AN ORATION, IDELIVER ED BEFORE THE GLOUCESTER MECHANIC ASSOCIATION, ON '1"!-IE I*‘OUR,TI“I OF JULY, “I833. .,_.m-aw‘ MM . I33: ROBERT RANTOUL, J‘n., PUBLIEHED BY REQUEST. SALEM : TPRINTEI) BY xvoowzm V8: cI~IxsI—Ic>LM., 1833. ORATION. GENTLEMEN OF‘ THIB GLOUCESTER MECHANIC ASSOCIATION, In appearing before you on this occasion, allow me to express my sincere regret that I have been able to devote but so few hours to preparation for the duty to which you so lately invited me. It might savour of presumption to stand up and speak, almost externporaneously, of topics which the ablest in the land have for these many years selected as the theme of animated and interesting discussion, and illustrated with some of the most brilliant eflbrts of their genius. Their thrilling words have sunk deep in all our memories, the press has seconded the living voice, and the associations ordinarily connected with the contemplation of American ,Ir1(:lepem.lence have become established and famil-— iar. But, gentlemen, the day itself is eloquent. The "occasion vvliieh calls us here brings with it its own inspiration. The mind cannot dwell upon it and not be quiclrened to pour out the spon-- taneous language of a genuine enthusiasm, and the tongue can» not utter it, no not in feeble accents, without awakening responsiveiechoies in every true heart. We clierish it because all sections, all interests, and all parties have a common proper- ty in it-——--wecherish it because it is the preeminent glory of the American people-—--we challenge for it admiration, as the bright- est page in modern history, and we exult in it as our proudest title to the respect and wonder, and our noblest claim upon the- gratitude and esteem of our fellow nations of the earth. We have not estimated too highly the importance of the event we have met together to commemorate. It is not only a mark- ed epoch in the course of time, but it is indeed the era from which the new order of things is to be reclconed. It is the divid- ing point in the history of mankind, it is the moment of the po- 4 litical regeneration of the world. Before it, came the govern- ments of force ; after it, come, and shall come in long succession, the governments of opinion. They who wielded the sword had hitherto directed the fate of nations : the Fourth of July, seven- teen hundred and seventy six, announced the principle of self government, and hereafter nations shall follow no guidance but the mastery of mind. It is not enough then to say that on that day a new empire was born ; let us extend our views over the earth, and through futurity, let us characterize that day by a more comprehensive expression of its consequences, and say that then a principle was ushered for the first time into avowed, and, as the event has shown, effectual action, whose operation shall change the destiny of man in all empires and forever. F ifty seven years have rolled away since that auspicious hour when our fathers first resolved, and summoned the majesty of Heaven to witness the resolution, that they would live and die citizens of Free and Independent States, and on this cast ‘ they staked theirlives, their liberty, and their sacred honor--—pledges how nohly redeemed! The scattered population of the narrow belt along the Atlantic coast has filled and overrun its limits, and poured a broad current of emigration over the Western wilds. The hunter’s fire and the wooclman’s axe, pioneers of civiliza-- tion, are busy at their work in the fertile valley of the lVIississip-- pi ; the primeval forests through which the untutored Indian chased his game, how their tall heads and are fast disappearing from the soil which they have sheltered for scores of centuries. The thirteen stripling colonies have grown to twenty four impos- ing sovereignties--.--tlie descendants of the three millions of the Revolution new number fourteen and a half millions, a quintuple population-mover all the land, industry and enterprise have wrought magic transformations——--hardship and poverty have given place to comfort and opulence----the sea board is covered with the ac- cumulations of well rewarded toil, while, as at the waving of an en- .chanter’s wand, cities have risen in the wilder11ess,.and weiscaroeu ly hear of their.eXistence before we find them rivalling in activity and in splendour our maritime marts of foreign commerce. Meanwhile the feeble remnant of the aborigines, once undisputed £3 lords olithis fair hernisphere, having dwindled already into harm»- less insigttificartce, are melting away lil«:e,frost before the sun- heams. Their final catastrophe may strike the imagination with melancltoly, but sober reason will not regret that one lone wan- derer of the tracltless woods shall make roorn for a hundred fam- ilies of a refined and social race, or that the untannable savage, with his few and simple virtues, falling a victim to instincts which cannot change to suit the change of circumstances, should he supplanted by innumerable successors trained in a more en»- larged morality and cndowecl by nature with l1igl1e1' capacities for enjoyment. It is the law of their being; and ours. As surely as the original g1'orvtl1 of the soil must recede as cultivation aclvan- ces, so surely must the red than give way beiiore the white. It is the result ofthe constitution which their Maker gave to each of these two races when he created them. Their decay is the con» dition ofonr prog1t'ess, their (;‘.‘:{l;ll'1(3l.l(T)t'1 :is the condition of our eX- istcncc on the vast 1'cg;iortrs they have occupied, and to mourn hecause tliey vanish where we approach too near them, were as fut;ile a waste of our scnsil:2ility as to mourn that torrents flow dowmvards, or that a conliI1ag;1'ztt.ior:3 colirsumes its fuel. Tl’1cy for the rnost part have gone, and in their stead Providence has st1'etcl,1e<;?l across this intnnense continent our 1ni,gglt.lty empire. Fil'ty—seven years have passed, and not only has a small peo—- ple become a great r1z1tiic>tm,"j{not only has the ’Gt‘1C31“f_1;y of free» dent hurried us onward in a career of unparalleled rapidity, but the Arnerican pr.ineip1e ol'sell"govc1'r1tnent has gained con- verts and acc_1nire<;l. influence in countries where it was scarce heard ofbofore, or if heard ol',treated only as the speculation of some visionary theorist. It has been like leaven thrown into the mass, and lasting, wide, and increasing has been the fermentation. Let us cast a b1~iel’g'l:.*1i1ce over the annals of the world since we have had an independent existence, and trace the progress of eluange in difi'erent countries. ‘ The first peculiarity wliich we cannot overlook, is the mag»- nitude and appalling character of the events which have been crowded into the compass of that short period. Every line of the chronicle is a liistolr-y, and years seem to have sufficed for 6 the Work of centuries. France, the centre and the heart of the European body politic, whose throes are felt to the farthest ex- tremities of that system, was the first to feel the influence of the new ideas, and was agitated with strange convulsions. Some of her most distinguished sons had taken part in our contest with the parent empire, and returned home with their bosoms glowing with the fire of liberty. They found their countrymen ripe for the reception of democratic principles, and their situation made them apostles of the new flaith. Fenelon had declared to the corrupt court of the fourteenth Louis, While the great rnonarch was at the height of his absolute power, the uncourtly truth that kings were created to be servants of their people, and not the people for their kings. Rome was once pronounced to be a nation of kings by a barbarian visitor whom the august presence of its Senate overawed. Lafayette had just witnessed on this side the Atlantic the sublime spectacle of a nation of whom the people were sovereigns, and he was resolved, if it might not be so on his side of the river ocean, at least to make the experi- ment of a sovereign ruling in the interest of the people, and under their control through the medium of responsible ministers. In the castle of If, and in the dungeon of Vincennes, l\/lirabeau had had leisure to meditate on the nature of arbitrary power, and was disposed to lend his aid to remodel the government whose injustice he had felt, so as to protect his fellow citizens from the danger of similar oppression. Witli such leaders firom the higher nobility, it is not strange that the commons rushed on eagerly to secure that share in the administration ofaflhirs which was necessary to their well being and their safety, and which seemed so suddenly brought within their grasp. They anticipat- ed, and plausibly too, an easy task, and a speedy deliverance. Under the mild reign of Louis the Sixteenth, with an imbecile and fickle ministry, embarrassed by an empty treasury, without means to fill it, resting for support on an aristocracy worthless l and powerless asa body, while the few splendid exceptions r to this general character, ofwhicli it might with justice rnake its boast, the possessors of almost all the virtue and almost all the talent,,rare qualities in that degenerate caste, were to be found 7 in open opposition to its pretensions and lighting in the ranks of its enemies the people——-«in such a state of things we can easily pardon those who believed that the abolition of obsolete abuses was a work of easy and speedy acconnplishrnent, that they had but to speak and it was done, and that establishing the regener-— ated government with the power of self preservation, with vital force enough to enable it to perform its proper functions, and well adjusted checks suliicient to prevent it from over stepping its proper limits was an aclnevernent of equal facility, was in- deed almost a consequence of course, that they had but to com- mand and it would stand fast. Terrible was the disappointment of all these hopes. The privileged orders had lost the sub-« stance of power before the revolution, so called, commenced: the substance gone, the ensigns were soon wrested from their hands, and power both real and nominal fell into the possession of the people. But in the struggle to divide the glittering prize, the conquerors became animated with an epidemic fury and turned their weapons against each otl1er’s breasts. The .l3‘rencl1 Monarchy which dated ll'Ot1“1 its origin tltirteen hundred years, the kingcflottt of France, properly spcalting, which could claim an antiquity of nine centuries and a half, the royal house of Capet which for eight hundred years had reigned over that kingdom, crurnbled into t't1l1f1S--tl1t‘3 throne and the altar were overturned and trampled in the dust ; and king,‘ noble, and priest, expiated «with their blood the errors of their ancestors, and balanced‘ the long arrears of popular vengeance. Discord stalked undisputed master of the field, anarchy let loose all her Titans to destroy, and law and order, religion and justice were the _sport of their rage. Day by day, in the light of the blessed sun, grim murder, insatiate as Moloch and relentless as the grave, bated his red arm and laughed at punishment. Systetnatized carnage delug- ed the cities with the purple blood of hurnan sacrifice, while confusion and desolation swept over the land in one broad vcata- ract of blood and fire. The period is not misnarned “ the reign of Terror.” It is too horrible for particularity on so cheerful an occasion as the present. We look back upon it as on some short revolting and unnatural drama, and can hardly help regarding "'5 in the actors in the different parts as unreal monsters created by a disturbed imagination. They pass before us like the figures of a moving panorama exhibited by torch light. The terrible en» ergies of Danton, the fiend like ferocity of Marat, emerge from obscurity, glare fearfully for a moment, and sink into the sur‘- rounding gloom ; while Robespierre, Couthon and St. Just make but two strides across the bloody scene, the one from insignifi—» cance to the supreme power, and the next from the supreme power to the scaffold. Though weary of her nine month’s madness, though exhaust- ed by paroxysms each more convulsive than those that had pre- ceded it, there was no repose for France. In the lowest depth of her despair she behold a lower deep wide opening threaten to devour her. She rushed on in her agony till she had sounded the last abyss of her woe, and then, when rest should liave a~— waited her, she found herself thrust back by a continent in arms, and thrown again into the boiling whirlpool. Her frontier was bristling with the bayonets of confederate nations who had marched to war against the principles of the revolution. The long and arduous struggle which ensued, with its vari- ous vicissitudes and absorbing interest, was fitted to form, as far as any circumstances could form, a character of controlling pow»- er. If nature had deposited anywhere the spark: of a sublime genius, in such a crisis as this it must blaze out. Now, if ever, mankind might expect to arise one of those master spirits, who “ ride on the whirlwind and directthe storm” of revolutions; who sitting above, like Jupiter, scatter » the thunderbolts of war, or wield the sword of destiny, and who smile upon the crash as the political world that is to pass away is shivered a-- roundthem; who touch with unerring hand the secret springs of change, and orderall things after the counsel of their own will, while the ordinary herd of mortals stand aghast, gaze and admire below. . One of this class appeared in the person of the man to whomithe nine hundred millions of his contemporaries furnish no compieer-—-—the child of destiny-r—--thre throne creator--—-the modern Mars-.--..