Yet this unfortunate man, thus deluded from his interest and his happiness,—thus seduced from the paths of innocents and peace,—thus confounded in the toils which were deliberately spread for him, and overwhelmed by the mastering spirit and genius of another,—this man, thus ruined and undone, and made to play a subordinate part in this grand drama of guilt and treason,—this man is to be called the principal offender; while he, by whom he was thus plunged in misery, is comparatively innocent, a mere accessory! Is this reason? Is it law? Is it humanity? Sir, neither the human heart nor the human understanding will bear a perversion so monstrous and absurd; so shocking to the soul; so revolting to reason! Wm. Wirt.
You say you have bought the country. Bought it? Yes; of whom? Of the poor, trembling natives, who knew that refusal would be vain; and who strove to make a merit of necessity, by seeming to yield with a grace what they knew they had not the power to retain.
Alas, the poor Indians! No wonder that they continue so implacably vindictive against the white people. No wonder that the rage of resentment is handed down from generation to generation. No wonder that they refuse to associate and mix permanently with their unjust and cruel invaders and exterminators. No wonder that, in the unabating spite and frenzy of conscious impotence, they wage an eternal war, as well as they are able; that they triumph in the rare opportunity of revenge; that they dance, sing, and rejoice, as the victim shrinks and faints amid the flames, when they imagine all the crimes of their oppressors collected on his head, and fancy the spirits of their injured forefathers hovering over the scene, smiling with ferocious delight at the grateful spectacle: and feasting on the precious odor as it arises from the burning blood of the white man. Yet the people here affect to wonder that the Indians are so very unsusceptible of civilization; or, in other words, that they so obstinately refuse to adopt the manners of the white man.
Go, Virginians, erase from the Indian nation the tradition of their wrongs. Make them forget, if you can, that once this charming country was theirs; that over these fields and through these forests their beloved forefathers once, in careless gayety, pursued their sports and hunted their game; that every returning day found them the sole, the peaceful, and happy proprietors of this extensive and beautiful domain. Go, administer the cup of oblivion to recollections like these, and then you will cease to complain that the Indian refuses to be civilized. But, until then, surely it is nothing wonderful that a nation, even yet bleeding afresh from the memory of ancient wrongs, perpetually agonized by new outrages, and goaded into desperation and madness at the prospect of the certain ruin which awaits their descendants, should hate the authors of their miseries, of their desolation, their destruction; should hate their manners, hate their color, hate their language, hate their name, hate everything that belongs to them. No, never, until time shall wear out the history of their sorrows and their sufferings, will the Indian be brought to love the white man, and to imitate his manners. Wm. Wirt.
The refusal of the posts (inevitable if we reject the treaty) is a measure too decisive in its nature to be neutral in its consequences. If any should still maintain, that the peace with the Indians will be stable without the posts, to them I will urge another reply. I will appeal directly to the hearts of those who hear me, and ask whether conviction is not already planted there. I resort especially to the convictions of the Western gentlemen, whether, supposing no posts and no treaty! the settlers will remain in security? Can they take it upon them to say, that an Indian peace, under these circumstances, will prove firm? No, sir, it will not be peace, but a sword; it will be no better than a lure to draw victims within reach of the tomahawk. On this theme my emotions are unutterable. If I could find words for them, if my powers bore any proportion to my zeal, I would swell my voice to such a note of remonstrance, it should reach every log house beyond the mountains. I would say to the inhabitants, Wake from your false security! Your cruel dangers, your more cruel apprehensions, are soon to be renewed. The wounds yet unhealed are to be torn open again. In the daytime, your path through the woods will be ambushed. The darkness of midnight will glitter with the blaze of your dwellings. You are a father—the blood of your sons shall fatten your corn-field. You are a mother,—the war-whoop shall wake the sleep of the cradle.
On this subject you need not suspect any deception on your feelings. It is a spectacle of horror which cannot be overdrawn. If you have nature in your hearts, they will speak a language compared with which all I have said or can say will be poor and frigid.
Who will accuse me of wandering out of the subject? Who will say that I exaggerate the tendencies of our measures? Will any one answer by a sneer, that all this is idle preaching? Would any one deny that we are bound, and I would hope to good purpose, by the most solemn sanctions of duty for the vote we give? Are despots alone to be reproached for unfeeling indifference to the tears and blood of their subjects? Are republicans irresponsible? Have the principles on which you ground the reproach upon cabinets and kings no practical influence, no binding force? Are they merely themes of idle declamation, introduced to decorate the morality of a newspaper essay, or to furnish pretty topics of harangue from the windows of that State House? I trust it is neither too presumptuous nor too late to ask, Can you put the dearest interest of society at risk, without guilt and without remorse?
It is in vain to offer as an excuse, that public men are not to be reproached for the evils that may happen to ensue from their measures. This is very true where they are unforeseen or inevitable. Those I have depicted are not unforeseen. They are so far from inevitable, we are going to bring them into being by our vote; we choose the consequences, and become as justly answerable for them, as for the measure that we know will produce them.
By rejecting the posts, we light the savage fires, we bind the victims. This day we undertake to render account to the widows and orphans whom our decision will make,—to the wretches that will be roasted at the stake,—to our country,—and I do not deem it too serious to say, to conscience and to God. We are answerable; and if duty be anything more than a word of imposture, if conscience be not a bugbear, we are preparing to make ourselves as wretched as our country. There is no mistake in this case; there can be none. Experience has already been the prophet of events, and the cries of our future victims has already reached us. The Western inhabitants are not a silent and uncomplaining sacrifice. The voice of humanity issues from the shade of the wilderness. It exclaims, that while one hand is held up to reject this treaty, the other grasps the tomahawk. It summons our imagination to the scenes that will open. It is no great effort of the imagination to conceive that events so near are already begun. I can fancy that I listen to the yells of savage vengeance and the shrieks of torture! Already they seem to sigh in the western wind! Already they mingle with every echo from the mountains! F. Ames.
I am one of those who believe that the heart of the wilful and deliberate libeller is blacker than that of the highway robber, or of one who commits the crime of midnight arson. The man who plunders on the highway may have the semblance of an apology for what he does. An affectionate wife may demand subsistence; a circle of helpless children raise to him the supplicating hand for food. He may be driven to the desperate act by the high mandate of imperative necessity. The mild features of the husband and father may intermingle with those of the robber and soften the roughness of the shade. But the robber of character plunders that which "not enricheth him," though it makes his neighbor "poor indeed." The man who at the midnight hour consumes his neighbor's dwelling does him an injury which perhaps is not irreparable. Industry may rear another habitation. The storm may indeed descend upon him until charity opens a neighboring door; the rude winds of heaven may whistle around his uncovered family. But he looks forward to better days; he has yet a hook left to hang a hope on. No such consolation cheers the heart of him whose character has been torn from him. If innocent he may look, like Anaxagoras, to the heavens; but he must be constrained to feel this world is to him a wilderness. For whither shall he go? Shall he dedicate himself to the service of his country? But will his country receive him? Will she employ in her councils, or in her armies, the man at whom the "slow unmoving finger of scorn" is pointed? Shall he betake himself to the fireside? The story of his disgrace will enter his own doors before him. And can he bear, think you, can he bear the sympathizing agonies of a distressed wife? Can he endure the formidable presence of scrutinizing, sneering domestics? Will his children receive instructions from the lips of a disgraced father?
