LIBRARY OF CONGRESS DDDDSD3DlbA , * > 'A « A ♦1.. \> » * °- ^b •ill;. V **b Q^ k" - - - ++<$ f* vV^ c\ -.1 a°" '*r%£wr->* . t* A <+ o %. '• ''\. * A '* A> ... ■ ' „ . . THE AMERICAN UNION: A DISCOURSE DELIVERED On Thursday, December 12, 1850, THE DAY OF THE ANNUAL THANKSGIVING IN PENNSYLVANIA. AND REPEATED ON THURSDAY, DECEMBEB 19, IN THE TENTH PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA, HEXliY A. BOARDMAX. D.D. SEVENTH EDITION. P I! I I, A D E L P IMA: J. B. LIPPINCO T T & C (>. 1 860. ,3 23 US - Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year L851, by I. I I'l'I SCOTT, (I 11. \ M BO 4 C i).. In the Clerk's Offi Disl b I stern District of Pennsylvania. 5HBRM W & SON, Pri S W. Cornel Seventh nnd Cherry Streets, P PREFATORY NOTE. This sermon haa long been out of print. Frequent applications have been made for it, which could not be supplied. 1 deeply regret that anj occasion should have arisen for republishing it. But it is the proper com- plement of my sermon on Thanksgiving Day; and the argument of that discourse is very incomplete without this. On referring to this pamphlet, after a long interval, I find it pervaded with a very different tone from that of the recent sermon, in respect to the triumphs and influence of Christianity in our country. I have only I on this point, that within the last ten years, there has been a rapid develop- ment amongst us of an acrimonious theology, which has poisoned our politics, and tilled the country with hatred instead (if love. This maj ex plain many things of much greater moment than the dissimilarity bi these two discourses. I'liiLui.'.u'iii i Duo nil., i ... 186 ' Philadelphi \. Di C( mbi r 20th, i - To the Rev. 1 1 inky A. Boardman, D.D. 1 ii'.ui Sir : Your friends and immediate fellow-citizens who have listened to your discourse on the Onion, are naturally desirous of sharing with the country at large the advantages of so valuable a production. The spirit of true patriotism which it breathes is especially calculated to do good, by being widely diffused at the present moment, while it ir, distinguished by a tone of piety that is auspicious at all times, and cannot fail to be universally acceptable. \n the name of all who had the satisfaction to witness your eloq on this interesting occasion, we respectfully ask that you would fa\ witli the use of the manuscript for publication. With sincere respect and regard. Your friends and faithful servants, ,1. J!. Ingersoll, (i. M. Dallas, R. Patterson, W. M. Meredith, John K. Fixdlay, Jos; Patterson, W. C. Patterson, 1!. M. Patters* John W. Forney, Edward Armstrong, John S. Riddle. Philadelphia, December 20th, 1850. To the Rev. Henry A. Board.max, D.D. Reverend and Dear Sir: Cordially approving the sentiments expressed by you in your recent discourse on the American Union, and believing that a more general diffusion of these sentiments would tend to the forma- tion of a sound public opinion on this very important subject, and desirous, moreover, individually, in some explicit and formal main testify our own devoul attachment to the Union, and our utter dissent from those who would subvert it, and our determination to abide by tie' C tution and laws, and more particularly those laws of the last Congress known as the Compromise Aets, we, the undersigned, do mosl gratefully and heartily thank you for your eloquent and timely disi ou this subject, and request a copy of the same tor publication. Alex. W. Mitchell, M.D., Charles B. Tim: \V\I. II. DlLLINGH LM, A. V. Parson . Lawrence Lewis, John S. Hart, Wm. Shippen, M.D., Jami - B. Rogers, ('. B. Jai Wm. Harris, M.I'.. Hugh Elliot, J. N. I ' Francis West, M.D., Smith, Murpui A Co., Wm. Goodrich, Hog in ,\ Thompson, It. R, Beardi n. .i. B. I: Ti RNER, Mauris & Hale, J IMI B .1 lmes Imbrie, Jr., Lippini oi p, < Ibam VI correspoxi>i:.\< E. Jno. !.' Vogdes, Peter L. Ferguson, John K. Townsend, M.D., Truitt, Brother it Co., VV. 11. Gillingham, M.D., Martin & Smith, A. I!. Cummings, W. Kirk, John II. Brown, Arthur A. Burt, Samuel Bood, Morris Patterson, William r>. Bieskell, Faust & Winebrexker, Musis Johnson. WlLLIAM BROWN, Dale, Ross & Withers, 1>. B. Birney, Tikis. II. I [OG] . I rEMMIl I. & CRESWELL, I >i Mr is T. Pratt, J. G. Mitcheli . F. X. Buck, Scott, Baker & Co., .1 amis ( Irne, J. ANSPACH, .1 1:.. James Schott, Geo. C. Barber, Wm. VEITCH, J. W. TlLFORD, Lind & Brother, Jno. McArthi Taylor & Paulding, Robt. M. Slaymaker, I!. P. Butchinson, A. W. Slack, Sibley, Moulton & Woodruff, James Burrowes, David Springs & Co., Kkorr & Fuller, R. B. Brinton & Co., De Cocrsey, Lafourcade & Co. James Leslie, Maurice A. Worts, Benry 1!. Davis. Philadelphia, December 23d, 1850. Gentlemen: f cannot doubt that the favor with whicb my late humble efforl in behalf of the Union has been received, is to be ascribed more to the existing state of the public mind on this subject, than to the intrinsic merit of the performance itself. J. do not feel at liberty, however, to decline an application emanating from a body of my fellow-citizens so honorably representing the commerce of oar city and the learned pro- fessions, and comprising gentlemen whose public services have won for them the respect and gratitude of the nation, and identified their fame with that of the Union. In the hope thai the discourse which you have in such flattering terms ted for publication may be made, by a good Providence, instrumental in promoting in some degree the cause which we all have so much at heart, I herewith place the manuscript at your disposal. I am, very faithfully, Your friend and fellow-citizen, II. A. BOARDMAN. To the Hon. Joseph I!, [ngersoll, Major-General Patterson, Bon. George M. Dallas, Hon. Wm. M. Meredith, I [on. I'll lrles B. Penri Bon. A. Y. Parsons, Alex. W. Mitchell, M.I > , Wm. II. I >illingu \m. I Profes sor 1 1 irt, Lawrence Li wis, ] THE UNION. Do ye thus requite the Loud,*) foolish people and unwise? is nol he thy father that hath bought thee? hath he not made- thee, and i stablished thee? Remember the days of old, consider the years <>{ many generati ask thy father, and he will show thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee. When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, wh< separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people accord the number of the children of Israel. For the Lord's portion is his people ; Jacob is the lot of his inherits He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilder be led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of hia As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttered] over hi r yo ing, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareih them on her wings; So the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him. He made him ride on the high places of the earth, that ho might eat tin' increase of the fields; and he made him to suck honej out of tie' i and nil out of tie' llintv rock : Butter nf kin.-, and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, and ram- i'!' the breed "I' Bashan, and goats, with the fat of kidneys of wheat : and thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape. — I h i r. 32 : 6-1 I. These words delineate with greal beaut) ofimagi r) the genera] course of the Divine dispensations towards ancient [srael. Susceptible as they are of a read) adaptation to our own country, the) suggesl some of the various causes for gratitude to the Supreme Disposer of events, which should animate our hearts 8 tiii: UNION. as we assemble in our sanctuaries on this Day OF Thanksgh inc. But they also intimate (ii* we choose thus to appropriate the passage to ourselves) thai we are in danger of perverting and losing the munificent blessings Providence has conferred upon us. There is. I fear, but too much occasion for this warning. The pulpit should be very slow to give countenance or currency to topics calculated to excite or alarm the public mind ; but where the Union itself is in jeopardy, both patriotism and religion forbid that it should re- main silent. In the judgment of discreet and upright men of all parties, a crisis of this kind has now arrived. And. indeed, the indications of it are so palpable that he only who shuts lii-> eyes can fail to see them. I'p to a period quite within the recollection of the young men before me. the word. Disunion, was never uttered in any part of the Republic hut with ab- horrence. The universal sentiment was that the Union of these States was to he maintained at all hazards — that it was not a question to he discussed — and that any individual who should presume to im- pugn its sacred obligation would he justly chargeable with moral treason, and ought to he regarded as an enemy to his country. This wholesome public senti- ment has been for several years past gradually giving way. Our ears have become familiarized to the word. Disunion. A protracted session of Congress has been consumed in discussing the thing itself. One State is at this moment almost on the verge of secession. Others are threatening it. And a large and vigilant Till! I Mn\. g party elsewhere are pressing favorite measures with the lull conviction that, if they succeed in carrying them, the Union must and will be riven asunder. I nder these circumstances, the pulpit may no more keep silence than the press. We have the same civil rights as other citizens: and we do not mean lisrhth to surrender them. But aside from this, the interests of religion in this country are in some sorl confided to the keeping of the ministry: and Christianity — not Christianity for our own land merely, but for the world, and for all coming generations of mankind — has so much at stake in the American Union, that, if we should refuse to co-operate with our fellow-citizens in all legitimate measures for the preservation of that I nion, we should he recreant to the Master we pro- fess to serve, and unfit to minister at his altar. In the original manuscript of Washington's Fare- well Address, there is the following paragraph par- tially erased. With the exception of the last sentence, it was rejected by him : hut no apology will he needed for citing it on an occasion like the present : " Besides the more serious Causes already hinted as threatening our Union, there is one less dangerous, hut sufficiently dangerous to make it prudent to he on our guard against it. I allude to the petulance of partj differ- ences o! opinion. It is not uncommon to hear the irritations which these excite, \eiit themselves in declarations that the different parts of the United States are ill affected to each other, in menaces that the I nion will he dissolved 1»\ this, or that measure. 