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ON PATRIOTISM. 
 
 THE CONDITION, PROSPECTS, AND DUTIES 
 
 AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 A SEP^MON 
 
 DELIVERED ON FAST DAY AT CHURCH GREEN, BOSTON. 
 
 Rev. ORVILLE DEWEY. 
 
 F A S T O K OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 TICK NOR AND FIELDS, 
 
 M DCCC LIX. 
 

 [The Congregation, at whose request this Sermon is printed, will ob- 
 serve that a part of it was omitted in the delivery.] 
 
 EIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: 
 PRINTED BY H. 0. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. 
 
DISCOURSE. 
 
 Psalm cxxii. 2, 7, and 8 verses. Our feet shall stand within thy gates, 
 O Jerusalem. Peace be within thy walls and prosperity within thy 
 palaces. For my brethren and companions' sakes, I will now say, 
 peace be within thee. 
 
 And Matthew xxiii. 37. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the 
 prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I 
 have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her 
 chickens under her wings, and ye would not! 
 
 I CANNOT help noticing, as I pass, this extraordinary 
 language of Christ. Poor, neglected, unknown, a simple 
 teacher by the way-sides of Judea, with no position in 
 worldly eyes ; yet if he had been a departing king, 
 mourning over his people, he could not have spoken more 
 loftily. Is there not some strange, unborrowed, supernal 
 majesty in this appeal ? 
 
 But it is not this of which I am to speak now, or for 
 which I have drawn my text from sacred records, several 
 hundred years apart. It is rather to point out the abid- 
 ing naturalness and beauty of the sentiment of patriotism. 
 For thus it is, that from age to age are forever echoing, 
 words of every language, which proclaim how dear is 
 men's native land. From David, who sung that ancient 
 song, to him who wept over Jerusalem ; and by all men 
 
who have felt the touches of the gentlest or of the grand- 
 est humanity, thus have heen repeated the words — songs, 
 adjurations, or words of orators or historians, which pro- 
 claim the sacredness of country and home. Whether we 
 can explain the sentiment or not, all men feel it, and no- 
 body ever thought of defending it. There are sentiments 
 indeed, that are more expansive. Our minds naturally 
 range beyond all local boundaries. Science and philo- 
 sophy are of no country. We belong to the world, it is 
 true ; and there is a humanity that is as wide as the 
 world. But, that tract of earth which I call my native 
 soil, my native clime: that spot where my childhood 
 grew, where my parents have lived, and my kindred shall 
 live after me ; that is holy ground, set apart and severed 
 from all the world beside ; and framed, ay, its very hills 
 and valleys, its slopes and river-banks, moulded and 
 framed into some mysterious ties and sympathies with 
 my very life and being. And I must be able to tell, 
 what never yet was told — to tell what this inmost life and 
 being are, before I can interpret all that is written on this 
 tablet of home and country ; before I can tell what home 
 and country mean. 
 
 But one thing is plain and palpable to my mind, that 
 when I say " my country," I say what no amplification 
 can add to ; that I say more than any epithets can de- 
 scribe ; that I speak of that which is a part of me, and I 
 of it; that whatever touches it, touches me; and who- 
 ever assails it, assails me. It must be a dull man that 
 feels neither pride nor shame for his native land. And 
 if, from a disbanded nationality, I were wandering and 
 fleeing, and the world should point the finger and say, 
 
•' aha ! ye had not the force nor sense nor virtue to live, 
 or keep your bond, or hold together ; " that taunt would 
 darken the very shadow and sorrow of exile. 
 
 And yet, though as I firmly believe, there never was 
 a country which men have had more reason to love and 
 ciierish, than we have to love and cherish this country ; 
 yet here and among us, I think that the sentiment of 
 patriotism is exposed to peculiar dangers. We have no 
 uniting head, King or Queen, to whom the feeling of 
 patriotic loyalty can attach itself. Our devotion is to an 
 abstract Constitution ; and though it is a noble kind of 
 devotion if it can be sustained ; yet if you were to cross 
 to the father-land, you would be struck with the difference 
 between our respect for the Constitution and the personal 
 feeling wliich rises from a whole people to the fair majesty 
 of England ; to a crown which is at once the top of honor, 
 and set round with all the gems of private virtue. Then 
 again, there is nothing here to shield the head of the 
 State, from everv sort of violent and even scurrilous abuse. 
 Every newly-chosen President seems to be set up, not as 
 the image of the public order, but as a target to be shot 
 at. The attack of course provokes defence; but the 
 defence is apt to take the tone of partizanship rather than 
 of true and unbiased respect. All this must hurt the 
 sentiment of patriotism. If the head of the family, the 
 judge on the bench, the minister at the altar, were the 
 subject of this perpetual wrangling, the very institutions 
 they preside over — home, law, religion — must suffer 
 indignity and dishonor from such treatment. In a free 
 State, it may be said, can anytliing be done to prevent it 1 
 That I will consider soon; at any rate I will consider 
 
6 
 
 whether we should not try to do something. But once 
 more ; our freedom, with the unchecked opportunity it 
 offers for the acquisition of gains, luxuries, comforts, and 
 for the indulgence of all sorts of private opinions and 
 preferences, is liable to run out into an individualism, a 
 thinking and caring of each one only for himself, and a 
 neglect of our political duties, which are in direct antag- 
 onism with the love of country. There is a class of 
 persons in this country, and I fear it is an increasing class, 
 who, disgusted with politics, or fastidiously averse from 
 free mingling with the people, or engrossed with business, 
 are shrinking from their duties as citizens ; who refuse to 
 take office, avoid as much as they can every species of 
 service to the public, even that of sitting on juries, and 
 who neglect to deposit their ballot at the polls. In fact, 
 there is a disintegration of society here, that is hostile not 
 only to patriotic, but even to fixed party sentiments. 
 
 I have said thus much in general, with the view to open 
 to you the subject on which I propose to address you this 
 morning : and that is, our country, the love of our 
 country, and the circumstances in our condition that are 
 liable to weaken that great patriotic bond. I shall discuss a 
 variety of questions ; but they will have at least this unity ; 
 every question will come to this point, the love of our 
 country, the right appreciation of it, the vi^illing service 
 which patriotism demands to be rendered to it ; nay, the 
 filial consideration and loyalty with which we ought to 
 speak of it. 
 
 And first, let me say a word, of a reckless habit which 
 we have, of speaJcing about the country. It may be re- 
 garded as a small matter — speech, the talk of the street, 
 
the license of debate, in caucus or Congress — but I cannot 
 think it so. Speech is the birth of opinion ; and opinion 
 is the womb of the unborn future. What we think and 
 say, the coming generation are hkely enough to do. Idle 
 talk may resolve itself into dreadful fact. Let all men 
 among us, talk as some men do ; and a hurricane might 
 pass over the land with less harm, than that idle or angry 
 breath. 
 
