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 W ]M . H , ALLEN. 
 
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OUR COUNTRY'S MISSION IN HISTORY. 
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVEEED AT THE ANNIVERSARY 
 
 PHILOMATH^AN SOCIETY 
 
 PENNSYLVANIA COLLEGE, 
 
 September 19, 1855. 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM H. ALLEN, LL.D., 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THK OIRARD COLLEGE FOR ORPHANS. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 T. K. AND P. G. COLLINS, PRINTERS. 
 
 1855. 
 
P' 
 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 Pennsylvania College, Gettysburg, 
 
 Wednesday Evening, September 19, 1855. 
 Dear Sir : — 
 
 The Philomathaean Society of Pennsylvania College tender 
 to you, through us, their sincere thanks for the truly chaste, 
 eloquent, and instructive Address delivered by you this evening, 
 at their request. Desirous of seeing it in a more permanent form, 
 they have requested us to solicit a copy for publication. 
 
 Your compliance will confer a lasting favor upon 
 
 Your obedient servants, 
 
 L. H. CROLL, 
 W. FRANK. PAXTON, 
 JOS. R. TITZEL, 
 J. W. BITTINGER, 
 W. HAY. 
 
 To Wm. H. Allen, Esq. 
 
Gettysburg, September 20, 1855. 
 Gentlemen : — 
 
 Accept my thauks for the courteous terms of your letter, 
 and for the honor it confers. 
 
 I hesitated last evening to comply with your request, because 
 the greater part of the address had been delivered elsewhere ; but 
 the assurances which members of your Committee gave me, that 
 the Society they represent will not treat its publication less indul- 
 gently on that account, have induced me to place a copy at your 
 disposal. 
 
 Respectfully, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 WM. H. ALLEN. 
 
 To Messrs. L. H. Croll, 
 
 W. Frank. Paxton, 
 
 Jos. R. TiTZEL, 
 
 J. W. Bittinger, 
 Wm. Hay, 
 
 Committee. 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 GENTLEMEN OF THE PHILOMATH^AN SOCIETY: — 
 
 I have selected a subject which is more closely 
 allied with the interests of the present, and the 
 hopes of the future, than with the memories of the 
 classic past. In doing this, I have presumed that 
 whatever concerns the human brotherhood will, if 
 treated in the spirit of a scholar, and not of a parti- 
 san, meet with a response in the fraternity of edu- 
 cated men. I propose to speak of Our Country's 
 Mission in History ; and if the observations I have 
 to make should fail to commend themselves equally 
 to American students and American citizens, the 
 fault will not lie in the subject, but in the manner 
 of its treatment. 
 
 The fact forces itself upon our notice every day, 
 that a new race of men, differing from the Anglo- 
 Saxon, which is its basis — differing from the Celtic, 
 German, and Scandinavian races, which are elements 
 in its composition, is in process of formation in the 
 
United States. This fact must have a historical 
 meaning ; and my purpose is to inquire whether it 
 is not probable that Divine Providence has reserved 
 for the American race some important work in his- 
 tory, and to hazard a conjecture as to what that 
 work may be. 
 
 When a Grecian philosopher laid down, as the 
 basis of his material and atheistic system, the pro- 
 position, '■'■Nothing is made out of nothing,'^ his 
 postulate was admitted, because it agreed with the 
 testimony of the senses, which was at that time 
 considered more reliable than any other. But mo- 
 dern philosophy, Avhich has searched less for material, 
 and more for final causes, has arrived at the conclu- 
 sion that " nothing is made for nothing ;" and as this 
 proposition harmonizes with revelation and science, 
 and satisfies the reason of the learned and the faith 
 of the unlearned, it is now generally received as 
 true. It has become popular belief that if God 
 works, he works for some end — that whatever he 
 makes, is made for some purpose. 
 
 When we study the structure of an organized 
 body, we discover that every organ is adapted to 
 particular uses, and that the health of all the parts 
 depends upon a due performance of the functions of 
 each ; and from this adaptation and mutual depend- 
 ence we infer design and intelligence in its Con- 
 triver and MedN^er. So, when we study social com- 
 munities, we find that they are not mere aggregates 
 
of independent beings, but organized structures, every 
 part of which is affiliated to every other, and has 
 uses which are appropriate to itself and necessary to 
 all the rest. As the eye cannot say to the hand, I 
 have no need of thee, so one class of productive 
 laborers in a state, city, or town, cannot say to an- 
 other, we have no need of you. Each draws life 
 and strength from all, and all from each. We must 
 occasionally send for a physician, even at the risk of 
 taking a remedy worse than the disease; we must 
 sometimes consult a lawyer, though the fees be more 
 than the claim; and we like to be christened, mar- 
 ried, and buried by a minister of religion, hoAvever 
 little heed we give to his teachings and admonitions. 
 When we come to the question of independence, I 
 think that the philosopher would be rather more 
 helpless without the cobbler than the cobbler with- 
 out the philosopher. Even professors of the fine 
 arts, a class of laborers whom the age calls unpro- 
 ductive, could not be spared: we may almost say 
 they could least of all be spared. They are wanted 
 to supply nutriment to a part of our being which is 
 above the grade of material economy and utilitarian 
 arithmetic. They minister to desires which lie 
 deeper and soar higher than those which propound 
 the every-day question, "What shall we eat, and 
 what shall we drink, and wherewithal shall we be 
 clothed'?" It is their office to give form to the ideal, 
 and even to attempt an expression of the Infinite ; 
 
to elevate the soul through the medium of the senses, 
 and to ennoble the sentiments by addressing the sen- 
 sibilities; to refine, embellish, and dignify life, and, 
 by making us familiar with forms of ideal beauty, 
 to teach us to love and imitate moral beauty, which 
 is the vestment of virtue. 
 
