AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE PHI KAPPA AND UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA AUGUST 4TH, 1852. BY HON. WM. II. STILES, PUBLISHED BY REQUEST OF THE SOCIETY, AUGUSTA, GA. PRINTED BY F. II. SINGER. GEORGIA HOME GAZETTE OFFICE Pis fee Cntinerfon IMtttmt Jiterfij on& dBfajnttra. ' - ' ■ ■ '■» — AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE PHI KAPPA AND DEIOSTHENIAN SOtBEfflSffillfS OF Committee. JAMES LUMPKIN, ) Hon. Wm. H. Stiles, Athens. Athens, August 5th, 1852. Gentlemen : In compliance with the request of the .Society, I resign the Manuscript of my Address to its disposal, with my grateful acknowledgements for the indul¬ gence with which the effort is regarded; and a deep regret that time did not permit me to make it shorter and more worthy of acceptance. I am, with great respect, Your Obedient Servant, WILLIAM H. STILES. To Messrs. Robert Blacksiiear, 1 james Marks, and > Committee Phi Kappa Society. James Lumpkin, ) ADDRESS There once existed at Arnadan, an Academy of Sciences so renowned throughout the Orient, that the limited number of its members had been already filled, when a Persian philosopher in high esteem, unapprized of the circumstance, made application for admission. The President, dis¬ tressed at the necessity of rejecting so worthy an applicant, and at a loss for words to convey, with sufficient gentleness, the unpleasing intelli¬ gence, called for a cup, and, filling it with water to the brim, presented it to the philosopher, in token of that answer which language had failed him to communicate. The philosopher, comprehending at a glance the significance and delicacy of the reply, was retiring in dejection from the assembly, when he espied upon the floor a rose leaf: instantly seizing it, he turned, and placing it gently upon the water, proved that the vessel was not yet full, as that addition had been made without causing one drop of its contents to escape. Your cup of literary contributions, gentlemen, is full—full I am aware almost to overflowing; in the view of many, there is no room left for one drop more ; and yet, imitating the ingenuity of the Persian philoso¬ pher, I may still cast my leaf upon the waters, and if its weight be insuf¬ ficient to sink it beneath the surface, like that of the Philosopher, it will perhaps possess the merit, not to disturb that already well-filled vessel, or cause to escape one drop of its more valuable contents. Unlimited in the choice of a topie for your consideration, I have wan¬ dered upon the wings of imagination, over the wide ocean of literary speculation, and found no resting place for the foot of thought, until a 4 ADDRES S natural recurrence to the names which designate the place in which, we meet and the Societies I address, prompted me to " Turn to the land, Where on the iEgean shore a city stands, Built nobly, pure the air and light the soil— Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of Art And Eloquence." To you, Gentlemen of the Phi Kappa and Demosthenian Societies, natives of the freest soil on earth, and for the purposes of education now residents of this modern city of Pallas, who have hitherto been wandering through the olive groves of Academia, or listening on the banks of the Ilissus to the lectures of the Lyceum, and who are now about to mingle in the noise of the Agora, or plunge, it may be, into the conflicts of the Assembly, it cannot but be appropriate, if not interesting, to trace the connection between Freedom and Eloquence, observe the agency of popular institutions in promoting popular Eloquence, as well as mark the tremendous reaction of popular eloquence upon the fortunes and destiny of a State. ■ The genius of mankind is perhaps at all times equal, but the differ¬ ence that occurs in its developement may be ascribed to circumstances; of which, not the least influential are the enlightenment of the people, and the institutions of Government under which they live. The sen¬ timent of Longinus, sustained by Addison, Shaftesbury and Hume, that "the arts and sciences can never flourish but in a free govern¬ ment," though too general in its application, since under the despot¬ isms of the East, elements of art and science existed, which republics, however, were alone able to perfect, yet as regards eloquence, the re¬ mark is by no means exaggerated, but truly and historically correct. Eloquence has been defined "the language of passion," how then can we look for language where there is no power whatever to utter it ? How can we expect passion where it has never been permitted to arise 1 Where there is no liberty of speech (and this can only exist in a free government,) there can be no Eloquence. In tracing the rise of Ora¬ tory, therefore, we need not penetrate the first records of humanity, or search even among the monuments of Eastern and Egyptian antiquity. In those ages there was indeed an eloquence of a certain kind, but it approached nearer to poetry, than to what we properly call Oratory. The first empires that arose, the Assyrian and the Egyptian, were des¬ potic. All power was vested in the hands of a monarch, and the multi¬ tude, accustomed to a blind reverence, were led, not persuaded, while none of those refinements which indicate the importance of public speak- ADDRESS. 5 . ing had yet appeared. Eyen in the early history of Greece, where in later times eloquence reached a perfection previously unknown, and we may add perhaps subsequently unsurpassed, we look in vain for any specimens of the art. And this absence, it is evident, was owing, not to any want of adaptedness in the people, to excel in the power of speech, but simply to the character of their political institutions. A brief reference to the history of this country will establish the fact. From the period when Cecrops, whether according to the Attic legend an indigenous personage, or as some contend, the leader of an Egyptian colony, built a fortress and founded a city upon the summit of the Acro¬ polis, to the time when Codrus, warned by the Delphian oracle, threw himself upon the darts of the enemy, and devoted his life to the salvation of his country, Athens was under the government of kings. Upon this event, the Athenians, in honor of Codrus, it is said, abolished royalty, and instituted in its stead, the office of perpetual Archon, which was changed first to a decennial, and afterwards to an annual Magistracy. During the existence of the regal power, Athens did not rise to much national im¬ portance ; Sparta had already surpassed it, Argos was a considerable city, and Corinth, the entrepot of commerce between the Aegean and Ionian seas, abounded in wealth, before Athens became prominent among the states of Greece. Up to this epoch, and even for centuries after, we find no traces of the arts and sciences. Philosophy and Sculp¬ ture had not yet appeared, and Eloquence had no existence, beyond the brain of Homer in the speeches of his deified heroes ; the "vehemence" of Ulysses, which he beautifully likened to the " fall of the winter's snow," or the " sweetness" of Nestor, whose "words flowed like honey from his lips." It was a period in their history when the Athenians were only distinguished from their barbarian neighbors by some .taste in the decoration of their arms, and something of a loftier spirit in the songs which eternized their military exploits. An increase in the number of archons now laid the foundation of a rigid aristocracy, which, possessed of the'power to administer justice, and invested with the sacerdotal digni¬ ties, the people were left without a place of refuge when aggrieved, and Athens, subject to all the evils of oppression by the rich and misery in the poor, became a scene of continual confusion and turmoil. There are periods in all constitutions when, amid the excesses of fac¬ tion, every one submits willingly to an arbiter. About this time ap¬ peared a young Athenian of noble birth, high character, and uncom¬ mon genius, a poet, ,an orator, and a legislator almost by intuition. He had by his first act, elevated himself to great prominency in public estimation, when under pretence of insanity, he recited in the market- 6 ADDRESS place a Poem on the loss of Salamis, which led to the capture of that island, despite the decree announcing death to any one who should propose again to lead the Athenians upon such an expedition. This was Solon, son of Execestides. Amid the embarrassments in which Athens was now involved, all eyes were turned to Solon, as the only one capable of giving order to the ctistracted commonwealth, and he was appointed Archon, with peculiar powers for reforming the State. He executed the task with great success, both in respect to the political constitution and the code of civil and criminal laws, of which the latter attained such fame that the Romans formed their statutes from them, and they have become the bases of laws now existing throughout a large portion of the civilized world. Athens, thus reformed, began to improve, when Pisis- tratus, then at the head of the Democratic party, found means to seize the supreme power. The struggles of the Athenians for liberty, against Pisistratus and his descendants, resulted after a lapse-of fifty years in the downfall of the dynasty ; and upon the expulsion of his son, Hippias, the government of Athens became at length substantially popular. This period, distinguished as the third great era in Attic history, and which beheld the dawn of freedom and popular government in Greece, witnessed also the first efforts of new born Eloquence. Pisistratus, not¬ withstanding his love of power, was the first to collect the poems of Homer, the first to establish a public library, and the first among the