r^ 
 
 ORATION 
 
 WILLIAM Hf'SEWARl), 
 
 AT PLYMOUTH, 
 
 D E C R M B E R iil , 1 8 5 H 
 
 ALBANY : 
 
 WEKD, PAKSONS AND COMPANY, 
 1856. 
 
ORATION 
 
 WILLIAM H. SEWARD, 
 
 AT PLYMOUTH, 
 
 DECEMBER 21, 18 55. 
 
 ALBANY : 
 
 WEED, PARSONS AND COMPANY, 
 
 1856. 
 

ORATION. 
 
 Society and Government are mutually related and insepa- 
 rable. The material, intellectual, moral and spiritual con- 
 ditions of every people, determine, through either a direct 
 exercise of their will or their passive consent, the nature and 
 form of their government. Reasoning from the attributes 
 of the Creator and from the constitution of man, we justly 
 conclude that a high stage of social happiness is attainable, 
 and that beneficent government is therefore ultimately pos- 
 sible. Any different theory makes the hopes which sustain 
 virtue delusive, and the Deity, who inspires them, a demon, 
 equally to be feared and hated. Experience, however, 
 teaches us that the advances of mankind towards such hap- 
 piness and government are very slow. Poetry, indeed, often 
 presents to us pleasing scenes of national felicity ; but these 
 are purely imaginary, while history is an almost unrelieved 
 narrative of political crimes and public dangers and calami- 
 ties. 
 
 We discover, by induction, moral laws as inflexible as the 
 material laws of the universe. We know, therefore, that 
 the tardiness of political progress results from a failure thus 
 far to discover or apply those moral laws. The failure, at 
 first view, excites surprise. Social melioration is apparently 
 an object of general and intense desire. Certainly, the arts 
 which subserve material safety, subsistence and comfort, 
 
have been eminently improved. We construct useful engines 
 recently conceived ; we search the whole surface of the round 
 earth with comparative ease ; we know the appointed 
 courses and seasons of worlds which we can scarcely see. 
 It is doubtful whether the arts of architecture, painting, 
 sculpture and poetry, are susceptible of higher perfection. 
 Why, then, does political science remain obscure, and the 
 art of government uncertain and perplexed? 
 
 It happens, in some degree, because material vt^ants have 
 hitherto exacted excessive care ; in some degree, because 
 the advantages which result from political improvements 
 are indirect and diffusive ; but chiefly because the science is 
 in its nature recondite, and the art intrinsically difficult. 
 
 Metaphysics is a science confessedly abstruse, and generally 
 regarded as irksome and fruitless. Lord Bacon so pro- 
 nounces, and he explains : — "For the wit and mind of man, 
 if it work upon matter, which is the contemplation of the 
 creatures of God, worketh according to the stuff, and is 
 limited thereby ; but if it work upon itself, as the spider 
 worketh his web, then it is endless, and brings forward, 
 indeed, cobwebs of learning, admirable for the fineness of 
 thread and work, but of no substance or profit." How could 
 the study of groups be either easier or more satisfactory than 
 that of individual man? The same philosopher confesses 
 that "government is a part of knowledge, secret and retired." 
 
 Consider only one State. Its magnitude is immense, its 
 outlines are indistinct, it is without symmetry of parts; its 
 principles and dispositions are a confused aggregate of the 
 imperfectly understood principles and dispositions of many 
 thousands or even many millions of men. The causes which 
 have chiefly given form and direction to these principles 
 and dispositions are either unknown or forgotten ; those 
 which arc now modifying them are too subtle for our exami- 
 nation. The future of States involves further conditions, 
 which lie outside of the range of human foresight, and 
 
therefore are called accidents. Human life is short, while 
 the process of induction in political science reaches through 
 generations, and even ages. Philosophers seldom enjoy facili- 
 ties for that process. Hence, they " make imaginary laws 
 for imaginary commonwealths, and their discourses are as 
 the stars, which give little light, because they are so high." 
 Statesmen, on the contrary, " write according to the States 
 where they live, what is received law, and not what ought 
 to be law." 
 
 A constitutional alteration is often necessary to secure a 
 desirable social improvement ; but such an alteration cannot 
 be made without a previous change of public opinion in the 
 State, and even of opinion in surrounding States ; for nations 
 are social persons, and members of an universal common- 
 wealth. Habit resists such changes. Timidity, though 
 looking forward, is short sighted ; and with far sighted ven- 
 eration, which always looks backward, opposes such changes. 
 Laws, however erroneous, or however arbitrarily established, 
 acquire a supposed sanctity from the ceremony of their en- 
 actment, and derive great strength from protracted acquies- 
 cence. In a despotic State, no subject can move changes. 
 In a free one, each member may oppose, and opponents 
 more easily combine than advocates. Ambition is the ruling 
 passion of States. It is blind to defects and dangers, while 
 hurrying them on in careers of aggression and aggrandize- 
 ment. The personal interests and ambitions of many effec- 
 tive members of the State cling to its institutions, however 
 erroneous or injurious, and protect them against innovation. 
 Reform can only appeal to reason and conscience. Conser- 
 vatism arouses prejudice, cupidity and fear, and adroitly ex- 
 cites and directs hatred against the person of the reformer. 
 Retaliation too naturally follows ; and so the controversy, 
 which properly ought to be a public and dispassionate one, 
 changes imperceptibly into a heated conflict of factions. 
 Humanity and benevolence are developed only with increas- 
 
ing knowledge and refinement. Hence, castes and classes 
 long remain ; and these, although all equally interested in a 
 proposed melioration, are, by an artful direction of their 
 mutual antipathies, made to defeat it by their implacable 
 contentions. Material interests are immediately roused and 
 combined in opposition, because they suffer from the least 
 disturbance. The benefits of a social change are more dis- 
 tant, and therefore distrusted and undervalued. The law of 
 progress certainly does not require changes of institutions 
 to be made at the cost of public calamities, or even of great 
 private inconveniences. But that law is, nevertheless, in- 
 exorable. A necessary reformation will have its way, peace- 
 fully if favored, violently if resisted. In this sense, the 
 Founder of Christianity confessed that he had come upon the 
 earth to bring, not peace, but a sword. Revolutions are not 
 divinely appointed attendants of progress, nor is liberty 
 necessarily born of social convulsion, and baptized with 
 blood. Revolutions, on the contrary, are the natural penal- 
 ties for unwise persistence in error, and servile acquiescence 
 in injustice and oppression. Such revolutions, more- 
 over, are of doubtful success. Most men engage readily 
 enough in civil wars, and for a flash are hot and active ; but 
 they cool from natural unsteadiness of temper, and abandon 
 their objects, and, destitute alike of principle, honor and 
 true courage, betray themselves, their associates, and even 
 their cause, however just and sacred. Happily, however, 
 martial revolutions do not always fail. In some cases, the 
 tempers and dispositions of the nation undergo a propitious 
 change; it becomes generous, brave and self-denying, and 
 freedom consequently gains substantial and enduring tri- 
 umphs. It is hard, in such cases, to separate the share of 
 fortune from that of merit, in analyzing the characters of 
 heroes. Nor is it absolutely necessary. The martial hero- 
 ism of such revolutions is wisely honored, even with exag- 
 geration, because such honors stimulate a virtuous and 
 
healthful emulation. Mankind seek out the noblest among 
 the successful champions, and investing him with imaginary- 
 excellence in addition to his real merit, set him apart as an 
 object of universal veneration to the world's end. We re- 
 cognize such impersonations in Tell and Alfred, in Wallace 
 and Washington. 
 
