THE LIBRARY OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 NORTH CAROLINA 
 
 THE COLLECTION OF 
 NORTH CAROLINIANA 
 
 C378 
 UK3 
 
 1856R 
 
UNIVERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HILL 
 
 00036721057 
 
 This book must not 
 be taken from the 
 Library building. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
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 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hil 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/addressdeliveredOOrans 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE TDB 
 
 Irakiic aiftl|ilai%.(j|}ic jsboefiea 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA, 
 
 JUNE 4th, 1856, 
 
 BT 
 
 MATT W. RANSOM, ESQ. 
 
 RALEIGH : 
 
 "CAROLINA CULTIVATOR" OFFICE. 
 
 1856. 
 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 Philanthropic Hall, June 8th, 1.856. 
 Matt W. Ransom, Esqr. 
 
 Sir : — As a committee of the Philanthropic Society, we tender you the thanks 
 of that body for the eloquent and patriotic address which you recently delivered, 
 and request a copy of the same for publication. 
 
 fc Allow us as individuals to express our earnest thanks to you for the expression 
 of sentiments which are calculated to make us better men and better citizens, and 
 to hope that you will comply with the wishes of the body which we represent 
 
 Respectfully yours, 
 
 w. h. jordon, 
 h. p. harrell, 
 jno. Mclaughlin, 
 
 Committee. 
 
 Verona, Northampton Co., July 20th, 1856. 
 Gentlemen: — 
 
 I have received your very polite note, requesting for publication a copy of the 
 Address which I had the honor to deliver before the Literary Societies of the Uni- 
 versity at its last Commencement 
 
 The same motives which induced me to accept your esteemed invitation impel 
 me to comply with this flattering request I herewith enclose you a copy of the 
 Address. 
 
 With feelings of gratitude and affection to yourselves and our Society which I 
 cannot express, 
 
 I am sincerely your friend, 
 
 M. W. RANSOM. 
 Messrs: 
 
 JORDON, 
 HARRELL, 
 
 Mclaughlin, 
 
 Committee. 
 
 r— 
 
 1L 
 
ADDRESS, 
 
 Gentlemen of the Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies : 
 
 When that most illustrious master of English eloquence, Edmund 
 Burke, in the zenith of his genius, appeared before the University 
 of Glasgow, his peerless voice faltered with the beating of his great 
 heart, and the orator who had power to thrill a continent, there 
 stood speechless as a statue. In that sublime scene nature herself 
 proclaimed the respect due to science and virtue. The accomplish- 
 ed scholar, the splendid philosopher, the unsullied statesman, whose 
 name could shake a throne, whose eye gazed unmoved on mitres 
 and sceptres and diadems, and whose giant reason stalked like a 
 conqueror among the proudest of Europe's peers, the representatives 
 of wealth, lineage and royalty, when brought before the representa- 
 tives of the Letters of his country, this sovereign of genius andlearn- 
 ing, a captive in the chains of his own emotions, remained as mute 
 as the walls that surrounded him — a type of the homage of man 
 to that intellectual light whose source is above the stars, and a 
 monument of the glory of Literature only eclipsed by the silent af- 
 fection of the apostle of liberty and truth. And who can stand 
 here, amid these classic altars, around these shrines of memory, 
 beneath these familiar shades, in this venerable Hall, on this ever- 
 honored Anniversary, before this brilliant circle of youthful hope 
 and the assembled intelligence of the State, adorned and graced 
 by that lovely presence which speaks to our hearts of all that is 
 good, beautiful, pure and holy — and not feel .overpowered by 
 associations of the place, the time and the purposes of our meet- 
 ing. There is a fragrance in the air, a light upon the face, a 
 friendship in the heart, like the summer of life, which make us 
 almost feel that some Genius of love is hovering over us, every 
 breath from whose wings dispels the clouds of care, inspires virtu- 
 ous joys, and fans and hallows the flames of hope. 
 
 I regret that I can bring no fit offering to this beautiful festival. 
 Would that I had, for your entertainment, some casket of precious 
 gems — the rich jewels of history and of learning — some boquets 
 of fresh and fragrant flowers from the enchanted land of poetry 
 aud rhetoric — some mental telescope to transport you to the last- 
 discovered planet in the far-off Heaven of Science, or a panorama 
 
6 
 
 of the icy palaces of the Arctic whale, and the snowy couch of the 
 Aurora Borealis. These tributes you must not expect from me. — 
 The inferior Greek could not lift the shield of Achilles, nor can I 
 wear the armor of the famous sages who have so often hung these 
 walls with the trophies of conquered arts. It seems but yesterday, 
 since with youthful companions i left your Pierian walks to enter 
 the great world of men, and to day, almost before I have passed 
 the portico to the temple of human knowledge, in the morning of 
 experience, I return by your high request to teach you the solemn 
 lessons of a pilgrimage of which I have seen but little more than 
 yourselves. But as an adopted son of that beloved Society whose 
 beneficence brightened my friendless pathway, as a North Carolinian 
 nurtured by the foster care of this noble University, as a citizen of 
 the American Republic, dependent for its life and glory upon the 
 education of its people, I felt that I had no right to decline your 
 honored invitation. I had at least, interest, sympathy, devotion, 
 gratitude and love — and I thought that I would bring them. 
 