Athenians, as Plutarch informs us, who distinguished himself by the powers of speech, and that it was through his success in this art, that he at length elevated himself to sovereign power. The next great era in the history of Athens presents to our view the magnificent spectacle of the Persian invasion. At the " most terrible crisis of this soul-stirring period, the Athenians," says Herodotus, " were the preservers of Greece, and when the deities themselves seemed to tremble, Athens was unshaken." It was the epoch of her greatest men, and of incidents the most stupendous she was ever destined to witness. She was at the zenith of her glory while her buildings lay in ashes, the safety of her citizens confined to the shelter of her " wooden walls," as foretold at Delphi, and the vision of her future supremacy rested only in the brain of the youthful but ambitious Themistocles. The Persian empire, at this time, embraced almost the whole of the civilized world. It included India, west of the Indus, and all the coun¬ try between it and the Mediterranean, Lesser Asia, Thrace, Palestine and Egypt. Arabia paid tribute, and the Turkish borderers were num¬ bered among its subjects. The Athenians having refused the " earth and water demanded by king Darius in token of subjection, having ADDRESS T aided the forces of Miletus and Ionia in the destruction of Sardis, the Persian monarch, influenced By ambition and incited by revenge, yield¬ ed a willing ear to the proposals of the deposed tyrant—now undisguised traitor, Hippias—and prepared for the invasion of Greece. The innu¬ merable ships, teeming with the Mede and Persian hosts, pilotted by Hippias—after an exile of twenty years, still grasping, at the verge of life, the shadow of his former sceptre—came to anchor in the bay of Marathon. About twenty miles to the east of Athens, along the shore of the JEgean, stretches a plain about five miles in length and at no point ex¬ ceeding two in width ; from the steep ridges of Pentilicus to the sea, " The mountains look on Marathon, And Marathon looks on the Sea," There upon that plain, now covered with oleander and wild thyme, with but a few mounds, in which repose the ashes of the Athenian, Boeotian and Persian dead, to interrupt the perfect level of its dreary waste, occurred the most important struggle which the annals of history disclose. The destruction of the Greek fleet in the harbor of Syracuse may have determined the language and literature of all succeeding ages, the suc¬ cess of the Swiss in the pass of Morgarten have established the founda¬ tions of religious freedom, and other actions in the lapse of time have decided the fate of dynasties or the liberties of nations. But in Mara¬ thon all these were united—language, literature, liberty, civil and reli¬ gious—the whole cause of intelligence on earth and hope in heaven, not for Greece but for Europe, not for Europe but for the world, seemed suspended on the contingency, whether the Persian or the Grecian banner should wave victorious in that day's setting sun. The Persian monarch regarded Greece as but the threshold of a new quarter of the globe, and to his counsellors, before he crossed the Hellespont, he disclosed his de¬ signs of overrunning all Europe, "until," in the language of Eastern rhetoric, " heaven itself should be the only limit to the Persian realm, and the Sun should shine on no country contiguous to his own." And had he but triumphed, what would have been the present condi¬ tion of the civilized world ? Plato would not have taught, nor Demosthe¬ nes spoken, nor Sophocles recited, nor Phidias have moulded into form the inanimate marble ; the philosophers, orators, poets and sculptors of Rome would never have flourished; the history of Europe, with the striking vicissitudes of two thousand years, remained a blank; that con¬ tinent havebeen at this day what Asia is j and America undiscovered by Euronean enterprise, have been still but the range of the savage and the 8 ADDRESS. lair of the wild beast. Such were some of the issues that rested upon the fate of Marathon. So feeble were the Greeks against the long dark columns of Asiatic troops that lined the shore as far as human eye could reach, that all the influence of their leaders could scarce urge that gallant band to assume the risk ,of almost certain discomfiture ; and when this miserable pha¬ lanx, destitute alike of cavalry and archers, were seen with standards ■ raised rushing into battle, the Persian hosts paused and gazed with as¬ tonishment and contempt at these " madmen," as they regarded them, " hurrying to instant destruction." The result is known; and still throughout the civilized world, (civilized how much by the arts and lore of Athens,) men of every clime and of every political persuasion, feel as Greeks at the name of Marathon. Later fields have presented the spec¬ tacle of an equal valor, and almost the same disparities of slaughter, but never in the annals of earth were united so closely in our applause ; ad- mir ation for the heroism of the victors and sympathy for the magnitude and holiness of the cause. In a few years followed in succession the triumphs of Salamis and Platfea, by which the entire Persian force, consisting of a navy of twelve hundred ships, and an army with its attendants numbering not less than five millions of souls, were either destroyed or driven from the country. As the waters which once lashed the base of Mount (Eta and formed the immortal pass of Thermopylae, fifty feet only in extent, and furnishing at once the defence and the grave of Leonidas, have now retired for miles—leaving an extent of soil which, hitherto covered by the briny element, was lost—so the flood of the Persian arms which once deluged Greece, covering its beauties and paralyzing all its energies, now rolled back to its Eastern bed, it left emancipated Greece free to produce and perfect the arts of peace with that amazing vigor which had been arous¬ ed by the dangers and exalted by the victories of war. Severe and long continued war had produced many silent changes in the institu¬ tions of Greece. Common danger and common glory had broken down many of the senseless and arbitrary distinctions of society, while the victories having been achieved alike by all classes of the commu¬ nity, the most humble of the populace began now to claim, in political equality, the reward of military service. Hitherto, property qualifica¬ tions had been' attached to the holding of civil offices; but after the bat¬ tle of Plataea, Aristides, the leader of the aristocratic party, proposed and succeeded in establishing a decree abolishing such impediments,'and allowing to all citizens, with or without property, a share in the adminis¬ tration of government. The people elevated and inspirited by these address. 9 events and innovations, Athens soon recovered from the effects of de¬ vastating war. The city is rebililt and fortified, and under the guidance of such master-spirits' as Miltiades, Aristides and Themistocles, rises visibly and majestically over the rest of the civilized world. Nor was the generation that immediately followed these matchless heroes, infe¬ rior in intellectual eminence. Cimon, the son of Miltiades, intellectual, accomplished and wealthy, the friend of every genius and every art, was the fittest person to conduct, as it were, the inseusible transition from the age of warlike glory to that of civil pre-eminence. The era of Cimon, though far surpassing any thing yet known in Athens, existed only to be excelled by that of his rival and successor, Pericles—universally considered the most brilliant age of Athens. During his supremacy, and through his enterprise, rapidjy progressed those splendid structures that adorn the Acropolis, and on which, as Plutarch gracefully expresses it, "a bloom is diffused which preserves their aspect untarnished by time, as if they were ani¬ mated by a spirit of perpetual youth and unfading elegance." On the site of - the old temple of Minerva, destroyed in the-Persian invasion, the magnificent structure of the Parthenon, enlarged and modelled after a more perfect plan, arose. " The finest edifice on the finest site in the world," hallowed by the noblest recollections that can stimulate the human heart—a witness of all the revolutions of Athens for 2300 years, and remaining during that period an unrivalled model of perfection in archi¬ tecture. But these monuments of physical excellence were among the least trophies of the age of Pericles. A concurrence of fortunate cir¬ cumstances happening among a people of the highest abilities, and pro¬ moted by extraordinary men, produced at this time phenomena which have never since been witnessed. Political greatness was the fundamen¬ tal principle of the commonwealth. Athens had been the guardian and champion of Greece, and she desired now to appear worthy of the position she had assumed, by outstripping her sister states in the arts of peace as far as she had excelled them in the arts of war. The public spirit, chastened and heightened by liberty, animating every citizen, ex¬ panded the blossoms of genius in every art. Then sprang, as if by magic, from the soil the architects Callicatres and Mnesi- eles, the sculptors Phidias and Polycletus, the tragic poets .Bschy- lus and Sophocles, the historians Herodotus and Thucidides, the orators Alcibiades and Pericles. Until the time of Pericles, oratory, in its proper sense as a study and an art, was uncultivated in Athens. He was the first of the great statesmen who seems to have prepared himself for action by study. Anaxagoras, Pythoclides, and Damon 10 ADDRESS. were'his tutors. He was early eminent in the lettered accomplishments' of his time, and soon became