E £86 .374 1357 ..a^^gg/g^. C|e ^enitts m)i Josture of Jmerka. -^s/^/i?Q\§-eyir^ Glass E. t '^ le's grief, shall have poured its tears around the fresh grave of the last one — green be the turf above them, and hallowed the spots where they lie. Let the feet of happy children tread lightly there, and there the pilgrim patriot pause as he passes to invoke a blessing on their souls, and breathe a prayer for the land they served so well. Our distinct national existence began with the flinging forth of the daring and lofty manifesto known throughout the world as the American Decla- ration of Independence. We observe to-day the eighty-first anniversary of that proclamation. The theme best fitting such an occasion is obviously the characteristic privileges, duties and dangers of the country. To the treatment of that theme one reluct- ant word must form the introduction. Every honest patriot who this day speaks the praises of America must first confess — though it be wrung from him in shame and anguish — that so far as slavery extends its dismal anomaly over our soil, it is an unmitigated contradiction to his boasts. Where this welded mis- 14 fortune and sin exists, and while it lasts, our picturesque displays fade out in sable groups of woe, Aveary coffles and sundered families ; and the pa:ans of the platform die away in the wails of the plantation. But slavery is not iwoperly any f)art of our national government — not an element in our organic life, but a sectional disease, a temporary excrescence. It is rightfully no more a part of our country than a snake's nest is a part of a granite cliff. The Free States alone fairly represent the true genius and historic posture of the Republic. With the exception now stated, let us see in what particulars we, as a people, ari^ favored beyond the subjects of other nations. It will be useful to answer this question with distinct thoughts and feelings. For then we shall understand definitely what we have to be thankful for, to cherish, and to guard. First among our national advantages is to be reck- oned an organized political equality. No unjust and irritating favoritisms are interwrought with the order of our habits and the substance of our institutions. Among us is no legal distinction between peer and peasant, prelate and mechanic ; but before the laAvs of the land, and before the possibilities of life, all are politically equal. In the fixed and wonted enjoyment of this great right we have but the faintest conception of its im23ortance, and of the bitter grievances imposed on those who are deprived of it. What should we think if compelled to submit, as so many still are, to the law of primogeniture, by which nearly all the wealth of a family goes to the eldest male descendant, leaving the others dependent, and introducing, without a reason, the cruelest inequalies of social standing and 15 public opportunity even among members of the same household ? How should we feel if a large class, with no claim but ancient prescription, covered with hered- itary titles and honors, should lord it over the mass of the people, making thousands, far their superiors in every attribute of real greatness, cringe at their bid- ding ? What should we say if a set of men were born to be our rulers, whether fit or unfit, and if the chief offices of authority and emolument among us were filled by the incompetent favorites of pompous digni- taries, without consulting us in the least ^ The trial would be greater than we could bear. Heaven be thanked that we can choose our own men for our own offices ; that with us the condition of rank and glory is not the accident of family descent, but the possession of personal merit ; that there are here no impassable limits of caste, and hedges of grinding prerogative ; that with us the incentives to effort are diffused, and the doors of preferment are open to all, leaving every poor man's boy free to rise in proportion to his genius, virtue and labor, even till they bear him to the chief throne in the nation. This republican equality of all classes, and universal accessibleness of honors, is a glorious thing, that we do not think enough of, and cannot prize too highly. The next prominent ingredient in the happiness of our people, is the enjoyment of untrammelled speech and printing. We write, talk, and publish, without the galling interference of a despotic censorship. The press is free on these shores, however broadly it shines or threateningly it fulminates. There is no dictating official clique here, armed with absolute power by the government, to whom every author must submit his i6 book before he dares to publish it, and at whose con- demnation it must be instantly suppressed. No ; our poets freely breathe forth the sentiments of their souls, — our historians and essayists discuss their subjects as they please, — our novelists write tales with w^hat moral they choose, — our reviewers criticize books, men and measures, according to their consciences or their fancies, — our wildest reformers scatter their fierce invectives and appeals in every mode and quantity, — and none of them has the slightest fear of a spy or an arrest. God made the heart and the intellect free, and consistent republicanism leaves the lips without a padlock, and the press without a hinderance, trusting that prepon- derant common sense and right feeling will, in the long- run, evolve the best results from full, unmolested argument. But it is not left so everywhere. There are countries wdiere sleepless, heartless tyranny, made cowardly and cruel by its peril, watches to suppress free thought, and to tread out the generous sparkles of its ashes. Official informers, paid and fed for the purpose, prying in every corner, snuft' the first breath of heresy, catch the first whisper of liberty, and straightway the w^ord goes forth from the priestly and political censors ; — the press of the printer is confis- cated, the editors are fined and degraded from their post, the authors go to the dungeon or into banishment. How galling such dictation must be to men of genius, compelled, on peril of every comfort, perchance of life itself, to hold down the words which burn for utter- ance, and which every honest thought and noble impulse tell them to shout aloud to heaven and earth ! Can we be half grateful enough that we are free to say and print, on any subject, what we believe is true 17 and ought to be proclaimed, with no dread of despotic supervision or judicial penalties ? The third benefit we owe to our American form of government, is theological freedom, an escape from religious disabilities and hierarchical tyranny. Jew^ and Gentile, Catholic and Protestant, Orthodox and Heterodox — all possess the same unrestricted rights and immunities, all alike are eligible to every elective office; equal facility of access to every source of education, business, and preferment is afforded to all. In other ages it was not so. In other lands now it is not so. Even in free and favored England, bigoted rehgious proscriptions weigh on the whole realm, from the monarch, — who must be a sworn Episcopalian, and whose conscientious avowal of a different opinion would convulse the empire, and perhaps cause a dis- crownal, — to the peasant, who, if a dissenter, finds the national colleges shut from him, the appointing power of the State, the dread influence of the Church, and the vast patronage of the nobility, frowning upon him, and closing every door of privilege against him. The temptations to falsify his genuine convictions are thus brought to bear terribly on every gifted and ambitious man, and it is notorious that many of the ablest men in the Establishment, for the sake of retaining their places, sign articles which they both disbelieve and loathe ! What are a man's chances of executive recognition and preferment if he be a dissenter ] Though his eloquence shake forum and temple, and his genius illumine the earth, and his virtues awaken the admir- ing love of men, yet shall the government and its lackeys sneer at him and overlook him, and — unless the people defiantly lift him on their throbbing heart 18 to a level face to face with earls and dukes — he shall remain in neglected obscurity, while supple mediocrity, by conforming to the orthodox statutes, rises from station to station, receives title after title, and rolls through princely parks in the envied wealth and pomp of a state-minister, or flaunts its bloated luxury in metropolitan sees. Such a state of things arouses the indignation of the good, ruins the souls of the weak, disturbs the religious peace, and corrupts the moral health of the kingdom. In this respect how favored are we ! Every person may follow and avow his real religious preferences without any public disability or social injury, according to the provisions of the con- stitution and the hearted customs of the people. So ought it to be. What a man shall believe, as he lives in this solemn universe, is a sacred thing between him and his God. No tampering of bribes and threats should ever be suffered to interfere with it. The deliberate organization of such an influence is a gigantic outrage, so old and so common on the earth that we ought to rejoice heartily at being free from it. Fourthly, we enjoy in this country a whole class of priceless privileges which may be comprised under the general description of exemption from all those enor- mous, unrighteous, vampire burdens of accumulated debt, war-establishments, feudal laws, tythings, brood- ing antiquity and fear, which crush the over-crowded populations of the old world to the earth, and dram out the energy of their- life-blood. From the intolera- ble