Class ET^^Cp- Rnnk .QS?^4- \ ■3: §mxpxs of (Oiif |Vf public: AN O H A T 1 O N DELIVERED IN CHESTER, VT., JULY 4, 1857, BY WM. S. BALCH. NEW- YORK : A. TAYLOR & SON, BOOK AND JOB PRINTERS, NO. 40 SIXTH AVENUE. 18 57. :^ -4' DANGERS OF OUR REPUBLIC: AN /i^4/ ORATION DELIVERED IN CHESTER, VT., JULY 4, 1857, BY WM. S. BALCH. NEW-YORK : A. TAYLOR & SON, BOOK AND JOB PRINTERS, NO. 40 SIXTH AVENUE. 1857. j l.'^S'J At a celebration liolden at Chester, Vt., on the 4th of July, 1857, the following resolution, presented by Gov. Fletcher, was unani- mously adopted : Resolved, That a committee of three be appointed by the Presi- dent of the day, to present to the Ret. William S. Balch, the thanks of the audience for his appropriate and able address, and to request a copy of the same for publication. The Chairman appointed on the Committee, His Excellency, Ryland Fletcher, the Hon. Thomas F. Barrett, and the Hon. Abner Field. Eev. "William S. Balch, Dear Sir : It becomes the agreeable duty of the Com- mittee to communicate to you the above resolution, and to ask your compliance with the request which it contains. The undersigned most cordially unite in the desire expressed by your large and intelli- gent audience, to publish your address, from the conviction that its practical, patriotic, and just sentiments are worthy of a wide diffu- sion. Ryland Fletcher, Thomas F. Barrett, Abner Field. New-York, July 13, 1857. Gentlemen : I consent to your request, more from respect for my friends than from a conviction of any merits in the address itself. If its publication shall do any good, I shall be glad. Truly and Fraternally, Wm. S. Balch. His "Excellency, Gov. Fletcher, and others. I AM happy to meet you, my Friends and Fellow-citizens, on such a day as this; to join you in the commemoration of a day and an event which have become justly famous throughout the civilized world. I am happy to be here among my native hills, to hear the glad peal of joyful wel- come to our nation's holiday ringing along these valleys, reverberating among these mountains, and, spreading as it goes, re-awakening a more lively consciousness of duty to defend what our fathers won and entrusted to our keep- ing. I am happy to be in the midst of a free and intelli- gent congregation, who hear with favor the defences of human rights and personal liberty, and do not shrink from the utterance of truth in an hour of danger. I am happy to be here, away from the noisome pestilence of pride, luxury, and liberty without law — here, where intelligence and honesty are more cultivated, and better appreciated, in the management of personal, domestic, and public af- fairs. I am happy to be here for my own sake — far away from the bluster and bustle, from the noise and crime, the misery and corruption, and shameless degradation, which almost necessarily generates in the crowded marts and ambitious commerce of the world — to breathe again the pure, bracing atmosphere which first inflated my infant lungs, and to speak out upon the passing breeze the wit- ness of maturer years to the excellency of the principles and habits here taught me. These rural scenes, so grand and glorious in their soft and silent beauty, are all familiar to my eyes and heart. Every mountain, hill, and vale ; every brook, and glen, and wood, and field, and lawn ; every house, and barn, and shed unchanged, and rock of strange formation, are all impressed upon my mind in lines inerasable. I could go to that old school-house, and mark the benches where I sat and conned the lessons of Webster's Spelling-Book ; to that old church, and tell the banisters I turned round and round a thousand times during a sermon I did not understand ; to that room in the north-east corner, second story, of that old academy, where, with a chum — now gone to his home in the better world — I puzzled my head with the " 6, ?/, ro ;" bonus-a-um of languages which told me of the rise, and riches, and glory of Greek and Roman Republics, and of their de- cline and fall ; and to the school-room, where we recited to one whose face I last saw, a few years ago, all pale and cold, just before they laid it down there in that silent tomb. Ah ! me, what changes have been wrought ! I wondered then about mysteries and marvels long since revealed. I looked forward to things now far behind me. Time goes tramping on, seemingly more fleet than ever, bearing us — who shall tell us where "? I have looked upon these scenes and compared them with others far distant and far different. I have seen them from the high Alps, whose snowy brow is dazzled with the radiance of summer suns, and stars which twinkle in Italian skies ; from the summits of Mt. Lebanon, with the relics of its famous cedars far below me on one hand, and the immense ruins of Baalbec on the other ; from the boundless wastes of Arabian deserts ; from the palm groves, royal tombs, ruined temples, and everlasting pyra- mids on the banks of the Nile ; from cathedral piles and monkish cloisters ; from Roman forum and Athenian Pnyx and Agora; from European and Asiatic battle- fields ; from living thrones, cynic cells, and from among toiling, struggling, suffering masses of oppressed millions : and from every point their rises up for me a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, from this hallowed spot, more excellent in fact, and more sublime in suggestion. than all I see and learn engraven along the lapse of the It is here I learned the simple rudiments of a science which is true in all time, and practical in all nations ; which concerns alike the well-being of the individual, the com- munity, the nation, and the world — 1 mean the knowledge of moral action, private and public, social, religious, and political. I have