—Nap:oleont. . He lifted the curtain with his own red blatzle, and strodep the stage like a Deity. He , came like the 9 tenth Avatar, to destroy and recreate. The elements of com- motion were still at his bidding, order was welcomed again after her long absence, and law resumed the reins. The energy which the revolution had developed, his mind di- rected and concentrated against the enemies of France, and their daring was converted into dismay, the torrent of invasion was turned baclt upon them ; opposition was but another name for defeat. The Eagles of conquest, issuing from the towers of Ndtre Dame, soared over the ancient capitals, successively, of nations who were astonished to recognize a foreign master; till the Emperor, in the plenitude of his greatness, wielded a more extensive sway than Rome could boast under the most powerful of the Caesars. France was at that time mistress of the civiliz- ed world. Spain was her province, Italy a part of the same body politic, and Germany trembling crouched at her feet. When the fire broke out in Spain, Austria again ventured into the field---—-«in vain———she was completely humbled, and the daughter of her monarch became the bride of Napoleon. To complete the climax of his happiness, a son was born to inherit these vast possessions, and his throne seemed to be established upon a solid foundation. But in an evil hour the South crusadw if ed against the North, for the first time in the history of Europe, in defiance of the laws of nature, yet with an irresistible impulse. In two months and a half the Grand army arrived at Moscow, a distance of two hundred and sixty leagues. The Russian Auto- crat abandoned his capital, but an ocean of fire rolled its clevour- ing billows over temple and palace, the dwelling place of com»- fort and the store house of merchandize, and Napoleon’s con- quest was but a heap of ashes. The sanguinary battle of Boro-«r dino had shattered his strength, and now want of shelter and supplies left him no alternative but instant retreat; cold and fa- tigue, want and famine, hung upon his rear. The stars in their courses fought against him. The northern blast breathed over the fugitives like the angel of destruction. Horse and rider felt its benumbing influence, and strewed the ground with the dying and the dead. The passage of the Berezina represented but too faithfully the hosts of Pharaoh overwhelmed in the Red Sea. Of the countless multitude that had sallied from beautiful 2 10 France, full of hope and exulting in the confidence of success, only a few straggling detachments set foot upon their native soil again. The French territory did not remain inviolate. The recoil of vengeancie paused at the frontier only till the pursuers could take breath. The war rolled back from the Kremlin, a- cross the battle field of Leipsic, to the heights of Montmartre, and on the thirty-«first of March, eighteen hundred and fourteen, the allies, who had leagued against him, entered Paris. The Emperor abdicated, and retired to Elba. Now was the time to satisfy the first wish of France, free institutions and a repre- sentative government. But no I The loathed and hated Bourbons were thrust upon the nation. That illstarred family had forgotten nothing, and had learned nothing--while the rev» olution had passed over France with its heavy levelling wheel and had crushed into the dust hereditary privileges, and distinc- tions not founded in merit or services——-while the nations had been, for twenty-five years, in their great school of mutual in-- struction, imbibing and imparting the true fundamental political theory of government for the benefit of the governed. The pre—- judices to which they clung were of course more obsolete than at the era of their exile, and less in unison with the spirit of the age than before political ideas were diffused among all classes of the people. Their obstinacy in disregarding the lessons of twenty-six years, and the pertinacity with which they adhered to plans of conduct unsuited to the existing state of things, and adopted in contempt of public feeling, alarmed the lovers of Constitutional liberty, irritated the army, alienated their friends ‘and exasperated their enemies; so that when the exile of Elba returned to claim the Empire, the nation received him with open arms. He came like thunder falling from a clear sky. He landed at Cannes, March first,» eighteen hundred and “ififteen, with a handful of men, and proclaimed that he would bring back Victory ‘chained at his chariot wheels. His old companions in arms heard the well known voice, and flew to surround him. His progress, resembled the welcome of some mighty conqueror revisiting his delighted subjects, his brows bound with fresh laurelsgathered in the glorious campaign which is to terminate his wars; r The gallant and unfortunate Labedoyere, the lion 11 hearted Prince of Moskwa, bravest of the brave, with tens of thousands of their veteran followers, the soul of the French sol- diery, rushed with rapture to swell the train 3 and in twenty days from his disembarkation the triumphal procession entered the city of Paris. The degenerate Bourbons, the obsolete noblesse, and the imbecile emigrants, who had pressed upon France like a deadly incubus, were hurled from their seats. They fled to the Low Countries, and their besotted partizans followed them. The professors of the doctrines of legitimacy, divine right, and absolutism, hid their diminished heads, and were silent as the ob»- scene birds of night before the noon day sun. Buonaparte was a second time Emperor by the will of the French people. Here was again a golden opportunity, when France might well hope for a liberal Constitution, to limit the Imperial prerogative, and to guarantee individual liberty. The Emperor was not dazzled by the brilliancy of his first reception : he saw clearly all the peril of his situation. He felt the necessity of resting his power on that popular will from which it was derived 5 and he promul- gated a Constitution which imposed reasonable restrictions on the executive will, and secured a tolerable share of liberty to the subject, while it provided the means of consulting the nation on the measures to be pursued, and allowed it a direct influence in the management of affairs. By this Constitution, and in the liberal spirit which directed it, he solemnly promised that his ad- ministration should be regulated, and the conscientious" Benjamin Constant, with other leaders of that patriotic band who had op- posed the misgovernment of the restoration, lent him their cordial support. But the legitimate monarchs beheld in a popular sove- reign their natural foe. . He was outlawed by the Congress of Vienna, stigmatized as a wild beast to be hunted down, and Europe again took up arms again the principles and the man of the Revolution. He dashed across his northern frontier, trusting to the celerity of his movements, and attempted to annihilate by sep- arate attacks the armies of Blucher and of Wellington. Fortune was faitlilessgto him. The battles of Quatre Bras and of Ligny T and the disastrous route at Waterloo closed the eventful drama, and swelled the grand total of the two millions of victims who had fallen in this protracted struggle. The second march on 12 Paris, the second abdication, ensued without an interval, and the hundred days were ended. France was transformed into a vast encampment, which the allied invaders filled__ with a million of heterogeneous troops of all nations and languages. Wild Cos... sacks from the Don and the Volga devoured and laid waste the harvests, and the hoofs of the Prussian dragoon horses profaned the Elysian fields. The barbarians of the north glutted their vengeance upon their downcast enemy ; desolation stalked through her Provinces, and Plunder rioted in her Cities. The monuments of her victories were overthrown, her treasures of art torn from her capital, and that queen of cities drained to its dregs the bitter cup of humiliation. The greatest Captain of the age, when he found it impossible to reach the common asylum of the unfortunate in this home of liberty, threw himself upon the rnagnanimity of England, and was consigned to a barren vol- canic rock in the midst of the Atlantic, swept by the perpetual trade winds, and alternately drenched by torrents of rain, or scorched by the fierce rays of the tropical sun. On this inhos- pitable isle he lingered out the sad remnant of his days, and that he preserved to the last his characteristic traits is witnessed by the fact that in the hour of his dissolution the dress of his battles covered him, the field bed of Austerlitz supported his sinking frame, and the sword which he had girded on at Marengo lay beneath his pillow. He is now resting in the bosom of that rock of the Ocean ; the stone of his prison—palace is laid over his ashes; the Roman cement covers him who tamed the Roman Eagle. His fame will flourish in perennial youth, and like the Phoenix, rise freshly from his tomb as often as successive revo1u- tions shall convulse the world. Peace to his parted spirit 1 After the final effort of the great agitator had been baffled, and he secluded in his water-girt rock of banishment, the continent was quiet for a while ; no more was to be heard of wars and comrnotions, and the potentates of Europe vegetated in undis~~ , turbed security on their paternal thrones. And now that France has been sufiiciently humbled at the feet of her enemies, now that the confederate nations have shorn her locks of power, and have no longer cause to fear her restless ambition, is her ardent longing for liberty to be gratified--——-is she now, after these repeat- 13 ed disasters, after this calamitous issue of her desperate enter~ prize, to be blessed with free institutions, and a government of her own choice ? Alas ! Very far from all this—-—-she is doomed once more to bow under the odious yoke of the Bourbon dynas- ty--—-rendered still more galling to her proud spirit from the cir- cumstance that foreign arms have imposed it on her. These much loathed masters rule, as in a conquered country, a people which despises and abhors them. Force therefore compels obe- dience ; and France is farther from the object of the revolution, an object she will never cease to keep in view, than she was dur-~ ing the period of the first restoration. The disbariding of that army which had shed eternal glory over the annals of France ; the execution, as traitors, of Labedo- yere and N ey, who had only acted as circumstances compelled them to act ; the base submission of the Frenclu Government to refund to the allied sovereigns the expenses of their war against the Independence of France; the agreement that the troops of the allies should be quartered for years in the heart of France, and that she should hold hersclfbound to support the army of occupation, filled full the measure of universal detestation. To stifle the expression of this feeling, the censorship was institut- ed, the law of election was altered ; prosecutions forpolitical oil fences became frequent, and the more zealous ultras“, in a trea~ sonable correspondence, begged the allies to allow their troops to remain in France, when they were about to withdraw them. At theCongress of Aix~la--Cliapelle France was leagued with the Northern powers in their policy of legitimacy, armed inter»- vention and stability---—a policy more fully developed at Verona in 1822, and Wl1lt':l1 it devolved on France to illustrate in 1823, by the march on Spain of one hundred thousand French troops for the suppression of democratic principles in the peninsula ; so that it was not enough for this high-minded and chivalrous nation to be forced to relinquish with bitter regret the fruits of so many years of sufiferinig, but she must be made the miserable and un- willing instrument in the hands of her masters to crush the rising hopes of liberty among a neighboring gallant and much abused people. Louis XVIII, well-~rneaning but weak, died, and the crown 14 passed to Charles the X, bigoted and obstinate. The victory of Navarino lighted up for .a moment the sombre gloom of his short and luckless reign, and the conquest of Algiers threw a gleam of transient splendor over the last days of the house of Bourbon; but the general aspect of his affairs was lowering and ominous. The last three ministries in the service of legitimacy, those of Villele, of Portalis and M artignac, and finally of Polignac, con- ducted the government to the precipice over which it threw it- self on the day of the issuing of the three fatal ordonnances. The inconsiderate outrage that day offered to the genius of De- mocracy by an administration smitten with judicial blindness, “ Unweetingly importuned Their own destruction to come speedy on them. So fond are mortal men, Fallen into wrath divine, As their own ruin on themselves to invite.” The intolerable provocation with which they dared to insult the enthralled Sampson, “ despised and thought extinguished quite, “ I-Iis fiery virtue roused From under ashes into sudden flame, And as an evening dragon came Assailant on the perched roosts g Of tame villatic fowl ; but as an eagle His cloudless thunder bolted on their heads: So virtue given for lost, ‘Depressed and overthrown as seemed, Revives, reflourishes, then vigorous most. When most inactive deemed.” The Revolution of July, eighteen hundred and thirty, must not be judged by itself, or by its immediate effects ; but as the first of a new series of Revolutions. It is the beginning of the cléZ2c"tcle-~—-the grand breaking up of the general congelation. It has sanctioned the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people, and dealt a fatal blow to the absurd notion of passive obedience. For the first time, too, the foreign powers have forborne to inter- fere, for which quiescence they ‘had doubtless two good reasons ; first, the consciousness that their own armies and people ,sympa-- thised with the insurgent nationand not with the overthrown dy- nasty ; and that therefore it might be apprehended, if they should be rnarehed into the infected region, that a sudden. development 15 of their predisposition to liberalism would produce an incurable derangement of their steady habits of obedience : second, the re- collection that the career of Napoleon had demonstrated that the South West of Europe holds the good military position against theNorthern despotisms, and that in case of a rupture, France can make a foray upon either of the capitals of the holy allies, at her election. This is a great point gained ; the abolition of hered- itary peerage is another, though it must he confessed that in most respects the change of masters has not been a change of system. The significant coldness with which