ADDRESS AT HARTFORD, 
 
 BEFORE THE DELEGATES TO THE 
 
 DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION OF THE YOUNG MEN 
 OF CONNECTICUT, 
 
 ON THE 
 
 EVENING OP FEBRUARY 18, 1840, 
 
 BY GEORGE BANCROFT, 
 fit tftonformftg to a Vote of t$e Conbentfon, 
 
 Fellow Citizens : 
 
 The invitation to meet you this evening was accepted with 
 pleasure; nor do I stand as among strangers. The people of New England 
 have a common lineage, and a common inheritance. From the days when 
 our fathers first encountered the temptations of the wilderness, when they 
 repelled the invasions of ruthless barbarians, or resisted the tyranny of an 
 Andros, or protected themselves against inroads from Canada, or braved 
 the emissaries of despotism on Bunker Hill, or advocated independence 
 on the floor of Congress, the counsels and the efforts of Massachusetts 
 and Connecticut have been united. Of the study of the virtues of your 
 ancestors I never grow weary ; and I speak from deep and well-considered 
 conviction, when I declare my belief, that, for purity of moraJs, for freedom 
 and humanity as illustrated in a progressive legislation, for the wide diffu¬ 
 sion of intelligence, and the consequent rapid increase of numbers, and 
 of public happiness, the Connecticut of old times had not its parallel. 
 
 There seemed also a propriety, at the present time, that some one 
 from Massachusetts should address you. Men ask, almost with amaze¬ 
 ment, if Massachusetts is indeed firmly established as a democratic state. 
 But a little reflection will, at least throughout New England, remove 
 surprise. The institutions bequeathed to us by our ancestors, both in 
 Massachusetts and here, are so deeply tinged with the popular character, 
 as to prove, that of old the principle of democracy lived among our 
 fathers, and inspired their legislation. The people of Massachusetts 
 have, from my earliest recollection, been democratic: but in an evil hour 
 their energies were lulled by the cry, that they had won the victory, and 
 might repose in the consciousness of an undisputed triumph; and while 
 the people slumbered in confiding security, the aristocratic influence first 
 begged permission to amalgamate, and then usurped the ascendency. 
 But it is the nature of all evil to punish itself. The aristocratic influence, 
 having held dominion for fifteen years, had made the chief action of the 
 legislature consist in passing special laws for the benefit of individuals ; had, 
 with flagrant indifference to justice and to shame, asserted to individual 
 stockholders and directors in corporations the power of voting, as mem¬ 
 bers of the legislature, for the grant of new franchises to themselves; 
 had sacrificed the productive labor of New England, by upholding a 
 cunningly devised financial system, that made all American capital subser¬ 
 vient to foreign capital, and the interests of our own manufacturers subordi¬ 
 nate to those of foreigners ; had multiplied banks, and at last attempted to 
 charter a mammoth bank of ten millions, — which, by the mercy of God, 
 was defeated through the intense effort of the democratic minority; — 
 had, by an act of legislation, virtually sanctioned the suspension of pay- 
 
2 
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF DEMOCRACY. 
 
 ments by the banks; had stretched out the unhallowed hand of political 
 ambition to uphold the ark of the Most High, and rested the cause of 
 temperance on an arm of flesh ; had narrowed the rights of electors, by pre¬ 
 scribing to them unjust and unnecessary, and it may be unconstitutional, 
 formalities; and had, for the benefit of corporations, mortgaged all the 
 farms and real estate of the Commonwealth to an amount about equal to 
 the whole debt incurred by Massachusetts for the war of Independence. 
 
 The aristocratic influence had revealed itself to the people in its own 
 natural deformity. The young men in many of our villages, almost with¬ 
 out one single exception, raised the democratic standard, and the good 
 ship Massachusetts has been put once more on the republican tack, and this 
 time with a faithful pilot at the helm. To doubt the issue would be to 
 admit into our hearts a little of that distrust of the people, for which our 
 opponents are entitled to a monopoly. The democracy of Massachusetts 
 confides in the people, and, ever true to its good cause, in reverent hope 
 lifts its eyes upwards. 
 
