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THE TRUE AIMS OF AMERICAN AMBITION. 
 
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 PENNSYLVANIA COLLEGE. 
 
 GETTYSBURG, SEPTEMBER 15, 1852. 
 
 BY 
 RO BERT T. CONRAD 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 CEISSY & MAEKLEY, PRINTERS, GOLDSMITHS' HALL, LIBRARY ST. 
 
 1852. 
 
 
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THE TRUE AIMS OF AMERICAN AMBITION. 
 
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 ADDRESS 
 
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 PENNSYLVANIA COLLEGE. 
 
 GETTYSBURG, SEPTEMBER 15, 1852. 
 
 < * » » > 
 
 BY 
 ROBERT T. CONRAD 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 CRISSY & MAKKLEY, PRINTERS, GOLDSMITHS' HALL, LIBRARY ST. 
 
 1852. 
 
 oAm <y 
 

 In exchange 
 
 Pea body Institute 
 
 Baltimore 
 
 AUG 2 .1928 
 
PENNSYLVANIA COLLEGE, GETTYSBURG. 
 
 Wednesday Evening, September 15, 1852. 
 
 Hon. R. T. Conead, 
 
 Dear Sib :— The Literary Societies of Pennsylvania College, tender to you, 
 through us, their sincere thanks for the truly chaste, eloquent and forcible 
 Address delivered by you this evening, at their request ; and respectfully solicit 
 a copy for publication. 
 
 Your compliance will much oblige, 
 
 Your obedient servants, 
 
 G. H. SPANG, J. W. KREGALO, 
 
 R. HILL, T. W. KEMP, 
 
 J;-W. HOSSLER, T. T. TITUS, 
 
 tToint Committee of Societies. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA, October 25, 1852. 
 Gentlemen : — 
 
 It is a source of regret to me, that the same cause which made the pre- 
 paration of the Address delivered before your Societies, on the 15th of Sep- 
 tember, culpably hurried, has rendered my compliance with your flattering 
 request for a copy, as culpably tardy. I trust that the imperative requisitions 
 of other and interfering duties, which, in each instance, induced the fault, will 
 
 also plead its pardon. 
 
 With great respect, 
 
 Very truly y our' s, etc., 
 
 R. T. CONRAD. 
 
 MR. G. H. SPANG, 
 " R. HILL, 
 <' J. W. HOSSLER, 
 
 MR. J. W. KREGALO, 
 " T. W. KEMP, 
 " T. T. TITUS, 
 
 Joint Committee of Societies of Fenn. College. 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 As the day dawned upon the ^gean sea, more than two thou- 
 sand years ago, all Athens gathered at the port of Ph^aeus, to 
 witness the departure, to distant seas and doubtful battles, of 
 the most powerful and magnificent fleet and army that had ever 
 floated upon the Mediterranean. It bore the flower of the 
 Athenian chivalry to the contemplated conquest of Sicily; and 
 the eager spirit of that excitable people flushed to anticipate 
 the triumph. Pomp and splendor were exhausted upon the glit- 
 tering armament ; and, when the trumpet sounded, as the first 
 rays of the sun lighted the Acropolis, the prayers of priests, the 
 hymns of women and the shouts of men arose from the count- 
 less multitude ; and thousands of golden cups poured the red 
 libation ; and thousands of upraised hands implored the blessings 
 of their guardian Minerva, upon that brilliant and exulting fleet, 
 as it bore away before the -S]gean breeze to swell, with a new 
 conquest, the giddy Queen of the Sea. Let them enjoy their 
 triumph : it is their last ! Let them gaze upon the receding 
 sails and streamers — they will never behold them again ! Fleet 
 and army soon strewed the beach of Syracuse; and though 
 Athens, long after, refused to believe the tale of terror, and 
 
sentenced to death, the wretched fugitive who told it — it was not 
 the less true : they perished ; and Ayith them — there, in that 
 distant port, — perished the glory of Athens. As Cicero has well 
 said: Mo p7^imwn opes illius civitatis victce, comminutce, de- 
 pressceque sunt ; in hoc portu, Atheniensum nohilitatis imperii^ 
 gloriicB naufragium factum existimatur. 
 
 What a contrast is presented to this arrogant adventure of 
 wrong and rapine, by the departure and return of that high and 
 holy enterprise which, many ages after, and when Athens and 
 Syracuse were remembered dreams, left the port of Palos to dare 
 an unknown ocean and an unknown fate ! Their feeble vessels 
 glittered with no pomp and blazed with no anticipated triumph ; 
 and though friends were there, pale and anxious, to bid a falter- 
 ing Grod speed to the majestic Columbus and his hardy followers, 
 no shout broke the silence ; and their adieus were uttered amid 
 tears, and prayers, and hopes that trembled like terrors. The 
 sea, whose untracked waste they entered upon, stretched before 
 them — as the expanse of time, my young friends, stretches 
 before you — chartless and limitless; and they sought, as you 
 seek, a world — the Atlantis of Plato, the vision of the poet and 
 philosopher for ages. Launched upon that sea, their aim the 
 loftiest that ever lifted human ambition, how did they return? 
 A continent leaned forward to receive them. Princes and 
 monarchs hastened to give them welcome. They had sought a 
 world and won it ; and, amid prayers and rejoicings, the ring- 
 ing of bells and the firing of cannon, Columbus displayed the 
 evidences and trophies of that achievement which made him im- 
 mortal, and changed the aspect and destinies of the world. 
 