never seen cause to depart from the lessons of simple honesty and frankness, and unwavering integrity of thought and action, under any circumstances of life through which I have passed. I have ever looked with abhorrence upon the suggestions of policy which con- travene the exercise o? principles drawn from the sublime truths of Christianity. My personal observations accord with the testimony of every man's experience, with the lessons of all history, in teaching the truth of the old maxim of our copy-books that, in every thing, " Honesty is the best policy." Pardon me, my friends, this piece of egotism. It was forced upon me by the place and the occasion ; it shall suggest the theme of my remarks. You have called me here to-day — for what ? To recite to you the noble deeds of our patriot sires'? We of mid-life have heard them from the lips of those grand old sires a thousand times, and would be glad to hear them a thousand more. Alas ! their voices are hushed into the stillness of death ; they speak only in the memories of the past, and tell of their works and sufferings. And we have repeated them in the nursery tales and school- books prepared for our children. Have you called me here to turn you backward ; to amuse you like some Turkish Medak with a charming recitation, half real, half f.ction, made up of euphonious words and well formed sentences 1 I can not gratify you if you have ; I would not if I could. This day should be consecrate to purer thoughts and nobler resolutions. I know that some peo- ple think a Fourth-July oration should be made up of the 6 drift of fine phrases, polished paragraphs, and soft mean- ingless words ; that the orator is a mere rhetorician, who seeks to display, in studied accents, his charming power of speech, or thundering eloquence. If any such are come here to day, I shall be glad to hear of their disappoint- ment. But for what have you called me here 1 Is it not to represent before you the privileges and duties of Amer- ican citizens ? Is it not to remind you of the great res- ponsibility of the present and coming generation ; to apply and carry out, to make practical and permanent, the great principles declared paramount and fundamental by the great sages of our Republic, on the Fourth of July, 1776'? Am I not here to rebuke the errors, per- versions, and wide departures, if any there be, from the strict construction and plain intent of that sacred instru- ment whose simplicity, conciseness, and deep significance have made it the wonder of the world, not less as a polit- ical document, enunciating grand and self-evident truths, which concern the rights and happiness of all men, than as a specimen of pure and beautiful composition '? Am I not here to speak with perfect freedom ; and, while standing upon the simple and eternal truths of the Declara- tion, and looking up to the Fountain of all knowledge, and right, and justice, to point you forward, and encourage you to pursue the career which shall carry out the grand designs of the wise founders of our Republican Institu- tions 1 1 am not here as a partisan of any name. I am glad all party-lines are well-nigh frittered away ; that party- names are no longer synonyms of any set of political principles. As in religion, sectarian walls are crumbling away, and honest and good men, and humble Christians, are coming to be esteemed more than surly bigots, rant- ing enthusiasts, and gnarled controvertionalists ; so in party politics, the Procrustean beds and party -machinery are rusting all away, or being hammered into forms of greater usefulness. Those who are wedded to party-names and organizations, do it at the great hazard of the princi- ples once professed. Though denouncing for themselves all change, and to others all right to think, speak and act contrary to the dictates of their leaders and their plat- forms, they not unfrequently wheel round and change fronts completely, even upon leading questions; for ex- ample, the Dorr rebellion, and Topeka Constitution. Acote hill and Border-ruffianism look very differently when seen from party stand-points. The bitterest old Federalists were, in other days, made over like many of the purest Whigs in our time, into the soundest Democrats, dyed in the web, but not in the wool. I do not object to changes ; far from it, so be they are honestly made, and for the better. I believe in the possi- bility of conversion, even of politicians, for we have seen it. I do not believe in their actual total depravity ; though one familiar with some of their wretched manoeuvrings would be very likely to infer it. When once set at lib- erty from the phariseeism of their ambitious leaders, or rejected by their own fraternity, they not unfrequently become honest men ; though even death-bed confessions, made under the gibbet, are not always to be relied on. Men are sometimes changed so imperceptibly that they do not know it themselves. New and often better princi- ples are scattered, and grow up like forest trees in a field of weeds, and overtop all the rest. As the great heart of the public beats out its sentiments through the circulation of popular and prevailing opinions, party hacks seize upon and incorporate them as new planks in their platforms to ensure the safety of their craft, or at least to keep them afloat awhile longer. They scratch the party mark upon them, as lumbermen do on mill-logs, so that they can claim them as their own, if thought best, when swept away on the freshet of a political excitement. See how partisans have, at different times, used Temperance, Anti- masonry, Native Americanism, Slavery, Abolitionism, as so many cities of refuge to which they may flee from their infidelity, or ill-success with the party to which they have