Gentlemen, I am not ranging on fairy ground. I am telling the plain story of my client's wrongs. By the guiltless hand of malice his character has been wantonly massacred,—and he now appears before a jury of his country for redress. Will you deny him this redress? Is character valuable? On this point I will not insult you with argument. There are certain things to argue which is treason against nature. The Author of our being did not intend to leave this point afloat at the mercy of opinion, but with His own hand has He kindly planted in the soul of man an instinctive love of character. This high sentiment has no affinity to pride. It is the ennobling quality of the soul; and if we have hitherto been elevated above the ranks of surrounding creation, human nature owes its elevation to the love of character. It is the love of character for which the poet has sung, the philosopher toiled, the hero bled. It is the love of character which wrought miracles at ancient Greece; the love of character is the eagle on which Rome rose to empire. And it is the love of character, animating the bosoms of her sons, on which America must depend in those approaching crises that may "try men's soul's." Will a jury weaken this our nation's hope? Will they by their verdict pronounce to the youth of our country, that character is scarce worth possessing?
We read of that philosophy which can smile at the destruction of property—of that religion which enables its possessor to extend the benign look of forgiveness and complacency to his murderers. But it is not in the soul of man to bear the laceration of slander. The philosophy which could bear it we should despise. The religion which could bear it we should not despise,—but we should be constrained to say, that its kingdom was not of this world. Griffin.
Glorious New England! thou art still time to thy ancient fame, and worthy of thy ancestral honors. We, thy children, have assembled in this far-distant land to celebrate thy birthday. A thousand fond associations throng upon us, roused by the spirit of the hour. On thy pleasant valleys rest, like sweet dews of morning, the gentle recollections of our early life; around thy hills and mountains cling, like gathering mists, the mighty memories of the Revolution; and, far away in the horizon of thy past, gleam, like thy own bright northern lights, the awful virtues of our Pilgrim Sires!
But while we devote this day to the remembrance of our native land, we forget not that in which our happy lot is cast. We exult in the reflection, that though we count by thousands the miles which separate us from our birthplace, still our country is the same. We are no exiles, meeting upon the banks of a foreign river to swell its waters with our homesick tears. Here floats the same banner which rustled above our boyish heads, except that its mighty folds are wider, and its glittering stars increased in number.
The sons of New England are found in every State of the broad Republic. In the East, the South, and the unbounded West, their blood mingles freely with every kindred current. We have but changed our chamber in the paternal mansion; in all its rooms we are at home, and all who inhabit it are our brothers. To us the Union has but one domestic hearth; its household gods are all the same. Upon us then peculiarly devolves the duty of feeding the fires upon that kindly hearth, of guarding with pious care those sacred household gods.
We cannot do with less than the whole Union; to us it admits of no division. In the veins of our children flows Northern and Southern blood. How shall it be separated? Who shall put asunder the best affections of the heart, the noblest instincts of our nature? We love the land of our adoption; so do we that of our birth. Let us ever be true to both, and always exert ourselves in maintaining the unity of our country, the integrity of the Republic. Accursed, then, be the hand put forth to loosen the golden cord of the Union!—thrice accursed the traitorous lips which shall propose its severance! But no; the Union cannot be dissolved. Its fortunes are too brilliant to be marred; its destinies too powerful to be resisted. Here will be their greatest triumphs, their most mighty development. And when, a century hence, this Crescent City shall have filled her golden horns,—when within her broad-armed port shall be gathered the products of the industry of a hundred millions of freemen,—when galleries of art and halls of learning shall have made classic this mart of trade,—then may the sons of the Pilgrims, still wandering from the bleak hills of the North, stand upon the banks of the great river and exclaim with mingled pride and wonder,—"Lo, this is our country: when did the world ever behold so rich and magnificent a city,—so great and glorious a Republic!" S. S. Prentiss.
We have assembled, not to respond to shouts of triumph from the West, but to answer to the cry of want and suffering which comes from the East. The Old World stretches out her arms to the New. The starving parent supplicates the young and vigorous child for bread. There lies, upon the other side of the wide Atlantic, a beautiful island famous in history and in song. Its area is not so great as that of the State of Louisiana, while its population is almost half that of the Union. It has given to the world more than its share of genius and of greatness. It has been prolific in statesmen, warriors, and poets. Its brave and generous sons have fought successfully all battles but their own. In wit and humor it has no equal, while its harp, like its history, moves to tears, by its sweet but melancholy pathos. Into this fair region God has seen fit to send the most terrible of all those fearful ministers who fulfil his inscrutable decrees. The earth has failed to give her increase; the common mother has forgotten her offspring, and her breast no longer affords them their accustomed nourishment. Famine, gaunt and ghastly famine, has seized a nation in its strangling grasp; and unhappy Ireland, in the sad woes of the present, forgets, for a moment, the gloomy history of the past.
Oh, it is terrible, in this beautiful world: which the good God has given us, and in which there is plenty for us all, that men should die of starvation! You who see, each day, poured into the lap of your city, food sufficient to assuage the hunger of a nation, can form but an imperfect idea of the horrors of famine. In battle, in the fulness of his pride and strength, little recks the soldier whether the hissing bullet sings his sudden requiem, or the cords of life are severed by the sharp steel. But he who dies of hunger, wrestles alone, day after day with his grim and unrelenting enemy. The blood recedes, the flesh deserts, the muscles relax, and the sinews grow powerless. At last, the mind, which, at first, had bravely nerved itself for the contest, gives way, under the mysterious influences which govern its union with the body. Then he begins to doubt the existence of an overruling Providence; he hates his fellow-men, and glares upon them with the longings of a cannibal, and it may be, dies blaspheming!
Who will hesitate to give his mite to avert such awful results? Surely not the citizens of New Orleans, ever famed for deeds of charity and benevolence. Freely leave your hearts and purses opened, heretofore, to the call of suffering humanity. Nobly did you respond to oppressed Greece and to struggling Poland. Within Erin's borders is an enemy more cruel than the Turk, more tyrannical than the Russian. Bread is the only weapon that can conquer him. Let us, then load ships with this glorious munition, and, in the name of our common humanity wage war against this despot Famine. Let us, in God's name, "cast our bread upon the waters," and if we are selfish enough to desire it back again, we may recollect the promise, that it shall return to us after many days. S. S. Prentiss.