 This scene and this occasion force memories like these upon 
 the mind ; and those memories flash their light upon the present 
 
and the future. We stand by the shore of the vast sea of life, 
 upon which is launched an enterprize of "great pith and mo- 
 ment," for the happy fate of which a thousand hearts beat 
 anxiously. That ocean, — how often soever traversed, however 
 crowded even now by other barks — is, to you, but conjecturally 
 known. You only know that it is the home of storm and sun- 
 shine, of peril and triumph ; of rocks and eddies that menace 
 death, of isles and shores that promise fame and fortune : but 
 of the event of that dim voyage, who knows but that Being, 
 who "maketh a way in the sea and a path in the mighty 
 waters ?" The spectacle, animating and cheerful, lighted by 
 eyes of love and softened by tones of melody, is yet one which 
 thoughtful eyes cannot look upon without anxious interest. The 
 young voyagers tread the deck, and look forth upon the waves 
 and their far horizon, with hearts of hope and conMence — that 
 hope with which youth halos all the future — that confidence 
 which ever waits upon conscious health and strength and daring. 
 Of those who stand upon the beach to watch the departure 
 of this gay and gallant fleet, all have wishes and prayers for 
 their prosperity ; but though some there are who, like the 
 Athenians upon the Pirasus, hail, in their future, only certain 
 conquest and triumph, there are others who, like the watchers 
 that paled at the departure of Columbus, feel their earnest aspi- 
 rations " sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought," and who 
 tremble while they trust. 
 
 Will it be churlish, even now, amid all this exuberance of joy 
 and hope and confidence, to pause and reflect a moment on the 
 direction and duties of those voyagers ; the aims, aspirations 
 and rewards of that voyage ? This has, in like cases, been done 
 
a thousand times. The occasion has never been when the theme 
 was not old — the time will never come when that theme will not 
 be, in its ever varying and momentous applications, new. And 
 yet the knowledge that aspires to direct human action seldom 
 avails, with the youthful, till enforced by experience. The 
 blooming heroes of Pompey's army, laughed at the scarred 
 veterans who foretold the rough truths which Pharsalia rea- 
 lized. The sea of life has no rocks to the fresh mariner, but 
 those on which himself is shattered. But even the confident 
 and generous spirit of Hope, may pause to study what tri- 
 umphs — inasmuch as triumphs must be won — are worth the win- 
 ning. This, then, be our grateful study. 
 
 What generous spirit is that which has attended and stimu- 
 lated your cloistered labors; trimmed your midnight lamp ; and 
 led you, through the toils of your probation, to this your start- 
 ing triumph ? It is the same that inspired Homer and Ar- 
 chimides ; that lit the councils of Sesostris and CaBsar ; that has 
 impelled mankind in all climes and ages — difi"ering in all else, 
 but alike in this — to struggle upwards and seek the better — the 
 better — and still and ever, the better. This it is that dis- 
 tinguishes man from all others of God's creatures, as indefi- 
 nitely progressive — panting to attain, and capable of attaining, 
 a rank, in the scale of being, so far above his origin, as to con- 
 stitute him almost a different creature. And this proves the 
 glorious immortality of his spirit; for supreme wisdom would 
 never have endowed him with this boundless desire, and sub- 
 lime power, of expansion, to confine its development within a 
 sphere so inadequate and unworthy as the present existence. 
 It is this impulse of progression, this ethereal spark, ambition, 
 
that lias urged our race to its present stage of improvement and 
 elevation ; and that promises light for the future, to which the 
 radiance of the past is but a shadow. For when and while 
 human progress is in the path of divine truth — and no longer — 
 there is no limit to its career, no bound to its triumphs. Then, 
 too, science, freedom, dominion and happiness follow in its 
 train. It is only where it walks with guilt, that decay and wo 
 control and check it. So long as ambition can exist and aspire 
 free from that weight, it will, by its own empyreal buoyancy, 
 rise ; rise to an elevation beyond human imagination or human 
 hope ; rise until 
 
 "Its head wears sunbeams and its feet touch stars." 
 
 In proportion as this aspiring principle in man is active or 
 dull, individuals and nations are vigorous or feeble ; as it is 
 lofty or sordid, they are noble or degraded ; as it is pure or 
 corrupt, they are happy or wretched ; as it is wise or wander- 
 ing, they are conquerors or conquered. 
 
 The ambition of the youthful is ever generous and noble. The 
 passion of the unscarred aspirant is for renown ; and in its pur- 
 suit it is easy to scale the heavens ; every burthen is light and 
 every peril is lovely. This burning spirit exclaims with Percy : — 
 
 Oh ! the blood more stirs, 
 To rouse a lion than to start a hare. 
 By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap, 
 To pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon ; 
 Or dive into the bottom of the deep, 
 Where fathom line could never touch the ground, 
 And pluck up drowned Honour by the locks ; 
 So he that doth redeem her thence, might wear 
 Without a corrival, all her dignities." 
 
10 
 
 After years, ■when the cold breath of the world has chilled the 
 generous ardour of the heart, may, and too often do, acknow- 
 ledge idols more sordid : but when, in the flush and morning of 
 life, ambition pours its slant glory over the soul, it lights up 
 hopes and desires yet incorrupt and beautiful in the dewy fresh- 
 ness of nature. The aspirant then seeks renown — but with no 
 selfish aim. He would kindle a holy fire upon the altar of fame, 
 that it may warm and light the hearts he cherishes. He would 
 win, by deeds of noble emprize, the brightest wreath — but it 
 would be to lay it at a parent's feet. How glorious the privi- 
 lege, thus to repay the untold treasures of a parent's love ! For 
 what has earth so lofty, so pure, so free from selfish and earthy 
 taint, as that affection which yearns over a child ; which watches 
 and hopes, labors and lives, struggles through the weariness of 
 the day, and ponders and prays through the watches of the 
 night, to lift his spirit up to lofty aims and fit him for a career 
 of worth and honor. Life has no triumph so noble — none so 
 pure and sweet — as when the youthful aspirant, glowing with 
 joy and pride, lays his first laurel-leaf before his father; and 
 sees the thoughtful brow flush with parental exultation, and the 
 fond eye fill with tremulous tenderness, over the fulfilment of a 
 father's prayers, the fruition of a father's hopes. Happy the son 
 who has won this crown : the future has, can have, no brighter 
 one. The ambition that bears such fruit — richer than that of 
 the Hesperides — may well be cherished ; for the reward of such 
 a son will be the blessing of the Father of all. 
 
