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 JOHN RANDOLPH TUCKER, ESQ. 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE 
 
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 aikatt Societies, 1 
 
 WILLIAM AND MARY COLLEGE, 
 
 Oil the 3d of July, 1854,. 
 
 PUBLISHED AT THE REQUEST OF THE TWO SOCIETIES. 
 
 RICHMOND: 
 
 CHAS. H. WYNNE, PRINTER. 
 1854. 
 
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 JOHN RANDOLPH TUCKER, ESQ. , 
 
 DELIVERED KEFOKE THE 
 
 PHLEIiX AID PH1L0MATHEAN SOCIETIES. 
 
 OF 
 
 WILLIAM AND MARY COLLEGE, 
 
 On the 3d of July, 1854. 
 
 PUBLISHED AT THE REQUEST OF THE TWO SOCIETIES. 
 
 RICHMOND: 
 
 CHAS. H. 1TYXXE, PRINTER. 
 
 1854. 
 
I 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 Gentlemen of the Phoenix and Philomathean Societies: 
 
 The circumstances which have concurred to call me to address you, 
 
 I will be ever regarded as among the most pleasant of my life. Among 
 
 them I shall highly cherish the unexpected partiality which suggested 
 
 your invitation, and the courtesy which has marked my reception 
 
 among you. 
 
 Few places in the world have for me a deeper personal interest 
 than this. Amid the greetings of kindly welcome, I have missed 
 the warm cordiality of one whose devotion to its prospective advance- 
 ment was only ecpialled by his intense veneration for its former ) 
 renown ; and while it is with natural sadness I recur to associations ) 
 which are past forever, it affords me high gratification to visit Wil- j 
 liamsburg as the home, and this literary institution as the school of a 
 generation of my own family, whose names are embalmed in the ) 
 memory of its descendants. ) 
 
 But my feelings as a citizen of Virginia, in looking upon the \ 
 scenes which, with the lapse of time, cluster iu classic beauty about I 
 the venerable edifices and ruins of this old borough, make it to me a 
 spot sacred to the sentiment of patriotism. We stand in the ancient 
 Capital of the Colony of the Old Dominion. There, were those 
 mouldering heaps, where standing walls once heard the indignant cry 
 of Henry's patriot voice, awakening a continent to revolution, and 
 its colonies to independence. There stands iu its rude and mis- 
 shapen — but to us interesting plainness, the "Old Raleigh," where 
 power heard its noblest lesson of submission to the demands of liberal 
 principles. Here, in fine, is the cradle in which was rocked the 
 Colony of Virginia, whose giant energy stifled the vipers who threat- 
 ened its ruin, and whose augmenting glories and increasing power 
 
a 
 
 (4 ADDRESS. 
 
 { 
 
 ;. have aroused the envy of its enemies, the admiration of its generous 
 rivals, and the deep and ever deepening devotion of its true-hearted 
 
 ■ people. 
 
 I perhaps owe you an apology for not searching amid the colonial 
 
 1 records for reminiscences of that " Olden Time," whose life was here. 
 But I am aware that in this country, while the work of the antiquary 
 
 < excites a passing interest, and mere literary discussion affords enter- 
 
 ' tainment to the Cjuiet and secluded few — the questions which take the j 
 deepest hold upon the American, and especially upon the Southern ( 
 mind, are those which concern the relations of man to society, and of \ 
 the citizen to his government. 
 
 I may claim, in the opinion of some, too much for my State, hut 5 
 : . not more than impartial history must award to her, when I assert j 
 ' that the political men of Virginia were the guides of the States of \ 
 the Union in the early days of their independence. Th™ great Vir- 
 ginian Idea was the American Idea : and covered up, as it may some- ) 
 times have been in a confusion of words, and concealed by the absence { 
 \ of the clearer light, which later investigation has more fully de- 
 , veloped, it still stands forth prominently in our early annals, easy j 
 of determination, and the germ of all political truth. 
 
 Much misapprehension exists upon this subject. It arises, I think, ; 
 ' from confounding the mere form of the political organization with 
 
 < the object to be etrtained by it. 
 
 Thus with many, the fundamental idea of American Republicanism 
 
 } consists in the power of'the people— the Democratic Idea. "With 
 
 1 others who look a little deeper, our system claims universal assent, 
 
 ( because of- its combination of the Representative with the Democratic 
 
 I feature. "With others asain, its wisdom is most manifested in its 
 
 ) , . . . 
 
 J strict and admirable division of the powers of the government be- 
 
 ' tween co-ordinate branches, each checking the action of the other. 
 J And still another class of more accurate thinkers, gathering in one 
 / the several views already suggested, and superadding the Federative 
 principle, enthusiastically commend our institutions as the most per- 
 fect, because they constitute us a Federative Republican Democracy. 
 
 Now each one of these views contains principles of vital importance, 
 and deserves the hisrh estimation in which it is held. But it is 
 
 i 
 
ADDRESS. O 
 
 obvious they do not involve the essential purpose and end of all 
 government. They constitute the various means by which some end 
 may be attained, but are not themselves that ultimate purpose. 
 Their value must and can only be determined by considering their 
 adaptation to carry out the true and legitimate end of government — 
 the happiness of the people. 
 
 It is the too exclusive regard to these important means, which has 
 led to the dangerous, though popular heresy, that the virtue of our 
 institutions is to be found in the scape they afford to popular power, 
 and not in the security they give to popular liberty. The sovereignty 
 of the people has been so long rung in their (not unwilling) ears by 
 the politicians of the country, that it is construed as if it were the 
 absolutism — the unlimited omnipotence of the people. Nor does the 
 word "people," used in this connection, have any other than that 
 consolidated sense, in which it is viewed as one being, not as a col- 
 lection of distinct individuals. Thus it is that the man is merged 
 in the mass. { 
 
 All this, to my mind, is fundamental error, and can only be cor- ) 
 rected by a deeper view of sosiety, and of government the represen- ) 
 tative of its power. 
 
 The Kepublican — the Virginian Idea is this : Every man is a ( 
 Sovereign. Society is a league, based upon compact, actual or sup- ) 
 posed, between individuals. Government is their joTWt agent. ) (Vft 
 
 This view throws man upon his true dignity, because it involves ( 
 his rightful and unavoidable responsibility as such to his Creator. 
 
 Adam was first created. Hulhan Government was then divinely 
 instituted. Man, as to his fellows, was therefore sovereign, before 
 government existed. 
 
