Book t \ 
 
ADDRESS f,t-y^ 
 
 BEFORE 
 
 ^S 
 
 THE LITERARY SOCIETIES 
 
 OF 
 
 |{oauoht 
 
 if 
 
 . at 
 
 BY 
 
 ION. CLARKSUN NOTT POTTER, LL.D., 
 
 June 12, 1878. 
 
 PUBLISHED FOR THE SOCIETIES. 
 
 WASHINGTON, D. C: 
 
 Printed by Darby it Duvall. 
 
 1S78. 
 
NEW YORK PUBL. LIHR. 
 
 J'^f EXCHANGE. 
 
 
 i-&X £» 
 
 7 
 
'i y Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Literary Societies: 
 
 Few Americans could, I think, come liere from the IS'orth 
 ^ for the first time by the route I have just passed over, without 
 
 "^ emotion. 
 
 The history of this State has been so distinguished and 
 eventful ; she has had such large share in the foundation, 
 the trials, the growths, and the triumphs of the nation, that 
 no citizen can well enter her territory with indiflerence. Her 
 very name recalls that sovereign whose reign was alike one of 
 the grandest periods of English literature and English power. 
 Every mile of the way hither is rich in the memory of great 
 men and of great deeds. The route passes by the home of 
 that wise and august man whose rare fortune it was to go 
 down to history as the most faultless of heroes— so perfect 
 that we even love to hear that he sonietimes yielded to a burst 
 of feeling or an outbreak of temper. It passes Fauquier, the 
 birthplace of that great jurist who had such large share in 
 setthng the nature and powers of our National Government, 
 and whose opinions, whether upon constitutional or other legal 
 questions, have an irresistible logic and power. It goes near 
 Montpelier, where dwelt that wise and pure President, who 
 ' was one of the ablest and most practical statesmen of his age. 
 
 It winds round the noble hill where the Sage of Monticello— 
 patriot, philosopher and statesman— dispensed a lavish hospi- 
 tahty in keeping with his warm heart and liberal ideas. 
 
 Washington, Jeiterson, Madison and Marshall, names sec- 
 ond to none in all our national history. 
 
 Then our route goes on by Charlottesville, the scene of 
 some of the great elibrts of that wonderful orator, whose 
 
fiery patriotism and marvelous eloquence have flung a 
 halo around the name of Patrick Henry. It passes 
 through the grounds of that university where so 
 many learned and distinguished men have been edu- 
 cated, suggesting by contrast the days when Sir Wil- 
 liam Berkeley " thanked God that there was within Virginia 
 neither free schools, nor newspapers, nor printing." Then it 
 follows down the fair Bhie Kidge, whose extended forests re- 
 call the pioneers of the frontier, and notably that far-seeing 
 woodsman, George Rogers Clark, "the Hannibal of the West," 
 to whose wisdom and energ}^ and courage we so largely 
 owe the territory between the Ohio and the Gulf of Mexico. 
 
 And so as we pass on from the homes of the Lees and the 
 Masons to the country of the Randolphs and the Lewises, we 
 come hour by hour upon some spot famous in history — some 
 name that recalls great deeds. We cross streams that in the 
 early time of LKlian hostilities, and again in later years of 
 civilized combat, ran red with blood. We pass over fields 
 where great armies have met in the shock of battle. We go 
 by towns that were the homes of statesmen and jurists, men 
 who in the Senate, in the forum, and in the Executive chair 
 have given character and direction to the nation. Everywhere 
 our way is rich in the memories and stirring from the events 
 that it recalls, until we come at last, aglow with high thoughts 
 and great recollections, to this home of education, planted amid 
 all these great names and great scenes. 
 
 Surely, if there were any virtue in the statutes and inscrip- 
 tions with which the ancients surrounded their youth, that 
 fired by the example of the good and great who had gone be- 
 fore them, they might be excited to nobler eftbrt, you young 
 gentlemen grown up among such scenes, living among such 
 names, familiar day by day with these recollections — you, too, 
 have always about you a like incentive to higher efi:brts and 
 to worthier life. 
 
THE PHYSICAL ADVANTAGES OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 I think a Northern visitor coming for the first time to Vir- 
 ginia will also he siii-prised at how little it resemhles the South 
 as a part of which we class it. The agriculture, the produc- 
 tions, tlie face of the country, the mountain summits, the 
 wooded ranges, the charming valleys, tlie swift streams, the 
 bubbling springs here, are all foreign to what we are wont to 
 consider as the physical features of the South. 
 
 Indeed, the climate of Virginia is more akin to the climate 
 of England than is either the climate of New England, with 
 its rigorous winters, or that of the Southern States, with their 
 extremes of heat, and as the colony was favored with a pro- 
 ductive soil and other great natural advantages, the English 
 came naturally and readily to settle here. 
 
 Among these immigrants were many leading families, who 
 brought with them to the colony considerable wealth, and 
 they brought here perhaps more than to any other part of the 
 continent, because more suited for such liabits, the pursuits 
 and amusements of the land from which they came. Here 
 as at home were large landed proprietors, and a distinct 
 laboring class, and here, as there, grew up a love of the sports of 
 the field, a fondness for outdoor exercise, and manly and vig- 
 orous amusements. Here, even more than there, indepen- 
 dence of opinion and liberality of thought prevailed, at the 
 same time that a decent respect for precedent and authority 
 was cherished, while higher education and elegant cultivation 
 were not neglected. 
 
 And thus it happened that Virginia, whose House of Bur- 
 gesses was tlie first legislative chamber in the land, had come 
 when the Revolution broke out, to be far the richest, the most 
 developed, and the most influential of the colonies. 
 
 THE LONG PREPARATION FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT. 
 