load of these transmitted and growing ills we are delivered. A form of government marvellously cheap, nearly all the business being transacted by the people themselves in their primary town meetings, at small 19 expense of time, and less of money, — makes our tax- ation light. We are neither goaded by the arrogant whims and ruled by the selfish policy of an autocrat, nor insulted with the mockery of a royal family on whom we are obliged to lavish millions a year, for no service they render, but simply that they may honor us by living in magnificence and riding in state, being guarded by bayonets and gazed at by gaping crowds ! No interest on immense debts, unjustly incurred ages ago, bearing only the fruit of blood, wretchedness, and starvation, — no swollen salaries paid to locust hordes of useless officials, — no priestly tythe.s enforced whether we will or not, wring away the honest earnings of our independent laborers ; but a simple, self-ruling democracy, peace and plenty, the common school, the open church, and all the natural rights of the indi- vidual, uninfringed, make them happy and contented. In this refulgent summer day, as they pause, leaning on their scythes, and wipe the sweat from their brows, and look around on the teeming fields to be distrained by no cormorant landlords ; or as they quafi" refreshment from the mossy old bucket poised on the well-curb, — deeply should they sympathize with the sufiering peasantry of other lands, and bless the unri- valled institutions of their own. Unlike some nations, where a mob in a single city has repeatedly built and unbuilt the entire government in twenty-four hours, we are not at the mercy of local excitements. The safe and extended stability of our country is such that before one of these surprising effervescences can spread far enough for serious alarm, it cools and dies. Therefore we are not afraid of sudden explosion and reTOlutionary overthrow. Our 20 government has an expansiveness, a flexibility, a recu- perative power, that mock at such fears. No legitimate evil can reach a really dangerous pitch before the popular election may redress it. As, when winter comes, the snow flakes easily and gently descend, and clothe the fields with a garment of freshness, hiding the filth of decay and the ruggedness of the rocks ; so, without difficulty or turmoil, when the majority wish it, the ballots of this free people fall, and spread a new law over society, beneath which the ugliness of wrong and the noise of contention disappear. In the old- world countries the antiquated customs, dead traditions, burdensome rules of bygone ages still cramp the minds and hearts of men, as the crushing armor of those times would their bodies if they now wore it. With us no such things remain. We have thrown them away, never more to shackle with the iron bigotries of the past, the buoyant movements of our free spirits. Here, on this young westeru strand, exempt from the ills that curse and paralyze other nations, bidding a frank good-by to the worn-out things of old, we have taken possession of a new country, victoriously fought a new battle and founded new institutions, and are now training ourselves up, a newly commingled people, who, animated with new plans and faith, the morning sunlight of heaven's guiding favor on their foreheads, and the great clock of time striking a new hour in the affairs of mankind, shall press forward to new destinies, resplendent with unimagined boons of freedom and love. In view of the fact that we are enjoying such glo- rious advantages, what is the true mission of America"? Evidently it is to preserve, increase, and perpetuate these 21 blessings here, and to try to secure them elsewhere. The work providentially brought before this people, in the line of the testamentary ages and experimenting nations, jDlainly is the organization of political and social liberty in just and beneficent institutions. And how clear it is that to do that well, and establish the perfect result firmly, setting its grand and shining success on high before tlie unimpeded gaze of mankind in such unstained brightness and towering eminence that purblind tyrants shall own that they see it, and lynx-eyed critics confess that they discern no flaw in it — is the way to do the utmost good for the other nations of the earth ! Regarding this point as admit- ted — namely, that the mission of our country, both for her own lasting salvation and for the redemption of her groaning brother-lands, is to achieve, and en- throne in dazzling exhibition to the world, a national example of political perfection — the most important part of our theme at once opens upon us. The question, charged with those grave considerations which ought to occupy the attention of every citizen, irresistibly rises — What are our immediate duties as constituents of the Representative Republic of the world ^ The indispensable work reaching through the whole scale of our obligations, is to secure national righteous- ness at home. In the first place this is the most immediate requisition of morality. The essential thing for a man or for a nation to do is to put away vices, and cultivate virtues. This is the eternal claim whose light and sanction no one can avoid seeing and feeling, whether he obeys or not. We as a people are bound to strive with banded earnestness to purify the land 22 from every removable iniquity, and fill it with all attainable righteousness : because by the terms this is the very meaning of the word diitij^ the vitality of the moral law. If an individual who was cruel and selfish in his family, careless and fraudulent in his business, should go about urging the claims of domestic love and mercantile integrity, every one would say that he had perversely mistaken his vocation, that his real duty was to reduce right principles to practice in his own sphere. So with a nation : its first obligation, its very function, is to organize justice, freedom, and benefi- cence in its own laws and life ; to plant liberty on its public hills, joy in its private valleys, holiness in its courts, and mercy in its highways. The nation that recklessly disregards that, tramples on the elements of ethics, insults mankind, and defies God. A genuine patriotism will, therefore, labor to destroy the wrong and build up the right in its country, for the same reason that a pure and undefiled religion visits the afflicted, and keeps itself unspotted from the world: namely, that that is the very essence of its being. But, secondly, Ave must endeavor to establish national righteousness at home, because that is the only possible way of securing permanent success and prosperity. Without internal holiness — conformity to that rule of right which is the will of God, in its institutions, laAvs, character and conduct — no nation can long stand. Every reality of things and of morals is unchangeably leagued and invisibly arrayed against it. Every omen is sombre, the perilous portents of retribution swarm around, and the day of downfall moves fatally on. Crime inevitably breeds trouble. Sin is necessarily cumulative and destructive, like an 23 obstructed river. Injustice is essentially disorganizing and revolutionary. It is the nature of evil that it cannot stay quiet, but must work, and grow worse, spreading and dilating till it snatches the flash of rev- elation and shudders with the bolt of judgment. Let a palpable wrong be in the working machinery of the State, and, if it be suffered to continue, it will produce friction, interference, extending disorder, till all is stopped in a general crash. Wherever there is, in the political fabric of society, an organized unnecessary evil of any kind, it infallibly provokes hostility, awak- ens dissension, and causes deepening danger and alarm, till it is removed. Those whose moral convictions it offends, must protest and strike against it. Those whose interests it injures, will be indignant towards it. Those whose selfishness it subserves and whose pre- judices it pleases, with reckless fierceness will seek to uphold it. And so all passions are enlisted, and the debate gets loud, and animosities are inflamed, and plots and counterplots are laid. Meanwhile, if it be an actual wrong, and be forcibly maintained, the ele- ments of explosion are mustering and muttering, and at last break out in the lurid upheaval of mobs, insur- rection and mutual terror, — to result, perchance, in successful revolution, perchance in suppressal by a four- fold heavier despotism, or, perchance, in utter ruin. The history of the past reads us many a dread lesson like that. The dead nations whose giant skeletons now lie bleaching and crumbling on the sands of time, all died of sin. It was their crimes that dug their graves, and pushed them in. Licentious luxury sapped the strength and rotted the virtue of one — and it disap- 24 peared beneath the green pool of its own corruption. Brutal war, made a business of, and carried in every direction, drew upon another the wrath of the world —and it was dashed upon the rock of its own bar- barous force. Domestic bondage, grown enormous, trodden under foot, and goaded to madness, rose on an- other — and buried it in the conflagration and slaughter of its own provocation. Internal antipathy, based on sectional differences, fed by selfish interest and taunt- ing debate, finally exploded in the quarrelling parties of another — and hurled its dissevered fragments to ruin by the convulsive eruption of its own wrong and hatred. Of all the mighty empires whose melancholy ghosts now pace the pallid margin of oblivion, not one ever sunk but its fall w^as through internal ini- quity in some way or