NATIONAL BEREAVEMENTS. 
 
 A DISCOURSE, 
 
 DKLIVF.KEI) IN Tin; 
 
 ^ijrt| Irtsbgteriaii C|Hrc|, 
 
 OF CHICAGO, 
 
 ON THANKSGIVING DAY, NOV. 25, 1852, 
 
 BY THE 
 
 Eey. R. H. RICHARDSON, Pastor. 
 
 CHICAGO: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY S. O. QRIOOS & CO. 
 
 "DEMOruATIC tress" PRIXT, CLARK STREET. 
 
 1852. 
 
Lp 
 
 NATIONAL BEREAVEMENTS. 
 
 A DISCOURSE, 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE 
 
 J^0rt| Iprfsbgterian: C^ttrc^, 
 
 OF CHICAGO, 
 
 ON THANKSGIVING DAY, NOV. 25, 185a 
 
 BT THE 
 
 Eev. E. H. RICHAEDSON, Pastor. 
 
 CHICAGO: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY S. C. QRIGGS & CO. 
 
 "democratic press" print, CLARK STREET. 
 
 1852. 
 
CHICAGO, November 26, 1852, 
 Rev. R. H. Richardson, 
 
 Pastor of the North Presbyterian Ohurch. 
 
 Dear Sir : — The undersigned believe that the publication of the sermon 
 delivered by you on the occasion of our recent annual Thanksgiving, in ■which 
 you allude so appropriately to our Nation's bereavement, in the loss of her Web- 
 ster and her Clay, would be highly satisfactory to those who had the pleasure of 
 hearing it, as well as to our citizens and the public generally. 
 
 "We therefore cordially unite in requesting a copy for that purpose. 
 
 S. C, GRIGGS. J. B. McCOR>nCK, 
 
 R. L. WILSON, JOHN BOND, 
 
 ROBERT H. MORRIS, B. S. MORRIS. 
 
 THOMAS HOGE, H. N. HEALD, 
 
 WILLIAM DUANE WILSON, ROBERT HERVEY. 
 
 H. E. SEEL YE. E. L. JANSEN, 
 
 JOHN A. BROSS, T. W. WADSWORTH. 
 
 CHICAGO, November 27, 1852. 
 Gentlemen : 
 
 One who attempts to render a tribute, however feeble, to departed worth, 
 is secure of a hearing, because of the subject which he has chosen. To this fac 
 I attribute your interest in the discourse to which you refer; and for this reason, 
 I submit it to your disposal ; only regretting that it is not more worthy of its 
 theme, and of your favorable opinion. 
 
 Yours respectfully and truly, 
 
 R. H. RICHARDSON, 
 To Messrs. S. C, Griggs, J. B. McCormick, J. A. Bross, &c. &c. 
 
DISCOURSE. 
 
 For behold, the Lofd, the Lord of hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem and 
 from Judah, the stay and the staff;- the whole stay of bread and the whole stay of 
 water ; the mighty man, and the man of war ; the judge, and the prophet, and 
 the prudent and the ancient; the captain of fifty, and the honorable man, and 
 the counsellor, and the cunning artificer, and the eloquent orator. 
 
 Isaiah III : 1-3. 
 
 The text contains the prophecy of Judah's affliction. It con- 
 tains, in part, the history of our own affliction, since we last met 
 to pay our annual thank-offering to our God. The Lord hath ta- 
 ken away from us, not the stay and staff of bodily support : for the 
 harvest has been plenteous, and the laborers not few. But He 
 has removed the stay and staff" of the body politic. He has ta. 
 ken the mighty, the judge, and the prudent, and the ancient, ^and 
 the honorable man, and the counsellor, and the eloquent orator. 
 If to remember the blessings we have enjoyed, is the object of 
 this day's appointment, and of this assembling of ourselves to* 
 gether; then I can think of no more fitting occupation for the 
 hour, than the remembrance of those honorable men, to whose 
 lives and labors, more than to those of any other who have lately 
 lived or died, we are indebted for our national peace and pros- 
 perity. It might seem that lamentations and tears were more 
 becoming to us and to the day, than praise and thanks-giving ; 
 while the impressions of our loss are so fresh, and the blood is 
 still flowing from a nation's wounded heart. But, that they have 
 lived is the matter of our rejoicing; and that they still live, in 
 