distinguished for an elaborate and impas¬ sioned eloquence, hitherto unknown. The first to compose and write his speeches, the earliest regular oration on record was pronounced by him over those citizens who had perished in the siege of Samos, The magnificent funeral oration: afterwards delivered in honor of those who had fallen in the Peloponesian warr is regarded as one of the grand¬ est oratorical productions of antiquity; while it exhibits a more com¬ plete view of the intellectual power and moral character of'Pericles,, than all that historians or biographers have been able to furnish. The form in which the great orator and statesman has imbodied his lofty conceptions of the liberty and glory of his country, is beauty chastened and elevated by a noble severity. Athens and Athenians are the ob¬ jects which his ambition seeks to immortalize, and the whole world is the theatre and the witness of their glorious exploits. At this period Athens was at the zenith of her power and glory. She stood at the head of the Ionian league, and was mistress of the Grecian seas. Sparta, the only rival that could arrest her ambition, was pacified ; Corinth humbled ; AS gin a ruined; Megara had shrunk into her former dependency; Bceotia had received a constitution from the hands of an Athenian general; and what perhaps contributed more than any other event to her supremacy, the common treasury had been transferred from Delos to Athens. During this epoch, so brilliant in the history of Athens and of art, Pericles stood for forty years pre-eminent, and historians unite in ascribing his influence not more to his political talents than to his elo¬ quence, which, although ornate and refined, was of that forcible and vehe¬ ment character that triumphed over the passions and affections of the peo¬ ple, and secured for him the surname of Olympus, since, "like Jupiter he thundered when he spoke." After Pericles followed Lysias, Critias, Isocrates, and iEschines -T but the annals of Greeee from that period to the present has furnished but one equal of Pericles, in the person of the unrivalled Demosthenes. It is remarkable how unimportant a circumstance often gives direction to the whole pursuits and life of man, developing resources or disclosing genius which might otherwise have perished unimproved, or been pros¬ tituted to the most unworthy ends. Had Demosthenes been suffered to consult alone the effeminate frame, feeble constitution, and other equally serious physical defects of his youth, he would assuredly never have con¬ cluded to devote himself to that profession which, above all others, de¬ manded capacities for intense labor, with the most perfect physical organ¬ ization ; but the death of his father while he was yet an infant, and the ADDRESS. II dishonesty of his guardians in appropriating to their own uses tlie estate of their ward, most naturally directed his attention to that pursuit through which alone justice could he obtained. The redress of private injury thus determined his profession ; but to a circumstance still more trivial is he chiefly indebted for the success which crowned his career; and this was the result of his first effort before the As¬ sembly, when, after a decided failure, he descended from the henna •amid the murmurs and the laughter of the audience. To one desti¬ tute of merit, a failure in his first effort is annihilation, and the unwor¬ thy aspirant falls like Lucifer never to rise again from the shade so con¬ genial to his insignificance ; but when one carries within him the unmis- takeable consciousness of his own strength, no temporary failure can crush him; he rises, Antaeus-like, with redoubled energy from the fall, the momentary mortification but stimulates an ambition which will urge him to secure the " olive crown1' or to perish in the attempt. These circum- stancesmay explain why Demosthenes excelled his contemporaries; but why is it that, lake the structure of the Parthenon, he has been pre¬ sented as a model whieh all succeeding time has been unable to surpass ? There is always a certain correspondence or proportion between the •estimation in which an art is held, and the effect which it produces. In the flourishing periods of Athens as well as of Pome, Eloquence was power. The rod of Hermes was the sceptre of empire, the voice of Oratory the thunder of Jove. It was made, therefore, the fundamental object of education, and every other part of instruction for childhood and discipline for youth, was rendered subservient to its accomplishment. But the singular excellence to which eloquence attained at Athens is chiefly ascribable to the influence which it was there enabled to exert. In turbulent times, under a constitution purely democratic, among a people educated exactly to that point at whieh men are most susceptible of strong and sudden impressions, acute but not sound reasoners, warm in their Teelings, unfixed in their principles, and passionate admirers of fine composition, it is not to be wondered at that eloquence achieved tri¬ umphs elsewhere unknown. The great Athenian himself, in his mod¬ esty, sustains this presumption, when, in his oration " on the Crown," he asserts that his experience had convinced him, that " what is called the power of eloquence depends for the most part upon the hearers, and that the characters of public speakers are determined by that degree of favor vouchsafed to each." But to perfection in eloquence something more is needed than orator and audience—viz " subject and occasion. Great questions must agitate men's minds, deep passions must be awakened, vast expectations excit- 12 ADDRESS. cd. Both speaker and hearer must feel that great issues are at stake, and that it is eloquence alone or chiefly which will decide those issues. The electric influence of such an audience, and the deep conviction of the orator that mighty interests are suspended on his single voice, must com¬ bine to call forth one of those rare spirits who appear at distant inteivals, and who seem formed to triumph over obstacles that appal and paralyze ordinary men. Of such a combination of the elements for perfection in eloquence, a more striking example cannot perhaps be adduced than the instance of Demosthenes before the Athenian Assembly, upon the arrival of the news of the capture of Elatea. It was at evening in the month of February, (338 B. C.,) when tidings reached Athens, that Philip of Macedon, violating all his engagements, had suddenly seized Elatea, the key of Phocis and Boeotia, and that his banners might be seen within three days floating before the walls of Athens. The Prytanes, to whom the intelligence was first conveyed, were at table in their council hall. Instantly they rose, and gave orders betokening a crisis of extraordinary and imminent danger. The market¬ place was forthwith cleared of the petty traders, and the officers even set fire to their wicker stalls, to disperse them the more rapidly. The generals were summoned for consultation, and the trumpet of alarm sounded through the city during the entire night. All waited impa¬ tiently for the morrow. At day-break the Senate of Five Hundred con¬ vened, while the people hurried iti crowds to the Pnyx, and there in breathless anxiety awaited the movements of the Council. The Pnyx, where the meetings of the people were held, and where the important questions of peace and war were often decided, was situated near the western verge of the city, on a low hill sloping to the north ; on the right, as the orator stood, his view was bounded by Mount Hymettus, on the left by the Areopagus or Hill of Mars, and in front, the Acropolis with its brilliant structures, stood in full display before him. It was a large semi-circular area, filled with seats hewn in the solid rock. . In the centre arose a pedestal, carved also from the living rock, and ascended by steps. This was the celebrated bona from which the orator addressed the As¬ sembly. This amphitheatre, with the canopy of heaven only for a roof, and the solid limestone rock for the remaining portions of the structure, is at this time, as I have the best reason to know, in a state of almost as perfect preservation, as on that morning, two thousand two hundred and ninety years ago, when the impatient audience awaited the arrival of the Council. At length the Council enters, the bearer of the'news is then produced, and made to repeat his story. This finished, the herald rises and demands, li//,o dcsi/cs to speak?*' A long pause ensues and ADDRESS. 