 Nor is this relative order of the two in any degree changed by 
 disregarding the revealed history of the creation of the one, and the 
 subsequent institution of the other. For, as men are created distinct 
 in the faculties and powers of their being, and unquestionably so as 
 to their will, it is obvious that Government which results from the 
 co-operation of the individuals of society must have succeeded, and 
 could not have preceded the unrestrained will of the individual man. 
 Hence, whatever the rude social form, or the character of government 
 
 | 
 
 990124 
 
b ADDRESS. 
 
 ill its origin among our species, it must have sprung from an original 
 express or tacit assent ; and in political science may be considered as 
 deriving all its validity from the terms of a supposed compact be- 
 tween men. Here then is the starting point of our enquiry. 
 
 Now what is the precedent right of the man who thus enters into 
 this compact ? It is a right to use all of his powers, subject to his 
 own exclusive control, and responsible therefor only to Him by 
 whom the}- were bestowed. Such would be the anti-social, or what 
 is sometimes called the natural condition of man. This is natural 
 
 J liberty ; a term for which I shall substitute another, the liberty of 
 isolation. 
 
 What is social or civil liberty ? and wherein does it differ from this 
 liberty of isolation 1 
 
 In order to facilitate these enquiries, permit me to ask, why 
 
 ) does man enter society at all, supposing him ever to have been out of 
 it ? Why does he place himself under, and subject his otherwise free 
 action to, the control of government ? Does he love to be controlled ? 
 Does he hate to be free ? Would he prefer being guided by another's 
 will, to being directed by his own ? Is this human nature ? 
 
 I answer, it is the fear of the loss of his rights, which has driven 
 man from primeval isolation into society. It is the love of liberty, 
 the gift of God, which he feels in every fibre of his frame, in every 
 warm throb of his heart, in every breath he draws, in every aspira- 
 tion of his sold, in every energy of his untrammelled intellect ; it is 
 this love of the liberty which God has bestowed upon him, which 
 impels him to seek its security, its .protection, in the shield of the 
 
 ., government, which the social compact creates. 
 
 Does the sBcial compact then bind man to give up a portion of his 
 
 \ liberty, to surrender any of his rights, in order to secure the residue ? 
 
 ( Does he, like some humble petitioner in bankruptcy, compound for a 
 part of his right, by submitting to the confiscation of the balance ? i 
 
 ) By no means. The nature of his liberty and of his rights are 
 different in his condition of isolation and of society. But he surrcn- 
 
 i ders none of those which result to him in the latter, by virtue of the 
 
 } social compart. He retains all he could possess in a social condition. 
 He does not lose anything under the social compact. The idea that 
 
 ) 
 
ADDRESS. I 
 
 he does, arises from not adverting to the palpable distinction between 
 the exclusive rights of a perfectly isolated being, and the modified 
 rights of a social being. Robinson Crusoe might well in his gloomy 
 solitude claim to be monarch of all he surveyed; but without any 
 assent on his part, or compact with others, or even social intercourse, 
 he would not have been without a valid disputant of his asserted 
 right, had his island home been peopled by others, whose wants 
 demanded a participation in its fruits. Thus his exclusive rights, 
 the result of isolation, would be modified and abridged by the 
 presence of those, whose rights would be as unlimited as his own. 
 The rights of each would thus bo qualified in such a way, as to deny 
 the exclusiveness of any, and to admit the participation of all ; and 
 it would become the duty of each so to admit the right of the others, 
 and so to qualify his own. 
 
 Social or civil liberty therefore is essentially different from, and 
 much less unlimited than the liberty of isolation ; not as the result 
 of any compact, but of the just and natural difference between the 
 exclusive rights of personal isolation, and the modified rights which 
 result from the presence of rival, and equally valid claims to the 
 same exclusiveness of right. 
 
 When, therefore, man enters into the socicd compact, he does so to 5 
 secure all of his rights and all of his liberty which do not conflict 
 with the rights and liberty of those with whom he is united in social 
 intercourse. They all unite to preserve the social rights of each 
 from violation. The obligation of the social compact is only to do, } 
 what without it, as we have shown, it is the duty of each to do — ; 
 sic iitere tuo ut non alienum leedijs. This is the language of the j ^L- 
 ^ agreement. Each binds himself by it, as a sovereign to his co-sove- * 
 reigns ; and society becomes a great mutual insurance of liberty to 
 all; and to all because to each. 
 
 If these views be correct, how fallacious is that doctrine to which 
 I have adverted, that a man under free institutions must surrender a 
 portion of his liberty in order to secure the residue ! And how mon- 
 strous that other odious notion, which is the superlative of good with 
 some political thinkers, that the highest purpose of government is to 
 attain the greatest good to the greatest number ! A doctrine which, 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 not content with making each man purchase a remnant of. his right, j 
 
 , by the tame surrender of a part, demands that a portion of society ? 
 
 shall, if need be, give up all, in order to fill the cup of. good to the ) 
 
 greatest number to overflowing ! Yrhence is this prerogative of society ( 
 
 ; derived ? TVhere does it obtain the power to shuffle my rights with ! 
 
 j yours, and advertising the grand drawing of the government lottery, ) 
 
 j by which you secure rights, and I endure wrongs! Jlan would have > 
 
 no rights, according to this theory, but those he can win at a raffle ! i 
 
 It will be observed, that in the discussion already indulged, I have , 
 regarded personal isolation as a hypothetical condition, from which 
 logical deductions may properly be drawn, and the social condition as 
 man's necessity. In the former the race would perish; in the latter 
 
 : only can it exist. ) 
 
 Hence, in the history of the race, the liberty of isolation is an \ 
 
 y exception, which fortunately has had its only type in the partially J 
 
 ; fabulous life of Crusoe ; while social or civil liberty is that only to j 
 \ which man, as a permanent occupant of the earth, can aspire. 
 
 Civil liberty is that which marks the condition of the individuals ) 
 : of a society, where their social rights — those modified rights oflfchich 
 
 J I have spoken— are respected and protected. These are the highest * 
 
 ; rights of man, as a social being* To preserve them in their entirety, j 
 
 i he enters into the social pact, and adheres to it. He does not do so ) 
 
 in order to acquire rights, or to obtain privileges at its hands. He ( 
 comes into the social bond to preserve what he has, what is his own ; 
 and he invests society with power to accomplish that purpose. 
 
 This idea, that a man derives anv rights, or can look for anv, from ) 
 
 government, is an exotic, reared in the hot-houses of monarchical > 
 systems. Nbn det, qui -non halet. It assumes that man has no 
 
 rights but those he derives from his government; whereas, as has } 
 
 been shewn, government, the growth of social existence, has no power *> 
 
 but such as it obtains from the man. Man gives it nothing, but the ! 
 
 power of himself and his co-pactors to maintain the rights which each ( 
 had antecedent to its existence, and brings with him into society. 
 
