Yale University Library

39002001091132

This book was digitized by Microsoft Corporation in
cooperation with Yale University Library, 2008. You
may not reproduce this digitized copy of the book for
any purpose other than for scholarship, research,
educational, or, in limited quantity, personal use. You
may not distribute or provide access to this digitized copy
(or modified or partial versions of it) for commercial purposes.

ORATION

LIFE AND CHARACTER

GILBERT MOTIER DE LAFAYETTE.
DELIVERED
AT THE REQUEST OP BOTH HOUSES OP THE
CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES,
BEFOBF. THEM,
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
AT WASHINGTON,
On the 31st December, 1834.
BY JOHN QUINCY ADAMS,
A MEMBER OF THE HOUSE.

WASHINGTON:
PRINTED BY GALES AND SEATON.
1S35.

YALE

ORATION.

Fellow-citizens of the Senate and
House of Representatives of the United Slates :
IF the authority by which I am now called to address
you is one of the highest honors that could be conferred
upon a citizen of this Union by his countrymen, I cannot
dissemble to myself that it embraces at the same time one
of the most arduous duties that could be imposed. Grateful
to you for the honor conferred upon me by your invitation,
a sentiment of irrepressible and fearful diffidence absorbs
every faculty of my soul in contemplating the magnitude,
the difficulties, and the delicacy of the task which it has'
been your pleasure to assign to me.
I am to speak to the North American States and People,
assembled here in the persons of their honored and confi
dential Lawgivers and Representatives. I am to speak to
them, by their own appointment, upon the Life and Character
of a man whose life was, for nearly threescore years, the
history of the civilized world — of a man, of whose character,
to say that it is indissolubly identified with the Revolution
of our Independence, is little more than to mark the features
of his childhood— of a man, the personified image of self-

Missing Page

Missing Page

4
circumscribed liberty. Nor can it escape the most super
ficial observation, that, in speaking to the fathers of the land
upon the Life and Character of LAFAYETTE, I cannot
forbear to touch upon topics which are yet deeply convulsing
the world, both of opinion and of action. I am to walk
between burning ploughshares — to tread upon fires which
have not yet even collected cinders to cover them.
If, in addressing their countrymen upon their most im
portant interests, the Orators of Antiquity were accustomed
to begin by supplication to their gods that nothing unsuitable
to be said or unworthy to be heard might escape from their
lips, how much more forcible is my obligation to invoke the
favor of Him " who touched Isaiah's hallowed lips with fire,"
not only to extinguish in the mind every conception un-
adapted to the grandeur and sublimity of the theme, but
to draw from the bosom of the deepest conviction thoughts
congenial to the merits which it is the duty of the Discourse
to unfold, and words not unworthy of the dignity of the
Auditory before whom I appear.
In order to form a just estimate of the Life and Character
of Lafayette, it may be necessary to advert, not only to the
circumstances connected with his birth, education, and line
age, but to the political condition of his country and of Great
Britain, her national rival and adversary, at the time of his
birth, and during his years of childhood.
On the sixth day of September, one thousand seven
hundred and fifty-seven, the hereditary Monarch of the
British Islands was a native of Germany. A rude, illiterate
old soldier of the wars for the Spanish succession ; little
versed even in the language of the Nations over which he

ruled ; educated to the maxims and principles of the Feudal
Law ; of openly licentious life, and of moral character far from
creditable : — he styled himself, by the grace of God, of Great
Britain, France, and Ireland, King ; but there was another
and real King of France, no better, perhaps worse, than
himself, and with whom he was then at war. This was
Louis, the fifteenth of the name, great grandson of his imme
diate predecessor, Louis the Fourteenth, sometimes denomi
nated the Great. These two Kings held their thrones by the
law of hereditary succession, variously modified, in France
by the Roman Catholic, and in Britain by Protestant Reform
ed Christianity.
They were at war — chiefly for conflicting claims to the
possession of the Western Wilderness of North America —
a prize, the capabilities of which are now unfolding them
selves with a grandeur and magnificence unexampled in the
history of the world ; but of which, if the nominal posses
sion had remained in either of the two Princes, who were
staking their Kingdoms upon the issue of the strife, the buf
falo and the beaver, with their hunter, the Indian savage,
would, at this day, have been, as they then were, the only
inhabitants. In this war, GEORGE WASHINGTON, then at the age
of twenty-four, was on the side of the British German King,
a youthful, but heroic combatant; and, in the same war,
the father of Lafayette was on the opposite side, exposing
his life in the heart of Germany, for the cause of the King
of France. On that day, the sixth of September, one thousand seven
hundred and fifty-seven, was born GILBERT MOTIER

6
DE LAFAYETTE, at the Castle of Chavaniae, in Au-
vergne, and a few months after his birth his lather fell in
battle at Minden.
Let us here observe the influence of political institutions
over the destinies and the characters of men. George, the
Second was a German Prince ; he had been made King
of the British Islands by the accident of his birth : that is
to say, because his great grandmother had been the daugh
ter of James the First ; that great grandmother had been
married to the King of Bohemia, and her youngest daughter
had been married to the Elector of Hanover. George the
Second's father was her son, and, when James the Second
had been expelled from his throne and his country by the
indignation of his People, revolted against his tyranny, and
when his two daughters,^who succeeded him, had died with
out issue, George the First, the son of the Electress of
Hanover, became King of Great Britain, by the settlement
of an Act of Parliament, blending together the principle of
hereditary succession with that of Reformed Protestant
Christianity, and the rites of the Church of England.
The throne of France was occupied by virtue of the
same principle of hereditary succession, differently modified,
and blended with the Christianity of the Church of Rome.
From this line of succession all females were inflexibly ex
cluded. Louis the Fifteenth, at the age of six years, had be
come the absolute Sovereign of France, because he was the
great grandson of his immediate predecessor. He was of
the third generation in descent from the preceding King,
and, by the law of primogeniture engrafted upon that of lineal
succession, did, by the death of his ancestor, forthwith sue-

ceed, though in childhood, to an absolute throne, in prefer
ence to numerous descendants from that same ancestor, then
in the full vigor of manhood.
The first reflection that must occur to a rational being, in
contemplating these two results of the principle of heredi
tary succession, as resorted to for designating the rulers of
Nations, is, that two persons more unfit to occupy the thronelil
of Britain and of France, at the time of their respective
accessions, could scarcely have been found upon the face of'
the Globe — George the Second, a foreigner, the son and.
grandson of foreigners, born beyond the seas, educated in
uncongenial manners, ignorant of the Constitution, of the
Laws, even of the Language of the People over whom he was
to rule ; and Louis the Fifteenth, an infant, incapable of dis
cerning his right hand from his left. Yet, strange as it may
sound to the ear of unsophisticated reason, the British Nation
were wedded to the belief that this act of settlement, fixing
their Crown upon the heads of this succession of total stran
gers, was the brightest and most glorious exemplification of
their national freedom ; and not less strange, if aught in the
imperfection of human reason could seem strange, was that
deep conviction of the French People, at the same period,
that their chief glory and happiness consisted in the vehe
mence of their affection for their King, because he was
descended in an unbroken male line of genealogy from
Saint Louis.
One of the fruits of this line of hereditary succession,
modified by sectarian principles of religion, was to make the
peace and war, the happiness or misery of the People of the
British Empire, dependent upon the fortunes of the Electo-

8
rate of Hanover — the personal domain of their imported
King. This was a result calamitous alike to the People of
Hanover, of Britain, and of France ; for it was one of the
two causes of that dreadful war then waging between them ;
and as the cause, so was this a principal theatre of that dis
astrous war. It was at Minden, in the heart of the Electo
rate of Hanover, that the father of Lafayette fell, and left
him an orphan, a victim to that war, and to the principle of
hereditary succession from which it emanated.
Thus, then, it was on the 6th of September, 1757, the
day when Lafayette was born. The Kings of France and
Britain were seated upon their thrones by virtue of the
principle of hereditary succession, variously modified and
blended with different forms of religious faith, and they were
waging war against each other, and exhausting the blood
and treasure of their People for causes in which neither of
the Nations had any beneficial or lawful interest.
In this war the father of Lafayette fell in the cause of
his King, but not of his country. He was an officer of an
invading army, the instrument of his Sovereign's wanton
ambition and lust of conquest. The People of the Elec
torate of Hanover had done no wrong to him or to his
country. When his son came to an age capable of under
standing the irreparable loss that he had suffered, and to
reflect upon the causes of his father's fate, there was no
drop of consolation mingled in the cup, from the considera
tion that he had died for his country. And when the
youthful mind was awakened to meditation upon the rights
of Mankind, the principles of Freedom, and theories of
Government, it cannot be difficult to perceive, in the illus-

9
trations of his own family records, the source of that
aversion to hereditary rule, perhaps the most distinguishing
feature of his political opinions, and to which he adhered
through all the vicissitudes of his life.
In the same war, and at the same time, George Wash
ington was armed, a loyal subject, in support of his King ;
but to him that was also the cause of This -country. His
commission was not in the army of George the Second,
but issued under the authority of the Colony of Virginia,
the province in which he received his birth. On the bor
ders of that province, the war in its most horrid forms was
waged — not a war of mercy, and of courtesy, like that of
the civilized embattled Legions of Europe ; but war to the
knife — the war of Indian savages, terrible to man, but more
terrible to the tender sex, and most terrible to helpless
infancy. In defence of his country against the ravages of
such a war, Washington, in the dawn of manhood, had
drawn his sword, as if Providence, with deliberate purpose,
had sanctified for him the practice of war, all-detestable
and unhallowed as it is, that he might, in a cause, virtuous
and exalted by its motive and its end, be trained and fitted
in a congenial school to march in aftertimes the leader of
heroes in the war of his country's Independence.
At the time of the birth of Lafayette, this war, which
was to make him a fatherless child, and in which Washington
was laying broad and deep, in the defence and protection
of his native land, the foundations of his unrivalled renown,
was but in its early stage. It was to continue five years
longer, and was to close with the total extinguishment of
the colonial dominion of France on the Continent of North

10
America. The deep humiliation of France, and the tri
umphant ascendancy on this Continent of her rival, were the
first results of this great national conflict. The complete
expulsion of France from North America seemed to the
superficial vision of men to fix the British power over these
extensive regions on foundations immovable as the ever
lasting hills.
Let us pass in imagination a period of only twenty years,
and alight upon the borders of the river Brandywine.
Washington is Commander-in-chief of the armies of the
United States of America — war is again raging in the
heart of his native land — hostile armies of one and the
same name, blood, and language, are arrayed for battle on
the banks of the stream ; and Philadelphia, where the United
States are in Congress assembled, and whence their Decree
of Independence has gone forth, is the destined prize to the
conflict of the day. Who is that tall, slender youth, of
foreign air and aspect, scarcely emerged from the years of
boyhood, and fresh from the walls of a college ; fighting, a
volunteer, at the side of Washington, bleeding, unconsciously
to himself, and rallying his men to secure the retreat of the
scattered American ranks ? It is Gilbert Motier de
Lafayette — the son of the victim of Minden ; and he is
bleeding in the cause of North American Independence
and of Freedom.
We pause one moment to inquire what was this cause of
North American Independence, and what were the motives
and inducements to the youthful stranger to devote himself,
his life, and fortune, to it.

11
The People of the British Colonies in North America,
after a controversy of ten years' duration with their Sove
reign beyond the seas, upon an attempt by him and his
Parliament to tax them without their consent, had been
constrained by necessity to declare themselves independent —
to dissolve the tie of their allegiance to him — to renounce
their right to his protection, and to assume their station
among the independent civilized Nations of the Earth.
This had been done with a deliberation and solemnity
unexampled in the history of the world — done in the midst
of a civil war, differing in character from any of those which
for centuries before had desolated Europe. The war had
arisen upon a question between the rights of the People and
the powers of their Government. The discussions, in the
progress of the controversy, had opened to the contemplations
of men the first foundations of civil society and of government.
The war of Independence began by litigation upon a petty
stamp on paper, and a tax of three pence a pound upon tea ;
but these broke up the fountains of the great deep, and the
deluge ensued. Had the British Parliament the right to tax
the People of the Colonies in another hemisphere, not repre
sented in the Imperial Legislature ? They affirmed they had :
the People of the Colonies insisted they had not. There
were ten years of pleading before they came to an issue ;
and all the legitimate sources of power, and all the primitive
elements of freedom, were scrutinized, debated, analyzed,
and elucidated, before the lighting of the torch of Ate, and
her cry of havoc upon letting slip the dogs of war.
When the day of conflict came, the issue of the contest
was necessarily changed. The People of the Colonies had

12
maintained the contest on the principle of resisting the inva
sion of chartered rights — first by argument and remonstrance,
and, finally, by appeal to the sword. But with the war came
the necessary exercise of sovereign powers. The Declara
tion of Independence justified itself as the only possible
remedy for insufferable wrongs. It seated itself upon the
first foundations of the law of nature, and the incontestable
doctrine of human rights. There was no longer any question
of the constitutional powers of the British Parliament, or of
^violated colonial charters. Thenceforward the American
Nation supported its existence by war ; and the British Nation,
by war, was contending for conquest. As, between the two
parties, the single question at issue was Independence — but
in the confederate existence of the North American Union,
I Liberty — not only their own liberty, but the vital principle
\ of liberty to the whole race of civilized man, was involved.
It was at this stage of the conflict, and immediately after
the Declaration of Independence, that it drew the attention^
and called into action the moral sensibilities and the intellec
tual faculties of Lafayette, then in the nineteenth year of
his age. The war was revolutionary. It began by the dissolution
of the British Government in the Colonies ; the People of
which were, by that operation, left without any Government
whatever. They were then at one and the same time main
taining their independent national existence by war, and
forming new social compacts for their own government thence
forward. The construction of civil society ; the extent and
the limitations of organized power; the establishment of a
system of government combining the greatest enlargement

13
of individual liberty with the most perfect preservation of
public order, were the continual occupations of every mind.
The consequences of this state of things to the history of
mankind, and especially of Europe, were foreseen by none.
Europe saw nothing but the war ; a People struggling for
liberty, and against oppression ; and the People in every part
of Europe sympathized with the People of the American
Colonies. With their Governments it was not so. The People of the
American Colonies were insurgents ; all Governments abhor
insurrection ; they were revolted colonists. The great mari
time Powers of Europe had Colonies of their own, to which
the example of resistance against oppression might be con
tagious. The American Colonies were stigmatized in all
the official acts of the British Government as rebels ; and
rebellion to the governing part of mankind is as the sin of
witchcraft. The Governments of Europe, therefore, were,
at heart, on the side of the British Government in this war,
and the People of Europe were on the side of the American
People. Lafayette, by his position and condition in life, was one
of those who, governed by the ordinary impulses which
influence and control the conduct of men, would have sided
in sentiment with the British or Royal cause.
Lafayette was born a subject of the most absolute and
most splendid Monarchy of Europe, and in the highest rank
of her proud and chivalrous Nobility. He had been edu
cated at a college of the University of Paris, founded by the
royal munificence of Louis the Fourteenth, or of his Minis
ter, Cardinal Richelieu. Left an orphan in early childhood,