been attached, hoping to outride the storm upon a new hobby and career down the high road to immediate and triumphant success, I do not like this eternal restlessness of some politicians, no more than the downright fogyism of others. But in this age of accelerated movement, how can it be other- wise? When correct principles are accepted, it can not be regretted. And truth sometimes blazes out with ex- ceeding brightness. It was an angel which troubled the waters, and gave them healing properties. If the people will only be honest, and take the trouble to inform them- selves, the masses will rarely go wrong. Of this the whole world has had proof, when great questions have come up for adjudication before the grand jury of all the people. Such a proof I was glad to see in the almost united action of the intelligent freemen of this my native State. Not only in the prompt decision of the ballot- box, but in the straightforward course of a Congregational convention in reference to the coquetting flmikeyism of the Old School Presbyterians. It does one's heart good to read political and religious honesty in the faces and actions of his fellow men. I would not seek a standard in the past., , The perfect is not there. We follow back the tracks of old Time, ^ as he has come along down the ages. His footsteps are marked by blood and change. And we hear the clatter- ing tramp as he passes on his future course to further triumphs, with a speed seeming every day more rapid than the last. Witness the changes within the memory of all of us. He goes to market no more in truck wagon, nor visits by stage-coach, or on runners in winter. He has harnessed his car to the power of steam, and even then, his material interest, goes lumbering on at a snail's pace compared with his mzW, which, mounted up there- on a single wire, flies fleeter than the steeds which drag Aurora's car along the railway of the morning. N Who will stop at the example of the past '^ The Christ we seek said, " I go before you ;" and the abiding exhorta- tion is : " Press forioard to the mark of the high prize of the calling!" The principles we adopt are old as the government of God : for truth is eternal. Their application is for us in the present time, for "now is the day of salvation." Their complete development, in all the splendor of their perfect power, is for the future, a subject for hope, prayer, and labor. It is no new thing v/e seek, but an old com- mandment we had from the beginning. Religiously, it is that " we have all one Father," and all we are brethren ; that we should, therefore, obey God and love one another. Politically, it is that " all men are created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- ness." These two are perfectly harmonious, both in theory and in practice, and they concern the interest and honor, the welfare and happiness of all men. They may be obnoxious to politicians and to bigots. Sectarians may call one heresy, and party politicians the other. To maintain these principles, and a course of conduct corresponding with them, is the positive and bounden duty of every citizen of this Republic, native or adopted. It is alike the duty of the man and the Christian ; of the legislator and the judge ; of the civilian and the ecclesi- astic. Parents should teach these truths to their children, and enforce them by their own examples. Neighbor should tell of them to his neighbor, and try to make them practical throughout the neighborhood. They should be boldly preached from the pulpit, and stoutly defended in legislative halls, despite starvation salaries, and gutta- percha canes. A great statesman said, with emphasis, " Eternal vigi- lance is the price of liberty." It was while the watchmen slept that the enemy sowed the tares. Inattention to the institutions of our government and to the corruptions of 1* 10 designing men, is our chief source of danger. From enemies without we have nothing to fear. There is no single nation, nor any alliance of nations, powerful enough to overthrow the liberties of this country, so be we are united and true to our trusts. If undertaken by well- concerted measures, the execution would be defeated by the refusal of the people to fight against a nation main- taining rights which are dear to every man, in every realm. Kings can not move their subjects to risk their lives in an unnatural contention for the destruction of hu- man freedom. They acknowledge the human brotherhood, and will not willingly fight against their own interests and convictions. Our only danger is in the infection of false and per- nicious principles, the virus which has destroyed all re- publics. I care less about coast defences and steam bat- teries than I do about common schools, and a pure morality enforced upon the rising generation, by correct instructions in the theory and practice of a truly Democratic Eepublic ; and by the examples of those called to administer the eovernment in accordance with them. It is much easier to resist a foreign foe than to cure an internal corruption ; to overpower an invading army than to baflOie the secret intrigues of corrupt and ambitious men. The history of all attempts to establish and maintain personal liberty and the sovereignty of the people, and the methods by which tyranny at last has triumphed, should forewarn us of our dangers, and keep us on our guard. The Grecian republics reveled in luxury, boasted of their wealth, and power, and patriotism, and courage ; and quarreled with each other while the conquering prince of Macedon was marching on their borders. The thun- dering eloquence of Demosthenes poured out in strains of vehement satire, and burning appeals to their honor and their shame, to their homes and their lives, could