”  A A  A FOUR'1‘I1 OF JULYV

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AN

ORATION

PRONOUNCED

BEFORE THE CITIZENS OF BOSTON,

ON THE

ANNIVERSARY OF THE DECLARATION

O F‘
AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE,

JULY 4'I‘;EI, 1831.

BY J OHN Gr. PATLEREY.

BOSTON:
PRESS OI?‘ JOIIIN IE1". EAF5'1‘IBT.TRN.......CITY T’RINTI'3R.

...... ..,..m.q-. -u.um....-mw-o...

.1831.

To THE REV. Mn. PALFREY.

Dear Sir; I have the honor to communicate the Within copied
vote, and to add my personal assumnces of the great pleasure re-
ceived fl'O11'1 your Oration. ' *

With great esteem, and 1-espectfitlly,
'1" our Ob’t Serv’t,
H. G. OTIS.

City Hall, July 5, 1831..

CITY OF BOSTON.
In Comvnon Council, July 4, 1831.

Ordererl, That the Mayor and Aldermen be 11 Committee to pre-
sent the tlianks ofthe City Council to the REvE1tEN1) Pnoritssoxt
PALFREY, for the eloquent, patriotic, and very appropriate Oration,
this, day delivered by him, and to request :3. copy thereof for the

;¥v1'ees;
Sent up for Concurrence,

B. T. PICKMAN, P2'csz'dent.

In the Board of flldermen, July 4, 1831.

Read and Concurrecl, and that the Mayor be requested to com-

municate the same.
H. G. OTIS, Mayor.

A TRUE Corr--Awresr,
S. F. IWCLEARY, City Clerk.

To TZEIE MAYOR.

Dear Sir; I have the hoiiourto send you It copy of the Oration
pronounced yesterday by the appointment of the Board of Aldermen.
I receive with great sensibility the approbation of the governrrmeut
of my native city. And I am happy in another opportunity to re»-
‘peat the assuimice of the distinguisliecl respect, with which
I am, dear Sir,
Your affectionate humble Servant, A ,
JOHN G. PALFREY.

Court Street,JuZy 5, 1831.

K

0RA’[‘ION.

I AM all unused, fellow citizens, to situations like
that, in Which, by your favour, I now find myself.
I have no hope of duly meeting its demands. I
should unhesitatingly have declined to yield myself
to your call, had I not remembered that it ill becomes
a dutiful son of Boston, to constitute himself the
judge of th.e forms of service which it may require
from him; and, if not with more diffidence, I shou.1d
have met it with more reluctance, but thatI felt too
that for a son about to be dismissed from beneath
the beloved family roof, there are ties Whichpmay
well strengthen the obligations of duty, even when
these are strongest. A _  

Being here, I hope Ishall not seem to misunder--
stand the tastes of my audience, or to go aside from
the purposes of the occasion, if I take for the sub—-
ject of some such superficial reflections, as I may
make, the means to preserve the liberty which We
are celebrating. We have often, fellow citizens,
been addressed here with eloquent praises of that
liberty; and this to good purpose, for so We have
been led to a just and useful estimation of its worth.
We have often listened to the eulogy of the wise and
good men who made it ours; and reasonable and

4.

profitable‘ was it, that that topick should interest us
as it has done ; for it is greatly for a people’s secu-
rity as Well as honour, and for encouragement to fu-
ture services vvhich it may demand, tl1at it should
be, and appear, alive to the claims of its benefactors.
But, if our liberty has a right to be praised, it has a
right to be Watched over. If to have given it, merits
our gratitude, to secure it merits our concern; and
the very testimony, Which, on the yearly returns of
this day, We are accustomed to bear to its value, and
to their good deserts who in the time of its peril
Were its steadfast and successful champions, requires
of us to know and to be doing our own part in the same
Work, according to the different exigencies of the
different time in which We live. Liberty once won, is
not ‘acquired once for all. Every page of that most
melancholy book, the history of social man, would

 set us right if we should think so. It is too precious

a” thing. either to be Won at small cost, or to be kept
with small pains. With us it may seem to be in lit-
tle danger; and undoubtedly there are good reasons,
—-——I should rejoice to enlarge on them, but thatl must
be hastening to my subject,----for being gratified with
its conditionlanld prospects. But at no time is it any

vvliere in such great danger, as when it is supposed

to be in none. The most threatening omen for it, is
an impression of its complete security. The only
Way to ‘keep it out of danger, is to allow that it may
always be in danger, and be always observing wheth-

er and hovv it is so.  who would plot against it

has no better thing to“ do, than to establish the per-
suasionof its being proof against all plots. It is the
very trick of " t;ha.t portion of demagogues Whowould

5

make themselves tyrarits,----if indeed this be a pore»
tion, and not the whole,---to persuade the people,
While they attempt an invasion of their liberty, that,
instead of being in danger, their liberty is but in the
way to be extended. When Caesar set his foot upon
the neck of the Roman people, it was because, so far
from being exposed, they then imagined themselves
all powerful. VVhile-they were giving up their free-—
dom, they pleased themselves with the thought of
running riot in it. In elevating their favourite, they
saw nothing but that they were having their own Way.
The time of the downfall of republic1«:.s,-———tl1at is,
when their “death ha.s been a suicide, and not taken
at a foreign hand,----has commonly been the time
when their confidence of safety was the most proud
and rasl;1:, and that repu.bliel<., fellovv—eitizens, bids
the fairest for permanency, Whose people, with the
most cautious vigilance, are looking at threatening
tendencies, to obstruct them before they slriall have
acquired an unrnanageable grovvth, and, with solici--
tous prospective Wisdom, are providing these further
securities for liberty, for which uses may arise in the
progress of time, in probable or possible crises of a
peculiar nature, or, in general, in that matured con»?-
dition to which the state seems proceeding.

Among means, which will perpetuate our liberty,
if it be destined to live, do lnotname a prominent
one, fellow citizens, vvhen I speak of ca hearty atZach—
ment in the people to the Union of these States .3’ I
say nothing in (llSp2l1'El.g(,)l)l(§l1lZ of that admirable hero-
ism of our fathers, wliich brought them so trirnrnplv
antly out of the reve.l’1r/t‘i0na.1'y striuggle, when I re-ié
rnind you that it liad provided but a very imperfect

8

and unstable foundation for our liberties, in all that
it extorted from England in the treaty of 1783. I
am by no means sure, that the most anxious time for
patriotism did not then begin; for, as long as Ameri-
cans were in arms against a common enemy, at least
they were disarmed from mutual hostility. I am not
sure, that the anticipation of the state, in which these
provinces would be, at the end of a successful con--
test for independence, was not the chief discourage-
ment to some, who, While they took a leading part
in the earlier measures of resistance to the mother
country, opposed or looked coldly on the declaration
of the Zlatlr of July, 1776. ln our day, an ltalian or
South American state does, now and then, What it
calls, recover its liberty ; but What becomes of the
recovered prize the next week, or year? or, at all
events, seems likely to become of it the next genera-
tion? Look at the North American Confederatiomas
the War of independence left it, and see how much
better were then the prospects of freedom in that
quarter. Here were thirteen independent sovereign-
ties, each with a population essentially enterprising and
warlike, and now, from recent circumstances, all but
universally furnished with arms, and trained to their
use :,-----vvith separate interests, the mutually ruinous
tendency of Which, severally pursued, was clear even
from the eztperience of the war‘ itself, when, under
an extraordinary excitement of patriotism, and under
all pledges of mutual support, Congress had not been
able to prevail on the states to lay a uniform duty,
so as to avoid exasperating interference with each
other’s commerce, and supply the common purse to

ineetthe common danger ;-—~protected, for the most

7

part, against each other, by no natural boundaries ;—~--—-
in their contiguity, their ancient relations and habits
of intercourse, their full acquaintance with each oth-
er’s Weak points, their use of the same language,
and the easy circulation through them, from one to
the other, of Whatever heated minds might throw
out, offering every facility for mutual provocation ;-~—--
their own citizens themselves somewhat impatient
of any government, from the irritating recollection
of their late sacrifices to put down a bad one, and
from the license of their seven years’ exemption from
any thing which could properly be called by the
name ; so that, when even the state was disposed to

be peaceable, it Was far from certain that the citizen

would be of the same tnind. ln such a condition of
things, if sornctlriing were not done to establish a
common authority, and create common interests, vvhat
prudent man could imagine that amicable relations
could long subsist betvveen these states, or that re-—

publican institutions eould long subsist within them?

