*  1'oG:E'1'x-11m wIT£I.Et1f:;m I%.Ii;VISv1*3;‘Q onwxoxs or RUFUS cxiomléz AND V;r0i~;i~:Ns?. ‘V

mum

A   EIGIITY~SECOND ANNI'VERSA%R'Y

AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE:

BEING A FULL ’12.m=o1:.'r cm TEE.
EVENTS OF NTHE DAY
~ ' V N E .1}: THE
CITY ms‘ BOSTON,

% }1oLMEs,_Ar¢I5 '1naJ3's:ni1a£c1x.z:«:;3 M: THEN FANEUIL HALL A1~zI>EJsLw,v:.v:t¥1»I5§I§ f -
‘ E  ' E xxca i3ANQ.UETS.~ . ‘ - E

    18       Q    A

% In-zvormm mu trm-2 1aosmo1~f¢jE%__ci<‘yx3zz.1=m.~E

......a—w... ..... 

4   1:0TN0N:VE    A   
E N OFFICE joxv THE B.O‘STON A COURIER. A A
N N WIALLIAEXIE wx1'1:m,%i:~m:N%m::;,LN 4"'SP1§INi} LANE.‘ T

185 8.    

 

THE

EIGHTY-SECOND ANNIVERSARY

0}?

AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE:

BEING A. FULL REPORT OF THE

EVENTS OF THE DAY
CITY 012‘ BOSTON,

TOGETHER Wrrn: ran REVISED OIRATIONS or RUFUS CHOATE AND JOHN s.
HOLMES, AND THE SPEECHES AT THE FANEUIL HALL AND zanvxma
Igcovsze. BANQUETS.

J U L Y 5 , 1 8 5 8 .
REPORTED FOR THE BOSTON UOURIER.

BOSTON:

OFFICE OF THE BOSTON COURIER.
WILLIAM WHITE, PRINTER, 4. SPRING LANE. A

1858.

CONTENTS.

CITY CELEBRATION.

The Dawn of Independence Day, 5
The Antics and Intolerables, . . . . .S 6
The Brass Concert on the Common, . . . . . . 7
Young Americafe Frolic at the Garden, 
Municipal Procession, 8

Oration of John S. Holmes, . . . . 1. . . 9
City Dinner at Faneuil Hall, . .. . . , . . . 29
Speech of Mayor Lincoln, . . . . .. . . 30
Letter from the President, . S S . . . . . . . 33 1
Speech of Governor Banks, . . .. . . . G . 33
Mr. Everett, . . . . . .1 . .. 1 36
Judge Sanger, . . . . . . . 1 . 41
Mr. A. A. Larsvreonce, . . ., . . . 42
Mr. Joseph Howe, . 1 . 1 . . . . . 43

Rev. S. K. Lothrop, .. S . . .. . .

Letters from General Scott, Mr. Winthrrop, Senator Crittenden,  
and others, . . . .. . L 1. . . . . 47-49
Balloon Aseeensiene, S&e.,  . . . L . . .. ‘ . G 115

1>eMo‘o:eA.':I3:t:Sc CSELEBRATION.

The Procession»--Prayer? of Dr. C. Robbins, . . . . 1 S 4 51
Oration of Mr. Choete, .. . . 1. S . S S . _ 544
Banquet at the Revere House, . . . S . . . . 82
Speech of Mr, Williamson, . . . . . . . 83 ;
Mr. Everett, . . . G , . S .S . , _ " 85
Mr. Austin, . .1 . . S. . .S " . 96,
Mr. Hallett, . S . .. S. .  1 . .. 97 1

Mr. Webster, . . . . . . . . 100
Mr. Woodbury, . , S . . . . . 102
N11‘. Davis, . .S G . . S ..S . . S . 104

General Palfrey, . . .. S . S. .. .S 105,

Governor Stevens, . . . . . . L. 106
Mayor Lincoln, . . . « .r . . S. . 106

  Letters from the President and others, , .- . . .   . 108  

Regatta, .1 . . . . . . . 1 .S . . 113

EIGHTY--SECOND ANNIVERSARY

OF

AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE.

The Eighty-second Anniversary of American Independence Was
observed with more than the usual spirit and splendor. Of crowd,
bustle and clamor, there was much the same excess as at any time the
past ten years; but the entertainments provided for the public amusement
and edification were far superior to any ever before prepared. There
were the eloquent orations of Messrs. Holmes and Cheats, and their
attendant events of interest; there were sports for the children and
mammoth concerts for all,-———-two features hitherto unknown and capable
of being vastly improved upon; there was a regatta-—;~in any form. com-
paratively a novelty surpassing any preceding exhibition of the kind.
The other displays»--fireworks, processions, balloon ascensions, &c., &c.,
all passed off with admirable effect. The city was crowded with a larger
host, perhaps, than has ever before gathered within its walls, and most
happily, the joyous freedom of the day, which was bright, and clear, and
mild, as if specially prearranged by contract, was marred by no disturbing
tumnlts, no perceptible prevalence of drunkenness, no accidents, excepting
two or three of slight account, which might have occurred on any other
day. On the whole, the celebration was the most satisfactory in every
respect, and the most thoroughly enjoyed, within our recollection. We
trust it may ever be equally so.

THE FIRST EXPLOSIVE DEMONSTRATIONS

j7Vere called into life by a midnight alarm of fire, which, not serious in E

‘ itself, aroused the cheap patriotic sentiment of every fire-eater throughout
 the city. By one o’clock in the morning the voice of the multitude
N crying “ Sleep no more,” had been almost severywhere i heard. Tired
E Natnre’s sweet restorer stepped out. The combined clatter of gunpowder

1

6 PRELIMINARY PROCEEDINGS.

variously dispensed, in cracker form, from pistols and from cannon; of
tin horns, of drums, of voices mellow with emotions of national pride and
so forth; of huge rattles a la watchman, (a new invention of diabolical
ingenuity,) of bells and other machinery of mad jubilation, agitated the
town for hours before daylight. VVith the first peep of dawn the flood of
strangers began to pour into the city, filling the thoroughfares, clustering
in vast masses on the Common and the Parks, and gaily looking forward
to the events of the day with high anticipationsw-perhaps destined to
disappointment; it is almost always so. At sunrise the bells of all the
churches pealed harmoniously forth, uniting in a. grand choral of rejoicing
with the voices of cannon sounding from every quarter. Soon the con-
veyances from the suburbs began to flock in, swelling the huge crowd to
ampler dimensions. Metropolitan cars loaded beyond precedent, omnibi
likewise, wagons ditto, stage coaches the same. Never were such reeking,
smoking, seething swarms. As far as reportorial observation could extend,
the best possible temper prevailed. Crushed corns, crumpled crinolines,
battered bonnets, torn trousers, and various other alliterative woes were
borne with Christian meekness. Patriotic meekness, we might better say,
under the circumstances. Fourth—of-July meekness. Men did not dig

convulsive elbows into shrinking ribs, in return for fancied invasion of

personal rights. Wonien did not assail with shrill accents of fierce
vindictive scorn those of their own or any other sex who happened to get
entangled with them in the tortuous windings of the mazy multitude. At
the early hour of which we write, content and good will reigned in every
bosom.

THE ANTICS AND INTOLERABLES

A Made the first organized demonstration of the day. At about six o’clock
- the distinguished body known as the Dog Island Fillibusters marched up

State Street, representing among them every eccentricity of politics,
including woman’s rights, Henry C. Wright’s, and opposition to marriage

rites, as recently expressed in the agreeable vocabulary of the Rutland

Convention. Another collection of Antics and Intolerables (which we
take to be a decided improvement on the old form of title) paraded with
great effect and a stunning variety of costume which distended the optics

of all beholders to a dangerous degree. This formidable array was said *

to be the Bourbon Whiskey Reformers-——-a name which affords unlimited
field for agreeable speculation. We are happy to be able to announce
that the reports which circulated freely relative to the presence of certain‘

distinguished: gentlemen in the ranks of the Antics and Intolerables,g,wére,:
iiicorrect. It is not true that President James Buchanan, now of 

ington, was the principal drummer of the Dog Island Fillibusters, neither
is there the slightest foundation for the popular belief that Mr. Ralph

Waldo Emerson, othferwise known “as “the Sage of A Concord, carried the S

PRELIMINARY PROCEEDINGS. 7

banner of the Bourbon Whiskey Reformers, although that gentleman’s
extensive connection with reformers of various sorts might naturally give
rise to some such impression. The statement’ that Gov. Banks was the
man with four heads and a Briarsean assortment of arms, looking anx-
iously in every direction, and grasping at all sides unceasingly, We know
to be false in every particular. The Governor was in VValtham at the
time, superintending that national salute which he had reluctantly ordered
in compliance with the agonized and repeated entreaties of a deputation of
his tovvnsmen. As for the rumors of participation in these orgies by the
Turkish Admiral and Theodore Parker, We do not believe a word of
them. The Antics and Intolerables flourished for an hour or so, and then
subsided, and were no more seen among men.

THE BRASS CONCERT ON THE COMMON

"Was an event of great attraction. ‘Vs call it “ The Brass Concert,”
because the instruments employed in it were peculiarly and extensively
brass, including cannon. Thirty or forty thousand people assembled
upon the great hill of the Common, and perhaps ten tlibuesand more
around the enclosed space in which the musicians were stationed. Of
all these, possibly the tenth part were able to hear the music. A concert
in the open air must always be a failure, when attempted on any large
scale. What are eighty performers in the vast infinitude of space? The
thing might have been arranged with care and discretion, and a little
expense, so as to have produced sublime effects; and another year we
hope it will be done. If those in power do not find out how before that
time, we will tell them. For the few within hearing, the concert was
interesting; the concluding piece peculiarly so, as developing certain

possibilities of effects novel and stupendous, by the introduction of cannon. A

The idea is not new, Handel having contemplated it in his time; but no
opportunity of observing the result has ever before been afforded here.
We may observe in this connection that the musicians played “Hail
Columbia” in the usual hurried, slap-—dash manner. It is to be hoped
they will discover the absurdity of doing so some time. “Hail Columbia ”
rapidly played is nothing; properly harmonized and rolled forth in stately
measure, it is grand. The rest of the concert amounted to nothing par-
ticular. ““Yanls:ee Doodle ” was perpetrated with extensive solo opera-
tions, by leaders of’ the different bands. “ "Wood Up ” was again exhumed
from the obscurity in which it ought to be permitted forever to rest;
“ "Washington’s March” was played; ‘F The Anvil Chorus ” was pounded
out on eight diseased anvils; “ The Star Spangled Banner ” came n.ext., to
.afford a sufficient pretext for the sudden unfolding of the stars and stripes
from a temporary flagstafi’; then “God Save the Queen,” for a similar,
purpose respecting the development of the Union Jack; afterwards “ La

 Marseillaise,” to accompany the unfolding of the tri-color; in turn, “ The

8 THE CITY CELEBRATION.

Russian National Hymn,” with a spread of bunting supposed to represent‘

the Romanoff ensign; subsequently “The Turkish March,”—-—that same
old Turkish March——-on the strength of which the crescent was revealed
from a fifth flag—pole; ultimately“ Hail Columbia,” hereinbefore spoken
of. '

YOUNG AMEn1oA’s raomo AT THE GARDEN

Was quite a pleasant affair, and naturally attracted very much attention.
But the excessive crowd made it less agreeable than it ought to have
been. The Public Garden was opened at seven o’clock in the morning,
and was not closed until seven in the evening. During those twelve
hours thousands upon thousands of visitors entered the enclosure, exam-
ined into the condition of affairs, and left. At nine o’clock, A. M., the
time of our first special observation, the human tide streamed in at the
naiiow gateway With a rush and turbulence appalling to Witness. The
officials were bewildered, and couldn’t stand it at all. Ticket or no ticket,
it was all the same. Fortunately in the gasping crowd at the entrance,
there were none of the “children ” for whose particular entertainment the
garden had been opened; their little lives would have been almost crushed
out. The entrance accomplished, however, all was comfortable, though
warm. The juveniles were amusing themselves by swinging, dancing,
and so forth. Under a capacious tent the Germania Band furnished the
music, to which the merry little footsteps kept time. In various parts of
the garden, cameras obscuras, mammothilkaleidoscopes, and other mechan~
ical mysteries were exhibited. In the morning some fancy dances were
indulged in, and at noon the song written by Dr. T. W’. PARSONS was
sung. On the whole, however, the celebration was not what we had hoped
to see. There were too many children of a larger growth constantly inter-
fering. It did not appear to be devoted to the juveniles, or to meet their
wants. They could not have enjoyed it to any great extent, and as their
enjoyment was the professed ‘object, the project was rather a failure.
May it have better luck next time.  C

THE CITY CELEBRATION.
PROCESSION.

"Very punctually at ten o’clock, the signals for the city rocession to
move were given by the Chief Marshal, Colonel JONAS . Fnwnnon.
The eseort, members of the City Government, invited guests, the i8
department, city oflicers, and private citizens had assembled atand near
the City Hall, whence they marched in the order set down,  the pro-
gramme, a section of mounted police going in advance to clear the way.

The Birigadiel Baéxid preceded the escort, which ' the Boston

 

ORATION on MR. HOLMES. 9

City Guard, Captain 1. F. SHEPARD, numbering about fifty muskets, and
marching with their proverbial care and precision. Mayor LINCOLN, the
Board of Aldermen, the Common Council, past officers of the City Gov-
ernment, Governor BANKS, and aids PARKER, REED, and BLAKE. Other
State officers and civil functionaries generally, followed in carriages, the
number of’ which was about sixty. The fire department brought up the
rear; and, feeling dissatisfied with their position, which was the only
proper one for them, put on their usual absurd airs, and refused to turn
out in very full numbers. Engine Companies Numbers 1, 2, 5, 7, 9,
and 14; Hose Companies 8, 4, 5, and 6: and Hook and Ladder Com-
panies 2, and 3, did not present themselves. They should be specially
excluded from all city processions hereafter. The other companies
appeared with full ranks, and engines handsomely decorated, and were
accompanied by the Metropolitan, Loud’s, and the Boston Brass Bands.
Passing through School; Tremont, Beacon, Charles, Pleasant, “Washington
and Oak Streets, Harrison Avenue, Essex, "Washington and Union
Streets, to the Music Hall, the procession, greeted at all points by large
crowds of people, mostly ladies, arrived at the Music Hall shortly after
eleven o’c1ock,wl1ere already a large audience had assembled, only the
two central sections of seats on the lower “floor being reserved. As soon
as quiet was established, the exercises were opened by the singing of the
“ Cantate Domino ” chant, by a choir of school children, under the direc-
tion of Mr. Charles Butler. The children, fifty boys neatly attired, and

about one hundred and fifty girls clothed in white, and crowned with ”

wreaths of flowers, looked so pleasant and happy as to win many compli-
mentary and envious expressions from the audience, and their singing was
as excellent and pleasant as their personal appearance. A prayer was
then offered by Rev. Dr. S. K. Lornnor, after which an original ode, by
Mr. Hownnn M. TICKNOR, was sung. . g H V

Mr. D. K. Fem) then read the Declaration of Independence, and
Hail Columbia was sung by the children, after which Mr. JOHN S.
HOLMES was introduced to the audience by the Mayor, and delivered
his oration, as follows :-—

ORATION or JOHN s. HOLMES.‘

Eighty-two years ago yesterday, there was assembled in
convention at Philadelphia, 21. body of men, selected from
all the people of the land as the foremost in intelligence, in
integrity and deliberate patriotism. For more than amonth
the great question of National Independence had been, in
motion and resolution, before them ;l and the hour had
come when the determined wisdom of that Convention Was

10 TI:IE cxrrr CELEBRATION.

to declare the fate of the thirteen American Colonies. The
vigorous action of Massachusetts, under the quick memory
of her immediate Wrongs, and the concurrent will of North
Carolina-—---into Which, one by one, the "Whole array of the
Colonies marched, “keeping step to the music of the
Union ”----had made it certain that no Weak opinion, no
unmanly counsel, would rule the hour that governed the
destiny of the country. The day had come. Groups of
grave men gathered anxiously about the old hall, where
that Congress sat. That morning, the calm face of woman
Was troubled, and startled children stared in Vacant Wonder
---—-their toys idle in their hands. All were in expectant
Waiting for that great action by which a matter; should be
established among the kingdoms of the earth. Not that
any one feared that the ultimate result would not be a
Declaration of Freedom; but until, one by one, the mem-

  bers of that Oonventiori had written themselves down---—

traitors against ty1'an11y-mlieroes in all patriotism----there
Was the lingering fear incident to the uncertainty of human
events that it might not be. It Was done. The old bell in
the State House at Philadelphia, “ rang out the first peal of
American Liberty; ” the bells of a hundred spires caught
the sound; it was flung by myriad voices on the listening
air, and village, and town, as the sound rushed on, lifted
higher the cry, till the whole land became Vocal with the
Word Liberty. Every twelvemonth from that day, the grand
echo of that National Voice has been heard throughout
America. ‘From the icy, granitic North, down through the
savannas of the tropic South-—-~from the eastern wave of the
Atlantic, to the shore of the far Pacific-~—-from a thousand
great cities ; from ten thousand great towns ; by the hills of

  New England; along the Alleghanies ; against the rocky

battlements of our Western coast--that echo has been

  sounded, again and again. ’l‘o-day We hear it; and to-day

We lift up our solemn acclaim, and give the energy of   eur
hearts and voices to that ‘majestic noise, whicli shall ring in

   and repeated » reverberations over this land---—-as We

ORATION or MR. HOLMES. 11

devoutly pray, as we truly believe-—until the strength of
the hills shall perish, and the great seas shall wither, and
human freedom shall be lost in a higher and nobler creation.

On this day of national rejoicing—--—,-the only day in the
whole year when we cease to be individuals, and become
Americans, forgetful of local prejudice and wrong, and
party and sectional strife, to mingle in a common gratitude,
and to share a common pride in the great, unexampled
prosperity of the whole land———on this day, as nothing can
be dearer to us than the continuance of that national pros-
perity which depends, under God, upon the union of these
States, I propose briefly to consider some of the dangers
which t/zreaten the stability of the Union.

Although the American colonies were separated from
England not more by distance than by substantial differ-
ences in polity, manners and religion, yet the sentiment of
the colonies until the close of the French and Indian war

was one of strong, unwavering loyalty to that great, ven-  ‘
erable nation. The Americans were proud of their anees-  it
try, proud of the “ mighty living and the mighty dead  

of the glory of their arms, the magnificence of their litera-
ture; proud even of the faults and weaknesses of the
Anglo-Saxon character, and not lightly or easily were the

A bonds loosed that held them together. As the rooted fibres

of the cornel and myrtle, which grew out of the body and

grave of Polydorus, wept purple blood as they were rudely 3

broken, so as one by one the ties of allegiance, of friend-
ship, of pride, of power, between England and America,
were severed by the angry folly of Grenville, and Townsend,
and N orth———-the Parcae of the reign of George III.--the
hearts of the people of both countries were greatly saddened
and disturbed. Even after long and bitter irritation-after
the revival of the Navigation Act---—the passage of the Stamp
Act——--the tag: on paper, and glass, and tea-—-«the Boston Port
Bill-—--—the Boston Massacre-—-the struggle at Lexington and
Uoncord—-aye, even after that glorious battle of Bunker
Hill, whose name is like the blast of a trumpet—~—-—after thir-

12 ” THE crrr CELEBRATION.

teen long years of “patient sufferance of an attempt to

establish an absolute tyranny over these States”—----after i

enduring all the Wrongs and outrages which the Declaration
of Independence so vigorously sets fortli--—--after all these,
the Continental Congress presented a. petition to his most
excellent Majesty, professing that “ they «Were attached to
his person, family and government, with all the devotion that
principle and affection could inspire,” “ and most ardently
desired not only that the former harmony between Great
Britain and the Colonies might be restored, but that a con»
cord might be established between them on so firm a basis
as to perpetuate its blessings, uninterrupted by any future
dissensions, to succeeding generations in both countries, and
to transmit His Majesty’s name to posterity adorned with a

signal and lasting glory.” Great States stood still; great  
and good men hesitated as the final hour approached. The

people were reluctant to speak the last stern Word which
put England away forever; but Witli the lofty courage of
great minds, “ appealing to Heaven to attest the justness of
their cause,” the Declaration was made and uttered with a

voice that startled the World, “ that these Colonies were  

joined in one body for the preservation of the liberties of

America.” And thus the last lingering sentiment of loy-—~
  alty was utterly extinguished. There then sprang up in

the American mind the latent sentiment of Patriotism--the
love of country as such-----that firm devotion to her being,
her authority, her happiness, which has made the names of
Adams, and Otis, and J efierson, and Patrick Henry, and

Hancock, household Words among us---worrds of beauty,

Words of power. There then sprang up in full life and

strength “ the sympathy of race,” the sympathy by which  

every Americari felt himself united to his countrymen in
evreryrfrtune and for any destiny. This was the 

force of the Revolution. This nerved the farther   he  
  looked for the last time in the face of her whoses sile was

     sa11ed~ the

 

the brightness of liis home and his life 

voicesand dried the eye of the other as she buckled the  

ORATION on MR. HOLMES. 18

belt around the boy she had borne beneath and ever in her
heart; this broke every pride and bent every purpose to the
one great, solemn thought of freedom.

After long toil and suffering, and  battles, Aerica,
“ with native honor clad,” stood independent, sovereig,
among the nations of the earth. Her Constitution was
established in doubt, in some danger; but the patriotic
temper of that day yielded to compromise for a greater, for
the common good-—--that which could not be won by violence
—--and that great political miracle was wrought, which no
foreigner but De Tocqueville has understood or interpreted,
of a combination of Towns and Counties and States, all
independent and self-dependent, yet all resting each on the
other, and all alike poised on one great, central force. This
delicate adjustment of powers and rights has borne the jars
and tumults of nearly three-quarters of as centpry, and yet
moves well. But there are signs of a decay of the spirit of
American Revolutionary patriotism. The general weakness
of the country, thoroughly impoverishedby thelong war
with England, and the lust of wealth excited by an open
trade with the world, early gave a strong commercial im-
pulse to this people, which has widened and deepened, as
the triumphs of our arms, and the more peaceful triumphs
of our naval architecture have enlarged the   extent 

power of our commercial enterprise. We have growl to  

be the first commercial nation on the earth. We hence
have grown to be a pecuniary people-———-loving money—-a-

bending the best energies of our lives to its accumulation  

--—-saacrificing youth and health and strength to the pursuit
of again. It is true that in this pursuit many great virtues

  have been developed-i-—-(the honest mercliarrt and the agri—- T
culturist are the best citizens of a State)-——--itzis true that

  by it many great energies have been stirred. It has made

the American an universal man, so thatwherever a man can

go he will go, whatevera man can bear he will suffer, what-

ever a man can do he will attempt. By this commercial
 broad States have been created, and the bounds of our

 THE CITY CELEBRATION.

vempire stretched from sunrise to sunset. But it tells upon

the patriotism of the people. It tends to reduce every thing
to a commercial standard»---to measure every thing by its
present availability-—to give principles and men a market
value, and has even led some to estimate the price, the cost
of maintaining the mother of us all—-the Union of the
American States. It makes us niggardly in the performance
of our duties to the State. It prefers individual comfort
and thrift to public prosperity. It is impatient of the
restraints of public service. It tends to the establishment of
an aristocracy of Wealth, which is dangerous to the State,
as it is necessarily mean, selfish and aggressive; and rests
upon such distinctions and differences in society as are
directly antagonistic to the first principles of democracy.
We do not spurn riches, if they come as the well—earned

  gain of honesty, courage and intelligence,-——~as they are the

result of labor, the fair recompense of energy and integrity.
But when Wealth becomes the and instead of the means of
the life of a man or a nation, it irritates, it degrades, it
corrupts. “ A mercantile democracy,” says Landor, speak-
ing through Panoetius, “ may govern long and widely; a
mercantile aristocracy cannot stand.” For the duties of all
citizens are equal, as all have equal rights; and when aught
makes a man prefer his personal ease or good to that of the
State, and to repose upon eminent respectability away from
but not above the people, or his duty to the people, and to
consider that paying for government is quite enough for
him, without the trouble and discomfort of attending the
assemblages of the people, or of mingling in the crowd at
the polls, or losing time, money or pride in acting the part
of a true republican-—--whatever does this, destroys the spirit
of patriotism, and loosens the bonds of social order, and
delivers the State to a certain doom. If the men of eighty-

  two years ago thought thus, felt thus, acted thus, vvhere
should We be novv—-——-“ under which king 21” The old silver
-=---the household treasure-—--the garnered clothing--the secret
comforts of a thousand homes Were given to the first year  

ORATION on MR. HOLMES. , 15

of Revolutionary strife, and by the contributions of Women,

and children the American army was often sustained and
saved. Our government is to be preserved by a like temper.
We must remember that there is no public gathering of
American citizens into which the proudest may not enter

p with a more than Athenian pride ;-——that there is no question

that concerns our political state so small that it may not
command the respect and attention of the highest mind ;-----
that there is no office among freemen so lowly that it may
not bring honor to him who holds it ;~———-that there is no public
duty that does not challenge our best endeavor and our
quickest obedience. ,  

A painful illustration of the decay of patriotism among us
is found in the irreverent tendency of the time--—--our care-
less indifference to the associations and memory of the past.

The present, burdened with its instant cares, attracts our
attention. We have little reverence for those events or
persons not immediately useful to our present happiness or
purpose. We are oblivious of our obligations to that past
upon which our greatness and prosperity rest. The grand
story of American History Was begun before We Were born,
and the great men who were its chief actors and narrators

  have been gathered to their noble reward. We stand just

outside of the personal authority of those great Captains
and Statesmen, and are blindly, foolishlyindifi"erent to the
influence of their names and actions, as moving the power
of association--——-one of the subtlest, strongestforces that can
stir the human heart and life. We all feel it, but We do not

  recognize its importance enough to give it a permanent

presence. Who ever returned to the old roof tree after
years of absence, and did not cross the old threshold with a
hearty benediction ? who ever wandered amongthe graves of
kinsmen and friends and did not feel his eyelids grow heavy
with the tribute of grateful tears? who ever stood "where
men have Wrought greatdeeds in love of our common
humanity for country, God, and truth, and did not feel his

heart rnove with an unselfish nobleness kindred to theirs?  

16 THE CITY CELEBRATION.

who ever stood beside the grave of Wasliington and did not
feel the “ warm. gale and gentle ventilation” of the breath
of the spirit of Liberty, pronouncing the high duty and
destiny of the true American citizen? And yet What have
we really preserved to ourselves and our children. of that
treasure “ which cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir,

  with the precious Onyx, or the Sapphire?” Where are

our rnemorials of the great past? To~dag/, the very tomb
of the Father of his Country is a thing of bargain and sale
between the rniserly descendant of a great name and the
eloquence of Massachusetts, uttering words that throh in
the hearts of the rnatr-only pride and maidenly beauty of
South Carolina and Virginia. "Where is the tomb of the
elder Adams, the Nestor of the Revolution? Whose feet
have Worn a path to it? The grave of the great Jefferson
lies still and unfrequented as the grave of a village hind.
Monroe till this hour lingered in a borrowed tomb. The
“ old man eloquent,” the Spartan son of this State, slumbers
beside his father, and shares the common forgetfulness of his
greatness. The rezrnains of Samuel Adams lie under the
siewalk of Tremont Street, and shake in the tread of
unthinking thousands. The bones of William Wirt moulder
in the graveyard at Washington, as unmarked as the ashes

of Marshal N ey. Frsanklin, whose intellect circles the World

every hour, is hidden in a recess of the Arch Street burial
place in Pliiladelphia. And while I speak, a great, sovereign
State is searching for the body of its best hero, Whose Words

were deeds; whose life was spent in the name of Almighty

God and the Continental Congress.  oW think you the
spirit of the past is torhe preserved among us ? Greece had
her Marathon and Platea, and kept them. by herperpetual
 to the greatness of the dead and the lofty honors she

   to the living. Rome had her temples   and trinmphal

A arches, and gorgeous processions, and crowns of  

 
   

statues»  lileroes-——~“ the monuments of   formeri gtreatness
A  pledgesrsof future glory,” and through   esie kept clear

 strong a  tire of her Patrisotis,  perished

   
   

ORATION or MR. HOLMES. 17

onlywhen her sons forgot the State and became selfish
followers of personal vice. “ The Swiss peasants, for five hun-
dred years after their Independence,” says Allison, “ assem-
bled on the fields of Mortgarten and Laupen, and spread
garlands over the graves of their fallen Warriors, and pr-aye
for the souls of those who had died for their country’s free»
dom.” France has her great Hotel des Invalides and her

Legion of Honor, and every Frenchman turns to the tomb

of Napoleon as he thinks of France, as the devout Arab
turns in prayer toward the tomb of Mahornet. Englaxid has
her Westminster Abbey, Where lies the dust of a hundred
trophied generations of greatness. And We, Where are our
memorials of the great Past? There is Faneuil l:la1l---there
is Bunker Hill with its monument-——-—-bu.t where are all the

rest? It is idle to say that our schools and colleges and  

institutions are the only adequate representations of the
power of Freedom, and that he who would love America

must linger among these and learn her greatness from her

present happy prosperity. Not so. This is but the fruit of
that harvest long ago sown in tears and blood;-—this is but
the benign result of a labor earlier and stronger than ours.
The Present rests upon the Past——-the Future rises out of it.
If we would be true»-hearted, pure-hearted Americans, We

must honor and revere the great events and names that
dignify the past. ‘We must raise statues and monuments    

and celebrate the birthdays of the great men an   great

events of that time, and fill the landwith constant reverence  

for their greatness. We must speak of them that our ol;1il-
dren may learn to emulate the patriotism of our Fathers,

and that the strangers Within our gates, who come hither  

with a full memory of the honors that are heaped in the Old
‘World upon its bravest and best, and of the triumphs that
Welcomed its Nelson, and the sorrows that deplored its

‘Wellington----may find here in the true land of heroes, a  
higher and nobler appreciation,of human worth, and a
  purer and more grateful recognition of the labor it has

aeciomplislieid.