14
with the inheritance of a princely fortune, he had been
married, at sixteen years of age, to a daughter of the house
of Noailles, the most distinguished family of the Kingdom,
scarcely deemed in public consideration inferior to that
which wore the Crown. He came into active life, at the
change from boy to man, a husband and a father, in the full
enjoyment of every thing that avarice could covet, with a
certain prospect before him of all that ambition could crave.
Happy in his domestic affections, incapable, from the be
nignity of his nature, of envy, hatred, or revenge, a life of
" ignoble ease and indolent repose" seemed to be that which
nature and fortune had combined to prepare before him.
To men of ordinary mould this condition would have led to
a life of luxurious apathy and sensual indulgence. Such
was the life into which, from the operation of the same
causes, Louis the Fifteenth had sunk, with his household and
Court, while Lafayette was rising to manhood, surrounded
by the contamination of their example. Had his natural
endowments been even of the higher and nobler order of
such as adhere to virtue, even in the lap of prosperity, and
in the bosom of temptation, he might have lived and died a
pattern of the Nobility of France, to be classed, in after-
times, with the Turennes and the Montausiers of the age
of Louis the Fourteenth, or with the Villars or the La-
moignons of the age immediately preceding his own.
But as, in the firmament of Heaven that rolls over our
heads, there is, among the stars of the first magnitude, one
so pre-eminent in splendor, as, in the opinion of astronomers,
to constitute a class by itself; so, in the fourteen hundred
years of the French Monarchy, among the multitudes of

15
great and mighty men which it has evolved, the name of
Lafayette stands unrivalled in the solitude of glory.
In entering upon the threshold of life, a career was to
open before him. He had the option of the Court and the
Camp. An office was tendered to him in the household of
the King's brother, the Count de Provence, since succes
sively a royal Exile and a reinstated King. The servitude <
and inaction of a Court had no charms for him ; he preferred'
a commission in the army, and, at the time of the Declara
tion of Independence, was a captain of dragoons in garrison
at Metz. There, at an entertainment given by his relative, the
Marechal de Broglie, the Commandant of the place, to the
Duke of Gloucester, brother to the British King, and then
a transient traveller through that part of France, he learns,
as an incident of intelligence received that morning by the
English Prince from London, that the Congress of Rebels,
at Philadelphia, had issued a Declaration of Independence.
A conversation ensues upon the causes which have contri
buted to produce this event, and upon the consequences
which may be expected to flow from it. The imagination
of Lafayette has caught across the Atlantic tide the spark
emitted from the Declaration of Independence ; his heart
has kindled at the shock, and, before he slumbers upon his
pillow, he has resolved to devote his life and fortune to the
cause. You have before you the cause and the man. The self- }
devotion of Lafayette was twofold. First, to the People,
maintaining a bold and seemingly desperate struggle against
oppression, and for national existence. Secondly, and

16
chiefly, to the principles of their Declaration, which then
first unfurled before his eyes the consecrated standard of
human rights. To that standard, without an instant of
hesitation, he repaired. Where it would lead him, it is
scarcely probable that he himself then foresaw. It was
then identical with the stars and stripes of the American
Union, floating to the breeze from the Hall of Independence,
at Philadelphia. Nor sordid avarice, nor vulgar ambition,
could point his footsteps to the pathway leading to that ban
ner. To the love of ease or pleasure nothing could be
more repulsive. Something may be allowed to the beatings
of the youthful breast, which make ambition virtue, and
something to the spirit of military adventure, imbibed from
his profession, and which he felt in common with many
others. France, Germany, Poland, furnished to the armies
of this Union, in our revolutionary struggle, no inconsider
able number of officers of high rank and distinguished
merit. The names of Pulaski and De Kalb are. numbered
among the martyrs of our freedom, and their ashes repose
in our soil side by side with the canonized bones of Warren
and of Montgomery. To the virtues of Lafayette, a more
protracted career and happier earthly destinies were re
served. To the moral principle of political action, the
.sacrifices of no other man were comparable to his. Youth,
{health, fortune; the favor of his King; the enjoyment of
'ease and pleasure; even the choicest blessings of domestic
felicity — he gave them all for toil and danger in a distant
land, and an almost hopeless cause ; but it was the cause of
justice, and of the rights of human kind.

17
The rebolve is firmly fixed, and it now remains to be
carried into execution. On the 7th of December, 1776,
Silas Deane, then a secret agent of the American Congress
at Paris, stipulates with the Marquis de Lafayette that he
shall receive a commission, to date from that day, of Major
General in the Army of the United States; and the Marquis
stipulates, in return, to depart when and how Mr. Deane
shall judge proper, to serve the United States with all
possible zeal, without pay or emolument, reserving to him
self only the liberty of returning to Europe if his family or
his King should recall him.
Neither his family nor his King were willing that he
should depart ; nor had Mr. Deane the power, either to
conclude this contract, or to furnish the means of his con
veyance to America. Difficulties rise up before him only to
be dispersed, and obstacles thicken only to be surmounted.
The day after the signature of the contract, Mr. Deane's
agency was superseded by the arrival of Doctor Benjamin
Franklin and Arthur Lee as his colleagues in commission;
nor did they think themselves authorized to confirm his
engagements. Lafayette is not to be discouraged. The
Commissioners extenuate nothing of the unpromising con
dition of their cause. Mr. Deane avows his inability to
furnish him with a passage to the United States. " The more
" desperate the cause," says Lafayette, " the greater need
" has it of my services ; and, if Mr. Deane has no vessel
" for my passage, I shall purchase one myself, and will
" traverse the Ocean with a selected company of my own."
Other impediments arise. His design becomes known to
the British Ambassador at the Court of Versailles, who

18
remonstrates to the French Government against it. At his
instance, orders are issued for the detention of the vessel
purchased by the Marquis, and fitted out at Bordeaux, and
for the arrest of his person. To elude the first of these
orders, the vessel is removed from Bordeaux to the neigh
boring port of Passage, within the dominion of Spain. The
order for his own arrest is executed ; but, by stratagem and
disguise, he escapes from the custody of those who have him
in charge, and, before a second order can reach him, he is
safe on the ocean wave, bound to the land of Independence
and of Freedom.
It had been necessary to clear out the vessel for an
island of the West Indies ; but, once at sea, he avails him
self of his right as owner of the ship, and compels his
captain to steer for the shores of emancipated North Ame
rica. He lands, with his companions, on the 25th of April,
'•777, in South Carolina, not far from Charleston, and find?
j.» most cordial reception and hospitable welcome in the
house of Major Huger.
Every detail of this adventurous expedition, full of in
cidents, combining with the simplicity of historical truth all
the interest of romance, is so well known, and so familiar
to the memory of all who hear me, that I pass them over
without further notice.
From Charleston he proceeded to Philadelphia, where the
Congress of the Revolution were in session, and where he
offered his services in the cause. Here, again, he was met
with difficulties, which, to men of ordinary minds, would
have been insurmountable. Mr. Deane's contracts were so
numerous, and for offices of rank so high, that it was im-

19
possible they should be ratified by the Congress He had
stipulated for the appointment of other Major Generals ; and,
in the same contract with that of Lafayette, for eleven other
officers, from the rank of Colonel to that of Lieutenant. To
r/Tftoduce these officers, strangers, scarcely one of whom
could speak the language of the country, into the American
army, to take rank and precedence over the native citizens
whose ardent patriotism had pointed them to the standard
of their country, could not, without great injustice, nor
without exciting the most fatal dissensions, have been done ;
and this answer was necessarily given as well to Lafayette
as to the other officers who had accompanied him from
Europe. His reply was an offer to serve as a volunteer, and
without pay. Magnanimity, thus disinterested, could not be
resisted, nor could the sense of it be worthily manifested
by a mere acceptance of the offer. On the 31st of July,
1777, therefore, the following resolution and preamble are
recorded upon the Journals of Congress :
" Whereas, the Marquis de Lafayette, out of his great
" zeal to the cause of Liberty, in which the United States
" are engaged, has left his family and connexions, and, at
" his own expense, come over to offer his service to the
" United States, without pension, or particular allowance,
" and is anxious to risk his life in our cause :
" Resolved, That his service be accepted, and that, in
" consideration of his zeal, illustrious family, and connex-
" ions, he have %ie rank and commission of Major General
" in the Army of the United States."
He had the rank and commission, but no command as a
Major General. With this, all personal ambition was gratified ,

20
and whatever services he might perform, he could attain no
higher rank in the American army. The discontents ol"
officers already in the service, at being superseded in com
mand by a stripling foreigner, were disarmed; nor was the
prudence of Congress, perhaps, without its influence yj
withholding a command, which, but for a judgment p^-
mature "beyond the slow advance of years," might have
hazarded something of the sacred cause itself, by confidence
too hastily bestowed.
The day after the date of his commission, he was intro
duced to Washington, Commander-in-chief of the armies of
the Confederation. It was the critical period of the campaign
of 1777. The British army, commanded by Lord Howe,
was advancing from the head of Elk, to which they had
been transported by sea from New York, upon Philadelphia.
Washington, by a counteracting movement, had been ap
proaching from his line of defence, in the Jerseys, towards
the city, and arrived there on the 1st of August. It was a
meeting of congenial souls. At the close of it, Washington
gave the youthful stranger an invitation to make the head
quarters of the Commander-in-chief his home : that he should
establish himself there at his own time, and consider himsel!
at all times as one of his family. It was natural that, in
giving this invitation, he should remark the contrast of the
situation in which it would place him, with that of ease, and
comfort, and luxurious enjoyment, which he had left, at the
splendid Court of Louis the Sixteenth, and of hi« beautiful and
accomplished, but ill-fated Queen, then at iiJS very summit
of all which constitutes the common estimate of felicity.
How deep and solemn was this contrast ! No native Ame-

21
rican had undergone the trial of the same alternative. None
of them, save Lafayette, had brought the same tribute, of
his life, his fortune, and his honor, to a cause of a country
foreign to his own. To Lafayette the soil of freedom was
his country. His post of honor was the post of danger.
His fireside was the field of battle. He accepted with joy
the invitation of Washington, and repaired forthwith to the
Camp. The bond of indissoluble friendship— the friendship
of heroes, was sealed from the first hour of their meeting,
to last throughout their lives, and to live in the memory of
mankind forever.
It was, perhaps, at the suggestion of the American Com
missioners in France, that this invitation was given by
Washington. In a letter from them, of the 25th of May, 1777,
to the Committee of Foreign Affairs, they announce that the
Marquis had departed for the United States in a ship of
his own, accompanied by some officers of distinction, in
order to serve in our armies. They observe that he is
exceedingly beloved, and that every body's good wishes
attend him. They cannot but hope that he will meet with
such a reception as will make the country and his expe
dition agreeable to him. They further say that those who
censure it as imprudent in him, do nevertheless applaud
his spirit ; and they are satisfied that civilities and respect
shown to him will be serviceable to our cause in France,
as pleasing not only to his powerful relations and to the
Court, but to the whole French Nation. They finally"
add, that he had left a beautiful young wife, and for her
sake, particularly, they hoped that his bravery and ardent
desire to distinguish himself would be a little restrained

22
by the General's [Washington's] prudence, so as not to
permit his being hazarded much, but upon some important
occasion. The head-quarters of Washington, serving as a volunteer,
with the rank and commission of, a Major General without
command, was precisely the station adapted to the deve
lopment of his character, to his own honor, and that of the
army, and to the prudent management of the country's cause.
To him it was at once a severe school of experience, and
a rigorous test of merit. But it was not the place tp re
strain him from exposure to danger. , The time at which he
joined the Camp was one of pre-eminent peril. The British
Government, and the Commander-in-chief of the British
forces, had imagined that the possession of Philadelphia,
combined with that of the line along the Hudson river,
from the Canadian frontier to the city ,of New York, would
be fatal to the American cause. By the capture of Bur
goyne and his army, that portion of the project sustained a
total defeat. The final issue of the war was indeed sealed
with the capitulation of the 17th. of October, 1777, at
Saratoga — sealed, not with the subjugation, but with the
independence of the North American Union.
In the Southern campaign the British Commander was
more successful. The fall of Philadelphia was the result
of the battle of Brandywme, on the 11th of September.
This was the first action in which Lafayette was engaged,
and the first lesson of his practical military school was a
lesson of misfortune. In the attempt to rally the Ameri
can troops in their retreat, he received a musket ball in the
leg. He was scarcely conscious of the wound till made

sensible of it by the loss of blood, and even then ceased
not his exertions in the field till he had secured and
covered the retreat.
This casualty confined hiin for some time to his bed at
Philadelphia, and afterwards detained him some days at
Bethlehem ; but within six weeks he rejoined the head
quarters of Washington, near Whitemarsh. He soon became
anxious to obtain a command equal to his rank, and, in the
short space of time that he had been with the Commander-
in-chief, had so thoroughly obtained his confidence as to
secure an earnest solicitation from him to Congress in his
favor. In a letter to Congress of the 1st of November,
1 777, he says : " The Marquis de Lafayette is extremely soli-
" citous of having a command equal to his rank. I do not know
" in what light Congress will view the matter, but it appears
" to me, from a consideration of his illustrious and important
" connexions, the attachment which he has manifested for
" our cause, and the consequences which his return in dis-
" gust might produce, that it will be advisable to gratify
" him in his wishes ; and the more so, as several gentle-
" men from France, who came over under some assurances,
" have gone back disappointed in their expectations. His
"¦ conduct with respect to them stands in a favorable point
" of view ; having interested himself to remove their un-
" easiness, and urged the impropriety of their making any
" unfavorable representations upon their arrival at home ;
" and in all his letters he has placed our affairs in the best
" situation he could. Besides, he is sensible, discreet in
" his manners ; has made great proficiency in our language ;
" and, from the disposition he discovered at the battle of

24 ,
" Brandywine, possesses a large share of bravery and
" military ardor."
Perhaps one of the highest encomiums ever pronounced
of a man in public life, is that of a historian eminent for
his profound acquaintance with mankind, who, in painting a
great character by a single line, says that he was just equal ,
to all the duties of the highest offices whieh he attained,
and never above them. There are in some men qualities
which dazzle and consume to little or no valuable purpose.
They seldom belong to the great benefactors of mankind.
They were not the qualities of Washington, or of Lafayette.
The testimonial offered by the American Commander to
his young friend, after a probation of several months, and
after the severe test of the disastrous day of Brandywine,
was precisely adapted to the man in whose favor it was
given, and to the object which it was to accomplish. What
earnestness of purpose ! what sincerity of conviction ! what
energetic simplicity of expression ! what thorough delineation
1 of character ! The merits of Lafayette, to the eye of Wash
ington, are the candor and generosity of his disposition — the
indefatigable industry of application which, in the course of
a few months, has already given him the mastery of a foreign
language — good sense — discretion of manners, an attribute
not only unusual in early years, but doubly rare in alliance
i with that enthusiasm so signally marked by his self-devo-
! tion to the American cause ; and, to crown all the rest, the
bravery and military ardor so brilliantly manifested at the
; Brandywine. Here is no random praise; no unmeaning
panegyric. This cluster of qualities, all plain and simple,
but so seldom found in union together, so generally incom-

25
patible with one another, these are the properties eminently
trustworthy, in the judgment of Washington ; and these are
the properties which his discernment has found in Lafayette,
and which urge him thus earnestly to advise the gratification
of his wish by the assignment of a command equal to the
rank which had been granted to his zeal and his illustrious
name. The recommendation of Washington had its immediate
effect ; and on the 1st of December, 1777, it was resolved by
Congress that he should be informed it was highly agreeable
to Congress that the Marquis de Lafayette should be
appointed to the command of a division in the Continental
Army. He received accordingly such an appointment ; and a
plan was organized in Congress for a second invasion of
Canada, at the head of which he was placed. This expe
dition, originally projected without consultation with the
Commander-in-chief, might be connected with the tempo
rary dissatisfaction, in the community and in Congress, at
the ill success of his endeavors to defend Philadelphia,
which rival and unfriendly partisans were too ready to
compare with the splendid termination, by the capture of
Burgoyne and his army, of the Northern campaign, under
the command of General Gates. To foreclose all suspicion
of participation in these views, Lafayette proceeded to the
Seat of Congress, and, accepting the important charge
which it was proposed to assign to him, obtained at his
particular request that he should be considered as an
officer detached from the army of Washington, and to
•remain under his orders. He then repaired in person to