13 no one comes forward out of the crowd of magistrates and orators; the proclamation is repeated, and still no one seems to "hear the common voice of his country imploring counsel and assistance," until at length the dread silence is broken by a shout, and Demosthenes is seen to ascend the bema. Without rhetorical pomp, without embellishment, but with that vehe¬ ment simplicity for which he was peculiarly distinguished, the orator exposes the designs of the king of Macedon, and rouses the indignation of his countrymen against this common enemy of the liberties of Greece. He charges the people with indolence and indifference to the public weal, in the name and for the glory of their ancestors he summons them to exertion, displays to them their own strength, and assures them that they need but union and energy to make "Philip tremble on his throne." He closes his harangue. The Senate adopts with unanimity the mea¬ sures he proposes, which led to the alliance with Thebes, and to the last great struggle on the plains of Cheronea, fatal alike to the orator and to the liberties of his country. This cursory glance at the history of Greece, may tend to illustrate the connection between liberty and eloquence : that during the continu¬ ance of royalty there existed no eloquence ; that upon the dawn of free¬ dom eloquence appeared; and that they flourished together through all the periods of Grecian freedom. That eloquence existed in the highest perfection in the person of her own Demosthenes, and at a period when the orator in his third Philippic complains to the Athenians of an ex¬ cess of freedom which they permitted, and by which " foreigners and slaves were indulged a greater liberty in expressing their thoughts than citizens in some other commonwealths ;" and finally, that when liberty perished in the last struggle of Demosthenes, eloquence ceased with his expiring breath. A brief recurrence to the history of Rome will establish similar re¬ sults to those exemplified in Greece, although, as the origin and progress of freedom with the Romans are not as clearly defined as among the Greeks, so neither will the rise and perfection of eloquence be found there as distinctly marked as at Athens. The origin of the first inhabitants of those Italian states which were finally merged in the Roman republic, is hidden in the mists of ages, nor is the period by any means defined, when history lays aside the poetic character, and vague tradition is exchanged for well-authenticated fact. But the first constitution of Rome, whatever may have been her origin, was monarchical. For two hundred and forty-five years subsequent to its foundation, that city was under the government of kings. An act of 14 ADDRESS. violence, at length, committed by a son of the last monarch, is related to have aroused the indignation . of the people, and the violation of Lu- cretia to have led to the expulsion of the Tarquins, and the abolition of regal authority. As at Athens, upon the cessation of their early kings, the people did not immediately rise to the enjoyment of freedom, so the only direct consequence to the internal constitution of Rome, proceeding from the abolition of royalty, was a transfer of the same power held by the kings into the hands of two annually elected consuls. The party which had been most instrumental in deposing the reigning family, was now charged with the helm of state ; and the oppression of these aristo¬ crats, exercised principally against their debtors, soon became so galling that, after the lapse of a few years, it gave rise to a sedition of the Com¬ mons, which resulted in the establishment of annually elected presi¬ dents of the people, called Tribunes. A farther development of the Roman constitution was occasioned by a struggle between the newly- made Tribunes and the hereditary nobility. The Tribu?ies, instead of confining themselves within the limits of duty, and' defending fhe people, soon became aggressors, and in a short time so overstepped their power, that there remained no hope of ending the struggle except by a complete equalization of rights. After an obstinate and protracted re¬ sistance on the part of the Patricians, legal equality was conceded—• persons appointed to form a code, and deputies despatched to the Greek cities of Italy and to Athens, to collect and bring home their wisest laws, for the use and assistance of the legislators. The legislators were in number ten, hence called Decemviri, and the " Twelve Tables" were the result of their deliberations. But in this step, so laudable, two errors were committed; the commissioners charged with framing the laws were elected from the patricians alone, and what was still more unwise, they were constituted sole magistrates, with dictatorial power, whereby a path was opened to usurpation which could only be frustrated by a sedition of the people. Like the regal government, that of the Decemvirs was brought to a close by the lust of a magistrate, and their abolition was followed by the restoration of the Tribunate. ^Che Tribunes were no sooner restored than they renewed their attacks on the patricians, and the contest between patrician and plebeian con¬ tinued for centuries after the Gauls had laid the city in ashes. Mean¬ while Rome was engaged in wars, insignificant but almost uninterrupted, arising out of the oppression, either real or imaginary, which she exer¬ cised as head of the neighboring federative states, and which became of high interest, as they were not only the means by which the nation was trained to war, but also led to the foundation of the Senatorial power, of ADDRESS. 15 such importance in the history of Rome. In former contests the object of Rome had been simply to establish her supremacy, but the war with the Samnites, which now commenced, opened the way to the subjugation of Italy, and laid the foundation of her greatness. The political divis¬ ions of Italy led to the dominion of Rome throughout the peninsula, and the want of union and political relation between .the other contempora¬ neous nations, paved the way to her universal empire. If the annals of Rome during this period constitute the history of foreign wars alone, that which followed, on the contrary, was the record o$ a state of continual internal commotion. As the almost .boundless power of the Senate had laid the foundation for a hateful family aristo¬ cracy, against which the Tribunes of the people arrayed themselves in the character of powerful demagogues, there arose a new struggle be¬ tween the aristocratic and the democratic parties, which immediately grew into two powerful factions, and produced a contest which soon be¬ came much more important than that formerly between the patricians and the plebeians. It was in the mighty efforts of the Commons at this time to emancipate themselves from the thraldom of the patricians, that Elo¬ quence may be properly said to have commenced its rise in Rome. The slow progress which oratory made in the Roman republic, is doubt¬ less attributable to the fact, that the people were for several ages entire¬ ly engaged in military pursuits and in the extension of their territories, and they regarded the pursuit of eloquence as injurious, since it tended to divert the minds of their youth from the cares and toils of war to a more soft and indolent life. So late indeed as the year of their city 592, when by the enterprise of some Greeks, the liberal arts began to flourish in Italy, a decree passed the Senate by which all philosophers and rheto¬ ricians were ordered to depart from Rome. And a few years after, (155 B. C.) when the Athenians sent Carneades, Critolaus and .Diogenes, who were not only philosophers but orators, as ambassadors to Rome, the Roman youth were so charmed with the eloquence of their harangues that they could no longer be restrained from the study of oratory; but Cato, apprehensive lest they should lose their military character in the pursuits of Grecian learning, persuaded the Senate to send back the philosophers without delay to their own country. The history of Roman eloquence, properly so called, undoubtedly be¬ gins with the Gracchi. These celebrated brothers, as every one knows, were radical reformers, and perished both of them by the violence of the patricians, while attempting to arrest the evils of their administration. Of the orations of the Gracchi but a few fragments only have surviv- 16 ADDRESS. ed, sufficient, however, to exhibit their different characteristics—that the eloquence of Tiberius was soft and persuasive, while Caius was re¬ nowned for vehemence and passion. Some idea may he drawn of the state in which the latter found popular eloquence at Rome, from the fact that he is represented as the first orator who ever moved upon the rostra and in the heat of declamation made use of strong and expressive ges¬ tures. A decided advantage, however, which the Gracchi possessed over all the other orators of Rome, arose from the intense sensation which attended the promulgation of their laws, and the great interests which their discussion involved. All Italy was awakened and inflamed, the lower orders were brought out and arrajmd against their haughty lords, the Assembly was so crowded in the vicinity of the Forum, that the tops of houses even were covered with men eager to take a part in or to wit¬ ness the proceedings of the Assembly. The vast multitude, animated with such vehement passions, the self-devoted orator facing the destruc¬ tion which awaited him, and when about to fall under the vengeance of the Senatorian order, melting the hearts of his audience as he points to the Capitol and asks, in all the emphasis of despair, whether he could expect to find an asylum in that sanctuary, whose pavement still stream¬ ed with the blood of his brother, present a scene more lively and impres¬ sive than was ever afterwards exhibited in the Roman Comitia. Between the time of the Gracchi and that of Cicero, four orators were distinguished above all their contemporaries. These were Antony and Crassus, Sulpitius and Cotta. Hortensius was the next orator who ap¬ peared, the contemporary and competitor, but not as he is sometimes called, the rival of Cicero. As his orations have all been lost, we can only judge of his abilities from the accounts of those who flourished at the same period. The eloquence of Hortensius would seem to have been of the neat showy species called Asiatic, which flourished in the Greek colonies of Asia Minor, and was infinitely more florid and ornamental than the oratory of Athens, or even of Rhodes. This glowing style of rhetoric, though deficient in solidity and weight, as the authors of that period report, was not unsuitable to youth; but as Hortensius advanced in life without correcting his style or adopting a more suitable elo¬ quence, his reputation diminished with increase of years. The last of the orators, as also in the language of Cassius, one of " the last of the Romans," was Marcus Tullius Cicero. This