Behold yon simple building near the crossing of the village road! It is small, and of rude construction, but stands in a pleasant and quiet spot. A magnificent old elm spreads its broad arms above, and seems to lean towards it, as a strong man bends to shelter and protect a child. A brook runs through the meadow near, and hard by there is an orchard; but the trees have suffered much, and bear no fruit, except upon the most remote and inaccessible branches. From within its walls comes a busy hum, such as you may hear in a disturbed beehive. Now peep through yonder window, and you will see a hundred children with rosy cheeks, mischievous eyes, and demure faces, all engaged, or pretending to be so, in their little lessons. It is the public school,—the free, the common school,—provided by law; open to all; claimed from the community as a right, not accepted as a bounty.
Here the children of the rich and poor, high and low, meet upon perfect equality, and commence, under the same auspices, the race of life. Here the sustenance of the mind is served up to all alike, as the Spartans served their food upon the public table. Here, young Ambition climbs his little ladder, and boyish Genius plumes his half-fledged wing. From among these laughing children will go forth the men who are to control the destinies of their age and country; the statesman, whose wisdom is to guide the Senate; the poet, who will take captive the hearts of the people, and bind them together with immortal song; the philosopher, who, boldly seizing upon the elements themselves, will compel them to his wishes, and, through new combinations of their primal laws, by some great discovery, revolutionize both art and science.
The common village-school is New England's fairest boast,—the brightest jewel that, adorns her brow. The principle that society is bound to provide for its members' education as well as protection, so that none need be ignorant except from choice, is the most important that belongs to modern philosophy. It is essential to a republican government. Universal education is not only the best and surest, but the only sure, foundation for free institutions. True liberty is the child of knowledge; she pines away and dies in the arms of ignorance. Honor, then, to the early fathers of New England, from whom came the spirit which has built a school-house by every sparkling fountain, and bids all come as freely to the one as to the other. S. S. Prentiss.
The great element of reform is not born of human wisdom: it does not draw its life from human organizations. I find it only in Christianity. "Thy kingdom come!" There is a sublime and pregnant burden in this prayer. It is the aspiration of every soul that goes forth in the spirit of Reform. For what is the significance of this prayer? It is a petition that all holy influences would penetrate, and subdue, and dwell in the heart of man, until he shall think, and speak, and do good, from the very necessity of his being. So would the institutions of error and wrong crumble and pass away. So would sin die out from the earth; and the human soul living in harmony with the Divine Will, this earth would become like Heaven. It is too late for the reformers to sneer at Christianity,—it is foolishness for them to reject it. In it are enshrined our faith in human progress,—our confidence in reform. It is indissolubly connected with all that is hopeful, spiritual, capable in man. That men have misunderstood it, and perverted it, is true. But it is also true, that the noblest efforts for human melioration have come out of it,—have been based upon it. Is it not so? Come, ye remembered ones, who sleep the sleep of the just,—who took your conduct from the line of Christian philosophy—come from your tombs, and answer!
Come, Howard, from the gloom of the prison and the taint of the lazar-house, and show us what philanthropy can do when imbued with the spirit of Jesus. Come, Eliot, from the thick forest where the red man listens to the Word of Life;—come, Penn, from thy sweet counsel and weaponless victory,—and show us what Christian zeal and Christian love can accomplish with the rudest barbarians or the fiercest hearts. Come, Raikes, from thy labors with the ignorant and the poor, and show us with what an eye this Faith regards the lowest and the least of our race; and how diligently it labors, not for the body, not for the rank, but for the plastic soul that is to course the ages of immortality. And ye, who are a great number,—ye nameless ones,—who have done good in your narrow spheres, content to forego renown on earth, and seeking your reward in the Record on High,—come and tell us how kindly a spirit, how lofty a purpose, or how strong a courage, the Religion ye professed can breathe into the poor, the humble, and the weak. Go forth, then, Spirit of Christianity, to thy great work of Reform! The Past bears witness to thee in the blood of thy martyrs, and the ashes of thy saints and heroes: the Present is hopeful because of thee; the Future shall acknowledge thy omnipotence. E. H. Chapin.
The gentleman, sir, has misconceived the spirit and tendency of Northern institutions. He is ignorant of Northern character. He has forgotten the history of his country. Preach insurrection to the Northern laborers! Who are the Northern laborers? The history of your country is their history. The renown of your country is their renown. The brightness of their doings is emblazoned on its every page. Blot from your annals the words and the doings of Northern laborers, and the history of your country presents but a universal blank.
Sir, who was he that disarmed the Thunderer; wrested from his grasp the bolts of Jove; calmed the troubled ocean; became the central sun of the philosophical system of his age, shedding his brightness and effulgence on the whole civilized world; whom the great and mighty of the earth delighted to honor; who participated in the achievement of your Independence, prominently assisted in moulding your free institutions, and the beneficial effects of whose wisdom will be felt to the last moment of "recorded time?" Who sir, I ask, was he? A Northern laborer, a Yankee tallow-chandler's son,—a printer's runaway boy!
And who, let me ask the honorable gentleman, who was he that, in the days of our Revolution, led forth a northern army,—yes, an army of Northern laborers,—and aided the chivalry of South Carolina in their defence against British aggression, drove the spoilers from their firesides, and redeemed her fair fields from foreign invaders? Who was he? A Northern laborer, a Rhode Island blacksmith,—the gallant General Greene, who left his hammer and his forge, and went forth conquering and to conquer in the battle for our Independence! And will you preach insurrection to men like these?
Sir, our country is full of the achievements of Northern laborers. Where is Concord, and Lexington, and Princeton, and Trenton, and Saratoga, and Bunker Hill, but in the North? And what, sir, has shed an imperishable renown on the never-dying names of those hallowed spots, but the blood and the struggles, the high daring, and patriotism, and sublime courage of Northern laborers? The whole North is an everlasting monument of the freedom, virtue, intelligence, and indomitable independence of Northern laborers! Go, sir, go preach insurrection to men like these!
The fortitude of the men of the North, under intense suffering for liberty's sake, has been almost godlike! History has so recorded it. Who comprised that gallant army, without food, without pay shelterless, shoeless, penniless, and almost naked, in that dreadful winter,—the midnight of our Revolution,—whose wanderings could be traced by their blood-tracks in the snow; whom no arts could seduce, no appeal lead astray, no sufferings disaffect; but who, true to their country and its holy cause, continued to fight the good fight of liberty until it finally triumphed? Who, sir, were these men? Why, Northern laborers! Yes, sir, Northern laborers! Who, sir, were Roger Sherman, and—but it is idle to enumerate. To name the Northern laborers who have distinguished themselves, and illustrated the history of their country, would require days of the time of this House; nor is it necessary. Posterity will do them Justice. Their deeds have been recorded in characters of fire! C. Naylor.
Upon that occasion, the oration of Brougham was, at the outset, disjointed and ragged, and apparently without aim or application. He careered over the whole annals of the world, and collected every instance in which genius had degraded itself at the footstool of power, or principle had been sacrificed for the vanity or the lucre of place; but still there was no allusion to Canning, and no connection that ordinary men could discover with the business before the House. When however, he had collected every material which suited his purpose,—when the mass had become big and black, he bound it about and about with the cords of illustration and of argument; when its union was secure, he swung it round and round with the strength of a giant and the rapidity of a whirlwind, in order that its impetus and effect might be more tremendous; and, while doing this, he ever and anon glared his eye, and pointed his finger to make the aim and direction sure.
