' • ♦ '^ cr ft «> " • ♦ ^ ^^ • «^ ' • « ^<^ o^ , » * • « 
 
 . „ c *^ ^^ 
 V 
 
 
 
 
 ;.♦ .v-v 
 
 .^^"^ 
 
 M?r»' .«'■ 
 
 
 
 % 
 
 K '^W) /% i^^ >^'^^. °^/"* '•^'^' 
 
 

 
 »/ 
 
 
 .6^ ft ". 
 
 
 
 v^^^*- 
 
 
 
 X'^^-^/"" "v*"^V* \J'^?^-\/'' "'v 
 
A DISCOURSE 
 
 ON THE 
 
 FORMATION AND DEYELOPEMENT 
 
 OF 
 
 THE AMERICAN MIND. 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE 
 
 LITERARY SOCIETIES OF LAFAYETTE COLLEGE, 
 
 At Easton, Pa. oa the 20th September 1837. 
 AND KOW PUBLISHED AT THEIR REQUEST. 
 
 He hath not dealt so with any nation. 
 
 Psalm cxlvii. 
 
 BY ROBERT J. BRECKINRIDGE— A. M. 
 
 FORMSaLY ATTORNEY AND COUNSELLOR AT LAW, AND MEMEHR OP THE 
 
 LEGISLATURE OF KENTUCKY. NOW PASTOR OP THE SECOND 
 
 PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, BALTIMORE MD. 
 
 BALTIMORE: 
 RICHARD J. MATCHETT, PRINTER, 
 
 CORNER GAY AND WATER STREETS. 
 
 1837. 
 

BRECKINRIDGE'S DISCOURSE, &c. 
 
 The fashion of this world passeth away. Even as we use its high- 
 est gifts, they perish beneath our trembling hands. Its most en- 
 chanting beauties fade while we gaze delightedly upon them. Its 
 noblest monuments turn to dust, as with unsteady feet we traverse 
 their august courts. Its awful names cut into its most costly mar- 
 bles, live dimly in characters, distorted or well nigh effaced: and 
 those mighty institutions which made these names sacred, vanish 
 away, even more completely than they. Amidst this grand and 
 mournful scene, the great human hefrd passes onward as heedlessly 
 as if it trod not on the ashes of the glorious dead; hearing no voice 
 from the mighty ruins of the past, — seeing no promise in the majes- 
 ty of coming events. And they whose hearts burn with inward fire 
 amidst events so vast yet so evanescent, they too are borne onward 
 by the same resistless tide, that sweeps all else away; the glory for 
 which they sigh, the mere reflexion of the ruins over which they 
 hasten, and the very works which should win it for them, buried un- 
 der the fragments of those systems they were intended to commem- 
 orate. — 
 
 Yet it is a fair and blessed world; and in it there is opened before us 
 a theatre for every high and virtuous effort, for all benificent and 
 noble influences. We may not perpetuate our own obscure names, 
 nor give lasting continuance to our most cherished plans for good. 
 We cannot blunt the iron tooth of time, nor break his leaden scep- 
 tre, under which all former states, and all possible institutions have 
 been broken and consumed, and to which all that shall yet arise 
 may be obliged to pay the same fearful tribute. But there is a subtle 
 and mighty influence, which time itself cannot weaken, which long 
 
4 
 
 ages, as they pass away, hardly dilute. Generation sweeps after 
 generation in its brief career, as wave chases wave on the bosom of 
 the deep, and when each dashes against the shore, it is lost forever. 
 But the spirit that pervades these fleeting and nameless generations, 
 perishes not with those in whose breasts it ruled, nor passes away 
 with the monuments erected to illustrate and enlarcre its reio-n. 
 Here our work for good or ill, is almost immortal. The laws of 
 Solon are no longer laws; his people have for ages scarcely known 
 his name; and for twenty centuries the principles of his polity have 
 been banished from his native city. Yet the spirit of the Athenian 
 people, of their laws, their liberty, their institutions, and their lit- 
 erature, has influenced every succeeding generation; and at this 
 hour burns more brightly and warms the human heart far more 
 intensely, than in the freest and most glorious days of Greece. So too 
 fhall it be, with this great republic. The names of its wise and vir- 
 tuous citizens, except a very few, must be forgotten; the details of 
 its thrilHng and romantic history may perish, leaving behind only 
 the grand outline of its origin, its struggles, and its triumphs; its 
 simple and noble monuments may all decay; nay, even its glory 
 may be obscured, its strength fepart, its sacred principles be all 
 subverted — and the plough-share of ruin be driven deep and wide 
 through its sacred bosom. Alas! that were indeed a sad day for 
 man. But even then we shall not have lived in vain. The name of 
 Washington will electrify all coming ages, and in the shock of bat- 
 tle nerve the souls, and in the day of triumph rule the evil passions 
 of all who struggle for liberty. The light of our glorious career will 
 forever illuminate the path that leads the weak and the oppressed to 
 freedom, strength and boundless prosperity.— The spirit of our laws, 
 manners and institutions will abide upon earth the redeeming spirit of 
 succeeding times, resisting all the efforts of ignorance, barbarism 
 and tyranny, living in the very core of the world's heart, and defy- 
 ing all attempts to extirpate it,-— until the whole mass shall be 
 warmed and enlightened, and the flame, like that the ancients fabled, 
 shall break forth at once in ten thousand places, and fill the earth 
 itself with brightness. 
 
 This is our theme to day. We would trace briefly, the origin and 
 growth of this glorious spirit in our republic; the formation and de- 
 
velopernent of the American mind. Thus shall we see most clearly 
 how a wise and benificent providence has made iis what we are — 
 the manner and extent of our ability to bless mankind, the nature 
 of the benefits we are able to confer, and the evidence that what- 
 ever may hereafter befall us, our spirit must at last pervade, the 
 world. The greatness of the theme, will hide as with its shadow the 
 meanness of the attempt at its discussion. 
 
 I. Our land has been from the beginning a land of wonders. 
 Every step which has marked its discovery, its settlement, its early 
 history, its glorious revolution, and its astonishing subsequent pro- 
 gress, has exhibited events which were in their individual and sepa- 
 rate importance of thrilling interest to the human family, and which 
 have formed unitedly a chain of incidents before unparalleled. A 
 rapid sketch of the most striking of these, with some general eluci- 
 dation of the tim.es which gave them birth, and the heroic actors in 
 them, will reveal to us most clearly the school in which the national 
 mind was trained, the noble stocks from which our people sprung, 
 and the deep foundations on which our principles and character 
 are laid. 
 
 The discovery of America, was undoubtedly the most important 
 physical event to civilized man, that had ever occurred in his histo- 
 ry. Nor shall we err greatly if we add that it was the result of a 
 combination of great qualities, perhaps never before or since so 
 united in a single individual. That there must be such a continent, 
 was the clear and profound induction of a great mind, after long, 
 patient and intense thought, directed by all the knowledge that age 
 posessed, to guide its investigations. That it could be, and ought 
 to be reached, was the ultimate and immoveable conclusion of a 
 mighty and daring spirit, which surmounted every obstacle that 
 weakness, ignorance, meanness, rivalry, the ills of poverty, the ca- 
 price of courts, the ingratitude of kings, the cowardice and supersti- 
 tion of man, and even the wasting power of time could oppose to 
 its sublime force and singleness. Of all the injustice of mankind, 
 none exceeds the long refusal to award to the great discoverer of 
 the new world, the foremost rank in all earthly renown. Who shall 
 estimate the value of a gift which in its issues doubled the earth it- 
 
self, with every blessing it contained, and changed its whole aspect, 
 with all the former currents of its wealth, its habitudes, its thoughts, 
 its very spirit and mind ! 
 
 Well was that glorious deed worthy to stand amidst the galaxy of 
 great events, which marked the awakening of the human mind after 
 ten centuries of death-like sleep. A double apostacy had bound 
 the human soul in chains of adamant, and the glories of the eastern 
 and western empires seemed to have alike expired under the weight 
 of brutal ignorance, and ferocious superstition. Hoards of fierce 
 barbarians inundated the latter of the two, and the leaven of Roman 
 civilization worked in the high and unshapen mass for a thousand 
 years, before the gigantic monster began to be fairly quickened into 
 life. Then, as if to make barbarism repay humanity for the evils it 
 had wrought, new and unnumbered hoards smote the feeble des- 
 cendants of Constantine, and scattered over the world the relics 
 of knowledge not yet extinct. The Greek mind and literature fell 
 like an electric spark into the throbbing bosom of awaking Europe; 
 and for the third time Greece conquered man. Cast now into the 
 scale the kindred and almost cotemporary events. The use of new 
 and better methods in the investigation of truth, if not perhaps the 
 complete discovery of those, whose exposition and defence made 
 Bacon so illustrious, in an after age. The perfection, if we may 
 not say the invention of the mariner's compass; and the total revo- 
 lution which it immediately wrought not only on human inter- 
 course, but also on thought and knowledge. The manufacture of 
 gunpowder, by which the whole art of war was thoroughly changed, 
 and so much of its bloody spirit extracted; but above all, by which 
 the weak have found at last a remedy against the oppressions of the 
 strong, the naked multitude been armed in proof against their mail- 
 ed tyrants, and science and genius elevated to the rank which brute 
 force and the animal passions occupied before. The invention of 
 printing, that engine of inconceivable power, by means of which 
 immortal youth is bestowed on greatness, — knowledge made the 
 first necessity of the human race, more urgent than bread itself, — 
 and a sympathy established in every breast of man, with all his fel- 
 lows, through which a blow well striken, no matter where, will 
 vibrate throughout the earth, and for successive ages. Oh ! glorious 
 gift of God; well worthy to usher in that mighty reformation of the 
 
ehurch and world, which was amongst the first fruits of its proper 
 use, and which was itself the most illustrious of those grand inci- 
 dents which clustered around the birth of our new world. Oh ! 
 blessed reformation; without which, knowledge had been in vain, 
 the progress of light impossible, the extension of the human fam- 
 ily but an increase of ignorance, suffering and sin, and the enlarge- 
 ment of the world itself, a deep woe, over which the whole creation 
 should have groaned. 
 