18 THE crrr cnnennarxon.

Another danger to the republic arises from a misconception
of the office and end of government. It has been said that
the best government is one that has the fewest laws. It
would be better to say that the best government was one
under which the people were most prompt in obedience, most
sincere in allegiance to the law, for there never was a per-
manently good ‘government with permanently bad subjects.
The fundamental idea of the American government is
reverence to law. The Puritans came herebecause they
regarded certain laws of God, as they interpreted them, to

  be higher and more authoritative than certain laws of man.

They reverenced the one too much to live in disobedience to
the other, so they came here, as their first declaration says,
“ for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian
faith,” and erecteda form of government that has been
scarcely modified in this State since their time. Obedience
to the divine law was the basis of that government; they
framed their rules of human conduct with direct reference
to man’s spiritual allegiance. There was great, momentous
reason in the stern, undoubting belief of the Puritan that
all power is of God, and is to be revered as becomes its high
origin; that law is but an exhibition or exemplification of
that power, and that obedience to it is a necessary part of
moral duty. We have wandered far from this belief. The
idea of many now is that government is altogether a human
institution, created, sustained by the people, and that they,
as the source and fountain of political power, are supreme.
It is now held that obedience to and reverence of govern-

ment is to be determined always and only by individual taste a

and judgment, from which there is no appeal.

But when and Where did that great Convention meet,
which by solemn vote declared that government would be
useful,and that it was proper and expedient that it should
be established among men. Man was not shipvvreched 
this World like a political Robinson Crusoe, and left to find
out by strategy and device how to live. When two people
stood together on the earth, government was established--~

onrcrrou or Ms. HOLMES. 19

by a necessity of nature--—by a divine decree anterior to
conventions and constitutions, stronger than all parchments

-——and man cannot escape from, though he may violate

that decree. Reckless passion may overturn government;

anarchy may rule the hour; but the excess of anarchy

compels the reestablishment of government, the excess of
popular passion imperatively demands order. The French

Revolution ended in a despotic rule; the riotous lawless-

ness of vagabonds and villains in California compelled the
institution of an orderly and quiet government. With us
government is impossible, unless it controls the will and
commands the respect of the people. For ours is a govern-
ment of law, and only of law. We never see government
except as it executes the authority of law. It arrests,
imprisons, punishes those who disobey it, but otherwise we
never see its palpable presence; it is a sword in the sheath;
it is lightning hid in the cloud. N o armed bands, no troop
of gorgeous menials, no titled lackeys, no regal retinue, no
stately presence commanding the obedience of the hand or
knee, meets our eyes; but one man----the greatest among
us--—-looks like his fellows, and every one goes his own way,
and does his own pleasure and selects his own rulers, and
honors whom he likes, and reposes with absolute faith under

the invisible but dreadful authority of law, which surrounds

him like a Political Providence, and has every man, the
lowest equally with the highest, Within its beneficent keep-
ing. Hence, whatever disturbs the reverenceof and obe-
dience to law in this republic, threatens its stability. The

two great dangers which lie in and express the common a

misconception of the office and end of government are:
the one, on the part of government itself-—-the endeavor to
extend and maintain its authority by yielding to apparent
popular feeling and prejudice; the other, the opinion on
the part of the people that government was created by them
and for them----to hew their woodand draw their water---~
to suit every man’s purpose, and subserve every man’s con-
venience. The sagacity of the wisest of every nation but

20 THE orrr CELEBRATION. .

ours has kept some things i11 mysterious secrecy, hath flung
a holy awe about places and persons and events, or hath
hedged them round with a divinity none dare penetrate.
To us all things are open. We see the wheels impinging
on wheels, and look along the dizzy line of motion till we
find to what end all this power moves-—--whether it be to a
State honor or in a National sympathy--—whether it turns
this man out and that man in-«whether it revolves half a
man into the fraction of a Senator, or twirls a great states-
man out of a great place for one whose absence is more
eloquent than any other man’s presence. Hence, if those
who stand in the name and dignity of the State or Nation
forget their place and duty, the authority of government is
directly, visibly disgraced. I appeal not to party feeling on
this day, but remember how often and how much your faith
in and reverence for those in the best and most honorable
positions has been shaken by their base subservience to pre-
judice and their cowardly indifference to duty; remember
how often this has been made, both in State and Nation, a
government of men, instead of a government of law and for
law. This degradation of place and power I call a miscon-
ception of the office and end of government. I could, but
will not, call it a harsher name, though no man ever bent
the authority intrusted to him to private or party purposes
without deserving the traitor’s doom and the traitor-’s fate,
and no man can, while he plays in the narrow guile and
uses the foxy craft of a politician, stand in a position of
public honor without deserving that doom and daring that
fate. Whatever planks are put hereafter into those plat-
forms or rafts by which men endeavor to escape from a
sinking party, I devoutly hope that these may be firmly
nailed-—-that no mere politician is worthy of any office, and
that no man who cannot and does not earn an honest living
outside of politics and party can have an honest man’s vote
for any place of public trust, profit or power. Away with
the herd of common supplicants for popular favor---away
with the mob of those who take to politics as the last resort

-ORATION on MR. HOLMES. 21

of lazy dishonesty-waway with the crowd of garrulous boys
who talk themselves into sweet favor with enthusiastic girls

  (and hence it may be into Congress)  avvay  all

hangers-on   of party, of all parties ---— camp follovverswho,
avoiding all danger, gather their plunder   amid the er
battle and thrive upon the destinies of better men. 
have only good men and true men in place. Following the
pious injunction of the noble Robinson, the spiritual father
of the Pnritaiis, “ Let your wisdom and godliness appear by
choosing such persons only as do entirely love and will dili-~
gently promote the cornmongoodfi’ Thus shall we strangle
the brood of vipers that crawl about the cradle of our liberty
--—-«thus shall we utterly destroy one form of the danger
which threatens us.    
Again, the people have learned to regard government as a
private power to be used by the citizens and for the citizens,
forgetful that the State is more than, higher than thecitizen,
and that he has but the right of one, and can give but the
allegiance and reverence of one. She carries all in her
great, generous heart, and must give to all equally a
mother’s gracious love and care. Hence, as our feelings or

passions inspire, We seek to make of government a great  

agricultural society, or a great temperance society, or a
great anti-slavery society, or a great humanitarian organiza-
tion, as best serves the occasion of   the hour, orabest
our prevailing purpose. But governent  
or duty. It is designed only for the protection of vsooial
order, by keeping one man from wrongfully interfering with

 

another, and by binding all in love and reverence to one  
eon centre of authority. If government attempts

 trespasses upon personal or religious rights, over

which it has no legitimate control. a For as man has a  
  nature with   social relations, so he has a soul vvith higher

and infinite relations, vvhich can never becofonnded the
one with the other; and National and State governments,

      they have authoerity only over the one,   cannot interfere
   the other without great wrong and danger.   There is

 
 

2

22 THE CITY CELEBRATION.

a higher than human law which supremely governs our
direct relations to God; there is no law higher ormore
authoritative than human law to govern our social and
political state. But all laws are equally derived from one
source and rest in a common authority; for the essence of
human law is as that of the divine law»-—-—’t is but the rule
of order---—-the direction of human freedom in obedience to
order, and you cannot wrongfully disturb a man’s obedience
to the one without harming his reverence for the other. If
we do not regard the law as it stands, if we do not regard it
as law, we offend against the State, we offend against the
Nation, we offend against God. Not that I would say that
all laws are just—-—--that tyranny and wickedness may not
have often declared that to be right which is positively
wrong. But there is given to every people an ultimate
authority over law. With some, it is in the last stern neces-
sity-—the “ultima ratio ”——-—— of revolution; with as, it is in
the ballot-box. If a law offends us, change it by the pure
force of public will. If enough are not agreed, “ bide your
time.” It will come if truth and right demand it, and
then change the law for a better. But stir no useless anger,
array no merely factions opposition, lest you bring upon
yourselves a greater evil than you deprecate——-a disregard
of all law---—a contempt of all autliority---aii irreverent
and unpatriotic spirit toward the great, the sole foundation
of this State and of all the States--—-which is the law of the
land.

A pregnant illustration of the popular feeling about
Government is found in the increasing desire that the

judicial office he made elective. It was a singularly happy ,
thought-———rather, it was a sagacious prophecy of future

danger-—-——which led to the threefold separation of the power

of Government into the Executive, Representative and J udi-

cial branches——--each as distinct as hand, and eye, and will,
yet all agreeing in a common purpose--«to keep and protect

the liberty of the State and of all the States. This grand

distinction among the powers and duties of Government has

ozearzcon on MR. nonnss. 23

been lost in the partisan discussion and action of the day.
It has even here, in the old, revered Bay State--«ever the

last to lend herself to that which did not ccncern the

common good---«been attempted that our judges should be
elected by the people, and for a limited time. This I regard
as the boldest attack upon the true liberties of the people for
a hundred years. Who of all the honored men that have
borne the title of judge in this State, from the eldest till now,
but has kept his intelligence and integrity pure and strong
for the common benefit of all? Wlio has degraded himself
and stained with dishonor the lofty seat he has filled? And
yet those Who‘ have the greatest fear of the law, as they best
deserve its righteous penalties--——-«the politicians of this State,
and equally thus in other States-mare endeavoring to bring
to the market the office of judge, and to put the judicial
ermine upon the level with the skin of a rabbit. Within our
memories have incompatibilities been found where none
existed, and offices confounded and places given to fools that
had before been filled by honored Wisdom. If We surrender
this, the chief»---I may say, the onlym-conservative part of
Government to those who are seeking for selfish ends to
pervert Grovernrnent to their own uses and the prosperity of
party, let us know--—-let us ever remember---that We are
parting the strongest bovver-«anchor of the Constitution, that
We arebreaking in pieces the truest cornpass, and flingingito
the winds the best chart of the noble old ship. Let Justice
descend from her pedestal-——-~let her eyes discern between the
Well-favored and homely---let her scales be jostled in tlie

crovvd-—-—-and how long will men trust her decisions?   o How

reverently will they repose under her authority ? No ; better
far destroy your household gods than despoilthe Temple of
Public Justice. You may Weep in sorrovv over thorn; but
a nation»--~the World»-—-feels the touch of profanity. You
may burn your own little handful of books; but fire not

the library of the ‘Wisdom of the ‘World.  
siAgain, We are endangered by a partisan and sectional

 The existence of parties is essential to the political

24 THE orrr CELEBRATION.

health and strength of every form of free government. In
continued unity of opinion the public mind would stagnate.
There must always be honest difference of opinion as to the
wisdom and patriotism of measures of government, and the
fitness of rulers and legislators. To adequately express that
difference there must always be a broad, vigorous party
feeling and strife. ,

You all remember how quickly, after the fact of American
freedom was recognized by the nations of Europe, the people

of this country, flinging aside their arms, rushed into a .

national discussion of the powers and rights of government,
and the relations of the several States to each other, and of
the confederate authority over each and over all. The great
principles of the Constitution have been discussed ever since

its establishment, with ardor and learning, and even yet,

after so manygreat minds, with patriotic zeal, have given
interpretation to that noble instrument, there remains a large

  extent of power within and under it to be applied to the

arising exigencies of increasing National and Staterights.
The complexity of our government, or rather the numerous
relations which every citizen sustains to his vintage, to his
State, and to the Federal government, compels discussion,
and forces men into the generous hostility of party. In the
free, open examination of measures and men lies the safety
and strength of our popular institutions. Every man here

  is a sovereign, crowned with a royal authority of speech and

vote, and so long as the ends he aims at are his country’s,
Grod’s, and truth’s, so long will every voice be like a war cry,
and every vote like a bullet against foreign or domestic foes.

T But when allegiance to the principles of party-—--—(and I speak

  not of ephemeral organizations that now and then grow out

 dot‘ the disappointed ambition, or the o’ervaulting pride or

 shallow conceit of some selfish politician, but of those great  

national parties which have, which should, and which will
again divide the afiections and sufirages of the people)-M

l when that allegiance becomes partisanship, and principles
are forgotten in the heat of party temper, and a man comes

ORATION or Ms. HOLMES. 25

to love party more than country, then he strikes a traitorous
blow at the genius of American liberty, and kindles aflame
that threatens the destruction of this, her magnificent abode
and temple. And is not this partisan temper growing among
us? Is there not a violence of feeling, language and senti-
ment in our public discussions, which is like the excitement

of the chase? Do not the leaders of parties play to the

popular prejudice, and yield to the passions of the multitude ‘.9
and do not the people too blindly give themselves up to the
selfish aggrandizement of these dernagogues ? Are not men
politically named, as such a man’s men, and do they not
Wear his livery with complacent rncel:ness—---aye, and rejoice
to be ranked among the followers of a mam----a poZit~iciom,—~
forgetful that the ruler among us is the servant of the people
——--that we, the people, have the dispensation of honors and
gifts, and that no man can growabove the rank of an Amer-
ican citizen, in which dignity We are all equal‘? Is there not
a visible lessening of adherence to principle, of loyalty to
right? Do not men change their public opinions in the
twinkling of an eye, and rush with unpatriotic ardor into
the ranks of the largest party, so as to be sure to be on the
triumphant side? Success allures more than constancy.
I do not applaud the sentiments, but I ever admired the
courage, of those men who, year by year, we have seen come
up to the ballot-box, and, amid jeer and laugh, drop a useless
vote, but one according to the dictates of their own scon-
sciences. Did I say useless vote? No! not so; for no man
ever did boldly that which he honestly believed right, but
his own heart grew nobler and his nature expanded Wltll, a
loftier energy. Out of such men you make heroes and
martyrs, and one day the World feels their power. This
partisan temper tends to make us sectional in our political
feeling, as it narrows our political duty to the bounds of party

and substitutes for a bsroad, all-embracing patriotism, a  

devotion to the interests of a part,and not the whole.. It
makes us selfish and aggressive, and to believe, or at least to

act, as if government was ordained for om‘ interest, to satisfy

26 ran orrr cnnnenarron.

our Wants and sustain our peculiar ideas. Besides, as par-
tisanship leads to allegiance to leaders of a party, the
sentiment of the party is necessarily controlled by the policy
and opinions of those leaders, and such men, seeking their
own fame and fortune, and availing themselves of their
position to excite local and sectional jealousies and discontent,
have embittered the relations of men and States, so that now
We speak of the North and of the South, the East and the
West, as if there were but four great States in the Union,
and each had its own separate, diverse interests, and the only
unity between them was the result of contiguity.

Already this sectional temper is so strong that men have
estimated-~so far as their Weak reason could compass it——-
the value of the union of the American States, and have
considered howwell the North could thrive if separated
from the South, and the East if divided from the West ; and
have afiixed a market price upon institutions and laws, and
resolved the glorious memories of the past into coin and
merchandise. Already men have talked of “letting the
Union slide.” Letting the Union slide I»-———a base figure of
speech i-—--a base?" thought! There stands under the shadow
of a great mountain in N ew Hampshire, a lonely, half-ruined

  cottage, Whose inmates, hearing the crash of a thundering  

avalanche, fled from under the old roof tree which sheltered

their birth and childhood, and all the mingled joys and sor-
rows of life, and rushed into a certain doom. That old
house still stands, a monument of their fear and cowardice.
Their safety was under the roof builded by their fathers.

 If they were to perish, better far to die Within the old house-  

hold walls, to be crushed, with all the sad or joyous memo-

ries of home, and find there a common tomb or monument.
So let it be with us. When this Union shall slide, let us be

found Within it, and not Without it. God grant that all the  
  greatmemorials of the patriotic past, the graves of our sires,

the few and feeble monuments of their fame, the greater  

illustration of e the power of their freedom they established--—-

 schools, our serninaries of art, learning and religion»-

ORATION on MR. HOLMES. 27

all we most prize and cherish—-~all the land has and is, may
together slide into a common grave and destiny. Let no
marauding bands of politic villains live to thrive upon the
ruins of this great Union. May one doom sweep us all into
forgetfulness and dark oblivion. This sectional temper has
wrought more evil than many wise men can heal. It has
exasperated into a furious frenzy quiet citizens, who in their
thrift had no especial care for the movements of political
power ; it has stirred the feeble-minded into a fear of oppres-
sion that never existed, and roused the timid into an alarm
as causeless as the careless burning of a bonfire. There are
among us men who live upon alarm and terror ; who fatten
upon public tumult, and find no peace in the still movement
of ordinary political life. ‘Take away tlieir power of dis-
turbance, and they would die from want of means of a
living, or come, as their proper destiny is, to inliabit the
madhouse or workhouse. There is no meaner animal than
the professed philanthropist, who, under the pretence of
feeling for public and political wrong, gathers to himself a
good living, and always leaves the objects of his charity as
they were, and wlzere they were, as the sentimental capital
of his future harvest. And out of this sectional temper of
the time, there has arisen a lusty crowd of such partisan

philanthropists, who work like rats in the dark, and coadju~ l
tant with the selfish politician above ground, live and move  

to one end—--—--to blindly, foolishly destroy the united, essential
power of these broad States. Perhaps such vermin. must
exist, but let the heel of every honest American be upon
their heads. ‘    

iWe have briefly and imperfectly éfiscussed the several
dangers which to us seem to threaten the stability of the
American Unioii-w-tlie decay of lpatriotism in the excessive
commercial spirit of the people, the disregard of events, of
men and principles, the misconception of the office and end
of government, and the sectional and partisan spirit of the
day. A    ‘

Yet who can doubt thatthe union of these "States shall

28 THE CITY CELEBRATION.

last as long as the Divine purpose that established them?
Look at the great movements of time and events that were
necessarily anterior to the erection of this government.
Centuries had to pass before the great tide of civilization
which from the garden eastward in Eden, spreading with
seeming ebb and flow, yet with constant progression, reached
these shores, bearing on its crested Wave the heroic Oolum-
bus, the pilot of that greater company which came hither to

‘lay the foundation of a Western Empire. Generations of

statesmen had to live and spend the energy of their Wisdom
upon theories and forms of government. Nations had to
grow to greatness and tremble to their fall ; dynasties and
kingdoms had to contend with every form of human passion
and yield to every form of decay incident to human Weak-
ness and vice, before this people could be created. For
there is a positive relation of human events, one to another.
The great moraland political forces of life act as certainly
as the great forces of nature; they are but a higher develop-

  ment of nature, and are obedient to the same authority as

that which has set the stars in their places, and given perfume
and beauty to the flowers of the field. And thus, from the
first patriarchal government to ‘the creation of our own
republic, all things conspired, all things Wrought, toward it.
The greatness of our day rests upon foundations older than
the Pyramids, more venerable than the Temple of the Sun.
We believe that the labor of our political life and institu-
tions is not yet finished ; that We have not reached the full
development of the power Within us, that We have not yet

eaccomplished the magnificent destiny assigned us. Here

where there were no crumbling ruins of old establishments,
---no monumental stones or storied arches, the remains of an
ancient and extinguished glory;-—-no places consecrated by
priestly ceremony or the authority of kings--«upon a broad
open space that never had been builded upon or occupiedby
human government, ‘the will of God laid the foundation of
these great States, and erected them into One : the proudest,
noblest temple of human liberty the World has ever seen or

CITY DINNER. y 29

ever shall see. The wrath of man; the folly of man, may
mar its beauty; neglect may dim the lustre of its ornaments ;
violence may deface its altar, and tumult disturb its wor-
ship ; but the massive walls and knitted roof of that temple
cannot be shaken; its gates shall be thronged and its service
shall be ministered so long as the largest freedom of man is
necessary to the purposes of God.

Let us then, on this day, lift up our hearts in thanks-

giving; let us commemorate the virtues and patriotism of

our fathers ; let us render our grateful thanks to heaven for
the blessings bestowed upon that virtue and the triumph
given to that patriotism ;. let there be enkindled in our hearts
a noble emulation of their goodness, that we may worthily
inherit and purely transmit their greatness to distant gene-
rations. Let us all this day renew the vows of our allegi-

  ance to the eternal principle of Truth and Liberty. Let the

sun go down upon us better men and better citizens, filled
with a deeper, stronger, purer devotion to our great, our
common Country.  

The exercises were concluded by the singing of the “Star Spangled
Banner,” and a Benediction by Dr. Lorrmor.

The procession was then reformed, and marched immediately to

Faneuil Hall.

CITY DINNER.

Faneuil Hall was decorated in the usual manner for the corporation
Independence Day Festival. The name of WA_sH1NGTO.N shone con»
spicuously from an arch over the clock, vis-a-vis to the large painting of
WEBSTER, in the act of expounding the Constitution in the United States
Senate, in reply to Mr. HAYNES’S nullification speech. This was well,
appropriate, suitable to the events symbolized; but the arrangement of
the names of the other Presidents on the panels of the galleries was not
so intelligible, whether viewed by the light of chronologypor by any other
light. The company, a goodly array to look at, were seated at the tables

by two o’clock, and a blessing was invoked on the feast by the Rev. Dr. T

Lo'rn:sor,pof the Brattle Street, Church. His Honor Mayor LINCOLN
presiding, now gave the order to commence the action, and the dinner
was thereupon attacked with steady courage, and the onslaught was kept

' up with unflinching vigor until three o’clock, by which time the tables

30 THE CITY CELEBRATION.

were thickly covered with the evidences of the thorough work made by
the municipal forces, which included several hundreds of auxiliaries, who
promptly came forth to the assistance of the city fathers, upon being duly
notified that their services would be needed on the great occasion.

The tables having been somewhat cleared of the fragmentary remains
of the fallen, Mayor LINCOLN opened the vials of patriotic congratulation
in the following address :---

ADDRESS OF MAYOR LINCOLN.

, We have assembled, citizens of Boston, in our own
Fanueil Hall, to participate in the celebration of another
anniversary of American Independence. We have laid
aside the sober cares of our several daily avocations, to join
in that general jubilee which is so becoming to a great and
united people.

This morning’s sun shone upon thirty millions of freemen
exulting in the peaceful and full enjoyment of a greater
number of blessings than has ever before been vouchsafed
to man.

The act we commemorate ‘placed the United States in a
proud position as a member of the great family of nations.
Its influence has extended further than that, for while it
conferred happiness upon a great community, yet it has
modified and changed the policy of every civilized people,
and is destined to go on until constitutional governments
and the rights of man shall be universally acknowledged.

If there is any section of this country that should glory
in the day, it is this Commonwealth, and our own beloved
Boston. Here the greatstruggle of the Revolution com-
menced ; our soil first drank the blood of its martyrs; on

yonder heights was the first great battle fought; our streets  

first witnessed the insolence of the foreign foe, and from our
wharves his first great mortifying defeat, as begging per-

gmission to quietly retire, after a protracted siege within

its sheltering walls, his discomfited army, with its craven-
hearted iretainers, took their hurried departure, andsailed
down the iwaters of our beautiful bay.

Massachusrettst men were in every  great  of the

ADDRESS or Mnvopn LINCOLN. 31

Revolution; the bones of her sons lie mingled with the soil
of every field of the conflict, but her enemy never again
attempted to make our State the theatre of war, or trusted

  their armies to the mercy of a people who had driven them

so ignominiously from her shores. ,

The fee gallantly met them in other scenes and in distant
parts, but they had already seen enough of the mettle of
her Puritan stock not to hazard another efibrt at subjuga-
tion in the midst of the firesides and homes of her patriots.

The men of .Massachusetts heard the first gun of the
Revolution Within her own limits ; they struggled then, and
through all that eventful war, in every section, for the com-
mon cause, and only ceased their efforts when the royal
army, at the siege of Yorktown, laid down their arms, and
their submission was received by one of her own generals.
The valor which Massachusetts displayed in the field was
only equalled by the Wisdom which distinguished her in the
council. The eloquence of her civilians prepared and sus-

tained the hearts of the people for the contest, and nerved

their arms and strengthened their sinews for those deeds

  which astonished the World.

The patriotism which led her into the conflict, and, with

the co-«operation of herssister colonies, carried her success-

fully through, has ever continued, and is as strong now as
at any period in her history.         5 T    
The people of Boston, in town meeting assembled, at the
conclusion of the War in 1783, resolved that the anniversary
of the Declaration of Independence should, be constantly

celebrated by a public oration; and to-day We have listened  

to the seventy-sixth, which has been delivered under the
auspices of its municipal authorities. I believe it can be
said to the credit of ,_Boston,that it is- the only municipal
organization which has, without a single  exception, cele-
brated in this manner this great national event.

These orations, while necessarily partaking somevvhat of

the personal feelings and opinions of the difierent indi-

viduals vvho have ofliciated, have still,‘in the main, been Ma

' 32 THE cm: CELEBRATION.

true index of the spirit of the times in which they were
delivered, and have been of incalculable ‘advantage in keep-
ing in remembrance the heroic deeds of the fathers, who
achieved the independence of the nation.

Let us, then, fellow citizens, dedicate the day to none’

but the most fraternal feelings for all sections and parties
of our common country. Let party names and sectarian
prejudices be banished from our thoughts on this national
festival. let us all swear unfaltering allegiance to the
great principle of the Revolution, leaving the particular
application of those principles to public measures, to other
occasions, and toother days in the national calendar.

In the progress of events We must occasionally difl°er
upon momentous questions affecting the public weal- Con-
troversies Will come with free thought and free speech, and
are in themselves signs of a healthy political organization;
but to—-day we recognize each and all as brothers and patri-
ots, peers of the same glorious inheritance, and alike respon-

sible to transmit it unimpaired to posterity. Let us here,
inold Faneuil Hall, surrounded by all its interesting ’asso-—

ciations, solemnly assert our loyalty to that union of the

States which makes us one people, and the sacred regard  

to the Constitution as established by the Fathers, and
expounded by its most illustrious defenders.
Let us feel that our duties correspond with our privileges,

  and remember the old maxim, “that eternal "vigilance is

the price of liberty.”  
The occasion is one of congratulation; let us give full

  play to the emotions of the hour.

The Star Spangled Banner, the emblem of the free, floats
this day not only over a vast Republic, but is seen by
admiring eyes upon some mast-head in every sea. Every

  siiericanfs heart beats quiclier as it is seen aloft, dallying
with the breeze. Let us see to it that its ethereal blueshall

never    soiled . by any stain, or that the brilliancy of its
stars sliallneyfer be obscured by anarchy or disunion. In
 alf. of the Cityof Boston I bid you all, guests and asso-

 

season on oovnenon BANKS. 33

ciates, a cordial Welcome to-day, tothe “ (lradleof Liberty,”
and to the festivities of this occasion, and will close with
proposing this sentiment :---      

T he Day we C'e_Zebrate-—-:~The most memorable Day in the history of the
past; each returning anniversary shall add to it a new significance, as it
beholds a great and prosperous people enjoying; the rich legacy bequeathed
by the Fathers, and resolved in their turn to transmit it to their sons.

This address was followed by “ Hail Columbia ” from the band.

The Mayor now introduced Col. FRENCII,i:l1ep Chief Marshal of the
day, as having been charged with the additional duty of toastmaster, and
that gentleman proceeded to announce the regular toasts.

First regular toast :--~

1 The President of the United States»--May Wisdom direct his counsels,
and under the auspices of the Constitution may he exercise his high pre-

s rogative with discretion, honor and fidelity.

The Mayor now read the following

LETTER FROM PRESIDENT‘ BUCHANAN.

VVASHINGTON, June 19, 1858.

DEAR SIR-——-—~I have had thehonor to receive your “official invitation
to participate with the City Governmeiit of Boston in the celebration of
the approaching anniversary of Anrierioanslndependence.”

I should be much gratified were it in my power to accept this invite-
tion, and therefore deeply regret that public business will confined me to
this city for several, ‘weeks to come. p - 5 t e s s

Feeeling much indebted to you for the kind and e courteous s termed swhich

i you have employed in extending the invitation, I remain yours every

respectfully, L
Hon. F.  Lincoln, Mayorg 8:0. i - -

Second regular toast':%—-- s e   _ V  L  o

T he Commonwealth of Jlfassachuseettswhifay her 1 ancient glory and an»

0

“ cestral fame ever remind her sons that their highest duty rests upon the t

platform of their broadest patsriotism.  

  senses on eovennoa same-  

    p   op 4  1%    

GrOV8l‘1‘10I‘ BANKS ‘Was now: Mayorfaxxd,  
  in response, said it wouldnbeimpossiblefor him to be insen-5
sible to the honor conferrednpon‘ hirnin being called upon
to respond to the sentimentt  had just been pronounced.