10 THE UNION. [ntimations Like these are as indiscreet as they are intemperate. Though frequently made with levity, and without any really evil intention, the}' have a tendency to produce the consequence which they in- dicate 1 . They teach the minds of men to consider the Union as precarious; as an object to which the} ought not to attach their hopes and fortunes; and thus chill the sentiment in its favor. By alarming the pride of those to whom they are addressed, they set ingenuity at work to depreciate the value of the tiling, and to discover reasons of indifference towards it. This is not wise. It will he much wiser to habituate our- selves to reverence the Union as the Palladium of our National happiness; to accommodate constantly our words and actions to that idea, and to discountenance whatever may suggest a suspicion that it can in any event he abandoned." It may he douhted whether this paragraph would not have been retained, could Washington have foreseen the events which an- passing before our eyes. For there is a tone of remark now prevalent on this subject which indicates a wide-spread and perhaps growing disposition to calculate the \alue of the Union. That such a problem should in any quarter be seriousl) entertained. — that it should not. on being propounded, be as summarily and indignantly thrusl awa_\ as the question would he. whether we shall replace our present form of government with a monarchy, — is symptomatic of a decay of that Loft} patriotism which once throbbed in every A.me- THE UNION. 11 rican breast. Certain it is that those who can degrade a theme like this to the computations of a mere com- mercial arithmetic, and resolve the value of the Onion as they would adjust a marine venture, or the cosl of a cotton-mill, haw never even begun to comprehend the extraordinary chain <>f events which led to the establishment of this Union, the gigantic difficulties which opposed its formation, tin 1 manifold blessings which have resulted from it, or the legionary evils which would follow its subversion. A proper dis- cussion of those several topics in a temperate and able manner might well engage the leisure of sunn one of our eminenl statesmen at the present junc- ture, and could not fail to have a salutary influ- ence on the nation at large. 1 propose simply to recall your attention to Tin: ORIGIN of Tin; Union, AND SOME of TIIK MORE OBVIOUS CONSEQUENCES u HICH WOULD i;i; LIKELY TO FLOW FROM ITS DISSOLUTION, — that we ma) the better understand what it is that certain parties are proposing t<> accomplish. The observation lias been often made, that the whole current of events connected with the settle- ment of America, and the growth ^\' the Colonies, re- veals a purpose on the part of Divine Providence to found, in this Western Hemisphere, a model govern- ment. The\ were no ordinar) men who were sent here to lav the foundations of an empire in a wilder- ness tenanted 1>\ wild beasts and savages. No nation can boasl a more honorable ancestry than that which 12 THE I M<'\. comprises the Puritans, the Huguenots, and the Qua- kers, who fled to this continent, that they might enjoy •• Freedom to worship God." The seeding of the soil gave promise of a ran 1 and generous harvest; and amply was the pledge re- deemed. They knew not the exalted mission en- trusted to them; it was impossible, without the gift of prophecy, that they should have known it. But it is easy for us to see that, during the entire period of their Colonial state, they were preparing for the work before them. In their privations and dangers, their sicknesses and wars, their mutual rivalries and quar- rels; in the unnatural neglect and flagrant oppression with which they were treated by the parent govern- ment; in the sagacity, enterprise, firmness, and cou- rage which their circumstances helped to develop; and in the continual accession to their numbers of men of kindred principles, who were driven from the Old World by persecution or tyranny, — we can detect a superhuman agency, which was moulding and strength- ening them for the scenes of the Revolution, and the responsibilities involved in its successful termination. These, it is important to remember, demanded a train- ing no Less peculiar than the Revolution itself. It is too commonly taken for granted that, with the Peace of '83, all danger was over; that the auspicious issue of our contest with the mother country was tanta- mount to the creation of a free and powerful Republic. In a word. that, as soon as their battles were ended. tiii: union. 13 and the chains of their Colonial vassalage broken, our fathers had but to sil down in quiet and enjoy the benign protection of thai glorious Union which has, under Providence, made us the most prosperous nation on the globe. This is not only an utter misconception dt' the Tacts in the cast 1 , but it is adapted to disparage the wisdom and patriotism of the men of the Revolu- tion, and to impair our reverence for the Union itself. It is scarcely eroine beyond the truth to say that their work was but half accomplished with the close of their last campaign. They had severed their allegiance to the Crown; but they had no adequate government of their own. and they were in a situation most unfavor- able for the establishment of one. The Union, that is, such a Union as their necessities demanded, was so far from evolving itself spontaneously from the chaos which succeeded the war, that the wisesl and best men among them entertained the most anxious apprehensions as to the possibility of effecting it at all. " It may be in me.*' said one of them,*' a man whose comprehensive and penetrating intellect re- solved the abstrUSest theorems ill political science as by intuition, and who could express his profound and luminous views ill a Style which would scarcely suffer b\ ;i comparison with that of Junius, — " It ma) be in me a delect of political fortitude, but 1 acknowledge that 1 cannot entertain an equal tranquillity with those who affect to treat the dangers of a long continu- Mr. Hamilton. . 14 THE UNION. ance in our present situation as imaginary. A nation without a national Government is an awful spectacle. The establishment of a Constitution in time of pro- found peace, by tho voluntary consent of a whole people, is a Prodigy, to the completion of which I look forward witli trembling anxiety. I dread the more the consequences of new attempts, because I know that powerful individuals in this State [New York] and other States, are enemies to a general national Government in every possible shape."' In a similar strain. General Washington, at an ear- lier period, two years after the Treaty of Pi ace. wrote in Mr. -lay: "What astonishing changes a few years are capable of producing ! I am told that even respect- able characters speak of a monarchical form of govern- ment without horror. From thinking proceeds speak- ing; thence to acting is often but a single step. But how irrevocable and tremendous! What a triumph for our enemies to verify their predictions ! What a triumph for the advocates of despotism, to find that we are incapable of governing ourselves, and that systems founded on the hasis of equal liberty are merely ideal and fallacious! Would to God that wise measures may ho taken in time to avert the conse- quences we have hut too much reason to apprehend!" '1'he old Confederation would have been too weak e\i 11 for the purposes of war in any other hands than those of the pure and aide men who were called to conduct the Revolution. And when the outward pressure was removed, and the Colonies fell hack THE UNION. 1 5 under tlic sway of their several local usages and interests, the compact which united them proved to be hut a rope of sand. The condition of the country waxed worse and worse, until it seemed to be on the verge of some terrible catastrophe. The war had dried up its resources. The government was encum- bered with a debt which it had no mean- of paving. Commerce was at the lowest point of declension. The Colonies, oppressed by their necessities, and more solicitous to retrieve their own fortunes than those of the Union, refused the supplies of mone\ which were indispensable to the efficiency of the Confedera- tion, and even to its prolonged existence. The go- vernment was the very picture of imbecility; without troops, without a revenue, without credit, without power io enforce its laws at home, or to ins]. ire respect abroad. And the reciprocal jealousies of the ( lolonies, reviving with the return of peace, afforded little ground to hope that any scheme of union could he devised in which they would all. or even a major part of them, coalesce. The defects of the existing League were too palpable to he denied; lint the OlOSl dlSCOrd- ant opinions prevailed as to the appropriate remedy. This maj be seen in the multiform objections which were made to the new Constitution when it came lo he submitted to the States for their adoption. Not to speak of the monarchical part) alluded i" 1»\ General Washington, and which was probablj vers small, the following may he taken as a sample of these objections: "This one tells us thai the Constitution 16 THE DNION. ought to bo rejected, because it is not a Confederation of tin* States, but a government over individuals. Another admits that it ought to be a government over individuals to a certain extent, but not to the extent proposed. A third objects to the want of a bill of rights. A fourth would have a bill of rights, hut would have it declaratory not of the personal rights of individuals, hut of the rights reserved t<> the States in their political capacity. A fifth thinks the plan would he unexceptionable but for the fatal power of regulating the times and places of election. An objector in a large State exclaims loudly against the unreasonable equality of representation in the Senate. An objector in a small State is equally loud against the dangerous inequality in the House of Repre- sentatives. From one quarter the amazing expense of administering the new government is urged ; from another the cry is that the Congress will he hut a shadow of a representation, and that the government would be far less objectionable if the number and the expense were doubled. A patriot in a State that does not import, discerns insuperable objections against the power of direct taxation. The patriotic adversary in a state of great exports and imports, is not le>s dissatisfied that the whole burden of taxes may bo thrown on consumption. This politician discovers in the Constitution a direct and irresistible tendency to monarchy; thai is equally sure it will end in aristocracy."