 * And as man, as a social being, has higher opportunity for development, than 
 when isolated, it follows that these ''highest rights of man, as a social being," are 
 the highest of which his nature is susceptible. 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 The compact, as already remarked, is one of mutual assurance, and 
 government is but the general agent to enforce it against all. 
 
 There are some important corollaries, which flow from these simple, 
 but fundamental truths. 
 
 Does civil liberty, as defined, involve socialism ? or demand the 
 equalization of the condition of the members of society ? 
 
 I answer, agrarianisrn has no hope from the view presented ; and 
 socialism is destroyed by it. 
 
 It involves a parity of right in the members of society — an abso- 
 luteness of right in each as to his own powers ; but it utterly excludes 
 any idea of participation by others in those of each. Each is his 
 own master. God has given to each his own talent. Its use is guar- 
 antied to him by its Giver, and for it the receiver alone is responsible. 
 He becomes a party to the social compact, in order to protect himself 
 in this exclusive use of what is his own. 
 
 Now it is obvious, as all are not alike in capacity, and as there 
 exists the greatest difference in faculty, mental, jmoral and physical, 
 true equality of right in each to what is his own, must result in 
 inequalitv, and is utterly inconsistent with an equality of condition 
 among individuals. In other words, so far from agrarianism resulting 
 from the postulate of an equality of right, it is the greatest inequality 
 of right to enforce an equality of condition. 
 
 It is likewise obvious, that as this equality of right in men involves 
 the exclusive use of all that is his own, the socialist idea of huddling 
 all in a common mass, and making one machine of the many separate 
 organisms — thus forcing the gifted to divide with the impoverished, 
 the strong with the weak, the laborer with the drone — is as incon- 
 sistent with the principles of civii liberty, as it is repugnant to 
 common honesty, and opposed to the revealed will of God. 
 
 As to both of these miserable excrescences of a pseudo-Democracy, 
 spawns of the free-labor Democracies of the world, which perish in 
 the Democratic Republics of the South, as the toad away from the 
 miasmas of his cess-pool, they are condemned by reason and revela- 
 tion. The latter declares that each shall bear his own burthen ; and 
 He who spake in parables, illustrative of all truth, because they were 
 so of his spiritual teachings, has told us, that the wise and thrifty 
 
10 ADDRESS 
 
 virgins, whose lamps were filled, trimmed and burning, should reap 
 the reward of the performance of duty ; while the unthinking five 
 should suffer the penalty of their own neglect, with no claim upon 
 their wiser companions, under the laws of the modern socialist or 
 agrarian. 
 
 The true corollary is, that as each has separate gifts from his 
 Creator, and comes into the social compact to preserve them, equality 
 of right demands that each be left to work out his own destiny, freely 
 and manfully — to accomplish all which by nature he is fitted to acconi- 
 \ plish, without hindrance from his fellows, and without help or inter- 
 ference from his government. The world the arena, man the athlete, 
 government the mere police, God the arbiter, and the reward the 
 laurel he can gather, and the crown he can win. 
 
 There is a still further and most important view. I have said that 
 man's social rights are the rights of isolated man, controlled and 
 modified by the like rights of his associates. The extent of this 
 abridgment will of course depend upon the claims and the necessities 
 of the latter. If each cannot have all the rights he might have as a 
 solitary being, he must have all which is consistent with the existence 
 of the highest practicable rights in others. If there be conflict, it 
 must be reconciled by such a compromise as will attain the best 
 development, the highest happiness and well-being of all. Neither 
 part must seek for itself a greater elevation, by the deeper depression 
 of the other; but each must so adjust itself to a social equilibrium, 
 that the maximum elevation for each shall be attained, and the mini- 
 mum depression of each avoided. 
 
 Thus, where two conflicting interests are combined in a society, 
 
 civil liberty will consist in the preservation of that equilibrium, where 
 
 the social rights of each so modify those of the other, as to preserve 
 
 to each the greatest amount of right and freedom consistent with their 
 
 \ co-existence in social combination. In this there may be what J 
 
 \ appears to be an abridgment of liberty ; but it is the abridgment of ) 
 
 } the liberty of isolation. It is not an abridgment of social or civil ) 
 
 \ liberty, because it is the highest liberty which either interest can \ 
 
 S enjoy consistently with their coherence in society. In such a case, ( 
 
 the liberty incident to isolation is abridged, as a result of the nature i 
 
ADDRESS. 11 
 
 ) of the society — not of the political institutions of that society. It is 
 unquestionably true, that the amount of civil liberty in any one 
 society may differ from that in another; even where in each the 
 highest degree of liberty has been attained for the individuals com- 
 prising it, which is possible. Relatively, the degrees of liberty thus 
 attained will differ, aye, must differ ; but if they do, it will be as the 
 necessity of their social condition, and not because civil liberty in 
 either is less than is practicable. So far is this true, that it is possible 
 for the citizens of each country in the world to be free to the highest 
 degree which its social condition will permit, and yet the citizen of 
 one will be far less free than those of others. In other words, the 
 maximum of liberty possible in different nations, is very different, as 
 a result of the social elements composing them. 
 
 Let it not be forgotten then, that the perfection of liberty in any 
 one nation may be far below what it is in every other, and yet may be 
 all such nation may be susceptible of, or entitled to. This perfection 
 of free institutions in each is not attainable by reaching after that 
 which is adapted to the condition of some other, or in modelling our 
 own after theirs ; but in striving so to construct the elements of our 
 own system, as to secure the highest happiness and liberty of which 
 the members of our own society are capable. 
 
 This is emphatically the study of the true constitutional statesman. 
 The man who writes constitutions by the dozen, and keeps them on 
 hand for use or distribution, without a careful investigation of the 
 social capacities of the people for whom they are designed — he who 
 guesses that our institutions would be admirably suited for China or 
 Japan, or that our federative system of republics would work with 
 facility and success under a President Roberts upon the coast of 
 Africa, is a dangerous empiric — a mere pretender, whose reward 
 should be fixed in a perpetual banishment from the counsels of a wise 
 people, and in the solitude of an asylum for political lunatics. 
 