Russia received the annun- ciation of the new dynasty left the French no room to doubt that if it was not prudent and convenient to resent their late exercise of the right to be pullers down and setters up of their own kings, still they were considered as on their good behavior for the future. The government looked for support and even for toleration from foreign despotisms only in proportion as it should disappoint the expectations of those who achieved the revolution, and it seems to have been anxious to deserve the forbearance of the self con»- stituted regulators of the continent. The venerable Lafayette was shuflied from his post of commander in chief of the National Guards; the oflice itself was abolished: unpopular nominations were made and persisted in ; the men and the principles of July were discountenanced ; Poland was left to struggle and perish unaided; the projects of the movement party were disconcert- ed, and their policy scouted, and the rule of action seemed to he never to advance while it was possible to remain station- ary. On the vvhole, it may be pronounced, that this ex-— periment is conclusive of the fact, that either branch of the house of Bourbon is equally incapable of ruling an enlight- ened nation in a liberal spirit: and though we cannot .expect such an event immediately, still, we are waiting for the occur- renoe of another, more effectual revolution, to be accomplished by moral means, and to finish the work of the last. The Spanish peninsula, whose position recommends to it so strongly a perpetual neutrality, and whose colonial dominions contributed so much toiestrange it from the internal order of Europe, has unvvisely entangled itself in quarrels with which it had no concern, and has consummated its own ruin by unneces- 16 sary connexions and unnatural antipathies. Wltl'1 an intellectual, brave, ardent, passionate, heroic population,——--souls formed of fire and children of the sun,-——-—a licentious and bigoted court has neglected the advantages and wasted the resources which the national character afforded, and dragged her along the brink of frightful precipices to a melancholy but sure perdition. Hurried, against her interest, into the war of conspiring monarchs against the French republic, a war in which the lavish expenditure of her treasure, her commerce, her possessions, and her fame, led only to most discreditable results, she was left to conclude by an ignominious peace, those hostilities which she should have avoided before they were ventured on. Scarce was the treaty signed, when she foolishly entered into a contest with Great Britain, an enemy with whom she could never cope, and out of the series of losses and disasters which she experienced on this occasion she was brought by the peace of Arniens, chastised but not made wiser by her sufferings. Wlien this short truce was broken, Spain purchased of Napoleon permission to remain neutral by the payment of a monthly tribute, and by secret rein- forcements of seamen for his navy; an arrangement which England resented by the capture of her bullion fleet and the destruction of its convoy. Not content with this flagrant viola- tion of the laws of civilized warfare, she proceeded to demand that the equipment of ships of war in Spanish ports should be forthwith suspended. The requisition was not complied with: His Catholic Majesty felt compelled to declare war against England. In less than a year Nelson annihilated her marine at Trafalgar, the crowning victory of N his bright career; while shortlyafter Miranda excited the insurrectionary spirit in her American provinces, which four years later he instigated to break out again under more favorable auspices, and which slum—- iblered not until her vast colonial possessions were severed from all dependence on the parent state. Under the guidance of Go- idoy, the infamous Prince of Peace, lured by the promised spoil of Portugal, Spain was but too deeply involved in the ambitious l enterprises of Napoleon, while her royal family embroiled in do- »mestic*discords offered a tempting and an easy prey to the iron grasp of the conqueror. Whether it were his passion for aggran- 17 dizement, or a philanthropic wish to deliver a gallant nation from the miseries which a misgovernment the most preposterous was inflicting on her, or the undeniable necessity ofinalcing her re- sources subservient to his general system under a more energet-— ic and eflicient administration, or all these motives combined, the opportunity was too flattering to be resisted : he converted Spain into an appanage of his imperial family and delegated his brother Joseph to occupy the vacant throne. The throne was filled, the military posts were seized, the passes guarded, and the country seemed to be permanently subjugated before a blow was struck. To alleviate the bitter feelings which subjection to aforeign mas- ter never fails to excite, the new dynasty proposed to confer on Spain blessings of incalculable value. It tendered political re- generation to a people exhausted and degraded by the vile mis- rule of a despicable tyranny. It conferred and guaranteed a new constitution eminently calculated to draw forth her ne-~ glected resources: it abolished that antiquated restrictive sys- tem, which had there, as is its tendency every where, depressed agriculture and destroyed commerce : it provided more effectual- ly for the protection of persons and property, a more equal and vigorous administration ofjustice, rneans for the education of the common people, (’3(”1t1t1,l1;0l(3‘t1tlO1'1t0 all sects of religion, equal protection to all classes of industry. It swept away the tribunals of the infernal ixiquisitioii ; it cut ofl’ the exorbitant privileges of the aristocracy ; in a vvord, it enmncipated the industry, persons, property and consciences of the people. A In these intentions it was sincere, for Buonaparte’s interests were identical with those of Spain. By raising her people from the permanent inferiority in- to which vicious institutions and the debasing influence of a cor- rupt, profligate, venal and perverse government had degraded it; by exalting her in the standard of improvement to alevel with the most civilized nations of modern times, he hoped to develop rap- idly those immense resources which he was desirous to employ. But the haughty, headstrong Spaniard took little note of this, obvious though it might be to the obtusest intellect ; an infatua-— tion possessed him, over which he has since lamented with many crimson tears. The blind fanaticism of the monks, natural en- emies of an enlightened government, the brutal ferocity of a 3 18 crafty, cruel and vindictive people broke into open rebellion everywhere, and extraordinary, wild and anomalous was the manifestation of popular wrath which burst in an overwhelming hurricane upon the heads of the devoted French. War to the knife and the knife to the hilt, was not only pro- claimed by Palafox, but carried on by innumerable chiefs of bands of guerrillas. The uncontrolable fierceness of anger, and the long cherished tenacity of vengeance, which are characteristic of the Spaniard when provoked, exhibited themselves in deeds of ruthless cruelty. Officers and even civilians travelling in secu-« rity were waylaid and shot; every straggling soldier that could be cut off from his detachment was butchered by the mob ; the sick, the wounded, and the medical attendants were murdered without shame or remorse, and French troops who had surren-~ dered themselves prisoners under a solemn capitulation were massacred in cold blood in the face of day. Treachery was em- ployed to inveigle victims into the toils, and assassination wrealred itself on innocent and meritorious citizens as well as enemies. Yet these ebullitions must have subsided, this outbrealting of passionate enthusiam would have died away from the excess of its undefined fury, had it not been fostered by British gold and British arms. Napoleon pushed forward several columns, each resting on the main army from which it radiated, and spread them over the peninsula, overpowering opposition as they went. But the directing head could not be everywhere at once, while he was settling affairs with Austria, the irresolution and incapacity of Savary and Dupont led to disasters which neither the daring in--~ trepidity of J meet, the ever watchful activity of Soult, the fiery impetuosity and long tried skill and valor of Ney, nor all the sa-t gacity and genius of Massena, the favorite child of victory, were strflicient fully to retrieve. During six bloody campaigns the tide of war ebbed and flowed, till Fortune and the elements drove back the child and champion of the revolution discomlited from the smoking ruins of Moscow, and then it was that the victori- ous Wellington, defeating them in one pitched battle after anoth- er, chased the survivors of that hard fought struggle across the Bidasgpa. , t .Spairi'isino1v‘f13t=3plm from a foreign yOl{€3mE}'t_Z;l~”'l_‘1_§,LI1fl.tiOna-l~»i:i‘1Cif3=‘ ___,_..«.—»--- l9 pendence is secured ; is she to be freed from the yoke of that legitimate despotism which had dilapidated the resources, pervert- ed the moral sense and debased the lofty character of the nation: is the individual independence of man to be recognized; will a grateful king, not unmindful that the best blood of his people has been poured out without stint, like water, in his cause, respect their rights, accede to their reasonable requests, and ratil'y the constitution they have established in his absence? Alas i No. That constitution he annuls, the Regency and the Cortes, whose mistaking patriotism had preserved for him the throne of his an- cestors, he arrests and punishes for the crime of having been faith- ful to him. He restores the Convents, recalls and reinstates the Jesuits and revives the Inquisition. The friends of the Cortes and Joseph are condemned alike, with their wives and children to perpetual exile. Officers who had aided in his restoration are executed as conspirators if they incur the dislike of the dom- ineering monlrs, and his few honest counsellors, are banished or imprisoned because they dare to utter unpalatable truths. Mean- while the privateers of the South American patriots cruised be- fore Cadiz, out up the cornmerce, and captured prizes within sight of the coast. Vast preparations e:r.hausted the national re- sources, to attempt the chimerical project of reconquering the American insurgents, and the people were exasperated with ex- traordinary taxes, While the industry and property of the country were encumbered by heavy loans to supply the deficiencies vvhich extortion could not satisfy. When this genuine Bourbon return-— ed, and his people received him with open arms, he had pledged himself to grant them a liberal constitution, security of property and person, and liberty of the press: the perficlious monster ful- filled none of these fair promises, but committed instead all the , enormities that have been described. Human nature could not longendure it. The very army, proverbially the passive instru- ment of despots, revolted against such an atrocious dereliction of good faith, and so execrable an abandonment of every princi- pleiof duty, gratitude, or honor. Riego raised the cryflof liberty on the first of January 1820, and Quiroga, delivered from con»- ‘ finernent, superintended the rising of an insurgent nation. Fer- dinand abandoned by his troops swore to support the constitution ‘.30 and summoned the Cortes. Now was the time to redeem his honor, and to repossess himself of the atfectioiis and confidence he had so justly forfeited. Let him be true to the oath he has sworn, true to the nation, true to the spirit of the age, and obliv- ion will close over his glaring and multiplied o’fl'ences. A tnag» nanirnous people would forget their wrongs and rennemher only the redressor. The glory of the nation would illuminate his name with some portion of its lustre ; impartial history, loolting; only to final results, would deliver it to the remotest posterity witl1h'less- ings and with eulogies, instead of lianding it down forever to in- cur, what it now deserves and receives, the scorn, derision and contempt, malediction and anatlietna of the whole czittilized world. The spectacle of a free nation was not to be tolerated on the continent. France and her allied masters detertnined in their infernal conclaves the ruin and the misery of t1nlhrrttina*te, noble Spain. A hundred thousand soldiers crossed the lrontietrs, under the Duke of Angoulerne, to tread out the last spark of liberty in Spain. Step by step, overcoming a brave resistance, he atlvanc» ed through the country, the patriots unaided, were sttflh1'etl to fall a sacrifice to their iiitegt'ity ; for tliotiglt ]3ritish allies, arms and subsidies were furnished Spain for the defence of Spanish In- dependence against a benefactor who eflhctecl rnelioration forci- hly, Britain could not spare a soldier, a tnusket, or a shilling to defend Spanish Liberty fl§:§E1ll'lS't lhreigii invasion when it came in the name ofa legitimate tyrant to inflict on his rniserablc suh-- jects absolutisrn and all its concomitant woes. On the thirtieth of September 1893, the absolute ltitigg; left Cadiz and joyfiilly threw himself into the camp of his deliverers. From that fatal day when Ferdinand the iiigrate again found in his grasp that iron sceptre with vvhiclt from May 1814 to March 18520 he had oppressed a generous people, down to the present date, one con» tinued system of persecution has been constantly pursued which surpasses in its iniquity and perfidy the vilest and the meanest acts of Nero and Caligula. From that day Spain has been blasted with t‘ the paralysis of this ahhorred legitimacy. Her choicest sons, lunrighteously condemned to suffer a frightful death as the recompense of their civic virtues, have sought, from the 21 free states of North America to the Despotic Empire of Morocco, a refuge from the atrocious injustice and fell pursuit of the mod- ern Heliogabalus, who, ingrate and despot as he is, has succeed-— ed by the aid. of the legitimates of Europe in establishing a gov» erment as opposed to what the illumination of this age requires, as it is in harmony with the patricidal