In the discussions, lvvhich ended in the adoption
of the Federal Constitution, it is true that we may
find fewer traces, than at first thoughtvve might
look for, of the lti11d of anxiety, to which I have re»-
ferred. We may read more of such things,----i1npor-
tant, no doubt, but of a different importance,——as the

prospect of ship-builders’ Wages being raised,-——-la
«great consideration here,---—-by the exclusion of for-
eign tonnagepunder a federal government ;--—-of the

needs of a responsible treaty-making power to open
advantageous markets for the products of the south ;

--———a'nd of the benefits to the publiclt finances, and

to all private industry, of a uniform rate, of imposts.

8

We may find the citizen addressed more in respect
to all his other interests, than to that of keeping his
head upon his shoulders, and his house over his
head. But still I can have no doubt, that what may
be matter of the scantiest record, was then matter
of far the profoundest feeling; that What was most
upon the minds of the sages of the time, was that
Which, for the best reasons, vvasleast upon their lips.
For the best reasons, I say, for there were things
Which could not be discoursed upon by them so ~compo-
sedly or safely, as they may be in our ovv11 day of ease
and safety. There are dangers too serious to be
spoken of with, any Willingness ; there are dangerous
tendencies which are so aggravated by the very eX-
posure,impending evils so unfit event to bebrought
into view as possible, feelings so intenselyirritable,
that itis mere imprudence to allude to them at all.

,Nay, the reality, so painfully anticipated, had shevvn

its front. In our own orderly Massachusetts, in less

than four years after our right of self government

was acknovvledged, Shays in the Western counties,
and Shattuclt in Middlesex, had stopped the courts

“With an armed ‘force. If there was another state,
~WhiCl1 there was not, that might more naturally have

been looked to than this for an example of good ‘order,

it was Virginia; but, when l the company of pa-

triots dravvn together by the exigencies of the

~time,vVho, as events turned out, are totbe regarded

as having taken the ifirst direct “ step towards the

forming ofthet,Federal Constitution, assembled for

such ‘deliberations in the hall of thefather of his
countrynat Mount~Vernon, Virginia and illvlaryland

Were, ‘already involved in ‘,3. sort of war of posts,

9

carried on between their respective custom-houses
on the Potomack. It was not merely political Wis»
dom, then, on the part of the patriots of ’87,--—-they
had perception for it, they had sight;----it was not
merely with them anticipation and dread,---—-they had
already for their authority the beginning of a dismal
experience ;~—-When it seemed to them, that, Without
some such change as they projected, there was nothing
to keep these little republicks from presenting,---no
one could tell how soeon,-wthe most frightful scenes of
carnage. Preying on one another, like so many
clans of the savage times in Scotland, only on a lar-—
ger scale, and without even the benefit of that osten-
sible common head, who did sometimes interfere
there, when things were at the Worst, and set all
right with the right of the strongest, they would be
going back together to destitution, anarchy, and bar—~
barisrn ;--~—~—or, protecting themselves, each against
each, by foreign alliances, they would invite back
the Sceptre they had broken of colonial misrule :;---~
or, marshalled into standing armies, they would en-
roll themselves for the conquering or the conquered
slaves of a great domestic]; military despotism. One
or another of these would be the end of the famous
American Revolution.

Yes, fellow citizens; when, in God’s good provi-
dence, the Federal Constitution vvas ratified, creat-
ing one government among these discordant sove-—
reignties, patriotism, up to that time never relieved
from alarmed suspense, drew deep its first tranquil
breath. When the United States had under their
safeguard the liberty of the severalstates, it began
to hope, that that liberty was secure. It began to

2 _

10

hope this; and nearly fifty years of various trial,
amidst all the perils of an age of unparalleled polit-—
ical experiments and vicissitudes, have now given it
strong encouragement, that that hope Was not vain.

But We hear of Americans, Who, in this day, are
calculating “ the value of the Union.” The phrase
strikes us painfully, calculating people as We are;
for our hearts have been accustomed to pronounce
the Union altogether inestimable. But calculation
is reason, and reason We have no right to shrink
from. We will calculate it too then, and not com-
plain that others should do so. But we will take
care,---—-and would have them,---—--first to know the ele--
ments, and not do the sum all wrong, for Want of
a right statement to begin With. When We shall
have measured, and set down, and added up,‘ the
tears and the blood of years or generations of furi--
ous civil War; and Weighed the iron oppression,
Which, at the end, a foreign or domestick tyrant will
have laid on us; and computed that vast debt of im-
provement, which this nati.on now seems destined,
but Will then have been forbidden to pay, to all the
great interests of mankind; and numbered the dark
ages, before the. hopes of freedom, so signally de-
feated, vvill again revive; then We shall have come
at the result of a calculation of the value of this
Union.

Light men Who talk of making this calculation,
without a sober and a shrinlting mind given to the
process! Good and serviceable men, who teach
such, or any whom they might mislead, the rules of
a more practical arithmetick! Yes fellow-—~citizens;
if the document, that proclaimed the dissolution of

11

our ties to England, was the first charter of Ameri-—
can Independence, the Constitution of the union
of these states together was its second ; and the man
who in the time of the first access of that madness,
Which, as old maxims tell, goes before a people’s
ruin, speaks the weighty words, that maintain the
conservative principles of that constitution, rebuke
the restless spirit that would disturb them, and
awake the sense and virtue of the people, better to
see and feel its Worth, that publick servant I place’,
in the reverence of a patriot‘s heart, by the side
of the authors of the declaration of fifty-—five years
ago this day.

What! have We so little in possession, that we
can afford to trifle, though but in word, with What
keeps it ours? we of the most prosperous and rap»
idly improving country, that the sun does,-—--I will
say, ever did look down upon? Do we owe the
Federal Constitution so little, as to be patient to
hear the experiment proposed of dispensingvvith its
further benefits? Did the thought ofia collision be-
tween these states, when, in the language of their
generous transatlanticla: advocate, they were yet “in
the gristle, and not hardened into the bone of man-—
hood,”----did the thought of collision between them
then strike terrour to hearts not unused to confront-
i11g peril, and can We entertain the possibility of the
tie that unites them being severed, now that New-
York alone, and Ohio,-—---a state without a civilized
inhabitanton the day which we are;com1nemora,ting,----
might shake the continent with armies, such as the
Whole embattled North and South could then scarce-~
ly have arrayed?