 Now, just as every organ subserves a specific pur- 
 pose in the animal economy, and as every class, occu- 
 pation, and individual in a community is fitted for 
 some good use in the social economy, so we may 
 believe that every political society, every nation and 
 race of men has been so endowed, and placed in such 
 a relation with the rest of mankind, as to contribute 
 something to the growth and progress of that vast 
 organism which we call humanity. 
 
 The history of a nation is not an aggregate of the 
 biographies of the men and women who have com- 
 posed it; for as the intellect, will, and conscience, 
 which make up its political life and character, are not 
 the sum, but the exponents of the mind and morals 
 of its citizens, its history will have a certain unity 
 and individuality. It will be the biography of a 
 complex organism, constructed according to a defi- 
 nite plan, for specific and determinate purposes. In 
 like manner, universal history is not an aggregate of 
 the particular histories of the nations and races which 
 have figured in the world, but the development of a 
 plan and purpose which Infinite Wisdom has devised, 
 and which, under the divine guidance, every people 
 
9 
 
 contributes to unfold. It assumes that the human 
 species exists for some end and aim, above and dis- 
 tinct from the ends and aims of the parts which suc- 
 cessively compose it; while, at the same time, these 
 parts are so linked together, and their forces so ad- 
 justed, that, while they pursue their own interests 
 and work out their peculiar ideas, they contribute to 
 the general movement and progress of the whole. 
 
 I am aware that, in these preliminary observations, 
 the infallibility of writers who have ignored final 
 causes in history is challenged. If the same authors 
 were treating of scientific subjects, they would ignore 
 final causes in nature. They could not conceive that 
 the mechanism of the eye was arranged with any in- 
 telligent view to its function of vision. They would 
 deny that the web-feet of ducks were designed for 
 swimming, and that monkeys have four hands to faci- 
 litate climbing. They would subject all living crea- 
 tures to some unintelligent and unintelligible law of 
 organic development, which inheres in brute matter 
 by accident, and works blindly on without aim or 
 object. They would derive man from an ape; the 
 ape from a wolf; the wolf, perhaps, from a rat; and 
 the rat from a goose's egg; — and to obviate all difii- 
 culty in obtaining the goose, they would give wings 
 and legs to a serpent; derive the serpent from a 
 worm; the worm from a monad; and vivify their 
 monad with a current of electricity ! 
 
10 
 
 But sober men, who reject the theories of La 
 Marck and his plausible disciples of the school of 
 the Vestiges of Creation, and who deem it more 
 rational and probable that fishes were furnished v/ith 
 fins to assist them in moving through water, than 
 that the effort to move through water made the fins 
 grow, will find no serious difficulty in concluding 
 that the movements of humanity are at least as im- 
 portant in the divine view as those of a fish, and 
 deserve as well to be provided for; and that while 
 every part of the universe is full of God, the sum 
 of all the parts cannot be godless. 
 
 If the Divine Intelligence does not control and 
 direct the movements of history, according to some 
 preconceived scheme and beneficent purpose, bring- 
 ing forth good results even from national crimes, and 
 "causing the wrath of man to praise him;" in a 
 word, if there be no God in history, the condition 
 of humanity is like that of a felon in a treadmill, 
 moving forward always, but never advancing ; toiling 
 upward forever, but never ascending. Then it is the 
 doom of every successive generation to suff'er for the 
 crimes and follies of its predecessors, rear up another 
 generation to commit like crimes and endure like 
 suff'erings, and die to give it room to sin and suff'er 
 in. Then, too, all the blood of patriots and martyrs, 
 which has been poured out upon battle-field and scaf- 
 fold has been shed in vain; and all who have stood 
 
11 
 
 for the right against the wrong, have lived and died 
 in vain. 
 
 We recoil from so cheerless a view of our destiny 
 as this. Our reason rejects it; our moral sense 
 abhors it ; our instincts revolt from it. Away, then, 
 with the chilling philosophy which would frame an 
 atheistic scheme of history, and make man the pup- 
 pet of chance. Let us still cherish the steadfast 
 conviction that we have a guide who sees the end 
 from the beginning, and that we may discern in the 
 providence of the all-wise the benevolence of the 
 all-loving God. 
 
 These general observations will, it is hoped, derive 
 some' specific value from their connection with the 
 main subject of the address. For if God reigns in 
 history, he is raising up the American people for 
 some historical purpose. Have we, then, reason to 
 believe that this purpose, in the accomplishment of 
 which our country is to be the instrument, is an 
 ' important one in the affairs of mankind ^ 
 
 When we study the progress of civilization, we 
 learn that in every great movement the influence 
 of some one nation or race has been for the time 
 predominant over all others; and this predominant 
 nation or race has been, during the period of its 
 historical activity, the standard-bearer of humanity. 
 Is there reason to believe that the American people 
 may justly aspire to this post of honor] 
 
12 
 
 In attempting to answer this question affirma- 
 tively, I appeal first to our national consciousness. 
 As a people, we have a settled conviction that we 
 are to perform no secondary part in the world's 
 drama. Placed in the van of civilization, with a 
 continent before us to stamp our impress upon, and 
 an ocean behind us as a barrier against the forces of 
 despotism ; with a population whose enterprise is 
 restricted by no limits but those of the globe ; with 
 the hope and strength of national youth, and with 
 a history already rich in examples of statesman- 
 like wisdom and heroic achievements, what won- 
 der if we discover in these the signs of a manifest 
 destiny ! 
 