 But let us enquire, to what special cause, what peculiar duty, 
 should the energies of such an ambition, virtuous, elevated and 
 earnest, be devoted? 
 
11 
 
 The aspirant is an American: what cause, then, shall dare 
 claim the first fruits of his genius and his heart, but that of his 
 country? He loves her, with the gushing fulness and unselfish 
 devotion of the heart's first and purest love. How could he 
 otherwise ? Her soil claims a parent's right to that love ; and 
 were it churlish as winter, could he love it less than the Switzer 
 loves his clifis ? Were it torrid as Arabia, could he cherish it 
 less than the Bedouin his sands ? But the grandeur and beauty 
 of the boon land of his birth, where lavish Nature seems to have 
 gathered her wonders as for a race of free giants — the cloistered 
 aisles of her sublime and solemn forests — the cataract voices 
 that thunder among her hills — the glorious rivers that sweep, with 
 queenly magnificence, among valleys the loveliest that the 
 zephyr visits — how could these be his own, and be unloved ? 
 And then her annals, rich in the unrivalled triumphs of a calm 
 and christian heroism — her valor, her virtues, but more than all 
 her liberty, calm and crimeless, lofty and self-restrained, that 
 lifts her above all ancient or modern comparison — the morning 
 star of the nations ! Why, he were duller than the dullest clod 
 of her vallies, did not his heart swell with exulting gratitude to 
 the God that had made such a land, and made him a child upon 
 its bosom. It is wise, therefore, and well, that he loves his 
 native land, and loves it thus ; not with a cold sense of filial duty 
 merely — the trickling of an icicle patriotism — but with a full and 
 fiery passion ; that regards one life as too poor an offering for 
 such a country, yet would give it, freely, as the sun gives its light 
 or the heaven its dew — would pour out his young, warm blood 
 exultingly in the battle, and bless, each sacrificial drop as it bub- 
 bled forth. Oh, more than mountains and rivers, than wealth 
 and prowess, than greatness and splendour, is this spirit the true 
 
12 
 
 glory of our land ! And this spirit, let me add, is no idle dream, 
 no loftj fiction. It is a presence and a reality ; it lives and moves 
 and has its being in every pulsation of the mighty heart of our 
 country : and should the shadow darken and the peril come, it 
 will start forth mightier than any mere throWess physical power, 
 to save and to achieve. It is this passion of patriotism that 
 can alone make a people free and happy. The dull devotion of 
 enforced allegiance or unfelt duty may shed a cold, lunar light 
 over a land; hut it is the heat of the solar heart alone that 
 can vivify and invigorate, can render feebleness invincible, and 
 make, what would else be a polar desolation, a scene of beauty — 
 a glory and a joy. 
 
 But let us ask the young enthusiast, what is it that you covet, 
 what would you win, for this land of your love ? And his heart 
 leaps, with the response, to his lips: "All — all! All that skill 
 and power, genius and courage can achieve for her. I would 
 make her very paupers princes — would velvet every valley with 
 green, and diadem every mountain with palaces. Her wealth 
 should be universal as her soil — her will should be a destiny; 
 her armies should be a consuming fire, and her fleets should 
 sweep the seas, as the hurricane cloud sweeps the heavens. The 
 sun should not rise with a radiance like her glory ; nor set, in his 
 eternal revolutions, upon her limits !" How wretched were man, 
 should every prayer be heard and every wish be gratified ! Well 
 for us, in our blindness, is it that there is 
 
 "A Divinity 
 Which shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we may." 
 
 Observe how fatally misdirected would be the patriotism that 
 cherished such aims or sought such results for its country. 
 
13 
 
 Equal and general ■wealth, if desirable, is impossible ; and, if 
 our Mississippi were transformed to a Pactolus, pouring an ocean 
 of gold througbthe land, it would be still impossible. There may 
 be, to a considerable degree there happily is, an equality of com- 
 petence ; but even that can only exist where toil is universal and 
 rewarded. Wealth is comparative, and is only known in the 
 presence of a subject poverty. Where one slumbers another 
 must sweat : but where all rest, who will labour ? where all are 
 lords, who will be servants ? If attainable, national wealth, in 
 excess, is a doubtful blessing. 
 
 " m fares the land, to hastening griefs a prey, 
 Where wealth accumulates and men decay." 
 
 It is inconsistent with vigor and hardiness ; for without neces- 
 sity there is no industry, and without industry there can be 
 neither moral nor physical health. Labor alone can secure vigor, 
 virtue, valor and freedom. Soils and climes that dispense with 
 toil, tendering, from the exuberance of nature, an unsolicited 
 subsistence, exhibit human nature in its basest degradation and 
 wretchedness. The decay of republics may be ascribed rather 
 to sloth than to any other cause. The existence of domestic 
 slavery among the Greeks, and the consequent idleness of the 
 citizens, especially the Spartans and Athenians, was the spring 
 of their every social and political evil. While the Romans were 
 poor and toiled, they were worthy of freedom, and were free ; 
 when conquest introduced slaves, and the masters of the world 
 were relieved from labour, they sank into a debasement which, 
 though it shines like phosphorescent putrefaction, presents, when 
 studied minutely, a picture of human nature more revolting than 
 that of the lowest class of human brutes in Africa. The law is 
 
14 
 
 universal and unrelenting. It is written in the epitaphs of 
 buried nations ; for where are those cities of the past that made 
 the world's eye dim, gazing at their splendor? The prayer of 
 the patriot should be that of Agar : " Give me neither poverty 
 nor riches."* He should desire for his country only the unre- 
 strained and undiscouraged right to toil — the inestimable liberty 
 of labor. Man's highest privilege and noblest glory, his 
 truest security and richest blessing, is virtuous, brave, lofty- 
 browed labor. Its days are days of honor, and its nights are 
 nights of peace. It is the parent, not only of independence and 
 courage, of virtue and tranquillity, but also of science and the 
 arts, of all that lifts the mind to truth and the moral nature to 
 God. While wealth shrinks, with a corrupt frame and coward 
 heart, into lazar-like sloth and infamy, toil treads the earth with 
 the step of a giant and the port of a conqueror, and looks up to 
 heaven with the broad brow of conscious virtue, courage and 
 liberty. This is true dignity — true affluence; and while we 
 possess it, we need no higher rank, no better riches. 
 