not drive them from the base intoxication into which their pros- perity had plunged them. The fall of Oiynthus finally 11 alarmed thein, and, like a drunkard half awake, all began to fear and tremble for their safety. But then, says one, " Every place is surrounded by spies and enemies, and how may it be possible to guard against the universal ve- nality ? How shall we defend ourselves against a prince who has often said, and who has proved his words by facts, that there are no walls which a beast of burden laden with gold will not easily make his way over*? Other nations have applauded the thundering decrees which we have enacted against those who have betrayed Olynthus." The conquerors also upbraided the principal persons concerned in the guilt, and called them traitors to their country — thus claiming to be the true friends and defenders of the people, while trampling their liberties under their feet ! When one complained to Philip of the behavior of his soldiers, he sarcastically replied, " The Macedonian soldiers are very rude and unpolished ; they will call a spade a spade." Too late, the whole country was united ; all dis- sensions were, for the moment, in appearance, forgotten, and vigorous measures taken to resist the invading tyrant. It was too vastly^ increased in numbers, wealth, and all the means of greatness, the nations, a small fraction of whom defeated the trained hosts of Xerxes at Marathon, Salamis, and Platea, could not now, in all their force, successfully cope with the small army of the semi-barbarians of the North, What vast and well-trained armies could not do, corruption, long prosperity, pride and luxury had easily accomplished. The whole land fell an easy prey to the heroic invader, who built his rough throne on the polished ruins of the Republics, Thousands of the noisiest patriots bowed obsequiously before the majesty of the Conquerer, and Greece was despoiled of her liberty and her glory. The same story may be told of Syracuse, of Rome, and of all Italian and European Republics, save one. Shall it ever be told of America ^ It is for this and fu- ture generations to say. The single Republic of Switzerland, hung about the crags 12 of her everlasting mountains, has endured five centuries, and defied the more powerful nations which surround her. Need I tell you why ? She has no large cities ; no vast, corrupting commerce ; no immense wealth ; no easy luxu- ries. The people toil for a subsistence from her cold and broken soil, and turn her rapid streams upon the wheels of a few small factories. She has no mighty, soulless corporations to monopolize her industry; no shining honors and jingling salaries to tempt her politicians to in- trigues and party pretentions. She has no single patri- archal institution to which all legislation must bend ; no vast, unsettled territory whose virgin soil may be pollu- ted with the sweat, and blood, and lechery of unrequited toil. No ! her people are all free, in pretense and in fact ; and labor, and industry, and frugality are honorable among them. Here is the secret of her permanence and pros- perity. No neighboring nation has dared to touch them. Austria and Prussia threatened it, but both retreated from their claim. The French lion once disgraced himself by a ferocious assault to gratify his pride. The great Danish artist has forcibly delineated the cowardly attack and deep disgrace, by his famous Lion of Luzerne. The once noble animal lies crouched upon his shield, with the fleur de lis crushed under one paw, while a shaft is rankling in his side, producing the deepest agony, depicted on the wrinkled flice of the dying brute. The Switzer loves his country and her institutions. His home among the mountains is for him the dearest spot on earth. The chalet of his father he would not sell nor alter. " Fireside" and " hearth-stone," have for him a deep and holy meaning — alas ! for us no longer. The costume of his Canton is worn from generation to genera- tion, without the slightest change by man or woman. With equal reverence, they cherish the institutions of free- dom. They respect themselves, and are respected by others. They repel the encroachments of foreign fashion- able luxuries and vice. They are impervious to outside 13 corruptions and intrigues. They form no alliances, and seek no increase of their domains. By their integrity and industry they live and prosper in freedom and power, in the face of ambitious monarchs who tremble for the safety of their thrones. Like the eagle whose eyrie is perched upon their highest crags, with si^ht as clear, they look down from their homes of frugality, simplicity, and contentment, and feel no envy rankling in their souls as they see the gaudy luxuries, and hear the proud boasting of their haughty neighbors. True to their religious con- victions, pure in themselves, and generous towards all, their institutions are as firm as the foundations of their snow-clad mountains, and as such the study wonder, and admiration of the observing in all nations. The fall of Greek and Roman Republics should be our admonition, while Switzerland has set for us an example w^e do well to study. No nation ever rose so rapidly to the pinnacle of defiant greatness as our own ; and none ever rushed by more di- rect and heedless strides along the brink of inevitable destruction. I speak not now, in political parlance, of imbroglios with foreign powers, pro-slavery aggressions, abolition excitements, or the recklessness of fillibustering heroes. I care little for any of these agitations, politically, I regard them only on their own account, willing that each should stand upon its own merits, and be known by its fruits. If of man, they will come to naught ; if of God, we can not