Canning was the first who seemed to be aware where and how terrible was to be the collision; and he kept writhing his body in agony, and rolling his eyes in fear, as if anxious to find some shelter from the impending bolt. The House soon caught the impression, and every man in it was glancing his eye fearfully, just towards the orator, and then towards the Secretary. There was, save the voice of Brougham, which growled in that undertone of muttered thunder, which is so fearfully audible, and of which no speaker of the day was fully master but himself, a silence as if the angel of retribution had been flaring in the face of all parties the scroll of their personal and political sins. A pen, which one of the Secretaries dropped upon the matting, was heard in the remotest part of the house; and the voting members, who often slept in the side-galleries during the debate, started up as though the final trump had been sounding them to give an account of their deeds.
The stiffness of Brougham's figure had vanished; his features seemed concentrated almost to a point; he glanced toward every part of the House in succession; and, sounding the death-knell of the Secretary's forbearance and prudence, with both his clinched hands upon the table, he hurled at him an accusation more dreadful in its gall, and more torturing in its effects than ever had been hurled at mortal man within the same walls. The result was instantaneous—was electric; it was as when the thunder-cloud descends upon some giant peak—one flash, one peal—the sublimity vanished, and all that remained was the small and cold pattering of rain. Canning started to his feet, and was able only to utter the unguarded words, "It is false!" to which followed a dull chapter of apologies. From that moment, the House became more a scene of real business than of airy display and angry vituperation. Anonymous.
It is with unfeigned reluctance, Mr. President, that I enter upon the performance of this part of my duty. I shrink almost instinctively from a course, however necessary, which may have a tendency to excite sectional feelings and sectional jealousies. But, sir, the task has been forced upon me, and I proceed right onward to the performance of my duty. Be the consequences what they may, the responsibility is with those who have imposed upon me this necessity. The Senator from Massachusetts has thought proper to cast the first stone, and if he shall find, according to the homely adage, that "he lives in a glass house,"—on his head be the consequences. The gentleman has made a great flourish about his fidelity to Massachusetts. I shall make no professions of zeal for the interests and honor of South Carolina—of that my constituents shall Judge.
If there be one State in the Union, Mr. President, (and I say it not in a boastful spirit,) that may challenge comparison with any other for a uniform, zealous, ardent, and uncalculating devotion to the Union, that State is South Carolina. Sir, from the very commencement of the Revolution up to this hour, there is no sacrifice, however great, she has not cheerfully made; no service she has hesitated to perform. She has adhered to you in your prosperity, but in your adversity she has clung to you with more than filial affection. No matter what was the condition of her domestic affair's—though deprived of her resources, divided by parties, or surrounded by difficulties,—the call of the country has been to her as the voice of God. Domestic discord ceased as the sound—every man became at once reconciled to his brethren, and the sons of Carolina were all seen crowding together to the temple, bringing their gifts to the altar of their common country.
What, sir, was the conduct of the South during the Revolution? Sir, I honor New England for her conduct in that glorious struggle; but great as is the praise which belongs to her, I think at least equal honor is due to the South. They espoused the cause of their brethren with generous zeal which did not suffer them to stop to calculate their interest in the dispute. Favorites of the mother country, possessed of neither ships nor seamen to create commercial rivalship, they might have found in their situation a guaranty that their trade would be forever fostered and protected by Great Britain. But trampling on all considerations, either of interest or of safety; they rushed into the conflict, and fighting for principle, perilled all in the sacred cause for freedom. Never was there exhibited in the history of the world, higher examples of noble daring, dreadful suffering, and heroic endurance, than by the Whigs of Carolina during that Revolution. The whole State, from the mountain to the sea, was overrun by an overwhelming force of the enemy. The fruits of industry perished on the spot where they were produced, or were consumed by the foe. The "plains of Carolina" drank up the most precious blood of her citizens,—black and smoking ruins marked the places which had been the habitations of her children! Driven from their homes into the gloomy and almost impenetrable swamps, even there the spirit of liberty survived, and South Carolina, sustained by the example of her Sumters and her Marions, proved by her conduct, that though her soil might be overrun, the spirit of her people was invincible. R. Y. Hayne.
Sir,—I, in the most express terms, deny the competency of Parliament to abolish the Legislature of Ireland. I warn you, do not dare to lay your hand on the Constitution.—I tell you that if, circumstanced as you are, you pass an act which surrenders the government of Ireland to the English Parliament, it will be a nullity and that no man in Ireland will be bound to obey it. I make the assertion deliberately,—I repeat it and I call on any man who hears me, to take down my words;—you have not been elected for this purpose,—you are appointed to act under the Constitution, not to alter it,—you are appointed to exercise the functions of legislators, and not to transfer them,—and if you do so, your act is a dissolution of the government,—you resolve society into its original elements, and no man in the land is bound to obey you.
Yourselves you may extinguish, but Parliament you cannot extinguish,—it is enthroned in the hearts of the people,—it is enshrined in the sanctuary of the Constitution,—it is immortal as the island which it protects. As well might the frantic suicide hope that the act which destroys his miserable body should extinguish his eternal soul. Again I therefore warn you, do not dare to lay your hands on the Constitution; it is above your power. Sir, I do not say that the Parliament and the people, by mutual consent and cooperation, may not change the form of the Constitution.
But, thank God, the people have manifested no such wish,—so far as they have spoken, their voice is decidedly against this daring innovation. You know that no voice has been uttered in its favor, and you cannot be infatuated enough to take confidence from the silence which prevails in some parts of the kingdom; if you know how to appreciate that silence, it is more formidable than the most clamorous opposition,—you may be rived and shivered by the lightning before you hear the peal of the thunder! But, sir, we are told we should discuss this question with calmness and composure. I am called on to surrender my birthright and my honor, and I am told I should be calm and composed.
National pride! Independence of our country! These, we are told by the Minister, are only vulgar topics fitted for the meridian of the mob, but unworthy to be mentioned in such an enlightened assembly as this; they are trinkets and gew-gaws fit to catch the fancy of childish and unthinking people like you, sir, or like your predecessor in that chair, but utterly unworthy of the consideration of this House, or of the matured understanding of the noble lord who condescends to instruct it! Gracious God! We see a Perry re-ascending from the tomb and raising his awful voice to warn us against the surrender of our freedom, and we see that the proud and virtuous feelings which warmed the breast of that aged and venerable man, are only calculated to excite the contempt of this young philosopher, who has been transplanted from the nursery to the cabinet, to outrage the feelings and understanding of the country. W. C. Plunkett.