 It is true, that a certain degree of competence is required, to 
 secure for a people leisure and means for study and improve- 
 ment ;t but these we possess. Indolence has no leisure ; and 
 luxury, though its vices are too often called refinements, boasts 
 
 * Freedom Tvith Virtue takes her seat : 
 Her proper place, her only scene 
 Is in the golden mean ; 
 She lives not with the sordid or the great. Coicley. 
 
 f But for one end, one much neglected use, 
 
 Are riches ■worth your care, (for nature's "wants 
 
 Are few, and without opulence supplied:) 
 
 This noble end is to produce the soul. Armstrong. 
 
15 
 
 few arts that virtue need envy. Even its amusements are pur- 
 sued to a guilty excess that chokes and suppresses every man- 
 lier aim and occupation. The nations which boast the greatest 
 excellence in those frivolous arts by which time is degraded and 
 sacrificed, and life frittered, like a toy, away, are in every case 
 softened to enervation and refined to vice. It is a doubtful 
 recommendation that no noble nor manly trait has been able to 
 survive this engrossing zeal for such pursuits ; and it may be 
 questioned, whether the character or happiness of our people is 
 likely to be promoted, by the efforts made to introduce those arts 
 which constitute the only boast of the communities in which 
 they flourish, but in which virtue, freedom and manly truth are 
 strangers. The refinements and pleasures of christian virtue 
 afford happiness enough for freemen : those of luxury, idleness 
 and sensual licence may be left to the races of men who are 
 content to be slaves, and of women who are willing to be their 
 companions. 
 
 If the ambition that craves national wealth be a dangerous 
 delusion, that which fosters the lust of territorial acquisition, 
 whether by conquest, purchase or policy, is still more menacing. 
 Of course, I would not trench upon any past or present subject 
 of political controversy. The instinct of national acquisition is 
 selfish, and therefore universal. No nation has ever declined an 
 extension of its domain. When Augustus left, as a legacy, his 
 counsel that the empire should be confined within the Rhine 
 and Euphrates, the desert and the ocean, it was ascribed to the 
 fact that Rome had more to fear than to hope from the chance 
 of arms. And when, reverting to this policy, the conquests of 
 Trajan were relinquished by his successor — for the god Termi- 
 
16 
 
 nus, who presides over boundaries, and had refused to yield place 
 to Jupiter, submitted to the authority of Hadrian, — the act was 
 attributed not to moderation, but to envy. But universal as is 
 this grasping disposition, let us hope that wiser councils will 
 make us in this, as in our destiny, a contrast to the rupublics of 
 old. Territory is desired as an accession of power ; but, beyond 
 a moderate point, it ceases to impart strength. A nation is 
 strong as it is "well compact;" acquisition often expands and 
 enfeebles it. A fortress is more defensible than a city ; a city 
 than the open country ; a well-knit and consolidated frame, than 
 one unwieldy and bloated ; and thus an expanded and diffused 
 empire is more exposed and less defensible. It is the people of 
 a country, not its acres, that make its power. What constitutes 
 a State ? asks Sir Wm. Jones. 
 
 What constitutes a State ? 
 
 Not high-raised battlement and labor'd mound ; 
 Thick wall or moated gate ; 
 
 Not cities proud with spires and turrets crown'd ; 
 Nor bays and broad arm'd ports, 
 
 Where laughing at the storm, rich navies ride ; 
 Not starr'd and spangled courts 
 
 Where low-bred baseness wafts perfume to pride : 
 No ; men — high-minded men.* 
 
 * Byron has expressed the thought with no less vigour — 
 
 "Why, nature's self detains the victoi''s car ; 
 
 And makes your land impregnable, if earth 
 Could be so : but alone she will not war, 
 
 Yet aids the warrior worthy of his birth, 
 In a soil where the mothers bring forth men : 
 
 Not so with those whose souls are little worth ; 
 For them no fortress can avail, — the den 
 
 Of the poor reptile that preserves its sting, 
 Is more secure than walls of adamant, when 
 
 The hearts of those within are quivering." 
 
17 
 
 Expanded territory may present a sickly show of strength ; 
 but the union, the home- spirit, the patriotism of a well-knit 
 people, constitute the greatest, perhaps the only element of 
 national power. 
 
 Acquisition is prompted also by a false love of national glory ; 
 yet it is fatal to that glory. There is no real glory in plenitude 
 of territory, or Mahoney might be envied ; or in millions of 
 population, or China would be unrivalled. True renown lives 
 only in great deeds or great virtues — the acts of men, not the 
 stage on which they perform. But still grosser is the delusion 
 that the vanity of territorial possessions inspires love or pride 
 of country. The contrary is emphatically true, and the reason 
 is apparent. Every feeling of the human bosom is strongest 
 when concentrated — feeblest when diffused. Thus, love, friend- 
 ship, benevolence, grow thinner by expansion ; until, like circles 
 in the water, weakening as they widen, they are lost in unmarked 
 ripples. The ductile gold of patriotic sentiment may be stretched 
 to glitter over half a world, but it will glitter only. The smallest 
 nations, those whose home and country were the same, afford us 
 all our examples of devoted patriotism : need I refer to the 
 Grecian, Italian and Dutch republics? The Roman devotion 
 was sublime, while Rome was their country; but where was it 
 when the world was Rome ? The voice of home, that spoke, in 
 the tones and with the authority of heaven, on the Tiber, was 
 unheard or unheeded in the faint echoes that hardly vibrated 
 over the Euphrates. The throb that was mighty at Rome, the 
 heart, was lost in feeble and fluttering pulsations in Parthia or 
 Caledonia, the extremities. Nor is there anything in American 
 patriotism to exempt it from this universal law. I desire no 
 2 
 
18 
 
 irrational contraction of empire : but, as we are, there is enough 
 of territory for the head and heart to compass. When our 
 country shall have filled up with a homogeneous people ; when 
 the moss shall have grown upon her boundary towers ; when her 
 gristle shall have hardened into bone ; when her love shall have 
 ripened into veneration, and her loyalty become a nature; — then 
 it will be time for ambition to ask for more. 
 