other. Shall the stately shade of republican America too, go down to join the doleful company of crowned spectres, moving them beneath to rise up at her coming with the sardonic mock, " Art thou also become as we ? " If we would avoid their doom of vengeance we must not tread their path of guilt. In complete opposition to this nature and effect of wickedness, righteousness in a nation's politics and dwellings has a vivifying jDOwer, an assimilating and preservative tendency. The people whose rights are equally secured to them all, whose interests are well protected, who, free from irritating wrongs and jeal- ousies, may all alike approach the sublime gifts and opportunities of nature and society, can hardly help dwelling in contentment, and flourishing in progres- sive strength. The secret causes of convulsion or decay do not exist there, but all are sympathetically 25 happy — from the counting-room millionaire, watching his complex web of enterprise, to the hillside plough- boy, whistling an echo to the lark in the clouds — and their country may well hope to survive forever. We ought to strive towards this end also because it is the direct way to exert the strongest influence for good upon foreign countries. Indeed without the realization of internal integrity, we can do very little good abroad. Our example will be so sullied and compromised as almost to be spoiled and powerless. Our brave preaching will be flung back to us with the taunt, " Physician, heal thyself" But let us lift up a front of unmarred holiness above all our hearths and altars — let there not be a single shackled bondsman in our territory — let there be an entire consistency between our organized customs and our glorious pro- fessions — let us show here a vast land with no lower- ing military, because peace and safety are so stable ; with no sickening almshouses, because there are no paupers to need them ; with no dismal prisons, because there are no criminals to require them ; bounteous fruits loading the fields, smiling faces lining the streets, the awful and resplendent eegis of righteousness extended firmly over all — and the spectacle of that spotless Hepublic would be an omnipotent ''power on earth" — would set the gazing nations delirious with one com- mon accord to imitate it. The first duty, therefore, of every American, is to cleanse his country from wrong, and to establish impartial righteousness at home. He must lend his aid in every proper method to those reforms which aim to remove human bondage, intemperance, the gallows, and every other legal crime and shameful custom 26 fastened on us in the pagan night of the past : that no more manacled hands and streaming eyes may be upturned, pleading to us for pity and to heaven for justice ; that no more corpses, swinging in the gibbets of our jail yards, may curdle the blood of Christianized humanity in its veins ; that the matted and seething masses of licentiousness and pauperism, abated from their degrading dens, may no more infect and upbraid our civilization. Let this be done, and we shall indeed be blessed within, and influential without. Our coun- try will be an impregnable fortress, furnished to stand the eternal seige of the elements ; and our people, if ever alien hosts should threaten, animated by one resistless impulse, will gather at the landing, and either whip them from the shore, or bury them in the strand. But if our institutions and conduct are righteous, there will be no occasion for any thing of that sort. For, the second emphatic obligation resulting from the American posture is to preserve national fraternity in its relations abroad. To such an attitude, unless absolutely driven from it, Ave are pledged by the his- toric policy of our wisest men, urged by the force of interest, and bound by the sanctity of right. There may be different opinions upon some particulars touch- ing our duty towards foreign races, but a few points are unmistakably clear. In the first place, we can- not help sympathizing profoundly with the victims of oppression in Italy, Poland, Austria, Hungary, Ire- land, and elsewhere. Their children starving, their hands tied, their mouths stopped, their noblest repre- sentatives pining in prison, or wandering broken- hearted in exile; — in our favored circumstances to view these facts, and then to withhold all commisera- 27 tion from the sufferers, and refuse them a welcome here, would be to prove our souls alien from every moral attribute of God, and recreant to every generous fibre of humanity. Exempt here, under the palladium of our democracy, and in the citadel of our independ- ence, from all the stinging wrongs heaped on the per- secuted laborers and patriots of despotic countries, cold and mean is the heart that will not waft them a sigh of sympathy, and offer them a cheerful invitation. Our forefathers meant this land should be an asylum where the hunted exile might come and find shelter and brotherhood. So may it ever be ! Let the mighty doors of the AVest, through which the setting sun rushes in floods of gold and purple, stand wide open for the longing multitudes to come in. What though they share our plenty and lessen our monopoly? They are our brothers ; and their coming diminishes the average wrong and misery of humanity ; and, mingling with our republican population, there will be so many happy freemen the more. Ay, let them come, with our hearts' greeting, for we have room enough. Let their axes wake the echoes of the primeval forests, their ploughs and spades encroach on the boundless prairies, and the smoke of their cabins curl to the astonished clouds, in those teeming regions where lonesome nature yet waits for the ornament and hum of man's companionship. But this sympathizing reception of the spurned laborers and flying refugees of other lands does not bind our country to be made a common sewer and receptacle for the offscourings of the old world, the emptyings of its jails, hulks, almshouses, and hos- pitals. This indecent outrage has been deliberately 28 inflicted upon us too long. Have we not a right to protect ourselves against the ravenous dregs of anarchy and crime, the tainted swarms of pauperism and vice Europe shakes on our shores from her dis- eased robes ? When this naked mass of unkempt and priest-ridden degradation, bruised with abuse, festering with ignorance, inflamed with rancor, elated with blind expectations, has sprung on our continent, and turning round, shakes its ofl"cast fetters and rags in one hand, brandishes sword and torch in the other, its eyeballs glaring vindictive rage upon the governments which have expatriated it, — shall we, Avithout the slightest regard to its preparedness, our own safety, or the peace of the world, give this monstrous multitude instanta- neous possession of every political prerogative, letting it storm our ballot-boxes with its drift of mad votes, and fill half our offices with its unnaturalized fanatics "? Our own sons serve an apprenticeship of twenty-one years to republican institutions before they can throw a ballot or occupy an elective seat. Should not the banished insurgents, the honest immigrants, the unfor- tunate exiles, who seek a new home here be willing to undergo a probation in some degree proportionate 1 Above all, should not that foreign spawn, which, with fierce and idiotic stubbornness, persists in remaining foreign in the midst of us, keeping alive all its old clannish peculiarities, and refusing to blend itself, by assimilating processes, with our composite and hos- pitable nationality, — should not this alien horde be compelled to refrain from ruling America until it has become a little Americanized 1 This should be insisted upon, for a few such viperous traitors as those whose incendiary appeals and fiendish curses against their 29 native country have thickened our air ever since they landed — if admitted to influential public posts among us, might transform the Genius of America, now stand- ing tiptoe on the kindling mountains of the West, a halo on his serene forehead, and a peace-branch in his hand, into a stamping Fury, mustering a fleet of war- ships, and foaming through the sea towards the cliffs of England. Not only are we to give a friendly reception to those deprived of what we enjoy, considering them as good as ourselves, and entitled to all our privileges just in the degree that they become a part of our nationality; we may, furthermore, utter the earnest expostulation of our public sentiment against the injustice under which they groan in theii- native countries. But we ought, before doing this, to clear our skirts of the glaring inconsistencies which will provoke retort and rob our appeals of their divine point. And we ought to make our protest in a moral tone, without arrogance or threats. After all, we shall bave to trust for real influence in improving the old world despotisms, to the power of our example. Set before the rulers and their people the example of our exuberant and diffused natural wealth, the rapidity of our unrivalled growth, the self-directing quietude of our prodigious power, our enthusiastic popular patriotism, — set this in significant contrast with their starving poverty, overshadowing alarms, revolutionary outbreaks, compulsory standing armies, general disaffection, and retrogression or paralysis. Let that contrast be seen and felt, and it must work far more mightily than any other agency we can devise. 