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C139 
 
 Tlie Hand of God in American History. ^^ 
 
 DISCOURSE 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE 
 
 \qM €\\m\i ^ucscbidc, %. %, 
 
 JULY r, iSGi; 
 
 ALSO BEFORE THE UNITED 
 
 IIIIMY mm\ OF III MPfi ITITSlIi 
 
 FAIRFAX, VT., JULY 15, 1861. 
 
 Rev. JOHN F. BTGELOW. 
 
 ^|jY»V--i^ -VA.A* '* 
 
 BURLINGTON : 
 
 W. U. & C. A. nOYT & CO., TKIMTEKS 
 
• Q 
 
 Keeseville, July 10, 18G1. 
 Eov. J. F. BiGELOw : 
 
 Bear Sir — We, the undersigned, liaving listened 
 M'itli very great satisfaction to your able and instructive dis- 
 course 01 last Sabbath evening, on the War Crims, and being 
 desirous that it may have a very general circulation, most 
 respectfully solicit a copy for publication. 
 
 EespectfuUy yours, 
 H. A. Houghton, Silas Arnold, L. L. Scribner, 
 
 J, D. KiXGSLAXD, 0. IvEESE, Jr., J. N. Macomber, 
 
 Charles Thomas, A. B. Kixgslaxd, Willis Mould, 
 
 0. C. Bingham. 
 
 New Hampton Institution, 
 Fairfax, Vt., July 18, 1861. 
 Rev. J. F. BiGELOw : 
 
 Dear Sir — At a meeting of the United Societies, 
 on motion of Mr. L. B. Hibbard, 
 
 Voted, That we present Rev. J. F. Bigelow, of Keeseville, 
 N. Y., our thanks for his able and a^yprojmafe address, deliv- 
 ered before us July 15, 1861, and request the publication of 
 the same. 
 
 W. C. GUNN, ] c 
 
 T u e " Secretaries. 
 
 L. B. &TEELE, J 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 Having received the above requests that the following 
 Discourse on the Hand of God in American History should be 
 published, it/is accordingly given to the Press. Though 
 deeply conscious of the deficient manner in which it is pre- 
 sented, yet I cannot but think that the Theme is one, at this 
 time, of momentous importance. It takes a point of view 
 from which, at this crisis, I would that all our citizens should 
 contem2:)late our national affairs. 
 
 JOHN F. BIGELOW, 
 Pastor of the Baptist Church, 
 
 Keeseville, N. Y. 
 
DISCOURSE. 
 
 If we look into the History of 'Nail om^, we shall find 
 that not a few of them supposed themselves to be the si^e- 
 cial favorites of Divine ProvideDce. If we inquire also into 
 the state of national feeling, as it now exists in diiferent 
 countries, we shall find, in numbers of them, r.o lack of 
 j)resent evidences of the same assumption. 
 
 I hardly need to saj, so obvious is the truth, that in 
 general the source of such an impression has been and is, 
 an overweening national vanity. Were it necessaiy to 
 furnish illustrations of this feeling, we could point not only 
 to Ancient Greece and Ivome, whose real superiority might 
 be some justification of their exalted self-estimate; but 
 we could ptoint to the line of the proud Pharaohs, and to 
 almost every Asiatic nation, whether of the past or of the 
 present, particularly to China and Japan, whose matchless 
 conceit utters itself in grandiloquence most pompously 
 and ineffably absurd ; we could point to the subjects of 
 the Russian Autocrat, to the valorous but boastful sons of 
 Gaul and Britain, and find in each of these examples of 
 national arrogance. JSTor are these all ; if the statements 
 of Historians and Travellers are to be credited, we could 
 refer to some of even the most inconsiderable and abject 
 tribes, and find among them specimens of vain-glory as in- 
 ordinate, and of self-conceit as supercilious as are any- 
 where to be found. Entertaining such exaggerated views 
 
of its own importance, it is but natural that each ol these 
 nations should regard itself as a special object of Provi- 
 dential interest, and therefore as possessing a S2Mcial His- 
 tory. 
 
 That the Jews regarded their history as peculiar and 
 even unparalleled, is evident because they said so : " Ho 
 hath not so dealt with any nation." ISTor will any one, 
 who is acquainted with the facts of their history, regard 
 such a view, on their part, as an assumption. Does the 
 story of other nations tell of remarkable events, of hair- 
 breadtli escapes, of wonderful deliverances, of daring ex- 
 ploits and grand achievements? The annals of the Israel- 
 ites relate those, the equal of which veritable history no 
 where else records, and which the most romantic legend 
 has hardly surpassed. 
 
 In the case of the American people, as in that of the 
 Jews, we believe that it is no dictate of national vanity, 
 when we cUiim that God has given us a history xiniqae 
 and 2JCculiar : when we claim tliat " He hath not so dealt 
 with any nation." 
 
 Accordingly the subject, on wliicli I propose to address 
 you at this time is, the Hand of God in American History. 
 
 I. In the first place, let me point you to some of the jnan- 
 ifestations and developements of peculiar Providential 
 agency in our liistorical career. 
 
 1. At the outset, one illustration of God's Providence 
 working in our history, and one which should not be over- 
 looked, I find in the character and peculiarities of the 
 country to which our ancestors were conducted, and wdiich, 
 as a nation, we occup3\ 
 
 ISTo one, who is at all acquainted with tlie labors of Pit- 
 tor, Humboldt, Gnyot and others in the department of 
 physical study, will fail to recognize the relations of Geog- 
 rapliy to History ; no sucli one, we think, will doubt, that 
 
the structure of Continents has can important part to per- 
 form in tlie education and developement of nations. Di- 
 vine Providence has assigned to every liistorical people a 
 special geographical locality, thus determining "the 
 bounds of their habitation." As it was therefore with the 
 great Empires of the East, as it was in later days with 
 Greece and Eome, as it is now with the nations of modern 
 Europe, so have we received a geographical position ap- 
 propriate to our character and historical functions as a 
 People. Accordingly it was not an inconsiderable island 
 like England or Ireland, which God had prepared as the 
 refuge and home of the exiled Puritans. It was not some 
 ])ent-up nook of Europe already occupied, and even sioarm- 
 ing with nations, where they would be hennned in by 
 jealous and encroaching neighbors. It was not a country 
 like Switzerland, to which God sent our ancestors ; a 
 country which, though beautiful by its sweet valleys, and 
 sublime by its Alps and Glaciers, is nevertheless limited 
 in extent, surrounded on all sides by dominant nations, and 
 without outlet to the sea, by which, through commerce 
 and navigation, it could go forth to influence the world. 
 It was not to such as these, but to a widely extended con- 
 tinent, which, however it may have been visited by Scan- 
 dinavian navigators in distant centuries, was kept hidden 
 from the civilized world until the close of the lifteenth 
 century ; God thus preserving it from the occupancy of 
 rapacious gold-seekers, adventurous Colonists and ambi- 
 tious Kings ; it was, to a continent possessing an adapted 
 soil and climate, a land rich in vegetable productions and 
 mineral resources ; it was to a land whoso coast is inden- 
 ted with numerous bays and harbors, thus fitting it for 
 foreign commerce, and whose broad lakes and long rivers 
 aflbrd the most extensive facilities for inland navigation ; 
 it was to a country exhibiting every variety of natural as- 
 
poet, fi'om the -wiklcst inoVintain sccnciy to tlio most pleas- 
 ing rural landscape ; to a country stretching from the At- 
 lantic to the Pacific, from the frigid regions of the British 
 Provinces in the north, to the sunny plains of Mexico in 
 the south ; to a country of which lai-ge portions are so fer- 
 tile, that it may be called the (jardcn of the world ; while 
 the principal part of the remainder yields to labor, bring- 
 ing forth, by skilful cidtiva^ion, abundantly, or at least 
 sufficiently, for all the exigences of a vigorous, working 
 ])opulation ; it was to a country furnishing facilities to the 
 frugal, industrious and cnei'getic, and it ought to furnish 
 them to no others, for almost every kind of business and 
 pursuit, agricultural, mauulactm-ing and commercial ; it 
 was to one whose " characteristic is simplicity, unity, ''"'^ 
 the last of the " three historical continents ;" it was to a 
 land forming an indivisible domain, " where all the peoples 
 of Europe may meet together with room enough to move 
 in, may commingle their efforts and their gifts, and carry 
 out upon a scale of grandeur hitherto unknown, the life- 
 giving principle of modern times, the principle of free as- 
 sociation.''' 
 
 Such is the country to which Divine Providence led our 
 forefathers in order to plant this great nation. 
 
 ISTor was it unwittingly and blindly that he conveyed 
 them here. It was to such a country that he led them, a 
 land so ample, so distinguished by natural advantages that 
 our people might be, to a great degree, independent or 
 self-dependent ; that our population might be nnmerous ; 
 that it might be in the main homogeneous; that our na- 
 tionality might be bold, strong and influential ; that our 
 numerous citizens, occupying one compact and connected 
 territory-, might be formed under the same influences ; that 
 tliov miirht live under the same iz-overnmcnt and institu- 
 
 *(Ji:yofs Eartb and J'ai. ra^^e 297. 
 
tlons, both civil and religious ; and tluit thus living on 
 one connected soil, and thus subjected to one class of inliu- 
 ences, instead of being dispersed as distant and dissimilar 
 piovincials, the}^ might become essentially component 
 ]>arts of one great social and political unity. Had our po}>- 
 ulation been scattered in renjote dependences, or had tluit 
 population been numerically small, vre should have had 
 neither the assimilated character nor the aggregate sub- 
 stance for strong national iulluence. God then has given 
 lis an ample and consolidated country, for in nunibers and 
 identity of character, are to be found the materials and 
 forces of our luitional power, political and moral. 
 
