DINNER FEW EIGLAID SOCIETY WITH THE SPEECHES MrssKi. GRINNELL, BELLOWS, J. PRESCOTT HALL,. WEBSTER, BULWER, BETHUNE, DRAPER, AND J. WAI SON WEBB. TOGETHER WITH LETTERS FROM DISTINGUISHED INDIVIDUALS. CELEBRATED AT THE ASTOR HOUSE, DECEMBER 23. 1850. NEW-YORK: 1851. COURIER AND ENQUIRER JOB PRINTING ESTABLISHMENT, H, F. SNOWDEN, PRINTER, 70 WALL-ST., N. Y. UCSB LIBRARY Board of Officers. MOSES H. GRINNELL, President. SIMEON DRAPER, Is* Vice President. GEORGE CURTIS, 2d Vice President. Counsellors. PAUL BABCOCK, B. W. BENNEY, CHARLES A. STETSON, CHARLES A. PEABODY, HARVEY P. PEET, LUTHER B. WYMAN, GEORGE WARREN, HENRY H. HURLBUT, CHARLES E. BEEBEE, WM. CURTIS NOYES, WILLARD PARKER, JONATHAN STURGES, JOSHUA L. POPE, Treasurer. EPHRAIM KINGSBURY, Secretary. Assistant Counsellors. COMMITTEE OF ARRANGEMENTS. CHARLES A. STETSON, GEORGE WARREN, LUTHER B. WYMAN, CHARLES A. PEABODY, CHARLES E. BEEBEE. Guests of the New-England Society of New- York. HON. DANIEL WEBSTER, Secretary of Slate. SIR HENRY BULWER, British Minister. GENERAL MOSQUERA, Ex-President of New Grenada. G. P. R. JAMES, England. J. PRESCOTT HALL, U. S. District Attorney. HON. F. A. TALLMADGE, Recorder of the City. BRIG. GEN. WHITING, United Stales Army. REV. MR. VERMYLYE, New-York. REV. MR. BELLOWS, REV. MR. STEBBINS, REV. MR. BETHUNE, CHARLES KING, President of Columbia College. A. H. HAZZARD, Enfield, Ct. J. DE PUYSTER OGDEN, President of St. Nicholas Society. MR. RODEWALD, President of the German Charitable Society. RICHARD IRVIN, President of the Si. Andrew's Society. MR. YOUNG, Vice President of St. George's Society. NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY DINNER SPEECHES, ETC. AFTER the cloth was removed, Mr. GRINNELL, the Pres- ident, made the following remarks : i Gentlemen of the New England Society : I am much gratified to observe that our annual gath- ering retains such interest as to call forth the assemblage which I now see before me. The repetition of our celebrations for so many years would seem naturally to indicate that an occasion so old and familiar might fail to exercise its usual influence; but I am not permitted to doubt that the stern old Pilgrim and his principles are still cherished with all the fervor they so richly deserve. I am happy to say that no meeting of the Society has ever exhibited a greater number of its members ; nor have we ever on any occasion been honored by more distin- guished guests. On my right behold the illustrious Defender of the Con- stitution, whose name will be cherished throughout all time by every true friend of rational liberty. On my left I see, with very great satisfaction, the dis- tinguished representative of her Britannic Majesty. What a combination ! Old England and New England! Britain and America ! Gentlemen, this presence, this conjunction, representing the great principles of freedom on both sides of the Atlantic, give rise to thoughts of deep and permanent interest. Both countries are law-loving and law-abiding. Each has ex- hibited to the other bright precedents of free thought, of a free press, and a free intercourse. If in the progress of events anything can be added to our prosperity in these respects, let that nation bear the palm that furnishes the best example. Our Society may well feel proud that it can present inducements which shall bring to its festive board such dis- tinguished persons to do it honor. Trusting that our hearts and our energies may be moved to continue in the dissemination of the true principles of the Pilgrims, civil rights and civil liberty all over the world, 1 shall without further remark, proceed in the order of our arrangements, to carry out the purposes of this our annual celebration. Mr. GRINNELL gave the following three first of the regu- lar toasts : First ' The Day An era in the history of human progress. May ilbe honored and commemorated by all the sons of New England." Music. Second-" The President of the United States." Music. Third " The Governor of the State of New- York." Music. SPEECH OF THE REV. MR. BELLOWS. Fourth. " The clergy of New England. Their standard of faith is the word of Qod their rule of practice the illustration of its principles." After the music, the Rev. Mr. BELLOWS replied : Mr. President, the band of Pilgrim hearts here present responds even more harmoniously to your sentiment than the orchestra whose tones have just resounded in its honor through the hall. Were it not so, I should shrink from un- expectedly occupying the place of first speaker, or speaker at all, on an occasion of so much expectation as this. But I know that Puritan sentiment heartily assigns the first place to the theme of your toast. It is not the clergy of New Eng- land you mean to honor, but the religion of New England, and her religion, however unworthily represented, has no right to be shamefaced in any presence. In speaking for her, the humblest person here would have an advantage, on an occasion like this, over the most exalted representative of any other interest. Sir, it is becoming in the descendants of our fathers to make a distinction between their religion and their clergy for it is our highest honor and privilege to have descended from founders, whose piety needed little official support. The tide of religious enthusiasm which bore our fathers here, rose above the line which divides the layman from the priest. In the Old Colony, there was no- teaching elder for several years, but the people were not less attentive to their religious duties for that. Their interest in religion was too personal and thorough, too general and characteristic, to be dependent on the ordinary professional stimulus. Every leading man was a priest unto God, learned in the Scrip- tures, apt to teach, and requiring no clerical guide to make the Bible plain or to enforce its authority. Indeed it would have been strange had the Pilgrims neglected the very thing that brought them here. They came to New England for the sake of religion not so much for freedom of conscience, as strictness of conscience for purity of religion more than for religious liberty ; and that freedom of conscience we have inherited from them, precious as it is, is far less valu- able than the legacy of faith and piety the sanctity of personal religion bequeathed by their great and solemn example. It was not till the first era of religious enthusiasm had pass- ed by, that the clergy of New England became as a class important and influential. And then respect for religion, secured their office reverence and their counsel attention. There was no disposition to make light of their wisdom in things pertaining to this life. Our fathers had not learned how to separate between the principles applicable to politics and business and those applicable to our eternal relations. The clergy, consequently, were freely and deferentially consulted upon all questions of social or political impor- tance, and it is a mere matter of history that they had a 8 large part in the shaping of the early civil policy of New England. If WINTHUOP and HAYNES and EATON left the impress of their judicious minds upon the political institutes of Massachusetts and Connecticut, COTTON and HOOKER and DAVENPORT contributed no less to their candor, and are no less commemorated by them. INCREASE MATHER was largely instrumental in obtaining the second charter of Massachusetts ; while the memory of MAYIIEU and CHAUN- CEY and COOPER is fragrant among all those acquainted with the struggles which preceded and accompanied our Revolu- tion. Nor were our fathers afraid of political sermons. They were accustomed to this method of receiving advice. The Griffin which brought over HAYNES and HOOKER and COTTON, was sped on her voyage by three sermons a day in which politics no doubt had their place. The venerable election sermon of Massachusetts perpetuates the deference which politics has always paid to religion and her ministers, among the descendants of the Pilgrims. It is true there was always a jealousy of direct political interference from the clergy, and probably the New England clergy have owed their political influence, in no small degree, to their careful exclusion from formal political power. Nay, they have owed it no less to the liberty the people have always reserved to themselves, freely to differ from their ministers, when their political sentiments did not please them When COTTON, in 1634, on election day, in order to check the too demo- cratic tendencies of the times, preached to the assembled freemen against rotation in office, the electors, 380 in num- ber, after a most respectful hearing, proceeded next day to choose a new Governor and Deputy. And so always they were equally ready to take the advice of the clergy and to follow their own, and respected their own independence and courage too much to think it necessary to silence their ministers for fear they might be compelled to follow their opinions, when contrary to their own judgment. And why, Mr. President, among descendants of the Pil- grims, should there be any jealousy between the clergy, and the statesmen and politicians of the land, in respect to poli- tical influence or the discussion of questions of national importance ? Their functions are different ; they occupy different spheres, and look at politics from different yet equally important points of view. It belongs to men having in charge the immediate adjustment of social order to con* sider what is expedient and feasible, and to make such ac- commodations between the desirable and the possible as sound policy or worldly wisdom may suggest or require. But certainly there is a place in society for those who strictly contemplate what is absolutely just and good, and endeavor to conform the shows of things to the desires of the mind } to stimulate communities to the emulation of abstract prin- ciples of right in their political order and conduct. If prac- ticed statesmen, sagacious merchants, subtle lawyers, claim, in their united wisdom and moderation, to be the heart of a prosperous and well-ordered community equalizing the circulation and distributing vital nourishment to every part, the clergy may claim to represent the lungs of the na- tion, whose function it is to purify public sentiment, the life-blood of the body politic, by bringing it in contact with the free, pure air of Heaven. Mr. President, my hand is resting on the corner-stone of our institutions not on Plymouth rock, but that which might fitly have been placed beneath Plymouth rock as a more fundamental base, when a few years ago it was lifted from its bed to bring it above the surface of the ground. It is the Bible a Bible just put into my hands by a gentle- man present, (J. COVVLES, Esq.) whose ancestor brought it over in the Mayflower, and who, if I mistake not, was the father of the first child born in New England. Sir, this Bible, a precious memorial in itself, furnishes a significant and happy omen, in that it has been for the last twenty years in Georgia. This Bible sent our Fathers here, it in- spired their instructions, and it must defend and uphold them. The Bible, interpreted and applied by an earnest and independent clergy to the consciences of a free and intelligent people, has been the sacred source of whatever is glorious in our past history, is the cause of our present prosperity, and the only security for our future welfare as a nation. But, Sir, I must not forget that long sermons are not as popular now as in the days when a sermon in its teens was not considered impertinent. I must keep myself reminded of a recent ingenious parallel between a sermon and a kiss, which, it was wittily said, both properly consisted of two heads and an application. I will only add, for fear some 2 10 tell-tale parishioner, of whom I see many, might maliciously do it himself, that there is a modern way of evading even this rule, by honoring it more, i. e. abbreviating the sermon to one head, but furnishing it with a very long tail. But this, at least now, shall be cut off. Mr. President, our Congress in 1790 passed an act, abol- ishing whatever remained of that old statute known to the English law under the title, " The Benefit of Clergy." May I, without claiming too much for 'ny own profession, be allowed to hope that public sentiment will re-enact this statute in a new and more potent form, and that the " Ben- efit of Clergy" will be transmuted from a privilege claimed by the priest into a blessing conferred upon the people. SPEECH OF J. PRESCOTT HALL, ESQ, Fifth " The Common School: A tree of knowledge originally planted in New England; its seeds are wafted over the Continent." J. PRESCOTT HALL, Esq., responded to this toast, as fol- lows : The sentiment which has just been expressed, carries every New England man back to the days of his childhood. It associates itself with those school-boy times when he was made subject to the discipline of the village teacher; stern perhaps in manner, but kind and persuasive in action. And these recollections are all connected with the cheerful play-ground, the healthful exercise, the ringing laugh, and light heart of those happy days, when he was sheltered beneath the roof-tree of his parents, fed by their care, and protected by their watchfulness. Then, again, the green hills and smiling valleys : the murmuring brooks and mountain torrents of his own New England, come back to his vision, and his heart melts at the thought of days "long vanished, which can ne'er come again." But if his soul be sorrowful, oppressed by this remem- brance of his early youth, yet when he reflects upon the benefits which he himself has derived from the free public institutions of his native land : when he reviews the hours of his childhood, and connects them with his present con- dition, he cannot but raise his eyes in thankfulness to those 11 thoughtful and far-seeing ancestors, who more than two centuries ago had no sooner transported a rational liberty into the New World, than they prepared the only means by which that liberty could be sustained ; and that was by a system of public instruction which should embrace every individual in the Commonwealth. I know not whence it was, unless from their own good sense, that our ancestors derived this notion of the indis- pensable necessity, in a free government, of a thorough plan of general education at the public expense. Certain it is, they left behind them no corresponding in- stitutions in their native country; for in old England no system, even of charity instruction, was thought of until long after the fires of the village school-houses were blazing upon their hearths in all the towns of her northern colonies. But immediately after the settlement of Plymouth, of Mas- sachusetts and Connecticut, we find in their early legisla- tion, stern enactments compelling all parents and all masters to see that their children, apprentices and servants were duly trained in the proper elements of a good English edu- cation ; that they might be able to read the Scriptures in their native language without gloss or paraphrase, and un- derstand the capital laws of their country. To accomplish this object effectually, the property of every individual was held subject to this first want of a social community ; and the question was not, whether he who paid the tax was to be directly benefitted by it, but whether he was a member of the Commonwealth, and so, subject to this class of charges. Plymouth, almost as soon as settled, laid an excise upon the fisheries at Cape Cod, for the express purpose of raising a fund in aid of public schools ; and the laws of Connect- icut were so stern upon the subject of education, that if pa- rents disregarded their duty in this respect, and continued in neglect after admonition, then the control of the children might be transferred from the parents to proper guardians, who were to discharge the solemn duty which had been thus neglected. Our ancestors seem to have been impressed, from the be- ginning, with the belief that a good education "was better than riches," and if they established a