ideas of his brothers the late Autocrat of Russia, the Emperor of Austria and the rest of the cohort of the sovereigns of degraded Europe. But though freedom’s sacred fire be scattered and troddcn down, some lin- gering sparks must yet survive hidden and smouldering beneath the recent ashes. The misnamed holy alliance reposes in false security upon the bayonets of its mercenaries——-—-b ut let it be ever present to their recollection, that not the least portentous of the wonderful phenomena, which our age, fruitful in wonders, has exhibited, was the spectacle of a nation whose mercenaries in a moment became freemen, and raised that cry of liberty which made them tremble on their thrones. That if Spain displayed this then unparalleled spectacle in the year 1820, a neigh- boring nation has repeated it in 1830, and it is impossible to say how far such an exarnple may extend its influence be- fore another decade of years has run its course. Tyrants have taught the people to be flee, and to value the blessing for the price it costs, and the bliss it brings. Without Tarquin would Rorne have been flee ? It is with great justice that Rous- seau has styled rt-In rnrncrn of Machiavel the text book of Re»- puhlicans. The invasion of Spain by Napoleon, whether justifi- able or unjustifiable, occasioned the wonderful impulse which Eu» ropean liberty finally received. The tyranny of Ferdinand pre- pared the public mind for the revolution of 1820, and the liberty then proclaimed, though overthrown, has left a germ in the Spanish soil which sooner or later must produce souls of a tem— per firm enough to undertake the destruction of that hydra of despotism which now proudly boasts that it has secured forever its reign of abomination and infamy. Of the remaining portion of the Peninsula, it is necessary to say but a few words in the present connection. Fear and jeal- ousy of her stronger neighbor, Spain, had naturally led Portugal to throw herself into the arms of Great Britain, of which latter 22 power she had been a mere dependency for more than acentury. The Spanish Revolution of 1820 was imitated in Portugal in the course of the same year. Encouraged by France and Spain, the apostolicals and absolutists, after incessant intrigues and rebel» lions with varying success, have at last subverted the constitution then adopted, though sustained by England under Canning’s ministry. Since the counter revolution triumphed, Don Miguel, proclaimed absolute king, has run a mad career of usurpation and tyranny. Poison and the poignard, secret assassination, and pub- lic massacre in open day, the execution of the flower of Portu- guese nobility, confiscations of the most tempting estates, the im-~ prisonment of forty thousand of his subjects on suspicion of dis- like to the despotism which had wrested from them their liberties and threatened their fortunes and their lives, the expulsion from their native soil of tens of thousands of its worthiest citizens--~ these are the means hitherto employed to perpetuate the wither- ing curse of his domination over a prostrate, groaning, desolated kingdommutliese are thepproofis he has exhibited to an observing worm, mat a lawlirl sovereign, for as such the legitimates of Eu- mpg have recognized him, can overaot the direst excesses of the ,gbu.1pE,S£,],,co1,1nj5;1], ancl perpetrate deeds of unequalled enormity ,ia1‘id‘l)aS(~31"51@SS, without ptzovocation or palliation, for the mere en- ijoyment of the spectacle of universal misery of his own creation. 'F or five years helpless Portugal has been given up to him for a prey; this rogre has feastecl his diabolical appetites in every modification of torture exercised upon her, which the ingenuity of malice could suggest to liim, and has not yet supped full of «horrors. i We can only hope that aday of retribution sooner or later must come. If we turn to the Italian peni~ns;ula, the prospect there is scarcely more exlnilarating. iNorth,ern Italy, the richer half, per»- tains to Austria, 21 power impregnably strong, vvhoholds it with a grasp not easily loosened. Southern Italy must remain sub- servient to England as long as she commands the Mediterranean. Italy, the garden of Europe, the home of ancient power and the cradle of modern civilization, if incorporated into one free nation, might again be independent, powerful and happy: but ferocious hands rave torn her intotfragments, and with all the ele.m.ents.,.lof 23 greatness and of happiness, excepting Union, she is doomed to insignificance and misery. The Republics which started into be- ing, full of hope, at the stormy termination of the last century, have passed away like a shadow and are forgotten : when N a- ples undertook to repeat the Spanish melodrama, the Holy Alli- ance precipitated Austria upon her ; and a hundred thousand bay- onets enforced the practical application of the homily read to her by the Congress of Laybach. Notwithstanding these untoward circumstances, and in spite of their ominous aspect, the maintainers of the righteous cause by no means despair. Good principles have in their nature a recuperative vigor. They may be hidden in silence and lie buried in obloquy, but though you pile on them mountains, they will rise elastic from beneath the pressure. You cannot wash away the loud devotion to their natural rights from the memory of a people whose hearts have once throbbed with the holy love of liberty, though you shed such rivers of their best blood as would the multitudinous seas incaruadiue. It becomes an instinct and apassion which many waters of affliction cannot quench, nor all the billows of adversity overwhelm. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church, and the dying _GXl'101'ta-- tions of innumerable patriots, victims in the great struggle be-i tween right and power, falling like good seed into good ground, have brought fortli an hundred fold in the hearts of the survi- vors, unohangeable resolves to achieve their purpose, and stead- fast hate against all who oppose its consummation. No longer a few solitary enthusiasts, of whom the world is not worthy, wander through the wilderness of peoples who acknowledge not their apostleship,-—--missionaries of liberty, yet despised and rejected of men,--——moving among them, but not of them,--— hoping against hope and clinging to their ‘reliance on the immu- table law of human progress when the advance seems least perceptible; but the friends of their kind spring from every soil like the warriors of Cadmus from the scattered dragon’s teeth 3 they stand shoulder to shoulder, they close their ranks, and move ipgmspwliudw to .... . the» decisive"tt'"o”fi”s'e*tT""' iiii of e"ii"éWn"ti"sWl'1olds itslcourse onward and right on: wo, therefore, to him who sets his shoulder against the wheel: it will assuredly 24 crash his idiot hardihood. Europe is full of firm, determined spirits burning for freedom, and no more fixed decree is written in the book of fate than that she shall be free. As sure as the God of heaven is a God of justice so sure SI-IE SHALL BE FREE. And free she shall be by virtue of the popular volition, not by wading to the knees in blood. Paris need not fear another three days of sorrow and of joy, of shame and glory: her grand historical week has furnished a precedent decisive enough to settle similar cases hereafter without the cost of a trial. Slaugh- ter shall never again hold in her streets her purple carnival. The moral revolution has anticipated the worlr of the physical. Wicked kings tremble in the transitory tenure of their thrones, and oppressed subjects wait in confident expectation for the earliest favorable opportunity to act together, to redress all their grievances and remedy all their abuses at once and with a word. The narrow calculations of purblind selfishness have given place to enlarged, ennobling views of the common interest,so that the watchwords of parties and sects are fast losing their magical influence ; the good of mankind is becoming the general end and aim, and a handful of spoilers can no longer control millions of abler and better men by the skilful application of their ancient maxim, “ divide and rule.” The division walls set up by lords and priests are thrown down: we are no longer parcelled out into hostile clans, according to shibboleths of their invention, perpetuating causeless feuds for their benefit, though to our ruin. Oh, no! The race is uniting into one cordial brotherhood, and will no longer suffer itself to be defrauded or despoilecl, not even under the specious pretences of religion, or social order, or national glory. Oh no ! Divine Philosophy, Her left on earth, her right foot on the sea, Hath sworn there shall be time no more for bigotry. Philanthropy at length hath won the day, i For Desolation’s demons now are thought But butchers as they are. Those erst the prey, The unresisting prey of whoe’er sought O’er prostrate right to hold despotic sway, Claim and will take the sovereignty they ought. Philanthropy hath won the victory, Antwerp’s bombardment spoke Wur’s valedictory. Apart from social intercourse, alone, His body one great wound, his gashes streaming, F )5 Muttering his thunder-s in an undertone,‘ Seen by the conflagrationk: fitful gleaming, He seems to list the nations’ funeral moan, And grins with diabolic glee as deeming The struggle not yet o’er: ’tls he-——I know him well. Foul fiend,avauut! and seek thy native hell. And dove like Peace begin her smiling reign,-~ Let Plenty crown with happiness the land,»- I-‘air Commerce whiten with her sails the main,-- Their equal 1'ights let all men unde1'.staud,-- Nor Frccdom’s pro,gres:-2 c-"er be CllG(‘.li0(l again-« May Fl'lOD(‘lSlll[') animate each heart and handm- 'I‘hc God oi‘l’crl‘oct Peace let all adore. And Uiscord’s throat be silent evermore."7* But although such are our hopes and such our confidence in human Perfectibility in general, and in the future fortunes of Europe in particular, still it is not to he clisguisecl that many ob- stacles intervene between her present situation and the ultimate fulfilment of that vision of felicity which these stanzas present to our view. These obstacles are the same which have hitherto pre-‘ vented the suggestiotis of sagcis and the exliortations of patriots, thoughreccived with hearty acquiescexrice by innumerable rnulti- tudes of the wise and good in every country, front efl’ecting any considerable portion of those desirable rncliorations in the condition of the political world at which they have airned. Let us review the picture we have sketched and see what are these obstacles, that lsznovving them we may know how to avoid them ; that be- ing preeminently fortunate in our exemption from their baneful op» eration, we may know how to guard and preserve to the latest posterity the invaluable prerogative. Let us look back and ask why such repeated defeats, such melancholy disasters? Why have the very experiments which seemed richest with promise proved hlackest with disappointment, and the golden fruit, fair to the eye, only mocked the taste with dust and bitter ashes? "Why have so many well meant, generous efforts of so many splen-‘ did capacities, of so many magnanimous hearts, undertaken under the most favorable circumstances, ended in grievous loss————worse rout---more miserable ruin ? The answer to these questions, in which philanthropy is so deepy interested, may be comprehend—- in a single word—---a word which speaks volumes of consolation "‘ Extracted (except the allusion to the siege of Antwerp,) from the valotlietory poem to my cl8.srma.tea, delivm-er] at Harvard University, July 18th, A. D. 18%‘. 4. 26 and encouragement to ourselves. The great secret of all TI~IEI1't misfortunes, the fatal clog, the weight that hangs like a rnillstone about the neck of European Liberalism, is the absence of a real, substantial, national INDE 1=E_N;oENcn. For this fundamental de- feet in their system they have as yet found no remedy, and prob- ably none can be found till the doctrine of the right of interfer- ence is abandoned in practice by all, as most have already re» nounced it in theory. INDEPENDENCE is the talisman which secures all one. other blessings, among which Peace, Prosperity and Lil.ie1'ty are not the least, and it is to the Federal UNION that we OW0l)()ll1 it and them. Let us examine the evidence of this proposition and‘ then We shall be prepared to appreciate the value of Indepen- dence, and recognize that the Declaration of the Fourth of July seventeen hundred and seventy-six, sanctioned by the treaty of seventeen hundred and eighty-three, gave us not the empty name of Independence merely, but a REAL IN:n:ernNnnNcn, the sub- stance of the things that were hoped for---—-tlien we shall be pre- pared to feel the force of the sentiment, '1‘I~IE Fnnnnan Union, IT MUST 13:3 rnnsnnvnn, a sentiment Worthy the lips of the illus- trious chief who uttered it, and whose talents, energy and inllu- ence are all concentrated to the one grand purpose of preserving the Union. When on the twenty-first of February seventeen hunclrcd eighty—seven, a grand committee of which the Honorable N A'.L‘I.[.AN DANE was chairman, reported to Congress their entire conviction of the inefliciency of the Federal Government under the old eon- federation, and of the necessity of devising such further provisions as should render the same adequate to the exigencies of the Union, and strongly recommended to the different legislatures to send delegates to the convention at Philadelphia which formed the present Constitution, they not only felt the evils to which the want of a Supreme Federal head exposed the Country, While the bands of Union were so loose that we could not be entitled to the character of a nation»--they not only perceived that the country stood upon the verge of ruin ; divided against itself; all ties dissolved; all parties claiming authority and refusing obedi—- ence ; sedition, N though intimidated, not disarmecl 5 ourselves in 27 debt to foreigners, and large sums due internally; the taxes in arrears and still accumulating; manufactures destitute of materi- als, capital, and skill; agriculture despondent ; commerce bank- rupt”“---—--they not only saw and felt all this, I say,but they felt the imminent danger of still greater evils which as yet they knew not of ; they saw the combustibles collected ; the mine prepar- ed ; the smallest spark capable of producing an explosion.