 I think, that in this view is involved the perfect vindication of that 
 great Southern institution which has been the subject of villification 
 by our enemies, and of some conscientious distrust on the part of a 
 number of our best citizens. Standing upon the basis of the purest 
 Republicanism, I feel that we may as vehemently repel the former as 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 we may honestly and kindly dispel the latter. Republican principle 
 as truly rejects the schemes of the abolitionist, as it condemns (as 
 already shown) the odious ideas of the agrarian and the socialist. 
 They are all hatched in the same nest of fraud and spoliation with 
 Parisian Jacobinism. They have no breath, but discord; no words, 
 
 ) but curses ; no food, no drink, but human misery ; no charity, but 
 that of demons; no love, but visits upon its object a doom more 
 terrible than its hate can inflict on its victim ; no faith, but in a 
 breach of faith ; no belief, but in the dogmas of their own creed ; no 
 morality, but murder, treason, theft, and perjury, even under senato- 
 rial robes; no religion, but atheism ; no God, but themselves! For, ) 
 let it be ever remembered, the prototype of infidel, atheistic abolition 
 
 ( here, is to be found in that Eeign of Terror, when Jacobin France 
 illustrated the doctrines of its kindred socialistic creed, in the blood- 
 flowing streets of her capital, and in the worship of the goddess of its 
 own reason, while trampling under its feet the word of God. Like |> 
 causes must produce results so entirely similar. ( 
 
 It is true that human reason may suggest that the Saxon and ) 
 
 African should never have been united ; and abolition plants itself > 
 
 ( upon this supposed impregnable suggestion. But what is the answer ( 
 ■ with which every candid enquirer cannot fail to be impressed ? How- 
 
 ever wise may be the human suggestion, the Divine Wisdom has ) 
 
 decided that it was best they should be united, and, as I believe, for j 
 
 centuries to come — and as master and slave. Unless, therefore, ? 
 
 humanity is modestly determined to sit as a high court of errors, and ) 
 
 solemnly to reverse the decree of Divinity, it may be considered use- \ 
 
 less further "to justify the ways of God to man," in the mysterious ( 
 
 union of the two races upon the virgin continent of our western world, t 
 
 If I am asked, Was it originally right to bring the African here ? | 
 
 my answer is brief, but to my mind conclusive. It is not a question ) 
 
 for your conscience or mine. We did not bring them here. If it ] 
 was wrong, the responsibility of the act was assumed by a generation 
 which once lived, and, having passed away, has met it long ago, at a 
 higher than human tribunal. The act of bringing has left no load 
 of responsibility upon the souls of this generation. " The fathers have 
 eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth have not been set on edge." 
 
ADDRESS. 13 
 
 I read in that wonderful Providence by which three millions of a 
 stranger race are immovably affixed to our continent, a noble end, 
 which their union with the Anglo-American is to subserve in the 
 , world's future destiny, and a decree of punishment to a guilty race, 
 which, in its execution of banishment from their native land, will yet 
 be freighted with blessings to them and their posterity. We may say 
 in great humility, that the Anglo-Saxon race has been " faithful in a 
 very little." The gifts of Providence strewn in profusion around 
 them have to some extent been improved ; the five talents conferred 
 have been productive of five talents more. And while we thus grate- 
 fully assume that we have been fruitful in some good, can we fail to 
 see in the unhappy and degraded race of Africa, the story of him " who 
 hid his talent in the earth" — who, productive only in a deeper and 
 deeper debasement of his powers, and prostituting them only to the 
 purposes of bestiality, had its solemn doom pronounced in the sen- 
 tence, " Take, therefore, the talent from him, and give it unto him 
 which hath the ten" ? And can we refuse to see, that if we would 
 meet the grand designs of Providence in this additional imposition of 
 responsibility, and this gift for larger development, we must do so by 
 boldly girding up our loins to the enterprise, and improving it to the 
 advancement of our own destiny in that onward march, as we trust, 
 towards the attainment of the highest dignity of which our fallen 
 nature is susceptible ? 
 
 Casting away, then, the timidity of a squeamish sensibility, and 
 applying the true principle of Republicanism already announced, to 
 this deeply vital cpiestion, let me ask, in order to answer, What is our 
 duty ? Clearly not to attempt to meet the responsibilities of others ; 
 nor to pry into the decrees of Providence ; nor to encpiire how we 
 may undo what they have already accomplished ; nor to imagine how 
 much better things would have been managed, had we only lived at a 
 former day, and especially, had we been at the helm of dominion in 
 the affairs of men. None of these ! they are the idle dreams of the 
 sentimentalist, of the order of the " Do Nothings," which must be 
 discarded by the men of this practical "Do Something" age. We 
 must simply meet our responsibility, and, taking things as they are, 
 do what is best in the circumstances in which we are placed. This is 
 our duty ; and we must perform it. 
 
14 ADDRESS 
 
 But ^Republicanism (the false) proposes the equality of the two 
 races. Good sense and universal experience teaches, there can be no 
 equality politically, where social communion cannot exist. History 
 affords no instance in which two races, diverse in particulars which 
 can never be erased or forgotten, have ever existed as co-equal ele- 
 ments in any people. Those which present a supposed analogy to 
 that proposed, have been productive of convulsions, continuing for 
 centuries, and only ceasing when a social amalgamation, which with 
 them was possible, destroyed their political diversity and conflict. 
 But in these cases, the diversity of race was more imaginary than 
 ( real — more the result of difference of habits, and of natural origin, 
 j than of inherent and permanent characteristics. No case can be 
 1 cited, where political equality has co-existed with an unchangeable 
 i diversity in individual peculiarities ; a diversity, not resulting from 
 a difference in mental and moral culture alone, but stamped upon, and 
 ] inherent in, the very physical nature and appearance of the two races 
 ■ conjoined, palpable to the sense, and transmissible forever. 
 
 Need I add, that this social amalgamation between the Saxon and 
 \ African is abhorrent to every sentiment of our natures ? a sentiment, 
 ', which time nor habit can ever eradicate, unless by substituting the 
 I base quality of the inferior for the noble sensibility of the superior 
 ( race. But if it could be removed, a higher law — the law of God — 
 forbids it. It is written upon the constitution of the two races, in 
 characters not to be misunderstood, and declares in plain and em- 
 phatic language, " Those whom God has put asunder, let not man 
 join together." 
 
 It is therefore clear, that our duty forbids equality in social con- 
 dition of the two races, whose destiny it is our responsibility to 
 direct ; and that being forbidden, their political equality, as I have 
 shewn, becomes wholly impossible. What then results ? The ine- 
 quality, social and political, of the Saxon and African, becomes our 
 solemn duty; a permanent inequality, fixed by a decree irreversible. 
 It is obvious, further, that it cannot be the duty of the superior 
 race to assume the position of subordination, and to surrender its real 
 supremacy to that inferior, whose "hidden talent" has been entrusted 
 to its keeping. For, besides, that the supposed evil of inequality 
 
ADDRESS. 15 
 
 would not be removed by such a reversal of positions, a responsibility 
 imposed must be met; and a neglect of duty enjoined is as culpable 
 as the commission of wrong. It then follows, as an inevitable con- 
 clusion, that the duty of the Anglo-Saxon race in the South is so to 
 organize the elements of which our Southern Society is composed, as, 
 by retaining the perpetual supremacy of the master race and the like 
 subordination of the African, to attain the highest happiness of which 
 each is susceptible, in the relative positions which are assigned to 
 them by the decree of Providence. This is the republican duty of 
 the Saxon race. True Republicanism, where the two races exist, can 
 only prevail where such an organization obtains. 
 