proper system of public instruction at the public expense, that then, as a mat- 12 ter of course, the blessings of free institutions wera made sure and perpetual. Nor at this early stage of their history did they confine themselves to the rudiments of learning alone ; for they not only ordained that every town containing a given number of families should maintain a common school, but that when those families had increased in a certain ratio, then that such towns should maintain a grammar school also, at their own expense. They went even further than this : and from a very early period of their history the New England colonies turned their attention to the establishment of colleges for the higher branches of education, that science and its benefits might not be lost from out the land, or driven to foreign countries for refuge and cultivation. And almost from this beginning we find that HARVARD and YALE, " those twins of learning," were fostered and sheltered by the protecting power of the government. The object of our ancestors seemed to be to secure in- struction at all events and all hazards, and this peculiarity stamped itself on -their characters. The knowledge thus acquired prepared the descendants of the early planters for that great struggle which was to be their sure inheritance, and it enabled them to understand all their just rights while defending their chartered privileges. When the people of Boston met, in open town meet- ing in 1764, to consider the Stamp Act, they did not yield up the general supervision of their public affairs ex- clusively to their Representatives, but coming together in a public assembly, they then and there discussed those grave matters, and gave instructions to their representatives, di- rect and specific, as to the opinions they were to assert, and the grounds they were to maintain. Could ignorant men have done this ? Could uneducated men have done this ? And do we not here perceive the direct influence of the public schools upon the minds of those who had received their benefits ? See it in FRANKLIN, once a Boston school-boy, afterwards the Sage, the Patriot and Philosopher. He never received an hour of instruction except in the public institutions of his native town. And yet, who is there that ever wrote his native language with more beauty, clearness and pre- cision ? Guided by this Ariadne's clew, furnished from a 13 free school -of New England, he was led through all the mazes of science ; and finally, after a life devoted to knowl- edge, to philosophy and the service of his country, the school-boy of Boston went down to the grave full of years and full of honors, while upon his tomb-stone was inscribed by a foreign hand, that magnificent epitaph which will never die: "Eripuit ccclo fulmen sceptrumque tyrannis." Look "again, and see further products of New England school-houses. See SAMUEL ADAMS, the earliest patriot of the Revolution, so stern, so incorruptible, that his worst enemy, Gov. HUTCHINSON, said there was no office under the British crown that could seduce him from fidelity to his native land. Honored in life, which was prolonged to an unusual pe- riod, the solace of his declining years was to discourse upon the independence of his country, the manners and customs of New England, and the FREE SCHOOLS by which they were fashioned and maintained. See ELLSWORTH, of Connecticut, once a Chief Justice of your federal judiciary, framing with his own hand the general jurisprudence of the Union, after the plain and sim- ple models of his native State, while heaven-descended mercy is softening down the Puritan sternness of ancient practice. Look once again, and see JOHN ADAMS, the son of a New England farmer. See him, too, struggling with the waves of early toil, to emerge at last in the halls of the Continental Congress, there to stand, in the language of JEFFERSON, the Ajax'Telarnon of his country. The Grecian Ajax, when surrounded by darkness in the day of battle, addressing himself to his deity, implored for light, saying : "Dispel this cloud, the light of Heaven restore, " Give me to see, and Ajax asks no more." The mind of the American Ajax had been touched by the electric fire of a New England school-house, and he, too, could say, " give me this light, and Ajax asks no more." Look, at last, for a glorious elucidation of this very sub- ject in our own times and under our own eyes. Look to him who has illustrated the whole course of a 14 New England education in his own person and in his own action. See him bearing the school-boy satchel upon the granite hills of New Hampshire, to drink in knowledge from the public sources, pure as the crystal streams of his native mountains. See him advancing, step by step, "clothed in" this "pano- ply complete of Heavenly durance," until he has surmounted the rugged steeps of human acquirement, and now stands secure upon their summit. Then we also may " To the famous orator repair," ' whose resistless eloquence " Wielded at will this fierce democraty, " and fulmineil.over Greece, "To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne.'' And, gentlemen, when we consider such great results flowing from such apparently inconsiderable causes, may we not look back upon the good deeds of our great ances- tors, and bless this chiefest work of their hands the Free Schools of New England? To them we are indebted for everything that is practical and valuable in our educations. It is to those very Free Schools that we owe the privilege we now enjoy of sitting at this festive board, " under our own vine and fig tree, with none to molest or make us afraid." This glorious institution has been transplanted here, to this our adopted State. It has been fostered and sustained even to this very hour by the free voters of this great com- munity, in a contest whose dying echoes still vibrate in our ears. This goodly "tree of knowledge" has struck its roots strong and deep in the genial soil of New- York, and we trust that it may here remain and spring up and blossom, to bring forth " sixty and an hundred fold" in the rich fruits of civilization and human happiness. SPEECH OF HON. DANIEL WEBSTER. Mr. GRINNELL then asked attention to a toast which was not on the catalogue, but which he thought every one would vote to be placed there forthwith. He gave "THE CONSTITUTION AHD THE UNION, AND THEIR CHIEF DEFENDER." 15 This sentiment was received with great applause ; and when Mr. WEBSTER rose to respond to it, he was greeted with the most prolonged and tumultuous cheers. When- the applause had subsided, he spoke as follows : Mr. President, and Gentlemen of the New-York New England Society : Ye sons of New England ! Ye brethren of a kindred tie! I have come hither to-night, not without some inconven- ience, that I might behold a congregation whose faces bear lineaments of a New England origin, and whose hearts beat with full New England pulsations. [Cheers.] I wil- lingly make the sacrifice. I am here, to meet this assembly of the great offshoot of the Pilgrim Society of Massachusetts, the Pilgrim Society of New- York. And, gentlemen, I shall begin what I have to say, which is but little, by tendering to you my thanks for the invitation extended to me, and by wishing you, one and ail, every kind of happiness and pros- perity. Gentlemen, this has been a stormy, a cold, a boisterous and inclement day. The winds have been harsh, the skies have been severe ; and if we had no houses over our heads ; if we had no shelter against this howling and freezing tem- pest ; if we were wan and worn out ; if half of us were sick and tired, and ready to descend into the grave ; if we were on the bleak coast of Plymouth, houseless, homeless, with nothing over our heads but the Heavens, and that God who sits above the Heavens; if we had distressed wives on our arms, and hungry and shivering children clinging to our skirts, we should see something, and feel something, of that scene which, in the providence of God, was enacted at Plymouth on the 22d of December, 1620. Thanks to Almighty God, who from that distressed, early condition of our fathers, has raised us to a height of pros- perity and of happiness whi,ch they neither enjoyed nor could have anticipated ! We have learned much of them ? they could have foreseen little of us. Would to God, my friends, would to God that when we carry our affections and our recollections back to that period, we could arm ourselves with something of the stern virtues which sup- ported them in that hour of peril, and exposure, and suffer' 10 ing. Would to God that we possessed that unconquerable resolution, stronger than bars of brass or iron, which nerved their hearts ; that patience, "sovereign o'er transmuted ill," and above all, that faith, tl. at Religious faith which, with eyes fast fixed upon Heaven, tramples all things earthly beneath her triumphant feet! [Applause.] Gentlemen, the scenes of this world change. What our ancestors saw and felt, we shall not see nor feel. What they achieved, it is denied to us even to attempt. The se- verer duties of life, requiring the exercise of the stern and unbending virtues, were .theirs. They were called upon for the exhibition of those ausiere qualities which, before they came to the western wilderness, had made them what they \vere. Things have changed. In the progress of society, the fashions, the habits of life, and all its conditions, have changed. Their rigid sentiments, and their tenets, appa- rently harsh and exclusive, we are not called on, in every respect, to imitate or commend ; or rather to imitate, for we should commend them always, when we consider that state of society in which they had been adopted, and in which they seemed necessary. Our fathers had that reli- gious sentiment, that trust in Providence, that determina- tion to do right, and to seek, through every degree of toil and suffering, the honor of God, and the preservation of their liberties, which we shall do well to cherish, to imitate, and to equal, so far as God may enable us. It may be true, and it is true, that in the progress of society the milder vir- tues have come to belong more especially to our day and our condition. The Pilgrims had been great sufferers from intolerance; it was not unnatural that their own faith and practice, as a consequence, should become somewhat intol- erant. This is the common infirmity of human nature. Man retaliates on man. It is to be hoped, however, that the greater spread of the benignant principles of religion, and of the divine charity of Christianity, has, to some extent, im- proved the sentiments which prevailed in the world at that time. No doubt the "first comers," as they were called, were attached to their own forms of public worship, and to their own particular and strongly cherished religious senti- ments. No doubt they esteemed those sentiments, and the observances which they practiced, to be absolutely binding on all, by the authority of the word of God. It is true, I 17 think, in the general advancement of human intelligence, that we find what they do not seem to have found, that a greater toleration of religious opinion, a more friendly feel- ing towards all who profess reverence for God, and obedi- ence to his commands, is not inconsistent with the great and fundamental principles of religion. I might rather say is, it- self, one of those fundamental principles. So we see in our day, I think, without any departure from the essential prin- ciples of our fathers, a more enlarged and comprehensive Christian philanthropy. It seems to be the American destiny, the mission which God has entrusted to us here on this shore of the Atlantic, the great conception and the great duty to which we are born, to show that all sects, and all denomi- nations, professing reverence for the authority of the Author of our being, and belief in his Revelations, may be safely tolerated without prejudice either to our religion or to our liberties. [Cheers.] We are Protestants, generally speaking ; but you all know that there presides at the head of the Supreme Ju- dicature of the United States a Roman Catholic ; and no man, I suppose, through the whole United States, imagines that the judicature of the country is less safe, that the administration of public justice is less respectable or less secure, because the Chief Justice of the United States has been, and is, an ardent adherent to that religion. And so it is in every department of society amongst us. In both Houses of Congress, in all public offices, and all public affairs, we proceed on the idea that a man's religious belief is a matter above human law ; that it is a question to be settled between him and his Maker, because he is responsi- ble to none but his Maker for adopting or rejecting revealed truth. And here is the great distinction which is sometimes overlooked, and which I am afraid is now too often over- looked, in this land, the glorious inheritance of the sons of the Pilgrims. Men, for their religious sentiments, are ac- countable to God, and to God only. Religion is both a communication and a tie between man and his Maker ; and to his own master every man standeth or falleth. But when men come together .in society, establish social rela- tions, and form governments for the protection of the rights of all, then it is indispensable that this right of private judg- 18 ment should in some measure be relinquished and made subservient to the judgment of the whole. Religion may exist while every man is left responsible only to God. So- ciety, civil rule, the civil state, cannot exist, while every man is responsible to nobody and to nothing but to his own opinion. And our New England ancestors understood all this quite well. Gentlemen, there is the " Constitution" which was adopted on board the Mayflower in November, 1620, while that bark of immortal memory was riding at an- chor in the harbor of Cape Cod. What is it? Its authors honored God ; they professed to obey all his commandments, and to live ever and in all things in his obedience. But they say, nevertheless, that, for the establishment of a civil polity, for the greater security and preservation of their civil rights and liberties, they agree that the laws and ordi- nances, and I am glad they put in the word " constitutions,' 1 invoking the name of the Deity on their resolution ; they say, that these laws and ordinances, and constitutions, which may be established by those they should appoint to enact them, they, in all due submission and obedience, will sup- port. This constitution is not long, I will read it. It invokes a religious sanction and the authority of God on their civil obligations ; for it was no doctrine of theirs that civil obe- dience was a mere matter of expediency. Here it is : " In the name of God, Amen : We, whose names are underwritten, the loyal sub- jects of our dread Sovereign Lord, King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Bri- tain, France, and Ireland, King, and Defender of the Faith, &c., having undertaken, for the glory of God and advancement of the Christian faith, and honor of our king and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the heathen parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and of one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation, and furtherance of the ends aforesaid, end by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such, just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and con- venient for the general good of the colony ; unto which we promise all due submis- sion and obedience." The right of private judgment in matters between the Creator and himself, and submission and obedience to the will of the whole, upon whatsoever respects civil polity and the administration of such affairs as concerned the colony about to be established, they regarded as entirely consistent ; and the common sense of mankind, lettered and unlettered, 19 every where establishes and confirms this sentiment. Indeed, all must see, that it is the very ligament, the very tie, which connects man to man, in the social