 Nay, there are those who talk, as if they did not care 
 how soon the worst came to pass. Disgusted with what 
 they call the popular tendencies ; disgusted with the up- 
 heaving of the popular mass, which they have never tried 
 to direct or control ; disgusted with the insubordination 
 and irreverence of the young ; disgusted altogether with 
 our politics, they say — I have hea7'd them say, " let the 
 worst come ; the sooner the better ; the worse the bet- 
 ter ! " Now I confess that I can never hear this kind of 
 talk, or anything approaching to it, without great pain. 
 It discourages and saddens me. It discourages every- 
 body. It is not good to hear. It is not good to think or 
 say. I know that there is often a more grave and con- 
 siderate talking, about popular derelictions and public 
 corruj)tion ; and though I cannot altogether gainsay the 
 justice of it, I must say it seems to me there is too much 
 of it — such as it is. Let us do something and not always 
 talk. Or if we must talk, let it be to inquire what we 
 can do. But it is too often cold, scornful, sarcastic, bitter 
 talk that I hear. If it were more painful, there would be 
 less of it. I sat by a couple of gentlemen lately, who 
 were speaking at length, of bribery and corruption in 
 Congress. I could not help saying, " this talk always 
 
8 
 
 makes me sick." So said one of them, " it makes me 
 sick." But it went on. It always goes on. Fault find- 
 ing is always eloquent ; and it is easy. If the object 
 were to inquire how we can correct our own, or our peo- 
 ple's errors, it were profitable. But if it be only to vent 
 our spleen, it is perilous. We may say of it, in relation 
 to our country, what Burns says in another connection, 
 " it petrifies the feeling." 
 
 And is it not a very strange thing 1 Was the like 
 ever seen before ; a people so recklessly criticizing itself; 
 smiting the government, the country, and the country's 
 hope, in one suicidal blow ? This passes the ordinary 
 limits of party animosity. Is there anything like it in 
 England or France ? Was there in old Rome ^ till its 
 disastrous and declining days came, and seemed to justify 
 the despair of Cicero, and the satire of Tacitus. But in 
 its prosperous days were such words ever spoken 1 Why, 
 I have heard a man standing in the high Senate of these 
 United States — I have heard a senator say, " The presi- 
 dent, and his cabinet, and both houses of congress, ought 
 to be taken and pitched into the Potomac." If he had 
 said such a thing in old Rome, he would himself have 
 been pitched into the Tiber, and would have deserved it. 
 And lately, in a speech in Congress, I hear the president 
 called a " brigand ! " 
 
 I take it upon me to rebuke such mad speaking. It 
 should not have been possible to say or to hear such 
 things in the Capitol. The man who undertook to say 
 them, should have been drowned in hisses if it had been 
 in a popular assembly, or if in the Senate, he should have 
 been withered by its awful frown. I do not deny that 
 
9 
 
 there should he a strict and solemn inquisition into the 
 ways of the government and of the nation ; l)ut I do deny- 
 that such indecent and abnsive language should be used. 
 I will not admit that it is right ever to speak thus of our 
 country, or its government. This sublime nationality ; 
 this embodied life of thirty millions of human souls ; this 
 gathering under the awful wings of Providence, of six 
 millions of families ; this majestic Rule that ])resides over 
 them ; this struggling welfare and sorrow and hope of a 
 great people, all bound up in the country's jirosperity and 
 progress ; this whole stu[)endous evolution of the fortunes 
 of Imiiiaiiity, is it to be treated as lightlv as if it were a 
 game of football, or as angrily, with as much passion 
 and desj)ite, and rash exclamation of oaths or curses, as 
 if it were a pugilistic fight I How ditierent was the 
 spirit, how reverent, protective, and tender, with which 
 Jesus looked uj)on his people ! And, indeed, what com- 
 manding dignity aj)pears in his address to it ! And how 
 evenly and perfectly was the balance held in him, between 
 indignation and love ! The government was in bad 
 hands enough ; and he was disowned, and rejected, and 
 persecuted ; the Pharisees, the rulers, the Sanhedrim 
 would not know him ; and yet sadly and indignantly as 
 he speaks of all the w'rong and evil there was in high 
 places — vet no reckless satire or scorn ever fell from his 
 lips ; but his great and loving heart burst out in uielting 
 exj)ostulation, saying, '• O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou 
 tluit killest the prophets and stonest them that are sent 
 unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy chihhen 
 even as a lieu gathereth her chickens under her wings, 
 and ve would not ! " 
 
10 
 
 But the true question, I may be told, were, whether 
 the country and government deserve to be spoken of with 
 satire and scorn. This question concerns two very 
 different tilings — the country and the government — and 
 I shall treat of them separately. 
 
 Does the government deserve it 1 Is it as bad as it is 
 often said to be ? Has it become more corrupt than it 
 was in former days I Has it declined from its ])ristine 
 integrity ? It may be true ; I am afraid it is true ; but 
 it is to be remembered that our saying so does not prove 
 it. Just as hard things have been said all along, of all the 
 administrations, after the first ; and even that, even Wash- 
 ington's, did not escape the most bitter reproaches. But 
 just as hard, nay, harder things, were said of Jefferson 
 and John Adams, and Madison and Monroe. Party 
 animosity raged even more fiercely then, than it does now. 
 
 I have had, for my part, some salutary experience upon 
 this matter. 1 remember the time when I was taught by 
 those around me, to regard Thomas Jefferson as the basest 
 and most dissolute and unprincipled of men. And I do 
 not doubt that there are some here, who could tell me, 
 that John Adams was treated with scarcely more decorum. 
 Well, I have lived to see these two men in their old age, 
 treating one another with respectful consideration, writing 
 amiable and friendly letters to one another ; and I have 
 lived to see the time wdien they died on the same day — 
 on that memorable fourth of July ; and then I heard the 
 voice of loud lament and eulogy bursting forth from the 
 whole country ; from all parties alike. It was a great 
 lesson to me ; and I resolved that I would never listen to 
 the words of party clamor any more. And how is it 
 
11 
 
 nov)^ with Webster, and Clay, and Calhoun ! Why, it is 
 coming' to be generally admitted, even by their opponents, 
 that however they may have erred, however they may 
 have acted under biases and prejudices, they loved their 
 country ; and that in the circumstances in whicli they were 
 placed, they did what they thought was right. Can any 
 more be said of the integrity of statesmen than this \ 
 And if there be men now standing high among us — I 
 say not this or that man — but if there be any who may 
 meet with a similar reversal of the popular or party 
 award, from tlu; calm judgment of posterity, nay, and are 
 likely enough, judging from the past, to do so, ought it 
 not to stir a sacred caution in our minds, how we treat 
 them \ Doubtless a government may grow more and 
 more corrupt. Doubtless there are found, from time to 
 time, in seats of power, bad men and bad magistrates. 
 But it must be a sad thing, it nmst be a terrible thing, for 
 us on mere party and mistaken biases, to admit that the 
 whole government of the country is sinking deeper and 
 deeper in corruption every year. Neither Statesmen, nor 
 any (tthcr men, can fairlv he expected to be better than we 
 account thciii to be. This constant depreciating and vili- 
 fying of the govermnent, by one half of the people, tends 
 to bring about the very state of things we lament over, 
 and we may help to verify in misery and disgrace, the 
 very prophecy of our haste and wrath. 
 