 These successful martial revolutions, however, only con- 
 summate changes which were long before projected and 
 prepared by bold, thoughtful, earnest and persevering 
 reformers. There is justly due, therefore, to these reformers 
 at least some of the homage which redeemed nations award 
 to their benefactors. We shall increase that tribute, if we 
 reflect that the sagacity which detects the roots and causes 
 from which national calamities and thraldoms spring, and 
 proceeds calmly to remove them, and to avert the need of 
 an ultimate sanguinary remedy, or prepare that remedy so 
 that it shall be effectual, combines the merits of genius, of 
 prudence and humanity, with those of patriotism. Our 
 admiration of these reformers will rise still higher when we 
 remember that they always are eminently good men, denied 
 the confidence and sympathies of the country which they 
 are endeavoring to save. They are necessarily good men, 
 because only such can love freedom heartily. 
 
 "All others love not Freedom, but license, which never hath more scope 
 or induigence than under tyrants. Hence it is that t3a"ants are not often 
 offended, nor stand much in doubt of bad men, as being all naturally servile ; 
 but in whom virtue and true worth most is eminent, these the}' fear in earnest, 
 as by right their masters. Against these lie all their hatred and suspicion. 
 Consequently, neither do bad men hate tyrants, but have been always 
 readiest, with their falsified names of loyalty and obedience, to color over 
 their base compliances." 
 
 The devotion of these real authors of all beneficent revo- 
 lutions to the melioration of human society, is therefore the 
 most perfect and impressive form of magnanimity. 
 
 I know very well that this estimate is not generally 
 allowed; nor is the injustice of the case peculiar. It 
 
8 
 
 occurs in all other departments of activity. We justly 
 honor the name of Watt, who applied the ascertained 
 mechanical power of steam to the service of the useful arts of 
 social life — and the memory of Fulton, who converted the 
 steam engine into a marine power, and sent it abroad on all 
 lakes, rivers and oceans, an agent of commerce, knowledge, 
 civilization and freedom. Yet we seldom recall the previous 
 and indispensable studies of the Marquis of Worcester, who 
 announced his invention of the steam engine itself in those 
 words, as full of piety and benevolence as of joy: 
 
 " Thanks to God, next to those which are due for creation and redemp- 
 tion, for havinjr vouchsafed an insight into so great a secret of nature, bene- 
 ficial to all mankind, as this water commanding engine." 
 
 We cheerfully accord renown to Morse, who produced the 
 electric telegraph ; but we are prone to forget that Franklin 
 discovered the germ of that great invention, by boldly ques- 
 tioning the awe-inspiring lightnings in their native skies. 
 
 There is abundant excuse for the popular neglect of 
 peaceful, social reformers. Either they are engaged in 
 apparently idle and visionary speculations, or else occupied 
 in what seems even more absurd, an obstinate contention 
 with the prevailing political philosophy of their age. Those 
 speculations assume the consistency of science — that con- 
 tention, the dignity of knowledge — only when in some later 
 age the principles they announced have been established. 
 In the meantime,' they pass for malcontents and fanatics. 
 The rude taste of society generally delights in themes and 
 characters which are sounding, marvelous, and magnificent ; 
 and prefers the march, the camp, the siege, the surprise, the 
 sortie, the charge, the battle, with its quickly vibrating 
 fortunes — the victory, the agonies of the night which follows 
 it, and the pomp and revelry of the day which banishes the 
 complaining memories of that fearful night, to the humani- 
 tarian's placid studies, or the bewildering debates of polemic 
 politics. 
 
Excusable, however, as the injustice is, which I have de- 
 scribed, it is nevertheless unwise and injurious. It dis- 
 courages necessary, noble and generous efforts, and is chief 
 among the bulwarks of superstition and despotism. The 
 energies of men can never remain stationary. A nation that 
 will not tolerate the activity of intellectual energy in the 
 pursuit of political truth, must expect the study of that 
 truth to cease. A nation that has ceased to produce original 
 and inventive minds, restless in advancing the land marks 
 of knowledge and freedom, from that moment has begun to 
 recede towards ignorance and slavery. Every stage back- 
 wards renders its return more hopeless. 
 
 I am sure that this great error will not last always, and 
 yet I do not think it is near its end. How long it shall 
 endure, is known only to Him who, although he commands 
 us to sow and to plant with undoubting faith, that we shall 
 reap and gather the fruits of our culture, reserves to himself, 
 nevertheless, not only the control, but even the knowledge 
 of the forth-coming seasons. 
 
 It is because I am unwilling to forego a proper occasion 
 for disavowing that error, that I am here to celebrate, over 
 the graves of the Forefathers, on this day devoted to their 
 memories, the virtues, the labors and the sufferings, of the 
 Puritans of New England and Old England. My interest 
 in the celebration is not, like your own, a derived, but only 
 a reflected one. I am not native here, nor was I born to the 
 manner of this high and holy observance. The dogmatical 
 expositions of the Christian scheme pronounced by the Puri- 
 tans have not altogether commanded my acceptance. I shall, 
 therefore, refrain from even an approach to those finer parts of 
 my great theme, justly familiar to your accustomed orators, 
 which reach the profoundest depths of reverence and love in 
 the bosoms of the lineal descendants of the founders of New 
 England. A few years after the death of Napoleon, I stood 
 before the majestic column in the Place Vendome, that 
 
10 
 
 lifts his statue high above the capital of France. When I 
 asked who scattered there a thousand wreaths of flowers, 
 freshly gathered, that covered its base, the answer came 
 quickly back, " All the world." So I, one only of tlie same 
 vast constituency, cheerfully cast my garland upon the tomb 
 of the Pilgrims and lend my voice to aid your noble purpose 
 of erecting here a worthier and more deserved monument 
 to the memory of the Pilgrims. It is, indeed, quite unne- 
 cessary to their fame; yet it is, alas, only too necessary to 
 correct the basis of the world's judgment of heroic worth. 
 Make its foundations broad as the domain which the ad- 
 venturers of the May Flower, peacefully and without 
 injustice, rescued from the tramp of savage tribes ! Let 
 its material be of the imperishable substance of these ever- 
 lasting hills ! Let its devices and descriptions be colossal, 
 as becomes the emblems and tributes which commemorates 
 a world's ever upheaving deliverance from civil and reli- 
 gious despotism ! Let its shaft rise so high, that it shall 
 cast its alternate shadows, changing with the progress of 
 the sun in his journey, across the Atlantic and over the 
 intervening mountains to the Pacific coast I It must even 
 then borrow majesty from the rock which was the first 
 foothold of the Pilgrims on these desolate shores, instead 
 of imparting to it sublimity. 
 