12

It is true, fellow citizens, that our political ma-
chine is not a mere friction—ro1ler, but that would not
be alvvise man’s reason for falling out with it at
once, and dashing it in pieces, If Wisdom cannot
quietly correct something of its grating, and patriot-
ism bear with a little that may remain, What is there
in wisdom and patriotism, that We should talk about
them? Since there is no good Without some balance
and compensation,-—because it was intended that
there should be none, which might dispenseintelligence
and virtue from their proper work,-----it istrue, that
even some of our principles of safety may be, in oth-~
eraspects, principles of disturbance, demanding, as
such, to be watched, That organization of state
governments, for example, on which the framers of
our institutions justly relied, to «make the central
government more secure, by relieving it from the
odium it of local administration, and, at the same time,
committing this to the most competent and attentive
care,imay have, in an unguarded use, the different
efi'ect of weakening, by dividing, the sentiment of
patriotism, fostering exclusive sectional interests,
and embodying and embittering sectional prejudices
and jealousies. But do We find in the system that
which is on the Whole unpropitious, or far otherwise?
or, in the threatening part of it, is there any thing
unmanageable, or is there any thing new? On the
contrary, are the states nearly as foreign to one an»
other now, as they were when they were wise‘ enough
tocorne together P and have the subsequent years of
common experience done nothing to give them what-
ever‘ of common feeling they then Wanted? It is
true, that .perpleX.ing . and important questions. arise

13

out of the different doctrines respecting state rights,

and the amountof delegated power; anclthat the
parties, which have contested them from the organi-
zation ‘of the government to the present day, have
been agitating a weighty controversy. It must needs
have been, that any writtendocument should leave
some such questions to be determined subsequently,
as experience and discussion should help to develope,
and shew how to apply its principles. But it is also
true, that the ground of debate has been continually
narrowing, notwithstanding the extending relations
of the country; and if our. fathers, with such ques-
tions to divide them, as that upon slave representa-~
Lion, and the proportion of representation between
the small states and the large, could still contrive to
agree, we have little right certainly to call them our
fathers, if such things as an Embargo, or a Tariff,
oran Indian boundary treaty, will tempt us to think
of setting up for ourselves again. , Virginia, on one
of those great questions of the old times, and on both
Massachusetts, than whose example none was high-
er, setthe example of readiness to conciliate, to
compromise, nay to yield, which except to friends
they never did, ,Was it noble to set the example,
and is not the example always to findimitators P ‘ Is
there any state above respecting that example 5’ Is
there any, which is not unspeakably interested in
having it respected by all ,3’, Can there be any pre-
tence of being consistent admirers of the spirit of the
heroiclt times of our republick, if, with every thing,---—-
every thing, honour as well as interests,-—--—--resting

on the security of a good mutual understanding, ev-

ery sense of present inconvenience, or sacrifice,---or

14

wrong, if it be so,-—--shall break out in reproach or
menace? Is the jealous love of liberty, which we
profess, to be filly shewn in allowing ourselves, for
every questionable, or slight, or temporary cause,

to be provoked against the institutions which defend
it? Is it carrying on the work of our fathers, to take

up the idea, that we are to be finding, every half
century, occasion to do what they did in 1776?
In publick affairs, as well as private, is not good
sense, as well as good temper, many times to be dis-
played in having faith in reason and reflection, and
trusting that, if an apparent wronghave not been
done, they will in due time make this manifest, or, if
it have, that they will right it? Yes ; such have
been the views, Whose prevalence, to an extent great-
ly honourable to our nation, has hitherto enabled the

government to be peaceably carried on. Some
questions, once it of the most agitating charac--
ter, that, for instance, of the constitutionality of at
national bank, if still occasionally revived, maybe
considered as at length well-nigh disposed of by the
progress of an enlightened publick opinion. Others,
now in the condition where this once was, such as
that upon internal improvements, have already been so
far discussed, and the excitement upon them is so
tempered, as the points in the controversy have been
made fewer and clearer, that they, there is rea-
son to hope, are to be brought, in the same Way,
to some issue, to meet the same general satisfaction.

Upon questions of state _jurisdiction,------on the one hand

the august tribunal, where speaks the majesty of the ,

nat.ion’sjustice, has had occasion to shew, as in a late
rnemorablet instance, that, bounding itself by the strict-

15

est limits of a guarded anddefined authority, it
would defend a feeble" state, as long as this kept
vvithinthe entrenizhments of rule and precedent,
against an urgent, and what is much more, an
equitable and generous publick feeling ;——-and, on the
the other, the proudest members of the confedera-
cy,----Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, N eW—York, Ken-
tucky,-———have already had and used opportunities to
do the best service to the union, by yielding a digni-
fied submission to the adjudication of its court ;---

that sublime authority, the wonder of Europe, un--
 parallelled among the institutions of the ancient or

modern World, which,-—---as sensitive to all rights, as
removed from all ambition, and inaccessible to all
passion and clamour,--——-alil;'.e holds over the Weakness
of every part, or lifts against the power of the Whole,
the sacred shield of law; Which, While even an
English Parliament is -even in theory omnipotent,
and, by one of its common acts of legislation, may
make the English constitution what it will to suit
any passing occasion, itself lays its fair book and its
sheathed sword across the path of the whole exec-
utive and legislative powers of the state, and tells
them and rernands them, when, listening to the peo—-
ple’s frenzy, they have transgressed the people’s
wiser will. Glorious creation of American wisdom!
Trustworthy security, While it stands, of American
union, and of the freedom which that union shelters !

I leave the subject of attachment to the Union, which

has been treated at an altogether unexpected length,

to advert to the vast importance, if We would pre-

serve our liberties, of care to have the admim'st'ratz'ont
of the government in the proper hands. The repub-

16

lick is always in peril, precisely in proportion to the
number of citizens, who are not thoughtful and con-
scientious in giving their votes. It is not so much,
that office affords opportunity for directly usurping
an authority unknown to the laws. Such are the
guards of our system, that,---«at least for the present,

A --—-the highest magistrate Would, in common times, have

not much more power forthis use, than he possess-
ed simply as a popular. citizen. But, that We need,
for the institutions which protect our liberty, the
guardianship and the service of such as heartily and
intelligently hold them in esteem; and they would
be endangered, as far as a sense of the unsatisfac.--
tory condition, into Which, through bad manage-—
ment, they had brought us, should expose them, at

any time, to contempt or to distrust.

It was a saying of Fisher Arnes, often repeated
since by such as thought they had need of the con-
solation it afforded, that “ of all people, the Ameri-
cans could bear to be the worst governed.” This
was of course a compliment to their power of self
government, causing the demand for external coer-—
cion to be less with them than with others. In any
other view, it would be e:xtraordinary,—-——-ratl1er it
would be inconceivable,----that the remark should ad»
mit of being sustained. A despot’s business is far
easier to do, than that of a free people’s head. The
government demanding the greatest Wisdom to ad»-
minister successfully, is that which is the simplest
and most liberal in its principles. At the head of a
great standing armyand of an omnipresent police,
and with the prerogative of siezing money wherever
he c‘ould find it, one must be merely stupid, who

1”?’

could not keep his own people in order, and foreign
ambition in Cl18Cl§.;‘ But an American ruler must be
equal tothe delicate Work of balancing different,in-
terests to the satisfaction of all, Where the dissatis-
faction of any might disturb the publick quiet; a and,
on every great measure of administration, hermustl
know and he must direct the publick sentiment, to
proceed with any confidence, or to any good result;
often to proceed at all. Mr. Jefferson Well said that
in respect to candidates for office, he should ask two
questions;--—-“ls the man honest?” and, “ is he capa-
ble P” The people will do Well resolutely to repeat
these questions after him. Even as to sterling hon-—
esty in political trusts, it is perhaps far from being,
in any time, the common, and limited, and easy vir—-
tue, vvhich to many it may seem; and as to capacity
for the highest trusts, that certainly is a quality, or
rather an assemblage of qualities, rare to be found,
and by no means hastily to be attributed.