 I come too, my young -friends, to greet you with encourage- 
 ment and joy — to assure you that you have a place in our hearts — 
 to welcome you to the duties, the destinies, and the blessings of 
 active life and to hail in your coming the rising sun of our good 
 State. I am here to testify the thankfulness of the land to your 
 estimable Faculty, to congratulate their successful labors, to rejoice 
 with you in their eminent qualifications, to wish them long contin- 
 ued honor and prosperity, and to express my sincere and fervent 
 gratitude for their services to me and yet more for their fidelity to 
 the Institution and their usefulness to the country. I come also 
 with affectionate admiration to declare to our sister Societies the 
 fond remembrance still cherished by their departed children, to 
 tell them again of the just esteem in which they are universal- 
 ly held, to animate their noble efforts and to acknowledge their 
 high claims among the literary institutions of the age. Let us hope 
 that as the mild satellites of this larger luminary they may go on 
 revolving in their placid spheres, and, like the beautiful badges you 
 wear, may their memories ever shine on our bosoms as pure sou- 
 venirs of "Virtue," golden lights of "Science' 1 and bright stars of 
 "Liberty." And more than all, I come to represent the deep inter- 
 est, the high regard, the general attraction felt by the people to 
 this illustrious College. Her auspices are all bright. In her 
 story we find nothing that we would alter— it is a shining record 
 of virtue, patriotism and piety. Her future will be just to her past 
 
It will be read in the diffused knowledge, the enlightened senti- 
 ments, the moral habits, the just tastes, the conservative principles) 
 the free instituti >ns, the patriotic spirit and the christian charac- 
 ter of the commonwealth. Nor will it end here. To-day six- 
 teen States are consulting the oracles of her wisdom aud erudition 
 and radiating from this source you may see broad beams and bright 
 rays traversing and gladdening every segment of the national hori- 
 zon. And what North Carolinian's heart does not warm at the men- 
 tion of Chapel Hill ? Whose eye does not kindle at the thought 
 of the University of his State ? Who among us can look at the long 
 roll of her distinguished sons, read the fair annals of her trials 
 and her triumphs, behold her fame now spread upon the winga 
 of the Eagle of America and remember that she is all our own, 
 founded by our fathers, endowed by their love, sustained by their 
 intelligence, the daughter of their hopes and the mother of our 
 learning, and not feel proud of his State, proud of her Universitj 
 and proud of the great and good men who have left us the inheri- 
 tance ? Let the University be our monument and our emblem. 
 On the escutcheon of North Carolina, amid our armorial ensigns, 
 side by side with the Goddess of the harvest fields, and the image 
 of Liberty, let her lofty columns be placed, to remind those who 
 behold that heraldric group, that all the arts are enlightened bj 
 science — that intelligence is the shield and the lamp of freedom — 
 that the temple of knowledge is the temple of power — and to show 
 the world that a statue of true glory can be carved from the na- 
 tive marble of oar virtues. And in all the fortunes of our Slate, 
 may that figure fixed on her banner stand like the mother of 
 Coriolanus at the gates of Rome, a moral wall between the am- 
 bition of her sons and the safety of her country. 
 
 I must hasten from these pleasant meditations, among which 
 I have already lingered too long, to the consideration of a subject 
 deeply interesting to the Young Gentlemen of the University of 
 North Carolina, and dear, I trust, to the hearts of all America. — 
 I shall dedicate this hour to a national sentiment — a theme of pat- 
 riotism that ought to be entwined with the Literature of our 
 Country and consecrated by an association with the noblest purposes 
 of science and education — the theme of our National Union. To 
 that grand topic I invoke your audience, not with the vain ex- 
 pectation that I can rise to the ''height of the great argument" but 
 with the simple hope that by introducing that idea here, it may 
 happen that others will pursue it and it shall come to pass that 
 
8 
 
 the image of the Union of these States shall be firmly fixed 
 among the imperishable monuments of the Genius which it fosters 
 and protects. I wish to see the American Union solidly entrenched 
 in the strong citadel of American Literature — its destiny incor- 
 porated with the deathless truths of Science — its name and its bles- 
 sings engraven upon the enduring marble of Art and brightened 
 and hallowed by the ever burning light of Eloquence ; that this mas- 
 ter work of the world, thus resting upon the cloudless heights 
 of Reason and Justice, may become sacred in the eyes of all men, 
 and, like the Palladium of the ancients, set in the clear skies of 
 intelligence, forever stand in glory above the fortunes of party and 
 the storms of human passion. The Sun of Liberty and the United 
 Stars around it, will shine upon our eyes with a steadier and purer 
 lustre when beheld in the serene vault of virtue and wisdom. — 
 The Roman orator, gazing upon the splendors of the City of the 
 Caesars, exclaimed, 'that there was nothing in which human virtue 
 more nearly approached the dignity of the Gods than in building 
 States, or preserving them when founded," and surely an American 
 citizen as he surveys the boundless prospect of his country's grandeur! 
 may well add, that, to preserve this government is a divine duty, 
 and the brightest page in the history of our scholars will be that 
 on which shall be inscribed their devotion, their attachment and 
 their services to the Union. 
 
 The history of that Union, now embracing, in the life of nations, 
 the short period of sixty -seven years, presents a picture for human 
 congratulation unequalled in the recorded annals or authentic tra- 
 ditions of any age since the creation of the world. The War of 
 Liberty had been fought. The peace of Paris in 1783, had 
 proclaimed the Independence of America. The colonial Union, 
 which springing not so much from a sense of common danger as 
 from an ardent and undivided love of liberty, had been the tower 
 of the revolution, still survived, and was now feebly transformed in- 
 to the baseless and disproportioned fabric of the Confederation. 
 That " rope of sand " soon fell to pieces, and young America, 
 delivered from all foreign dominion, was rushing headlong with the 
 energy of an undamned flood upon the wild void of anarchy. It 
 was the first bound of freedom just released from the restraints of 
 oppression — the ocean heaved and tossed — its billows, so lately con- 
 fined, now rose to the skies, and the whole earth rocked with tu- 
 mult. "Darkness was upon the face of the deep," and the orb of 
 hope which had so lately risen upon the New World was going to 
 
set in the waves of deep despair, or change into the terrible and 
 bloody meteor that was beginning- to darken the face of Europe. 
 The Syren of French Philosophy, that Circe of liberty, with her 
 maddening harp, was fast stealing the hearts of the people, and the 
 infant Hercules of the Republic was about to perish in his cradle, 
 not by the serpents of envy and hatred, but through the ignorance, 
 the discord, and the ti eason of his nurses. 
 