 But I may not touch the domestic story of your ancestors. 
 Only a Jewish hand could strike the cymbals with the bold- 
 ness due to the theme of the march of the host of Israel, 
 under the guidance of its changeful pillar of cloud and of 
 fire, while pursued by the chariots and horsemen of Egypt, 
 through the divinely divided floods of the Arabian Sea ; or, 
 without temerity almost sacrilegious, lift from the waving 
 boughs the harps which the daughters of Jerusalem hung 
 upon the willows, while by the side of the rivers of Assyria 
 they sat down, and wept the piteous captivity of their 
 nation, beloved, but temporarily forsaken of God. 
 
11 
 
 It is a sure way of promoting knowledge and virtue, as 
 well as of rising to greatness and goodness, to study with 
 due care and reverence the operation of sublime principles 
 of conduct in advancing the progress of mankind. I desire 
 so to contemplate the working of the leading principle of 
 the Puritans. 
 
 I confess that the Puritans neither disclosed nor discovered 
 any new truths of morals or of government. None such have 
 been discovered, at least since the Divine Teacher set forth 
 the whole system of private and public ethics among the 
 olive groves, on that one which was his favorite among the 
 mountains that look down upon Jerusalem. 
 
 Nor was it their mission to institute a new progress of 
 mankind. Although the eastern nations, the first to enjoy 
 the light of civilization, had long before the age of the Puri- 
 tans, sunk into that deep sleep from which there is as yet no 
 awaking, yet Europe was even then full of energy, enterprise 
 and hope. The better elements of the Oriental and Mediter- 
 ranean civilizations had survived and, cooperating with the 
 pure influences of Christianity, were enlightening and refin- 
 ing the southern and western nations. The Western church, 
 which until recently was unpartitioned, had long defended 
 the faith against the Saracens, and protected feeble States 
 against the aggressions of ambitious princes. It still held the 
 nations in the bonds of a common fraternity. Nor had it 
 forgotten to proselyte, after the primitive manner, by incul- 
 cating morality and charity. It had, by its potent command, 
 addressed to the conscience of Christendom, abolished 
 throughout Europe that system of personal servitude in 
 which a large, perhaps the largest, portion of every commu- 
 nity had been held, under every form of government. It 
 bore its testimony steadily against that system everywhere 
 declaring that " Grod and Nature equally cry out against 
 human slavery; that serfs and slaves are a part of the human 
 family which Christ died to redeem ; and that equality is an 
 
12 
 
 essential incident of that brotherhood which he enjoins as a 
 test by which his disciples shall be known." 
 
 The foundations of that comprehensive international code, 
 which is now everywhere accepted, were broadly laid. It 
 was then clearly taught that " there are in nature certain 
 fountains of justice, from which all pure civil laws flow, 
 varying only in this — that as waters take tinctures and 
 tastes from the soils through which they run, so do civil laws 
 differ according to the regions and governments where they 
 are planted." Luther had already summoned Europe to a 
 new and more vigorous morality, and Calvin's sharp voice 
 was ringing through the continent, calling the faithful away 
 from all ostentatious ceremonies of worship, to that pure 
 and spiritual one which God prefers "before all temples." 
 The feudal policy, although founded in very imperfect con- 
 ceptions of civil society, had saved, through the recent 
 decline, many personal and political rights and privileges 
 which otherwise would have been swept away, as they were 
 in Asia, by the desolating hand of absolute j>ower. Chivalry, 
 a wild vine, engrafted upon Christianity, wasbearing abundant 
 fruits of courage, constancy, gallantry, munificence, honor and 
 clemency. The machinery of mercenary armies was not yet 
 perfected, and the security of government was still held to 
 depend, not on laws and force, but on the approval and sym- 
 pathies of the people. Commerce had discovered that the 
 oceans were designed, not to separate, but to unite nations, 
 and was extending its field over all habitable climes, and 
 taking on the dignity of its new functions as aft auxiliary of 
 empire. Manufactures had been incorporated as a distinct 
 wheel in the enginery of national wealth; and the productive 
 classes had already attained a position among the ruling ele- 
 ments of States. A wise policy of liberal naturalization 
 was breaking up local septs and clans, and distributing the 
 seeds of material and social improvement throughout both 
 hemispheres. Indolence, expense and faction, had prepared 
 
13 
 
 that decline of aristocratic orders which still continues. 
 Just notions of the free tenure of lands, and even that great 
 idea of the universal freedom of labor, which is now agita- 
 ting the world, prevailed quite widely. Italy, 
 
 " The dark'ned ages' last remaining light," 
 
 had never failed to present examples of republican institu- 
 tions. The monarchical constitutions of that period con- 
 tained sharply-defined limitations, and they were vigorously 
 guarded and defended. It was a general theory, that the 
 subject could not be taxed without consent of the legisla- 
 ture, and that princes could only govern in conformity to 
 laws. England especially had a parliament, the type of 
 mordern legislatures, trial by jury, magna charta and the 
 common law, constituting one four fold and majestic arch 
 for the support of civil liberty. She had, moreover, eman- 
 cipated herself from the supremacy of the See of Rome, 
 and the popular mind was intently engaged equally in the 
 pursuit of theological truth, and in the application of the 
 organic laws to the maintenance and defence of public and 
 private rights. 
 
 It was the age of Spenser, Shakspeare, Bacon and Milton. 
 Poetry had risen from lyric beauty to epic dignity ; histor}^, 
 from fabulous chronicle to philosophical argument ; and 
 learning, from words and forms, to things and laws. Eea- 
 soning from these circumstances, it seemed that the onward 
 progress of society was assured, and that civil and religious 
 liberty were about to be established on broad and enduring 
 foundations. 
 
 Nevertheless, a reaction had already begun, whose force is 
 even yet unspent. The See of Rome took alarm from the 
 movement of the reformation, and combined with kines 
 against nations. Henry VIII. arrogated to himself the very 
 same spiritual supremacy, which, with the aid of the people 
 and in the name of Christian liberty, he had wrested from 
 
14 
 
 the Pope ; and with singular caprice employed it in compel- 
 ling conformity to the obnoxious faith and vvorsliip of Rome, 
 conducted by ecclesiastics who derived their appointments 
 from himself, and held them at his own pleasure. The reign 
 of Mary inaugurated that relapse to Rome, which the ca- 
 prices of Henry had rendered inevitable. Elizabeth rein- 
 stalled the reformation, but renewed the regal claim to 
 spiritual supremacy. The people resisted all these ecclesias- 
 tical usurpations of the Tudors, ancl they, in retaliation, bold- 
 ly attempted to subvert the constitutional authority of parlia- 
 ment. Elizabeth, under the advice of sagacious statesmen, 
 and supported by temporizing churchmen, resorted to the 
 favorite expedient of politicians — compromise. Compro- 
 mise is a feasible and often a necessary mode of adjusting 
 conflicting material interests, but can never justly or wisely 
 be extended to the subversion of the natural rights or the 
 moral duties of subjects or citizens. Even where a compro- 
 mise is proper in itself, it derives all its strength from the 
 fair and full consent of all the parties whom it binds. Eliza- 
 beth caused the Roman Catholic creed, discipline and ritual 
 to be revised and altogether recast, under the direction of 
 leaders of some of the conflicting sects ; and thus a new sys- 
 tem was produced, which, as was claimed, stood midway 
 between the uncompromising Church of Rome and equally 
 uncompromising latitudinarian Protestantism. The new 
 system was established bylaw, and a hierarchy was appointed 
 by the crown, to whose care it was committed. Absolute 
 and even active conformity was commanded to be enforced 
 by pains and penalties in special and unconstitutional tribu- 
 nals, acting without appeal, and in derogation of the common 
 law. The new system, whatever might be its religious and 
 ecclesiastical harmony with the Divine precepts, was, in its 
 civil aspects, a mere political institution. It was offensive 
 and odious to a zealous people, who, though divided into 
 opposing sects, agreed in regarding the political authority 
 
