I wish it were larger, for all that is saved in education is in 
 reality lost to country and to God. What nobler use, indeed, can 
 be made of the wealth with which the labor and industry and intelli- 
 gent enterprise of our country are crowned, than that a liberal share 
 
73 
 
 of it be devoted to the spread of sound knowledge ? In a mere util- 
 itarian sense, indeed, as a question of expediency, of mere profit and 
 loss, it may be shown that wealth is actually rendered at once more 
 secure and more productive by the means it dispenses to improve, to 
 refine and to restrain — in one word, to educate a whole people. 
 In proportion as we find in our tax-books a large figure in the 
 column for education, will that in the column for eleemosynary and 
 penal institutions be diminished, and all the more certainly as that 
 education shall truly rest upon the corner-stone already indicated. 
 
 Without detaining this company by further remarks, I ask leave 
 to sum up in a toast what seems to me the relation of this Society to 
 popular education : — 
 
 The Public Schoola of New Tort : the nursery of those who arc to con- 
 tribute to its future history. 
 
 13. 'Woman : although last in our toasts, yet ever first in our affectione. 
 
 Theodore E. Tomlinson, Esq., responded as follows : — 
 
 " Woman," if first in our affections, should not be last in our 
 toasts. She has fallen into my arms and I will uphold her with all 
 the chivalry of the feudal ages. Woman is a theme worthy the 
 poet or orator. Did not Homer the blind bard sing of woman, and 
 when we read of Hector bearing thick battle on his sounding shield, 
 or holding aloft young Astyanax trembling at his nodding plume, 
 do we not revert to beauteous Helen — sad Andromache ? 
 
 Did not our orator historian to-day, from whose hand the centu- 
 ries seemed to fly, — did he not pause to play celestial music to woman, 
 did he not say that of all things beautiful of earth, the veil of her 
 spirit was most beautiful, that in our briery life she was the lily, or 
 
 I forget, for the flowers were all emulous ; the gentle daisy lifted 
 
 up its head, the violet breathed a newer fragrance, and the rose an- 
 grily blushed woiaan's pride, and woman's loveliness. She is greater 
 than the historian ; he but records the past, she makes history ; her 
 gentle hand bends the twig that gives inclination to the oak ; on the 
 infant brow, she stamps the character of the nation. It was only 
 when luxury crept into the domestic circle, and stained the fireside, 
 when there were no Spartan mothers, no Boman matrons, that Home 
 and Sparta fell. 
 
 Woman is the type of civilization, in savage life a slave, in re- 
 fined a queen ! What distinguishes this nation most, what im- 
 presses the noble of other lands that the " American " is the more 
 
74 
 
 delicate, the higher refinement, is our veneration for woman. She 
 can go unharmed all through our vast country, her guardian angel 
 the spirit of the people. I cannot read the future, the horizon is 
 obscured, the firmament is not clear. Who can tell what will grow out 
 of the confiicts of the old world, and the anxieties of the new? — 
 This I believe, that as long as the American people preserve their 
 respect for woman, and respect follows worth, the American Republic 
 will live. This I know, that if the mothers of the nation are good 
 and pure, the sons of the nation will be strong and free. 
 
 Woman ! Empire is in thy hand Lead forth from beyond the 
 mountains, from the far Pacific, out of the virgin bosom of the 
 peerless West, the Young States, and they will come to our Union, as 
 mighty as our own, without a canker to consume their youth, with- 
 out a cloud to darken their destiny. 
 
 Power in arms, or song, or eloquence, has made man immortal. 
 His very origin enshrined the muse of Milton. Woman's is greater 
 than his. Man was made of the dust of earth, woman out of the 
 image of God. She is supreme in good or evil. Did not Cleopatra 
 lead captive conquerors ? Who but Eve could have destroyed Par- 
 adise, where day was ecstatic joy, and night came as the approach of 
 gentle music, where the couch was the fragrant embrace of flowers, 
 where the rich, luscious grape fell without the wooing — ^where the 
 very mountains arose in their sublimity to extend their shade over 
 man's repose? Though the chosen "angel" of the "destroyer," 
 still her name is stamped on the decalogue, " Honor thy father and 
 thy mother." 
 
 What eloquence so exquisite as Ruth's " thy people shall be my 
 people, and thy God shall be my God? " 
 
 In song who more impassioned than Sappho — in prophecy who 
 more inspiring than Miriam, with harp and timbrel by the shores of 
 the sounding sea 1 
 
 Her destiny overshadows man's ; his fate trembles in hers. 
 Napoleon tore from its heaven his morning star, Josephine, and St. 
 Helena, in retribution, arose in the ocean. 
 
 Did not Mary, the mother of Washington, fashion his great mind, 
 and breathe her stainless purity into his greater heart ? 
 
 More eloquent than tongue can tell, more glorious than pen can 
 write, are the simple words, mother, daughter, sister, wife ! 
 " Mother ! " how sweet from the lips of the gleeful girl, how holy from 
 the trembling voice of age ! To the dying captive, to the bleeding 
 soldier, to the great man, to the malefactor on the scafibld, thy name 
 " mother " comes radiant with the light of young Eden days ! 
 
75 
 
 "Wife" is thy better self; -'sister," thy loveliest peer; 
 " daughter," sunshine dancing on thy knee. 
 
 In heathen mythology Jove was the parent of wisdom — that 
 sprang a goddess all create from his immortal mind. In Chris- 
 tian religion, the Virgin was the mother of our Lord ! 
 
 Woman has ever been divine — ^with the ancients the symbol of 
 plenty, of beauty, of purity, and wisdom — Minerva all perfect, Ceres 
 with her sheaf of wheat, Diana with her bended bow, Venus 
 arising from the crowning foam of the great sea. With us of the 
 New Testament she has been chosen as wife and daughter for the 
 expression of miracle — at the marriage feast when the water blushed 
 to wine, and when he bade the daughter of Jairus arise and walk. 
 " Faith, Hope, and Charity abideth " most in her who touched but 
 the hem of his garment and was made whole, and in the widow who 
 with her mite, gave most to her Lord. 
 
 Yes, woman is divine. How many orisons ascend to thee. Virgin 
 Mary ! Woman is divine even in her fall. Do you not remember 
 that our holy Lord bowed to the earth, wrote upon the sand, and 
 would not look up to her shame, her degradation, or her punish- 
 ment I 
 
 The regular toasts having been given, at the conclusion of 
 the response to the last, the Secretary of the Committee of Ar- 
 rangements presented their report on correspondence, including 
 a letter from Edward Everett. His letter will be found 
 among the extracts from the correspondence printed with this 
 report. 
 
 The President thereupon rose and said : — 
 
 Notwithstanding the distinguished gentleman, whose interesting 
 communication to us has just been read, is unexpectedly absent from 
 our festival this evening, yet this Society has been too often and too 
 greatly indebted to this gifted son of New England, for high gratifi- 
 cation and instruction, to allow this occasion to pass without a grate- 
 ful recollection and notice of him in our present festivities. I there- 
 fore ask you to unite with me in drinking to the health of 
 
 Edward Evebett, — Whether in the pursuits of Literature, in the labors of the 
 Senate, or the higher duties of the Cabinet, he lias been alike distinguished in 
 all. 
 
 Rev. Samuel Osgood being called upon, rose to speak to 
 the following sentiment : — 
 
"E Pluribus Unum, — the memorial motto of the past; the prophetic motto 
 of the future." 
 