 Fortunately for the world, in that long and gloomy night there 
 was an eye that never slept It was not the eye of Argus or of 
 Ulysses, but the eye of the Heaven appointed Redeemer of his 
 country. He saw the clanger and averted it. With a voice of pa- 
 triotism, and peace the Father of his Country called upon the peo- 
 ple for a united government of equal laws, and the whole country 
 echoed a willing response ; for, he had but to lay his hand upon 
 the nation's heart, and it beat to order, harmony, duty and justice. 
 The circular letter addressed by General Washington to the Gov- 
 ernors of the different States, in which he says "that an indissoluble 
 Union of the American States under one Federal head is essential 
 to our existence as an independent power, and is the main pillar of 
 liberty," was the harbinger of this Union. Like the dove from the 
 Ark, that letter was sent forth by the great pilot of the Ship of In- 
 dependence, as a herald upon a mission of discovery and like the 
 dove, it soon returned bringing upon its wings a token of life and of 
 L >ve. The same great hand that had borne the sword of our liber- 
 ties and guarded the cradle of independence, now laid the corner 
 stone of the arch that was to shield them both. The Convention 
 met. The Constitution of United America was framed, and the fore- 
 most object of that great deed, declared upon its very forehead, 
 sealed in the first line upon its sacred face, was the establishment of 
 a " perfect union" of the American States and People. And then as 
 State after State marched into the Confederacy and added link to 
 link in the chain of the Union, until its broad circle embraced them 
 all, the work of our political and national creation was finished — 
 the light of the Constitution blazed and beamed over the whole 
 heavens — the arch of the Union spanned the circumference of the 
 Republic, and the pillars which upheld the starry firmament of Lib- 
 erty, were supported and adorned by the bright bow, which re- 
 flected the glories of the past and promised peace to the future. 
 
 The Constitution and the Union ! What American, what 
 man ! among the living or the dead, can speak of the Constitution 
 and the Union as they ought to be spoken of ? Can all the Ian- 
 
10 
 
 guages and tongues of men express their beneficence and glory ? 
 Look around on this vast sphere ; behold these happy millions — 
 stretch your vision to the remotest corners of the earth and down 
 the line of posterity to its most distant generation ; and the univer- 
 sal present and the everlasting future will answer "JSTo." Ameri- 
 can liberty is higher than all eloquence, grander than all languages, 
 and more sublime than all the reason and imagination and wisdom 
 of men. In all the forms of Government that have ever existed, in 
 the long annals of sixty centuries of empire, in the brightest dream 
 of philanthropists and the happiest speculations of philosophy, the 
 American Union, in all that constitutes true national greatness and 
 renown, promotes public justice and honor, fosters the virtue, hap- 
 piness and dignity of society, in all the elements, attributes and 
 qualities of a benign, peaceful, and paternal Sovereign, is without 
 a precedent or a parallel. It stands alone like the great luminary 
 of day, unsurpassed, unequalled, unapproachable — in the splendor 
 of its achievements, the utility of its offices, the extent of its influ- 
 ence, the magnificence of its course, and its majestic simplicity. 
 To it we are to ascribe the preservation of our national indepen- 
 dence, and the perpetuity of Liberty itself. Under its auspices, in 
 the short space of threescore years, we have established a national 
 character, which is felt and respected by every people upon the 
 face of the earth ; and which to-day makes the United Slates of 
 America the first power upon the habitable globe, and gives it a 
 prouder place in the public opinion of mankind than was ever 
 filled by any nation of any age. What of greatness and grandeur 
 and goodness has this Union of ours not accomplished ? Its influ- 
 ence has gone hand in hand with its enterprise and genius around 
 the world, and every step of its history is marked with generous 
 philanthropy and successful prowess. It found maritime law but 
 another Island of Delos floating under the waves of precedent, 
 at the discretion of power, and only employed for purposes of 
 wrong ; and it raised it from the deep, fixed it in its place and 
 bound it with metes ©f right and justice. It first announced the 
 independence and equality of all nations upon the seas, proclaim- 
 ed the immunity of flags, struck the blot of impressment from the 
 public code and inserted in its place a Statute of freedom and a 
 Charter for civilization. It found the highways of the ocean taxed 
 with tribute and closed by avarice, and it opened wide the gates 
 of trade, made the universal seas free, and taught commerce the 
 
11 
 
 way over tliem — for with the Eagle we visit all climes, and there is 
 no spot beneath the Heavens where our Stars do not glitter. 
 
 "Quis jam locus ? 
 
 Quae regio in terris nostri non plena labor is ? 
 
 Useful as the Union has been abroad, it has yet been more bene- 
 ficent at home. Under its aegis three millions of people have mul- 
 tiplied to twenty -five — thirteen States have increased to thirty-one 
 — the Republic has extended over the Mississippi and now reaches 
 the Pacific Seas. This morning the rising Sun dawned upon the 
 Eastern wing, and this evening the setting Sun will go to rest un- 
 der the Western wing of the Union — a ''vast breadth" of five 
 thousand miles inhabited by twenty-five millions of intelligent, in- 
 dustrious, patriotic freemen, and all countrymen, under one wise, 
 firm, and equal government. From the Gulf Stream to the Trade 
 Winds — from the Icebergs to the Orange trees, one mighty heart 
 throbs with freedom and basks in knowledge. What a monument 
 of peace, prosperity and power. Let it speak to us, from its bound- 
 less base, of duty and patriotism. Let it raise our thoughts to its 
 sphered dome, above all local, sectional ideas, and fix them upon 
 our Country, our Liberty, our Union, and the voice of human hope 
 throughout the world, and the destiny of man in all time to come, 
 will hail and proclaim its glory and its blessings. 
 