26
Albany, to take command of the troops who were to assem
ble at that place, in order to cross the Lakes on the ice,
and attack Montreal ; but, on arriving at Albany, he found
none of the promised preparations in readiness — they were
never effected. Congress some time after relinquished the
design, and the Marquis was ordered to rejoin the army
of Washington. In the succeeding month of May, his military talent was
displayed by the masterly retreat effected in the presence of
an overwhelming superiority of the enemy's force from the
position at Barren Hill.
He was soon after distinguished at the battle of Mon
mouth ; and in September, 1778, a resolution of Congress
declared their high sense of his services, not only in the
field, but in his exertions to conciliate and heal dissensions
between the officers of the French fleet under the com
mand of Count d'Estaing and some of the native officers of
our army. These dissensions had arisen in the first moments
of co-operation in the service, and had threatened perni
cious consequences.
In the month of April, 1776, the combined wisdom of
the Count de Vergennes and of Mr. Turgot, the Prime
Minister, and the Financier of Louis the Sixteenth, had
brought him to the conclusion that the event the most desira
ble to France, with regard to the controversy between Great
Britain and her American Colonies, was that the insur
rection should be suppressed. This judgment, evincing
only the total absence of all moral considerations, in the
estimate, by these eminent statesmen, of what was desira
ble to France, had undergone a great change by the close

27
of the year 1777. The Declaration of Independence
had changed the question between the parties. The
popular feeling of France was all on the side of the
Americans. The daring and romantic movement of La
fayette, in defiance of the Government itself, then highly
favored by public opinion, was followed by universal ad
miration. The spontaneous spirit of the people gradually
spread itself even over the rank corruption of the Court ; a
suspicious and deceptive neutrality succeeded to an osten
sible exclusion of the Insurgents from the ports of Fiance,
till the capitulation of Burgoyne satisfied the casuists
of international law at Versailles that the suppression of
the insurrection was no longer the most desirable of events ;
but that the United States were, de facto, sovereign and
independent ; and that France might conclude a Treaty of ,
Commerce with them, without giving just cause of offence
to the step-mother country. On the 6th of February, 1778, a
Treaty of Commerce between France and the United States
was concluded, and with it, on the same day, a Treaty of
eventual Defensive Alliance, to take effect only in the event
of Great Britain's resenting, by war against France, the con
summation of the Commercial Treaty. The war immediately
ensued, and in the summer of 1778 a French fleet under
the command of Count d'Estaing was sent to co-operate
with the forces of the United States for the maintenance
of their Independence.
By these events the position of the Marquis de Lafay
ette was essentially changed. It became necessary for hire
to reinstate himself in the good graces of his Sovereign,
offended at his absenting himself from his country without

28
permission, but gratified with the distinction which he had
acquired by gallant deeds in a service now become that of
France herself. At the close of the campaign of 1778,
with the approbation of his friend and patron, the Com
mander-in-chief, he addressed a letter to the President of
Congress, representing his then present circumstances with
the confidence of affection and gratitude, observing that the
sentiments which bound him to his country could never be
more properly spoken of than in the presence of men who
had done so much for their own. " As long, continued he,
" as I thought I could dispose of myself, I made it my pride
" and pleasure to fight under American colors, in defence of
" a cause which I dare more particularly call ours, because I
" had the good fortune of bleeding for her. Now, Sir, that
" France is involved in a war, I am urged, by a sense of
" my duty, as well as by the love of my country, to present
" myself before the King, and know in what manner he judges
" proper to employ my services. The most agreeable of all
" will always be such as may enable me to serve the com-
" mon cause among those whose friendship I had the happiness
" to obtain, and whose fortune I had the honor to follow in
" less smiling times. That reason, and others, which I leave
cl to the feelings of Congress, engage me to beg from them
" the liberty of going home for the next Winter.
" As long as there were any hopes of an active cam-
" paign, I did not think of leaving the field ; now that I see
" a very peaceable and undisturbed moment, I take this op-
" portunity of waiting on Congress."
In the remainder of the 'letter he solicited that, in the
event of his request being granted, he might be considered

29
as a soldier on furlough, heartily wishing to regain his coloifc
and his esteemed and beloved fellow-soldiers. And he
closes with a tender of any services which he might be
enabled to render to the American cause in his own country.
On the receipt of this letter, accompanied by one from
General Washington, recommending to Congress, in terms
most honorable to the Marquis, a compliance with his re
quest, that body immediately passed resolutions granting him
an unlimited leave of absence, with permission to return
to the United States at his own most convenient time ;
that the President of Congress should write him a letter
returning him the thanks of Congress for that disinterested
zeal which had led him to America, and for the services
he had rendered to the United States by the exertion of
his courage and abilities on many signal occasions ; and that
the Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States at the
Court of Versailles should be directed to cause an elegant
sword, with proper devices, to be made, and presented to
him in the name of the United States. These resolutions
were communicated to him in a letter expressive of the
sensibility congenial to them, from the President of Con
gress, Henry Laurens.
He embarked in January, 1779, in the frigate Alliance,
at Boston, and, on the succeeding 12th day of February,
presented himself at Versailles. Twelve months had already
elapsed since the conclusion ofthe Treaties of Commerce and
of eventual Alliance between France and the United States.
They had, during the greater part of that time, been deeply
engaged in war with a common cause against Great Britain,
and it was the cause in which Lafayette had been shedding

30
his blood : yet, instead of receiving him with open arms, as
the pride and ornament of his country, a cold and hollow-
hearted order was issued to him not to present himself at
Court, but to consider himself under arrest, with permission
to receive visits only from his relations. This ostensible
mark of the Royal displeasure was to last eight days,
and Lafayette manifested his sense of it only by a letter to
the Count de Vergennes, inquiring whether the interdiction
upon him to receive visits was to be considered as extend
ing to that of Doctor Franklin. The sentiment of universal
admiration which had followed him at his first departure,
greatly increased by his splendid career of service during
the two years of his absence, indemnified him for the
indignity of the courtly rebuke.
He remained in France through the year 1779, and re
turned to the scene of action early in the ensuing year.
He continued in the French service, and was appointed to
command the King's own regiment of dragoons, stationed
during the year in various parts of the Kingdom, and holding
a;i incessant correspondence with the Ministers of Foreign
Affairs and of War, urging the employment of a land and
naval force in aid of the American cause. " The Marquis de
" Lafayette," says Doctor Franklin, in a letter of the 4th of
March, 1780, to the President of Congress, " who, during his
" residence in France, has been extremely zealous in sup-
" porting our cause on all occasions, returns again to fight for
" it. He is infinitely esteemed and beloved here, and I am
" persuaded will do every thing in his power to merit a
" continuance of the same affection from America."

31
Immediately after his arrival in the United States, it was,
on the 16th of May, 1780, resolved in Congress, that they
considered his return to America to resume his command
as a fresh proof of the disinterested zeal and persevering
attachment which have justly recommended him to the public-
confidence and applause, and that they received with plea
sure a tender of the further services of so gallant and
meritorious an officer.
From this time until the termination of the campaign of
1781, by the surrender of Lord Cornwallis and his army
at Yorktown, his service was of incessant activity, always
signalized by military talents unsurpassed, and by a spirit
never to be subdued. At the time of the treason of Arnold,
Lafayette was accompanying his Commander-in-chief to an
important conference and consultation with the French Gene
ral, Rochambeau ; and then, as in every stage of the war,
it seemed as if the position which he occupied, his per
sonal character, his individual relations with Washington,
with the officers of both the allied armies, and with the
armies themselves, had been specially ordered to promote
and secure that harmony and mutual good understanding
indispensable to the ultimate success of the common cause.
His position, too, as a foreigner by birth, a European, a
volunteer in the American service, and a person of high
rank in his native country, pointed him out as peculiarly
suited to the painful duty of deciding upon the character of
.the crime, and upon the fate of the British officer, the accom
plice and victim of the detested traitor, Arnold.
In the early part of the campaign of 1781, when Corn
wallis, with an overwhelming force, was spreading ruin and

32
devastation over the Southern portion of the Union, we find
Lafayette, Avith means altogether inadequate, charged with
the defence of the Territory of Virginia. Always equal to
the emergencies in which circumstances placed him, his
expedients for encountering and surmounting the obstacles
which they cast in his way are invariably stamped with
the peculiarities of his character. The troops placed under
his command for the defence of Virginia, were chiefly taken
from the Eastern regiments, unseasoned to the climate of
the South, and prejudiced against it as unfavorable to the
health of the natives of the more rigorous regions of the
North. Desertions became frequent, till they threatened
the very dissolution of the corps. Instead of resorting to
military execution to retain his men, he appeals to the
sympathies of honor. He states, in general orders, the great
danger and difficulty of the enterprise upon which he it.
about to embark; represents the only possibility by which
it can promise success, the faithful adherence of the soldiers
to their chief, and his confidence that they will not abandon
him. He then adds, that if, however, any individual of
the detachment was unwilling to follow him, a passport to
return to his home should be forthwith granted him upon
his application. It is to a cause like that of American In
dependence that resources like this are congenial. After
these general orders, nothing more was heard of desertion.
The very cripples of the army preferred paying for their
own transportation, to follow the corps, rather than to ask
for the dismission which had been made so easily accessibly
to all.

33
But how shall the deficiencies of the military chest be
supplied ? The want of money was heavily pressing upon
the service in every direction. Where are the sinews of
war ? How are the troops to march without shoes, linen,
clothing of all descriptions, and other necessaries of life ?
Lafayette has found them all. From the patriotic merchants
of Baltimore he obtains, on the pledge of his own personal
credit, a loan of money adequate to the purchase of the
materials ; and from the fair hands of the daughters of the
Monumental City, even then worthy to be so called, he
obtains the toil of making up the needed garments.
The details of the campaign, from its unpromising outset,
when Cornwallis, the British Commander, exulted in anti
cipation that the boy could not escape him, till the storming
of the twin redoubts, in emulation of gallantry by the valiant
Frenchmen of Viomesnil, and the American fellow-soldiers
of Lafayette, led by him to> victory at Yorktown, must be
left to the recording pen of History. Both redoubts were
carried at the point of the sword, and Cornwallis, with
averted face, surrendered his sword to Washington.
This was the last vital struggle of the war, which, how
ever, lingered through another year rather of negotiation than
of action. Immediately after the capitulation at Yorktown,!
Lafayette, asked and obtained again a leave of absence to |
visit his family and his country, and with this closed his mili
tary service in the field during the Revolutionary War. But
it was not for the individual enjoyment of his renown that
he returned to France. The resolutions of Congress ac
companying that which gave him a discretionary leave of
absence, while honorary in the highest degree to him, were
3

34
equally marked by a grant of virtual credentials for nego
tiation, and by the trust of confidential powers, together
with a letter of the warmest commendation of the gallant
soldier to the favor of his King. The ensuing year was
consumed in preparations for a formidable combined French
and Spanish expedition against the British Islands in the
West Indies, and particularly the Island of Jamaica ; thence
to recoil upon New York, and to pursue the offensive war
into Canada. The fleet destined for this gigantic under
taking was already assembled at Cadiz ; and Lafayette, ap
pointed the chief of the Staff, was there ready to embark
upon this perilous adventure, when, on the 30th of Novem
ber, 1782, the preliminary treaties of peace were concluded
between his Britannic Majesty on one part, and the Allied
Powers of France, Spain, and the United States of America,
on the other. The first intelligence of this event received
by the American Congress was in the communication of a
letter from Lafayette.
The war of American Independence is closed. The
People of the North American Confederation are in union,
sovereign and independent. Lafayette, at twenty-five years
of age, has lived the life of a patriarch, and illustrated the
career of a hero. Had his days upon earth been then
numbered, and had he then slept with his fathers, illustri
ous as for centuries their names had been, his name, to
the end of time, would have transcended them all. For
tunate youth ! fortunate beyond even the measure of his
companions in arms with whom he had achieved the glo
rious consummation of American Independence. His fame
was all his own; not cheaply earned; not ignobly won.

35
His fellow-soldiers had been the champions and defenders,
of their country. They reaped for themselves, for their
wives, their children, their posterity to the latest time, the
rewards of their dangers and their toils. Lafayette had
watched, and labored, and fought, and bled, not for himself,
not for his family, not, in the first instance, even for his
country. In the legendary tales of Chivalry we read of
tournaments at which a foreign and unknown Knight sud
denly presents himself, armed in complete steel, and, with
the vizor down, enters the ring to contend with the assem
bled flower of Knighthood for the prize of honor, to be
awarded by the hand of Beauty ; bears it in triumph away,
and disappears from the astonished multitud.e of competitors.
and spectators of the feats of arms. But where, in the rolls
of History, where, in the fictions of Romance, where, but in
the life of Lafayette, has been seen the noble stranger, fly
ing, with the tribute of his name, his rank, his affluence, his
ease, his domestic bliss, his treasure, his blood, to the relief
of a suffering and distant land, in the hour of her deepest
calamity — baring his bosom to her foes ; and not at the
transient pageantry of a tournament, but for a succession
of five years sharing all the vicissitudes of her fortunes ;
always eager to appear at the post of danger — tempering
the glow of youthful ardor with the cold caution of a
veteran commander ; bold and daring in action ; prompt in
execution ; rapid in pursuit ; fertile in expedients ; unat
tainable in retreat; often exposed, but never surprised,
never disconcerted ; eluding his enemy when within his fan
cied grasp ; bearing upon him with irresistible sway when of
force to cope with him in the conflict of arms ? And what
3*

36
is this but the diary of Lafayette, from the day of his rally
ing the scattered fugitives of the Brandywine, insensible of
the blood flowing from his wound, to the storming of the
redoubt at Yorktown ?
Henceforth, as a public man, Lafayette is to be con-
i sidered as a Frenchman, always active and ardent to serve
the United States, but no longer in their service as an offi
cer. So transcendent had been his merits in the common
cause, that, to reward them, the rule of progressive advance
ment in the armies of France was set aside for him. He
received from the Minister of War a notification that from
the day of his retirement from the service of the United
States as a Major General, at the close of the war, he
should hold the same rank in the armies of France, to date
from the day of the capitulation of Lord Cornwallis.
Henceforth he is a Frenchman, destined to perform in
the history of his country a part, as peculiarly his own, and
not less glorious than that which he had performed in the
war of Independence. A short period of profound peace
followed the great triumph of Freedom. The desire of
Lafayette once more to see the land of his adoption and
the associates of his glory, the fellow-soldiers who had
become to him as brothers, and the friend and patron of his
youth, who had become to him as a father ; sympathizing
with their desire once more to see him — to see in their
prosperity him who had first come to them in their
affliction, induced him, in the year 1784, to pay a visit to
the United States.
J~ On the 4th of August, of that year, he landed at New
York, and, in the space of five months from that time,

37
visited his venerable friend at Mount Vernon, where he
was then living in retirement, and traversed ten States of the
Union, receiving every where, from their Legislative Assem
blies, from the Municipal Bodies of the cities and towns
through which he passed, from the officers of the army, his
late associates, now restored to the virtues and occupations
of private life, and even from the recent emigrants from
Ireland, who had come to adopt for their country the
self-emancipated land, addresses of gratulation and of
joy, the effusions of hearts grateful in the enjoyment of
the blessings for the possession of which they had been
so largely indebted to his exertions — and, finally, from
the United States of America in Congress assembled at
Trenton. On the 9th of December it was resolved by that body
that a committee, to consist of one member from each
State, should be appointed to receive, and in the name of
Congress take leave of the Marquis.j That they should be
instructed to assure him that Congress continued to entertain
the same high sense of his abilities and zeal to promote the
welfare of America, both here and in Europe, which they
had frequently expressed and manifested on former occa
sions, and which the recent marks of his attention to their
commercial and other interests had perfectly confirmed.
" That, as his uniform and unceasing attachment to this
" country has resembled that of a patriotic citizen, the United
" States regard him with particular affection, and will not
" cease to feel an interest in whatever may concern his
" honor and prosperity, and that their best and kindest
" wishes will alwavs attend him."