 The circumstances connected with the first peopling of this con- 
 tinent by the European race, were in all respects such as to exer- 
 cise an unspeakably great and benificent influence over its future 
 character. And whether we direct our attention to the extraordi- 
 nary posture in which the early emigrants found themselves on their 
 arrival on our shores, — or to the events which drove them from their 
 respective father lands — or to their own peculiar adaptedness for 
 the gigantic work which God had called them to perform; — we 
 ehall perceive in all, concurring elements in the formation of an 
 empire meant to be unparalleled. — 
 
 We behold spread out before the enchanted gaze of a world bur- 
 dened and staggering under the accumulated woes of thirty eight 
 
 centuries, another new and lovely world — rejoicing in liberty 
 
 smiling in beauty and abundance — and beckoning from the verge 
 of creation and beyond the limits of the curse of power and mis- 
 named civilization, all who had sorrows to bewail, or wants to sup- 
 ply, or injuries to conceal, or threatened wrongs to fear, to seek a 
 refuge, a home, a safe and honoured habitation, far, far away under 
 the setting sun! — Who can doubt that in every land — there were 
 thousands panting for such a deliverance ? — Who does not know 
 that for three hundred years, the living tide has set with constant and 
 increasing force ceaselessly upon our shores ? — Or who would be 
 surprised if whole nations had stood with outstretched arms, sigh- 
 ing for blessings which they could never call their own— and has- 
 tening with one accord to the very margin of the sea, that they 
 might follow with anxious voice and eye, those whom a happier 
 star guided to the distant land of promise and of hope ? 
 
 Under the first movements of such an impulse it would of neces- 
 sity occur — that the new world must receive from all nations, even 
 the most unlike and hostile, crowds of colonists; and that from 
 
8 
 
 every quarter the most vigorous of those who sought for change, 
 would always emigrate first — and while the rivalry continued, and 
 the means were insufficient for all, — the irresolute and weak would 
 always be left behind. In laying the deep foundations of American 
 character, — here are drawn together elements from every portion 
 of, what was to us, the ancient world, the whole that is, of civilized 
 Europe; and from every part the very materials best fitted by nature, 
 by sufferings, by character for the new and mighty enterprise before 
 them. It is not one people built up from the useless fragments 
 thrown off in the progress of another's growth. It is not even like 
 the ancient colonies, a new state, founded by portions of the old, 
 selected by choice, by lot, or even by hard necessity, to bear Ilium 
 to Rome, or Greece to other shores. It is a people gathered from 
 all other people; and so gathered that the evils of each might be 
 corrected by opposing good, — and the good from all be strength- 
 ened by the common will. They bring from every land their tri- 
 bute, and a committee of the world in the noiseless but severe or- 
 deal of their new condition, rejects the worthless, confirms the good 
 and useful, honors the great, — -and all correcting all, is fitted for 
 its use and rank in the new structure in which human society is 
 ready to be cast. — 
 
 But it is not alone to the action of such general principles, how- 
 ever clear and powerful might be their influence, that we must look 
 if we would fully understand the character of those early colonists 
 to whom we are so much indebted for all our country has been, or 
 shall yet become. We must search amidst the troubles and con- 
 tentions of their respective countries for the events which formed 
 those, who in turn formed us. We must detect in the grounds for 
 which our fathers suffered in their native lands, the principles 
 which they brought with them across the mighty deep — and the 
 spirit which actuated their conduct in their new abodes. We must 
 read the first lines of the states they were about to found in the di- 
 rectly opposite lineaments of those who drove them forth despised, 
 and houseless wanderers — the great proto-martyrs of a new crea- 
 tion. — 
 
 Of all human history there is not one field from which patient 
 industry will return laden with richer treasures — nor one in 
 which the wise and generous spirit can expatiate with more delight 
 
9 
 
 —than that which develope, the connexion of the settlements of this 
 continent, with the rise, progress and results of the mighty Europe- 
 an convulsions, of the sixteenth seventeenth and eighteenth centu- 
 ries. Thanks be to God there is a point beyond which human 
 suflferings cannot be pushed, without on the one hand extermina- 
 ting the victim of oppression — oron the other driving them to dis- 
 pair and forcing them to smite their tyrants with the broken fetters 
 which have so long eaten into their own hearts. To this last point 
 of most extreme endurance had Europe come under the long and 
 pitiless tyranny of Kings and Priests — of fraud and violence, of 
 corrupt ignorance and brutal superstition, united to cruel, selfish 
 and hardened power. The great living, suffering mass, crushed 
 beneath the weight of thrones and altars, welded to each other and 
 heaped on them, had but to sink into the dust and perish in silent 
 brokenness of heart, or to rise up and in the quickened majesty of 
 out-raged nature, shake from their necks the maddening weight of 
 wrongs and woes — and live again to freedom, truth and virtue. 
 The torch of expiring religion was kindled anew from heaven — 
 and its bright and hallowed beams glanced widely over the earth; and 
 as it gleamed upon the towers of cruel superstition they fell before 
 it, — and as it flashed upon the haggard features of down trodden 
 nations, the voice of prayer and praise issued anew from their sob- 
 bing hearts. — The spark of liberty was struck afresh in the deep 
 spirit of man; and as it caught from breast to breast and from land 
 to land, thrones rocked and the brows of tyrants turned to ashes. 
 Truth, long banished from the world revisited again her ancient 
 haunts — and as she hastened thro' the earth, cells burst open to 
 behold her face — cities and palaces spread wide their heavy gates 
 at her advancing step — and the great crowd of suffering men bow- 
 ed their adoring heads as her sweet voice entered into their souls ! 
 — Oh ! it was a goodly and sacred spectacle ! And tho' the clang 
 of arms rang for two centuries above the hum of praise and drown- 
 ed the voice of nature; yet better so than to return again to dark- 
 ness and despair. — Tho' in many lands the rising spirit was oft 
 times put out in fire and blood — glorious and honoured — yea bless- 
 ed those who fell with their falling country — rather than live to see 
 and share her former woes. Tho' many a weary exile, fled trem- 
 bling from the smoking ruins of his native village — and many a bleed- 
 2 
 
10 
 
 ing soldier dragged from the last field where expiring virtue strug- 
 gled, limbs hewn and worthless, — and many a patriot went forth 
 weeping over lands that scorned their love — and many a man of 
 letters shrunk away from the stern rebuke of mitred ignorance, re- 
 stored to power and borne aloft on arms red with gore, — and many 
 a child of God and many a minister of Jesus Christ made trial of 
 cruel mockings and scourgings, and after that, of want and banish- 
 ment; yet all, nay more ten thousand fold, — is long ago repaid. 
 Their tears and blood were precious seed. Look far and wide 
 upon our happy land, and see its ripening fruit. Look up and 
 down in our large heritage, and learn the lessons of their wisdom — 
 the fruits of their toil. Read in our long catalogue of good and 
 glorious names, the records of their children's children ! — Yea,if, in 
 all other lands, all the blessed results of those stupendous events in 
 which all our fathers were actors, and of which so many were vic- 
 tims — could be this day effaced, and the black tide of ruin roll back 
 upon them its fearful wave, still here alone, are fruits enough to re- 
 pay beyond conpute, all the vast price at which the world has bought 
 these blessings. 
 
 During the last quarter of the sixteenth century Europe began in 
 earnest to plant colonies in the new world; and with little intermis- 
 sion till near the middle of the eighteenth, new settlements — 
 of new bands from almost every European nation, were formed from 
 point to point along our whole Atlantic slope, from the snows of 
 Canada to the mild skies of Florida and Louisiana. During that 
 hundred and fifty years what grand events crowded upon each oth- 
 er throughout all Europe ! What obstinate and endless wars ! — What 
 ceaseless and fervid mental effort, strife and rivalry ! — What trying 
 of all things, by new and fiery processes! — And amidst it all, what 
 grand progression of the human race! — Throughout all lands their 
 rictories and their defeats alike furnished colonists to us. And 
 whilst in them all their own historians place their golden ages, 
 within this very period, it was ordered that from them all our first 
 emigrants should come in strange connection with their most stri- 
 king eras; and so that whether by glory or defeat the gain was still 
 to us. If the cruel and perfidious Stuarts ruled, the sweet villages 
 of England, the misty hills of Scotland, and the green fields of Erin, 
 gave us in turn crowds of men, who forsook home and country for 
 
11 
 
 religious liberty. If the glorious Commonwealth spread its proud 
 banner over Britain — a misguided, but heroic legality, drove into 
 distant exile the defenders of the throne. — And on these shores they 
 who signed the death warrant of Charles Stuart, and they who plot- 
 ted against the life of Cromwell sat down, beneath the shade of the 
 same boundless wilderness. The vast plains ©f Germany drenched 
 in the blood of its bravest children, fed with new victims, wars 
 which seemed to have no other object but to restore the empire of 
 darkness, and no end but in the extinction of the human race. 
 But at every gleam of peace, — crowds of patient and laborious peo- 
 ple sought in the new world a respite from the ills which seemed 
 their heritage at home. — The Danes, the Sweedes, the glorious 
 United Provinces, marked the most thrilling eras in their respective 
 histories, by colonies sent out to us; and Spain, and even Italy, for- 
 saken Italy, upon whose lovely plains, xand gorgeous cities the light 
 of reviving letters and religion so early and so brightly glowed and 
 was so soon put out in tears of blood— -they too sent to us, exiles 
 laden with gifts rejected by themselves. France too, heroic France, 
 so beautiful, so brave, whose children nothing consoles for having 
 lost her, and whom nothing but stern necessity can drive forth from 
 her bosom; even she gave to us and to the earth her best and wisest. 
 In human story, there are few pages so full of remorseless 
 priestly cruelty and ferocious kingly love of blood, as that on which 
 is written the tale of the immortal Huguenots. Disciples of a pure 
 faith — subjects whose loyalty and truth knew no stain— soldiers 
 without fear and without reproach — brethren of the best King 
 France ever had, this noble race embracing a fifth part of the entire 
 population of France, was given over as accursed of God, and deliv- 
 ered up to the rack, the scourge, the dungeon, and the stake; ^ — 
 their marriages annulled, their children bastardized, their goods con- 
 fiscated, the doom of exile enforced against such as would have 
 staid, and death inflicted upon such as tried to fly! A bleeding 
 remnant, found its w^ay, into our wide heritage, and mixed its blood 
 with all those rich streams which warm our hearts to day — -and 
 threw the leaven of its noble character into our mighty mass. 
 