 It has been truly said that all things are to be judged by com- 
 parison, and it would be well for those who propose to calculate the 
 value of the Union, to consider by what standards they will t<-st its 
 merits. Every thing is relative, and a form of Government ought 
 certainly to be esteemed in proportion to its excellence in compari- 
 son with all other forms of Government, and that excellence ought 
 to be estimated by the progress, virtue, intelligence and happiness 
 of the people who live under it. Adopting this principle as a rule, 
 let us try the American Union by it ; for the picture would be but 
 half complete, in which the Artist forgot to mingle shade with light, 
 and, altogether omitted the background on which the main figure 
 of his piece ought to have been represented. Let your historical 
 recollections carry you back to the great Republics of Antiquity. 
 Fix your eyes, not upon the ruins, but the living forms of Grecian 
 and Roman liberty in the halcyon days of " arms and arts and 
 trophies, 4 ' when their orbs shone with meridian brightness, and the 
 world worshipped the genius of one and bowed to the valor of the 
 other. A dazzling spectacle it is true — at the end of twenty-four 
 hundred years we pause in mingled admiration before the Mistress 
 
12 
 
 of Letters and the Queen of Nations. But go to the proud capitals 
 of Athens and Rome, and, with all of their histories open before 
 you, select with care, not an age, a century or an half century, but 
 a year, a day, or an hour, the brightest and happiest which you can 
 find in their own annals, separate it nicely from all the shades that 
 precede, or follow its splendor, view it alone in all of its beauty, un- 
 shorn of any of its beams, and in the fairest light which partial 
 Genius has thrown around it, and you will find in that one favored 
 and chosen spot upon the chequered page of their history, more to 
 regret, deplore, and condemn, than every enemy of the American 
 Union can discover in the whole career of perilous and trying vicis- 
 situdes through which we have passed from the foundation of the 
 Government. Where in the history of Roman liberty can the 
 eye of the American patriot repose with pleasure ? The Republic 
 extended from the banishment of the Tarquins to the battle of Ac- 
 tium, over a period of six hundred years, and during all of that 
 time the Temple of Janus was shut but once. The close of the first 
 Punic war left Rome at peace with the world, but to make war 
 upon herself. Domestic strife and civil discord again drove the 
 Republic to arms, and the nation vainly sought its own safety in 
 unjust conquest and ambitious empire. The Eagle, whose burn- 
 ished wings reflected the sunbeams from the Pyramids to the Pyre- 
 nees, was a bird of prey, and a nation in armor for six hundred 
 years, and a sword that was never sheathed might dazzle, but could 
 never bless mankind. "Will you find in the land of Marathon and 
 Demosthenes a more encouraging example ? Take the age of Peri- 
 cles, by tar the most illustrious and favored age oi Greece. It 
 was the era when the Drama, Philosophy, Eloquence, Heroism, 
 and Architecture, crowned Athens with their fadeless laurels, and 
 placed upon the brow of Greece the Diadem of the Muses. When 
 Zeno taught his ethics, Sophocles composed his tragedies, Thucy- 
 dides wrote his history, Cimon conquered the Persians and Pericles 
 paved the city with marble and boasted " that during his adminis- 
 tration he had caused no tears to flow." It was the palmiest day of 
 Grecian liberty— but we must not forget that the unhappy colonies 
 of Samos and Byzantium were taxed against their will, to their im- 
 poverishment and ruin, to pay for the costly improvements of the 
 city — that Thucydides, whose pen immortalized the age, was ban- 
 ished by sedition, that Cimon was unjustly ostracised for treason, 
 that Pericles died o! a broken heart, in a civil war, after he had 
 sold justice in the streets, that the approaching armies of Sparta, 
 
13 
 
 a sister State, dissolved the assembly to whom Sophocles was re- 
 citing his poems, and that the beautiful but fallen Aspasia had 
 already corrupted public virtue and poisoned social happiness. 
 Does Modern Europe furnish those who propose to calculate the 
 value of the Union a more cheering comparison ? Let the Crimea 
 answer. The flames of Sebastopol have written it in tragedy — sad 
 as the pestilence and dark as the storm — on the Heavens, and all 
 Ocean's waters cannot wash it out — the world reads it and weeps 
 over it, and yet it is but another scene in that drama of blood 
 which European tyranny has been acting for a thousand years. 
 The curtain will hardly fall upon the death scene of the Black Sea, 
 before it rises upon the tears of Constantinople and the flashing and 
 clashing swords of the Allies. Look at France, the last hope of 
 liberty in the East! — the ashes of Lafayette sleep beneath the frown 
 of the despot— there is no France, Napoleon is the State, and in him 
 Borgia and Machiavelli again live. Tou might as well go to Etna 
 or Vesuvius for the source of the sun, as to modern Europe for 
 models of self government. Nor does South America brighten the 
 shades of the picture. In vain did the noble Bolivar raise the 
 standard of freedom on her plains. The trail of Spain, like the 
 track of the deadly Constrictor, is still upon the banks of the Ama- 
 zon, and along the peaks of the Andes, and you behold in the smok- 
 ing volcano and the rapacious vulture upon its rocks, the emblem 
 and the ensign of South American liberty. If every nation upon 
 the continent was struck at one blow from existence, the civilized 
 world would scarcely feel a sensation. Shall we bring the figure 
 nearer home, and run the parallel into the bosom of the Republic ? 
 It were a thankless task ot compare State with State and the work 
 of one with the work of the whole, for we would wish them all 
 equally good, glorious and happy. Yet " there is one glory of the 
 sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars ; 
 for one star differeth from another star in glory.'' It is indeed a 
 touching reflection, and one that ought ever to be remembered, that 
 the little State of Rhode Island, covering not a thousandth part of 
 the territory of the Republic, though her voice in the National 
 Councils balances that of the great State of New York, has expe - 
 rienced in her own domestic history, in the administration of her 
 little State government more disorder, tumult, sedition, and blood- 
 shed than has befallen the administration of the Union from the 
 adoption of the constitution to the present hour — in the regulation 
 of commerce, the conduct of wars, the establishment of states and 
 
14 
 
 the discharge of all of its delicate, diversified, and difficult duties. 
 Where will you find a standard by which to calculate the value of 
 the Union? Take the map of the world and spread it out before 
 you; examine it well ; follow the lines which distinguish nation 
 from nation and race from race, and reflect calmly upon the rise, 
 progress and condition of every State, people, and empire, that are 
 marked upon it, and you will look in vain for a model by which 
 the wisdom, justice, and success of this Union can be measured. 
 The ancient world did not produce it — the modern world does not 
 furnish it ; Plato never dreamed it, Locke could not conceive it. 
 