38
/*And it was further resolved, that a letter be written to
his Most Christian Majesty, to be signed by his Excellency
the President of Congress, expressive of the high sense
which the United States in Congress assembled entertain of
the zeal, talents, and meritorious services of the Marquis
de Lafayette, and recommending him to the favor and
patronage of his Majesty. I
[/The first of these resolutions was, on the next day,
carried into execution./ At a solemn interview with the
Committee of Congress, received in their Hall, and addressed
by the Chairman of their Committee, John Jay, the purport
of these resolutions was communicated to him. He re
plied in terms of fervent sensibility for the kindness mani
fested personally to himself; and, with allusions to the
, situation, the prospects, and the duties of the People of
this country, he pointed out the great interests which he
believed it indispensable to their welfare that they should
cultivate and cherish. In the following memorable sen
tences the ultimate objects of his solicitude are disclosed
in a tone deeply solemn and impressive :
" May this immense Temple of Freedom," said he, " ever
" stand, a lesson to oppressors, an example to the op-
" pressed, a sanctuary for the rights of mankind ! and may
"these happy United States attain that complete splendor
" and prosperity which will illustrate the blessings of their
" Government, and for ages to come rejoice the departed
" souls of its founders."
Fellow-citizens! Ages have passed away since these
words were spoken ; but ages are the years of the ex
istence of Nations. The founders of this immense Temple

39
of Freedom have all departed, save here and there a soli
tary exception, even while I speak, at the point of taking
wing. The prayer of Lafayette is not yet consummated.
Ages upon ages are still to pass away before it can have
its full accomplishment ; and, for its full accomplishment,
his spirit, hovering over our heads, in more than echoes
talks around these walls. It repeats the prayer which from
his lips fifty years ago was at once a parting blessing and
a prophecy ; for, were it possible for the whole human
race, now breathing the breath of life, to be assembled
within this Hall, your Orator would, in your name and in
that of your constituents, appeal to them to testify for your
fathers of the last generation, that, so far as has depended
upon them, the blessing of Lafayette has been prophecy.
Yes ! this immense Temple of Freedom still stands, a lesson
to oppressors, an example to the oppressed, and a sanc
tuary for the rights of mankind. Yes ! with the smiles of
a benignant Providence, the splendor and prosperity of
these happy United States have illustrated the blessings of
their Government, and, we may humbly hope, have re
joiced the departed souls of its founders. For the past
your fathers and you have been responsible. The charge
of the future devolves upon you and upon your children.
The vestal fire of Freedom is in your custody. May the
souls of its departed founders never be called to witness
its extinction by neglect, nor a soil upon the purity of its,
keepers !
With this valedictory, Lafayette took, as he and thoae
who heard him then believed, a final leave of the People of

40
the United States. He returned lo France, and arrived at
Paris on the 25th of January, 1785. 
He continued to take a deep interest in the concerns of
the United States, and exerted his influence with the French
Government to obtain reductions of duties favorable to their
commerce and fisheries. In the summer of 1786, he visited
several of the German Courts, and attended the last great
review by Frederick the Second of his veteran army — a
review unusually splendid, and specially remarkable by the
attendance of many of the most distinguished military com
manders of Europe. In the same year the Legislature of
Virginia manifested the continued recollection of his ser
vices rendered to the People of that Commonwealth, by a
complimentary token of gratitude not less honorable than it
was unusual. They resolved that two busts of Lafayette,
to be executed by the celebrated sculptor, Houdon, should
be procured at their expense ; that one of them should be
placed in their own Legislative Hall, and the other present
ed, in their name, to the municipal authorities of the city of
Paris. It was accordingly presented by Mr. Jefferson, then
Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States in France, and,
by the permission of Louis the Sixteenth, was accepted,
and, with appropriate solemnity, placed in one of the Halls
of the Hotel de Ville of the Metropolis of France.
We have gone through one stage of the life of La
fayette : we are now to see him acting upon another
theatre — in a cause still essentially the same, but in the
application of its principles to his own country.
The immediately originating question which occasioned
the French Revolution was the same with that from which

41
the American Revolution had sprung — Taxation of the Peo
ple without their consent. For nearly two centuries the
Kings of France had been accustomed to levy taxes upon
the People by Royal Ordinances. But it was necessary that
these Ordinances should be registered in the Parliaments or
Judicial Tribunals ; and these Parliaments claimed the right
of remonstrating against them, and sometimes refused the
registry of them itself. The members of the Parliaments
held their offices by purchase, but were appointed by the
King, and were subject to banishment or imprisonment, at
his pleasure. Louis the Fifteenth, towards the close of his
reign, had abolished the Parliaments, but they had been
restored at the accession of his successor.
The finances of the Kingdom were in extreme disorder. !
The Minister, or Comptroller General, De Garonne, after
attempting various projects for obtaining the supplies, the
amount and need of which he was with lavish hand daily
increasing, bethought himself, at last, of calling for the
counsel of others. He prevailed upon the King to convoke,
not the States General, but an Assembly of Notables. There
was something ridiculous in the very name by which this
meeting was called, but it consisted of a selection from all
the Grandees and Dignitaries of the Kingdom. The two
brothers of the King — all the Princes of the blood, Arch
bishops and Bishops, Dukes and Peers— the Chancellor and
Presiding Members of the Parliaments ; distinguished Mem
bers of the Noblesse, and the Mayors and Chief Magistrates
of a few of the principal cities of the Kingdom, constituted
this Assembly. It was a representation of every interest but
that of the People. They were appointed by the King—

42
were members of the highest Aristocracy, and were assem
bled with the design that their deliberations should be
confined exclusively to the subjects submitted to their
consideration by the Minister. These were certain plans
devised by him for replenishing the insolvent Treasury,
by assessments upon the privileged classes, the very
Princes, Nobles, Ecclesiastics, and Magistrates exclusively
represented in the Assembly itself.
Of this meeting the Marquis de Lafayette was a mem
ber. It was held in February, 1787, and terminated in the
overthrow and banishment of the Minister by whom it had
been convened. In the fiscal concerns which absorbed the
care and attention of others, Lafayette took comparatively
little interest. His views were more comprehensive.
The Assembly consisted of one hundred and thirty-seven
persons, and divided itself into seven sections or bureaux,
each presided by a Prince of the blood. Lafayette was
allotted to the division under the Presidency of the Count
d'Artois, the younger brother of the King, and since known
as Charles the Tenth. The propositions made by La
fayette were —
1. The suppression of Lettres de Cachet, and the aboli
tion of all arbitrary imprisonment.
i 2. The establishment of religious toleration, and the
restoration of the Protestants to their civil rights.
3. The convocation of a National Assembly, representing
the People of France — Personal Liberty — Religious Liberty
— and a Representative Assembly of the People. These
were his demands.

43
The first and second of them produced, perhaps, at the
time, no deep impression upon the Assembly, nor upon the
public. Arbitrary imprisonment, and the religious persecu
tion of the Protestants had become universally odious. They
were worn-out instruments, even in the hands of those who
wielded them. There was none to defend them.
But the demand for a National Assembly startled the
Prince at the head of the Bureau. What ! said the Count
d'Artois, do you ask for the States General ? Yes, Sir, was
the answer of Lafayette, and for something yet better. You
desire, then, replied the Prince, that I should take in writing,
and report to the King, that the motion to convoke the States
General has been made by the Marquis de Lafayette ?
"Yes, Sir;" and the name of Lafayette was accordingly
reported to the King.
The Assembly of Notables was dissolved — De Calonne
was displaced and banished, and his successor undertook to
raise the needed funds, by the authority of Royal Edicts.
The war of litigation with the Parliaments recommenced,
which terminated only with a positive promise that the States
General should be convoked.
From that time a total revolution of Government in
France was in progress. It has been a solemn, a sublime,
often a most painful, and yet, in the contemplation of great
results, a refreshing and cheering contemplation. I cannot
follow it in its overwhelming multitude of details, even as
connected with the Life and Character of Lafayette. A
second Assembly of Notables succeeded the first; and then an
Assembly of the States General, first to deliberate in sepa^
rate orders of Clergy, Nobility, and Third Estate ; but, finally,

44
constituting itself a National Assembly, and forming a Con
stitution of limited Monarchy, with an hereditary Royal
Executive, and a Legislature in a single Assembly repre
senting the People.
Lafayette was a member of the States General first
assembled. Their meeting was signalized by a struggle
between the several orders of which they were composed,
which resulted in breaking them all down into one National
Assembly. The convocation of the States General had, in one re
spect, operated, in the progress of the French Revolution,
like the Declaration, of Independence in that of North Ame
rica. It had changed the question in controversy. It was,
, on the part of the King of France, a concession that he had
no lawful power to tax the People without their consent.
, The States General, therefore, met with this admission
(already conceded by the King. In the American conflict
the British Government never yielded the concession.
They undertook to maintain their supposed right of arbitrary
taxation by force ; and then the People of the Colonies
renounced all community of Government, not only with the
King and Parliament, but with the British Nation. They
reconstructed the fabric of Government for themselves, and
held the People of Britain as foreigners — friends in peace —
enemies in war.
The concession by Louis the Sixteenth, implied in the
convocation of the States General, was a virtual surrender
of absolute power — an acknowledgment that, as exercised
by himself and his predecessors, it had been usurped. It
was, in substance, an abdication of his Crown. There was

45
no power which he exercised as King of France, the
lawfulness of which was not contestable on the same prin
ciple which denied him the right of taxation. When the
Assembly of the States General met at Versailles, in May,
1789, there was but a shadow of the Royal authority left.
They felt that the power of the Nation was in their hands,
and they were not sparing in the use of it. The Repre
sentatives of the Third Estate, double in numbers to those
of the Clergy and the Nobility, constituted themselves a
National Assembly, and, as a signal for the demolition of all
privileged orders, refused to deliberate in separate Cham
bers, and thus compelled the Representatives of the Clergy
and Nobility to merge their separate existence in the
general mass of the popular Representation.
Thus the edifice of society was to be reconstructed in
France as it had been in America. The King made a feeble
attempt to overawe the Assembly, by calling regiments of
troops to Versailles, and surrounding with them the hall of
their meeting. But there was defection in the army itself,
and even the person of the King soon ceased to be at his
own disposal. On the 11th of July, 1789, in the midst
of the fermentation which had succeeded the fall of the
Monarchy, and while the Assembly was surrounded by
armed soldiers, Lafayette presented to them his Decla
ration of Rights — the first declaration of human rights ever
proclaimed in Europe. It was adopted, and became the
basis of that which the Assembly promulgated with their
Constitution. It was in this hemisphere, and in our own country, that
all its principles had been imbibed. At the very moment
when the Declaration was presented, the convulsive struggle

46
between the expiring Monarchy and the new-born but por
tentous anarchy of the Parisian populace was taking place.
The Royal Palace and the Hall of the Assembly were sur
rounded with troops, and insurrection was kindling at Paris.
In the midst of the popular commotion, a deputation of sixty
members, with Lafayette at their head, was sent from the
Assembly to tranquillize the People of Paris, and that incident
was the occasion of the institution of the National Guard
throughout the Realm, and of the appointment, with the
approbation of the King, of Lafayette as their General
Commander-in-chief. This event, without vacating his seat in the National
Assembly, connected him at once with the military and the
popular movement of the Revolution. The National Guard
was the armed militia of the whole Kingdom, embodied for
the preservation of order, and the protection of persons and
property, as well as for the establishment of the liberties of
the People. In his double capacity of Commander General
of this force, and of a Representative in the Constituent
Assembly, his career, for a period of more than three years,
was beset with the most imminent dangers, and with difficul
ties beyond all human power to surmount.
The ancient Monarchy of France had crumbled into ruins.
A National Assembly, formed by an irregular Representation
of Clergy, Nobles, and Third Estate, after melting at the fire
of a revolution into one body, had transformed itself into a
Constituent Assembly representing the People, had assumed
the exercise of all the powers of Government, extorted from
the hands of the King, and undertaken to form a Constitution
for the French Nation, founded at once upon the theory of
human rights, and upon the preservation of a royal hereditary

47
Crown upon the head of Louis the Sixteenth. Lafayette sin-
oerely believed that such a system would not be absolutely
incompatible with the nature of things. An hereditary Mon
archy, surrounded by popular institutions, presented itself to
his imagination as a .practicable form of government ; nor is
it certain that even to his last days he ever abandoned this
persuasion. The element of hereditary Monarchy in this
Constitution was indeed not congenial with it. The proto
type from which the whole fabric had been drawn, had no
such element in its composition. A feeling of generosity, of
compassion, of commiseration with the unfortunate Prince
then upon the throne, who had been his Sovereign, and for
his ill-fated family, mingled itself, perhaps unconsciously to
himself, with his well-reasoned faith in the abstract principles
of a republican creed. The total abolition of the monarchical
feature undoubtedly belonged to his theory, but the family
of Bourbon had still a strong hold on the affections of the
French People ; History had not made up a record favorable
to the establishment of elective Kings — a strong Executive
Head was absolutely necessary to curb the impetuosities of the
People of France ; and the same doctrine which played upon
the fancy, and crept upon the kind-hearted benevolence of
Lafayette, was adopted by a large majority of the National
Assembly, sanctioned by the suffrages of its most intelligent,
virtuous, and patriotic members, and was finally embodied in
that royal democracy, the result of their labors, sent forth to
the world, under the guaranty of numberless oaths, as the
Constitution of France for all aftertime.
But, during the same period, after the first meeting of the
States General, and while they were in actual conflict with

48
the expiring energies of the Crown, and with the exclusive
privileges of the Clergy and Nobility, another portentous
power had arisen, and entered with terrific activity into the
controversies of the time. This was the power of popular
insurrection, organized by voluntary associations of clubs,
and impelled to action by the municipal authorities of the
city of Paris.
The first movements of the People in the state of insur
rection took place on the 12th of July, 1789, and issued in
the destruction of the Bastille, and in the murder of its
Governor, and of several other persons, hung up at. lamp
posts, or torn to pieces by the frenzied multitude, without
form of trial, and without shadow of guilt.
The Bastille had long been odious as the place of confine
ment of persons arrested by arbitrary orders for offences
against the Government, and its destruction was hailed by
most of the friends of Liberty throughout the world as an
act of patriotism and magnanimity on the part of the People.
The brutal ferocity of the murders was overlooked or pal
liated in the glory of the achievement pf razing to its foun
dations the execrated Citadel of Despotism. But, as the
summary justice of insurrection can manifest itself only by
destruction, the example once set became a precedent for a
series of years for scenes so atrocious, and for butcheries so
merciless and horrible, that memory revolts at the task of
recalling them to the mind.
It would be impossible, within the compass of this Dis
course, to follow the details of the French Revolution to the
final dethronement of Louis the Sixteenth, and the extinction
of the Constitutional Monarchy of France, on the 10th of Au-

49
gust, 1792. During that period, the two distinct Powers weie
in continual operation — sometimes in concert with each other,
sometimes at irreconcilable opposition. Of these Powers,
one was the People of France, represented by the Parisian
populace in insurrection ; the other was the People of France,
represented successively by the Constituent Assembly, which
formed the Constitution of 1791, and by the Legislative
Assembly, elected to carry it into execution.
The movements of the insurgent Power were occasionally
convulsive and cruel, without mitigation or mercy. Guided
by secret springs ; prompted by vindictive and sanguinary
ambition, directed by hands unseen to objects of individual
aggrandizement, its agency fell like the thunderbolt, and
swept like the whirlwind.
The proceedings of the Assemblies were deliberative and
intellectual. They began by grasping at the whole power of
the Monarchy, and they finished by sinking under the dic
tation of the Parisian populace. The Constituent Assembly
numbered among its members many individuals of great
ability, and of pure principles, but they were overawed and
domineered by that other Representation of the People of
France, which, through the instrumentality of the Jacobin
Club, and the Municipality of Paris, disconcerted the wisdom
of the wise, and scattered to the winds the counsels of the
prudent. It was impossible that, under the perturbations of
such a controlling power, a Constitution suited to the charac
ter and circumstances of the Nation should be formed.
Through the whole of this period, the part performed by
Lafayette was without parallel in history. The annals of the
human race exhibit no other instance of a position compara-
4