 2. Another developement of God's Providence, as 
 dealing peculiarly with our nation, is to be found in the 
 Colonial period of its history.* 
 
 God is in history, and he who fails to discover Him in 
 it, does not read it rightly : does not seize and appreciate 
 its true spirit. To j^^roiJ^? these stateinents is no pai-t of my 
 work at this time, for I regard myself as speaking not to 
 skeptics, but to believers*in the doctrine of Divine Provi- 
 dence. I repeat then, God through Christ is in all his- 
 tory ; and He is in it working out great princixjles. At 
 Q,\QY^ evolution He exhibits some important truth ; He is 
 in it all, advancing the great objects of human good and 
 His own glory. 
 
 I do not mean to say, however, that the process of his- 
 torical developement proceeds directly forward without 
 interruption. I do not mean to say that the stream of 
 history flows ever onward, encountering no obstacles, de- 
 scribing no meandei'ing movements. Temporary suspen- 
 sions there inay be, or at least they appear to be. Such 
 an apparent suspension there was of the great develope- 
 
 *This division of the discourse, fr jm the lateness of the hour, was omitted at 
 Fairfax. 
 
]noiit of history In the mediaival Ages. During tin's long 
 period there was little apparent advancement. God's 
 purposes, however, even then^ were doubtless advancing 
 towards their maturity, though by a hidden process ; and 
 that periodi^as well as previous and succeeding ones, sub- 
 served, without doubt, some end in the far-reaching econ- 
 o\\\j of His designs ; jnst as winter with all its snow, ice 
 and cold is conducive to vegetation. Though there is the 
 outivard semblance of death, ISTaturc is not then dead nor 
 inactive; she is elaborating those juices, and going for- 
 ward with those processes that are essential to the beauty 
 and verdure of the following spring. Accordingly there 
 is reason to believe that the winter of the dark Ages was 
 not totally lost time as regards the prosecution of God's 
 groat purposes in human history. 
 
 The argument, moreover, is not one from analogy mere- 
 ly. That this period had its uses, however dreary and 
 barren it may seem to us, is probable also because the hu- 
 man mind was not then torpid. Though seemingly fruit- 
 less in important results, yet its action was oftentimes in- 
 tense. Do you inc[uire for the proof cf this ? you have 
 only to study the history of scholasticism ; you have only 
 to feel the mental pulse of such men as Peter Lombard, 
 Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus and Wil- 
 liam Occam ; you have only to witness that sturdy, intel- 
 lectual gladiatorship, which appears in the contests of the 
 l^ominalists and Realists. Though their philosophy may 
 be characterized and perhaps justly as " scholastic subtil- 
 ty " and " scholastic trifling," yet there w\as in it intense 
 thinking. Nor was that thinking merely abstract and 
 metapliysical, it was practical and religious. Tendencies 
 had long been astir, looking to a new order of things. As 
 the dawn comes before the day, announcing and ushering 
 it in ; as some mild days precede the spring softening the 
 
9 
 
 rigors of winter and preparing for the vernal cliange, so 
 the Reformation had its precursors and preparatives. 
 Ullmann, indeed, has given the christian world a history of 
 the " Keformers before the Reformation." 
 
 By and by, however, the " fulness of time " had come, 
 and the scene changes. Borrowing the idea of Sch^egler, 
 when Nominalism had separated thonght from being, and 
 divorced the theological from the practical, then the reli- 
 gions consciousness of the age hroke with the traditional 
 dogma, which rupUire constituted the Reformation. The 
 long winter of Mediaeval Scholasticism and Catholicism 
 broke up when tlie spring of the Reformation, jJi'cviously 
 heralded, actually came. Then the ice and snow melted 
 away, or rather much of it molted, for it is sad to see, that, 
 on the soil of the Reibrmation, one encounters still not un- 
 frequent masses of traditional ice, which the sun of Pro- 
 testantism has not yet dissolved. At the Reformation, 
 however, the human mind, so long comparatively station- 
 ary, started forward by a surprising progress. Yet that 
 progress, great as it was, was far in the rear of the point 
 which has been reached by the Christian civilization of 
 to day. 
 
 The Reformation dates back almost to the period when 
 Columbus discovered the new world. Luther had discov- 
 ered, too, a new worldm. Theology ; and these two events, 
 the most important in modern times, are intimately con- 
 nected in their bearings upon American history. The God 
 of Providence had thus connected them, in order to bring 
 out, according to His own plan, the development of His 
 purposes. 
 
 Yet, though the Reformation was thus early in its oc- 
 currence, and thus important in its character, it did not, 
 as already intimated, reach its present stage of advance- 
 ment until after the tardy lapse of years. The steps of 
 
 2 
 
10 
 
 constitnti'onal liberty liave always been slow, becanse its 
 course has always been an np-hill one. Long was it be- 
 fore the idea of complete religions freedom was attained. 
 Hence, even down to the latter half of the seventeentli cen- 
 tury, we find the Chnrcli of l^Jngland publishing the acts 
 of uniformity, thus driving from her bosom hundreds and 
 thousands of the best of her sons, both Ministers and Lay- 
 men. It is only to indicate the spirit of the age, and not 
 for purposes of sectarian depreciation, that we allude to 
 this fact. 
 
 The Keformation, however, was destined to advance a 
 second step, appearing under iijm7'er form, and on a differ- 
 ent soil. To escape from religious intolerance, a body of 
 English Dissenters, reproachfully termed Puritans, were 
 seen flying first to Holland, and then to these American 
 shores, which Providence, by means of the Genoese navi- 
 gator, had opened just before the dawn of the Reforma- 
 tion, as a theatre on which to make a new development 
 of the christian and social economy. God had prepared 
 this w'estern wilderness as an asylum for liberty and re- 
 ligion, escaping from the persecution and oppression 
 of the Old "World. Thus exiled and escaping. Divine 
 Providence watched and guided their flight. He pre- 
 served the Mayflower in her perilous passage. At 
 length He gave to that intrepid company upon her deck, 
 to land upon the rock of Plymouth. By means of a pesti- 
 lence, which had cut off large numbers of the aboriginal 
 inhabitants, He had already prepared a place for them, to 
 which the friendly Samoset bade them welcome. Win- 
 ter reigned with its stern rigors. Sickness and death were 
 abroad in their ranks. Carver, chosen before they landed, 
 to be their Governor, was, together with his sons and wife, 
 already in his grave. A Historian of the Colony tells us 
 that, " at one time, every person in the settlement except 
 EeveUj was on a sick bed."^ Withal, the hostility of the 
 
11 
 
 savages hourly threatened their destruction ; for, althongli 
 the Wampanoags entered into a friendly treaty with 
 them, the Narragansetts looked upon them as intruders. 
 In token ot the doom which they might expect, Canoni- 
 cus sends to Badford, the successor of Carver, a bundle of 
 arrows wrapped in a rattle-snake's skin. 
 
 Under circumstances such as these, M'hat could there be 
 before them, but speedy destruction ? To the human eye, 
 what prospect could be gloomier ? What other dark prog- 
 nostic is needed to foreshadow their fate ? Yet strano;e to 
 say all auguries fail here ; all principles of human calcula- 
 tion, for once, prove false. And why? becanse God's 
 Providence comes in among them disturbing and arran- 
 ging to suit its own ends. That little band of Pilgrims are 
 preserved l)ecause God has great uses to make of them in 
 future histoiy. Hence neither cold 2ior sickness nor star- 
 vation were permitted utterly to waste them, nor the sav- 
 ages to cut them off. Though by these destroj'ing agents 
 their numbers were greatly thinned, yet God did not suf- 
 fer them to become extinct. Through these Puritans He 
 intended to realize, in the form of permanent institutions, 
 ideas of religion and government which the majority of 
 mankind but imperfectly understood, which they were 
 poorly prepared to appreciate, and which they were but 
 little disposed to promote, but which, being essential to 
 the true development of humanity, were wrapped up in 
 the Divine purposes. A decade of years passed on ; Salem, 
 Charlestown, Dorchester, Roxbury, Watertown, Cam- 
 bridge and Boston, are settled ; trade is opening with the 
 mother countiy ; the foundations of a permanent Colony 
 are laid. 
 
 Such is the beginning of our national history. It was 
 the Puritanic element, which supplied the characteristic 
 spirit in our civilization. True it is that as early as 1607, 
 a settlement was formed in Virginia; but it was not of a 
 
12 
 
 material fit for use in God's plan of American Ilistorj. 
 Says Bancroft, " it was not the will of God that the new 
 State should be formed of such material ; that such men 
 should be the fathers of a progeny born on the American 
 soil, who were one day to assert American liberty by their 
 eloquence and defend it by their valor." About the time, 
 however, of the landing of the Pilgrims, the Yii-ginia Colony 
 had so changed in substance, that it was adapted to become 
 an organic part of our historical development. The popula- 
 tion of New Netherlands, JSTew Sweden and Pennsylvania 
 either was already sufficiently assimilated, or soon became 
 enough so to enter, as constituent elements, into our 
 American ISTationality. 
 