 Mr. Osgood began by speaking of the office of a nation's memory 
 in quickening a nation's hope ; he maintained that the past, instead 
 of being a dead thing, is the enduring root of the future ; and, if we 
 destroy memory, her daughter, hope, will not long survive. He 
 illustrated the worth of history in bringing the records of national 
 achievements to bear upon national enterprise. With us, the muse 
 of history was no wrinkled crone, dwelling among the dust of 
 sepulchres, but a radiant creature, ever young with liberty and hope. 
 
 He then spoke of our national motto, " E Pluribus Unum," as 
 representing our holiest remembrance and our fairest hope. The 
 colonial history of the provinces illustrates how it was that the many 
 towns and settlements became one under the influence of a common 
 country, a common conflict, and a common constitution, — how mar- 
 vellously elements so various were harmonized into one organic 
 system. It was equally remarkable, that when the many became 
 one, the unity did not destroy the natural and healthy diversity in 
 the constituent parts, and the many kept their independence and 
 vitality in the one. He compared the American people, under one 
 President, with the French nation, which, in 1804, the year this 
 Society was established, consolidated its conflicting elements under 
 an Emperor's rule, and the liberty of the many was enslaved to the 
 will of the one. In our country, the separate States retained their 
 old individual characteristics after being brought together under the 
 Federal Constitution. Massachusetts was Massachusetts still, and 
 New York was New York before and after the Union. These faces 
 about this social board show the old Knickerbocker feature as in 
 the days of old Stuyvesant ; and if you wish to know how Massa- 
 chusetts keeps her characteristics look thither at Winthrop, and 
 read in that face two centuries and a quarter of the Old Bay State's 
 history, as, in ^.n authentic copy of the Puritan Governor's handsome 
 face, true now as ever to the stamp, an honest man's nature. 
 
 Mr. Osgood went on to show the union of free individuality with 
 national organization, especially during the last half century, not- 
 withstanding the apparently alienating tendency of distance between 
 States, difi"erences between parties and sections, and the conflicts 
 between the foreign manners of our millions of immigrants with the 
 old nationality of our land. He spoke of the power of the locomotive 
 engine which was first used in 1804 in neutralizing distance; he 
 then illustrated the power of party differences in developing indi- 
 
77 
 
 vidual freedom, and paid an especial tribute to the independence of 
 our minorities in spite of the dominion of the majority. He touched 
 upon the feud between North and South, and defended the largest 
 liberty of speech as quite compatible with our Union. He closed 
 with remarking upon the power of our American nationality in 
 assimilating our foreign population, and declared that our stomach 
 was big and strong enough to digest the Irish and the Germans into 
 sound American blood in spite of themselves. The greenest sprig 
 of Erin could not be long on our soil without catching something of 
 its flavor. If Paddy once got into the hopper of our national mill 
 he would stand a fair chance of coming out ere long minus his shil- 
 lelah and whiskey bottle, although he might, perhaps, still keep 
 hold of his rosary. 
 
 He gave as a sentiment : — 
 
 The America of the Future, the loyal child of Old America. On* DatioD of 
 many independent States ; many independent States of many free minds. 
 
 Eev. Dr. Bethune was loudly called for. and with evident 
 reluctance rose to say, that, having already obeyed the wishes 
 of the Society in speaking at their place of assemblage in the 
 afternoon, he should have been excused from saying any thing 
 more, as it had not been his intention, and was not now his 
 wish. 
 
 The Doctor then sat down ; but, on being pressed to go on, 
 he said : — 
 
 The praise of history has been the theme to-day ; yet, since you 
 insist on my speaking, let me ask, What is History? Its uncer- 
 tainty has been painfully felt by us all ; but never, perhaps, so much 
 as of late, since the new school, of which Niebuhr, and Heeren, and 
 Arnold, and Grote are eminent members, has cast doubt upon all 
 the records of the early past, turning into myths all that was once 
 flogged into us respecting the founders of Athens and Rome. 
 Theseus and Ceorops are visionary creatures, like those that seem to 
 look out upon us from the misty shadows of retreating night ; and 
 even the wolf-nurse of the first twin-Romans, whose thunder-scarred 
 image still inhabits the Capitol on the Seven Hills, represents a 
 fable no more worthy of credit than a nursery story. Following the 
 same rules of trying evidence, how much may be myth and how much 
 fact in our own received annals ! Who ever saw Brother Jonathan ? 
 or Uncle Sam ? or Yankee Doodle ? Plymouth Rock, noble as its 
 
78 
 
 legend is, may be nothing more than a myth to represent the rugged 
 and immovable virtue which underlies the cultivated excellence of 
 New England character. Nay, I have sometimes thought, when 
 looking at the grave visages which conceal the warm cordiality of 
 our New England brethren, that they have never recovered from 
 the chill of the bleak, sleety December day when the legend says 
 they landed at Plymouth. With these doubts on my mind respect- 
 ing history, I should say no more about it ; but, as a New Yorker 
 born and bred, I am moved by more grave feeling ; for, while I look . 
 around me on this pleasant company, and am glad to recognise many 
 friends whose birth-places are elsewhere, I miss the faces of not a 
 few whom it was our happiness to see gathered en similar occasions 
 in former years. I need not name them, — I dare not, — for I could 
 not utter the words without too much emotion ; and the New Yorkers 
 who hear me need not to be reminded of the dead, who, if now living, 
 would be exulting among us in the prosperity of our Society. But 
 how few, among the many here, are genuine, born New Yorkers ! 
 How soon we who remain must follow them into the eternal future ! 
 How dear to us is the memory of the departed ! . . . . We go 
 back to the scenes of childhood and boyhood, when our strongest 
 friendships were formed, and the ties which have made life most 
 happy were first thrown about us. Let me ask : Is there a man here 
 who ever ran down Flattenberg ? (Yes ! Yes ! Yes ! cried a score of 
 voices), or skated on Lispenard's Meadows ? (Yes ! Yes ! Yes ! ) or 
 Burr's Pond, or Stuyvesant's Pond? (Yes! Yes! Yes!) Then, 
 my friends, old friends, true born New Yorkers of no recent day, 
 I greet you well, and say, with a full heart, God bless you ! But let 
 us remember our birth-place not without a sense of our filial respon- 
 sibility ; and hold ourselves bound so to live and act, that we may 
 do all in our power to advance the honor and glory of our native 
 city. 
 
 Rev. Dr. S. K. Lothrop of Boston, being next called upon, 
 responded to the call in a brief speech, concluding with the fol- 
 lowing sentiment : — 
 
 The States of this TTmon. What is peculiar in each of them derives all its 
 value, its efficacy, and its power, fi-om that which is common to all of them — 
 their Union. 
 
 The President in proposing the following volunteer toast, 
 said : — 
 
79 
 
 Three of the earliest and most distinguished members of 
 our Society are absent from our festival this evening. These cher- 
 ished names are so associated in our early intercourse, are so united 
 in our admiration of their literary productions, and the many excel- 
 lencies of their character, that I will not separate them in the toast 
 I am about to propose, and to which, I am sure, you will cordially 
 respond. 
 
 I ask you, then, to unite with me in drinking to the health of 
 
 Washington Irving, James K. Paulding, and Guuan C. Vkrplanck, names 
 dear to New York as they are to this Society. 
 
 James W. Gerakd, Esq., being called upon, made some 
 appropriate remarks, and concluded with the following senti- 
 ment : — 
 
 The Present Age — the Age of Iron. 
 
 The President presenting the following volunteer toasts, 
 said : — 
 
 Our festival to-night is graced by the presence of one, who, if he 
 be not a frequent attendant at the meetings of our Society, is always 
 a welcome one. His literary productions, while they do honor to 
 himself, shed a lustre upon the character of his country. I ask you, 
 then, to unite in doing honor to his name in drinking to the health 
 of 
 
 WnjiAM CuLLEN Betakt, the Poet of Nature, and the Poet of our Country. 
 