 The revolutionary war was no sudden nor accidental move. 
 ment. Neither was it caused by any special measure of op- 
 
6 
 
 pression. It was inevitable that, separated as the colonies 
 were by weeks of time and thousands of miles of distance 
 from the mother country, unlike as they were to that country 
 in their situation, necessities, and opportunities, they could not 
 be well governed from Great Britain. No matter how wise the 
 ministry at home, who directed the colonial government, were, 
 nor how good they were, they could neither understand nor 
 appreciate what the far-off colonies required. And thus it 
 was unavoidable that their government of the colonies should 
 prove in the end irksome and oppressive. 
 
 It was this necessity that gradually constrained the people 
 of the colonies to separate themselves from their mother 
 country. For them this separation was not only a serious and 
 dangerous, but a sad and trying business. Their pride, their 
 affection, their sense of their own weakness, their knowledge 
 of the power of Great Britain, all united to make them de- 
 termine upon it with reluctance. It was long years before the 
 views of those who supported Henry's resolution against tax- 
 ation ripened into the opinions Jefferson enunciated in the 
 Declaration of Independence. 
 
 During that period they went gradually from discussion to 
 protest, and then from protest to resistance, and at last from 
 resistance to revolution. Through all these years the leading 
 .men of the colonies were necessarily and most seriously en- 
 gaged in considering the principles of government ; what were 
 the rights of individuals, what the just powers of rulers, what 
 the duties of subjects, what the obligations of the colonies. 
 And being compelled to consider these questions under new cir- 
 cumstances and under conditions without precedent, they were 
 compelled to consider them upon principle and to apply prin- 
 ciples to the conditions in which they hved. Those days, too, 
 were in themselves favorable to solid study and to sound reflec- 
 tion. They were days of patient industry, of steady habits, of 
 moderate gains and simple living. There was then room and 
 
-opportunity, as well as occasion, for deep and earnest thinking. 
 No clicking telegraph gathered its outline of passing events 
 from all quarters of the earth to engross men's interest and 
 attention. No journal bristling with headlines of news, full of 
 items for wonder or excitement, with leaders rich in editorial 
 comment and suggestion, came to supply men daily with 
 ideas and save them the trouble of studying and reflecting for 
 •themselves. In those days men had little of the varied and 
 general knowledge of our times, the knowledge of passing 
 events. Life was easy and simple and natural, neither crowded 
 nor hurried, but it was sound and solid and hearty. Things 
 were then carried from point to point with too much ditficulty 
 to make what was idle or unfounded, or friviolous, worth the 
 carrying. 
 
 And so, by much study and much reflection the men of the 
 colonies prepared themselves for independence. After that 
 declaration came a long and bitter struggle, throughout which 
 •our Fathers maintained the highest resolution and the nobles^ 
 devotion, and which, by the aid of France, resulted at last 
 In triumphant success. After those years of strife in arms, 
 there came yet other years in which the infant confederacy 
 Tiept alive with difficulty the feeble light of national life. 
 During all these years the principal men of these colonies 
 were being educated in all that went to produce large-minded, 
 ■wise, just, and self-reliant public leaders, so that when finally 
 'they came to meet in convention at Philadelphia, for the pur- 
 pose of framing the National Government under which we 
 live, perhaps no body of men that ever met to frame a gov- 
 •ernment were better prepared for the duties before them, or 
 TDrought to their task vcreater purity, ability, and wisdom. 
 
 How wisely they fashioned, how largely and sagaciously 
 they builded, having regard to the times and circumstances 
 under which they built, we know. No one can read the debates 
 of that convention nor those of the State conventions which 
 
followed, without feeling how full the time was of wise, able,, 
 thoughtful men — men who dealt with principles rather than 
 with forms, and who considered substantial matters more than 
 matters of detail, nor without observing how notable the 
 most distinguished of these men were Virginians. 
 
 Speaking now to the descendants of the Virginians of that 
 day, may I ask attention to the principles upon which the 
 Fathers founded Government, to the circumstances under 
 which they applied those principles, to the changes in the 
 country which have since taken place, and to the evils which 
 have arisen with these changes, that we may inquire whether 
 their principles of government afford a remedy for such 
 evils, 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES ON WHICH THE FATHERS FOUNDED GOVERNMENT.. 
 
 The Fathers held three cardinal principles of government. 
 Upon these all their systems, both of State and Federal au- 
 thority, were based. The first was that government should 
 be limited against absolute power. They had well learned 
 that " liberty consists in the limitation of government;" that 
 *' the many though strong to execute are often blind to per- 
 ceive." They therefore established both their state and 
 national governments by written constitutions, which were at 
 once the source, the measure and the limit of their authority, 
 and by the distribution of the powers of government into 
 independent departments, and by various details they further 
 provided for the fullest preservation of such limitations. 
 
 Their second principle was that the powers of government 
 should be localized so that the men of the locality should 
 settle for themselves the things of the locality. 
 
 The third of their principles was that there should be 
 in this country no favored governing class, and so they for- 
 bade titles of nobility and primogeniture, and the perpetua- 
 tion of great estates. 
 
WHY THESE PRINCIPLES HAVE BEEN OVERLOOKED. 
 
 Now, although the Fathers had come through long years of 
 suffering and reflection to a clear conviction as to these prin- 
 ciples, the circumstances which followed have tended to make 
 their descendants lose sight of them. 
 
 The establishment of the new government was followed by a 
 great prosperity — a prosperity which, coming after it, was nat- 
 urally ascribed to it, but would perhaps have come without it. 
 Indeed, Macauley thought the same prosperity would surely 
 have come had the government remained colonial, and was 
 in the habit of pointing to like prosperity in Australia and 
 other countries, whose natural conditions were analogous to- 
 ours. 
 