 Looking back now over the centur}^ that had elapsed 
 since 1517, and calling to mind the state of things then 
 existing in Europe, we see that encouraging progress had 
 indeed been made. Still some of those principles, which 
 began to be evolved at the time of Luther, had as yet been 
 but very imperfectly wrought out. Among these was that 
 of religious Liberty. Should any of my observations at 
 this point seem to detract a little from the fall meed of 
 praise sometimes given to the Puritans, I need only to 
 reply, that they were men of a style of character so rich in 
 noble qualities and manly virtues, that they can afford the 
 statement of whatever deficiencies appeared in them, better 
 perhaps than any class of men, of which history informs us. 
 Some panegyrists of theirs have seemed to think it necessary 
 to defend them from every possible charge of defect, fearing 
 that otherwise their reputation will suffer; but they need 
 not such defenders. Tlie Puritans were men, if there are 
 any such, whose reputation will take care of itself. 
 
 Much was gained for religious Liberty, when Luther first 
 "broke" with the traditional dogmatism of the Papal 
 Church : much was gained again when the Puritans " broke" 
 
13 
 
 with tlie Cliurclilj antliority, which thc}^ had left in Eng- 
 land. A third "break" was now needed; and it was one 
 with themselves. The ])rinciple of religions Liberty re- 
 maining still in a backward state, reqnired a clear elimina- 
 tion and a decisive statement. To effect this there mnst 
 be another exodns from religious intolerance, not indeed 
 across an ocean : not to a foreign slioi'e ; but from one 
 portion of our American soil to another. The man to meet 
 this emergency was Roger Williams : a man of noble type, 
 of singular magnanimity, of conscientious firmness, of in- 
 trepid spirit, and though not without his defects, yet of 
 remarkable breadth and vigor of moral and intellectual 
 character, and in some respects entitled to stand as the 
 foremost man of his time. For the sake of freedom to fol- 
 low the course of his earnest and independent convictions 
 of religious duty, he must fly from Massachusetts into the 
 depths of the wilderness. After many perils escaped, after 
 many privations and sufferings endured, after fourteen 
 weeks of forest wanderings through the snows of a hard 
 winter, " not knowing what bread or bed did men," yet 
 watched by the eye, and guided and girded by the hand of 
 that Providence, which was fi.tting him for his work, he 
 became, in 103G, the Founder of the State of Rhode Island. 
 Thus this Pioneer of religious Liberty established that 
 Commonwealth, which, first of all the Governments on the 
 face of the globe, furnished an example of unconditional 
 toleration in matters of Religion. Thus he realized, for the 
 first time, that grand idea — the freedom of religious opin- 
 ion, — the carrying out of which has not been the sole dis- 
 tinction of the State where it originated, but in respect to 
 the rest of the Vv'orld, has become the peculiar glory of the 
 country of which that little State forms territorially so in- 
 considerable a part. The eye that sees no indications of a 
 Divine Providence working in these historical developments 
 is one which, though it can " discern the face of the sky," 
 
u 
 
 cannot " di'scern the sigRS of the tunes." So deeply was 
 Eoger Williams impressed with such an Agency in his 
 affairs, tliat, in recognition of it, the settlement which he 
 had just founded he called Providence. 
 
 The germs of the National life already begin to appear; 
 the tree of Liberty is taking root. Harvard College was 
 soon instituted, " which exerted a powerful iniiuence in 
 forming the early character of the country" ; and in respect 
 to which, since it was the first educational expression of the 
 Nation's intellectual spirit, of which our many other honor- 
 ed Colleges and Literary Listitutions are also a product, 
 they might say, without any self-detraction, she is " the 
 Mother of us all." The foundation of our Common School 
 system was soon laid " to the end," in the Umguage of the 
 Puritans, " that learning might not be buried in the graves 
 of their forefathers." It was ordered in all the Colonies 
 " that every township, after the Lord hath increased them 
 to "the number of fifty householders, shall appoint one to 
 teach all children to write and read."^ An American Li- 
 terature, to-day, by no means limited in amount, nor con- 
 temptible in quality, had its origin among those earliest 
 sources of our History. Says Bancroft : " The Press be- 
 gan its work in 1639." Then arose that system of Legis- 
 lation, which, though not always broad in its principles, nor 
 wise in its policy, did much in moulding the national char- 
 acter, and which subsequently developed itself into the form 
 of our free Government and free Institutions. 
 
 Thus do we see Divine Providence planting the seeds of 
 this great Kation in the cstahlishment of the Colonies ; and 
 evidences equally clear of its working, do we find in their 
 subsequent growth and preservation. I may not dwell 
 upon the hostility of the savages, surrounding them, and 
 the frequent attacks from that source, w^hich they were 
 
 *Jiancroft, Vol.1, page 458. 
 
15 
 
 enabled to resist and suppress; for tlie lack of time for- 
 bids the delay ; but I cannot forbear an allusion to a still 
 more imminent peril from which they were preserved, I 
 mean that of the threatened domination of the French and 
 subjection to the power of the Pope. Had our forefathers 
 failed here, how diifercnt would have been the whole course 
 of American History. Who can estimate what, in that event, 
 would have been the political, the intellectual and the moral 
 differences ? Especially, may we ask, who can conceive 
 what would have been the rdigiotts difference. Instead of 
 a free Protestant religion and a free Church, we should 
 have had a Roman hierarchy, with all its direful concomi- 
 tants and consequents, — a State Church, a corrupt priest- 
 hood and an ignorant people. French Jesuits were ever 
 busy, seeking to stir up the Indians to whet the knife and 
 the tomahawk for the destruction of the Colonists. The 
 French had a strong cordon efforts and defences, extending 
 from Nova Scotia and the banks of the St. Lawrence by 
 Champlain and the Western Lakes, down the Ohio and the 
 Mississippi, to Texas ; and more than once, to the human 
 eye, seemed likely to overrun the whole country. What 
 murders they ruthlessly committed, what desolations they 
 wrought on our unprotected frontiers, wdiat wars they 
 waged to obtain the object of their rapacious desires, our 
 bloody Colonial History, in sad detail, full well informs us. 
 It tells ns of King William's war, of Queen Anne's war, of 
 King George's war, of the French and Indian war. 
 
 Our narrow limits will allow no reference to the partic- 
 ular events of these dark struggles beyond the mention of 
 a case noticed by Dr. Dwight, and cited by the writer of 
 an admirable article in the Bibliotheca Sacra, as illustrating 
 the " Eelation of Divine Providence to Physical Laws."* 
 Dr. Dwight adduced it as an exemplification of Providen- 
 
 *We presume that the author is Prof. Park. 
 
10 
 
 tial interference in answer to prayer. Tlic case is that of 
 the destruction of the French Ai-raamcnt under the Dulce 
 D'Anville in the year lT-i6, and which, he adds, " ought 
 to be remembered with gratitude and admiration by every 
 inhabitant of this countr3^ This fleet consisted of forty 
 sliips of war : was destined for the destruction of New 
 England : was of eufKcicnt force to render tliat destruction 
 in the ordinary progress of things certain ; and sailed from 
 Chebucto, in Nova Scotia, for that purpose."* The writer 
 of the article above alluded to proceeds to quote as follows 
 from the " History of the Old South Church, Boston." 
 "In the mean time," adds Dr. Wisner, " our pious fathers, 
 apprized of their danger, and feeling that their only safety 
 was in God, had appointed a season of fasting and prayer, 
 to be observed in all their Churches. While Mr. Prince 
 was officiating [in the Old South Church of Boston, says a 
 writer in the Columbian Sentinel of 1821,] on this fast day, 
 and praying most fervently to God, to avert the dreaded 
 calamity, a sudden gust of wind arose (tlie day had, till 
 now, been perfectly clear and calm) so violent as to cause 
 a loud clattering of the windows. The reverend pastor 
 paused in his prayer; and h)oking around upon the con- 
 gregation with a countenance of hope, he again commenced, 
 and with great devotional ardor supplicated the Almighty 
 to cause tliat wind to frustrate the object of our enemies, 
 and save the country from Conquest a7id Pojpery. A tem- 
 pest ensued, in wdiich the greater part of the French fleet 
 was wrecked on the coast of Nova Scotia. The Duke 
 D'Anville, the principal General, and the second in com- 
 mand hoth committed suicide. Many died with disease, 
 and thousands were consigned to a w^atery grave. The 
 small number who remained alive, returned to France 
 without health, and without spirits. And the enterprise 
 
 *Theology, Vol. V, Page 40. 
 
17 
 
 was abandoned, and never again resumed,"* The autlior 
 of our article says in relation to this, and we eoncnr in his 
 view, " that the destruction of property and life was an 
 answer to prayer, that the rishig of any particularj^wave of 
 the sea, or particular " gust of wind" was the result of a 
 particular supplication therefor, we need not be conlident ; 
 but that tlic safety of the Lord's heritage in New England, 
 which was the supplicated favor, was vouchsafed in com- 
 pliance with the supplication, we may rationally believe. 
 The analogies of Divine Providence warrant the belief. 
 
 3. Another field for the exemplification of God's Pro- 
 vidence, as acting and guiding in our ISTation's affairs, is to 
 be found in the Revolutionary Period of our History. 
 