overthrow them. That occasional mis- understandings should arise between nations whose inter- ests clash, must be expected ; that a people indolent, and yet ambitious, and not overstocked with broad, religious principles, should desire Slaves to do their work and wait- ing, is not to be wondered at ; that Christians who have learned and believe the Declaration, should desire to see its truths made practical, and speak and labor for it, is no matter of astonishment ; and that reckless politicians, de- spised at home, and famishing for lack of bread, should 14 turn desperadoes, and become wild and wicked adven- turers in weak and unprotected countries, is nothing new under the sun. Our real danger does not lie in that direction ; it is nearer home ; it is in the corrupting desire of temporal gain, with which to excel in the blandishments of life ; it is in the haughty spirit of ambition for place, and parade, and preferment, creating rivalries among veriest friends, producing a daring spirit of speculation to obtain wealth without industry, honor without honesty, fame without merit, salvation without the trouble of repentance ; it is in the blind adhesion to party names, and dictation to the utter disregard of the principles of natural right, equal justice, the convictions of conscience, and the true inter- ests and honor of mankind ; it is in the wills and willing departure from the great truths asserted in the Declara- tion of American Independence, upon which our fore- fathers planted the standard of liberty, and sought to achieve the greatest good for their country and the world ; it is in the careless inattention to the instructions and ad- monitions of those great and good men who sought to establish a government which should combine Christian principles and political powder for the security of " life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" to all men ; it is in the neglect to carry out and make predominant what they so well began, and so nobly defended ; it is in the rapid degeneracy too often consequent upon great w^ealth easily obtained, and the foolish desire to vie with the splendors and luxuries of older and corrupt nations ; it is in the substitution of a pretended for a real love and ad- miration for the institutions of liberty and right,, on the part of gambling politicians, by which the unsuspicious are deceived, and beti'ayed into the support of measures they neither. understand nor approve; it is in the rapid and constant tendency to centralization, by the increase of political dishonesty and chicanery by which office-seekers and their helpers appeal to the lowest and basest passions 15 to promote their selfish ends; it is in the low state of political sentiment among the people generally, or a habit of carelessness in reference to the great questions which concern the stability and development of our Democratic form of government. The political can never be raised above the moral standard of a people. When therefore, the appeal is made to the final tribmial, in order to a just and righteous decision, the people must be well informed, uncorrupt, and incorruptible, or a true and safe verdict will not be rendered. If the body is sound, the constitution good, it will slough off the obnoxious falsities before alleged. But if itself becomes diseased, overworked, and corrupt, these invaders will be invited in to feed upon the life that remains. It always has been so ; and we are not excep- tions. It is the miserable considerations of place, and power, and pence, that keeps up these agitations and divi- sions ; that gives to slavery all its strength, and to fili- busters their only countenance. No man defends slavery or excuses it on its own merits, for it has none. It is a wrong, a great wrong; a sin against God and humanity ; a foul blot, a damning disgrace upon our nation. And every body knows it, and confesses it when they stop and reflect upon the real thing. Take away the profit, and it will find no apologist, •' None so mean as do it reverence." But SO long as a two-years old child will sell for two hundred and fifty dollars ; a boy of ten for one thousand dollars; and a girl of fifteen, so be she is sleek and hand- some, for fifteen hundred dollars, do you wonder that Southern men, Whigs and Democrats, Christians and infi- dels, turn their attention to raising negroes instead of hogs and horses, which yield not a tithe of the profit 1 Would not some Northern men, even abolitionists, do the same ? The worst masters, and stoutest sticklers for the continuance and spread of the evil, have gone from the North ; and its strong supporters are here, as well as there. J 16 /' The South knows the weak spot, and plies the chief argu- ment ; aims the poisoned shaft directly at it. They threaten to molest the course of trade, destroy our pros- perous commerce, and leave us to starve, if we will not fall down and reverence their peculiar institution ; nay, they will dissolve the Union, destroy the government, and let the nation go to destruction, before they will abate one jot their right to hold in bondage and in ignorance three millions of human beings ; to buy and sell and make gain out of their bodies, souls, and unpaid toil, and carry them in chains into any part of our public domain. And there are found wise men who believe them, and for the hope of gain — the mess of pottage — are ready to sacrifice prin- ciples — what they have — to party preferment, to prostrate themselves before this huge Juggernaut which, in the end, is sure to crush all its devotees, as it has ever done. Now, a good, moderate, honest policy I admire. It is safe and commendable. But when the blood of principle, the life of all true prosperity, is demanded, it