Sir, it matters very little, what immediate spot may have been the birthplace of such a man as Washington. No people can claim, no country appropriate him. The boon of Providence to the human race,—his fame is eternity, and his residence, creation. Though it was the defeat of our arms, and the disgrace of our policy, I almost bless the convulsion in which he had his origin. If the heavens thundered, and the earth rocked, yet, when the storm had passed, how pure was the climate that it cleared! How bright in the brow of the firmament was the planet which it revealed to us! In the production of Washington, it does really appear as if Nature was endeavoring to improve upon herself, and that all the virtues of the ancient world were but so many studies preparatory to the patriot of the new.
Individual instances, no doubt there were,—splendid exemplifications of some single qualification. Cæsar was merciful, Scipio was continent, Hannibal was patient; but it was reserved for Washington to blend them all in one, and, like the lovely masterpiece of the Grecian artist, to exhibit, in one glow of associated beauty, the pride of every model and the perfection of every master.
As a general, he marshalled the peasant into a veteran, and supplied by discipline the absence of experience; as a statesman, he enlarged the policy of the cabinet into the most comprehensive system of general advantage; and such was the wisdom of his views, and the philosophy of his counsels, that, to the soldier and the statesman, he almost added the character of the sage! A conqueror, he was untainted with the crime of blood; a revolutionist, he was free from any stain of treason; for aggression commenced the contest, and his country called him to the command. Liberty unsheathed his sword, necessity stained, victory returned it.
If he had paused here, history might have doubted what station to assign him; whether at the head of her citizens or her soldiers, her heroes or her patriots. But the last glorious act crowns his career, and banishes all hesitation. Who like Washington, after having emancipated a hemisphere, resigned its crown, and preferred the retirement of domestic life to the adoration of a land he might be almost said to have created! Happy, proud America! The lightnings of heaven yielded to your philosophy! The temptations of earth could not seduce your patriotism. C. Phillips.
Of all the blessings which it has pleased Providence to allow us to cultivate, there is not one which breathes a purer fragrance, or bears a heavenlier aspect than education. It is a, companion which no misfortune can depress, no clime destroy no enemy alienate, no despotism enslave; at home a friend, abroad an introduction, in solitude a solace, in society an ornament; it chastens vice, it guides virtue, it gives at once a grace and government to genius. Without it, what is man? A splendid slave! A reasoning savage, vascillating between the dignity of an intelligence derived from God, and the degradation of passion participated with brutes; and in the accident of their alternate ascendency, shuddering at the terrors of a hereafter, or embracing the horrid hope of annihilation. What is this wondrous world of his residence?
"A mighty maze, and all without a plan:"
a dark, and desolate, and dreary cavern, without wealth, or ornament, or order. But light up within it the torch of knowledge, and how wondrous the transition! The seasons change, the atmosphere breathes, the landscape lives, earth unfolds its fruits, ocean rolls in its magnificence, the heavens display their constellated canopy, and the grand animated spectacle of nature rises revealed before him, its varieties regulated, and its mysteries resolved! The phenomena which bewilder, the prejudices which debase, the superstitions which enslave, vanish before education.
Like the holy symbol which blazed upon the cloud before the hesitating constantly, if man follow but its precepts, purely it will not only lead him to the victories of this world, but open the very portals of Omnipotence for his admission. Cast your eye over the monumental map of ancient grandeur, once studded with the stars of empire and the splendors of philosophy. What erected the little State of Athens into a powerful Commonwealth, placing in her hand the sceptre of legislation, and wreathing round her brow the imperishable chaplet of literary fame? What extended Rome, the heart of banditti, into universal empire? What animated Sparta with that high, unbending, adamantine courage, which conquered Nature herself, and has fixed her in the sight of future ages, a model of public virtue, and a proverb of national independence? What but those wise public institutions which strengthened their minds with early application, informed their infancy with the principles of actions, and sent them into the world too vigilant to be deceived by its calms, and too vigorous to be shaken by its whirlwinds? C. Phillips.
He is fallen! We may now pause before that splendid prodigy, which towered amongst us like some ancient ruin, whose frown terrified the glance its magnificence attracted. Grand, gloomy, and peculiar, he sat upon the throne a sceptered hermit, wrapped in the solitude of his own originality. A mind, bold, independent, and decisive,—a will, despotic in its dictates,—an energy that distanced expedition, and a conscience pliable to every touch of interest, marked the outline of this extraordinary character,—the most extraordinary, perhaps, that in the annals of this world ever rose, or reigned, or fell. Flung into life in the midst of a revolution that quickened every energy of a people who acknowledge no superior, he commenced his course, a stranger by birth, and a scholar by charity! With no friend but his sword, and no fortune but his talents, he rushed into the list where rank, and wealth, and genius had arrayed themselves, and competition fell from him as from the glance of destiny. He knew no motive but interest,—he acknowledged no criterion but success,—he worshiped no God but ambition, and with an eastern devotion he knelt at the shrine of his idolatry. Subsidiary to this, there was no creed that he did not profess, there was no opinion that he dill not promulgate; in the hope of a dynasty, he upheld the crescent; for the sake of a divorce, he bowed before the cross; the orphan of St. Louis, he became the adopted child of the republic; and with a parricidal ingratitude, on the ruins both of the throne and the tribune, he reared the throne of his despotism. A professed Catholic, he imprisoned the pope; a pretended patriot, he impoverished the country; and in the name of Brutus, he grasped without remorse, and wore without shame, the diadem of the Cæsars. C. Phillips.
My honorable and learned friend began by telling us that, after all, hatred is no bad thing in itself "I hate a Tory," says my honorable friend; "and another man hates a cat; but it does not follow that he would hunt down the cat, or I the Tory." Nay, so far from it, hatred, if it be properly managed, is, according to my honorable friend's theory, no bad preface to a rational esteem and affection. It prepares its votaries for a reconciliation of differences; for lying down with their most inveterate enemies, like the leopard and the kid in the vision of the prophet. This dogma is a little startling, but it is not altogether without precedent. It is borrowed from a character in a play, which is, I dare say, as great a favorite with my learned friend as it is with me,—I mean the comedy of the Rivals; in which Mrs. Malaprop, giving a lecture on the subject of marriage to her niece (who is unreasonable enough to talk of liking, as a necessary preliminary to such a union), says, "What have you to do with your likings and your preferences, child? Depend upon it, it is safest to begin with a little aversion. I am sure I hated your poor dear uncle like a blackamoor before we were married; and yet, you know, my dear, what a good wife I made him." Such is my learned friend's argument, to a hair. But finding that this doctrine did not appear to go down with the House so glibly as he had expected my honorable and learned friend presently changed his tack and put forward a theory which, whether for novelty or for beauty, I pronounce to be incomparable; and, in short, as wanting nothing to recommend it but a slight foundation in truth. "True philosophy," says my honorable friend, "will always continue to lead men to virtue by the instrumentality of their conflicting vices. The virtues where more than one exists, may live harmoniously together; but the vices bear mortal antipathy to one another, and, therefor, furnish to the moral engineer the power by which he can make each keep the other under controls." Admirable! but upon this doctrine, the poor man who has but one single vice must be in a very bad way. No fulcrum no moral power, for effecting his cure! Whereas his more fortunate neighbor, who has two or more vices in his composition, is in a fair way of becoming a very virtuous member of society. I wonder how my learned friend would like to have this doctrine introduced into his domestic establishment. For instance, suppose that I discharge a servant because he is addicted to liquor, I could not venture to recommend him to my honorable and learned friend. It might be the poor man's only fault and therefor clearly incorrigible; but, if I had the good fortune to find out that he was also addicted to stealing, might I not with a safe conscience send him to my learned friend with a strong recommendation, saying "I send you a man whom I know to be a drunkard; but I am happy to assure you he is also a thief: you cannot do better than employ him; you will make his drunkenness counteract his thievery, and no doubt you will bring him out of the conflict a very moral personage!" G. Canning.