6 
 
 the impress they have left upon the mind, and heart, and desti- 
 ny, of a mighty people. They are dead indeed, but only dead as 
 great men can only die. The hand has forgotten its cunning ; the 
 eagle-eye has lost its lustre ; the bounding heart has ceased to 
 beat; the voice whose tones once charmed the ears of listening 
 senates, and a listening nation, is hushed ; the majestic form which 
 once moved to and fro amid an admiring people, will be seen no 
 more. But the places which once knew them shall know them 
 forever. The last words of him who was the last to leave us, 
 will be as true in years to come, as when spoken amid the dis- 
 solving of his earthly tabernacle, one month ago. He was but 
 uttering the perpetual prophecy of his own Immortality, when, 
 from the very borders of the world of the dead, he whispered 
 back, " I still live." And we are at once reminded of his own lan- 
 guage spoken years before, when he pronounced the eulogy of 
 two other great men who had gone down hand in hand to the 
 grave. ''Adams and Jefferson, I have said, are no more. As 
 human beings, indeed, they are no more. They are no more, as 
 in 1776, bold and fearless advocates of independence ; no more, 
 as at subsequent periods, the head of the government ; no more, 
 as we have recently seen them, aged and venerable objects of ad- 
 miration and regard. They are dead. But how little is there 
 of the great and good, which can die ! To their country they 
 yet live, and live forever. They live in all that perjoetuates the 
 remembrance of men on earth ; in the recorded proofs of their 
 own great actions ; in the offspring of their intellects ; in the deep 
 engraved lines of public gratitude, and in the respect and hom- 
 age of mankind. They live in their example, and they live, em- 
 ■ohatically, and will live, in the influence which their lives and 
 efforts, tlieir principles and opinions, now exercise, and will con- 
 tinue to exercise, on the affairs of men, not~ only iu their own 
 country, but throughout the civilized world." 
 
 Great men are great blessings, rare as they are great. To a 
 
nation, they are more important than all the other good gifts, 
 which the God of nations can bestow. Talk we of our native 
 equality as we may ; if our boast were true, it would be the heavi- 
 est curse we could pronounce upon ourselves. We must have 
 ' mountain-men ; men who tower above the plain of ordinary 
 humanity ; around whose heads the clouds may gather, and the 
 lightnings flash, and the thunders roll; unharmed themselves, 
 while yet|they draw away the bolts, which would otherwise deal 
 death and devastation to all beneath them. We must have men 
 to lead, to guide, to control ; to sway the masses by the might of 
 their opinions and their eloquence, and to shield them by the 
 skill and strength of their arms. We must have men to whom 
 to look, in the hour of perplexity and alarm ; men to watch the 
 coming Danger from afar, to warn of its coming, and to avert it, 
 or show the methods of meeting it, undismayed. We must have 
 men to rule us ; not merely by the sceptre, or by the staff of of- 
 fice which we ourselves confer upon them ; but by the power 
 which God has not given to all ; the power of a large heart, and 
 of a great mind, and of a potent tongue. We could not, if we 
 would, and we would not if we could, be all ahke great, or all 
 alike small. If the world were all mountain, the people could 
 not live ; if tlie world were all plain, the people would die. 
 
 A nation's greatness, therefore, is determined, not by its equali- 
 ties, but by its inequalities ; and its prosperity is measured by 
 the greatness of the men who rule its destinies and order its af- 
 fairs. And among the men of this nation, to whom this place has 
 been assigned by Grod, there have been none greater than Hen- 
 ry Clay and Daniel Webster. 
 
 Have they not a place among the three most honorable and 
 mighty ? I speak not of them as partizans, but as patriots ; as 
 men whose services were no more limited by their political rela- 
 tionships, than their fame is "hemmed in by state lines." Caro- 
 lina — Kentucky — Massachusetts : these were but the homes 
 
from which they came forth to bless a nation. Federalist — Dem- 
 ocrat — Whig ; these are but family names, but they are kin- 
 dred and confederate all. And the eye so blinded by the mists of 
 party prejudice, ^s not to see the greatness of any and of all these 
 men, deserves not to look again upon the sun in his glory. 
 