 Certainly the natural circumstances here were all favorable 
 to prosperity ; an enormous territory ; a virgin soil, rich in 
 every desirable production ; a salubrious climate ; great natu- 
 ral conveniences for intercommunication ; no great difficul- 
 ties of access for immigrants ; an European language, and 
 room and welcome for all. Surely, the new States might well 
 have been expected under any tolerable form of government 
 to prosper. 
 
 But not long after their establishment a new method of 
 conveyance was introduced, which added wonderfully to these 
 advantages. Nowhere in the world was the steamboat so 
 well fitted to produce great results as in these States, with their 
 long lines of coast and their mighty inland waters. This in- 
 vention at once gave a new and marvelous development tO' 
 the natural advantages and the natural unity of the land. 
 For no sooner had the steam packet begun its journeys up the 
 great rivers of the interior, than it drew together within day& 
 of each other people before separated by weeks. Thus inter- 
 nal trade was developed, and with it wealth and population 
 increased, and by these in turn new means of intercommuni- 
 cation were established. Roads were extended, Turnpikes- 
 
10 
 
 built, Canals dug, Post-routes multiplied, Newspapers distri- 
 buted. Day by day the people grew richer; the wilderness 
 was step by step occupied aHd overcome ; trade and inter" 
 ■ course between difl'erent parts increased ; and better under- 
 standing and greater homogeueousness among the people of 
 the different States followed ; until at last the railway was in- 
 vented, drawing together within hours the people whom the 
 steamboat had only brought within days of each other ; and 
 "then last, and most centralizing of all, the telegraph was in- 
 troduced, putting all parts of the land into instant communi- 
 cation with each other. 
 
 Now, however due to these natural causes, it was not strange 
 that men should ascribe the great prosperity following upon 
 the establishment of the new government to the form of gov- 
 ernment adopted. 
 
 It is indeed most true that government cannot of itself 
 •create prosperity, but it can, and, alas ! often does interfere 
 with and prevent it ; and our government at least permitted 
 the freest possible development of the natural advantages of 
 the country, and so the American citizen, brought up to regard 
 his Union and Constitution as the sum of human wisdom, and 
 .justly proud of the unprecedented growth and prosperity of his 
 country, came more and more to ascribe these blessings to the 
 .form of government under which he lived, and with less and less 
 thought of the reason for that Constitution and the principles 
 it expressed, contented himself in eveiy country he visited by 
 crying aloud to all men, to take pattern after his model Re- 
 public. 
 
 The discussion about the distribution of the powers of gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 Beyond this, the political parties into which the country 
 was early divided, tended further to remove the original 
 principles of the Fathers from notice. 
 
11 
 
 In a great country where the people rule, there will be gen. 
 ■erallj two parties : one for having the governing power do 
 much, the other for having it do less ; one for having the ex- 
 ercise of government centralized, the other for having it lo- 
 calized. One, the party which would hold up the weak, aid 
 tb^ feeble, and protect the needy ; the other, a party insisting 
 that, beyond preserving order and administering justice, gov- 
 ernment should interfere with the action of its citizens as little 
 as possible ; and that while the general government should 
 Prescribe those regulations which atfect the whole people, local 
 affairs should be left to the people of the localities. From the 
 dual nature of the government established by our fathers out 
 of the union of independent States, it followed naturally and 
 inevitably that the party in this country in favor of extending 
 government would seek a liberal construction of the Federal 
 powers, while the party of less government would insist upon 
 a strict construction of those powers. And these, indeed, were 
 and have ever since continued to be the general divisions of 
 parties in this country, except when some question of present 
 paramount interest has for a time forced a special issue upon 
 the people. And so from the beginning discussion went on 
 about the respective functions and scope of the Federal and 
 State authority. Year after year, it was debated whether par- 
 ticular powers should be exercised by the Federal or only by 
 the State government, as to what were the limits of the power 
 of the one and the extent of the power of the other. But? 
 during all the time of this discussion, discussions which went 
 on, not only in the halls of legislation, and upon political 
 platforms, but in every county store and around every bar- 
 room fire throughout the land, men were gradually losing 
 sight, in their disputes about the distribution of the powders of 
 government, of the principles upon which the government was 
 founded. Instead of realizing that the rights of States were 
 of no advantage in themselves, except as they preserved the 
 liberty of individuals, and that local government and limita- 
 
12 
 
 tion of power might uuder new conditions be more readily 
 obtained by direct restraints npon the central authority than 
 by the strictest construction of the existing Constitution, it 
 was deemed so settled that we had the best government the- 
 world ever saw, that doubts of that were not even pei-mitted 
 to be suggested. Indeed, the changes which went on in tlje- 
 conditions of the country and of society, although rapid, were 
 so gradual that no one thought corresponding changes in the 
 Constitution necessary ; and there was, besides, a natural dis-- 
 inclination to disturb an instrument obtained by compromises 
 with so much difficulty. 
 
 THE DISPUTE ABOUT SLAVERY. 
 
 Meantime, by the aid of the gin, cotton had become one of 
 the chief productions of the country, and the system of labor 
 it had employed had reached great dimensions. New territo- 
 ries had been acquired, whose acquisition the Fathers had not 
 foreseen, and for which they made no provision ; and when 
 these territories came to be settled, and government had to be 
 provided for them, ihe introduction of slave labor into these 
 territories became a subject of difference. 
 
 The discussion that then grew up tended further to divert men 
 from any consideration of the original principles of govern- 
 ment; tor it was from its nature a discussion not about what gov- 
 ernment ought to be, but as to what, from the nature of the 
 compact between the States, were the rights of the States in re- 
 spect of the Territories, and of this domestic institution. Not a 
 discussion of the true principles of goverimient, but of the 
 true construction of the agreement by which this Government 
 was established. This question presently took precedence over- 
 all other questions, and as no compromise nor settlement of the 
 difference was arrived at, it finally lirought on a war — a great 
 civil war, which divided our people. During that war the 
 march of armies set the slave himself free, and put an end 
 forever to the questions out of which the war arose. 
 