50
ble for its unintermitted perils, its deep responsibilities, and
its providential issues, with that which he occupied as Com
mander General of the National Guard, and as a leading
member of the Constituent Assembly. In the numerous
insurrections of the People, he saved the lives of multitudes
devoted as victims, and always at the most imminent hazard
of his own. On the 5th and 6th of October, 1789, he saved the
lives of Louis the Sixteenth, and of his Queen. He escaped,
time after time, the daggers sharpened by princely conspiracy
on one hand, and by popular frenzy on the other. He wit
nessed, too, without being able to prevent it, the butchery of
Foulon before his eyes, and the reeking heart of Berthier,
torn from his lifeless trunk, was held up in exulting triumph
before him. On this occasion, and on another, he threw up
his commission as Commander of the National Guards ; but
who could have succeeded him, even with equal power to
restrain these volcanic excesses ? At the earnest solicitation
of those who well knew that his place could never be sup
plied, he resumed and continued in the command until the
solemn proclamation of the Constitution, upon which he
definitively laid it down, and retired to private life upon his
estate in Auvergne.
J As a member of the Constituent Assembly, it is not in
the detailed organization of the Government which they
prepared, that his spirit and co-operation is to be traced.
' It is in the principles which he proposed and infused into
the system. As, at the first Assembly of Notables, his voice
had been raised for the abolition of arbitrary imprisonment,
for the extinction of religious intolerance, and for the repre
sentation of the People, so, in the National Assembly,

51
besides the Declaration of Rights, which formed the basis of
the Constitution itself, he made or supported the motions for
the establishment of trial by jury, for the gradual emancipa
tion of slaves, for the freedom of the Press, for the abolition
of all titles of nobility, and for the declaration of equality
of all the citizens, and the suppression of all the privileged
orders, without exception of the Princes of the royal family.
Thus, while, as a legislator, he was spreading the principles
of universal liberty over the whole surface of the State, as
Commander-in-chief of the armed force of the Nation, he was
controlling, repressing, and mitigating, as far as it could be
effected by human power, the excesses of the People. _J
The Constitution was at length proclaimed, and the Con
stituent National Assembly was dissolved. In advance of
this event, the sublime spectacle of the Federation was
exhibited on the 14th of July, 1790, the first anniversary
of the destruction of the Bastille. There was an ingenious
and fanciful association of ideas in the selection of that day.
The Bastille was a State Prison, a massive structure, which
had stood four hundred years, every stone of which was
saturated with sighs and tears, and echoed the groans of four
centuries of oppression. It was the very type and emblem of
the despotism which had so long weighed upon France.
Demolished from its summit to its foundation at the first
shout of Freedom from the People, what day could be more
appropriate than its anniversary for the day of solemn
consecration of the new fabric of Government, founded
upon the rights of man?
I shall not describe the magnificent and melancholy pa
geant of that day. It has been done by abler hands, and
4"»

52
in a style which could only be weakened and diluted by
repetition.* The religious solemnity of the mass was per
formed by a Prelate, then eminent among the members of
the Assembly and the dignitaries of the land ; still eminent,
after surviving the whole circle of subsequent revolutions.
No longer a father of the Church, but among the most
distinguished laymen and most celebrated statesmen of
France, his was the voice to invoke the blessing of Hea
ven upon this new Constitution for his liberated country;
and he and Louis the Sixteenth, and Lafayette, and thirty
thousand delegates from all the Confederated National
Guards of the Kingdom, in the presence of Almighty God,
and of five hundred thousand of their countrymen, took the
oath of fidelity to the Nation, to the Constitution, and
all, save the Monarch himself, to the King. His corre
sponding oath was, of fidelity to discharge the duties of his
high office, and to the People.
Alas ! and was it all false and hollow ? had these oaths
no more substance than the breath that ushered them to the
winds? It is impossible to look back upon the short and
turbulent existence of this royal democracy, to mark the
frequent paroxysms of popular frenzy by which it was
assailed, and the catastrophe by which it perished, and to
believe that the vows of all who swore to support it were
sincere. But, as well might the sculptor of a block of marble,
after exhausting his genius and his art in giving it a beautiful
human form, call God to witness that it shall perform all the
functions of animal life, as the Constituent Assembly of
France could pledge the faith of its members that their
* In the Address to the young men of Boston, by Edward Everett.

53
royal democracy should work as a permanent organized
form of government. The Declaration of Rights contained
all the principles essential to freedom. The frame of
government was radically and irreparably defective. The
hereditary Royal Executive was itself an inconsistency with
the Declaration of Rights. The Legislative power, all '
concentrated in a single Assembly, was an incongruity still
more glaring. These were both departures from the system
of organization which Lafayette had witnessed in the
American Constitutions : neither of them was approved by
Lafayette. In deference to the prevailing opinions and
prejudices of the times, he acquiesced in them, and he
was destined to incur the most imminent hazards of his life,
and to make the sacrifice of all that gives value to life itself,
in faithful adherence to that Constitution which he had
sworn to support.
j Shortly after his resignation, as Commander General
of the National Guards, the friends of liberty and order
presented him as a candidate for election as Mayor of Paris ;
but he had a competitor in the person of Pethion, more
suited to the party, pursuing with inexorable rancor the
abolition of the Monarchy and the destruction of the King ;
and, what may seem scarcely credible, the remnant of the
party which still adhered to the King, the King himself,
and, above all, the Queen, favored the election of the
Jacobin Pethion, in preference to that of Lafayette.
They were, too fatally for themselves, successful._J)
From the first meeting of the Legislative Assembly, un
der the Constitution of 1791, the destruction ofthe King and
of the Monarchy, and the establishment of a Republic, by

54
means of the popular passions and of popular violence, were
the deliberate purposes of its leading members. The spirit
with whieh the Revolution had been pursued, from the time
ofthe destruction of the Bastille, had caused the emigration of
great numbers of the Nobility and Clergy ; and, among them,
of the two brothers of Louis the Sixteenth, and of several
other Princes of his blood. They had applied to all the other
great Monarchies of Europe for assistance to uphold or
restore the crumbling Monarchy of France. The French
Reformers themselves, in the heat of their political fanaticism,
avowed, without disguise, the design to revolutionize all
Europe, and had emissaries in every country, openly or
secretly preaching the doctrine of insurrection against all
established Governments. Louis the Sixteenth, and his
Queen, an Austrian Princess, sister to the Emperor Leopold,
were in secret negotiation with the Austrian Government
for the rescue of the King and royal family of France from
the dangers with which they were so incessantly beset. In
the Electorate of Treves, a part of the Germanic Empire, the
emigrants from France were assembling, with indications of
a design to enter France in hostile array, to effect a counter
revolution ; and the brothers of the King, assuming a position
at Coblentz, on the borders of their country, Were holding
councils, the object of which was to march in arms to Paris,
to release the King from captivity, and to restore the ancient
Monarchy to the dominion of absolute Power.
The King, who, even before his forced acceptance of the
Constitution of 1791, had made an unsuccessful attempt to
escape from his palace prison, was, in April, 1792, reduced
to the humiliating necessity of declaring war against the very

55
Sovereigns who were arming their Nations to rescue him from
his revolted subjects. Three armies, each of fifty thousand
men, were levied to meet the emergencies of this war, and
were placed under the command of Luckner, Rochambeau,
and Lafayette. As he passed through Paris to go and take
the command of his army, he appeared before the Legislative
Assembly, the President of which, in addressing him, said
that the Nation would oppose to their enemies the Consti
tution and Lafayette.
But the enemies to the Constitution were within the walls.
At this distance of time, when most of the men, and many
of the passions of those days, have passed away, when the
French Revolution, and its results, should be regarded with
the searching eye of philosophical speculation, as lessons of
experience to after ages, may it even now be permitted to
remark how much the virtues and the crimes of men, in
times of political convulsion, are modified and characterized
by the circumstances in which they are placed ? The great
actors of the tremendous scenes of revolution of those times
were men educated in schools of high civilization, and in the
humane and benevolent precepts of the Christian religion.
A small portion of them were vicious and depraved ; but,
the great majority were wound up to madness by that war
of conflicting interests and absorbing passions, enkindled by
a great convulsion of the social system. It has been said,
by a great master of human nature —
*' In peace, there's nothing so becomes a man
" As modest stillness and humility ;
" But when the blast of war blows in your ears,
" Then imitate the action of the tiger.''

56
Too faithfully did the People of France, and the leaders of
their factions, in that war of all the political elements, obey
that injunction. Who, that lived in that day, can remember ?
who, since born, can read, or bear to be told, the horrors of
the 20th of June, the 10th of August, the 2d and 3d of
September, 1792, of the 31st of May, 1793, and of a mul
titude of others, during which, in dreadful succession, the
murderers of one day were the victims of the next, until
that, when the ihsurgent populace themselves were shot
down by thousands, in the very streets of Paris, by the
military legions of the Convention, and the rising fortune
and genius of Napoleon Bonaparte ? Who can remember,
or read, or hear, of all this, without shuddering at the sight
of man, his fellow- creature, in the drunkenness of political
frenzy, degrading himself beneath the condition of the canni
bal savage ? beneath even the condition of the wild beast of
the desert? and who, but with a feeling of deep mortification,
can reflect, that the rational and immortal being, to the race
of which he himself belongs, should, even in his most palmy
state of intellectual cultivation, be capable of this self-trans
formation to brutality ?
/"'in this dissolution of all the moral elements which
regulate the conduct of men in their social condition — in this
monstrous, and scarcely conceivable spectacle of a King, at
the head of a mighty Nation, in secret league with the ene
mies against whom he has proclaimed himself at war, and
of a Legislature conspiring to destroy the King and Consti
tution to which they have sworn allegiance and support,
Lafayette alone is seen to preserve his jidelify to the King,
to the Constitution, and to his country, j

57
" Unshaken, unseduced, unteirified,
" His loyalty he kept, his lore, his zeal."
jf On the 16th of June, 1792, four days before the first vio
lation of the Palace of the Tuilleries by the populace of Paris,
at the instigation of the Jacobins, Lafayette, in a letter to the
Legislative Assembly, had denounced the Jacobin Club, and
called upon the Assembly to suppress themT/ He afterwards
repaired to Paris in person, presented himself at the bar of
the Assembly, repeated his denunciation of the Club, and
took measures for suppressing their meetings by force. He
proposed also to the King himself to furnish him with means
of withdrawing with his family to Compiegne, where he
would have been out of the reach of that ferocious and
blood-thirsty multitude. The Assembly, by a great majority
of votes, sustained the principles of his letter, but the King
declined his proffered assistance to enable him to withdraw
from Paris; and of those upon whom he called to march with
him, and shut up the hall where the Jacobins held their meet
ings, not more than thirteen persons presented themselves at
the appointed time.
He returned to his army, and became thenceforth the
special object of Jacobin resentment and revenge. On the
8th of August, on a preliminary measure to the intended
insurrection ofthe 10th, the question was taken, after several
days of debate, upon a formal motion that he should be put
in accusation and tried. The last remnant of freedom in that
Assembly was then seen by the vote upon nominal appeal, or
yeas and nays, in which four hundred and forty-six votes
were for rejecting the charge, and only two hundred and
twenty-four for sustaining it. Two days after, the Tuil-

58
leries were stormed by popular insurrection. The unfor
tunate King was compelled to seek refuge, with his family,
in the Hall of the Legislative Assembly, and escaped from
being torn to pieces by an infuriated multitude, only to pass
from his palace to the prison, in his way to the scaffold.
This revolution, thus accomplished, annihilated the Con
stitution, the Government, and the cause for which Lafayette
had contended. The People of France, by their acquies
cence, a great portion of them by direct approval, confirmed
and sanctioned the abolition of the Monarchy. The armies
and their commanders took the same victorious side : not a
show of resistance was made to the revolutionary torrent, not
an arm was lifted to restore the fallen Monarch to his throne,
nor even to rescue or protect his person from the fury of his
inexorable foes. Lafayette himself would have marched to
Paris with his army, for the defence of the Constitution, but
in this disposition he was not seconded by his troops. After
ascertaining that the effort would be vain, and after arresting
at Sedan the members of the Deputation from the Legislative
Assembly, sent, after their own subjugation, to arrest him, he
determined, as the only expedient left him to save his honor
and his principles, to withdraw both from the army and the
country; to pass into a neutral territory, and thence into
these United States, the country of his early adoption and his
fond partiality, where he was sure of finding a safe asylum,
and of meeting a cordial welcome.
But his destiny had reserved him for other and severer
trials. We have seen him struggling for the support of
principles, against the violence of raging factions, and the
fickleness of the multitude; we are now to behold him in the

59
hands of the hereditary rulers of mankind, and to witness the'
nature of their tender mercies to him.
It was in the neutral territory of Liege that he, together
with his companions, Latour Maubourg, Bureau de Puzy,
and Alexandre Lameth, was taken by Austrians, and trans
ferred to Prussian guards. Under the circumstances of the
case, he could not, by the principles of the laws of Nations,
be treated even as a prisoner of war. He was treated as a
prisoner of State. Prisoners of State in the Monarchies of
Europe are always presumed guilty, and are treated as if
entitled as little to mercy as to justice. Lafayette was
immured in dungeons, first at Wesel,then at Magdeburg, and,
finally, at Olmutz, in Moravia. By what right? By none
known among men. By what authority? Tliat has never
been avowed. For what cause? None has ever been
assigned. Taken by Austrian soldiers upon a neutral terri
tory, handed over to Prussian jailers ; and, when Frederick
William of Prussia abandoned his Austrian ally, and made his
separate peace with republican France, he retransferred his
illustrious prisoner to the Austrians, from whom he had
received him, that he might be deprived of the blessing of
regaining his liberty, even from the hands of Peace. Five
years was the duration of this imprisonment, aggravated by
every indignity that could make oppression bitter. That it
was intended as imprisonment for life, was not only freely
avowed, but significantly made known to him by his jailers ;
and while, with affected precaution, the means of terminating
his sufferings by his own act were removed from him, the
barbarity of ill usage, of unwholesome food, and of a pestifer
ous atmosphere, was applied with inexorable rigor, as if to

60
abridge the days which, at the same time, were rendered as
far as possible insupportable to himself.
Neither the generous sympathies of the gallant soldier,
General Fitzpatrick, in the British House of Commons, nor
the personal solicitation of Washington, President of the
United States, speaking with the voice, of a grateful Nation,
nor the persuasive accents of domestic and conjugal affection,
imploring the Monarch of Austria for the release of Lafayette,
could avail. The unsophisticated feeling of generous nature
in the hearts of men, at this outrage upon justice and human
ity, was manifested in another form. Two individuals,
private citizens, one, of the United States of America,
/Francis Huger, the other, a native of the Electorate of
i Hanover, Doctor Erick Bollmann, undertook, at the imminent
f hazard of their lives, to supply means for his escape from
prison, and their personal aid to its accomplishment. Their
design was formed with great address, pursued with untiring
perseverance, and executed with undaunted intrepidity. It
was frustrated by accidents beyond the control of human
sagacity. To his persecutions, however, the hand of a wise and just
Providence had, in its own time, and in its own way, prepared
^& termination. The hands of the Emperor Francis, tied
by mysterious and invisible bands against the indulgence of
mercy to the tears of a more than heroic wife, were loosened
.by the more prevailing eloquence, or, rather, were severed
by the conquering sword of Napoleon Bonaparte, acting
under instructions from the Executive Directory, then
swaying the destinies of France.