 For I put it to any candid man, who hears me, or who will exam- 
 ine this question as he should, whether the very best relation for the 
 two races, if they must live together, be not that of master and 
 slave ? TVith our own experience of the relation between the white 
 and the free negro population — and more than that, with the expe- 
 rience of the free States expressed in many of their new constitu- 
 tions — can any man hesitate to say, that, as the two races exist in the 
 South, the most favorable condition for the African is slavery, and 
 the only condition for the Saxon, consistent with his progress or even 
 existence, is that of being the director of the physical and moral 
 energies of a race whose capacity for self-control, centuries in the 
 past and the experience of the present amply demonstrate ? 
 
 It is not my purpose to vindicate further this important relation in 
 the Southern States. This digression from the general purpose of 
 my address was merely intended as a defence of the institution of 
 Slavery from the charge of being anti-Republican ; and to show that, 
 upon the principle already established, and with the two races co- 
 existent in our Southern society, Republicanism demands the main- 
 tenance of that institution, as best adapted to the happiness and well- 
 being of the subject race ; and as alone consistent with the progress 
 and civilization of that to which Providence has awarded the su- 
 premacy. 
 
 Yet I should do injustice to myself and to our assailed position 
 upon this question, if I did not add, that it is clear to my mind, 
 while the servitude of the African places him in a higher sphere than 
 
he has ever elsewhere attained ; while he is a better man and more 
 civilized than he was in his native wilds, or can be in the wicked pur- 
 lieus of the free cities of the Xorth ; the institution of Slavery has 
 given to the white man more real freedom, has developed in him to a 
 higher degree his mental and moral capacities, and has made him the 
 noblest specimen of the American Republican. The negro slave is a 
 higher being than the negro freeman. The Saxon freeman of the 
 slaveholding State has a more actual and a truer liberty than those of 
 the non-slaveholding. Thus it is that the free labor democracies de- 
 press the high and the low, while the slave labor democracies elevate 
 both. The former level downwards, the latter upwards. 
 
 I trust I have thus developed the true idea of Republicanism; 
 what I believe to have been essentially the Virginian, the American 
 idea. It may be summed up thus-: Each man, with rights distinct 
 from those of every other, enters or adheres to the social organiza- 
 tion to secure them. He is to be regarded as a party to the social 
 compact; and his object in becoming such is the assurance of his 
 own rights ; not claiming to participate in the rights of others, nor 
 permitting others to exact a share in his own. These rights, attach- 
 ing to him as a social, not as an isolated being, are not absolute, but 
 are qualified by the rights of others, and are limited in their nature, 
 as the necessary consequence of association, but not thereby losing 
 their distinctness. The object of government should be to secure 
 these separate rights to each individual, to the full extent which his 
 social relations entitle him to demand. 
 
 Having thus ascertained the legitimate purpose of all government, 
 
 by regarding the motive to social cohesion, it becomes proper to en- 
 
 quire how this purpose can be best carried out, and the means most ( 
 
 appropriate for doing so. 
 
 One o-eneral view will be suggested by the discussion alreadv in- > 
 
 ) 
 dulled : that, as fhe purpose of all government is the assurance of ) 
 
 individual rights, its powers will be best administered when wielded 
 
 by those for whose security it is to operate. In other words, in so 
 
 far as the action of government can be brought under the control of 
 
 the individuals of society, it will the most surely attain the object of 
 
 its institution. 
 
ADDRESS. 17 
 
 This general proposition would indicate that to he the best gov- 
 ernment which is most under the control of the people, or in common 
 phrase, which is Democratic. 
 
 But if we look at the proposition more closely, we will find it in- 
 volves a higher and more important truth. To place the government 
 under the control of all, may he very important; but it is more im- 
 portant that it should be controlled by all, because it is thus subjected 
 to the control of each. We must remember that each man's rights 
 are to be assured, not the rights of a mass of men. For this, he joins 
 the social pact ; for this, he constructs government ; for this, he de- 
 sires a voice in its action. But if his lone voice be drowned in the 
 shout of the popular "All;" if bis rights, though differing from 
 those of all others, should by that shout be condemned to outrage 
 and violation, the purpose for which he contracted the social bond is 
 defeated, and the mastery of the government by the whole will not 
 only be of no advantage to him, but become a ready means for his 
 oppression. 
 
 We thus see the government must be, as to its action upon the 
 rights of each, under the control of each, in order best to carry out 
 its legitimate end; otherwise, the rights of each and all would be 
 subjected to the control of those whose interest might lead them to 
 impair or destroy them. 
 
 But such a government, it may be said, would be impracticable, 
 and is therefore out of the question. The objection is not without 
 force; and I will therefore show how the principle just announced 
 yields to the modification demanded, without any essential impair- 
 ment of its value. 
 
 It will be observed, the power of each person in the contro*I of the 
 government involved in the proposition just stated, is not a power in 
 each to be exerted over others, but is only to be exerted defensively 
 1 for the protection of rights threatened to be invaded by others. It is 
 not an active, but a resistive force. It does not involve the justly 
 detested heresy of an oligarchy, but is under another form of expres- 
 sion, the doctrine of the veto or negative power. 
 
 If, now, we regard society as made up of distinct classes, the inter-- 
 est of each member of the class being that of every other, each class 
 would present a unit of interest, and the voice of that class would 
 
18 ADDRESS 
 
 fairly represent the voice of each of the persons composing it. And 
 if to each class is given the negative power contended for, it -will an- 
 swer every essential purpose of giving it to each of its members. By 
 this means, the value of a negative power is not materially impaired, 
 while its practicability is secured. 
 