 You cannot calculate the value of the Union. The Astronomer 
 from his observatory may measure the disc of the sun, tell you his 
 distance from the earth, describe the motion of his rays, and pre- 
 dict with positive certainty an eclipse; but he cannot compute the 
 utility of heat, the blessings of light, nor the glory and splendor of 
 the God of day. Who can calculate the value of constitutional, 
 united Liberty — the blessings of a Free Press, Free Schools, and a 
 Free Religion? Go and calculate the value of the air we breathe, 
 the water we drink, the earth that we inhabit. By what mathe- 
 matical process will you calculate the value of national character ! 
 In what scales will you weigh political equality and the ballot-box? 
 At what price would you sell American citizenship? What is self- 
 government worth — its freedom, happiness, and example? "Cal- 
 culate the value of the Union!" Look at the mighty Mississippi 
 the Father of Waters— it rises in the nameless snows of North 
 America — runs through twenty-three degrees of latitude, all our own 
 soil, and washes the sides of ten young, flourishing, and powerful 
 States; its tributaries drain the rains that fall in sight of the Atlan- 
 tic and meet the streams that flow into the Pacific upon the sum- 
 mit of the Rocky Mountains — its broad tides bear on their buoy- 
 ant bosom the clothing of half of the world, and the fertile valleys, 
 which spread out from its ample banks are capable of producing 
 food for the population of the whole earth for a thousand years to 
 come. On its eastern shore, in a quiet spot, near the Crescent City, 
 you see some clusters of small orange trees growing upon a broken 
 embankment, and now and then an old but flourishing live-oak 
 spreads its green branches over the damp sod. You are on the 
 battle-ground of New Orleans ! You behold the field of the most 
 remarkable victory ever won, and as you ascend the mouldering 
 entrenchment, the morning of the Eighth of January, Eighteen 
 Hundred and fifteen rises before you. Your heart beats anxiously ; 
 
15 
 
 you watch the serried columns of Packenhara advance to the 
 charge — you note the calm faces of Jackson's men — you hear the 
 rifles' peal, the din of musketry, the cannon's roar — you see the 
 repulse, the retreat, the field of the dead and the dying — you 
 cross the moat, and as the smoke clears away, you count the fallen ; 
 the English have left twenty six hundred men on that field- the 
 Americans have lost seven killed and six wounded — you remember 
 no victory like it — the historian tells you ; ' it is a disproportion of 
 loss unrecorded of any other battle" — you see the Flag of the Stars 
 waving over you and you feel your country in your veins. Stand 
 upon the battle ground of New Orleans, by the side of the great 
 Father of Waters, and tell me, if you can, what the Union is 
 worth? These are its jewels — they shine brightly in a diadem 
 whose full and radiant circle sparkles all over with glorious deeds. 
 
 In that Union we exhibit this day to the admiration of the world 
 the spectacle and example of a free government, which, without 
 levying one cent of tax upon the person or property of any one of 
 its citizens, except such as they voluntarily choose to pay, maintains 
 an army of ten thousand men and a navy sufficient to protect our 
 commerce, now the largest on the seas : which transports public 
 and private intelligence, at home and abroad, over fifty three mil- 
 lions of miles of mail line, and annually distributes to a population 
 scattered over an area of territory of three millions five hundred 
 thousand square miles, not only countless pages of useful public in- 
 formation and valuable practical knowledge, but along with them 
 the seeds and germs of the fruits and flowers of every soil and cli- 
 mate under the sun: which secures to all men by just privileges 
 the rewards of their genius and labor, and keeps open, honest, and 
 learned Courts for the defence of all rights, which local laws do not 
 recognize: whose flag guards its citizens with sacred vigilance on 
 all oceans and in every land, and whose broad nationality warrants 
 to every soul who breathes beneath it a home of security, law, 
 peace, freedom, and honor, and which, in its whole history, has 
 crushed no man's liberty, nor "shed one drop of blood for treason 
 or rebellion." Shall this spectacle be blotted from the light of day; 
 this example cease to instruct and cheer the hearts of men ? This 
 is the question which this generation has to settle, not only for it- 
 self, but for generations in all time to come — the most momentous 
 question that ever engaged the souls of patriots. The preservation 
 of the Union of the States and People of America. 
 
 I shall not stop to inquire, neither my inclination nor the pro- 
 
16 
 
 prieties of this occasion permit me to inquire, whether the Consti- 
 tution established a Federal or a National Union — " whether sover- 
 eignty resides with the people of the States as bodies, or in the 
 people of the United States as a whole." These questions belong 
 to other places and times — they now threaten the Union with no 
 danger, and are almost forgotten in the happy fact that whatever 
 its particular character may be, the Union has well answered the 
 purposes and hopes of those who formed it. But, there is a dan- 
 ger — a dark and gloomy danger — an appalling and overwhelming 
 danger — which hovers in black clouds over our government and 
 liberties, and casts a livid and frightful shade over this beautiful 
 land. 
 