is time to stop and consider. The aggressions of slave power making treaties but to break them, and promises but to repudiate them, have aroused, at last, an element in human nature which will come dov/n with telling force upon the wide departures from the primary truths upon which our government is founded. Cotton bales, and political intrigues, can not save their pride and arrogance fi'om the scorn and indignation of the civilization of this nineteenth century, nor from the disgrace of those crimes which cry to heaven for judgment. Do not misapprehend me. I would not disturb the harmony of our happy Union. But I would defend the right, and plead the cause of the oppressed and needy. I would let the voice of God and humanity be heard in a free and fair discussion of all questions which concern the honor of one, and the good of the other. The most dan- gerous feature in all this matter is the dogged exclusive- ness of some, or stolid indifference of others, where eternal 17 and self-evident truths are at stake. A man may not write, print, speak, think, or act differently on this single question from the arrogant censors of public opinion, on pain of ostracism. No man or woman may teach a boy or girl to read God's holy word, under the penalty of fine and imprisonment, if the mother's skin be a shade too dark, though, perchance, the hair is straight, the cheeks as red, the eyes as blue as the master's who demands the punishment. Presidents and Professors of Colleges are dismissed and banished, like every other who dares to have an opinion or a preference different from the traffickers in blood, and so of every bookseller who keeps a pamphlet distasteful to their chivalry. Such is freedom, and such the example of the boasted chivalry of the model Republic ! And there are, I fear, too many among the freemen of the North who justify such abominations, and in their souls no doubt regret that slavery was ever abolished in any State, that they are not now permitted to trade in human beings as goods and chattels everywhere. Such think Franklin was a fool, instead of a philosopher ; and the great men of the last century needless agitators, because they entered their protest against this inhuman traffic, and sought its peaceable removal. Alas ! for their memories, and the honor of our nation ! How soon are we departed from the simple maxims and sublime principles they announced ! How soon have we forgotten the lessons taught, and the examples set us by our patriot sires. Wake, wake, ye slumbering heroes of the past, and let your ghostly reproaches fall upon your degenerate sons ! Make pass before us the microcosm of your noble deeds, your bitter sufferings, your patient endurance, your glori- ous triumph ! Tell us what liberty cost, that we may know how to prize it ; what it is, that we may know how to defend it ! Some people dread the immense influx of foreign popu- lations. So do I, except on one condition, that they leave their national prejudices and clannish dispositions 18 behind them, and all that appertains to the nations they have voluntarily forsaken, and become, at once and alto- ^ gether, affiliated to the institutions of the land of their adoption. Let them eschew their royalty, their ignor- ance, and their lawlessness ; let them strip oif their corduroys and blouses, forsake their lager-beer and their papacy, and learn to think, speak, and feel in the plain American dialect of liberty and law, and live in all good faith with the people among whom they have come ; and they shall find an honest welcome, and a happy home. Let me speak a moment upon our dangers in another aspect. The careful observer can not fail to notice an important fact in relation to the populations of cities and large towns, when compared with rural districts. The traveler and the statistician alike perceive the striking change in the comparison. I notice here and there a vacant farm, houses shut up, removed, torn down, or turned into a shed or sheep barn. The place, it may be where we were born, is among them. The fate of Homer may yet be ours. If forty places do not care to claim us, not one may know, not our own children, where we were born. The country towns of your State, of New-England, the Middle and Southern States, are actually diminishing in population. " Going West" may account for this fact in part, but not altogether. Our cities, manufacturing vil- lages, and commercial centres, have increased and are still increasing, many of them with unparalleled rapidity. Our young men and women, and some old ones, have be- come discontented and quit their homes, to do better ; infatuated with a desire to get rich faster and easier; to live more splendidly, and yet more lazily. They learn to despise home, its simple manners, sincere affec- tion, honest toil, and frugal living, and desire the blandish- ments, indolence, excitement and extravagance so common in cities and large towns. They are like the beautiful 19 young women of Georgia and Circassia who, from their childhood, dream of the splendors and luxuries of Istam- boul, and longing to be sold from their mothers' arms and fathers' care, that they may be bought in the Aurut Bazaar, perchance by the Kisler Aga, to become the beautiful and envied Odaliques in the harem of the Sultan. Here is a great and crying danger — a gross offence against the memories of our forefathers. We have not heeded their wise precepts, nor followed their good examples. We have departed from their simple, honest, earnest mode of life, and preferred the vanities and follies of a growing profligacy. Foreign fashions and flummeries have been imported, and exotic customs, and almost every species of extravagance have made a rapid growth in our exuberant love