 It is our privilege and duty, then, to remember this day, with 
 hearts of gratitude and voices of thanksgiving, the lives and ser- 
 vices of those great men, whom the Lord gave, and the Lord hath 
 taken away. And we would plant the laurel and the willow, 
 side by side, above their newjy-made graves ; the one, the em- 
 blem of a nation's tears; the other, of a nation's honor and undy- 
 ing remembrance. 
 
 But there is another reason why we should cherish, with pe- 
 culiar love and veneration, the memories of these two men. — 
 There have been times when they would have been but two among 
 many, and their death would not have entailed so great a loss 
 upon the people. But alas ! they were among the few survivors 
 of a generation which is fast passing away, and like which, an- 
 other generation cometh not. America has had her share of no- 
 table men ; men who would have made their mark in any age 
 and any country. Washington and Hamilton and Hancock; 
 Adams and Jefferson ; Madison and Marshall, and Calhoun, and 
 Clay, and Webster. There remain yet but two or three, whose 
 names are worthy to be written, even after these. Have we pro- 
 ven ourselves unworthy that the race should be continued ? Are 
 we beginning thus to feel the effects of the oft-repeated truth, that 
 Kepublics are ungrateful ? Is it because we have refused them 
 the places to which they were entitled, and have chosen our 
 Chief Eulers from among the inferior and unknown, or those 
 known only as men mighty in war ? 
 
 We may not be able, perhaps, to trace the causes, but the fact 
 is patent to the eye of all. The visitor to the Capitol, as he en- 
 ters that chamber where once sate, in solemn and dignified coun- 
 
cil, the "grave and reverend seigniors," of tlie imion; sees, at a 
 glance, that the times are changed. If it be the first time that he 
 has stood in that honorable and once august Presence, he comes 
 out thence, himself a changed man. The awe and veneration 
 of his youth are ended. The halo with which his imagination 
 had invested these Elders of his people, has faded into the light 
 of common day. And he turns away both a sadder and a wiser 
 man, to muse and mourn over departed greatness; while voices all 
 around him seem echoing the question of his spirit, The Fathers ! 
 where arc thej'? — where are they? If, then, blessings brighten 
 as they take their flight; we must look with peculiar emotion 
 upon this disappearing train of statesmen, and mourn with a pe- 
 culiar sorrow, as, one by one, they are lost to sight, and rejoice 
 with a peculiar joy, in the remembrance of their lives and la- 
 bors. And in view of the departure of such men, and the con- 
 trast which they present with those who take their places, may 
 I not add to my text, as appropriate to the occasion, the verse 
 which immediately follows those which I have read ; "And I will 
 give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them." 
 
 But let us not despond. Perhaps when great emergencies 
 shall come again, and men's hearts shall be failing them for fear, 
 and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth, 
 then there maj^ be found those equal to the times, and the Re- 
 public may renew her glory, in the glorv of he]' new great names. 
 Circumstances, if they do not make the men, oftentimes do make 
 them mightier than they seemed, and bring them out, in bold 
 relief, against the horizon of their former mediocrit}^ 
 
 But our concern to-day is with the Past, not with the Future ; 
 with the Dead, and not Avith the Living. 
 
 In the year which followed the Declaration of Independence, 
 amid the slashes of Hanover, an humble minister of the King of 
 Kings was father to a son of nobler name than any of that royal 
 house after which his birth-place was called. In the year which 
 
 2 
 
10 
 
 preceded the ackuowledgment of rbat Independence by tlie moth- 
 er countr}-, amid the granite hills of New Hampshire, an humble 
 captain of the Rev'olutionarj army received into his arms a boy, 
 Avhose giant soul was worthy of its cradle among those giant hills. 
 Those were eventful years, from 1777 to 1782 ; but in nothing 
 more influential upon the future of an infant nation, than in giv- 
 ing birth to these two infant boj's,. But Nations live, Avhile Men 
 die. And now, when six and seventy 3'ears have scarcely suf- 
 ficed to bring the country to its manhood, the men who watched 
 its growth, and moulded its character, and shaped its destinies, 
 have passed through all the stages of their earthly history ; have 
 been gathered to their Fathers, and have seen corruption. 
 