13 
 
 THE GROWTH OF A PRIVILEGED CLASS. 
 
 Meantime a privileged class had gradually grown up within 
 the States. Beginning with small associations, allowed in the 
 supposed interest of trade, corporations had been created, 
 .and had been permitted in the same interest to increase and 
 consolidate, until we had come to have a class of privileged 
 and artificial ci'eatures, more dangerous than any hereditary 
 aristocracy ; holding estates vaster than any noble ; having con- 
 tinued existence ; without moral or personal accountability ; 
 without conscience, and without possible inducement to public 
 good ; having for their best object the private good of their 
 corporators, often, only the wrongful gain of their managers. 
 To-day, some of these corporations virtually rule the States 
 which created them, and exercise a controlling influence in 
 politics and business over thousands of miles of territory. 
 
 So that when the war broke out we had already, in some 
 'degree, insensibly lost sight of every one of the great princi- 
 ples upon which the Fathers founded government — the limita- 
 tion of government, the localization of government, and the 
 prevention of privileged classes. 
 
 But alter the war the slave was invested with suffrage, and 
 that afforded a means by which adventurers sought to rule 
 the South. The system of reconstruction that was adopted 
 gave rise to new questions, and was followed by great evils 
 .and great abuses, and of necessity therefore, by great sufler- 
 ing and great dissatisfaction. It may be hoped that now 
 .at least those evils have been checked, and that the war and 
 its issues are finally over and belong to the past, and that, 
 Testored once more to normal conditions, we may consider 
 what are the ditficuities and evils which now confront us, and 
 the remedies which they require. 
 
 THE COUNTRY WE HAVE NOW TO GOVERN. 
 
 You are about, therefore, young gentlemen, to go out into 
 the world, and take upon yourselves the duties and occupa- 
 
14 
 
 tions of men under a new condition of things. You go out. 
 into tiie world at a time, too, when you need to realize the 
 paramount importance of your duty as citizens. 
 
 But to rightly understand what is now needed, we must 
 clearly realize how ditferent is the present condition of 
 these States from their condition when the Constitution was . 
 adopted. 
 
 At that time the thirteen States which formed this Govern- 
 ment were entirely ,'sovereign and separate. They lay stretched 
 along the Atlantic coast, having behind them a wilderness 
 without limit, and in large part unknown. The people of 
 those feeble States spoke indeed the same language, and had 
 laws of the same general character, but their origins had 
 been ditferent, their habits dissimilar, their views unUke. 
 Communication between them was rare and difficult, trade 
 paltry and unfrequent. Then a few roads were opened near 
 the coast, along which great wains toiled slowdy with goods,, 
 while on the more inland ways traffic was carried on by the 
 pack-horse and the sumpter mule. Men drifted slowly down 
 the rivers on rafts, or worked the flat boat and the batteau 
 up the current by the aid of the sail or the setting pole, and 
 thus carried on the inland navigation, now grown to over four 
 millions of tons a year. Then a pound of tea or a silken 
 kerchief was an unusual luxury, and a bright ribbon was a 
 handsome present. Even Jefferson, when Secretary of State^ 
 and called in haste to meet the Cabinet, was twenty-eight days 
 of diligent traveling in going from his home to i^ew York ; 
 and now one leaves i!^ew York at night and reaches Monti- 
 cello comfortably the next morning. 
 
 It was for States thus weak and separate and poor, for 
 people thus distinct and frugal and thoughtful, with occupa- 
 tions and habits and temptations wholly unlike those of our 
 generation, that our Fathers sought to establish government. 
 And if in establishing it they apprehended evils which never 
 arose, and failed to provide for those which do now exist, it 
 
15 
 
 was because the subsisting evils have come in with a growth 
 riches, and consolidation wholly unprecedented, and mainly 
 resulting from inventions and methods of intercommunication 
 then unsuspected. So that the present wealth and centralization 
 of the country could not then have been forseen, nor pro- 
 vision made against the particular evils which attend them. 
 
 But now all this is changed. Forty millions of people 
 occupy a vast continent from one ocean to the other, rich 
 in every form of production, of industry and of wealth ; bound 
 together by great na'tional water-ways, by a vast system of 
 internal improvements, and by all modern contrivances for 
 communication. Great cities, enormous wealth, gigantic in- 
 dustries, vast combinations of both capital and labor have 
 grown up, and the feeble and struggling colonies of our Fathers- 
 days, have come to be one of the wealthiest and most ad- 
 vanced and most powerful nations of the earth. 
 
 PRESENT DIFFICULTIES AND EVILS OF GOVERNMENT. 
 
 But in poor and sparse communities government is easy. 
 If there be but two men upon an island, each has room and 
 liberty to do much as he pleases ; but crowd a thousand peo- . 
 pie into a ship, and every one must give up some of his 
 natural rights if he would not unduly trench upon the rights 
 of the others, and so with increasing population and increas- 
 ing wealth the difficulties of government begin; and now, 
 with our vast cities, with our unequal distribution of property, 
 with the grinding competition and the stifling rush that goes 
 on everywhere for life, for work, and for wealth, we begin to . 
 be beset with difficulties which our Fathers wholly escaped. 
 