30 Let not Americans be deceived with the vain notion that by a propagandist war they could overthrow monarchy and estabUsh repubhcanism abroad. While the people in despotic countries are unequally pitted against their prescriptive oppressors and need military help from without, obviously the fit time for a forcible change has not come. Any physical interference on our part, upon whatever pretext, would be equally a mistake and a tragedy. There is hardly a government in the Eastern hemisphere which woidd not, at the first signal of such a thing, join a coalition of crowned heads against us ; and after wading in carnage up to our horses' bridles, we should reap only a disastrous discomfiture. I know the specious plea which may be made, under certain cii-cumstances, in behalf of such an enterprise. I know the attraction with which a generous heart, full of faith and sympathy, will respond to it. The blood must tingle and jump when one of our chivalrous countrymen, in answer to the magic voice of Kossuth, cries : " Unfurl the stars and stripes on the plains of Hungary in front of a hundred thousand American freemen, and then welcome be the armies of perjured Austria to the shock." The soul stirs wildly at the thought. But ah ! the Angel of Humanity would hover o'er the death-strown field, and when the night-damp fell, bedew the mangled forms of her children with her tears. Long enough has this sort of experiment been tried ; long enough have men sought redemption by battle, rending the nations with hate, and baptizing the new-born children of liberty in blood ! Now, let a different course be fully tested. Let us improve the unparalleled oppor- tunity Providence has given us, to try the policy of 31 peace and magnanimous example. From all mortal contests — in the name of righteousness — in the name of humanity — in the name of Christ — in the awful name of God — stand we aloof, henceforth, with clean hands ! If our brethren of the old countries cannot gradually win democratic emancipation by ripening steps of reform, but are compelled to snatch the prize with violence, when, at length, the rising regiments of the populace strike, we shall best keep the laws of wisdom and right, and best subserve the real interests of the world, not by plunging into the murderous struggle, but by tilling our fields and tending our tasks, praying God to preside over the issue which we may not arbitrate, and when the last great tempest of revolution has passed, to span the Eastern firmament with a bright republican bow, like that which soars across our Western. Under the leading of a manifest destiny, fate sitting on our helms, a demonic audacity possessing our wills, inevitable victory following our march, we have already fought no less than seven wars. First we contended with the jealous Aborigines ; secondly with the allied French and Indians ; then with the British, first when we were a colony, afterwards when we were an independent nation ; next with the pirates of Barbary ; then with the despairing Seminoles ; and finally with the weak and bewildered Mexicans. Our cannon have volleyed, our banners have flapped, our sabres have dripped, our bugles have sung triumph, from the wigwams of the Pequot and the fortress of Tripoli, to the swamps of Florida and the heights of Monterey. From the death of king Phillip to the fall of Vera Cruz, our eagle, with fatal swoop and 32 clutch, has pounced on his quarry, and slowly floated off, gorged and incarnadined. Surely we have done enough of this bloody business. It is time we were sick of it. A¥e are strong enough not to fight any more. By straightforward justice, conciliating heed, and intelligent industry, we can amply protect ourselves and conquer opposition. Let us now distrust and chock the passion for military aggrandizement. For the future, let us swear by our altars, our homes, our thriving villages, our fruitful fields, and the lovely canopy smiling over them, that we will cherish peace as the central duty of our posture, and the blessedest boon of Heaven. However numerous and astonishing our victories in the past, however ascendant our fatal- istic star in the present, let us remember it is still recorded in holy writ, that sooner or later " God scatters the jjeople that delight in wary The same extravagant self-estimate, lawless passion, uneasy and audacious vanity, which have been eager for a foreign crusade, have also broken forth in fillibus- tering expeditions, winning favor from a large class of the population. The fact that such forays, insulting the civilization of the century, have been so powerfully aided, so openly applauded, so generally winked at, is disgraceful and ominous. It reflects infamy on our government that an iron hand of suppressal was not promptly laid on these marauding parties. The un- principled characters, the cruel and treacherous conduct of their leaders, are helping to bring on them the odium they deserve. The atrocious violation of all law which they directly propose in their predatory programme, is their unmitigated condemnation. The shocking massacres and utter failure which have 33 resulted thus far, check them for the present. But new expeditions are threatened. The very spirit of the enterprise riots in the breasts of thousands. And unless the indignation of the higher public, or the too long slumbering arm of the executive interfere, we may soon see the tragedy of the last year re-enacted on a vaster scale by a fresh irruption of United States rufRans upon the unhappy fields of South America. If we must have for our own that mighty country, so wretched with misrule, so rich in array of tropical splendors, so neglected and undeveloped, — how much better to win its voluntary entrance. State after State, into our Union, by the overpowering attraction of an example of universal liberty, justice, peace and happi- ness, than to harrass and repel it by sallies of brigands, who track every step of their way with pillage and murder ! Let superior advantages of stable rule, freedom and prosperity, be plainly attainable from annexation to us, and Central America may be drawn to us and absorbed by her own desire. But gangs of outlaws, robbing and claiming by sheer crime and force, will hardly add any more to our territory than they will to our reputation. If henceforward we could so quicken the moral sentiments and sanctify the will of the nation as to curb its rampant pride, prevent filibustering, and avoid Avar, we should escape one of our greatest dangers — an easily besetting clanger, Mhicli has proved the downfall of many a powerful people before us. The next palpable danger of our country is from the prevalence of egotistic demagogues, who crave notoriety and spoils, but care not for principle, the honor of the nation, or the good of the world. Such 5 34 a style of character is apt to appear in leaders and aspirants among a constituency whose ignorance and coarseness, taken with low qualities, make idols of the mere declaimer and braggadocio. This evil is fearfully rife in many parts of the land, and thoughtful men must put forth strenuous efforts against it ; for when the voters, through crudeness of mind and degradation of feeling, select for their offices the showy sophists and rough champions who cater to their prejudices and wheedle their simplicity, then peril is imminent. Between the vile example of immorality and insubor- dination set by those in high places, and the mobocratic spirit in the Sovereign herd below, what can be expected but pitched battles between rival claimants for the functions of favoritism and the emoluments of patronage, and the summary execution of its own behests by every excited multitude ? Herein lies the deadliest foe to a democracy. And when a public functionary, from sinister motives of rewarding partisan service foully rendered, gives an office to a brutal bully — be he the mayor of a city appointing a police- man, or the President of the United States appointing a marshal — he insults the majesty of his prerogative, disgraces himself, and should be smitten M4th popular disapprobation. Whoever in any degree or manner helps to keep alive and pamper the spirit of bludgeonry, is the worst curs^ of his country. Under republican institutions, where equal law has its way, where the free ballot-box can swiftly end any grievance, and establish any right, a resort to insurrectionary violence is absolutely inexcusable. . Whoever, therefore, incites a mob is guilty of the most aggravated offence possible to a citizen. There is no telling where the evil will 35 stop. Every ringleader in such an outbreak deserves instantly to have a bullet in his brain. General culture is the solid foundation beneath free institutions, the guardian wall around them, and the high watchtower upon them ; because, where educated intellect and retined sentiment are prominent traits in electors, they quickly discriminate between the philan- thropic statesman who is to be revered and followed, and the reckless adventurer who would welcome in any form an eruption of the worst passions of the populace, hoping in the confusion to snatch the reins of notoriety, and ride into power ; — between the dema- gogue who flatters and cajoles the people, making use of them to compass his own ends, and the patriot who disinterestedly seeks, by reason and right alone, to enhance the welfare of his countrymen. They accord- ingly take good care to secure for their leaders, teachers and rulers, men of enlarged views, elevated principles, peaceful spirit, honest and generous policy. The eagle is the national symbol, common to both our demagogues and patriots. By stigmatizing every appearance of the demagogue spirit, and applauding every manifesta- tion of genuine patriotism, let us see that our country be truly represented, not by the imperious fierceness of that majestic bird, but by his royal courage ; not by his