system ; and these sentiments are embodied in that constitution. Gen- tlemen, discourse on this topic might be enlarged, but I pass from it. Gentlemen, we are now two hundred and thirty years from that great event. There is the Mayflower, (pointing to a small figure of a ship, in the form of confectionary, that stood before him.) There is a little resemblance, but a correct one, of the Mayflower. Sons of New England ! there was in ancient times a ship that carried JASON to the acquisition of the Golden Fleece. There was a flag-ship at the battle of Actium which made AUGUSTUS CJESAR master of the world. In modern times, there have been flag-ships which have carried HAWKES, and HOWE, and NELSON on the other continent, and HULL, and DECATUR, and STEWART, on this, to triumph. What are they all ; what are they all, in the chance of remembrance among men, to that little barque, the Mayflower, which reached these shores on the 22d day of December, 1620. Yes, brethern of New England, yes! that Mayflower was a flower destined to be of perpetual bloom! [Cheers.] Its verdure will stand the sultry blasts of summer, and the chilling winds of autumn. It will defy winter; it will defy all climate, and all time, and will con- tinue to spread its petals to the world, and to exhale an ever living odor and fragrance " to the last syllable of recorded lime." [Cheers.] Gentlemen, brethren, ye of New England ! whom I have come some hundreds of miles to meet this night, let me present to you one of the most distinguished of those per- sonages who came hither on the deck of the Mayflower. Let me fancy that I now see Elder WILLIAM BREWSTER en- tering the door at the further end of this hall. A tall and erect figure, of plain dress, of no elegance of manner beyond a respectful bow, mild and cheerful, but of no merriment that reaches beyond a smile. Let me suppose that his image stood now before us, or that it was looking in upon this assembly. " Are ye, are ye," he would say, with a voice o)T exulta- tion, and yet softened with melancholy, " Are ye our chil- 20 " dren ? Does this scene of refinement, of elegance, of riches, * : of luxury, does all this come from our labors? Is this " magnificent city, the like of which we never saw nor heard " of on either continent, is this but an offshoot from Plymouth " rock ? " duis jams locus .... Q.UCC regio in terris nostri non plena laboris 1 " Is this one part of the great reward, for which my " brethren and myself endured lives of toil and of hardship? " We had faith and hope. God granted us the spirit to look " forward, and we did look forward. But this scene we " never anticipated. Our hopes were on another life. Of " earthly gratifications we tasted little ; for human honor? " we had little expectation. Our bones lie on the hill iu " Plymouth church-yard, obscure, unmarked, secreted to " preserve our graves from the knowledge of savage foes. " No stone tells where we lie. And yet, let me say to you, "who are our descendants, who possess this glorious coun- " try, and all it contains, who enjoy this hour of prosperity, " and the thousand blessings showered upon it by the God " of your fathers, we envy you not ; we reproach you not. " Be rich, be prosperous, be enlightened. Live in pleasure, if such be your allotment on earth ; but live, also, always to God and to duty. Spread yourselves and your children over the continent ; accomplish the whole of your great destiny ; and if so be, that through the whole you carry Puritan hearts with you ; if you still cherish an undying love of civil and religious liberty, and mean to enjoy them yourselves, and are willing to shed your heart's blood to " transmit them to your posterity, then are you worthy de- " scendants of CARVER and ALLERTON and BRADFORD, and " the rest of those who landed from stormy seas on the rock " of Plymouth." [Loud and prolonged cheers.] Gentlemen, that little vessel, on the 22d of December, 1620, made her safe landing on the shore of Plymouth. She had been tossed on a tempestuous ocean ; she approached the New England coast under circumstances of great dis- tress and trouble ; yet amidst all the disasters of her voyage, she accomplished her end, and she placed the feet of a hun- dred precious souls on the shore of the New World. Gentlemen, let her be considered this night as an emblem 21 of New England, as New England now is. New England is a ship, staunch, strong, well-built, and particularly well- manned. She may be occasionally thrown into the trough of the sea, by the violence of winds and waves, and may wallow there for a time ; but, depend upon it, she will right herself. She will, ere long, come round to the wind, and will obey her helm. [Cheers and applause.] We have hardly begun, my brethren, to realize the vast importance, on human society, and on the history and hap- piness of the world, of the voyage of that little vessel which brought the love of civil and religious liberty hither, and the Bible, the word of God, for the instruction of the future generations of men. We have hardly begun to realize the consequences of that voyage. Heretofore the extension of our race, following our New England ancestry, has crept along the shore. But now the race has extended. It has crossed the continent. It has not only transcended the Allegheny, but has capped the Rocky Mountains. It is now upon the shores of the Pacific ; and on this day, or, if not on this day, then this day twelvemonth, descendants of New England will there celebrate the landing A VOICE. " To-day ; they celebrate to-day." Mr. WEBSTER. God bless them ! Here's to the health and success of the California Society of Pilgrims assembled on the shores of the Pacific. [Prolonged applause.] And it shall yet go hard, if the three hundred millions of people of China if they are intelligent enough to understand any thing shall not one day hear and know something of the Rock of Plymouth too ! [Laughter and cheers.] But, gentlemen, I am trespassing too long on your time. [Cries of No, no ! Go on !] I am taking too much of what belongs to others. My voice is neither a new voice, nor is it the voice of a young man. It has been heard before in this place, and the most that I have thought or felt concern- ing New England history and New England principles, has been before, in the course of my life, said here or elsewhere. Your sentiment, Mr. President, which called me up before this meeting, is of a larger and more comprehensive nature. It speaks of the Constitution under which we live ; of the Union, which for sixty years has been over us, and made us associates, fellow-citizens of those who settled at Yorktown 22 and the mouth of the Mississippi, and their descendants, ami now, at last, of those who have come from all corners of the earth and assembled in California. I confess I have had my doubts whether the republican system under which we live could be so vastly extended without danger of dissolu- tion. Thus far, I willingly admit, my apprehensions have not been realized. The distance is immense ; the interven- ing country is vast. But the principle on which our Gov- ernment is established, the representative system, seems to be indefinitely expansive ; and wherever it does extend, it seems to create a strong attachment to the Union and the Constitution that protects it. I believe California and New Mexico have had new life inspired into all their people. They consider themselves subjects of a new being, a new creation, a new existence. They are not the men they thought themselves to be, -now that they find they are mem- bers of this great Government, and hailed as citizens of the United States of America. I hope, in the providence of God, as this system of States and representative govern- ments shall extend, that it will be strengthened. In some respects the tendency s to strengthen it. Local agitations will disturb it less. If there has been on the Atlantic coast, somewhere south of the Potomac and I will not define further where it is if there has been dissatisfaction, that dissatisfaction has not been felt in California ; it has not been felt that side the Rocky Mountains. It is a localism, and I am one of those who believe that our system of gov- ernment is not to be destroyed by localisms, North or South ! [Cheers.] No ; we have our private opinions, State prejudices, local ideas ; but over all, submerging all, drowning all, is that great sentiment, that always, and ne- vertheless, we are all Americans. It is as Americans that we are known, the whole world over. Who asks what State you are from, in Europe, or in Africa, or in Asia ? Is he an American is he of us ? Does he belong to the flag of the country ? Does that flag protect him ? Does he rest under the eagle and the stars and stripes ? If he does, if he is, all else is subordinate and worthy of but little concern. [Cheers.] Now it is our duty, while we live on the earth, to cherish this sentiment, to make it prevail over the whole country, even if that country should spread over ihe whole continent. 23 It is our duty to carry English principles I mean, sir, (said Mr. WEBSTER turning to Sir HEXRY BULWER,) Anglo-Saxon American principles, over the whole continent the great principles of Magna Charta, of the English Revolution, and especially of the American Revolution, and of the English language. Our children will hear SHAKSPEARE and MILTON recited on the shores of the Pacific. Way, before that, American ideas, which are essentially and originally English ideas, will penetrate the Mexican the Spanish mind ; and Mexicans and Spaniards will thank God that they have been brought to know something of civil liberty, of the trial by jury, and of security for personal rights. As for the rest, let us take courage. The day-spring from on high has visited us ; the country has been called back, to conscience and to duty. There is no longer imminent danger of dissolution in these- United States. [Loud and repeated cheers.] We shall live, and not die. We shall live as united Americans ; and those who have supposed that they could sever us, that they could rend one American heart from another, and that speculation and hypothesis, that se- cession and metaphysics, could tear us asunder, will find themselves dreadfully mistaken. [Cheers.] Let the mind of the sober American people remain sober. Let it not inflame itself. Let it do justice to all. And the truest course, and the surest course, to disappoint those who meditate disunion, is just to leave them to themselves, and see what they can make of it. No, gentlemen ; the time for meditated secession is past. Americans, North and South, will be hereafter more and more united. There is a sternness and severity in the public mind lately aroused. I believe that, North and South, there has been, in the last year, a renovation of public sentiment, an animated revival of the spirit of Union, and, more than all, of attachment to the Constitution, regarding it as indispensably necessary ; and if we would preserve our nationality, it is indispensable that the spirit of devotion should be still more largely in- creased. And who doubts it? If we give up that Con- stitution, what are we ? You are a Manhattan man ; I am a Boston man. Another is a Connecticut, and another a Rhode Island man. Is it not a great deal better, standing hand to hand, and clasping hands, that we should remain as we have been for sixiy years citizens of the same country, 24 members of the same Government, united all united now and united forever ? That we shall be, gentlemen. There have been difficulties, contentions, controversies angry controversies ; but I tell you that, in my judgment, " those opposed eyes, Which, like the meteors of a troubled heaven, All of one nature, of one substance bred, Did lately meet in th' intestine shock. Shall now, in mutual well-becoming ranks, MARCH ALL ONE WAY." Mr. WEBSTER, on closing, was greeted with the most hearty, prolonged, and tumultuous applause. SPEECH OF SIR HENRY BULWER. "OLD ENGLAND AND YOUNG AMERICA : Bound together by a common language nd a common lineage, may they be still more firmly united by the ties of interest and mutual good will." Sir HENRY BULWER rose amidst loud cheering to respond to this sentiment, and addressed the company as follows : Gentlemen, I should feel wholly unequal to addressing this meeting, which is yet under the magic influence of the voice that lately thrilled through it, if I did not know that the most feeble accents will always be heard with kindness when it is seen that they express the sentiments of esteem and affection with sincerity. [Cheers.] I, like my honor- able friend, Mr. WEBSTER, made a point of accepting the invitation, which was so cordially made to me, and of at- tending this meeting, because I know that you do not ex- pect in me the buttoned-up diplomatist, but the Englishman, with open hand and heart, who would tell you frankly what the feelings and thoughts of Englishmen were likely to be on such an occasion as the present. [Cheers.] I am but a slender representative of John Bull, [laughter,] but I am an honest and a true one [cheers] and I can assure you that there is not a national sentiment in my mind that does not sympathize with yours on this great solemn anniversary. It is not merely that the moral influence of the small island of my birth will probably be carried by the event which we are now commemorating, by the ways of plenty and along the paths of peace, further than the name of Rome was 25 ever borne by her crimson eagles, amidst the horrors of war and the devastations of conquest ! [Applause.] It is also because this event is imperishably connected with that me- morable epoch, from the great thoughts and deeds of which has been distilled the spirit which yet burns in the breasts of my countrymen, and justifies the pride which 1 feel in having their principles spread and their renown diffused throughout the world. [Applause ] I mean, gentlemen, the spirit of Liberty, which, then created, has been refined and purified by subsequent time and care from the grosser and more turbulent element^ which might have been at first mixed with it. [Applause.] It was at the gloomy dawn of that eventful struggle which had shortly afterwards to decide whether the House of Stuart should be absolute, or the people of England should be free ! It was in the reign of JAMES a little after VILLIERS had risen into favor, COKE had been disgraced, and RALEIGH beheaded ; and a little before the time at which the Parliament met, in which JOHN HAMPDEN, the young squire of Buckinghamshire, first took his seat amidst that band of patriots, whose councils he was soon to direct by his wisdom and animate by his courage that there might have been seen a solitary bark taking its adventurous way across the broad waters of the Atlantic ; that bark was freighted with nineteen families, who asked no other recompense for their past sufferings and present daring but a home a home somewhere anywhere, in which they could live and die without violating the dictates of their conscience. [Applause.] After some peril and many disappointments, the sacred vessel at last entered a shallow bay, the extended arms of which seemed to welcome its approach and invite its stay. The anchor was dropped the home which the wanderers had been seeking lay before them. But, as my honorable friend (Mr. WEBSTER) stated, cofd blew the wind, barren was the shore, and not far distant might have been seen, through the bare branches of surrounding woods, the dark figure of the Indian, in whose savage neighborhood the hamlet could hardly hope to sleep in peace, or the husband- man to labor in security. There are few instances in his- tory of men staying their footsteps at so unpromising a spot. But I guess, [much applause and laughter,] gentlemen, that our ancestors were plucky fellows. They determined to 4 26 3efy the elements, to subdue the soil, to conquer or concili- ate the wild enemy of the forest. They built therefore two rows of houses on a gentle eminence with a store house, in the midst. Here