-— Their sagacity showed them in no distant future the fearful vis- ion of the abyss of anarchy into which they must plunge when that explosion had scattered the crazy fabric of their govern- ment. Hanging over the precipice they gazed into the dark re- cesses beyond, and there beheld the broken and dishonored frag- ments of a once glorious union; states dissevered, discordant, belligerent; a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it might be, in fraternal bloodxf The Congress who accepted that re- port know well that a way of escape must be found from the perils that environed them, and they knew, too, that no other refuge remained than the possibility of erecting an eflicient sub- stantizgtl and porniianent government. They knew that a more intimate Union of the states must be established or the country must perish : every ray of hope that could light them on in any course but this was already eittinguisliecl. When Washington, in the same year, consented to serve in the convention called for that purpose, to assist in “ averting the contemptible figure which the American communities were about to make in the annals of mankind, with their separate, independent, jealous, State Sever» eignties,” he was fully aware of the momentous import of the crisis and of the appalling weight of responsibility which devolv- ed upon the members of that body. He looked forward to suc- cess in this final undertaking as to a welcome salvation from the vortex of ruin, and he looked upon the failure of this attempt, if it had issued in failure, as upon the wreck of American liber- ties and the catastrophe of Republican Governments forever. It needed not the study of the Amphyctionic Council, or of the Achaian league, or of any of those ephemeral alliances which were continually forming and dissolving among the ancient 'f"Fl.t"$l1G1‘ Amos. l\larch 178?’. ‘]'T)aniol Vvclistcr. .lauuary 1i33l..l. 28 petty states of Greece, to impress upon his mind the solemn con» i viction of the reality of the view he then tO0l{ of the posture of our affairs. It was not necessary to explore the annals of the German Empire, to peruse tl1e chronicles of the unceasing and murderous struggles of the Italian Republics, to search the history of the restless cantons of Switzerland, or examine the records of the United Provinces of the Low Countries, no, nor to recur to any other unsuccessful experiment, ancient or modern, to the abundantly satisfied that the relation of free states, bordering on each other and not restrained by a common government, is a re»- lation of fierce, relentless and almost unintermitted warfare. The circumstances of the times exhibited but too distinctly the prevailing tendencies ; collisions were becoming every day more frequent and more violent ; the fury of hostile passions was kind» ling fast, and, with a little more fanning would have burst into one universal, all—-devouring conflagration. Thanks be to God, America was saved. Under the guidance__of Wasltittgton, and his illustrious compeers, she trod the path of safety, and her progress in it has been a career of unparalleled prosperity and glory. Her wise men erected the well proportioned edifice of a national government, upon which foreign nations could not look but with respect, under whose protection the several states enjoy securely all their reserved rights without encroaching upon each other’s privileges or con»- flicting with each other’s interests; beneath whose friendly shel- ter Agriculture, Commerce, and the Arts thrive and “fructify. May its blessings be magnificent as its objects, coextensive with its influence, and its duration lasting as time ; and when after a complete century shall have rolled over the continent, and two hundred millions of freemen calling our language their mother tongue, shall have peopled, but not crowded, our vast territory, may they as one united nation of brethren, look for» ward, through the distant and dim perspective of countless fu- ture ages, to the bright vision of coming generations, more nu- merous,wiser, happier, and better than themselves, successively, V to the end of time, with the same confidence in the perfectibility of our race, and the same reliance on the overruling favor of Providence with which We now look forward to their destiny. ‘£29 In these delightful anticipations we may indulge without fear of self delusion; but had the relaxation of the Federal Govern-».» ment proceeded to its annihilation, had the Union been CHSSOIV-r ed instead of strengthened, there are a thousand ways in which Imight illustrate the miseries which must of necessity follow. Of these, the extent to which I have already taxed your patience will allow me to select but one——--that to which I have already alluded, the calamitous course and disastrous issues of all the Revolutions in Europe since our own. Let us begin our inves« tigations with the history of France, since in France the revolu-e tionary volcano first broke out, and all the other revolutionary phenomena of the old world are but secondary explosions con-~ sequential upon that grand primary eruption. Whence originated all those abuses in France which rendered the revolution unavoidable ? From war and from the liability to war to which the nation had always been exposed. The origin of privileged classes was in war and conquest. The Franks had conquered the Gauls, and the nation was for a long time composed of two classes: the invaders, the Franks, formed the nobility ; the subdued Gauls were the commons, the peasantry, 7'oturie7°s, base--born. The aristocracy not only derived its ori--» gin from conquest: it supported itself by war. An immense military establishment was kept up, and to them belonged ex», clusively all the titles, honors, emoluments and influence of military command. The government was despotic, because a constant recurrence of wars, made a very strong government necessary to develop the energies essential to the defence of the nation, and because the consequent superiority of the military class over the civil, and the concentration of the military power in the hands of the sovereign, had enabled the government, particularly during the reign of Louis the Fourteenth, to make itself even much stronger than was necessary, and indeed to monopolize all power in itself’. The Court squandered away the treasures of the nation, because it is the natural tendency of a military life to beget a passion for splendor, pomp and profusion. The army,-—-—-I mean those who held military honors as well as those who served,—--absorbed most of the resources of the nation, because it is the nature of that branch wherever it is suf- 30 fered to grow, to determine to its own supply the best part of the sap of the whole tree. The church was rich, burthensome and overbearing, because it was the natural ally of the aristocra- cy, and propped up their usurpations to be by them maintained in its own. The nation was in debt because while the disburse- ments of the government were excessive, the military aristocracy and their religious allies had exempted their own property, no small part of the wealth of the country, from all taxation, and the revenue that “could be wrung from the commons by taxing them to the utmost limit of sufl"erance, would not meet the cur-— rent expenditures of the year. The taxes were exorbitant, be- cause the people had to pay the expenses of the government, the profligacy of the higher orders pensioned by the government, and the interest of the odious debt whereby the industry of the country was mortgaged before it became available and made tributary for years to come to the support of these abuscs————-wliilc the privileged exempts made it their business to spend all and contribute nothing. And so wherever the military principle decides the fundamental character of the government we may expect to find not merely an overgrown standing army of sol- diers, placemen and pensioners, devouring the substance of the people, but its concomitants, an oppressed and overburdened people, a church rioting in luxury, a merciless aristocracy feed- ing upon the fat of the land, a court all-grasping and insatiable, yet with an always empty treasury, a debt hanging over its head which it would beggar the nation to discharge, and presid-- ding over this whole prodigious system, a military executive, in other words a despotic ruler, no matter by what name, consul, director, dictator, protector, king, emperor, czar or sultan. I do not say that every article of this c:lescri.ption applies to every government in which the military power makes a component part: that would be far from correct. But in proportion as the government is more or less military the description will be found more or less applicable. We can now see» how our Union cuts up by the roots the main causes of misgovernment and despotism. The abuses that have been enumerated, grow up where a state of soldiery profestpredominates; and this can only talte place where war, er 31 the apprehension of war is perpetual. Where prudence requires great armies to be kept on foot and frontiers of neighboring rivals to be jealously watched and lined with grarrisoned fortresses, pop- ular institutions have never yet been able to maintain themselves. We have no rival nations on our frontiers, and as long as the Union lasts we can have none; we need no standing army that can excite a moment’s apprehension; and our future wars, if we shall ever be so unfortunate as to have any, must be carried on principally tlirough the instrtunentality of navies, a species of forces less liable than any other to the objections that have been made against standing armies. Our Union then preserves us from the operation of those influences which have deprived most other nations of their liberty. “When France undertook in good earnest the reformation of all political abuses, what gave the controversy that ensued so malignant a character? The opposition of the privileged classes, using the power they derived from their situation, which had France been an islantl a thousand miles from an enemy they would never have possessed, to defend their pretensions. Their resistance stemn:1ing the torrent for a while, caused it to gather head and burst with greater force when it had aeeumula-~. ted strength to sweep before it all obstacles. When the National Assembly had extorted every thing it could ask from prostrate royalty, when a just revenge had stormed the Bastile, laid open its horrid eotiflrzes to the light of day, and levelled its dismal walls; when the National Guard had been organized under the true liearted Lafayette, to prevent any disastrous surprise or retrogade movement, and to held within the power of the people the advantages they had won ; when the assembly had unanimously abolished all feudal rights, and the confiscated estates of the church had furnished the means of freeing the treasury from its embarrassments and at the same time allevia- ting the burthens of the people; whenfithe declaration of the rights of man had been adopted, when a free constitution had been prepared, and the King of the French, proclairnecl the re- storer of French liberty, had sworn to maintain that constitution, perhaps in good faith, certainly without the means of brealtinghis oath ; what point of support remained in Fm'ncc upon which the 32 aristocracy could fix any species of political enginery to shake the new order of things, or to make any even the most desperate at- tempt to recover their lost ascendancy ? The acutest vision could discover none. But we to nations situated in the midst of rivals and enemies. A resource presented itself in foreign intervention, and the fall- en noblesse eagerly embraced the opportunity of an alliance with the foes of the French people. Had there been no hope of for- eign intervention, the nobility and clergy would not have emi- grated, of course no emigrants would have returned in the van of invading armies. The revolution would have been accom—-- plished, and after the tempest of so wild at commotion had had time to subside, France would have settled down quietly into the permanent enjoyment of a rational liberty. But the arming of the emigrants followed by the declaration of Pilnitz, by Austria“ and Prussia, drove the Legislative assembly to a declaration of war. Russia and the German Empire joined the coalition a—- gainst democratic principles-. The terror of the allied arms brought violent measu-res into favor with the people and gave the J acobins the predominance in the assembly and still more in the convention which followed, and which was elected during the highest pitch of excitement. The infuriated passions of the pop-' ulace, wrought up to phrenzy by the invasion of the Prussia-us, and emboldened by the victory of the republican forces at J emappe,- gave birth to the decree of the abolition of royalty ; and after- wards compelled the Convention, but by a bare majority, to the condemnation of the unfortunate Louis. The allied invaders approached the seat of that ancient monarchy, only to hear the crash of its fall as it tumbled into ruins, and were driven back with utter discomfiture. The Republic offered fraternity to all people, and proclaimed war against all kings. The coalition‘ against it became universal ; while, fornented by foreign intrigues,- a civil war arose in La Vendee to avenge upon the regicides the‘ death of their sovereign. The cause of the revolution seemed to be lost: the people stung to madness vented their rage in savage and brutal excesses 5 reckless of all subordinate conside—~ rations they cared not by whom, or how, the government was administered, if it possessed, and exerted energy sufficient to 33% maintain the integrity and Independence of France. It was the vital struggle of the nation; and the people, in their despair, were indeed criminally indifferent what, or how many individ- W uals were sacrificed, if the nation could be saved. The Re-a public armed itself with the weapons of ‘terror. The ferocious and sanguinary Mountain seized the reins of Government, direct--a ed the fury with which they inspired all ranks successfully a- gainst the invaders, and ruled the nation with the guillotine. Who does not see that had France been situated geogmpltically asvve are, the atrocities of this period would have been impossi-i ble? Who can believe that the reign of terror could have con-« tinued for one week in Paris, had the Ocean rolled between. France and her foreign enemies P W I might proceed with this review, after the fall of Robespierre, and through the whole period of the Directory, and show, step by step, the inherent impraoticability of all the plans of liberty that were tried, or proposed, so long as it was necessary that the nation should clothe itself in panoply, and rush en masse to the frontiers, to defend the integrity of its territory, and its indepen»-i dent existence. While such questions were pending in the field, there was no time for deliberation at home, for cool reflection on theoretic principles, or nice adjustments of checlrs and bal- ances: and even if there had been, few limitations could profit-~ ably be imposed upon an executive whose first function it was to wield at once, and with the tenfold energy of the new system of tactics, the thirteen armies of the Republic, and to launch them with an all subduing impetus, upon Savoy, Nice, Belgium, Gera- many and the Netherlands. Such a government, in such times, must be too weak to execute its office, too weak to stand the first shock of a revolutionary earthqualte, or else far too strong tforcthe popular liberties, too strong to suffer any theoretic checks to have much practical operation in controlling its movements. t In running the eye over the succession of events, and recallingthe rapid transitions that occurred at thistime, in all the facts which present themselves to our observation,*vve read the same lesson, our own peculiar felicity in possessing the best part of a ‘con- tinent to ourselves, without hostile or intriguing neighbors, to at-- taclt us by force from without, or to excite internal troubles ‘a- 5 .. 