We have had in our high places, fellow-citizens,

  benefactors of this description. A prouder roll than

that to which we point, no nation of the earth can
boast. a We Want them,-——-that all will allow ;----may it

be our Wisdom to seek, and our happiness tofind them,

still! rWe want rulers, at all times, sagacious, mode-
rate, experienced, of that personal dignity which a
sense of character imparts, deeply tinctured with the
spirit of the constitution, and thoroughly conversant
with the interests and relations of the state, as well as
moved to undertake publick office by views to its
benefit and not to their own. For the evidence they
have given of such qualifications, We must ‘choose
our public]; servants, if we will be true to ourselves,
3

18

if We will not be conspirators against one another,
if we will not take the risk of being parricides to our
country. For the evidence We know them to have
given of such qualities, We must elect them; and not
under any less deliberate, or reasonable, or disinter-
ested impulse. Gratitude even for their services in
one Walk, would be the last of s reasons for summon-
ing them to display their incompetency in another;
and to distress their Well wishers, and do harm,
instead of the good they might have hitherto done, in
situations for which their pursuits had not prepared
them; and to blot a history, Which else might have gone
down among that of their country’s vvorthies. In
their haste, or their prejudice, or under the dictation
of their party, or under irresponsible advice, or in
the mere embarrassment of one who. is in a strange

situation Where he knows not What to do, should they

be deluded to make War upon the venerable institu-
tions of the country, and on that Which holds all to-
gether;——~——-in the vanity of some impracticable pro-—«
ject, should they be infatuated to propose to super»-
sede the establishment, which sustains the nation’s
credit, and pledges its wealth to the preservation of
its order;—though without ill design, yet in mere

ignorance and helplessness, should they be led byill

counsel to violate treaty obligations of the most sol-
emn kind, and so bring the world’s lasting reproach-
es upon that fair fame of their country, for Which_the
patriot loves it best, and which is the last thing he
Would relinquish for it ;---—should they, by only seem-—
ing to countenance the marshalling of a party for the
sake of a division of the spoil, threaten universally
and thoroughly to A corrupt the publick virtue ;-—-—g-

I9

shouldsuch a judgement ever befal, then, as a good
and not yet despairing citizen, I should have but ..one
prayerto the Ruler of nations. It would be, to

have it befal in quiet times, when we might bear it,

and recover from it, best. Then possibly it might
even be found in the end a benefit. . Once escaped,
and perceiving to What a brink. we had just been led
by our inconsideration, we might prove to have tak—-
ken a warning, which would be salutary, and secure
us and ours through all time against a repetition of
the like experiment. It would go upon the book of our
history, and there it would stand for a useful beacon.

But, fellow citizens, I have no taste for this seem-
ingly guarded form of language, into which I have
fallen. I would no more imply that which I was
unwilling to say, than be understood to be implying
whatl was not; and the day, which we are com--
meniorating, might as well have been without its
fame, if it left any reason why one should shrink
from distinctly uttering his thoughts, when he knows
them to be but the thoughts of a patriot’s grieved
solicitude. I do not aver, then, that any state of
things, which has existed, or exists, is to be referred
to causes like What in supposition I have been speci-
fying. Honest and wise men think that it is so.
Others equally honest and wise, I doubt not, may
think otherwise. Idolnot undertake to settle the
question, or to point to the source of the too noto-
rious vice of the times. But all of us must needs
allow, that there must be great fault somewhere,
when the chief offices of government over twelve

millions of freemen are making a mendicant tour

about their wide territory; when foreign nations are

352.0

looking at the spectacle of our two highest dig’nita.-
riesembroiled in what, to foreign eyes, at least,
must appear the most undignified private quarrel;
wlien,“ as the prints of this morning have told us, the
late dissolution of the cabinet has been called, at a
publick meeting of the administration’s own friends,
“an extraordinarymeasure,” which “ has slioelted the
publick mind,” as well as “brolten up the elements
of party throughout the country ;” and when every
mail is bringing us fresh details of a drawing room
feud, which many cannot help thinking to be the
very thing, which has unhinged this lately simple,
grave, manly American state. Whatl have referred
to is unhappily before the nation, and before the
world. It is impossible to be blind to it. i The friends
of the power that is, certainly quite as much as its
opponents, must be concerned for its character and
the country’s. Something mustbe done; all Voices are
proclaiming it. It is impossible to bear that our
dear country should long exhibit such a scene.
Another two years like the two last, and how will
our govaernmrent stand in foreign estimation? and
what will be the state of its extended, and «enrn--
plicated business? and what will become of the
Inorn-entous A interests it should have been pro--
tecting? and how will it appear in our own eyes?
and will all our citizens think it altogether as well
worth preserving as they have done? I repeat it,
theyfor whose character the publick is chiefly con-
cerned, might "be found, but for the mystery which
is suffered to hang over thewhole subject, to be
more sinned against than sinning. ‘But, however
this may be, there is, or will be, a universal call,
not so much from partizans, as from those who are

‘ill
not so, forsecurity against the repetition ofisuch.
scenes of publiclt scandal ;---security, Whether from
those Whom the community has delighted to honour,
or front others succeeding to their places ;—--—-but, at
all events, security. ‘ A
But it is not to any topiclt of temporary interest,
important as these may be, that our attention, in
this connexion, otight to be confined. The great
consideration ‘is the same at all times. Our liberty
vvillpromise to be sale, it will be respected by others,
and prized and confided in by ourselves, as long as
our government continues to be on the whole admin-
istered with discretion and dignity, and but a very
little longer. The security that it will be so ad-
ministered, is in the citizen’s eiiligliteiied and con-
scientious exercise of his riglit of suili'age,witl1 views
to the publick good. So far from regarding the use
of this great p1'e1*ogative as an occasion for the indul-
gence of any caprice, a lover of liberty will go to the
polls in a frame only less serious than that in which
he goes to his devotions. The Government, which,
by considerations offear or favour, interferes vvith
his freest exercise of that right, is the last government
which a free state can tolerate; and, were it possi-
ble that party combinations should be formed with
a View to taking possession of the emoluments of
office, whoever should lend himself to such a plot
would have been aiding to bring in the most exten-
sive, the most fatal, a11d,—-~because involving infidelity
to the most honourable t1‘ust,-+-—-tlie basest and most
profligate form of political corruption. No; as long
as parties divide upon principles, there maybe vio-—
lence, and there may be danger; but as soon as they

W‘?

/bib!’

are understood to array themselves. for the chance
of booty, so soon libertymay be understood to be set
up to sale; and it will not be very long, before its
prerogatives, at first parcelled out in such a market,
will attract some single purchaser, who will think
the monopoly Worth the cost.

When I proceed to name, for another requisite se-~
curity to our liberties, as literature of our own pro-
duction, I may seem to be speaking, fellow citizens:

of a necessity which can be but future, or, at all

events, of a security, if it be such, which if not now
enjoyed, is not to be procured by us who miss it;
for a literature , is not the growth of a generation.
But, in consulting for the means of perpetuating po-,
litical institutions, of course We cannot do less than
look to thewants of future times ; and, if there be
any protection, Which, from its nature, must be pros-
pectively furnished, it demands, in early anticipation,
the care of lovers of their country.