61
Lafayette and his fellow-sufferers were still under the
sentence of proscription issued by the faction which had de
stroyed the Constitution of 1791, and murdered the ill-fated
Louis and his Queen. But revolution had followed upon
revolution since the downfall of the Monarchy, on the 10th
of August, 1792. The Federative Republicans of the Gironde
had been butchered by the Jacobin Republicans of the Mounl
tain. The Mountain had been subjugated by the Munici
pality of Paris, and the sections of Paris, by a reorganization
of parties in the National Convention, and with aid from
the armies. Brissot and his federal associates, Danton and
his party, Robespierre and his subaltern demons, had sue-
cessively perished, each by the measure applied to them
selves which they had meted out to others ; and as no1
experiment of political empiricism was to be omitted in the
medley of the French Revolutions, the hereditary Executive,
with a single Legislative Assembly, was succeeded by a
Constitution with a Legislature in two branches, and a five-
headed Executive, eligible, annually one-fifth, by their
concurrent votes, and bearing the name of a Directory. This
was the Government at whose instance Lafayette was finally
liberated from the dungeon of Olmutz.
But, while this Directory were shaking to their deepest
foundations all the Monarchies of Europe ; while they were
stripping Austria, the most potent of them all, piecemeal of
her territories ; while they were imposing upon her the most
humiliating conditions of peace, and bursting open her dun
geons to restore their illustrious countryman to the light of
day and the blessing of personal freedom, they were them
selves exploding by internal combustion, divided into two

62
factions, each conspiring the destruction of the other. La
fayette received his freedom, only to see the two members of
the Directory, who had taken the warmest interest in effecting
his liberation, outlawed and proscribed by their colleagues :
one of them, Carnot, a fugitive from his country, lurking in
banishment to escape pursuit ; and the other, Barthelemy,
deported, with fifty members of the Legislative Assembly,
without form of trial, or even of legal process, to the pes
tilential climate of Guiana. All this was done with the
approbation, expressed in the most unqualified terms, of
Napoleon, and with co-operation of his army. Upon being
informed of the success of this Pride's purge, he wrote to
the Directory that he had with him one hundred thousand
men, upon whom they might rely to cause to be respected
all the measures that they should take to establish liberty
upon solid foundations.
Two years afterwards, another revolution, directly accom
plished by Napoleon himself, demolished the Directory, the
Constitution of the two Councils, and the solid liberty, to
the support of which the hundred thousand men had been
pledged, and introduced another Constitution, with Bonaparte
himself for its Executive Head, as the first of three Con
suls, for five years.
*" In the interval between these two revolutions, Lafayette
resided for about two years, first in the Danish Territory of
Holstein, and, afterwards, at Utrecht, in the Batavian Re
public. Neither of them had been effected by means or in
a manner which could possibly meet his approbation. But
the Consular Government commenced with broad professions
of republican principles, on the faith of which he returned

63
to France, and for a series of years resided in privacy and
retirement upon his estate of La Grange. Here, in the
cultivation of his farm, and the enjoyment of domestic felicity,
embittered only by the loss, in 1807, of that angel upon
earth, the partner of all the vicissitudes of his life, he
employed his time, and witnessed the upward flight and
downward fall of the soldier and sport of fortune, Napoleon
Bonaparte. He had soon perceived the hollowness of the
Consular professions of pure republican principles, and
withheld himself from all participation in the Government.
In 1802, he was elected a member of the General Council
of the Department of Upper Loire, and, in declining the
appointment, took occasion to present a review of his pre
ceding life, and a pledge of his perseverance in the principles
which he had previously sustained. ( u Far," said he, " from
" the scene of public affairs, and devoting myself at last to
" the repose of private life, my ardent wishes are, that
" external peace should soon prove the fruit of those miracles
" of glory which are even now surpassing the prodigies of
" the preceding campaigns, and that internal peace should be
" consolidated upon the essential and invariable foundations
" of true liberty. Happy that twenty-three years of vicissi-
" tudes in my fortune, and of constancy to my principles,
" authorize me to repeat, that, if a Nation, to recover its
" rights, needs only the will, they can only be preserved
" by inflexible fidelity to its obligations."
When the First Consulate for five years was invented as
one of the steps of the ladder of Napoleon's ambition, he
suffered Sieyes, the member of the Directory whom he had
used as an instrument for casting off that worse than worthless

64
institution, to prepare another Constitution, of which he took
as much as suited his purpose, and consigned the rest to
oblivion. One of the wheels of this new political engine
was a conservative Senate, forming the Peerage to sustain
the Executive Head. This body it was the interest and the
policy of Napoleon to conciliate, and he filled it with men
who, through all the previous stages of the Revolution, had
acquired and maintained the highest respectability of cha
racter. Lafayette was urged with great earnestness, by
Napoleon himself, to take a seat in this Senate ; but, after
several conferences with the First Consul, in which he ascer
tained the extent of his designs, he peremptorily declined.
His answer to the Minister of War tempered his refusal
with a generous and delicate compliment, alluding at the
same time to the position which the consistency of his
character made it his duty to occupy. To the First Consul
himself, in terms equally candid and explicit, he said, " that,
" from the direction which public affairs were taking, what he
" already saw, and what it was easy to foresee, it did not seem
" suitable to his character to enter into an order of things
" contrary to his principles, and in which he would have to
" contend without success, as without public utility, against
" a man to whom he was indebted for great obligations."
Not long afterwards, when all republican principle Was so
utterly prostrated that he was summoned to vote on the
question whether the citizen Napoleon Bonaparte should be
Consul for life, Lafayette added to his vote the following
'comment : " I cannot -vote for such a Magistracy until the
public liberty shall have been sufficiently guarantied ; and in
Uhat event I vote for Napoleon Bonaparte."

65
He wrote at the same time to the First Consul a letter
explanatory of his vote, which no Republican will now read
without recognising the image of inordinate and triumphant
ambition cowering under the rebuke of disinterested virtue.
" The 18th of Brumaire [said this letter] saved France ;
" and I felt myself recalled by the liberal professions to
" which you had attached your honor. Since then, we have
" seen in the Consular power that reparatory dictatorship
" which, under the auspices of your genius, has achieved
" so much ; yet not so much as will be the restoration of
" liberty. It is impossible that you, General, the first of
" that order of men who, to compare and seat themselves,
" take in the compass of all ages, that you should wish such
" a revolution — so many victories, so much blood, so many
" calamities and prodigies, should have for the world and
" for you no other result than an arbitrary Government. The
" French People have too well known their rights ultimately
" to forget them ; but perhaps they are now better prepared,
" than in the time of their effervescence, to recover them
" usefully ; and you, by the force of your character, and of
" the public confidence, by the superiority of your talents,
" of your position, of your fortune, may, by the re-establish-
" ment of liberty, surmount eveiy danger, and relieve every
" anxiety. I have, then, no other than patriotic and personal
" motives for wishing you this last addition to your glory — a
" permanent magistracy ; but it is due to the principles, the
" engagements, and the actions of my whole life, to wait, be-
" fore giving my vote, until liberty shall have been settled
" upon foundations worthy of the Nation and of you. I hope,
" General, that you will here find, as heretofore, that with the
5

66
" perseverance of my political opinions are united sincere
" good wishes personally to you, and a profound sentiment of
" my obligations to you."
The writer of this letter, and he to whom it was addressed,
have, each in his appropriate sphere, been instruments of
transcendent power, in the hands of Providence, to shape the
ends of its wisdom in the wonderful story of the French
Revolution. In contemplating the part which each of them
had acted upon that great theatre of human destiny, before
the date of the letter, how strange was at that moment the
relative position of the two individuals to each other, and to
I the world ! ^Lafayette was the founder of the great move-
' ment then in progress for the establishment of freedom in
France, and in the European world ; but his agency had been
all intellectual and moral. He had asserted and proclaimed
the principles. He had never violated, never betrayed
them. Napoleon, a military adventurer, had vapored in
proclamations, and had the froth of Jacobinism upon his
lips ; but his soul was at the point of his sword. The
Resolution was to Lafayette the cause of human kind; to
( Napoleon it was a mere ladder of ambitionTj
Yet, at the time when this letter was written, Lafayette,
after a series of immense sacrifices and unparalleled suffer
ings, was a private citizen, called to account to the world
for declining to vote for placing Napoleon at the head of
the French Nation, with arbitrary and indefinite power for
life ; and Napoleon, amid professions of unbounded devotion
to liberty, was, in the face of mankind, ascending the steps
of an hereditary imperial and royal throne. Such was their
relative position then ; what is it now ? Has History a

67
lesson for mankind more instructive than the contrast and
the parallel of their fortunes and their fate ? Time and
chance, and the finger of Providence, which, in every de
viation from the path of justice, reserves or opens to itself
an avenue of return, has brought each of these mighty men
to a close of life, congenial to the character with which he
travelled over its scenes. The Consul for life, the heredi
tary Emperor and King, expires a captive on a barren rock
in the wilderness of a distant Ocean — separated from his
imperial wife — separated from his son, who survives him
only to pine away his existence, and die at the moment of
manhood, in the condition of an Austrian Prince. The
Apostle of Liberty survives, again to come forward, the ever-
consistent champion of her cause, and, finally, to close his
career in peace, a Republican, without reproach in death, as
he had been without fear throughout life.
But Napoleon was to be the artificer of his own fortunes,
prosperous and adverse. He was rising by the sword ; by
the sword he was destined to fall. The counsels of wisdom
and of virtue fell forceless upon his ear, or sunk into 'his
heart only to kindle resentment and hatred. He sought
no further personal intercourse with Lafayette ; and denied
common justice to his son, who had entered and distin
guished himself in the army of Italy, and from whom he
withheld the promotion justly due to his services.
The career of glory, of fame, and of power, of which the
Consulate for life was but the first step, was of ten years'
continuance, till it had reached its zenith ; till the astonished
eyes of mankind beheld the charity scholar of Brienne,
Emperor, King, and Protector of the Confederation of the

68
Rhine, banqueting at Dresden, surrounded by a circle of
tributary crowned heads, among whom was seen that very
Francis of Austria, the keeper, in his Castle of Olmutz, of the
republican Lafayette. And upon that day of the ban
queting at Dresden, the star of Napoleon culminated from
the Equator. Thenceforward it was to descend with motion
far more rapid than when rising, till it sank in endless
night. Through that long period, Lafayette remained in
retirement at La Grange. Silent amidst the deafening shouts
of victory from Marengo, and Jena, and Austerlitz, and
Friedland, and Wagram, and Borodino — silent at the con
flagration of Moscow ; at the passage of the Beresina ; at
the irretrievable discomfiture of Leipzig ; at the capitula
tion at the gates of Paris, and at the first restoration of the
Bourbons, under the auspices of the inveterate enemies of
France — as little could Lafayette participate in the mea
sures of that restoration, as in the usurpations of Napoleon.
Louis the Eighteenth was quartered upon the French Nation
as the soldiers of the victorious armies were quartered upon
the inhabitants of Paris. Yet Louis the Eighteenth, who held
his Crown as the gift of the conquerors of France, the most
humiliating of the conditions imposed upon the vanquished
Nation, affected to hold it by Divine right, and to grant, as a
special favor, a Charter, or Constitution, founded on the
avowed principle that all the liberties of the Nation were
no more than gratuitous donations of the King.
These pretensions, with a corresponding course of policy
pursued by the reinstated Government of the Bourbons,
and the disregard of the national feelings and interests of
France, with which Europe was remodelled at the Congress

69
of Vienna, opened the way for the return of Napoleon
from Elba, within a year from the time when he had been
relegated there. He landed as a solitary adventurer, and
the Nation rallied round him with rapture. He came with
promises to the Nation of freedom as well as of indepen
dence. The Allies of Vienna proclaimed against him a
war of extermination, and reinvaded France with armies
exceeding in numbers a million of men. Lafayette had
been courted by Napoleon upon his return. He was again
urged to take a seat in the House of Peers, but peremp
torily declined, from aversion to its hereditary character.
He had refused to resume his title of nobility, and pro
tested against the Constitution of the Empire, and the
additional act entailing the imperial hereditary Crown upon
the family of Napoleon. But he offered himself as a can
didate for election as a member of the popular Represen
tative Chamber of the Legislature, and was unanimously
chosen by the Electoral College of his Department to that
station. The battle of Waterloo was the last desperate struggle
of Napoleon to recover his fallen fortunes, and its issue
fixed his destiny forever. He escaped almost alone from
the field, and returned a fugitive to Paris, projecting to
dissolve by armed force the Legislative Assembly, and, as
suming a dictatorial power, to levy a new army, and try the j
desperate chances of another battle. This purpose was (
defeated by the energy and promptitude of Lafayette. At |
his instance the Assembly adopted three resolutions, one
of which declared them in permanent session, and denounced
any attempt to dissolve them as a crime of high treason.

70
After a feeble and fruitless attempt of Napoleon, through
his brother Lucien, to obtain from the Assembly itself a tem
porary dictatorial power, he abdicated the Imperial Crown in
favor of his infant son ; but his abdication could not relieve
France from the deplorable condition to which he had re
duced her. France, from the day of the battle of Waterloo,
was at the mercy of the allied Monarchs ; and, as the last act
of their revenge, they gave her again the Bourbons. France
was constrained to receive them. It was at the point of the
bayonet, and resistance was of no avail. The Legislative
Assembly appointed a Provisional Council of Government,
and Commissioners, of whom Lafayette was one, to negotiate
with the allied armies then rapidly advancing upon Paris.
The Allies manifested no disposition to negotiate. They
closed the doors of their Hall upon the Representatives of the
People of France. They reseated Louis the Eighteenth
upon his throne. Against these measures Lafayette and
the members of the Assembly had no means of resistance
left, save a fearless protest, to be remembered when the
day of freedom should return.
From the time of this second restoration until his death,
Lafayette, who had declined accepting a seat in the heredi
tary Chamber of Peers, and inflexibly refused to resume his
title of nobility, though the Charter of Louis the Eighteenth
/had restored them all, was almost constantly a member of the
(Chamber of Deputies, the popular branch of the Legislature.
More than once, however, the influence of the Court was
successful in defeating his election. At one of these in
tervals, he employed the leisure afforded him in revisiting
the United States.

71
Forty years had elapsed since he had visited and taken
leave of them, at the close of the Revolutionary War. The
greater part of the generation for and with whom he had
fought his first fields, had passed away. Of the two millions
of souls to whose rescue from oppression he had crossed the
Ocean in 1777, not one in ten survived. But their places
were supplied bj' more than five times their numbers, their
descendants and successors. The sentiment of gratitude and
affection for Lafayette, far from declining with the lapse of
time, quickened in spirit as it advanced in years, and seemed
to multiply with the increasing numbers of the People. The
Nation had never ceased to sympathize with his fortunes, and,
in every vicissitude of his life, had manifested the deepest
interest in his welfare. He had occasionally expressed his
intention to visit once more the scene of his early achieve
ments, and the country which had requited his services by a
just estimate of their value. In February, 1824, a solemn
Legislative act, unanimously passed by both Houses of Con
gress, and approved by the President of the United States,
charged the Chief Magistrate of the Nation with the duty of'
communicating to him the assurances of grateful and affection
ate attachment still cherished for him by the Government
and People of the United States, and of tendering to him a
national ship, with suitable accommodation, for his conveyance
to this country.
Ten years have passed away since the occurrence of that
event. Since then, the increase of population within the
borders of our Union exceeds, in numbers, the whole mass of
that infant community to whose liberties he had devoted, in
early youth, his life and fortune. His companions and fel-

72
low-soldiers of the war of Independence, of whom a scanty
remnant still existed to join in the universal shout of welcome
with whieh he landed upon our shores, have been since, in
the ordinary course of nature, dropping away : pass but a few
short years more, and not an individual of that generation
with which he toiled and bled in the cause of human kind,
upon his first appearance on the field of human action, will be
left. The gallant officer, and distinguished Representative of
the People, at whose motion, upon this floor, the invitation of
the Nation was given — the Chief Magistrate by whom, in
compliance with the will of the Legislature, it was tendered —
the surviving Presidents of the United States, and their vene
rable compeer signers of the Declaration of Independence,
who received him to the arms of private friendship, while
mingling their voices in the chorus of public exultation and
joy, are no longer here to shed the tear of sorrow upon his
departure from this earthly scene. They all preceded him in
the translation to another, and, we trust, a happier world.
The active, energetic manhood of the Nation, of whose in
fancy he had been the protector and benefactor, and who,
by the protracted festivities of more than a year of jubilee,
manifested to him their sense of the obligations for which
they were indebted to him, are already descending into the
vale of years. The children of the public schools, who
thronged in double files to pass in review before him to catch
a glimpse of his countenance, and a smile from his eye, are
now among the men and women of the land, rearing another
generation to envy their parents the joy which they can never
share, of having seen and contributed to the glorious and
triumphant reception of Lafayette.