 It is Dismemberment which agitates the bosom of the Republic? 
 the word which makes the hearts of patriots stand still in their 
 breasts and the pulse of tyrants leap with joy — the word upon which 
 the Father of his Country set his curse — the word of despair. We 
 hear it discussed in social circles, proclaimed by the press and advo- 
 cated in public councils. Let us not be deceived by sounds. Dis- 
 union means nothing less than the disruption of the Government — 
 the destruction of the Constitution, the tearing asunder of the States 
 and the end of the Republic. With que blow, it proposes to strike 
 from being the works of our Fathers, to annihilate our progress and 
 achievements, to blot out our glories and extinguish our hopes. It 
 would overthrow the Union and leave nothing but shame above its 
 ruins ; it would draw a ruthless line across the Republic, although it 
 passed over the grave of Washington and divided the ashes of the 
 Great Father of our Country. 
 
 With what plea can Disunion appear before the bar of this world* 
 or the throne of another? It proposes as a remedy for evils, an 
 evil before which all others sink into insignificance; it suggests as a 
 measure of honor, an act which would cover the American name 
 with dishonor as long as the earth remains — it holds up before us 
 the bloody mantle of liberty, pierced with a thousand deadly 
 wounds, and tells us tha* is the way to preserve freedom — it shows 
 us the temple of self-government wrapped in flames, and all that is 
 valuable burning in the conflagration, and does not, and cannot 
 point to one benefit conferred, one grievance redressed, one right 
 restored by the awful sacrifice ; it is that spirit which would have 
 the beautiful Heavens with their rolling worlds of light, and the great 
 central Sun, around which all in harmony revolve, hurled into 
 
17 
 
 chaos and darkness, because the little planet of Vesta, or some strag- 
 gling comet happened to wander from its sphere. 
 
 And how is disunion to be accomplished? Can any rational man 
 for a moment expect peaceable, friendly dissolution ? Must not 
 the causes that lead to separation, of necessity, lead to hostilities? 
 Yeu might as well look to see the mountains leave their bases, and 
 melt into the ocean, and the earth quit its orbit without convulsion, 
 as expect the wheels of this government to be broken up and its 
 revolutions thrown into space without violence and collision, No! 
 the Pearl of the Union can be dissolved in nothing but blood. The 
 Almighty hand, which fashioned the Universe, could alone divide 
 and partition out the army, and the navy, and the treasury, and all 
 else we have, among the inflamed fragments into which the Union 
 would be sundered. Disunion contemplates anarchy, war, civil 
 war, havoc and night. It can contemplate nothing else. And after 
 it is all over, if it ever shall be over, where will we find ourselves ? 
 How shall we stand in our own eyes and the eyes of the world ! 
 Where will be our proud commerce, our emblazoned banner, our 
 i national name, the peace, prosperity, gbry, and power, which we 
 mow possess and enjoy? There will be no longer an American citi- 
 zen upon the wide earth. Disunion will be the tomb in which all, 
 all are buried, a tomb of ashes and infamy, *'in which dismal vaults 
 iin black succession open" on "sights of woe, regions of soirow, 
 doleful shades — without end." 
 
 And shall Bunker Hill be divided from Yorktown, and Mecklen- 
 
 I burg from Philadelphia? Shall our sires of the Revolution have 
 
 left the bloody tracks of their naked feet on the snows of Valley 
 
 |IForge in vain? Shall Washington have lived for nothing? Is 
 
 i (American history, like Herculaneum and Pompeii, to be buried in 
 
 j :ruins and only dug from oblivion as a curious wonder ? Is this last 
 
 ^experiment of self-government to fail, and is man never to be free I 
 
 Are we, in our day, to see any State leave the Union as " Hagar 
 
 with young Ishmael wandered from the tents of Israel" with hands 
 
 raised against all men and the hands of all men raised against her J 
 
 Or are we to witness the sadder spectacle of a section of the 
 
 Confederacy following the hated example of the false Mother 
 
 in King Solomon's Court who desired the living child to be cut ia 
 
 twain, that she might have one-half of the dead corpse ? Is the flag 
 
 of the Republic to be torn in two and divided, the stars pulled apart 
 
 land the stripes rent asunder, its bright folds stained with brother's 
 
 tiblood, and wet with patriot's tears ? Shall the Constitution itself 
 
 2 
 
18 
 
 perish as a scroll, and its mangled scraps and shreds be blown about 
 by the winds and trampled in the dust, the melancholy insignia of 
 the dismembered Republic ? These would be some of the trophies 
 of disunion. 
 
 But it cannot be. Enlightened, considerate, patriotic America, 
 will not, cannot commit an act of folly and madness, the greatest 
 and the darkest which human error ever conceived, or human de- 
 pravity accomplished. See that beautiful ship in full sail upon the 
 flowing ocean — how nobly she moves along her trackless pathway. 
 Her wings of canvass hang like sunlit clouds about the steepled 
 masts, and the w;»ves in glad harmomy play around her ample sides 
 as the gallant prow steps from billow to billow to the music of the 
 tides. It is the flag-ship of liberty — she carries the fortunes, not of 
 Csesar, but of man — her deck is the tribune of the people, and the 
 altar of the living God. She is laden with the spoils of a thousand 
 arts — science illumines her progress, and literature sheds a halo on 
 her wake — blessings cleave to her sails as she bears to distant shores 
 the stores of plenty and the lights of freedom, and from half the 
 family of man a voice of interest and hope hails her, speed and safety. 
 Presently when the waters are all calm and the skies bright, a few 
 factious spirits on that ship of good hopes, raise a dispute about the 
 variation of the compass, and as the vessel sails on, the contest 
 waxes warmer, and others of ardent passions enlist in the contro- 
 versy. One party vows that the needle is varying too much to the 
 "West — the other declares that it is inclining rapidly Eastward. — 
 The wise, the considerate and the faithful, labor to paciiy the dispu- 
 tants, and restore harmony among the crew, by assurances that the 
 noble bark is on her proud way to the haven of happiness and honor^ 
 and that, if she is wandering on either side of the right line, it be- 
 comes her men to unite in bringing her back, by consulting and 
 obeying the unerring chart of the stars, and not by angry reproaches 
 and bitter criminations to jeopard her safety and mar the auspicious 
 voyage. But nothing can satisfy faction — conciliation is denounced 
 as a dishonorable surrender, and the adversaries, maddened by mu- 
 tual opposition, furiously resolve that they will stay together no 
 longer, they will divide that blessed ship, and separate forever. The 
 friends of the great vessel entreat and implore them to forbear, urge 
 the folly and madness of attempting to split that ship asunder, when 
 the billows are rolling and roaring beneath it, and show them the 
 jealous rivals in the distance, who only watch the opportunity of 
 their dissensions and hope to conquer them when divided. But all 
 