When foreigners speak of the poverty of the Amer-
ican mind, professing to judge from the scantiness
of its fruits, I, for one, do not find, that the most
painful emotion called forth for my country is that of

Wounded pride. Were that all, it might be scarcely,

Worth our while to repel the taunt. We might care
little to argue with them, that the mind has different
honest and vigorous forms of action, all useful and all
admirable ; that a nation’s choice among these forms

will and ought to be determined by its own condition,

and the nature of the subjects which are or appear
of A the first concern to it; and that, if they have done
what they have had leisure to do in their own Well-—
cliosen walks, We would hope that we have not been

23

altogether idle, nor employed upon little matters.
Certainly, if so disposed, We might maintain some-
thing of an argument of this sort. We might inquire
Whether the American mind has not been busy, and
advantageously busy, and in a high department, in
setting the vast machinery of an untried political
system to Work, and in laying the basis of all serts
of institutions for its preservation, and for sources of

the various prosperity which We hope it is to protect.

We might even go on to ask, if it be our questioners
who make poems for exportation and for posterity,
who it is that supplies principles and constitutions of
government for foreign and lasting use. We should
have something to say of What experience has shevvn
to be the effective operation of the American mind
in the useful applications of social life. We might
ask Where the mechanick arts are more skilfully ex-—
ercised; where the adventures of commerce are better
arranged or prosecuted; where the business of the
courts and of legislation is more ably transacted; in
What country of the earth the desks of religious in--
struction are half as Well filled. For not despicable
achievements of inventive genius in a national life of a
half century,“vve should have something to plead for
the steamboat and cotton gin, the nail and card ma-~
chines, and the art of engraving on steel. And if
forced to the Inost disadvantageous ground for a new
country, that of the fine arts, We should still have to
inquire, where the father of the modern English school
of painting was born, and Where the artists came

from, Whosepencils, year by year, have been car- W

rying away the palm at their own exhibitions.
Butgvvhether or not such a reply might do any

24

thing to silence others in their representations of our
intellectual penury, it ought to do nothing towards
satisfying ourselves. Not for an answer to tlienn,
but for great uses of our own, We do want a more
worthy native literature. We want it, not for the
little object of making us an admired, but for the
vast object of keeping, us a free people.

\ Our fathers, fellow citizens, loved liberty so intense-
ly, partly, at least, under the influence of the sense of
some, and the impending danger of others, of the
evils, "wliicli the loss of liberty involves. If we love
it, never having tried those evils, with most of us this

may be, in no small part,_because living so near to them,

their recollections and sentiments are vividly tran—~
scribed upon our minds. Oursentirnents upon the
subject are their formation. But what is to ensure
that our posterity will so love as to preserve it 3’ Not
experience of hardships which succeed its loss.
That will come too late. The intelligent sense of its
benefits, which their experience Will impress, it is to
be expected will do much to this end. The lessons
of history, and observations on the inferior condition,
and sympathy With the feelings, of those nations
which want it, and are panting for it, will each do

their part. The inherited, the in—born sell’——respect

of republicans, and the contagion of the ever-—prese.nt
spirit of the institutions under which they live, and
the habits of action which those institutions dernand,
will all, We may hope, have their place among such se-

gcurities. But much also, to the same effect, it appears
to me needs to be looked for, from such a state of

the publick mind, in different particulars, as a native
literature ; of the fit character will be the; proper
agent in maintaining. r i

525

We want anative literatule,Mto unite the minds of
this wide-spread people in a prominent common ob—-
ject of patriotick attachment and pride. It is strik-
ing. to remark, how the little, which has been hitherto
done in this way, has illustrated the effect of which

I speak. Nothing, in fact, amalgamates and identie .

fies a people like the common fund of the products of
its intellect. A meritorious author belongs to no
city, or state, but to the empire. As such he is

l praised abroad, as such he is claimed and honoured at

home. And the strength of the bond of union, so
supplied, is in proportion to the amount of that repu-
tation, in which every citizen feels that he has an
interest and a property. r
iWe shall want,---perliaps we already want,----a
native literature in the higher departments, to coun-
teract and oVer—-rule a less responsible periodical

press. There is a powerful literature, that of news-i

papers, by which our whole people is addressed day

by day. In all countries, it has shown moreor less.
tendency to become unprinciplecl and licentious ;   to.

wrong the good citizen, and disorganize the rstate.
A mighty engine in whatever hands, and happily
with us ofte11 wrought by hands worthy to be trust-r
ed with it, stillwith us, as well as elsewhere, it has
already been seen, on the whole, to needto be di-
rected by much wiser and bettermen. As long as

the encouragements, to the higher class of intellects, A

to devote “ themselves to this method of influencing
publick sentiment, shall continue to be found to such
an extent inadequate, We need the more, that, acting
upon that sentiment through works of more form
and character, so as to supply the principles and
4.

26'

mould the“ feelings by which cotemporary events and
characters and opinions are to be estimated, they
should protect the publick Welfare against the formi-
dable abuses of the ephemeral press. For this will
scarcely fail to have done its part towards the mournful
consummation, when our country shall be doomed to
share the fate of so many other once prosperous repub-
licks. By law it may not be checl«:ed, except in its
worst excesses. That would be contrary to our most
cherished principles. That would be smothering
liberty for fear of its being assailed. '1"-his instrument
for affecting the publiclt mind does vast good along
With much harm. To secure the good Without the
attendant evil is the problem ; and this a censorship
of government certainly would not secure. We shall
have the best assurance, I repeat it, of its being on
the Whole fitly used, and, at the same time, the best
protection against its most mischievous misuse, in the
supervision, and the guidance, and the apprehended
rebuke, of a literature, Which, looking to permanency,
Will court the approbation of the wise.

We Want a native literature still more urgently,
because a literature any Where, to be good for any
thing,———-to have real freshness and povver,-—-«must be
moulded by the influences of the societyvvhere it
had its origin; to reach a high reputation, it must
have succeeded vividly to represent the bean ideal of
that society; and such a literature, with us, would of
course have a republican tone throughout, and so,
from the time when it offered to the mind its earliest
nutriment, would exert, if an imperceptible, a mighty
force to inspire it with the love of free institutions.
For, Whatever literature presents under those attrac-

2'7"

tions which it knows how to lend, that it trains the
mind to regard with enthusiasm; that, it issure of
winning the heart to love. a

How do we stand in respect to this influence?
The danger to the institutions of one country from
too free and partial an importation of the fashions
and modes of ‘thinking of another, has always been
a subject of the intelligent patriot’s anxiety; and
literature is the embodying of these fashions of life,
and modes of thought. Cato the Censor, exagge-
rating a sound sentiment, told his son that the Ro-
mans would certainly be ruined as soon as they be-
came acquainted with. Greek. The Polish foreign
nsrinister, in a rnanifesto to the powers of Europe, has
just complained of the Russians’ divesting his nation
of their nationality, by discouraging the use of their
language; but in what respect has a language the
power of giving or taking away a national spirit, so
much as in being a vehicle of literature? Who,
then,-——-I repeat the questio11,--—-liasi the forming of
the minds of the American people, through that lite-
rature which is their minds’ I daily bread? Who
make the books, who think the thoughts, who breathe
the feelings, which make our mind’s chief company,
and nurture, and impulse, from our minds’ first con—-
sciousness to their decrepitude P

The answer is,--—-—-and it is a serious o11e,m~The
English nation performs that work for us. Se-—
rious,I say, by no means chiefly for so simple a

t cause, as that their expositions of the theory of gov—-

ernment will thus come into our hands to unsettle
our politicks. Such is not the danger. We should
he fortified againstinfluences of that direct kind, and

928

We could meet such expositions with better of our

own. But the danger is, that in their works of re-  

flection, and eloquence, and history, and poetry, and
fiction, in all the contagion of sentiments presented
in every Variety of attraction which the beautiful
forms of literature admit, they have the opportunity
of an imperial sway over our spirits.