of imitation. We have forgotten the distinction between man and monkey, and puzzled naturalists with doubtful disquisitions by our apishness. There is no nation on earth so much given to fashion, and not a street where may be seen so much foolish, foppish extrava- gance, such proud and costly bearing, as in Broadway. Multitudes of our men grown suddenly rich, visit Europe, and admire aristocracy robed in authority. They visit many cities, but make their longest stay at Rome or Paris, the two corruptest cities in the world. They find their standard there, and model after it. On their return they set up their carriages, sew shiny buttons on the coats and fasten gilt bands round the hats of hireling Englishmen, and then go down to their shops, and leave their wives and children to take an airing in livery. Young men and women from the country, honest, ambi- tious, and unsophisticated, visit their city cousins. Their eyes are dazzled with the displays of wealth and luxury and apparent ease and contentment seen in the fashionable streets, and " private princely palaces." They think all is gold that glitters, and long to leave their mountain homes and become denizens of a crowded city. They do not see the crime, and shame, and misery which lurks under fair 20 externals, from the smooth-faced hypocrisy laced into the latest style and widest proportions, yawning on plush cushions in the grandest churches, to the lame duck who shins it through every broker's office just before three o'clock, all the way down through dishonest trade, gambling houses, billiard-saloons, grog shops and brothels, which drum for customers, to the lowest pits of vice, poverty, and degradation which fester in the damp cellars, dark lanes, rear buildings, and horrid purlieus of all large cities* The whole manner of city life is becoming little else than a system of false pretences, from highest to lowest. Most of life's enjoyments are sought in artificial excitements. Nature's simple laws are strangely outraged, and the best of heaven's blessings are perverted and changed into curses, as of old. Where are the decencies and proprie- ties of life so outraged as in our cities and large towns 1 Where are mobs, murders, riots, thefts, drunkenness, har- lotry, and lawless living most common? Where are reforms most difficult, crimes most successful, vice most unblushing, and virtue least courted ? And yet young people despise the rustic simplicity of their quiet and happy homes, and rush into the city. Alas, how few return as good as they went ! From the city and large towns there sets back upon the country a full tide of bad influences, which helps to de- ceive and corrupt our young men and maidens. To the merchant, mechanic, professional man, and laborer, money seems to come easily, and in abundance. Immense for- tunes have been made in a brief period. Young men from the country have risen to wealth and distinction with astonishing celerity ; therefore all others may. No heed is given to the nine out of ten who utterly fail, and sink into ruin and disgrace. Wealth flows into large places to find a higher and safer usury ; talent for a better oppor- tunity for distinction. Agriculture and productive toil are neglected, while the rage of speculation prevails. Lands, houses, rents, provisions, everything goes up ; and 21 honesty goes down. Banks, insurance companies, rail- ways, coal mines, gold diggins. Western cities, patent rights, all sorts of facts and fancies in the earth and in the moon, are hatched and divided into stocks to be traf- ficed in. The immense inflation of the currency by sub- stituting pictured paper, issued on credit, lends a power and temporary success to all unnatural schemes of specula- tion, and cheats honest toil of half its recompense. Every upstart who has a father or old uncle to back him, longs to get behind a counter and measure tape, sell pea- nuts, tinker in stocks, or count and record money not his own ; or to turn peddler and speculator, and ransack every nook and corner of the land to find something to trade in. They come up here from the cities, and go to every house and hamlet to buy all marketable produce before it is produced — your eggs before they are laid, your corn be- fore it is planted, your butter before the cows are milked, your lambs before they are born. They off*er you a price, and combine with their fellows to keep prices low here and high there, and succeed so long as banks will renew their discounts. Thus these interlopers come between the producer and the consumer, and like hungry leeches suck all the profit from both. They look two ways for Sunday. They are the lice and frogs of Egypt — the locusts of the land. If they prosper, honesty suffers ; if they fail, it is all the same. And so all the way along in the modern method of doing business. The old-fashioned days of checked aprons, patient industry, cheerful frugality, practical honesty, and Christian meekness seem to have departed ; I sometimes fear, never to return. We see no more barefoot humility and ox-sled piety going to church summer or winter, as when we were children together. The evil has infected the whole community. The poi- son is in all of us. We may as well confess it. But all are not past recovery. Some there are, in city and coun- try, who deplore these things in solemn earnestness, and are ready to join hands and seek a remedy before it is too 22 late. When really set about it, one will be easily found. It is simply to return to the practice of all that was good and just in the days when simple, earnest, and true men " knew their rights, and knowing, dared defend them ;" when hu- mility went before pride ; true patriotism lived in men's hearts ; when our country had