 We very unexpectedly miss from this joyous occasion one whose 
 presence among us was once as familial as it was always welcome and 
 exhilarating. His was a sunny and genial nature ; and, in the cor- 
 diality and charm of his intercourse, he won our hearts, and kept 
 them too. He was a jewel lent us by Connecticut, but which, as in 
 many other cases, she has reclaimed to herself. 
 
 I ask you then with me to renew our recollection of this former 
 and cherished friend by drinking to the health of 
 
 Fitz-Greene Halleck, 
 
 " One of the few, the immortal names, 
 Tliat were not born to die." 
 
 The President then retired, and the chair was taken by 
 Frederic De Peyster, Esq., First Vice-President of the So- 
 ciety. 
 
80 
 
 Col. ScHOULER of Cincinnati, being called upon, responded 
 briefly, giving as a toast : — 
 
 Our Country, and Union for the sake of the Union. 
 
 Joseph Blunt, Esq., rose and said : — 
 
 Mr. President: — Such anniversaries as we now celebrate are 
 apt to make us take a retrospective view of the intervening period, 
 and serve to mark, in a peculiar manner, the progress of mankind. 
 At the time when this Society was first established, a war was com- 
 mencing in Europe, which eventually brought in as parties the whole 
 of the civilized world. 
 
 The fiftieth anniversary of this Society witnesses the commence- 
 ment of hostilities of equally portentous tiharacter. It is deeply 
 interesting to mark the change of the tone and principles adopted by 
 the belligerents of this day as compared with those of the former 
 period, and especially towards this country. 
 
 In 1804, the doctrine of perpetual allegiance on the part of a 
 subject towards the sovereign in whose dominions he was born, was 
 generally accepted as a part of European law ; and one of the parties 
 to the contest at that day claimed the services of her subjects in such 
 a moment, without reference to the country they had adopted or the 
 length of their residence abroad. In enforcing this claim by impress- 
 ment from American vessels, it often happened that native citizens 
 of the United States were taken and compelled to perform military 
 service under a foreign flag. With the view of preventing this 
 abuse, the American Minister in London, at the inception of hos- 
 tilities, had arranged a treaty with the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, 
 prohibiting impressment from American vessels at sea ; but Lord 
 St. Vincent, who was at the head of the Admiralty, insisting on the 
 narrow seas being excluded from this arrangement, Mr. King wisely 
 determined to leave the matter to the decision of time rather than 
 seemingly to acquiesce in the assertion of a principle so monstrous 
 and indefensible. Before one half of the intervening period had 
 elapsed, this claim of impressment from American vessels was for 
 ever abandoned. Thirty years ago it was tauntingly asked by the 
 Edinburgh Review, Who reads an American book ? Even at that 
 early day, the country whose mouth-piece it was had read the book 
 where was recorded the determination that impressment from under 
 the American flag had for ever ceased ; and the gallant Ingraham 
 
81 
 
 when he avowed his resolve, in the harbor of Smyrna, to vindicate 
 the right of a naturalized citizen against the claim of perpetual alle- 
 giance on the part of the Austrian Emperor, only gave utterance to 
 the general feeling of the public mind at home, and exemplified the 
 striking contrast between the present day and the hour that wit- 
 nessed the attack on the Chesapeake. 
 
 No less remarkable is the difference hetween the code of maritime 
 warfare put forth at this time and that adopted at the commencement 
 of the former combat. Assuming the colonial system to be part of 
 the estahlished state of the world, England then determined to pre- 
 vent neutrals from engaging in the trade between Europe and 
 American oolonief; from which they we're ordinarily excluded ; and, 
 under the pretence that credit was given on duties payable at the 
 custom houses here, the products of the tropics were seized in Amer- 
 ican vessels bound to Europe from the United States, and condemned, 
 although proven to be American property, and regularly exported 
 from the United States. 
 
 Now the belligerent parties at the commencement of the war 
 avow their intention not to act upon those principles, that were then 
 deemed essential to the successful prosecution of the contest. We 
 hear of no powerful fleets sent out, to compel nations to disavow the 
 principles of a confederacy armed to vindicate neutral rights. 
 
 On the contrary, both parties profess their determination to 
 respect neutral rights, and tb exercise their belligerent powers with 
 the least possible inconvenience to those not engaged in the war. 
 This avowal is made not as a concession to neutral remonstrances, 
 nor as the result of a long and tedious negotiation. It is put forth 
 in advance of discussion, and to calm the public mind of Christendom 
 as to the scope of belligerent action upon the commerce of the world. 
 
 The colonial system, with all its pretensions to monopolize the 
 resources and control the trade of one hemisphere for the benefit of 
 another, has almost disappeared ; and seems about to be absorbed in 
 that gulf of oblivion, which has swallowed up the sovereignty of the 
 narrow seas and the divine right of kings. It is a matter of no in- 
 considerable pride to us, as citizens of a free republic, that this 
 change in public law has been in entire accordance with the views 
 and principles of those patriotic and far-seeing men who established 
 our political institutions. 
 
 They seemed to aim in their foreign, as well as in their domestic 
 policy, to advance such principles as should secure the greatest hap- 
 piness to the greatest number. No exclusive privileges, either in 
 spiritual or temporal affairs, found an abiding place in their system. 
 6 
 
82 
 
 Hence the unexampled growth of the United States. 
 
 Without an army, unless that name be given to those few regi- 
 ments that are hardly sufficient to furnish an armed police for this 
 extensive country ; with a navy scarcely large enough to enforce our 
 revenue laws, this country has, during the existence of this society, 
 taken the first rank among civilized nations, and without assuminsr a 
 military attitude has enforce^ her claims and maintained her prin- 
 ciples among the powers of the earth. 
 
 The imposing spectacle of a modern empire, with her military 
 fortresses and naval outposts scattered over the surface of the globe, 
 and saluting the rising sun with a continuous strain of the martial 
 airs of England, is well calculated to make a strong impression of 
 her power and sway. 
 
 My mind, however, is as much, if not more, impressed at the 
 quiet attitude of this republic, — with a common boundary extending 
 from the Atlantic to the Pacific, unstudded by forts or citadels, and 
 throughout that long extent, scarcely a flag "flouting the air" in 
 rivalry with that of a power whose grasp encircles the earth. 
 
 Secure and unprotected by any outward display of military 
 force, she is rapidly subduing the wilderness, developing the re- 
 sources of the continent, and building up an empire of unrivalled 
 strength. The woodman's axe and the blacksmith's hammer are the 
 instruments to develope her growth, and yet, like the majestic and 
 intelligent elephant, she possesses in the implements that furnish her 
 subsistence an engine of power, from which the more ferocious ani- 
 mals shrink in conscious dismay. 
 
 Much of this strength is owing to the obvious moderation and 
 justice of her political principles. The success of her government, 
 and the acceptance of her maxims in national law, is mainly due to 
 their conformity to justice and truth. While the American govern- 
 ment shapes its course under their guidance, no other government 
 can withstand its career. Its moral power must prove an overmatch 
 for their mere physical force. 
 
 When it throws off its allegiance to those great principles, it be- 
 comes a Samson shorn of his strength. 
 
 Permit me to propose as a sentiment, — 
 
 Public Opinion : the monarch of modern society — let courtiers remember 
 tliat honor is due to those who speak truth to Kings. 
 
 The toast next offered was, — 
 The Thirty-one Stewards. 
 
83 
 
 WoRTHiNGTON RoMAiNE, Esq., being called upon, said : — 
 
 Mr. President — Our Chairman's absence accounts for this kind- 
 ness, especially as Secretaries, from their keeping of minutes, are 
 supposed to be acquainted with what has been going on. 
 