 We see the instruments.— chosen by God, and how he formed 
 asd brought them to their appointed field. We see the field 
 
\ 
 
 IS 
 
 itself. Such men, so situated, could not fail to be impressed with 
 the grandeur of their new position. To them the ancient world was 
 dead; and they were launched into a new existence, where their 
 own destiny, and that of ages upon ages yet unborn, was waiting 
 to be shaped by their own hands. With minds thoroughly alive to 
 all the great questions which had already convulsed the world; 
 actors themselves in the vast movements before which all states still 
 reeled, victims of every form of ancient evil, or victors in every vari- 
 ed strife which the reborn, waged against the dying Europe, they 
 stood upon the margin of a second world and a new futurity, — 
 strangely august. 
 
 In the midst of this sublime scene there are two points which so 
 command the whole, as to require specific notice. The first is ex- 
 plained in this reflection, namely, that the great principles which then 
 agitated the world, partly because many of them were unsettled as 
 yet by any compromise with ancient abuses, partly because those 
 holding various modifications of them were called to act in concert, 
 in forming a new order of things, and partly because that order was 
 strictly and in every respect new; — on these accounts these master 
 principles were laid, deeply, simply, and broadly — in strict obedi- 
 ence to reason, justice, and common sense. Or is it more just to 
 say, that these latter were themselves the strong foundations upon 
 which all else was built? At present we pause not on such distinc- 
 tions: for in either case the final result is equally remarkable and 
 the same. — Behold in every community, sprung from whatever race, 
 or planted in whatever clime of our broad empire — the same grand 
 model, — the same pervading spirit — the one majestic fabric built by 
 man, for man, and therefore unique as his own nature ! 
 
 The other consideration is not less important. It lay in the 
 boundless greatness of the field itself. These were indeed mighty 
 men; yet were they men — subject to passions like our own. Tho' 
 they did more than other men had done before them — yet in some 
 few things they marred their own glorious work, — in others came 
 short of their grand destiny. — But in this vast continent spread out 
 before them, they all had room to try their weaknesses, as well as 
 to confirm their strength. Some false principle admitted into a sys- 
 tem, would soon be made manifest by the superior action of some 
 ueghbouring system; or finally be destroyed by the opposing effica- 
 
IS 
 
 cy of the great truths associated with itself. And while it endured, 
 those who should become subjected to its evil influence, or be un- 
 willing to endure it, had a world before them, inviting to new set- 
 tlements, and the formation of other states on better and surer 
 grounds. Here too we behold one of the chief causes of that mul- 
 tiplication of sovereign bodies, an element of our general system, 
 which, in the various forms in which it enters into it, and has always 
 modified our character and acts, has been from the beginning, one of 
 the most influential ingredients in the formation and developement 
 of the American mind. — Indeed, the play of both these latter prin- 
 ciples has been incessant; — and while the action of the parts upon 
 the whole, and of the whole upon the parts, has been unspeakably 
 important, that of the parts upon each other has been so constant 
 and decisive, that from the earliest period of our history the whole 
 current of change in all the parts has been to make each more 
 closely resemble all. The colony at Plymouth might err in decree- 
 ing a community of goods; but surrounding example and fair ex- 
 periment soon corrected the strange mistake. Massachusetts Bay 
 might hang the Quakers and banish Baptists and Prelatists; — and 
 Virginia refuse to tolerate any form of religion but that established 
 by law in England. But by and by Virginia setup religious liberty 
 on its eternal basis; — one of her loftiest spirits besought that his 
 simple monument might record that he was the author of that act; 
 and Massachusetts at length followed her bright example. Massa- 
 chusetts might forget for a time the great principle on which her 
 people came wanderers to her shores — and not only establish a pe- 
 culiar state religion — but disfranchise all who could not embrace 
 its tenets. But under the peculiar circumstances which these stri- 
 king cases are cited to illustrate, this intolerance had as its great 
 result the formation of two sovereign and enlightened states(Rhode- 
 Island and Connecticut;) — and as its end, the total change of these 
 hurtful and absurd notions and practises of the state itself — under 
 the influences already stated. — 
 
 The Colonial history of North America, to be understood must 
 be considered in two entirely diflferent aspects. From the first plant- 
 ing of the respective colonies, to the declaration of American inde- 
 pendence — their foreign and exterior afl'airs were so far regulated 
 by the states which planted or the corporations, or proprietors who 
 
14 
 
 governed them; as to reflect always the features of the old rather 
 than of the new world: while those affah's which were strictly inte- 
 rior and which alone could truly exhibit the real character of the 
 newly formed settlements, were themselves for a long time subject 
 to the same controlin^ or at least disturbinff influence. The vio- 
 lence of the contending states of the old world, was always commu- 
 nicated to their respective colonies in the new — and every Europe- 
 an contest for nearly two centuries, found responsive passions on 
 this side of the Atlantic, and again and again involved one part of 
 our continent in wars with another, and every part successively 
 with the aboriginal inhabitants. — These were the bitter fruits of 
 European policy and of the ancient social system, which reckoned 
 justice to be subordinate to interest and revenge, — and the blood 
 of man well repaid by plunder. — In the progress of the new social 
 developement, the opposing elements of European influence and 
 American principle can be distinctly marked, at every step in the 
 progress of internal afl*airs. — With the growing strength of the col- 
 onics, collisions more repeated and serious, could not fail to occur 
 between parties and principles thoroughly unlike and steadily act- 
 ing upon each other. The respective tempers of the parties, point- 
 ed out from a very early period the conduct that might be expected 
 from each, when the time for the final settlement of all these great 
 controversies should have fully come; and the whole history of the 
 past, had already demonstrated that every such question, between 
 such parties, has no final umpire but the edge of the sword. 
 — For when did power ever loosen its iron grasp, but as that grasp 
 relaxed in death ? Or when did the brow of man, once lifted up 
 to heaven in sacred freedom, willingly bow down again in galling 
 servitude ? Let man but taste one morsel of his birth-right, — and 
 he will purchase with his blood, its extremest crumb ! Or suppose 
 it were not so, — who that saw Virginia arm for the Stuarts against 
 the Commonwealth merely from a proud loyalty — could doubt what 
 she would do — when bleeding freedom screamed for succour at her 
 knees ? Who that saw above a century afterwards, the flam.e light- 
 ed up throughout the continent by the stamp act, — could err as to 
 what must come, when distant fears of evil, thould be realized in 
 acts of insolent and cruel wrong ? — 
 
15 
 
 The declaration of American independence was indeed a national 
 event unequalled for its sublimity. — But it was an event, which un- 
 der its attending circumstances could not but have occurred. The 
 glorious contest from which it sprung — and whose triumphant 
 principles embodied in it, were borne to final victory thro' scenes 
 which should live forever in all generous hearts — and by men whose 
 names deserve to stand in the first rank of fame — was one that first 
 or lagt must needs have come, — and could scarcely have ended dif- 
 ferently. — All that hallowed contest, incalculable as are its influ- 
 ences upon us, and upon man, was itself the result of the grand in- 
 fluences which had gone before. And while the warm and grate- 
 ful heart recalls its story with tears of constant joy, the philosophic 
 mind must see that any different result would have been almost 
 impossible. Glorious era: — pregnant with the whole destiny of 
 man ! Glorious generation: worthy of such an era ! 
 
 The region over which we have heretofore passed belongs to his- 
 tory; and time and truth have already stamped upon it, a verdict 
 never to be effaced. In regard to it, to speak with hesitancy were 
 only to make manifest a culpable want of knowledge. But now, 
 our rapid sketch brings us upon a period whose furthest verge is 
 yet within the range of present being, and whose great events gather 
 in successive and increasing majesty around our foot-steps. — His- 
 tory begins where all the angry passions die, — and he who writes / 
 it, must stand sufficiently remote to catch the true and vast propor- V 
 tions of his theme. Yet even now we may anticipate the -coming 
 praises of a long posterity — wrung even from unwilling breasts — 
 and heaped upon our great career. — 
 
 The history of our country might naturally be divided into three 
 great eras; the first begining with the discovery and settlement of the 
 country — and extending down to the planting of the last of the 
 original colonies, (Georgia) in 1733: the second including the 
 colonial and revolutionary history, and reaching down to the close y 
 
 of the old confederation; the last covering the last half century 
 
 commencing with the establishment of the Federal Constitution 
 
 and reaching to our own day. — The first is our seed time, — the 
 second our harvest, — and 4he last our season of strength and re- 
 joicing which these blessed fruits have yielded. Oh ! may its dura- 
 tion and its fulness, know neither stint nor limit. — May the nobI« 
 
16 
 
 form of government our fathers have built for us, be a stranger to 
 decay forever. May the great and blessed land bestowed upon us, 
 be the free and unpolluted habitation of our children's children to 
 generations of generations. May the mighty instrumentalities op- 
 erating to enlighten and save the people, spread and thicken, till 
 the infant of days shall be wiser than the aged man. May the in- 
 heritance of glory and prosperity we have received be transmitted 
 untarnished and undiminished to others wiser and better than our- 
 selves; — and all the noble and precious principles which have come 
 to us at so great a cost, — and conferred on us such priceless bless- 
 ings, be cherished by our country with all the fervour of her prime- 
 val love, and scattered in her speech, and by her acts, till they shall 
 enlighten all the habitations of man, and fill the earth itself with 
 peace, freedom and abundance ! 
 
 II. The course of our subject now conducts us to other contem- 
 plations. We have sketched feebly, events which have no parallel; 
 it remains to develope the principles which produced, and those 
 which flowed from these grand transactions. We have seen the 
 acts which give lustre to our early history; — let us view the rules 
 which guided them— the maxims to which they led, and which uni- 
 tedly have nourished as well as illustrated, — have formed and do 
 still develope that spirit which already shakes the earth. The 
 American mind is not more striking in its formation, than in its 
 great developement. 
 