 It is common to urge an expansion of empire as the means of 
 extending free principles. The readier, safer, and less suspicious 
 mode, is by the peaceful proclamation of truth and the silent 
 eloquence of example. The propagandism of craft or conquest 
 is seldom recognized by truth or welcomed by humanity. Con- 
 quest corrupts and crushes the victor and the victim alike. The 
 freemen of Greece and Rome subdued, in turn, the world ; did 
 they leave it more free or happy ? or were not their triumphs 
 the doom of the human race ? No, the cause of right and truth 
 needs no such auxiliaries. Its light will rise over the world, 
 if at all, as the sun rises, in tranquil and gradual glory ; and not 
 burst forth like volcanoes, in earthquake and thunder, throwing 
 its lurid light, and pouring its lava-torrent, over an affrighted 
 people and a desolated land. 
 
 The thoughtful friends of human freedom should remember, 
 that Providence has ever preferred small to large nations, as the 
 depositories of liberty and the examples of exalted patriotism, 
 advanced civilization and lofty public spirit. The old world 
 history is uniform in this testimony : and it is the division of 
 modern Europe into various independent nations, and the 
 mutual watchfulness and emulation, vigour and courage thus 
 produced, that have given birth to the civilization which, com- 
 
19 
 
 pared to that of the ancients, is as mid-daj to a dubious torch- 
 light ; that have originated systems of free representative govern- 
 ment ; that have rescued Christianity from relapsed Paganism, 
 by the Reformation ; and that have given to the human mind a 
 progressive impulse which nothing can stay, but the unfortunate 
 aggregation of power in one vast empire, as is menaced by the 
 possible precipitation of Russia, like a crushing mountain, upon 
 the divided sovereignties of the West and South. 
 
 But the peril which American patriotism most dreads — dreads 
 with a terror which is anguish — is the inevitable tendency of 
 overgrown empires to dissolution. The past has many instances 
 of this result — but not one of escape from it. Can the lesson 
 be lost upon us? The federative bond of union, though silken, 
 is strong; but acquisition has already strained it, until patriot 
 hearts grew faint and patriot courage trembled. There are 
 limits to every human power ; what may be the point beyond 
 which our sj^'stem may not be stretched over different nations 
 and races, soils and seas, various in their character, language, 
 habits and sentiments, and opposite in their ambition and in- 
 terests — who can determine ? And who, so rash and reckless, 
 so false to his country, so regardless of the world's brightest, but 
 latest hope, as experimentally to try ? To the true patriot, the 
 country, the government, the homes and hopes of our fathers, 
 are empire and glory enough. That ambition is frenzy, which 
 would stake them upon the truth of a dream, or the fate of a 
 chimera. 
 
 If not to national wealth nor national acquisition, where shall 
 the ambition of the patriot turn ? To military and naval prowess 
 and glory ? Shall the tread of our armies shake the bosom of 
 
20 
 
 the startled earth, and the thunder of our fleets — more potent 
 than the scourge of Xerxes — affright the subject ocean? The 
 people that win opulence or empire at the expense of others are, 
 by profession, robbers, and must rely upon fleets and armies : 
 but a nation just and right-respecting, what need has it, save 
 for self-defence, of wars and warriors ? Hallowed by right and 
 necessity, the patriot soldier's is a holy calling ; and earth knows 
 no spectacle of greater moral sublimity, than a brave and free 
 people nobly contending for their birth-right. Our annals are 
 radiant with this virtue — when the mother armed her boy in 
 defence of their hearth-stone, and he went forth, with her kisses 
 upon his lip and her blessing in his heart, to strike down the 
 invader or to die. And I thank heaven that the same rich 
 blood still swells American, hearts, impatient to burst forth upon 
 the altar sacred to freedom, and the same spirit still burns that 
 made the halls of Nassau a fortification, and her students heroes 
 in our revolution. That spirit would, if need were, renew the 
 noble scene, even within these revered walls ; young breasts 
 would again be bared, emulous, in such a cause, of the luxury of 
 suffering or the privilege of death; and if that glorious privilege 
 were won, young lips would murmur — as the life stream flowed 
 and the death-film gathered — Dulce et decorum est pro patria 
 mori! But it is this sentiment only, that can dignify the art of 
 homicide. The love of war, for itself, whether as a national or 
 individual passion, is beneath the dignity of human nature. 
 Cherished for the frivolous splendor by which it ministers to an 
 execrable but barbaric vanity, for dress and decoration, plume 
 and banner, 
 
 the quality, 
 Pride, pomp and circumstance of glorious -w&v, 
 
21 
 
 it is •wortliy only the contempt of all who rank above idiot and 
 empty self-idolaters. The impulse that urges war or seeks mili- 
 tary life for its sanguinary excitement, is one that is shared 
 with the ravening wolf, which, overcloyed, still slays, or with the 
 Moloch of Milton. This appetite for blood neither constitutes 
 nor characterizes courage. The bravest nations have ever been 
 those who wage no wars but in self-defence. The insanity that 
 permits ambitious soldiers to sluice the veins of empires, to 
 waste realms, find music in the shrieks of outraged innocence, 
 and pastime in white hairs dabbled in blood, or infant forms 
 struggling on pikes — and all this to win a feather for the master 
 murderer, — is a mystery which philosophy has never solved. 
 That this is guilt, is horror, we know: but how is it glory? 
 Perhaps I may be pardoned a quotation from an unpublished 
 work of my own : 
 
 Can the white hand of pure and holy Right, 
 
 Be in the hue of human slaughter dyed ? 
 Can piety a pretext find to smite, 
 , Making libation of the gash'd heart's tide ? 
 