 In responding, I must be short, as the hour is late. "Well, sir, 
 the Committee of Stewards met and organized. One acquainted 
 with the members on the list will readily perceive, politically speak- 
 ing, a curious admixture; namely — Democrats, both Hard Shells 
 and Softs — Whigs, Silver Grays, with all the other kinds, and so on. 
 A strong disposition was evinced on the part of many, who were 
 new in their position, to ascertain their peculiar duties ; but the 
 secret must out, no one could be prevailed upon to give them that 
 desirable information. Thus every thing, down to the tasting sup- 
 per, was carried by the KnowNothings. Of this quiet party I shall 
 say no more for the present. 
 
 The coincidence of our own number agreeing with that of the 
 States induced us (modestlj', of course) to resolve ourselves into a 
 Committee of the Whole on the State of the Union, but only for this 
 occasion. We were, therefore, to take care of the representatives 
 who had been invited. Every thing was prepared. 
 
 And now, sir, our treat at banquet board, we trust no usual one, 
 has, I hope, been enjoyed by all here. Thirteen, or Thirty-one, we 
 love the old as well as new, and all alike. 
 
 Mr. President, you know New Yorkers well enough to feel 
 that the estimate of them contained in the History of our State, 
 by Mr. Brodhcad, now with us, sir, is not too high a one. Justly 
 proud, as so many must be, of such a birth-place, what heart so cold 
 that warms not with the burning words and noble themes that to- 
 night have met our ears. All here must love their native soil, yet 
 each seems willing to acknowledge the other as his own. Let, sir, 
 those States who have them, show to such others as have them not. 
 that Historical Societies can, from the embers of the past, preserve 
 many live coals wherewith to cheer our very hearth-stones ; that they 
 can teach us how to offer, upon the sacred altar at home, a sacrifice 
 whose incense shall meet an approval not only here but from above. 
 In such a view, allow me to give you, as applicable to both the present 
 and the future, this sentiment : — 
 
 May our Historical Societies exert their influence in cementing a Union that 
 should only cease with time itself. 
 
 A motion to adjourn was passed shortly after twelve o'clock. 
 
84 
 
 The following list embraces the names of the guests present, 
 including delegates from the several Societies represented on this 
 occasion : 
 
 VIZ. : — 
 
 JOHN Vr. FRANCIS. 
 JAMES M. MATHEWS. 
 JOHN W. MULLIGAN. 
 J. G. KOHL. 
 
 FEEDEEIC P. STANTON. 
 WILLIAM ADAMS. 
 
 GEORGE BANCROFT. 
 CHARLES KING. 
 WILLIAM C. BRYANT. 
 SAMUEL OSGOOD. 
 JOHN LORD. 
 GEORGE W. GREENE. 
 
 From the Maine Eiatorieal Society. 
 JOHN B. C. ABBOTT. NEHEMIAH CLEVELAND. 
 
 From the Massachusetts historical Society. 
 
 ROBERT C. WINTHROP. 
 SAMUEL K. LOTHEOP. 
 
 GEORGE E. ELLIS. 
 WILLIAM P. LUNT. 
 
 From the Connecticut Historical Society. 
 HENRY BARNARD. CHARLES HOSMER. 
 
 From the New Jersey Historical Society. 
 
 WILLIAM A. WHITEHEAD. 
 
 From the Pennsylvania Historical Society. 
 
 JOHN CADWALLADER. 
 
 From the American Antiquarian Society. 
 
 STEPHEN SALISBURY. 
 
 From the American Philosophical Society. 
 
 GEORGE TUCKER. 
 
 Committee of Beception. 
 
 ALEXANDER H. STEVENS. 
 HARVEY P. PEET. 
 LAMBERT 8UYDAM. 
 JAMES PHALEN. 
 CALEB O. HALSTED. 
 P. S. VAN PELT. 
 PETEK COOPER. 
 HENRY E. DAVIES. 
 JOEL T. HEADLEY. 
 BENJAMIN W. BONNEY. 
 
 JOSEPH FOWLER. 
 AMHERST WIGHT. 
 THOMAS 8UFFERN. 
 ALEXANDER W. BRADFORD. 
 BENSON J. LOSSING. 
 TIMOTHY HEDGES. 
 JAMES F. DE PEY8TEE. 
 JOHN L. MASON. 
 GERARD BTUYVE3ANT. 
 CHARLES P. KIBKLAND. 
 
85 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 1. From Dr. T. Rometn Beck, dated Albany, October 19, 1854, re- 
 gretting his inability to attend : — 
 
 " Being a member of the New Torls Historical Society of nearly forty 
 years' standing, I can properly appreciate its services in the cause of 
 American Literature." 
 
 3. From Hon. James K. Paulding, dated Hyde Park, Dutchess County, 
 October 19, 1854, acknowledging receipt of the invitation of the Com- 
 mittee: — 
 
 " This proof of their kind remembrance is deeply felt by one who has 
 been so long out of sight that he could not complain had he been entirely 
 forgotten by his old friends. 
 
 "It would afford me great pleasure to attend your celebration ; but the 
 distance of my residence from New York, though it may be travelled in a 
 few hours, renders the journey fatiguing to one of my age and habits, 
 and I trust you will accept this as a sufficient apology for respectfully 
 declining your invitation. 
 
 " I have not been inattentive to the labors of the Society, especially 
 for the last few year.s, and am fully sensible of the importance of its ob- 
 jects, as well as the zeal and ability with which they have been pursued ; 
 and, though I have taken no part in these labors, my best wishes for their 
 success have always attended them. None of us will probably live to see 
 another " Semi-centennial Anniversary," but, I trust, it will be celebrated 
 by successors equally zealous and equally successful in collecting and pre- 
 serving those memorials of our early history, which time will only make 
 more interesting and honorable." 
 
 3. From the Hon. "William A. Dcee, dated Inglewood, near Morris- 
 town, N. J., October 20, 1854, accepting the invitation of the Com- 
 mittee. 
 
 4. From Sir Henkt Ellis, dated British Museum, October 22, 1854, 
 regretting his inability to be present at the celebration : — 
 
 " I should have been very happy to have heard a eulogistic address 
 from my kind friend the Hon. George Bancroft, who well knows the 
 points to which the aim of your Historical Society should be pointed ; and 
 with whose brilliantly impressive powers in eloquence I am not unac- 
 quainted." 
 
 5. From Dr. John W. Feanois, dated New York, October 23, 1854, 
 accepting the invitation of the Committee. 
 
86 
 
 6. From the Hon. Eobbet 0. WixTnnop, dated Boston, October 23, 
 1854, accepting the invitation of the Committee. 
 
 7. From Lord Campbell, dated London, October 25, 1854, expressing 
 his gratification with the invitation, which he is unable to accept. 
 
 8. From the Hon. Jaeed Spaeks, LL.D., dated Cambridge, October 
 25, 1854, fearing that his engagements at the time will not permit him to 
 be present. 
 
 9. From Wabhington Ieving, dated Sunnyside, October 2C, 1854, 
 accepting the invitation of the Committee. 
 
 10. From Sir Edmcxd W. Head, Bart., Governor-General of Canada. 
 &c., &c., dated Washington, October 27, 1854, regretting that he cannot 
 avail himself of the invitation of the Committee. 
 