Hewonld thank the citizens of Boston who were present,

34 4 THE CITY CELEBRATION.

for the reception which that sentiment had received at their
hands. He experienced an inexpressible pleasure in par-
ticipating, for the first time in his life, in the celebration of
this anniversary by the city authorities , of Boston, for,
though pften heretofore invited ’ to join in the municipal

celebration, yet never before had it been his privilege to be  

present. He was proud to say that the occasion was quite
equal to the ‘expectations he had formed of it. c
There were many reasons, individual as Well as official,
Why he was pleased to join vvith the citizens of Boston in
the commemoration of this day. He begged leave to say
that he . helped build this city hiniself. In its darkened
shops, upon the printing presses and engines which have

contributed so much to. its glory, he gave the toil of his

youth, and were it necessary he could still return to them.
Those localities he never passed Without emotion. Although
subsequently admitted to the profession of the law, and had
since served in various public capacities with more or less

success, his memory still reverted with pleasure to the days  

which he passed in those workshops, for there, with those

who were associated with him, were passed many of the

happiest hours of   his life.
The Commonvvealthhas many reasons for cherishing the
reputation of this metropolis. It was this city which was

foremost in creating that merchant marine that has done so  

much for the Wealth of the State; and Massachusetts can
never forget the unswerving patriotism with which the

Boston boys sustained her rights and her liberties during  

the long and desperate struggle of the Revolution. The
Commonwealth cherishes the renown of the great and suc-
cessful efforts of the merchantprinces of Boston to harmo-

  nine the conflicting interests of commerce and manufactures,
, which together have accomplished so much for the pros-~

perityof the whole country. And Worthy the in
the brilliant history of   the city of Boston, was the estab-

  lishment  an oficial and formal commeration of the

anniversary of our National Independence. In less than

srnnonz or GOVERNOR BANKS. 85‘

eighteen years fifty millions of people trill celebrate the
hundredth anniversary pf the nation under a republican

  form of A government.

Remarks had been made today which inclined himto a
consideration of those political views to which patriotic and

  national sentiments and thoughts would lead us upon an

occasion like this; but the Mayor, treating him as a guest,
had forborne alluding to those topics, and in so doing had
acted rightly. This day belongs not to the City or to the
State. It is consecrated tothe Union of the States, and is
the property of all men throughout the World. We may
cherish the recollection of the historic glories of Boston
and Bunker Hill, but We may never forget that Georgia,
Carolina and Virginia stood side by side with New York,

  Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.   After referring to James
  Otis, he said We must remember that Lee and Jefferson, as

  Well as Hancock and Adams, are today citizens of no State,  

but “ bright, particular stars ” in that. galaxy of statesmen

A who fashioned for us the glorious heritage of the American

Union, which today numbers thirty-two independent States.
We must regard these as great, distinguishing facts, and
when in the light of these facts we look back to the past,

and the labors of those who are gone before , us,remember

  thatthere is aGrod who still lives and holds  to the per~

formance of the duties of the future and to i
nance of the principles of liberty, as exemplified in the  

livesof our fathers.        
The American Revolution did much more than give to

an intelligent people a chance for the establishment of wen.
regulated constitutional liberty.   It placed them many cen~

turies in advance of the people of all other States, and of

, all parts of the World. It caunotbe, lookingtfrom this high
standpoint, and considering the privileges we are enjoying, A

that the Past is the only light to Whichwe can look, or that
the light of the Future is not as open, and encouraging as
Was the Future of those who have gone before us.

36 THE CITY CELEBRATION.

Third regular toast z---—--
T he Zlfevnory of George W'as7zz'n_(/ton.

After a dirge by the band, the company standing, the Mayor remarked
that it was fitting that the most illustrious of living orators should reply
to a sentiment in honor of the most illustrious of the dead, and introduced
the Hon. EDWARD EVERETT.

SPEECH or MR. EVERETT. ’

MR. MAYOR 2-5-———I feel greatly honored by the manner in
which you have called upon me to respond to the toast given
to the memory of Washington. I have elsewhere thought
it right to say, that to be named in connection with him is
an honor so far beyond any desert of mine, that there would
be a degree of vanity in thinking it necessary to disclaim it.
You will give me credit, if not for the self-knowledge and
humility, at least for the good taste, which would lead me to
put far aside any such association with that great name,
which more than any other name of human renown has
drawn to itself incomparably the gratitude and affection of
his own countrymen, and the admiration of mankind. But
I may, without presumption, return you my thanks for
affording me the opportunity of giving utterance, on your
behalf and on behalf of the city of Boston, to the emotions
with which the mention of that illustrious name, ever hon-
ored, ever dear, must warm the bosom of the true patriot,
on the anniversary of our National Independence.  

I feel, sir, more and more as I advance in life, and watch
with mingled confidence, solicitude and hope the develop-
ment of the momentous drama of our national existence,
seeking to penetrate that future, which his excellency has so
eloquently foreshadowed, that it is well worth our while, that
it is at once one of our highest social duties and important
privileges to celebrate with ever increasing sole1nnity—-witli

annually augmented pomp and circumstance of festal com-  

memoration---—~the anniversary of the nation’s  were it
only affording a fitting occasion to bring the cliaracter and
services of Washington, with ever fresh ‘recvognition, to the

SPEECH on MR. EVERETT. 37
public notice, as the great central figure of that unparalleled
group, that “ noble army ” of chieftains, sages and patriots,
by Whom the revolution was accomplished.

  This is the occasion, and here is the spot, and this is the
day, and We citizens of Boston are the men, if any in the
land, to throw Wide open the portals of the Temple of
Memory and Fame, and there gaze With the eyes of a reverent
and grateful imagination on his benignant countenance and
majestic form. This is the occasion and the day, for who

needs to be told how much the cause of independence owes  

to the services and character of ‘Washington, to the purity
of that stainless purpose, to the firmness of that resolute
soul? This is the spot, this immortal hall, from which as
from an altar Went forth the burning coals, that kindled into
a consuming fire at Lexington and Concord, at Bunker Hill
and Dorchester Heights. We citizens of Boston are the
men, for the first great success of ‘Washington in the Revo-
lutionary War was to restore to our fathers their ancient and
beloved native town. This is the time, the accepted time,
When the voice of the Father of his Country cries aloud to
us from the sods of MountrVernon, and calls upon us, East
and West, North and South, as the brethren of one great

household, to be faithful to the dear-bought inheritance which  

he did so much to secure to us.       
Nor is the fame of Washington confined to our own
country. Bourdaloue, in his eulogy on the military saint
of France, exclaims, “ The other saints have been given by
the church to France ; but France, in return, has given St.
Louis to the church.” Born into the family of nations in
these latter days, receiving from foreign countries, inheriting
from ancient times the bright and instructive example ,of all
their honored sons, it is the gloryof America, in the very
dawn of her national existence, to havegiven back to the
"world many names of Whiclithe lustre will never fade; one
name of Which the Whole family of Christendom is Willing
to acknowledge the uiienviedpreeminence ; a name of Whicli
neither Greece nor Rome, nor Republican Italy, Switzerland
3 -

38 rap orrr CELEBRATION.

nor Holland, nor constitutional England, can boast the
rival. “ A character of virtues so happily tempered by one
another,” (I use the language of Charles James FoX,) “ and
so wholly unalloyed by any vices, is hardly to be found on
the pages of history.” ’

It is delightful to witness the generous recognition of
Washington’s merit, even in countries Where from political
reasons some backwardness in that respect might have been
anticipated. Notwithstanding his leading agency in wrest-

ing a colonial empire from Great Britain, England was not A

slow to appreciate the grandeur and beauty of his character.
Rufus King, writing to General Hamilton in 1797, says:
“ No one who has not been in England can have a just idea

  of the admiration expressed among all parties for General

Washington. It is a common observation, that he is not
only the most illustrious but the most meritorious character
which has yet appeared.” Nor was France behind England
in her admiration of Washington. Notwithstanding the
uneasy relations of the two countries at the time of his
decease, when the news of his death reached Paris, the
youthful and fortunate soldier, who had already reached the
summit of power by paths which Wasliington could never
have trod, commanded the highest honors to be paid to him.
A solemn funeral service was performed in the “ Invalids,”
in the presence of all that was most eminent in Paris. “ A
sorrowful cry,” said Fontanes, the orator chosen by Napoleon
for the occasion, “has reached us from America, which he
liberated. It belongs to France to yield the first response

to the lamentation which will be echoed by every great soul.  

These august arches have been well chosen for the apothesis
of a hero.”

How often, in those wild scenes of her revolution, when  

the best blood of France was shed by the remorseless and

ephemeral tyrants, who chased each other’ daggerin hand i

across that dismal stage of crime and wo,lduring the
reign of terror, how often did the thoughts of Lafayette
and his companions in arms who had fought the battles of

SPEECH on MR. nvnpnrr. 39

constitutional liberty in America call up the image of the
pure, the just, the humane, the unambitious Washington!
How different would have been the fate of France, if her
victorious chieftain, when he had reached the giddy heights
of power, had imitated the great example which he eulo-
gizedl W He might have saved his country from being crushed

by the leagued hosts of Europe; he might have prevented ,

the names of Moscow and Waterloo from being Written in
letters of blood on the pages of history; he might have
escaped himself from the sad significance of those memora-
ble Words of Fontanes, on the occasion to which I have
alluded, When, in the presence of Napoleon he spoke of
Washington as a man, Who, “ by a destiny seldom shared by
those who change the fate of empires, died in peace as a
private citizen, in his native land, where he had held the
first rank, and which he had himself made free.”

How different would have been the fate of Spain, of
Naples, of Greece, of Germany, of Mexico and the South
American Republics had their recent revolutions been con-
ducted by men like Washington and his patriotic associates,
Whose prudence, patriotism, probity and disinterestedness
conducted our revolution to an auspicious and honorable
result. ’ is

But it is of course at home that we must look for
adequate appreciation of our Washington’s name and Worth.

He is the friend of other countries; he is the father of his

own. I own, Mr. Mayor, that it has been to me a source    

of inexpressible satisfaction to find, amidst all the bitter

dissensions of the day, that this one grand sentiment—-——ven-  

eration for the name of Wasliington-----is planted down in the
very depths of the American heart. It has been my privilege,
Within the last two years, to hold it up to the reverend con-
tcmplation of   my ccuntrymen, from  of the Penob--
scot to the banks of the Savannah from New York to St.
Louis, from Chesapeake Bay to 
same sentiments, expressed in the same Words, have every-

  

rake Michigan, and the  

40 THE crrr CELEBRATION.

where touched the same sympathetic chord in the American
heart. ‘

To that central attraction, I have been delighted to find
the thoughts, the affections, the memories of the people, in
whatever part of the country, from the ocean to ‘the prairies
of the West; from the land of granite and ice to the land of
the palmetto and the magnolia»--~—-instinctively turn. They
have their sectional loves and hatreds, but before the clear
name of Waslipington, they are absorbed and forgotten. In
whatever region of the country, the heart of patriotism
warms to him; as in the starry heavens, with the circling

of the seasons, the pointers go round the sphere, but their

direction is ever toward the pole. “ They may point from
the East, they maygpoint from the West, but they will point
to the Northern star.” It is not the brightest star in the
heavens, as men account brightness, but it is always in its
place. The meteor, kindled into momentary blaze from the
rank vapors of the lower sky, is brighter. The comet is
brighter that streams across the firmament,

“ And from his horrid hair,
Shakes pestilence and war.”

But the meteor explodes; the comet rushes back to the
depths of the heavens; while the load-star shines steady at
the pole, alike in summer and in winter, in seed time and
in harvest, at the equinox and the solstice. It shone for
Columbus at the discovery of America; it shone for the
pioneers of settlement, the pilgrims of faith and hope at
Jamestown and Plymouth; it will shine for the mariner
who shall enter your harbor to-night ; it will shine for the
navies which shall bear the sleeping thunders of your power
while the flag of the Union shall brave the battle and the
brezee. So, too, the character, the counsels, the example of
ours tWashington, of which you bid me speak; he guided

T our fathers through the storms of the Revolution; the will

guide us through the doiibts and difliculties that beset us;

SPEECH OF JUDGE SANGER. 41

he will guide our children and our children’s children in
the paths of prosperity and peace, while America shall hold
her place in the family of nations.

The fourth regular toast :----

The Judiciarg/—-——The sheet—anchor of the Ship of State; may it ever
take firm hold in the hearts of the people.

SPEECH OF JUDGE SANGER.

JUDGE SANGER, of the Court of Common Pleas, having ‘been called
to respond in behalf of the Judiciary, said :-—-

Both for the subject matter of the sentiment and for those
who have been, with myself, attentive  delighted listeners
to the eloquent speech just delivered, it is to be regretted
that it has not fallen to the lot of some member, of that
Supreme Court whose learning and whose weight of personal
character have established that tribunal in the hearts of the
people of this Commonwealth, and have added lustre to the
Commonwealth itself, to answer to this sentiment. And
now that those eloquent lips have just been closed---lips
whose feeblest accents always thrill to the lieart---I feel it
almost impossible to say a word. But I have been called
upon, and must respond to the sentiment.     l

I do not propose to eulogize the Judiciary of Massachu-
setts. The cccasion neither permits nor requires it. But
I would speak of the aid which theJudiciary lends to the
administration of the law. In this respect, perhaps, more
honor has been awarded to it than it can justly claim.‘

While we speak of the Judiciary as the directing and
controlling power, we often attribute to it the undivided
honor and responsibility. But it must beremembered that
it has not an undivided honor and responsibility; that there
are others who share the honors that cluster around the
responsibility that attaches to its decisions. We all know
that when the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court gives a

decision upon an abstract question, the annunciation of the

decision falls unheeded, unless by the application of the law

42 one CITY oanannamon.

to facts, the popular pulse is struck and feeling is excited.
It seems to me that when the law is applied to the facts, it
is then that the honor is due and the responsibility attaches.
Now while the judges do this but rarely, there is a body of
men who do it every day---W-tlie jury-—-«wl1o under our consti-~
tution and laws apply the law to the facts; and it is the jury
who should share the honor and divide the responsibility.

He concluded with the following sentiment :-—-~——

The Jury Listmdn theory composed of men of the beat intellect, intelli«-—
gence,’ and integrity in the various Walks of life, who ‘well and truly try
the issue according to the evidence. Let the people see to it that the feet
corresponds to the theory.

Fifth regular toast :-----
The Union of the Staiesm-Around it cluster the moat glorious associations

of our history; in it the hopes of hun*1anity are involved; for it, 1~eligione e c

liberty and conscience plead; and beyond all, upon it, in its riper years
as in its infancy, the protection of God roots, at sheltering cloud for its
fiercer day and a pillar of fuse in its darker night.

SPEECH 013‘ THE HON. AMOS A. LeA.WRENCIE3.

Hon. AMOS A. Lawannon being called upon to respond,

said the call was unexpected, but he held to the doctirine
that any Massachusetts man who cannot respond to a senti-»
ment in honor of the union of the States, and at the
moment, is no Amxwiccm at all. In lOOl’{lIlg‘ over some old
papers the other day to ascertain What had been done in
times past in this hall on the occasion of this anniversary,

he found that after the President of the United States,

“ thei1~ majestiee the King and Queen of l3‘rance ”’ were
toasted. What a toast, he said, was this for an Axnerican
celebration. That nnpatriotic order was introduced because
party politics had been introduced into the celebration of
the day, and at a time when politics ran lllgll. V
These celebrations have improved aince then; but he was

eorry tohear that today that oinoprovernent has beenclieoked
  yean   effrt tonnake a party celebration, and which fore the

her of    city he treated Would never be made again.  

srnnon or HON. JOSEPH HOWE. 43

On the way to the hall he was told by a friend whom he
loved and revered, that this was to be a Black Republican
celebration. Now if it be a Black Republican celebration,
and the sentiments to which we have listened are Black
Republican, then, he would say, let us have more of them.
He saw here National Whigs and National Americans.
The city of Boston is national, and always will be. He saw
present those who call themselves “American Republicans,”
andhe thought they would say she is national, and that
they rejoice at it. In conclusion, he gave as a sentiment :--

The City; of Boston--~May she continue to be as she always has been-——-
the bright North Star of National Liberty, from which the people of the
country may always take. a safe reckoning.

Sixth regular toast :---
Tlze Orator of the Day---'WhOse eloquence has given an additional lustre

to his words of wisdom; may his broad and patriotic sentiments cause us i

to prize our country with the pride of true Americans.

J OHN S. HOLMES, Esq., the Orator of the.Day, responded, saying that
he did not claim to be an eloquent man, and that no man could be eloquent
in the presence of Edward Everett. He concluded by giving———--

The Constitution of the United States-——-The Magma Charta of American
Liberty; to be preserved in reverence, and to be sustained by the
obedience of the people of the land. a

Seventh regular toast :-----~

The Queen of Great Britain-—-Her virtues have gained her more hearts O

than her throne has subjects.

The Mayor here introduced the Hon. J OSEPH HOWE, of Halifax, and
requested him to respond to the toast.

sensor: or HON. JOSEPH HOWE, or HALIFAX.

Mr. Howe said, that to be called on to respond to sucha
sentiment, was an honor he never before received  his life.
He had been in Boston before and had partaken of her
unbounded hospitality, and had fraternized with the people.

He had been surprised as well as gratified to see that ancient

prejudices had been toned down ; to observe that the feelings
excited by two wars had become entirely subdued; that

44 THE orrr CELEBRATION.

the angry feelings belonging to the past had subsided, and
that he should hear the health of the Queen drank in these
States with all the honors with which it would be drank at
home. He   thanked the audience most sincerely, in the
name of three millions of North Americans, Who Would
thank them again when they heard of the incident. He
Wished that he had Queen Victoria to present to the admiring
gaze of the citizens of Boston. As republicans they might
not be fond of queens, but as individuals they are fond of
beautful and cultivated Women.   y
We honor the sovereign, because We love liberty. "We
maintain his throne because our liberties surround it. We
uphold and maintain him as the apex of the great pillar of
state. We honor the sovereign when he is of our own sex ;
but when a gifted and beautifulvvoman sits upon ourthrone,
we love her- And Queen Victoria, to all her subjects, at
home and abroad, sets the example of a good Wife, a devoted
other, and of a Woman of taste and education, and there»
forewe thank God that We have not only got a monarch,
but an exemplar for our Wives and daughters.
    The speaker said he never came to Boston Without feeling
at home, for his father was born in Boston, he learned here
the trade of a printer, and when the revolution broke out
he was just twenty-one, and engaged to a pretty girl. He
became compromised, and was driven away; but that pretty
girl followed him to the Provinces and married him. Those
who left Boston for the Provinces were not so good repub-
licans, perhaps, as those who Were left behind, but they were
lovers of liberty, all 1 His father retained fond recollections
of Boston, and Whenever he took sick they sent him here to

look at the Old State House, and he came back uncommonly .

Well.

  alluding to the eloquent remarks of Mr. Everett, whom
he said all North America could not match, the  
remarked that the Indian draws from the maple Q his bow
~iisdthe sap  sweeten his repsast.  Everetit, the orator
A  State    Nation, iseems like hi to raw from one

   

srnnon on HON. JOSEPH HOWE. 45

source the high logical argument with which to appeal to the
understanding and the grace which charms all Who listen
to him.

He alluded to the difficulties that had recently existed
between the United States and England, but now happily
removed, and said he did not hestitate to express the opinion
of a North American, and of all North Americans, that no
na.tion has the right to stop the vessels of another nation
upon the high seas-

He complimented the character of the celebration, and
remarked, that in listening to the reading of the Declaration
of Independence, he regarded it as an indictment against
England in the olden time. At that time the rights of
Englishmen at home Were not much better defined than the
rights of Englishmen in the Colonies. England, under
Lord North, was no more an England to be proud of than
New Amsterdam under Peter Stuyvesant. Judge not the
English empire by What she Was then, but by what she is
now--the centre of a vast commerce, and What is more,
founding new colonies and provinces every day, training
them in the Way of freedom, and when they are prepared
for self-government, not forcing them into declarations of
independence, but making over to them the powers they
need. The North American Provinces are as you are.’
When you get a bad administration you have to 
three or four years, but We can vote out a bad government
in five minutes, by a vote of Want of confidence. i      

He extended a hearty invitation to those present to visit
the Provinces on some of their great days, and he W0
assure them of the Warmest reception, and concluded with
some remarks concerning the ladies of Boston and Halifax,
conceding to the American ladies pre-eminence in the dimena
sions of their crinolines, or the amount of canvas they sail
under.

L In response to Mr. Hownfls senent, the band played“ God save the
*u_een.” ,   u p  

  46 THE CITY CELEBRATION.

Eighth regular toast :---
T he Clergy of the Revolution-—Not inferior to their fellow citizens in

their devotion to the cause of liberty. 5

After some remarks in relation to the revolutionary reminiscences
connected with Brattle Street Church, the Mayor introduced the
Rev. S. K. Lornnor, the pastor of that church, and Chaplain of the
Day.

SPEECH or REV. MR. LOTHROP.

The Rev. 8. K. Locrnaor responded by expressing his
deep regret that, inasmuch as this was the anniversary of
the separation of the colonies from Great Rritain, that the
announcement could not have been made today that the
Atlantic telegraph cable had been laid, in order that the
same anniversary might have commemorated the completion
of this mighty pledge of peace and friendship between the
two countries. He then remarked, how shall I dare venture
to speak for the clergy of the Revolution ‘fl Fortunately,
they need no man to speak for them; their deeds and char-
acters are matters of history, and speak for themselves. He
next alluded to the church (in Brattle Square) of which he
was pastor, and said he could ‘venture to declare that during
the Revolution there was gathered under no roof in this
country a body of men more faithful to the interests of the
country than those who gathered in that church; and no
man did more, by his influence and speech, than Dr. Cooper,
then pastor of the church.

The clergy have ever been true to the liberty of the na-

tion. Where has all the civil liberty in the World originated ?

  Has not the martyr always preceded the patriot, and was not

the struggle for civil liberty preceded by that for religious
liberty? And is any civil liberty durable that does not rest

upon religious freedom? The liberty of this country de~
pends upon the religious belief of the people of the country. A
 A The strain is to be upon the moral principleof thepeople,
  and if there? is no religious belief, there can be no moral

principle. If the people of   this country are   able to retain

§

LETTER FROM LIEUT. GEN. SCOTT. 47

their religious faith and moral principle, then this govern-
ment will not fail. The reverend gentlemen concluded with
the sentiment :---

Patriotism—--——7Which has its foundation in piety, and the moral principle
that rests upon faith in the gospel of Christ. Let those two sentiments
prevail in the hearts of this people, and their glory and prosperity, as Well
as their liberty, will be perpetual.

Ninth regular toast z—--—
T he Army and Navy of the United States.

The Mayor here read the following

LETTER FROM LIEUT. GEN. SCOTT.

Wnsr POINT, N. Y., June 10, 1858.

To His Honor F. W. Lincoln, Mayor of Boston.

DEAR Sm--—-—My obligations to Boston, and, indeed, to the whole State
of Massachusetts, are numerous and abiding. I never recur to them with-
out pride and pleasure. Your handsome invitation to join in celebrating
the approaching National Anniversary in Faneuil Hall, adds a new one.
But, although there is nowhere a place I should visit with equal pleasure,
I find it necessary to decline the honor. I am much worn in the public
service, and, for the future, must avoid all public entertainments and high
excitements.

With high respect and esteem, I remain

Your obedient servant,
Wnvnrnnro Scorr.

,At the request of the Mayor, Col. E. G. PARKER, senior aid to the
Governor, responded to the toast to the Army and Navy.

Tenth regular toast :--~--—-

The Declaration 0fInd'ependence-——-Let us not, in adoration of the senti?»

ments it contains, forget that those sentiments are the representatives of
the most sacred list of names in the history of the American people.

Mr. DANIEL K. Form, who read the Declaration, responded, closing
his remarks with the following sentiment z------

The Present Government of the. City ofBostrm——-A perfect chain which
needs no better Linc-oln (His Honor the Mayor). ,

Eleventh regular toast :---~— -
The Legislature of the Province of Massachusetts-«Early, active, and

unwavering friends of American Independence. May their spirit ever.

animate their successors.

Dr. CHARLES A. PHELPS responded, closing with the following: :---—-

48 THE cxrr CELEBRATION.

The Citizens of B0ston—-Arch rebels in 1776. They were among the
earliest, may they also be among the latest, defenders of American Inde-
pendence.

Twelfth regular toast :~——
The Veterans of the Army of 1812.

Col. THOMAS ASPINWALL responded, and gave :—--

Boston---—The Cradle of Liberty. May she always be the stronghold of
the full grown giant.

Thirteenth regular toast :---—

Our System of Free Sclzools--—The nursery of intelligence and morality,
the fountain of social prosperity, and the safeguard of republican liberty;
may it never cease to be the pride and glory of Boston, where education
was first provided by the means of all for the benefit of all.

To this sentiment Mr. PHILBRICK, Superintendent of the public schools,
was expected to respond, but was prevented by the lateness of the hour.

By this time the balloon ascensions had carried off nearly all the
company, and on motion of Alderman.VV1GH'rMAN, the remaining few
adjourned.

LETTERS .

The following letters, in addition to those given above, were received
by the Committee of Arrangements :--—

I. S. B. THAGHER, of Mississippi, has the honor to acknowledge the
polite invitation of the City Council of Boston to dine on the 4th instant.

He regrets that the recent death of one of his family deprives him of
the pleasure of’ sending an acceptance.

He desires to assure the Council of his joy and pride in the rapid and
substantial progress of his native city; and, he begs leave to add, since we
are taught in the Holy Scripture, “ A city set upon an kill cannot be bid,”
that BOSTON, upon her three hills, having thus a threefold responsibility,
yet challenges the admiration of the World»!

Chestnut Street, July 2, 1858.

To his Honor Frederick VV. Lincoln, Mayor, &c., &c., &c.

Wnsnrneron, June 16, 1858.
DEAR SIR~——-I have had the honor to receive your letter of the 7th inst.,
enclosing to me an invitation from the Committee of Arrangements to

‘ attend the celebration, by the City Council of Boston, of the approaching

anniversary of American Independence.

-Such an invitation is an honor to be proudly remembered. To parasi-
pate in ca. oston celebration of the 4th of July, in sight of Biinlrer Hill,
and to dine-in Faneuil Hall, is like being in the visible preiselnce of the
Revolution, and feasting on its glorious memories and the fruits of
Wries. . A s o v . e

LETTERS. 49

It would be most gratifying to me to be present at the celebration, and
it is with much regret that {I find it out of my power. Circumstances
oblige me to return home as soon as my public duties here will permit,
and I must, therefore, decline the invitation with which I have been
honored, and which you have so kindly urged me to accept.

I request that you will communicate this to the Committee of Arrange-
ments, and to you and to them, sir, I offer my sincere acknowledgments.
I have the honor to be,

Very respectfully yours, &c.

J. J. CRITTENDEN.
Frederick W. Lincoln, Mayor of the city of Boston.

NAIIANT, 8d July, 1858.

MY DEAR MR. MAYOR :----By some accident, which is entirely unim-
portant except as an apology for the platenpess of my own reply, your
obliging card for the Municipal Celebration of our national birthday only
reached me a day or two since. I thank you for the privilege it offers me
of dining in Faneuil Hall on the 5th inst. Were I to be in town on that
day, I should certainly not omit the opportunity of spending at least a
part of the afternoon in that hall» of’ ancient renown and glorious
association.

May I be pardoned, however, for availing myself of this note of ac-
knowledgment and apology, (and in place of the speech which you so
kindly requested me to make,) to suggest a hope that when, in the course
of coming years, the anniversary of the great Declaration shall happen
again on Sunday, the idea may be entertained of holding the celebration
on the day before rather than the day after it ‘.9 ,

I will not dwell on the obvious expediency of bringing such celebrations
into the end of a week instead of into the beginning ; and of thus remov-
ing the temptation of turning the Sunday into a more day of preparation.
There are other circumstances of an historical character, which can hardly
fail to commend such a change to the favorable considerations of the
community.

The memorable and momentous Debate of Independence at Philadel-
phia ran through the 1st, 2d, 3d and 4th days of‘ July. * The resolution
which embraced the whole decision of the question was adopted on the
2d, and it was accordingly of the 2d day of July, 1776, that John Adams
wrote so emphatically to his wife, that “ it ought to be commemorated, as
the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty;
that it ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games,
sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this conti-
nent to the other, from this time forward forevermore.”

The formal declaration of what had been thus resolved was debated on
the 3d, and finally adopted on the evening of the 4th of July. Our great
Revolution was thus, in some sort, and so far as the Continental Congress
was concerned, “ a Four Days’ Revolution; ” and either of the four days
might fairly be taken for an anniversary celebration of the event. It
would seem as if one of these four ought certainly to be taken for this

urpose; and when the Sabbath comes in to arrest all festivities on the
ast of the four, there would be a peculiar historical propriety in falling
back upon one of the other three. I

By substituting the 2d in such cases, We should give literal fulfilment to

the prophetic anticipations of John Adams, and no one would be sorry to

50 THE CITY CELEBRATION.

see this occasionally done. But there is another association with the 3d
of‘ July, which would add still more to the interest of such a celebration.
You are aware that Wa.shington, having arrived at Cambridge on the 2d,
assumed command of the American army for the first time on the 3d of
July, 1775. Would it not be a most agreeable and worthy coincidence, if
when the intervention of a Sunday shall cut oil‘ the customary routine of
these celebrations, We could combine the commemoration of those two
great events-— Washington taking command of the Army in 1775, and
Congress declaring our Independence in 1776? ’

Pardon me, my dear Mr. Mayor, for making a note of ceremony the
vehicle of so practical and prosaic a suggestion. Whatever day may be
taken, now or hereafter, I doubt not that as lone as Faneuil Hall shall

7 stand, it will be celebrated in a spirit of national {brotherhood and compre-~
hensive patriotism. The day is nothing; the spirit is every thinox Let me

hasten to a conclusion by thanking. you and the Committee 0? Arrange-
ments once more for your kind invitation, and by offering as a sentiment

for the occasion-—— ~

in“ Our Country and its Glorious Pa:s2f—--Let us resolve that it shall be no

fault of ours if it shall not enjoy a like glorious future.”
Believe me, dear Mr. Mayor, very sincerely,
Your friend and servant,

  ROBERT C. Wmrnnor.
His Honor F. W. Lmcoln, Jr., Mayor. -

DEMOCRATIC CELEBRATION.