terrible talons and ravening beak, that drip with the blood of the lamb and the sparrow, but by his peerless eye, that never blenches in the blazing beams, and his wondrous wing, that outwearies the tug of the tempest and sails above the thunder. For the healthy state and adminfstration of affairs in a democratic country, it should be found that the common sentiment is formed and guided by the wisest 36 and best, from above the level, — not by the most conceited and unprincipled, from below it. Scholars, divines, civilians, statesmen, authors — the most compe- tent students of subjects — those whose lives are devoted to moral and intellectual pursuits, in their several spheres, should try to correct and lead, not echo and flatter, public opinion. It is alike shameful and alarming that the press, the pulpit, the forum, are so often occupied by men who, either from want of mind, or from selfish and cowardly subserviency, do not give the direction which is needed, but talxe that which suits the majority. Every man in a public post who falls in with this common meanness and evil, should be hissed from his place, to make way for one of nobler aim and sterner stuff. In this respect it seems as if there were a growing degeneracy among us. Have we not editors, who form no opinion of their own, or, forming one, never stand by it ? Clergymen, who say a man need not follow his sense of right"? Representatives, who make speeches of hollow fustian, cast votes for unqualified infamy, diversify the tedium of Congress by the interpolation of drunken brawls, and profane the steps of the capitol with murderous assaults'? Upon their debauched brows a nation's scorn should be branded while they live, and out of their avoided graves, when they die, nightshade should grow. The indifference of a large part of our popula- tion to the character and fitness of the men they elevate to stations of trust and power is wicked and insane, Its consequences may at any time plunge us headlong into the flaming abyss of civil strife, or the Charybdean jaws of foreign war. Verily a ncAV proclamation is wanted in our national hustings, of what are the first 37 rudiments of morality, manliness, and merit ; affirm- ing in every ear and conscience, what appears not to be understood, that the true qualifications for office are not drunkenness, pugilism, licentiousness, and bribery ; but virtue, intelligence, loyalty, experience and patriotism. Another danger to which we are exposed, is, from the craft and ambition, the stealthy plots and cruel oppressiveness, of the priestly spirit, claiming that its ritual holds the exclusive means of salvation, and that its head is vested Avith supreme authority. We have among us, powerless at present, but diligent, unscru- pulous, selfish and arrogant as ever behind its feigned meekness, sleeplessly biding the time when it may un sheath its claws, and assume total supervision of school, pulpit and press, and make the State its supple instrument — that priesthood, which, wherever it may roam, still preserves its denationalized unity, paying fealty to one celibate old man ; remaining always a separate body in the midst of the people ; seeking its OAvn corporate ends at the expense of every thing else. Romanism is as much a grasping political, as it is an irresponsible spiritual, power. Flourishing best among a people characterized by superstitious peurility of thought and abject dependence of condition, it estab- lishes eternal ignorance and beggardom that it may possess eternal dominion. Its unearthly pretensions and persecuting mind necessarily make it an enemy to the genius of republican institutions ; and it must at any cost be kept from seizing here those coveted privi- leges which it so tyrannically exercises in Catholic countries. Could the prisons of the Papacy this day burst, and show their contents to the light, America 38 would stand aghast at the gigantic cruelty, and oppose, with leaoued conscience and heart, the insinuating advances of so fell and remorseless a power. If it only had authoritative sway, no Protestant teacher or author Avould for a day be allowed to exercise his functions unmolested, nor could the secular govern- ment ever be free from its Jesuitical intrigues and its theocratic assumptions. It has boasted that the Pope shall yet set up his chair on the Pocky Mountains, and it Avill spare no pains to compass that fond consumma- tion. Its propagandist zeal Hits from the damp mould of mediaeval vaults — a helpless and malignant bat — and hangs over the open nest of America in the demo- cratic sunlight of the nineteenth century, from its wings dripping sacerdotal poison on our young eaglets. Let care be taken that neither the papal, nor any other hierarchical priesthood, ever obtains power on these shores to apply the rack and faggot, Avhich are legiti- mate and eternal contents equally of its faith, its logic, and its spirit ! But such are the elastic strength and remedial vitality of our national organism, — such are the con- spiring agencies of providential destiny combined to neutralize the hurts and shocks, and aid the victorious course, of this country, — so irresistibly do our palpa- ble interests, as well as our solemn duties, plead for a policy of internal development by the arts of peaceful industry, casting discredit on the crimson lures of con- quest, — so spontaneously do the affairs of our thrifty and energetic people prosper, whether fostered or neglected by legislation, — so smoothly do the wheels of our governmental mechanism run and achieve its functions, easily recovering from any friction or strain 39 resulting from the carelessness or rashness of unfit overseers, — such a tremendous check and healing power for the abuse and damage inflicted by dema- gogues and traitors, exist in the limited prerogatives and brief tenure of our officials, and in their condign dependence on public opinion and the electoral urn, — and so rootedly averse is the whole genius and opera- tion of our institutions to the domination of a priestly heirarchy whose history is hateful to the mind of democracy, whose antiquated dogmas, heartless for- malism, and Pharisaic haughtiness, are irreconcilable with the fresh thought, practical taste and social generosity of our people, — that America might laugh to scorn all the evils threatened by her irritable, pugilistic pride, by her army of selfish politicians, pledged to mere party, and every four years, clamor- ously knocking at the official doors, as if they were inscribed, " Ask, and ye shall receive," and by the determined encroachments of a cunning sacerdotal ambition — did not that fearful curse and danger, the problem of slavery, lower over the land, the pro- digious horrors its bosom holds big with j^ortents of explosion, the rasping hostilities its relationship engenders charging the sultry atmosphere with angry lightnings of debate. For three-quarters of a century, the constitution has re-enacted for America the part of Amphion, to whose charmed strain the spontaneous stones moved and built the capital of Boeotia. So, to the music of the Union, our more than Theban walls have been rising, and are rapidly building still. On this, the anniversary day of the first triumphant prelude of that edifying music, it were a delightful privilege, if we 40 might, for one hallowed hour, forget every later aliena- tion, turn from every unwelcome sight, listen not to a single dissonant note, but revive the old concord that made our fathers one, and let the souls of our people, from the lumberers of Aroostook to the miners of Mariposa, all flow together in common memories, loy- alties and hopes. Alas, that patriotism, honor and religion should unite to dispel the vision, and forbid the dream ! The fierce clamor of the slaveholding interest for more room, fresh prey, new chains and whips, and a longer lease of power, drowns the voices of the Revo- lutionary Fathers, vilifies the Declaration of Inde- pendence, incenses the country, disgraces the age, and insults the world. The madness of these retrograde fanatics, facing directly into barbaric night, seriously threatens the disruption of our Union, the extinguish- ment of the world's latest, brightest expectations. This is no exaggeration. The infinite wrong the institution of slavery is in itself; the inexpressible wrongs it inflicts on its victims ; the insulting arro- gance it breeds, the deteriorating sloth it pampers, the loathsome lust it inflames and feeds, in the master ; the generous sympathies and moral sentiments it outniges in the contemplator ; — all these facts are neces- sarily fraught with the combustible elements of strife. Besides, the want of educational institutions, of high culture, of difl"used skill and enterprise — a want obviously attendant on Slavery — naturally leads to exhaustion of the soil, decay of wealth, and decrease of society, where it is long established, and so forces it to seek new territory. The North and the West, by their comparative enlightenment, liberty, and progressive 41 thrift, are giixling the South as with a ring of sacred fire. She must either get new hfe and land in Nebraska, Cuba, South America, or else die of inanition. The ruffian clutch on this resource by the Slave States is not more tenacious than the opposition by the Free States to such a profone seizure, is resolved. The contest between the obstinacy and aristocratic passions on one side, the firm convictions and clear lights on the other, is grave already, and more ominous ahead. Under these circumstances, appointed to speak on the Fourth of July to the citizens of Boston, I should deem myself a recreant son of old