were laid the first foundations of New England's greatness. [Laughter.] And now, having assisted at the Pilgrim's landing, we have only to measure the Pilgrim's progress. [Laughter and cheers.] It may be measured in an instant by Messrs. COLEMAN and STETSON'S bill of fare, which is (holding up the bill of fare amidst great applause and laughter] as good an instrument for such a purpose as that of any surveyor. What was the festival provided at the arrival of the third colony which came out to join their Plymouth brethren ? A lobster, three small fishes, and some spring water. It is only necessary to make a rule-of three sum. What the lobster and the three fishes and the spring water were to the dinner we have just been eating, was the condition of New England at the time that the Pilgrims landed to the condition of New England at the time at which I am speak- ing : [applause.] And in this I have not told the whole story the fish were bought, and not caught ; along the whole coast there was not at that time a single line, or a hook, or a net. Hear this, ye gentlemen of New Bedford, from whose port now issue forth six hundred sail of ships, manned by sixteen thousand seamen, to catch and mono- polize the capture of the greatest monsters of the deep. [Applause and laughter.] I could pursue this subject, gen- tlemen, to an indefinite length ; but what can I say that you do not know ? [Great laughter.] Yes ; you all know that in 1630 the whole of New England contained but 300 white inhabitants, a number which, in a century afterwards, had increased to 160,000, and may at this day be given at nearly three millions. You all know that the capital of New Eng- land, in 1720, contained 12,000 inhabitants ; in 1820, 43,000 ; in 1830, 78,000 ; and in 1850, 156,000. [Applause.] You all know that Boston, in 1789, was proud, very proud, of two stage coaches, [much laughter,] which employed twelve horses; that she was prouder still, in 1800, of twenty-five stage coaches, which employed one hundred horses ; and that in 1847 these twenty-five coaches had been multiplied into two hundred and fifty coaches and omnibuses, employ- ing one thousand six hundred horses, without taking into 27 account seven railways, which provided daily accommoda- tion for seven thousand passengers. You all know that the first newspaper, published in the colonies, was published in 1701, in this same city of Boston, and that a third newspa- per, published in the same town in 1721, under the title of the New England Courant, could not maintain itself, though it had very warm advocates, being supported by the Hellfire Club, ("immense laughter ;] and you also all know that at this moment there are in Boston sixteen daily newspapers, with a daily circulation of 36,000 copies, and fifty weekly newspapers, with a weekly circulation of 223,000 ; to say nothing of semi-weekly papers, and semi-monthly papers, and monthly, and quarterly, and annual publications. [Ap- plause. | As to your schools, it is quite useless for me to say a word about them, after what has been so well said by my honorable friend who has preceded me, (Mr. J. P. HALL.) It would also be superfluous in me to launch out into eulogy on that celebrated university, the genial daughter of my own "Alma Mater" [applause,] to which all the youth from the various quarters of this great confederation resort, and in which all, as I understand, are formed " For Virtue's nobler view, By precept, and example too." I say little or nothing of these things you are acquainted with them all ; but I must bring one interesting circum- stance, less generally understood, before your attention, viz : that the improvement in teaching; in travelling, in newspa- per-making, and population-getting, is nothing to that which is taking place in witchcraft. [Laughter.] Gentlemen, I speak the truth. In 1654 there could only be found, throughout the whole of New England, one miserable witch, by name ANN HIBBINS ; and she was old, ugly, and cross, and therefore naturally enough burnt, [laughter,] on the plea that she had guessed, [laughter and applause] your folks are rather given to shrewd guessing a little too cor- rectly that her ill deeds, words, and looks were the subject of the maledictory comment of two of her neighbors. Now, in 1850, gentlemen, there are in New r England thousands of females notorious for their witchery, and who, instead of being aged, loathsome, and repulsive, are young, lovely, and attractive, [laughter and cheers] w'tches who, in- 28 stead of being committed to the flames, go about inflaming others, [laughter,] and this with the most perfect impunity, [laughter and cheers ;] though they are perfectly well aware that they themselves and their charms are the daily, hourly, constant subject of conversation to all who have the pain- ful pleasure of being acquainted with them. [Laughter.] But it is not only for the triumphs of beauty that fNew England is now famous. If the ivied chaplet is still the classic meed of letters, may not LOWELL and LONGFELLLOW, TICKNOR and BRYANT place it on their brow ? If the laurel belongs to those who worthily narrate as well as to those who perform great deeds, has it not been nobly gained by SPARKS, BANCROFT, and PRESCOTT ? [Cheers.] If a high and honorable reputation is the natural reward of varied ac- quirements and brilliant eloquence, has it not been as justly won, as it is modestly worn, by the accomplished EVERETT? [Loud cheering. | If the golden days of republican com- merce are again to revive, and the Medici of America are to vie in enterprise and munificence with those of Florence, may I not inscribe upon the list of your lordly merchants the names of GRISWOLD, GRINNELL, and PERKINS ; of APPLETON, and LAWRENCE ? And if you, gentlemen, are all anxious to po. sess the portrait of the finished gentleman and perfect Senator, is there any one more fit to sit for the picture than the descendant of that distinguished Governor who enjoyed the double honor of having contributed to the first school and furnished at his own expense the first vessel which be- longed to that State of which your WINTHROP our WIN- TBROP is the actual representative ? [Great applause.] Nay, if I extend my enquiry still further ; if I wish to dis- cover a man whose young imagination was ripened amongst the solitary scenes of border life, and whose manly judg- ment has been formed amidst the daily and active business of great communities, can you not point out to me such a man one whose eloquence is poetry held in chains by rea- son ? whose statesmanship is philosophy reduced to prac- tice ? [immense applause ;] who stand second to none of America's children I should say superior to all, if the tall and venerable figure of an absent friend did not rise up before me whose star shines from the West, as yours, sir, [bow- ing to Mr. WEBSTER,] fills the East of that hemisphere, radi- ant on all sides with intellectual light. [Three cheers.] 29 Gentlemen, you have heard the toast which was given to you : " Old England and Young America : Bound together by * a common language and a common lineage May they be 'still more firmly united by the ties of interest and mutual 'good will." Most cordially and sincerely do I reciprocate to this toast. Allow me to say, I look upon this rock of New Plymouth (pointing to the representation in sugar on the table) as a true chip of the old block of Old England. [Applause.! Your parents had characteristics which are, I think, still traceable in their offspring, (applause ;) nay, your toast tells me that the magnetic influence of a common origin is not yet extinct between them; and this is true. You honor our great men at this day as we honor yours. Never can I forget, when but recently I stood mourning with you by the grave of the gallant TAYLOR, how sincerely you shed with me the sympathizing tear over the fate of the illustri- ous PEEL ! (Great applause.) Well do we know (you will say, perhaps, we have reason to know) your great warriors on sea and shore. But the glorious words and deeds of NELSON were not unknown to the first, and I have myself heard from some of the latter, that in those conflicts in which they lately gained immortal glory, the name and fame of the veteran warrior, who has borne the old standard of MARLBOROUGH and WOLFE aloft, and triumphant, through a hundred fights, more than once rushed to their recollection, and forecast over their hearts the glorious shadow of coming victory. (Applause.) Gentlemen, I respond to your toast ; I love your land, and with your land I cannot but on this day connect that plain and simple sect which has had so great an influence on the character of your people. I do not follow their ritual, but I revere their history ; it stands forth as one of the loftiest among the many monuments which attest the truth of that great Christian moral : " The proud shall be abased, the humble exalted." (Cheers.) It convinces us, if at this day we wanted to be convinced, that it is not the mere will of arbitrary Princes nor the vain bull of arrogant Pontiffs that can lay prostrate the independence of the human mind. All assumption only breeds resistance, as all persecution only makes martyrs. (Applause ) 30 Who, indeed, at the period to which the day recalls us, were the mighty of the earth ! On the throne of England then sat a prince justly proud if pride could ever rest upon sound foundations of the triple crown which had recently become his family inheritance. In France the sceptre was held in the hands of a still haughtier race, which ruled with supreme authority over the most gallant and chivalrous peo- ple in the world. What has become of the illustrious lines of these two royal houses of that of the sovereign who gloried in the-" non-conformity bill," or that of those sove- reigns amongst whose deeds are recorded the massacre of St. Bartholomew and the revocation of the edict of Nantes ? The crewn of the Stuarts has melted into air in the one kingdom ; the sceptre of the Bourbons has been shattered to atoms in the other. But here, on this spot where I am speaking, still stands, erect and firm, the Pilgrim's staff. [Cheers.] From the bruised seed of the poor and persecuted Puritan has arisen one of the most powerful and prosperous empires in the world. Let that which is a warning unto others be a lesson unto you. Remember that when your Pilgrim Father's first started for the American shores they trusted themselves to two ves- sels ; the one boasted in the proud name of the Speedwell, the other had the gentle appellation of the Mayflower, which arrived first at its destination? The vaunting Speedwell was obliged to put into port, while the modest Mayflower dashed gallantly across the ocean. [Applause.) You were simple and unpretending in the day of your weakness ; be never vain or arrogant in the day of your strength. You were superior to your adversity ; you have only to be equal to your prosperity. [Great Applause.] And if you ever wish to know the principal cause of the proud position you have already achieved, you may look for it confidently among the trials and difficulties through which you have passed. Yes, if you have made your country, believe me it is no less true that your country has made you. [Applause and laugh- ter.] There, indeed, is the distinguishing peculiarity of our two nations. It is true that you have a republican form of government ; and that I would shed the last drop of my blood to preserve the prerogatives of a beloved sovereign, within the sanctuary of whose honored privileges I see best pre- served the liberties of myself and fellow-subjects [Cheers.] But whatever may be the separate polity of our two consti- tutions, one thing is certain : they are not the work of chance, theory, or imitation, but formed upon the hard anvil of patient fortitude by the oft repeated and well tempered stroke of practical experience. [Great applause.] In this circumstance lies the secret of that tranquility and power which we both enjoy. If valor and learning could alone form a free and strong government, it might have been planted and be at this day enjoyed in those neighboring States to which you, sir, alluded, [to Mr. WEBSTER.] founded as colonies by the majesty of ancient Spain, and which are now denominate! republics. If wit, ingenuity, philosophy, and the spirit of a no- ble chivalry sufficed to establish such a government firmly, we should be relieved from the fears with which we sometimes watch the tremulous position of civil authority in that coun- try which we all admire and love, and with which the peace and civilization of Europe are so inseparably connected. (Applause.) If metaphysical lore, honest and great designs, the general diffusion of education, and the profound study of military, tactics could fit a people at once for such a go- vernment, we should not be perplexed by the varying ac- counts which each packet brings us from the ancient Ger- many, in whose fate, as Anglo-Saxons, we cannot but feel deepest interest. (Applause.) But, gentlemen, I grieve, whilst I rejoice to say that it is amidst the general confusion of crude experiments, terrible uncertainties, mystic dreams, and ripening convulsions, that alone and singly is to be seen towering the common Genius of Albion and of Albion's transatlantic children No tempest, raised in the heated at- mosphere of fantastic theory, clouds her brow ; no blood, spilt in civil butchery, bedaubs her garments ; no poisons, corroding the principles of public and domestic morality, tear her vitals. Serene and undisturbed she moves onward firmly. Trade and agriculture strew her way with plenty; law and religion march in her van ; order and freedom fol- low her footsteps. (Applause.) Here, at this solemn moment, whilst pouring out our libations to the sacred memory of our sainted fathers here, I invoke that Genius to bless the union of our kindred races; to keep steadfast in our hearts the pleasant recollections of the past, to blend gratefully in our minds the noble aspirations of the future, to hallow in one breath, the twin altars we will raise in common to Me- 32 mory and to Hope ! to "Old England and Young America " Enthusiastic cheering followed, the band playing " God save the Queen !'' SPEECH OF REV. DR. BETHUNE. The Rev. Dr. BETHUNE was called out by the chair, to reply to the following toast : " HOSPITABLE HOLLANDERS : Their generous aid to the fathers of New England commands the everlasting gratitude of their sons." As the hour was late, and several gentlemen were to speak after him, he was necessarily much restricted in his remarks, but the audience marked their appreciation of his address by good-humored applause at the badinage in the opening sentences, and by earnest attention, interrupted by enthusiastic cheers, as he proceeded. At the close, the assembly rose to their feet and continued cheering for some time. He began with some playful reproaches, that soon put him and the company upon pleasant terms. Mr. President, said the Dr., I have a profound respect for the memory of the Pilgrim Fathers of New England, and for this association of their late posterity, so far as they imitate the virtues of those fathers ; but it has been my sore experience rarely to make a compact with a Yankee, by which I have not been taken in. And, gentlemen, (for, Mr. President, I am addressing myself to the company), such is the case now. When I came this evening, by invitation of your committee, to join your festival, your President showed me a toast, but a little way down the list, to which he asked me to respond in a few words. Yielding, as in duty bound, my private choice to constituted authority, I consented, thinking that, immediately after a good dinner, you would be good-natured enough to receive kindly the few words I might find to say ; and now he calls me up after all the stupendous and eloquent things which have been said and heard during the last two hours ! Gentlemen, it is a Yankee trick! and I must say you have done well in putting him at the head of your Society of New Englanders, for