15 
 
 assumed by the State as a sacrilegious usurpation. The friends 
 of civil liberty also condemned it, as a turning of the batte- 
 ries that had been won from the Roman See, in the name of 
 liberty, against the very fortress of liberty itself. Neverthe- 
 less, a portion of the clergy, who had now become depend- 
 ent on the State, members of the privileged classes, always 
 disinclined to political agitation, placemen and waiters for 
 places, the timid, the venal and the frivolous, early gave 
 in their adhesion, and the compromise daily gained wider 
 acquiescence, through the appliances of political seduction, 
 proscription and persecution. The Church of England was 
 built on that compromise. Incorporated into the constitu- 
 tion with such auxiliary political powers, it must necessarily 
 augment the influence of the throne, and be subversive equally 
 of the civil and religious liberties of the people. 
 
 A conservative power, a new conservative power, was 
 necessary to prevent that fatal consummation. That power 
 appeared in the form of a body of obscure religious sectaries, 
 men of monastical devoutness, yet retaining the habits of 
 domestic and social life ; simple, but not unlearned ; unam- 
 bitious; neither rich enough to forget their God, nor yet 
 poor enough to debase their souls ; content with mechanical 
 and agricultural occupations in villages and rural districts, 
 yet conscious of the liberty with which Christ had made 
 them free, and therefore bold enough to confront ecclesias- 
 tical and even royal authority in the capital. Serious as 
 became their religious profession, they grew under perse- 
 cution to be grave, formal and austere. Chosen emissaries 
 of God, as they believed, they willingly became outcasts 
 among men. Divinely constituted depositaries of pure and 
 abounding truth, as they thought, they announced, as their 
 own rule of conduct, that no article of faith, no exercise of 
 ecclesiastical authority, no rule of discipline, and not even a 
 shred of ceremonial or sacrament, should be accepted, unless 
 sanctioned by direct warrant from the Scriptures as inter- 
 
16 
 
 preted by themselves, in the free exercise of their own con- 
 sciences, illuminated by the Holy Spirit. God, although a 
 benevolent Father, w^as yet, as they believed, jealous towards 
 disobedience of His revealed will, and would punish 
 conscious neglect of its commandments. These were 
 the Puritans. They came into the world to save it from 
 despotism ; and the world comprehended them not. They 
 refused to acquiesce in the compromise, because it involved 
 a surrender of natural rights, and a violation of principles of 
 duty toward God. Nevertheless, they were true Christians, 
 and therefore they declined to set up their own convictions 
 as a standard for others who subscribed to the Christian 
 faith, and freely allowed to all their fellow subjects the same 
 broad religious liberty which they claimed for themselves. 
 They persisted in non-conformity. The more hardly pressed 
 the more firmly they persisted. The more firm their persis- 
 tence, the more severe and unrelenting was the persecution 
 they endured. More than an hundred years virtually out- 
 lawed as citizens and subjects, and outcasts from the estab- 
 lished church, the Puritans bore unflinchingly their unwa- 
 vering testimony against the compromise, before magistrates 
 and councils, in the pillory, under stripes, in marches, in 
 camps, in prison, in flight, in exile, among licentious soldiery 
 and dissolute companions in neighboring lands ; on the broad 
 and then unexplored ocean, when the mariners lost their 
 reckoning, and the ships' supplies became scanty and her 
 seams opened to the waves ; on unknown coasts, homeless, 
 houseless, famishing and dying ; in the leafless forest, sur- 
 rounded by ice and snow, fearful of savage beasts and con- 
 fronting savage men. The compromise policy failed. Civil 
 and religious liberty was not overborne ; it rose erect; it tri- 
 umphed ; it is still gaining new and wider and more enduring 
 triumphs ; and tyrants have read anew the lesson, so often 
 wasted upon them before, that where mankind stand upon 
 their convictions of moral right and duty, in disobedience 
 
IT 
 
 to civil authority, there is no middle course of dealing with 
 them, between the persecution that exterminates, and the 
 toleration that satisfies. The Puritans were not extermina- 
 ted, they were not satisfied. 
 
 The Puritans thus persisted and prevailed because they 
 had adopted one true, singular and sublime principle of civil 
 conduct, namely : that the subject in every State has a 
 natural right to religious liberty of conscience. They know 
 too well the weakness of human guaranties of civil liberty, 
 and the frailty of civil barriers against tyranny. They 
 therefore did not affect to derive the right of toleration from 
 the common law, or the statutes of the realm, or magna 
 charta, or even from that imaginary contract between the 
 sovereign and the subject, which some publicists had about 
 that time invented as a basis for civil rights. They resorted 
 directly to a law broader, older and more stable than all 
 these — a law universal in its application and in its obliga- 
 tion, established by the Creator and Judge of all men, and 
 therefore paramount to all human constitutions. Algernon, 
 Sidney, Locke and Bacon, and even Hooker, chosen and 
 ablest champion of the Church of England, demonstrated 
 the existence of this law, deriving the evidences of it, and of 
 its universal nature and application, from natural and revealed 
 religion, in the high debates of the seventeenth century. 
 Blackstone, Vattel and Montesquieu, have built upon it 
 their respective systems of municipal law, public law and 
 government ; and our own Congress of 1776 sunk into the 
 same enduring foundation the corner stone of this vast and 
 towering structure of American freedom. The Puritans 
 could therefore lay no claim to the discovery of this great 
 principle, or to the promulgation of it. But the distin- 
 guished glory of having first reduced it from speculation to 
 actual and effective application, as a conventional rule of 
 political conduct, is all their own. 
 2 
 
18 
 
 This great principle was not only a disturbing, but it was 
 also an offensive and annoying one. It was an appeal from 
 the highest sovereign power in the State to a sovereign power 
 still higher, and therefore was thought seditious. It of course 
 encountered then the same ingenious sophistry which, al- 
 tliough often overthrown, has not even yet been silenced. It 
 was argued, that if individual conscience may rightly refuse 
 to acquiesce in the results of the general conviction collected 
 by the State and established as law, it may also rightfully 
 resist the law by force, which would produce disorder and 
 lead to anarchy. It was argued, also, that insomuch as civil 
 government is of divine appointment, it must be competent 
 to act as an arbiter between conflicting consciences, and that 
 implicit obedience to its decrees, as such arbiter, is therefore a 
 religious duty. As might well have been foreseen, there arose 
 on the side of the Puritans, contestants worthy of the ma- 
 jestic principle they defended, contestants whose voices, then 
 silenced by persecution or drowned by public clamor, have 
 reached this more congenial age, and are now giving fonu 
 and condensation to the whole science of political ethics. 
 Not again recalling the names of Locke and Sidney, there 
 was Edwards, profoundest metaphysician of all ages, and 
 Milton, always discontented and distrusted among men, but 
 familiar with angels, and learned in the counsels of Heaven. 
 It was their sufficient reply, that unenlightened and unsanc- 
 tified consciences will never disturb despotism with their 
 remonstrances, and that consciences illuminated and purified 
 cannot be perverted to error ; that God has delegated to no 
 human tribunal authority to interfere between Himself and 
 the monitor which he has implanted in the bosom of every 
 moral being, and which is responsible to its Author alone ; 
 and that the boundaries of human authority are the bounda- 
 ries of eternal justice, ascertained by the teachings of that 
 monitor which, where it is free and fully awakened, must 
 always be the same. They answered farther and with decisive 
 
19 
 
 energy, that traditions and compacts subversive of freedom 
 were altogether void, because the masses of men living at 
 one time in a State must always have supreme control over 
 their own conduct, in all that concerns their duty to Grod 
 and their own happiness. 
 