 Upon every page and every event of the history of our fathers is 
 written, their unwavering and heroic devotion to principle. No 
 trials have ever shaken their constancy, for a single moment. No 
 heighth of prosperity has seduced them into a momentary forgetful- 
 ness of their settled purposes, — nor any temptation of advantage 
 allured them from the great ideas which formed the basis of their 
 character. When they have erred, it has been thro' some false 
 analogy, or by reason of some mistaken application, of great and 
 unquestioned truths; and uniformly and speedily, have they return- 
 ed, as light and truth made the unwilling error manifest. In vain 
 will the keenest search be made — for the unworthy compromise, 
 the wilful violation, or the complete and purposed surrender of any 
 one of those great principles, for which any one of our colonies mi- 
 
IT 
 
 grated to the country, — on which any one of our states have been 
 formed, — or which have from the beginning guided the spirit of the 
 nation. — Inflexible lovers of justice, their laws are all equal, merciful, 
 and wise. Ardent disciples of liberty, — true and real, — absolute and 
 universal liberty, — step by step has this sacred principle been cease- 
 lessly developed, in our whole history, mounting higher and higher 
 with every age, and confirmed, enlarged and illustrated by every 
 monument in all our annals. The firm and enlightened advocate of 
 peace, equity and perfect independence in all national intercourse, 
 again and again has our country resisted occasions when interest 
 and enthusiasm alike invoked a departure from its principles; — and 
 curbing by reason its own passions, and by force, when need re- 
 quired, those of foreign states, she has held the strong and even cur- 
 rent of her way. Friends of general knowledge and of perfect civ- 
 ilization, — the earliest settlers laid with the foundations of the re- 
 public, — and by their side, those for the complete instruction of 
 the people and the amelioration of all the evils and sorrows to which 
 man is incident; and thenceforward what schools have been scat- 
 tered over the nation's bosom, what charities have adorned her whole 
 extent, what ample and increasing efforts to effect these cherished 
 plans! Disciples of an unfettered, simple, cheap, and public social 
 system — they have, in all directions and at every period held fast by 
 their wise preference; and neither the mad violence of popular 
 phrenzy — has tempted any to arm the state with unusual powers; 
 nor the height of general wealth provoked even a proposal to depart 
 from our severe simplicity; nor any pretence of urgent danger given 
 birth at any time to any movement, however slight, towards cloath- 
 ing our public acts of whatever kind, with dubious secrecy. It is a 
 land whose fathers entered with fixed devotedness to principle, 
 as such; and all its people, may safely challenge until this hour, the 
 world's approval of their steadfast and faithful walking in the same 
 bright career. 
 
 Some of the points now stated in illustration only, need more 
 ample notice; yet may we pause for a single moment to contem- 
 plate the amazing influence of this great characteristic upon a na- 
 tion's destiny. Such is the mixed condition of all human things, 
 and such the power of outward circumstances, that most kinds of 
 social order, which are long and fixedly adhered to, may at last not 
 
18 
 
 only be made endurable, and mould their subjects conformably to 
 their will, but rise to much power and greatness. The prime in- 
 ternal cause of weakness in all states, lies first in want of awy, 
 and secondly of fixed efforts. How vast, incalculably vast, then 
 must be the prosperity and grandeur of that people — whose ardent, 
 wise and practical &pirit, — free to choose the noblest ends by the 
 best means, — is guided from age to age, by an unchanging love for 
 what is right, — to a fixed support of what is just,benificent and true! 
 Who shall limit the rise of such a commonwealth at home: who es- 
 timate its power abroad ? What can resist the action of such princi- 
 ples within a state; or who without, will long contend with those, 
 who before all contention will do from principle, more than any 
 contest could wring from them; and who, against principle, will 
 give nothing, to save life itself? — Sacred force and majesty of right! 
 — How does our story illustrate its deathless power — its countless 
 triumphs ! 
 
 Every outward circumstance in the state of the country itself and 
 in that of the first emigrants to it, rendered the formation of many 
 separate communities necessary; and the various interests, and es- 
 tablished order in all these communities, conspired with the necessi- 
 ties already stated, to modify the character of the entire nation, 
 when it became one, and to shape the form of its general institu- 
 tions. It was never possible at any time in the past history of this 
 country, to have formed one general government and constitution — 
 upon any other than these two principles, — namely, that the nation 
 must be formed of confederated but independent states, and that 
 the constitution must be written, precise, and limited. Centralism 
 was the very opposite of all the possibilities of the case; nationalism 
 was possible only to a limited extent, and on fixed points, after 
 mutual concession and upon precise terms; — and out of these sprung 
 of force, a defined and written constitution. 
 
 What a multitude of reflections crowd upon us here; and what 
 fundamental principles of all our greatness, and all that distinguish- 
 es our political system in its public action, are here developed ! 
 The union of the states for all purposes strictly national; — a union 
 upon whose foundation has been built all the prosperity, glory and 
 strength of the republic, — all the sacred monuments which make 
 our country's name immortal, and all the power to make our immense 
 
19 
 
 continent the garden of the world, and our glorious principles the 
 heritage of man. A union pregnant in all the past only with bless- 
 ings and triumphs, and full in future promise only of honour and 
 usefulness. A union, which every child should be taught to love 
 next after liberty, — every man to cherish next after independence — 
 and every statesman to venerate next after the blessmgs it was 
 formed to win and to secure. And yet in every statement ot the 
 rise and nature of that union, it must be manifest that it is a confed- 
 eracy formed by the free and unanimous choice of sovereign states, 
 who cannot and never should be bound beyond the terms and na- 
 ture of the act itself: and who are admonished by all their own expe- 
 rience, and all the light which the past has to give, that in such 
 governments, the disturbing and dangerous tendency is towards the 
 strengthening of the central power. Of all forms of human gov- 
 ernment, this has been found in practice to be the most enduring, 
 — the most difficult to be abused to ends of violence, — the easiest 
 to be restored to its own proper action. And none who either read 
 or think, can fail to see, that by it above all others, are knowledge 
 and civilization advanced: for by it, are formed a multitude of sep- 
 arate centres,— each giving increased activity to every thing within 
 its reach, and thus far greater impetus to all human movements; — 
 and each affording in times of trial and darkness — a refuge and 
 shelter against the errors and crimes of all the rest. Here too, we 
 find reduced to practice the grand idea of written covenants, binding 
 alike the general will and the active agents of it:— 'the clear subver- 
 sion of the pretended power of rulers derived from any source but 
 the consent of the governed; or to be used for any end, but the 
 general good; — and the prescription by the true sovereign, of the 
 true principles on which active authority should rest, the true ends 
 for which it shall be exercised, and the clear limits in which it 
 shall revolve. Here also, the great conception of reserved rights 
 seems first embodied: not only that sovereignty does not reside in 
 those wh^o rule us, for our own purposes and by rules prescribed by 
 us: — but that there are modes by which we will withhold vast pow- 
 ers from all our rulers; powers which rulers need only to oppress, — 
 confederacies only to ingulph their forming states; powers not only 
 never to be intrusted to mortal hands, — but in whose ample scope 
 we will remodel, or at our will withdraw, other and smaller pow- 
 
20 
 
 ers already given to form, whatever government. And last of all, we 
 Bee here, the germ of that long hidden but precious truth, that states 
 and laws are made for man, not man for them; and therefore that 
 the less they model us and the more free and perfect play they give 
 to human effort, the higher will be the destinies of man. Lycurgus 
 made a code and wrought his people to it. Solon found a people, 
 and made a code that should only repress the evil and give free de- 
 velopement to all the good it found. Here was a code for man, 
 and there man bent and hardened to a code. In Sparta nothing 
 breathed or acted but by this iron code, — and even her noblest mon- 
 uments told only that Lycurgus lived. — At Athens man lived, tho' 
 Solon was forgot. And the free, active, glorious spirit,that conquer- . 
 ed at Salymis when Sparta would have fled, and won its bloodiest 
 trophies at Marathon, which Sparta shunned, once and again at 
 the loud call of eloquence which still thrills the world — repulsed the 
 victors of the earth; not for conquest's, nor for plunder's sake, but 
 only for freedom's sake, and that the voice of Plato and the schools 
 might not be hushed amid their wonted shades, nor Phidias', broken 
 marble lie beneath barbarian feet, — nor the sweet sounds of elo- 
 quence expire along those sacred streets, nor all the muses weep 
 amid their costly halls. — Here also lies the grand distinction be- 
 tween the Jewish and the Christian states; the one a state, so 
 ordered and so circumstanced that it must always be small and sin- 
 gular; the other so simple, so perfect, and so clear, that if contri- 
 ved for universal empire, it could not be otherwise. The one exact 
 and rigid in forms that will not be denied, and which reject all that 
 cannot be made into their own precise image: — the other august in 
 its few and sacred principles, — a spiritual state confederate of all in 
 every land who love its glorious head. — It is the spirit of man and 
 of the age to accumulate the means of power and greatness; — but 
 to do it by gathering in one, a multitude of separate and perfect 
 parts. And in these various principles lie some of the first and 
 surest elements of all our greatness — as well as some of the clearest 
 developements of our pervading character. 
 
 In the formation of such a state, various forms of original consti- 
 tution might have entered into the parts, various tempers pervaded 
 each, and several opposite characters been stamped upon the nation 
 thus composed. There have been confederacies in which all the 
 
21 
 
 parts were pure democracies; others of simple monarchies; others 
 made up of other forms; — and others still, into which all forms 
 entered. So there have been confederacies where every part was 
 actuated by the same, and some peculiar spirit; — others with a spirit 
 directly the reverse; others still with portions mixed of each. As 
 the papal states of Europe united to suppress the. reformation, — the 
 united Belgic provinces leagued to uphold religious liberty, — and 
 the papal and reformed Swiss Cantons united for the protection of 
 national independence. — With us, one spirit, one object, and the 
 same principles, pervaded every element that formed the nation — 
 and every breast in every separate colony and state. A few of the 
 chief of these should be illustrated. — 
 
 With one accord our ancestors have built up all their fabric, upoii 
 the great truth of absolute human freedom and equality. — The first 
 postulate of all our systems is, that man is capable of self-govern- 
 ment^ — and entitled to its exercise. If this great democratic prm- 
 ciple be false — we and our country are undone. If it be true, no 
 mortal power can estimate the height of grandeur waiting to receive 
 us — nor compute the depth and thoroughness of that tremendous 
 change which the influence of our spirit must operate throughout 
 the earth. Our fathers have attested by their blood, their faith in 
 this great truth; and by our works and lives we set it to our souls, 
 that they judged rightly. They and we have frankly periled all 
 upon it; and oh ! how rich the stake which they and we have won! 
 — Who are the tyrants of the earth but men ? Who the proud 
 oligarchs but men, — often most base, corrupt, and impotent of men? 
 — And are not we too men ? And shall they rule us and themselves 
 also, being but men; and we incapable to rule ourselves yet being 
 men?— Yes they shall do it — when they are wise, or strong, or brave 
 enough to bind us again with broken fetters. Till then, we rule 
 ourselves. 
 