* But it would be wearisome to Mr. Madison. THE 1 Mux. 1 j go on with this catalogue, and cite the objections urged against the instrument as a whole, and those advanced against the specific provisions appertaining severally to the legislative, the judicial, and the i se- cutive departments. Enough has been said to >lio\\ that the Convention which assembled to frame a Constitution had an herculean task to perform; and that, without the special illumination of Divine Provi- dence, they must have essayed in vain to frame an instrument which should unite in its support the suffrages of a majority of the States. It is an additional consideration of great weight, bearing upon this point, that they were without a model. There was no existing government which they were willing to copy. There was no government of antiquity which would at all answer their purpose. They were, in truth, not only in advance of their own age, but of all ages, in their ideas of civil government. We may apply to them what Milton has said of the Hebrew prophets ; they appear — "As men divinely taught, and better teaching I lie solid rules of civil government, Ju their majestic, unaffected style, Than all the oratory of Greece and Rome; In them is plainest taught and easii What makes a nation happy, and keeps i ; The concise instrument drawn up and signed in the cabin of the .May Flower, was the charier of an embryo Commonwealth. It recognizes the greal principle of equality, and the right and duty of the "civil bddy politic," into which the signers organized 18 THE UNION. themselves, to ••enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, as should be thought most convenient for the general good of the Colony." This germ expanded. It derived nurture from the alternate indifference and tyranny of the home government. The Colonists, not of Massachusetts only, but of Virginia and the other provinces, were compelled to act for themselves. They came to regard the "general good" not the honor of a throne, or the aggrandizement of an aristocracy, as the proper end of government ; and "just and equal laws" as the legitimate means by which this end was to be promoted. Long before their difficulties with the Crown reached their crisis, these ideas had become as familiar to their minds as household words. They were very unlike the prevailing ideas in the Old World. They found no place in the constitutions of the most liberal monarchies. Political equality — popu- lar suffrage — equal laws — the right of the majority to govern — the greatest good of the greatest number as the end of government, — these were principles which, however they might be entertained by individuals, had yet for the first time to be enacted, or even re- cognized by any European monarchy. And when with these principles is combined another of no less importance, that of a representative republic, we shall search in vain for any adequate exposition of their views even among the so-called republics of ancient or modern times. It shows an extraordinary elevation of mind, and a moral courage stamped with true sub- THE l \l'i.\. 19 limity, that they should have succeeded in divesting themselves of the intolerable thraldrom of precedent and authority, and dared to lay the foundations of their new structure on principles which no other government had made trial of. or which had certainly never been tested in such combinations as were novt contemplated. These principles alone, however, were suited to the emergency, and they applied them with a trustful fortitude and a profound wisdom which have never ceased (unless they have now ceased) to elicit the gratitude of their posterity, and the admiration of enlightened and liberal statesmen in all lands. Without stopping to illustrate these points in detail. lei us advert for a moment to that great principle of a representative republic which they invoked to har- monize the conflicting rights and interests of the Colo- nies. Our minds are so familiar with this principle that we are scarcely in a position to appreciate the wisdom which guided the Convention to the discovery of it (for it was a discovery), and led them to adopt it as the core of the new Constitution. They were to create a Government or Governments for the Colonies. Putting monarch) oul of the question, these plans were before them: 1st. Consolidation; the dissolution of the thirteen Provincial or State Governments, and a general amalgamation under one republican char- ter. 2dly. Consolidation in the form of a pure democracy. 3dly. The organization <>l' thirteen en- tirely independent ( rovernments — republican or demo- 20 THE UNION. cratic. Ithly. A simple Confederation of thirteen sovereignties. These were the only models to be found in the annals of the world. All Governments not mo- narchical hud conformed to one or another of these types: and vet the statesmen of the Involution had the sagacity to see that they were alike either im- practicable or insufficient for their purposes. Consoli- dation was out of the question ; the Colonies would not consent to merge their individual existence in a single organization. A pure democracy was imprac- ticable even for the States as such. A democracy requires the periodical convocation of the entire body of the citizens, to conduct its legislation, and is of course admissible only in the case of States comprising ;i very limited territory. This was the favorite scheme of a party after the war; and to elude the difficulty just stated, they were for dividing the larger Colonies into districts of a tractable size. The creation of thirteen isolated sovereignties would have been the sure pre- cursor and occasion of dissensions and wars. Nor would a simple Confederation of such a cluster of sove- reignties, the scheme which was advocated by many of the most patriotic and influential men of the nation. have been essentially better. Such a Confederation already existed. Its inadequacy was matter of expe- rience. No modification would be of any avail which came short of (airing its radical vice, to wit. that of providing "legislation for States or Governments in their corporate or collective capacities, and as contra- THE UNION. 2] distinguished from the individuals of whom they con- sist." So long as this principle was retained, the States might be bound together in a league, but there could be no national Union. Nor would a general govern- ment he able to enforce its decrees at home or to pro- tect its foreign interests, if the execution of its man- dates were made contingent upon the legislation of other independent sovereignties.* A new principle was, therefore needed to meet the exigencies of the case; and it w r as found in that of a Representative Re- public. The sovereignty of the several States was left unimpaired in respect to all matters of local jurisdic- tion, while the Federal Government, springing no less directly than the State governments from the bosom of the people, and operating no less directly upon the people, was clothed with the functions requisite for the efficient administration of all interests appertaining to the general welfare of the Republic. Thus was the great problem solved. From the confusion and distraction, the imbecility and exhaustion, the con- flicting theories and rivalries, of these emancipated provinces, emerged the Union, — clothed with majesty and honor, radiant with celestial beauty, her temples bound with a perennial olive-wreath, and her hands tilled with such blessings for the expectant people as no nation but God's chosen one had ever dreamed of. The patriots of every land hailed her advent as the rising of a second sun in the heavens. The down- * Sit these points argued in the F< deralist 22 Tin-: UNION. trodden nations of Europe found life and hope even in her far-off smile. And as her magic influence penetrated their dungeons, the martyrs of liberty felt their chains lightened, and blessed God that, although their efforts had failed, one nation had at length esta- blished its freedom. It was in truth the triumph, the first great triumph, of Constitutional Liberty. The records of mankind supplied no parallel to it; and it Mas a fitting occasion for a jubilee among the friends of human progress of ever} creed and country. 'This cursory glance at the difficulties which were surmounted in the formation of our Governmenl may serve to enhance our appreciation of the Union, and to quicken our gratitude to the men who founded it. A nobler race of men, or one who have a stronger claim upon the affectionate veneration of mankind, the world lias never seen. It is impossible that they should he forgotten so long as integrity, patriotism, and public virtue, have a being among men. Their names (to borrow the sublime tribute of Daniel Web- ster to John Hancock — a tribute which we may even now appropriate to tin 1 great orator himself) have a place as bright and glorious in the admiration of mankind. " as if they had been written in letters of Lighl on the blue arch of heaven, between Orion and the Pleiades." Certain it is. that it' we ever crave to do them honor, or to cherish the work of their hands, we shall deserve the execration of all future genera- tions. For, whatever specious objections may have been urged against the Constitution at the period of THE DNION. its adoption, it is not with us an open question whether that immortal instrument was framed with all tin- wisdom which has been claimed for it. and whether it is adequate to the purposes for which it was designed. The seal of mon- than sixtrj years is now upon it. and its results are known and read of all men. In the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral, in London, is tin 1 tomb of Sir Christopher Wren, the architect of that noble structure, and the felicitous inscription upon it runs thus: L< dor, si Monumentum quceris, Circumspzce! Reader, if you seek his Monu- ment, Look Around! So wc may say of our Constitu- tion. If you would estimate its value, look AROUND ! " How many Sti Ami clustering towns, and monuments of fame, And scenes of glorious deeds I" Contrast the thirteen Colonies of the Revolution with our thirty-one States. And then contrast the Republic as a whole with any other, even the most prosperous, empires of the globe. 