 Fortunately, the Puritans had keen sagacity. They would 
 not ask liberty of conscience as a political concession ; 
 because, if granted as such, it might be revoked. Fortunately 
 they were not purposely a political or civil body, but a 
 purely religious one ; a church in the wilderness, as they 
 described themselves ; a church without secular combina- 
 tions, interests or ends ; a church with no interest but duty, 
 no end but to avoid the divine disfavor, and no head but 
 God. Fortunately, also, the age was as yet a religious 
 one. Skepticism, which has since so wildly overrun large 
 portions of Europe, and scattered its poison even here, had 
 not then entered the world ; and the plenary nature and 
 authority of the Holy Scriptures, to which the Puritans 
 appealed, was universally acknowledged. It was especially 
 felicitous that the lives of the Puritans vindicated their 
 sincerity, magnanimity and piety. Equally in domestic and 
 social life, and in the great transactions of the State in which 
 they became concerned, their conduct was without fear 
 and without reproach. With all these advantages, the Pu- 
 ritans, as naturally as wisely, referred themselves to the Divine 
 Revelations for the principle which they promulgated. 
 With effective simplicity, they confined themselves to the 
 main point in debate. They neither pretended to define 
 nor to make summaries of all the natural rights of man 
 which tyranny might invade, nor to trace out the ultimate 
 secular consequences of the great principle on which they 
 insisted. They rested the defence of the one natural right 
 which was distinctly invaded, on no grounds of expediency 
 or of public utility, but on the grounds alone that God had 
 given it, and that man could not either invade or surrender 
 it, without sin against the Divine majesty. It was the 
 peculiarity of the right thus invaded and defended, that 
 
20 
 
 lent to the Puritans their crowning advantage. Religion is 
 the profoLindcst and most universal affection of" our nature. 
 Apparently the cause of innumerable differences and endless 
 controversies, it is, nevertheless, the one common and 
 principal element which controls the actions of all men. It 
 sustained the Puritans. It gradually won for them tlie 
 respect and sympathies of men and of nations. The right 
 assailed brought equally conscience and the love of liberty, 
 the two most elastic and enduring springs of activity, into 
 resistance. Its invasion was sacrilegious, because it assumed 
 to add to the Divine commandments, and to take away from 
 disobedience to them the curses that are written against it 
 in the Book of Life. Primitive apostolical eloquence, which 
 reminds us of the inspired apology of Paul before Agrippa, 
 revived in its defence. Tiie Puritans spake from their 
 prisons after this manner : 
 
 " Upon a careful examination of the Holy Scriptures, we find the English 
 hierarchy to be difierent from Christ's institution, and to be derived from 
 Antichrist, being the same the Pope left in this land, to which we dare not sub- 
 ject ourselves. We farther find that God ha.s commanded all that Ijclieve the 
 go8pel to walk in that holy path and order which he has appointed in his 
 church. AVhereforc, in the reverend fear of his name, we have joined our- 
 eelves together, and subjected our souls and bodies to those laws and ordi- 
 nances, and have chosen to ourseKes such a ministry of pastors, teachers, 
 cldei-s and deacons, as Christ has given to his church on earth to the world's 
 end, Roping for the promised assistance of his grace in our attendance upon 
 him notwithstanding any proliibition of men, or what by men can be done 
 unto us. We are ready to prove our church order to be warranted by the 
 word of God, allowable by her Majesty's laws, and no wa^^s prejudicial to 
 the sovereign power, and to disprove the public hierarchy, worship and gov- 
 ernment, by such evidence as our adversaries shall n(jt be able to withstand, 
 jjrotesting, if we fail herein, not only willingly to sustain such deserved 
 punishment as shall be inflicted upon us, but to become conformable for the 
 future, if we overthrow not our adversaries. * * * "We therefore, in the 
 name of God and of our sovereign the Queen, pray that we may have the 
 benefit of the laws and of the pvdjlic charters of the land, namely, that we 
 may be received to bail, till we be by order of law convicted of some crime 
 deserving of bonds. "We plight our laith unto CJod, and our allegiance to her 
 Majesty, that we will not commit anything unworthy of the Gospel of 
 Christ, or to the disturbance of the common peace and good order of the 
 land, and that we will be forthcoming at such reasonable warning as your 
 
21 
 
 lordship shall command. Oh, let us not perish before trial and judgment, 
 especially imploring and crying out to you for the same. However, we take 
 the Lord of heaven and earth, and his angels, together with your own 
 consciences and all persons in all ages, to whom this our supplication may 
 come, to witness that we have here truly advertised your honors of our case 
 and maze, and have in all humility offered to come to Christian trial." 
 
 How sublimely, and yet with touching eifect, does this 
 opening of their cause by the Puritans illustrate the Divine 
 instruction that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of 
 wisdom ! 
 
 Let us consider now the scope and full import of the 
 Puritan principle. That scope is not narrowed by any failure 
 of the Puritans. themselves to comprehend it, or even by any 
 neglect on their part to cover it fully in their own political 
 conduct. Christianity is the same, however narrowed or 
 perverted by erroneous creeds or practices among the faith- 
 ful. Nor is the real merit of the Puritans diminished, 
 because they did not fully comprehend all possible applica- 
 tions of the principle they maintained. Human progress is 
 only the following of an endless chain, suspended from the 
 throne of God. The links of that chain are infinite in num- 
 ber. The human hand can grasp only one of them at once. 
 
 The Pui'itan principle of the inviolability of the right of 
 conscience, necessarily covers the inviolability of all the 
 acknowledged natural rights of man, as well those which 
 concern his duty to himself and his duty to others, as those 
 which arise out of his direct duties towards God. Certainly 
 the Creator and Ruler of the Universe, the beneficent Father 
 and Preserver of all life, the universal Lawgiver and Judge of 
 all moral beings, is not in any human sense a jealous and 
 exacting God, incensed by the withholding of homage due 
 to himself, and yet regardless of the neglect of other human 
 duties which he has prescribed. Assuredly, when he com- 
 mands us not only to walk humbly before Himself, but also 
 to perfect our own nature, and to do justice, and love mercy 
 towards other men, he has given us the same absolute right 
 to the free exercise of our faculties, in performing these 
 latter duties, that he has given us for the performance of the 
 
22 
 
 first. Nor is there any homage to God so acceptable as the 
 upright heart and pure. lie that loveth not his brother 
 whom he hath seen, how can he love God, whom he hath 
 not seen? 
 