I now '33 think, that it would be difficult to find a more thorough type and incarnation of Yankeeism than he. He reminds me of a character once given to a staid Connecticut deacon, by one of his cautious neighbors: "He is a very good man God-ward, but man-ward he is aleetle kind of twisticated." Mr. President, you had scarcely a right to assign me the duty of answering this toast. I am neither a New Eng- Jander nor a Hollander; but a sort of hybrid genealogi- cally a Scotchman, or rather a Scotchman's bairn, and only ecclesiastically Dutch But I am ashamed of neither my descent nor my station; for I consider it no small blessing to be at once a Scotchman's bairn and a Dutch Dominie. Indeed, sir, it is not the least benefit attending such occa- sions as this, that it brings together, as your guests, honored representatives of the different Societies comprising the several races which make up this great prosperous Amer- ican people the Britons, the Irish, the French, the Germans, the Hollanders, the Scandinavian ubique gentium. For, with all deference to the honorable gentlemen who have spoken before me, this nation of ours is not altogether the child of Great Britain ; but, while as one of British blood, I rejoice in the share that blood has in the honor of our parentage, I rejoice yet more, that that blood has been mingled with other strains. It is well known that the stock of animals is improved by crosses. British blood is indeed our admirable stock but I think, sir, we have improved it by crossing the breed. At any rate, I have this advantage in being of neither class named in the toast, that I can without immodesty speak the praises of both. You have done well, sir, in calling to mind the stay which the Pilgrim Fathers made amidst the hospitable Hol- landers, before they determined upon crossing the wide sea to "this far corner of the earth ;" for, with all the gravity of historical truth, it may be asserted that, among the ele- ments of the greatness and success of your fathers, is to be reckoned, not among the least, eleven years of education in Holland especially in Leyden, so memorable for its thou- sand martyrs to patriotism, when it stood like a Thermopy- lae on a plain against the host of Spanish invaders ; Leyden, afterwards to be equally celebrated for the great services of its University to learning. For consider, sir, the time when the Pilgrim Fathers were in Leyden. It was when, 5 34 lifter many long years of determined war, they had gained strength fairly to establish their Republic of the seven United Provinces, that which gave your fathers the pat- tern of what their children since loved so well, "a Church without a Bishop and a State without a King." It is true, the Netherlander had a long struggle afterwards, before their Spanish tyrants were forced to acknowledge their independence ; but they had so fairly turned the tide of battle, that Spain was glad of a truce. There the Pilgrim Fathers saw in healthful exercise those great principles of Constitu- tional freedom, which were not to be then seen in their native England, and which were not to be seen there until England had cast out her British Stuart and called a Hol- lander to her throne. Many were the valuable lessons of sturdy courage, thrift, enterprising trade and religious tol- eration, which the Pilgrims there must have learned and brought with them to their new home; but the best and greatest, was that which in subsequent years was carried into practice by their children, without which all their vir- tues, and courage, and strength could have availed them little in their struggle with the old country, or in our own country's unparalleled career, that of a CONSTITUTIONAL UNION OF INDEPENDENT SOVEREIGN STATES. [Long and enthusiastic cheering.] Whatever may have been the ben- efits derived from the English Constitution, this Union of Sovereign States was not one of them. Where, Mr. President, was the birth-place of modern liberty? Its cradle was rocked by the ocean that rolled its billows upon the marshy coast of the Low Countries. Un- conquered, and determined not to be conquered, yet driven by the superior tactics of Rome from the higher grounds towards the forest of Ardennes, the ancestors of these Hol- landers had planted themselves upon the little muddy islands that rose like Oases amidst the desert of waters. There with patient desperate industry, they, even as far back as near the beginning of Christianity, built separate cities upon piles, and threw up around them their dykes, each year making fresh encroachments upon the angry sea. Their cities were independent and sovereign ; but a wise Provi- dence taught them for themselves, and for us, the necessity, and advantage of Union. Leagues for offence and defence against their various enemies, were formed among them at 35 very early periods, many centuries before the union of Utrecht, when the system was brought to a head, and be- fore the Union of the Swiss Cantons ; and to this policy is to be attributed their remarkable successes in commerce and in patriotic war. Without it, they could never have risen to greatness, but must have remained dwarfed, con- flicting and subjugated. The grand idea of our Union, the greatest blessing of God's providence to us, next after re- ligion and the English language, was taken from Holland ; and from the large share which New England minds had in the construction of our State and National system, we can see the reason of Providence in sending the Pilgrim Fathers to Holland, for such a term of years before they set sail to found a free State in a new land. It was a loyal, honest adherence to such a national compact, which enabled these now prosperous states to achieve their national and several independence. None were then more faithful in adherence to this principle of the compact than the New England sons of the Pilgrim Fathers. To this same prin- ciple these United Sovereign States owe their subsequent march to that prosperity, in which New England has so largely shared. I call upon you, Mr. President, upon you, gentlemen, upon all New Englanders, to walk worthy of their lineage. You celebrate the virtues of your noble an- cestors, prove your legitimate descent by imitating them. The great characteristic attribute of the Puritans, the foun- ders of New England, was a stern, unwavering adherence to principle, high, self-sacrificing, God-fearing, immortal DUTV. Again, I call upon their children to live, act and en- dure like them. In other sections, of warmer climates, less favorable cir- cumstances, and above all, of education wanting, in many qualities, the moral training enjoyed by the New Englander, we may expect to see the impulses of a hasty, hot tempera- ment breaking forth in loud, angry threatenings ; but the inhabitants of the colder North, the men taught from their youth the calm caution, and far-reaching calculation be- queathed to them by the men and women of Plymouth Rock, should never be carried about with every wind of frantic excitement or exaggerated passion. Treason everywhere is dangerous, aye, infamous but in New England doubly o ; for if treason and disunion are rampant and paramount in New England, GOOD NIGHT TO LIBERTY! 3G [Here the assembly broke out into such protracted cheers, that it was sometime before the Dr. could go on. Resum- ing, he said,] Mr. President, where is the New Englander now ! not alone in New England, but here, everywhere throughout these States. Take away the bond of our Union, and the wars which must inevitably follow will be fratri- cidal, CAiN-like. Our friendships will be drowned in blood ; our commerce, with a rich freight of blessings for all na- tions, will founder ; and our now harmonious system of free principles be resolved into a blind, bloody chaos. But this cannot, shall not be. The God of our fathers will not suffer it to be. Already in the sentiments of this meeting, in the voices which have come to us from every quarter of the compass, we have the prophetic oracles of safety. I have spoken too long, Mr. President, arid must end my re- marks but let it be in the words of that one true Book, which your Fathers brought with them in the May Flower, as their best treasure : "Out of ike South cometh the whirl- wind r " FAIR WEATHER COMETH OUT OF THE NORTH." SPEECH OF MR. DRAPER. The President hnvirg made a call upon Mr. DRAPER, the first Vice-President, that gentleman arose and addressed the company as follows : Mr. President you call upon me for something from my end of the table, and having been elected to the honorable fosition I now hold, by the unanimous vote of this Society, feel it a privilege at this stage of the festival, to answer the demand which has been made upon me. Every member here present cannot but recollect, and that too, with pleasure, the distinguished gentleman, who of late, and until to-day, has so ably maintained the position now occupied by me. That position was held by him for almost a quarter of a century, and I am sure that I shall be borne with, while I advert for a moment to that Officer's great worth, as a man; to his devotion to the best interests of this Society, and the assiduous attention with which they were watched. After this remark I need hardly suggest the name of the individual to whom I refer, for the name of THOMAS FES- SENDEN will instantly spring to the lips of every true-heart- 3? ed son of New England. His native land, and the prin- ciples of his native land, never had an advocate more earnest and sincere, nor a friend more steadfast and inalienable. 1 cannot expect, Mr. President, to be regarded, in my present position, in the light in which he was held ; nor to be honored as he was honored, since my merits are so im- measurably inferior to his; but I will say, gentlemen, now, and here, that if each of the descendents of the Puritan Fathers had been as earnest and unwearying in the preserva- tion and transmission of their peculiar habits, manners, and opinions, as your late Vice- President was, then the vir- tues, the principles and attachments of your ancestors, would have fallen like a mantle, thrice blessed, upon their descen- dants, the sure ensign of their faith, and the true pledge of their devotion. That gentleman always stood forth the ar- dent champion of the Pilgrim Fathers ; and following with a firm step in the broad paths of their patriotism, truth, firm- ness and religion, he has won an enviable Pilgrim reputa- tion, by his consistent and unwavering adherence to the sound doctrines of his ancestors. I trust he has not left us, except for a brief space. I claim him as a prominent and permanent member of this So- ciety, to the end of his life. Standing in strong contrast to him who now occupies the place he once honored, his pre- sence will be sure to be missed, when I shall attempt to dis- charge the duties which were once so well fulfilled by him. I hope, however, he may be spared many, many years of health and prosperity, to act with us in council, and while preparing the way for the generations which are to follow ; his own example will adorn our gommon birth-place by its own truth, integrity and honor. Mr. President, I now take occasion to introduce to you, and the members of the Society, who are here present, a gentleman who has just come to you direct from the celes- tial Empire ; a hard-handed and open-hearted mariner, " whose" path " is on the mountain wave, whose home is on the deep." I announce to you the name of Capt. McMicHAEL. of Philadelphia, who, after an absence of more than twelve months, from his native land, comes circling back to us by that Cape, whose name suggests toman all that there is of comfort, all that there is of promise. He brings with him a generous soul, full of charity for human infirmities and hu- 38 man misfortunes, an open hand, ready to succor the distress- ed and forlorn. [A good natured voice. Is he a Union-man. J Mr. DRAPER. A Union-man ! Where can you find a true hearted being that is not? Is there an American heart, throbbing in an American bosom, which has one pulsation, that does not beat true to the American Union ? Show me one son of this free clime of ours, who does not repudiate with indignation and scorn, the very thought of disunion. Disunion ! away far with such suicidal folly. Who is there possessed of reason ; who is there gifted with thought, that dares lift his head upward towards God's starry firmament, and cut in open day, the cord which binds this Union to- gether ? Its severence would bury him and his children, and his children's children into ruin so dark and enduring, that he might well call for the earth to fall upon him and bury his deep disgrace in her bosom, forever. Talk of disunion ! No man dares to breathe the thought in the lowest whisper. No ! No ! No ! Let politicians, demagogues, or incendiaries but bring themselves to that fatal point, where they are ready to leap into the gulf of disunion, and the involuntary swell of ex- cited indignation coming from an outraged people, would overwhelm them with its waves, far beyond the reach of human rescue. When I think of the Constitution of the United States, and of the Union which is secured by it. I would speak of them as of holy things ; I would say "touch not," " handle not;" but with hearts glowing with patriotic virtue, and hands made strong in a good cause, hold fast the stars and stripes, as one and inseperable, and then peace and harmony, covered by the soaring ensign of the Union, may be pre- served and made safe forever. 6PEECH OF GEN. J. WATSON WEBB. In response to a toast from the chair, in honor of " The Press," Gen. J. WATSON WEBB, being called upon, spoke as follows : For twenty years past, Mr. President and it perhaps would not be wise to say for how much longer a period I have been accustomed to hear the same toast given at our public dinners; and not unfrequently has il fallen to my lot 33 to reply to it. I am quite sure, however, that I have never yet heard any reply which had the slightest bearing upon the toast ; and most assuredly, I have never made any such reply. The custom has been, to return thanks for the honor done the Press ; and then launch off upon whatever topic the occasion or the hour might suggest. Such, sir, was my intention when I came here to-night. I placed in my pocket a sentiment almost a speech in itself which I de- termined to let off whenever the occasion offered. I intend by these remarks no disrespect to those who, from time to time, have responded to the toast in honor of the Press, be- cause I well know that it has its origin in a feeling of del- icacy which forbids any member of the Press either lauding the profession to which he belongs, or setting himself up as the mentor of abler and better men. In the very nature of things, sir, the member of the Press who responds to such a toast as that which has called me to the floor, most natu- rally discovers, that both duty and inclination, compel him to wander from the subject. I trust however, Mr. President, that I will be excused by the members of the Press who are now present, as well as by those who may become advised of what I am about to say, if yielding to the impulse of the moment, arising from the patriotic sentiments and eloquent thoughts which have been scattered broadcast among us to-night, I depart en- tirely from custom on this occasion ; and treating it as one more " honored in the broach than the observance," speak directly to your very flattering toast. I hold too, that I am privileged so to do, by my long connection with the Press, if not by any claim I can set up for seniority in years as well as service. (A voice " Why you are a ' silver grey.' ") Only in appearance, Mr. President ; arid appearances are frequently deceptive. I am not old enough to belong to that new brotherhood of whigs ; but I am sufficiently well known, I trust, to speak to, and of the Press, in the language of re- monstrance and of censure, without subjecting myself to the imputation of assumption, or of giving offence, where most assuredly, none