 I am not about to discuss the somewhat casuistical prin- 
 ciple of political revolutions. While, however, I accept 
 firmly the scriptural doctrine that Government is an Insti- 
 tution of God, and therefore for no slight causes is to be 
 overthrown, or even resisted ; yet at the same time I be- 
 lieve just as firmly, that it is possible for a Government to 
 reach a stage of abuses so aggravated, that when all legal 
 methc'os for the redress of grievances have been tried in 
 vain, then it is right for the oppressed to seek the redress 
 of their wrongs by Revolution. Still, though this is a right 
 of the down-trodden, yet it is always the ultimate right; 
 and each case of attempted revolution is to be judged cf 
 by itself, receiving approval or condemnation, according to 
 its character, from that principle of justice which is com- 
 mon to, at least, the better portion of mankind, and which 
 is aiudagous to that other principle in Man, denominated, 
 in both ordinary speech and j)fiilosophic terminology, 
 " common sense," The Fathers of our Republic recognized 
 this principle. When, therefore, they were about to dis- 
 solve the "political bands," which connected them with 
 
 *Bib. Sacra, Jan. Xo. 1SJ5, Page 187. 
 
18 
 
 the Mutlicr Country, they said tliat "a decent respect for 
 the opinions of mankind required that they slionld dechire 
 the ccmses which impelled them to tlie separation.'"' Ac- 
 cordingly in the Declaration of Independence they set those 
 causes foi-tli. Tlicse, as tliey stand in that Instrument, 
 mankind have had before them for nearly a centuiy : men 
 have formed their judgment upon them ; and I liave no 
 liesitancy in asserting, that the better " opinions of man- 
 kind" have always approved, and will always approve 
 them. The justiiications of the American Revolution I 
 shall leave, therefore, where the Framers of the Declaration 
 of Independence left them, that is, with the judgment and 
 conscience of universal hujnanity. 
 
 Kay, I go farther than this. I affirm tliat the American 
 Hevolution was a historical necessity, in virtue of its bein^ 
 an organic part of a plan which Go<:l had begun to develop 
 on the shores of the New World ; a plan having respect to 
 the highest interests of the human race fur the Ages, and 
 the whole Kingdom of God on earth. 
 
 Do you ask me for the proof of such a plan ? I judge it 
 sufficient for a reply to appeal to the position which this 
 Xation has held, and the function which it has fulfilled, in 
 view of the nations and peoples of the earth, from the day 
 of its acknowledged independence to the present hour. It 
 has been, in all its history, as no other nation ever has 
 been, the dread of tyrants and the hope of the friends of 
 freedom. There have been Kepnblics before : some have 
 fallen, and some yet remain ; but when the American Ile- 
 public came into being, mankind felt that there was some- 
 thing j^^'ewZ/rt/' in it: felt that a new element had come into 
 human history ; an element, which a deep and wide-spread 
 presentiment seemed to tell them, would, sooner or later, 
 work a vast change in the whole substance of thathistorj^ 
 
 Possibly some one may suggest, that if the Revolution 
 were a necessity, then the causes which led to it Avere also 
 
19 
 
 a iieccf^sity : tlnis frooiiiii; from ivll bhinie tlio restrictive and 
 tvi'aiioiis policy of the Mother Country towards the Colo- 
 nics. Does any one think this ? I answer that if that 
 policy was blameless, tlien all unjust government is blame- 
 less ; then all forms of sin ai'c innocent ; then the crnciliers 
 of our Lord were not culpable ; — but the case of the latter, 
 as being innocent or blameworthy, has been settled by the 
 inspired words of Peter. " Ilim being delivered by the 
 determinate connsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have 
 tak-eii and with wlcJied hands have crucified and slaiH.*' 
 
 There are no principles so operating in the Divine Gov- 
 ernment : there are no forces so working in hnraan history, 
 as to absolve either individuals or nations frojn the respon- 
 sibility of their acts. Though we thus speak, we speak 
 from no antipathy against our British parent ; for we enter- 
 tain for her feelings of filial regard. 
 
 Standing now on these principles, I see, if I mistake not, 
 the hand of God most pal[)abl3^ apparent, working tlirough 
 the human agencies of the American Revolution. I see it 
 in providing the means of iiiGiteinent to meet the crisis, 
 What were these ? And where were they found ? What- 
 ever may be the feeling in the hearts of a people, all popular 
 movements need direction : all popular enthusiasm needs 
 expression. There is at such times a demand for minds 
 able to conceive its sentiments, and tongues eloquent to 
 put forth its utterances, stii-ring, through their electric 
 words, still more profoundly tlie depths of the popular 
 lieart. How was it, then, in our Revolutionary History in 
 respect to this need? Divine Providence did not leave 
 this want unmet ; and it was never better met. It was 
 met in such men as James Otis and Patrick Henry, 
 the impassioned and triumphant defenders of popular 
 Pights, and emphatically tlie orators of incitement to 
 the Pevolution, stirririg and nerving the people to brave 
 the crisis of offered resistance to tyrann^^ It was met 
 
20 
 
 in Samuel Adams and Jolni Hancock, wlio, by the 
 British autlioritics were dcchared to be outlaws. It was 
 met in tlie Press, which sent forth its summons, conjuring 
 the people to rise and battle for their rights. It was met 
 in the Pulpit of the Pevolution, wliich also nttered its 
 voice ; and its words resonnded like a clarion blast tln-ougli- 
 ont the land. It was met in the mothers, wives and sisters 
 of the Revolution ; for there M^ere brave women in tliose 
 days. Such were some of tlie men, for tliere were ollicrs 
 of imperishable memory ; and such were some of tlie influ- 
 ences in wdiicli were found the means of incitement to the 
 struggle which won onr JN^ational Independence. " 
 
 The crisis was now at hand. In February, 1TT5, Par- 
 liament passed an Act, declaring that a rebellion existed 
 in Massachusetts, and "that an additional force should be 
 sent to Boston." Measures were hurried forward accor- 
 dingly. With rash precipitancy, the authorities send a 
 body of troops to seize on some militarj- stores deposited 
 at Concord. In the attempt to affect this, occurs the 
 bloody tragedy at Lexington, and the war of the Revolu- 
 tion is already begun. Ethan Allen's magic capture of 
 Ticonderoga, and the unresisting surrender of Crown Point 
 two days afterAvard, inspirit the hearts and fix the deter- 
 mination of the patriots. 
 
 It is now time to inquire what means of accomplishing 
 the work already begun by our fathers, did Divine Prov- 
 idence furnish. On the very day of Allen's capture of 
 Ticonderoga, the Continental Congress commenced its 
 second session at Philadelphia. One of the first objects of 
 attention must, of course, be the appointment of a Com- 
 mander-in-chief of the American forces. After a power- 
 ful speech, setting forth tlie qualities required in such a 
 leader, John Adams concluded by nominating a man of 
 their own body — " George Washington, of Yirginia." The 
 House were electrified, and none more so than the individ- 
 
21 
 
 iial on wlioia all cjes were so suddenly turned. Tlie next 
 day lie was elected. Self-distrustingly, tliuui;-!! nianfidly, he 
 obeyed his coinitry's call ; smd that country knows, and 
 all the world knows, how well he justllied those two days' 
 transactions of Congress. Endowed from his birth with a 
 well-formed and athletic frame, witli a virtuons and noble 
 character, with a high and fiery spirit, yet with matchless 
 self-control, Divine Providence had, for years, been giving 
 liim special training for his work, while " surveying wild 
 lauds and running boundary lines in the woods of Virginia," 
 and by the part which he was required to perform in the 
 French and Indian war. I cjinnot but think that the hand 
 of God was signally manifest, and in nothing more so than 
 in givingus just such a man as our Washington ; so calm, 
 so just, so firm, so wise to achieve our Independence; a 
 second Moses to lead our American tribes from the Egypt 
 of Colonial bondage through the Red Sea and wilderness 
 of the Revolutionary struggle, to the Canaan of liberty. It 
 is not too much to say that, had he been a dift'erent man, 
 in the slightest essential degree, with his slender and pre- 
 carious resources, with powerful enemies to encounter, 
 with secret plottings for his deposition from office on the 
 part of ambitious and unworthy men desirous of his place, 
 with his unpaid, half-starved, ill-clad and shoeless soldiery, 
 and worse than all, with Toryism and desertion rampant 
 on all sides, he would have failed, for he would doubtless 
 have ventured his little all on some rash hazard, and the 
 American cause Avould have been lost. We sometimes 
 hear him unfavorably compared, in a military point of 
 view, with Eugene, or Marlborough, or Xapoleon, or Wel- 
 lington, or some other great Commander; but I nnist 
 think that such comparisons proceed from a total miscon- 
 ception of his character. Washington, in an emphatic 
 sense, was a historical man ; by that, I mean that he was 
 a man prepared by Providence for a special end ; called 
 
22 
 
 to ]KTfonn a pai-ticnlar -work, a work alloAving h'un to be 
 iiotliiiig other than just what he was. liis destiny was not 
 to chizzlc or awe the M'orld by august military aeliieve- 
 nients, sending down his name to the Latest generations of ' 
 men as a resistless conqueror, wlio might lead, like an Al- 
 exander or a Ca}sar, in proud triumph at his chariot wheels, 
 the captive Chieftains of subjugated nations, because, for 
 such an end he must have had at his command their dis- 
 ci]>lined and embattled cohorts ; but it M'as to gain one 
 simple, yet stupenduous object, an achievement, in respect 
 to its iniliience on the future of mankind, the most mo- 
 mentous in history ; it v\'as, with the scanty resources fur- 
 nished to his hands, and with fearful odds against him, to 
 lay the foundations of this great American Republic. 
 "Washington was a man so exactly fitted for his work, that, 
 being changed at all, he v^•ould have been unerpaal to his 
 task. Whether he himself recognized a Divine Provi- 
 dence as working in our American affairs; whether lie re- 
 garded his country's cause as dependent upon that Provi- 
 dence, he would have told you, had you asked him on his 
 comino" from his knees in the forest seclusion, where he 
 M-as accustomed to bow in prayer, while passing that dark 
 winter at Valley Forge. I confess I have often been as- 
 tonished that the spirit of the man did not break down ; 
 that the internal supports of his hope, courage and patri- 
 otism did not give wa}^ The more I have studied Amer- 
 ican history, the more I have become convinced that, even 
 with those who read the story of the Revolution, there is 
 but a faint appreciation of the difficulties by Avhich our 
 Leader was surrounded. His spirit must have sunk within 
 him before the close of seven long years, but for a two- 
 fold cause ; and that was the firm hold which he liad upon 
 first and highest principles, and the confidence which he 
 felt in God as their supporter. 
 