 This abiding consciousness of a vocation is some- 
 thing more than the suggestion of vanity. It is a 
 prophetic thought which reveals the future, and 
 points with steady finger to the career of a patriotic 
 and noble ambition. Without it, neither nations 
 nor individuals ever become, in any large or appro- 
 priate sense, historical. Those men who have left 
 their mark upon their country and age, have always 
 felt an assurance that they had been called, as by 
 the audible voice of Jehovah, to a work, and that 
 they had been endowed with ability to perform it. 
 Not he alone, the conqueror of the East, who cut in 
 pieces the knot which he could not untie; nor he, 
 Rome's greatest enemy, who took an oath in boy- 
 
13 
 
 hood at the altar of his country's gods, to live and 
 die his country's avenger; nor he, who, in a tempest 
 at sea, could quiet the alarm of his pilot with the 
 characteristic words, "Fear not, you convey Csesar;" 
 nor he, the deliverer of his Alpine home, who, when 
 his boatman said, " It is impossible to cross the lake 
 in such a storm as this," silenced him with the reso- 
 lute reply, " I know not whether it be possible, but 
 I know that it must be attempted;" nor he, who 
 called himself the child of destiny, and on the morn- 
 ino- of many a day of doubtful arbitrament, hailed 
 the sun of Austerlitz as the harbinger of another 
 triumph; — not only your Alexanders, Hannibals, 
 Cffisars, Tells, and Napoleons, held and proclaimed 
 this faith, but lawgivers and prophets, apostles and 
 martyrs, reformers and philanthropists, all who, in 
 every age and clime, have nobly dared and nobly 
 done, for God and man, have felt and expressed the 
 same. 
 
 In like manner, every nation which has borne a 
 prominent part in history for any length of time, 
 has cherished an invincible belief that it had a 
 destiny to fulfil; and this faith has always mani- 
 fested itself on trying occasions in resolution, cour- 
 age, and fortitude. We read this in the inscrip- 
 tion upon the monument of the three hundred 
 Spartans: "Stranger, go tell at Lacedsemon that 
 we He here in obedience to her laws." We per- 
 ceive this in the stern resolution of the Romans, 
 
14 
 
 who, after the slaughter at Cannse, still regarded the 
 banner which bore S.P.Q.R. as the symbol of invin- 
 cible power, and who were willing to bid high in the 
 Forum for the lands on which their enemy was 
 encamped. We hear this in the words which Nel- 
 son signaled to his fleet at Trafalgar, just before the 
 battle commenced, and which were answered from 
 every deck with shouts that rent the welkin, 
 " England expects every man to do his duty." We 
 observe the same in the simple but firm command of 
 Wellington, when at Waterloo he saw his squares 
 shake beneath iron hail and charging squadrons, 
 " Stand, men, it will not do to be beaten; what 
 would they say in England]" And we mark the 
 resolute expression of the same spirit in the words 
 which our own Taylor wrote to the Secretary of War 
 when he led forth his little band from Point Isabel, 
 " If the enemy oppose my march, in whatever force, 
 I shall fight him." 
 
 This national consciousness of a high calling, this 
 prophetic aspiration after something which is be- 
 lieved to be a mission, of which these examples are 
 both signs and expressions, was never stronger in 
 any people than it is in the Americans ; and without 
 assigning to this fact more weight than it is justly 
 entitled to, we may at least assume that it wiU help 
 us attain the position among nations towards which 
 it points, just as the presentiment of victory inspires 
 a soldier with the courage which wiU be likely to 
 
15 
 
 achieve it, and as any man's confidence in his 
 ability to accomplish an object renders his success 
 probable. 
 
 But there are other indications that the standard 
 of historical progress is to be borne by the American 
 people. One of these is, our geographical position. 
 " Westward the course of empire takes its way," is 
 something more than a poetic fancy — it is a his- 
 torical fact; and this fact is doubtless attributable, 
 in part at least, to geographical causes. 
 
 It is generally conceded that the human family 
 was planted at some point in central or eastern Asia, 
 from which it soon radiated in all directions. But 
 when population had advanced eastwardly to the 
 ocean, which men had not then the skill to navigate, 
 it must have recoiled; and while lateral waves pro- 
 bably turned aside toward the frozen North, and the 
 torrid South, its main current must have flowed back 
 toward the West, whither temperate climates and 
 fertile lands invited. While these hardy, enter- 
 prising, and self-reliant pioneers of the West, whose 
 inventive faculties necessity had sharpened, would 
 take with them the sciences, the useful arts, and 
 such laws and institutions of the parent communities 
 as were adapted to their condition and wants, they 
 would leave behind them many of tlie defects of the 
 elder civilization, and plant States which would start 
 forth unfettered by prescriptive formulas, and soon 
 surpass their father-lands in all the elements of 
 
16 
 
 greatness and power. From these new communities 
 other colonies in their turn would proceed further 
 westward, and again leaving behind whatever had 
 crystallized into immobility, sloughing off whatever 
 had become effete, and retaining whatever was vital 
 in every part, would move onward with a fresh im- 
 pulse in the career of improvement. 
 
 In this solemn march of four thousand years, our 
 post is now in the front. We are rising upon the 
 great tide-wave which has been steadily advancing 
 through China, India, Persia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, 
 and Western Europe ; and we know that as " there 
 is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the 
 flood, leads on to fortune," so there is also in the 
 affairs of nations. Who shall say that the States 
 which were founded by the Anglo-Saxon immi- 
 gration into North America, will not hereafter com- 
 pare as favorably with England, as the English 
 people now do with their Saxon progenitors; and as 
 the cities of Greece and Carthage did with the Phe- 
 nicians who colonized them? 
 
 Again, while our position is foremost in the line, 
 we have the advantage of an eminently favorable 
 locality. Our territory stretches from sea to sea, 
 including the most desirable third of the continent ; 
 and it is an article of our political faith, that if we 
 bide our time, the whole will be ours — Cuba and aU. 
 We are midway between the old world of Europe in 
 our rear, and the older world of Asia in our front. 
 