1 give utterance only to one of our familiar commonplaces when 1 say, that whether we regard the increase of its popu- lation, the development of its resources, the augmen- tation of its wealth, its power, and its influence among the nations, or the stead} progress of its people in all the arts of a refined civilization, the historj of this country is unexampled in the annals oi our race. Without wishing to chime in with that strain of self- complacenl declamation which lias made so many 24 THE UNION. Fourth of July orations an offence to cultivated cars. the occasion not only authorizes but compels me to say, that there is no people on the earth so free as we arc; none who possess such an affluence of all the im- munities and appliances, social and political, secular and religious, essential to the plenary enjoyment of all personal rights, and to the greatest good of the great mass of the nation. To prove this would be a work of supererogation. If any man can ;t look around" and doubt it, he has mistaken his country, and should transfer his domicile to a more congenial clime. Nor is the extraordinary growth of the United States in all the elements which constitute the true greatness and glory of a nation, more indisputable than is the fact, that we have been steadily opposed by most of the leading cabinets of Europe and even by the moral influence of the British Government and press. England has scarcely yet forgiven us the Declaration of Independence. Whether it is because; this Union is a standing memento of her folly and misgovernment, or because she is jealous of a daughter whose ships and spindles compete with her own in the markets of the globe, certain it is that she has been disposed to look upon us with an evil eye. No maternal pride has ever betrayed her into a spontane- ous burst of admiration at the enterprise, the intel- ligence, and the moral worth of her trans-atlantic offspring. When James the Second, one of her faith- less kings, whom she drove in indignation from his throne, overlooked from the French coast the great THE 1 Mux. 25 naval action of La Hogue, and saw the British, after putting to flight that imposing squadron with which all his hopes were embarked, pursue their enemy in boats into the very shallows, and set fire to the ships which would otherwise have escaped, he could not restrain his admiration of their gallantry, but cried out, "Ah, none but my brave English could do this!" But no such paroxysm of generosity has ever overcome our venerable mother in contemplating this fair country. Instead of exclaiming, as she lias marked the gradual transition of this vast wilderness into a cultivated continent, covered with towns and cities, and smiling harvests, ' ; None but my brave children could have done this !" she has too commonly detracted from our just feme, and disparaged our achievements. This has not, however, affected, in the slightest degree, the progress of the country. Advancing with a constantly accelerated momentum, we have now reached a position which secures to us at least the outward respect of cabinets which have no love for our principles* Certain it is, that neither defamatory presses nor official decrees, neither standing armies nor a domi- ciliary espionage, nor all these combined, have hem able to conceal the truth from the simple-minded pea- santry and the degraded operatives of Europe. \\\lr in their busy workshops and in their remote mountain Ii is pleasanl t,> add, thai a great and beneficent change have taken place in the feeling of England towards this country, within the ten years which I d aioce this Disconr ten. 26 THE UNION. chalets, the name of the United States is a talisman to them. The salutation, "I am an Ameiican citizen," is the best passporl a stranger can have to their con- fidence. Often have I seen their eyes sparkle on hearing it; and the sight made me proud of my coun- try. It was the boast of the ancient Roman that the watchword, "I am a Roman citizen," would secure him personal respect throughout the known world. l)i it it was the dread of the imperial eagles which insured his safety. No such sentiment protects the American abroad. It is not the inspiration of fear, but of love, which lights up the countenances of the common people at his approach. They know little of politics, and less of geography. They have read but few books. They could give no very lucid account of this country. But they have these two ideas about it inwrought into their minds, viz.. that it is a free coun- try, and that the people are comfortable and con- tented. This makes it a land of hope to them. This makes them long to get here. This constitutes the subtle, mysterious influence, which has gone out from our Union into all the hamlets and all the mines and forges of Europe; and which is drawing their tenantry towards us with an agency as irresistible as that which keeps the needle to the pole. This it was which made an honest, truthful peasant, who lived in one of those lofty valleys at the base of Mont Blanc, saj to a party of Americans, a year or two since: •• Not Less than two hundred of ni) neighbors have gone from this small valley to your country, and o ... THE [JNION. 27 nothing but the want of means keeps me from fol- lowing them." I say again, I was proud to hear it. These unbought testimonies to the all-pervading and blessed influence of my countrj — testimonies picked up by the wayside, and by the cotter's hearth, and the shepherd's fold, from reapers, and wagoners, and guides, and laborers — are worth more than all the studied compliments ever bestowed upon America l>\ courtly diplomatists. It is something to belong t<> a land which looms up in this way before all nations, as a land of peace and plenty, of virtue and safety — as an asylum where the oppressed may find a refuge from tyranny, and the poor the amplest scope and encouragement for frugal industry. It is something to belong to a land which is known wherever the foot of civilized man has trod, not by her Caesars and Napoleons, not by her bloody wars and conquests, but by her Washingtons and Franklins, her civil and religious liberty, her equal laws, and her thriving populations. That such a land should draw upon the Old World is not surprising. The philosophy (^ the fad is suffi- ciently simple, and it was set forth by one of the illus- trious orators of the Revolution with a felicit) which IS equalled only by his extraordinary prophetic an- nouncement of the fad Itself. Immediately alter the close of the Revolution, Patrick Henry delivered a speech of great power in the Assembly of \ irginia, in favor of a Liberal policy on the subjed of immigration. Contrasting the expanse of our territory with the 28 THE UNION. scanty population, he observed, ''Your great want, Sir, is the want of men, and these you must have, and will have speedily, if you arc wise. Do you ask, how are you to get thorn? Open your doors. Sir. and they will ooino in ; the population of the Old World is full to overflowing ; that population is ground, too, by the oppressions of the governments under which they Live. Sir, they are already standing on tiptoe upon their native shores, and looking to your coasts with a wish- ful and longing eye; they see here a land blessed with natural and politieal advantages, which are not equalled by those of any other country upon earth ; a land on which a gracious Providence hath emptied the horn of abundance; a land over which Peace hath now stretched forth her white wings, and where Content and Plenty Ho down at every door ! Sir, they see something still more attractive than all this: they see a land in which Liberty hath taken up her abode; that Liberty whom they had considered as a fabled goddess, existing only in the fancies of poets ; they sec here a real divinity, her altars rising on every hand throughout these happy States, her glories chanted by three millions of tongues, and the whole region smiling under her hlessed influence. Sir. let but this celestial goddess, Liberty, stretch forth her fair hand toward the people of the Old World, tell them to conic, and hid them welcome; and you will see them pouring in from the north, from the south, from the east, and from the west ; your wilderness will he cleared and settled, your deserts will smile, your ranks THE UNION. 29 will be filled; and you will soon be in a condition to defy the powers of any adversary." Liberty did "stretch forth her hand towards the Old World," and this eloquenl prophecy glided into history. The three millions who chanted h< -r glories have now become twenty-five millions; and the mighty current of humanity is setting towards our shores with a depth and a majesty which are enough to awe every thoughtful beholder. There are various aspects, economical, political, and religious, in which this imposing movement may be viewed. The two- fold object for which it is cited here is to illustate, on the one hand, the unprecedented growth of our coun- try; and, on the other, the Antaean hold winch this Union lias taken upon the other hemisphere. With- out restricting the remark to this wonderful migration from the Old World to the New, we are sale in affirm- ing that the sublime spectacle of a self-governed and well-governed nation has told with prodigious effect upon the dynasties of Europe, for " the greatest engine of moral power known to human affairs is an organized, prosperous State. All that man in his individual capacity can do — all that he can effect by his private fraternities, by his ingenious discoveries and wonders of art, or bj his influence over others — is as nothing, compared with the collective, perpetuated influence on human affairs and human happiness of a well-constituted, powerful commonwealth. It blesses generations with its sweet influence. Evi n the barren earth seen i> to pour out its fruits under a system where 30 THE ONION. rights and property are secure; whilst her fairest gar- dens arc blighted by despotism."* Such an example has been before the world for more than half a cen- tury ; and while it is impossible to trace the influences which have gone out from it upon the other hemi- sphere, all parties arc agreed that it lias had a most effective agency in bringing about the ameliorating changes which have taken place in the European Governments. The reforms in those governments, which have consisted essentially in raising the people from a condition of political nonentity to a substan- tive power in the State, have drawn their animating breath and derived their most effective support, from the precedent supplied by these United States. If the Nesselrodes and Metternichs of the day are competent witnesses, this country has been the great laboratory from whence -liberal ideas" have been continually flitting across the ocean and disturbing the Dead Sea tranquillity of the venerable despotisms of Europe. The extent to which these ideas have permeated the masses there is really surprising, when one considers the vigilance and severity with which tyranny every- where guards its usurpations. Many a generous strug- gle has proved abortive, and hecatombs of brave hut unfortunate patriots have been immolated to the Moloch of absolutism ; but the cause of freedom has on the whole advanced. The nations are not where they were at the commencemenl of this century ; and ■ Mr. Edward Everett. THE i Mm\. :;i unless we betray our trust, and extinguish the light which now allures them on to freedom, there is little Likelihood that they will ever consent to resume their chains. If we guard this vestal flame upon which so many anxious eyes are turned, the political renova- tion of the world must go on. Other lands will be emancipated, and the prophetic vision of (In- poet will be realized: " I saw ili" i spectanl nations stand, To c atch tin' coming flame in turn ; I saw from ready hand to hand The clear, tho ! struggling, glorj burn. " Ami each, as she received th<> Same, Lighted her altar with its ray : Then, smiling to the next who came, Speeded it on it 9 sparkling waj ." No man who believes that there is a Providence, can take even a brief retrospect of our history, like that which has now engaged our attention, with- out discovering innumerable evidences of hi^ benig- nant agency. 