23 
 
 I lunst now proceed to saj, tluit the same Providence 
 which giivc ns AV ashiiigton, gave ns others iilso, who v.ero 
 wovtliv to be Ills l)rutliers, if not his peej's in tlie coiiinion 
 cause of tlie country ; but whose heroic deeds we have 
 not time to record. It gave us Warren and Ward, Schuy- 
 ler and Putnam, Gates and Montgomery, with others their 
 compeers in the service and remembrances of a grateful 
 country. It gave us, too, the sympatliy of many minds of 
 Continental Europe, and of not a few even in Enghmd. It 
 called to our aid a Lafayette, a Steuben, a Ivosciusco, with 
 other Europeans, whose memories the countiy will embalm 
 in a deathless gratitude. It gave us also one more, who has 
 not received the recognition which his merit deserves, and 
 wdiom we would not fail to mention here, I mean Pobert 
 Morris, the Financier of the Hevolution, who rendered 
 services, which, in their different form, were hardly less 
 needful to the success of the cause than those of Washing- 
 ton himself, Vvdio, when money was indispensable, and 
 when the countrj' had no credit on which to raise money, 
 could raise it on his own. This field, however, so rich in 
 materials for illustrating our theme, the lack of time obliges 
 me to leave. 
 
 4. We recognize still another department of the illus- 
 tration of God's peculiar Providential dealing Avith our peo- 
 ple, in the condltutiojial period of our history. 
 
 Up to this era, God had conducted our fathers, illustra- 
 ting our annals, at some points, by His ])uirked interposi- 
 tions, and, at all points, by obvious evidences of His pecu- 
 liar care. To say nothing of the Trans-atlantic prepara- 
 tions for our history, God had been with the Pilgrims from, 
 the hour when they first struck foot on Plymouth rock, to 
 that which witnessed the I'ccognition of our Xational In- 
 dependence. Had He forsaken them then, ill would it 
 have fared with our infant Ilepublic. 
 
To discuss tlie iiitoriur pi-inci|>lcs of the Constitution, to 
 explain the structure of our Govennnent, to trace the line 
 of its pi-actical workings, and to compare it with other sys- 
 tems i'orni no part of ray design. My purpose is simply 
 to verify, by a few brief references, the presence of God's 
 hand, M'orking in this later, as I cannot but think I have 
 done, in the earlier stages of our history. 
 
 The struggles of the Revolution past ; the boon of Inde- 
 pendence won ; a new epoch was to be entered upon, and 
 it was one of vast moment. Failing here, all that had 
 gone before would go for nothing. First of all, at the 
 critical moment of the close of the Revolution, God had 
 already provided for the security of the country in the 
 matchless character of Washington ; had he not so done, 
 this Government would have been a Moiiarchy, and not a 
 Republic. This is the sublimest moment in the life of the 
 great patriot. Having fought her battles, he is now seen 
 laying down his honors at his country's feet ; and,'nobler 
 than a Cincinatus, retiring to his home, when haply, like 
 the Napoleons, he might have placed upon his brow, a 
 crown. This was a solemn hour in the history of the 
 country. The American cause needed men of far-sighted 
 sagacity, of regulative talent, of constitutive ideas, of able 
 statesmanship. It needed men of diplomatic abilities, 
 those who would be faithful at home, and just abroad. It 
 needed men of incorruptible patriotism, those who would 
 mi the offices of Government, not in the interest of self, 
 but in that of the country. How adequately God sup- 
 plied the men to meet these demands, our constitutional 
 history leaves us in no doubt. 
 
 Certain Articles of Confederation, thirteen in number, 
 adopted in November, 1777, had formed, during the 
 course of the war, all the Constitution of Government that 
 was requisite. The war being closed, the new condition 
 of the country demanded a greater centralization of pow- 
 
cr, and a more efficient mode of Governmental action. 
 The old Articles of Confederation found inadequate, were 
 thrown aside, and our present Constitution, originally fram- 
 ed by Gouveneur Moi'ris, was submitted, in Sept. 1787, to 
 tlie Continental Congress ; copies of it were sent to the 
 several States for ratification. How now was this Instru- 
 ment received? Coming in conflict with extreme doc- 
 trines of State Sovereignty, it was violently opposed. Then 
 were needed minds who could vindicate and support it ; 
 nor were they wanting ; the men to meet this crisis were 
 Madison, Hamilton and Jay. The result of their efforts 
 was put forth in the Federalist, consisting of a series of 
 political Papers, so fundamental in their principles, so 
 clear in their reasonings, so masterly in their whole con- 
 ception that European Statesmen have acknowledged their- 
 extraordinary value. To these remarkable writings the 
 country is indebted, under God, in no small degree, for the 
 ratification, by the several States, of the Constitution. The 
 Constitution ratified, the ofiices of the Executive were to 
 be filled, and the men, adapted to fill them, were not lack- 
 ing, as the first Constitutional Cabinet will show. The 
 National credit was sunk to its lowest depths, borne down 
 by the mill-stone of a ponderous debt ; Alexander Hamil- 
 ton was called to the task of raising it, and he raised it. 
 A National Judiciary was to be established, and that clear- 
 headed jurist, John Jay, came to the Bench as the first 
 Chief Justice. Our nascent Republic had been, and was 
 to be, represented in European Courts ; and there were 
 such men as Franklin, Jefierson, Pinckney, Livingston 
 and Adams, with others of like character and fame to do 
 it. While we may not afiirm that demagoguism has had 
 no place in our national afiairs, for we know that it has ; 
 while we may not say that political corrnption has never 
 appeared in the tactics of partyism, for we know to the 
 contrary ; yet our American Congress has never been left 
 
 4 
 
20 
 
 M'itliout men, whose abilities luive dignified its coniicilsy 
 and whose patriotism lias made them watchful, that the 
 Republic should receive no harm. History has recorded 
 their names, and the country needs not the recital of them. 
 These men, furnished by Providence, have gone forward 
 devising, constituting and arranging, until tliey have pro- 
 duced for ns the institutions, social, civil and political, 
 which the God of our fathers, b^^ means of them has hand- 
 ed down to ns; and which, by us, and by those who 
 shall come after us, may He convey to the most distant 
 generations of postei'ity. 
 
 Such are some of the manifestations of God's hand in 
 American liistory. Thus is our nation's scory/V?/ of pas- 
 sages telling of the marked and peculiar manner in which 
 that hand has wrought in the various stages of our nation- 
 al progress. It is no Minerva planting her olives in our 
 virgin soil ; it is no Neptune, striking his trident into tho 
 rock of an American Acropolis ; it is no JEneas, escaping 
 from a burning Troy, weathering the dire disasters sent by 
 an angry Goddess, and setting, at last, his wearj^ foot on 
 these western shores ; it is none of these, nor such as these, 
 who may be honored as the founder of our glorious Re- 
 public. The genius of our country emerges not from the 
 obscurity of misty legend; our history begins not in the 
 wonders of lying fable, but its sources are found in God ; 
 and it is in the channels and under the guidance of II is 
 Providence, that, thus far, the stream of that history has 
 flowed. There is, in this, no national vanity, seeking to 
 dignify its annals, by claiming an illustrious origin ; it is 
 a truthful, a grateful, a religious, and an indispdesable re- 
 cognition. 
 
 To what other nation has God given such a history ? To 
 none. Then are we adequately conscious of, and adequately 
 grateful for, the signal distinction which has been vouch- 
 safed to us ? Do we appreciate the peculiarities of our 
 
past liistorj and of our present condition? To ioarn the 
 value of our advantages, we liave only to compare our 
 condition with that of any other people. 
 
 Other countries have lofty mountains and noble rivers, 
 ■beautiful lakes, fertile fields and lovely landscapes, as well 
 as we. They have too what we have not ; they have anti- 
 quity ; they have the places where the older history was 
 .transacted ; where the infancy of the race was cradled ; 
 where Civilization, Art and Literature took their rise. 
 They have Athens and Eome, with all the localities and 
 monuments of classic times. They have the Pyramids, 
 .the Spliinxes and the Statue of Memnon. They have 
 Thebes and Memphis, the plains on which the Pharaohs 
 looked ; the river, on whose sedgy banks an Egyptian 
 damsel found the infant Moses ; they have Babylon and 
 JSlineveh, and more still ; they have Sinai and Calvary, 
 Jerusalem and Bethlehem, the land once trod by the feet 
 of the Saviour and his Apostles. 
 