 I have no thought of tracing the career of either, through his 
 many years of public service. What has been said of one is true 
 of both, that ''whoever in after times shall write the history of the 
 United States for the last forty years, will write the lives of these 
 two men ; and whoever writes their lives, as they ought to be writ- 
 ten, Avill write the history of the Union, from the time they took 
 a leading part in its concerns." By that power of attraction which 
 draws great bodies together, they met, in time, at a central point; 
 the one coming from the mighty forests of "the dark and bloodj^ 
 oTound ;" the other from the rock-bound coasts of his native New 
 En "'land; each from a State which he had adopted, and which 
 had adopted him, and of which he was the ruling spirit while he 
 lived. And there, in the capital of their common country, with 
 occasional and brief interruptions, they were laborers together in 
 their country's cause. 
 
 With two or three exceptions, they were agreed upon the great 
 questions of public policy, which have come before the congress 
 and the nation ; and they mingled their eloquent voices in the 
 advocacy of the same principles. But they were men, who, 
 whether they fought with their party, or against it, or irrespec- 
 tive of all party lines; contended always for what they deemed. 
 
11 
 
 not tlic wclfiiru ui" one purty, class or section, but of all. Tlicy 
 were of tlie same profession, and have held the same oIHces un, 
 der State and National Government, and, in every place which 
 they occupied, have left indelible traces of their presence and 
 their agency for good. In the halls of State legislation ; in the 
 National House of Representatives ; in the Senate Chamber ; as 
 Secretaries of State ; as expounders and defenders of the Law and 
 Constitution ; at the bar of the Supreme and subordinate Courts ; 
 as treaty maimers with foreign powers ; they put forth their noblest 
 energies for the honor and prosperity of the people. 
 
 In the flush of their early manhood, and of their dawning 
 fame, when a second war with England was found needful to 
 rivet and secure the results of the first ; though they differed in 
 some respects as to its original propriety, and some of the prin- 
 ciples an which it was conducted, yet they fought and toiled to- 
 gether for its prosecution, until the nation's rights were acknowl- 
 edged. 
 
 When a State, presuming upon an extreme theory of her own 
 sovereignty, ventured to lift her hands against the laws and offi- 
 cers of the general Government, they united in their efforts to 
 bring her to a state of submission or acquiescence, peaceabl}^ if 
 they could ; forcibly, if they must. 
 
 If, in the forensic contes-t which this (question excitedj the 
 noblest champions of state rights found their ramparts demol-- 
 ished, by the thunder of such words as had seldom before been 
 heard, within tne walls of any Capitol ; it may be attributed, in 
 part to the weakness of the position which they had taken. 
 
 With respect to the currency and the general commercial pol- 
 icy of the country, they were found for the last four and twenty 
 years of their life, not only with each other, but where the mighty 
 South Carolinian at first stood, and other eminent men of the 
 party with which he acted. 
 
 AVhen, but recently, the fanaticism, Avhich is found as well m 
 
12 
 
 Carolina as in Massacliusetts ; as Avell in New York as in Missis- 
 sippi; -vvould Lave rent asunder the bonds of our confederacy, 
 again we find tliem side by side in valorous efforts to avert the 
 impending danger, and preserve intact the laws and constitution 
 of the country. If in this position there appeared some incon- * 
 sistency on the part of one, with positions taken in other years. 
 I dare not attribute it, to any motives of selfish interest or ambi- 
 tion, without far better jDroof than ever has been given. A change 
 of opinion is no evidence of a loss of principle ; and it was the 
 testimony of Calhoun himself, near the close of his life ; a man 
 whose profoundness of judgment, and, sense of honor and integ- 
 rity in private and in public, are unimpeachable ; that " there 
 was not one whose political course had been more strongly marked 
 by a strict regard to truth and honor than Mr. Webster's," 
 
 When Boston therefore refused to him, on his return, the old 
 Cradle of Liberty, Avhich had been so often rocked before by the 
 feet of thousands moved by the might of his eloquence, she dis- 
 honored herself and not the Statesman who had incurred her 
 frown. Difler as men may in regard to the right or wrong of the 
 course he pursued in that time of trial, they cannot but see that 
 it required great moral courage in him, thus to brave the opin- 
 ions and the feelings of his State, and risk his character and 
 standing and influence all upon it. And he well might say in 
 his defence to those whom he represented, "Had.I loved you 
 less. I had done and spoken otherwise than I have." But he 
 lived to see that dishonor done away; and the last welcome 
 which he met in Boston, and which brought the tears in torrents 
 down that old man's furrowed cheek, was healing to his woun- 
 ded spirit ; and proved to him that Massachusetts loved him, after 
 all, as she has loved no other man beside. And Faneuil Hall, 
 still echoing with the weeping of the multitudes, and with the 
 voices of those who spoke the nation's sorrow, in its sable dra- 
 pery stands to-day, mute witness of Massachusetts' and the na- 
 tion's c'ricf. 
 