11 
 
 The American Ophir is opening to us the commerce 
 of the East, a prize which has enriched every nation 
 which has been able to grasp it ; and even the barred 
 gates of Japan, as well as walled China, have been 
 opened by the golden keys of California. The thou- 
 sands of Chinese who are now on our Pacific coast, 
 have come thither to shake hands and make our 
 acquaintance. They are saying to us, " You are not 
 the outside barbarians we had supposed; we Avill 
 talk Avith you, work with you, and trade with you; 
 we will shuffle off our wooden shoes, and permit our 
 women henceforth to wear feet; we will pare our 
 nails, and clip our cues; we will learn your sciences, 
 practise your arts, adopt your worship, and then 
 return to our homes with ideas which will astonish 
 the mandarins." 
 
 All this they will do, and more. They will break 
 the shell of egotism in which three hundred millions 
 of people have been so long incrusted. They will 
 infuse vigor and activity into that living petrifaction, 
 to which immobility alone has given permanence. 
 With free commerce will go a free gospel, free 
 institutions, art, science, letters, and progress, until 
 the manhood of civilization shall revisit the land of 
 its infancy, and the first great cycle of history shall 
 be complete. 
 
 Another indication that the American people are 
 to play a star part in history, is their combination of 
 dissimilar races. We learn from physiology that 
 
 ^*l ^ 
 
there is a law of nature, extending to all organized 
 bodies, which makes the blending of certain varieties 
 of the same species a condition of improvement. 
 This law has been wisely ordained, so far at least as 
 the human family is concerned, to make it for the 
 interest of all classes of people to preserve friendship 
 with each other, and, by checking the spirit of caste, 
 clanship, and race, to promote peace on earth, and 
 good will among men. 
 
 History confirms what physiology teaches. It as- 
 sures us that while the unmixed races have generally 
 been stationary or retrograde, the mixed races have 
 been progressive. The Chinese and Hindoos are 
 examples of the former; the Greeks, Romans, and 
 English, of the latter. In Greece, three distinct 
 peoples united. First came the fierce and barba- 
 rous Pelasgian from the North; next, the industrious 
 and refined Phenician from the East; and last, the 
 reflective, religious Egyptian from the South. The 
 descendants of these diverse colonists grew up, flou- 
 rished, and intermingled in that country, till they 
 formed a race which was superior in physical strength 
 and mental capacity to any other then existing — a 
 race which combined the best qualities of all its con- 
 stituents without their defects; the hardihood and 
 heroic virtue of the North, without its rudeness and 
 ferocity; the imagination, elegance, and commercial 
 enterprise of the East, without its effeminacy; the 
 speculative thought and religious veneration of the 
 
 4 
 
19 
 
 South, without its sordiclness and superstition. Such 
 was the composition of that singularly acute and 
 intellectual people, whose mission was to cultivate 
 the practical intellect to an extent before unknown ; 
 to bring down philosophy from heaven to earth ; to 
 carry the fine arts to a degree of perfection which 
 subsequent ages might strive to imitate, but could 
 not hope to surpass; and by their literary, commer- 
 cial, and military activity, to provide for approaching 
 Christianity the vehicle of a universal langiiage. 
 
 Let us glance next at the Roman, the man of iron 
 frame and iron will. In him we find, first, the union 
 of the rude Pelasgian with the polished Etruscan — 
 strength wedded to grace. Next, if we may believe 
 Livy, the off'spring of Roman fathers and Sabine 
 mothers, people the Seven Hills. Other tribes of 
 Italy in rapid succession, and afterwards foreign 
 nations, are subdued as enemies, and- welcomed to 
 political and social equality as friends. The policy 
 of the state was the absorption and assimilation, not 
 the destruction, of the conquered. It was not till 
 after the race had accomplished its historical pur- 
 pose, and a remorseless despotism had risen upon the 
 ruins of the Republic, that a Roman historian could 
 utter the reproach, " We make a desert, and call it 
 peace." 
 
 It is probably true that no people ever combined 
 so many different elements as the Romans, and it is 
 certain that none ever made so deep a mark upon 
 
 4. -♦ 
 
20 
 
 hnman affairs. It was their vocation to be the 
 world's schoolmasters in legislation and jurispru- 
 dence ; to demonstrate the force of the indomitable 
 will; to combine activity with stability, extension 
 with duration; and thus to build up for the dissemi- 
 nation of infant Christianity the fabric of a universal 
 empire. 
 
 Look next at the nation which has done more 
 perhaps than any other for the progress of modern 
 civilization — England. The ancient Britons were 
 Celts, savage and superstitious, but generous and 
 brave. The Romans conquered them, and held pos- 
 session of their island four hundred years. When 
 Roman power had served out its time, and was about 
 to give place to the fresh vigor of barbarian mind, 
 the Saxon came — the stern, cold, granite man, robber 
 of land and sea. Next came the warlike and hardy 
 Dane; and finally the proud, chivalrous Norman, 
 with feudal pomp and knightly courtesy, the aristo- 
 cratic element of English civilization. In process of 
 time, the gradual intermingling of these unlike 
 stocks produced the modern English, or, as I prefer 
 to caU them, the Anglo-Saxon race ; a people tena- 
 cious of individual and political rights, inflexible of 
 pui-pose, proud, stubborn, equally persevering in 
 enterprises of wisdom and folly, justice and in- 
 justice, freedom and oppression, and which, including 
 its great American branch, has never been driven 
 
21 
 
 from any soil on whose surface it had once firmly 
 planted its feet. 
 