At an early hour in the morning, the members of the Democratic Club
assembled at their headquarters, Mercantile Buildings, and at half-past
ten o’clock, the military escort—-the Independent Boston Fnsileers, Capt.
SNOW-warrived. The procession was at once formed under the direction
of the Chief Marshal, Colonel HEARD, and marched, to the stirring music
of the Bridgewater Band, through Chauncy, Essex, Washington, Court,
and Tremont Streets-—-1-caching the Tremont Temple at eleven o’clock.
The large hall Was soon thronged; the galleries being completely filled by
ladies and the main floor by gentlemen only. Mr. EVERETT, Mr. LORD,
of Salem, the elder HANCOCK, Rev. Dr. PUTNAM and many other distin«-
guished gentlemen occupied the prominent seats.

After a Voluntary on the Organ, the following prayer was delivered by
the Chaplain of the Day, Rev. CHANDLER Rohnms :---—

0 God of infinite glory, and majesty, and mercy! let a
rejoicing nation worship thee.   Let a favored people praise
thee; yea, let all the people praise thee.     

Thou artccotu-‘King, our only King. Before thee would

We bow down and kneel and pay our homage and offer our  

snpplications and thanksgivings. 0 that our hearts may be
filled with gratitude and our months with thy praise and
honor all the day long.    

Accept, gracious Lord, the joy which is this day circnlat—  
ing in the hearts and shining on the faces of a happy people,  

as a feeble token that We do not Wholly undervalue and
despise thy precious benefits.               .  .

We devontly acknowledge  adore thyprovidential
hand in all our nation’s history- Verily, thou wast the
God of our fathers. Thou broughtest them out of bondage.

  Thou leddest them over the sea. Thou plantedst them on a  

  new continent. Thouldidst watch over them in their feeble~

52 DEMOCRATIC CELEBRATION.

ness. Thou didst save them out of the hands of their ene-
mies. Thou didst succor them in their straits. Thou didst
fight with them in their strugglefor freedom, and thy right
hand gave them the victory. Thou didst raise up for them
men wise in council, strong in action, and brave in arms;
and, especially in the hour of extreme peril, one, wisest,
discreetest, best to lead, to inspire, to harmonize, to control.
Thou didst establish their liberties ; thou didst bind the
beautiful bond of their union; thou didst spread the bounda-
ries of their habitation ; thou didst increase their greatness ;

‘ thou gavest them a name and an exalted place amongst the

nations of the earth. Not unto them, 0 God, not unto them,
but unto thy name give glory I  

And now, 0 God, that we have come into this goodlyin-
heritence; that we have entered into their labors ; that we
are reaping the rich harvest which we did not sow, let our

hearts not forget the Rock of our salvation ; let them not be  

lifted up with pride and vain glory; let us not boast our-
selves of our own strength; let us not wickedly fall away
from thee. Lest thou should’st withdraw from us the

light of thy countenance and all our glory become dim. '

Lest thou shouldst take away from beneath us thy mighty
arm, and our mountain crumble and come to naught.

O Lord God of our fathers, be thou still our God and the
God of our children. Mercifully continue to us thy favors

“ and further us with thy most needful help. Over all our
nation’s glory may there be a defence. Wide as its borders  
extend, may the wings of thy protection stretch over it.

East as its material prosperity increases, may the knowledge
and love and fear of thee increasecin the hearts of the

  people.

reduce to tihe  

With, heavenly gifts. Guide all their counsels.  they
be just men, fearing thee and exacting righteousness. 

Rule thou, we beseech thee, ourrulers. Replenish thexn

all  measures, sdevised. A in yvwiedem and     of a. a
pure patriotism,..be promotive   public. Welfare, and

 

United States-  

,,,,.osperity  harmony of these

PRAYER. 53

Bless our whole country, North, South, East and West;
all its States and Territories; all orders and conditions of
its inhabitants ; all branches of useful industry ; all institu:
tions of good learning, of wise philanthropy, and of a pure
religion.  

Bless, defend, perpetuate our national Union. Save us
from civil dissension and strife. Save us from hasty, partial,
passionate legislation. Save us from border warfare and
from foreign war. Save us from the springing up of roots
of bitterness. Save us from the growth of public wrongs.
Save us from the dangers which are incident to prosperity
and power. Save us from all the evils, known and unknown,
from within and from without, which threaten our Republic.

Spare us, good Lord I For thy name’s sake, for the sake
of thy blessed Son, Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, for free-
dom’s sake, for humanity’s sake, we pray thee to spare us
and to be merciful unto us. Make us watchful and wise;
make us grateful, peaceable and righteous ; make us loyal
to thyself, that our Nation may accomplish, without wrong

and without blood, the sublime destiny which is opened to

Christian freemen.   \
And now, 0 God, we invoke thy blessing upon the festivi-

ties of this day and upon the services of this occasion. May  

words of truth and wisdom and power be spoken. May

new emotions of gratitude swell in ourhearts.      

sentiment which shall be expressed or awakend beconsistet
with and conducive to the love of our cou:ntry,our fellow
men, and our God.      

In the name of the great Mediator we humbly offer these
our prayers and thanksgivings, with all the heavenly 
giving glory to God in the highest, and ascribing blessirlg

and dominion to Him that sitteth upnthe throne, and unto

the Lamb, forever and ever.

An original Ode by Mr. B. P. SHILLABER ifollowed, and was sung with
such effect as to elicit marked applause. by The Declaration of Indepenu
dence wasread by  D. H. MASON. Mr. WILLIAMSON now cameforth
and said: “Ladies and gentlemen, I have the pleasure to introduce to

4, ,

54   DEMCCRMJIC CELEBRATION.

you, the orator of the day, RUFUS CI-IOA'rE.” An indescribable outburst
of applause hailed, this announcement. Indeed, the entire audience rose
and saluted the orator in a series of cheers, which for a time drowned his
voice. At length he Was heard, and spoke as follows :---

MR. CHOATE’S ORATION.

It is Well that in our year, so busy, so secular, so dis-
cordant, there comes one day when the word is, and when
the emotion is, “ our country, our Whole country and noth-
ing but our country.” It is Well thatolavv-—-—-our only sov-
ereign on earth»--duty, not less the daughter of God, not
less Within her sphere supree--custom not old alone, but
honored and useful----memories, our hearts, have set a time
in which-—-—-—scythe, loom and anvil stilled, shops shut, vvharves

silent, the flag-——-our flag unrent----the flag of our glory and

commemoration waving on mast-head, steeple and highland,
We may come together and Walk hand in hand, thoughtful,
admiring, through these galleries of civil greatness; when
We may own together the spell of one hour of our history

upon us all; when faults may be forgotten, kindnesses

revived, virtues remembered and sketched unblamed ; when
the arrogance of reform, the excesses of reform, the strifes
of parties, the rivalries of regions, shall give place to a
Wider, Warmer and juster sentiment; when turning from the

  corners and dark places of ofiiensiveness, if such the candle

lighted by malignity or envy, or oensoriousness, or truth
has revealed anywhere ; When, turning from these, we may
go up together to the serene and secret mountain top and
there pause, and there unite in the reverent exclamation,

  and in the exultant prayer, “ I-Iowsbeautiful at last are thy

tabernacles I What people at last is like unto thee I Peace

    be Within thy palaces and joy Within thy gates! The high
places are thixie, and there shalt thou stand proudly, and

innocently, and securely.”  

Happy if such a day shall not be desecrated by our  ser-

   vice! Happy if for us that descending sun shall look out

on a more   lovin,more elevated, more united America!  

MR. CI%IOA'J.‘E’S orcarion. 55

These, no less, no narrower, be the aims of our celebration.
These always were the true aims of this celebration. In
its origin, a recital or defence of the grounds and principles
of the Revolution, now demanding and permitting no
defence,--—-all taken for granted, and all had by heart ; then
sometimes wasted in a parade of vain glory, cheap and
vulgar; sometimes profaned by the attack and repulse of par-
tisan and local rhetoricians; its great work, its distinctive
character, and its chief lessons remain and vindicate them-
selves, and will do so while the eye of the fighting or the
dying shall yet read on the stainless ample folds, the super-
scriptioni blazing still in light, “ Liberty and Union, now
and forever, one and inseparable.”

I have wished, therefore, as it was my duty, in doing
myself the honor to join you in this act, to give some direc-
tion to your thoughts and feelings, suited at once to the
nation’s holiday, and seasonable and useful in itself. How
difiicult this may be, I know. To try, however, to try to do
any thing, is easy, and it is American also. Your candor
will make it doubly easy, and to your candor I commit
myself. 4

The birthday of’ a nation, old or young, and certainly if
young, is a time to think of the means of keeping alive the

nation. I do not mean to say, however, because I do not  

believe, that there is but one way to this, the directansd ithe
didactic. For at last it is the spirit of the day which we

would cherish. It is our great annual national love feast
which we keep; and if we rise from it with hearts larger,

beating fuller, with feeling purer and warmer for America,lf
what signifies it how frugally, or how richly, .or how it was
spread; or whether it was a strain on the organ, the trumpet
tones of the Declaration, the prayer of the good man, the
sympathy of the hour, or what it was which wrought to that
end? I ° to

I do not, therefore, say. that such an anniversary is not a
time for thanksgiving to God, for gratitude to men, the
living and the dead, for tears and thoughts too deep for

56 DEMOCRATIC onnnsnnrron.

tears, for eulogy, for exultation, for all the memories and
for all the contrasts which soften and lift up the general
mind. I do not say, for example, that to dwell on that one
image of Progress which is our history ; that image so
grand, so dazzling, so constant; that stream now flowing so
far and swelling into so immense a flood, but which burst
out a small, choked, uncertain spring from the ground at
first; that transition from the Rock at Plymouth, from the
unfortified peninsula at Jamestown to this America which
lays a hand on both the oceans; from that heroic yet feeble
folk whose allowance to a man by the day was five kernels
of   corn, for three months no corn, or a piece of fish, or a
moulded remainder biscuit, or a limb of arwild birdw-to
whom a drought in spring was a fear and a judgment, and
a call for humiliation before Grod--—-—-who held their breath

i when a flight of arrows or a war-cry broke the innocent

sleep or startled the brave watching;--from that handful,

andthat want, to these millions, whose area is a continent, l

Whose harvests might lead the board of famishing nations,
for whom a world in arms has no terror ;—---to trace the long
series of causes which connected these two contrasted con-
ditions, the Providences which ordained and guided a
growth so Si311peI1Cl0l1S--—-43118 dominant race, sober, earnest,
0011Si3I‘1.1Ci.lVE3~—~—~Cl"1£t1]ged, but not degenerate here~—---—-the influx
of other races, assimilating, eloquent and brave ; the fusion

of all into a new one; the sweet stimulations of liberty;'

the removal by the whole width of oceans from the estab-
lishments of Europe, shaken, tyrannical or burthened; the
healthful virgin world; the universal progress of reason and
art--—universal as civilization-wtlie aspect of revolutions on
the human mind; the expansion of discovery and trade; the
developing sentiment of independence; theneedful baptism
of wars; the brave men, the wise men; the Constitution, the

Union; the national life and the feeling of union which ave,

grown with our growth and strengthened with our strength,
 do   say that   meditations such as these might not
 ordeee, %1lr of  day.  these things, so

MR. cHoA.rE’s oiiarion. 57

holy and beautiful, all things American, niiay afford certainly
the means to keep America alive. That vast panorama
unrolled by our general history, or unrolling; that eulogy,
so just, so fervent, so splendid, so approved; that electric,
seasonable memory of Washington; that purchase and that
dedication of the dwelling and the tomb, the work of woman
and of the Orator of the age; that record of his generals;
that visit to battle fields ; that reverent wiping away of dust
from great urns; that speculation, that dream of her past,
present, and future; every ship builded on lake or ocean;
every treaty concluded; every acre of territory annexed;
every cannon cast; every machine invented; every mile of
new railroad and telegraph undertaken; every dollar added
to the aggregate of national or individual wealth»-—-these
all as subjects of thought, as motives to pride and care, as
teachers of wisdom, as agencies for probable good, may work,
may insure, that earthly immortality of love and gloryfor
which this celebration was ordained.  
My way, however, shall be less ambitious and less indi

rect. Think, then, for a moment, on American nationality
itself ; the outward national life, and the inward national
sentiment; think on this; its nature, and some of its con-

ditions and some of its ethics-—-—I would say, too, some of.

its dangers-—--but there shall be no expression of evil oen

  in this stage of the discourse, and to-day, at least,  word

“is safety,or hope.        
To know the nature of American nationality, examine it

first by contrast and then examine it in itself.

In some of the elemental characteristics of political
opinion, the American people are one. These they can no
more renounce for substance than the liighcst summit of
the highest of the Wliite Hills, than the eak of other Alle-
ghanies, than the Rocky Mountains can and cast tliem~
selves into the sea. Throuh  their history, from the
dawn of the colonial life to tliissabrightness of this rising,
they have spoken them, they have writteiithem, they have
acted them, they have run over with them. In all stages,

58 nnnooaarrrc CELEBRATION’.

in all a.gonies, through all report, good and evil—---some
learning from the golden times of ancient and inediaeval
freedom, Greece and Italy and Geneva, from Aristotle,
from Cicero and Bodinus, and Machiavel and Calvin; or

later, from Harrington, and Sidney and Rousseau; some a

learning, all reinforcing it directly from nature, and nature’s
God----—all have held and felt that every man was equal to
every other man; that every man had a right to life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness,and a conscience unfettered;
that the people were the source of power, and the good of
the people was the political object of society itself. This

  creed, so grand, so broad---in its general and duly qualified,

so true»-—--planted the colonies, led them through the desert
and the sea of ante—-revolutionary life, rallied them all to»
gether to resist the attacks of a king and a minister, sharp~
ened and pointed the bayonets of all their battles, burst
forth from a million lips, beamed in a million eyes, burned
in a million bosoms, sounded k out inctheir revolutionary
eloquence of fire and in the Declaration, awoke the thnnders,
and gleamed in the lightning of the deathless Words of OTIS,

  HENRY and ADAMS, was grayed forever on the general mind

by the pen of J nrrnnson and PAINE, as by a steel point on a

~ great rock, sun-lighted, survived the excitements of War

   contrasting it With its antagonisms.

and the necessities of order, penetrated and tinged all our
constitutional composition and policy, and all our party
organizations and nomenclature, and stands today radiant,
defiant, jocund, tip-tpe, on the summits of our greatness,

one authoritative and louder proclamation to humanity by

Freedom, the guardian and the avenger.    

But in some traits of our politics we are not one. In some
traits We differ from one another, and We change from our-
selves. You may say these are subordinate, executory,

instrumentaltraits. Let us not oavil about names, but find  
the essences of things. Our object is to know the nature of

American nationality, and We are attempting to do so, first,

  There are two great existences, then, in onr civil life

MR. CHOATE’S OiR,a_,TION. 59

which have this in common, though they have nothing else
in common, that they may come in conflict wit-.11 the nation-
ality which I describe ; one of them constant in its operation,
constitutional, healthful, auxiliary, even; the other rarer, ille-
gitimate. abnormal, terrible; one of them a force under law;
the other a violence and a phenomenon above law and against
law.

It is first the capitalpeculiarity of our system, now a
commonplace in our politics, that the affections which we
give to country we give to a divided object, the States in
which we live and the Union by which we are enfolded.
We serve two masters. Our hearts own two loves. We
live in two countries at once, and are commanded to be
capacious of both. How easy it is to reconcile these duties
in theory; how reciprocally, -more than compatible, how
helpful and independent they are in theory; how in this
respect our system’s difference makes our system’s peace,
and from these blended colors, and this action and counter-
action, how marvellous a beauty, and how grand a harmony
we draw out, you all know. Practically you know, too, the
adjustment has not been quite so simple. How the Con-
stitution attempts it is plain enough. There it is: lttem
scripta mcmet, and heaven and earth shall pass beforeone
jot or one tittle of that Scripture shall fail of fulfilment.
So we all say, and yet how men have divided on it. _How
they divided in the great Convention itself, and in the very
presence of WASHINGTON. How the people divided on it.
How it has created parties, lost and given power, bestowed
great reputations, and taken them away, and colored and
shaken the universal course of our public life! But have
you ever considered that in the nature of things this must
be so? Have you ever considered thatit was a federative
system we had to adopt, and that in such a system a con»
flict of head and members is in some form and to some
extent a result of course ? There the States were when we
became a nation. There they had been for one hundred

. and fifty years--—-for one hundred and seventy years. Some

60 DEMOCRATIC CELEBRATION.

power, it was agreed on all hands, We must delegate to the
new government. Of some thunder, some insignia, some
beams, some means of kindling pride, winning gratitude,
attracting honor, love, obedience, friends,-—-all men knew
they must be bereaved, and they were so. But when this
was done, there were the States still. In the scheme of
every statesman they remained a component part, unan-
nihilated, indestructible. In the scheme of the Constitu-
tion of compromise itself, they remained a component part,
indestructible. In the theories of all publicists and all
speculators they were retained, and they were valued for

' it, to hinder and to disarm that centralization which had

been found to be the danger and the Weakness of federal
liberty. And then when you bear in mind that they are
sovereignties, quasi, but sovereignties still; that one of
the most dread and transcendent prerogatives of sover-
eignties, the prerogative to take life and liberty for crime,

is theirs without dispute; that in the theories of some n

schools they may claim to be parties to the great compact,

A and as such may, and that any of them may, secede from

that compact when by their corporate judgment they deem
it to be broken fundamentally by the others, and that from
such a judgment there is no appeal to a common peaceful
umpire; that in the theories of some schools they may call
out their young men and their old men under the pains of
death to defy the sword point of the federal arm; that they
can pour around even the gallows and the tomb of him who
died for treason to the Union, honor, opinion, tears, and
thus sustain the last untimely hour, and soothe the disem-
bodied, complaining shade; that every one, by name, by
line of boundary, by jurisdiction, is distinct from every
other, and every one from the nation; that Within their
violate, borders lie our farms, our homes, our meeting!
houses, our graves; that their laws, their courts,,
,«,a’litia, their police, to so vast an extent protect ourrpersons
violence, hand our houses from planer ; that their
a  i even ripes   our harvests; their schoolseirsform, our chil-

 

   

 l

MR. CHOATE’S cannon. 61

dren’s mental and moral iiature; their charities or their
taxes feed our poor; their hospitals cure or shelter our
insane; that their image, their opinions, their literature,

their morality are around us ever, a presence, a monument,  

an atm0sphere—--—--when you consider this you feel how
practical and how inevitable is that antagonism to a
single national life, and how’ true it is that We “ buy all our
blessings at a price.”  

But there is another antagonism to such a national life,
less constant, less legitimate, less compensated, more terri-
ble, to which Iimust refer,----not for reprobation, not for
Warning, not even for grief, but that We may know by con»
trast, nationality itself,---—-and that is, the element of sections.
This, too, is old, older than the States, old as the Colonies,
old as the Churches that planted them, old as Jamestown,
old as Plymouth. A thousand forms disguise and express

it, and in all of them it is hideous. Camdidam sea »nigsttm 

lzoc ta Romans ccweto. Black. or White, as you are Ameri——
cans, dread it, shun it! Springing from many causes and
fed by many stimulations ; springing from that diversity of

climate, business, institutions, accomplishment and morality,a

which comes of ourgreatness, and compels ansd should con»-

  stituteour order and our agreesment,   s

their difficulty and their  erit; t    
preference which are their oWn sta  
ant, and censorious of what 

  
   

  of ignorance, the jealousy of ignorance, te narroyvness of

  ignorance; from incapacity to abstract, combine, ands  

 
 

         
 s

a complexand various object, andthus rise tothe dignityof  
cncessinand forbearance and compromise; from thefrae

of  polity’, the necessities of our public life and the

  nature of our ambition, Wliich forces all en not great e, i  

-—---—-tlie minister in his parish, the  o  the stump on
election day, the editor ofthe  ewssaper~——-to take his

rise or his patronage fro an intense local opinion, and  
  therefore to do his est to create or reinforce it ; from our ‘

federative governent froour good traits, bad traits, and

62 DEMOCRATIC cnnnsaarrron.

foolishtraits; from that vain and vulgar hankeriiig for
European reputation and respect for European opinion,
which forgets that one may know Aristophanes, and Geo»
graphy, and the Cosmical Unity and Telluric influences,
and the smaller morale of life and all the sounding preten-
sions of philanthropy, and yet not know America; from
that philosophy, falsely so called, which boasts emptily of
progress, renounces traditions, denies God and worships
itself; from an arrogant and flashy literature which mis-
takes a new phrase for a new thought, and old nonsense for
new truth, and is glad to exchange for the fame of drawing-
rooms and parlor windows, and the sidaliglits of a carin
motion, the approval of time and the world; from philan-
thropy which is short-sighted, impatient and spasmodic, and
cannot be made to appreciate that its grandest and surest
agent, in His eye whose lifetime is Eternity, and whose
periods are ages, is a nation and a sober public opinion and
a safe and silent advancement, reforming by time; from
that spirit which would rule or ruin, and would reign in
hell rather than serve in heaven; springing   from these
causes and stimulated thus, there is an element of regions
antagonistic to nationality. Always I have said, there was
one; always there will be. It lifted its shriek sometimes
even above the silver clarion tone that called millions to
unite for independence. It resisted the nomination of
Washington to command our armies; made his new levies
hate one another; assisted the caballings of Gates and
Conway‘; mocked his retreats, and threw its damp passing
cloud for a moment over his exceeding glory; opposed the
adoption of any Constitution; and perverted by construc-
tion and denounced as a covenant with hell the actual Con»-
rstitution when it was adopted; brought into our vocabulary

, and discussions the hateful and ill-omened words North and

South, Atlantic and Western, which the grave warningsp,of

the Farewell Address expose and rebuke; transformed the
 oor of tflongress   into a battlefield of contending local
  ; convened lconventions at A.bbeville and Hartford;

 

MR. cnoatrrrs ORATION‘. 63

rent asunder conferences and synods; turned stated assem-
blies of grave clergyrnen and grave laymen into shows of
gladiators or of the beasts of gladiators; checkedthe holy
effort of missions, and set back the shadow‘ on the dial-plate

  of a certain amelioration and ultimate probable e1:nancipa—

tion, many degrees. Some might say it culminated later in
an enterprise even more daring still; but others might deny
it. The ashes upon that fire are not yetcold, and We will
not tread upon them. But all will unite in prayer to
Almighty God that We may never see, nor our children,

nor their children to the tlionsandth generation may ever A

see it culminate in a geographical party, handed to elect

a eocrra hical President and inaugurate a eo ra hical
tn 2 ca  g P

policy.
“ Take anyshape but that, and thou art welcome!”
But now, by the side of this and all antagonisms, higher

than they, stronger than they, there rises colossal the fine
sweet spirit of nationality, the nationality of America! See

there the pillar of fire Whicli God has kindled and lifted and
l r.n‘oved for our hosts and our ages.   Graze on that, Worship

that, Worshipthe highest in that. Between that light and    
   eyes, a cloud for a time may seem to gather; chariots,
are omen on foot, the troops of kings may march on
and our fears may make us for a moment   turn   

sea may spreadbefore us, and Waves“ seem to  

dark idolatries may alienate some hearts for a season from  

thatworship; revolt, rebellion, may break out in the camp,

and the waters of our springs may runbitter to the taste
and mock it; between us and that Canaan a great river

may seem to berollingg but beneath that high guidance
our way is onward, ever‘ ormrard; those atersshall part, i
and stand on either hand in idolatry shall

repent; that rebellion shall  that stream shall
be sweetened; that overflowing riyertshall be passed on feet

dry shed, in harvest time gt and fromthat promised land of    

flocks,fields, tents, mountains, coasts and ships, from North,

64 nnnoonarxc CELEBRATION.

and South, and East and West, there shall swell one cry
yet, of victory,peace and thanksgiving!

But we were seeking the nature of the spirit of nation»
ality, and We pass in this inquiry from contrast to analysis.
You may call it, subjectively regarded, as a mode of
contemplating the nation in its essence, and so far it is
an intellectual conception, and you may call it a feeling,
towards the nation thus contemplated, and so far it is an
emotion. In the intellectual exercise it contemplates the
nation as it is one, and as it is distinguished from all other
nationsyiand in the emotional exercise it loves it, and is

proud of it as thus it is contemplated. This you may call  

its ultimate analysis. Buthow much more is included in
it! How‘ gtnuch flows from it I How cold and inadequate is
such a description, if we leave it there!   Think of it first as
a state of consci0usncss,,as a spring of feeling, as a motive
to exertion, as blessing your country, and as reacting on

you. Think of it as it fills your mind and quickens your

heart, and as it fills the mind and quickens the heart of
millions around you, born, unborn, dead, living, although
dead. Instantly, under such an influence, you ascend

above the smoke and stir of this small local strife; you

tread upon the high places of the earth and of history; you
think and feel as an American for America; her power, her
eminence, her consideration, her honor, are yours; your
competitors, like hers, are kings; your home, like hers, is
the World; your path, like hers, is onthe higlivvay of em-
pires; our charge, her charge, isof generations and ages;
your record, her record, is of treaties, battles, voyages,

beneath all the constellations; her image, one, immortal,  

golden, rises on your eye as our Western star at evening
rises on the traveller from this home; no lowering cloud,
no angry river, no lingering spring, no broken crevasse, no

  inundated city or plantation, no tracts of sand,
A burning, on that surface, but all blended     any asoiitened

. K‘

  
 

 

  one  kindre    rays, the   imae, iaringer, and
 so of   hrihter day I   l

MR. onoA'.rE’s osarron. 65

Think of it next, as an active virtue. Is not all history
a recital of the achievements of :nationality, and an exponent

of its historical and imperial nature ‘B Even under systems

far less perfect, and influences far less auspicious than ours,
has it not lifted itself up for a time above all things meaner,
vindicating itself by action, by the sublimity of a brave

  daring, successful or nr1successfnl, by the snblimity of a
Working hope? How loose, for example, and hoWperfidi-

ous, was that union of the States of Greece in all times 1‘
How distinct were they nations of Attica, of Laconia, of
Thessaly, of Boetia, and how utterly insufficient the oracle,
the Amphyctionic Assembly, the games, the great first epic,
to restrainAtl1ens and Sparta and Thebes from conteriding,

  by diplomacy, by fraud, by battle, for the mastery! And
yet even in the historical age, when the storm of Eastern  

invasion swept that blue sea, and those laughing islands, and

  iron-bound coast, over, above, grander and more useful than

the fear and policy which counselled teaizxporary union,-—--
Were there not some, were there not many, on whose per-

turbed and towering motives came the thought of that great,  
common, Greek name; that race, kindred at last, though  
a policy, tlrouglr S mines of marble, though ages liasd parted

them,---—~that golden, ancient, polishe    that, 

  

  ancestral glory, that national     
4 and separate earth, that fame of             
which put out the ancient life of the       

not sncli memories as these that burr: and revel  the pages»

  of S Herodotus ? Did not Sparta and Atliens hate one anotherl

and fight oneanother liabitnally, and yet when those Lace-

   sq  

lianleyies gazed so steadfastly on the faces f   the
  falle  Marathon did they not give Greek tears, to Athens
  and Greekcursesto Persia, and in the honrfrPlataea did  

they not stand together against the      Wlxat else

    formed the secret of the brief   Rienziis power, arid
burned and sparkled in thepoetry and rlietoric of his friend

  of  Maehiavel, loatliing   

Petrach, and sootlied the ark her of the grander soul

 

Italy, and recalling that other?

66 DEMOCRATIC CELEBRATION.

day when “ 800,000 men sprang to arms at the rumor of a
Gallic invasion”? Is not Prussia afraid of Austria, and
Saxony of Bavaria, and Frankfort jealous of Dresden, and
so through the tWenty-seven or eight or thirty States, great
and small; and yet the dear, common fatherland, the old
German tongue, the legend of Hermann, the native and
titular Rhine flowing rapid, deep, and majestic, like the life
of a hero of antiquity--do not these spectacles and these
traditions sometimes Wake the nationality of Germany to
action, as Well as to life and hope‘? a i

But if you would contemplate nationality as an active
virtue, look around you. Is not our own history one Witness
and one record of what it can do ? This day and all which
it stands for,-———did it not give us these? This glory of the
fields of that war, this eloquence of that revolution, this
Wide one sheet of flame which wrapped tyrant and tyranny
and swept all that escaped from it away, forever and forever;
the courage to fight, to retreat, to rally, to advance, to guard
the young flag by the young arm and the young heart’s
blood, to hold up and hold on till the magnificent consum—~
mation crowned the vvork——-were not all these imparted as
inspired by this imperial sentiment? Has it not here begun
the master Work of man, the creation of a national life?
Did it not call out that prodigious development of wisdom,
the wisdom of constructiveness which illustrated the years
after the war, and the framing and adopting of the Consti-

tution ? Has it not, in the general, contributed to the i

  administering of that government wisely and Well since?  