 I admit that in some respects, there is a descent from 
 the dignity and ])erha})S virtue of former days. It is 
 constantly said, that an inferior class of men is chosen to 
 public office ; and I will not deny it. Every nation 
 perhaps, has its golden age ; or what seems to be such. 
 
m 
 
 111 the early times of the RepuUic, the natural anxiety of 
 the people, called the highest men into the public service. 
 We have ^rown easy and careless. But this is not all. 
 The representative principle was not at once developed 
 here in its full force ; or rather it was not abused, as it is 
 now. For a long time there was a class of men, regarded 
 as superior persons, to whom the people naturally looked 
 as their leaders and legislators. That natural aristocracy 
 is now to a certain extent disowned ; and the candidate 
 for office is preferred perhaps, because he is not of that 
 class. It is an unfortunate reaction. Then too, men of 
 culture and refinement, are more and more shrinking and 
 retiring from public life. It is an unfortunate tendency. 
 The consequence of all this, is seen in a deterioration of 
 manners, in our high places. We hear of rude and 
 abusive personalities in debate, nay, of actual combats 
 and blows in the halls of Congress; of blows more 
 wounding to the public heart, even than to the unworthy 
 combatants. That rule in Congressional speeches which 
 is called the " one hour rule," however necessary it may 
 have been, and however just and reasonable, has undoubt- 
 edly had the eHect to lower the dignity of debate. 
 Formerly, a few leading members discussed great ques- 
 tions. Now, a much larger class are brought upon the 
 floor ; and the manners are worse. Then again, terrible 
 questions are now brought forward, questions about the 
 public lands, about annexation of territory, about slavery, 
 which try the integrity, the virtue, the comj)osure, the 
 self-})ossession of public men, more than they were tried 
 in former days. All this, I trust, is transitional, and will 
 pass away. It does not prove to me that the natural 
 
13 
 
 tendency of free suffrage and a free Constitution, un- 
 der fair conditions, is to carry a government down- 
 ward. 
 
 But the more serious question is about the moral pro- 
 gress or deterioration of the whole country. Government 
 is, to the people, a mystery. The eye of the popular 
 conscience is not fairly opened to it. Hence it comes to 
 pass that things are abetted in public, which would not 
 be tolerated in private life. This separation between 
 political and personal njorality, which is doing so much 
 mischief all over tlie world, it is to be hoped is tempo- 
 rary liere, and will be searched into and stigmatized and 
 stamped witli utter reprobation, by a more enlightened 
 public opinion. Men, I trust, will come to look at the 
 persons who administer public affairs, as keenly as they 
 investigate the conduct of bank or radroad directors, nay, 
 and will judge and act as stockholders, in the great na- 
 tional interest, demanding, irrespective of party biases, — 
 demanding, I say, probity in the one as much as in the 
 other, resolving to elect no man to public affairs who is 
 not an honest and good man. 
 
 But the (juestion about the national character is dis- 
 end)arrassed from these considerations ; and it cuts deeper. 
 It is a momentous question certainly, and demands the 
 gravest and most anxious study. It is a question for 
 ourselves. It matters little comparatively what others 
 say of us, though they are saying nmch on the other side, 
 at the present moment. Nor is this surprising ; for the 
 example of universal suffrage and of popular rule, which 
 we have set up here, must of course be subjected to the 
 severest scrutiny. Does it work well \ is the question. 
 
14 
 
 Theories are notliing" ; does it work well ? And there is 
 a party in England which maintains that it does not. 
 They say that everything is running down here. 
 
 Is it true 1 A)'e we becoming a more unprincipled, 
 vicious, dissolute people 1 Are we less honest, less tem- 
 perate, less benevolent, less reverent, less pure in man- 
 ners and morals, than our predecessors were half a 
 century ago ] Has our freedom run out into general 
 license ? Or is there to be seen in the country at large, 
 any tendency of the kind ] 
 
 This is not the place to say how humble is the estimate 
 which every right-minded people must form of its virtues ; 
 or how deep is the sense, which every conscientious and 
 thoughtful man must entertain of the national defects ; 
 let the nation be which it will, American or French or 
 English. Next to the burden which his own faults lay 
 upon such a man, I believe, is the sad feeling he has, in 
 contemplating the too common depravity and degradation 
 around him, the baseness in high places and low, the 
 drunkenness and debauchery, the sins, secret and open, 
 which cover all the world with darkness, and fill it with 
 tears. Tiiis is doubtless a wise direction of men's 
 thoughts, whether in this country or any other country ; 
 whether for a Fast Day or any other day. And I will 
 not leave it to be inferred, from anything I shall say, 
 that I am insensible to this humbling and painful contem- 
 plation of our moral condition. Before a righteous con- 
 science let every peojde bow low ; before accusers speak- 
 ing in the interest of king-ship and aristocracy, and trying 
 to discredit free governments, it must assume a different 
 attitude. 
 
15 
 
 And the question here, let it be observed, is not how 
 bad we are, but whether we are reg-ularly and constantly- 
 growing worse ; whether we are going down in national 
 character ; and I deliberately say, I do not believe it ; 
 I do not admit any such thing. Nay, it is rather ob- 
 servable, that the men who are wont to speak the most 
 bitterly of their country — I mean the ultra-reformers, 
 the abolitionists, for instance, and come-outers of all sorts 
 — do nevertheless comfort themselves with the belief, 
 that their labors have not been in vain ; that there is 
 a better tone of sentiment and a better state of morals 
 among us, than there was twenty years ago. 
 
 But I do not deny that there are some bad indica- 
 tions, explicable, I think, however, on other grounds 
 than that of a general tendency and sweep downwards. 
 In the moral condition of a people, there will always 
 be oscillations. There are local circumstances, affecting 
 moral conduct ; there are great movements of society ; 
 there are reactions ; all writers on statistics know this, 
 and the moral critic is bound to consider it. Thus, in 
 the education of the young, obedience fails to be en- 
 forced among us. to an extent positively alarming ; but 
 I believe that it is a reaction from the old parental rigor ; 
 and I think I already see indications of return to whole- 
 some discipline. Then again, we have heard much of 
 social disorders ; of the bowie-knife and lynch-law on 
 our Western border. 'Jliis state of things is evidently 
 owing to circumstances; and, what is especially to be 
 observed, this border line of semi-civilized life, instead 
 of coming this way, as it should, according to the argu- 
 ment of deterioration, is constantly retreating. So in our 
 
16 
 
 cities, we have seen violence and sad misrule, enough to 
 furnish a loud argument against us on the other side 
 of the water, and' loud admonition to ourselves. The 
 truth is, we have been slowly learning, how, under our 
 popular system, to govern cities. And I think we are 
 solving the problem. And again I say it is observable 
 that the disturbance is retiring ; it is passing, so to say, 
 along down our coast cities ; and in one after another 
 it is controlled. We had mobs in Boston, New Bedford, 
 Providence, New York. We have them no more. Dis- 
 orders still prevail in Philadelphia, especially among the 
 fire-engine companies — organizations which I hope will 
 ere long be entirely supplanted by the use of steam- 
 engines — and in Baltimore, from political causes. The 
 truth is, and we are finding it out, that nothing but 
 military force will hold in check the lower populace of 
 our cities. With regard to misrule, to corruption in 
 our city governments, the only remedy lies in agencies 
 far more difficult to be called forth. For until the su- 
 perior classes in our cities, the men of wealth and educa- 
 tion, will consent to take the part which they ought to 
 take, in our elections and in our numicipal affairs, there 
 will be misrule and corruption, injuring the ))ublic in- 
 terest, and shaming all good men. The evil is growing 
 so monstrous, that I cannot help believing, it will drive 
 us upon the obvious remedy. Then once more, it is said 
 that crime is increasing in this country faster than ])op- 
 ulation. Is it strange that it should do so? Does it 
 fiiirly indicate the general character of our people, when 
 it is well known that so much of it is imported from 
 foreign countries \ Of the criminals convicted in our 
 
17 
 
 Courts, — a large proportion come from abroad. In some 
 instances, Ave are told, that the very penitentiaries and 
 almshouses of the continent of Europe, have been emp- 
 tied of their miserable tenants, to be shipped oft' to 
 America. 3Iore than nine tenths of the paupers and 
 betrg-ars in our cities come from the Old World. Every- 
 body knows how rare it is, to meet with a native Ameri- 
 can mendicant. 
 