34 mong us by fraud-—--too happy, if we but understood our happi--« ness. Particularity however, would be superfluous liere, since the rise and overthrow of the Empire, teach the same great 1es- son in a much more emphatical manner. ,While Bonaparte was absent in Egypt, it became apparent that the tottering Directory was too weak to sustain itself against combined Europe, undermined as it was, by the Bourbonists on one side, by anarchists on the other. All that the Revolution had gained must be given up for lost, and the blood that has del» uged France was spilled in vain, if a stable government cannot be formed, and clothed with powers adequate to the crisis. Mo-~ reau, who declined, Joubert, who accepted the offer‘, were invitw ed by their friends to assume the helm ; but the latter fell at the battle of Novi. The case became more critical, and the need more urgent of a chief magistrate of commanding character, who could unite contending factions, and form a nucleus for the friends of order, and of the revolution, to rally around. He must be a statesman of the highest grade, to overcome the intrinsic difii- culties of the foreign relations, and to adjust the fluctuating ele- ments of society at home. He must possess unrivalled military talents, to cut whatever Gordian knot his policy cannot unravel ,3 and as genius cannot operate without instruments, his influence must be based on public confidence, and that this may be per- manently secure, the principal directors of public opinion must feel and acknowledge the supremacy of his intellect-——-~—he must be the favorite of the people and the idol of the army. Bona- parte returned, the man whom fate provided for the occasion. All eyes were fixed upon him; all hearts implored him to rcs- cue his hurnbled country from the thiclt dangers that hcset lier; to become the redeemer of despairing France. It is no new discovery that amid the din of arms, the voice of law is hushed. A revolution, in which a column of grenadiers supplied the inn» mediate impulse, concluded the Directorial rule, and installed the new Consulate. Its power was military in its occasion, the pressure of foreign foes 5 military in its origin, the favor of the army ; military in its mode of creation, by an assembly of ofli-~ cers, through the instrumentality of bayonets; and depending on the prestige of military glory for its endurance. That bright illusion 35 outdazzled the splendid victories of the great monarch, Louis XIV. and produced the full effect expected from it. The milita- ry spirit predominant in the state, its military position with refer- ence to the continent, as they had first called into being the Con- sulate, strengthened its hands. Surrounded by irreconcilable en- emies, distracted, impoverished, disorganized, France willingly entrusted to the First Consul the powers without which he could not repel the foes, quell the factions, and restore credit and or- der. Every branch of the government required reform ; he undertook to remodel and direct all its operations, and thereby concentrated in himself all its functions. The title of Emperor followed the assumption of all-controlling power; the renewed War stimulated the military spirit to still greater excess ; the military establishment acquired a gigantic disproportion to other classes in the state, and the government became, and for some years remain- ed essentially absolute. Could France have enjoyed repose af- ter the treaty of Amiens, she would have demanded and gradu- ally obtained guarantees of civil liberty: but while her victorious legions embodied the vigor and youth of the people, the head of the army was the autocrat of the nation, wielding an arbitrary, unchecked, irresponsible power, exercising the full force of his dictatorship to develop the tremendous energy necessary in his novel and peculiar strategy, inonopolizing all free action to him- self, and carrying constraint through all the ramifications of the social system. To consolidate the fabric of his empire he sur- rounded his throne with subsidiary institutions, and provided for the aggrandizernent of his family, and his followers : his brothers became kings, and his generals constituted a new nobility. His genius planned a colossal fabric and reared it in its full propor- tions, but its vastness was the very cause of its downfall. It oc- casioned umbrage, jealousy, fear and hatred everywhere. France was exhausted by over-exertion to maintain it; a universal re- action rose against it, and it was overthrown. ,When Napoleon appeared a second time on the scene, a panic spread that he would reconstruct his former power and overshadow the sover- eigns once more. It was an idle fear, but it sufficed to rally t hem again, to his final overthrow. That the subsequent efforts to establish freedom in France have failed, for want of that per- 36 feet and absolute INDEPENDENCE of foreign influence, which We aloneienjoy, has already been sufficiently shown. That Spain cannot unloose her fetters because France has rivetted them on her; that Spain still endures those tlegrading, institutions which have obliterated her national virtues, because she has been too much exhausted, impoverished, and depressed by long wars in which she has been involved by her neighbors, to have the power of resistance left ;---that Portugal, having re- lapsed into helplessness, through the habit of foreign depend- ance, is now writhing under excr'uciating tortures inflicted by an usurper with the countenance of the legitimates, because her military caste at home leans for support on the military aristoc- racy of Europe, and her unarmed citizens have no means of de- fence, is equally obvious after what has been said. That Northern Italy cannot be free because of the immetliate pressure of Austria; that Naples cannot be free because the Holy Alliance commissions Austria to extittgttisli her freedom 5 that Italy, as one great nation, with historical recollections to an- imate her, such as belong to no other people, cannot be lN1;>r:~ PENDENT of these influences, and free in spite of these enemies, with her eighteen millions of inhabitants of a magnificent coun- try, speaking a common language, holding a common faith, their true interests common, having the seappon three sides, and the Alps for a northern barrier, because her separate states have no bond of Union, and from their mutual hatred can hardly hope to have, While two deadly factions struggle for mastery in each of those states, is too evident to require further elucidation. p The German Empire has long been the mere shadow ofa po- litical body, possessed of no real strength either in peace or war. Before it was dissolved in 1806 it contained a cortgregation of nominal princes without states, whose suppression has consider- ably meliorated the condition of Germany. The confede1'ation now contains only thirty--eight members instead of several hun- dred as before. “ This shows that some p1‘og,1'ess has been made towards the great object for which Germany has siglietl for centuries, unity and independence.” “ It may be asserted, saysta German, that UNION is at present more necessary for Germany than liberty 3, at least, give her the former and the lat»- 37 ter will soon follow.” With Union she may “rest from the bloody conflicts in which for centuries, Germans have slain Germans, and which have wasted their wealth, checked their in- dustry, impeded the development of public law, and extinguish- ed in their literature that manliness, which is so striking a feat- ture in tha.t of a neighboring nation partly descended from them.” Lying in the centre of Europe, bordering on three seas, with numerous large rivers, it should have been one of the first Comrnercial States of the world; but its disorganization produc- ed incessant intestine Wars, and what is no less to be lamented, :1 restrictive system, with its ruinous effects, which reduced it to a subordinate rank among Commercial nations : in short her irn-— becile confederation has made one of the most extensive coun- tries in Europe, one of the most impotent. Her thirty years war, to go back no liurther, with the anarchy and chaos she has presented ever since that awful tragedy, form the most instruc-— tive study for all who would coolly “calculate the value of our Union.” To recapitulate all that would assist in the calculation would occupy voltlrncs. The fact that I)isuuion paralyzes her energies, as it does tlxosc of Italy, and ls'.(.‘(.31p‘.~’.3 l.r..icl«;*. thirty--four millions ofthe noblest race ofznan1~;in(l iniinitel y behind their bretl - ren of l}ihngla1'.1<.l and oi'Amcrica, tnalting, their “unl;1appy country the theatre of lineign aggt'essioii, domestic convulsion, and politi- cal oppression,” is abundantly sufficient, Without pursuing the subject into details, thr the purposes of the present argument. Time fate of Poland, and its causes, civil discordand foreign in- teilerence, are too well known to be more than mentioned here. The su‘fl’”erings of Prussia during the general war, a small state in the midst of great ones, torn by their contests, and crushed by their collisions, would furnish an impressive warning, if We had not already more striking instances in larger states. Austria is the hammer with which Russia rivets the letters of Europe. That these tvvopowers could not exert a deadening influence on the liberal spirit of the continent, nor exclude it from their own dominions, if the military element did not enter largely into the constitution of their governments, is too obvious for proof. The situation of Great Britain demands a more particular ex»- amination: but I have not time to enter on it now. I will only 38 allude to the point that bears directly on the topic of this ad- dress. What makes reform dangerous though inevitable? The artificial system in which her entanglement in continental affairs has involved her. Her debt carried to that amount that it can hardly be increased, or endured, or reduced, for vast military and naval establishments, for subsidizing the nations of the con- tinent, fer Pitt’s system of eternal war against revolutionary France. It was necessary that British arms and British gold should win victories abroad to keep the power in the hands of English tories at home. The power has departed but the debt remains. The View we have just taken of the condition and recent his- tory of the principal nations of the Old World, abundantly con- firms the position we have advanced, that the Federal Union is essential to our Independence, and that more than one substan- tially independent nation could not exist within our present limits. It establishes further that a real national Independence is essential to liberty, and a comparative freedom from such wars as are carried on by standing armies essential to any high degree of liberty. In the words of Washington, taken from that farewell address which cannot too often be quoted, the unity of govern- ment which constitutes you one people is a main pillar in the edifice of your real Independence, the support of yourtranquillity at home, your peace abroad ; of your safety 5 of your prosperi- ty; of that very liberty which you so highly prize. Should this unity of government from any cause be abandoned,. it is not to be inferred fiom these remarks that we should at once he placed precisely in the situation of the nations of Europe, whose misfortunes we have been considering. In some respects, our condition would be more eligible than theirs ; in others, quite the reverse. From many of the grievous plagues that infest their social state we should be at the first outset exempted ; but it would require the gift of prophecy to say how long we should continue so. We have no aristocracy, and should have none till war haclbuilt up a military order of nobility. We have no debt, but all the sources of revenue that would be left available are so exceedingly unpopular among us, that to meet the heavy ex- penditures that would be indispensable, debts would grow up like 39 mushrooms, at enormous rates of interest, and to an amount not to be foreseen ; if indeed the credit of the precarious governments formed under such