19 
 
 in vain — the blind and frenzied partizans heed not the counsels of 
 prudence or justice — in vain are they told that the ship cannot be 
 divided without sinking and burying all in one common ruin — in 
 vain are they reminded of her glorious career and her brilliant hopes — 
 in vain do they hear the prayers of millions, and see arms stretched 
 from every snore to save that fated vessel. All, all in vain. They 
 rush on deck, seize their axes, and with uplifted arms the heavy 
 
 blows begin to ao ! it cannot be ! the tragedy is impossible ! 
 
 those blows will not be given — that ship will not be divided — the sad 
 fragments of the wreck will not be seen floating on the waves — but 
 on, on it will sail, with pennants streaming in the breeze, and glad 
 hearts beating with "souls as free." In that emblem we behold our 
 country, and the wickedness and folly of those who would dismem- 
 ber it. No — the Union will not be dissolved ! The blood that was 
 shed for liberty is mingled with the waters of the ocean, and the 
 sands of the hills, and plains of the Union. The same streams met 
 and mingled again in victory upon our lakes, and along the moun- 
 tains and valleys of Mexico, and now flow in united currents through 
 Northern and Southern veins, and they cannot be separated ; it is 
 the invincible Anglo Saxon blood, which never runs backward, but 
 " like the Propontic Sea, whose icy current and compulsive course 
 knows no retiring ebb, it goes right on" — it is the Anglo-American 
 blood, which stronger than the Gulf Stream, flows and beats in one 
 indivisible tide from Plymouth Rock to the Caribbean Sea. 
 
 Nature, too, has put bonds around and over the Union, which 
 almost forbid dissolution. No fanaticism can divide the storied walls 
 of the Alleghanies, or cut in two the ever living flood of the Missis- 
 sippi ; they are laws which cannot be repealed, and they do not bind 
 the earth more firmly together than they hold the States of the Con- 
 federacy in the fixed embrace of a common destiny. While the 
 Mississippi pours its torrent waves from the British possessions to 
 the Gulf of Mexico and the piles of the Alleghanies lift their blue 
 heights to the clouds, the Union must stand. The social and com- 
 mercial dependencies which hang thickly around these natural mon- 
 uments, and make them the heart and the ribs, no less of trade than 
 of the Republic, seem to render it impossible to draw any line of 
 division between the Slave States on the one side and the Free States 
 on the other. Chains of iron could not fasten the States upon the 
 upper waters of the Mississippi to those at its mouth more stead- 
 fastly and eternally than they are bound by the changeless decrees 
 of that necessity which compels their trade down the mighty chan- 
 
20 
 
 nel of the King of Floods. Apart then from our political relations, 
 there is a social and commercial e pendence, sympathy, and con- 
 nection, stretching over the whole Confederacy, and attaching all 
 its parts in an almost indissoluble bond of common advantage, inter- 
 est, and association. 
 
 These are indeed strong tendencies to Union, but over and above 
 them all, more powerful than commercial exigencies, or the currents 
 of rivers or massive mountains, is the overruling and absorbing sen- 
 timent of American patriotism. Patriotism made the Union, and 
 patriotism will preserve it. A national American patriotism, which 
 fills the whole heart, knows no localities, and is as broad an d com- 
 prehensive as the Union. It is that patriotism, more than all else, 
 which holds the Confederacy together and makes us one people ; 
 like the viewless principle of attraction, cohesion, or gravity, 
 or whatever it is which keeps the physical world in place, that 
 sentiment is the chord, the bond, the life of the Union. It was that 
 sentiment which, when sectional jealousy raised its voice of discord 
 in the first Congress of Independence, inspired Patrick Henry, the 
 Prophet of liberty, as he exclaimed "I am not a Virginian, but an 
 American ;" and it is that sentiment which makes us declare that 
 we are North Carolinians, but, we are Americans. And with what 
 a magnificent vision does that idea fill the mind to-day ? You or I 
 may stand, as, we stand here, upon the Rocks of New England, by 
 the great falls of Niagara, upon the green hills of the Colorado, on 
 the sands of the Salt Lake, by the foaming shores of the Pacific, and 
 look up and say, this is my country. Aye, you may look up, and 
 with your eyes follow the sun in his revolution, and know that you 
 may go wherever his rays shine, and the flag of that country will be 
 above you and around you. Who would not be an American citi- 
 zen ? Who would wipe from his face the bright image of American 
 Nationality ? Who would look upon the star-spangled ensign of 
 his country and not feel that his heart was in every fold and fibre 
 and with all its stars and stripes ? Let us not be told then that we 
 cannot remain in the Union with self respect and honor. Rather 
 let us seek and earn that highest, noblest, most lasting of all honors, 
 the immortal honor preserving the Constitution and the Union 
 and of perpetuating American liberty to all posterity, and holding it 
 up in undiminished glory to the sight of the living world for an ex- 
 ample and a solace. Let us not enquire upon what section of the 
 Confederacy dismemberment would fall heaviest, or to what State it 
 would prove the greatest affliction ; but remembering that it must 
 
21 
 
 involve the ruin of both sections and of all the States, and feeling 
 how poor the consolation will be. which rational men derive to 
 their own misfortunes from the sight of others' woes, let us labor in 
 the nobler work of promoting our own welfare by consulting and 
 increasing the general good. This is the duty of patriotism. 
 