Look at it! It has kindled us to no aims of conquest. It
has involved us in no entangling alliances. It has kept our

neutrality dignified and just. The victories of peace have

been our prized victories. But the larger and truer gran-

of the nations, for which they are created and for

vvhich they must one day, before some tribunal give account,

i what a measure of these it has enabled us already tofulfil!

Ithas lifted us to the throne and has set on our brow the
 eof thel great   It has taught us to demand

MR. cno.AJ.rn’s onnrron. 67

nothing Wrong ; and to submit to nothing wrong ; it has made
our diplomacy sagacious, wary, and accomplished ; it has
opened. the iron gate of the mountain, and planted our ensign"
on the great, tranquil sea ; it has made the desert to bud and
blossom as tlierose ; it has quickeneyd to life the giant brood
of useful arts ; it has whitened lake and ocean with the sails
of a daring, new and lawful trade; it has extended to exiles,
flying as clouds, the asylum of our better liberty; it has
kept us at rest Within all our borders ; it has repressed With-
out blood the intemperance of local insubordination; it has
scattered the seeds of liberty, underlaw and Iinder order,

  broadcast; it has seen and helped American feeling to swell

into a fuller flood; from many a field and many a deck,
though it seeks not War, makes not War, and fears not war,
it has borne the radiant flag all unstained; it has opened
our age of lettered glory; it has opened and honored the
age of the industry of the people!      
We have done with the nature of American nationality,
with its contrasts, analysis and fruits. I have less pleasurei
to remind you that it has conditions also, and ethics. And
what are some of these? This is our nextconsideration. s

Andthe first of these is that this national existenceis, to  

an extraordinary degree, not a growth, but a production
thatit has origin in the will and the reason, and 
will and the reason must keep it ali've,or it call bear  
I do not forget that a power abovem’s#poWer,arWisdo 
above man’s wisdom, a reason above man’s reason, ay be
traced "Without the presumptuousness of fanaticism in the
fortunes of America. I do not forget that God has been in
our liistory. Beyond that dazzling progress of art,society,

thought, which is of His ordaining, although it may seem to

 

a, false philosophy a fatal and inevitable flow under laW~—-  
beyond this I do not forget thattherehavebeen, andthere
  may be again interpositions, providsential, excepstional,p and

direct, of that Supreme Agencylwitheout which no sparrow  
falletli. That condition of mind  of opinion in lilaropse,
and more than anywhere else, in England, which marked

68 nnno onarro CELEBRATION.

the period of emigration, and bore flower, fruit and seed
after its kind in the new World; that conflict and upheaval

and fermenting in the age of Charles the First, and the long

Parliament, and Cromwell, and Milto11---—-violated nature
asserting herself; that disappearance of the old races here,
Wasting so mysteriously and so S9-3.SO11£tl)ly----tllétt drear death
giving place as in natureto a better life; that long colonial
growth in shade and storm and neglect, sheltered imperfectly
by our relations to the mother country, and not yet exposed

  to the tempest and lightning of the high places of political

independence; burthened and poor, but yet evolving,
germinant,prophetic; that insane common attack of one
tyranny on so many charters; that succession of incompe-
tent English commanders and English tactics against us in
the war; that one soul breathed in a moment into a conti-
nent; the Declaration so timely, and so full of tone; the

name, the services, the influence of Wasl1ington~—-——tliese are  

“parts of his Ways,” and we may understand and adore
them. A        

  I do not forget either that in the great first step we had
to take--—-—-that difliculty so stupendous, of beginning to mould
the colonies into a nation, to overcome the prejudices of
habit and ignorance, the petty cavils of the petty, the envy,
the jealousy, the ambition, the fears of great men and little
men; to take away partition Walls, roll away provincial flags
and hush provincial drums, and give to the young republic

E Plzmllms Unuah, to set out onward and upward on l1e1*  
Zodiac path,»---I do not forget that in this, too, there were  

can make us unthankful.   g  
Take one.   Have you ever considered, speculatingon the
mysteries of onrnational being, how providentially the colo-

helps  g circumstances for which no philosophy and no pride

nial life itself, in one respect, qualified for Union, and how‘  

providientially it came to pass that independence 

alitywere born in one day? Suppose that from theties  
     wthent-hey wereplantedrespectively,these colonies had been
           this

MR. CHOATE’S onarxon. A  69

had been so for one hundred and fifty years, for one hundred

A and seventy years; that in the eye of public law they had

through all that time ranked with England, with France,
that through all that time fliey had made war, concluded
peace, negotiated treaties of commerce and of alliance,
received and sent ministers, coined money, superintended
trade, “ done all other things which independent states of
right may do ; ” and then that a single foreign power had
sought to reduce them. I do not say that that power would
have reduced them. I do not say that necessity, that pru-
dence, which is civil necessity, would not have taught them
to assist one anotlier, and that in one sense, and that a just
one, they would have fought and triumplied together. But
when that victory was won and the cloud rolled off seaward,
would these victors have flown quite so easily into a common
embrace and become a single people? This long antecedent
several independence; this long antecedent national life——--
wonld it not have indurated them and separated them?
These old high actions and high passions flowing diverse;
these opposed banners of old fields; this music of hostile
marches ; these memories of an unshared past ; this history of
a glory in which one only had part,---«do you think they could
have been melted, softened, and beaten quite so easily ito 
unity of a comon life? Might not  worl s h.ave  

here, instead, another Attica, and Achaia andsllacedaeoi

and Messina, and Naples and Florence  
not that colo~nial life, in its nature--«wthat long winter and
lingering spring disciline and prepare en for   the future
of their civil life, as an April snow eriches the earth 
seems tobury? Did it not keep back the growths
ight, otherwise have sot up into impracticable ranlmesses
and diversities? Did it not divert en from themselves it
one anotlierw-wfrom Massachusetts and and N ew
York, to the forng orthe    erica?   Instead of

   

as 

i stnznting and enfeeblin, did it nth enlarge and strengthen?

 
 

  ad when all that host  together, to taste together the

   ‘waters of indepedent life, and one high, common,

5

70 DEMOCRATIC CELEBRATION.

proud feeling pervaded their ranks, lifted up all hearts,
softened all hearts at once--——and a Rhode Island General
was seen to fight at the Eutaws ; and a New Yorker or one
well beloved of Massachusetts at Saratoga ; and a Virginian
to guide the common War, and a united army to win the
victory for all----was not the transition in a moment so
sublime, more natural, less Violent, more easy to the tran-
scendent conception of nationality itself?

I do not deny, too, that some things subordinate and

executory are a little easier than at first ; that the friction  

of the machine is less somewhat ; that mere administration has
grown simpler; that organizations have been effected which
may move of themselves ; that departments have been created
and set going, which can go alone; that the Constitution
has been construed authoritatively; that a course, a routine

  has been established in which things-—-—--some things—--«may go

on as now, Without your thought or mind. Bold he is,

  moreover, I admit, not wise, who would undertake to deter»  

mine pwhat chance, or what Providence may do, and What
man may do in the sustentation of national life. But
remember, that is a false philosophy and that is no religion
Whicli absolves from duty. That is impiety which boasts of
a Will of God, and forgets the business of man. Will and
reason created, will and reason must keep. Every day,
still, we are in committee of the whole on the question of
the Constitution or no Constitution. Eternal "vigilance is

the condition of union, as they say it is of liberty. I have s

heard that if the same Omnipotence which formed the

universe at first should suspend its care for a day, primeval
chaos were come again.   Dare we risk such a speculation

in politics and act on it? Consider how new is this America
of yours! Some there are yet alive who saw this infant
rocked in the cradle. Some there are yet alive who beheld
the fi1"Sl3 inauguration of Washington; many that felt how
the tidings of his death smote on the general heart.   Some

nowyialive saw the deep broad trench rst excavated, the A

stone   drawn from the mountainside, the mortar mingled,

MIR. onoarn’s onarxon. 71

the Cyclopean foundation laid, the tears, the anthems, the
thanksgiving of the dedication day. That unknown, there-
fore magnified, therefore magnificent original; that august
tradition of a mixed human and Divine; that hidden fountain;
the long half hidden flow glancing uncertain and infrequent
through the opening of the old forest, spreading out, at last,
after leagues, after centuries, into the clear daylight of
history; the authoritative prescription; the “awful hoar of
innumerable ages,” the legend, the fable, the tones of uncer-
tain harps, the acquiescence of generations, rising in a long
line to life as to a gift,---—--Where for us are they? On all this
architecture of utility and reason, where has Time laid a
finger? What angularity has it rounded; What stone has it
covered with moss ; on what salient or What pendant coigne
of vantage has it built its nest; on What deformity has its
moonlight and twilight fallen? Wliat enables us then to
withhold for a moment the sustaining hand? The counsel
of philosophy and history, of Cicero, of Machiavel, of
Montesquieu, to turn to the flI'Sl3 principles, to reproduce
and reconstruct the ancient freedom, the masculine virtues,
the plain Wisdom of the originalm-is it not seasonable counsel
eminently for you? Remember, your, reason, your will,
may keep, must keep what reason and will builded. Yours
is the responsibility, yours, to country, to  an, unshared,
unconcealed. . n                

I donot know that I need to say next that such a spirit of
nationality reposing on will and reason, or, however, produced,
not spontaneous, and therefore to some extent artificial,
demands a specific culture to develop it and to make it
intense, sure and constant. I need not say this, because it
is so plain; but it is important as Well as plain. There is a
love of country which comes uncalled for, one knows not
how. It comes in   with the very air, the eye, the ear; the
instincts, the first taste of the mother’s milk, the first beat-
ings of the heart. The faces of brothers and sisters, and the
loved father and mother,--—-the laugh of playmates, the old
willow--tree, and Well, and school-house, the bees at Work in

72 DEMOCRATIC CELEBRATION.

the spring, the note of the robin at evening, the lullaby, the
cows corniiig home, the singing-book, the catechism, the visits
of neighbors, the general training,---all things which make
childhood happy, begin it ; and then as the age of the pas-
sions and the age of the reason draw on, and love and the
sense of home and security and of property under law, come
to life ;----and as the story goes round, and as the book or the
newspaper relates the less favored lots of other lands, and
the public and the private sense of a man is forrning
and formed, there is a type of, patriotism already, Thus
they had imbibed it who stood that charge at Concord,
and they who hung deadly on the retreat, and they who
threw up the hasty and imperfect redoubt on Bunker Hill

4 by night, set on it the blood-red provincial flag, and passed

so calmly with Prescott and Putnam and Warren through
the experiences of the first fire,

But now to direct this spontaneous sentirnent of hearts
to the Union, to raise it high, to make it broad and deep,
to instruct it, to educate it, is in some things harder,
some things easier; but it may be done; it must be done.
She, too, has her spectacles; she, too, has her great
names; she, too, has her food for patriotisin, for child-
hood, for man. “Arnericans,” said an orator of France,
“‘ begin with the infant in the cradle. Let the first Word
he lisps be ‘Washington?’ a Hang on his neck on that birth-—

day, and that day of his death at Mount Vernon, the Medal‘

of Congress, by its dark ribbon; tell him the story of the

flag, as it passes glittering along the road; bid him listen t»

that plain, old-fashioned, stirring niusic of the Union; lead
him whorl schopl is out at evening to the grave of his great»
grandfather, the old soldier of the War; bid hixzn, like

 Hannibal, at nine years old, lay the little hand on that Con-~

stitutioxi and swear reverently to observe it; lift him up and
lift yourselves up to the height of Arnerican feeling; open to

 and think for yourselves, on the relation of  to

tire States ;, Show liim upon a. the map the area to which she

 herself   elimatess that come into the num--

MR. cnoAJr:e’s ORATION. 73

ber of her months ; the silver paths of her trade, Wide as the
world; tell him of her contributions to humanity, and her
protests for free government; keep with him the glad and
solemn feasts of her appointment; bury her great names in
his heart, and into your hearts; contemplate habitually,
lovingly, intelligently, this grand abstraction, this vast reality
of good ; and such an institution may do somewhat to trans-
form this surpassing beauty into a national life, which shall
last "while sun and moon. endure.  
But there is another condition of our nationality of which
I must say something, and that is that it rests on compromise.
America, the Constitution, practicable policy, all of it, are a
compromise. Our public is possible-—-—it can draw its breath
for a day-we-o11ly by compromise.      
There is a cant of shallowness and fanaticism which misr

  understands and denies this. There is a distempered and

ambitious morality which says civil prudence is no virtue.
There is a pl1ilantl1ropy,~——-so it calls itself‘,-—----pedan.try, arro-
gance, folly, cruelty, impiousness, I call it, fit enough for a
pulpit, totally unfit for a people; fit enough for a preacher,
totally unfit for a statesman ;-—---'wl1ich, confoundiiig large

  things with little things, ends with means, subordinate ends

‘with chief ends, one man’s sphere of resposibility 

another man’s sphere of responsibility, seed-time withliar~

test, one science with another science, oae with another
truth, one jurisdiction With another jurisdiction,  span
long day or life with the duration of States, generals with
universals, the principle with the practice, the Anglo-Celtic~

 

Saxon of America with the payers of Paris, cutting down  

thehalf-grown tree to snatch the unripe fruit—-thereis a
philantl:  opy which scolds at tliis, even, and calls it names.    

To such a spirit I have nothing to say, butl some-

thing to say to you. It is remarked by a yeryleading Writer  

of our times, Lord Macanlay—-enobled less by title than by

  genius and fame,--“ that comproise isthe essence of poli-
ties.” That which every  of sense admits to be so true,

as to have become a common-place of all politics, is peculiarly

74 DEMOCRATIC CELEBRATION.

true of our national politics. Our history is a record of
compromises; and this freedom and this glory attest their
wisdom and bear their fruits. But can these compromises
stand the higher test of morality ‘E Concessions for the sake
of the nation; concessions for “what the general opinion of
America has pronounced concessions for America; conces—-
sions in measures ; concessions in spirit for such an end ;—
are they a virtue ‘E

I hope it is Worth something, in the first place, that the
judgment of civilization, collected from all its expression and
all its exponents, has ranked concession for the keeping and
Well-being of the nation, among the whiter virtues. Starting
with the grand ‘central sentiment that patriotism is the
noblest practical limitation of universal philanthropy; and
reserving its enthusiasm, its tears, for the martyred patriot,
and deeming his death the most glorious of deaths-----it has
given ever the first place to him Whose firmness, Wisdom and
moderation has built the State, and whose firmness, wisdom
and moderation keep the State. These traits it has stamped
as virtues. These traits it has stamped as great virtues.
Poetry, art, history, biography, the funeral discourse, the
utterance of that judgment, how universally liave they so
stamped them! He Whose harp, they said, attracted and
fused savage natures; he who gave to his people, not the
best government, but the best that they would hear; he who
by timely adaptations elevated an inferior class to equality
with asuperior class, and made two nations into one; he
Whose tolerance and comprehension put out the fires of per-
secution, and placed all opinions and religions on one plane
before the law; he Whose healing counsels composed the
distractions of a various empire; he is the great good man
of civilization. Ambition might have been his aim to some
extent, but the result is a country, a power, a law. On that
single title, it raised his statue, hung on it the garlandthat

cannot die, kept his birthday by the firing of cannons,  
and ringing of bells, and processions, and thanks to God‘ i
Almighty. He may not have been fortunate in War‘; he i

MR. GHOATE’S onacuon. 75

may not have been foremost among men of genius, but what
Luxembourg, What Eugene, What Marlborough heaped on
his ashes sucha monument, as the Wise, just, cold Dutch
deliverer of England ? What Gates, What Lee, what Alex»
ander, what Napoleon, won such honor, such love, such
sacred and warm-felt approval as our civil father, Washing-
ton? Does that judgment, the judgment of civilization,
condemn. Demosthenes, who would have invited Persia to
help against Macedon; or Cicero, who praised and soothed
the young Octavius, to ‘Win him from Anthony ; or the Cal»
vinist William, Who invited the papal Austria to fight with

him against Louis XIV. ? Does it dream of branding such‘
A an act as hypocrisy, or apostacy? Does it not recognize it

rather as Wisdom, patriotism, and virtue, masculine and
intelligent? Does it not rather give him all honor and
thanks, who could forego the sweets of revenge, rise above
the cowardice of selfishness and the narrow memory of per»
sonal inapplicable antecedents, and for the love of Athens,
of Rome, of England, of liberty, could magnanimously grasp
the solid glory of great souls ‘B

But this judgment of civilization, I maintain, next, is a
sound moral judgment. It is founded on a theory of duty

vvhich makes the highest utility to man the granldestachieve~ A

ment of man. It thinks that it discerns ithat the national

life is the true useful human life. It   discerns  
that the greater includes the less; that beneath that order,  

that government, that law, that ,povver, reform is easy and
reform   is safe----reform of the man, reform of the nation.
It ventures to hold that a nation is the grandest of the

instrumentalities of morals and religion. It ‘holds that   n

under that revving, berieath that lightning, there is room,
there is capacity for humbly imitating His planwho sits in
the circle of eternity, and with whom a thousand years are
as one day; room, motive capacity, forlabor, for culture,
for preparation, for the preacliing of the gospel of peace to
all, forelevating by slow, sure and quiet gradations down to

76 .DEMOCRATIC CELEBRATION.

its depths, down to its chains, society itself. Concession to
keep such an agent isconcession to promote such ends.

Do you remember what a great moralist and a great man,
Archbishop Whately, said on this subject in the House of
Lords ‘B He was advocating concession to Catholics, and see
how much stronger was truth than the hatred of theologians.
The biographer of Peel calls the speech a splendid piece of
reasoning, and it decided the vote.

“ So great is the outcry. vvhicli it has been the fashion
among some persons for several years past to raise against
expediency, that the very Word has become almost an ill--
omened sound. It seems to be thought by many a sufficient

ground of condemnation . of any legislator to say that he is i

guided by views of expediency. 7 And some seem even to be
ashamed of acknowledging that they are, in any degree, so
guided. I,for one, liovvever, am content to submit to the
imputation of beinga votary of expediency. And What is
more, I do not see what right any one who is not so has to
sit in Parliament, or to take any part in public affairs. Any

one who may choose to acknowledge that the measures he

opposes are expedient, or that those he recommends are
inexpedient, ought manifestly to have no seat in a deliberae
tive assembly, which is constituted for the express and sole
purpose of considering what measures are conducive to the
public good ;----i11 other Words, ‘expedient.’ I say, the
‘public good,’ because, of course, by ‘ expediency’ We mean,
not that which may benefit some individual, or some party
or class of men, at the expense of the public, but what con-

duces to the good of the nation. N ow this, it is evident, is

the very object for which deliberative assemblies are consti-~

  tuted. And so far is this from being   regarded, by our

cliurch at least, as something at variance with religious
duty, that we have a prayer specially appointed to be oflered
up duriiig the sitting of the houses of Parliament, that their
consultations may be ‘ directed and prospered for the safety,

  Eton, and   wetfere of our sovereign and her dominions.’

MR. ono.A:rn’s onsrron. 77

Now, if this be not the very definition of political expe-
diency, let any one say What is.”  

I have no doubt, however, that this judgment of civiliza-
tion rests in part on the difficulty and the rarity of the
virtue which it praises. We prize the difficult and the rare
because they are difficult and rare ; and when you consider
how easy and how tempting it is to fall in with and float
with the stream on which so many swim; how easy isthat
broad road and how sweet that approved strain ; how easy and
how tempting it is to please an assenting congregation, or
circle of readers, or local public; how easy and how te1npt-
ing to compound for sins, vvhich an influential man “ is not
inclined to by damning those he has no mind to ;”’ how easy
to please those We see, and forget those out of sight; What
courage, What love of truth are demanded to dissent; how
hard it is to rise to the vast and varied conception, and to
the one idea which grasps and adjusts all the ideas; how
easy it is for the little man to become great, the shallow
man to become profound; the coward out of danger to be
brave ; the free state man to be an santi-slavery man, and to
Write tracts which his friends alone read; when you thinl:
that even the laughter of fools and cliildren and rnadrnen,
little ministers, little editors, and little politioisans,   can
inflict the mosquito bite, not deep,  u%t stinging ;--—~vvl1
vvonders that the serener and trheicaimer judgment 
“ to patient continuance in Well doing,” to resistance of 
parts, to contention for the whole, to counsels of rnodera—
tion and concession, “ glory, honor and irnmortality.”

p What nothing earthly gives or can destroy,
The soul’s calm sunshine, and the heartfelt joy.

But i thisjudgment of civilization is the judgment of
religion too. You believe with the Bible, with Cicero,
with the teachings of history, that God wills the national
life. He wills civilizatioii, therefore society, therefore law,
therefore government, therefore nations. How do We know

 

this? Always from the birth of the historical time, civil»  

78 DEMOCRATIC CELEBRATION.

ized man led the national life. Therein always the nature
God has given him has swelled to all its perfection, and has
rendered the worthiest praise to the giver of the gift. He
who Wills the end Wills the indispensable means; he wills
the rneans which his teachers, nature and experience, have
ascertained to be indispensable. Then he Wills these means,
concession, compromise, love, forbearance,help, because his
teachers, nature and experience, have revealed them to be
indispensable. Then he wills our national life. Then he
wills the spirit which made it and which keeps it. Do you
dare" to say, with President Davies, that you believe that
Providence raised up that young rnan, Washington, for
some great public service,--—~——w'ith the spectator of that first
inauguration, that you believe the Suprerue Being looked
down with complacency on that 8.Ct,—----'W’ll3l1 that Senate
which thanked God that he had conducted to the tomb a
fame Whiter than it was brilliant ; ’ and yet dare to say that
the spirit of Washington ought not to be your spirit, his
counsels your guide, his Farewell Address your scripture of
political religion? But What does he say? I need not
repeat it, for you have it by heart ; but What said a greater
than he? “Render unto Caesar the things Whicli are
Caesar’s.” Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,
and thus, to that extent, you “ render unto God the things
which are God’s.” Be theselvvords our answer and our
defence. Wl'1e11 they press us with the cornn1on—»-places of
anti-slavery, be these Words of Wisdom our answer. Say to
them, “ Yes, I thank God I keep no slaves. I am sorry
there is one on earth; I am sorry even that there is need of
law, of subordination, of order, of government, of the dis-
cipline of the schools, of prisons, of the gallows; I wonder
at such a system. of things; piously I would reforni it; but
beneath that same system. I am an Ainerican citizen;
beneath that system, this country, it is my post to keep;
while I keep her there is hope for all men, for the evil man,
for the intemperate rnan, for iislaves, for free, for all; that
ho,   your rash and hasty hand would prostrate; that hope

 

Mn. CHOA.TE’S onarron. 79

my patience would advance.” Have they done? Are they
answered ?  
There are other conditions and other laws of our nation-

ality on which there needs to be said something if there were
time. That it is not and that it cannot come to good, that

it cannot achieve its destiny, that it cannot live even unless
it rests on the understanding of the State, you know. How
gloriously this is anticipated by our own Oonstitntioii, you
reineniber. How well said Washington—-—-who said all things
as he did all things well---~—“ that in proportion as governments
rest on public opinion, that opinion must be enlightened.”
There must then be intelligence at the foundation. But
what intelligence? N ot that which pnffeth up, I fancy, not
flippancy, not srnartness, not sciolisrn, whose fruits, whose
expression are vanity, restlessness, insubordination, hate,
irreverence, nnbelief, incapacity to combine ideas, and great
capacity to overwork a single one. Not quite this. This is
that little intelligence and little learning which are dangerous.
These are the characteristics, 1 have read, which pave the way

for the downfall of States ; not those on which a long glory »

and a long strength have towered- These,1nore than the
General of Macedon, gave the poison to Demosthenes inthe

Island Temple. These, not the trinmvirate alone, closed the  

eloquent lips of Cicero. These,beforet .espopnlonsNorth

had done it, sp1*ead“*"‘beneatl1Gibraltar the Lybian sands‘scin  

the downward age; these, not Christianity, not Gotltr, not

Lombard, nor N orrnan, rent that fair one Italy assnnder, and
turned the garden and the mistress of the earth into aschool,

into a hiding place of assassins----«of spiesfrorn Austria, of

spies from France, with gold to buy and ears to catch and

punish the dreams of liberty whispered in sleep, and shamed
the memories andhopes of Machiavel and Maazini,. and gave
for that joy and that beauty, mourning and heaviness. This

“s is not the intelligence our Constitution means, Washington

meant and our country needs.   It is intelligence which,
however it begins, ends with belief, with humility, with

  obedience, with veneration, with admiration, with truth;

80 nnrroonarro CELEBRATION.

which recognizes and then learns and then teaches the duties
of a comprehensive citizenship ; which hopes for a future on
earth and beyond earth, but turns habitually, reverently,
thoughtfully to the old paths, the great men, the hallowed
graves of the fathers ; which binds in one bundle of love the
kindred and mighty legend of revolution and liberty, the
life of Christ in the Evangelists, and the Constitution in its
plain text; which can read with Lord Chatharn, Tliucydides
and the stories of master states of antiquity; yet holds with
him that the papers of the Congress of 17 76 were better;
Whose patriotism grows Warm at Marathon, but warmer at
Monrnouth, at Yorktown, at Bunker Hill, at Saratoga ; which
reforms by p1~eserving, serves by standing and waiting, fears
God and honors America.

I had something to say more directly still on the ethics of
nationality, on the duty of instructing the conscience ; on the
crimes of treason and slander, and fraud, that are committed

around us in its name ; on the shallowness and stupidity of

the doctrine that the mere moral sentiments, trained by a
mere moral discipline, may safely guide the complex ‘civil
life; of the teachers and studies which they need to fit them
for so precious, difficult and delicate a dominion ; of the high
place in the scale of duties, Which, thus fitted, they assign to
nationality; of the judgment which, thus fitted they would
apply to one or two of the cornmon-places and practices of
the time. But I pass it all tosay only that these ethics teach
the true subordination, and the true reconciliation of appar-
ently in compatible duties. These only are the casuists, or
the safest casuists for us. Learn from them how to adjust
this conflict between patriotism and philanthropy. To us,
indeed, there seems to be no such conflict, for We are pl1i-
lanthropists in proportion as we are unionists. Our philan-
thropy, we venture to say, is a just philanthropy. That is
all. It loves all men, it helps all men, it respects all rights,,
keeps all compacts, recognizes all dangers, pities all suffering,
ignores no fact, master and slave it enfolds alike. It happens
thns that it contractis the sphere of our duty somewhat, and

MR. oHoA.rE’s oaarion. 81

changes not the nature but the time, the place, the mode
of performing them. It does not make our love cold, but
it makes it safe ; it naturalizes it, it baptizes it into our life ;
it circumscribes it Within our capacities and our rnecessities;
it sets on it the great national public seal. If you say that
thus our patriotism limits our philanthropy, I answer that
ours is American philanthropy. Be this the virtue We boast,
and this the name by which We know it. In this name, in
this quality, find the standard and the utterance of the virtue
itself. By this, not by broad phylacteries and chief seats;
the keener hate, the gloornier fanaticism, the louder cry,
judge, compare, subordinate. Do they think that nobody is
a philanthropist but themselves? We, too, look up the
long vista and gaze Wrapt at the dazzling ascent; we, too,
see towers rising, crowned, imperial, and the tribes coming
to bend in the opening of a latter day. But we see peace,
order, reconciliation of rights along that brightening future.
We trace all along that succession of reform, the presiding
instruxnentalities of national life. We see our morality
Working itself clearer and clearer; one historical and con-

, ventional right or Wrong, after another, falling peacefully
A and still; We hear the chain breakirig, but there   is no blood

on it, none of his whom it  one of 

 

it on

him; We hear the swelling cliorns f    

r and slave unite in that chorus and t em is no discordat

shriek above the harmony; we see and We  the blending V

of our own glory with the eternal light of God, but We see,
too, shapes of love and beauty ascending and descending
there as in the old Vision! d

Hold fast this hope; distrust the philsanthropy, distrust  

the ethics   Whicli Would, which must,,,tnrn it into shae,
Do no evil  that   evil may come. Perform your share, for

you liave a share, in the abolition of slavery; perform your

share, for you have a share, in the noble and geiierous strife

of the sections»---but perform  by keeping, by transmitting, A

a united, loving and Christian America.

82 nntiociaaric CELEBRATION.

But why, at last, do I exliort, and why do I seem to fear,
on such a day as this? Is it not the natio1i’s birthday? Is
it not this country of our love and hopes, which celebrates
it? This music of the glad nziarch, these banners of pride
and beauty, these memories so fragrant, these resolutions
of patriotism, sopthoughtful, these hands pressed, these
congratulations and huzzaings and tears, this great heart
throbbing audibly,—--«are they not hers, and do they not
assure us? These forests of masts, these singing Work-~
shops of labor, these fields and plantations whitening for
the harvest, this peace and plenty, this sleeping thunder,
these bolts in the closed, strong talon, do not they tell us oi:
her health, her strength, and her future? This shadow

 that flits across our grasses and is gone, this shallow ripple

that darkens the surface of our broad and Widening stream,
and passes away, this little perturbation which our teles-
copes cannot find, and which our science can hardly find,
but which we knowrcannot change the course or hasten the
doom of one star; have these any terror for us? And He
who slurnbers not, nor sleeps, who keeps watchfnlly the
city of his love, on whose will the life of nations is sus-
pended, and to whom all the shields of the earth belong,
our father’s God, is he not our God, and of whom, then,
and of What shall we be afraid?