If I am pushed to the wall, and forced to speak my opinion, I have no disguise nor reservation:—I do think that this is a time when the administration of the Government ought to be in the ablest and fittest hands; I do not think the hands in which it is now placed answer to that description. I do not pretend to conceal in what quarter I think that fitness most eminently resides; I do not subscribe to the doctrines which have been advanced, that, in times like the present, the fitness of individuals for their political situation is no part of the consideration to which a member of Parliament may fairly turn his attention. I know not a more solemn or important duty that a member of Parliament can have to discharge, than by giving, at fit seasons, a free opinion upon the character and qualities of public men. Away with the cant of "measures, not men!" the idle supposition that it is the harness, and not the horses, that draws the chariot along! No, sir, if the comparison must be made, if the distinction must be taken, men are everything, measures computatively nothing. I speak, sir, of times of difficulty and danger; of times when systems are shaken, when precedents and general rules of conduct fail. Then it is, that not to this or that measure,—however prudently devised, however blameless in execution,—but to the energy and character of individuals, a state must be indebted for its salvation. Then it is that kingdoms rise or fall in proportion as they are upheld, not by well meant endeavors (laudable though they may be), but by commanding, overawing talents,—by able men.
And what is the nature of the times in which we live? Look at France, and see what we have to cope with, and consider what has made her what she is. A man! You will tell me that she was great, and powerful, and formidable, before the days of Bonaparte's government; that he found in her great physical and moral resources; that he had but to turn them to account, True, and he did so. Compare the situation in which he found France with that to which he has raised her. I am no panegyrist of Bonaparte; but I cannot shut my eyes to the superiority of his talents, to the amazing ascendency of his genius, Tell me not of his measures and his policy. It is his genius, his character, that keeps the world in awe. Sir, to meet, to check, to curb, to stand up against him, we want arms of the same kind. I am far from objecting to the large military establishments which are proposed to you. I vote for them, with all my heart. But, for the purpose of coping with Bonaparte, one great, commanding spirit is worth them all. G. Canning.
My Lords, I do not disguise the intense solicitude which I feel for the event of this debate, because I know full well that the peace of the country is involved in the issue. I cannot look without dismay at the rejection of this measure of parliamentary reform. But, grievous as may be the consequences of a temporary defeat, temporary it can only be; for its ultimate, and even speedy success, is certain. Nothing can now stop it. Do not suffer yourselves to be persuaded that, even if the present ministers were driven from the helm, any one could steer you through the troubles which surround you, without reform. But our successors would take up the task in circumstances far less auspicious. Under them, you would be fain to grant a bill, compared with which, the one we now proffer you is moderate indeed.
Hear the parable of the Sibyl; for it conveys a wise and wholesome moral. "She now appears at your gate, and offers you mildly the volumes—the precious volumes—of wisdom and peace. The price she asks is reasonable; to restore the franchise, which, without any bargain, you ought voluntarily to give. You refuse her terms—her moderate terms;—she darkens the porch no longer. But soon—for you cannot do without her wares—you call her back. Again she comes, but with diminished treasures; the leaves of the book are in part torn away by lawless hands, in part defaced with characters of blood. But the prophetic maid has risen in her demands;—it is Parliaments by the year—it is vote by the ballot—it is suffrage by the million! From this you turn away indignant; and, for the second time, she departs. Beware of her third coming! for the treasure you must have; and what price she may next demand, who shall tell? It may even be the mace which rests upon that woolsack! What may follow your course of obstinacy, if persisted in, I cannot take upon me to predict, nor do I wish to conjecture. But this I know full well; that as sure as man is mortal, and to err is human, justice deferred enhances the price at which you must purchase safety and peace;—nor can you expect to gather in another crop than they did who went be fore you, if you persevere in their utterly abominable husbandry of sowing injustice and reaping rebellion.
But, among the awful considerations that now bow down my mind, there is one that stands preeminent above the rest. You are the highest judicature in the realm; you sit here as judges, and decide all causes, civil and criminal, without appeal. It is a Judge's just duty never to pronounce a sentence, in the most trifling case, without hearing. Will you make this the exception? Are you really prepared to determine, but not to hear, the mighty cause, upon which a Nation's hopes and fears hang? You are? Then beware of your decision! Rouse not, I beseech you, a peace-loving but a resolute people! Alienate not from your body the affections of a whole Empire! As your friend, as the friend of my order, as the friend of my country, as the faithful servant of my sovereign, I counsel you to assist, with your uttermost efforts, in preserving the peace, and upholding and perpetuating the Constitution. Therefore, I pray and exhort you not to reject this measure. By all you hold most dear—by all the ties that bind every one of us to our common order and our common country, I solemnly adjure you—I warn you—I implore you—yea, on my bended knees, I supplicate you,—reject not this bill! Lord Brougham.
I trust at length the time has come, when Parliament will no longer bear to be told, that slave-owners are the best lawgivers on slavery; no longer suffer our voice to roll across the Atlantic in empty warnings and fruitless orders. Tell me not of rights,—talk not of the property of the planter in his slave. I deny his rights,—I acknowledge not the property. The principles, the feelings of our common nature, rise in rebellion against it. Be the appeal made to the understanding or to the heart, the sentence is the same, that rejects it.
In vain you tell me of laws that sanction such a claim! There is a law above all the enactments of human codes,—the same throughout the world,—the same in all times; such as it was before the daring genius of Columbus pierced the night of ages, and opened to one world the source of power, wealth, and knowledge,—to the others all unutterable woes, such is it at this day; it is the law written by the finger of God on the heart of man; and be that law, unchangeable and eternal, while men despise fraud, and loathe rapine, and hate blood, they shall reject with indignation the wild and guilty fantasy, that man can hold property in man!