 What shall be the relations of government to the industries 
 of the country; what provision it shall make for education, 
 what for want ; how far labor may be furnished those willing 
 but unable to find employment ; how far government should 
 carry on great works of internal improvement ; how far it., 
 should exercise control over the railways, telegraphs, and 
 
16 
 
 .^ther great common carriers ; to what scrutiny it should sub- 
 ject corporations ; what are the rights of capital, and what are 
 the duties of capitalists, and what are the rights of labor and 
 laboring men? these are all questions which in some degree, 
 at least, we are Hkely to have to meet. We have, besides, un- 
 like our Fathers, to legislate for a country knit together by 
 ■every form of instant communication. Men pass now from 
 one shore to the other of this vast continent within a week, 
 while the telegraph keeps every part of the land m constant 
 communication with every other part, so that, practically all 
 business, all trade, all discussions are carried on within speak- 
 ing distance of the parties ; and this, while it enormously 
 facilitates, enoi'mously centralizes business and power, so that 
 the country, although far larger, is far more connected and 
 homogeneous than the original States were. 
 
 But, beyond the ditliculties arising from a crowded popula- 
 tion, unequal distribution of wealth, and enormous combina- 
 tions of industry and capital to which I have referred, many 
 grave and positive evils confront us. On every side corrup- 
 tion prevails. It has found place in the legislatures of the 
 principal States, and has even, on some occasions, entered the 
 •Congress itself. 
 
 In a county whose founders intended to prevent privileged 
 ^classes, where they forbade hereditary titles, orders of nobility, 
 continued accumulations of property and entailed estates, we 
 have created corporations that hold vaster estates and are 
 more powerful than any foreign nobility — artificial persons 
 that never die, and which, while they continuously exist, having 
 neither conscience nor feeling, are liable always to pervert and 
 iibuse their powers. 
 
 We have a Civil Service, in which over 100,000 persons 
 hold their places at the absolute will and disposal ot the Pres- 
 ident, and so entirely partisan in its character as to give rise 
 -everywhere to grievous complaints and grievous evils. 
 
17 
 
 None of these evils existed nor were foreseen in the time of 
 our Fathers. They are the result of the growth of the country 
 in numbers and wealth, and the corresponding increase in 
 public gifts and places and patronage, and they require other 
 remedies than any which the Fathers have provided. 
 
 THE DUTY OF THE CITIZEN. 
 
 Now government, always a serious work, becomes difficult 
 just in proportion to the number and magnitude and variety 
 of the interests governed. In our country it grows year by 
 year more important and more embarrassing. This great 
 business is, in other nations, usually given over to some 
 selected or favored class, and they are rewarded for their 
 attention to it by hereditary rank, and honor and power. But 
 with us this is different. We have undertaken, in this coun- 
 try, to conduct government for ourselves, and if it be not 
 well conducted we have no one to blame for it but ourselves. 
 And yet one often hears, at least in the section in which I 
 live, worthy men (more especially divines and students and 
 men of letters) speak with complacency of rarely or never 
 voting, and of feeling no interest in politics, and taking no 
 part in public alfairs ; as if the direction of public alfairs could 
 be wisely or safely left to the ignorant or worthless, or to those 
 who interest themselves in public affairs only for their own 
 profit. 
 
 In the earlier days of the Eepublic the conduct of govern- 
 ment was indeed so easy that good citizens might without 
 harm follow their avocations and leave public matters mainly 
 to those who profited by following them. And this leaving 
 public affairs to professed politicians brought politics into 
 some discredit. But you may be sure, young gentlemen, that 
 however it was formerly, the condition of public affairs is too 
 grave, the evils in the body politic too threatening, and the 
 necessity of change too imminent to longer permit such 
 neglect. 
 
18 
 
 REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT NOT A FAILURE, 
 
 How, then, are these evils to be met ? To do so, must we 
 abandon the principles upon which our Fathers founded thisGov- 
 ernment, and hold that however good they were for that day 
 they are not suited for our time and condition, or may we yet 
 find within their principles the remedy for existing evils 'i 
 For myself, I think that in a just adaptation of those principles 
 to existing conditions will be found the required remedies, and 
 that it is needless and idle to look elsewhere for them. 
 
 Every now and then w^e hear worthy people, alarmed at pre- 
 vailing evils, cry out that Republican Government is a failure, 
 and that what we need is a despotism, a dictatorship, or ab- 
 solute authority of some kind. Such people, it seems to me, 
 gravely mistake the circumstances and the spirit of the age. 
 Absolute authority by one man over a people is a condition 
 which can exist only in less advanced communities than ours. 
 In countries in which the railway and the telegraph and the 
 newspaper exist, information is too rapidly disseminated, and 
 combinations among the people are too readily made, to per- 
 mit the assumption by any one of absolute authority. All 
 over the world, it will be seen that wdjatever the nominal 
 form of government, whether pure autocracy, like Russia, or 
 a nominal monarchy like England, the tendency of gov- 
 ernment is steadily and uniformly toward popularization. 
 Everywhere that the modern means of inter-communication 
 exist, the people are asserting more and more their authority. 
 For the English speaking race, at least, republican govern- 
 ment is not a failure. I have no fear, therefore, that the es- 
 tablishment, of any personal despotism here is possible. No 
 executive, however bold nor however dangerous, can venture , 
 upon unauthorized powers, when the Congress is united 
 against him. There is nothing to justify fear of such danger. 
 But whatever may be thought about this, the truth is that 
 under existing circumstances we need and must continue to 
 
19 
 
 have popular government, and relief from existing e\'ils can 
 only come from within, and by the action of the people. 
 And I repeat that, as it seems to me, the remedy for these 
 evils is to be found not in despotism, not in any general lim- 
 itation of suiirage, not in seeking a new system of gov- 
 ernment, but in a further application to existing conditions of 
 the fundamental principles upon which the Fathers framed 
 government. 
 
 BUT RE-APPLICATION OF PP.IXCIPLES NECESSARY. 
 