11« who i\~w^ not see a Divine hand directing and controlling the whole course of oui affairs, from the landing of the colonists at James- town and Plymouth until the present hour, would hardly have seen the pillar of fire had lie been with the Hebrews in the wilderness. This I nion is not of man. It is the work of God. Among the achievements of his wisdom and beneficence in con- ducting the secular concerns of the world, it must 32 THE UNION. be ranked as one of his greatest and best works. And he who would destroy it, is chargeable with the impiety of attempting to subvert a structure which is eminently adapted to illustrate* the perfections of the Deity, and to bless the whole family of man. There are. however, — the fact cannot be disguised, — parties actually at work, endeavoring to destroy the Union. A party at the South and another party at the North, the poles apart in their speculative views of the subject which agitates them, and inflamed with a bitter mutual hostility, lane virtually joined hands for the purpose of demolishing this Government. This is not, indeed, as to one of these parties, the osten- sible object they have in view; but it is essentially involved in that object, and they know it. They must, therefore, be held to the responsibility of aiming at a dissolution of the Union, equally with those inha- bitants of the Southern States who avow this as their aim. The subject which has occasioned this commotion is Slavery. The Southern Disunionists would secede, because Congress, at its late session, passed certain acts abridging, as they allege, the rights of the slave- holding States; and the Northern Disunionists insist upon the repeal of a law passed at the same time, entitled the Fugitive Slave Law. even though its abrogation should Involve a dissolution of the Union. M\ business as a Northern man, and a citizen of a free State, is with the latter of these parties, or rather TIIK UNION. with the North generally. In the feu observations T am about to make on the subject, I Bhall simply reiterate sentiments which have been so often and so eloquently expressed both in Congress and out of it, that they have become familiar to every well-informed citizen. But I may say that the man who can put the American Union, with its untold and inconceiv- able blessings into one scale, and the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law into the other, and then strike the balance in favor of the latter, is without a proto- type in the history of the race, until we get hack to the record of that primeval tempter who said to our first mother. " Ye shall not surely die." "She plucked, she oat! Earth frit the wound, and Nature from her scat. Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe, Thai all was lost!" In saying this, I utterly disclaim any design to be- come the champion of Slavery. I have never set my- self to defend it; and by the grace <>1' God 1 never will. 1 concur in the estimate which is put upon it by the people of the North, and by tens of thousands of our Southern countrymen, that it is a colossal evil ; and that no consummation is more devoutlj to be wished and prayed lor than its removal. lint I can as little undertake the championship of Northern agitators and fanatics as that of Slavery. I believe the) are the wor^t enemies <>r the slave, and the must efficient protectors of Slavery; and as Buch, I can have no 34 1 HE I M'»X. fellowship with them. The law to which the} objecl in;i\ be, or it may not be, defective 01 unjusl in some of its provisions. If it is, it will no doubt at the proper time lie amended; if it is not, it will stand. But what we arc called upon to discountenance, is the spirit in which this excitement is promoted — the recklessness and violence with which the uncondi- tional repeal of the obnoxious law is demanded, irre- spective of consequences — the abusive attacks which are constantly made upon the South — and the whole system of measures put in operation to alienate the two portions of the confederacy, and bring about a disruption. However the fact may be contemned by the radical Abolitionists, it behooves ns all to remember, what even tin 1 cursory retrospect presented in this discourse musl have made sufficiently manifest, that the Union of these States was a matter of compromise. Ob- structed as it was by the most serious impediments, it could never have been effected had not all the parties concerned been animated by a rare spirit of accom- modation. General Washington, in submitting the draft oi* the new Constitution to Congress, thus ex- presses himself in his official letter as the President of tic Convention: "In all our deliberations on this subject, we kept steadily in our view that which ap- pears to us the greatest interesl of every true Ame- rican, the consolidation of our Union, in which is involved our prosperity, felicity, safety, perhaps our national existence. This important consideration, Tin: onion. seriously and deeply impressed on our minds, Led each state in the Convention to be less rigid on points of inferior magnitude than mighl have been other- wise expected; and thus the Constitution which we now present is the result of a spirit of amity, and of that mutual deference and concession which the pecu- liarity of our political situation rendered indispen- sable." In this spirit the Union originated, and in this spirit it lias, under God's blessing, been preserved. On most of* the important measures of the government the country has been divided into two great parties. We have passed through various crises, which have tested the loyalty of one parly or of the other, as the ca-e might he, as in a fiery furnace. Take for ex- ample the following measures: Jay's Treat] — the Em- bargo—the War of 1812 — the Missouri question— the Nullification controversy — the admission of Texas — and the Mexican War. Each of these measures was highly offensive to a large portion of the American people. The legislation of Congress was. in some of the cases, resisted by statesmen of the most eminent abilities, as being in the face of the Constitution, and destructive to our host interests. But when the acts were passed, the law-abiding spirit ef the Anglo-Saxon race began to work, and all parties acquiesced, w have a striking illustration of this in one of the most recent oi the measures just mentioned, — the admission oi Lexas. The major part of the population in the free States regarded this, in the manner in which it :; 36* THE UNION. was done as a gross invasion of the Constitution. A distinguished citizen of South Carolina, formerly Go- vernor of that State, has remarked, in a letter recently published, that "the admission of Texas furnished a far greater provocation to the North to secede, than the admission of California does to the South, with the auxiliary stipulations incident to the former."* But we did not secede. Nobody talked of seceding, except the party who are driving at disunion now. The sober sense and enlightened patriotism of the mass of the people, fortified by sixty years' experience, have taught them the necessity of forbearance, and made them feel that it is far better to submit even to mea- sures which they believe to be wrong and hurtful, than to break up the Union. They have no notion of set- ting the ship on tin 1 because the captain deals out some obnoxious orders. They choose rather to wait till the ship returns to port, and then, if they can. get a new captain. In this spirit the compromise measures of the last session ought to be treated. They were not party measures, for none of the recognized parties was, as such, satisfied with them. But they supplied the only platform on which men of all parties could meet ; and this is a sufficient reason why the country should acquiesce in them. That a statute respecting fugitive slaves should form a pari n\' this series of pacificatory measures, was a thing of course. One of the chief compromises of the * General James Hamilton's Letter to the People of South Carolina. THE DNION. Constitution itself relates to this very subject. The South would not come into the I nioii without some guarantee on this point, and the following section (Art. IV, Sect. 2) was adopted by the Convention — I believe unanimously: "No person hold to service 01 labor in one State, under tho laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regu- lation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the part) to whom such service or labor may be duo.'" A law was enacted under Washington's administration, and with his approval, to carry this provision of the ('(in- stitution into effect.