 The Puritan principle further involves the political equality 
 of all men. Absolute rights arise out of the moral constitu- 
 tion of man. There is only one moral constitution of all 
 men. The absolute rights of all men are therefore the 
 same. Political equality is nothing else than the full enjoy- 
 ment, by every member of the State, of the absolute 
 rights which belong equally to all men. Any abridge- 
 ment of that equality, on whatever consideration, except 
 by discriminating justice in the punishment of crimes is 
 therefore forbidden to human government by the Divine 
 authority. The Puritans so understood their own great 
 principle, in its bearing upon the right of conscience. 
 
 " Liberty of conscience (said one of their earliest organs) is the natural 
 right of every man. * * * lie that will look back on past times, and 
 examine into the true causes of the subversion and devastation of states 
 and countries, will find it owing to the tyranny of princes and the persecution 
 of priests. The ministers of the Established Church say, 'if we tolerate 
 one sect, we must tolerate all.' This is true. They have as good a right to 
 their consciences as to their clothes or estates. No opinions or sentiments 
 of religion are cognizable by the magistrates, any further than they are 
 inconsistent with the peace of civii government." 
 
 But this latitude of the principle of tolerance has been 
 always vigorously and efficiently opposed by prejudice, 
 pride and bigotry, in every church, in every sect, in every 
 State and under every form of government. Each sect has 
 claimed liberty of conscience for itself as a natural right, 
 but with gross inconsistency, which invalidated its own 
 argument, has denied that liberty to other sects — as if the 
 Supreme Ruler had made men to agree, instead of differing, 
 upon non-essential as well as upon essential articles of 
 religious faith. The principle has nevertheless continually 
 gained, and is still gaining, fresh triumphs. After a long 
 contest in England, toleration was granted to all but Roman 
 Catholics and Jews. One hundred and fifty years after the 
 
23 
 
 organization of the Puritans, the principle entered into all 
 the American constitutions. Fifty years later, it emanci- 
 pated the Roman Catholics throughout Great Britain. Only 
 a year ago, it removed the disfranchisement of the Jews in 
 the British dominions. It has thus irrevocably become a 
 part of the constitution of that great empire. 
 
 The Puritan principle draws closely after it the consequence 
 of an absolute separation of church and State, for the reason 
 that the toleration of conscience can in no other way be 
 practically and completely established. That separation 
 has been made in the American constitutions, with abundant 
 advantage to both the cause of religion and the cause of 
 good government. Great Britain is advancing steadily to- 
 wards the adoption of the same broad, just and beneficent 
 policy. The separation of church and State may therefore 
 be regarded as a contribution made by the Puritans towards 
 perfecting the art of government. 
 
 The political equality of men has also met with obstinate 
 resistance, and has also achieved many and auspicious tri- 
 umphs. After one hundred and fifty years of controversy, 
 it was carried into the British constitution by the judicial 
 decision in Somerset's case that a slave could not breathe 
 the air of England. Ten or fifteen years later, it was theo- 
 retically adopted and promulgated in the Declaration of 
 American Independence. The suppression of the African 
 slave trade, by conventions of the States of Christendom, 
 transferred the same principle to the law of nations. The 
 abolition of African slavery by all of the European nations, 
 and, with few exceptions, also by all of the American States, 
 is indicative of the universal adoption of the same great prin- 
 ciple by all Christian nations, at some period not far distant. 
 You are now prepared, I trust, for another and still more 
 comprehensive view of the Puritan principle, namely : that 
 its full and perfect development is the pure system of repub- 
 lican government. Such was its marked tendency in the 
 beginning. " A generous disdain of one man's will," says a 
 truly philosophical writer, " is to republics what chastity is 
 
24 
 
 to woman — a conservative principle, not to be argued 
 upon or subjected to calculations of utility." Puritanism 
 was a protest against the will of one man, whether that man 
 was Pope or King. What form of government, other than 
 the pure republic, can there be where there is complete sepa- 
 ration of church and State and where absolute political 
 equality prevails? Abolish the connection of church and 
 State and all political distinctions between the members of the 
 State, in any of the kingdoms or empires of P^urope, and what 
 would remain, or could exist there, but a pure republic ? 
 If the argument is not yet conclusive, consider then that 
 the Puritan principle tends to the pure republic, by virtue 
 of its conservative protection of the individual member of 
 the State against its corporate oppression ; by virtue, also, 
 of its elevation of individual conscience — thus bringing 
 down the importance of the aggregate mass, and raising the 
 personal importance and dignity of the subject or citizen ; 
 by virtue of the importance it attaches to personal rights, 
 exalting them above material interests — and so making those 
 rights, and not property, the primary object of the care of 
 government ; and by virtue, still further, of the openness, 
 directness and frankness of conduct which it requires. 
 Equal tolerance in religion, and equal enjoyment of the 
 other absolute rights of man, are inconsistent with the 
 secrecy and fraud which monarchy and aristocracy necessarily 
 employ, and cannot endure private councils or cabals. The 
 Puritan principle tends to the pure republic still more 
 obviously, because it seeks to abridge the powers of 
 government, and substitute consent and free acquiescence 
 as the bonds of union between the members of the State, 
 instead of armed or military force. This operation of the 
 principle is happily illustrated in our own republic, which, 
 although constituted by an ever-increasing number of 
 distinct States, has, nevertheless been held together eighty 
 years, and is, I trust, to be held together forever, without, for 
 that purpose, even the shadow of a standing army — an 
 anomaly as pleasing as it is full of profitable instruction. 
 
25 
 
 Let it be confessed that the Puritans, as a body, were slow 
 to discern these consequences and tendencies. They dis- 
 claimed them long and with unquestionable sincerity. 
 
 "Although (said they to EUzabeth) Her Majesty be incensed against us, 
 as if we would obey no laws, we take the Lord of heaven and earth to 
 witness that we acknowledge, from the bottom of our hearts. Her Majesty 
 to be our lawful Queen placed over us for our good ; and we give God our 
 most humble and hearty thanks for her happy government ; and both in 
 public and private we constantly pray for her prosperity. We renounce all 
 foreign power, and acknowledge Her Majesty's supremacy to be lawful and 
 just. We detest all error and heresy. Yet we desire that Her Majesty 
 will not think us disobedient, seeing we suffer ourselves to be displaced rather 
 than yield to some things required. Our bodies and goods,, and all we have 
 are in Her Majesty's hands ; only our souls which we reserve to our God, 
 who is able to save and condemn us." 
 
 Long afterwards, and after the Puritans in America had 
 practically enjoyed a pure republican government through 
 some generations, the colony of Massachusetts saluted 
 Charles II. on his restoration, with this loyal address r 
 
 " To enjoy our liberty, and to walk according to the faith and order of the 
 gospel, was the cause of us transplanting ourselves with our wives, our little 
 ones and our substance, choosing the pure Christain worship, with a good 
 conscience in this remote wilderness, rather than the pleasures of England 
 with submission to the impositions of the hierarchy, to which we could not 
 yield without an evil conscience. We are not seditious to the interests of 
 of Cassar." 
 