is intended. A free and independent Press, is, Mr. President, as the sentiment you just read so truly sets forth, "the palladium of our liberties." That the Press of this country is free as air, we all know; and we know too, that its freedom not 40 unfrequently, degenerates into licentiousness. This how- ever, is an evil which will in time, correct itself; and I would therefore, hove its freedom within the law, remain forever untramtneled, except by public opinion and the legal rights of individuals. But is the Press of our country always "independent?" Does it on all occasions, speak fearlessly the sentiments and opinions of those who conduct it? or does it not too frequently I had almost asked does it not very generally, forget its high mission ; and in- stead of expounding the well^settled theory of our govern- ment and the never-dying principles upon which it is based, does it not bow submissively to the public opinion of its im- mediate vicinage, and become the slave of that public opinion, be it right or wrong, instead of the fearless advocate of truth? Sir, I proclaim it in sorrow rather than censure; and I dare to proclaim it well knowing that the truth is not always palatable that the very evjls which at this moment press upon the country, and which, during nearly the whole of the past year, have caused an extraordinary excitement, and induced even calm men to apprehend a disruption of this glorious Union, have their existence in the fact that the Press has not been true to itself, to its exalted mission, and to the principles of our admirable Constitution. Look to the north and the south to the east and the west; and mark how uniformly the Press sends forth sen- timents and opinions in exact conformity with the public opinion by which it happens to be surrounded, whether or not that public opinion be sound or unsound in conformity with, or in opposition to the conditions of Union, and the compromises and concessions to which our fathers yielded, and without which, this glorious fabric would never have been called into being. No man respects public opinion more than I do no one is more disposed to leave it free, uncontrolled and unbiassed, save by the light of reason and the force of truth ; but yet I feel and know, that public opinion is not always sound that vox populi is not always vox Dei and that it is the highest duty of the Press, to present the truth as it is to do battle for great principles, and as far as in it lies, to create and maintain, and defend a sound public opinion, in- stead of tamely yielding to that which may happen to exist in its immediate vicinity, and which is too apt to be the 41 consequence of the successful arts of the designing dema- gogue, or the offspring of honest but deluded fanatics, f would not claim for the Press the right of leading public opinion ; but I would claim for it entire independence, and I would exact from it a strict adherence to great principles, and a fearless defence of truth, regardless of popular opinion ; and thereby, ultimately increase the soundness of that pop- ular opinion, in defiance of the arts of demagogues or the misdirected enthusiasm of an honest but dangerous fanati- cism. An honest difference of opinion among men and between able and honestly conducted Presses, is always to be expected ; and no man respects more sincerely than I do, the adversary who honestly differs with me, and fear- lessly defends his opinions. But when I perceive whole communities in one section of the country, holding to a cer- tain set of opinions ; and entire communities in another section, uniting in precisely opposite sentiments ; and the Press in both instances, heading the public opinion by which it happens to be surrounded I cannot resist the conclusion, that the Press is not so independent as it should be, and that this state of public opinion, arises mainly from its having neglected its duty of laboring to create a sound public sen- timent, instead of yielding to that which has its origin in a less legitimate source Another and a leading error of the Press, in my judgment, is its constant habit of undervaluing the character of our people and their peculiar fitness for self-government, by its readiness to believe that every other people, are just as well qualified to govern themselves as we are ; and by hailing every attempt at revolution in Europe as the struggle for freedom of men and races, about to burst their chains and establish for themselves governments similar to our own. A greater delusion than this, never was conceived by intel- ligent men ; nor do I know anything better calculated to depreciate in the estimation of our people, the inestimable blessings which they enjoy, and the value of our great and glorious Union and the principles of civil and religious lib- erty upon which it is based, and the intelligence by which alone it is to be sustained. We are indeed a peculiar people. No sane man will pretend to deny, that to our common schools and our almost 6 42 universal educational system, we are to look for the contin- uance of our ability to govern ourselves - y and yet it will be as freely admitted by every man of reflection, that even the admirable educational system under which we live, and which is necessary to perpetuate our institutions, have not made us what we are. These are the means by which we are to continue our system of government, not the causes which called it into being. Those causes, as we have been told to-night in language far more eloquent than any which I can command, have their origin in the land and the race from which our fathers sprung in their claim to the Saxon's right of trial by jury to his love of personal liberty and equal laws and to his inheritance never yielded, of wor- shipping his God according to the dictates of his conscience. With these feelings deeply implanted in their hearts, the Pilgrim Fathers whose landing on the rock of Plymouth we are this evening assembled to commemorate, and the equally devoted friends of freedom who came from the free cities of Holland, planted in this western world the seeds of that liberty, which I fondly trust, will never be forfeited by their descendants. They found here, a new world fresh from the hands of its maker; they explored a wilderness till then untrod by the foot of Christian man ; and they were left to encounter all the hardships and privations to which a rigorous climate, disease and starvation, could expose them. Contending alike with savage man and with the beasts of the forest with cold, hunger, disease, and even with death itself they planted here the tree of liberty, and watered it with a patience and endurance, which were only equalled by their love of religious freedom and their never-failing reliance upon the providence of God. They grew by the neglect of the parent state. A mere handful of adventurers upon a vast continent, they partook of the character of the land which had given them a home and the freedom which they coveted. Self-government, of necessity, became a part of their very natures ; it flows as it were in the systems of their descendants ; and not only is self-government a political right which is inherited from our fathers, but is a part and parcel of our very selves. It is in our systems, circulating in our blood, and a part and parcel of our animal natures as it is of our political inheritance ; and when we admit for a moment, that every other people are 43 capable of self-government, simply because we are, we do great injustice to ourselves, and teach our people to under- value the greatest inheritance ever bequeathed to man. Most gladly would I see all mankind enjoying similar insti- tutions. But I have travelled over most of Europe, and I have seen there, Man as he is. I have mingled with him in the Palace and the Hovel ; and I would be wanting in truth if I did not proclaim, no matter how unwelcome the intelli- gence, that nowhere not even in enlightened England the land whence the Pilgrim fathers came, freighted with their ever-living principles of civil and religious liberty is man capable of self-government. From time to time, portions of the people have made, and will continue to make, spasmodic efforts to throw off the yoke of their rulers. And not unfre- quently do they succeed. But it is only to effect a change in their masters. They are deficient in the intelligence ne- cessary for self-government ; they are without the training which it requires ; and they lack that love of liberty and re- liance upon self, which peculiar training and an extraordi- nary combination of circumstances, gave to our fathers, and which have been the inheritance of their children. [A Voice " Look at Republican France."] Yes, look at France but not at " Republican France." There is no Republic in France. It is a gigantic military despotism, more hostile to liberty than either of the dynasties which preceded it ; and most ardently do I pray, that France may speedily go back to a well regulated monarchy, or even to the Empire itself. Either change would be far preferable to the existing military despotism ; and what is of far greater moment in my judgment, until France does return to a mo- narchical government, there can be no settled peace in Eu- rope, and the people cannot even enjoy the benefits of limited and well regulated monarchies Republics cannot exist in Europe ; and just so long as they are struggled for, the arm of despotic power is strengthened, and the people deprived of what they could easily achieve well regulated, consti- tutional monarchies. When the Republican, ignorant of every thing which the name imports, ceases his strife for what is impracticable ; and when the agrarian and the socialist, are driven into the obscurity from which they sprung, and are taught that licentiousness is not liberty the true friends of human advancement, will be able to secure to the masses all 44 the liberty they require, and all they are capable of enjoying, by every where establishing constitutional monarchies. It is not wise then, for the Press of this country, to call upon the people of Europe, to imitate our example. They are not capable of so doing ; and the only effect of this constant effort to accomplish an impossibility, is to lessen our people in their own estimation, by teaching them to undervalue our own glorious institutions, and their own great qualities by which those institutions are maintained. One more topic, Mr. President, and I have done. Afr- other and not a trifling evil, of constant, daily recurrence, through carelessness in the Press, is the habit of speak- ing of the States of this Union as " Sovereign." Even to-night, I heard the Rev. gentleman, who so justly complimented our Dutch progenitors, commit this very common mistake when speaking of 'the States of the Union. It is a most mischievous source of error ; and its consequences are becoming apparent in the folly, if not the treason, of South Carolina. Mr. President, I deny, in toto, the allegation that the individual States are Sovereign ; and I indulge the hope, that the Press will abandon the habit of so styling them. The prominent attributes of sovereignty, are the right to wage war and to make peace ; to enter into treaties with foreign powers, to carry on intercourse between nations, to regulate commerce, to coin money, and to maintain armies and navies. These I say, are promi- nent among the powers, rights and privileges of Sovereignty; and the State which possesses not each and every of these attributes, and a host of others unnecessary to mention, is no more sovereign than this metropolis is sovereign. And yet each and every of these attributes of sovereignty, were surrendered by the States, in forming that glorious Union, which is alike the source of all their prosperity, the element of their greatness, and the ark of their safety their security from internal commotion, and their protection from aggression from without. A Union, which is the pride and glory of every patriot in the land, and the admiration of every lover of freedom throughout the world. Long may it continue one and indissoluble ; and to insure this greatest of blessings, the Press must not be unmindful of its duty to the Union and to the Constitution upon which it is based. It must jiot bow to the sectional popular feeling which demagogues 45 and fanatics too frequently create around it ; it must not undervalue the degree of intelligence, and the peculiar expe- rience and habit of thought which alone qualify men for self-government ; and above all. it must not indulge in the absurdity of speaking of the States of our Union, as sepa- rate and independent Sovereignties. I beg pardon, Mr. President, for thus long occupying the attention of the company ; and ask leave to conclude with the following sentiment, which, as I have already said, is nearly a speech in itself. "THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. A Union of Independent Republics, in which was merged forever, ihe separate sovereignty of each. A Union of States de- signed to be perpetual, and entered into with deliberation, for the preservation of the liberties won by the valor and consecrated by the blood of our fathers. A Union of States and of People, originating in the patriotism and wisdom of those who achieved oar independence based upon compromise and concession, and which can only be preserved in its purity by an honorable adherence to the principles in which it origi- nated ; but nevertheless, a UNION AND A NATION which recognises no power rf Dissolution, and from which, SECESSION is absolutely impossible. APPENDIX. APPENDIX. THE Committee on Invitations, (Messrs. STETSON and WYMAN,) sent Letters to many distinguished individuals, from whom the following replies were received : [From His Excellency, MILLARD FILLMORE, President of United States.] WASHINGTON, Dec. 20, 1850. Dear Sir : I have the pleasure to acknowledge the receipt of the invitation which you sent me on behalf of the New England Society, in the city of New- York, to attend their anniversary dinner on the 23d inst. I beg leave to tender to the Society my thanks for this mark of their respect, and to express my regret that public duties put it out of my power to comply with their kind request. Truly yours, MILLARD FILLMORE. C. A. STETSON, Esq. {From Hon. ALEX. H. H. STUART, Secretary of the Interior.] WASHINGTON CITY, Dec. 16, 1850. Mr. C. A. STETSON, New York. Dear Sir : Your letter of the 7th instant, inviting me on behalf of the New England Society, to attend their anniversary dinner, at the Astor House, in the city of New-York, on the 23d inst., has been received, and I have delayed answering it in the hope that my response could be made in person, instead of by letter. I find, however, that it will be impos- sible for me to be present, and I am therefore under the necessity of sending this note to express my grateful acknowledgment of your kind- ness, and my regret that I cannot participate in your festivity. I use the words in no common-place sense when I say that I should be glad to be with you. Under any circumstances it would be a pleasure to me to extend my personal acquaintance with the members of your Society, and to enjoy the " feast of reason and the flow of soul," which the occasion will doubtless elicit. But in the present opinion of the public condition of the country, there are many circumstances calculated to give to your meeting a pecu- liar interest. Your Society is composed of the sons of New England, the descendants of those stern old republicans who left their fatherland to enjoy, on an inhospitable shore, civil and religious freedom. They were of the race of covenanters. They planted themselves on a soil 7 50 and in a climate as austere and unyielding as their own principles. By the exercise of their characteristic virtues of industry, sobriety, and good faith, they grew to be a prosperous people. Near the same period, came to these distant shores, a very different race the founders of your own goodly city of New Amsterdam the venerable Mynheers of