 England, too, has her mission in history. She has 
 been, and still is, the instructor of mankind in the 
 principles of constitutional and representative govern- 
 ment. She has been, and still is, a powerful cham- 
 pion of those forms of Christianity which recognize 
 the right of private judgment in matters of faith. 
 She has also sown the seeds of that harvest of per- 
 sonal freedom which has since grown up and will 
 hereafter ripen in America. Without England, the 
 United States could not have been. She has indeed 
 loved and pursued riches, as Greece did glory, and as 
 Rome power; but while doing this, she has deve- 
 loped the industrial element of civilization, and added 
 much to the physical comfort and material prosperity 
 of mankind. 
 
 Future history will doubtless show that the eager 
 desire of wealth, which is the master passion of the 
 Anglo-Saxon race, and which is everywhere stimu- 
 lating invention and improvement, applying the 
 sciences to all forms of productive industry, and pro- 
 moting free intercourse among men by means of 
 iron, steam, and electricity, has been directed by 
 Providence towards the true aim of all progress — 
 the moral elevation of mankind. You must make 
 the toiling multitudes physically comfortable before 
 you can make them intellectually wise, or morally 
 good. In other and homelier terms, you must satisfy 
 
22 
 
 the stomach and protect the person, before you can 
 thoroughly cultivate the head and improve the heart. 
 
 These examples, if I have not mistaken their 
 meaning, teach us that when the Divine Being in- 
 tends to use a people as the instrument of an import- 
 ant work in human affairs, he does not take the old 
 races whose ideas, opinions, and institutions have 
 become so fixed and petrified as to lose all flexibility 
 and elasticity. He seeks new and plastic materials. 
 AVhen the chemist wants a new re-agent, he collects, 
 mixes, fuses, and dissolves dissimilar bodies till their 
 mutual action forms the desired compound ; and so 
 the Divine Being (I use the simile with reverence) 
 brings together from afar unlike peoples, and moulds 
 them into a new race possessing qualities suited to 
 his purpose. 
 
 Such a race is that which is now overspreading 
 the North American Continent; for, though the 
 union of the different varieties of our people is in- 
 complete, it has advanced so far that every Ameri- 
 can, born upon the soil, has much in common with 
 every other, though Anglo-Saxon blood may predo- 
 minate in one, German in another, and Celtic in 
 another. Each of these streams has received, and 
 may continue to receive, healthful contributions from 
 the rest. It is only when the foreign accessions to 
 our population refuse to coalesce and identify them- 
 selves with the native born in feeling and interest, 
 and when they form combinations among themselves 
 
23 
 
 either to preserve the spirit and prejudices of the 
 communities they have abandoned, or to change the 
 pohcy of our government, that they become a dis- 
 turbing force in the body politic, and, like anything 
 else which is indigestible, pernicious to the public 
 health. The sturdy Anglo-Saxon suffers no detri- 
 ment from having his sharp angles broken off, and 
 the rugged features of his character smoothed down. 
 He is weU fitted to be the conqueror of savage 
 nature, and the pioneer of a new civilization; but a 
 modicum of selfishness and ambition must be ehmi- 
 nated; he must be made more continental and less 
 insular; more of a cosmopolite and less of an ere- 
 mite, before he will become the instrument to adorn 
 that civilization with its crowning glory, its highest 
 moral finishing of fraternal love between man and 
 
 man. 
 
 To advance this end the American race is forming, 
 to become, as we hope and believe, the master-men 
 of future history. Though our population is de- 
 rived from numerous sources, we may presume that 
 when it shall have become homogeneous, its leading 
 characteristics will be Anglo-Saxon, modified by the 
 influence of Celtic and German blood. The Anglo- 
 Saxon will be represented in the practical intellect ; 
 the Celt, in the feeling heart; the German, in spe- 
 culative thought. The Anglo-Saxon will contribute 
 indomitable will; the Celt, impulsive sensibilities; 
 the German, steady, sterling common sense. The 
 
24 
 
 first is the type of pertinacity; the second, of cou- 
 rage ; the* third, of fortitude. The first has wit ; the 
 second, humor; the third, imagination. The first 
 has ambition; the second, generosity; the third, 
 honesty. The first fights for interest; the second, 
 for honor ; the third, for right. 
 
 While the American race may not aspire to be 
 that higher type of humanity of which philosophers 
 have dreamed, as the next step on the ascending 
 scale of organic development, we may expect that it 
 will combine the enterprise, perseverance, and hardi- 
 hood of the Anglo-Saxon, without his exclusiveness, 
 haughtiness, and sullenness; that it will possess the 
 docility, vivacity, and warm-heartedness of the Celt, 
 without his rashness and improvidence ; and that it 
 will exhibit the patience, stability, and integrity of 
 the German, without his apathy. 
 
 A race uniting such qualities as these, can hold 
 no second place in history; and it is an easier pro- 
 blem to determine what it ivill do, than what it can- 
 not do. 
 
 Before taking up the final question. What is the 
 historical mission of the American people? let us as- 
 sume that the ultimate aim of human progress is the 
 moral renovation of mankind. This assumption may 
 be fairly made, not only because most Christian 
 writers on what is termed the philosophy of history 
 have assumed substantially the same, but also be- 
 cause it is difficult to conceive of any other object so 
 
25 
 
 important as this, or so worthy of the Divine inter- 
 position. Nor should we forget that inspired pro- 
 phets of old predicted a reign of universal justice, 
 and that Christianity itself has promised a millen- 
 nium of universal love. 
 
 The most authoritative of all teachers laid down 
 the Golden Rule as the practical guide of moral 
 conduct, and commanded men to love their neighbor 
 as themselves. The observance of that rule, and 
 obedience to that command, would be nothing less 
 than the reign of justice and love. It is a melan- 
 choly fact that the rule has never been generally 
 observed, nor the command generally obeyed; but 
 he who infers from this fact, and who dares to assert, 
 that mankind, or a large majority of them, never 
 will conform to that rule, nor obey that command, 
 takes upon himself the tremendous responsibility of 
 pronouncing Christianity a failure and a falsehood. 
 