13 
 
 If wc look for other evidences of the service which these incii 
 have rendered in their individual capacities and stations, we find 
 them ''inwrought into the annals of the country" for the last 
 thirty years. To one we owe the honorable close of the second 
 war with England. To tlie other, the arresting of a third war, 
 which was ont he point of breaking out. We find such evidences in 
 the noble stands which they have both taken, in times when na- 
 tional peace and honor have been threatened. We find them in the 
 wise administration of all the interests with which they w^cre 
 entrusted. We find them in their ceaseless efforts to promote 
 state amity and brotherhood. We find them in their many la- 
 bors to develop the national resources, and promote the natural 
 well being in all its departments. We find them in their never- 
 failing sympathy with the suffering and struggling citizens of 
 this and every land. In Ireland, in Hungary, in South Ameri- 
 ca, and in Greece, their names are only less familiar than those 
 of Emmet, Kossuth, Bolivar and Marco Botzaris. This sympa- 
 thy was none the less sincere, if they were not ready to espouse 
 the schemes of men less wise and far-seeing than themselves. 
 We find them in the records of their speeches delivered on gi-eat 
 occasions, and in the traditions of many which have found no 
 record. 
 
 As orators they have had few equals in any age, and they 
 leave none behind them who could claim this place. Each was 
 great, though different from the other. The eloquence of one 
 was like his own native home ; a varied scene of woodland, hill 
 and dale, of sturdy forests and verdant meadows j of oaks and 
 vines and violets, and flowing brooks, and singing birds and 
 whispering breezes ; charming, fascinating, insinuating ; and win- 
 ning its way to heart and judgment by a thousand gentle arts 
 and graceful passages and skilful surprises. The eloquence of 
 the other was also like the home from which he came. The 
 thunder which dwelt among his native hills, had settled upon 
 
u 
 
 his bfO'A", a. J tUo liglitnings Hashed from beneath it, as he hud 
 seen them in his boyhood gleam about those cloud-capped hills. 
 It was Titanic, Colocsal, Continental. It had at once the music 
 iind the miglit of the many waters, whose voices he heard when 
 he went to rest from toil, amid the well-tilled meadows of Marsh- 
 field. It swept every thing before it. It was like a tempest, 
 with occasional lulls, in which a plaintive sighing is heard among 
 the trees; and anon, the crash of falling forests. And this too 
 not by the tricks of the player, or the force af wild passion, but 
 by the calm, majestic power of great Thought,, robed in great 
 Speech, and armed with ponderous and trenchant Truth, 
 
 I do not feel called upon to speak of the moral greatness or 
 littleness of th^se men, because the occasion does not demand it. 
 I have aimed only to hint at some of the reasons why their 
 memories should be cherished on this day of thanksgiving. For 
 their faults — and faults they had — we are not required to be 
 grateful, but they do not lessen the claim upon our gratitude for 
 their virtues, their lives, their services. I have spoken of them 
 neither as private men nor as party men ; but as public men, 
 national men ; to whose greatness all of every state^ and creed, 
 and sect, will bear witness. We are grateful that they have 
 lived, while we grieve that they have died. 
 
 Alas ! that this should be the closing wail of all the eulogies of hu- 
 man greatness. I have said ye are Gods, but ye shall die like men. 
 Greater than all is Death. He leadeth counsellors away spoiled, 
 and overthroweth the mighty. He removeth ihe speech of the 
 trusty, and taketh away the understanding of the aged. He 
 taketh away the heart of the chief of the ])eople of the earth, 
 and causeth them to wander in a wilderness, where there is no 
 way. He increaseth the nations, and destroyetli them ; he en- 
 largeth the nations and straiteneth them again. He poureth con- 
 tempt upon princes, and weakeneth the strength of the mighty. 
 So man lieth down and riseth not, till the heavens be no more^ 
 they shall not awake^ nor be raised out of their sleep. 
 