 There is altogether a mode of reasoning about this 
 matter, or rather a way of representing things, that is 
 unfair and unjust. The foreign journals get hold of here 
 aiid there a fact, or of a gossiping story told by some 
 traveller, and forthwith set it up as a placard against a 
 whole peoj)le. And they talk too, of mobs and popular 
 outbreaks here. Have they none, in the cities of Europe ? 
 There has not been, I confidently say, since we have been 
 a nation, such a stable and undisturbed order of society in 
 the world, as our own. They say tauntingly, " here is a 
 voung people, a people in the flush of its morning, a 
 people that ought to be in a condition of pristhie virtue 
 and innocence, and yet so full of vices and crimes, so 
 '• full of sores and ulcers," that its friends, as they look at 
 it, must hang their heads in shame. The case is }iot so. 
 Society here is primarily an oftshoot from society in 
 Europe, in its average condition. And then in later days, 
 what shoals of the base and abandoned, have been floated 
 to this country from foreign shores ! And what multi- 
 tudes of ignorant and miserable paupers from abroad, have 
 been cast uj)on our hands, employing, as we well know, 
 all the benevoleut energies of our cities ! I think we de- 
 serve some better return than taunts for our care of them. 
 3 
 
18 
 
 It is indeed a very extraordinary condition of things. INo 
 people in tlie world, was ever before subjected to such a 
 trial. Ah ! it is very easy to stand with folded hands on 
 the opposite shore, and say, " what a bad plight you are 
 m ! 
 
 As to the absolute question of our growing better or 
 worse, there are many things to be considered. The lib- 
 eralizing and enlightening of a people, have their perils ; we 
 may welcome the general result, and yet look with anxiety 
 at some of the processes and steps. The growth of wealth 
 and luxury, is still more perilous ; but some extravagance 
 in living, and some foolish fashions — ^late hours and lavish 
 entertainments, though economically bad, and bad for 
 health, may not be so bad as the case-hardened rigor of 
 the old Puritan time, the stern face which it wore toward 
 all the gayeties and pleasures of life, the mingled hypoc- 
 risy and fear which it branded into the youthful mind. 
 The notion that the more miserable a man is^ and feels^ 
 and looJcs^ the better man he is ; and the more happy and 
 gay, the worse — this wrong to Providence, this base 
 crouching under its mighty dome of light and blessing — 
 we may well be thankful that it is passing away. Changes 
 which to the strict and conservative eye wear a bad as- 
 pect, may not be for the worse. There is more liberality 
 with regard to amusements ; but certainly the festal habits 
 of our people have improved. There are not so many 
 brutal figbts on public days, as there were forty years 
 ago ; there is not so much drunkenness at feasts, or town 
 meetings, or military parades ; there is not so much pro- 
 fane swearing. In fact, it is capable of demonstration, I 
 believe, that fifty or eighty years ago, under the incrusta- 
 
19 
 
 tioiis of the old Puritanism, viler streams of intemperance 
 and licentiousness, were stealing through our New Eng- 
 land society, than can be found now. 
 
 In short, I say that society, in its whole spirit, tone, 
 and character, is improved. There is less intolerance, 
 whether religious, political, or social, than there was half 
 a centnrv ago. New views, whether with regard to the 
 rights of men, or the sphere of woman, or the improve- 
 ment of society, receive a more hospitable entertainment 
 than they did then. Slander, running its gossiping 
 round, leaving its poisonous slaver wherever it winds ; I 
 l)elieve there is less of it than there was. People have 
 books, reviews, newspapers, lectures, concerts to occupy 
 tiiem ; and the neighbor's character oftener escapes. And 
 in business-, that system of preference-credits, that dis- 
 honorable evasion of fair and open responsibility ; I ask 
 y(»u, if it is not in greater discredit, than it was twenty 
 years ago. And in fine, I put it to any discerning and 
 thoughtful man, who has reached middle life, whether he 
 does not find society more just, tolerant, frank, and fear- 
 less, little enough as there is of all this, than it was 
 twenty years ago. 
 
 My subject in this discourse, is the love of country. 
 We cannot love our country as a country should be loved, 
 but it must be — I hope it will not be thought a weakness 
 to say — with soniething of reverence and tenderness, with 
 something of entliusiasm and pride for it ; and we cannot 
 hear it recklessly vilified or wrongfully accused, without 
 remonstrance. It is to these points therefore that I have 
 now been speaking. 
 
 In the same patriotic interest I am tempted to add a 
 word or two on another j)oint. 
 
20 
 
 In the all-criticizing spirit of the time, there is a sort 
 of incredible talk amoni>- us about national failure, about 
 the sundering" of the national bond, about the disuniting 
 of these States ; these Federal States as we call them. 
 The possibility of using such language arises in part, I 
 think, from our calling them Federal States, — deriving 
 our notion, or our nomenclature at least, from the old 
 Colonial time. We are not confederated States as, till 
 recently, the Swiss Cantons were. We are not a league, 
 but a nation. We are one nation, as much as any other 
 nation is. And what other nation in its palmy day, ever 
 talked of disunion, as some among us do. " Dis — 
 what ? " — I could imagine a sensible man to say, who 
 heard the word for the tirst time, and fancied he did not 
 rightly hear — " disaffection, I can understand, distrust, 
 disorder, but disunion ? You might as well talk of a 
 disunion of the Alleghany mountains from one another. 
 You might as well talk of the disunion of the Mississippi 
 River from itself." Nay, and these are not only illustra- 
 tions, but facts. Nature has made this North American 
 empire morallij indissoluble. How are you to cut the Mis- 
 sissippi River in two, giving the southern half to one nation 
 and the northern half to another \ — the southern dictating 
 on what terms the northern should pass through. And 
 our railroads fast engirdling the whole enjpire, and our 
 common interest and honor, and our patriotic memories, 
 growing more venerable as they grow older, constantly 
 bind us more strongly together. To be sure, I do not 
 know what may he in the future ; but for the present 
 time I hold it to be but patriotic policy and decency, to 
 shut our ears against that miserable, paltry, party word. 
 
21 
 
 disunion — spawn of factious discontent, and reckless free- 
 dom. 
 