 If you consider the popular government of this age, you 
 ■will perceive that it has one essential feature which distin- 
 guishes it from the popular government of the ancient times, 
 and that is limitation. The wisdom of applying to such gov- 
 ernments what Mr. Van Buren called " the sober second 
 thought " of the people, has everywhere been recognized. 
 So nearly every modern government is more or less a consti- 
 tutional government — that is, government based upon a fun- 
 damental charter which hmits the action and the powers of 
 the rulers, so that whether hereditary monarchs or elected 
 Presidents, there be certain things which they may not do. 
 Undoubtedly this fundamental law can be changed, but with 
 so much difficulty and after so much time that in etlect it 
 answers as a constant limitation upon the first thought and 
 the first wish of the people. 
 
 This truth the Fathers fully realized, and they inserted into 
 the governments. State and Federal, of their time, gi-eater 
 limitations upon the authority thereby established, than had 
 existed in government before, and all that in the then existing 
 conditions were necessary. 
 
 But notwithstaudino; the changes which have since taken 
 place, trained to believe that our dual government was the model 
 for government all over the world, occupied in discussing the 
 distinbution of its powers, we have failed to make allowance 
 
20 
 
 for such changes in the country and in- society as have 
 meautinie taken place, and been uuwilhng to believe that any 
 corresponding changes in our Constitution were required. 
 Yet conscious of existing evils the cry has ever^^where gone 
 up for reform and better administration of government, as if 
 permanent reform could be secured, or better administration 
 be permanently had without such modifications in the scope 
 and powers of government as existing conditions require. 
 
 FURTHER RESTRAINTS UPON LEGISLATION REQUIRED. 
 
 Now, in the great States it has been found that abuses and 
 corruption in legislation are mainly the result of private and 
 special laws. Legislation by general law, which aiiects 
 equally all the community, rarely affords opportunity for pri- 
 vate gain. But the legislation which gives to particular per- 
 'sons special privileges or monopolies — whether it be charters 
 for ferries, or railways, or banks ; whether monopolies to light 
 streets, or to carry passengers, or to land goods ; whether sub- 
 sidies to construct works of public use, or to carry on com- 
 merce ; or whether it be legislation which makes exception to the 
 general burden and rule, by the relief which it affords or the 
 stipend which it pays, or the advantage which it gives to partic- 
 ular citizens — in short every form of legislation for the one at 
 the expense of the whole ; such legislation proves rich in every 
 inducement to deception, injustice, and evil. And the remedy, 
 and the only remedy, which has proved effectual to prevent this 
 is to be found in severely depriving the legislature of the 
 power to legislate for any citizen in preference to or at the 
 expense of the whole. 
 
 I know that it is said that if we would choose better men 
 to the legislative bodies we would have no corruption ; but 
 when legislation is special and in private interest, when its power 
 extends to giving away grants, monopolies, lands or other 
 public property, how can we expect good men to be chosen to 
 
21 
 
 the legislative bodies. Those who seek some gift or privilege 
 from the state don't want such men there ; they want men who 
 are willing to take bribes, or accept contributions, or receive fav- 
 ors, and vote kindly for monopolies, or subsidies, or special 
 relief in return. And the activity of those interested in legis- 
 lative grants will always largely influence the selection of the 
 members of legislative bodies whenever there is much to be 
 gained from their private or special legislation. 
 
 It is true that there has been but little corruption in Con- 
 gress as yet, because there has been but little scope for private 
 legislation there. Hitherto the legislation of Congress has 
 been chiefly general. Doubtless its power to determine what 
 shall be expended for public works and buildings in particular 
 localities too often controls Representatives, and leads to evil 
 combinations and log-rolling. But this influence is of a 'pMisi 
 public nature, so that except in grants of the public lands, sub- 
 sidies, and those provisions of the tarift' for protection so 
 shaped as to give bounties to particular persons. Congress has 
 hitherto had little opportunity for direct corruption. 
 
 But year by year the private and special legislation by Con- 
 gress increases. There have been many thousands of appli- 
 cations to Congress during the present session alone, for some 
 form of special relief. The very number of these claims of 
 course prevents any intelligent consideration of them and 
 defeats alike the power of Congress to do justice, and to dis- 
 criminate against injustice, and affords as well opportunity as 
 inducement to evil and corrupt legislation. 
 
 Now, as I said, the remedy and the only remedy that has 
 proved effectual to prevent this great and growing cause of 
 evil, is found in further limiting the powers of the legislatures 
 by depriving them of any power of private or special legisla- 
 tion. In most of the great States amendments have there- 
 fore been added to their constitutions preventing legislation 
 except by general law. 
 
22 
 
 What is there to now prevent the establishment of courts 
 to determine all claims against the Government except those 
 addressed to its special grace, and to require a judicial ascer- 
 tainment of the facts in all cases whicli are dependent upon 
 special favor ? And why should we not inhibit the Congress 
 from granting favor or grace either at all or except according to 
 some general rule ? In short, why should we not restrict 
 Congress and all our State legislatures, as the legislatures of 
 some of the States have already been restricted, from any 
 legislation not general and in the common interest of all the 
 people ? Just exactly as the country becomes greater and 
 richer, and so has more to give away or to be plundered of ; 
 just as government becomes centralized and paternal, just so 
 it is the more important that legislation should be restricted. 
 
 Doubtless, much of the special legislation of our day is not 
 warranted by those constructions of Federal power which for- 
 merly prevailed, and to return to such constructions would 
 tend to prevent these evils. But such constructions involve 
 a general narrowness of Federal power in conflict with the 
 prevailing ideas, while to restrain Congress by direct amend- 
 ment from such legislation will conflict with no one's views 
 of how the Constitution should be construed. 
 
 EXECUTIVE PATRONAGE SHOULD BE RESTRICTED AND DIMINISHED. 
 