 They have all these things ; but what cUe do they have. 
 They have Despotism watching, checking, restraining and 
 oppressing them on every side : despotism in the State, and 
 despotism in the Church ; these two despotisms propping 
 up each other, and crushing the people. They have ex- 
 pensive Courts, with all tlie gewgaws, the flourish and tlie 
 foolery of Royalty to maintain. They have not only the 
 ruling personages themselves to sustain, but their relatives 
 to an in-definite number, even " to the third and fourth 
 generation," a class who do notldng^ except to eat up the 
 substance of the j)eople, whom they look down ujjon as an 
 order of beings lower than themselves. They have stand- 
 ing armies to support in order to keep themselves in sub- 
 jection : they have, I mean the masses, what seems to me 
 scarcely better than an utter helplessness, in respect to all 
 the true prospects of this life. This is what they have in 
 most other countries. 
 
28 
 
 However lioarj then may be their antiquity : liowever 
 interesting their historical associations : however rich their 
 collections of Art : while we do not disesteem these diead- 
 vantages, shall we not more highly prize, and as firmly as 
 possible hold, the invaluable gifts which God, in the de- 
 velopment of His purposes respecting us as a people, has 
 bestowed upon us. Our rulers are the men of our own 
 election ; and when they displease us, we can depose them, 
 or, at the expiration of their terms, we can elect others ; 
 and our religion is that of our own choice. The Institutions 
 of Learning also, hand in hand with those of Liberty and 
 Heligion, are scattering their blessings, either more or less, 
 over every hill and valley in our land, extending the ad- 
 vantages of Education even to the humblest. We have 
 no titled aristocracy, as they have almost everywhere in 
 the old world, separating, by the mere accident of birth, 
 the rich from the poor, the high from the Ioav ; but with 
 the blessing of God upon industry and virtue, the lowliest 
 son of poverty may rise to stations of the highest honor and 
 usefulness. It is such results as these that, God's Providence 
 working in our history, has wrought out for us. Fellow 
 citizens, do we rightly understand and appreciate these our 
 I^ational advantages ? Do we fully and seriously appre- 
 hend, too, our TThission as a people ? God has not given us 
 a history so peculiar without having in it an end in view ; 
 without having assigned to us duties which we must per- 
 form, and without having marked out for us a destiny 
 which we must fulfill. Our advantages, then, have been 
 bestovred with reference to those duties, and that destiny. 
 Our mission is to shew the world, the whole world, and on 
 the grandest scale, the capacity of the people — the masses 
 of the people — for self-government ; the compatibility and 
 coexistence of freedom with order ; for freedom is not law- 
 lessness, but the exercise of the human faculties, according 
 to the principles of right and justice. Our mission is to 
 
29 
 
 sliew that Christianity, Avith respect to its organic structure, 
 is not to exist in the form of a State Church, — the State 
 holding up the Church as the oak does the vine : it is to 
 shew a free State and a free Church. Our mission is to 
 exhibit tlie results of general Education upon a great and 
 free people ; to give to humanity scope and place for cul- 
 ture and progress, and to present to the world, in lierself, 
 a realization and example of that culture and progress. In 
 a word, it is to give to the world the theory and practice 
 of constitutional and religious Freedom. That such a mis- 
 sion is for the world a most momentous one : that every 
 true American citizen will seek, by all the means in his 
 power, to secure the unchecked, the unaltered, the pro- 
 gressive and the perpetual development of a history which 
 has been so auspiciousl}^ advanced to its present stage, and 
 which, in its unchanged progress, is essential to the fultlU- 
 ment of that mission, I need not pause to show. 
 
 II. I come now, in the second place, to consider the 
 bearings of the subject thus far discussed, upon the present 
 historical crisis of the country. 
 
 1. I have spoken of the historic preparations by Provi- 
 dence for our national Life : of our broad Land and com- 
 pact Nationality : of the hand of God as traced in our 
 subsequent career : of our constitutional organization, and 
 of the objects and ends of our American Republic. The 
 Colonial and Revolutionary struggles were now ended : the 
 processes of the Federal organization were completed : a 
 recognition by European and foreign Powers was gained, 
 and a national credit was established. The nation had a 
 being, and stood forth before the world. Those who had 
 framed and organized it saw the work of their hands, and 
 as they looked upon it, might have borrowed, without 
 irreverence, the words of Deity at the close of Creation, 
 and pronounced it, as in their view, " very goody The 
 Ship of State was launched; Washington was placed at 
 
30 
 
 tlio lielni, and she spread her canvas r.pon the broad sea 
 of the future. Still, however comjjlete her model ; how- 
 ever excellent her construction ; however noble her bear- 
 ing, there was one leah in the hull of the Rej^ublic ; though 
 we are happy to believe that it is the only serious one, 
 which the most thorough overhauling has ever detected. 
 There w^as one rotten tindjer in her keel, and that was 
 Slavery • but yet, as without it there would be a lack of 
 materials, it was wrought into the structure, though with 
 much perplexity as to the way of laying it, and with some 
 misffivinffs as to the result. Jelferson and Madison uttered 
 
 O CD 
 
 words of warning. Still they hoped for the best : they 
 hoped that instead of increasing, the danger would diminish. 
 Time rolled on : but instead of its diminution and cessation 
 there has been an augmentation and a strengthening of the 
 evil. The Slave Power, instead of diminishing and disap- 
 pearing, as the founders of the Hepublic anticipated, ha.? 
 expanded in every dimension of census, interest, opinion 
 and impudence, till it has precipitated upon the country 
 the crisis of to-day. And now what is that crisis ? That 
 unsound and dangerous spot, always in the ship's hull, has 
 opened in a mighty bilge, and is letting in upon us the 
 turbid and disastrous waters of rebellion. A dozen, either 
 more or less, of once loyal States are, to-day, in armed re- 
 volt against the Government of the Union, seeking, by 
 fire and sword, its overthrow, and the establishment of 
 Slavedom upon its I'uins. 
 
 Nor have these rebels done their work secretly. They 
 have not wdiispered treason merely in the private ears of a 
 few accomplices and confidential conspirators ; but they 
 liave uttered it in the streets of the Capital and the halls 
 of Congress. Tiiey have not spoken it merely in secret, 
 but they have declared it upon the house-top : they have 
 not merely skulked about under cover of the night, but 
 they have stalked abroad at noon-day : they have viola- 
 
31 
 
 ted the most solemn oaths: tliey have declared tlio 
 ordinances of revolt : tliey have stolen the Government's 
 money : tliey have robbed its Arsenals : they have seized 
 its Forts : they have attacked its soldiers and defenders : 
 they have opened and are prosecuting civil war, with cir- 
 cumstances of nnheard-of perfidy, atrocity and bai'barism. 
 
 Now what do they intend in all this ? It is to make 
 slavery coextensive with the country: to remove its metes, 
 bounds and hindrances : to give it unrestricted scope and 
 enduring perpetuity ; it is to gratify the ambition of a set 
 of conscienceless demagogues, reared in the lap of oppres- 
 sion, M'ho, when they can no longer rule, are determined 
 to ruin : who, taking the people by the head have run them 
 into the abyss of rebellion. 
 
 And what were the expectations with which the con- 
 spirators entered npon their work? They had the atro- 
 cious presumption, the measureless audacity to su])pose 
 that, with what strength they have of their own, and with 
 what help would be supplied by northern treason, they 
 could crush down all opposition : take the Government 
 bodily, and reconstruct it on their own principles, looking 
 to the vaults in Wall Street and State Street to pay the 
 bills. And what are the means by which these men are 
 seeking to accomplish their end ? It is by lying, by theft, 
 by murder, by conscription, by intensifying the hatred of 
 the Southern people against the National Government, 
 whose objects they designedly misrepresent. Such are 
 the aims, the hopes and the means of this gigantic rebel- 
 lion, with which the conspiracy of Cataline is not to be 
 compared. 
 
 "Was there nothing in the sacredness of onr national his- 
 tory to challenge their reverential regard ? Was there no- 
 thing in the signal dealings of God's Providence with us, 
 as a nation, which we have already traced, and which 
 
32 
 
 Btarnp their inviolable seal upon onr national character, to 
 restrain them from sncli a mad and nefarious course ? Was 
 there nothing in the ohjects and ends as we have pointed 
 them out, for which that Providence planned, and thus 
 far has wrought out our history to be to them an influence 
 and a motive of refrain? Was there nothing in the labors 
 performed, in the sacrifices rendered, in the sufferings en- 
 dured, in the blood spilt by the fathers, to arouse their pa- 
 triotism ? Was there nothing in the sanctity of old asso- 
 ciations and the ties of national brotherhood to attach 
 them to their country ? Was there nothing in the echoes 
 of Hanover Court House ? nothing from the graves of De 
 Kalb and Pulaski ? nothing in the shades of Monticello 
 and Mount Yernon, to deter them from this atrocious con- 
 spiracy ? Was there notliing in the memory of Eutaw 
 Springs and the Cowpens? nothing in the heroic deeds of 
 Jasper, Moultrie and Sumpter to prevent them from firing 
 upon their country's flag, and cannonading the fort that 
 bears the patriot's name? No. Nothing! Nothing ! That 
 priceless, that paramount interest of slavery is at stake ; 
 and all ties, all obligations, all principles, all interests are 
 as nothing before it ; are as ropes of sand and as flax in 
 the fire. 
 