The Ode of Dr. J. S. JONES was now sung, and the Chaplain pro-
nounced the benediction. Thus closed the cerenaonies at the Trernont

a Temple.

THE BANQUET AT THE REVERE HOUSE.

In the afternolon the Young Men’s Democratic Club gave a grand ban»
qnet at the Revere House. The club, guests, and purchasers of tickets
were seated shortly after four o’cloclc, and the tables, set for three hun-
dred and fifty persons, were full. The elegant Ladies’ Ordinary of the
House was very profusely decorated for the occasion, the American flag

being the principal article used for that purpose. Behind the seat of’ the

President of the Day was a canopy, consisting of the stars and stripes,

sarmounted by a stufied eagle holding in its talons a scroll with the words

season: on MR. WILLIAMSON. . 83

“ E Plvoibzts Uimm ” thereon; the name “BUCHANAN,” and a silver-gilt
star representing “Pennsylvania,” being immediately beneath. Upon
the pillars about the room were shields, inscribed with the names of the
fourteen Presidents. The tables were loaded with every luxury which
the season and the great resources of the establishment could supply; and
the rich table furniture and ornaments, with the bouquets--—one to every
plate—--gave the board a very inviting and exhilarating aspect. Mr.
VV:o:..LraM C. WILLIAMSON, President of the Club, presided, and among
the invited guests seated about him were EDWARD Evnnnrr, RUFUS
Crronrn, Isaac Davrs, VVILLIAM Arrmrsron, ARTHUR W. AUSTIN,
BENJAMIN F. I~IA.Lr,n'r'r, CHARLES LEVI VVOODBURY, Rev. CHANDLER
ROBBINS, and Rev. Dr. BUR‘noUGrxs. After the invocation of the
Divine blessing, by Rev. CHANDLER Ronnrns, the dinner was discussed
for the space of nearly an hour. While the company was eating dinner

  Mr. Mayor llrnoonn came in and took a seat near the President, and

was greeted with a round of cheers; and justbefore the speaking com-~
menced, Mr. Cr-roars), too ill to remain longer, left the room, the whole
assembly rising, and giving him cheer after cheer as he departed. s

The dinner being done, Mr. WILLIAMSON roseand said :-—-  

srnncn: or Ms. WILLIAMSON.

You are aware, gentlemen, that our pious Puritan ances-

tors were in the habit of spending the morning of the Sab-~

bath with a gravity becoming that sacred occasion; but
when the sun went down upon the day, a light dawned
upon their countenances, and the harmonies   of music, the
sweets of conversation, a subdued merriment, anda   sly
courtship or two, Wereheld to be no sin.   we, having
spent the morning of this Sabbath cnyssr the ationiinthe
discharge of a pious duty, having gone up to the Temple,
and there, with reverent heads, invoked the favor of the
divine Ruler of Nations, having been filled With: the inspire-

tionsof aneloquence, not to be surpassed on any occasion  
norin al1time,we have met again at this social table,,to

indulge in somewhat lighter measures. We have met—--
fellow citizens of the United States~——-without distinction

of party, forgetful of Mason and Dixon’s line, to do honor

to those emotions which make us to beall of one kindred,
and While our hearts beat the faster with glorious memories
and joyous hopes, which are the common inheritance of us

84 DEMOCRATIC CELEBRATION.

all, and the imperishable bond of union between the North

  and the South, the East and the West----—

“ We’ll take a cup to’ kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.”

We could not celebrate this anniversary in a spot more

  appropriate. If it was in South Carolina that the sword of

the War of the Revolution was sheathed after the last blow
for liberty Was struck home, yet it was in Boston that the
first sacrifice fell in the streets. The Hills that are on-
camped about us, the Harbor, Long Wliarf, King Street,
have each their historiesrenewed this day. Almost within
the sound of our voices is the Cradle of Liberty, and the

  very roof under which We sit emblazons the iiarne of one
who helped to rock that cradle "while ADAMS and OTIS made .

the music; I refer to that fiery-hearted, strong-handed old
mechanic, whose engraver’s pen was mightier than many a
SWOIT1----PAUL REVERE.

It is the Worthy celebration of this day that recalls us to
our duties as citizens, and keeps bright thelove of coun»
try, and sanctions her laws. He spends the day ill who
devotes its precious hours to the accomplishment of merely
a selfish pleasure. He spends the day ill who does not
profit by the suggestions which it must naturally inspire.
And he spends the day 111 Who, when

“The kettle to the trumpet speaks,
The trumpet to the cannoneer Without,
The cannons to the heavens, ”

 

 

Does not hear Within his own heart a voice more significant
than drum, or trumpet, or cannon, calling upon him to
clierish and support those principles upon which this gov-

  e*“rnment was inaugurated, eighty-two years ago this day,

and upon Which, thank heaven! it stands unshakeii still.
A But it is notfor me, in this presence, to detain you from

  the gratification of that thirst which, notwithstanding the

srEEon or . MR. EVERETT. 85

delicious furniture of these tables, still remains to be

indulged.

“ The thirst that from the soul doth rise,
Doth ask a drink divine.” E

  Welcome, then, to this banquet, fellow citizens of Boston!
Welcome, fellow citizens of every State! Welcome Repub-
licans, Welcome Democrats, welcome Americans, vvelcorne

old Whigs! And if there be one here, not comprehended

Within theseternis, but who reveres the name of liberty and
loves his country---——w'elco1:ne, welcome! Let us sit under
the shade of the wide—-spreadiiig federal tree, and give our-

selves up to the pleasant reveries of the hour. Let us fol»

low the train of the departing day with rejoicing, with
acclarnation, until the shadow of yonder monument, falling

K fartlier and farther to the east, p0l11l)Swl3l1e close of another
Well-spent anniversary, and night hoists our blue flag in the

heavens, and sets Within it the stars of a higher glory.

Col. JOHN T. HEARD, the Marshal of the day, acting as toast-master,
announced the first regular toast :--—

“ The Day we C'elebrate.”

Hon. EDWARD EVERETT was invited torespond, and as he rose to do  i
so, nine cheers were given for him. Upon the restoration of stillness, he i

proceeded to say :-—--

SPEECH OF MR. EVERETT.

SIR,,----I am greatly indebted to you and the company for
this most flattering reception. My attendance of late years

has seldom been given on occasions of this kind, and could  

not with consistency have been given at this banquet, had
not your obliging invitation contained the assurance   that

  you proposed to celebrate the Fourth of July “ in a iiationawl  

  spirit, excluding every thing of a political or partisan char»

aster.” As long as I was in public life, I was a xneniber,

  as you know, sir, of that old Whig party to which you have

6

86 DEMOCRATIC cnnnennrrxon.

referred---the national Wliig party, a political association,

sir, I am sure you will grant, of which no one need be

ashamed. The prostration of my health compelled me, four
years ago, to resign the honorable post which I then filled
in the public service. Since that period new parties have
been formed; old ones have either retired for a while, at
least, from the field, or have been forced in some degree on
new issues; and if I felt the slightest inclination, (which I
do not,) with the partial restoration of my health, to return
to public life, I should be deterred from it by the fact, that
between the extremes of opinion which distract and threaten
to convulse the country, I find no middle path of practical
usefulness vvhich a friend of moderate counsels is permitted
to pursue. Statesmanship, as it was understood in my
younger days--—--that is, the study of the foreign relations of

  the country, its defences, naval and military, its currency
and finances, its internal improvements, its great industrial

interests, and the relations of the government to the Indian
tribes, has almost become an obsolete idea, and our political
life has assumed almost exclusively the form of sectional
agitation. Into that dreary and profitless agitation I have
no heart to enter.

Justified by the character of your celebration, I have
yielded vvithout scruple to the vvisli-----rather I have found
myself as little able as desirous to resist the all-powerful
temptation of listening to the great living master of Ameri-
can oratory, (I am glad on one account he has retired
from the table, as I can speak with greater freedom What I
think and feel,) on an occasion and upon a theme not
unworthy the energies of his intellect nor below the flight

of his eloquence. And, sir, I will say, if the pure and ex.»  

  alted principles of nationality which he has this day unfolded

and illustrated, under your auspices, are a faithful exposition
of democratic doctrine, then I must be permitted to share
the satisfaction of the Worthy gentleman in Moliere’s play,
at finding, greatly to his astoiiishment and delight, that he

had been speaking prose all his life. The great founder of

SPEECH or Me. EVERETT. 87

the democratic party, Mr. Jefferson, in his inaugural address
on the 4th of March, 1801, said, “ We have called by difi’er--
ent names brethren of one principle ; we are all federalists,
We are all republicans.” If the orator of the day, to Wliom
We have all listened with such admiration, has truly
expounded the principles of your association and your party,
I think We must say, With still stronger emphasis, “ We

have called by difierentnames bretliren of the same princi-

ple; We are all Whigs, We are all democrats.”
For myself, sir, standing aloof from public life and from

all the existing party organizations, I can truly say that I

have never listened to an exposition of political principle
with higher satisfaction. I heard the late Mr. Samuel

Rogers, the venerable banker poet of London, more than once  

relate that he was present on the 10th of December, 1790,
when Sir Joshua Reynolds delivered the last of his discourses
before the Royal Academy of Art. Edmund Burke was
also one of the audience; and at the close of the lecture,
Mr. Rogers saw him go up to Sir Joshua, and heard him
say, in the fullness of his delight, in the Words of Milton :-----

I“ The angel ended, and in Adanfs ear I
4 So ‘charming left his voice, that he awhiler L

Thought him still speaking, still stood fixed to hm-.=* 

  When our friend concluded his superboration this morn-  

ing, I was ready, like Mr. Cruger, (Who stood with Burke 

for the representation of Bristol,) “ to say ditto to llr.

Burlre.” I was unwillingto believe that noble strain,  
by turns persuasive, melting, and sublie, had ended. The
music of the voice still dwelt upon my ear;  lofty traini I

of thought” elevated and braced. my understanding    the

generous sentiments filled rny   as the
peel of a magnificent organ, touchedbythe master’s hand,

thrills the nerves with meters and  even the vaulted  

roof to vibrate in unison. The charmed silence seemed for

a  to prolong the charming strain, and it was some

 DEMOCRATIC CELEBRATION.

moments before I was Willing to admit that the stops were
closed and the keys hushed. t b

You have done, sir, a real service to the cornniunity--—-to
the Whole country——--in this day’s Work, in the measures
taken by you to celebrate the day “in a national spirit,
excluding every thing of a political or partisan tendency.”
Would to heaven that we could all carry this spirit, not
merely to the patriotic celebration of this day, but to the
discharge of all our civil and public duties, and especially
of the duties which pertain to the organization of the gov»
ernment and the political life and action of the State.
Would that the spirit of a pure nationality, such as this
day has been described to us, embracing the whole country

in the arms of a living and loving patriotism, Lrnight take

the place of the intense local feelings which so extensively

  prevail, and lead the citizens of the different sections of the
‘country to regard each other with distrust, jealousy, and

hatred!   ‘  
These are the feelings against which We are so emphati-
cally vvarned in the Farewell Address of Washington. No
topicis more Warmly pressed in that immortal State paper.
Itsauthor, reluctantly admitting that parties may perform a
useful office, at least under monarchical gover11rnents,as
checks upon the administration, and in keeping up the
spirit of liberty, yet declares that, under elective and rep-
resentative governments, this spirit is not to be encouraged.
“From the natural tendency of such governments, there
will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary pur-

pose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effect a

ought to be, by force of public opinion, to mitigate and
assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uni-~
form vigilance to prevent its bursting out into a flame, lest
instead of Warming itshould destroy.”    

With this opinion of party spirit in general, of all the

  forms which it can assume, of all the directions which itcan

take, that against which Washington most especially warns
us is the sectional- ii‘ In contemplating the causes which

srnncn: or MR. EVERETT. 89

may disturb our Union,” says he, i“ it occurs as matter of
serious concern that any ground should have been furnished
for characterizing parties by geographical discriminations-----
Northern and Southern, Atlantic and Western---whence
designing men may endeavor to excite a belief that there is
areal difference of local interests and views. One of the
expedients of party to acquire influence within particular
districts, is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other
districts. You cannot shield yourselves too much against
the jealousies and heart-burnings which spring from these

  misre resentations; the tend to render alien to each other
P

those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection.

“ The North in an unrestrained intercourse with the r

South, protected by the equal laws of a common govern-
ment, finds in the productions of the latter, great additional
resources of maritime and commercial enterprise and pre-
cious materials of manufacturing industry. The South in
the same intercourse, benefiting by the agency of the North,
sees its agriculture grow and its commerce expand. Turn-

ing partly into its own channels the seamen of the North, it  

finds its particular navigation invigorated, andwhile it con—~

tributes in difierent ways to nourish and increase the general r
  mass of national navigation,p it looks forward t protec-

tion of a maritime strength to   
adapted.”   i             

For these and other considerations,urged witli ggygrarmth  
and energy proportionate to his deepconvictiori of their

importance, the Father of his Country says to his fellow-
citizens, that “ it is of infinite moment that you should
properly estimate the immense value of your National
 to your collective and individual happiness; that you
should cherish a cordial, liahitual,immovablecattachment to
it ; accustoming yourselves to  a rtolspealrof  as of the

 

palladium of your politicalssafetyisanéd prospeirity; watching

for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing
whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any

    event  abandoned; andindignantly frowning upon the

90 Democratic CELEBRATION.

first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our
country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which
now link together the various parts.”

Sir, I linger, but you I are sure will not think too long, on
these solemn and affectionate appeals, which seem, after a
lapse of two generations, to come sounding to us like an
oracle of wisdom and love frorn the sacred shades of Mount
Vernon. It has ceased to be a“ popular strain; but I
willingly accept the unpopularity. I know that “Union
saving,” as it is derisively called, is treated in some quarters
with realor affected contempt. I am content to share in
the ridicule which attaches to an anxiety for the preserva-~
tionof the Union, which prompted one-sixth part of Wash-

ington’s Farewell Address. Would to heaven that his sadly
earnest counsels on this subject might spread peace and

brotherly love throughout the land, as if the sainted hero
himself could burst his cerernents, and proclaim them in
visible presence before his fellow citizens. They would be
worth to us, merely in reference to national strength, more
than armies or navies, or “walls along the steep.” I speak
literally, sir, it were better for the safety of the country
against the foreign fee that the union of the States should
be preserved, than that We should wield the army of Napo-

leon and the navy of England, while hovering on the Verge

of separation. It would be less dangerous that the coin-

bined fleets of Europe should thunder in our seaports than  

that one—half of the country should be arrayed against the
other.

Sir, about fifteen rninutes before I left my door to go to I

the Trexnont Temple, I received from a friend in Virginia
an extract from the public records of that State, Whicli, if I
mistake not, you will deem well. worthy of your notice. It
is in the following terms :~—---  

At a treaty held at Lancaster, Pa., July, 17 74;, between
the Lieutenant»-Governor of Pennsylvania, the Commissioners

of Virginia and Maryland, on the one part, and the Indians

season or  Evnnnrr. 91

of the Six Nations on the other, Conestoga, the head Chief,
spoke as follows to the Colonial representatives :----

“ We have one thing further to say, and that is, We
heartily recommend union and a good agreement betvvesen
you and your brethren. Never disagree, but preserve strict

friendship for one another, and thereby both you as Well as v

we will become the stronger. «    
“ Our wise forefathers established union and amity between
the Five Nations. This has made us formidable; this has

given us great Weight and authority vvitli our neigliborixig

nations. We are a powerful confederacy, and by your
observing the same methods as our wise forefathers have
taken, you will acquire great strength and power. There»
fore, whatever befall you, never fall out with one another.”°“‘

My friend adds: “ What, makes this wise and eX.cellent
admonition more impressive, is the fact that it was given on
the 4th of July.”  

As I showed this paper a few moments ago to your Presi-~
dent and the Orator of the Day (Who has just left the table,)
Mr. Choate remarked, “ and the moral of that piece of
advice, the circumstances vvhich have caused the annihilation
of the Six Nations Witliin eighty~four years, are, if possible,

mre significant than the counsel itself.”i  had  

not time before he left the table to unfol the lsignificance

of this remark, but I think I understandiivit. The Six Nations ,
  were indeed a powerful confederaey.  They occupied the

central portion of the North American continent, on this side
the Ohio and the Mississippi. Their influence extended from
Lake Ontario to Chesapeake Bay, from the Mohawk to the
JaesiRiver, perhaps farther. At one time they transacted
 the colonial government at Albany; at another

‘ at   at another at Williamsburg or Annapolis;  

and at another   at the confluence of the Allegheny and the

  hélonongaliela. But tlieirconfederacy neverttsextended beyond  

3

the Six Nations; they were successively at war  a  

*‘ Extract from Record of Indian viffreatiw,  the Virginials State Library.

92 DEMOCRATIC CELEBRATION.

Algonquins of the North and East; the Cherokees and
Creeks of the South and West; and the powerful tribes of
various names beyond the Ohio. The red man has ever
been the red man’s deadliest foe. Had all the native tribes
of the North American continent been bound together in a
grand confederacy, such as was projected by Pontiac in the
last century, and by Tecumseh in our day, I do not say that
they would have eventually stood their ground against the
swelling numbers of the white race crowding upon them
withthe arts andweapons of civilization,but most assuredly

  they would have long wielded a power eminently formidable

    eracy of sovereign States?

to the rising States, and would have greatly postponed their
own disappearance from the face of the earth- What the
United States would be, if, instead of this Imperial Union,
which concentrates into one irresistible power the resources
of thirty:-two States,and covers with its aegis the vast terri-
tory which extends from Texas to Maine, and from the
Atlantic to the Pacific, they were broken up into as many
minorconfederacies and separate independent tribes as our
red brethren, let the disappearance not merely of the Five
Nations, but of so many other warlike confederacies and
tribes partly teach us.  

I must not however forget, sir, that you bid me speak of

“the day we celebrate;” but how can I do so in worthy

terms, unless indeed I could borrow the breathing thoughts,
the burning words to which we have already listened with
delight. Surely a day without a parallel in the history of
nations--~—for where, in the annals of mankind, in ancient or
modern times, can we find a day like this, on which, after
centuries of conscious and unconscious preparations-»—-—11pon
the illustrious theatre of a vast continent, hidden for thou-

sands of years from the rest of mankind, a group of feeble  
colonial dependencies, by one authentic and solemn act,
proclaimed themselves to the world an independent confed~

« I repeat, sir,that on the 4th of uly, eighty—two years ago,

a deed, which not France, nor England, nor Rome, nor

srnncn or MR. svnnsrr. 93

Greece, can match in all their annals, was done in Philadel-
phia, in Independence Hall. Let Philadelphia guard that
hall as the apple of her eye. Let time respect and violence
spare it.   Let every stone and every brick and every plank

  and every bolt, from the foundation to the pinnacle, be

sacred. Let the rains of heaven fall softly on the roof, and
the Winds of vvinter beat gently at the door. Let it stand to
the end of time, second only to Mount Vernon, as the sane-»
tuary of American patriotism. Let generation on generation
of those who taste the blessings of that great declaration pay
their homage at the shrine, and deem it no irreverence, as

they kneel ingratitudc to the Providence which guided and

inspired the men who assembled therein, to call its vvalls
salvation and its gates praise!   ,  

Yes, sir, the men by whom the deed was performed,
and to go no further than tl1eCommittee who drafted the

, Declaration,(for time would fail me to run down. the long

and honored roll of the entire body,) what names, What

pmemoriesl '1‘homas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin

Franklin, Roger Sherman, Robert R. Livingston. Virginia,
Massachusetts, Connecticut, N evv York, Pennsylvania. Three
of them natives of Massachusetts; tvvoof them Presidents of
the United States. Franklin, the most illustrious philosopher

A and skilful negotiator of the last century ; Sherman, who

raised himself from the httmblestwalltseof manual flaborto
be the guide of Senates ; Livingstoni,the head oflrthetribu-
nals of his great State,----joint negotiator of the treaty which

    added half the N orth American Continent, under the name

of Louisiana, to the Union; the confidential friend and

partner of Fulton in the creation of steam, navigation.  

  And then the grandeur of the event itself; the stupendous

magnitude of the political system then inaugurated.,   Oh,

  that with a comprehensive grasp of the plan of   Providence,‘  

with a patient foresight of the impending future, We could

  reverently ascend the Mount of Vision, and behold in the

  kindling promise of the dawn, the brightness of the coming

    glories. The meridian   splendors of that coming day I

94 DEMOCRATIC onnzssnarron.

attempt not to sketch; but let us endeavor at least to form
some conception of the country, to which this morning’s sun
proclaimed a patriotic holiday; so vast, so Widely though so
recently settled--—--East, West, North, and South 3 the differ»
ences of local position,-mmaritime and inland, alluvial plain,
hills propped with eternal buttresses of iron and granite,
central prairie with its inexhaustible depths of vegetable
mould, lakes that rival oceans, rivers that stretch from the
polar circle to the tropics, every growth tliat clothes the soil,

every metal concealed in its bosom,---—the endless variety of A

occupation and pursuit clustering roundso many centres of
local power, recognized and organized by the curious adjust»
ments of our political system ; but throughout this vast
extent and above the attractions and repulsions, the affinities

V and antagonisms of the land, this morning’s sun proclaimed

aholiday of peace and love. And as the local memories

this day revive throughout the Union, let the all-absorbing
interest of the great Declaration mould them into patriotic  

unity; so that all the cherished traditions of every part of
thecountry may be Woveh and twisted into a bright cord of
mutual good will, to ‘Which every honored name, and every
sacred spot, and every memorable deed shall add its golden
and silver thread; andJamestoWr1 and Plymouth, and Bun»-
ker Hill and King’s Mountain, and Warrexi and Washington,
with all the other precious memories of ancient and modern
times, and all of either sex who have meekly suffered or
bravely dared, in Whatever part of our Common Country,
shall this day be gratefully enshrined in the American heart

  of hearts.

Sir, I hayelately seen much of   this noble country, and I

have learned, as I have seen it more, to love it better; the
  enterprising, ingenious, and indomitable North; the sub»

stantial and magnificent Central States, the great balance»-

  Wheel of the system; the youthful,rapidly expanding,and
almost boundless West; the ardent, genial, and hospitable  
  South--—-I have traversed them all. I leave to others, at

home, or abroad, to villify them in Whole or in part; Ishall

srnnon on MR. EVERETT. 95

not follow the example. They have all their faults, for
they are inhabited not by angels, buthy human beings ; but
it would be well, in the language of President KIRKLAND,
forthose ‘i who rebuke their brethren for the faults of men,

not to display themselves the passions of de1nons.” For

myself, I have found in every part of the country generous
traits of character, vast and well understood capacities of
progress, and hopeful auguries of good; and, taken in the

aggregate, they are the abode of a population as intelligent, i

as prosperous, as rnoral and religious as any to be found on
the surface of the globe. There is one little corner of each
which I should like to annihilate ; if I could wield a naagi-
cian’s Wand I would sink it to the centre. Its name is
Buncombe. Not the respectable county of that name in
North Carolina,’ against which I have nothing to say, but a
pestilent little political electioneering Buncombe, in every
State and every district, which is the prolific source of
most of our troubles. If wecould get rid, sir, of Buncornbe,
and if we couldbring back the liarrnony which reigned on

  the day which We celebrate, and the days which preceded
and followed it---wlien Massachusetts summoned WASHING-  

TON tolead the arniies to New England; when Virginia and

  Carolina sent their supplies of corn and  rice   their

farnished brethren in Boston; when  Ail)AM?S
joined hands to draft the great   could liv

  to see that happy day, I Would,  l1OI1iO‘I',ffS‘1l5I‘i, go to

rny grave as rcheerfully as the tired and contented labaorer  

goes to his nightly rest. I shall, in the course ofpnature, go

to it before long, at any rate, and I wish no other epitaph  

to   be place.upon it tlianethis‘: “ Through evil report and

  through good report, he loved his Whole country.”

  i   At the end or almost every sentence of hisrrrenearks, as applause and  

cheers of the cornpanys interrupted Mr. ..E«ve:::n;rT.,.. and at the close?
another round of nine cheers was heartily given. ‘ p p y - a s

The second toast was then announced :—--—-'
    «c The President the Usage States.”

96 DEMOCRATIC CELEBRATION.

Mr. .A1~‘cTIIUR W. AUSTIN, Collector of the Port of Boston, was called
to respond, and his name was received with three cheers. L

In response Mr. Collector AUSTIN said: Mr. President, I rise with
pleasure to acknowledge the very cordial reception of the sentiment just
ofl"ered in honor of our patriotic Chief Magistrate, in this patriotic as-
sembly. After the eloquent address of the gentleman on your left, I
shall content myself with adopting the old Democratic fashion, andreply
by offering the following sentiment :--—-- p

“ The Political Union, throughout the country, of all those who are loyal
to the Constitution of our Fathers.” , ‘

The third regular toast was :-+-

The Orator of the Day—-In the course of a long and splendid profes-
sidnal experience, he has often had occasion to put himself upon h1s
country; but he has shown that in time of danger his country may safely

. put herself upon him.”

Mr. WILLIAMSON said: Gentlemen, the Orator of the Day hoped,
until a late moment, to be able to remain with us and respond, if called
upon, to a sentiment which might be offered complimentary to himself,
but his increasing illness rendered it necessary for him to leave the table;
but as he was leaving the hall he handed to Mr. EVERETT a sentiment, to

T be read at this table, which, if agreeable, will now be read, to you-

, (Applause)

a Mr. EVERETT said: Mr. President, there is no person for whom it is
so diflicult to speak as for our friend who has just left us, but inasmuch as
It-am obliged to speak in his own Words, I can do so with perfect safety.
The sentiment is this :-----

The Three Epochs of our Historical illvjfla----The Planting of Colonies;
Independence; Nationality. First, the blade; then the car; then the
full corn in the ear. May the harvest be worthy of the seed time, the
reaper of the planter; the consummation of the antecedents. And then

our children for the thousandth generation will own and love a greater

North American Republic——honest, strong; one and free.

‘Being interrupted when half way through his reading, by the firing of
crackers outside, Mr. EVERETT apologized by saying “there was a

N ‘ crack-er ’ speaker outside which entirely drowned his voice.” [Laughten]

Nine cheers were given forMr. CHOATE, and as Mr. EVERETT left the
hall a few moments later, six cheers were given for him.

The fourth regular toast :---t
“ The iC'ons.tz'iutz'on and the Union.”

 BENJAMIN F. HALLETT was called upon to reispond,iand N svas  
applauded as he rose.   A , up '       ‘    

season on MR. HALLETT. 97

SPEECH OF MR. HALLETT.

Mr. HAIJLETT said that to be called on to speak after the
great orator, was like heating a kettle drum in cars that had
just listened to the harp of Orpheus and the lute of Apollo.
And yet, sir, useless as it is for any one who has a tongue--—--~
aye, if he had the fiery tongues that fell in the days of Pen-
tecost——to attempt to compete with that orator in addressing
an audience, I would be willing to beat the old platform
drurn of the Constitution and the Union from year’s end to
year’s end, if I could but rally the young men of Massa.
chusetts around that banner of “ nationality ” which has
been so gloriously borne aloft this day.  

It Was to sustain that standard, and in that sense only,

that the democratic young men of Boston, tired of listening  

to sectional and treasonableliarangues on the 4th of J uly,
were to-day celebrating a national independence in its true

spirit of “nationality.” He could not agree that We were a

  here as no party-——-We were here as the party of the Consti-  

tution and the party of theUnion.y Such a national party
now was as necessary to the life of the Republic as the party
of the Revolution was to the birth of   Independentce.   Just

so long as the Ooizstituticnwasdenouncedbyany party,
just so long as the equal rights of Stateswereltdenied,
so long‘ as men talked of the dissolutioixislof  ad  
just so long as there was sectionalisxn inthe land, just so

long there must he a party of “nationality ” to meet, oppose
and suppress them. To that the young men of Boston have

consecrated thecelehration of this day; and in that sense

  we areall Whigs, We are all Americans, we are all Demo»

crats today, because we are all Democrats. 
And We are so, because on this great   seritimentpof “ na-
tionality ” We are all democratic in the principles and the

 purposes which from the belginlningy have sustained, and

which now and hencefcr-ward onlycan sustain and perpetu-

ate Liberty and Ixidependencei with Nationality and Union,

98 nnnoonarro CELEBRATION.

And, therefore, it is that, in response to a sentiment for
the Union, I must be permitted to say that I see not how
we can keep this Union together without a party to uphold
it as it is ; and that, in the entire history of the Democratic

party, from Jefferson to Buchanan, it is identified with the

expansion and the preservation of the Union. But while I
say this I do not forget, and the Democratic party will never
forget, that strong hands and true hearts of other political
names, but of like national principles, have in many a crisis
upheld and carried forward the standard of our nationality.

Seventy years ago John Adams said that “ the existence

\* of thirteen governments, founded upon the natural author»

ity and will of the people alone, without pretence of mira-
cle or mystery, was a great point gained in favor of the

  rights of niankind.”
That was our nationality then with thirteen feeble States.  
Our nationality now covers thirty-two States, and out of

that on this day we have gained another acknowledgment of

Independence--the first concession ever made by Great  
Britainw-tliat by the law of nations the American flag is A

inviolate against all pretextof search or of visitation!
These are grand results, and there must be a cornpre-

  hensive policy somewhere to account for itall. It is found
first in our Union, but especially in the expansion of that a

Union from a few to many States. And the fundamental
principle of that expansion which has so long struggled
with narrow sectionalism, is the right of the people of every
Territory, when corninginto this Union as a new State, to
regulate their own domestic institutions in their own way.