 But do not the Southern States, from time to time, 
 threaten to break off and go out of the Union ^ jS'oi 
 the southern Stales ; only one. and that only once. For 
 the rest, some men at the South talk in this wild fashion ; 
 that is all. But I do not deny that this is enough, 
 and more than enough. I do not deny that the difficulty 
 to which I now refer is serious enough. But is it in- 
 superable ? It is the only question that threatens the 
 national integrity. Is there no solution for it but a vio- 
 lent and bloody one X 
 
 I cannot, and T do not believe it. But I confess that 
 no shadow of mystery, that ever hung over the fairest 
 fortunes of the human race, has seemed to me darker 
 than this. Why it is, that the Almighty Providence has 
 permitted this root of bitterness to be planted in the soil 
 f>f our Republic, to trouble the grandest political experi- 
 ujent that ever was made in human affairs, no mortal eye 
 can see ! It may be that since, in this fair domain and 
 under this large freedom — since, I say, prosperity, wealth, 
 and luxurv were to start forth on such a career as they 
 never ran before, one thing was permitted that should try 
 men's souls ; that should humble our pride, that should 
 task our j)atience, our calmness, our forbearance, our love 
 of country to the utmost. 
 
 Would to (iod tliat we could see it in this light, in- 
 stead of throwing upon this debatable i^round the burning- 
 coals of strife ! Instead of doing all that we can to pro- 
 voke and vilify, and estrange one another, would that we 
 could sit down together as brethren, and as in the pres- 
 
QQ 
 
 eiice of God, and sincerely and solemnly ask ; what we can 
 do ? — what we ouglit to do ] What is our duty ? What 
 is right '? What is best for all ? Here is a people 
 planted upon our territory ; a portion of the human 
 race ; inferior to ourselves, if you please, but human ; 
 and placed here without any fault of our own ; nay, 
 placed here against the remonstrances of our fathers ; 
 nay, more, so far as we are concerned, put, by an inscru- 
 table Providence, into our hands; and now what is our 
 duty to theml What ought a just people to do for 
 them 1 What ought a paternal and Christian govern- 
 ment to do 1 
 
 What ou(jht we to do, I say ; for there is a question 
 of the ri(/hf, which is above every other question. I 
 grieve to hear any high-minded man, swayed by party 
 biases, speak lightly of this highest law. Without it, 
 we are not men, but brutes. No men, nor nations can 
 truly respect themselves, unless they bow in reverence 
 before this sublime authority. What is the canonized 
 virtue of ages ; what do we venerate in heroes and mar- 
 tyrs ; what is it, without which there is left no worth nor 
 dignity in the world, but the rigid? Nations may rise 
 and prosper ; generations may sweep over the earth, and 
 eloquent histories be written of them ; planets might roll, 
 and stars wheel round their mighty centres — they are 
 but dust and ashes, unless the law of the everlasting 
 right reigns over them ! 
 
 What, then, is it right for us to do with regard to this 
 African })eople I Emancipate them at once ; turn them 
 adrift from our care, and take off the hand of restraint ; 
 let them be free as ourselves ; free to work or to be idle 
 
23 . 
 
 as they please, free to roam hither and thitlier as tliey will, 
 free to vote or to hear arms like other freemen ] / do 
 not say so. I may he wrong, hut that is not my opinion. 
 Certainly there is a profound conviction to the contrary, 
 amouii' the Southern people. 
 
 What is the right then ] I answer, it is to consider 
 and care for these people, so strangely and sadly intrusted 
 to us ; to consider and care for them as ?nen. It is to 
 educate, instruct, Christianize them. Why, we send mis- 
 sions to the farthest heathen for that. It is to pass laws 
 for the gradual amelioration of their condition. It is 
 ultimately to emancipate them. With regard to the 
 steps, I cannot go into detail. Tiie j)rohlem will he one 
 of iimnense diHiculty and comj)Hcation, far greater than 
 that which was involved in the treatment of the serfs in 
 the Middle Ages. 
 
 But this at least we can do. We can set up the rif/Jit 
 to he the sovereign law in this whole proceeding. There 
 is always a conllict, more or less, l)etween natural right 
 and municipal regulation. In the case of Slavery, that con- 
 flict is carried to the extremest point of contradiction. It 
 is in vain to deny it. The slave has a perfect right, if he 
 can, to run away. I never saw a man. North or South, 
 who denied it. But the municipal law steps in and stops 
 him. It is a grievous solecism ; it is a sad conflict he- 
 tvveen a man's rights and society's rights. ])ut I cannot 
 deny that society has a right to restrain actions, otherwise 
 right, naturally right, which tend to its own destruction. 
 I hav(! a natural right to eat and drink, and to huy and 
 sell what I will — alcohol, or ])oison, or gunpowder — yet 
 society claims the right, hy license-laws, to restrain me. 
 
24 
 
 But still there is a Supreme Law which says tliat that 
 contrariety shall be lessened, as fast as the geneial wel- 
 fare and safety will permit. And to hold that extremest 
 contradiction to natural right which slavery presents — to 
 hold it, I say, fast clenched ; to repel the very idea that it 
 ought to he lessened or loosened in any way ; to say that 
 it is right and always shall be, to buy and sell men and 
 their posterity after them forever ; and to demand that 
 the common and supreme Government of the land shall, 
 by its action, avouch this local and municipal bond to be 
 altogether right, shall adoj)t, espouse, recognize it, shall 
 enact into its laws, legitimate in its territories, this grand 
 and woild-condemned wrong to humanity ; this is what 
 we never can consent to. 
 
 Alas ! the time was, when the South mainly agreed 
 with us in this ; when it admitted that slavery was an 
 evil, and in its origin a wrong, which must be corrected 
 in due time. But it has been goaded by the violence of 
 our disputes, into an opposite position. Is it not possible 
 that it should take a step backward ; while we on our 
 part, forsake the attitude of sectional antagonism, except 
 in opinion, which we cannot help ; and that we should all 
 agree, that slavery should be left just where it is; to be 
 dealt with by those who alone have the charge and the 
 responsibility ; just as if the Southern people were a for- 
 eign nation ; our common, our general government, doing 
 nothing for it, nor against it, but simply letting it alone ; 
 simply keeping the bond of the Constitution ; no more 
 discussing it in Congress, than if it were Russian serf- 
 dom ; making no fugitive slave-laws, nor any other laws 
 about it ; but simply, I repeat, letting it alone. If the 
 
25 
 
 people of the South could consent to that, ceasing- to be 
 propagandists of their system, it would be doubtless a con- 
 cession of municipal or pecuniary claim on their part, to 
 moral principle ; but, would it not be a noble concession ? 
 Why, the whole progress of justice and freedom in the 
 w^orld has involved precisely that concession. Arbitrary 
 kingships, aristocracies, customs, laws, rights of posses- 
 sion, have always been giving way to the moral claim. 
 The ordinance of '87 was precisely such a concession. 
 Upon no other principle was slavery prohibited from going 
 into the Northwest Territory. And when we at the 
 North, refuse to open the New Territories to that sys- 
 tem, it is, in my mind, mainly upon the same ground. 
 If the slaves were ordinary property, if they were but 
 horses or oxen, we should think it monstrous to say to 
 their owners, " You shall not take them there.' It is 
 because they are men, because their presence there would 
 injure the j)ublic interest — would injure the free white 
 laborer ; because, in short, it is a thing that ought to be 
 repressed, not extended, that we insist upon that conces- 
 sion. Would it not be an honor to the Southern men to 
 make it ? It would be returning to the ground with re- 
 gard to this institution, which their fathers held. It 
 would be to throw off' from their shoulders, the responsi- 
 bility for a system which they did not create, but have 
 inherited. Now, alas ! they assume and avouch it to be 
 their own, and to be right and good. The moral senti- 
 ments of the world are against that stand. Can they 
 hohl it? 
 