 Xow, it is true, that the difficulty lies in the reduction of this great 
 principle to practice. So diverse and intricate are the interests of 
 society; so strangely do the co-incidences in interest of men to-day 
 change to-morrow ; so unseen are the various relations which the 
 classes of society will assume in the future, that the perfection of 
 this principle in practice has never yet been seen. And "yet to dis- 
 card it, because we cannot perfect it, would be as unwise and foolish 
 as it would be fraught with disaster and ruin. That man who ex- 
 pects perfection in human institutions, is unfit for all the practical 
 purposes of life. ^Ve must deal with things as they are, not as we may 
 fancifully conjecture they ought to have been. If we cannot reach 
 truth, we must approximate it. How, we shall proceed to show. 
 If we bear in mind, that the object in view is to secure power to 
 the individual, as a means of protecting his rights from the invasion 
 of others, either through the action of the Government or otherwise, 
 the views I shall now present will be obvious. 
 
 The first consideration with the individual would be, of course, to 
 retain as much power over his own action, and to give as little to the 
 Government, as possible. Thus the primary security to individual 
 liberty is to be found in a strict and rigid limitation upon govern- 
 mental power, and in the reservation of as much as possible to the 
 man. And as his motive in entering into the social compact is the 
 security of his rights from the invasion of others, it is clear, that the 
 more strictly the action of society is confined to the mere protection 
 of personal rights, and the less interference with them it indulges, 
 the more nearly will the purpose of its institution be realized, and 
 ) the more perfect will be the civil liberty of the individual. 
 j Another most important assurance to personal liberty and against 
 ( governmental power, is the American invention of written constitu- 
 ( tions. By this means, the discretion of government is much abridged, 
 ) and its action limited by boundaries prescribed by the popular will. 
 
ADDRESS. 19 
 
 Nor is there reason to apprehend the same danger to liberty from the 
 provisions of a constitution, as from the ordinary acts of legislation. 
 For there is this striking difference between them. The constitution 
 is a, general rule, permanent and fixed ; while the law is a special 
 act, designed to meet a temporary emergency, or perhaps to gratify a 
 transient ebullition of tyrannical passion. The one cannot be repealed 
 except by extraordinary measures ; the other may be repealed at once. 
 Thus the very people who might not hesitate to commit a wrong 
 under a transient impulse, would shrink from giving to government, 
 by a constitutional provision, a permanent and abiding authority to 
 deal tyranny to whomsoever it should list. 
 
 Another security is to be found in that political axiom in our day, 
 by which the three modes in which power may be exercised, are con- 
 fided to hands entirely separate and distinct. It is conceded, that the 
 most unmitigated tyranny would result from the union in the same 
 hands of legislative, executive and judicial functions; while in their 
 separation, thus affording to the citizen the chance of a veto by some 
 one of them upon the despotic purposes of the others, is provided an 
 additional assurance to his rights under a written constitution. 
 
 But there is one other most important view, which I cannot over- 
 look. While judicial power initiates no action against a citizen, and 
 executive authority is merely ministerial, the legislative department 
 affords the widest scope to the invasion of private right. It is there- 
 fore to the organization of this we should look with anxious and 
 watchful vigilance. 
 
 According to the view already presented, it is here that we should 
 secure the power of the veto or negative to the classes of the com- 
 munity, those imits of interest composing the body politic. This can 
 only be done by taking the best united and most prominent interests 
 of society, as the bases of political authority, and so arranging power < 
 between them, that neither can injure the other without its assent. 
 The larger the basis that can be given by this means to the popular 
 will — that is, the greater the majority of the people requisite to the 
 action of the government, and the smaller the minority which is 
 necessary to defeat it — the higher will be the assurance to the rights 
 of the citizen, because the greater will be the possibility, that by his 
 
own individual action he may defeat their contemplated invasion by 
 the Government. 
 
 I need scarcely say, that this is the principle of " concurrent ma- 
 jorities," as it has been most happily designated by the greatest 
 political thinker of our country. The safety of each interest is 
 assured, because its assent is necessary to action. This is the con- 
 summation of political theories; and if it could be perfected in 
 practice, it would make man's happiness and security no longer the 
 subject of another's will, but controllable only by himself, and those 
 whose interests are identical with his own. This would indeed realize 
 the noble idea of self-government. His rights are safe until invaded 
 by himself. He is therefore self-regulated, self-governed. He is a 
 real freeman. 
 
 I cannot but call your attention, for a moment, to the contrast be- 
 tween this system of government and that which boasts the same 
 title; a government of a mere numerical majority. How can the 
 minority, whose rights are under the absolute control of a majority, 
 with no interest in common with them ; who are governed by King 
 Numbers with as despotic power as the Turk by his Sultan, or the 
 Kusse by the Czar; how can this minority be said to be self-governed? 
 Xot consulted, except to be over-ruled ; with no rights but such as 
 the majority may accord to them; with no will, except to obey, they 
 are summoned to sing hosannas to the beauties of a system of self- 
 government, and are deluded into the belief that they are free, when 
 free to do nothing but the bidding of others ! 
 
 That my meaning may not fail to be comprehended, permit me to 
 illustrate this view by our own splendid example. 
 
 Our system is the most compound in its nature, as in its origin, 
 which has ever existed. TTe have not only written constitutions 
 ordaining that entire distinctness of departments already referred to, 
 but we have two distinct governments, each of which is broken into 
 three sub-divisions. Thus, in the mutual checking of the several 
 departments of each government, the citizen has a grand security for 
 his liberty and his rights; and in the rival jealousy of the one gov- 
 ernment to the other, he has more than once found an ample shield 
 for his protection. The strictly limited powers of the Federal Legis- 
 
 ts 
 
ADDRESS. 21 ( 
 
 lature are further curbed by an independent judiciary; the ten- 
 dency of the executive to enlarge its authority is restrained by the 
 guardians of popular liberty in the legislative branch ; and the ever 
 centralizing nature of an overshadowing Federal Government, is held 
 in check by the jealous home governments of the States. 
 
 But this is not all. The veto principle is still more intimately 
 interwoven in the legislative branch of our system. A brief view of 
 this will illustrate my subject more strikingly. 
 ) In the lower house of Congress, the States are represented, but 
 ! according to numerical strength. In the Senate, they are' represented 
 according to their equi-sovereignty. In the Executive, who, as to his 
 negative or veto power, is properly a branch of the Legislature, the 
 States are represented according to the equi-sovereign and numerical 
 elements in combination. Thus, in these several modes in which the 
 States express their law-making will, there must be a concurrence of 
 all, before any law can be made to operate upon any citizen of any 
 one of them; and the dissent of either defeats the action of the 
 others. Thus, in the increased chances of non-action, the danger to 
 liberty from over action is avoided, and the rights of the citizen are 
 secured, because let alone. For I may safely say, in 99 cases in 100, 
 governmental action is more dangerous to personal rights than non- 
 action. 
 