 11. From Rev. James M. MAinEws, dated New York, October 31, 
 1854, accepting the invitation of the Committee. 
 
 12. From the Hon. James Buchanan, dated London, October 31, 1854, 
 acknowledging the communication of the Committee. 
 
 13. From the Hon. JonN Law, dated Evansville, Indiana, October 80, 
 1854, regretting his inability to be present. 
 
 14. From the Hon. Herschell V. JonNsosr, Governor of Georgia, 
 dated Executive Department, Milledgeville, Ga., October 30, 1854, re- 
 gretting liis inability to be present, and transmitting a donation to the 
 library — the "Historical Collections of Georgia" and the "Statistics of 
 Georgia," by the Eev. George White. 
 
 15. From the Hon. William H. Sewaed, dated Auburn, October 31, 
 1854, regretting his inability to be present. 
 
 16. From the Hon. J. A. Matteson, Governor of Illinois, dated Spring- 
 field, October 31, 1854, regretting his inability to be present. 
 
 17. From the Hon. William B. Laweence, dated Newport, E. I., 
 November 1, 1854, accepting the invitation of the Committee. 
 
 18. From the Eev. William Cusnisgham, D.D., dated New College, 
 Edinburgh, November 7, 1854: — 
 
 " It is impossible that I can accept of the invitation because of my 
 ordinary imperative occupations at this season. But I joyfully embrace 
 the opportunity of assuring you of the deep interest I take in the history 
 of the United States, of the conviction I entertain that the last half cen- 
 tury of your country's history has been one of progress unexampled in the 
 history of the world, and of my sincere desire that the next half century 
 of your history may, through the Divine blessing, prove at least equally 
 auspicious." 
 
 19. From Geokge Geote, Esq., dated London, November 2, 1854, 
 regretting his inability to be present, and wishing "all success and pros- 
 perity " to the Society. 
 
87 
 
 20. From Charles B. Trego, Esq., Secretary of the American Philo- 
 sophicil Society-, dated Philadelphia, November 4, 1854, communicating 
 their acceptance of the invitation to send a delegate from that Societj'. 
 
 21. From the Hon. John P. Kennedy, dated B;iltimore, November 4, 
 1834, regretting his inability to be present. 
 
 22. From the Hon. CnAELEg Francis Adams, dated Quincy, Novem- 
 ber 5, 1854, regretting his inability to he present. 
 
 23. From Thomas Biddle, Jr., Secretary of the Historical Society of 
 Pennsylvania, dated Philadelphia, November 5, 18.54, communicating 
 their acceptance of the invitation to send a delegat3 from that Society. 
 
 25. From 'Wiliiam A. "Whitehead, Esq., Corresponding Secretary of 
 the New Jersey Historical Society, dated Newark, November 8, 1834, 
 communicating their acceptance of the invitation to send a delegate from 
 that Society. 
 
 25. From William Gilmore Simms, Esq., dated Charleston, Novem- 
 ber 9, 18.54:— 
 
 "Your noble institution has alwuys had my hearty pympathies, as 
 well because of its component merit as because of the objects contem- 
 plated in its organization. It would give me great pleasure to join with 
 your reunion, and share the pleasant festivities wliich it promises ; but 
 I am sorry to say that my domestic interests and necessities will fetter me 
 at home this winter, and I can only tender yon a warm assurance, from 
 a distance, that I shall be with you in spirit, as truly hopeful as any pre- 
 sent, of the good and grateful results which such a gathering promises for 
 the history and literature of the country. In such a region as ours, where 
 the material interests of the city are perpetually demanding and compelling 
 consideration over all others, it is peculiarly well and fortunate that there 
 are some few minds willing to go apart from the great masses, and concen- 
 trate their energies and talents, at stated periods, to the higher objects of 
 humanity. You can effect much in your province for the development 
 of the true civilization, which is something much rarer and nobler than 
 a people can ever attain by the consideration only of the vulgarly useful. 
 That such is your object I feel assured ; that you will attain it, I fervently 
 desire and believe. Yon have noble minds at work, and generous spirits, 
 eager in the prosecution of toils, which survive all the common purposes 
 of society, and elevate and purge the society, which a too excessive regard 
 to the material nmst always, in the end, degrade. I cheerfully and grate- 
 fully send my feeble voice over the tract which separates ns, that it 
 may swell, in however small degree, those echoes in the popular mind 
 and heart which it is your desire to awaken, and make permanent and 
 powerful voices in the land. That you may succeed in this virtuously 
 ambitious purpose is my earnest desire." 
 
 26. From the Hon. "William A. Graham, dated Hillsborough, N. C, 
 November 13, 1854, regretting his inability to be present: — 
 
 "Considering the situation of your Society, its acquisitions in the first 
 half century of its existence, and, may I add, the characters of tlie men 
 who compose it, it possesses advantages for exploring and elucidating the 
 subjects of history, unequalled, perhaps, by tliose of any similar institution 
 
88 
 
 in America. Like the commerce of the great city in which it holds its 
 seat, it is destined, from the intimate relations of the States, and the 
 facilities it enjoys for literary and intellectual coraraunication, to extend 
 the range of its investigations far beyond the mere memorials of local 
 history in the State of New York, abounding as that does in aboriginal 
 traditions; the legends of the Dutch Colonies; the conquest and conse- 
 quent domination of Britain; the Indian, the Ante-Revolutionary, Revo- 
 lutionary, and Post-Revolutionary Wars, which have rendered so many 
 of its localities classical ground in the annals of the nation ; and the prog- 
 ress of a fourth or fifth-rate member of the Confederacy, at the Declara- 
 tion of Independence, to an empire of three millions of freemen, filled 
 every where with the monuments of a high civilization. But when and 
 long before these engrossing topics shall be exhausted, the erudite re- 
 searches of your Association will shed their light on whatever is interest- 
 ing in the developments, social, civil, religious, political, or natural, in the 
 land of Raleigh and the Roanoke, the Huguenots and Santee, De Soto and 
 the Father of Waters, and the new Anglo-American domains on the Rio 
 Grande and the Pacific. 
 
 " I can imagine no studies more elevating and ennobling to their vo- 
 taries — more fruitful in patriotic and humanizing results — more promotive 
 of veneration and aflfection for the union of the States — and no field of 
 history, ancient or modern, half so full of attraction and interest. 
 
 "Accept, gentlemen, my congratulations on the past, and my best 
 wishes for the success of the future labors of your Society." 
 
 27. From the Hon. Hexrt Baenaed, President of the Connecticut 
 Historical Society, dated Hartford, November 14, 1854, communicating 
 their acceptance of the invitation to send a delegate from that Society. 
 
 28. From the Hon. Stephen Salisbury, President of the American 
 Antiquarian Society, dated Worcester, November 14, 1854, communicating 
 their acceptance of the invitation to send a delegate from that Society. 
 
 29. From the Hon. Richard Rush, dated Sydenham, near Philadel- 
 phia, November 14, 1854 : — 
 
 " The large and enlightened objects of your Society are set forth in the 
 terms of your invitation, and few are uninformed of the good results of its 
 operations during the half-century of its existence. This Cycle of Time is 
 memorable for the prodigious strides made within it towards the material 
 and intellectual advancement of mankind. I am of those who remember 
 the admirable discourse to your body, pronounced by your eminent citizen 
 and fellow-member, De Witt Clinton, whose early efibrts in alliance with 
 those of Gonvernenr Morris, your Coldens, your Livingstons, your Schuy- 
 lers, and others, for opening upon a grand scale the resources of your 
 State, formed, by its noble example of bold yet wise enterprise to other 
 States of the confederacy, an epoch in American prosperity and power. 
 It made absolutely a point in our public history by its speedy conse- 
 quences, perhaps more important than any other after the Revolution and 
 the adoption of the Federal Constitution. I am of those also who remem- 
 ber the general joy felt when the genius of Fulton achieved its first im- 
 mortal triumphs, de facto, before the world, by ascending the Hudson to 
 Albany by steam, in defiance of wind and tide. He did this certainly un- 
 der New York auspices, and, if I do not mistake, encouraged and incited 
 by individuals of your public spirited Society. Nor must I forget that 
 superb and imposing aquatic procession, when the Governor of your State 
 
89 
 
 poured water into the Atlantic brought from the lakes, in your first Erie 
 canal-boat, to coranieraorate, by a spectacle of appropriate grandeur, the 
 completion — after long predictions that it would not be completed — of 
 that great work of internal navigation — the greatest then known to any 
 part of the United States. And well did it merit so gorgeous a commemo- 
 ration, amidst the shouts of thousands and thousands, the roar of artillery, 
 and all other demonstrations of public rejoicing ; for never did the inter- 
 mingling of waters produce results more beneficial to whole communities 
 of men. 
 