 What right to quench that flame — to heaven allied — 
 
 Which earth can ne'er relume ? Could human deed, 
 Have driven our Saviour to a homicide ? 
 
 Dread should the danger be, and dire the need, 
 That asks one sacred life or bids a nation bleed ! 
 
 For all defensive purposes, our country has of the war spirit 
 enough and to spare. Indiscreetly fostered, encouraged, as it 
 too often is, from absurd ostentation, it is unwise and dangerous. 
 It is a petted tiger that may, in some sudden mood of its up- 
 roused nature, turn upon and tear its master. It may seek or 
 make an occasion in our sectional or party difficulties, and a 
 field amid our hill-sides and valleys. Upon the measureless 
 
22 
 
 horrors of such a consummation, I dare not draw your eyes even 
 for a moment. But let the shadow of that passing thought rest 
 long enough upon your minds, to disclose the perils of the 
 ambition that would cherish an excessive military spirit in our 
 people, or win, by unblessed wars, a military glory for our 
 country. 
 
 Is there nothing, then, that a patriotic ambition should seek 
 for our country? Nothing worthy the high aspirations and 
 devoted efforts of the young citizen, just entering the busy arena 
 of life ? Much ! much ! Enough to engage every energy, enlist 
 every aspiration, and reward every hope. Let him regard the 
 nation in its true light, as a great family ; and let him seek for 
 it those triumphs and blessings, which a good man would ask, 
 from heaven, for the circle that is gathered around his fire-side, 
 or shaded by his roof-tree. Let him desire for his country the 
 power that will impart security ; the security that will guaran- 
 tee peace ; the competence that will avert dependence and 
 penury, and the honor that will confer self-respect and the 
 respect of others. Beneath the shade and shelter of these, 
 every good that can bless and brighten a people may be fostered. 
 But these may seem, to the enthusiast, but homely and undaz- 
 zling attainments. They are so — plain as the elements " that 
 clip us round about" — as the air we breathe, the water Ave drink, 
 and the fire that warms the earth that sustains us — but not less 
 valuable, not less vital. We may be thoughtlessly ungrateful, 
 with them — but would perish without them. It is the great, the 
 fearful error of the American mind and heart, that no privation 
 has aroused us to a sense of our unbounded opulence, in all the 
 blessings with which a nation can be endowed, and with which 
 
23 
 
 God — (no7i 7iohis — non nobis — we owe all to a gracious Provi- 
 dence) with which God has favored us. Our health cannot 
 appreciate its own happiness, nor realize the diseases with 
 which the world beside is wasted ; and our unstartled security 
 smiles at dangers, from which a miracle of mercy alone protects 
 us. How profound should be our gratitude ; how earnest our 
 efforts to merit, to preserve, and to extend the blessings vouch- 
 safed to us ! The patriot can hardly doubt as to the true aims 
 of Ainerican ambition, while these duties invoke him to guard 
 the freedom which our race has never before been found worthy, 
 save in a limited degree and for a brief season, to enjoy ; to ex- 
 pand and elevate the popular mind ; to stimulate the progress 
 that is led by reason and illustrated by virtue ; to exalt and en- 
 lighten the councils of his country, wedding them to justice and 
 honour, and inspiring that spirit which, while it would sooner 
 proudly perish than meanly submit, would rather endure wrong 
 than be guilty of it ; to mould her character to true greatness 
 and her destiny to real felicity ; and to cherish her peace next 
 only to her right and her honour ; but, in the hour of her need, 
 to maintain her cause until every sinew is cracked and every 
 vein exhausted. 
 
 The patriotic objects which dignify American ambition, are 
 to be secured by exertions worthy of them. Such exertions 
 are to be expected only from wise and virtuous public councils ; 
 and such councils can only be secured by wisdom and virtue in 
 the body of the people. The ambition of the patriot should 
 acknowledge, as its first and final aim, the cultivation, in himself 
 and in his fellow citizens, of those qualities which constitute an 
 enlightened and worthy man ; for the best citizen, whatsoever 
 
24 
 
 his position in society, whatsoever his sphere of action — is the 
 best patriot. 
 
 It is, perhaps, as important to realize what patriotism does not 
 demand, as what it does; for erroneous views prevail, not only as 
 to the objects of government, but as to the position and duty of 
 the citizen in regard to it. Thus, it is an error to imagine 
 that men are made for the State, (as in Sparta, the government 
 of which was not only artificial, but at war with nature,) and not 
 the State made for men; and that to promote the interests of 
 government, sacrifices must be made of the interests of the 
 people. When government is properly constituted, it knows no 
 interests, no existence, apart from the people ; and needs and asks 
 no sacrifices for itself. It is also an error to expect from govern- 
 ment positive advantages and blessings for the people, beyond 
 protection and security. In Greece and Rome, the people were 
 supplied with largesses of land and corn, and with amusements, by 
 the government ; and the governments of the continent at the 
 present day, supply the masses with recreations. These are 
 aside from the true purposes of government, and where they 
 exist, result in the corruption and oppression of the people. 
 The American maxim is, that the world is governed too much ; 
 and the American freeman asks from his government, only pro- 
 tection and exemption from wrong : he is the architect of his own 
 fate. And the government asks, except in the exigencies of 
 public danger, but little political service from him, and none that 
 interferes or should interfere with the main duties of private life, 
 duties upon which the welfare of society really depends. The 
 man who inflames his passions to madness, by party zeal, may 
 delude himself with the belief that patriotism demands the sacri- 
 