Massachusetts, guilty of a contemptible trick of cowardice, — the blood of the Fifth of March, 1770, would cry against me from the pavement of yonder street, — did I, while treating of our exposures, evade, through fear of touching a delicate subject, a frank reference to the chiefest evil and alarm of the land. That ostrich- policy, which, amidst thickening sounds of combat and signs of dissolution, hides the head in sandy gen- eralities, and, quietly ignoring the facts, babbles of peace and union, is neither manly nor useful. Far nobler is it, and better, to open the eyes, summon intellect, heart, and conscience to their work, and submit your conclusions with direct candor to the wholesome agitation of criticism and argument. One thing, then, is as sure as the footsteps of destiny, namely, that the battle between Slavery and Freedom in America is irreconcilable. One of the parties must triumph, and one must yield. Which it shall be, and how soon — there all the question lies. Now, while different observers of our national horoscope trace the dim star-runes to different issues — it is thus that, 6 42 earnestly gazing there and listening, I read the scroll of fate and interpret the voice of duty. There are four conceivable modes of action, one of which must be followed, and Ave may take our choice. First : If the Slave States would, as every truth in sound policy, as all calm and devout wisdom, requires, seek, in union with the Free States, by any feasible means, to deliver themselves and the country from the wretched misfortune of negro bondage, we might hon- orably co-operate with them, and bear a generous portion of the pecuniary burden and of the tutoring responsibility. Would to heaven that might be ! But plainly it cannot be at present. Judicial delusion and exasperated obstinacy, prevent it. It can come only, if at all, when accumulated defeat, perplexity, pecuniary ruin and social peril leave the infatuated, baiRed oppressors no other door of relief. Secondly : If the Slave States, confessing the insti- tution to be an unhappy accident, a pernicious mistake, and its removal a desirable consummation, would let it be limited to its present domain, with no effort to for- tify or to spread it, honestly allowing it to gradually ameliorate and diminish before the light of a higher polity, and under the influence of natural causes, the purer instincts of men, the laws of political economy, and the requirements of righteousness, — we might justifiably consent, standing on the provisions of the Constitution, to compromise so far as to wait patiently the time of its legitimate surcease. But how clear it is that in their frenzy they will do nO such thing! Under a perturbed judgment, they are, for the first time, asserting the divine right and benignity of slave- holding, identifying their total welfare with iis contmu- 43 ance, and devoting their entire energies to its diffusion. Day and night they are plotting for new fields, reckless of the means, and devising new entrenchments. With- in the year, with incredible impudence and piratical animus^ they have clamored on the floor of Congress for the legalized reopening of the African slave-trade — the most unrelieved system of robbery, murder, and oppression ever revealed in history. Afhrming the sectionaUsm of Freedom, and the nationality of Slavery, they insist on our complicity with them, commanding us to serve as dogs to hunt and return their panting fugitives. Can we endure this, and sit tamely down, and do nothing to stay the advance of the all-grasping despotism I No, by heaven, no ! It is hard enough to leave the evil alone where it is, until what time its unnourished being might end. But when its support- ers demand more of us than that, they ask too much. We cannot let it tramp over its sectional bounds with obscene hoof to befoul the fountain heads of new States, and roil the silver spring where our national eagle drinks. Thirdly : If the Slave States be suffered to retain the preponderant shaping power which their single- aiming persistency has given them in the government, and to carry their policy through, concentrating the life- passion and stake of the country in Slavery, why then America will inevitably be plunged into the lowest pit of infamy, and thence into bottomless ruin. Demoral- ization, poverty, hostility and contempt from abroad, war, and at last, black destruction, will be unavoid- able consequents. On the other hand, if we, while refusing to submit and go with them, permit them in their selfish revulsion to withdraw from the Union and 44 set lip a separate confederacy, a great Slave Empire covering the southern half of the continent, the terri- ble crisis will not thereby be averted. The conflicting ideas, interests, sentiments, of North and South will then be vastly aggravated, and present restraints no longer be felt. Dislikes will be fomented, jealousies rankle, quarrels occur, and fraternal slaughter unques- tionably close the day. Fourthly : There remains, therefore, but one course for the Free States to follow, and in that course inter- est and duty blend their parallel lines to form a plain path. We must rally in our might at the ballot-box, and assume that controlling power in the national government which properly belongs to us. On the basis of the Constitution, in the spirit of the Fathers, we must organize a party animated by the American ideas of democratic liberty and progress, to take the legitimate supervision of our public policy, and to mould our legislation in such a way as to secure the strict confinement of Slavery to its present possessions, and so to provide for its final abolition. Such a party can be formed in a magnanimous spirit of justice and kindness to all, equally generous to the slaveholder, considerate to humanity, and loyal to God. Its first victory will carry the Declaration of Independence into the sky of the Supreme Court, where each one of its " glittering generalities " will be a bright particular star to guide the oppressed out of their bondage. The Free States are simply called on to unite in one grand party of righteous sentiment, take lawful possession of the executive power, and direct the future conduct, of the country. This power is our right by the demo- cratic rule of majorities, and w^e have been bullied out 45 of it too long ; for the free voters outnumber the slave- holders, ten to one. To wield it is also our duty, because our civilization is higher, our temper purer, than theirs : and the superior ought to govern the inferior. JVe contend by argument, example, and persuasion ; thej/, by knife, pistol, and mob. When we are lifting our marble martyr to his niche on Bunker Hill, the odious slaveholder who forced the Fugitive Slave Bill down our throats, is introduced, with com.])\imeiitn,r J flunkei/ism* in the very shadow of the awful place, and we listen to his haughty-toned commonplaces with respectful patience: thej/ v/Hl not permit a harmless private abolitionist, known to be such, to enter one of their villages, except at the immi- nent risk of outrage and death ; and notoriously there is hardly a slaveholding community in the country where a free word in public on this subject will not raise a mob to hang the speaker on the nearest tree ! Furthermore, the Free States are obligated to rouse and conjoin their forces to snatch the national execu- tive from the slaveholding oligarchy, because other- wise the doom of the Republic is sealed: for lasting peace and safety are wholly impossible, except in the triumph of right and liberty. Then they will be secured ; for we can, if we will, easily wield the pre- rogatives of a ruling majority, and execute the behests of just principles with a high right arm. And it is the only way to save the country. If we unitedly * This phrase was enunciated with emphasis, and was greeted with sharp hisses and overwhelming applause, long-continued and thrice- repeated. When the commotion had subsided, the speaker said : " Those hisses convey both the spirit and the wgument of the Slave-Power and its lovers." 46 resolve upon it, the South will be as impotent to resist right and wise measures, as we shall be able to enforce them, as helpless to destroy, as we shall be competent to preserve, the Union, and to punish every attempt to thwart its great ends. Our duty, accordingly, in rela- tion to Slavery, is, by consolidated voting to shut it within its jail-limits, and cut off its nutriment. Then it will die, and we .shall stand justified. If we do not this, we shall deserve to become a byword and a hissing forever. America is at once the oldest and the youngest of nations. Inheriting the experience of the past, the ages of foregone countries are to be added to hers to date her true longevity. Just started on her career, the first throbbing glow of promise and ambition in her veins, with fuller knowledge, with new elements of success, and under more auspicious conditions than any ever enjoyed before, humanity and the world watch, with unprecedented intensity of interest, the incidents of her course and the goal of her destination. Shall her children fail her now ? O let them see to it that she is represented before the nations in a manner worthy of her peerless endowment and her provi- dential mission. Let not America appear, in genius and posture, a booted and spurred Fillibuster, in tawdry uniform and bristling with weapons ; not a propagandist slave-driver, with slouched garb and furious mien, a whip in one hand, a bowie-knife in the other, the hated renegade of the world ; but a virgin Goddess, newly descended on the summits, olive and sheaf in her grasp, love and futurity in