In vain ye appeal to treaties,—to covenants between nations. The covenants of the Almighty, whether the old covenant or the new, denounce such unholy pretensions. To these laws did they of old refer, who maintained the African trade. Such treaties did they cite, and not untruly; for, by one shameful compact, you bartered the glories of Blenheim for the traffic in blood. Yet, in despite of law and of treaty, that infernal traffic is now destroyed, and its votaries put to death like other pirates. How came this change to pass? Not, assuredly, by Parliament leading the way; but the country at length awoke; the indignation of the people was kindled; it descended in thunder, and smote the traffic, and scattered its guilty profit to the winds. Now, then, let the planters beware,—let their assemblies beware,—let the government at home beware,—let the Parliament beware! The same country is once more awake,—awake to the condition of negro slavery; the same indignation kindles in the bosom of the same people; the same cloud is gathering that annihilated the slave-trade; and if it shall descend again, they, on whom its crash may fall, will not be destroyed before I have warned them; but I pray that their destruction may turn away from us the more terrible judgments of God! Lord Brougham.
There is nothing which the adversaries of improvement are more wont to make themselves merry with than what is termed the "march of intellect;" and here I will confess, that I think, as far as the phrase goes, they are in the right. It is a very absurd, because a very incorrect expression. It is little calculated to describe the operation in question. It does not picture an image at all resembling the proceedings of the true friends of mankind. It much more resembles the progress of the enemy to all improvement. The conqueror moves in a march. He stalks onward with the "pride, pomp, and circumstance of warp,"—banners flying—shouts rending the air—guns thundering—and martial music pealing, to drown the shrieks of the wounded, and the lamentations for the slain.
Not thus the schoolmaster, in his peaceful vocation. He meditates and prepares in secret the plans which are to bless mankind; he slowly gathers round him those who are to further their execution, he quietly, though firmly, advances in his humble path, laboring steadily, but calmly, till he has opened to the light all the recesses of ignorance, and torn up by the roots the weeds of vice. His is a progress not to be compared with anything like a march; but it leads to a far more brilliant triumph, and to laurels more imperishable than the destroyer of his species, the scourge of the world, ever won.
Such men—men deserving the glorious title of Teachers of Mankind—I have found, laboring conscientiously, though, perhaps obscurely, in their blessed vocation, wherever I have gone. I have found them, and shared their fellowship, among the daring, the ambitious, the ardent, the indomitably active French; I have found them among the persevering, resolute, industrious Swiss; I have found them among the laborious, the warmhearted, the enthusiastic Germans; I have found them among the high-minded, but enslaved Italians; and in our own country, God be thanked, their numbers everywhere abound, and are every day increasing.
Their calling is high and holy; their fame is the property of nations; their renown will fill the earth in after-ages, in proportion as it sounds not far off in their own times. Each one of those great teachers of the world, possessing his soul in peace, performs his appointed course; awaits in patience the fulfillment of the premises; and, resting from his labors, bequeathed his memory to the generation whom his works have blessed, and sleeps under the humble but not inglorious epitaph, commemorating it one in whom mankind lost a friend, and no man got rid of an enemy." Lord Brougham.
Great he was, preëminently great, whether we regard him sustaining alone the whole weight of campaigns all but desperate, or gloriously terminating a just warfare by his resources and his courage; presiding over the jarring elements of his political council, alike deaf to the storms of all extremes, or directing the formation of a new government for a great people, the first time that so vast an experiment had ever been tried by man; or, really, retiring from the supreme power to which his virtue had raised him over the nation he had created, and whose destinies he had guided as long as his aid was required,—retiring with the veneration of all parties, of all nations, of all mankind, in order that the rights of men might be conserved, and that his example never might be appealed to by vulgar tyrants.
This is the consummate glory of Washington; a triumphant warrior where the most sanguine had a right to despair; a successful ruler in all the difficulties of a course wholly untried; but a warrior, whose sword only left its sheath when the first law of our nature commanded it to be drawn; and a ruler who, having tasted of supreme power, gently and ostentatiously desired that the cup might pass from him, nor would suffer more to wet his lips than the most solemn and sacred duty to his To his country and his God required!
To his latest breath did this great patriot maintain the noble character of a captain the patron of peace, and a statesman the friend of justice. Dying, he bequeathed to his heirs the sword which he had worn in the war for liberty, and charged them "never to take it from the scabbard but in self-defence, or in defence of their country and her freedom;" and commanded them that, "when it should thus be drawn, they should never sheathe it, nor ever give it up, but prefer falling with it in their hands to the relinquishment thereof,"—words, the majesty and simple eloquence of which are not surpassed in the oratory of Athens and Rome.
It will be the duty of the historian and the sage, in all ages, to let no occasion pass of commemorating this illustrious man; and, until time shall be no more, will a test of the progress which our race has made in wisdom and virtue be derived from the veneration paid to the immortal name of Washington! Lord Brougham.
How many times have we been told that Washington was not a man of genius, but a person of excellent common sense, of admirable judgement, of rare virtues! He had no genius, it seems. O no! genius, we must suppose, is the peculiar and shining attribute of some orator, whose tongue can spout patriotic speeches; or some versifier, whose muse can hail Columbia; but not of the man who supported States on his arm, and carried America in his brain. What is genius? Is it worth anything? Is splendid folly the measure of its inspiration? Is wisdom its base and summit?—that which it recedes from, or tends toward? And by what definition do you award the name to the creator of an epic, and deny it to the creator of a country? On what principle is it to be lavished on him who sculptures in perishing marble the image of possible excellence, and withheld from him who built up in himself a transcendent character, indestructible as the obligations of duty, and beautiful as her rewards?
Indeed, if by genius of action, you mean will enlightened by intelligence, and intelligence energized by will,—if force and insight be its characteristics, and influence its test, and if great effects suppose a cause proportionally great, a vital, causative mind,—then was Washington most assuredly a man of genius, and one whom no other American has equalled in the power of working morally and mentally on other minds. His genius was of a peculiar kind, the genius of character, of thought and the objects of thought solidified and concentrated into active faculty. He belongs to that rare class of men,—rare as Homers and Miltons, rare as Platos and Newtons,—who have impressed their characters upon nations without pampering national vices. Such men have natures broad enough to include all the facts of a people's practical life, and deep enough to discern the spiritual laws which underlie, animate, and govern those facts. E. P. Whipple.
I should be surprised, indeed, if; while you are doing us wrong, you did not profess your solicitude to do us justice. From the day on which Strongbow set his foot upon the shore of Ireland, Englishmen were never wanting in protestations of their deep anxiety to do us justice;—even Strafford, the deserter of the people's cause,—the renegade Wentworth who gave evidence in Ireland of the spirit of instinctive tyranny which predominated in his character,—even Strafford, while he trampled upon our rights, and trod upon the heart of the country, protested his solicitude to do justice to Ireland! What marvel is it, then, that gentlemen opposite should deal in such vehement protestations? There is, however, one man, of great abilities,—not a member of this House, but whose talents and whose boldness have placed him in the topmost place in his party,—who, disdaining all imposture, and thinking it the best course to appeal directly to the religious and national antipathies of the people of this country,—abandoning all reserve, and flinging off the slender veil by which his political associates affect to cover, although they cannot hide, their motives,—distinctly and audaciously tells the Irish people that they are not entitled to the same privileges as Englishmen; and pronounces them, in any particular which could enter his minute enumeration of the circumstances by which fellow-citizenship is created, in race, identity, and religion to be aliens—to be aliens in race—to be aliens in country—to be aliens in religion! Aliens! Good God! was Arthur, Duke of Wellington, in the House of Lords,—and did he not start up and exclaim, "Hold! I have seen the aliens do their duty!"