Holland, whose amphibious tastes led them to choose as their abiding place, the Island of Manhattan, and the circum- jacent territory. A little lower down the coast, three other settlements were made, by communities entertaining different religious and political sentiments, having different manners and habits ; and possessing different social and domestic institutions. First came the broad-brimmed disciples of WILLIAM PENN, the man of peace, and the father of the city of brotherly love. Next the plumed cavaliers of the " Old Dominion," with their punctilious chivalry, and reckless extravagance, and fixed aversion to manual labor, which a long course of indulgence in the gay and luxurious courts of the Charles' had engendered. Last, but not least, were the brave and enthusiastic Hugue- nots of North Carolina, half soldiers and half saints, and at all times ready to die for their faith. With the successive upheavings of the social and political systems of Europe, these different classes of men were thrown upon our shores like streams of lava from a volcanic mountain. Each of these communities possessed its peculiar virtues, and each had its peculiar faults. For many long years they remained separate and distinct colonies, having but little sympathy of feeling and less commu- nity of interest. They were, in many respects, estranged from each other, and stood rather in an attitude of antagonism. They stood side by side, like staves in a barrel, but, unfortunately, they had no hoop of common interest and sympathy to bind them together. By degrees they all passed under the dominion of England, and recognised their allegiance to the British Crown. In process of time controversies sprung up with the mother country. These controversies were not confined to one or half a dozen of the colonies. They extended to all. The common sense of injury, and of danger aroused a common spirit of resistance. The pressure from without forced them together. A tow-string confede- racy was formed between them, which bound them together in an im- perfect union. Under a common flag, and under the command of a common (though very uncommon) leader they achieved their indepen- dence. The fraternal feelings which sprung out of joint toils and dan- gers and triumphs, drew them for a time into closer alliance. But these ties were not likely to be strong enough to keep them together. Wise men very wise men the wisest and best men the world ever saw perceived that a more perfect union was necessary. It was a work of great difficulty. Old prejudices were to be overcome Jealousies were to be soothed Hereditary feuds were to be extinguished Diverse inter- ests were to be reconciled Sectional differences were to be compro- mised. Great as was the task, the patriots of those days did not shrink from it. With skilful hands and cool heads, and honest hearts, they set about the good work. Under the auspices of WASHINGTON and HENRY and MADISON and JAY and HAMILTON and FRANKLIN, it was accomplished. That work was the Constitution of the United States. Who will say 51 t&nt the men who framed it were not as wise, as virtuous, as patriotic, aye as conscientious, as the men of our times ? This is the history of our country in a nut-shell. I appeal to all men to say if it is not so? I will further ask them if that Constitution has not fulfilled the ends for which it was ordained ? I, as a Virginian, the son and the grandson of men who fought in our revolutionary struggle by the side of the fathers of the present members of the New England Society as the son of one of the men who voted in the Convention of Virginia to ratify that constitutional compact be- tween the colonies with all its covenants, would like now to have the opportunity of talking to the descendants of those old covenanters of New England, and of asking them if they have repudiated the faith of their fathers : if they mean to break the covenants which their fathers made with my father? I would like to know if they think they are better men than HANCOCK and ADAMS and SHERMAN, and the heroes and sages of the revolutionary days? I would like, in a spirit of fraternal affection for them, and of filial respect for their fathers, to ask if they are not willing to stand on the platform on which their fathers stood, and to pronounce " good" the work which proceeded out of their hands ! If their answer should be, as I have nc doubt it would be, in the affirmative, then I should like to extend to them the right hand of fellowship, and to renew with them the pledge which our fathers interchanged, that henceforth there shall be no strife between us, and to say to them, that through all time to come, " thy people shall be my people and tiiy God shall be my God !" With great respect, I have the honor to be, Your obedient servant, ALEX. H. H. STUART. [From Hon. LEWIS CASS, U. S. Senator, from Michigan.] WASHINGTON, Dec. 20, 1850. Sir, I am much obliged to the Committee for remembering me among those to be invited to the anniversary dinner of the New England Society of your city, for though an emigrant of the last century from our father- land, yet I have never ceased to cherish a just pride in its history, its people and its institutions, and a grateful recollection of what I owe and it is much to the early lessons of wisdom and virtue which are there taught, the true fruit, indeed, of its admirable system of education, and which, if I have too often neglected, I have never, I trust, wholly disregarded. It is good to meet together on these hallowed occasions, and especially is it good for those of us who have found new homes in our common country, as life wears on to recall the scenes and events of its infancy, and withdraw ourselves from the dominion of the present, by going back to the associations of the past. And wherever the sons of New England are found and that wherever is everywhere they may hail the return of this day with pride and pleasure, and commemorate the virtues of the Pilgrims. Fable and tradition gather round the history of other countries. The early history of our own is before the world in all the light of truth. The rock of Plymouth is still there, not marked, indeed, with the rod of the Prophet, but attesting the source of a living stream which has since spread over a continent, uniting together the two great oceans which bound both that continent and our Republic. And the existence of that memorial of a nation's birth is not more certain than is the whole story of the wrongs that drove forth the self-exiled band, and of all they did and suffered in laying the foundation of those institutions which, while they do honor to their memory, have given their descendants a name and a station among the nations of the earth. It is good, then, while we look round upon the freedom and greatness and prosperity of our coun- try, and forward to the mighty destiny which we may humbly hope in the providence of God awaits us, unless prevented by his just judgment in punishment of our national offences. It is good to look back to this day in the seventeenth century, and recall the trials, and the deeds, and the virtues of our forefathers. The retrospect, should teach us many a lesson of wisdom. If it teach us no other we may learn from it the mighty price that was paid by the early emigrants, as well of New England as of Virginia, for the precious institutions that have come down to us, and to defend with our own lives what was purchased by theirs. I join you with a full heart in all the manifestations the occasion may call forth, and I beg leave to offer a sentiment among the other tributes of grateful recollections which custom and feeling have equally united in making part of these proceedings. I am, Sir, With great respect, Your ob't serv't, LEWIS CASS. C. A. STETSON, Esq. " The May Flower: Though it became the flower of winter, yet its fruit wu bright and beautiful." [From Hon. JOHN BELL, 17. S. Senator, from Tennessee.] WASHINGTON, Dec. 21st, 1850. My Dear Sir, Upon the receipt of your kind autographic note of the 16th, following your more formal one of the 7th instant, inviting me, in behalf of the New England Society in New-York, to attend their anniversary dinner on the 23d instant, nothing but a distressing attack of influenza could have prevented my acceptance. Public business here at this season is neither so pressing nor important as to have restrained me. Allow me to say, as I do in perfect sincerity, that among no portion of the human genus have I met with warmer and more generous hearts than among the enlightened sons of New England. I shall ever cherish 53 with a lively pleasure the kindly greeting and hospitable welcome which, many years ago, I received from descendants of the Pilgrims, in the city of New- York, and in every city of that New England cherished as your father-land, which I had the good fortune to visit. The Pilgrim race are, indeed, a peop'e of striking, of wonderful, and in some respects of pecu- liar characteristics. Skilful of hand, indomitable of spirit, fruitful of invention and powerful of intellect, they bid defiance to obstacles, and are fitted to conquer success in every department of human effort. But this is not their highest honor. In whomsoever of the gifted sons of New England engaged in the more intellectual callings, genius beams bright, and though in them are illustrated the loftiest patriotism and the most comprehensive and national views of public policy and duty ; while among her more numerous sons, whose inclination and ambition, guided by intellects equal to whatever they might undertake, impelled them to enterprises which lead to greater wealth, but few are to be found of a less expensive patriotism, and scarcely any who do not in their abund- ance also abound in works of charity and benificence; and at the same lime otherwise exemplify a sound philosophy in their mode of life not in sacrificing to, but in sacrificing Mammon daily at their hospitable and festive boards. To be with the representatives of a people nay, rather with a verit- able portion of a people of such characteristics, at their anniversary festival, how glad would I be ; but I cannot. Accept assurances of my sincere regard, JNO. BELL, C. A. STETSON, Esq. [From Hon. THOMAS McDowELL, U. S. Representative, from Virginia.] WASHINGTON CITY, Dec. 22, 1850. Mr. C. A. STETSON, Sir : T have duly received your letters of the 7th and 18th inst. the first inviting me, on behalf of the New England Society in New-York, to participate in its anniversary festival on Monday next, and the other enforcing the acceptance of that invitation upon me in terms and sug- gestions of much personal kindness and respect. Allow me to thank you for them both, and to assure you that it would give me the very highest pleasure to accept an invitation so emphatically tendered, and to acknowledge the honor of it, as I best might, face to face with your Society, if I felt entirely free to leave my official engagements here, even for a few days, for that purpose. But this, at present, I do not ; for inde- pendantly of a short absence from these engagements to which I am already committed by a promised service in a neighboring city, and my strong reluctance, on that account, to consent to any other absence any- where else, independently of this, such is the domestic condition of our public affairs that no one can foresee the day or the hour when every member of Congress, who loves the peace of his country, may not be needed at his post to protect it. But for these embarrassments in my situation here, I should go on to 54 your festival without fail, and share with you in the high privilege of commemorating that Plymouth ancestry which, not New England only, but the whole country have such abundant reason to reverence and re- member. Specially dear as that ancestry may be to you, who have more immediately descended from it, the unity of our national relationship makes it scarcely less dear or less precious to us all. No matter where our birth place, we have enjoyed in common the wisdom of its labors in the great cause of written constitutions and of civil and religious liberty, and can, therefore, well unite \\ith you and all others in a common and heartfelt homage to its memory and its virtues. And this your annual festival furnishes a delightful occasion for doing a delightful occasion for keeping up, amongst the citizens of our several States, the sense of their mutual obligation and independence, and thus of refreshing and deepening the sources of cur national vitality and our national peace. If it but do this effectually, it will render us all more indissolubly one in sentiment and heart than we are now one by constitutional compact, and so, tinder the blessing of Heaven, it may greatly contribute to the pre- vention ef that fraternal discord which, once acknowledged amongst us, will cover with the wretchedness and wickedness of a second Soddom, this Arabia Felix of mankind. Never has it pleased Providence to put into the hands of any people such a country as ours before ; and never, therefore, were any people under such a weight of duty to maintain their country as we are. Total, uncompromising, and eternal then be our spirit of resistance to every thing that would impair or divide it. So thinking and feeling on this subject, I beg to offer the subjoined sentiment to your meeting, and with it to express the assurance of thank- fulness and respect, with which I am both yours, and the Society's obe- dient servant, THOMAS MCDOWELL. " Plymouth and Jamestown the cradles of American population and power happy and eternal be the Union of the great people whose infancy they rocked." [From His Excellency, HAMILTON FISH, Governor of the State of New- York. ALBANY, Dec. 19, 1850. C. A. STETSON, Esq., New-York. Dear Sir: It would give me much pleasure if I could avail myself of the invitation which you have sent me, on behalf of the Committee of the New England Society, to your anniversary dinner on 23d inst. But the few days remaining of the passing year, are so entirely overspread with official engagements, that it will be out of my power to be with you. Permit me, however, to offer a sentiment which I enclose. With sincere regard, yours faithfully, HAMILTON FISH. ' The Sons of New England The morality inculcated by their mothers, and the education imparted by their fathers, illumine the pathway, with which their enter- prise has encircled the earth." 55 [From Hon. D. 8. DICKINSON, U. 8. Senator, from New York.]' SENATE CHAMBER, WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 1850. My Dear Sir : As a native of that dear land whose enterprise has penetrated the most obscure recesses of the globe, I regret that I am unable to accept your kind invitation to the anniversary dinner of the New England Society, to be given, at the Astor House, on the 23d instant. Thanking you for your friendly remembrance, I am, sincerely yours, D. S. DICKINSON. CHARLES A. STETSON, Esq. [From Hon. WILLIAM H. SEWARD, U. S. Senator, from New York.] WASHINGTON, Deo. 10th, 1850. My Dear Sir : I pray you to make known to the New England Society, my grateful sense of the honor they have shown me by inviting me to their annual festival, and to assure them that although not " to the manner born," I am a reverent admirer of New England principles and New England virtues. I am, faithfully, your friend and servant, WILLIAM H. SEWARD. CHARLES A. STETSON, New-York. [From Hon. TRUMAN SMITH, 17. S. Senator, from Connecticut.], WASHINGTON CITY, Dec. 14, 1850. C. A. STETSON, Esq. I have received your kind favor of the 7th instant, proffering to me (in behalf of the Committee) an invitation to the anniversary dinner of the New England Society, to be given, at the Astor House, on the 23d instant. I can assure you that nothing could afford me higher satisfaction than to be present with the descendants of the Pilgrims on the occasion to which you refer, and to unite with them in an expression of reverence for the memory of those who laid broad and deep the foundations of New Eng- land institutions, and who both by precept and example, contributed powerfully to the dissemination of enlightened, liberal and just views of civil government throughout this vast country; but I regret to be obliged to add, that probably my public duties will forbid my leaving the city for the purpose indicated, and these, you will admit, must, to a true son of New England, be paramount to other considerations. With sentiment of high respect, believe me to be truly and faithfully yours, TRUMAN SMITH. 