 So too with the the evils that exist in the civil service. 
 When the Government was established the executive patron- 
 age was so insignificant that no provision was made for its 
 regulation. It will be seen by the debates of the first Con- 
 gress that the framers of the Constitution wholly overlooked 
 it. It increased gradually with the growth and power of the 
 nation, until to-day it exceeds the patronage of almost any 
 monarch. Until the telegraph was in general use this patron- 
 
23 
 
 age, although nominally centered in the President, was, to a 
 €ertain extent, restricted and localized. The necessities of 
 discipline required that, in the days of tardy communication 
 by mail, the control of Federal officials in States remote from 
 the Capital should be relegated to some friend of the execu- 
 tive there. But now, by the aid of the telegraph, the Presi- 
 dent can discipline a postmaster in Texas as etficiently as in 
 Maryland, and thus it has happened that to-day he absolutely 
 and directly controls the life and conduct of more than 100,000 
 otficials. If we say that each of these officials can control two 
 votes beside his own, we have then over 300,000 voters depen- 
 dent upon the Executive will, a number greater than the majority 
 at many presidential elections. Indeed, at the last election, 
 the party majority in Ohio and other States was even less than 
 the actual number of Federal office-holders for the State. 
 
 Beyond this, these office-holders form not only an army of 
 voters, but an army of workers, so that to turn out an Ad- 
 ministration once in power requires not merely a majority of 
 the people, but a majority great enough to over-balance this 
 army of office-holders and their followers and eflbrts. 
 
 By thus uniting all the patronage under one control, we 
 divide the country into two great parties, whose contest for 
 that control threatens to destroy the Government. When 
 patronage is localized the strife for it aii'ects only the localities. 
 Men in Hartford or Columbus or Atlanta might contend over 
 a postmastership or coUectorship, but such struggles, no matter 
 at how many points, nor how bitter, could never disturb the 
 Nation, nor do more than affect such localities. But centralize 
 all the appointments under one control, and then the people 
 at once divide themselves every four years in a strife for 
 that control, as dangerous as it is demoralizing. 
 
 Worthy men tell us that what is needed to cure these evils 
 is a better administration of the Executive patronage. To 
 secure this they would have competitive examination of appli- 
 
24 
 
 cants, and officials selected for fitness and not for political 
 services. But has competitive examination, as far as tried, 
 diminished the existing evils ? Has any President really es- 
 tablished a non-partisan civil-service ? Nay, has any attempt 
 at this been even partially successful ? No ; the cure of this 
 great evil lies beyond any administration of the civil service. 
 It will be found, and it will only be found, in limiting the 
 power of the Executive over appointments. 
 
 Having centralized all the offices in one prize, and divided 
 the people into two great parties to struggle for that prize, it is 
 idle to expect the party which wins the prize will give it up to, ' 
 or will divide it with, its opponent. No Executive who has 
 been chosen to distribute the offices among his followers will 
 be tolerated, who does not so distribute them. 
 
 Belligerents may agree before the battle that certain things 
 shall not be spoils of war, and then the victor will not so 
 treat them. But no one need expect the victor to abandon 
 the very thing contended for to the vanquished. All our real 
 reforms have come, not from asking one party to give up tO' 
 the other what it has just, by great eftbrt, wrested from its 
 opponent, but by both parties agreeing in advance of the strife 
 that in future differences, neither party shall exercise the ob- 
 jectionable power. It is only limitation upon the future ex- 
 ercise of power that is practicable. 
 
 Now, why might not the appointment of many of these 
 officials be localized ? And why should not the tenure of sub- 
 ordinate officials, the mere clerks and tide-waiters, be made, 
 at least for a fixed time, dependent upon good behavior only ? 
 There are now over 40,000 postmasters. The salaries of 
 most of them are very small ; an d such places are sought by 
 tradesmen and shop-keepers, mainly because of the custom 
 obtained from the persons who come to the post office for, 
 their mails. Of course the people of any such locality 
 can best determine what is the most convenient place for a 
 post office, and what citizen would, on the whole, best serve 
 
25 
 
 them as a postmaster, and they might be safely left to make 
 the selection.* 
 
 Neither in the army nor the navy has the President any 
 absolute power of removal ; he can suspe nd officers from 
 duty, but he cannot remove them from the service without 
 trial. Surely the exigencies of the civil service are not 
 greater than those of the military or naval ser vices. 
 
 For myself, I think the postmasters at least in the rural dis- 
 tricts might well be chosen by the pop ular vote. But if not 
 chosen by the people of their respective districts, they might 
 be safely appointed by the State, or county, or township, or 
 municipal authorities, and this portion of the executive patron- 
 age be thus happily ended. 
 
 So with the vast numbers of clerks and copyists and 
 counters, and other subordinates. Why should not a poor 
 woraanwho writes, or a man who measures, be left to hold their 
 offices, say, for four years at least, if they behave themselves 
 meantime and do their work well ? Why should they need 
 wake up every morning in anxiety for the future, and live in 
 perpetual fear that their party services may not be efficient 
 enough to enable them to keep their places ? Can we expect a 
 decent civil service while the tenure of office is made to de- 
 pend upon party fealty, and not upon good conduct ? 
 
 When, therefore, we shall have relegated the appointment 
 of Federal officers as far as p racticable to localities, and have 
 made the tenure of other subordinate officials permanent, we 
 may expect real reform in this regard, and not before. 
 
 THE CREATION AND POWER OF CORPORATIONS TO BE LIMITED. 
 
 So, too, is it not time to put some check on the growth and 
 aggregation of corporations ? In these days of great wealth 
 for some, and of great distress for others, is it wise to encour- 
 
 * The President offered to appoint as postmaster at Fremont any person whom the 
 people pr(>ferred ; and they held an election for the pnrpose, and he nominated the 
 person they chose. If the people of Fremont are qualified to choose a postmaster for 
 themselves, the people of the other villages must also be qualified to do so. 
 
26 
 
 age the artificial perpetuation of accmnulated capital, and to 
 build up railroad barons greater than the State, and to leave 
 
 them at liberty to go on increasing and consolidating without 
 restraint ? 
 