her eye, celestial wisdom on her brow, and the hemisphere at her feet. 47 If all warning omens be neglected, and our really good and able men stand back, refraining from their proper place and part in public affairs, and dema- gogues and mobs be suffered to rule, and fanatics feed their bale-fires, and the war- spirit be nourished, and a foreign clergy carry out their plans, and it be attempted to enlarge and eternize the organic injustice and excite- ment of Slavery — then, just so surely as human nature remains what it always has been, fatal alienations will spring up, public sentiment will be demoralized, and passion will be embittered, till some earthquake of party madness yawns for our fabricated strength, or some volcanic insurrection overwhelms the scene in a deluge of fire and blood. There are lessons for us of this sort in the shuddering annals of the past, which I need not draw ; and portents of dreadful note for us in the dilating controversies and corruption of the present, which I will not describe ; because there are also fair prospects for us in the promising possibilities of the future, to which I eagerly turn, to close in a tone of cheer more befitting this festive day. There is, I believe, a better fate in store for us and our children, than that prophecied by the lugubrious croakers of the time. The day brightens above Kansas. Conscientious citizens are arousing to their duties. The moderates — the golden party of reason, justice and liberty — will overbalance the fevered extremists of both sections, and rally a majority around the genuine mission of our country, inspired with love and resolve to defend from every enemy, within and without, the forlorn cause of free self-government, the precious 48 legacy inherited from all tlie ages gone and now jeop- arded here in this pass of the world. It is in the power of that party, within the present generation, to shape for this continent the stupendous issues of the future ; and they are trying to do it. Be their num- bers reinforced, their zeal augmented. Go, all faithful men, to their side, and labor with heart and hand to conform your country's laws and policy to the ideal standard of domestic righteousness and universal fra- ternity. Looking about your broad home-borders, say to Slavery, Intemperance, Ignorance, and the various shapes of sensualism and sin : " Avaunt ! fell fiends, horrible forms of crime and woe, brooding threats, begone from our coasts ! " Then, gazing across the sea, exclaim with open mien and frank voice : " Though dwelling in a far off isle, We bear no hate to other lands, But think that all the earth might smile If they and we but joined our hands." Let that spirit be cultivated and that work be pur- sued by the mass of the American people, and year after year the results will be seen in the diminution of the evils which now so sadly qualify our honor, our safety and our influence, and in the purification from all its stains of that banner of stripes and stars, whose solemn and splendid folds, streaming from the central mountains, shall yet be reflected at once in the girdling waters of the North, and the East, and the South, and the West ; when this entire continent, untrod by the foot of a Slave, unprofaned by the throne of a Tyrant, unshadowed by the mitre of a Priest, shall be one 49 united nation, poweiful enough to overawe the world in arms, virtuous enough to keep the cardinal laws of God in peace, generous enough to win the grateful love of foreign empires, wise enough to insure the perpetuity of its own bounteous prosperity to the crowding generations which shall successively flourish on its soil, and migrate to its sky. APPENDIX. APPENDIX. After the services in Tremont Temple, a procession was formed and marched to Faneuil flail, where the city authorities and invited guests partook of a dinner. Several sentiments had been offered and responded to. The third regular toast was then read. [From the Report in the Bee.] Our Country — Holding in her hands the banquet of Liberty, and inviting all, of whatever nation or degree, to partake of it. This was followed by vociferous applause, the band playing " Hail Columbia." Col. Isaac Hull Wright Avas called upon to respond, and was greeted with applause. COL. WRIGHT'S SPEECH. He was glad that the bright star of Columbia was still visible. He believed and rejoiced that we still have a country, though at one time to-day. while listening to the orator of the day, he thought, from the dark picture drawn, we were to have no country. But the sentiments on this occasion, and the hearty manner in which they had been greeted, assured him that " Hail Columbia " was still a tune dear to their hearts. He believed that the declaration of principles read to-day was as appropriate now as when made by our ancestors. One of the chief grievances in that declara- tion was restrictions upon naturalization. Col. Wright did not believe in placing new restrictions upon foreignei's coming to oui- shores. He thought five years a full period of probation, and long enough to make good and acceptable citizens of all. If we had any fears for the errors of bigotry and religious corrup.io.i from abi-oad, the remedy and safeguard was to be Ibund in our common schools. With this weapon we could combat the errors of bigotry. There had been much talk, said Col. Wright, about natives having to go through a probation of twenty-one years. He denied this. For instance, is the child of a year's giowth under probation when it is sucking and puking in its mother's arms ? Is the boy who has fired off crackers to-day, experiencing probation V He said a boy does not bej^in to arrive at manhood until he is eighteen years of age, then he has only three years probation before he comes into the full enjoyment of all political privileges. The foreigner was e([aally as well prepared and as justly entitled to those privileges after five years 54 probation. What, ho would ask, did we want — do we want foreigners to return to their second infancy here, in this land of freedom? Passinfi; from his anti- American sentiment, he proceeded to lecture the people upon slavery. He reviewed the position taken by the orator of the day, and enlarged upon the subject at some length. His allusions to Mr. Alger were received with hisses and cheers, as were also many of his pro- slavery doctrines. In conclusion. Col. Wright gave as a sentiment the chorus of one of the Odes sung at the Tremont Temple : — " The Union, one and all and all as one, Olnsrered State-s, jour high course run! Hold jour safeguard still in sight — Uuiou, Order, God and Kight." Fourth regular toast. The Orator of till' Day. — With the eloquence of a TuUy. and the Patriotism of a Cato, he unites the philanthropy of a Howard, and the purity of a Christian. This was received with prolonged cheering, followed by a vohmtary from the band. On rising. Rev. Mr. Alger was welcomed by enthusiastic applause, which lasted some minutes. REV. MR. ALGER'S SPEECH. He said he hardly knew how to respond to the sentiment which had been greeted with such generous and emphatic applause. Gratefully acknowledging the compliment, he would lie liap])y if he could think it deserved. Eloquence, which had been attributed to him, was one of the rarest gift" conferred by Heaven and labor on man. The men, flippantly called eloquent, were as thick in our public assemblies as dew drops on t!ie grass ; those really so were as solitary as the sun in the sky. For wliat was eloquence ? It was first to feel an inspiration above the level of vulgar life, and then to impart It to others. " Wit chai'ms the Fancy, Wisdom guides the Sense; To make men nobler— that is Kloquence." But there was one particular in which, with due qualification of degree, he might admit the justice of the sentiment. When Roman liberty was imperilled in the house of its friends and the mob of its foes, Tully fear- lessly spoke in defence of it. So he had done to-day ; and he demanded fjr it, no censure, but plaudits. In reference to misrepresentations of his address and the personalities indulged in by several of the preceding speakers, he said, playfully, that he thought it hardly fair that so many men of prowess and weight should together pounce on one poor little fellow, and he a man of peace, and tear him all to pieces. To be sure they had not called him by name, but tiie allusions were quite perspicuous. He thought he knew what was meant. As when a schoolmaster flung an inkstand at a pupil's head, saying " do you understand me now," the boy replied, " I've got an inkWng of what you mean " In speaking on the subject of the country's dangers, how could he avoid dealing with the problem of slavery V This was undoubtedly the chiefest curse and peril of the land, the terrible contro- versies it provokes alone seriously threatening our national life and progress. He had not advocated disunion, as one speaker, in a roundabout way, hxd seemed to imply. He had merely pointed out what he believed was the only possible way to save the Union forever. In doing this he had 55 s'lmpl}' exercised liis I'ight and discliarged liis duty as a citizen, a Christian and a man — and he woukl do it again. He Avonld not yield to any man in his love tor the Union, and his esti- mation of its importance to our welfare and the good of the world. It was therefore that he desired to see it delivered from the evils which threatened to destroy it. Tiiere might be honest differences of opinion ; he had honestly uttered his. For the very reason that we were citizens not onlj- of Massachusetts, but also of the M'hole united country, we were mortified with the shames, elated with