 There are other considerations which at this time and place ad- 
 dress themselves to us with peculiar force, and which ought not in 
 this connection to be omitted. 1 allude to the claims of the Union 
 upon the scholars of the country. What an influence is United 
 America destined to exert on the mind of the human race. What 
 must the world say to the startling fact that at this time there are 
 in proportion to population, seven times as many persons who hab- 
 itually read and write in this country, as there are in the most fa- 
 vored and enlightened nations of either hemisphere. To adopt a 
 striking illustration of Mr. Webster, "the population of the United 
 States is twenty-three millions — lay off on the continent of Europe 
 an area in any shape you please — a triangle, square, circle, parallel- 
 ogram, or trapezoid, and of an extent that shall contain one hun- 
 dred and fifty millions of people, and you will find within the United 
 States more persons who do habitually read and write than can be 
 embraced within the lines of your demarcation." What an intel- 
 lectual development ! Twenty-three millions of souls raised by the 
 lights of knowledge nearer to virtue, happiness and truth. If know- 
 ledge is power, as it certainly is, and power of the best kind, what 
 rank in the family of Nations ought to be assigned these United 
 States ? The Republic of Liberty is indeed the land of intelligence. 
 And to the unjust and ungenerous taunts of foreign criticism upon 
 the poverty of our literature, we might well reply that generally dif- 
 fused knowledge, and extensive popular information, are the first 
 duty and highest gloiy of a free government, and that there are more 
 daily journals in the United States than there are in the world be- 
 side. But we have a National Literature, and a proud literature it 
 is, a just, free, and Christian literature, "the graceful ornament of 
 our Republican Institutions," and the bright reflector of social vir- 
 tues and national piety. I need not tell an American audience 
 what the world has admitted, that the first historian of the age is our 
 countryman. The pen of Prescott has illustrated the history of 
 three ages, made the land of the Montezumas and the Incas classic 
 ground, and set the glory of Castile and Aragon in the crown of 
 American genius. His fame is connected with both hemispheres, 
 and will go down to posterity associated with the discovery and 
 
22 
 
 conquests of the New World, and inscribed on the most wonderful 
 page of Eastern achievement. As scholars, patriots and men rev- 
 erencing a bright example of their embodiment, we wish that from 
 this venerable temple of a people's learning, a voice full of love 
 could this day visit the interesting sage, and bear to him a memorial 
 of our sympathy and affection. May that delightful wisdom, which 
 has charmed all circles and grown ripe with years, yet linger long 
 upon the calm verge of evening, and go to rest at last with not a 
 cloud to shade the serene splendor of its decline. 
 
 Now let me ask what is it which gives you and me and all of us a 
 patriotic participation in the world wide renown of Prescott, the 
 ever charming page of Irving, the noble story of Bancroft, and the 
 morning song of Longfellow ? What gives us a share in the fame of 
 that philosophy which has tamed the flaming minister of the skies 
 and made it the obedient messenger of human thought ? What is 
 it that reflects on us the glory of that eloquence whose breath in- 
 spired by philanthropy fanned the flame of liberty in two continents 
 at once, as it was wafted across the ocean and echoed from the clas- 
 sic isles of Greece to the sunny shores of South America ? What 
 is it that sheds upon us the splendor of that science which has con- 
 nected the Hemispheres by steam, brought the whole family of man 
 into one neighborhood, made a new chart of the oc ean, and with an 
 electric pen records the motion of the planets ? What is it that im- 
 parts to us a property in the beauty of that art, which glows on the 
 canvass of Sully, bodies the majesty of greatness in the bronze of 
 Mills, and will live forever in the breathing marble of Powers ? 
 What is "it but the Union that blends all of these separate glo- 
 ries and blessings into one beautiful and consistent illumination — ■ 
 which spreads out like a canopy over the whole American name, 
 and blazes all over the earth as brilliant and dazzling as the Aurora 
 Borealis, and steady and constant as the milky way in the Heavens. 
 Whatsis itAbut the Union which by the peace and prosperity it has 
 secured has enabled us to build up our thousand printing presses, our 
 myriad schools, our countless colleges and our overflowing libraries? 
 What is it but the Union which has secured to the people of these 
 States a common inheritance of freedom, a common enjoyment of 
 renown, and a common opportunity of intelligence? And asapatriot, 
 I would not part with my legacy in th e fame of Lexington, and 
 Bunker Hill, and Princeton and Yorktown, and Guilford, and Ni- 
 agara, and Erie, and Buena Vista and Mexico, at a less price than 
 the precious blood which they cost, so as a scholar, I could not, 
 
23 
 
 without tears of sorrow and a heart broken with shame behold the 
 day when I could not hold up my head and declare all over the 
 world that I was a countryman of Franklin and Fulton, and breath- 
 ed with Webster and Calhoun and Clay the same air of liberty. 
 
 Young Gentlemen of the University of North Carolina, as you 
 appreciate the blessings of good government, the priceless inheri- 
 tance of civil and religious liberty, the universal esteem of mankind, 
 and the fate of our race for all future ages, as you value learning 
 and desire peace, as you reverence the memory of our Fathers and 
 love the honor of our Country, as philanthropists, patriots and 
 Christians, I implore you by all of these considerations to use your 
 influence, your talents, your time and all the power you may pos- 
 sess, to preserve, perpetuate and immortalize the Union of these 
 States, and the Constitution under which we live, and God grant, 
 that that Constitution and that Union, enrobed in the mantle of 
 Washington may last forever. 
 
• 
 
 <*