 Are we discouraged because, after eighteen and a 
 half centuries, not one-fourth of the population of 
 the globe have heard the tidings of peace on earth 
 and good will to men, and because not one-fourth of 
 those to whom the gospel has been proclaimed live 
 in accordance with its precepts'? Then let us re- 
 member that, however important time may be to a 
 man, or to a generation of men, it is of no import- 
 ance to that Being who does not exist in time, to 
 whom the past and the future are ever present, one 
 eternal 7iow. Guizot clearly perceived that He, " to 
 
26 
 
 whom one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand 
 years as one day," could wait for the slow ripening 
 of his purposes, when he said that "Providence 
 moves through time as the gods of Homer through 
 space: it takes a step, and ages have rolled away." 
 
 If, then, we admit that the triumph of Christian 
 morals is the highest attainment of man in time, it 
 may not be difficult to conjecture what will be the 
 next movement of humanity in that direction. 
 
 If I were permitted to draw a charcoal sketch of 
 a plan of history, it would consist of five divisions or 
 epochs, corresponding to the successive ideas which 
 men have entertained of themselves: — 
 
 1. Man as the child of a patriarch and the slave 
 of a despot. The representative of this idea was 
 oriental civilization. 
 
 2. Man as a citizen, but the property of the State. 
 This was the epoch of Greece and Home. 
 
 3. Man and the State. Plere we follow Guizot, 
 who makes this the epoch of modern Europe. 
 
 4. Man master of the State, and personally free. 
 This is the American epoch. 
 
 5. Self-governing man, in the highest perfection 
 of his moral nature which is attainable in the pre- 
 sent life. This will be the prophetic or millennial 
 epoch. 
 
 The education of mankind might also be divided 
 into five stages of progress, corresponding very nearly 
 with the five epochs just named : — 
 
27 
 
 1. The education of the imagination and specu- 
 lative intellect. This was the work of the oriental 
 schools. 
 
 2. The education of the practical intellect and 
 will. In this, Greece and Rome were the school- 
 masters. 
 
 3. The education of the religious sentiments. 
 This commenced with the dawn of Christianity. 
 
 4. Education in physical sciences and inventive 
 arts. The object of this is to teach man the uses of 
 nature, and to make him master of her forces. We 
 are in the midst of this movement, 
 
 5. Moral education, or the training of the heart, 
 by the united agency of revelation and reason, and 
 the highest triumph of both. 
 
 Of course, it is not meant that each of these 
 departments of the education of our species has 
 been strictly confined to a definite period ; but that, 
 while they have been all cultivated together to 
 a certain extent, the advances which have been 
 made in each have been more rapid and successful 
 in some periods than in others. For example, men 
 always studied nature and applied her powers to 
 practical use, but it has been only within the last 
 three centuries that these researches have taken the 
 right direction, and produced the most conspicuous 
 results. Philosophers studied moral science as ear- 
 nestly before as since the Christian era, but they 
 failed to educate the moral sensibilities of their dis- 
 
28 
 
 ciples ; and, though the discipline of the heart is 
 the proper work of Christianity, he who would see 
 the accomplishment of that work in its highest 
 beauty, must look forward to a purer epoch and a 
 better age than the present. 
 
 Anterior to the reign of Christian love there must 
 be a reign of natural right, or justice; for it is plain 
 that men must be taught to live together as neigh- 
 bors before they will learn to love one another as 
 brothers. So long as they defraud, oppress, and de- 
 stroy each other, so long it may be presumed that 
 they Avill suspect, hate, and retaliate. 
 
 Again, anterior to the reign of justice, men must 
 learn to govern themselves; for he who cannot re- 
 strain his own appetites and passions, will violate 
 the rights of others. 
 
 Guizot, in his instructive lectures on " Civilization 
 in Europe," regards modern progress as a twofold 
 development — of the individual, as master; of him- 
 self, and of the state, as the conservator of political 
 and social order. He proves that the political ele- 
 ment is the legacy of Roman civilization, while the 
 individual element had its origin among the rude 
 tribes of Germany. But the people of this country 
 have been constantly enlarging the individual, and 
 restricting the political power, until every man in 
 our Union of sovereign States is himself a sovereign. 
 Now, if we inquire how the dualism of European 
 civilization, man and the state, has been reduced to 
 
29 
 
 unity in America, man master of the state, we shall 
 find, to use an illustration which may sound some- 
 what professional, that, in their course of education, 
 the people have advanced in this country to a school 
 of higher grade, in which, as they are required to 
 govern themselves more, they need the rod and fer- 
 rule less. In European states, government is the 
 centre of force, and the lines through which it moves 
 diverge from the centre towards the circumference ; 
 but, in our country, every individual will is a centre 
 of force, and the conductors converge till they form, 
 at a common centre, an aggregate national will, 
 which the government must represent and express, 
 or be powerless. In Europe, the people are, to a 
 great extent, what government makes them ; in 
 America, government is what the people make it. 
 As the democratic form of government can be 
 maintained wherever a majority of the people know 
 how to protect public and private rights, and are 
 sufficiently upright to respect them, so every man 
 can govern himself, who comprehends his relations 
 to his fellow-men and to God, and has moral power 
 enough to obey the law of harmony which regu- 
 lates them. Thus, the condition of absolute liberty 
 is absolute obedience. The more perfectly men 
 understand and obey the code written in their own 
 hearts, the less will they need to be restrained by 
 force and fear ; the more intelligent and moral they 
 become, the milder will be the form of their go- 
 
30 
 
 vernment. Their progress will be from despotism 
 to limited monarchy, and from limited monarchy to 
 democracy ; and when democracy shall have finished 
 its appropriate work in the political education of any 
 people, and science in their intellectual education, 
 and Christianity in their moral education, they will 
 find in individual autocracy the platform of a better 
 civilization. 
 