 Wesley pronounced slavery to be " the sum of all vil- 
 lainies." The definition is pungent and complete. We 
 have always believed it true, but never so cordially, so 
 deeply, so entirely as to-day. For slavery alone, its advo- 
 cates and propogandists are ready to give np or destroy 
 everything beside. For this one thing, and that the worst 
 and most infernal of all things, since all sins and all wrongs, 
 oppression, adultery, rebellion and murder, are potentially 
 wrapped up with it, and reside within it ; the}' are ready 
 to sacrifice everything — their country's Government, its 
 history, its hopes, its destiny, its glory, with the prospects 
 and interests of freedom and religion for the world. For 
 
83 
 
 this one thing, in a sacrament of Llood and death, they 
 pledge " their lives, their fortunes," and would their " sa- 
 cred lienor," if they had any to pledge. They are demol- 
 ishing the southern wall of the Temple of Freedom, and 
 with its fragments, they are attempting to lay the founda- 
 tions of despotism. Against law, against duty, against 
 precedent, against the sense of all mankind beside, they 
 have inaugurated a Slave Confederacy on the soil won. 
 from tyranny by the toils and blood of the fathers, and 
 consecrated to liberty. They have told the world that its 
 Corner-stone is slavery ; they need not have specified any 
 partictilar part as being that thing, for slavery is the top, 
 bottom and sides of the whole concern. 
 
 Thus there is an attempt to found, on southern soil, and 
 in the very bo?om of this American Republic, the Empire 
 of slavery, while all the world beside is tending towards 
 liberty; while Alexander, of Ilussia, is emancipating his 
 serfs ; while Joseph, of Austria, is promising constitutional 
 guarantees to his Hungarian subjects ; while Poland and 
 Italy are striving for independent nationalities ; while all 
 Europe is looking towards freer Governments and freer 
 Institutions. 
 
 Are we told, hov'cver, in apology for their iniquitous 
 proceeding, that the social and political ideas of the age, 
 will, in a short time, veer round to be upon their side ; 
 that, though the tendency toward freedom is just now the 
 course of the world, in a decade it will turn back again to 
 its old ruts ? Eor six thousand years it has been turned 
 tow\ard despotism ; now, that it is heading the other way, 
 we think, that for a while, it will stay so headed. 
 
 Shall w^e be referred for another justification of their re- 
 bellion, to the exasperations which, it is alleged, that the 
 South has received from the free-speaking and fanaticism 
 of the North ? It is true we have spoken with some free- 
 
 5 
 
84 
 
 doin because we could not alter onr consciences, becar.se 
 we could not prevent our thoughts, becanse we could not 
 altogether re;)ress them ; but as for the fanaticism of the 
 Korth, except in the case of the forray of John Brown, ap- 
 proved by almost nobody, it has been the spirit of abso- 
 lute quiescence compared with the barbarous fanaticism 
 of the South, whose weapons are not w^ords, but cudgels 
 and bowie knives, pistols and halters. 
 
 As for the Government, meanwhile, what lias it not done 
 to appease the Moloch of slavery ? It has twisted and 
 turned ; it has bowed itself down ; it has eaten dit t ; it has 
 done everything it could do, in reason and out of reason, 
 to propitiate this great demon of the South. It has framed 
 no Congressional bill, that has not been squared and ad- 
 justed to the demands and interests of slavery. It has giv- 
 en its offices and emoluments in dispropoi'tion to Southern- 
 ers, who have been too proud and too lazy to work, and 
 they have paid back the Government by treason and re- 
 bellion. 
 
 Where now are the justifications of this transcendent 
 villainy ? They are nowhere ! A declaration of indepen- 
 dence, setting forth the caioses wlileli have influenced them 
 to this course, drawn up in the form of that drafted by our 
 fathers, would be a note-worthy document to come before 
 the world. "The opinions of nuuikind "' would scout it 
 fro:ii civilized society. Out of Cottondom there is not a 
 throne of despotism on earth half wicked enough to put 
 forth the sentiments which such a Manifesto would con- 
 tain. Though without the shadow of a justification, tbey 
 have, nevertheless, rushed onward to their dreadful work, 
 which, if they are permitted to accomplish, will cut short, 
 at once and forever, the course of American liistory. 
 
 2. How now was the first scene in this bloody drama 
 opened? The Government are essaying to supply Avith 
 provisions, a handful of half-starved men in one of its own 
 
35 
 forts; that fort is assaulted and fired, and the Anieiican 
 flasr is struck to the ajround. I believe that the end of the 
 drama thus opened, God will take under his oimi control. 
 I believe that, in this case, as always, the wrath of man 
 shall praise Him, and any remainder, over and cdjove what 
 would subserve that end, I believe He will restrain. Be 
 assured of this, that the same Providence, so many traces 
 of which we find in all our country's past, is presiding also 
 over the events of this stormy hour. The God of our his- 
 tory permits, indeed, this work to go on ; but know of a 
 truth. He does not permit it without an ohject in view. 
 
 I believe that one intent of the permission is, to make 
 tlie insane fury of the perpetrators of this hori-id wrong, 
 the means of their oion jpunisJvmeoit, thereby to instruct 
 mankind, in a great principle of God's Providential disci- 
 pline of nations. In such a plan, He is only repeating a 
 course which he has not unfrequently pursued in the his- 
 tory of States. Thus was it in the case of the Egyj>tians, 
 whom God submerged in the Ped Sea. For a long time 
 tlie southern people have been strengthening the fcl ters of 
 oppression ; for a long time they have been forming them- 
 selves to a semi-barbarian type of character, carrying 
 habitually with them weapons of death, and ready, at the 
 slightest misunderstanding or affront, to get up a duel. For 
 a long time, the slaveholder has been wont to despise our 
 Northern people, most of Avliom Divine Providence has 
 obliged to work for a living, while he takes his out of the 
 labor of slaves, — forcibl}^, if not voluntarily rendered, and 
 j^aid only as a man pays his horse, by giving him food and 
 shelter that he may not become unable to work. They 
 have opprobriously spoken oius as forming the '•''mudsills''^ 
 of society : perhaps we do ; but if so, tJiey foi'm its cockloft j 
 and we submit, whether it looks well tor the cockloft of 
 society to boast itself so over the mudsills ! These obnoxious 
 
86 
 
 ideas, these offensive taunts, and tlie form of character tliat 
 is the source from ^Yhich they spring, are the baleful and 
 inevitable result of the unnatural, wicked and corrupting 
 constitution of society among them. Is the Lord going 
 to suffer such pride, such oppression, such guilt, such 
 madness, as are now theirs, to escape unpunished ? It is 
 worse than idle to expect it. "We may not close our eyes 
 to the teachings of God's Providence in History, which are 
 the same with those of His Word. Surely He will make 
 their own wicked rage and demented foolhardiness, if they 
 persevere in the attempt to sunder the Republic, the means 
 of their chastisement, if not of their destruction. It is to 
 be hoped that through this fearfal judgment, which by their 
 folly and sin they have pulled down upon their own heads, 
 they will "learn righteousness;" but however this may 
 be, there can be no doubt that God intends, by means of 
 this awful condition into which their own guilty conduct 
 has plunged them, that at Jeast the inhabitants of the world 
 shall "learn righteousness." lie will teach the nations 
 the doom of oppressors, which, by their stolidity, by their 
 rashness, by their infatuation, they prepai-e for themselves. 
 He will teach them a lesson which history illustrates, but 
 which they are prone to forget, that there is a stage, some- 
 times reached, in the career of the oppressor, in which, 
 besotted by his fatuity, and drunk with the wdne of his 
 madness, he prepares his own winding-sheet, digs his own 
 grave, plunges into it ; and mankind have only to close his 
 funeral by heaping upon him the dirt of disgrace, contempt 
 and abhorrence, which his deeds of darkness have merited. 
 If we mistake not, by this awful crisis in our nation's 
 history, Divine Providence would teach tis, too some lessons. 
 "With our immense expansion, with the rapid increase of 
 wealth, the great mass of our people have grown intensely 
 sordid and material in character ; amassing money, or 
 trying to amass it, only to hoard it up with a miserly close- 
 
fistedncss, or to expend it in a proud, profligate and luxuri- 
 ous cxtraA'agance, liardly recognizing, unless it is Ly virtu- 
 al compulsion, that there are any objects in tlie ])liilan- 
 thropic, the intellectual, the moral and the religious inter- 
 ests of the world, for which property is given, and to which 
 it must be applied. In the awful exigency which has come 
 upon us, God has broken into the safes of this iron selfish- 
 ness : He has untied a million purse-strings, not only the 
 loosely-drawn, but the hard-knotted, by showing the peo- 
 ple that there are interests more valuable than money; 
 more valuable than even individual life. The patriotic pa- 
 tience with which multitudes of business men have sufifered 
 and are suffering intense, and even ruinous pecuniarj^ pres- 
 sure, coming down unrepiningly from affluence to penury, 
 is a phenomenon of this great crisis, to me hardly less im- 
 pressive than the readiness with which thousands have 
 rushed to arms, perilling their lives for the rescue of their 
 country. God would show our people that great princi- 
 ples can be maintained only at the cost of great sacrifices. 
 He, himself has made them ; so must we. In these days of 
 official theft, of wholesale defalcations, of general time-ser- 
 ving, the support of principle by sacrifice has with many 
 almost died out from the small crop of even their traditional 
 virtues. To a great extent our people are living as though 
 this life is everything ; and duty, principle, eternity nothing. 
 By this great crisis in our history may God teach us a 
 different lesson. 
 