25 
 
 fice ; but he does Lis country and himself a wrong. The idler 
 who neglects the duties of his home, to deyote himself, at the 
 tap-room or the caucus board, to his country, may lay the same 
 flattering unction to his soul: but never was man more mis- 
 taken. The patriot who convinces himself that his beloved 
 country can only be rescued from impending ruin by his eleva- 
 tion, or that of his favorite, to office, may soothe his perturbed 
 spirit : the country will doubtless survive the apprehended cala- 
 mity. This disposition to exaggerate such excitements, and to 
 relieve the land from distressful fate by clamorous interposi- 
 tion, reminds one of the efforts of savages to aid the moon, by 
 horns and drums and every imaginable din, while she is strug- 
 gling through the horrors and perils of an eclipse : she resumes 
 her light, and her noisy auxiliaries claim the full credit of 
 having saved her — as our country is every few months saved — 
 from inevitable and overwhelming destruction. 
 
 The real and great triumph of American ambition in regard 
 to the country, is the diligent, honorable, and ardent perform- 
 ance of duty in the sphere chosen. It is the aggregate of these 
 individual duties that constitutes the great impulse which is lift- 
 ing up our country to true greatness. He who is true to him- 
 self, is true to the circle of which he is the centre — is true to 
 the interests with which he is connected — is true to society and 
 to his country. That which enlightens, purifies, elevates and 
 renders happy, the individuals of the mass, subserves the wel- 
 fare of the mass itself. The useful citizen is therefore a sound 
 patriot. And usefulness, whatever its sphere, is honor ; for 
 
 Honor and shame from no condition rise. 
 
26 
 
 That is a false view of honor which connects it ever with 
 certain visible triumphs, or supposed triumphs, as wealth, splen- 
 dor, official or social rank. And nowhere is this false estimate 
 more frequently made, than in equal America — shame upon us 
 that it is so ! Nowhere are the pregnant hinges of the knee 
 crooked with a readier homage to empty and idle pretensions to 
 rank, for here all such pretensions are idle, to the idiot arrogance 
 of gold, or to the eminent meanness of official elevation — the 
 giant pedestal of dwarfish imbecility. Defective education 
 points out these as the objects of ambition, and makes every 
 class yesty with a spirit of envy and discontent. "Never be 
 satisfied till you are what you may be. President of the nation," 
 says this sordid and false spirit. A wiser pride would say, 
 " Your duty performed, be satisfied in any sphere." Strangers 
 note, with wonder, the malcontent, restless and unhappy spirit 
 of our people, who, possess what blessings they may, murmur 
 for those still unattained ; and are wretched over every triumph, 
 of wealth, or rank, or place, enjoyed by another. This clouds 
 every brow, disturbs every pillow, and stimulates into restless- 
 ness and agitation, all the land. The spirit of liberty is held 
 accountable for this, but wrongfully : it is the result of defective 
 education — of false ambition — of an absurd deference to a paltry 
 mushroom aristocracy, vulgar, ignorant, and unworthy ; but in- 
 solent, arrogant, and ostentatious. 
 
 This perversion of ambition, it is, that has overthronged the 
 professions ; that averts the hopes and efforts of aspirants away 
 from pursuits of production, from the honorable arts of manly 
 labor, mechanics and agriculture ; that crowds the land with 
 
27 
 
 professional idlers; swells and inflames cities into vast social 
 gangrenes; and engenders and concretes a large population of 
 adventurers, eager for any scheme, however wild or however 
 guilty, that promises a short cut (such is the phrase) to fortune 
 and power. Immeasurably superior, in true honor, is the calm, 
 enlightened, virtuous and happy husbandman, who performs 
 every duty within his own sphere, surrounds himself with 
 an atmosphere of gratitude, affection and joy, and looks from 
 his moral elevation, with conscious scorn and pity, down upon 
 the varnished meanness, paltry pride, and lofty wretchedness of 
 the struggling and vulgar aspirants below him ! 
 
 The tendency of well-directed individual ambition, is always 
 to promote the true interests of society. The first great duty 
 is that Avhich begins at home, and radiates thence, through the 
 different relations of life. If that centre be not fixed, there can 
 be no trust in the remoter circumference. Home is, to man's 
 field of action, what the heart is to the body^ — the centre and 
 citadel of health and strength and life. If duty has not a 
 vigorous existence there, it is vain to look for it elsewhere. The 
 destiny of a nation is determined in its homes. There, or no- 
 where, its wealth, virtue, freedom and happiness are forged. 
 Well said ^^schines, against Ctesiphon, that : "he who is 
 insensible to that natural affection which should engage his 
 heart to those who are most intimate and near to him, can never 
 feel a greater regard to your welfare, (that of the Athenian 
 people,) than to that of strangers. He who acts wickedly in 
 private life, cannot prove excellent in his public conduct ; he 
 who is base at Jiome, can never acquit himself with honor, when 
 
28 
 
 sent to a strange country in a public character." This senti- 
 ment has been still more nobly expressed by the Christian 
 poet : — 
 
 " For when was public virtue to be found, 
 Where private was not ? Can he love the whole, 
 Who loves no part ? He be a nation's friend, 
 Who is in truth the friend of no man there ? 
 Can he be strenuous in his country's cause, 
 Who slights the charities, for whose dear sake 
 That country, if at all, must be beloved." 
 
 Some virtues are not only the loftiest, but the only virtues, for 
 those dispensed elsewhere are born at home. They are not 
 only the truest reliance for the freedom and happiness of a 
 country, but the only reliance. That patriot does most for his 
 country who contributes most, by example, influence and in- 
 struction, to the happiness, pride and devotion of her homes. 
 Greece had no homes, or none worthy of the name, and she 
 had, therefore, no virtues. The assertion may seem daring, 
 but is true. While the employments and pleasures of the Romans 
 were at home, and they were so to the time of the Gracchi ; 
 while her mothers were the teachers and counsellors of her 
 heroes and statesmen, (and such they were,) Rome was free. 
 