I think we have got that settled as a fixed element of c

nationality, and with that we can have just as many of those ‘
governments which John Adams rejoiced in, as we have got i

space on this Continent to hold tliem, until our system shall  

embrace a government with the nationality of a hundred

  States, and atthe same time with the individuality   
parti ular   State. That is the great secret   of Americans

Q

eonality. A  

srsson on MR. HALLETT. 99

There was a passage in the Declaration of Independence
readto-day, which said that our fathers had appealed to the

native justice and rnagnanirnity of their British brethren for
redress, but they too had been deaf to the voice of justice.
and of CO1’lS2LI1gU.i1'.1lty.

N ow marl: the pleasing contrast, and its progress step by
step, with the expansion of our nationality in this Derno-
cratic Union. In 1812 and 1813, the British Grovernrnent
claimed the right to search our vessels and impress from

them every man ‘whom a petty officer chose to clairn as a  

British born subject. They denied the freedom of the seas
and the right of expatriaticn. We Went to War npontliaty
for the Prince Regent then told us, through his Ministers,

that His Royal Highness could never consent to surrender  

the right of reclairning‘ British subjects Wherever found on
board American vessels, and that the similarity of language

made it still more necessary that England should a insist on

this right. The treaty of peace of 1815, did not settle it
in ter1ns,bnt it did in effect, until it was revived under
another pretext, the suppression of the slave trade ; and

this Was its most imposing form, because it cannot be doubted i

that the former British rninistry, taking the American senti-

ment rather from those of our sectional public  enWhoi A

love the eiiloginms of Exeter Hall more sthfirhlsoio   

of their Whole country, believed 
anti-slavery sentiment of the North to copel  American
Grovernment to lower its flag to Britishvisitation.     Hence

the recent revival of the practice in the Gulf and on our
own coast.   But inithis, as in every calculation which has
yet been made upon the anti-slavery sentimenteof the North  
  to break upsets Union, the British diplomatists failed, and

th33’ were surprised to find these   “ sympathiZerS,” as they

called tliem  this side of the B Water, the most vehement in

  Congress in denouncing the clai  of search, and avowing  

their readiness to fight.  y        

Mr. HALLETT said he meant this in noinvidions sense, but

hernight he allowed to say that the lessons of “nationality ”

100 nnmooearro CELEBRATION.

taught to all minority parties by the War of 1812 and the
Mexican War, had been so well learnt, that no party in this
country would ever again dare to stand against the national
spirit of the people, when they demand what is right, and
resolve to submit t6 nothing that is Wrong, from any nation!

Be that as it may, We now had the full benefit and enjoy-
ment of the noble and magnaniinous sentiment of the British
people and the British press toward this country; With
one voice they had disclaimed the right of search, and taken
the American side of that question as zealously as any of
us. That Was the fruit of our glorious “ nationality.” Let
every man in this Union reflect on that, and look over this
broad country, with its prosperity at home, and its power
and respect abroad as a nation, as a Whole nation, and then
ask himself what policy and What party have made all this,

and preserved it all from a miserable seetionalism? Mr.  

HALLETT closed with the sentiment :-----

T he Achievements of Democratic Nationaliity, in International Lain-
The Ricrht of Expatriation, the Freedom of the Seas, and the Inviolabil-

2'5

ity of the American Flag.

At the conclusion of Mr. Hallettfs remarks, Mr. Joe. G. BERRETT
rose, and asked leave to propose :---

“ The Jifemory of the Immortal Webste7*.” (Drank standing and in
silence.)

l\iIr. FIJETCIIER WEBSTER was ealledfap, and was received with

cheers. He said :-———-

As the only living representative of the person whose
memory you have thus kindly honored, it is my duty, as

dwell as my privilege, to reply to your kindness. I thank
you, sir, for the manner in Wliieh his name has been men-

tioned, and I thank you, gentlemen, for the mannerin
which his memory has been received by you. It is not

  unnatural, I may be allowed to say, that on an occasion like
the present, when we are met without distinction of party,  

to renew our vows of devotion to the Constitution andthe
Union, his name should be remembered. It is not singular,

---«nor was I unprepared for it,tl1ougl1not expecting, to

SPEECH or FLETCHER WEBSTER. 101

speak,---—that you should remember one whose capacious
heart could contain no lesser idea than that of nationality-—-~
the whole country, and nothing but the country. There is
little that I can say, however, in such a connection, but to
thank you for the manner in which you have alluded to my
father. In the address of the Orator of the Day, there was
one consideration which struck me with considerable force.
Shakspeare tells us that this world is six thousand years old
-—-—[A voice, “ Where ? ”---Mr. Webster, “Rosalind,”]---and
we have a pretty distinct idea of the doings of that period.
We can trace back all the forms of government from our
own, which commenced eighty-two years ago, to the first
theocracies. We find, at different periods, monarchical or
patriarchal governments prevailing; we find despotisrns;
and sometimes no government existing, scarcely; but it
was reserved for our forefathers in 17 76, for the first time
in that period of six thousand years, to strike out a new
system of social and political government. There never
has been any thing to compare with it; there was no prece-
dent for it. They formed our system of a federal govern-
ment from no antecedents whatever. There never has been
any thing like it, and never will be any thing like it again.
Our government has carried us along at a rate of progress
unparalleled in the history of the world. We have had

  party dissensions, and, alas! sectional dissensions, under

this general system; but I believe, before you all, and I am
ready to say and swear it, that we now have inaugurated

a new era in the history of parties and government in 

America. We have formed a new union of all national

men, discarding all sectional issues, letting bygones be

bygones, asking no questions, and we are coming and laying
our common vows upon the broad altar of our common
country. (Applause)   I will not further occupy your
time, Mr. President, but will give youasscntiment in which
I am sure you will all join :-——- er 1

The Constitution and the i Um'on«--—May they last while human :'u:1stitu- .

tions endure.
7

102 DEMOCRATIC CELEBRATION‘.

The fifth toast was then read by Mr. SIDNEY WEBSTER, one of the
Assistant Marshals, in the absence of Col. HEARD :--—- T

The Judiciary.

Mr. CHARLES LEVI Woonnunr was introduced to respond.
SPEECH OF‘ MR. WOODBURY.

Unequal as I am, and unequal as the opportunityhere
would be, to speak to that toast with the feelings and the
propriety which it demands, it is enough forime to stand up
and say that the Judiciary of this country standspre-eminent
among all in the World, protected by the constitution of the
United States from   all interference by executive power,
protected from congressional interference, as pure, as lofty,

as undefiled as the summits of the snow clad mountains which  

adorn the topmost heights of our continent. (Applause)
By the constitution, the most extraordinary task is committed
to the Judiciary of the United States that ever was committed
to one body of men, and that is to interpret and preserve
pure the constitution of our country. Thank God, gentle-
men, so far, they have preserved that constitution unhurt
amidst the storms of party warfare, and uninjured amidst
all the execrable hovvls which the enemies of ourcountry
have raised against them. (Applause)  
Gentlemen, it has not been alone in Democratic hands

that the judiciary of our country has been thus honorably  

preserved in its functions; but prudent ‘Whig hands and

  Democratic alike have helped elevate the pure ermine of

justice, alike have preserved the constitdtion spotless and
unimpaired. (Great applause.) The distinguished gentle-

man who opened the speech-making this evening (Mr. 

EVERETT) said that the storms of party Warfare had grown

  too strong for his health. But, gentlemen, I recollect the
  time when the storms of party Warfare were not too strong

   for his health. (Good) There was a time when a. niazn--~

  next to the immortal J ackson most dear in the afiections of
 this people, Whig President-——-adinistered this government

season on MR. WOODBURY.   103

and protected it with his army. I allude to the glorious old
Taylor. He died, and the nation mourned. Another ad-
ministration came in amidst the mourning of a great, proud

and brave people. The strong hands of the father of my  

friend who has just spoken, left the helm of state, and there
succeeded him the eloquent gentleman who first addressed
this meeting. That which had commenced in mourning,
Went out in glory. .

I remember when that eloquent statesman came forward
with his letter to the English government upon the Cuban
question, and the “ manifest destiny ” of this nation with
regard to the North American Continent. (Cheers) Gen—
tlemen, I think I have something of party feeling and party
attachments, but I say that when I read that letter, I felt
that if I had not been born a Democrat I would learn to be
a Whig. I want to receive no better doctrines from the
hands of James Buchanan. I want no better results from
James Buchanan’s administration than that which my learned
and eloquent friend, Mr. Everett, so ably shadowed forth in
that letter. (Applause)  

And yet again I remember-—--and the gentleman to-night

has shown that he has something of strength yet, that the

old man’s hand, and voice, and energies are yet cunning in
the war of party-——-I remember that when there came for-
ward disorganizing documents to the senate of the United
States, he alone-—--“ solitary and alone ’’-----of all the embat-

tled senators of New England, rose and rebuked the act.  

(Enthusiastic applause.)   The old Venetian, when eighty

years of age, won a battle for his country against the Turks; 

and when I see, by the speeches of this day, how the powers

of thelast remaining statesmen of the heroic age of New
England are devoted to the war against fanaticism and

  treachery to the Union, I feel they have won a battle this
day. When, too, I remember how that gentleman whose
imemory has been referred to here, arose on the 7th of
  March and battledfor the Union, I think there is some bond
  of union between old Whigs and old Democrats.   I think,

104 DEMOCRATIC CELEBRATION.

  on national questions, We havenever been divided ; or, if so,

still think that on national questions we are never to be
divided again. I think that every man who reveres the
country for which Webster devoted his Wholelife, for which
Taylor lived and died, for ,which Fillmore supported the
constitution, for which Jackson and Polk labored, will unite
still vvitl1 all or any of his countrymen to serve his country.

But, gentlemeii, I must stop: better men are to follow
me. I give you, in reply to your toast to the judiciary, the
memory of the great dead light of the Whig judiciary and
the great living light of the Democratic judiciary. I give
you :---~

Chief Justice Marshall and Clzicf Justice Tcmcy—i--~Tvvo purer men never

knelt before the threshold of their God.
Three cheers were given for Mr. ‘Woodbury.

The seventh regular toast was to “ The Commonwealth of Massachu-
soils.” s

The President said: VVe are happy to have among our guests one from .

the very heart of the old Commonwealth, the Hon» ISAAC DA,VIS,,  I
hope he has laid his hand upon that heart and will tell us how it beats
to-day. (Applause)

Mr. Dnvxs rose and said:—---—  

Mr. PRESIDENT: I do not know upon what principle I am
called upon to respond to a sentiment given to the Stateof
Massachusetts. I am but an humble citizen of the State of
Massachusetts. Yet I love old Massachusetts, with all her
faults. I love her, because more than two centuries ago she
established her three great institutions---lier meeting-houses,
her school-houses and her training-fields ; her meeting-houses,
to lay deep religious andmoral principles in the hearts of
her citizens; her school-houses, to disseminate universal
education; her training-fields, to give our citizen soldiery

I that training needful to fit them to carry the laws into exe-

cution, and protect us against foreign invasion or domestic
insurrection, She was thus preparing herself fora, noble

future; and when We came up tothe great crisis,  this  

State was tobe an independentfitate, to be one of the great;

  galaxyof  Ilnion, We found Massachusetts men standing

srnnon: or ens. PALFREY. 105

in the frollt mrllis of the battle; we found her doing her
part in the battles the Revolution; we found her doing
her part when the Declaration of Independence was made
in that sanctuary so beautifully described by the eloquent
gentleman who has addressed us this evening. We found
her ready when the Federal Constitution was made—--Mas-
sachusetts men were ready to establish the Constitution---—
by which we have all this great and glorious Republic and
all its glories. When I lool: back by the light of history,
and see those men, I honor old Massachusetts. But with—
out detaining you, knowing there are many men here better
able to speak than I, I give you, gentlemen, this sentiment:

Our Revolutionary Fat7aers—---Guided by a patriotism that recognized
the Republic, the whole Republic, and nothing but the Republic, who
ignored every ism except patriotism. (Great cheering.)

Eighth regular itoast :~---—- .

The South and the Nortlz as Co-élaborers--lVIay the work of their hands
endure forever.

The PRESIDENT. Gentlemen, I see among us a veteran soldier who
served under old Andrew Jackson. I refer to Gen. HENRY T.’PAL1rRnY,
Commander of the Legion of Honor in New Orleans.

Gen. PALFREY was greeted with three cheers, and said :-—-—-

Mr. PRESIDENT : I have been called upon rather unex~
pectedly to respond to a sentiment, “ The South and the
North ; ” a sentiment which, of all others, is most agreeable
not only to myself but to all my fellow citizens of Louisiana,
so far as I am acquainted with their yiews——---a sentiment
which is particularly ag1*eeabletome,as  belong  to
Massachusetts and to Louisiana- (Good, and cheers.) I
was born in Boston, within a few blocks of tihisi huilding,
and spentfive years of my irifancy here, atlialschoollwithin

eight milesi of Boston. Now, Ihappened to be iii Boston,  

on my wayto Europe, and I received a polite inyitationto
attend your lmeeting and assist on this ” occasion. I feel

proud that Massacliusetts, that did so much for our Inde-—

pendence and the prosperity oriour countr , can still be
depended upon for theperpetuityof our Union, as is mani~

   all the sentinieintslslg lraye heard proclaimed tot-day at

106 DEMOCRATIC CELEBRATION.

Tremont Temple, and by the celebration of our Indepen-
dence as 1 have witnessed it to—day. Gentlemen, I am not
prepared to make an address ; it is not my vocation. I
will give you a sentiment, if you will allow 1110. I give you---—

The Glories of Bsunlcer Hill and C'haZmette’s Plains-—~The undying heritage
of the North and the South. May they continue to strengthen the bonds
of our Union. (Great applause.) T

Ninth regular toast :--—

The Great iWest.

Governor Isaac I. Srnvnns, of Washington Territory, was called on

o to respond to this sentiment. He spoke particularly of the relation which

the West bears to the North and South, being a child of both, and
embracing representatives from all the States of the Union, whose hearts
beat responsive to every national idea and every national sentiment.
The most enduring cement of our Union would be furnished by the West.

a The Work of our times, he thought, is to bind together the two great
. oceans by good corninunications; and in closing, he gave as a senti-

merit :—--—~- g
The three great American. C'ommunications—-The Wagon-road, the tele-
graph, and the railroad. (Cheers) v »

Tenth regular toast :——-—-
The Chaplain of the Day.

Rev. Dr. Renews having retired, the following sentiment, which he
had prepared, was read :--~

The Declaration of Independence proclaims the inalienable rights ; the
Gospel of Christ proclaims the indispensable duties of man. The two
proclamations should go side by side, in order to the best Welfare of
Anierica. We cannot enjoy the privileges of freernen without practising
the virtues of Christians.

Eleventh regular toast
The City 0fBoston.
His Honor Mayor LINCOLN was called on to respond to this sentiment.
He said :—-
  MR. PRESIDENT: My official position renders it my duty,
as Well as my privilege, to respond to the sentiment just
offered to the city of Boston. I regret that a cityofsuch

  renown, so far as its historical associations with this day are
  concerned, should have so poor a representative to speak

in her behalf. She, however, speaks for herself. Every

SPEECH OF MAYOR LINCOLN. 

Student Of 11iSfi0~17§,f, Wherever upon the globe he is situated,
knows the part tlieysold town of Boston had in the American
Revolution, and knowjps, also, if he is conversant with its
present state, that she isstill true to its principles, and will
DBVBI‘ desert them Illltil Her walls shall be crumbled in the
dust and her name be fo1*gotten,upon the earth. Her aspect
upon this festival day, the monoisjtllable tones of her cannon,
the shouts of her children, the merry ringing of her bells,
the exalting glow upon every counteriance in her mmnged
streets, the procession, her oration and her city dinner,
which sh*  has kept up since the Declaration of Indepen.
dence, as Well as this brilliant assembly»--beareample testi-
mony that she is still true to the country, and ever will be.
The beneficial results of the American Revolution have
never been more clearly seen than in our own favored city;
and believe me, sir, her people appreciate, in common with
the Whole country, the rich blessings bequeathed by our
ancestors, and are resolved to transmit them to posterity.
Eloquent lips have spoken to you upon these themes, and
I forbear to trespass upon your time; but I can assure you
that Boston is now Where she was in the great struggle of
Independence. She is true to the constitution and the
laws, filial in her obligations to the Union, and ready to
sacrifice even her blood in its defence.      
With your permission, I will closepwith a seritiment :-~-----
The Spirit of Independence restrained by ;l2aa::+——-Lilnerty withoutlicen-

tiousness; the true happiness of the people secured by a just regard to the
rights of all. .

Twelfth regular toast :—-
Our Jifother Country-m
“ With cliffs of white and bowers of green,
i And ocean narrowing to caress her,
With hills and threaded streams between;
Our little mother isle—-—~God bless her.”

Hon. JOSEPH HOWE, of Halifax, responded at length. His remarks
were exceedingly pungent and humorous, and upon questions of national
relations were much like those made by him at Faneuil Hall. He was
warmly applauded throughout.

Mayor LINCOLN left the hall at this time, and was honored with three
cheers as he retired.

 

108 DEMOCRATIC CELEBRATION.

The next regula,1~ toast was :---~
T723 A7*2:72g/ and Navy.

Mr. VVEBSTER stated that the gallant soldier and true Delnocrat, Gem.
BENJ. F, BUTLER, héld beam expected ta mspond; but as he was absent,
Mr. J. D. HOOVER, of Washington city, would respmld.

Mr. HOOVER said he did not know that he could properly respond to
that toast, being in neither of the branches of the government mexxticmed,
and especia,11y as he was tatally unprepared tut) say“ any tlxing, having
arrived in the city within a, few hours; and yet he felt that he ccmld alwasys
say something in as D@B3Q,O1‘£l‘tiC‘ assembly. He proceeded to speak in very
complimexamry terms cf tha efficiency and patriatism of the army and
navy, and lcloseld with this sentiment :--- L
V “Li?9e?*ty and Union, now am! femver, one and inseparable.”

The last. regulard teast :-——-—-—-
Tfzé lfleclamiion af Independence.
Lfilflle President said the genfleman, what was expeetaad tcs 1*eap<:md, Mr.
D. H. IWASQN, had been Qlaliged to retire, and had left this sentiment :--—»-—-~--
I“ The Declcwation of Ilzdepcmcience-wThcugh {she hand that penned it is
dead, the spirit that inspired it atill Vlives.” L
'I‘be Pradsidant gave :-----T
L“ The State «cf l19:’aine---The Star in the East.”

Mr. SIIEPHER1) CAREY, of lllaixxe, briefly responded, and gave :-----

P0'pu.Zczr Sa)z.:<2reigniy f:>?'* the Zl5w*ito7*ie3 0f the Urzxiiecl Sfazfag and 237152 F'7'*ee-
dcmz. sf £7252 Seasw-The former yieldecl by Giddings and the latter by Gmat
Britaixx. Congnc-msional interfm-ence in the Tesrritories and the right lof

sear-ch,, 110w repose <:>1:1l.y on tlm Rapublican stalzutas of Maine and lliassaw

chusetts, and Otlliiblf‘ kindred States.

T‘ Mr. J . B. RICHARDSON gave anotlxer toast complimentary tea Maine, to
which Col. A. W. JOEKNSQN responded.

Mr. OLIVER STEVENS than made. as few remarks, congratulating the
company cm the success cf the da,y’sd celdbration by the Democratic Club.
At his p1“‘£)p0Sa.~l three eheejrs were given for the “ Fourth of July genemllyf’
with which the plwczeedings were closed.

‘The following letters were received from varidus sources :----

WASHINGTON, 10th Jana, 15::8;

GE”NTI.;El\T?EN: I have received the very kind iaanvimtian of the Ycnlng  
Meals Defauocratifg Club, 0fLBostc::x1,t:3’be pmsem: at their cxslebration of the “
wlpprdachxmg anmversamy of our Nalsxonal Independence; L? You ,may rest;

L grapifying to me; but, as

LETTERS. 109

assured that I should esteem it both a. pleasure and a, privilege to be able
to accept that ixxvitationg and I sincerely regret that the state of our public
afi‘airs will render it impossible for zone, without a doroliotio:o of cluty, to
leave VVasl1ington in the beginning of July.
lVitl1 my cordial l3l1{:lKll{S for the very friendly tofrms which you hays
employed in tendering me this invitatioxa, I zronmaizo
Yours, very respectfully,
  JAMES; BUCHANAN.
Oliver Stevens, Thomas Pombor and Joseph Smith, Esqrs., &'o., &c., Szo.

VVASHINGTON CITY, Juaoo 14, 1858*
GRNTLEMIJN: I am. much obliged to you for the inviisatioo to attend tho
proposed colobmtio11 at Boston of the app1*oaol1ling anlxivorsary of A11¥1E5flt‘:l~
can Independence, and rogrofi that my ollioiol clotieo will clopziyo nrzo of
the pleasure of joining you upon tlmt interesting occasion. I am, go1:1tlo-~
men, Very respootfully, your ob’t serv’t} L
LEWIS CASS.

WASHINGTON, June 28, 1858.
LGEN';rLm1I«:N: I regret to say that I cannot be with you in your pro»
posed oolebmtion of the Fourth of July. ’~ L L
The condition of the public. business; will not admit of my alosofooo at
that tinlo. Under other oiroomstaaooos, I should be: nmola. gratifiocl in
aoooptixlg your invitaxioto. Tho occasion is one Well oaloulatod to rovivo
those natliooal sontimetuto whiolz havo given unity a:od strongtll to the
Domoomtio p:a.1'ty, and poromnenoy agocl prosperity to tho Union; mod it
would give: me pleasure to unite with the members of your assooizenzion in
doing honor to the memories of the past, ancl p1"epa.1*ing for tho <.l1:rt<ios of
the future. Not being able to do so, I can only expmss my cordial appro-
oiation of the kind terms in which you have oomzomnicaatzed your invitation,
and repeat the regret I feel in being unable to accept it.
o L L Very truly yom's, y y L L 1 L u L
V A   Y   V Howmlzrl, COBB...  

     WlsHmmox,June3o,1858.  
GENTLELMEN: I lxave the honor to acknowledge the x-eooipt of yam U

letter of the 26th May? invilzing me. to attend the celebration of the
approaohing Fourizh of July, by the Young; Moitfs Domoo:‘atioLL Club, of
Boston, and regret to inform you tlaat I shall loo unable to be prosont on
that occasion. I am, vory respectfully, - ~ L
Your ol:>’t serfls, o L

ISAAC TOUCEY‘.  

      VVASHXNGTON, June :21, 1858.
GENTLEMEN: I have the honor to acknowledge your zoolio. To join.
you in ooleybmting om: op roaohiiag National Annioversamy would be lxiglxly
El said a, few days ago, to His Honor, the lllayor
of Boston, in reply to’ a. similar ~im'ita,tion, I find it necessary’ to cleolino

L being present at public entertainments and other occasions of high excite»

moot. L I have the honor to 1‘&I}C}El;lI}., Gentlemen,
L ' Your most ol:r"t sorvf’t, V L
      Wzamrxmo Sootmx V

110 DEMOCRATIC CELEBRATION.

RICHMOND, V..»s_.., June 18, 1858.

GrENTLEM’ENi My offieial engagements and the state of my health will
not permit Ina toLa,ccept your invitation to attexld tlzxe Ybuxxg l.\IIen’s Damo-
cratic Club Celebration of the app:-0al<:hing Foufigh of July. I hcznor the
spirit in which you propose to celebr-a,te tha day of National Indepbndence.
Let it be as xnanlzional as that day itself, excluding every sectional, se.lfish,
partisan or political sentiment, and exnbmcing the Wlixole ctmxxtry in a.
loving devotion to the whole, and to the blessed Chion of all forever.

Yaurs, trmly,
HENRY A. VVISE.

        BORDEN’1‘0W’N, N. .1, July 2, 1858.

DEAR Sm: I had the honor to receive your note of the 29th ult., and
was about 12:.) reply tlwreto, when I was appzfimd that ha. Commandant had
:1:*eported for installation in the navy yard at Plmiladelplaia to relieve Cem-
mander Lee fl;-om those duties. This cimumstance of duty wi.lldep1%ive me
of the honor of uniting‘ with the “Young Me::n’s Dbmo<::mtic:: Club ” of
Bcstsm, in participating wit}: the Club on the occasion of their celebratiun
of the day of Independence 011 the 5th inat.
I I pray you, my dear sir, to express my re.g1~e“ts to the Club for my
necessary absence on that eecasion, as I €3:C>“L1ld not reacla Boston in time

Without t1*anvelll11g on the, Sabbath. And I fnlrthvmr bag of ycu all to .

mcbive my very sincere tluagnlzs for the kind cou1~tesies W’l;1;l<f:l”1 the Club

> has dune me the honor to confer on ma.

Accept, my dear sir, the asgurances of my high respect and esteem with
which I have the honor to remain ' L * L L L L L L
‘ L I Your bbedient servant, I % I % I I L L 

  CH9..L STEWART.

    SFRINGFXEL1), July 2, 1858..
DEAR SIR: Yhur favor of the Isl: inst, lms this Il'10I1”l(‘:3IT1l} zreaelxed ma.
I should greatly mjoice ta pa1*tic:ip:a,te in the festivities hf {slim 5th, and
especially 1:0 listm to the noble orator y<:t:x::. have sgeléetacl for the occasion,
had I not already made a diffemnt clisapassition of fvself for tlmt day.
Thauglm I may neat: enjoy the pleasure of bhaarlng Mr. hoamfs Oration, I
trust I SGQX1 slmall 01’ reading it. L L
I honor the Young; Mews Demhcmtic Club in getting up 3, cel€3b1*altio33g

I in B€)SfOI1 on the Anniversary of A11:1eric:2m Independenca, in a, truly

national spirit, where pa.t1~iof;ism is not c;<:mfi:1ed by geographical lines, or
statasniamlxip, clmrity, lava and goodlwill are monopolixed and Worslxipped
as the product and exclusive. property of N ew England.
Wi_th many tlzwuxksl for ymtxtr kind invitation and the eordial spirit in
Whleh it is; communicated, I remain
L Truly your friend and ob’t servant, I L
I E. D. BEAQH.

    TREMONT HOUSE, July 8, 1858;
* I Sm : Vary reluctantly I am compelled to ask your permissicmb ti) with»
dmrw my acceptance cf the invitation to be prehent abizhe banquetl hf tha
Ymxng Mexfs Democmtic Club, on the a,pprLoalchin,q; annivérsary. It

I would. give me sincere plaasure to meet, on such an O£’:(3€LSiQI)., those whese

bbjects are not l0<3al1,LbutbbL11alti0nal-~+~nb0t slactibnal, l)13i2£X}:I1e$1‘§,s’3€I;Il.

LETTERS. 111

Please accept my thanks for your request that I should speak to a sen-
timent, and allow me, instead, to offer a toast, the substance of such
remarks as I should have been happy of the honor to address the assembly
orally, had it been in my power to be present. I ,

Respectfully your obedient servant,
Gnonen Lnur.

The Newspaper Piressw-—The most active and efficient of all instru-
ments in the formation of daily public opinion. By guiding or influ-
encing the people, it controls events, and in its intelligence and integrity
the welfare of the country is deeply concerned. As the chief channel by
which mind confers with mind, it has the power, as it is either venal and
corrupt, or honorable and independent, to be the perverter of our liberties,
or the surepsafeguard of popular institutions.

NAEANT, July 3, 1858.

GENTLEMEN: Agreeably to your kind permission, I have deferred
until this late day any formal reply to your obliging communication of
the 22d of May, inviting me to unite with the Young Men’s Democratic
Club of Boston in their proposed celebration of our great National Anni-
versary. I am deeply sensible to the friendly and flattering terms in
which that invitation was conveyed, and I pray you to express to the
members of the Club, and to accept for yourselves, my most grateful
acknowledgment of the honor of being included in the distinguished list of
your invited guests. _ y .

Let me assure you, ggnitlemen, that the spirit in which you have pro-
posed to celebrate the eclaration of Independence meets my most hearty
concurrence and sympathy. You have announced that “nothing of a
political character will be allowed on the occasion,” and that your festivi-
ties will be exclusively national in sentiment.” You would seem thus to
have designed to enter something like a practical protest against the too
frequent abuse of our National Birthday to urposes of mere pear-ty, politics
and sectional appeal. In such a protest I t ank you for accruing me the

privilege of being countegl. I do not pretend to havecfcbeen alwayscwhollyc ~
lameless myself in this respect. » Much  se.sire. to castimpcutatjions i

upon any one else. _ But the result of such  as I jhave enjoyed has
led me to deprecate, sincerely and earnestly, thecintroducction of any thing
like local or party or personal politics, into at least two varieties of public
discourse ;---one of them, the weekly discourses of the pulpit; and the
other, the annual orations of the Fourth of July.

One day in the Week devoted to our God, and at least one day in the a

year devoted to our county,~—«-—-—free from the disturbance of mere secular or
sectional ooI1tr0versies,—-are as little as are consistent with the mainte—~
nance either of true piety or of sound patriotism. ,

The celebration of the Fourth of July, especially, should be a commemo‘~
ration of the virtues and valor of our fathers, and of the eat principles of
Union and Liberty which led them to that stem conflict or in ‘ependence.
These may,indeed, be old stories to old men; but each succeeding year
brings forward us on the stage‘ of action a generation of young men, to

‘whom they are a 1 new and fresh, and full of interest and of instruction. ,

And it is due to the young men of the Union that they should be allowed to

I inhale the wholesome inspiration of such an anniversary, unmingled with
c the poisonous gas or pestilential vapors of personal or of sectional strife. .