 Nevertheless, the reluctance of the Puritans to admit the 
 full tendencies of their principle cannot justly excite sur- 
 prise. We necessarily fear, and feel our way, when we are 
 treading on unknown ground, or in the dark. *' Let no one 
 who begins an innovation," says Machiavelli, " expect that 
 he shall stop it at his pleasure, or regulate it according to 
 his intention." The Puritans never aimed to be, and never 
 consciously were secular or political reformers. Their field 
 of labor, as they bounded it, lay all within the Church of 
 Christ. They sought not an earthly republic, but only the 
 kingdom of heaven. When sometimes the thought pre- 
 sented itself, that, by reason of their fidelity to their profes- 
 
26 
 
 sion, a purer and better political state would arise out of the 
 commotions through which they were passing, it seemed 
 still to them a merely secondary object, subordinate to the 
 one sole religious purpose for which they had combined. 
 We all have learned how slowly the sentiment of indepen- 
 dence, and the principle of republicanism, ripened in these 
 colonies during the early stages of the revolutionary contest, 
 and how these free institutions rose suddenly under the 
 hands of a people who were even yet protesting an endu- 
 ring loyalty to the throne and parliament of Great Britain. 
 It was not so, however, with the master spirits, Adams, Otis 
 and Jefferson. Nor was it so in the case of the Puritans 
 with Milton. 
 
 " No man, (said he,) who knows aught, can be so stupid to deny that all 
 men naturally were born free, being the image and resemblance of God 
 himself, and were, by privilege above all the creatures, born to command and 
 not to obey. The power of kings and magistrates is nothing else but what is 
 only derivative, transferred and committed to them in trust from the people, 
 to the common good of them all, in whom the power yet fundamentally 
 remains and cannot be taken from them, without a violatiou of their 
 natural birthright." 
 
 How, then, has it happened that civil consequences so 
 vast have followed the merely religious action of the 
 Puritans? The apparent mystery is easily explained. Civil 
 liberty is an object of universal and intense desire. The 
 cause of the Puritans identified itself with the cause of civil 
 liberty in England, and ultimately, though on their part 
 unconsciously, became the leading element of that cause, 
 both in Europe and America. Thus identified and eminent 
 the Puritan cause effected the establishment of a republic 
 which endured through a short but glorious period in 
 England. Though the British nation soon relapsed, and 
 monarchy was restored, yet the Puritan principle, neverthe- 
 less, modified the constitution, and gave to it the popular 
 form which it now bears. A throne yet towers above that 
 edifice, but it is no longer the throne of the Stuarts or of the 
 Tudors, or even of the Plantagenets. It is simply orna- 
 mental. The lords, spiritual and temporal, still constitute 
 ^distinct estates, and retain their ancient dignity. But their 
 
27 
 
 real political power and influence have passed away, and 
 the commons, no longer contesting inch by inch for their 
 constitutional rights, are virtually the rulers of the British em- 
 pire. France oscillates so uneasily and tremulously between 
 the republic and military despotism, that no one who is 
 hopeful of progress doubts where the needle will settle at 
 last. It has become a proverb, that Europe must soon be 
 either republican or despotic. When the compromise system 
 of limited monarchy shall have retired, and only the two 
 systems of republicanism and despotism are left to confront 
 each other on that continent, in an age of still increasing 
 intellectual and moral energies, the triumph of the former, 
 though uncertain in the points of time and manner and field 
 of contest, will nevertheless be assured. The Puritan prin- 
 ciple is shaping, already, future republics on the islands and 
 continents of the Pacific Ocean, and on the heretofore 
 neglected coasts of Africa, while the American continent is 
 everywhere crowned with free institutions, due to its still 
 more direct and potential influence. From Plymouth Rock to 
 Labrador, to Magellan, and around, by bay, gulf, and head- 
 land, to Nootka Sound, the republican system, more or less 
 developed, and more or less firmly established, pervades this 
 hemisphere. Such are the already ripening and ripened 
 fruits of the vigorous plants of Puritanism, gathered equally 
 and promiscuously from the parent stock in England, and 
 from the exotic one so carefully transplanted on this rugged 
 coast, and so sedulously watered, watched, cherished and 
 reared, by the Pilgrim Fathers. 
 
 Behold how the unfolding, justly and naturally as I trust, 
 of a theme primarily local, sectional, and even sectarian, has. 
 brought us to the solution of the great problem of the 
 progress of mankind towards social happiness and beneficent 
 government. That higher stage of social happiness, that 
 purer form of republican government, to which we are 
 tending, are but faintly shadowed forth in the disturbed 
 transition scenes through which we are passing, and even 
 in the most perfect institutions which have yet been framed 
 from the confused materials of dilapidated and decaying 
 
28 
 
 systems. Present defects and imperfections no more warrant 
 conclusions against that better future which has been 
 indicated, than the incompleteness of the development of 
 Christian principles justifies a fear of the ultimate failure of 
 Christianity itself. 
 
 It is a law of human progress, that no work or structure 
 proceeding from human hands shall come forth complete 
 and perfect. Improvement, at the cost of labor and of 
 trial, and even sufiering — endless improvement, at such 
 cost, is the discipline of human nature. 
 
 What, then, shall be the rule of our own conduct? Shall we 
 grasp and hold fast to existing constitutions, with all their 
 defects and deficiencies, and save them from needed 
 amendment, or shall we amend and complete them, and so 
 prevent re-actions, and the need of sanguinary revolutions? 
 Shall we compromise the principles of justice, freedom 
 and humanity, by compliances with the councils of interest- 
 ed cupidity or slavish fear, or shall we stand fast always 
 in their defence ? I know no better rule of conduct than 
 that of the Puritans. Indeed, I know none other that is 
 sure, or even safe. Nor can even that great rule be followed 
 successfully without adopting their own noble temper and 
 spirit. They were faithful, patient and persevering. They 
 forgot tliemselves, and their own immediate interests and 
 ambitions, and labored and suffered, that after-coming 
 generations, among which we belong, might be safer and 
 freer and happier than themselves. It can never be too 
 well understood that the generations of men, in moral and 
 political culture, sow and plant for their successors. "Let 
 •it not be grievous to you," said Bradford, the meek but 
 brave and constant leader, to the small and forlorn Pilgrim 
 commonwealth, that he was landing on this rock in mid- 
 winter — " Let it not be grievous to you that you have been 
 made instruments to break the ice for others. The honor 
 shall be yours, to the world's end." Such was the only 
 worldly encouragement the truthful founder of the Plymouth 
 colony could give to his guileless comrades. Happily, the 
 Pilgrims needed no others. 
 
29 
 
 It is a familiar law of nature, that whatever grows rapidly 
 also declines speedily. Time and trial are necessary to 
 secure the full vigor without which no enterprise can 
 endure. It was only by long, perilous and painful endu- 
 rance and controversy, that the Puritans acquired the 
 discipline which, without consciousness of their own, 
 qualified them to be the leaders of the nations. 
 
 Need I add, that there can be neither great deeds nor 
 great endurance without faith ; and that true, firm, enduring 
 faith can only be found in generous and noble minds. The 
 true reformer, therefore, must calculate on frequent and 
 ever-recurring treacheries and desertions by allies, sach as 
 Milton graphically describes : 
 
 " Another sort there is, vrho, coming in the course of these affairs to have 
 their share in great actions above the form of law or custom, at least to 
 give their voice and approbation, begin to swerve and almost shiver at the 
 majesty and grandeur of some noble deed ; as if they were newly entered 
 into a great sin, disputing precedents, forms and circumstances, when 
 the commonwealth nigh perishes for want of deeds in substance done 
 with just and faithful expedition. To these I wish better instruction and 
 virtue equal to their calling." 
 