 " To have been invited to the coming semi-centennial festival of a So- 
 ciety whose annals can recount so many names, past and present, known to 
 historical and other renown, and which has put in motion and helped to 
 put in motion deeds of public utility and magnitude, is an honor of which 
 I am gratefully sensible. In expressing this feeling, I am compelled to 
 add, with unfeigned regret, that obstacles I am unable to overcome take 
 from me the gratification of being personally present on an occasion so 
 full of interest." 
 
 30. From J. K. Tefft, Esq., Corresponding Secretary of the Georgia 
 Historical Society, dated Savannah, November 14, 1854, communicating 
 their acceptance of the invitation to send a delegate from that Society. 
 
 31. From Hon. Daniel D. Babnakd, dated Albany, November 14, 
 1854, regretting his inability to be present. 
 
 32. From Geosoe S. Hillard, Esq., dated Boston, Nov. 14, 1854, re- 
 gretting his inability to be present. 
 
 33. From Major-General Winfield Scott, dated New York, Novem- 
 ber 15, 1854:— 
 
 " Having lost the day of your celebration, I was about to answer your 
 flattering note affirmatively ; but, pausing for inquiry, I am to meet the 
 Secretary of War at Washington the same day— Monday next, at twelve 
 o'clock. 
 
 "I very much regret the interference of this engagement, for I am 
 anxious to cultivate intimate relations with the New York Historical So- 
 ciety, and its approaching celebration cannot fail to be highly interesting." 
 
 34. From the Chevalier Hulsemans, Austrian Chargfe d'Aflfaires, dated 
 Washington City, November 15, 1854, regretting his inability to be present. 
 
 35. From Joseph W. Mohi-ton, Esq., dated November IC, 1854, ac- 
 cepting the invitation of the Committee. 
 
 36. From Senor Don Felipe Molina, Minister Plenipotentiary from 
 Central American States, dated Washington, November 16, 1854, regret- 
 ting his inability to be present. 
 
 37. From the Hon. Henbt Dutton, Governor of Connecticut, dated 
 New Haven, November 17, 1854, regretting his inability to be present. 
 
 38. From William B. Keed, Esq., dated Philadelphia, November 17, 
 1854, regretting his inability to be present. 
 
 39. From Henet R. Schooloeaft, Esq., dated Washington, November 
 
90 
 
 17. 1854, regretting his inability to be present, and communicating the fol- 
 lowing sentiments : — 
 
 " Historical Societies in Ameeioa : While they are the true aids of 
 useful letters and popular knowledge, holding high the lamp of research, 
 the healing oil which supplies the flame derives none of its brilliancy 
 . from party strifes. 
 
 " I)e Witt Clinton : One of the early and efficient friends and 
 founders of the New York Historical Society ; a man who was great in 
 whatever sphere he moved. Whether aa a scholar, a public economist, or 
 a statesman, he shed a brilliant light on the path he trod. His heart 
 beat in unison with all the best humanities of life. He lived to fulfil the 
 highest duties 'of a citizen, and a public benefactor; and has left his name 
 to the State, as one of her most honored and treasured legacies." 
 
 40. From the Hon. Edwaed Everett, dated Boston, November 17, 
 1854 :— 
 
 " I was favored a short time since, with your official invitation to at- 
 tend the Anniversary Festival of the New York Historical Society. I 
 have also had the honor to be named as a member of the delegation of 
 the Massachusetts Historical Society, appointed to be present on behalf of 
 that body on this pleasing occasion. 
 
 "It would afford me the greatest pleasure were it in my power to at- 
 tend a celebration of so much interest and importance. The desire of 
 hearing the discourse of your President is almost too strong to be resisted. 
 Other inducements make the occasion one of unusual attraction ; but do- 
 mestic circumstances prevent my leaving home. 
 
 " The half-century which has elapsed since the organization of your 
 Society, has been filled every where, and nowhere more than in New 
 York, with great events and great names. When your Association was 
 founded, the State of New York, with a population at the last preceding 
 census short of six hundred thousand, was the third in a Union of seven- 
 teen States. She is now, with a population of more than three millions at 
 the last census, by far the largest member of a Union of thirty-one States. 
 With the increase of population there has been an increase of agricultural, 
 manufacturing, and commercial wealth which defies estimate ; a multipli- 
 cation almost unlimited of all the noble institutions of religion, education, 
 philanthropy, and general culture, which gives so much of its efficiency to 
 our modern civilization. 
 
 "Your own imperial city with Brooklyn, numbered in 1800 but sixty- 
 four thousand inhabitants : the two cities cannot, I suppose, now count 
 less than ten or eleven times that number. Besides this, your vast me- 
 tropolis, look at the interior : 
 
 " Adde tot cgregias urbes, operumque laborem 
 Tot congesta manu pricruptis oppida saxis, 
 Fluminaque insuetos subter labeiitia muros." 
 
 And then the great men who have passed some portion at least of the last 
 half-century on the stage of life, who have founded or promoted, achieved 
 or adorned this marvellous progress ; men like Hamilton, who organized 
 the public credit ; like Jay, who conducted the foreign affairs of the coun- 
 try at the most critical period of its existence, and never wrote a line that 
 needed to be qualified or unsaid ; like Clinton, who solemnized tliat great 
 union of the waters, and Morris, his fervid and efficient co-operator; like 
 Fulton, who first, within your limits, subdued the winds and the waves to 
 the mastery of steam ;* like Cooper, the great American novelist; like 
 
91 
 
 Kent and Wheaton, who, in the two great departments of legal science, 
 the municipal and the public law, have enriched the literature of their 
 country with works of standard excellence, and taken their place among 
 the teachers of mankind. 
 
 " With respect to two of the names mentioned, Clinton and Fulton, when 
 we consider, in reference to the former, the grandeur of the conception of 
 making New York the outlet of the great lakes — the diflBculties to be 
 overcome in the state of engineering at that time — the limited financial 
 resources then at command — with the absolutely inappreciable local utili- 
 ty of the enterprise ; and when, in the case of Fulton, we contemplate the 
 mighty influence of his achievements upon all the arts of locomotion — the 
 almost total revolution in commercial and military navigation to which it 
 is leading, I scarce know where in the history of discovery and invention 
 we can find brighter names. 
 
 "Nor have you less to boast of in the studies which more immediately 
 belong to an historical society. No great branch of literature lias been so 
 snccessfully cultivated in America as history ; and I believe that even Eu- 
 ropean criticism, not over partial to merit on this side of the Atlantic, will 
 bear ine out when I say, that in addition to many works of sterling value, 
 which I have no room here to name, America has within twenty-five 
 years, produced three historians, whose works will go down to the latest 
 posterity with those that have already stood the test of ages. I am not 
 more confident of the abiding reputation of Herodotus, Thucydides, and 
 Xenophon — of Livy, Sallust, and Tacitus — of Hume, Gibbon, Robertson, 
 Hallam, and Macaulay, than I am of the abiding reputation of Irving, 
 Prescott, and Bancroft. I believe their works will be read till the English 
 language is forgotten. 
 