circumstances did not prove too weak to ob» tain funds on any terms, in which case the property of the coun- try would be subjected to an operation more deplorable in its effects than any debt ; a system of confiscation and plunder, such as has frequently followed violent revolutions in all ages, and such as has often been resorted to in the South Amer- ican States. But our people are animated with the love of liber- ty, it will be said, “ it is interwoven with every ligament of their hearts,” and therefore they will never wear the yoke of a mili- tary despotism. The Greeks loved liberty better than they lov- ed life, yet some Greekstates were held in the most galling bondage by others—--—-there never was a time when the principal Grecian States did not lord it over the lesser. The Romans loved liberty to such excess that they esteemed the assassination of a personal friend a glorious action, when that crime was per- petrated for the sake of liberty, yet Rome bowed beneath the sway of the Caesars. An inerttinguislrable love of liberty burns in the bosorns of the French, yet the liberty they so ardently desire and seek, they cannot obtain. What warrant have we that we shall love liberty with a stronger, a more enduring, a better omened passion, than the French, the Romans, or the Greeks--——what warrant, save our one, sole, conservative princi- ple, our Federal Union? Again, it may be said, we have no such hordes of unprincipled and abandoned wretches as are to be met with in the corrupt cities of the Old World ; we have not the materials of which a mob is made, in the European ac»- ceptation of that term. True, but war makes more rogues than peace can hang, and the incessant wars which must rage between separate communities in our own territories would multiply the class in a ratio beyond the power of calcula—- tion. The pressure of extreme poverty is unknown among us, the debasement of extreme ignorance is comparatively rare, so that there is not a populace, maddened by want and blind to consequences, ready to rush wherever a momentary impulse may lead them: but let property become insecure by frequent con- flscations, and more frequent bankruptcies, from political revolut- 40 tions, so that the inducements to the accumulation of capital shall be suddenly diminished, and tens of thousands who are now living by honest industry will be thrown out of employment; those who continue to labor, from the great reduction of wages, will feel the hand of poverty heavy upon them ; high taxes to which we have hitherto been unaccustomed, will grind the mid-- dling interest into the dust, and a“ horizontal division, here as elsewhere, will distinguish society into pampered lords and pau-~ perized peasantry. Those who feel no concern in the manage» ment of the government, except the desire to throw off the burthen that bears upon them, will cultivate but a small circle of political ideas: those who are so hedged in in a state of misera- ble destitution as to have no hope in life and no refuge but death will waste but little time in acquiring a general education, which to their View would serve no other purpose than to fit them to feel more keenly the depth of their degradation : extreme indi- gence therefore would beget extreme ignorance. The circum—- stances in which we should be placed would thereforegenerate a large and constantly increasing class fit to become slaves them-A selves, and to help to make slaves of others, quite as certainly as they would produce ambitious and enterprizing spirits disposed to make themselves masters, and would furnish opportunities, from time to time, to plot and execute conspiracies against liberty. VVhile therefore these peculiarities of our social condition would not confer upon us so decided a superiority as rnigllt at fil‘Sl'. be supposed, there are some other particulars in which we should be circumstanced much more unfavorably than most other nations. . Our newly formed communities would have no ataturctl boundaries. Rivers are the worst possible lines of demarcation between jealous neighbors, because each party will continually interfere with the trade of the opposite bank. Our ridges of mountains do not pass where in all human probability the out»- lines of Independent Empires would first be drawn 5 on the con- trary they run through states, as at present constituted ; andbe-— sides, in the present state of internal commerce, with the rail road andthe locomotive engine, such mountains as ours are no longer impassable barriers. Without natural boundari7es,l the 41 conventional limits will be continually fluctuating. The most fruitful source of warfare, an undefined territory and conflicting claims to a debateable tract between rivals, will entail irnplbaca-r ble hostility on the contiguous nations. "Whoever has observed how often the waters that surround her, have sheltered Great Britain from invasion, how often the Pyrennees and _the Ocean have protected Spain, how often the Mediterranean and the Alps have shielded Italy, how effectually her mountains have guarded Switzerland, how illfated Poland has fallen a prey to the spoilers because her territory was one vast plain, how futile has been the attempt to restrain France for any length of time, where nature has not drawn the line, how impossible it has been to fence in the Netherlands, even with a double barrie1'ofstrong~r. ly fortified towns, how Flanders, because it lay open on both sides to the opposing powers, has been made agairii rann‘l again the battle field of Europe, till all its soil was f:,1ttet'ie:l? with the slain; in short, not to multiply instances, whoever has cast: the most casual. <,‘_r,l,:;mce over the history of Europe c.annot Lnn.ir31'1‘ate the irnportance of this consideiration, luircegriarit. with rnomc.ntous con-- sequences. lilven the potty states of'Gh'ecce lmtl for the most part: natural fortilicatioryis stretched around them, an advautageflof which we sliould he a.lrnost entirely destitute. V Another oircurnstance, rnost fortunate for the nation if we con» tinue one people, most unfortunate r if we shbould Olr’E3I':l3I;G C»OnSti‘.t""‘ ituted into many, is that we have all one language, and _with slight shades of ditfererice, the same religionprnlainners, hahits,. and political principles. Nations having different languages, and different trains of tliougglit and modes of feeling on most great-A‘ subjectsof human interest, have little mutual action: they move in different spheres, and there are but few points on which they have occasion to interfere with each other. Discussingthe same" topics in the same language, imagination can form no estinnate of the fury with which political controversies would be.carriedrorta in the disunited States of this Union. The inflamrnyaltory ha-r rangues of leading demagogues in one ‘State would be circulated and read through all the rest; engendering antipathies and await-r ening animosity and wrath not easily to be allayed. :_Crimina.-: tion and recriminatiornrwould proceeclto intemperate tritnperatien 6, 42 and corroding calumny, and these would be retortcd back with mingled scorn and defiance. The appeal to arms in which such collisions must inevitably end, from the sitnilanity of cltaractc1' be» tween the parties, must partalte oi‘ the nature of a civil war----fell, relentless, truculent, fiendlilte 3 which casts into sliaclorv the un- speakable calamities of ordinary war'fa1'e, by the direr horrors in which Moloch revels when fraternal afifectiott is CCtt’tVt'."3l‘l2t;3Cl into fierce ahhorrence. Not only have We no natural boundaries to tlividc our physical force, and no dill'"crencc of lztitgtiztgtr, 1'elig;;iot1 or §t;t13I't0t‘tll character to supply moral distinctions which would liwor s+;t:pzt1'a— tion, but we have no c1t7ati7tt't' z'7zterc.s-its Wl.llt':ll each f*I~f<~‘»(;3tI'.’«ll(T)l'i'l rtriigggltt cultivate without need of assistance or feat‘ of lt‘fl.t3l‘il3l‘t2t‘tC;C2 front the others. The A,r;tficultttt'al prorlucts of the 53C)l,lll“l liurniali the medium tl11'ougl1 wltich our ft)t*eigt,1 cotntncrce is cnrrietl on. If no cotton, rice, or tobacco, were shippetl froth §iout.l.ict'n };>orts, our merchants could not draw hills on Eng.gltttit,l, I"l(f}t" ccultl tlqtey find any other adequate means to pay for their purcha.scs. To declare war agaittst the South and ltlocltatle her ports, would therefore be an act of suicideion our part. She, on the other hand, is unfitted by the natureol‘ her population and her pursuits to carry on nat'igatiozt advantageously : for the l.l‘£1t']:iri}T)C)t‘l:1il.lOI‘t of her merchandize it is her interest to be indebted to us, and were the Union dissolved, the Em[)lI'<’:.‘ of the Ocean would remain with us, so that she could not transport her surplus products but must leave them to rot upon the soil. To Wllll(.lt't1W from t.lto Uniozi would be, thereflire, equally on her part an act olisuicide. The harvests of the West, where soil which has lain Ul”tl;lll€;3t.Tl since the creation returns a hundred fold to the cultivator, finds its way to the markets of the world only tl]1‘Otl,g;l't the Atlantic coasts, or througlt the rivers that flow into the Gulf of Mexico. Let the West secede from the Union, and the Atlantic States forbid a passage through their borders, while Louisiana, or a New Eng- land fleet, sealed up the mouth of the Mississippi, and all the crops of the noblest valley inhabited by civilized man, must perish where they grow. i To renounce the benefit of the Fed»- eral Union would be destruction therefore to the West. I for- bear to enlarge upon the necessity which New England feels of 43 a wider market than her own for her manufactured articles; the Middle States for their flour and grain ; the security against a servile insurrection which the moral influence of the Federal Union, with its preponderance of free white population, affords to the slave liolcliiig states; or the entire freedom from taxation, the munificent bounties to education, the extensive and costly Works of internal improvement, which the VV est owes to the fostei°ing; care of the g;eriei'al government; because I have not time to exhaust this li't1itliil stihject. I have enumerated mu- tual dependencies enough to show how deep and lasting injuries we should~ have it in our power to inflict on each other, and this will enable us to form some idea of the intensity of that mutual hate which the exacerbation of such mutual wrongs must needs originate. Nb bcalmzcc of power could be established to preserve peace between the several conleclerations. ‘In Europe, where changes in the number and pursuits of the population of the different countries tttl~;€3 place ggraclually, and where they have passed tlirough the fiery furnace of those afflictions which we must an- ticipate, and have learner! that wisdom tl1i'oug;l'i suffering which we could only hope to acquire in the same school-—-«there, they adjust the political equilibrium, so that it remains undisturbed for a short period; and wlyien alterations in the state of any member of the body derange the system, diplomacy endeavors to accom- modate a new apportionment of power to the new state of things which requires it. But with us, where some communities would be rapidly developing their resources, while others were station- ary, or perhaps declining, while the character and pursuits of the people were changing every day, as the wilderness was convert- ed into fertile fields,,and the sparse into a dense population, no such arrangement could be any thing more thz-m a temporary ex» pedient. Our states, watching each other with a jealousy that would never slumber, their interests clashing with each other perpetually, and often in new particulars, our passions acted on by the most prolific press that ever existed, scattering envenomed missiles of discord on the wings of the wind, and kindling the flame of popular fury, now here, now there,---not a year would pass away that did not change their relations to each other. 44 Peace would seldom be more than a transient truce, and the sword would be the only acknowledged arbiter in their innurner- able collisions. V Nor must it be omitted that party spirit, the bane of corn- monvvealths, would have freer scope and wider sway among us than in the older countries, and would infest our narrower com- munities with a more virulent contagion than has ever irifected the united Republic. In most of the old countries it is but in very small class that interests itself in the operations of govern» ment. The mass are too ignorant and too degraded to concern themselves with affairs so totally beyond their COl'I]pl'(‘Jl"lG3IlSSlCJI]. They know and feel the government only by the dead Weiglit with which it rests on them 2 under this they were horn and have lived all their days, and ofcourse have become liabituatetl and in sorne measure reconciled to the pressure. They take no part in political transactions, but remain an inert and passive sul;>stratun1 over which the battles of the higher classes are f0t1gl‘1t out while they ‘themselves are as seldom moved as the deep sea. It is not so with us. Our cornrnon schools qualify all our chil- dren in the art ofreading, while ten thousand newspapers carry political information to every man’s door. In our party agitations therefore, it is the whole frame of society to its very basis that sheaves and tosses. And if the fabric of the government some» times rocks, now, when party spirit is comparatively mild and .difi"used over a continent, what ruinous convulsions must we not expect whenever parties are b1'oug;l1t face to face, and pent up in srnall states, to spend their iinmitigated fury upon caclr other: especially when We reflect that direct taxation, the species of oppression to which the people at large are over most sensitive, will fall with a crushing weight upon each fragginent of the h1*ok-- en Union the moment it is dissevered. Duties on rirnports could no longer be collected on the sea board, because each section would unclerbid the others in its tariff, to entice away their corn-— itnerce, and because smtiggling over the frontiers could not be prevented 3: so that the vast revenue required to set on foot the l,~neoessary armaments, to build, equip, and support the