 Nor will all these qualities suffice, without discretion and 
 gentleness as well as firmness of temper. The courageous 
 reformer will shrink from no controversy, when the field is 
 open, the battle is set, and the lists are fair. But, on the 
 other hand, he will neither make nor seek occasions for 
 activity ; and he will be always unimpassioned. Truth is 
 not aggressive ; but like the Christian religion, is first pure, 
 then peaceable. Nor need the reformer fear that occasions 
 for duty will be wanting. Error and injustice never fail to 
 provoke contest ; because, if unalarmed, they are overbear- 
 ing and insolent ; if alarmed, they are rash, passionate and 
 reckless. 
 
 The question occurs. Whence shall come the faith, the 
 energy, the patient perseverance and the moderation, which 
 are so indispensable ? I answer, that all these will be de- 
 rived from just concejitions of the great objects of political 
 action. It was so with the Puritans. Their fixed purpose 
 to retain the right of conscience, fully comprehended by 
 
30 
 
 them, extinguished selfishness and ambition, and called into 
 activity in their places the fear of God and the love of man. 
 Let them explain themselves : 
 
 " Knowing, therefore, how horrible a thing it is to fall into the hands of 
 the living God, by doing that which our consciences (grounded ujjon the 
 truth of God's Word and the example and doctrine of ancient fathers) do 
 tell us were evil done, and to the great discrediting of the truth whereof we 
 profess to be teachers, we have thought good to yield ourselves into the 
 hands of men ; to suffer whatsoever God hath appointed us to sufler, for the 
 perfecting of the commandments of God and a clean conscience before the 
 commandments of men. Not despising men, therefore, but trusting in God 
 only, we seek to serve him with a clear conscience so long as we shall live 
 here, assuring ourselves that the things that we shall suffer for so doing 
 shall be a testimony to the world that great reward is laid up for us in 
 heaven, where we doubt not but to rest forever with those that have before 
 our days suffered for the like." 
 
 Contrast these sentiments, so profoundly self-renouncing 
 and reverential of God, with the blasphemous egotism of 
 the French revolutionists of 1798, and contrast also the 
 slowly formed and slowly maturing, but always multiplying 
 and ripening fruits of the Puritan reformation, with the 
 blasted and shriveled benefits of that other great modern 
 convulsion, and you have an instructive and memorable 
 lesson upon the elevation and purity of spirit which alone 
 can advance human progress. 
 
 Increase of wealth and commerce and the enlargement of 
 empire, are not truly primary objects of the American pa- 
 triot. These are, indeed, worthy of his efforts. But the first 
 object is the preservation of the spirit of freedom, which is 
 the soul of the republic itself. Let that become languid 
 and the republic itself must languish and decline. Let it 
 become extinct, and the republic must disastrously fall. 
 Let it be preserved and invigorated, and the republic will 
 spread wider and wider, and its noble institutions will tower 
 higher and higher. Let it fall, and so its example fail, and 
 the nations will retrograde. Let it endure and the world 
 will yet be free, virtuous and happy. Hitherto, nations have 
 raised monuments to survive liberty and empire. And they 
 have been successful. Egypt, Assyria, Greece and Italy are 
 full of those monuments. Let our ambition be the nobler 
 
31 
 
 one of establishing liberty and empire, which shall survive 
 the most stupendous material structures which genius can 
 devise or art erect, with all the facilities of increasing 
 knowledge and public wealth. 
 
 Here my reflections on a subject infinitely suggestive 
 come to an end. They will not be altogether fruitless, if 
 I have been at all successful in illustrating the truths that 
 continual meliorations of society and government are not 
 only possible, but certain ; that human progress is slow, 
 because it is only the unfolding of the divine providence 
 concerning man ; that the task of directing and aiding that 
 progress is rendered the most difficult of all our labors, by 
 reason of our imperfect knowledge of the motives and 
 principles of human conduct, and of countless unforeseen 
 obstacles to be encountered ; that this progress, nevertheless, 
 must and will go on, whether favored or resisted ; that it 
 will go on, peacefully, if wisely favored, and through 
 violence, if unwisely resisted ; that neither stability, nor 
 even safety, can be enjoyed by any State, otherwise than 
 by rendering exact justice, which is nothing else than pure 
 equality, to all its members ; that the martial heroism, 
 which, invoked after too long passiveness under oppression 
 and misrule, sometimes achieves the deliverance of States, 
 is worthy of all the honor it receives ; but that the real 
 authors of all benign revolutions are those who search out 
 and seek to remove peacefully the roots of social and 
 political evils, and so avert the necessity for sanguinary 
 remedies ; that the Puritans of England and America have 
 given the highest and most beneficent illustration of that 
 conservative heroism which the world has yet witnessed ; 
 that they have done this by the adoption of a single, true 
 and noble principle of conduct, and by patient and 
 persevering fidelity to it ; that they thus overcame a 
 demoralizing political and social reaction, and gave a new 
 and powerful impulse to human progress ; that tyranny is 
 deceitful, and mankind are credulous, and that therefore 
 political compromises are more dangerous to liberty than 
 open usurpations ; that the Puritan principle, which was so 
 
32 
 
 Bublime and so effective, was nothing else than the truth 
 that men retain in every State all the natural rights which 
 are essential to tlie performance of personal, social and 
 religious duties ; that the principle includes the absolute 
 equality of all men, and therefore tends to a complete 
 development in pure republican systems ; that it has 
 already modified the institutions of Europe, while it has 
 brouglit into existence republican systems, more or less 
 perfect throughout the American continent, and is fixing 
 and shaping such institutions wherever civilization is found; 
 that hindrances, delays, and reactions of political progress, 
 are nevertheless unavoidable, but that they also have corres, 
 ponding benefits; that it is our duty to labor to advance 
 that progress, chiefly by faith, constancy and perseverance 
 — virtues which can only be acquired by self-renunciation, 
 and by yielding to the motives of the fear of God and the 
 love of mankind. 
 
 Come forward then, ye Nations, States, and Races — rude, 
 savage, oppressed and despised — enslaved, or mutually 
 warring among yourselves, as ye are — upon whom the 
 morning star of civilization hath either not yet dawned or 
 hath only dimly broken amid clouds and storms, and receive 
 the assurance that its shining shall yet be complete, and its 
 light be poured down on all alike. Receive our pledges 
 that we will wait and watch and strive for the fullness of 
 that light, by the exercise of faith, with patience and 
 perseverance. And ye reverend men, whose precious dust is 
 beneath our unworthy feet, pilgrims and sojourners in this 
 vale of tears no longer, but Kings and Princes now at the 
 right hand of the throne of the God you served so faithfully 
 when on the earth — gather yourselves, immortal and awful 
 shades, around us, and witness, not the useless honors we 
 pay to your memories, but our resolves of fidelity to truth, 
 duty, and freedom, which arise out of the contemplation of 
 the beneficent operation of your own great principle of 
 conduct, and the ever-widening influence of your holy 
 teachings and Godlike example.