 "I rejoice to be able to add that, while they belong assuredly not 
 merely to the country, but to the world, our two States may claim the 
 more immediate property in them, in nearly equal shares. The author of 
 the " Life of Columbus," by birth and residence is wholly yours ; the au- 
 thor of " Ferdinand and Isabella," in the same sense, is wholly ours ; while 
 the Historian of the United States has divided himself pretty fairly be- 
 tween us ; — and, to prevent either of us from being too proud of our share, 
 runs away from us both in the summer." 
 
 41. From Lieut. Col. J. J. Abercrombie, TJ. S. A., dated Fort Colum- 
 bus, November 17, 1854, regretting his inability to be present. 
 
 42. From James Lexox, Esq., dated New York, November 18, 1854, 
 regretting his inability to be present. 
 
 43. From E. B. O'Callaghax, Esq., dated Albany, November 18, 1854, 
 regretting his inability to be present. 
 
 44. From Prof. Samuel Jackson, dated Philadelphia, November 18, 
 1854, regretting his inability to be present. 
 
 45. From the Hon. James Savage, dated Boston, November 18, 1854, 
 regretting his inability to be present. 
 
 46. From Sefior Don Juan N. Almonte, Minister from Mexico, dated 
 Washington, Nov. 18, 1854, regretting his inability to be present. 
 
 47. From the Hon. Chaeles Sumner, dated Boston, November 19, 
 1854, regretting his inability to be present. 
 
92 
 
 48. From John F. Ceampton^, Esq., British Minister, dated Washing- 
 ton, November 19, 1854, regretting his inability to be present. 
 
 49. From the Eev. William Bacon Stevens, D. D., dated Philadel- 
 phia, November 19, 1854, regretting his inability to be present. 
 
 50. From the Hon. William Beacu Laweenob, dated Ochre Point, 
 Newport, E. I., November 21, 1854 :— 
 
 "My arrangements were made to avail myself of the invitation of the 
 committee of the New York Historical Society tor their anniversary ; but 
 I was yesterday prevented, by my anxiety for the health of a near relative, 
 from participating in a convivial festival. 
 
 " tFnder other circumstances, I should have been very much gratified 
 to renew my associations with my old friends whom I expected to meet, 
 while a recurrence of your celebration would have vividly recalled many 
 events connected with a membersliip of thirty years' standing, and espe- 
 cially the interesting incidents of yonr last decennial festival, when, in con- 
 sequence of the early departure of the venerable chief, under whom it was 
 my happiness to act in the foreign service of the country, as well as in the 
 administration of the society, it became my duty, as your presiding officer, 
 to welcome anotlier illustrious statesman, who, like your last President, 
 has, full of years and of honors, terminated his earthly career. 
 
 " I am convinced that no one then present will ever forget the thrilliog 
 feeling which pervaded the whole assembly, when John Quincy Adams 
 told us tliat he was there by tlie summons of Mr. Gallatin, who had added 
 to the official invitation, " let us shake hands, once more, on this side of the 
 grave." I am sure that our venerated President required no sponsor, 
 especially in the Historical Society, but should any future historian be 
 disposed to misconstrue any act of his, we may reply to him the declara- 
 tion of John Quincy Adams, 'I have known Albert Gallatin for fifty 
 years, and been engaged with him repeatedly in the public service. We 
 have been almost invariably opposed in our political opinions, but I have 
 never known a more honest or a more honorable man.' I quote from re- 
 membrance, and believe that I have not stated Mr. Adams's remark by 
 any means as strongly as he made it. 
 
 "At the decennial anniversary to which I have alluded, we had from 
 our orator the fruits ot that agency which has put New York in possession 
 of her archives, and to have originated which is one of the society's tri- 
 umphs ; while the completion of the »emi-centennial list by the name of 
 the 'historian of the United States,' carries us back some thirty years, 
 when the rare ability and distinguished learning, evinced in several occa- 
 sional discourses, achieved for this branch of literature an independent re- 
 cognition. Nor were the discourses before the Historical Society unwor- 
 thy of a place, side by side, with those of the great statesmen and scholars 
 of the East. If Boston had her Webster and her Everett, New York had 
 her Verplanck and her Wheaton. One of these addresses circumstances 
 have recently brought to my particular notice ; and I had intended to al- 
 lude to it, had it been my good fortune to attend your celebration, in 
 order to show what fruits, independently of the direct contributions to the 
 declared objects of the Society, have been the results of yonr association. 
 I refer to the discourse pronounced before the New York Historical Socie- 
 ty, in 1820, by Henry Wheaton, who, though an adopted citizen of New 
 York, is looked to with just pride by the State, to which my allegiance is 
 due, as a son of her soil. Having occupied whatever leisure my rural avo- 
 cations for the last year afforded in the humble task of bis annotator, I 
 
93 
 
 have found, in the History of the Science of Public or International Law, 
 the germ of those great works, which have placed the name of Wheaton 
 imperisiiably in the same category with those of Grotius and Vattel, and 
 which have made him an authority in all the cabinets of Europe. Even 
 at the time of the appearance of the discourse, it obtained from the vene- 
 rable ex-President Jefferson, and the elder Adams, commendations of no 
 ordinary character ; while Marshall wrote to the author, ' Old Hugo Gro- 
 tius is indebted to you for your defence of him and his quotations ; you 
 have raised him, in my estimation, to the rank that he deserves.' The 
 notice of it in the North American was from the pen of Edward Everett. 
 
 " Not only in the case of Koszta, or on a question of diplomatic immu- 
 nities, are the 'Elements of International Law' quoted, but in the late 
 memorable debate in the British Parliament, on neutral rights, involving 
 the policy of the recent 'declarations' of England and France, both Phil- 
 limore and Sir W. Molesworth appealed to the American publicist as the 
 highest authority extant. It is not, indeed, too much to say, that the 
 place which Grotius filled, which Vattel, as a more modern writer, after- 
 wards occupied, is now assigned to Wheaton. It is well known that after 
 preliminary studies, of which the Historical Discourse is an evidence, and 
 twenty years' distinguished service in Europe, Mr. Wheaton was recalled 
 in a way that his associates abroad could not regard otherwise than as a 
 disgrace, which, according to their system, admitted of no explanation. 
 His friends know that with his sensitive disposition, his letter of recall 
 proved his death warrant, and that no distinction that awaited him, in the 
 cordial reception of his fellow-citizens of all parties in New York and else- 
 where, could avert the fatal blow. Among other papers of a similar im- 
 port lying before me, is a note from the celebrated traveller and distin- 
 guished philosopher. Baron Alex. Humboldt, who was also the personal 
 friend and confidential counsellor of the King of Prussia, which, as afford- 
 ing the best comment on the wisdom of a policy which makes the highest 
 diplomatic appointments dependent on the moves of the political chess- 
 board, I am induced, though it is not very easy to decipher it, to transcribe. 
 It is dated : 
 
 "Potsdam, ce 18 Juin, 1846. 
 