greatest of all orators, with the exception alone of his Grecian prototype, appeared at a most eventful epoch in his country's history. The period of tranquillity for the Roman republic had passed, the last day of her political existence had opened with storms, which should know no end until the sun of the republic should go down in a sea of blood. iCDEEJl, 17 Daring the youth of Cicero, and* while, as he informs us, he was occupied day and night in the assiduous study of every branch of knowledge," subsequently taking lessons in oratory from the mo3t distin¬ guished rhetoricians in Athens, next in Asia, and afterwards in Rhodes, the republic was undergoing a succession of trials which agitated the commonwealth to its very centre. First arose the contest between the Equestrian order and the Senate, on the right .of the former to sit in the tribunals ; next the revolt of the Italian tribes, contending for the privi¬ leges of citizenship; then followed the foreign wars with Mithridates; these were succeeded by the civil wars and proscriptions of Marius and Sylla, which cost the lives of 150,000 Roman citizens ; and lastly oc¬ curred the scarcely less terrible Servile wars waged by the Thracian Spartacus, at the head of gladiators, slaves, pirates and peasants. One of the earliest as well as one of the most powerful political speeches of Cicero, as we are all advised, was that against Catiline ; and in many respects how striking is its resemblance to the effort of Demos¬ thenes against Philip, to which reference has been made ! Although suspicions of the treachery of Catiline had long been entertained, it was but on the evening previous, as the advance of Philip had been convey¬ ed to Demosthenes, that a full disclosure of Catiline's designs were communicated to Cicero. The Senate in both cases met early the next morning, and thus with but a single night's preparation, each orator made those immortal efforts against the enemy of their country's free¬ dom, which were destined to descend for thousands of centuries, unri¬ valled specimens of masterly eloquence. The places of convocation too were equally solemn and imposing. The Forum, in the ages of Roman greatness, presented a scene of unparalleled splendor and magnificence. That oblong square, bordered on both sides with temples, and lined with statues, terminated at either end in triumphal arches. On one side arose the Palatine Hill, with its splendid edifices glittering on the summit, and on the other was the Capitol, with its ascending ranges of •porticoes and temples. Thus it presented one of the richest exhibitions that eye could behold or human ingenuity invent. In the midst of these superb monuments, the memorials of their greatness and the trophies of their fathers, every spot of its surface consecrated to the recollection of some great incident in the domestic history of the country, the Roman people usually convened to decide the fates of heroes, of kings, and of nations. Rut above this assemblage of majestic edifices, and surpassing them in sanctity as it o'ertopped them in elevation, rose the residence of the "guardian of the commonwealth," the temple of Jupiter Capitoli- nus, on a hundred steps, supported by a hundred pillars, adorned with A » O R Z ? ■« all the refinements of art, and blading with the plunder of the world. In the centre of the temple, with Juno on his left and Minerva on his right side, the Thunderer sat on a throne of gold, grasping the*light¬ ning in one hand, and in the other wielding the sceptre of the universe. Hither the Consuls were conducted by the Senate, to assume the military dress and to implore the favor of the gods before they marched to battle. Here the victorious generals used to repair in triumph, to suspend the spoils of conquered nations, present captive monarchs, and to offer up hecatombs to Tarpeian Jove. Hither, in cases of danger and distress, the Senate was assembled and the magistrates convened to de¬ liberate in the presence and under the immediate influence of the Tutelar Gods of Home. Here Cicero, then Consul, summoned the Senate on this occasion, and here he closed his oration against the con¬ spirator with that noble address to Jupiter presiding in the Capital over the destinies of the empire, and dooming its enemies to destruction. In this hall, surrounded by such divinities and hallowed by such asso¬ ciations, the Senate was convened to take measures for the public safety, when Catiline, the conspirator, with an assurance that nothing could daunt, presents himself among that band of patriot Romans. The as¬ sembly are so shocked at his audacity, that not one even of his acquain¬ tances dare venture to salute him, and as if they may possibly be con¬ taminated by proximity to his person, abandon that part of the house and leave him, like a culprit on trial, the sole occupant of the bench on which he sits. At this important moment in the destinies of Rome, when her de¬ struction or preservation seems suspended upon the lips of a single man, Cicero, too excited and provoked to enter upon the business he had designed, rises from his seat, and with all the fire of an incensed elo¬ quence breaks forth against him in those well-known but withering inter¬ rogatories : " How far, 0 Catiline, wilt thou abuse our patience ? How long shall thy frantic rage baffle the efforts of justice 1 To what height meanest thou to carry thy daring insolence ? Art thou nothing daunted by the nocturnal watch posted to secure the Palatium 1 Nothing by the City Guards ? Nothing by the consternation of the people 1 Nothing by the union of all the wise and worthy citizens ? Nothing by the look and countenance of all here present ? Seest thou not that all thy de¬ signs are brotiglit to light ? That the Senators are thoroughly apprized of thy conspiracy '! That they are acquainted with thy -last night's practices, with the practices of the night before, with the places of meet¬ ing, the company summoned together, and the measures concerted 1 Alas for our degeneracy ! Alas for the depravity of the times 1 The ABDREJI Senate is apprized of all this; the Consul beholds it! yet the traitor lives!" _ "^e lightnings of Jupiter Tonans could not smite and rive the oak with more effect, than those invectives of the Roman orator did the heart of the traitor Catiline. He flees before them, abandons the city, maishals his band of associates ; and, desperate from mortification and despair, he attacks the forces sent against him., and falls with a heroism worthy of a better cause. The suppression of this conspiracy, however, could not save the Republic. The diseases of. the body politic were too numerous and fatal. The luxury of the East, which the Asiatic wars had intro¬ duced ; the immense riches poured into the treasury by Pompey; the tempting examples of unlimited power which single citizens had already exercised; the purchase of the magistracyby individuals, and the facility with which an army could be raised by him who had the means to pay for it; all foreboded the approaching convulsions, while they, led to the formation of the first Triumvirate. The Triumvirs divided the world, each appropriating to himself a continent. Soon the death of one Triumvir excites the deadly rivalry of the survivors; the feud is settled only on the plains of Pharsalia,. when tfip victor returns sole dic¬ tator to Rome. The " foremost man of all the world " next falls under the daggers of his countrymen, and in the confusion which ensues, a second Triumvirate is created. The second Triumvirs, after defeating the last friends of the republic at Phillippi, turn their swords against each other. Octavianus, after gaining over the legions of Lepidus, de¬ prives him of his rank, and thus narrows the contest to a struggle be¬ tween the "two masters of the world." They meet near the coast of Greece. Antony is defeated ; and Octavianus, returning triumphant, is invested with all the powers of Consul and Tribune, and proclaimed Emperor of Rome / but in the mean, time, Cicero and the Republic had perished. With the decline of liberty at Rome, began the decline of all her letters and her arts. Her literature became from that time, one uniform work of imitation, and often of translation ; some of the ornamental arts, less intimately connected with liberty, continued for a while to prevail; but Eloquence, that masculine eloquence which had so often sounded in, the Senate and the Eorum, became from that hour as mute as the dissev¬ ered head of Cicero, when planted by the brutal Antony upon that Rostra, whence it had so often charmed, persuaded and aroused. With liberty, the glories of the forum are fled for ever. Its temples are fallen its sanctuaries have crumbled into dust—its colonnades encum¬ ber the pavements now buried beneath their remains. The walls of the 20 AD DEISI. Rostra, stripped of their ornaments and doomed to eternal silence—a few shattered porticoes, a few insulated columns, rising amidst broken shafts, severed cornices and broken capitals, are all that now remain to mark a spot so intimately blended with the glory and the liberty of Eome. Thus at Rome, as previously at Athens, Eloquence perished in the wreck of Freedom. The resemblance which existed in the lives, character and death of the two masters of Grecian and Roman eloquence, is indeed remarkable. Both appeared upon the stage of existence during eventful periods in their country's history. Both were distinguished by uncommon abilities, and intense labor; both failed in their first efforts, but subsequently reached the highest excellence in their profession. The same Provi¬ dence which raised them up to give the world assurance of the power and perfection of oratory, poured alike into their hearts the fire, the enthusiasm, and the unyielding devotion to purpose which insure success. They were both publicly banished, publicly recalled, and at last both proscribed, pursued and destroyed by the minions of power. In their day, liberty was about to make her last struggle, and they appeared as her chosen champions. 