1( 
 
 Amid the peaceful groves of Ashland, where so many of my boy- 
 hood's hours were passed, and through which I used to roam as a 
 child, beside a noble stately form, a great multitude is gathered. 
 Venerable Senators and honored Eepresentatives of the nation, 
 have come from the far-off capitol. Men of every class, condition, 
 and pursuit, have met together here. The plough is left in the 
 field, the anvil echoes not the hammer's stroke, the tables o(" the 
 money-changers are emptied, the marts of commerce are desert- 
 ed, and the mourners go about the streets. The dwellings of 
 the citizen, the courts of justice, the schools of learning, the 
 churches of the good, and even the houses of the wicked, are 
 robed in black, and left untenanted. Old age with tottering step, 
 and bright-eyed childhood, and manhood in its prime, and the 
 mother with her babe, and the ma,iden in her beauty, all mingle 
 in that multitude which no more can number. The velvet turf is 
 turned in a quiet, secluded spot, and the earth thrown up ; and 
 around that spot the eager thousands gather, with hushed breath 
 and tearful eyes. And the earth is thrown back, and the green 
 turf turned again ; and the toil-worn Statesman sleeps, where the 
 wicked cease from troubling, and the wear}' are at rest. They 
 will raise a lofty monument above that sacred spot. They need 
 not carve an epitaph upon it ; they need not even inscribe a name. 
 The record of his worth is written in his country's history^ and 
 until the latest generation, sire will tell to son, that beneath that 
 marble sleeps Kentucky's noblest son — the nation's idol— Henry 
 Clay. But 
 
 Scarce thi-ough the vaulted caverns of the West, 
 Has died a people's tributary sigh ; 
 And now New England's granite-girdled breast, 
 Thrills with the utterance of her funeral cry. 
 
 •s- -x- * * * 
 
 Death's giant shadow thrown among the stars, 
 Upon Jove's broad, refulgent orb is bent ; 
 It passed beyond the crimson disc of Mars, 
 To quench the whitest of the firmament. 
 A voice is mute, whose calm, deliberate word, 
 Fell, more resistless than the warrior's sword. . 
 
16 
 
 He died, not like his great compatriot, in his country's Capitol, 
 far from home ; but in the bosom of his family, and in the spot 
 where he had loved to listen to the lowing of the kine, and to 
 watch the waving grain, and to gaze upon the sea which laved 
 his fertile fields. It was but a few short steps from the chamber 
 where he met his fate, to the silent tomb in which they left him 
 to his long repose. A nation, not so largely represented at his 
 burial, yet followed his noble form, in spirit, to his grave, and 
 mourned for him as one mourneth for an only son. When Clay 
 fell, they had a Webster left, but "Webster dead, there was no 
 Clay to die. 
 
 And they will build a monument to perpetuate his memory, 
 too. But why build monuments to him? They are already 
 built, from the boundaries amid the vast pine forests of the north, 
 to the golden gates of the far-off Pacific. His country's Consti- 
 tution, defended so bravely, and so long upheld by him, is his 
 monument] The Union of these States; not yet "in broken and 
 dishonored fragments," not yet " dissevered, discordant, belliger- 
 ent,'' is the monument alike of his and his illustrious rival's fame. 
 His works are with us to this day, monuments of his imperial, 
 massive intellect, which will live with the language in which they 
 were penned and spoken. There is Plymouth Eock, once bap- 
 tised with the tears of bare-foot Pilgrims, and re-baptised with 
 the fire of his eloquence, who was the Pilgrim's noblest son. 
 There is Bunker Hill's tall shaft, scarce less the monument of the 
 brave men who fell on that hill of battle, than of him through 
 whose eflbrts, principally, it was raised, and who commemorated 
 its completion in a speech which will outlast the granite pile. 
 No ! he needs no new memorials to remind the coming genera- 
 tions of him whom Massachusetts loved so well, and a world so 
 much admired. 
 