112 DEMOCRATIC osnnsnnrxou.

Ihave no reason to doubt, gentlemen, that under the auspices of’ our
Worthy Mayor;-—-(a lineal descendant, as you know, of the patriot mechanic
whose name has been given to the very edifice in which you are to assem~
ble,)--—Faneuil Hall will be the scene, on Monday next, of a similar
celebration to that which you have proposed for yourselves. The more of
them the better. And if I were able to attend tvvo celebrations, I should
certainly be found at them both,-—-in full confidence that nothing less com-
prehensive than our whole country would be the order of the day at either
of thern. But I cherish the privileged exemption of private life too deeply
to throw myself on the responsibilities of even one Fourth of July dinner,
much less of two; and being quietly established by the ‘sea-side for the
summer, I pray to be excused from adding another to the ample array of
honored guests by whom your tables will be surrounded. ‘ r

Accept my renewed and cordial thanks for your kind and complimen-
tary invitation, and believe me, gentlemen, with great respect, I

Very faithfully,
Your obliged and ob’t servant,
Bonner C. Wmrnnor.

Let me offer as a sentiment :-—-- ,

Our wlzole Country, and the prosperity and welfare of all who dwell wizflzin
its boundaries. ‘ r i i

LYNN, June 18, 1858.
GENTLEMEN‘: I am much obliged to the members of the Young Men’s
Democratic Club for inviting me to be present at their celebration on the
Fourth of July. But I regret that my absence from town must prevent my
accepting it. *
Believe me, gentlemen, with great regard,
   Your obedient servant,
WM. H. Pnnscotrr.

BOSTON, July 1, 1858.

Gn:~:rLaMnN: I shall not he in town on Monday next, and on that
account it will not be inmy power to accept your kind and flattering invi-
tation to share in the celebration of the Fourth of July by the “ Young
Men’s Dernocratic Club,” and to hear the discourse of Mr. Choate, who,
known as he is to the general public as one of the most brilliant of orators,
is equally Worthy of admiration as one of the most compact of reasoners,
and one of the soundest of political thinkers. A celebration such as you
ropose to have, purged of all partisan and sectional character, and appeal»
ing only to that broad and comprehensive patriotism in which the Whole
country has a right to share, commends itself to every Arnerican heart.
On the Fourth of July We Want no local emotions and no accidental topics.
We have a common heritage of glorious recollections in‘ which every
speaker may find at once theme and inspiration. He who should put strife
between brethren on that day would act as ungracious a part ashe who
should allude to a family quarrel, at a Thanksgiving dinner. Shoulder to
shoulder our fathers fought through the Revolution; hand in hand to—day,
let their children gather round their graves, and feel one electric thrillrun

. through their hearts from Maine to 'I‘exas—fro1n the Atlantic to the Pacific;

In the hope that the success of your celebration may equal the “highest
anticipations. of those interested in it, i i " l I ‘  I I
I I e I remain ‘your friend and obedient servant,  

"   I I I I  G. S. HILLARD.

THE ensure. 113

  y   New BEDFORD, June 20, 1858.

GnN:rLeMnN: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your
invitation to unite with the “ Young Men’s Democratic Club of the City
of Boston,” in their proposed celebration of the approaching Anniversary
of our National Independence. .

While I am obliged by another enaagement to forego the great pleasure
it would afford me to be present Wit you upon that occasion, I desire to
express my cordial sympathy with the spirit which has prompted this
celebration. Certainly, the narrowest and most bigoted partisanship
should be content to vouchsafe this one day, out of the three hundred and
si:s.ty-five days of the year, to an enlarged and generous recognition of
our duties to our whole country, and the cultivation of a just and fraternal

a feeling towards our brethren in every section of it.

My distinguished and eloquent friend who is to address you will not

, fail, I am sure, to set those “ apples of gold,” the great events, and the

greater characters. of our Revolutionary epoch, in such “ pictures of
silver,” by his masterly oratory, as to brighten once more the chain of our
national sympathies, and refresh and "invigorate the patriotism of the
eople. .

P Regretting; my inability to participate in the pleasure which is in store
for all who are fortunate enough to listen to hirn, i s

I am, gentlemen, very respectfully, ,

Your obliged and obedient servant,
  JOHN H. Cnxrronn.

THE REGATTA

i Wash unquestionably the most agireeable and delightful eventof the day--—-~
apart from the intellectual festivities. It was witnessed with the greatest e

interest by immense crowds of men and women who ith1~onged the Mill

, Dam.a1ong the course, filled all windows th.at_c0m1:nanded,a. view of the

 

proceedings, and covered the house tops  p ,
after should a regatta be omitted from the sports of the Fourth. The

    

races began at 5 o’clock in the afternoon. 7The Weather was wonderfully .

favorable, and the only difficulty of any kind experienced was caused by

the rapid tide, which prevented the larger boats from coming promptly

into line at the appointed times. The first trial was between wherries, a
distance of two miles, for prizes of $25, and $515, in vvhieh» etheiililastern,
Thomas Doyle, the Conch-Shell, P. Colbert, the L D. E.‘Poland, Ifamesi
Murry, and the Chittabob,

 

was made o:--r-— i p L V l
K i G ‘ Q C I O O I Q I ‘ U  U i I i. C C  C U‘ U W . ‘ii. I. *7‘ ‘ W . ' ‘ . . . Q U  ‘ I 
  o - in In to h 9 u ‘o o u a o 0 Q o u b Q a Q o n n Q 9 Q 9 o u Q A w a Q u w 9 at 

Pratt, took part. The following time . *

i The D. E..l?ola:od was distanced, andlthe Chittabob, in rounsdingthe i

oer stake was upset, and lot’ course del.ayed beyond recovery. The
ind race was ‘three miles for four-oared boats, for prizes of $50 and

l 3 _ by the Red Michael, rowed by  Monahan, J ames, Monahan, r

evens, J. Fox ; and the Pride of Boston, rowed by E. O’Brien,
l      ‘llivan, T. Murphy, P. Quinn, in which the following time was made:

114. DEMOCRATIC CELEBRATION.

Red Michael, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2309
Pride of Boston, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33.00

The third and most exciting race was for six-cared boats, a distance of
six miles, for prizes of $100 and 51550. As the boats drew into line for
their final contest, the acclamations and encouraging demonstrations from
the shore Were redoubled. Each boat was loudly cheered by its special
friendsmthe Harvard, winner of the recent race, naturally receiving the
largest degree of attention. The following boats started in the race ;
Harvard, rowed by B. VV. Crowninshield, C. Crowninshield, Elliott, Elli-
son, Wales, Agassiz; Lexington, rowed by W. Sline, J. Mahony, T.
Mahony, D. O’Hearn 1st, D. O’Hearn ‘.2d, T. O’Hearn; Sterling, of Bos-
ton, J. Martin, T. Dasey, P. Quinn, M. O’Brien, J. O’Brien, Conley;
Fort Hill Boy, of Boston, John Murray, James Murray, A. Murray, E.
O’Neill, M. Driscoll, C. Shay; James Buchanan, of Boston, M. F. Wells 3
J .~ Harrington, M. Harrington, D. Shea, T. Quinn, M. Quinn; Shamrock,
of Boston, J. Woods, P. Shanocy, T. O’Hearon, G. Facender, C. O’Brien,

 

S J. Lafferty; Exile, of Somerville, M. Qnanie, B. C. Nolan, B. Sheridan,

M. Scully, J. Quanie, T. Quanie; and Kate Kean, of Boston, D. Mur-
phy, J. Driscoll, C. Sullivan, D. Moriarty, O. Sullivan, D. Bryant; C'0x..,
J. Desney. At the signal the boats started off’ in the handsornest possible
manner, the Harvard immediately taking the, lead, and maintaining that
position throughout the race. As the boats rounded the stake-—boat on the
first return, the Harvard was seen many lengths in advance of all the
rest, and was tumultuously applauded on all hands. In an unexpectedly
short time the boats were seen closing in. They reached the line in the
following time :--—

 

1st 8 miles. 20! 3 miles.
Harvard, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 4:0. . . . . . . . . .40 25
Fort Hill Boy, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20 35 . . . . . . . . . .41 44
Lexington, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20 4:3 . . . . . . . . . .42 30
Stirling, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43 04:

The other boats were distanced. -

The prizes were duly awarded, the vast assemblage dispersed, and the
boats started for home. This was altogether the most complete and satis-
factory regatta ever seen on Charles River. May there be many repeti-
tions of thesame.

BALLOON nscnnsxons, Etc. 115

The entertainments of the day, provided by the city government, were

concluded by balloon ascensions from the Common, and the usual display
of fireworks.

THE BALLOON ASCENSIONS

Received the usual amount of attention. Three had been contemplated, A

but the bursting of the Old America, during the inflation, of course ren-
dered it unserviceable. The Ganymede, a fine balloon, capable of con»
taining eleven thousand feet of gas, was sent up soon after four o’clock, in
charge of Mr. CHARLES E. WISE. The ascension was all that could be

wished for. In half an hour after rising, the Ganymede disappeared from ~e

View of the city, and at twenty minutes before six o’clock Mr. WISE
descended in Malden Centre, whence he immediately returned to Boston,
arriving about seven. At half-«past five o’clock, the preparations for the
ascent of the Jupiter, under the management of the elder Mr. VVISE, with

Mr. S. 0. Bone and Mr. LYMAN  BRITTAN as passengers, were com- ‘

pleted, and the balloon started upon its airy course, “vanishing in space
after about ten minutes. Mr. WISE and his companions descended in
Melrose at halt?-past seven o’clock. Both voyages were completely suc-
cessful, and were witnessed by rnyriads of eyes.

THE DISPLAY or FIREWORKS ,

Was witnessed by- probably the largest collected crowd of the day or eve-L
ning. To many this grand concourse magnificently moving in vast masses,
was a. far more splendid sight than the burning of powder and the curious
involutions of ma.ny—colored fires. The exhibition was as good--rather

better~—-than most of its class, and pleasantly closed the bustling events of  

the day.

REPLY TO THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY FOR AUGUST.

[From the Boston C'0urier, July 20.]

The Atlantic Monthly Magazine, now ready for August,
finishes its formal labors by giving a slang title to a lucubra-
tion, which may justly be styled a slang article. This is
"-‘ THE Pocnnr CELEBRATION on THE FOURTH.” It is not
entirely clear What this peculiar appellative means, nor does
the far-seeking author see fit to clear the mystery up. It
seems to be derived, however, from some involuntary asso-

ciation of ideas with those convenient editions of our favorite  

poets, and the like, which We choose as the companions of
our more thoughtful and better hours, when We converse
with nature, ourselves and heaven, in forest-depths, upon
the mountain-top, or under the shadows Whicli overhang

some running and most musical stream. Characteristically A
enough, as We become at once convinced upon reading the

article in question, of all the associationsconnected with
these pocket editions, the only one which occurred to this
stop-Watch critic Was, that the volumes themselves were of
small size,-duodecimos in fact, or even less, and thus fitted
for popular use, instead of bulky octave, quarto or ponderous
folio, adapted only to the occasional and laborious research
of the closet. The grand thought, in Whatever narrow
compass of external dimensions compressed, the soul-awak-
ening sentiment, the charrn of expression, the delicious
melody,---—--all those qualities, which constitute the very title
of these pocket-editions to become our familiar friends,
seem utterly to have escaped the notice of the ingenious

inventor of the term “ Pocket Celebration of the Fourth.”
8

118 REPLY 130 THE

For, having thus selected his epithet only by Way of stigma

and injury, in no other sense than as We have pointed out .

could it be made applicable to that numerously-attended,
brilliant and most ‘successful celebration of our National

Anniversary, held under the auspices of the Young Men’s  

Democratic Club. In comparison with the ceremonies which
took place in Boston on that occasion, the universal voice of
the liberal, that is, not Republican, press, throughout the
country has already acknowledged, and often in language of
self-mortification, has urged and bewailed the inferiority of
public spirit and public demonstration, which marked the
passage of the day in other chief cities of the Union. We
have heard of the saying, “ As dark as a pocket; ” but these
things were not done in a corner. The glorious day looked
down, clear, fresh, and etherially lovely, as of old and now
from Olympus along the ancient regions of freedom and
renown, as if to smile benignantly upon the reviving spirit
of patriotic principle and emotion in this favored, land of
ours. The throng of myriad multitudes was in our streets.
Our best known and most eminent citizens took: part with
the popular assembly in the proceedings. The civic digni-—
taries, headed by the Municipal Chief, lent them their
benign countenance. Amongst others, who were there to
breathe the life of thoughtful and hopeful patriotism into

the souls of the Willing congregation, was that one, whose ‘

Words of truthfully-«toned eloquence always iavvaken an in-

terest unsurpassed by the oratory of any other living man;

and the oration of the chief speaker of the day,---glittering
with the lambent play of his genius, yet sounding the depths
of thought and catching inspiration by glances of fire at the
unmeasured heights of imagination, and like a gleaming foun-
tain, from whose edges fall the many—-colored and sparkling
drops, mingling at once together in a stream which the eye

and the heart follow eagerly as it flows,--w-this oration has  
passed already, as no such oration ever did so soon before,  

under the sight and into the souls of millions, and to the

ATLANTIC MONTHLY. V 119

utmost boundaries of the country it was intended and is
fitted to serve.

In reference to any such use of the term, therefore, as was
intended, We might with propriety dismiss here that article
of this laboriously sub-Witty Writer in the Atlantic Monllzly,
upon the “ Pocket Celebration of the Fourth,” as a piece
of shallow flippancy, as Well as for its flagrant falsification
of the notorious record in the case. For he is flippant,
untrustworthy, pretentious and vulgar. Incapable of reason-
ing, he professes to state propositions of logic; with an
utterly superficial insight of What most deeply concerns the
people of the United States, and of the actual condition,
progress and prospects of events, he generalizes and smatters
upon principles beyond his reach; and being a small man
enough, he commits the impertinence common enough to
the small men of the day, “little ministers, little editors,
and little politicians,” Who, when not guilty of direct abuse,
(of which they are by no means sparing,) yet are guilty of
maligning those who are great men, by pretending to under»
stand and to comment upon their thoughts, addressed to
those in the nation who can think and can feel.

What the Atlantic Monthly Ilfagwzine may think or say
of a person like Mr. Choate, cannot, to be sure,be of the
slightest consequence to him, who enjoys that sort of con-
sideration with the country at large, at which a squib like
this may fume and hiss at its Will, until it is finally con-
sumed by the exhaustion of its own vivacity. But it is a
question for the good sense and good taste of the commu‘-
nity to settle, Whether good sense and good tasteithernselves
are likely to maintain much of their necessary deference
and honor, if it is understood that this sort of small fire,
aimed at Whatever is most Worthy, whenever public occasion
makes it more conspicuous than usual, having become quite

too fashionably common among us, is to be received and

countenanced by the settled public approbation. We say
that allthis does the permanent reputation of our eminent

120 REPLY TO THE

men no harm ; but it vitiates, for the moment, at least, the
public mind.      

Evidently the r Atlantic Writer does not understand the  

signs of the times. He has a notion, equally erroneous and

exaggerated, of something which he calls the Republican

party, and which he apparently believes is capable of reor-
ganization upon some unknown basis, as it must be, if at all,
for some indefinite object‘ ; and that thus going forward
from glory to glory, it is to be “ overwhelmingly triumph ant ”

--—-when the day of hits victory is reached.r And yet the

Republican party (so called), according to this writer, has a
certainplatform,vvhich, to do him no injustice, we quote‘,

and to examine briefly thevalidity of its pretensions.   And i

this platform, inhis language, is a “national sentiment,
Whose idea, always atigust and venerable, by turns lovely

and terrible, shall bind us all in a common nationality, by  
  our loyalty to what is true, our reverence forvvhat is good,

our love for what is beautiful, and our sense of security in

vvhat is mighty.” It will be admitted that this   is a little  

greneral,as applied to politics, whatever the ultimate effects

of such a doctrine might be. But charitably supposing for a

moment, that othergreat party in this nation, of which Mr.i
Ohoate is one of the foremost men, and which has justly or A
unjustly claimed for itself the style of national, in distinc- ”

tion to the alleged sectionalism of the Republicans, to be

actuated by the same general purposes abovedeveloped,-w   t
then the only question which remains is, as to the means of
securing those beneficent objects. ,And it is in reference to  
these means, after all, that the National party, upon princi- i

ple which no sophistry can countervail, and upon convice

, tions too just and plain to be resisted by reason or rejected

  by honor,stands separate and must forever stand so, from
p   every pretence of this fainspoken, yet delusive and treach-

    erous, Republicanism. Forit is uponrio such fine Words  
t as those of this writer‘, but upon taking the Republican

party as it manifests itself in its more definite features, in

   materials, in its leading" spirits  in the «  

ATLANTIC MONTHLY. 121

inevitably destructive tendencies of its efforts, if not of its
hopes, that wise, considerate and patriotic men, like Mr.
Ohoate and his compeers and followers, have justly felt that
alarm for the stability of our institutions, which has com-

bined them against it for the common cause-—-~—-seeing clearly,‘

through all the blandishments of miscalled Republicanism,
the Weak and corrupt heart, which beats for every narrow
and selfish end beneath the painted surface of its meretri-
cious bosom.   ,   o

For, denying to that promiscuous multitude, which calls
itself the Republican party, nothing to which it is fairly
entitled--the countenance of many Well-«meaning persons,
who look on slavery withmore or less dislike, and of others
frightened by the bugbear of a slave-power, which must

soon stand only upon the just forbearance of those who

respect the rights of others under the constitution and
laws of the land,----it cannot be denied that it includes
in its ranks the entire mass of the wildest radicals and
fiercest fanatics of the day; men Who acknowledge no prin-

  ciple but that of dissolute liberty, and own no subjection to  

laws, except so far as considerations of personal safety

counsel them to present obedience. The chief journal, which
advocates their cause, is conducted by notoriouslinfidels,
whose efibrts are constantly devoted to the subversion of the
principles of the Christian religion and of organized, society.
The general convention, held by this party preceding the
last Presidential election, invited and secured the co-opera-»

  tion of that hair-splitting, cobweb-brained, Waxen-«hearted

jumble of modern philanthropists and reformers, inemcient
for any practical good, selfisufficient for all practical evil-----
Whose opinions and purposes, often presented to the public
gaze, if successfully carried out, could only convert the

World into a Wilderness of desolation and ruin. It would be  

  safe to assert, that every loose speculatist in matters of  

morals and religion, every advocate of community of property
and the promiscuous intercourse of the sexes, every man
who looks with a jaundiced eye upon the ordinary course

122 REPLY TO ms

and progress of human society, and who findsit in his heart
foolishly to rebel against the providence of his Maker,---
whoever may be his political associates, little ministers, little
editors, little politicians, . professing "various shades and

degrees of ‘ enlightened benevolence-—-is a felloW-laborer in
 the cause of the Republican party. And how this party
stands, upon impntations of corrupt conduct, pecnniarily

and otherwise, only too credibly alleged against its members
in the State and National Legislatures, We find it very diffr-

    cult to reconcile with that definition of its platform with

which We are now favored by the Atlantic Monthly. g
Itis in vainto say that the men describedare not of that

party. They are its life,infusing into it the tone of their  

setiment, by which its action is moulded, and without Whom
it would not be in that condition of apparent yet only partial
prosperity, of which the Writer in the Atlantic Monthly

  altogether too confidently boasts. The gentlemanof Beacon

Street and the Fifthhvenne, who gives, to   it his nae and

  his money, does not control it in the least.   Those who do so,

give it neither name nor money, but the energy of their zeal
and that sort of work, which, Whatever may be the upper
pretences of Republicanism, make its practical action and

consequences the. ground--swell of a desperate and most 

nnprincipled radicalism. Imagine them for a momentsnc-
cessfnl, and negrophilism triumphant, if you please, even to
the “ philanthropic ” extent of the utter extinction of slavery-------

and What is there then in the party, of principle or of men,

upon which the country can rely-—--—--in the name of states-
manship, in the name of patriotism, in the name of any thing

to which a true-minded and true-hearted, rational citizen

can cling, Who desires nothing but the welfare of his country

and the present andfutnre good of all its people? This is V

the reason, why there is a conservativea party, a national

paarty, in opposition to Republicanism, and Which. must be  

forever set to resist it.” This is the reason Why the national

  and will prevail,» This is the reason:,s Why,

   on  lateetnniyrersrary,  varies former T

ATLANTIC MONTHLY. , 128

political associations united with the Young Men’s Demo-
cratic Club, for such a celebration in “ a national spirit,” as
was so successfully carried through. They deemed that the
proper moment was now upon them, to concentrate and
disseminate true national sentiment, to rebuke and check
the over-Weening self-estimate of a pretentious yet hollow

‘faction, and cheered by the reilluminated blaze of patriotic

duty to do open battle, fated to end in victory, for the
country and the cause. They were resolved to see that
these were not delivered up to factionists and demagogues,
false reformers and maudlin philanthropists, restless spirits
who could be content with no present or future good, useless
disturbers of the public peace, disorganizers forever grub-
bing at the roots of the tree, under Whose branches they
have that very shelter and protection which they are forever
seeking to destroy.

We have left ourselves little space for comment upon the‘

specific strictures, by which the Atlantic Montlzly undertakes
to express its censure of Mr. Ohoate’s oration. The first
exception taken is, that Mr. Choate has had no “special
training that has fitted him for the task ” of delivering a
Fourth of July oration! The reason given is, that he is a

lawyer, and “ the bar has given few historically:-greoatstates—e
men to the vvorld,”--so that Well-read historian and  

judge in matters of this sort, the the Magazine,
alleges. And he quotes, in support of his  a remark
of Mr. Burke, uttered perhaps in la fit of spleen against
somebody, to which that great man was sometimes subject;
and which, however appropriate to the English bar, in gen»
eral, Whose training is almost purely professional, has no
application to our own, the members of which, at least as
much asother citizens, are early and constantly led to con-
sider and act upon the principles andipractice of our politi-
cal institutions. Yet it is not muchto assert that, from the
time of Demosthenes to our own, in no country of Europe
has there been a movement of any importance in favor of

 

constitutional liberty, in which   great lawyers did not take a

124 REPLY TO THE  

leading, and often the principal, part. We speak only ofgreat
lawyers like Mr. Choate,-——~—and in America a great lawyer
must know, and generally does know, something more than
most other men. We have no space for recurrence to other
countries; but we can give an imperfect list of eminent
statesmen who have been eminent lawyers also in our own
country---beginning with James Otis and Josiah Quincy,
Jr.,of ante-revolutionary times, and coming down through
John Adams, J efferson, Madison, Hamilton, Ames, Wirt,
and soon, until the names of Clay and Webster add some
lustre to the list, in both departments, in our own day.
And training like that which these men, and multitudes
more or less resembling them, received, among and of the
people, may after all, we conceive, be thought, so far as Mr.
Choate’s has been similar to it, to fit him somewhat for the
duty---certainly important and statesmanlike-——performed

,by him upon the late anniversary. We leave this point.

Nor can we delay upon the Atlomtz'c’s original, if not
edifying, excursus upon nationality. Differing altogether
from it, a great English author, who was always wise with a
pen in his hand, thus differing also from some writers read
by us not long ago,-----that author urges that nations often
cling most fondly to the most rugged manifestations of

nature-—-

So the loud torrent and the whirlwind’s roar,
But bind him to his native mountains more.

But patriotism, surely, is a complex thing. It is made
up partly, it may be, though not necessarily, of strong asso-
ciations with nature; but more of moral sympathies and
convictions, which make love of country both a principle
and a sentiment, and the defence of the land of one’s birth
and its institutions, often a nobler duty and a higher impulse
than the patriot feels or yields even to the home of his
afiections. A A

, “But,” continues this modest criticof a literary maga-
zine, presuming to pass itssuperficial judgment upon men

ATLANTIC MONTHLY. 125

and things of state---—“ But Mr. Ohoate is nothing if not
illogical! ” In another place the writer begs to remind
Mr. Ohoate, that “ since he has been led out, like Balaam,
to prophesy against the tents and armies of the Republican
Israel 9*‘ *‘ it it was an animal in all respects inferior to a
prophet, and in some to a politician,” which first stood an
obstacle to the onward progress of his mission. Surely we
do not make the application in the present case. When the
heavenly messenger appears, we have no doubt the great
orator will bow in ready obedience. At present, judging by
the logic produced in opposition to him, he has no reason

i to anticipate any thing further than the more obstinate than

rational remonstrance of the “ patient creature ” itself.
The critic objects to Mr. Ohoate’s “ sophistries ” upon “ the
merits of compromise in statesmanship.” In statesmanship,
as in every thing else, we may remark, a compromise is
often little else than the exercise of that Christian charity,
which is peculiarly required and due in the case presented
by the speaker between the North and the South. But how
does this fair and logical critic set it forth ? “ Mr. Ohoate’s
syllogism may be stated r thus: Some compromises are
necessary in order to carry on a free government; but this
is a compromise; therefore it is necessary. Here is the first
fallacy.” But such is not Mr. Ol1oate’s syllogism, or that
of any body else but this writer. The true proposition, and

that made by the orator, is as follows: Some compromises p

are necessary in order to carry on a free government; then,
since all compromises are not excluded, a compromise like
this may be just and defensible onits own merits. So with

the other syllogism. “ Expediency is essential in politics;

so also is compromise; therefore some particular compro-
mise is expedient. Fallacy number two.” Neither is this
logic; but thus should the proposition run: Expediency is
essential in politics; so also is compromise; therefore a

particular compromise may be expedient.   But we have

declared before that the writer in the Atlantic Mont/zly
could not reason- And thus, too, he thinks he has started

126 REPLY To run

an unanswerable dilemma in manner and form following:
“Now We offer Mr. Choate a dilemma; either God always
interferes, or sometimes,‘ if always, Why need Mr. Choate
meddle? Why not leave it to Him to avert the dangers of
anti—slavery, as Well as to remedy the evils of slavery? ” It
will be perceived here that he assumes, in his alternative
proposition, something, in regard to which it is impossible
for human knowledge to discriminate. But this we may
know, that God, the Governor of the Universe, does his
pleasure “in the army of heaven, and among the inhabit-
ants of the earth,” and in the mean time requires his intel--
ligent creatures to perform their duty according to their
responsibilities and moral sense and intelligence; and each
will receive his reward, the high-souled patriot for his good,
and the meddling fanatic for his evil.

It would be quite impossible for us, with our limited space,
to point out all the “ sophistries of the argument,” and
“ ill-advised ebullitions ” of the article in the Atlantic in
detail. We have thus gone over it cursorily and promptly,
in order that it should not fail of some due contemporane-
ous comment. In fact, havingnthe opportunity of seeing
this tremendous bombshell, as no doubt it was thought,
about to explode, We could not but feel it our duty, at What-
ever personal risk, for the sake of the public good, to seize
it, and give it a gentle toss into the extinguishing stream.
If We had no other means of judging, than by the mani-
festo thus examined, the “Pocket Celebration of the Fourth ”
has had its well-anticipated effect upon the Republican
forces. They are hit hard, and thus they cry out. But

blows as hard are yet to come. The people of this country

---—of the North-—have not yet lost their reason---a too char-
itable concession has hitherto been made to the radical and
demoralizing projects of Republicanism---the soberer sense
of the people, which seemed for a time almost paralyzed by
the svvaggering assumptions of that swelling faction, is
steadily returning to its functions-———the true, and sound, and

able men of the country are to play a more conspicuous and

ATLANTIC MONTHLY. 127

salutary part than latterly, upon the stage of actio1*1«---and,
to quote once more from the Atlantic Monthly laxignage,

which, inthis application, Will be saved at least from the  

ridicule and contempt of utter misappropriation, We have
entire confidence in the speedy coming of an irresistible
combination of Whatever is patriotic and national, against
Republicanism,»-—-Wliich “ shall bind us all in a connnon
nationality, by our loyalty to what is true, our reverence for
What is good, our love for what is beautiful, and our sense
of security in What is mighty.” We shall then meet no
moreat the Waters of strife, but the majestic image of the
Great Republic, as of a beloved and venerated mother, will
be impressed indelibly upon the hearts of all her confiding
children. «

THE BOSTON COURIER

Is printed at No. 24 CONGRESS STREET? and pub.-
lished at the Office, BAeE1\1ENT. OF THE OLD STATE

HOUSE, State Street, Boston.

TERMS:
BOSTON DAILY COURIER, . . . . .. . $8.00 per 31111.
BOSTON SEMFWEEKLY COURIER, . . . $4.00 “

BOSTON WEEKLY COURIER, (i1:1edva.nce,). $1.50 u

 

The VVEEKLY COURIER will be furnished to Clubs

of five (and upwards) at ONE DOLLAR per copy per

ennum, in.a.dva.n.ce.
The DAILY COURIER will be furnished to special

subscribers th1*oughout this country and in Europe,

  during the summer and excursion season, at the rate  

(exclusive of postage) of ONE DOLLAR for seven Weeks.  

Send o:rde:r{s ta  
CLARK, FELLOWS 85 00.,
Basementof the Old State House, B0sto11,Mess.

 Bos'1‘0N COURIER OFFICE,
July 21,? 1858.