 To prepare for self-government such as this, men 
 must first acquire personal freedom ; for as the strip- 
 ling cannot learn to swim without touching the 
 water, so no one can unfold his entire individuality 
 until he is made, under limitations divinely author- 
 ized, master of himself. I submit that this is the 
 work of the American people: the establishment of 
 personal freedom among ourselves, and its dissemi- 
 nation in the world. 
 
 The ruling motive of the Greeks was love of 
 glory ; of the Romans, love of power ; of the English, 
 love of wealth — and what is ours] The united 
 voice of the nation, in every form of utterance, and 
 in every manifestation of its daily life, answers — Love 
 of Freedom. Whenever the cry of the oppressed and 
 down-trodden is heard, whether from the slopes of 
 the Andes, the Emerald Isle, or " the bright clime 
 of battle and of song;" whether from the banks of 
 the Vistula, the Tiber, or the Danube; and the arm 
 of struggling freedom is stretched out to America 
 for sympathy, our blood is stirred with quicker pul- 
 
31 
 
 sations, and our voice speaks out to cheer and encou- 
 rage. A few years since, we listened to the burning 
 words of an exile, as with full heart, in tones half 
 hopeful, half desponding, he pleaded in the audience 
 of our country as a man would plead for his mother, 
 in behalf of a fallen, and, so far as human foresight 
 could extend, a ruined cause. What gave to the 
 words of that zealous, though indiscreet patriot, their 
 power to lead captive the hearts of men in spite of 
 their judgment, and sway vast masses as with the 
 wand of an enchanter'? Others have spoken as 
 earnestly on other themes, with equal eloquence, 
 and used arguments which showed less of the special 
 pleader, yet who, since the days of Demosthenes, 
 has produced such an effect upon such multitudes of 
 people as the distinguished Magyar '? The power of 
 eloquence does not reside in him alone who gives it 
 form and expression. Unless the heart of the hearer 
 respond to the tongue of the speaker, and emotion 
 answer to emotion as face to face in a glass, the 
 accents of Gabriel himself would fall powerless and 
 dead, like an unknown language. But Kossuth 
 spoke directly to our master passion, and therefore 
 he called forth a response from the great heart of 
 the nation. 
 
 The freedom which we love, and which may be 
 called American freedom, is not only national inde- 
 pendence of masters, whether foreign or native, but 
 also the personal liberty of every citizen as master 
 
32 
 
 of his own actions, and, jointly with every other 
 citizen, master of the State. And this liberty is 
 something quite different from license; it is liberty 
 in and under law, regulated both by written statutes, 
 and by the unwritten law of reason and justice, of 
 nature and God. 
 
 This development of individual man, as personally 
 free, and at the same time personally responsible; 
 this union of liberty with obedience, which is one of 
 the indispensable conditions of liberty, can be made 
 nowhere but in a republic, and no republic is so fit 
 to make it as ours. Our history and institutions, 
 our habits of thinking, speaking, and acting — our 
 very instincts and impulses, all prove that we are 
 the men for this work; and, what is more to the 
 point, that we are doing it. The Puritans, Quakers, 
 and Cavaliers who colonized different sections of the 
 country, came hither to enjoy their religious and 
 political opinions undisturbed by arbitrary power. 
 Their descendants took up arms in defence of the 
 right to make their own laws, elect their own magis- 
 trates, and levy their own taxes. They have made 
 more liberal concessions to each other than were 
 ever made before by any people to establish and pre- 
 serve a national union. They have gradually ex- 
 tended the right of suffrage, and have thus given 
 legal form to their conviction that men, and not 
 money, should govern. They have diminished the 
 number of public offices which are held by executive 
 
33 
 
 appointment, and increased the number of those 
 which are obtained by popular election. They have 
 made all posts of trust and honor accessible to the 
 poor as well as to the rich; and when they have 
 delegated their sovereignty for a limited time to 
 magistrates of their choice, they make them under- 
 stand very clearly that they are in office as the ser- 
 vants, not as the masters of the people. These are 
 the fruits of the progressive spirit of our institutions, 
 which teach every man his value, his dignity, and 
 his duty, and which place in his hands more and 
 more power as he shows capacity to use it safely 
 and wisely. 
 
 The same tendency which is manifested in our 
 political life, extends to our social, educational, and 
 religious institutions. These all tend to elevate 
 man, not as a constituent atom in the State, not as a 
 drop in the bucket of a sect or party, but as inde- 
 pendent, self-relying man. The poorest citizen of 
 the republic knows and feels that he may claim 
 the consideration due to a man, and if you withhold 
 or deny him this, he will only wait till you are a 
 candidate for office to make you sensible that he has 
 the power of a man. 
 
 The schoolboy is no longer taught to put implicit 
 faith in the ipse dixit of any Pythagoras, but to 
 reason for himself. The time has gone by when he 
 could gain praises, or prizes, because he could re- 
 
34 
 
 member and repeat; we now insist that he shall 
 think and know. 
 
 We hold, too, that faith is better sustained by 
 works than by government. He who contributes 
 voluntarily to support a pastor, reserves the right to 
 judge of the quality and wholesomeness of the spi- 
 ritual food he receives. He admits no obligation to 
 believe the dogmas of the minister because he is the 
 minister, but because, in his own private judgment, 
 they are true. 
 