56 [From His Excellency HENRY B. ANTHONY, Governor of Rhode Island.} PROVIDENCE, Dec. 21, 1850. My Dear Sir : I am honored with your invitation to attend the annual celebration of the New England Society of New-York. It is characteristic of the sons of New England that wherever they go, they carry with them a grateful remembrance of their Pilgrim ancestry of the men to whose self-sacrificing spirit and indomitable courage the world is so largely indebted. Nowhere is this just and honorable feeling more strongly manifested than in New-York. It would afford me great pleasure to participate with you an occasion of so much interest, but my engagements at home forbid my leaving. I am, with great respect, Your obedient servant, HENRY B. ANTHONY. CHARLES A. STETSON, Esq. [From Hon. W. M. MEREDITH, late Secretary United States Treasury.] PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 16, 1850. My Dear Sir : I have the pleasure to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, on behalf of the Committee of the New England Society, inviting me to the anni- versary dinner of the Society at New-York, on the 23d instant. I beg you will express for me to the Committee, my sincere regret that my engagements are such as prevent me from accepting the invitation. I should have been most happy to be able to avail myself of the opportu- nity of testifying my esteem for the people of New England, of whom, as fellow-countrymen, the inhabitants of all the rest of the United States have reason to be proud. I am, my dear Sir, With great regard, Very truly yours, W. M. MEREDITH. C. A. STETSON, Esq. [From Hon. M. P. GENTRY, U. S. Senator, from Tennessee.] WASHINGTON, Dec. 21, 1850. Sir: I have had the honor of receiving from you, in behalf of the New Eng- land Society of New-York City, an invitation to attend the anniversary dinner of that Society, on the 23d instant. Also your letter of the 16th instant, assuring me that that invitation was not intended as an empty compliment, but that there was a sincere desire on the part of yourself and other excellent friends of mine, that I 57 should be present, I have delayed answering until now, hoping to be able to accept your invitation ; but, I have been confined to ray room for several days, and my physician admonishes me that it would be very un- safe to visit New-York. I am, therefore, constrained to deny myself the pleasure I had hoped to enjoy of meeting those personal friends that you mentioned, and the kindred spirits by whom they will doubtless be sur- rounded. Aside from the social pleasure of such a meeting at any time, I was especially desirous to meet and mingle with the sons of New Eng- land at this particular time, that I might learn their sentiments and pur- poses in relation to those questions that now so much disturb the tran-^ quility of our country, and threaten the destruction of that noble fabric of liberty built up by the united efforts of our common ancestors of the Revolution. In the " times that tried men's souls," Southerns and New Englnnders fought side by side on the same battle fields, and poured out their blood together in achieving independence. In that great struggle, those who opposed the cause of independence were regarded as the ene- mies of the country ; and, in my opinion, those who now oppose its tranquilization by fomenting sectional animosities, (by whatever motives they are actuated,) may, with equal propriety, be regarded as practically enemies of the country. I do not permit myself to doubt that the sons of New England will, in the crisis which is at hand, prove themselves worthy of their sires, by performing their whole duty, in preserving and upholding the Constitu- tion and Union which those sires so gloriously contributed to establish. Repeating my regret at my inability to be present with you on the 23d instant, I have the honor to be, with the highest respect, Your friend, and obedient servant, M. P. GENTRY. P. S. If the temper of the assemblage should be such as to induce you to believe that the following would be an acceptable sentiment, you may offer it in my name : " New England : She had no Tories in the Revolution she ought to have no- Rebels now. CHARLES A. STETSON, Esq. [From Hon. W. A. SACKETT, 17. S. Representative, from New York.], HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, Dec. 21, 1850. Gentlemen : I have had the honor to receive your invitation to the anniversary din- ner of the New England Society, in the city of New York, for which you will please accept my cordial acknowledgment. It would give me great pleasure to mingle with the sons of New England on that occasion, and to join them in their pledge of remembrance to " the father land." But my duties as a Representative require my attention here, and pleasure mast yield to the obligations they impose. 8 58 Nothing can more deeply interest the American citizen than the study of New England ; the study of her beginning, her progress, the character of her institutions, the causes of her prosperity. She began in poverty and has succeeded to wealth ; she began in obscurity and has risen to greatness. Her torch of liberly, brought from off the May Flower and set upon the Rock of Plymouth, by the same hands that first kindled its flame, is still kept trimmed and burning by the sons of. the Pilgrims. For more than two hundred years it has burned clearly and steadily. No fitful gleams of delusive brightness, or transient glows of unenduring light, lost in succeeding dnrkness, have bewildered its way. Lighted in solitude it is now hailed by the friends of liberty as freedom's beacon fire throughout the world. The people of New England have a world-wide renown for orirrinality and invention. These great qualities they may well possess. For the entire structure of New England institutions is but the elaboration of some original thought of her own. Made after no model she is herself a model. Full of inventive thought she is herself the great invention. Learning is borrowed, thought is original. Learning is a record of the known use of things. Thought applies known things to new uses. And here lies the secret of the success, the rapid progress of New England. She is pre-eminently the land of thought, of practical, useful thought. The world has changed since she began. France has been repeatedly revolutionized, and become, in form, a Republic. The claimed rights of the Crown of England have been subjected to representative power, Eu- rope has been re-modelled, and this Continent has witnessed revolutions, new combinations, new forms, new governments ; a constant change of political power, but New England has not changed she has indeed pro- gressed, and progressed rapidly, but not changed. She worships as she has worshipped ; she governs herself as she has governed herself ; her laws are now as they were in the beginning, the emanation of the thought, the sentiment of her people. She is now as she has ever been one of the most perfect examples of regulated liberty. She has read the history of the world and improved by the lesson. The world will read her his- tory and be improved by her example. She cannot fall. She has no power above her people to be torn down, and no power beneath them that threatens her security. As the birth place of my ancestors, I, too, love New England aa a father land, and you may be assured, though a New Yorker, that my heart is with you in your homage to the firesides and the hearth stones of your nativity. Allow me to offer a sentiment. "New England: While her people remain her institutions are secure. Her legions are her people ; an army more powerful to-morrow than to-day. Her power like her progress gathers greatness as she marches onward. She is one grand conso- lidation of parts, iuto a perfect union of power, justice, liberty and law." With high regard, I have the honor to remain, Your obedient servant, W. A. SACKETT. C. A. STETSON, and Committee of the New England Society, in the city of New York. 59 [From Hon. JN: MACPHERSON BEBEIEN, U. S. Senator, from Georgia.] WASHINGTON, Dec. 19, 1850. Dear Sir : I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, conveying to me the invitation of the New England Society, of the city of New York, to be present at their anniversary dinner, at the Astor House, on Monday, the 23d instant, and to express my regret that my engagements here, will compel me to deny to myself that pleasure. Very respectfully yours, JN : MACPHERSON BERRIEN. Mr. STETSON. BOSTON, Dec. 18, 1850. Dear Sir : I have had the pleasure of receiving your note, inviting me to attend the celebration of the New England Society at New York, on the 23d. I regret very much that it will not be in my power to leave Boston and be with you at that time. You will have the heart of many a son of New England who cannot be with you in person on that day. As one of the number, I beg to send you a toast, to grace your flowing lips, which I hope will not come amiss. " The Free Schools of New England : If our fatherland cannot boast all the fruits of softer climes, it is at least rich in the fruita of the Tree of Knowledge." Your obedient servant, WM. H. PRESCOTT. C. A. STETSON, Esq. [From F. WAYLAND.] BROWN UNIVERSITY, Dec. 11, 1850. Dear Sir : I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of Decem- ber 7th, conveying to me the invitation of the New England Society, of the city of New York, to attend their anniversary dinner on the 23d of the present month. I deeply regret that the pressure of daily duties deprives me of the pleasure of accepting this gratifying invitation. Nothing could give me greater delight than to listen on that occasion to the eloquence of the sons of the Puritans, and unite with them in doing honor to the men whose principles are the beacon light of European civilization. I am, Sir, yours truly, F. WAYLAND. C. A. STETSON, Esq. 60 [From Hon. EDWARD EVERETT, of Massachusetts.] CAMBRIDGE, Dec. 17, 1850. Dear Sir : Your favor of the 7th reached me a day or two ago. I am greatly obliged to the Committee of the New England Society for the honor of an invitation to their anniversary dinner on the 23d instant. I much re- gret that it is not in my power to be present on this occasion ; always an interesting one, and rendered unusually so at this time, by the alarming state of public affairs. As unity of feeling is even more important than " unity of government" to the prosperity of the country, we are earnestly called upon, by the aspect of the times, to fix our thoughts on all those .circumstances in the settlement and history of the United States, which are calculated to strengthen the patriotic sentiment. Prominent among these are the hardships and sacrifices of the first set- tlers of the country. It is shocking to reflect that their labors and suf- ferings, unless a better feeling can be made to prevail between North and South, will have no other result than the dissolution of the Union at the heighth of its prosperity ; and the substitution of discord, anarchy, and civil war for the blessings which it confers in such abundance on all its members. Admit that we are obliged, both at the South and the North, to take these blessings with abatements ; that we cannot, at either end of the Union, have things as we could wish ; that slavery exists at the South and anti-slavery agitation at the North. Shall we be any better off, in either respect, when the Union is broken into two or two dozen separate sovereignties? Will there, in that case, be one slave the less at the South, for the satisfaction of the North ; or one particle the less agitation at the North for the satisfaction of the South ? It is urged, I am aware, in this quarter, that we are subjected to a pre- ponderating influence on the part of the slave-holding States, at once injurious and humiliating. But the Southern disunionists say that they are driven to separation, by the continual and successful encroachments of the North. Is there not error on both sides ; and do not these oppo- site statements call upon thoughtful men, in both parts of the Union, to search their consciences, whether they have a sufficient warrant for in- voking the country in the certain horrors of civil war on such contradic- tory grounds ; especially when it is reflected that the evils complained of, on either side, are sure to be aggravated by the fancied remedy ? Confident that the just influence of the New England Society will be exerted to restore the harmony between the two great sections of the country which has been so deplorably impaired, I remain, dear Sir, EDWARD EVERETT. C. A. STETSON, Esq., Chairman. 61 [from WILLIAM SCHOULER, of Boston.] BOSTON, Dec. 16, 1850. CHARLES A. STETSON, Esq. Dear Sir: On my return yesterday from Washington, I found your polite invitation to be present with you at the anniversary of the New England Society, in the city of New-York, on the 23d instant, at the Astor House. I feel highly honored by being thus distinguished, and would gladly have accepted the invitation, were it not for private engagements, which demand my presence at home. Please convey to the officers and members of your honorable Society, my thanks for their invitation, together with the assurance we all feel here, that of New England's sons who have wandered forth from our sterile soil, into other parts, that those of them who abide in the city of New-York, are cherished at home as among the choicest of our lost jewels. Very respectfully, Your obedient servant, WM. SCHOULER. [From Hon. WILLIAM DUER, U. S. Representative. from New- York.] WASHINGTON, Dec. 21, 1850. Dear Sir : I have had the honor to receive your invitation, on behalf of the New England Society, to attend their anniversary dinner, at the Astor House, on Monday, the 23d instant. I greatly regret that my engagements here are such as to compel mo to decline your polite invitation, and thereby deprive myself of a great pleasure. I am, very respectfully, Your obedient servant, WILLIAM DUER. C. A. STETSON, Esq. [From Hon. R. CHOATE, Ex- Senator of Massachusetts.] BOSTON, Dec. 19, 1850. C. A. STETSON, Esq. My Dear Sir : I am distressed that it will be utterly impossible for me to be bodily among the New-York sons of Pilgrims. The Courts forbid. Nothing could give me so much pleasure, or afford me so good a chance to say one or two things with which my heart is bursting. I am, respectfully yours, R. CHOATE. 62 ALBANY, Nov. 14, 1850. Gentlemen : ' I have had the honor to receive your letter, inviting me to be present at the anniversary dinner of the New England Society, on the 23d inst. It would afford me sincere pleasure to be with you on an occasion which revives so many cherished associations of the past, and inspires us with exalted hopes for the future grandeur and happiness of our favored coun- try. I regret that my pressing engagements here will not permit me to attend. Be pleased to accept my gratefal acknowledgments of your kindness, And believe me, With great regard, Yours truly, WASHINGTON HUNT. CHARLES A. STETSON, Esq., and others, Committee. [From Hon. MARTIN VAN BUREN, Ex-President of the United Stales.] LINDENWALD, Dec. 22, 1850. Dear Sir : I regret exceedingly that my reply to the kind invitation of the New England Society, has been accidentally delayed until too late a period to be communicated to the members. Please make my apology to the Com- mittee, and believe me to be, Very respectfully and truly yours, M. VAN BUREN. C. A. STETSON, Esq. UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY IIIIIIHIIIIIIIIIIII Hill Illl A 000655653 4