This subject,-—--«it seems to me,——is one ofparamount
consideration. Of the many profoundly interesting spe—~»
cifications which belong to it, I will dwell on only one,
Which, I think, will not, When Well Weiglied, seem fanci-
ful. We may learn many, good things from England,
fellow citizens :,~—---I should delight to pause to pay that
tribute of respect to a noble nation, Wliich would be
offered in an attempt to enumerate sucl1;—----but the love
of that truth, first named among those announced as
tseltlevident in our declaration of independence, and‘a
truth which lies at the basis of institutions, that need
to be endeared to us,--—-—the truth, namely, that “all men
are created equal,”--love of this is not among the
good things which England has to teach us. The
opposite sentiment prevails there, to a degree which
a’ simple American can scarcely believe, long after he
has been used to Witnessing it. There are other
nations of Europe where office, simple power, may be
more reverenced ;—---wliere the bayonet is more feared,
than there;-—--this is adiffe1'ent thing;--—-but I suppose no
other nation, at any rate in the more civilized part of
that continent, is acquainted with a blind andisub-

duing reverence for mere rank,--«for the naked acci-
-dent of birth,--«which approaches so near to the
. East Indian idolatry of caste. t No station is exempt

.~fl‘OrII1 it, blow more than high, Scarcely any mind,

29

however philosophical or however radical, entirely
escapes it. Every body who can read, is familiar
With their peerage book. Every Where, one of the
most frequent themes of discourse is found in the al-—
liances of noble families. a The drawing rooms of
authors of the most heterodox political speculations
are thought ill furnished, without a representative of
the privileged classes for the honoured guest; and

it I have been struck with Wonder, at remarking voices,

on whose accents the reading World would hang,
sink into a reverential tone, when a titled name was
to be uttered, of no account beyond the boundary of the
acres which went along with it. Of course this uni-
versal style of thinlting, this caressed and most mov—-
ing delusion, this all but instinct of the English mind,
finds its way into boolts. lt overspreads the Whole
field of English polite literature. History, song, the
drama, are full of it. Nothing can succeed without
recognizing it. Even religious novels, Wlllcll,-----if
any thing might,--—one would suppose, would furnish
an exception, cannot do their work Without its aid.
Dunallan, who is to teach us all christian graces,
must have the advantage of being a peer of the realm;
and the defender of the protestant faith in Father
Clement would Want sufficient recommendations to
this office, unless he belonged tothe landed aristoc--
racy. Who can doubt, that the literature, which
makes ourintellectual alirnent, may awake a note
which will not exactly chord with that of triumph
in the institutions of equal privilege under which
We live, when he considers how prodigious, vvithin
the last score of years, has been the influence of one
n1ind,---tliat of Sir Walter Scott,-—--over the rninds

30

-of the American people? and With What a glory the

magick of his genius invests this phantom of rank in .

the visions of the rornantick spirit? I am not
complaining of this character of the Wonderful pro»
ductions in question, as a fault in their author, either
as such, or as a lover of his country. It is neither ;——---
it is far otherwise. In the former relation, it became
him undoubtedly to give them that character, avail-
ing himself to the utmost of the fit resources for ex»
citement, for those who were to have the giving of
his fame; and, in the latter, writing Where he Wrote,
if he gave it them on set purpose, with a View to the
effect of which I am speaking, he 1nigl1t,—-MI think he
would,----«be acting in this a patriot’s Worthy part;
for the institutions of his country are to be served,
are to be recommended, are to be secured, by the
prevalence of that taste for artificial distinctions in
society, which those Works go to justify, and exalt,
and confirm. Those institutions may be best in the
abstract, for a society already constituted like the
English. At all events, it may be much better to
stand by them, than to have all thrown back into the
elements, for the chance of superseding them with
something, which might turn out, after all, to be no
better, or to be Worse. And, on either of these sup-
positions, he who does any thing to attach the people
to them, does to the people themselves an eminent-
ly good deed. But, What may be one nation’s meat,
may none the less be another’s poison.-—--Take the
instance of the story of Woodstock, or the Cavalier,
for a striking illustration of vvhatl have now in View.
No one ought to Wonder, if it could be revealed to
him, that that singletale has added a century’s life

31

A to the monarchy of'England. It was better Worth a

peerage in that view, than many a state service of which
this has been the requital. Without the moral being
obtruded, which would be unskilful, it is nothing less
than the most artful plea for loyalty to the monareh’s
person. The obligation and attractiveness of this
sentiment are brought out, in the most affecting situ-
ations, With all the Writer’s power, so that undiscrim-~
inating minds can scarcely escape the impression,
that it is abstractly a noble‘ one. It was not meant to
he escaped... Not escaped, it will make the English
reader-a more devoted subject. But,—--not escaped,-—--~
taking effect, and What may not have effect in the
hands of genius P--—-vvliat a false tone of feeling would
be created in the cisatlantick reader, to whom men
in this relation should be nothing, who owes no alle-7
giance but to the state.-W-'I‘l1e 1‘GI1'J£1I»‘l{ is not, I repeat it,
that the institutions strengthened by ferce of  senti-
ment Which makes the key note of English literature,
are bad institutions Where they exist ;-—--«this considera--
tion, well founded or otherwise, would not be to the
point;---but that they are not ours, and would not be
good for us ; and therefore it can scarcely be eventu-
ally good that they should be made, by the power of
fine writing, to take hold of our feelings and imagina-
tions. Mayl call them Without discourtesy, ‘F flesh»
pots of Egypt,” to be desired in their place, but to:

which it were best for us, who have come thence, not ,

to be loolting back P----l\l or is it so much that there is
danger of our preferences being thus positively won to.
those foreign institutions,-—-—tl1oug'h certainly young a11d
imaginative minds are ductile ;------but that this antag-~

nist current of feeling may qualify and tame the fer-—~ i

39...
vent love, with which it greatly concerns the republiclt
that every citizen should regard its ovvn,—-—its own in---
titutions, that involve far other principles.

It would be endless to pursue illustrations of danger,
to which, in various Ways, we may be exposed, by our
almost exclusive u.se of a foreign literature,---——and that
too a foreign literature, let it be particularly observed,
which comes much closer than any other could to our
hearts, by addressing us in the moving idioms of
our own mother tongue, and which speaks to our
minds much the ‘more intelligibly and effectively, for
being the creation of a society, vvhose habits, in some
respects, are liker to ours than are those of any other.
Even the views, which I have attempted on one point,
I am sensible have been too sparingly illustrated, to
takeany duly impressive,--—I fear even, any sufficient—

ly intelligible shape. But I am also persuaded that,

if parents, finding their children falling in love with
the ideal heroes of the impure portion of cotemporary
English literature, may reasonably have been led to
tremble for the honesty and happiness of sons, and
the honour of daughters,———-patriots too, reniarhzirig how
the better portion of that literature, to which alone
I have now referred, necessarily hears theimpress,
and conveys the feelings, of a society, of which men»
archy and aristocracy are leading elernents,--—--de-
rnanding of course to be invested with all fasci-

, nating associations which the genius of Writers can

lend,----inust allow that it is not a literature, to which
the discipline of American youth may safely be com-
mitted. It is, however, the literature which Will be
trusted with that discipline, which will do a great part
in formingthe sentiments and tastes of our young