 It is worthy of remark how quickly the political 
 exiles from foreign lands, who take refuge among us, 
 become charged to excess with that bold independ- 
 ence which is characteristic of our people. They 
 touch our soil, and are electrified with new and 
 strange life. One, before he has been a week on our 
 shores, undertakes to expound to us the esoteric 
 meaning of Washington's Farewell Address. An- 
 other, before he has had time to learn the distinction 
 between Hards and Softs, Silver-Grays and Ada- 
 mantines, reads the government a lecture on the 
 courtesies of diplomatic correspondence, forgetful 
 that the right to abuse our public functionaries on 
 our own soil is an American monopoly. The same 
 gentleman even proposes to make us the fulcrum of 
 a lever to move the world; a proposition w^hich 
 means, in plain English, that our country is to bear 
 on its patient back the weight of the lever, with the 
 world at one end, and our modern Archimedes at the 
 
35 
 
 other! Issachar crouching clown between two bur- 
 dens! Our adventurous refugee may learn, if he 
 has not learned already, that whenever a fulcrum 
 shall be found for the world-moving lever, the Ame- 
 rican i^eople mean to have fast hold of the long arm 
 where the power is applied. 
 
 Perhaps we ought not to be surprised if emanci- 
 pated mind, in the consciousness of its newly-dis- 
 covered power, should run into some excesses. A 
 troop of boys, just let loose from school, play pranks 
 worthy of the pencil of Hogarth; and so, in the 
 intoxication of freedom, we may commit extrava- 
 o-ances which amuse or amaze the world, with the 
 laudable purpose of demonstrating that we are not 
 bound by prescriptive rules of behavior, and, there- 
 fore, are not "old fogies." But the extravagances 
 we commit are only straws upon the surface of so- 
 ciety, which show the direction of its mighty cur- 
 rent. They are not the drivelhng follies of dotage, 
 but the freaks of youth's exuberant strength. They 
 are the natural, though superfluous, offshoots of our 
 vigorous and progressive civihzation; not parasites 
 which exhaust its life, nor fungi which feed upon its 
 decay. They only need to be pruned off, and the 
 sturdy trunk will remain healthy and full of sap, to 
 nourish the expanding branches of our prosperity, 
 and mature the wholesome fruits of liberty. The 
 brain of the nation does not grow giddy with the 
 height it has so rapidly attained; its eye looks up- 
 
36 
 
 ward and onward, still higher and further ; its heart 
 beats time with the clock of progress, whose dial- 
 fingers point the hour on the earth and heaven ; and 
 all its aspirations are prophetic of an expansive and 
 glorious future. 
 
 And in that future there needs no prophet to 
 foretell that our country will and must make its 
 influence and power felt by other nations, in behalf 
 of universal liberty. This is a part of our vocation, 
 and we must fulfil it, or be traitors to humanity. 
 Our example, and the resolute expression of our 
 sympathy, have done, and will continue to do, much 
 for those who honestly struggle against despotism; 
 but the time has not yet arrived for the interpo- 
 sition of the strong arm. The infant Hercules could 
 strangle the serpents of Juno in his own cradle, but 
 he waited till the thews and sinews of manhood had 
 grown strong and hard before he went forth to crush 
 the heads of the Hydra, and to grapple with the 
 Nemean lion in his den. 
 
 But that we shall have to go forth, at some future 
 time — and that, perhaps, not very remote — the cham- 
 pions of humanity, like Hercules, to exterminate the 
 monsters that ravage the earth, I believe to be as 
 inevitable as destiny. Despotism, sooner or later, 
 will force the conflict upon us ; and, whenever that 
 conflict shall come, the American people will carry 
 with them into the world's battle the invincible 
 
37 
 
 will of Prometheus, and the unconquerecl arm of 
 Hercules. 
 
 But let us not anticipate our destiny, nor precipi- 
 tate events which the teeming future labors to bring 
 forth. Before w^e listen again to any voice, however 
 eloquent, which would persuade us to rush prema- 
 turely into an armed crusade, let us show, before the 
 excitement comes on, a Httle of the cool, practical 
 common sense which we never fail to exhibit when 
 the paroxysm is over. Whenever the sword of 
 Washington shall be again invoked in the name of 
 liberty, let us at least carefully inform ourselves 
 whether it be such liberty as the sword of Washing- 
 ton achieved. 
 
 In conclusion, permit me to inquire whether there 
 is anything in the political state of the world, or in 
 our own condition, to bar our progress, or to prevent 
 the realization of our country's prophetic thought^ 
 God has not bound the will, either of individuals or 
 nations, in the rigid chains of fate. A man may 
 mistake or neglect his calling, or throw away his 
 advantages, or pervert his powers to ignoble uses; 
 and so may a whole people. In both cases, the un- 
 profitable servant will be cast out, while his work 
 and its Avages will be given to others. The hopes 
 of humanity are now confided to our keeping ; but 
 if we prove recreant to the trust — if we remove the 
 old landmarks which our fathers have set up — if we 
 permit local interests, or sectional jealousies, or self- 
 
38 
 
 ish ambition to alienate one part of our country from 
 another, and rend asunder the union of these States, 
 God will raise up more faithful instruments to do 
 his will, and place in their hands the standard of 
 progress and the sceptre of power. 
 
 The nation which commits suicide — and disunion 
 would be suicide for us — perpetrates a crime of more 
 terrible consequence than its own destruction, for it 
 delays the purposes of the Great Ruler, and mars 
 the fair proportions of humanity. 
 
 But let our hopes prevail, and put to flight our 
 fears ; for though, one after another, the great lights 
 of the republic are extinguished, and with measured 
 tread, and muffled drum, and saddened hearts we 
 follow the dust of the fathers of our country to the 
 grave, yet, wherever they repose — whether at Mount 
 Vernon or Monticello, whether in the shades of 
 Ashland or Quincy, or by the murmuring sea which 
 moans its endless requiem around the tomb of the 
 statesman of Marshfield — the lessons they have 
 taught will not be forgotten, nor the legacy they 
 have left us be scattered to the winds. 
 
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