 Nor is this all : if my judgment does not mislead me. He 
 would shew us likewise some of the rijye fruit of the doctrines 
 of latitudinarianism and non-coercion, so widely sown within 
 a few years past; and which are rapidly going to seed in 
 almost every department of our moral life, in a weakened 
 and vitiated sense of the sanctions of duty. The basis of a 
 
38 
 
 deep, strong and noLlc character, whether individual or 
 national, is never laid, except under the regimen of a whole- 
 some moral discipline. Parents who are bringing up un- 
 trained oflspring are heaping together the firebrands of 
 Revolution ; and that Government which is feebly adminis- 
 tered with respect to the treatment of crime, is destined to 
 fall to pieces, relaxing at every joint through sheer corrup- 
 tion. Such a Government may be progressive ; but it is 
 down a steep hill to its own destruction : it is going where 
 Greece and Rome went, and by the same road. Then may 
 this crisis be the means of reinstating that principle which, 
 in our people, has become dangerously unsettled, but which 
 is the foundation of all high and sound character — loyalty 
 to law, human and Divine. Let this be, and all shall be 
 well. Let the country be true to herself, and true to her 
 glorious history, in all that it involves for the good of 
 humanity and the glory of God ; let her give all traitors and 
 rebels to understand, that she has for them but a few very 
 simple articles, namely, bullets and bayonets, ropes and 
 gibbets, for the magistrate may not bear the sword in vain, 
 then will there be hereafter for that class of citizens but 
 slender encouragement ; then will theGoverument come forth 
 from the struggle purer and stronger, both in itself and in 
 view of the world, than before the experience of this fiery 
 probation. 
 
 What now, I ask, shall we do ? The hour is a solemn 
 one — the most momentous in the country's history. Asking 
 God, on whom we depend, in the language of Dr. Wayland,' 
 '' to issue this awful exigency in the glory of Ilis Son ;" 
 entreating Him to give to all our citizens virtue and patri- 
 otism, and especiall}' to our rulers and legislators wisdom 
 to know their duty, and courage to do it; and thanking 
 
30 
 
 Him meanwhile for tlie wonderful degree of these great 
 qualities already exliibited by them, what, I again ask, shall 
 we do ? Shall we give up our national history, and look 
 upon its last chapter as ending here ? Shall we contem- 
 plate the hand of God as working in such a wonderful 
 manner in our historical career, only to close up, in an 
 abrupt collapse, a violent frustration of all its apparent 
 plans and purposes ? Shall this greatest and best realiza- 
 tion of Republican Freedom wliich the world has ever seen, 
 be ruthlessly destroyed ? Shall we disappoint the expecta- 
 tion ol myriads who are suffering under oppression, and who 
 arc looking to our shores for the great hope and true home 
 of down-trodden Liberty in all lauds ? Patriotism, Freedom 
 and Religion answer No ! Shall we sleep in torpid supine- 
 ncss until we are aAvakened by the iron heel of the despot 
 upon our necks ? Shall we permit the slave master to call 
 his sable menials under the shadow of Bunker Hill Monu- 
 ment, as he has said that he wlU do ? The true sons of 
 sires who served their country on Bemis' and Bunker's 
 heights, on Erie and Champlain, answer No ! The heroes 
 of Lundy's Lane and Fort Sumpter, answer No ! What ! 
 shall that traitorous Palmetto flag, the vile emblem of Slave- 
 ry, ever float over the Granite hills and the Green Moun- 
 tains of New England : on the banks of the Hudson, and 
 from the summits of the Adirondacks ? Shall it be raised 
 in the Metropolis of the Empire State, and surmount the 
 Keystone of the Federal Arch ? Shall it be unfurled on 
 the bicezy prairies of the Northwest, and by the leaping 
 waters of Niagara ? No ! An echo starting from the head- 
 lands of Maine, reverberated across a Continent and dyino- 
 away on the waves of the Pacific, answers No ! The flao- 
 of the Union shall ever, as now, wave over them all ; and 
 not only so, but the National Motto shall be •' the Stars and 
 Stripes on every flag-staff from Maine to Texas." 
 
40 
 
 Do tlicse men, however, begin to sliow signs of readiness 
 to retreat from their purpose of Northern subjugation ? Do 
 they not tell us that they only want to be " let alone ?" 
 Do they not know that the thief, tiie adulterer, the high- 
 wayman, and the murderer, only want the same thing ? Do 
 they not know that the " let-alone " doctrine is specially 
 held at Charlestown, Sing-Sing, Auburn and Dannemora ? 
 What ! are they to be alloiued to break up this Govern- 
 ment ? Are they to be allowed to terminate the line of 
 American history ? If so, then having in our hands the 
 means to prevent it, we are, with respect to our allegiance 
 to God, as well as the spirit, the principles and ends of 
 our History, blacker traitors than they. If this Govern- 
 ment is overthrown or rent in twain, then the hopes of the 
 world for popular Institutions are at an end. The boding 
 auguries of European Absolutists are fullilled. We num- 
 ber ourselves with Mexico and the wretched States of Cen- 
 tral and South America, whose very name is a by-word, a 
 reproach and a poison to Freedom. 
 
 Must we be told, however, that the Theory of our Gov- 
 ernment so differs from that of absolute ones, that the reb- 
 els must be treated in a correspondingly different manner ? 
 in other words, that coercion cannot be applied. Govern- 
 ments may fail practically, as they not uufrequently have 
 failed ; but where before has there ever been a Government 
 which had the principle of its destruction, systematically 
 wrought into its very theory ? Nowhere. Must we hear 
 more, too, of the doctrine of "peaceable secession,"* as for 
 months it has been put forth from tongue and pen, demora- 
 lizing the public conscience, and blinding it to the turpitude 
 of this atrocious rebellion. It is the greatest political heresy 
 
 *See the aildress dr-livercd by the Hon. Edward Everett in New York, July 4th, 
 ]8(il, in which tiie whole question is treated in a manner which elsewhere we 
 have not seen equalled. 
 
41 
 
 that was ever promulgated, for if on this principle the 
 country may be divided into halves, then on the same prin- 
 ciple it may be divided into much smaller factions. 
 
 Or again, is a vile compromise to be made with the Gov- 
 ernment by the rebels, — they coming to offer its self-dictated 
 terms with one hand, while the weapons of threatened revolt 
 and destruction are in the other? No; let them lay down 
 their rebel arms, and become again loyal citizens, before 
 they venture into the presence of their injured country. Let 
 them do tliis, or let the country go steadily onward to their 
 subjugation. Otherwise let us not hereafter speak of the 
 American Government, unless it be as recalling with sadness 
 the story of what it once was ; for it exists no longer. It 
 has sunk out of history into the mire of a fathomless debase- 
 ment : it has perished in the void of absolute nothingness ; 
 and that vile thing codling itself Government, which remains 
 in its place, I will pray for power to loathe more and more 
 as long as I breathe this vital air. Troy was ; but is no 
 longer. The hopes of the millions, of other continents, 
 struggling for freedom — civil, political and religious — and 
 looking to this land to behold the prospects and read the 
 promises of the future, are stricken from the earth. Long 
 have despots tried to prove that popular Governments are 
 no Governments. They never doubted that the American 
 Republic is strong enough for external purposes ; the ques- 
 tion has ever been and is, whether it will prove itself ade- 
 quate to internal ones. Let the Government compromise 
 with armed rebels, and the question is settled. A hundred 
 fold better would it be, with respect to the interests of free- 
 dom, that the country should go into this struggle and /"«//, 
 if such an event were possiiile, than that it should shrink 
 from meeting the crisis ; European powers would have for 
 
42 
 
 us, in the former case, a remaining respect, for they have 
 had similar experiences ; but in the latter, none. 
 
 Why, however, do we add argument to argument ? Look- 
 ing once for all to the historical Homestead of this great 
 people, nothing can be plainer, than that it never was inten- 
 ded for two hostile nations : before it can be thus occupied, 
 God must reconstruct the continent, cutting to the ocean, as 
 an outlet for the great Northwest, a river running on Ma- 
 son's and Dixon's line. 
 
 Then let the country stand firm. Let all her citizens see 
 the question as standing heaven-high above all mere party 
 issues : let all patriots, the lovers of Freedom and the lov- 
 ers of their race surround her standard, and whether they 
 come from the field or the shop, from the marts of Com- 
 merce, the halls of Science, or the Sanctuaries of Religion ; 
 let them maintain her cause. And do thou, ! God of our 
 Fathers, if it may be, bring these men to a better mind and 
 a better purpose, that they may restore their allegiance to 
 Thyself, and to this most beneficent of human Govern- 
 ments ; but if it may not be, that they will lay down their 
 bloody arms, and come into the line of Thy great purposes 
 of History, regarding Tliy glory, and the good of mankind, 
 through this once happy people, then do Thou, blast with 
 the breath of Thy nostrils, their infernal designs, scattering 
 them to the winds of Heaven ; and let the curse of Meroz, 
 scathing with the fires of Perdition, fall upon that man, or 
 that class of men, whoever they may be, whether from the 
 South or the North, from the East or the West, who shall 
 lift the hand for the overthrow, or the rupture of this God- 
 founded Republic. 
 
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