* This law had of late years been rendered nugatory in some of the States by local legislation, and it became necessary to replace it with another. This is the statute which is now exciting so much opposition, and the execution of which lias been resisted with so much violence. These demon- strations, although professedly directed against some of the details of the act, are to a great extent levelled It musl be recorded, to Ihe lasting honor of Pennsylvania, that she was the first of the thirteen States to abolish slavery. This was done under the administration of President R 1. in 1780. Ai ream- Btance worthy of note, thai the act embraces a provision for the extradi- tion of fugitive slaves. The following is an extract from b set tion : '• Provided always, and be it farther enacted, that this act, or anything in it contained, shall not give any relief or shelter to any abscondii runaway negro, or mulatto Blave, or servant, who baa absented himself, or shall absent hima If, from his or her owner, master, or m in any other State or country; but Buch owner, , shall have like right and aid to demand, claim, and take a« i Bervant, as he might have had in case this ad bad not been ma 38 THE UNION. against its principle. We do the party concerned in them no injustice in supposing that they would be equally hostile to any adequate law designed to effect the same object. In this view, one cannot but be struck with the flexible morality which can declaim fiercely about the inalienable rights of man, while it is trampling under its feet one of the most sacred covenants which ever bound a people together. There is no difference of opinion as to the meaning of the Constitutional pro- vision on this subject. To that provision, in common with the others, our fathers assented, and we have assented. It is one of the terms of a compact into which we have, as a people, entered with one another ; and which is just as binding upon us as any other of its provisions. Our judgment may condemn it. It may be revolting to our feelings. But this is nothing to the purpose. We are under no obligation to re- main in a country which we believe to be governed by oppressive laws ; there is nothing to prevent our flying to any land which rejoices in a milder code and a more rational liberty. But as long as we continue citizens of this Union, we must abide by its Constitu- tion, and obey its laws.* And we cannot consent to take lossons in ethics from those who deny this propo- sition. The first requisite we demand in a teacher of morals, is that he bo a moral man himself. And when * it i s ,,,.- rv, for tin' purposes of the present argument, to the limitations of this principle. THE UNION. 39 a covenant-breaker comes to expound to us our obli- gations, we feel disposed to decline his instructions and to say to him, "Your nickname, virtue; vice, you should have spoke ; For virtue's office never breaks men's troth.'' To some persons this may sound very unfeeling as regards the slave. I will not reply by saying, that the Apostle Paul thought it no sin to send a fugitive back to his master. But this is a case where we are not at liberty to take counsel merely of our sympa- thies. The obligation of contracts is not made con- tingent upon men's feelings; and if this plea was to be urged at all, it should have been before the Consti- tution was adopted. We do not, however, rest our answer to the objection upon this ground only. We are not willing to concede a monopoly of all the sympathy which is entertained for the bondman, to the party which is clamoring for an unconditional repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law. So far from it, we claim to be the truest friends of the slave. We believe that, as well for nations and in respect to public affairs, as for individuals, " Honesty is the best policy;" and that kindness to the colored race, no less than patriotism, demands a faithful adherence, on the part of all con- cerned, to the stipulations of the Constitution. By that instrument, the exclusive jurisdiction of slaver) is reserved to the several States. We have no more right to dictate to South Carolina what she shall do with her slaves, than she has to prescribe to Pennsyl- 40 THE UNION. vania what railroads we shall construct, or what hanks we shall charter. Nor does the responsibility of her system of servitude any more attach to us, than does the responsibility of the serfdom of Russia. The Northern abolitionists (I use the term in its technical sense), impressed, it would seem, with a con- viction that their proper responsibilities, sectional and national, secular and spiritual, are not commensurate with their capacities, have volunteered to shoulder by much the heaviest portion of the obligations resting upon the Southern States. The South declines the proffered civility; but they press their attentions. The South remonstrates, on the ground that the contem- plated interference would be highly prejudicial to her tranquillity; but her officious friends insist upon it as their right to help her manage her private affairs. The South at length puts herself in an attitude of resistance, and points to the solemn compact in the Constitution ; but they reply, with an air of triumph, that they are governed by a " higher hue" and that under that law, it is not only their right, but their duty, to take charge of her slaves. And what have they accomplished by this Quixotic generosity'? They hav.e riveted the fetters of the slave. The}' have de- terred at least three States, Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky, from carrying out the plans of prospective emancipation they were just entering upon when this outbreak of misguided philanthropy occurred at the North. They have 1 scattered the seeds of discord and alienation broadcast through the Confederacy. THE UNION. 41 In a word, protesting that they were the exclusive friends of the slave, they have taken him to their breasts with a hug which reminds one of the embrace of that terrific automaton of the Virgin found in the dungeons of the " Holy Inquisition," which, clasping the victim in its arms and pressing him to its bosom, transfixed him with a thousand concealed spikes and poniards. And their fitting auxiliaries in all this crusade against the South, have been British emissa- ries; the subjects of that crown which, in the face of the remonstrances of some of the Colonies, planted slavery in our soil and fostered it into manhood, and which at this moment has millions of subjects at home and in its Colonies, who would be the gainers in physical comfort, and even in spiritual privilege, by exchanging places with our Southern slaves. The failure of all past efforts at the North to ame- liorate the condition of the slave, is not more palpable than is the certainty, that the grand expedient now contemplated would prove equally abortive. For, suppose radicalism could achieve its purpose and split the Union to pieces, 7ww would this help the slave? Does any man, not a tenant of a Lunatic Asylum, believe that Disunion would mitigate the evils of Southern servitude? Would it bring about a relax- ation of the laws which regulate it? Would it incline the planters to put books and pens into the hands of their slaves'? Would it facilitate the flight of fugi- tives'? Would it conciliate the various legislatures towards schemes of emancipation? No out 1 is so 42 THE UNION. infatuated as to affirm this. The most frantic aboli- tionists must he aware, that the disruption of the Union would put a cup of gall and wormwood to the lips of ever) slave; that it would be a signal for the enactment of more stringent laws than have ever appeared upon the Southern statute-books; and for the institution of a system of surveillance on every plantation and in every household, the rigor of which has no parallel in the records of American bondage. In the name, then, of three millions of slaves, we protest against all schemes for dissolving the Union. We believe that, terrible as such a catastrophe would be to the whites, it would be no less so to the blacks ; that it would abridge their privileges, augment their burdens, and postpone by many years the period of their ultimate emancipation. We should be crimin- ally indifferent to their welfare, as well as faithless to those sacred bonds which have hitherto united the North and the South in an honorable and affec- tionate brotherhood, if we could remain silent when sincere but mistaken religionists and unprincipled demagogues have well-nigh precipitated the country into this frightful abyss. And we arc all the more disposed to break silence, because we believe that, of the two classes of agitators just named, the latter has a great deal more to do with the present excitement than the former. There is, it is true, a settled convic- tion in the minds of the Northern people that slavery is a great evil, and there is an anxious desire to see the country rid of it. But, left to itself, this feeling THE UNION. 43 is as still as it is strong and deep; and it never could have been lashed into the foaming surges which now break over the land, but through the systematic, crafty, and wicked exertions of political demagogues. There were men in the ancient republics whose motto it was, " Better to reign in hell than serve in Heaven ;" and they cared not what became of their country, so they were promoted. Monsters, it has been said, cannot perpetuate their species ; but this species, if not per- petuated, has been reproduced, for we indubitably have them among ourselves. Like Erostratus, who, when put to the torture, confessed that his motive in setting fire to the temple of Diana at Ephcsus, was to gain himself a name with posterity, these men appear to be intent upon attracting to themselves the attention of the world, even though it can be done only by applying the torch of civil war to this glorious Union. Let us hope that a merciful Providence may baffle their designs ; that the upright and law-abiding people whom they have, for the time, bewitched with their enchantments, may detect the real character of their leaders; and that these ebullitions of fanaticism may soon give place to those patriotic and conciliatory sentiments which, in every previous crisis of our history, have proved equally efficacious against do- mestic faction and foreign aggression. It would be well for all classes of our citizens, at this critical juncture, to look Disunion fairly in the 44 THE UNION. face. Its unavoidable effects upon the colored popu- lation constitute but a tithe of the evils which would now from it, Not to exhaust your patience by going into the question at large, let it suffice to say, that Disunion not only involves a fratricidal war, but that it would undoubtedly lead to a continued series of contentions and disruptions among the States. It seems to be taken for granted that, if we divide, we divide into two confederations. But why stop at two \ It would be quite as natural, certainly, to form four confederations as two. And how long should we pause at four? A sense of common danger might hold the new combinations together for a season ; but this would give place, after a while, to local and more potent influences. The strength of the Union lies not in its physical, but its moral power. Its real buttresses are not its army and navy, its mines and factories, its canals and railroads — not even its writ- ten constitutions and charters, its laws and tribunals ; but its sacred traditions, the inwrought and, until lately, universal conviction of its unparalleled benefits, and that sense of its sanctity which has made tin 1 nation regard it with a reverential awe akin to that with which the Hebrews looked upon the ark of the covenant, The feeling has been that the Union was an ark of the covenant to us, — that it was the re- pository of our most precious national mementoes, the symbol of the Divine presence with us, and the pledge of his future protection. This feeling is not to be ascribed to any specific training. It is no set THE UNION. 