 The influence of this simple principle upon the duration and 
 grandeur of states, and of course upon the national and individual 
 character of men, is immense, almost beyond conception. Man as 
 we have found him commonly, — not man degraded by long miss- 
 government, and heartless tyranny, — not every man, nor possibly 
 at every era, men of every clime, but man in general, is fully com- 
 petent to rule himself; — this is the grand truth. And if there be de- 
 
22 
 
 partures from it, they will be found not less, perhaps more fre- 
 quently above than from beneath the common level of the race; — 
 upon the thrones, and in the palaces of princes, often as grinding 
 at the mill, or toiling in chains. Man is competent to rule himself, 
 and therefore competent to settle the principles chosen for the direc- 
 tion of the state, — to expound and to apply these principles, — and to 
 do this by the consent of the majority of wills. Now such a state 
 must be secure forever, from ruin from within, — while men con- 
 tinue competent to rule themselves. — For to suppose otherwise, is 
 to suppose the greater number not content with their own will; — 
 nor even content to change it; — but bent on war against themselves. 
 Or else that the smaller number shall deny the first principles of 
 the social state itself, in which they live, and shall be stronger than 
 the larger number, and so by force, subvert the state. But of all 
 authorities the hardest to subvert, is that to which the greatest num- 
 ber give consent; and of all forms of government that which is surest 
 to have this surety is that which is most popular. Men can be pre- 
 vented of their will, at last, only by force. The bayonet or popular 
 consent, are the naked final causes of all control. The greatest 
 strength must always eome at last into the hands of the greatest 
 number — and therefore — they at length must every where decide 
 the character of all authority; and better surely take it as]their con- 
 sent, than by their force. Better prepare those now unfitted for 
 this trust, than waste in useless contests, what had otherwise been 
 saved. Better take part with us, for man, than cling to the moul- 
 dering ruins of the past, and die inglorious victims .of departing 
 tyranny. He who would estimate the nature of the struggle, which 
 otherwise must come, need only ask his heart the price at which it 
 values the issues staked upon it. He who would estimate its result, 
 must count the palaces, and then the hovels of the earth. He who 
 would learn the origin and trace the progress in modern times, of 
 this great controversy, now ready to be renewed, must seek its 
 germ, its first expansion, its earliest fruits — and greatest promise, 
 in the same events, amid which he traces the story of our country 
 and our principles, their birth, their trials, and their fruits. There 
 he will learn how impotent are all things that oppose themselves 
 to the strong will and brave arm of man, roused to contend for sa- 
 cred right. There will he see the utter worthlessness of all fictiti- 
 
23 
 
 ous things not based in truth and nature; the strength of settled 
 principle, the power and majesty of real greatness. 
 
 In such a state as this, the actual power and influence, are, of all 
 states, most likely to reside in fitting hands. There are no lasting 
 distinctions but those which are purely personal; and to a great ex- 
 tent all such depend upon the man himself. Hence the necessity 
 for constant eflfort, — and hence that effort on the part of all. Hence 
 the paramount value of knowledge, and therefore, its wide diffu- 
 sion, — for want of knowledge in such a state, is the only real and 
 hopeless poverty; and of ail knowledge that which is most practical 
 is most esteemed. Hence too the universal communication of 
 thought, by voice and pen; the cultivation of eloquence and taste; 
 — the wide, if not controlling influence of the school, the rostrum, 
 and the press. Hence also the grand and true progression in all 
 real learning, and the disuse of all its trifles and vanities; — the wide 
 diffusion of light, — the general spread of knowledge upon all, but 
 especially all popular affairs; — the profound impulse communicated 
 to the national spirit, the gradual approximation of all to the same 
 lofty standard — and the intense stimulous to all, to exert in every 
 department of life their best efforts, by the best methods, to the best 
 results. To say that this picture is over drawn, is only to assert 
 that we have not as yet fully perfected our social institutions, nor 
 perfectly accomplished our immense plans and hopes. But who 
 in a thousand years has gone so far, as we in fifty, in reducing all 
 things that are factitious to the dust, and elevating real worth and 
 virtue to their just rank; — and in furnishing the means of universal 
 preparation for usefulness to all, and eminence to the most deserv- 
 ing. Well may we point to what we have already done, nor blush 
 to own that we have still larger purposes, and confidence that daily 
 grows to certainty, of ultimate complete success. 
 
 They who bewail the array and bitterness of parties, — their vile 
 contentions, — their base ends, and their mean jealousies, — do but 
 bewail the common frailty of our kind. This spirit is the rust of 
 human systems; — better to brush it off by a free action, than that it 
 eat into the heart. But who can truly charge ours, or any popular 
 institutions with its evil influence, more than all besides ? Who 
 shall dare to say that the highest aristocracies upon earth and 
 its most privileged classes are not more completely the slaves of all 
 
24 
 
 personal and selfish influences — than the most untutored populace 
 of all that ever they despised or sold ? Where all may be misled 
 by passion, or deceived by prejudice — all forms of government may 
 some times be endangered even by their friends; and where none 
 are free from vi^eaknesses and frailties, and many prone to gross 
 corruption — every state may be thus endangered also. But if reason 
 teaches us one clear lesson, it is that all men's interests are safest 
 in their own hands: — for in no age of blindness or corruption have 
 any people yet willingly undone themselves; — but oh ! how many 
 have been undone by false and blinded rulers ! — There are however 
 many important respects in which the parties in free states differ 
 from others. Here the fundamental principles of all, — those great 
 principles which give distinctiveness to our whole system are al- 
 ways remarkably the same; they differ chiefly where honest differ- 
 ences do really exist, in their modes of application, their methods 
 of exposition or their policy in daily use. But in all other states 
 the opposing parties fight over the vitals of society itself; — and at 
 this moment there is no land but ours, in which some thorough 
 change in great and established principles of the governments 
 themselves, is not involved every party contest. With us too, charge 
 even to the last degree of party heat, may be made in peace: for 
 the right to change and even to abolish and reconstruct the govern- 
 ment itself, is a right admitted and defined, — yea often exercised 
 without commotion, and sometimes with much advantage. But in 
 all governments differently constructed, every change is in itself a 
 revolution; and if it be thorough, is often treason to propose, — and 
 always reached through blood. From hence, as from the whole 
 tenor of our principles, result the mild and equal spirit of our laws, 
 — the humane character of all our public punishments, — thd kind- 
 ness, purity, and mildness of all our national manners and amuse- 
 ments. Where are our gladiatorial shows ? Where the bloody 
 combats of inferior animals to gratify a ferocious public sentiment? 
 Or where the brutal pugilistic sports that still disgrace some states, 
 not backward to celebrate their high civilization ? — Here all are 
 citizens, and therefore we neither murder nor degrade each other 
 to feast the polluted eyes of bloody oligarchs, or a brutal populace, 
 shouting for ^'bread and games!'' All are equal in the law's eye, all 
 have one privilege and right — and therefore cruel and unnatural 
 
25 
 
 punishments are not required to protect the special claims of any. 
 All have serious and weighty duties to perform, — and therefore 
 the food of light and idle minds is foreign from us, and corrupting 
 sports useless and despised. All know their duties, — their rights, 
 — their dignity, — and therefore all know how to shun offence, — 
 as well as to respect in others, the sacred treasures so precious to 
 themselves. To utter all at once, our principles imply a state 
 where man is free — and then enlightened. 
 
 Freedom is much, — knowledge perhaps not less, — but know- 
 ledge and freedom may be social evils without virtue. In them- 
 selves considered and simply in personal respects, freedom is good 
 and knowledge is good. But as social elements neither is good 
 for those on whom we act, if virtue do not direct them. Here too 
 our whole principles are most peculiar; — and with characteristic 
 singleness of purpose we have frankly periled all upon their truth. 
 Religion is the only parent of virtue, — as God is the only source 
 of every good. The will of God revealed to us, is the only sufficient 
 guide to virtue, and the only solid basis of all true religion; — for 
 God is the great object of all pure religion, — and the only author 
 of all real virtue. Alas ! how signally has every age illustrated by 
 its errors these simple, but unknown truths. Men have won by 
 their great deeds immortal praise, and yet have turned and worship- 
 ped stocks and stones ! — Men have braved death in fearful and 
 hideous shapes with stern composure, yet trembled at the low 
 chirping of a bird, or the hoarse bellow of a stupid ox — which they 
 called God! Nations have risen, even to the pinnacle of learning, 
 elegance and all the arts, — for a brief space, — whose souls were 
 dark as midnight on eternal things; and others have won release 
 from grinding wrongs, and borne on their victorious flags, freedom 
 to many lands, — upon whose hearts was graved, there is no God! 
 And even they who knew the truth, with one accord mistook the 
 way, by which alone it could most highly bless the world. For 
 ages Bishops and Kings laid the united burden of their staves and 
 ■sceptres upon the necks of men, and ground down the earth, call- 
 ing aloud on orderand religion. For ages still longer — black and 
 tedious ages — he who proclaimed himself vicar of God, and there- 
 fore sovereign of the whole earth, — Bishop and King at once in 
 his own person, and therefore Lord of all who were either, among 
 
26 
 
 jnen,— sat with consuming wrath upon the world's heart and brain, 
 smothering and maddening the human spirit; — with his two swords 
 cleaving down, upon the right hand knowledge — upon the left free- 
 dom; with his two keys, locking up heaven, and opening hell; and 
 with the fearful weight of his great tripple crown, crushing all hope, 
 all peace, all virtue, into fine powder like the small dust of the bal- 
 ance ! Yea all have erred:— for even in those better days, vouched 
 safe to many prayers and struggles — how hard it is often to recog- 
 nize in most of our father-lands — the humble apostles of our Lord, 
 in mitred and titled wealth and pomp; and the mild, free and up- 
 right spirit of his word, in systems decreed by kings, — richly en- 
 dowed by states, — and upheld by harsh, unreasonable and exclusive 
 laws ! 
 