 THESE CHANGES CONSISTENT WITH THE NATURE OF OUR GOVERN- 
 MENT. 
 
 But do 3^ou say the changes here suggested would be 
 radical and excessive ? I reply, not at all ; they would 
 simply be to apply the fundamental principles of gov- 
 ernment to present circumstances and existing condi- 
 tions. It is true the Fathers did not so apply their 
 principles, but that was because there was in their time 
 no necessity for such restraints. But, if the wise and 
 great men who formed our governments — State and Fed- 
 eral — were now to frame a government can you believe they 
 would frame one that left to Congress such a range of dis- 
 cretionary and unrestricted power and such inducements for 
 evil and corrupt legislation as exist; or that left the Executive 
 invested with a patronage vaster, more absolute, more danger- 
 ous and more corrupting than that of any European monarch ; 
 or that they would have permitted the growth and consolida- 
 tion of the power of the great corporations — those Daimios of 
 our day ? I cannot think so ; on the contrary, as it seems to 
 me, the very principles upon which they framed government 
 w^ould have required them to now frame a government very 
 different in these respects from the government they estab- 
 lished. 
 
 For myself, I am profoundly convinced that the Fathers 
 understood the real principles of popular government ; they 
 foresaw, too, that as ci rcumstances changed, a change in the 
 application of principles to new conditions might be necessary? 
 and so they wisely made provision for amendments to the 
 Constitution they framed. I agree that changes in that fun- 
 damental law are not to be lightly made, but to make amend- 
 
r^/ 
 
 ments ia order to apply principles to new conditions, is to con- 
 tinue the Constitution, not to change it. True consistency is 
 to be found in adhering to principles, not to methods. It is 
 no more consistent than it is wise, for a man to be going ii bout 
 always in the clothes of a child, nor to so blindly reverence 
 the forms by which principles are expressed, as to refuse when 
 circumstances change, to change the methods by which 
 such principles are to be applied. 
 
 WHY THIS IS A NATION. 
 
 No, the Fathers would have realized had they worked in 
 our day, as we should realize that these States have become a 
 nation, not merely because the Constitution and its amend- 
 ments so declare ; but has become a nation by the higher law 
 of natural causes. 
 
 The people of these States form a nation, because they come 
 mainly of kindred races, occupy a homogeneous country, speak 
 a common language, have common interests and common 
 hopes, are bound together by great natural ways and divisions, 
 and knit together by every method of artificial intercommu- 
 nication, and cemented by the blood and memories of a great 
 war. Being such a nation, then, their national government 
 ought in some respects, I think, to have greater and different 
 power than the Fathers intended, but in other and more seri- 
 ous respects, ought to be, on the other hand, far more defined 
 and limited than in their time was necessary. 
 
 The curse of our present time is too much legisla- 
 tion, too much patronage, too much interference with 
 natural laws. When we stop protecting, and subsidiz- 
 ing, and inflating, and meddhng with production, with 
 currency, with industry and with natural laws ; when 
 we stop artificial aggregations of wealth and great 
 chartered companies, and leave associations of persons to 
 
28 
 
 the limited duration, the natural difficulties, and the natural' 
 laws with which nature affects men ; when we put an end to a 
 patronage more enormous than ever existed before, and which- 
 to-day threatens the peace and prosperity of the country, we- 
 may look for really better government, and not, I fear, before, 
 
 No, believe me ; not in preserving the lialance of power 
 between the State and Federal authorities ; not in the strictest 
 construction of the Constitution, nor in the fullest mainte- 
 nance of the rights of the States, will be found the complete 
 cure for the evils we are realizing, or whicli threaten us, but 
 only is the proper application to our times, and to existing cir- 
 cumstances, and to the National as well as State authority, of the 
 three great principles upon which our Fathers founded govern- 
 ment — the limitation of the powers of government ; the 
 localization of those powers ; and the restraint of any privi 
 leged class. In those three great principles, when duly applied 
 by further limitations in the fundamental laws — State and 
 Federal — will be found the true and sufficient remedy, and 
 only sufficient remedy, for the evils which beset and threatens 
 
 us. 
 
 I 
 
 THE DUTY OF VIRGINIANS. 
 
 It may be that these views are erroneous, but the difficulties 
 and evils to which I have referred do exist, and their causes 
 and cure are at least w^orthy 3'our best thought and best study.. 
 
 In the new conditions of our time the need and the oppor- 
 tunity of the sons of Virginia will be found. Her central 
 position ; her natural relations with the States of the North 
 and the South on either hand ; her triedloyalty to her friends ; 
 her tidehty to her own convictions, all justify V^irginians in 
 taking a leading place in any movement against existing evils, 
 and in the measures that should be had to meet them. 
 
The men of this State had such kirge share in the forma- 
 tion of our Government because they had fitted themselves 
 by profund study of the principles and needs of government 
 for the work they had to do. Once more there is room for 
 Virginians to render great public service by doing their part 
 to bring about those reforms which have become necessary. 
 But to do their part they must be willing to think and to 
 labor for themselves, and to see beyond forms in government 
 to the real reason and substance of thinsfs. 
 
 But above all, young gentlemen, pray remember that neither 
 in public nor in private affairs can there be lasting prosperity 
 without justice and wisdom, and truth. For, in the noble 
 words which Henry endorsed upon his own copy of his famous 
 resolution against taxation, " Whether independence will prove 
 a blessing or a curse will depend on the use our people make 
 of the blessings a gracious God has bestowed on us. If they 
 ..are wise, they will be great and happy. If the contrary, they 
 will be miserable. Righteousness alone can exalt a nation. 
 Whoever thou art remember this, and in thy sphere practice 
 '"virtue thyself, and encourage it in others."