'Their most heroic efforts were made to avert her fall, and their sublimest strains poured forth at her bier. Liberty they might not save, but they could immortalize her ruin. The resist¬ less progress of an invader or a tyrant they might not stay, but they could mingle the withering and undying flames of their eloquence even with his triumphs, and thus consign him, at the very moment of his proudest success, scathed and blackened, to the scorn and execration of mankind. Time will deny me the task I had assigned myself in the selection of this subject, to illustrate, at any length, the connection between Liberty and Eloquence, by reference to the history of civilized nations since the fall of the Roman republic. How, under the despotism of the Caesars, the end of eloquence became perverted from persuasion to panegyric, and all her faculties poisoned by the touch of corruption, or enervated by the impotence of servitude. How afterwards followed the midnight of the monkish ages, when with other liberal arts she slumbered in the profound darkness of the cloister. And how, in short, during the sev¬ enteen centuries which succeeded the fall of Roman freedom, when arbitrary governments alone prevailed, not a solitary example of parlia¬ mentary eloquence occurs to relieve the monotony and brighten the pages of history. The oratory of the pulpit, that offspring of a great intellectual and spiritual revolution, establishes, it is true, an exception to the general fact of the declension of eloquence under the pressure of ADDRESS. 21 despotic rule but it must be remembered, and the distinction will be found based upon the, fact, that the topics of pulpit oratory are all of a peculiar kind, and have no connection whatever with the existence of political freedom. The joys of Heaven and the torments of Hell, the beatitude of virtue or the turpitude of vice, the unspeakable majesty of the Creator and the harmony and beauty of His works, are the mighty themes on which the pulpit orator delights to expatiate—too mighty to be affected by the institutions of earth, but involving as they do, the purposes of Heaven, areyn all ages equally applicable and important to man in whatever relation he may be placed, whether subject or sovereign, savage or civilized, bond or free. Hence we find at various epochs, particularly during the reign of Louis XIV of France, the people were delighted and edified by the eloquent discourses of a Bossuet, a Bour- daloue, and a Massillon, whilst eloquence of every other kind was utterly mute. • With the revival of freedom and liberal science in modern Europe, eloquence reappeared and mingled in the deliberations of their legisla¬ tive bodies. It was in the latter part of the eighteenth century, in the struggles of France against the despotism of the Capet dynasty, that the French national C onvention became, after the destruction of the forum, the next theatre for impassioned eloquence. Never before was the hu¬ man mind aroused to such a pitch of intense action as during that terri¬ ble struggle between ancient despotism and the " young and fierce democratic," when the throne of France went down in the tumult. The eloquence of Mirabeau, of Danton, and of Vergniaud, was of a brilliancy seldom surpassed, but deficient in the elements of a truly elevated rhetoric; it was the vivid but transient flash of the lightning, and not the steady effulgence of the orb of day. The most lofty truths were there blended with the most pestilent errors; the ema¬ nations- of the sublimest reason, tarnished by an association with the dreams of a misdirected enthusiasm; and the grandest invocations to liberty defiled by a connection with the most grovelling conceptions of the duties and the destinies of man. The struggle, therefore, instead of being productive of great national freedom, in the prophetic language of Vergniaud, " the revolution, like Saturn, devoured all its own pro¬ geny, and finally left only despotism with all the calamities it produces." If, following the stream of time, we direct our view across the channel to a period somewhat later, and examine the records of Eloquence in the freest country of Europe, during that bright galaxy of parliamentary orators, we shall discover that although nothing perhaps has ever excel¬ led the British House of Commons, during this most brilliant period of 22 ADDRESS its history in the vivacity and power of its debates, yet we shall search its records in vain for examples of that impassioned and lofty eloquence which is the usual accessory of a social convulsion. As still sustaining, however, the position with which I opened, and adding another illustra¬ tion of the connection between eloquence and liberty, it will be recol¬ lected, that at this most brilliant period of the art, when it shone resplen¬ dent in the popular branch, England, at the height of opulence and com¬ mercial splendor, surpassed all Europe immeasurably in the liberty she enjoyed. In tracing the course of eloquence, which is ever found to follow in the pathway of liberty, we at length reach the history Of our own coun¬ try. The most eminent theatres for political eloquence in modem times, for that eloquence which is best nourished in the very whirlwind, as it were, of the popular passions, were the Provincial Assemblies that her¬ alded the American Revolution. It is in these Assemblies, wherein the leaders of the day were arming the people, intellectually, for the great battle of independence, that we may search for some similitude to the wonderful triumphs of ancient oratory. It is a matter of most serious regret that the Provincial and Con¬ gressional eloquence of this most interesting period of our history is irrevocably lost; indeed, such was the condition of the art of report¬ ing for many years subsequent, that sketches only of the debates were - preserved by the reporters. Did we possess hut a moiety of the rich accumulations of this period, and could they re-appear with a portion of their original radiance, we should then possess some means of measuring the claims we may present to a place for our orators by the side of the great masters of antiquity. In ordinary periods, we have not the materials for an instructive par¬ allel. When men's minds are not aroused by the potent influence of wide-spread calamity, or national trial, the orator is bounded by a circle which the spirit of the age draws around him. His genius takes its color from the general complexion of surrounding objects. His aspira¬ tions are shaped to suit " the form and pressure " of the times. His topics, illustrations, appeals and invocations, are borrowed from the local or accidental circumstances, which color his eloquence with the hues of the passing hour. But it is to the heroic ages of eloquence that we are to look, and which alone can furnish the elements of a proper compari¬ son. The orator who comes forward during a great conjuncture, is not confined within the narrow limits of the present, but his exalted glance penetrates the illimitable ages of the future. Having the liberty of man for a topic, and human nature being universally and unalterably the ADDRESS. same, liis discourse, whether pronounced during the first or during the last stage of the world, is equally pertinent and equally exciting. In¬ stead, therefore, of addressing those only who may happen to sit within the compass of his voice, he has mankind and posterity for an audience. He speaks to sympathies which have no limits hut the universe. He addresses those principles which, amid all the changes of time, and all the fluctuations of opinion and of manners, are the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. Such an identity of motive and object, of subject and audience furnishes a just parallel; since, if the feelings to be expressed are the same, the motives for giving them utterance the same, the diffe¬ rence of manner in which they may be expressed will but constitute the difference in eloquence, whatever may have been the space of time or of territory which have separated the speakers. Of the orators of the American Revolution, whose eloquence indeed •'breathed into the nation the breath of life," of Adams, and Otis, of Lee and Rutledge, and of a host of others, our knowledge of their ex¬ cellence is scarcely more than traditionary, and even of that one orator who had the force to stamp his very words upon the memory, and to bind them indissolubly with the best recollections of our country, there are but a few fragments extant. Patrick Henry never " spent months together in a subterraneous study," nor " copied eight times over the history of Thucydides," nor, in short, did " all his arguments smell of the lamp"; yet in point of style and force of.oratory, his only complete address which has escaped the wreck of our oratorical treasures, may be placed by the side of the first Philippic, which rhetoricians pronounce the finest effort of Demosthenes, nor need Americans blush for the con¬ trast. Both efforts were called forth by conjunctures, and the occasions upon which they were pronounced were so similar, that the comparison may be very favorably attempted, without the fear of prejudice to either orator. In both cases, the same great interest was at stake, the highest earthly object involved, the liberty of the country in peril. The same motives, too, seemed to operate with the orators, viz: to arouse their countrymen