 It is in this veto or negative power of each branch of this com- 
 pound system, each a breakwater to the flood-tide of despotism, that 
 the best security of the citizen can be found ; and so long as the 
 independence of each is assured to it against the influence of the 
 others, so long may our liberties be perpetuated. The danger is in 
 the tendency of some one branch to a monopoly of power in itself; 
 and in the attempt, always to be resisted, to impair the efficacy of the 
 veto principle in any of the various forms under which it exists in our 
 system. There is no substantial danger, and can be none, in the non- 
 action of government. The danger is in its over-action ; a danger 
 avoided by the veto. The veto, let it be ever remembered, can only 
 prevent action ; it can never consummate it. Its efficiency is merely 
 negative ; never positive. It is a shield against power ; it is never the 
 sword of power. 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 This is the theory of our system. It is sad to think how little, 
 even in the best arranged human institutions, there is to assure us of 
 our rights, or to ensure us against wrong. 
 
 For reasons which it would too much prolong this address to ex- 
 plain, in my own judgment, there has been over-action in our entire 
 system, but a fatal tendency to it in our Federal Government. No 
 man can read the Constitution, and the history of its formation — the 
 anxious attempts to guard against an over exercise of power — and 
 then turn to the labors of each term of our Federal Legislature, 
 without feeling, deeply feeling, that it has long since broken through 
 the barriers which parchments had erected, and limited its action only 
 by its illimitable discretion. 
 
 I say in grave seriousness, young gentlemen, the fault is not in our 
 stars, but in ourselves, that this is so. We have not held to the prin- 
 ciples which I have attempted to develope. We have looked too 
 much to the "nation"- — as we term it, with neither constitution nor 
 histoiy to justify the term — and too little to the rights of the citizen. 
 His rights are the motive to all this intricate and theoretically admi- 
 rable — I had almost said, perfect arrangement of elements in our 
 system. But in our admiration of the means, we have too much for- 
 gotten the end. 
 
 Permit me to re-construct the views thus imperfectly analyzed, in 
 order to show the remedy, if there be one. I have endeavored to 
 show, that the best government would be where the power to forbid 
 its action was reserved to every man. But as such a system would 
 be impracticable, the approximation to it is in the reservation of the 
 veto power, as far as is possible, to every class, viewing each as a 
 unit, and as representing fairly in the whole, the views of each man 
 belonging to it. 
 
 In attempting to decompose society into its component interests, 
 though we may fail in doing so perfectly, it is obvious that the nearer 
 we bring the government, which is to operate upon the individual, 
 within the reach of his control, the more secure we make his rights 
 against any infringement by it. And as between two governments 
 who are to legislate for him, power is safest for him in the hands of 
 that one over which he has the greatest influence ; because, to the 
 
ADDRESS. 23 
 
 extent of his greater influence, it is his own control of himself; it is 
 self-government, which is admitted to he the safest for him. And it 
 is further obvious from the course of reasoning already adopted, that 
 this will he proportionally more true, as the government over which 
 he has most influence, is controlled by others whose interests are 
 similar to his own. 
 
 These obvious principles indicate this inevitable conclusion. As 
 each citizen of a State has a proportionably larger influence over its 
 government than he has over the Federal Government, and as his 
 interests and those of the other citizens of the State are more homo- 
 geneous, than are his and those of citizens of all the other States, it 
 follows that power, as far as the rights of each citizen are involved, 
 is safer in the State than it can be in the Federal Government. The 
 mass of power, therefore, should remain in the State Government, 
 and only so much, and not one jot or tittle more, as is absolutely 
 necessary for the purposes of its creation, should be permitted in the 
 Federal Government. 
 
 Looking, then, to the object in view in the establishment of gov- 
 ernment, the security of the rights of the citizen, I am an earnest 
 and jealous advocate of the power of the States, because I am a 
 zealous friend to the sovereignty of the man. As man, a sovereign, 
 formed the social compact upon which the State Government rests, so 
 the State, a sovereign, formed the larger social compact of our Federal 
 Union, upon which rests its now wide-reaching government. And 
 while, as a man, I jealously watch the tendency of the one to encroach 
 upon my individual sovereignty, as a citizen of Virginia I desire that 
 she should guard her sovereignty from the advances of Federal usurp- 
 ation, which in their consequences must further abridge my personal 
 rights and liberty. 
 
 And thus it is, gentlemen, that at last these splendid things, called 
 governments, claiming power as their prerogative, and trampling upon 
 private rights as if they belonged to them, and granting privileges as 
 if they were the vicegerents of Providence, are but the creatures of 
 your power and mine ; they live at our bidding, and die at our will. 
 For by the voice of men they are changed ; by the act of expatri- 
 ation their power over the man ceases ; and by revolution they are 
 overthrown. 
 
24 A D D B E S 
 
 By enlarging the sphere of our view, we find the analogy in our 
 Federal Union. Created by the fiat of each State for itself, it dies at ' 
 its Trill. The expatriation of the citizen is the secession of the State. 
 And thus, when either Government, in violation of the end of its 
 being, makes itself the instrument of wrong, the citizen in the one 
 case, and the State in the other, by the exercise of that high negative 
 or veto authority of which I have spoken, interposes the shield of 
 individual or State sovereignty, for the security of the rights of the 
 man from the usurpation of the Government. 
 
 If the theory of our system is to be realized in its practical opera- 
 tion, it must be by a return to the principles which I have thus 
 imperfectly sketched. The glory of the Government must consist in ' 
 its rigid care of the rights of its citizens. The splendors of its con- 
 quests — the munificence of its charities — the extensiveness of its 
 donations — the largeness of its philanthropy — the brilliancy of its 
 moral reforms — the magnificence of its improvements, manifesting 
 themselves in intrusive regulations of private interests, and injurious 
 diversions of the industry of the country to suit its own views of a 
 well-doing people ; these are all beyond the scope of true govern- 
 mental powers, and dangerous in their exercise to the sphere of indi- 
 vidual freedom. They have made the human race cry out in emphatic 
 remonstrance, " The world is governed too much." Let the man 
 alone ! He knows his interest better than the members of an ephem- 
 eral Legislature, and he can regulate it better. As to moral reform, 
 the man has a conscience to accomplish his own — a guide which has 
 never been given to any body of men. The division of responsibility 
 in the latter destroys the operation of the individual conscience. 
 
 These are all forms of the evils resulting from an assumption of 
 larger powers by Government, than according to its nature were ever 
 designed to be vested in it. Our safety is in the limitation, not the 
 enlargement of power. In our federal relations, our security is in 
 realizing the historical truth, that the Union sprang from the will of 
 State sovereigns; that it is the subject of that will; in restricting the 
 powers of its government within the narrow boundaries allotted by 
 
 5 the Constitution, and in keeping it there. 
 