73
Upon his return to France, Lafayette was received with
a welcome by his countrymen scarcely less enthusiastic than,
that with which he had been greeted in this country. From
his landing at Havre till his arrival at his residence at La
Grange, it was again one triumphal march, rendered but the
more striking by the interruptions and obstacles of an
envious and jealous Government. Threats were not even
spared of arresting him as a criminal, and holding him
responsible for the spontaneous and irrepressible feelings
manifested by the People in his favor. He was, very soon
after his return, again elected a member of the Chamber of
Deputies, and thenceforward, in that honorable and inde
pendent station, was the soul of that steadfast and inflexible
party which never ceased to defend; and was ultimately
destined to vindicate the liberties of France.
The Government of the Bourbons, from the time of their
restoration, was a perpetual struggle to return to the Satur- ,
nian times of absolute power. For them the Sun and Moon i
had stood still, not, as in the miracle of ancient story, for
about a whole day, but for more than a whole century.
Reseated upon their thrones, not, as the Stuarts had been in
the seventeenth century, by the voluntary act of the same
People which had expelled them, but by the arms of foreign
Kings and hostile armies, instead of aiming, by the liberality
of their Government, and by improving the condition of their
People, to make them forget the humiliation of the yoke im
posed upon them, they labored with unyielding tenacity to
make it more galling. They disarmed the National Guards ;
they cramped and crippled the right of suffrage in elections ;
they perverted and travestied the institution of juries ; they

74
fettered the freedom of the Press, and in their external policy
lent themselves, willing instruments to crush the liberties of
Spain and Italy. The spirit ofthe Nation was curbed, but not
subdued. The principles of freedom proclaimed in the Decla
ration of Rights of 1789 had taken too deep root to be extir
pated. Charles the Tenth, by a gradual introduction into his
councils of the most inveterate adherents to the anti-revolu
tionary Government, was preparing the way for the annihila
tion of the Charter and of the Legislative Representation of
the People. In proportion as this plan approached to its
maturity, the resistance of the Nation to its accomplishment
acquired consistency and organization. The time had been,
when, by the restrictions upon the right of suffrage, and the
control of the Press, and even of the freedom of debate in
the Legislature, the Opposition in the Chamber of Deputies
had dwindled down to not more than thirty members. But,
under a rapid succession of incompetent and unpopular Ad
ministrations, the majority of the House of Deputies had
passed from the side of the Court to that of the People. In
August, 1829, the King, confiding in his imaginary strength,
reorganized his Ministry by the appointment of men whose
reputation was itself a pledge of the violent and desperate
designs in contemplation. At the first meeting of the Legisla
tive Assembly, an address to the King, signed by two hundred
and twenty-one out of four hundred members, declared to him,
in respectful terms, that a concurrence of sentiments between
his Ministers and the Nation was indispensable to the happi
ness of the People under his Government, and that this
concurrence did not exist. He replied, that his determination
was immovable, and dissolved the Assembly. A new election

75
was held ; and so odious throughout the Nation were the
measures of the Court, that, of the two hundred and twenty-
one members who had signed the address against the
Ministers, more than two hundred were reelected. The
Opposition had also gained an accession of numbers in the
remaining part of the Deputations, and it was apparent that,
upon the meeting of the Assembly, the Court party could not
be sustained. At this crisis, Charles the Tenth, as if resolved to leave
himself not the shadow of a pretext to complain of his expuK
sion from the throne, in defiance of the Charter, to the obser
vance of which he had solemnly sworn, issued, at one and
the same time, four Ordinances — the first of which suspended
the liberty of the Press, and prohibited the publication of all
the daily newspapers and other periodical journals, but by
license, revocable at pleasure, and renewable every three
months ; the second annulled the election of Deputies, whieh
had just taken place ; the third changed the mode of election
prescribed by law, and reduced nearly by one-half the
numbers of the House of Deputies to be elected ; and the
fourth commanded the new elections to be held, and fixed a
day for the meeting ofthe Assembly to be so constituted.
These Ordinances were the immediate occasion of the last
Revolution of the three days, terminating in the final expulsion
of Charles the Tenth from the throne, and of himself and his
family from the Territory of France. This was effected by
an insurrection of the People of Paris, which burst forth, by
spontaneous and unpremeditated movement, on the very day
of the promulgation of the four Ordinances. The first of
these, the suppression of all the daily newspapers, seemed as

76
if studiously devised to provoke instantaneous resistance, and
the conflict of physical force. Had Charles the Tenth issued
a decree to shut up all the bakehouses of Paris, it could not
have been more fatal to his authority. The conductors of
the proscribed journals, by mutual engagement among them
selves, determined to consider the Ordinance as unlawful,
null, and void ; and this was to all classes of the People the
signal of resistance. The publishers of two of the journals,
summoned immediately before the Judicial Tribunal, were
justified in their resistance by the sentence of the court,
pronouncing the Ordinance null and void. A Marshal of
France receives the commands of the King to disperse, by
force of arms, the population of Paris ; but the spontaneous
resurrection of the National Guard organizes at once an army
to defend the liberties of the Nation. Lafayette is again
called from his retreat at La Grange, and, by the unanimous
voice of the People, confirmed by such Deputies of the Legis-
i lative Assembly as were able to meet for common consultation
llat that trying emergency, is again placed at the head of the
[National Guard as their Commander-in-chief. He assumed
the command on the second day of the conflict, and on the
(third Charles the Tenth had ceased to reign. He formally
abdicated the Crown, and his son, the Duke d'Angouleme,
renounced his pretensions to the succession. But, humble
imitators of Napoleon, even in submitting to their own
degradation, they clung to the last gasp of hereditary sway,
by transmitting all their claim of dominion to the orphan child
of the Duke de Berri.
j £At an early stage of the Revolution of 1.789, Lafayette
had declared it as a principle that insurrection against tyrants

77
was the most sacred of duties. He had borrowed this senti-i'
ment, perhaps, from the motto of Jefferson — " Rebellion ta
tyrants is obedience to God." The principle itself is as't
sound as its enunciation is daring. Like all general maxims,
it is susceptible of very dangerous abuses : the test of its
truth is exclusively in the correctness of its application. As
forming a part of the political creed of Lafayette, it has been
severely criticised ; nor can it be denied that, in the experi
ence of the French Revolutions, the cases in which popular
insurrection has been resorted to, for the extinction of exist
ing authority, have been so frequent, so unjustifiable in their
causes, so atrocious in their execution, so destructive to
liberty in their consequences, that the friends of Freedom,
who know that she can exist only under the supremacy of
the law, have sometimes felt themselves constrained to shrink
from the development of abstract truth, in the dread of the
danger with which she is surrounded. /
) In the Revolution of the three days of 1830, it was
the steady, calm, but inflexible adherence of Lafayette'
to this maxim which decided the fate of the Bourbons.!
After the struggles of the People had commenced, and even
while liberty and power were grappling with each other for
life or death, the Deputies elect to the Legislative Assembly,
then at Paris, held several meetings at the house of their col
league, Laffitte, and elsewhere, at which the question of
resistance against the Ordinances was warmly debated, and
aversion to that resistance by force was the sentiment predo
minant in the minds of a majority of the members. The
hearts of some of the most ardent patriots quailed within
them at the thought of another overthrow of the Monarchy.

78
All the horrible recollections of the reign of terror, the mas
sacre of the prisons in September, the butcheries of the guil
lotine from year to year, the headless trunks of Brissot, and
Danton, and Robespierre, and last, not least, the iron crown
and sceptre of Napoleon himself, rose in hideous succession
before them, and haunted their imaginations. They detested
the Ordinances, but hoped that, by negotiation and remon
strance with the recreant King, it might yet be possible to
obtain the revocation of them, and the substitution of a more
liberal Ministry. This deliberation was not concluded till
Lafayette appeared among them. From that moment the die
was cast. They had till then no military leader. Louis
Philippe, of Orleans, had not then been seen among them.^)
[In all the changes of Government in France, from the
first Assembly of Notables, to that day, there never had been
an act of authority presenting a case for the fair and just
application of the duty of resistance against oppression, so
clear, so unquestionable, so flagrant as this. The violations
of the Charter were so gross and palpable, that the most
determined Royalist could not deny them. The mask had
been laid aside. The sword of despotism had been drawn,
and the scabbard cast away. A King, openly forsworn, had
forfeited every claim to allegiance; and the only resource of
the Nation against him was resistance by force. This was
the opinion of Lafayette, and he declared himself ready to
take the command of the National Guard, should the wish of
the People, already declared thus to place him at the head of
this spontaneous movement, be confirmed by his colleagues
of the Legislative Assembly. The appointment was accord
ingly conferred upon him, and the second day afterwards

79
Charles the Tenth and his family were fugitives to a foreign

land.j

France was without a Government. She might theni
have constituted herself a Republic ; and such was, undoubt- '<
edly, the aspiration of a very large portion of her population .
But with another, and yet larger portion of her People, the
name of Republic was identified with the memory of Robes
pierre. It was held in execration ; there was imminent dan
ger, if not absolute certainty, that the attempt to organize
a Republic would have been the signal for a new civil
war. The name of a Republic, too, was hateful to all the
neighbors of France ; to the Confederacy of Emperors and
Kings, which had twice replaced the Bourbons upon the
throne, and who might be propitiated under the disappoint
ment and mortification of the result, by the retention of
the name of King, and the substitution of the semblance of
a Bourbon for the reality.
The People of France, like the Cardinal de Retz, more
than two centuries before, wanted a descendant from Henry
the Fourth, who could speak the language of the Parisian
populace, and who had known what it was to be a Ple
beian. They found him in the person of Louis Philippe, of
Orleans. Lafayette himself was compelled to compromise
with his principles, purely and simply republican, and to
accept him, first as Lieutenant General of the Kingdom, and
then as hereditary King. There was, perhaps, in this deter
mination, besides the motives which operated upon others, a
consideration of disinterested delicacy, which could be
applicable only to himself. If the Republic should be pro
claimed, he knew that the Chief Magistracy could be dele-

80
gated only to himself. It must have been a Chief Magistracy
for life, which, at his age, could only have been for a short
term of years. Independent of the extreme dangers and
difficulties to himself, to his family, and to his country, in
which the position which he would have occupied might
have involved them, the inquiry could not escape his fore
cast, who, upon his demise, could be .his successor? and
-"What must be the position occupied by him ? If, at that
moment, he had but spoken the word, he might have closed
his career with a Crown upon his head, and with a wither-
l^jng blast upon his name to the end of time.
With the Duke of Orleans himself, he used no con
cealment or disguise. When the Crown was offered to that
Prince, and he looked to Lafayette for consultation, "you
know (said he) that I am of the American school, and par
tial to the Constitution of the United States." So, it seems,
i was Louis Philippe. " I think with you," said he. " It is
impossible to pass two years in the United States, with
out being convinced that their Government is the best in
j the world. But do you think it suited to our present cir
cumstances and condition ?" No, replied Lafayette. They
require a Monarchy surrounded by popular institutions. So
/thought, also, Louis Philippe ; and he accepted the Crown
'under the conditions upon which it was. tendered to him.
/Lafayette retained the command of the National Guard
so long as it was essential to the settlement of the new
order of things, on the basis of order and of freedom ; so
long as it was essential to control the stormy and excited
passions of the Parisian People ; so long as was necessary
to save the Ministers of the guilty but fallen Monarch from

81
the rash and revengeful resentments of their conquerors..
When this was accomplished, and the People had been pre
served from the calamity of shedding in peace the blood,
of war, he once more resigned his command, retired in
privacy to La Grange, and resumed his post as a Deputy
in the Legislative Assembly,, which he continued to hold
till the close of life'. /
His station there was still at the head of the phalanx, '
supporters of liberal principles and of constitutional freedom.
In Spain, in Portugal, in Italy, and, above all, in Poland,
the cause of liberty has been struggling against the hand
of power, and, to the last hour of his life, they found in
Lafayette a never-failing friend and patron.
In his last illness, the standing which he held in the
hearts of mankind was attested by the formal resolution of
the House of Deputies, sent to make inquiries concerning his
condition; and, dying,, as he did, full of years and of glory,
never, in the history of mankind, has a private individual
departed more universally lamented by the whole generation
of men whom he has left behind.
Such, Legislators of the North American Confederate-
Union, was the life of Gilbert Motier de Lafayette, and
the record of his life is the delineation of his character.!
Consider him as one human being of one thousand millions,
his cotemporaries on the surface of the terraqueous globe.
Among that thousand millions seek for an object of com
parison with him ; assume for the standard of comparison
all the virtues which exalt the character of man above that
of the brute creation ; take the ideal man, little lower than
the angels ; mark the qualities of the mind and heart which
6

82
^ntitle him to this station of preeminence in the scale of
created beings, and inquire who, that lived in the eighteenth
Land nineteenth centuries of the Christian aera, combined in
himself so many of those qualities, so little alloyed with
those which belong to that earthly vesture of decay in
which the immortal spirit is enclosed, as Lafayette.
Pronounce him one of the first men of his age, and you
have yet not done him justice. Try him by that test to
which he sought in vain to stimulate the vulgar and selfish
spirit of Napoleon ; class him among the men who, to com
pare and seat themselves, must take in the compass of ull
ages : turn back your eyes upon the records of time ; sum
mon from the creation of the world to this day the mighty
dead of every age and every clime — and where, among the
race of merely mortal men, shall one be found, who, as the
benefactor of his kind, shall . claim to take precedence of
Lafayette ?
There have doubtless been, in all ages, men, whose
discoveries or inventions, in the world of matter or of mind,
have opened new avenues to the dominion of man over the
material creation ; have increased his means or his faculties
of enjoyment ; have raised him in nearer approximation to
that higher and happier condition, the object of his hopes
and aspirations in his present state of existence.
Lafayette discovered no new principle of politics or of
morals. He invented nothing in science. He disclosed no
new phenomenon in the laws of nature. Born and educated
in the highest order of feudal Nobility, under the most
absolute Monarchy of Europe, in possession of an affluent for
tune, and master of himself and of all his capabilities at the