 I have thus far been engaged in the discussion of some 
 questions concerning the treatment of our country, con- 
 
 4 
 
26 
 
 cerning its moral condition, and the one great danger 
 to it. And here, perhaps, I ought to stop ; but I cannot 
 leave the subject, without undertaking to say something 
 of what a true patriotism demands of us ; what of duty, 
 fealty, and affection. 
 
 I must detain you with one preliminary remark, which 
 goes through the whole subject. It is this ; and I would 
 emphasize it : Universal civilized modern society is 
 entering upon a political condition^ which devolves an 
 entirely new charge and responsibilitg upon citizenship. 
 Under absolute rule the subject had little to do with 
 regard to government, but to submit to what was or- 
 dained for him. There was no pulpit, nor press, nor 
 caucus, nor ballot that could fairly speak out ; or that 
 could exert any efficient influence upon public affairs. 
 The popular conscience, instead of being educated to a 
 sense of duty to the common weal, was crushed down by 
 political injustice and oppression. Indeed, the spectacle 
 of selfishness, seated on the throne and ruling in the court, 
 too often taught the ])eople only to be selfish, — to hoard 
 their property or to tie it up in entails, and to pursue 
 their pleasures, with little sense of what they owed to 
 the country. The Grecian and Roman republics did, 
 indeed, during their brief continuance, develope a vigor- 
 ous love of country, but scarcely inculcated any duty to it, 
 beyond that of fighting its battles. 
 
 Now, it is not to be so, it must not be so, in our 
 modern free States, if they are to work out any happy 
 condition or high destiny. We are to make and keep 
 and guard the State ; we, the people, are to do it, by 
 personal care and fidelity. The machinery of the public 
 
27 
 
 order will not roll on smoothly and safely without our 
 intervention ; nay, we are the machinery. The govern- 
 ment cannot go on prosperously without us, we standino- 
 aloof and looking- on ; nay, we are the government ! 
 
 Here it is, I conceive, that our modern free commu- 
 nities have fallen into an immense and perilous mistake. 
 We have inherited our ideas of citizenship from former 
 times and from a different order of society ; and they do 
 not apply to our condition. Always and everywhere the 
 more liberty there is, the more duties there are to be 
 done. All along on the line of progression, from animal 
 instinct or from the lowest ])oint of barbarism, up to the 
 highest intellectual power and freedom, it will be found 
 that more and more depends upon the individual ; that 
 more and more trusts are committed to him. The whole 
 framework of government and society, becomes more and 
 more complicated. The King of Dahomey, or the Em- 
 peror of China, has but few laws ; and the people have 
 nothing to do but to obey them. We make the laws, 
 multiply them, change them, execute them. No man 
 stands alone, or can rightly stand apart. Every citizen 
 is brought into immediate relations with the welfere of 
 the State. Every citizen has duties to perform to the 
 country. And every instrumentality, organ, and office, 
 that has power to influence the public welfare, should be 
 subject to the same patriotic obligation. 
 
 It should be recognized, first, in our schools and col- 
 leges. There should be taught in them, as a distinct 
 branch of education, the duties of citizenship. In our 
 technical views of what constitutes education, this prac- 
 tical and pressing interest has been strangely overlooked. 
 
S8 
 
 I am told that the schools of semi-barbarous Japan are 
 ahead of us in this respect ; that the children there are 
 instructed in the actual duties of coming life. We want, 
 in our schools, a Political Class-Book, more comprehen- 
 sive and simple, too, than any I know of, — though an 
 excellent work of the kind was written by Mr. William 
 Sulhvan, of this city, — a book that should instruct youth 
 in the nature of our government, in the duties of citizens, 
 of voters, jurors, magistrates, and legislators ; in the 
 morals of politics and parties, in the principles upon 
 which the vote should be given; how much should be 
 conceded to party organization, and what should never 
 be conceded to it. And if there were a plain chapter or 
 two on Logic, I think it would be well, — teaching the 
 young something about the principles of right reasoning, 
 — that of which our people know less than of almost any- 
 thing else ; our politics, our caucuses, our newspapers, 
 are about as full of one-sided and fallacious reasonings as 
 they can hold. 
 
 Next, the pulpit owes a duty to the country. We 
 are constantly complaining that political morality is at a 
 low ebb, and is sinking every day, lower and lower. 
 What duty of the pulpit is plainer, than to speak of 
 immorality, and especially of that which cuts most di- 
 rectly and deeply into the heart of the common welfare, 
 political immorality ] This wretched and ruinous dis- 
 tinction between public and private virtue, between po- 
 litical and personal integrity ; this permitting and ex- 
 pecting men in official stations, to act on principles that 
 would dishonor them in trade and at home ; this giv- 
 ing all fealty to party and none to the country ; whose 
 
29 
 
 duty is it to strike at this stupendous demoralization, if it 
 is not that of the preacher 1 If, as a trustee of private 
 funds, a man cannot cheat or embezzle without a black 
 mark being set upon him, without being driven out from 
 the society of all honest and honorable men ; shall a 
 public trust be violated, a trust confided to a man by his 
 fellow-citizens, a trusteeship for the whole country and 
 for unborn generations ; shall it be violated and nothing 
 be said of it, but that it is just what might be expected ^ 
 Shall this huge dereliction be visited only with a sneer ; 
 and that, more at the miserable state of the country, than 
 at the men who dishonor it ? 
 
 The sacredness of every political trust ; the aw fulness 
 of government — I speak advisedly ; the solemn signifi- 
 cance, the binding and religious obligation of the oath, 
 with which a man swears that he will " well and truly " 
 serve his country ; what holy bond can be more properly 
 insisted on, in the pulpit, than this \ No "sanctitude of 
 kings " ought to be more venerable than the magistracy 
 of a free State. No holy conclave ought to be more 
 sober and conscientious than a congress of men, chosen 
 and set and bound, to think and act for the welfare of a 
 great people. 
 
 And why shall not the pulpit speak of and for the 
 country, for the common weal \ Why shall it not speak 
 great and solemn words for patriotic duty, for sobriety 
 and thoughtfulness, and moderation, and mutual love? 
 Why shall it not plead for the country^ I cannot help 
 thinking that if all the pulpits in the land, were to do 
 their duty in this respect, the result would be marked and 
 visible ; and we should not have all political action dese- 
 
30 
 
 crated as it now, too often, is, cast out under the tramp- 
 ling feet of party violence and recklessness, a game 
 for the adroit, a hutt for satire, rather than a bond for 
 conscience and honor. If the clergy want texts they may 
 find enough of them, in David and Isaiah, and in the 
 books of the New Testament. 
 
 The relation of the Press, to the country is sufficiently 
 recognized ; and the only question is, about the use it 
 shall make of its acknowledged and immense power. I 
 am glad that it is free ; and no abuse of which it is capa- 
 ble would seem to me so odious as a government censor- 
 ship ; as the ignominious bondage which is now imposed 
 upon the Press in France. Where there is not free debate 
 of every kind — free talk in the streets, free speech in 
 public, free printing everywhere — there is no political 
 freedom. 
 