from supineness, to instil into them a proper sense of dan¬ ger, and to urge them by all the powers of their eloquence to resistance of oppression. Hear Demosthenes : " When, therefore, 0 my countrymen'. when will you exert your " vigor ? When roused by some event ? When forced by some neces- " sity ? What, then, are we to'think of our present condition ? To " freemen, the disgrace attending on misconduct is in my opinion the " most urgent necessity. Or say, is it your sole ambition to wander " through the public places, each inquiring of the other, What new 24 A DD Rlia. " advices? Can any thing he more new than that a man of Maeeffon " should conquer the Athenians and give law to Greece ? Is Philip " dead ? No, hut in great danger. .How are you concerned in those " rumours ? Suppose he should meet some fatal stroke; you would " soon raise up another Philip, if your interests are thus regarded; for it " is not to his own strength that he so much owes his elevation, as to our " supineness." After making due allowance for all that the great Athenian has suf¬ fered from a translation into another language, and the inability to con¬ vey the strength and beauty of expression, so indispensable to perfect oratory, mark now the sound when Patrick Henry touches the same chord. In the Virginia Convention, on the 20th of March, 1775, when he brought forward a series of resolutions for arming the colony, Henry, in a speech familiar to every schoolboy -of our land, but which can neither suffer by repetition nor be too indelibly impressed on the Amer¬ ican mind, thus concludes: " They tell us, Sir, that we are weak, unable to cope with so formida- " ble an enemy ; but when shall we be stronger ? Will it be the next " week, or the next year ? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, " and a British guard shall be stationed in every house ? Shall we " gather strength by irresolution and inaction ? Shall we acquire the " means of effectual resistance* by lying supinely on our backs, and " hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have " bound us hand and foot ? Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper " use of those means which the God of Nature hath placed in our power. " Three millions of people armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in " such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force " which our enemy can send against us. Besides, Sir, it is now too " late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission " and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard " on the plains of Boston ! The war is inevitable—and, let it come !! " I repeat it, Sir, let it come ! ! ! It is in vain, Sir, to extenuate the " matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, peace—bul there is no peace. " The war has actually begun. The next gale that sweeps from the " north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! ' Our " brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle ? What " is it that gentlemen wish ? What would they have ? ' Is life so dear, " or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slave- " ry ? Forbid it, almighty God! I know not what course others may " take ; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!". He took his seat, says the biographer. No murmur of applause was ADDRESS. heard. The effect was too deep. After the trance of a moment, several members started from their seats. The cty " to arms!" seemed to quiver in every lip and gleam from every eye. Such, we are assured, was the effect produced ; at all events, it is proven by the result. The colony took to arms at Henry's |hidding; and, without the knowledge that he possessed any military skill, appointed him the commander. It was thought the highest commendation that could he conferred on De¬ mosthenes, that when he had finished speaking the cry was not, " What a splendid oration !" hut " Let us march against Philip !" Such was a specimen of the eloquence during the American revolu¬ tion, and it was not unworthy of that memorable era when, descended from the freest nation on earth, our ancestors were ^battling for more liberty than man had ever yet enjoyed. Great occasions, while they excite and exalt genius, produce as they require a more severe taste, and that was the characteristic of the eloquence of this period. Our Declara¬ tion of Independence, while it is a type of the eloquence' of the age, is in itself a remarkable example of this result. What is the merit of that immortal paper ? The same which characterizes all the works of true genius—-a severe and sublime simplicity. Any attempt at elo¬ quence, any ornament or beauty, would not only have been out of place, but altogether contemptible and revolting. Accordingly, it is a singular fact, that the very few passages in the original draught, which did savor of fine writing, and which Mr. Adams thought the best parts of" the com¬ position, were expunged by the committee or by Congress. Those grave statesmen thought the occasion too serious for rhetoric ; the bare recital of facts they considered the highest and only eloquence which was con¬ sistent with the character of the Assembly, of the occasion, and of the •country. And they were correct. It was an evidence of the purest taste •and most exalted judgment. . As has been most admirably said by a great living statesman, and one of the most finished orators our country has ever produced, in a description of lofty eloquence unsurpassed by any thing on the subject which Aristotle, Quintillian or Cicero has left us, " True eloquence," says Webster, " indeed, does not consist in speech, " It cannot be brought from far. Labor and learning may toil for it; " but they will toil in vain. Words and phrases may be marshaled in " every way, but they cannot compass it. It must exist in the man, in " the subject, and in the occasion. Affected passion, intense expression, u the pomp of declamation, all may aspire to it; they cannot reach it. s{ It comes, if it come at all, like the outbreaking of a fountain from the " earth, or the bursting forth of volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original, u native force. • The graces taught in the schools; the costly ornaments 4 AD D R E .« S . " and studied contrivances of speech, shock and disgust men when their " own lives, and the fate of their wives, their children, and their country " hang on the decision of the hour. Then words have lost their power; " then rhetoric is vain and all elaborate oratory contemptible. Even " genius itself then feels rebuked and subdued as in the presence of " higher qualities. Then patriotism is eloquent; then self-devotion is " eloquent. The clear conception outrunning the deductions of logic, " the high purpose, the firm resolve, the dauntless spirit speaking on. " the tongue, beaming from the eye, informing every feature, and urging " the whole man onward, right onward to his object: this, this is elo- " quence; or rather, it is something greater and higher than all elo- " quence—it is action, noble, sublime, god-like action." Such is but a passing glance at the pages of history; hut the more minute the examination to which it invites^ the more apparent will be¬ come the dependence of eloquence upon liberty. The-American youth, as he explores the depths of the past, may learn—and his devotion to> his free country will be increased as he discovers—that liberty has been the nurse not only of eloquence, hut of all that is sublime in character and exalted in genius. He will recognise her form and feel her impress- in everything that antiquity has left for our admiration. That bards had consecrated their harps to her praise, warriors had dedicated their lives to her service, and the greatest orators, after pouring forth in vain, their noblest strains in her defence, had perished " with liberty in liberty's ruins." But history not only establishes the fact, that liberty is indispensible to eloquence, but also proves that eloquence has been of powerful aid in the preservation of liberty. Let us recur but for a moment to the history over which we have passed. The battlesof Marathon, of Sala- mis, and of Plataea, did save the liberties of Greece ; but what saved the battles 1 On the occasion first referred to*, the Greeks had reached the plain of Marathon and encamped in sight of the- gigantic power of the enemy, darkening the long expanse that skirts the sea,, when a divi¬ sion broke out in their ranks, some lbaders contending that a battle was by no means to be risked against such superior odds; whilst others, Sempronius like, were "still for war." Of.the latter opinion was Miltiades, and in it he was sustained by Aristides; but despite the military renown of the one and the civil eminence of the other, the ten leaders of the army were equally divided, and the more tame opinion seemed likely to prevail, when Miltiades suddenly address¬ ed the Polcmarch Callimachus, to whom officially belonged under the circumstances the privilege of a casting vote. " On-you, Callima- address <011118, said tlie chief of the Chersonese, " on yon it rests whether Athens shall he enslaved, or whether from age to age your country, freed by your voice, shall retain in yours a name dearer to her than those of Aiistogiton and Harmodius." The arguments of the commander, full of force and of eloquence, prevailed. Callimachus was convinced—the hattle was fought—and the liberties of Greece were as dependent upon the eloquence as they were upon the sword of Miltiades for the result- Look to the battle of Salamis. The combined fleet of the Greeks was ■assembled in the straits of Salamis, A large portion of the allies, com¬ posed of Peloponesians, were anxious to retire