 If man is free in view of earth — who shall bind his soul in view of 
 heaven ? If it be good to deprive the state of power to bind man's 
 will and acts — except so far as clear necessity requires in temporal 
 things, — that rule applies with far more force and clearness in spir- 
 itual things. For if the state desire an engine to oppress its peo- 
 ple — none has been more near at hand or more effectual in every 
 age than a state religion; or if a faction should desire to use the state 
 for evil purposes, no principle resides in man, to which so many and 
 so effectual appeals have been made, as to a perverted religious 
 sentiment. Then if people or governments desire security, — let 
 every state and all religion be always separate. Not that a state 
 shall have no God; for then most surely will God reject that state. 
 But as factions in the state are not the constitution — so let not sects 
 in religion become the government. And as all political opinions 
 are free, so also let all religious opinions be: but as all overt acts 
 that endanger the public security, peace or order, are to be published 
 tho' they be called political, and even proceed from settled princi- 
 ple — so also overt religious acts that threaten or hurt society are 
 not to be allowed, altho' men say they have exclusive reference 
 to God. Religion of all things may be most free, — because of all 
 things, most of its varieties may well consist with public security, — 
 which is the great end of law. And besides, the whole subject, so 
 long as it confines itself to acts not hurtful to society, — is one, out 
 of all human reach; except our minds and hearts should be seduced 
 to embrace the established faith, by such temptations as corrupt all 
 
27 
 
 religion, or forced to its profession by cruelties which prove that all 
 religion is extinct; and in either case the cruelty or corruption is a 
 gratuitous evil to society and useless to those employing it — as true 
 religion suffers, and that established — gains but in name. In reli- 
 gion then, absolute freedom — and thorough independence of the 
 state, is best for itself and safest for the world. The state must 
 punish acts of open wrong, and suppress practices which hurt the 
 public peace or decency; not because they are religious acts or 
 practices — but because they are hurtful, indecent, or unjust. And 
 so far there it is a great and sacred duty on every commonwealth, 
 not fully understood by us, — because not often required to be per- 
 formed; but which may yet demand a constant watchfulness and 
 frequent interposition of the laws; for already arc prisons erected in 
 many portions of the country, under the name of religious houses, 
 and much corruption of manners, and many crimes are creeping in 
 under the pretext of religious profession. Beyond this, no govern- 
 ment can interfere without great injury; — nor ours without the gross- 
 est usurpation of forbidden power. Religion is the strongest 
 necessity of the human soul; no people have done without it, — none 
 ever will. Rather than have no God, men worship things which 
 they themselves see to be both corrupt and despicable. Sooner 
 than be destitute of some settled faith, they will attempt to credit 
 things too gross to be believed — and do things too cruel to be de- 
 tailed. They who at any time have escaped this mighty influence, 
 have done so only after having discovered the vile delusions, by which 
 they had been misled, and the terrible pollution of those who seduced 
 them into sin, professing to guide them to God; and even these have 
 soon returned again submissive to the all pervading power of nature 
 — which even while they pretended to cast off, they showed their 
 proneness to obey, by every freak of superstition and credulity. All 
 commonwealths may trust as implicitly that man must be religious, 
 as that he is capable to rule himself. His rule may be unwise, — 
 his religion false and corrupt; his rule may be subverted, and his reli- 
 gion itself destroyed. But as there is no better security on which 
 to build a state, than to rely on his ability to rule himself; so there 
 is no certainty so great and yet so safe that religion will exist as to 
 rely on man's proneness to it. Here ends the duty of the state 
 and here begins that of the church of God. The way is free and 
 
28 
 
 wide; the heart of man, tost to and fro, is panting for that it never 
 finds but in the peace of God; — and here the heavenly messenger 
 s sent to teach, to guide, to quicken, sanctify and save. Here is 
 our commonweahh, and there our church. Here is our ao-ent to 
 consolidate our freedom, to secure our rights, to guard our growing 
 greatness, to watch and provide the means, whereby the humblest 
 citizen may be prepared for honest competence, and real though 
 obscure usefulnesss. But yonder is our home, our last and blessed 
 abode, not built of men, but God; — and he, his word, his spirit, his 
 messenger, his glorious grace, need little help of human governments 
 far less their guidance, — titles — power and riches, — and least of all 
 their glittering swords, or noisome dungeons to win our father's 
 children to the skies. A stranger's voice they do not know; a stran- 
 ger's steps they will not follow; and from the voice of man's author- 
 ity, their spirits shrink — and at the sound of the armed tread of 
 power, the timed bird of peace flies backward into heaven. Oh ! 
 that the wise would learn, that in their carnal wisdom, they are but 
 fools with God; and the strong know that God's weakness is migh- 
 tier than their strenorth ! 
 
 T 
 
 in. In estimating the probable influence upon the nations of the 
 earth, of such a system as the one whose origin and developement 
 we have now faintly sketched, — afield of illimitable speculation is 
 spread out before the mind. The mental history of the world has 
 never yet been written. The true progress of human opinion, if it 
 can ever be exhibited with tolerable accuracy, will be found to be 
 one of the most striking and extraordinary, as it has been one of the 
 most neglected branches of knowledge. The brother of Seneca in 
 the pride of cold and skeptical philosophy, in the politest age of 
 the world, spurned from his tribunal, as a mere question of useless 
 words, that system of religious truth, which from that day to this has 
 borne in one hand the destinies of the world that now is, and with 
 the other taken fast hold of all the stupendous issues of that which 
 is to come. — The feeble voice of an unknown monk, was heard m 
 the silence of his narrow cell, far off amid the rude and sluggish 
 people of the north; and the sleek and pampered ministers of igno- 
 rance and corruption, smiled in scorn, as they drew their purple 
 robes around them, and set their heels more firmly on the dead con- 
 
29 
 
 science of the universe they had enslaved. But a resistlesss might 
 dwelt in that low whisper; and by and by it swelled into the loud 
 cry of many nations cheering each other onward in the way of truth 
 and knowledge. — A band of dispised men, few and distantly seated 
 almost beyond the pale of human fellowship, rose up in the sublime 
 power of right, and uttered the simple cardinal truths of freedom 
 and independence — while the world laughed in mockery — and its 
 rulers gnashed their teeth in mortal hatred. To day that heroic 
 company, is but just passed away; and already what thrones have 
 fallen, what sceptres been broken, what victories won for bleeding 
 liberty! Nay rather what secret habitation of cruelty and darkness 
 has escaped wholly the entrance and the life-giving power of their 
 sacred principles ! Majestic power of sentiment and thought ! Sub- 
 lime force of human sympathy to propagate itself! When true and 
 wise, and rightfully directed, resistless for all good: when evil or mis- 
 guided, terrible for ill. A principle grand and uniform; yet oh 1 
 how much perverted, neglected or unknown! 
 
 Upon this principle alone, so far as direct national influence could 
 be exerted, have we rested the hope of influencing for good, the 
 nations of the world, through ours. We make no conquests. We 
 bury the implements of blood deep from human sight, and weep 
 when insupportable wrong forces us to dig them up. We abhor all 
 aggressive war. We off'er to mankind the light of our example; we 
 lay before all people our simple principles. There is our story; let 
 the wise read it. Here is its issue; let the hearts of men be glad as 
 they behold. Time, that great witness for the truth, is doino- his 
 work with a rapidity and thoroughness, that ought to satisfy the 
 most impatient, — to quicken the most sluggish. And every devel- 
 opement of the state of free opinions throughout the earth, makes 
 more and more manifest the close connexion of our history with their 
 progress, and the growing influence of our spirit over their charac- 
 ter. The spark that lighted up all the mighty revolutions of the 
 last half century, was caught fronfour altar of '76. And^thouo-h the 
 flame thus kindled has sometimes threatened to consume the nations 
 with its fearful and indiscriminate violence, — and been ao-ain and 
 again extinguished in blood, yet even the excesses of liberty are 
 fewer and less protracted than those of the cruel tyranny which al- 
 ways engenders them; and its final aspect, the most serene and 
 
30 
 
 constant which society can possibly assume, will bless and repay the 
 lands that bled for it, a thousand fold, for all their sufferings in such 
 a cause. Yea within the narrow compass of those fifty years, even 
 if liberty itself were deemed a curse to nations, — the contests which 
 have been waged for it, and the spirit which has been engendered 
 in their midst, have so thoroughly renovated all human things, that 
 for this service alone every coming generation would rise up and bless 
 our memory. The spirit of ancient evil, was too strong to be resist- 
 ed by any spirit but that of liberty. If the strong man that unbound 
 the nations, tore down some gorgeous palaces and shining temples, 
 to make free passage for the enslaved to sally forth; or if he cooled 
 the heated chains he could not rend, with some blood of kings; or 
 if he trod with his mailed foot upon the carcasses of the blind 
 and deaf herd of princes and their armed slaves, who rushed furi- 
 ously to break themselves against him: men will forgive the stern 
 physician, and the sharp remedies, when they remember that the 
 dark spell of ages is at last broken — the madness of the nations, well 
 nigh cured — and life from the dead entered into them. But these 
 are most extreme admissions. For they who sow the wind, are in 
 the nature of the case obliged to reap the whirlwind. And they to 
 whom is left the single choice, — to perish, or to gather in and quell 
 the storm, must put forth a strong arm and an unflinching courage. 
 — We have taught this lesson to a world anxious to learn and prac- 
 tice it. Its first attempts have broken vile and corrupt states against 
 each other, like the potter's worthless vessels. Its ripened skill, 
 will settle all things which cannot and should not be shaken, upon 
 foundations which will be removed no more forever. 
 