 "Le roi g^mit souvent sur votre depart. II sait combien vous nous 
 6tiez utile, et il ne conqoit pas I'erreur d'un gouvernement qui se prive 
 d'un tel appui. Je suis sQr que le roi et la reine seront touches de la delicate 
 attention du voyage de Madame Wheaton. Je ne puis encore me persua- 
 der qn'on ne vous destine pas quelque grande place en Europe. Yotre 
 nom et celui de M. Gallatin restent hautement'plac^s, et vous avez I'avan- 
 tage sur lui d'excellens travaux historiqnes. C'est une grande et belle con- 
 ception aussi que celle qui a ouvert la route du Nord des Etats-Unis, par 
 Trieste an Levant, et dans 1' Inde. On vous le doit. Agr^ez je vous supplie, 
 mon cher et respectable confrere, I'hommage de mon inalterable devoue- 
 ment. "A. Humboldt." 
 
 "My allusion to Mr. Wheaton's discourse would not have been with a 
 view to his eloge, but in order, as appropriate to a semi-centennial anni- 
 versary, to refer to the new epoch in the law of nations which may well 
 date from this year. When the address in question was delivered, the 
 nations of Christendom bad recently emerged from a series of wars, which 
 had been conducted with an utter disregard of all neutral rights, leaving 
 England with an unlimited sway on the ocean, and without, as on former 
 occasions, the recognition in the treaties of peace, of any maritime princi- 
 ples. The right which England claimed as a part of the law of nations, 
 authorized a search of neutral vessels, not only for contraband of war, but 
 
94 
 
 for eneiiiy'3 goods, and ■when once on board, on a belligerent plea, slie 
 claimed, as incident to the right of search, the taking from our ships of any 
 American seamen that her ofHcers might choose to suspect to be of 
 British origin. Hence impressment, and the war to which it gave rise. 
 France, also, while she admitted tliat fi'ee ships made free goods, besides 
 her repeated infractions of neutral rights by imperial decrees, maintained 
 as a principle of her public law, for which there would seem to be no better 
 reason than a verbal antithesis, that enemy ships make enemy goods. 
 
 "Europe is again at war, and we are neutral. But how clianged is 
 our position. All the belligerents agree, not only tliat free shi])s make 
 free goods, but, except in the special cases of blockade and contraband, 
 entire immunity is accorded to neutral commerce ; and with that power 
 which originated the armed neutrality of 1780, we have consecrated these 
 principles by a treaty, to which we have invited all nations to accede. As 
 to tlie rule of '56 and the colonial policy, they remain only as matters 
 of history. In view of these circumstances, I cannot but look on the 
 year 1854, when the rights of neutral nations have been, for the first time 
 during an actual European war, recognized by the great belligerent 
 powers, as a new epoch in international law ; and that idea, had I been 
 witli you last evening, and had a suitable occasion presented, I should 
 have presumed to embody in a toast. 
 
 "I had intended merely to write a note of apology to show that, 
 though my future lot is cast elsewhere, I am not insensible to the compli- 
 ment which the invitation of the committee implied, nor forgetful of the 
 State to which I owe my nativity, nor to her historical reputation ; but I 
 find that tliinking of your Society has led me into a prolixity, for which 
 even my thirty years' membership can scarce serve as an adequate ex- 
 cuse." 
 
 51. From Sir Archibald Alison, dated Glasgow, December 1, 1854, 
 regretting his inability to be present. 
 
 52. From Fitz-Geeene IIalleck, Esq., dated Guilford, Connecticut, 
 November 22, 1854, regretting that in consequence of his absence from 
 home, he had been unable to acknowledge or accept the invitation of the 
 committee. 
 
 53. From E. Schleiden, Esq., Bremen Minister Resident, dated New 
 Orleans, December 8, 1854, regretting that his absence in Cuba, had made 
 it impossible for him to acknowledge or accept the invitation of the com- 
 mittee. 
 
 54. From Geokge Gibbs, Esq., dated Steilacoom, Washington Terri- 
 tory, November 18, 1854, as follows: — 
 
 " I have the honor to acknowledge your invitation to attend the semi- 
 centennial festival of the New York Historical Society, and regret that 
 the unfinished state of the Pacific Railroad will prevent my reaching your 
 city in season. I trust, however, that at the Centennial, that important 
 work will itself have become an historical fact, and that the guests who 
 may have the honor then to represent the State of Washington at your 
 board, in commemorating the event, will sympathize with the disappoint- 
 ment of their forefather. 
 
 " In the retrospect of that half century which you are about to cele- 
 brate, few events have occurred more remarkable than the recent estab- 
 
95 
 
 lishment of American power upon the Pacific. Kno-wn only till ^vithin 
 the last few years as a remote and savage region, the western shore of th6 
 great South Sea has sprung suddenly into an importance that we can as 
 yet but partially estimate. Its prominence in the future relations of our 
 country is a subject of magnificent speculation rather than of foresight. 
 Confronting, as it does, in its infant strength, the most ancient of existing 
 kingdoms, now tottering in decay, the thoughts of its people already turn 
 to that further strand, the eastern verge of the Old World, with the pre- 
 sage that at no distant period they may reach that also. 
 
 "But to us as a people there as yet belongs no history. The structure 
 of our society is of yesterday. Beyond that, our only record is of indi- 
 viduals. The discoverer, and his successor, the hunter, appertain to what 
 may be considered as the romantic age ; though to them the reality was 
 stern enough. Except in the tradition of personal adventure, tlioy have 
 left no impress behind. They have not, like Cortez and Boone elsewhere, 
 been the founders of the state. The impulse which peopled the territory 
 has obliterated even their landmarks. 
 
 " To the farthest West there is, however, the future ; and if you will, 
 in this connection, accept a toast, (for I presume the ' other ajipropriate 
 proceedings,' to which you refer, include a dinner), I will offer, nunc pro 
 tunc : — 
 
 " The Hereafter of the Pacific States. May it be as glorious ns the Past of 
 their Atlantic sislers." 
 
96 
 
 OFFICEBS AT THE DINNER. 
 
 President. 
 LUTHEE BEADISH. 
 
 FEEDEEIC DE PETSTEE. 
 JAMES W. OEBABD. 
 WILLIAM ADAMS. 
 EEASTUS C. BENEDICT. 
 
 Vice-Freeidenti. 
 
 JAMES DE PETSTEE OGDEN. 
 WILLIAM W. CAMPBELL. 
 JOSEPH BLUNT. 
 JOHN KOMETN BEODHEAD. 
 
 Stewards. 
 
 AUGUSTUS BCHELL. 
 BENJAMIN E. WINTHEOP. 
 BENJAMIN H. FIELD. 
 JOSEPH B. TAENUM, Jk. 
 WOETHINGTON EOMAINE. 
 JOHN JAY. 
 
 AKCHIBALD 8. VAN DUZEE. 
 HIRAM FULLER. 
 WILLIAM P. LEE. 
 JAMES HUMPHREY. 
 CHAELES GOULD. 
 LUTHEE E. MAESH. 
 WILLIAM C. EUS8ELL. 
 JOHN H. WHITE. 
 EICHAED E. MOUNT, Je. 
 EDWAED SL03S0N. 
 
 JOHN P. CROSBY. 
 WILLIAM K. STRONG. 
 CHAELES E. SWOEDS. 
 WILLIAM B. TATLOE. 
 JOHN VAN BUEEN. 
 JOHN D. CLUTE. 
 PE08PEE M. WETMORE 
 EUFUS W. QEISWOLD. 
 GEORGE J. COENELL. 
 HENRY G. 8TEBBIN8. 
 GEOEGE H. MOOEE. 
 M. DUDLEY BEAN. 
 0. DE FOREST GRANT. 
 J. WINTHROP CHANLEE. 
 EDWIN J. BROWN. 
 
 COmnTTEE 07 FUBLICATION. 
 
 GEOEGE H. MOOEE. 
 ANDEEW WAENER. 
 BENJ. E. WINTHEOP.