 It is fitting for me now in conclusion to allude in brief to 
 ixnother still more recent fall; not for its own sake merely, but 
 
17 
 
 because, as 1 believe, so closelj' coimected witli the two already 
 chronicled. For eight and twenty years, the men of this coun- 
 try have been known chiefly under two great party names, and 
 for eight and twenty years, two men were the pillars on which 
 one of these great parties rested. "Wliat then more natural, 
 more necessarv, than that when the pillars had fallen, the build- 
 ing should dissolve ? Was it mere coincidence that the greatest 
 defeat known in the history of political warfare in this country, 
 should tread upon the heels of that victory which the last Enemy 
 had won, over the two most prominent men of the defeated par- 
 ty ? And was it mere coincidence that only in Kentucky and 
 Massachusetts, where the ashes of Clay and Webster rest, with 
 their bordering States, Vermont and Tennessee, should be found 
 a people who still cling to the principles and policy which these 
 men had upheld ? It seems to me there is more than mere coin- 
 cidence in this, and that the Providence which ordered such a 
 sequence of events, designed to indicate the opening of a new 
 era in the political history of the land. 
 
 I have nothing here to say as to my own belief, whether that 
 era will be one of advance or retrogression in the nation's wel-' 
 fare ; or whether this defeat should be numbered among the oc- 
 casions of national thanksgiving, or of national lamentation. To 
 many, it has been a source of deep and heartfelt sorrow ; to more 
 a matter of indifference, and to most a matter of rejoicing. Time 
 and Providence will bring forth the foreordained results. But, 
 recording now, willingly or unwillingly, as I believe the final 
 downfall of a great political party, you will all, whether sym- 
 pathizing with its creed or not, unite with me in a parting trib- 
 ute to its last Administration. 
 
 I am but saying what has been said before, by men of differ- 
 ent political faith, that never since the formation of the govern- 
 ment, has there been an Administration more entitled to the 
 country's admiration, respect and gratitude. That very much 
 
 3 
 
18 
 
 (Of tliis is dae to liim wlio held the highest office in the Cabinet, 
 and from whose tomb our steps have just been turned, none can 
 •deny. But let us not withhold the meed of praise which belongs 
 to the Heads of the other Departments, and especially to him 
 whom God raised to the highest seat of honor in this nation. It 
 was an apostolic exhortation, that supplications, prayers, inter- 
 cessions and giving of thanks be made for all men, but especially 
 for all in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life 
 in all godliness and honesty. It is proper occasion of thanks- 
 giving, then, that under th&- government of our present Chief 
 Magistrate, we have led such a life, to so good an extent. Com- 
 ing into power under the embarrassments which always attend 
 an accidental elevation to office — as men term it — he has yet 
 been found equal to every emergency in which he has been 
 called to act. Fixed and fearless in his determination that the 
 laws should be obeyed, he has tempered the rigor of their execu- 
 tion, with all the leniency and prudence which sound judgment 
 could have dictated. If some mad-cap citizens have found dis- 
 honorable imprisonment or death, on foreign shores, they met a 
 fate of which they were forewarned, and from which the Gov- 
 ernment could not, and should not, have delivered them. If 
 men in violation of all law, human and divine, will invade their 
 neighbor's territory and rights, or intermeddle with that which 
 concerns them not, they can but expect to be treated accordingly ; 
 and while we pity their folly, and mourn over its consequences, 
 we may not interpose to stay the processes of Justice. It is mat- 
 ter of congratulation that all such attempts have been met with 
 the frown and prompt opposition of the Executive. 
 
 The same firmness and good judgment liave been exhibited in 
 every other department of national interest. The Constitution 
 and the Laws have been upheld ; treaties with other governments 
 have been fulfilled ; the national honor and integrity have been 
 vindicated ; the rights of all the states and of all classes of citi- 
 
19 
 
 zens have been respected ; unexpected exigencies promptly and 
 wisely met ; new enterjorizes originated and old ones conducted 
 •witli skill and discretion. On land and sea, at home and abroad, 
 the country's name has been raised in the estimation of mankind. 
 Fidelity, dignity, propriety, in fine, have marked the whole 
 course of government ; and unexampled prosperity — in good 
 degree, the result of these — have been our portion. " Honor then 
 to whom honor is due," and thanksgiving both to God and the 
 Government for all the good which we have enjoyed. Unknow- 
 ing of the future, we should be grateful for the past. But let 
 that future bring with it what it may, our trust is in the Lord^ 
 who made the Heavens and the Earth ; and "Who sitteth King 
 above the Nations, working all things according to the counsel 
 of His own will. 
 
 To whom the King eternal, immortal and invisible, the only 
 wise Grod, be ascribed, as is most due, all might, majesty, domin- 
 ion and glory, world without end. Amen.