 Still I could wish that the press might consider for it- 
 self what restrictions patriotism, justice, and honorable 
 fair play, should lay upon it. A man should not feel 
 more at liberty to put forth rash, hasty, and inconsiderate 
 words, because he is an editor, cloaked in his closet, but 
 less, incomparably less. The private man speaks to his 
 neighbor ; the editor of a newspaper, to thousands. 
 
 I have observed with pleasure, that two or three 
 Conventions of Editors have been lately held in the 
 country. I hope there will be more of them. Why 
 should not discussions be entertained in such Conventions, 
 on the principles upon which the Press should be con- 
 ducted — on Editorial duties and rights, and inter-editorial 
 courtesy and forbearance X The clergy meet together to 
 consider their duty and work : so do teachers of youth. 
 
31 
 
 Why might not editors ] Their position makes them 
 teachers and guides to the people. And why, in fact, 
 should there not be in our system of education, a distinct 
 department of preparation for the editor's chair, as well 
 as for the law, or medicine or theology 1 
 
 It is every man's interest and duty, as far as possible, 
 to hold just, large, well-proportioned views of things. 
 Why should a man be willing to be one-sided, to be given 
 over to partial and party views of subjects, because he is 
 an editor 1 Are we never to see in party prints any fair 
 admission of what is right on the other side ? And there 
 is another thing still more vital to the editorial conscience 
 and honor. There is a line which should never be 
 crossed without sacred caution : it is the line beyond 
 which lies the domain of private character. I do not 
 mean of the private life only, but of a man's essential 
 claims to rectitude of purpose. Personalities seldom 
 serve any good end ; they subserve many bad passions. 
 Measures may be freely and roughly handled ; motives 
 may not. And the contest here is too unequal for hon- 
 orable assault — except in very extreme cases. The man 
 who commands a battery, should beware, for his honor, 
 how he opens it upon an unarmed man. For the single 
 man against such a force, is virtually unarmed. He has 
 no fair chance. He cannot answer. He does not an- 
 swer ; except in words, which if they become common, 
 will alike degrade the press, and destroy its power — 
 " Oh ! it isn't worth noticing ; it is only a newspaper ! " 
 
 A free State, I repeat, unlike a despotism, must engage 
 the services of all its citizens, in their appropriate duties. 
 A representative system requires of every man the vote. 
 
32 
 
 Trial by jury, demands that every man should sit on the 
 jury, when he is summoned to that service. And to fill 
 a public office, when the expressed wish of the citizens 
 designate the man, is scarcely short of an obligation. 
 Our compact is, thus to serve one another, in the great 
 interests of the Commonwealth. Travellers in this coun- 
 try have made it a reproach against us, that we are all 
 engaged in politics. We ouffht to be engaged in them ; 
 not as petty politicians, but as men observant and thought- 
 ful, and anxious for the common weal. Mr. Wordsworth, 
 the great English poet, once said to an American visitor, 
 with whom he had talked a long time on the English and 
 American systems — " I am chiefly known to the world as 
 a poet ; but I think that during my whole life, I have 
 given ten hours' thought to politics for one to poetry." 
 The visitor said in reply, " I am not surprised at that ; 
 for the spirit of your poetry is the spirit of humanity ; 
 and the grandest visible form of human interests,is politics." 
 Was he not rig^ht ? And do not the most influential 
 men and the highest minds among us, owe an especial 
 duty to the country 1 There are not a few men among 
 us who seem to me strangely insensible to this duty. 
 There are respectable persons that I hear say, and who 
 seem to pride themselves in saying, that " they care 
 nothing about politics." Business men in our cities avoid 
 as much as they can, sitting on juries ; preferring to pay 
 a fine for neglect. There is a conservatism among the 
 more wealthy and cultivated classes, that looks with cold 
 disdain or strange timidity upon those popular elements, 
 that are working" out the common weal or woe. Instead 
 of stepping forward and taking their proper place, they 
 
38 
 
 shrink into corners. This timidity of conservatism is in 
 An<rlo-Saxon men the strangest tiling ! Let the popular 
 wave arise, and they flee before it, like sheep before a pack 
 of wolves. Let municipal questions agitate tiie people, 
 and violence be threatened ; and they turn back and leave 
 it for those who ivill, to take tiie lead. They say that 
 the public interests, nay and the very rights of property, 
 are in peril ; and they do nothing but submit. Is there 
 no English hardihood left among us for emergencies like 
 these '? Is th(; fairest chance for self-government and 
 national freedom, ever accorded to men, to be given over 
 to jnne faint-heartedness or scorn ? 
 
 I would not, however, be thought to speak with un- 
 reasonable severity of these (Joubts and fears of conser- 
 vatism. I would not make a bugbear of this distrust. I 
 feel it in a degree myself; every thinking man feels it. 
 And it is not peculiar to us in this country. In every 
 country thoughtfid men feel it. In France, nay in Eng- 
 land, do they not feel it? Do they not entertain the 
 question, whether the present order of things will hold; 
 whether changes, whether revolutions may not come ? 
 Hut this is what I say. Is this distrust to be made an 
 argument for deserting the post of duty, for giving up 
 the cause of the country ] 
 
 It is ai^ainst this faint-lieartedness that I contend ; and 
 I hope I may be pardoned for doing so pointedly and 
 earnestly. I would use no unbecoming adjuration, but I 
 would s:iy, if it were proper for me to say, to all conserva- 
 tive doubters — for the sake of everything momentous and 
 holy. Sirs, arouse you to your duties. Slavery excepted, 
 I know of nothing more ominous for the country than 
 
34^ 
 
 your own position in it. Why, I have been told tliat a 
 distinguished foreigner who has spent a year or two 
 among us, says he has hardly met a man in the higher 
 society, who did not look with entire distrust to our future. 
 If it be so, I will tell you whom he has met. He has 
 met ?/ou, the ultra-conservative men of the country. He 
 could never have heard anything like this, from the great 
 body of our intelligent people. But if the danger were 
 real, I can tell you what would do more than anything 
 else to avert it. Let thirty men that I could name in 
 each of our cities, and a hundred in each State, go freely 
 into the popular assemblies ; let them speak there ; let 
 them speak wisely, manfully, kindly, liberally, and gener- 
 ously — with a heart full and warm for their brother-men 
 and for the common country ; and I believe the effect 
 would be incalculable. 
 