the prides, responsible for the wrongs, bound up in the weal and woe, of all parts of it. The Free States — partly with justice, and partly with injustice, — bear the odium attached in the public opinion of the world to the Slave States. Our State freedom and National Union was a unicpie tiling in human history, and was not fairly appreciated abroad. We had a component independence, yet an organic unity ; we were many in the unshackled motions of self-rule and self-enjoyment, but one in the confederate league of the Constitution, and the serried posture of defence. Each stands distinct in peace — let war dismay, The multitude of States in union blend; So varying tints in tranquil sunshine pl.iy, But form one iris if the storm descend. And fused in light against the clouds that lower, yorbid the deluge, while ihey own the shower. Mr. Alger said he had often wished to see one addition upon our country's banner — the solemn and immaculate face of Washij\'GTOn painted there, encircled by the constellation of the Union, lending its majestic morality and invincible might to the national ensign. For with that serene and victorious countenance engraved on its folds, could it ever be lifted above an unjust cause'? Streaming at the head of a rightful one, could it ever go down or be turned back ? Sooner should sun and moon fly from their socketed orbits. Mr. Alger closed by thanking his fellow-citizens for the honor they had done him and offered the following sentiment: — The A7nerican Flag, with its emblematic blue, red and white 1 Unfurled in the name of God, emblazoned with the face of Washington, and upborne in the spirit of itight, it shah be, to friends, mild as its azure; to foes, terrible as its lightning ; to citizens, eternal as its stars. MEETING OF THE BOARD OF ALDERMEN, July 6. [From the Report in the Transcript.] Votes of Thanks were passed to Rev. J. M. Manning, chaplain, John Quincy Adams, reader of the Declaration of Independence, the marshals, choir, C. F. Barnard and the escort, for their services upon the Fourth of July. Alderman Bonney moved a reconsideration of the vote, in order to move an amendment, to include the orator. Rev. Wm. R. Alger. He thought it no more than proper that such a course should be pursued. Not that he sympathized with all the sentiments which he chose to utter, but because it would be manifestly improper to make him an exception to tiie rule that has been universal from the beginning, and to do it upon grounds which were just as applicable to gentlemen who have preceded him, whose ad- 56 dresses were as much against the feelings of the members of the govern- ment, and against the proprieties of the occasion, as this. To make him a mark, for no other reason than because he did not square vith our indi- vidual views, would be, not only injudicious, but unjust — and putting our- selves in the same position as he put himself in taking so extraordinary a course. He hoped, therefore, that the motion to reconsider Avould prevail, when he should move to include an order tendering thanks to tlie Rev. Mr. Alger, with tlie usual recpiest to have it printeil. He was willing that his vote should go upon the record, and stand by the side of the oration. jNlr. Alger might take the credit of his oration and he would take the credit of his vote. Alderman Frost said : I never will embrace an opportunity to abuse a man behind his back, or to say any thing unkind. I do not thank any man for improving an opportunity, either in the pulpit or elsewhere, to abuse me and my brethren, where I have no opportunity to reply. I see in the papers a printed copy (said to be) of the oration which was deliv- ered on Saturday. There is not one of these printed ones which is a cor- rect copy of the oration as it was delivered. Some of the most objection- able part of it, has been, for some reason or other, omitted. Now my view of the whole matter is, that that gentleman is nor, entitled to the thanks of the city government, nor entitled to any compliment from us, for embracing an opportunity like that of the anniversary of our national birthday, to throw into the faces of the people of Boston, or a city govern- ment of Boston, made up of all parties acting for the public good, meeting on common ground to celebrate a national birthday, — I care not who embraces such an opportunity, or such an occasion to set forth his own peculiar political views, where there is no opportunity of a reply. And therefore, I cannot, under any circumstances, vote any compliment to any man who delivers such a discourse. I have nothing to say about Mr. Alger, — nothing unkind to say behind his back, were he present I should say a great many hard things. If we let him alone, and let the subject jiass, we shall have done our duty. Alderman Wightman said he was not willing to endorse the oration of Mr. Alger, by vote of thanks or otherwise. He would not seem to endorse any thing which is insulting to those whom we are taught to respect. There was no necessity of travelling out of the legitimate path of patriotism to vilify men who stand high in the community, like Robert C. Winthrop and Edward Everett, names which would live long after Mr. Alger's is dead and forgotten. The oration was also insulting to the body by which he was invited to make it. He was invited to deliver an address carrying out the views of the Declaration of Independence. AVas the subject so threadbare that he need take up a hackneyed abolitio!. sentiment and speak an hour upon that '? — making an oration filled with Garrisonian platitudes. He would never sanction the printing of that document in any way. The yeas and nays were then taken on the question of reconsidera- tion, with the following result: — Yea — Alderman Bonney. Nui/s — Alderman B.-ewster, Dlngley, Hatch, Frost, James, Nute, Pierce, Rich and Wightman. Absent — Aldermen Carter and Sumner. So the reconsideration was refused. The Board then adjourned. 57 MEETING OF THE COMMON COUNCIL. July 9th. [From the Report ia the Journal.] T/ie Tliaiiks aj'thc Cit)/ Council. — Among the papei's which came from the Board ot" Aldei'men for eoncuri'ent action, were the resolves tendering the tlianks of the City Council to the chaplain, reader of the Declaration of Independence, the chief marshal of the day and his assistants, Capt. Rogers, of the Boston Light Lifantry, his officers and men, Rev. Mr. Bar- nard, &c., all of which passed in concurrence without a dissenting voice, excepting the resolve relating to the chaplain and reader, when Mr. IIaukis, of Wai-d 5, moved to amend by inserting " Rev. W. R. Alger, the orator of the day." Mr. Dressek, of Ward 4, suggested that the amendment would be more appropriately met thi'ough an independent ordei", but the mover of the amendment took no notice of the suggestion. On motion of Mr J. B. Richardson, of AVard 11, the yeas and nays were ordered on the amendment. At this stage of proceedings, Mr. Harris, of Ward 5, stated that he should have been happy to accept the suggestion of the gentleman from Ward 4, but he was de:;idedly in favor of passing a vote of thanks to the orator, for the reason that that gentleman had been invited by tlie commit- tee of the Common Council to deliver an oration, without any dictation or suggestion as to his subject, and in complying with that invitation, the orator acted as an individual, and took upon himself the i-esponsibility of selecting his own subject; and it was ibr the public to judge respecting its merits. If for no other reason, as a matter of courtesy a vote of thanks should be passed to him. Custom, tor years, ever since the city was estab- lished, has made it a rule to return a vote of thanks to the individual delivering the oration on the anniversary of American Independence, and whatever the sentiments contained in the oration, the whole responsibility rests on the orator who uttered them. He would not at this time, said the gentleman, express his own private views or convictions of the right or Avrong about the matter; but he would say that when he came where he then stood, he came with the understanding that there was to be no party feeling, and he believed the vote of thanks was due to the oi-ator. Inas- much as he had performed a duty which he had been called upon by the City Council to perform. Mr. PoxD, of Ward 2, regretted that the gentleman from Ward 5 hatl not fallen in with the suggestion of the gentleman fi-oiu War.l -1, and expressed the opinion that no one would for a moment doubt the propriety of passing the resolve as it comes from the upper branch, for the reason, that if the resolve was passed with the amendment proposed, there was not the least probability that in its amended form, it would meet with any favor in the Board of Aldermen. Mr. Pond, of Waixl 5, stated that so far as his experience went, there had always been a separate resolve in favor of the orator, and that the matter now was taking an extraordinary course. One word occurs, said he, in the resolve, relating to the chaplain and reader, which, if the amendment to incorporate die orator's name In that resolve should be adopted, would seem to be entirely erroneous, and that word was, " appj-o- priate." So far as the purpose of the amendment was concerned, it was peculiarly unfortunate that that word should have been inserted in the resolve, for no one could endorse It. The question on the amendment proposed by Mr. Harris, of Ward 5, was then taken, and the amendment was rejected by the following vote : — 8 58 Yeas — Messrs. Bailey, Bryant, Harris — 3. KaifS — Messrs. Birry, Bi-adford, Col)l>, Daltmi, Damrell, Dresser, Emer- son, Faxon, Fonl, French, (xibson, Hale, Jos-