33

pcople,—-—---their sentiments and tastes, against Whiclr
theories may not forever stand,-—--until We have a
literature sufficiently extensive and attractive of our
own to take its place. lts place may betaken,---«in
a great degree, at least,-why a native literature, even
though this should not he of equal power; because,
if at all able to sustain the comparison in other re-
spects, it would have a great advantage in the cir-
cumstance of being native. l l:11lOW110t how or when
such a literature in sufficient amount is to be pro-t
duced; though to many l should seem justified in think»-
ing, that the production is even now Well begun.
But I am sure it may reasonably be an object of a patri-~
ot’s intense desire. lf true to native inspirations, if
true to hopes of honeuralutrle thine, if uttering its own
America.11 instincts, genius, working in such a litera-
ture, vvould till us with tlio pride, which We ought to
feel in our repnhlicanism. T he attractive models it
would present would he those of the man Who, fear»-
ing God, fears 1:1othing else, the bodily manifestation
of repu.l.)l.i.can virtue, the citizen worthy to enjoy and
uphold a free state. he my poor mind, there is no
Working mzm vvho is to do better work for this com!-
munity, lltllliflll he who toils at book work of the kind
in question. The literature which can so serve the
publiclt, rncrits the puliliclfls best honours, Whenit has
come,and its best encouragetnents and invitations
now. i l

The more general leading remark, remaining to
be made, is one, which indeed, in its proper applica-
tions, will cover the whole ground, and which none
the less demands to he still repeated, for having be»

come already so familiar to our ears. It is, that
5

Sit‘

in ivztelligevzce and virtue, for constztuents of the na-
tional characzfer, is to be found the only sufficient pre-
paration for every national crisis; that on these is
the only safe reliance to be placed for a continued
enjoyment of the liberty we now profess so to prize.
It is for the people, under God, to preserve or to
forfeit that liberty. There is no one to keep it for
them against their will, if the thing supposed, indeed,
were not in terms a contradiction. If not intelligent,
what proper sense can they entertain of its worth?
or, estinmtiiig, what ability would they have to
secure it P if not virtuous, what will they long care
about keeping it, except in some such form as must
seal its doom, by making it intolerable to one another?

An intelligent people! ‘What is the power to
match theirs, or lay a rude hand on the treasure which
it holds? Whose is the stealthy step of treachery
against them, to elude their never absent eye, their
never sleeping vigilance 5’ Our laws, fellow citizens,
in their extreme, though not unwise caution,-—---—-for
with such a stake the e:rs:t1'e111est caution is the vvisest,--~
have said, equip the people to be their own defenders
by puttirig a musl~:et in every man’s house. One
might almost have tlriougllt it suflicierit to the end,
had they but said, put a spelli11g~bool§ there. That
done, the musket will scarcely have the use appre—-
hended, hut, when it has, the musket will be found
there too, and a freeman’s arm to point it. Our
schools; these are our best armouries. They give to
the American mind a competency to understand its

rights, a keenly searching jealousy to watch, arid
nerve and resources to maintain thorn, as often as

the need shall come.

35

But, when we speak. of the essential safety of an
intelligent people’s freedom, it is of course of that
safety in their freedom, which the strength of their
intelligence will give, as long as they are also virtu-
ous enough, to make sure of their intelligence being
turned to this good account. L And a vvell-instructed
people, it is true, can scarcely, on the whole, and for
a long time together, be other than Well principled.
But the remark does not hold good of individual men;
and the very provisions for securing the national liber-—
ties by elevating the national mind, in the same de—-
gree afford opportunities to unprincipled individual
talent for accomplishing itself, to take advantage, for
the Worst purposes, of some slumbering moment of
the publicl; virtue; so that the more intelligence
there is witnessed in individuals, the more virtue
should he demanded of them too .3 and the more in-—
telligence there is in the parts, the more virtue is
needed in the Whole. We have perhaps heard it
said, fellow citizens, and that too as if it were a sub-
ject of satisfaction, that, with us, all the prizes of
society are within the reach of talent. If Without
qualification this remark were just, there would be
little reason Why we should take satisfaction in the
prospects of our country. Mere talent is precisely
the thing which We may have most cause to dread.
Adventurous, disposed to experiment, ambitious,
proud, and irnpatient, from its nature,----its impulses,--—-
for I am not now merely spealting of its power when
already enlistedin any cause,---are every Where a main
element of disturbance of the publicl: peace. Ac-
cordingly the institutions of other nations are so ar-
rangcd, as, by the influences of rank and Wealth,

which favour What is established and proved, and do
not Wish to sink, to offset and counteract the in;llu-
ence of talent, which is too apt to favour what is
theoretical and new, and merely to care to rise. To
such influences of talent we have little of arbitrary
institution to oppose. We have little to depend
on for security against them, except the pure pub-—
lick spirit which in the individual himself may re-
strain, or in the community may defeat tltemg a
security no doubt far better than any or all others
when possessed, but not altogether one of such com-~

"penclious provision. 1

An intelligent and virtuous people! That is the
only people capable of long mztintainirig a common
Wealth; the only people incapable of abandoning its
liberty, or of being‘ deluded or forced to part with it.
There is no more unquestionable truth of political
science, than that the disorders of a depraved popu-
lation, or the follies of a population uuetpual to the
care of themselves, demand adespotism, and make it
acceptable; that prevailing ignorance antl vice are
incipient slavery. Let these truths be graven on
every citizen’s mind, for they are truths for every
citizen’s constant government. As our means and
our intercourse with foreiglr nations increase, let us
guard against the invasion of that lu:t'.u1‘y, which has
been the fall of so many a state, once boastful of
its freedom. Let us endeavour to see, more and
more, the essential dignity of the plainness, and mo-
deration, and frugality, and fair-dealing, and publicl»:
spirit, and mutual respect, which become us as re—-

publicans. There is no conquering men who are

their own masters. There is no cheating men who

37

have looked closely 1I1tO themselves. Lotus shew,
by our professed veneration, above all by our unambig-
uous practice, our sense of the Worth of that reli-
gion, which is the one only trust Worthy support for
virtue, and, With virtue, for the state to lean upon.
Might We be sure that the state would always cling
to that support, We might be sure too that the state
would be immortal.

Yes, fellow citizens; a Wise observer of political
causes and consequences, in speculating on the prob-
able perpetuity of our freedom, would by no means
ask, with the greatest concern, what armies We could
bring into the field, or What funds into the treasury,
but much rather What principles we had imbibed.
It is knowledge and virtue, intellectual and moral
power, which a discerning patriotism will prompt us
to covet by Way of its securities. We shall desire
to see it distinguished, not only by the rectitude and
Wisdom of its internal and foreign administration, but
by its advances in science and art, its well endowed
a.nd efficient institutionsfor preventing and redress-—
irig ills, to which flesh is heir, of every sort, and dif-
fusing information suited to every condition; by the
liigli tone of its publick sentiment, its temperance in
prosperity, and firmness in reverses; by the purity
of its domestick manners, and the spirit of order
which every Where pervades it. We shall Wish to
see it made to every man a happy country to live in,
that so it may seem to every man a Worthy country
to defend. Therefore We shall each be ready with
our vvealth, if We have it, to relieve those individual
wants, by which so much is subtracted from the pub-~
lick welfare, and encourage that rising merit, which

38

may do the state good service. We shall be dis»-
posed to a liberal patronage of those establishments
of learning and religion, by Which, at least, the for-
tunes of coming generations are to be determined,
while their characters are shaped. Especially strong,
on all accounts, is the obligation to do this on the
citizens of a community of precisely the form of our
own, Where religion and letters, peculiarly as the
publick weal here depends upon them, are given
over by the government, more than any Where else,
to the care of private munificence. It will pain and
disturb us, if it must be, that in any, the most dis-—
tant part of our country, or for ever so short a time,
an ignorant or irreligious population should be grovv——
ing up; and We shall not let this be, if We can do
aught to help it. We shall each be prompt to ren-
der to our country; and to the free institutions which
make us care to call it ours, the invaluable service
of one repu.blican’s worthy example. We shall let
all who see us, see one pattern of obedience to its
laws; of gratitude to its benefactors; of conscientious-—
ness in cliscliarging the pecuniary debt, which We
owe for its protection; of faithfulness, in practic 3, to
its theories; of readiness to every service, by Wliicli
benefit or honour will result to «it; in one word, of
matured principles and consistent and established
habits of good citizenship. lf the community will
follow us in this course, it will have acquired the
stablest security for its continued liberties; and all,
of Whom it is composed, will have followed or pre-
ceded us, when this is the spirit of each one  and,
followed or not, this is our own part to do. The
truest friend of liberty, in short, vveshall remember,

39

is the most wise and virtuous man; and the country
made up of wise and good, could scarcely ever, un-
der any circumstances, cease to be free; never, under
circumstances of external relation so propitious as
are ours.