83
moment of attaining manhood, the principle of republican!
justice and of social equality took possession of his heart/
and mind, as if by inspiration from above. He devoted him4
self, his life, his fortune, his hereditary honors, his towering"
ambition, his splendid hopes, all to the cause of liberty. He
came to another hemisphere to defend her. He became one
of the most effective champions of our Independence ; but,
that once achieved, he returned to his own country, and
thenceforward took no part in the controversies which have
divided us. In the events of our Revolution, and in the
forms of policy which we have adopted for the establishment
and perpetuation of our freedom, Lafayette found the most
perfect form of government. He wished to add nothing to
it. He would gladly have abstracted nothing from it. In
stead of the imaginary Republic of Plato, or the Utopia of Sir
Thomas More, he took a practical existing model, in actual
operation here, and never attempted or wished more than to
apply it faithfully to his own country.
It was not given to Moses to enter the promised land ; but
he saw it from the summit of Pisgah. It was not given to!
Lafayette to witness the consummation of his wishes in the|
establishment of a Republic, and the extinction of all heredi
tary rule in France. His principles were in advance of the '
age and hemisphere in which he lived. A Bourbon still
reigns on the throne of France, and it is not for us to scruti
nize the title by which he reigns. The principles of elective
and hereditary power, blended in reluctant union in his per
son, like the red and white roses of York and Lancaster, may
postpone to aftertime the last conflict to which they must
ultimately come. The life of the Patriarch was not long
6*

84
enough for the development of his whole political system.
Its final accomplishment is in the womb of time.
The anticipation of this event is the more certain, from
the consideration that all the principles for which Lafayette
contended were practical. He never indulged himself in
wild and fanciful speculations. The principle of hereditary
power was, in his opinion, the bane of all republican liberty
in Europe. Unable to extinguish it in the Revolution of 1830,
so far as concerned the Chief Magistracy of the Nation, La
fayette had the satisfaction of seeing it abolished with refer
ence to the Peerage. An hereditary Crown, stript of the
support which it may derive from an hereditary Peerage, how
ever compatible with Asiatic despotism, is an anomaly in the
history of the Christian world, and in the theory of free
Government. There is no argument producible against the
existence of an hereditary Peerage, but applies with aggra
vated weight against the transmission, from sire to son, of an
hereditary Crown. The prejudices and passions of the People
of France rejected the principle of inherited power, in every
station of public trust, excepting the first and highest of them
all ; but there they clung to it, as did the Israelites of old to
the savory deities of Egypt.
This is not the time or the place for a disquisition upon
the comparative merits, as a system of government, of a Re
public, and a Monarchy surrounded by republican institutions.
Upon this subject there is among us no diversity of opinion ;
and if it should take the People of France another half cen
tury of internal and external war, of dazzling and delusive
glories ; of unparalleled triumphs, humiliating reverses, and
bitter disappointments, to settle it to their satisfaction, the

85
ultimate result can only bring them to the point where we
have stood from the day of the Declaration of Independence —
to the point where Lafayette would have brought them, and
to which he looked as a consummation devoutly to be wished.
Then, too, and then only, will be the time when the
character of Lafayette will be appreciated at its true value
throughout the civilized world. When the principle of
hereditary dominion shall be extinguished in all the institu
tions of France; when Government shall no longer be
considered as property transmissible from sire to son, but as
a trust committed for a limited time, and then to return to
the People whence it came ; as a burdensome duty to be
discharged, and not as a reward to be abused; when a claim,
any claim, to political power by inheritance shall, in the
estimation of the whole French People, be held as it now is
by the whole People of the North American Union — then
will be the time for contemplating the character of Lafayette,
not merely in the events of his life, but, in the full develop
ment of his intellectual conceptions, of his fervent aspirations,
of the labors and perils and sacrifices of his long and eventful
career upon earth ; and thenceforward, till the hour when the
trump of the Archangel shall sound to announce that Time
shall be no more, the name of Lafayette shall stand enrolled
upon the annals of our race, high on the list of the pure and
disinterested benefactors of mankind.

APPENDIX.

PROCEEDINGS IN CONGRESS.

In the House of Representatives,
June 21, 1834.
Mr. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS moved the following resolution, viz.
Resolved, That a Committee be appointed, on the part of this House, to join
such Committee as may be appointed on the part of the Senate, to consider
and report by what token of respect and affection it may be proper for the
Congress of the United States to express the deep sensibility of the Nation
to the event of the decease of General Lafayette.
The resolution being read, the question was put, that the House
do agree thereto, and passed in the affirmative unanimously. It was
then Ordered, That the Committee on the part of this House consist of
one member from each State ; and
Mr. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, of MASSACHUSETTS,
McINTIRE, of MAINE,
HUBBARD, of NEW HAMPSHIRE,
BURGES, of RHODE ISLAND,
BARBER, of CONNECTICUT,
ALLEN, of VERMONT,
CAMBRELENG, of NEW YORK,
PARKER, of NEW JERSEY,
MUHLENBERG, of PENNSYLVANIA,
MILLIGAN, of DELAWARE,
McKIM, of MARYLAND,
ARCHER, of VIRGINIA,
WILLIAMS, of NORTH CAROLINA,
PINCKNEY, of SOUTH CAROLINA,

88
Mr. WAYNE, of GEORGIA,
JOHNSON, of KENTUCKY,
BLAIR, of TENNESSEE,
WHITTLESEY, of OHIO,
THOMAS, of LOUISIANA,
CARR, of INDIANA,
CAGE, of MISSISSIPPI,
DUNCAN, of ILLINOIS,
MURPHY, of ALABAMA,
ASHLEY, of MISSOURI,
were appointed the Committee on the part of the House.
Ordered, That the Clerk request the concurrence of the Senate in
the said resolution.
A message from the Senate, by Mr. Lowrie, their Secretary :
Mr. Speaker: The Senate have passed the resolution for the
appointment of a Joint Committee " to consider and report by what
token of respect and affection it may be proper for the Congress of
the United States to express -the deep sensibility of the Nation to the
event of the decease of General Lafaitette," and have appointed a
Committee on their part.
The Committee on the part of the Senate are,
Mr. WEBSTER, Mr. BENTON,
WHITE, POINDEXTER,
CALHOUN, KING, of Alabama,
CLAY, CHAMBERS,
FORSYTH, BROWN, and
WILKINS, SHEPLEY.
TYLER, In the House of Representatives, June 24, 1834.
Mr. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, from the Joint Committee ap
pointed, on the 21st instant, " to consider and report by what token of
respect and affection it may be proper for the Congress of the United
States to express the deep sensibility of the Nation to the event of the
decease of General Lafayette," reported the following joint resolu
tions, viz.

89
Resolved by the Senate and Souse of Representatives of the United States
of America in Congress assembled, That the two Houses of Congress have
received, with the profoundest sensibility, intelligence of the death of
General Lafayette, the friend of the United States, the friend of Wash
ington, and the friend of Liberty.
And be it further resolved, That the sacrifices and efforts of this illustrious
person in the cause of our country, during her struggle for Independence,
and the affectionate interest which he has at all times manifested for the
success of her political institutions, claim from the Government and People
of the United States an expression of condolence for his loss, veneration
for his virtues, and gratitude for his services.
And be ii further resolved. That the President of the United States be
requested to address, together with a copy of ihe above resolutions, a
letter to Geoiioe Washington Lafayette, and the other members of his
family, assuring them of the condolence of this whole Nation in their
irreparable bereavement.
And be it further resolved, That the members of the two Houses of Con
gress will wear a badge of mourning for thirty days ; and that it be
recommended to the People of the United States to wear a similar badge
for the same period.
And be it further resolved, That the Halls of the Houses be dressed in
mourning for the residue of the session.
And be it further resolved, That John Quincy Adams be requested to
deliver an Oration on the Life and Character of General Lafayette,
before the two Houses of Congress, at the next session.
The said resolutions were read three times successively, and
passed unanimously.
A message from the Senate, by Mr. Lowrie, their Secretary :
Mr. Speaker: The Senate have passed, unanimously, the reso
lution manifesting the sensibility of the two Houses of Congress
and of the Nation on the occasion of the decease of General
Lafayette.

In the House of Representatives,
December 9, 1834.
On motion of Mr. HUBBARD,
Resolved, That a Committee be appointed on the part of this
House, to join such Committee as may be appointed on the part
of the Senate, to consider and report the arrangements necessary

90
to be adopted in order to carry into effect the last resolution
reported on the 24th June, 1834, by the Joint Committee ap
pointed at the last session of Congress, on the occasion of the
death of General Lafayette.
Mr. HUBBARD, Mr. LINCOLN, Mr. WHITE, Mr. ALLEN,
of Virginia, and Mr. MARSHALL, were appointed the said
Committee. Ordered, That the Clerk acquaint the Senate therewith.
The Senate concurred in the foregoing resolution, December 15,
1834 ; and Mr. CLAY, Mr. WHITE, Mr. CALHOUN, Mr.
WEBSTER, and Mr. BUCHANAN, were appointed the Com
mittee on their part.

In the House of Representatives, December 23, 1834.
Mr. HUBBARD, from the Select Joint Committee appointed to
consider and report what measures were necessary to give effect
to the resolutions adopted at the last session for paying suitable
honors to the memory of General Lafayette, reported the following
resolution :
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives, That Wednesday, the
thirty-first instant, be the time assigned for the delivery of the Oration by
John Quincy Adams, before the two Houses of Congress, on the Life and
Character of General Lafayette.
That the two Houses shall be called to order by their respective Presiding
Officers at the usual hour, and the Journal of the preceding day shall be
read ; but all Legislative business shall be suspended on that day.
That the Oration shall be delivered at half past twelve o'clock, in the
Hall of the House of Representatives.
That the President of the United States and the Heads of the several
Departments, the French Minister and Members of the French Legation,
all other Foreign Ministers at the Seat of Government, and the Members
of their respective Legations, be invited to attend on that occasion by the
Chairmen of the Joint Committee.
That the President of the United States, the Heads of the several Depart
ments, the French Minister and Members of the French Legation, the other
Foreign Ministers at the Seat of Government, and the Members of their
respective Legations, and Johs Qcijtct Adams, be requested to assemble

91
at half past twelve o'clock P. M. in the Senate Chamber, and that they,
with the Senate, shall be attended by the Joint Committee to the Hall of
the House of Representatives.
That the Galleries of the House, under the direction of its Officers, shall
be open on that day for the accommodation of such citizens as may think
proper to attend.
Which was agreed to by the House.
Ordered, That the Clerk acquaint the Senate therewith.
The Senate concurred in the foregoing resolution.

In the House of Representatives, December 31, 1834.
In pursuance of the arrangements reported by the Joint Committee
appointed, on the 9th December instant, to consider and report the
arrangements necessary to be adopted to carry into effect the last
resolution reported on the 24th June, 1834, by the Joint Com
mittee appointed at the last session of Congress, on the occasion
of the death of General Lafayette, the Hall was prepared for the
reception of the Senate, and for the guests invited, in accordance
with the said arrangements.
At forty minutes past twelve o'clock, the Senate of the United
States, preceded by the Vice President and its Officers, the Pre
sident of the United States, the Heads of the several Executive
Departments, the Ministers of sundry Foreign Nations at the Seat
of Government, and the Members of their respective Legations,
and John Quincy Adams, entered the Hall of the House, and
took the seats prepared for them, respectively. Mr. John Quincy
Adams was conducted to the Speaker's Chair by the Committee
of Arrangements, when the Speaker withdrew, and took a seat at
the Clerk's table with the Vice President.
Mr. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS then rose, and delivered an
Oration on the Life and Character of General Lafayette ; and
having, at half past three o'clock P. M., concluded the same,
The Senate, the President of the United States, the Heads of
Departments, and the Foreign Ministers and Legations, withdrew.
When the Speaker resumed his seat.

92
In the House of Representatives,
January 2, 1835.
The following joint resolution was offered by Mr. HUBBARD:
Resolved by tlte Senate and House of Representatives, That the thanks Lof
Congress be presented to John Quincy Adams, for the appropriate Oration
delivered by him on the Life and Character of General Lafayette, in the
Representatives' Hall, before both Houses of Congress, on the 31st day of
December, 1834, and that he be requested to furnish a copy for publication.
Resolved, That the Chairmen of the Joint Committee appointed to make the
necessary arrangements to carry into effect the resolution of the last session of
this Congress in relation to the death of General Lafayette, be requested to
communicate to Mr. Adams the aforegoing resolution, receive his answer
thereto, and present the same to both Houses of Congress.
The resolution was agreed to, nem. dis.
Ordered, That the Clerk request the concurrence of the Senate
therein. The Senate concurred in the foregoing resolution.
In the House of Representatives, January 6, 1835.
Mr. HUBBARD, from the Select Joint Committee appointed, on
the 2d instant, to deliver the thanks of Congress to John Quincy
Adams, for his appropriate Oration on the Life and Character of
Lafayette, reported the following correspondence, viz.
To the Hon. John Quincy Adams:
Sm : We have the honor to present to you official copies of two joint
resolutions adopted by the Senate and House of Representatives on the
2d instant, expressing the thanks of Congress for the appropriate Oration
delivered by you in the HaU of the House of Representatives on the 31st
ultimo, on the Life and Character of General Lafayette ; and authorizing
a request to be made to you for a copy of it for publication.
Having shared the high gratification of hearing the Oration, we take
pleasure, in pursuance of the second of the joint resolutions, in requesting
you to furnish a copy of the Oration for publication.
We have the honor to be,
With great respect,
Your obedient servants,
HENRY CLAY,
Chairman of Committee on part of Senate.
HENRY HUBBARD,
Chairman, of Committee- on part of Eiuse.
January 5, 1835.

93
To Messrs. Hf.niiy Clay and Henby Hubbahd, Chairmen of the Joint Com
mittee of Arrangements of the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States, to carry into effect the resolution of Congress in
relation to the death of General Lafayette :
Gentlemen : I receive with deep sensibility your communication of the
joint resolution of both Houses of Congress upon the Oration delivered before
them on the Life and Character of Lafayette.
The kind indulgence with which they have accepted the endeavor to
give effect to their purpose of paying a last tribute of national gratitude
and affection to the memory of a great benefactor of our country, will be
impressed upon my heart to the last hour of my life.
With this sentiment I shall take pleasure in furnishing, as requested, a
copy of the Address for publication.
I am, gentlemen,
With the highest respect,
Your fellow-citizen, and obedient servant,
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.
Mr. HUBBARD submitted the following preamble and resolution,
viz. Whereas it was resolved, at the last session of Congress, that John
Quincy Adams be requested to deliver an Oration on the Life and Cha
racter of General Lafayette, before the two Houses of Congress ; and,
in pursuance of that resolution, and sundry other resolutions which have
been subsequently adopted, Mr. Adams, on Wednesday, the 31st day of
December, 1834, in the HaU of the House of Representatives, and in the
presence of both Houses of Congress, and also in the presence of the
President of the United States, of the Heads of the respective Depart
ments of the National Government, and of a most numerous assembly of
citizens, did deliver an Oration replete with those pure and patriotic
sentiments which will be sacredly cherished by every true and enlightened
American : The House of Representatives, fully satisfied with the manner
in which Mr. Adams has performed the duty assigned him, and desirous
of communicating, "through the medium ofthe press," those principles
which have been by him so ably discussed, as well as their sentiments of
respect for the distinguished character, and their sentiments of gratitude for
the devoted services of Lafayette, which have been by him, on this
occasion, so faithfully expressed — have come to the following resolution :
Resolved, That  copies of the Oration be printed for the use of the
House. The CHAIR remarked that it was necessary to fill the blank

94
Mr. HUBBARD said the Committee left it to the House to fill
the blank.
Mr. PEARCE, of Rhode Island, moved to fill the blank with
ten thousand.
Mr. PINCKNEY moved twenty thousand.
Mr. BROWN moved fifty thousand.
Mr. MILLER moved forty thousand.
The question being taken on the highest number named, (fifty
thousand,) it was decided in the affirmative by a vote of eighty to
sixty-one. Mr. EVANS moved that the resolution be amended by inserting
at the end of it, "under the direction of the Committee on the part
of the House."
Which motion was agreed to.

In the Senate, January 7, 1835.
Mr. CLAY reported the foregoing correspondence, which was
read ; and, On motion of Mr. CLAY,
Ordered, That ten thousand copies be printed for the use of the
Senate.

8HHS2-$B

YALE UNIVERSITY

3g002 001091132b

YALE