The Duke of Wellington is not a man of an excitable temperament. His mind is of a cast too martial to be easily moved; but, notwithstanding his habitual inflexibility, I cannot help thinking that, when he heard his Roman Catholic countrymen (for we are his countrymen) designated by a phrase as offensive as the abundant vocabulary of his eloquent confederate could supply,—I cannot help thinking that he ought to have recollected the many fields of fight in which we have been contributors to his renown. "The battles, sieges, fortunes, that he has passed," to have come back upon him. He ought to have remembered that, from the earliest achievement in which he displayed that military genius which has placed him foremost in the annals of modern warfare, down to that last and surpassing combat which has made his name imperishable,—from Assaye to Waterloo,—the Irish soldiers, with whom your armies are filled, were the inseparable auxiliaries to the glory with which his unparalleled successes have been crowned. Whose were the arms that drove your bayonets at Vimiera through the phalanxes that never reeled to the shock of war before? What desperate valor climbed the steeps and filled the moats at Badajos? All his victories should have rushed and crowded back upon his memory,—Vimiera, Badajos, Salamanca, Albuera, Toulouse, and, last of all, the greatest—
Tell me—for you were there,—I appeal to the gallant soldier before me, from whose opinions I differ, but who bears, I know, a generous heart in an intrepid breast;—tell me, for you must needs remember, on that day when the destinies of mankind were trembling in the balance,—while death fell in showers when the artillery of France was levelled with a precision of the most deadly science, when her legions, incited by the voice and inspired by the example of their mighty leader, rushed again and again to the onset,—tell me if, for an instant, when to hesitate for an instant was to be lost, the "aliens" blenched? And when, at length, the moment for the last and decided movement had arrived, and the valor which had so long been wisely checked was, at last, let loose,—when, with words familiar but immortal, the great captain commanded the great assault,—tell me if Catholic Ireland with less heroic valor than the natives of this your own glorious country precipitated herself upon the foe? The blood of England, Scotland, and of Ireland, flowed in the same stream, and drenched the same field. When the chill morning dawned, their dead lay cold and stark together;—in the same deep pit their bodies were deposited; the green corn of spring is now breaking from their commingled dust; the dew falls from heaven upon their union in the grave. Partakers in every peril, in the glory shall we not be permitted to participate; and shall we be told as a requital, that we are estranged from the noble country for whose salvation our life-blood was poured out? R. L. Sheil.
Of all the books with which, since the invention of writing, this world has been deluged, very few have produced any perceptible effect on the mass of human character. By far the greater part have been, even by their contemporaries, unnoticed and unknown. Not many a one has made its little mark upon that generation that produced it, though it sunk with that generation to utter forgetfulness. But, after the ceaseless toil of six thousand years, how few have been the works, the adamantine basis of whose reputation has stood unhurt amid the fluctuations of time, and whose impression can be traced through successive centuries, on the history of our species!
When, however, such a work appears, its effects are absolutely incalculable; and such a work, you are aware, is the Iliad of Homer. Who can estimate the results produced by the incomparable efforts of a single mind? Who can tell what Greece owes to this first-born of song? Her breathing marbles, her solemn temples, her unrivalled eloquence, and her matchless verse, all point us to that transcendent genius, who, by the very splendor of his own effulgence, woke the human intellect from the slumber of ages. It was Homer who gave laws to the artist; it was Homer who inspired the poet; it was Homer who thundered in the Senate; and, more than all, it was Homer who was sung by the people; and hence a nation was cast into the mould of one mighty mind, and the land of the Iliad became the region of taste, the birthplace of the arts.
But, considered simply as an intellectual production, who will compare the poems of Homer with the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments? Where in the Iliad shall we find simplicity and pathos which shall vie with the narrative of Moses, or maxims of conduct to equal in wisdom the Proverbs of Solomon, or sublimity which does not fade away before the conceptions of Job, or David, or Isaiah, or St. John? But I cannot pursue this comparison. I feel that it is doing wrong to the mind which dictated the Iliad, and to those other mighty intellects on whom the light of the holy oracles never shined.
If, then, so great results have flowed from this one effort of a single mind, what may we not expect from the combined efforts of several, at least his equals in power over the human heart? If that one genius, though groping in the thick darkness of absurd idolatry, wrought so glorious a transformation in the character of his countrymen, what may we not look for from the universal dissemination of those writings on whose authors was poured the full splendor of eternal truth? If unassisted human nature, spell-bound by a childish mythology, have done so much, what may we not hope for from the supernatural efforts of preeminent genius, which spake as it was moved by the Holy Ghost? Dr. Wayland.
A year ago, California was a mere military dependency of our own. To-day, she is a State, more populous than the least, and richer than several of the greatest of our thirty States. This same California, thus rich and populous, is here asking admission into the Union, and finds us debating the dissolution of the Union itself. No wonder if we are perplexed with ever-changing embarrassments! No wonder if we are appalled by ever-increasing responsibilities! No wonder if we are bewildered by the ever-augmenting magnitude and rapidity of national vicissitudes!
SHALL CALIFORNIA BE RECEIVED? For myself, upon my individual judgment and conscience, I answer—yes. Let California come in. Every new State, whether she come from the east or the west every new State, coming from whatever part of the continent she may, is always welcome. But, California, that comes from the clime where the west dies away into the rising east,—California, that bounds at once the empire and the continent,—California, the youthful queen of the Pacific, in her robes of freedom, gorgeously inlaid with gold, is doubly welcome.
The question now arises, shall this one great people, having a common origin, a common language, a common religion, common sentiments, interests, sympathies and hopes, remain one political state, one nation, one republic; or shall it be broken into two conflicting, and, probably, hostile nations or republics? Shall the American people, then, be divided? Before deciding on this question, let us consider our position, our power, and capabilities. The world contains no seat of empire so magnificent as this; which, embracing all the varying climates of the temperate zone, and traversed by wide expanding lakes and long branching rivers, offers supplies on the Atlantic shores to the overcrowded nations of Europe, and, on the Pacific coast, intercepts the commerce of the Indies. The nations thus situated, and enjoying forest, mineral, and agricultural resources unequaled, if endowed, also with moral energies adequate to the achievement of great enterprises, and flavored with a government adapted to their character and condition, must command the empire of the seas, which, alone, is real empire.
We think we may claim to have inherited physical and intellectual vigor, courage, invention, and enterprise; and the systems of education prevailing among us, open to all the stores of human science and art. The Old World and the Past were allotted by Providence to the pupilage of mankind. The New World and the Future seem to have been appointed for the maturity of mankind, with the development of self-government, operating in obedience to reason and judgment.