4.") lesson wc have learned at school, or which has been drilled into us like a code of morals or a code of manners at home. We have inherited it from the mothers who horc us. We have inhaled it in the air of heaven. It has gathered nourishment from the scenes of our firesides, from our daily employments, from our journeys, from our sanctuaries, from our na- tional anniversaries, from all our experiences and all our associations. It has grown with our growth and strengthened with our strength, and imperceptibly become a part of our being. And this it is which, under God, has made the Union so strong ; it is be- cause its roots are struck down into our hearts, and so interlaced with the very framework of our moral being, that they seem to belong to our personal identity. Now dissolve the Union, and not only do we cease to be what we have been, as individuals, but the power of the Union over us is gone, and gone forever. You annihilate by one stroke, that feeling of its sanc- tity which has done more to preserve it than all other causes combined. And it matters not whether you merely cleave it in halves or divide it down into quarters or eighths. One pebble will spoil a mirror as well as a handful. The people will have learned, from a single rupture, that the Union can be broken: a most fatal discovery. For when they have broken it once, they will not scruple, if occasion serves, to break it, or rather to break its fragments, again ; I'm- it will have ceased to be the Union. We shall no longer 4G THE UNION. have a national existence. The great events of our history — the illustrious names which adorn our annals — the heritage of renown committed to ns — can no longer be appealed to as incentives to virtuous con- duct, or as rallying-crics in seasons of peril. What orator will dare allude to Bunker Hill or York- town, to Champlain or Erie? What Senator will dare invoke the name of Washington — or to speak of Henry and Marshall, of Greene and Morgan, of Jack- son and Harrison, of Hull and Bainbridgc I These illustrious men toiled and bled for the UNION ; and when we shall have destroyed the work of their hands, and resolved the almost perfect government they established and defended at so great a cost, into a group of petty jarring confederacies, shame will con- spire with ingratitude in consigning their names, their honors, and their sufferings, to a speedy and an eter- nal oblivion. Nothing — if this calamity awaits ns — nothing presents itself to our expectations, but a future as humiliating and disastrous, as our past has been bright and ennobling. Instead of that benefi- cent mission which we have been wont to suppose had been confided to us, of leading the nations on to freedom and happiness, we may look forward to pro- tracted scenes of anarchy and bloodshed, which will sicken and discourage the patriots of other lands, and supply the partisans of arbitrary power with a tri- umphant proof that nations require a master. We are not at liberty to disregard this consideration. Even if* we were so lost to virtue and patriotism as to THE UNION. 47 be reckless of the fate of our own countrymen, we could not elude the responsibilities which rest upon us in reference to the world at large. This Union cannot expire as the snow melts from a rock, or a star dis- appears from the firmament. When it falls, the crash will be heard in all lands. Wherever the winds of Heaven go, that will go, bearing sorrow and dismay to millions of stricken hearts. Not the dismay and sorrow incident to the blighting of their own pros- pects, and the breaking up of their household plans ; but the deep and inconsolable grief occasioned by a calamity so startling and so disastrous in its bearings upon the happiness of mankind, as to leave the mind no opportunity for expatiating on its own private mis- fortunes. For the subversion of this Government will render the cause of constitutional liberty hopeless throughout the world. What nation can govern itself, if this nation cannot \ What encouragement will any people have to establish liberal institutions for them- selves, if ours fail \ Providence has laid upon us the responsibility and the honor of solving that problem in which all coming generations of men have a profound interest, whether the true ends of government can lie secured by a popular representative system. In the munificence of his goodness, he put us in possession of our heritage, by a series of interpositions scarcely less signal than those which conducted the Hebrews to Canaan; and He has, up to this period, withheld from us no immunities or resources which might facilitate an auspicious result, Never before was a 48 THE UNION. people so advantageously situated for working out this great problem in favor of human liberty. And it is important for us to understand that the world so regards it. The argument with which Napoleon in- flamed the ardor of his troops on the eve of his great battle near Cairo, was in these pregnant words : " Sol- diers, consider that from the summits of yonder Pyra- mids, forty centuries look down upon you." What- ever the rhetoricians may say of this speech, they must at least admit that the principle to which it appeals, constitutes one of the most powerful springs of human action, and that no man is at liberty to disregard its promptings. We, certainly, are bound to remember that the nations are looking to us, not for themselves only, but for the " centuries" which are to follow, to learn whether " order and law, religion and morality, the rights of conscience, the rights of person, and the rights of property, may all be preserved and secured in the most perfect manner by a government entirely and purely elective." If, in the frenzy of our base sectional jealousies, we dig the grave of the Union, and thus decide this question in the negative, no tongue may attempt to depict the disappointment and despair which will go along with the announcement as it spreads through distant lands. It will be at once the most unlooked-for and the most irrefragable testi- mony ever given to the idea, that nations are made only to obey. It will be America, after fifty years' experience 1 , in the course of which period she had done more to inspire the nations with a desire for THE UNION. 49 liberal institutions, than all other popular governments combined could effect in the lapse of ages, recording her adhesion to the doctrine, that man was not made for self-government. It will be Freedom herself pro- claiming that Freedom is a chimera ; Liberty ringing her own knell all over the globe. And when the citizens or subjects of the governments which are to succeed this Union shall visit Europe, and see in some land, now struggling to cast off its fetters, the lacerated and lifeless form of Liberty laid prostrate under the iron heel of despotism, it will not much relieve the horror of the spectacle, to reflect that the blow which destroyed her was inflicted by their own country. " So the struck Eagle, stretched upon the plain, No more through rolling clouds to soar again, Viewed his own feather on the fatal dart, And winged the shaft that quivered in his heart : Keen were his pangs, but keener far to feel, He nursed the pinion which impelled the steel; While the same plumage that had warmed his nest, Drank the last life-drop of his bleeding breast." Nor is this the only aspect in which the issues of Disunion present themselves to our contemplation. We are forced to consider them as well in respect to our spiritual, as our civil and social interests. For the most remarkable characteristic of this whole move- ment is, that the sacred name of RELIGION should be invoked to sanction measures adapted to destroy this government, — the Union is to be broken up for the sake of religion ! The lofty morality of the Scriptures 50 THE UNION. will not permit us to live together under a constitution which authorizes the Fugitive Slave Law; and we must separate. "I thought where all thy circling wiles would end : In feigned religion, smooth hypocrisy I" It needed but this ingredient to consummate the superlative madness and impiety of this scheme. For, if there is any one great national interest upon which the disruption of these States would fall with a crush- ing weight, it is our Christianity, — that interest which as much surpasses all others in importance as it will in duration. There is no land where Christianity has achieved nobler victories than it has here. Enjoying at once plenary protection from the State and the utmost free- dom, it has developed itself with a purity and an energy rarely witnessed in the Old World. It was a sublime undertaking, that of supplying, without the aid of endowments or government patronage, churches and spiritual teachers for a youthful and growing nation like this, diffused over so great an expanse of territory. And the predictions of failure were equally sanguine and universal among the adherents of the ecclesiasti- cal establishments of Europe. But these predictions have not been verified. We may venture to assert, without violating the modesty proper to the occasion, that Christianity has accomplished far more than its friends could have anticipated ; that the efficiency of the voluntary principle, as displayed here, has excited THE UNION. hi the astonishment of its bitterest opponents ; and that we have done more by our example to refute the vicious theories of foreign statesmen and ecclesiastics, and to promote the progress of religious liberty on that side of the water, than could have been done b\ whole libraries of polemical divinity. The time for- bids me to go into detail. But no candid observer can survey our country, in its moral and religious features, without being impressed with the grandeur of the results already achieved here. Not to speak of the churches with which the land is dotted over ; the large body of educated and evangelical clergymen who occupy our pulpits and conduct most of the higher literary institutions ; the liberal sums spontaneously contributed for the support and propa- gation of the Gospel ; and the promptitude with which further subsidies and ucav laborers are sup- plied, as fresh fields demand cultivation, — look at the benign and powerful influence religion has ex- erted upon