Bostonians! you will do your part towards keep-
ing your country free. On some accounts, you re-
gard American freedom as, to you, a peculiar charge.
Who did more to win it? To whom then, rather,
does special responsibleness attach, for its character
and preservation? Liberty, fellow citizens, is with
you no dainty hol:iday word; but a word calling up
solemn recollections, and inspiring the gravest
thouglits. Your streets sent forth the brave, who
won a never dying renown upon her earliest battle
fields. Your dwellings were the scene of the pri-

vations, and the alarms, a.nd the sorrows of the dis-~

mal revolution, that so strictly tried who wene her
friends. You can point, among your honoured men,

to the living re_presentatiVes of her earliest cliarnpioiis

and martyrs. No where were the clear and full and
ringing accents, with which she roused this people
to their high destiny, sooner heard than in your halls-

Here, you may say to the inquiring stranger, Otis
argued against the writs of assistance. There, the

provincial magistracy, as grave and wise as resolute
and true, hung on the lips of the Adamses and Quin-~

cy. In the place whence now you are addressed,

stood Warren, hedged around with British steel, to
proclaim the wrongs of his bleeding country. Be—
fore the door where we just now entered, while, to
cover the movement, the citizens were deliberating

in town meeting within these walls, passed tl'10S€=‘“

40

pioneers of tlic revolution, who did the first famous
act in overt opposition to the oppressive taxation of
the mother country; now, of course, a much dimin-
ished band, of whom, however, one honoured sur-
vivor, at least, is rejoicing with u.s his neighbours, in
this coi*ninemor'ation.---Times since have changed.
Years have been doing their mighty, their mysterious
office. The germs of events have swelled and fruc-
tified. A small one has become a strong nation.
in the quichening history We have met together to
recall, a happier era for the World has now been
shevvn to have begun. The day we are lteeping has

become the day, that unites, that melts human hearts r

in the strongest and the Widest sympathy of any in
the calendar ; for, Without irreverently describing the
event, of which its yearly return ‘halls up the memo-
ry, as the greatest that ever affected human fortunes,
one takes no hazard in asserting, that, among events
of that precisely ascertained date, which permits the
mind’s associations to kindle, and teem, and crowd,
and renew all the enthusiasm of some past time
in the Welcome of the present hour, it is, in
this respect, altogether Without a rival. The earlier
history of freedom had. been a history of franticlt,
bloody, and disastrous struggles, or, if of partial suc-
cesses, then of perilous uses and rash confidence, and
so finally of shameful defeats. The Fourth of July,
1776, introduced the time, in the developments of
providence, when, the rights of the race coming to
be acknowledged in behalf of all individuals com»-
prehended in it, man might be and enjoy ivvhat
his Creator intendedithat he should. Then Were
the great political doctrines mightily and auspi-

ciously i asserted, destined, in theircourse, to con»

rial

Vert man from the tyrant or the slave,----«both
basely dishonourable relations, though the latter the
less so,--—-~—-into the brother and friend of man. And

A therefore it is, or should be, that the cannon which

greeted the first ray of that sun, that beamed this
dayon an American t'reeman’s eye, had scarcely ceased
to make their stern proclamation of his rising, when
W’3‘t‘h. ushe had half climbed to his meridian tower :,-—~——
therefore, that the waves of the Atlantic}; beach this
hour, from Wher'o they creep over the yellow sands
of the tropich, to where they heave and beat against
tht‘: 1‘ochs of out stormy northern boundary, are
1t.rirng"lirr,g' the Voice of their glad rnurrnur, or their
truce rear, with the festival shouts of a rejoicitng
1)(i}('.)1dt3. Tlrer't‘3fo:r'e it is, that the sihrce emancipated
l1Zt1‘hf").ll.“-1:, ‘,‘;,g‘1‘1Tl,‘t'.(~"3’ft.’lH)” rnirrdt'u1 of What gztvcz the siggrtttl
to r 1,;h.r:=:rr' trecdorn, commernorate the holiday of ours;
and that; in their 1(.i)]Tlt;‘3“lf10.‘.5f7é§, and per'p1e:x.it:y, and all
but chawair‘, r1(>bde ntinds, in the dreartiest czornerxs of
the ::tbt:ts<.;:d earth, flrmd the: fai11t.ir1g hope of better
tirncs; 1‘€3'VfiV0(1 in tzlmtcrrn, and the spi1'it of a generous
crtterptmse to dare and do and suffer all in the grreat
caurate :re~ltir1d1ed, thy every return of this fourth day
of J't,a,'!.‘y. A A

Titre history of that independence, which you so
aided to Win,  thus Written, fellow--citizens, in
large c1tra.raeterre, on the world’s book; and never will
that record suffer" your city to be an unnoticed place.
Nowhere, throughout the Wide empire, can it be this

A day urrtltcnugght of. NoWhe1'e, throughout the wide

earth, Where the great triumph of hurnan nature is
Iternembered, can it be forgotten, this day, of how
much of the hard Warfare that won it, this your
home was the scene. ”

45?;

You will be looked to, then,»-—--the country, the
world, posterity,each with a confident voice will do»
rnand of you,--—stiIl to be found faithful to the liberty,
to which you stand so pledged; You will not fail to
be true to it in all needful services, according to the
easier or more exacting circumstances of the pztssing
time. If What I have this dE1y1‘8111£1l‘l.<I.€(l upon, are
zuiiong the main services which now and in conjnnon
times it needs, they are services which now, and in all
such times, you Will be mainly intent on rendcri.n:>*.
You will cherish yourselves, and you will aim to spread
and strengtl1en,a sense of the value of the Federal Un-
ion. You will cause it to be only necessary to .l§.1lOVV
who are the most deserving; candidates for of1ic:c in this
gove1'111nent, to hnovv too who they are to ~Wl1on1
your voices will be given. You will not be content,
your “ debt to Science and the Muse unpaid.” The
cause of publiclz. morals and instruction, in all its
forms, will reckon you among its leading advocates.
Among your dwellings, the priceless eXa1npl.cs of an
intelligent and disinterested publicls: spirit, and of a
chaste and stainless private life, will be the examples
infinitely harder to number than to find.

In tl1e late noble 1*isi.n,g' of a vvronged people, there
has appeared one, who has Widely spread a patriot’s
fame under the quaint qualification of, “ the provider of
ca11non;”--ap1'oud title, under the circtunstances; for
cannon, at the moment, was what the liberties of his
nation chiefly needed. ‘May your city, Bostonians,
merit, in all time, the name of provider of what the
liberties of your country may best be served by,-~—ot'
statesmen, scholars, and patriots, of an intelligent
publickzeal, of la preserving publick and private
virtue ! A " i t