separate .,‘1i|fl?V1'¢ES,,,c‘sanCl to maintain, with proportionably higher salaries, %1taeI1ger.govemrr1cnts,. must all be ‘raised by the hard, ungrateful 45 process of direct taxation. Discontent would excite rebellion againstgthe sectional governments ; each party as it predominated would decimate the front ranks of the other ; the minority would league with the majority in the neighoring state, and invite an invasion to their assistance, and thus revolutions, civil wars, and foreign wars would alternate and mingle their horrors. S bserziierzcy to foreign nations is not the least of the evils that would follow the rupture of the ties that bind us together. A. section which found itself endangered by the superiority of another at home, would eagerly seek “ an apostate and unnatu- ral connection” abroad. However humiliating the terms on which their aid might be obtained, we should be driven to accept whatever terms the nations of the Old World might offer us. When our allies became belligerents, we must enlist in all their quarrels. It would be their policy to foment by their intrigues all our dissensions in order to make us more dependent on them, to prevent us from regaining any weight in the political balance, and to take from us, and share among themselves, that large portion of the Commerce of the World, which, while united un- der a wise government, we shall always be able to retain. As the lomfirls of the National Government are strengthened in proportion as the number of the States increases, each State of twenty-four having less power to resist the delegated authority of the whole, than each state of the thirteen had originally, and as combinations among two or three states of fifty, if that nurn- ber shallever be reached, will be much less dangerous to the integrity of the Union than a combination of two or three of the original thirteen would have been, we may infer that the power of any new confederacy formed out of a part of our sister states, would be less competent to holchtogether its members than the present Federal Union. The causes of disunion which had operated in the whole system, would continue -to act with a centrifugal impulse in each of the parts 5 and with increased vi- olence, for who can doubt that the majority would tyrannize over the minority with less restraint from generosity or consci- entious scruples in each of the states, if they were out asunder, than it ever can under the government of the Union. The history of the Greek and of the Italian Republics shows that it would 46 be so, for such is the nature of little communities with popular governments. Common sense, applied to the case, shows that it would be so, for the struggles of parties would degenerate front honorable contests irivolvingg general principles, into the base al- tercations of personal rancor. Besides, the tveiglnit of taxation, augmenting. as it must, would be a fruitful source of discontent, and they would have before them the example of a union, older and more hallowed than theirs, successfully resisted and broken up. The tendency to .sni’2u’ioi.s'iio7z therefore would grow stronger and stronger. Revolutions would spill the best blood in the land, and sunder conleder'ations as soon as they were liorrnecl : ephe~ meral governments would rise and disappear, till anarchy held undisputed possession, and society was resolved into its original constituents, unless some influence of an opposite nature arrests this obvious tendency before the downward progress reaches this ultimate limit. But there is another element which must enter into the cal- culation, whose influence is to counteract the tendency to per- petual subdivision, and that element is mi/'£tu7'y force. The great will devour the small. The larger states will annihilate the separate political existence of their lesser neig_.r,libo1‘s, and ifthese last do not acquiesce in their unavoidable condition of inl'eriority, the right of conquest will put into the hands of the ruling states a rod of iron ; the inhabitants of the cotiquered territory must be made sub-jrzcti——st"ul)_jccts-——thralls; and the force their masters must keep on fiaot to secure their servitude will enable the suc.- cessful soldiers who head their troops to make slaves of the citi- zens of the invading states, and involve victors and vanquished in one common doom. i This irn perfect investigation of the probable consequences of disunion, brief as it has necessarily been, discloses stltiicient cause of alarm ifindeed the Union has been put in jeopardy. The Union lost, all is lost: the Union safe, all our prospects are bright and cheering. VVe are happy to perceive symptoms of a growing conviction of this great truth in every quarter of the country. Though from the present sound and healthy state of public opinion-on this ‘subject we cannot believe the Union to be in any pair - 47 immediate danger, yet We cannot but deeply regret the deplore- ble fanaticism which has seized upon an unfortunate and mis- guided sister state : , South Carolina, distinguished for the number of her clear headed and warm hearted statesmen and patriots, till- in an evil hour, the banelul theory of nullification took root in her soil. It flourished rank, and grew up a moral Bolton Upas, to blast and wither all within its atmosphere. lts pestilential boughs have overshadowed with their hligliting influence the prospects of her noblest sons. Vile mourn their aberrations from the straigl1tl'orwartl path olpolitical duty, we pity the hallucination which has bewildered their stronghut metaphysical intellects, yet we must not the less condemn the heresy which threatens our existence as a nation, our liberties as a people, and all the blessinggs which we hold must clear. Happily for us the voice of conclennnation will preclude the necessity of raising the cry of War. lf’ul'Jlic opinion will sti';11n.gle in its infancy the monster nul~— lification, and thus, without the cruel alternative of intestine hos— tilities, we shall be tleliveretl from the impending peril. But While we liesitzttte not to co1“n,letnn their t2xtt‘at'ng;:tt‘ice, let us com- passionate and do all in our power to alleviate their distresses. Let us re1ne1:ul:)et' that partial and sectional lClglSlElllO1], while it is not warranted lfly the letter of our Constitution, is inconsistent also with the getiitls of our instiultions. There can he no lasting peace which is not basetgl on jtistice ; but if any part of our reve- nue system is calculated to produce an advantage for one set of interests or one section of country at the expense of another, its operation is unjust towards those whom it injures ; and it must i not be wondered at if they are loud in their complaints, and sornetirnes even push their opposition beyond the exact limits which sober reason would prescribe. Let us be first just, then generous. Let us remove all their grievances, and then the work of conciliation will be easy. Even if their wrongs have been altogether imaginary, which it requires no small share of modest assuranceto assert, even if we have the most perfect right to protect certain interests, supposed to be peculiar to this section of the country, at the cost of another section, even then, concession and cornpromise would be vastly, inexpressibly, pre-- ferable to obstinacy and consequent disunion and civil war. But; ‘Lt’ 48 we have no right, and can have none, to legislate partially under whatever pretext. Washington in that immortal legacy of the political wisdom which his active life had been spent in accumu- lating, the farewell address, every line of which ought to be in» delibly engraved on the hearts of his fellow citizens, tells us that it occurs to him as matter of serious concern that any ground should be furnished for characteming parties by geog;1'aphica.l discriminations--—-Northern and Soutl1et'n—--Atlantic and West- ern-—-—and he bids us indignantly frown upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now linlaz together the various parts. If, rejecting this advice, we press a course of policy which tends strongly to alienate an important portion of our country from the rest, we not only jeopardize our own Union, “ the pal» ladium of our political safety and prosperity,” but we put in hazard all the blessings we enjoy under its shelter, and more than all we throw doubt and uncertainty over all the hopes of future innprovement which inanlrind in every quarter of the globe may reasonably entertain. The example of our free institutions in the full tide ofsuccess- ful experiment does more to promote the progress ofa rational political system on the other side of the Atlantic than all the speculations of [)l1llOS0plf]G1"S who have reasoned, all the eloquence of orators who have declaimed, all the ex.l:;1ortations of all the authors who have written for the people, since mind first. began to act on mind. Let them l()()l.{ at our firmly contented Union, whose value is beyond ealculation,and see how the economy and flexibility of local governments may be happily blended with energy and strength of a general, central, controlling power. Here is illustration ‘. Here is demonstration 1 With this brilliant spectacle before them, they need not doubt the possibility, nor dispute about the manner, of accomplishing, the great ends of government, without the invading any desirable liberty of the ci-ti;z=en. Let us not then suffer this hope of the world to sink: in des;pair~r----«this beacon light of the tempest test nations to be quenched in eblood-—-»this guiding star, on which the pilgrims of transatlantic libertygaze with fond devotion, to go down in diarie- and eternal l gloom. 49 Already intestine dissension, to whose relentless powerall the republics whose names are written in history have fallen a prey, has reared her horrid head among us. Shall we listen to the dice tates of prejudice and passion? Shall we enter that career of civil strife, wherein, like the broad road that leads to the pit of woe, there are no steps backward? Has Marnmon such undisputed Empire in our souls, that, for a miserable per centage on our cor- poration stocks, we would roll the torrent of a desolating warfare over a large section of our native land,and cling to our dividends with the grasp of a dying rniser though they mustbe coined out of the blood of our Southern brethren? If so--«then Discord’s spirit rankling for her prey, With Ate at her side, come hot from hell, Shall in our confines, with a demon’s voice, Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war. But it cannot be. Our guarantee is in the intelligence of the American people. The intelligence of the people is the origi- nal causc-—--—-the operating instrument-——-the sure palladium of American union and liberty. We have read the annals of those who have gone before us. We know how they tempted their destiny till it O\r'(;'I"WllC~3ll"X‘1(-Btl them. History has given us a faith- ful chart. and we know where are the rocks and quicksands and where we must shun destruction. With our eyes open We shall not follow the downward path in which all the elder Republics have preceded us to ruin. elf the common welfare demands any sacrifices from New England, certain it is New England will never be backward to make them. Her ready acquiescence in the late arrangement of difiiculties, because it was better than none, although not altogether satisfactory to any party, is a pledge of her future good conduct. ln fidelity to the Union, she is true to the core, and for no subordinate interest will she suffer it to be endangered. THE FEDERAL UNION MUST BE rnEsEnvEn, AND WILL, BE. Under its protection may we realize the dying wishof the patriotic patriarch of liberty-«— INDEPENDENCE EonEvEn. V _ S . These speculations I have addressed to you, gentlemen, not because I suppose them to be of that popular and spirit stirring character, belonging to certain other topics which might have 7 . . 50 been selected for this occasion, but because it is necessary, at the present» time, that every good citizen should understand the true interests of his country, and realize their value : more especially the working men of the Republic, who are in truth the bone, muscle, and sinew of the nation. With them is deposited the physical force in ermry country: in our highly favored land a superior education endows them with a co1*xl'espo1i(,ling; moral force. You do well then, getitlenaen, to cultivate irittalligenccm to make it it prominent ohjcct of your association. :lh:I'.1OVVlti’€lg0 is not only potvet‘-lct1otvledge is also safety. lit is the :=3tahili,ty of our times-—--our trust and stay amitl the tlattigciés that thicken around us. Foster then your intellectual facuil.tica ; l'.l.'(‘)tlS5tll’t) up useful information. So doing, you will. quzztlily y'ours;clvl«;::e to discharge the duties of gpotl ciltiaons : you will enable yourselves to judge fairly of public men, and public mcast.u'c.s: you will increase»---vastly increase-——-your share of influence in the hotly politic, and you will feel more and more sure that you are e:2tcrt—- ing that influence in the right direction. 51 The following hymn, composed for the occasion, was sung as at part of the services, to the tune of Old Hundred: Let grateful nations join to raise To Freedom’s God a song of praise; His red right arm our fathers led, ’ Before his frown oppression fled. Rouse all your powers, the strain prolong, Lend unto land repeat the song ; And Ocean’s voice, with solemn roar, Swell the loud chorus to the shore. When foreign foes our rights invade,_ This God vouchsafes his mighty aid ; And till the victory is won, Inspires the breast of Washington. "When hideous anarchy of late, Destruction threatened to our state, His favor for our quick relief, Raised up t'11’10tl"l(3l'1‘Kl&l.t:l'll0SS chief. The chief‘ his Providence elects, His wisdom guirles, his care protects, Internal discord’s cry is hushed, And fa.ction’s hydra heads are crush?d‘;i Our States to their rernotest hound, With peace and happiness are crowned: No civil strife unsheathes the sword, But Union reigns and love’s restored. Then freeman lift your anthems high, From every clime beneath the sky : In tones as thunder loud proclaim, Glory to his Almighty name.