the population at large. There was a work to be done here so indispensable that the gov- ernment could not get on tranquilly without it. but which the government could not do. Religion has done it. It has been the chief agent in establishing our systems of education. It has been the main- spring of most of the humane institutions designed to alleviate the wants and improve the condition of the people. It has gone down among the masses, ;iih1 no! only fed them and clothed them, but renovated their principles, restrained their passions, taught them their 52 THE UNION. duties, and made them value their privileges. It has received in the arms of its comprehensive charity, the myriads who land upon our wharves; and done more hy its wondrous alchemy, than all other agencies com- bined, to transmute them into good citizens, and to homologate all creeds and parties and tongues in a harmonious brotherhood. It has redoubled its exer- tions to keep pace with the tide of emigration as it has rolled over the prairies, pierced the primeval forests of the West, and poured itself down the slopes of the llocky Mountains upon the fertile plains of Oregon and into the auriferous valleys of California. And, not satisfied with domestic conquests, though stretching from ocean to ocean, it has sent forth its peaceful cohorts to distant shores; and from Asia, from Africa, from the Isles of the Sea, ten thousand voices come back to proclaim their bloodless victories, and to assure us that the wilderness and the solitary place have been made glad for them, and the desert rejoices and blossoms as the rose. Now let the Union be dissolved, and how certainly will this vision pass away. For it is not possible that this event should occur, without involving religion in the general catastrophe. It is a common maxim that, in times of public distress or alarm, credit is the first thing to suffer. It is no less true that Religion sym- pathizes at such crises, not only with credit, but with every other element of prosperity. Christianity is not a thing by itself — a mere matter of Bible-reading and church-going, of Sundays and sacraments. It is in- THE UNION. 53 terfused, as we have just seen, through all our rela- tions, comprehends all our employments, and exerts its prerogative over the whole field of human duty. The moment you touch the commerce or the hus- bandry of a country, you touch its Christianity. If you paralyze any branch of industry, weaken the popular confidence in the government, excite an ex- pectation of war, or do anything else to agitate the public mind, religion feels the effect of it. It requires no prophet, therefore, to foresee that, in the event of a disruption, the churches would share the common fortunes of the country. Amidst despondency and terror, dissensions and war, their strength would dwindle and their zeal decline. With diminished resources, the money now appropriated to the mainte- nance and diffusion of the Gospel, would be wanted to pay troops and purchase munitions of war; or, should an appeal to arms be averted, to meet the enormous taxes for civil and military purposes inci- dent to the new order of things, and the critical rela- tions among the several States and Federations. It is no extravagant supposition that, if the process of dissolution once begins, it will not finally stop until the Republic is chopped up into six or eight distinct Leagues, each one of which must have its own general government, with the usual symbols and implements of nationality, such as legislative and judicial tribu- nals, ambassadors, a navy, and, what will thou bo unavoidable, a cordon of camps and fortresses and ;i considerable standing army. The very transit from T>4 THE UNION. our present condition to a state like this, would be like the passage of a fleet through the Norwegian Maelstrom. It would extinguish hundreds of feeble churches and shatter the strongest ones. Instead of keeping pace with the spiritual wants of our nomadic population, which they are barely able to do when blessed with a redundant prosperity, the various de- nominations would find it difficult to sustain them- selves at home. Foreign Missionaries would be re- called, and fields restored to paganism which have been won from it at a great outlay of money and life, and which are now " white to the harvest." The cir- cumstances of the country would be as unpropitious to the culture of sound morals as they are now favor- able. Infidelity and atheism would run riot through the land, violence and crime would superabound, and we should deteriorate in all those high moral qualities which have hitherto attested the efficacy of our Chris- tianity, and secured for us the respect of the civilized world. And all this avalanche of evil is to be brought down upon us for the sake of Religion! We are to ex- change our present condition for alienation, insecurity, commercial prostration, the decay of our churches, and the bankruptcy of our great charities — for the sake 1 of religion ! We are to make the Bible a nullity, and the Sabbath a day of amusement, re-open all the sluices of immorality, and deluge the land with licen- tiousness and profanity — for the sake of religion! We arc to disband our schools and churches among the TJ1E UNION. 55 heathen, and send back the multitudes now under Christian instruction, to worship in idol temples and sacrifice their children to devils, — for the sake of re- ligion ! We protest against this huge impiety. If fanatics and demagogues are resolved to destroy this Union, let them not seek to sanctify the parricidal crime by perpetrating it in the name of religion. Enough that Buddhism should crush its besotted devotees under the car of Juggernaut, in the name of religion ; that Mohammed should fertilize kingdoms with human blood, in the name of religion ; that a spurious Chris- tianity should keep its arsenals of chains and fagots, and slaughter whole tribes of unoffending peasants, in the name of religion. Let not Satan come hither also in the robes of an angel of light. Let not the august name of religion be invoked to hallow an enormity, which would not only shroud this land in mourning, but inflict upon religion itself the most irre- parable injury. Every consideration of virtue not only, but of decency, forbids that Christianity should be called upon to preside at an auto-da-fe of which it is itself to be the holocaust ; to consecrate a crime which would, for the time, arrest its own beneficent triumphs, give new energy to all the emissaries of evil, and be hailed with transport by those, and only those, who exult in the calamities of virtue and the victories of sin. Not to pursue this painful theme, it must be too apparent to require argument, that the dismember- 56 THE UNION. ment of this Union would be one of the most appal- ling calamities which could befall the world. " Other misfortunes (I use the words of the great Statesman of Massachusetts) may be borne or their effects overcome. If disastrous war should sweep our commerce from the ocean, another generation may renew it; if it exhaust our treasury, future industry may replenish it ; if it desolate and lay waste our fields, still under a new cultivation they will grow green again and ripen to future harvests. It were but a trifle even if the walls of the Capitol were to crumble, if its lofty- pillars should fall, and its gorgeous decorations be all covered by the dust of the valley. All these might be rebuilt. But who shall reconstruct the fabric of demolished Government? Who shall rear again the well-proportioned columns of Constitutional liberty? Who shall frame together the skilful architecture which unites national sovereignty with State rights, individual security, and public prosperity 1 No, if these columns fall, they will not be raised again. Like the Coliseum and the Parthenon, they will be destined to a mournful, a melancholy immortality. Bitterer tears, however, will flow over them than were ever shed over the monuments of Roman or Grecian art; for they will be the remnants of a more glorious edifice than Greece or Rome ever saw. — the edifice of Con- stitutional American Liberty."* But why slwuld they fall ! What is it that now threatens to overwhelm Mr. Webster's Speech at the celebration of Washington's Birth-day, in Washington, 1832. THE UNION. in this Government in irretrievable ruin I lias it become so enervated by luxury as to sink into inanition 1 Are we falling to pieces through the extraordinary and in- tractable expansion of our territory I Is there a vic- torious army at our gates? Are we ground down with oppressive laws for which there is no remedy but in a dissolution % No : none of these. But Congress, in the exercise of a power never before called in question, has admitted a State into the Union which refused to tolerate involuntary servitude ; and in obe- dience to an imperative requisition of the Constitu- tion, has passed a law for the reclamation of fugitive slaves ! These are the grounds on which it is pro- posed to destroy this Government. For these reasons we are called upon, in the midst of peace, plenty, and prosperity, to exchange the best Government the world has ever seen — the most affluent blessings, the most glorious reminiscences, and the most brilliant prospects a nation ever enjoyed — for dismemberment, anarchy, and carnage. Surely, if the establishment of this Union by the voluntary consent of the people was, as Mr. Hamilton declared, a " prodigy," its volun- tary destruction by that same people or their degene- rate descendants, for causes like these and after sixty years' experience of its benefits, would be a far greater prodigy. The turpitude of such a crime has nothing in history to illustrate it, Language was not made to define it. The generation which perpetrates it, will cover themselves with an infamy as iU>c\) as the abyss into which they will have plunged their country. 58 THE UNION. And the patriots of all coming generations will exe- crate the memories of the men, who betrayed the priceless heritage of Constitutional Liberty which was purchased with the blood of their fathers, and placed in their hands as trustees for mankind. Let it be our aim to do what we can to avert so fearful a catastrophe. Let us cultivate a spirit of conciliation towards all portions of the Confederacy. Let us sustain the majesty of the law. Let us invoke the blessing of Heaven upon our rulers. Let us, above all, be instant and earnest in commending our beloved country to the care of that benignant Providence, who has brought us through so many dangers, and crowned us with such unexampled prosperity. 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