from the straits and to fix their station at the Isthmus. The arrival of tidings that Xerxes had reduced to ashes Thespke, Plat a; a and Athens, hurried the conclusion, a,nd despite the eloquence of Themistocles, 'the Peloponesian leaders, breaking off" from the council, entered their ships and prepared to sail. When the great naval commander at length with untiring zeal had re¬ assembled them, he made another appeal, and after advancing the most conclusive reasons for fighting at Salamis, he thus adroitly concluded his address : If you continue here, you will demand our eternal grati ■ tude—fly, and you are the destroyers of Greece. In this war, the last and sole resource of the Athenians is their fleet; reject my remonstran¬ ces, and I warn you that at once we will take our families on board and sail to Siri's on the Italian shores, which of old is said to have belonged to us, and in which, if the oracle be trusted, we ought to found a city. Deprived of us, you will remember my words." The eloquent threat succeeded: the fleet remained together, and the next day achieved the greatest naval victory on record, and to which the oratory of Themisto¬ cles contributed as powerfully as his nautical skill or undaunted courage. - The battle of Plataea, too, would never have been fought had the Athenians listened to the proposals of the Persian general, when he de¬ spatched his royal ambassador to tender an alliance with a foe his arms had failed to conquer. But through the efforts of Aristides the applica¬ tion was rejected, and his answer on the occasion may well be ranked among the finest specimens of ancient eloquence. " Bear back to Mardonius," said he. " this answer from the Athenians. " So long as yonder Sun (and the orator pointed to the orb,) holds the <£ courses which now it holds, so long will we abjure all amity with " Xerxes; so long, confiding in the aid of our gods and heroes, whose « shrines and altars he hath burned, will we struggle against him in " battle and for revenge." Roman history too, is replete with similar examples, but the time that I have already trespassed upon your attention, will not permit me to 28 ADDRESS. particularize. I may say, however, that from the period when Brutfis, by his " able address," as Livy calls it, over the body of the self-immo¬ lated Lucretia, snatching the bloody dagger from the breast of the out-- raged victim, and swearing eternal exile to the Tarquins, to the time When the fiery darts of Tully drove the conspirator from the city, the annals of Rome present frequent and striking instances of liberty pre-' served through the timely interposition of eloquence. If, then, I have succeeded in establishing the connection between liberty and eloquence—-that eloquence cannot exist without liberty, while liberty is often preserved by eloquence—I have but exhibited the* claims which both present to our attention, and shewn that it is equally our duty to preserve liberty for the cultivation of eloquence, as to culti¬ vate eloquence for the preservation of liberty. Higher earthly objects could not surely be presented to the aspirations of man, than the culti- vation of his intellectual powers, and the preservation of the liberties of his country, We are not only furnished with these lofty objects pf aspiration, but more powerful incentives to their attainment have never existed than those which our country affords. Where is the political system that brings as many minds into action on equal terms, which pro* tides a prompter circulation of thought throughout the community, gives weight and emphasis to more voices, and offers greater encouragement to the sons of emulation, than that under which our happy lot is cast 1 If it be true, as the illustration which I have attempted has had a tendency to show, that the degree of mental developement in a people does bear a proportion to the liberty they enjoy, then surely no nation since the be¬ ginning of time should be able to compete in intellectual attainment with the people of this our much loved country. Among the incite¬ ments to intellectual pre-eminence which our institutions present, none are more numerous or striking than those which favor the acquirement of eloquence, Whatever tends to improve or widen the dominion of speech has, as we have seen, always been an object of importance and concern to a free people. But in the peculiar construction of our politi¬ cal system there are advantages for the profitable exertion of eloquence which the orators of the ancient democracies never possessed. The complex fabric of our federative system has multiplied beyond the ex¬ ample of any other government, legislative assemblies, judiciary tribu¬ nals and political arenas, each of which aflords not only a school of elo¬ quence, but a rich field of emolument and honor. And if the spread of civilization and literature consequent upon the invention of printing, has had a tendency to curtail the power of an orator over his assembly, yet address. 2$ tbeSe veiy circumstances have augmented vastly the field of his opera¬ tions and usefulness. The extension of our language, literature and laws, over so vast a' space as the limits of the United States, is not only a fact never before realized, but an advantage and incentive to the modern orator, which it would be difficult to overrate. The arts and literature of Greece were enchained to Athens and the sea-coast, and never penetrated the interior. Thrace, whose mountains might almost be discovered from the summit of the Acropolis, was the proverbial abode of barbarism; whereas, by ' the force of our institutions, the arts of civilization have been diffused over a territory exceeding in exent those of the Grecian and Roman republics combined. And while the ancient orator embraced his entire auditory at a glance, the speaker in our country has not only all civilized nations for an audience, but by the recent discoveries in electricity, may be said to include, almost within the sound of his voice, an extent of country exceeding the entire world of Alexander. But the greatest of all incentives to the cultivation of eloquence, is the preservation of the liberties of our country. That in those days of disaster which, as they come on all nations, must be expected to come on us also, our country may never need a Demosthenes to expose the designs of a foreign invader, or search in vain for a Cicero to denounce the treachery of a domestic conspirator. We live under a government where liberty shines with a splendor above all Grecian and above all Roman example. With us, it is not a light in the temple of Pallas, it is not a vestal flame in Rome ; it is the light of the Sun, pervading all, enlightening all, vivifying all. Athens, it is true, was free ; yet there the rich were robbed to defray the expenses of the State; the great ostracised to appease the envy of rivals , the wise sacrificed to the fury of an ungrateful populace. Rome, too, was free ; yet in every period of her history, dubious or authentic, royal or republican, her proud citizens were the slaves of an artful and wealthy aristocracy, and nothing but the hard-fought battles of her stern Tribunes, can redeem her memo¬ ry to the friends of freedom. But true American liberty existed with them only in the imagination of the poet, or in the dreams of the philo¬ sopher, as they sketched the fortunes of future ages, and pictured in the dimness of the future, that favored region, beyond the ocean, " a land of equal laws and happy men." Who is there that can look back upon these predictions of more than two thousand years, reflect upon the fact that those '1 islands of the blest which the ancients were permitted only to view in imagination, it is our A » D K. E S * . privilege to enjoy in reality, and not tremble at the obligations they im¬ ply ? And yet these obligations, far from being discharged, are ever on the increase. The preservation of American liberty involves the most important struggle in which mortals have ever engaged. It is a struggle not for our freedom only, and that of our descendants through all time, but for the liberty of the world throughout all future generations. It embraces the exalted privilege of demonstrating the perfection of the Creator's works, in establishing man's capacity for self- government, an experiment in which every nation that has yet engaged has utterly failed. Our obli¬ gations to exertion are farther increased by the fact, that ours is the first nation that has ever appeared upon the field of action armed by Provi¬ dence with the weapons indispensible to success, and which we possess in our representative and federative systems, in our divisions of power into governments, and in our checks on administration by departments. And with which, if we fail to succeed, we shall prove recreant to our duty and our apparent destiny. Above all, our obligations are enhanced im¬ measurably by the conviction, that ours is the last nation that can ever be enlisted in support of the sacred cause of liberal institutions. There are no more continents to be discovered, no new Atlantis to realize the visions of Plato's Critias, no fresh races to perform what we may neglect, or restore what we may ruin. In the great battle of human rights, we are the world's last reserve. When an army's last reserve has been brought into action, every soldier knows the battle must now be won or lost; he must now triumph, or he and his cause must perish together. In the progress of the world, the last reserve has been advanced to the con¬ flict, the death-struggle has come, and the whole cause of Intelligence, of Liberty, and of Christianity, for the whole earth and for all time, must triumph with us, or with us they must perish for ever.