 It was not to have been expected that the world could long re- 
 main indifferent to the nature, or ignorant of the source of such 
 new and mighty influences. On the one hand, all who hoped in the 
 future, saw in our history the proof of what man could accomplish, 
 and in our system the model towards which his highest efforts 
 should be directed: while on the other, all who saw only danger in 
 improvement, and ruin in the overthrow of ancient abuses, directed 
 towards us an eye of jealous watchfulness, and increased in malice 
 against us, as our influence for good augmented; until at length the 
 overthrow of our institutions has become a settled point of that pol- 
 icy which their own preservation dictates. Nothing would be 
 
31 
 
 easier than to prove that the anti-liberal party in Europe has desired 
 our ruin from the very commencement of our national existence; 
 and that for a number of years past, a large, influential and increas- 
 ing portion of it, has actually plotted and contrived means to effect 
 it. From the dawn of the American revolution to the present mo- 
 ment, there has flowed over Europe one incessant stream of false- 
 hood and detraction in regard to this country, and all that is pecu- 
 liar in our manners, institutions and social state, until at length the 
 public mind is sunken into a condition of ignorance and prejudice 
 towards us, at once mournful and amusing. At intervals, these 
 clouds have been dispersed; and then the hearts of the people have 
 broken forth in overpowering sympathy for us, — at the same moment 
 that they have been maddened in convulsive eff*orts for themselves. 
 And each successive throe becomes continually more violent than 
 the one preceding it, as increasing knowledge gives increased 
 power and urgency to the motives which actuate those who strug- 
 gle for long with-held rights. This too, the rulers of the earth have 
 learned; and therein they have perceived the necessity of stronger 
 measures against us, in proportion as greater watchfulness became 
 needful in the changed position or clearer aims of their own sub- 
 jects. As long as general ignorance, a numerous police, a bloody 
 code of punishments, and fierce and endless foreign wars were suf- 
 ficient to make tolerably sure, their own seats upon their people's 
 necks, slander of us was deemed enough to guard against the en- 
 trance of light from this quarter. But when the altered circumstan- 
 ces of the nations and the silent spread of the spirit which has 
 worked so deeply of late in the souls of men, forced a change of 
 their domestic policy, a corresponding change towards us is visible. 
 At all times we have beheld a sleepless watchfulness on the part 
 of foreign states to intrude into our political and social questions, 
 at the very period, when they were most critical, and into the very 
 questions that seemed to be most trying to our institutions; in so- 
 much that at diff'erent times, parties have been denounced as the 
 Spanish, the French, and the British party, at several eventful peri- 
 ods of our history. At the present moment, there is a wide spread 
 organization in this country, operating recklessly against the peace 
 of the nation, the union of the states, and the integrity of the con- 
 stitution, under the pretext of hostility to one of the domestic rela- 
 
32 
 
 tions in the southern states; a party which is in all its spirit, aims, 
 and sympathies, as well as in its origin, a foreign party, alien and 
 hostile to the republic, — led by men, some of whom have affected 
 shame for their country, others denounced and slandered it and its 
 institutions, abroad, — and others received foreign treasure to sup- 
 port their enterprises. At the same time hundreds of thousands of 
 foreigners are launched into the bosom of the nation, — many indeed 
 worthy of a cordial reception, and able to repay by their virtues, the 
 blessings they receive, — but multitudes of others driven out for 
 crimes, or discharged from jails and poor-houses and sent hither at 
 public charge and by public authority, — while still more are in total 
 ignorance ofall human knowledge, and especially of all that concerns 
 the duties and privileges of freemen. From another quarter we 
 see millions of money, and herds of foreign ecclesiasticks finding 
 entrance into the land through all our ports; the money contributed 
 by foreign princes, and people of a strange religion, avowedly to 
 proselyte the nation to a system hostile to liberty; and the ecclesi- 
 asticks planting themselves over the country and seeking to engross 
 the direction of public morals and general education, — while they 
 confessedly receive their appointments, their authority, and their fan- 
 tastic honours, from a foreign potentate, whose predecessors for 
 thirteen centuries have denounced, as they say by the direct and 
 infallible authority of God, every principle which is precious and 
 peculiar to us ! Here is indeed a fearful combination. The igno- 
 rance, the crimes, the superstition, the fanaticism, and the anti-social 
 spirit of the age, united against our beloved country, and .directed 
 aorainst its glory and its stability, if its not its very being, by the 
 priests, oligarchs, and bigots of Europe, sustained by its press, its 
 riches and its thrones. And as if to make full trial of us, to the last 
 degree at once, — a portion of our own people seem ready to em- 
 brace each new absurdity; a portion of our public press to be mislead 
 by every wild extravagance; and a portion of the religious commu- 
 nity itself to be embued with strange disorder. 
 
 Never was there a moment when the nation was more impera- 
 tively called to manifest its clear comprehension of its great princi- 
 ples, and its thorough devotion to them. If indeed we know these 
 things, blessed shall we be if we be found faithful to our fathers and 
 to posterity, in so great a crisis. Let no man's heart fail, — let no 
 
33 
 
 man's purpose waver; nor let any cast about for new expedients, 
 as if the principles we have so highly praised, and the power we 
 have in former days so signally put forth, were not sufficient for the 
 present, and for all coming trials. Let us stand nobly by the great 
 land marks of our code, and make manifest the same courageous 
 steadfastness in what is right, that sheds such lustre around our 
 past career; and new triumphs and final security await us. Such 
 a system as ours presents, from its very nature, as has already been 
 shown, the utmost possible means of resisting evil influences from 
 within; both as it is most dependent on the general will, and there- 
 fore most dear to the common heart, and because its capacity for 
 self-adjustment is most perfect — and its centres of influence and 
 security most multiplied; insomuch that it would be necessary that 
 a great absolute majority of the whole, and a concurrent majority in 
 every part should be corrupt and alienated from the great principles 
 of the system itself, before it could be defeated in all its strong holds; 
 and w^hile even one remained, it might eventually redeem the whole. 
 Nor is its capacity for resisting hurtful influences from without, 
 when they come in the shape of open force, less decisive, or less 
 favoured by the character and action of our whole principles and in- 
 stitutions. Powerless in aggressive war, which we repudiate, and 
 which is foreign to all our habits and views, — if man can be impel- 
 led to irresistible energy in self defence, and human interests can 
 be so arranged as to be out of the reach of foreign violence, that 
 fortunate conjunction exists with us. Nay it exists fortified by the 
 separate geographical position of the United States, with reference 
 to the other great powers of the earth; and direct interference by 
 force, already twice repelled, is at length become nearly hopeless, 
 by reason of the greatness of the country itself. And it is well that 
 it is so, in the present juncture. For connected with the porten- 
 tous indications already pointed at, is the growth of another fac- 
 tion which contents itself, while others seek our ruin, with preach- 
 ing to us, the sinfulness of self-defence. To such dreamers, if in- 
 deed they be deceived themselves, or traitors if they be not— there 
 needs but this reply. As long as the Bible teaches us that the de- 
 fence of our country, our liberties, and our mercies, is often a high 
 christian duty to be performed under the guidance of the spirit of 
 God; as long as history informs us that every nation which now en- 
 
34 
 
 joys freedom, independence, the free spread of knowledge, or the 
 unmolested practice of true religion, does so, only because God 
 blessed the victorious arms of its valiant people upon the field of 
 battle: as long as every monument around us most signally owned 
 of heaven, is sprinkled with the life blood of our heroic ancestors; — 
 we pity the honest errors, and despise the shallow guile of such as 
 would thus bind us hand and foot, defenceless victims to a crowd 
 of mortal foes, ourselves recreant to the loftiest destiny and the sub- 
 limest trust, ever committed to the hands of men ! 
 
 But the evils which threaten us, from without, bear on their front, 
 no hostile image. They come to us in forms so adapted to our 
 condition, and veil themselves under pretexts so accordant with our 
 common rights, that the nation has been slow to realise the great- 
 ness of the threatened danger, or the reality of the alleged conspi- 
 racy against its liberties. At length it begins to be awakened to the 
 truth of its position, and before its open glance danger will flee 
 away. Let the public sentiment be fully enlightened, roused and 
 concentrated; let the laws have free course, so that they who come 
 hither fugitives, or missionaries of evil, shall not be allowed to prac- 
 tice habits and follow courses suited only to the thraldom they have 
 escaped; let the patriotic spirit of the country be thoroughly aroused 
 and directed to the evils which threaten us from foreign parties at 
 home, and foreign nations cast like deluges upon us; let the protes- 
 tantand christian feeling of the whole republic be stirred up to ar- 
 rest the swelling tide of dangerous and cruel superstition, and pour 
 the streams of gospel purity over the unwashen multitudes who 
 flock in all their defilement to our shores; let the school-master bestir 
 himself in every corner of our land, and shed the light of knowl- 
 edge upon the whole mass of human intelligence; let the free and 
 noble spirit of our country have full scope, to transform the children 
 of those sent to undo us, into enlightened champions of our sacred 
 cause; in short let our principles have complete exercise, in pro- 
 portion to the greatness of the present exigency, and the world will 
 see that their transformmg power is equal to their capacity for self 
 adjustment, and their efliciency in resisting open violence. To day 
 men may be Britons or Germans, strangers or barbarians to us. To- 
 morrow they are all Americans. The first generation born upon 
 the soil, shall be a native generation; American in all its feelings, 
 
35 
 
 principles and aims. And thus in the providence of God, that 
 very portion of the human race, which could never have been con- 
 trolled at a distance by our mind and spirit, is brought near to the 
 fountain of influence, and transformed by its power into new beings, 
 fit to enjoy and propagate blessings they were destined to subvert. 
 Thus too, by the reactive power of truth, new entrance will be ob- 
 tained for it into habitations of darkness where, else, it never could 
 have found its way; until the very instruments of tyranny and super- 
 stition, shall become apostles of truth and liberty, — and the fetters 
 with which they would have bound the free, be converted into im- 
 plements with which to hew in pieces, every throne of wickedness, 
 with all who set upon them. 
 