 Do you say it would be troublesome to vote and serve 
 on juries, and to go and speak in popular assemblies ? 
 But iu/iat duty is not sometimes troublesome ? To rear 
 a family, to provide for it, to build up an estate, is 
 troublesome. The student's, the lawyer's, the physician's 
 life has its troubles, its disagreeable things to do. The 
 soldier nmst stand sentinel, stand in the trenches, stand 
 in the innninent deadly breach ; and ill should we think 
 of him, if he lay in his luxurious tent when hardship and 
 danger demanded him. And are the duties that we owe 
 to the whole embodied life of the Republic, to be exempted 
 from the obligation that presses everywhere else ? No, 
 I firmly say it ; we must march up to the breach when 
 duty or danger to our country calls ; we, in the whole 
 country, we, in cities. All the respectability, infiuence, 
 
85 
 
 wealtl), learning, culture in our cities, should be seen at 
 the polls, and often at the primary meetings. If in timid- 
 ity, in cowardice, in fastidiousness or scorn, they stand 
 back and give |)lace to ignorance, brutality, and violence, 
 whose then will the fault be, if the lower elements get 
 uj)permost ? Troublesome, indeed ! Let me tell you 
 that something more troublesome will come ; ay, trouble 
 that we think little of now, if we neglect to guard the 
 house. Troublesome, forsooth ! Where are the courage 
 and manliness and self-sacrifice of honest and honorable 
 men ? For I say, if we could truly understand it, that 
 amidst ease, and abundance, and luxury, there is as much 
 self-sacrifice required to keep all right and safe, as there 
 is in scenes of revolution and blood. We kno?v, that if 
 every man in tliis country will do his duty, all will go 
 well. And of whom may we demand that they do their 
 duty, if not of those who have, or conceive that they have, 
 tlie most at stake ? And what if such a man were stricken 
 down, by popular violence — stricken down at the polls — 
 ay, murdered, martvred ! It would be a glorious martyr- 
 dom. It would do more to appall the lawless and arouse 
 the negligent, than a whole life could do. 
 
 But, says some learned or fastidious and delicate 
 gentleman, " what can I do in the primary assemblies ? 
 They wont hear me." There it is again — that mistimed 
 timidity or morbid self-esteem. But I say they ?rill hear. 
 They want to hear from those whom they inv^oluntarily 
 respect as men of wealth, education, and influence. And 
 they must hear from them. Republics must be brother- 
 hoods. Free conniiunities, free cities cannot go on well, 
 if the most influential persons in them retire in disgust 
 
36 
 
 and disdain from all jjarticipation in their affairs. The 
 English aristocracy are beginning- to feel this ; they are 
 learning that "Apiaroi — the best — must mean something 
 more than fashionable idlers or mere cultivators of their 
 estates ; and they are more and more mingling with the 
 people, at least in their social, municipal and political 
 affairs and interests. They are living more for the public 
 and for the common weal, than they once did. Nothing 
 else can justify their position, in an intelligent and increas- 
 ingly free community. And nothing else can make any 
 similar position right, in a free country. This is the price 
 that a guarded lil)erty must pay : a guarded liberty I say, 
 and none other can be kept, or be long worth keeping. 
 This is the price, I believe, and therefore I insist upon it 
 — this care, this common interest, this intervention in 
 affairs, of the highest men among us, this friendly and 
 fraternal mingling together of all the elements that con- 
 stitute a free nationality. 
 
 A free nationality, I say ; and I believe that we have 
 yet to come to a new idea of what it is ; of what our 
 own is ; of what every nationality is. It is God's ordi- 
 nance. Men cannot work out the ends for which they 
 are placed on earth, without being gathered into com- 
 munities under the protection of government. This 
 national bond is God's ordinance ; and it must have 
 man's respect, reverence, and cherishing affection. 
 
 We are not — and we ought not — to care for England 
 or for France, as we do for our own country. Here the 
 God of Nations has set us down ; and drawn about us 
 the bonds of the public order ; and girdled us round 
 with ocean barriers and chains of ocean lakes ; and 
 
37 
 
 spread out this realm of day-dawn and sunset, and 
 healthy climates, and mighty forests, and glorious prairies, 
 long kept and hid from other lands by the waves and 
 storms of the mighty deep — this realm richer than the 
 Hesperides, vaster than Imperial Rome, — to be the em- 
 pire of a great ])eople. 
 
 We love our country. We are proud of it. We 
 know that no nation on earth ever set out on such a 
 career before. It had its heginnings in the most advanced 
 civilization in the world ; and other good elements have 
 minirled and become blended with it. We love our 
 country. Let us love it. Let us be proud of it. I will 
 listen to anv high jiatriotic adjuration, to any solemn 
 admonition ; but I will not listen to any cold and blight- 
 ing disparagement. Not only has there been a more 
 rapid growth in wealth and j)opulation here, than any- 
 where else, but more inventions of the subtle intellect 
 have originated here than in any other country ; more 
 churches and schools and colleges have been built ; more 
 books and newsjjapers and journals have been printed and 
 read ; and more enterprises have been undertaken here, for 
 the reform of morals, for the relief of the poor, and the 
 fallen, and the insane, for the spread of religion at home 
 and abroad. And shall any clique of croakers or fanatics 
 stand before this mighty ])eo])le and point the finger and 
 say, "Aha! go down ! go to pieces! you are going 
 down ; you are not worthy to live! " 
 
 No ! wide let j)atriotic honor and trust and hope beat, 
 from North to South, from East to West; like the 
 mio-htv ocean waves that engirdle us ; like the fresh 
 breezes that sweep through our valleys. For this reason 
 
38 
 
 — for the culture of patriotic sentiments, I am glad to 
 witness that enterprise which is taken up by our whole 
 people, for setting apart and consecrating the residence of 
 the Father of his country, to be his perpetual memorial. 
 I am glad that it is to be done by individual contributions 
 rather than by act of Congress. I am glad that efforts 
 and appeals of every kind, that journals, and speeches, 
 and eloquent orations have gone forth, to stir the national 
 heart. 
 
 To gather up, and fix, and perpetuate through all time 
 the great memories of our national life — what place so 
 fit as Mount Vernon ! It may be to this country, I 
 will not say what Versailles is to France ; for the volup- 
 tuous and selfish monarch who built it, stamped upon it 
 quite another character, and did more, in fact, to bring 
 down ruin upon the monarchy than ever was done by 
 any other single action ; but it may be what the last 
 king" of France desired to make of Versailles, a orand 
 historical monument. The gardens of Versailles, about 
 as large as the estate of Mount Vernon, are laid out with 
 walks through aveimes of trees, with many a turn and 
 winding into bowers and boskets, adorned with sheets 
 and falls of water, and filled with fountains. The palace 
 walls are hung with historical pictures of the great men 
 and times of France. Why may not Mount Vernon be- 
 come in time the more than Versailles of America — its 
 tangled woods cleared up, its barren fields covered with 
 living verdure, and pathways opened all around and 
 through its ample domain, for the generations of all com- 
 ing time to walk in — drawn thither by attractions of 
 landscape-art, and historic pictures and statuary, and 
 
39 
 
 touclied by historic memories surely not less grand and 
 insj)iring tlian those of any people that ever lived. 
 
 Yes, and above all, let the great name of Washington 
 rise ; of him who did more than any man to make us a 
 people, and whose name more than any man's binds us 
 togtither ; of him whom the great poets, and orators, and 
 historians of all countries unite to-day, to proclaim the 
 most perfect model of heroic patriotism; of him who 
 served us without recompense, who governed without 
 ostentation, and whose sway was that of patience, pro- 
 bity, wisdom and modesty ; of him whose imperturbable 
 dignity controlled officers and soldiers alike ; whose nat- 
 ural vehemence was chastened by the solemnity of his 
 mission ; and whose calmest words thrilled the hearts of 
 men like electric fire ; of him who was a tower of strenofth 
 in the day of our weakuess, and a pillar of fire in the 
 darkness and storm ; and who, had an imperial diadem 
 been oflfered him, in the day of his victory, would not 
 have reluctantly declined it, as Caesar did, but would have 
 trampled it under foot as a painted bawble ; of him, 
 whom, when he died, a weeping nation declared to be 
 " first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his 
 countrymen." 
 
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