 I cannot close this address, young gentlemen, without a word to 
 
 \ you personally. My life-bark has too lately left the moorings of the 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 haven from which you so soon sail, for my sympathies to slumber at 
 the prospect of your future. And yet my career has been long 
 enough to enable me, and with your leave, to induce me to tender to 
 jou the suggestive aid of my short experience, and my hopes for your 
 prosperous voyage. 
 
 I presume I address none but Southern men. I may address you 
 as such, for there is no more sincere defender of her institutions than 
 I am. The destiny of the South is one full of matter for concern 
 and reflection for her sons. Perhaps there has been no clime in the 
 world's history, whose destiny was obviously more entirely dependent 
 \ upon herself. If true to herself, it may be more full of dignity, more 
 fraught with good to the human race, than that of any people in the 
 present age. But if untrue to her own highest interests, her fate may 
 be the most melancholy in the records of history. 
 
 When I regard the spectacle of six millions of whites wielding the 
 permanent labor of three millions of Africans, in the cultivation of 
 those articles which feed and clothe the world; when I remember, that 
 their labor lifts the flood-gates of that vast manufacturing horde, in 
 whose employment kingdoms find peace, and whose discharge involves 
 carnage and revolution ; when I remember, that when the century 
 opened, cotton was scarcely known as an export, and that fifty years 
 hawtwitnessed the astounding fact, that it now constitutes more than 
 one-third of the whole export of the country ; when I see every turn 
 in the wheel of the world's revolutions increasing the demand for the 
 products of slave labor, and making, in the order of Providence, slavery 
 a perpetuity in the Southern States ; when I see the Queen of the 
 Antilles stretching out her jewelled arms to hug the kindred shores 
 of our Florida; when I look upon the crumbling edifice of Mexican 
 civilization, requiring Southern men and Southern labor to re-con- 
 struct it under Anglo-American institutions — a country throwing its 
 long arm about our glorious Gulf, and almost touching Cuba with its 
 extremity ; when I read of the rich clime of the Amazon valley, 
 awaiting the labor of the African under the direction of the intelli- 
 gent Southerner, for its full development in those fruits which will 
 send comfort and enjoyment throughout the civilized world; when I 
 take a view of this whitening field of a rich harvest to Southern 
 
26 ADDRESS. 
 
 enterprise, I cannot despair of a nobler destiny for the South, under 
 the patriarchal relation of slavery, than awaits any other people. It 
 is her's to develope the tropics of our continent, and make them what 
 Providence designed them for, the comfort and happiness of the 
 masses of the world. Destroy her institution, and you strip poverty 
 of its clothing, and wealth of its adorning. At her bidding, every 
 spindle in England's factories would cease ; and like the fabled Ne- 
 mesis, she may clip the wings of a world's commerce. With the 
 Gulf for her harbor, the waters penetrating the valleys of the Missis- 
 sippi and Amazon, like the arteries from her heart, would bear back 
 her swift-flowing wealth to the remotest parts of the continent; every 
 sea's canvass would be filled to bear the products of her labor, and 
 every clime be refreshed by the blessings of her industry. 
 
 And who, to such a people, shall dictate terms? shall tell her to sur- 
 render the talent which God has given her, or be prostrated to the bar- 
 barism of St. Domingo ? I say it boldly — she holds the reins of em- 
 pire in Christendom, by means of this, her very weakness. If she be 
 \ brave; if she know and hold her vantage ground; if she speak to 
 her foes the language of defiance, not of fear, she must triumph. 
 What should make her craven ? Whence does she trace her geneal- 
 ogy ? The men who snatched from the hands of insolent power the 
 birth-right of our liberties, were Southerners ! " The illustrious South- 
 erner" who sleeps on the banks of his own Potomac, led the armies 
 of the States to glory and to victory. A Southern voice, whose dead 
 echoes sleep within the sound of my own, proclaimed tyranny to be 
 treason, the love of liberty to be true loyalty, and the clank of Boston 
 chains the summons to the fight for independence. A Southern hand 
 penned the Declaration which announced us sovereign States. And 
 a Southern State — why should I not name her ? — Virginia — may God 
 ever bless her ! — sounded in a despot's ear the first defiant note of 
 the first free Commonwealth of America ! 
 
 Our origin, our history, our manifest destiny, summon us to win 
 a name, the noblest in history. 
 
 Much, young gentlemen, depends upon you ! To you the fate of 
 the South must be in great part committed. The Wizard of the 
 
ADDRESS. 27 
 
 North makes Scotland's beauteous Queen appeal to her young page, 
 when flying from captivity and treason, 
 
 "Oh! Roland Graeme! Be true to me! 
 Many have been false to me !" 
 
 So speaks the South to each one of you ! 
 
 Personal purity of character, individual integrity of purpose, an 
 independence of nature to scorn the possession of power, where it is 
 not won, and cannot be held, with honor ; a fixed determination to do 
 right, and never to sacrifice it to the expedient ; a patriotism which 
 looks to the country's true glory, rather than to the accumulation of 
 her wealth; and an humble and Christian dependence upon the 
 guidance of Providence ; these are the elements which should consti- 
 tute the Southern statesman, to prepare him to guide her in the 
 trying, but I trust glorious future, which is before her. 
 
 Never sacrifice truth to error, even to gain power. Better be a 
 martyr to truth than the favorite child of falsehood. Let it be your 
 resolution, neither to seek power by unworthy means, nor use it for 
 unworthy purposes. Let the candidate for public favor be enrobed in 
 the spotless garb, the toga Candida of his position ; and when success 
 crowns his efforts, let the robes of office be soiled with none of the filth 
 of the arena ! Be assured, its ripening fruit waits to reward the votary 
 of virtue ; and the ashes of disappointment are sure to defile the lips 
 of him, who seizes the bright but tainted apple, the Dead Sea of vice 
 alone can bear. Even obscurity, when sweetened by the conscious- 
 ness of right, is infinitely higher than the eminence of him, whose 
 shining success can never atone for the wrong done in its attainment. 
 For, 
 
 "Not all that heralds rake from coffin'd clay, 
 Nor florid prose, nor honeyed lies of rhyme, 
 Can blazon evil deeds, or consecrate a crime !" 
 
 I wish you, young gentlemen, prosperity in the career which lies 
 before you, and success in the discharge of those duties which may- 
 be assigned to you ; that you may win the honor of the good, and 
 merit and command the respect even of the bad ; and that you may 
 be enabled so to use the talents you possess, that they may redound 
 to the glory and advancement of our country !