 There is one aspect of the relation of the United States to the 
 great human family, and the possible influence of the American 
 mind upon the entire race of man, which invests this whole subject 
 with surprising magnitude. We behold the human race divided 
 into three great families, which, however they may be again sub-di- 
 vided, preserve every where the characteristicks which mark the K 
 respective descendants of Shem, Japhet, and Ham. In general 
 terms it maybe stated, that from the earliest dawn of knowledge up 
 to a period not long preceding the commencement of the christian 
 era, the first of these stems was principally used by God in promo- 
 ting all the grand results which affected the whole race of man; and 
 that to the family of Shem the world was not only chiefly indebted 
 for all it possessed worth having for almost four thousand years of 
 its existence, but that with comparatively small exceptions it was 
 absolutely under its control, during the greater part of that long pe- 
 riod. For the last two thousand years the stem of Japhet has been 
 the depository of human excellence, power and grandeur; and it 
 has steadily progressed t>om the rise of the Greek power until the 
 present day, in the same degree that the race of Shem has declined, 
 until its empire, whether moral or physical, it become absolute and 
 undisputed — and every great and blessed possession its exclusi e 
 heritage. — Who can read in the dim future, the destiny of Ham ? 
 Shall it indeed be his hard lot to know a servitude to his brethren, 
 that has no end nor mitigation ? Or is it the will of God to retain fcr 
 him, a final reign of unparalleled civilization, illustrious as it was 
 long deferred ? This at least is remarkable, that those portions ©f 
 
36 
 
 the earth which seena from the progress of modern arts, manners, and 
 refinement to be most indispensable to man, and to yield most 
 abundantly, if not exclusively those productions which have become 
 most valuable and important to all conditions of society, are pre- 
 cisely those which Ham alone can occupy, or to which at least, he 
 is most congenial. 
 
 But what is striking to observe, in the posture of our country, is 
 this. If God design in the latter days, great things for Ham, it must 
 be manifest at a glance, that the position, the state, the relations of 
 our country to this unhappy race, and to the lands most congenial 
 to it, point out the United States, as the nursing mother of its des- 
 tiny. Oh ! what a recompense to virtue and humanity. To receive 
 slaves, to give back freemen. To receive savages and heathen, 
 and restore civilized and Christian men, laden with fruits, not the 
 less precious, that they have been gathered in sorrow and bedewed 
 with tears. To receive helpless individuals to whom the very idea 
 of nationality is unknown, and out of them to construct the first 
 elements, of what is now the grand desideratum of civilization, a 
 great Hamite commonwealth in some tropical clime I What a bright 
 and benificent providence, that such results should flow exactly 
 through that channel, where the very spirit and impulse which must 
 at last control the world, should have been embibed even in the 
 cradle, and absorbed into the blood, with the earliest national at- 
 tempts of a race, destined it may be, to behold such stupendous 
 revolutions in its condition. 
 
 But suppose it should be otherwise, and that the race of Japhet 
 shall hold forever the mastery over his brethren, and control their 
 destiny at will. Even then, the influence of our country in future 
 ages would appear to be only increased, and the highth of glory to 
 which its instrumentality may carry the fortunes of this renowned 
 stem, beyond conception. At this moment the commerce of the 
 world, and with it all exterior influence, is almost engrossed not only 
 by a few kindred nations, but substantially by one other with our- 
 selves, — both Japhetan, both protestant, both essentially sprung 
 from the same illustrious original, amongst the subdivisions of their 
 common stem — and both using the same noble speech, honoured 
 throughout the earth for the great deeds it records, and blessed to 
 man by the treasures it contains. What triumphs has not this 
 
37 
 
 strangely glorious race already achieved; and what difficulties are 
 beyond the compass of its present power? What land even now is 
 ignorant of the Anglo-Saxon name ? But oh ! what wonders will 
 that name have wrought, when Britain shall have become as free 
 and just, as she is great and wise; and when we shall recount our 
 acts by centuries instead of days! 
 
 It is an august subject of contemplation, to look back upon the 
 series of great empires which have been thinly scattered through the 
 track of past ages, and behold how each has in its course accom- 
 plished for man, its mighty though perhaps undesigned, or even 
 unknown good; and then, laid aside by the same almighty hand that 
 made it great for its own purposes, gradually melted back into the 
 common mass of human littleness. From the empire of Nebuchad- 
 nezer to that of Napoleon, how immense has been the distance, 
 and how diverse the work which they, and each intervening one,— 
 the Median and Persian, the Greek, the Roman, and that of Char- 
 lemagne, have all performed, that the condition of human affairs 
 might be precisely what it is this day? How stupendous have been 
 the revolutions which were required before the many could be taught 
 that the world was theirs; and the few be made to see that their 
 claims to rule the bodies, and brutalize the minds, and kill the souls 
 of men, were as horridly absurd as their own numbers were infin- 
 itely insignificant ! How has this fearful and protracted contest, 
 which has burned through such ages of strife, changed not only the 
 agents and implements but the very theatre of its warfare, until it 
 has left no spot of earth which has not been stained with its bloody 
 track I Springing up with the empire of the Babylonians in the 
 centre of Asia, — Cyrus with his Medes and Persians exposed 
 it to the farthest verges of that nursery of mankind. Alexander 
 transfered it into the fairest provinces of Africa, and drew it across 
 the Hellespont into Europe. The stern soldiers of old Rome cov- 
 ered the earth with the shadow of their glory and their strength; 
 and heaved up to the most northern frontiers of Europe, the em- 
 pire, which under Charlemagne and Napoleon, only struggled to 
 shake off" the incumbent mass of corruption, ignorance and oppres- 
 sion which the barbarism of countless hoards of savages, and the 
 superstition of centuries of apostacy had accumulated. At length 
 northern Europe, a wilderness when this conflict had its origin, had 
 
38 
 
 become the only theatre on which man struggled; and pushed, as 
 has been exhibited in the early part of this discourse, the great vic- 
 tims of it across the atlantic, to build up here an impregnable strong 
 hold, from which freedom, knowledge and religion, might turn back 
 their streams, to fertilize again the parched regions consumed by 
 so many and so great misfortunes. 
 
 From that hour the current of all things is changed. The tide 
 has struck the pole; and now it rolls backward to the equator its 
 resistless and sacred wave. Let the nations hail the coming waters; 
 for verily the hour of their deliverance is come. The knell of ty- 
 rany is struck. The only Lord of men returns to claim his great 
 and long abused heritage; and where his spirit is, there is peace and 
 freedom. 
 
 For ourselves, if our course were already finished, our name, our 
 example, our spirit, our mind would live forever to illuminate and 
 cheer mankind. Upon the brightest page of the world's history 
 would be recorded, as a divine episode amidst its bloody details, 
 our surprising story; and all coming ages would blush or rejoice, as 
 they found in it the image of their virtues and success, or the last- 
 inof condemnation of their cowardice and crimes. But as Greece 
 gave her literature, and Rome her civilization to the world — it is 
 ours to give it liberty. This vast continent is yet to be crowded 
 V from shore to shore with a free, educated, and virtuous population; 
 and the banner of our republic wave over an empire unparalleled in 
 the greatness of its extent, as unequalled in the wisdom, justice and 
 humanity of its institutions. Our brethren of the races of Shem 
 and Ham now weeping in our midst, or neglected around our 
 wide frontiers, must yet rejoice under the shadow of our protec- 
 tion, and be repaid for sufferings too long protracted. Streams of 
 blessings must issue from our land, to make the nations smile in 
 the same prosperity, exult in the same freedom and light, and rejoice 
 in the same divine Lord who has done all things for us. Yea vast 
 and sublime is the work yet laid up in store for us; and peerless the 
 glory dependent on its wise and faithful performance. And when 
 it is done, what boots it afterwards, whether the God of nations 
 shall continue to our country an interminable career of blessings 
 and renown as one united people; — or whether this immense con- 
 tinent shall be studded with a hundred separate republics, all built 
 
39 
 
 upon the foundations we have laid, all consecrating the principles 
 we have made immortal, and all perpetuating the felicity which 
 God has raised up our country to win and to illustrate? 
 
 To make any system attain its highest degree of developement 
 and perfection, it is necessary that every particular portion of it 
 should perform with exactness and regularity, its appropriate func- 
 tion. In the judgment of enlightened reason, nothing is small, 
 nothing great, except relatively as it is effective upon all other re- 
 sults, or in turn affected by them. But especially in every social 
 system, must it inevitably occur, that the perfect accomplishment 
 of its ends, will depend on the degree in which every individual 
 embraced in it, perfectly comprehends its scope, is thoroughly im- 
 bued with its spirit, and completely devoted to its propagation 
 and defence. In such a case, failure could result only from the in- 
 herent evils of the system itself: while in all others, the best inten- 
 tions and the amplest arrangements may be defeated by imper- 
 fect sympathy, or still worse by direct hostility, between the parts 
 and the whole, or between one part and another. 
 
 But of all organizations, ours most imperatively demands this cor- 
 dial action of the universal will, which is indeed its vital breath, — 
 this complete and intelligent devotion of the popular affections, 
 upon which its entire strength reposes. And who can exaggerate 
 the dignity and grandeur of those motives which are set before the 
 American people, and which urge us with constant importunity to 
 be all that such a system requires, all that such a heritage, such a 
 destiny, such mercies, such privileges demand ! Every field of use- 
 fulness, happiness and greatness lies open before us, enticing every 
 generous spirit to all good and noble enterprises. And whatever 
 may be the theatre or nature of our pursuits, whether in private or 
 public life, whether studious or practical, or however various or 
 diversified — there is not one honest course approved of God, which 
 will not conduct our patient and laborious steps, to competence 
 and honour, at the same time that it obliges us to contribute to the 
 common glory of our country, and the general welfare of our race. 
 Happy people ! Blessed country ! Singular and sublime destiny ! 
 
40 
 
 But oh ! let us evermore remember that all these paths are beset 
 by manifold temptations; that these unprecedented mercies are all 
 held by us as stewards of God, and as trustees for generations of 
 generations, and so must be accounted for before earth and heaven; 
 and that in the eye of God, and in the enlightened contemplation 
 of this great and thrilling subject, we have set before us, but one 
 end worthy of our efforts, or our regard, namely, to do good here — 
 and to be blessed forever. 
 
 THE END. 
 

 
 v^' 
 
 ^o 
 
 
 
 
 V\o^ 
 
 >°-^^. 
 
 Ho^ 
 
 ><^-^^. 
 
 
 %/ 
 
 
 
 \/ 
 
 
 ^_j>. 
 •- 'f*. 
 
 
 %-.f.r.^.o*" \.'*^?f^'>" X'-'^^"" ' 
 
 fc ^"'^ ^ '^fe*- - *'^ *^fe' Vo^' .-^fe 
 
 5.^-^^. 
 
 '^^<,'' 
 
 : ^^'\ 
 
 in;;'.^^. ./ .'>^:. V_.' .c^0i'. ".../ ^'km. 
 
A^'.^^^X /..i^^^"°o .^^".-J^/X <f 
 
 
 
 J? * 
 
 *^. •*"' .<^