 Alas, for earth ! for never shall we see 
 
 The brightness in her eye, she bore when Rome was free ! 
 
 You will ask, do you consider the virtues of home, the appro- 
 bation of parents, the happiness of wife and children, exalted 
 aims of ambition, and of patriot ambition, too ? It is precisely 
 what I do think. And age will not bring wisdom to you, or the 
 
29 
 
 time will come, when you will think with me ; when you will he 
 more proud of a parent's praise than of a party's acclaim ; 
 and think that to be the chief magistrate of a virtuous and well- 
 ordered home — a home that is God's home — is the noblest 
 triumph of a noble ambition; above, far above, the cringing 
 triumphs of courts — the degradation of a public slave, or the 
 bolder baseness of a public master. 
 
 Let it not be supposed, that the sphere of the just ambition 
 which I have described, is limited ; that its labors are necessa- 
 rily light, its achievements contracted, or its triumphs small. 
 The whole world of duty is before it. While there is a science 
 unexhausted, the aspirant's labors are not closed ; while there 
 is a human wrong to be redressed, a human woe to be relieved, 
 an earth to be served, or a Heaven to be won, his noble ambi- 
 tion will not tire. By performing his duty to himself and to 
 those around him, he acquits himself of the real obligations of 
 patriotism. By his diligence, he contributes to the nation's 
 wealth ; by his studies, he enlarges the boundaries of her science 
 and the stores of her wisdom ; by his virtues, he raises the stand- 
 ard of her morals ; by his counsels, he directs her energies to 
 lofty and useful aims, to the education of her young, the enlight- 
 enment of her old, and the improvement of all; and by his 
 example, he stimulates her just ambition, encourages her virtues, 
 and elevated her designs. Are these not labors and triumphs 
 worthy of ambition — the ambition of a Socrates, a Cato, or a 
 Washington — nay, the ambition of a Paul? For the true patriot 
 regards this as God's peculiarly chosen and cherished land, and 
 so regarding it, his love and reverence become more intense 
 
30 
 
 and holy. His patriotism is religion — liis politics religion — liis 
 ambition religion He recognizes the fact — a sublime one — that 
 the equality of the human race — equal rights on earth — an equal 
 destiny in heaven — was first taught by Christianity; that the 
 hopes of the republican are dreams, idle, shadowy and fatal, 
 unless sustained by the faith of the Christian ; that the patriot- 
 ism is false which leans only on earth ; that the ambition is 
 mean which pauses this side of heaven ; that he cannot love his 
 country who will not love his God — and that 
 
 "He is a freeman -whom the truth makes free; 
 And all are slaves beside." 
 
 He is deficient in wisdom or patriotism, who is not willing to 
 say, with Ohver Cromwell: "If any man thinks that the inte- 
 rest of these nations and the interest of Christianity are two 
 separate and distinct things, I wish my soul may never enter 
 into his secret." Or with Bacon :— " Man when he resteth and 
 assureth himself upon divine protection and favour, gathereth a 
 peace and faith which human nature, in itself, could not obtain. 
 As it is in particular persons, so it is in nations : never Avas 
 there such a state for magnanimity as Rome ; of this State hear 
 what Cicero saith: — " Quam volumus, licet, patres conscripti, 
 nos amemus, tamen nee numero Hispanos, nee rohore Gfallos, nee 
 calliditatePoenos, nee artihus Crrcecos, nee denique Jjfc ipso hujus 
 gentis et terrce domestieo nativoque sensu Italos ipsos et Latinos; 
 sed pietate, ac religione, atque hac una sapiejitia, quod deorum 
 immortalium numiiie omnia regi, gubernarique perspcximus, 
 omnes gentes nationesque superavimus.'' 
 
31 
 
 But I will trespass no further upon your patience. 
 
 Vive, Tale. Si quid novisti rectius istis, 
 Candidus imperti ; si non, his utere mecum. 
 
 The world is all before you, where to choose. Upon that 
 choice depend the destinies, to you, not merely of time, but, it 
 may be, of eternal ages. Your life emerges now from the clois- 
 ter to the open day, like the spring that bursts upon the summit 
 of the Allegheny — on whose first impulse of motion d-epends 
 which moiety of a continent it shall traverse, which sea it shall 
 seek and mingle with forever. The counsels of this moment will 
 revisit you, with applause or reproach, when the eye that now 
 flashes, with fiery confidence, along the vista of the Future, shall 
 be dimly turned upon a chequered Past. Age, forgetting the unre- 
 turning ocean that sweeps between them, reverts ever to youth ; 
 and the mind, in its decay, dwells, with proud joy or querulous 
 ^ penitence, upon the first steps and stages of its long pilgrimage. 
 As the hills around your Alma Mater, which the morning sun 
 gilds with its glory, are, in its decline, when all the wide valley 
 is shaded with twilight or lost in darkness, the last upon which 
 its reluctant light lingers— so the- spirit, in its setting, clings, 
 with a wierd power of memory, to the scenes and companion- 
 ships, the toils and triumphs of its morning, towering up, 
 crowned with light, amid the darkened waste of life. May 
 that memory be reflected back upon the departing spirit in 
 light— the light of lofty purposes, nobly fulfilled ! The same 
 being is, in diff"erent stages of his life, so changed in himself, 
 and so altered by the lights in which he is viewed, as to well 
 
32 
 
 nigh, seem, even to his own introspected vision, a different 
 creature : when that time [now thought so remote, but so soon 
 to be reached,] shall have arrived with you — winning, on its way, 
 by a life of honor, an age of peace — may the old man of that 
 future — throwing back his whitened hairs, and smiling through 
 joyful tears — acquit the youth of to-day, and hail, with renewed 
 confidence, the immortal hope of his morrow ! 
 

 
 
 
 
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