statesmen instead of poli- ticians, and honest men were preferred before party success. Politicians are deeply implicated in the corruptions which seem to be rife in almost every department of our Municipal, State, and General governments. So all-perva- ding has the evil become, that professional politicians are looked upon with utmost suspicion, as selfish and dishonest men. And there is reason for it. A " Corruption Com- mittee " in Congress detected much malfeasance with little trouble, but soon found they had struck a vein they must not follow, and even refused to the implicated an explanation for fear of more exposures than they could manage. And, after all, what is the substance of a large portion of our legislation, State and National 1 Is it not for mere mercenary objects, corporations, land monopo- lies, over-worked commerce, and special partisan pur- poses 1 What a small portion is given directly or inci- dentally to the great mass of the people — to farmers, mechanics, and laborers, for the general good ! A few Reports from the Patent Office, v/ith a few papers of seeds sent to families, is about all the farmer gets. Glance back to the Revolution. Study the character of the people and the legislation of those dayfe. You will find them the golden days of political honesty, when reigned the love of universal liberty. How strangely do they contrast with our time ! How vast the change, and yet what means for good ! What success, and yet what sad degeneracy ! How has prosperity increased our lux- ury, pride, extravagance, hypocrisy — the bane of all re- publics ! The culmination may be reached, the crisis may be passed, and destruction be escaped or delayed. I some- 23 times fear and tremble when I contemplate our future in the light of the present. If the past is to be the prelude, there can be but one conclusion. But if truth is eternal and destined to prevail, then there is reason for hope. If there is no recuperative power in the construction, the foundations remain sure ; and, when every relic is swept away, there will arise a structure more solid and beauti- ful, whose glory shall fill the whole earth. Great things may of right be expected of a land like ours. The name of Washington is in every language the synonyme of lib- erty and greatness, and our Republic is every wheresup- posed to be the home of equal justice, eternal right, and perfect prosperity. The founders of all nations are heroes, and when they sink into corruption and degrada- tion, they rise to be gods, and are worshipped though not obeyed. If those entrusted with privilege prove faithless, another and holier generation will the Lord raise up to take their places. One State, I am glad to know, has maintained its in- tegrity fully equal to any other, and excelled in its adhesion to the plain and simple manners and customs of its youthful days. Why ? It has no large cities, no seaports steaming with sin and shame, no large proportion of dependent and idle people to hatch mischief, no con- centrated powder, no overw^eening aristocracy. Railways intersect your valleys, and iron bands are fastened over your mountains. They were mostly built with capital from profits on the productions of your labor, returned from cities where accumulated. They bring you news and fashions, and increase the value of your farms. Much of your rural simplicity remains, improved, perchance, by the easy intercourse and interchange of commodities with all ports of the country. But your sons are grown dis- contented, and a grand exodus is going forward in pursuit of easier fortunes, which must seriously threaten your prosperity. Make your homes pleasant and attractive, with every facility for genuine refinement in the resources 24 and comforts of a high moral and rational existence, and you will attach them by a bond they will be loth to sever. One thing delights me when I think that this is my native State ; and in that I glory. Amid all changes, under all administrations. Federalist, Republican, De- mocratic, Anti-Masonic, Whig, or Black Eepublican — forgive the expletive — Vermont has always been true to the great principles of civil and religious liberty, and firm in her attachments to the Union and human rights as the foundations of her everlasting mountains. It rejoices my heart to learn that my native town voted, without one dissent, for constitutional liberty and the limit of wrong. Pirst-born child of a happy Union ; begotten in the fervor of a pure and perfect love ! Like the fame of thy earliest heroes, who said to rival States on either side, while yet in embryo, " Hands off," but who, by their heroism, at Crown Point, Ticonderoga, Bennington, and Saratoga, rendered the name of Green Mountain Boy immortal on the pages of history ; so may thy sons ever be found faithful to thy first love, and jealous of thy rights ! From the summits of thy lofty mountains may the watch-fires of freedom, purity, intelligence, and pa- riotism blaze out with brighter lustre than ever shone from Paynim altar, or Monarch's throne ; and from thy rugged cliffs and beautiful valleys may there ring out through all the land, and to the latest generations, one united voice for liberty, humanity, and God — till from the commercial cities of the East there shall be echoed a res- ponse which shall roll over the broad prairies of the West, overleap the Rocky barrier, and sound down into the naines of California. Nay, more, may the light of thy example cease not to circulate, till from no spot of our fair land shall there be found one dark spot from whence shall be heard a wail of wo, or a cry of oppression, but with the whole humanity join in the grand and grateful anthem in honor of truth, right, liberty, love, and universal peace.