 And what is that principle, which has thus been able, year after year, 
 to advance in the affections of New England, and, in spite of the im¬ 
 mense political activity of associated wealth, to gain a victory in the Bay 
 State ? To-night I shall speak to you of the principle of democracy, 
 of its forms, and of its tendencies ; and in discussing a subject of deep¬ 
 est interest to every freeman in the land, I shall deem my words rashly 
 spoken, unless they are confirmed by your concurrence. 
 
 I. Lay your hand on your heart. It throbs. Here, standing among 
 democrats, I may say, it throbs warmly. The farmer behind the plough 
 feels it beat in harmony with the creation through which he moves. Go 
 out into the crowded streets, you will every where find, that there is no 
 shrivelled miser, no selfish epicure, no ambitious politician, no “ incarna¬ 
 tion of fat dividends,” but he has a heart. Seek whom you will, the 
 benevolent or the selfish, the highminded or the mean, the most wise or 
 the most narrow, each one has a heart, though sometimes, on dissection, 
 it might require a microscope to find its place. 
 
 Just so the power to discern good from evil, right from wrong, is im¬ 
 planted within every one. It is the gift of God to every man. God has 
 disfranchised no one; He has cut off not one from the inheritance of 
 reason. Wherever there is moral existence, wherever there is a human 
 being, there also is found the gift of mind. There, within the depths of 
 conscience, Virtue has erected her tribunal; there an arbiter is established 
 to decree what, in the face of humanity and of the Infinite Mind, shall be 
 acknowledged as justice. 
 
 Democracy is, therefore, the Power of Justice, as cherished in the 
 hearts of the people, as interpreted and enforced by the public mind. 
 
 I know it will be said, that the power of the people will not, of neces¬ 
 sity, be the government of justice. 
 
 To whom, then, but to the whole people, shall we look for the true in¬ 
 terpretation of justice ? If not to the whole people, we must look to a 
 fraction of the people. Now, there is a primary objection to making this 
 appeal to any fraction whatever. For by the very fact that it is a frac¬ 
 tion, it has a separate interest. The fraction asks itself, “ How will this 
 look on the exchange, and among the members of the clan ? ” The people 
 can only ask itself, “ How will this look in the history of the race, and 
 before the Creator of man ?” If I appeal to the whole people, I shall get 
 an answer in harmony with general truth ; if I appeal to a part of the 
 
THE PRINCIPLE OF DEMOCRACY. 
 
 3 
 
 people, the answer will be partial, modified by peculiarities and a special 
 bias. To take the decision away from the whole community, implies an 
 unwillingness to have an answer resting on universal truth. 
 
 But let us analyze this matter more minutely. If the expression of the 
 public mind is not to be acknowledged as the interpreter of justice, and 
 we are to look to a fraction, that fraction must be the purest, or the 
 strongest, or the wealthiest, or the wisest. 
 
 If we look to the purest for oracles of justice, we at once get as a 
 political power a priesthood or a church. We get an aristocracy of 
 priests, or an aristocracy of church members. How unwise the first is, 
 has been ploughed deeply into the history of mankind. For the political 
 exaltation of a priesthood brings with it a concession of a monopoly of 
 moral truth. It binds the mind in fetters; it proclaims the slavery of 
 the soul; thus destroying freedom at its source, and with freedom de¬ 
 stroying the possibility of public virtue and justice. New England has 
 had an example of an aristocracy of church members, in the early history 
 of Massachusetts; and the record of its fatal tendency is written in acts 
 of bigotry, and in letters of blood. Besides: let no man, however pure, 
 —and the truly pious man is always humble,— be so arrogant as to claim 
 in piety a superiority to the people; for the people includes within itself 
 all the purity and piety of all its members. 
 
 The aristocracy of the strongest has also been tried. It is the feudal 
 system, and the system of each modern military despotism, giving domin¬ 
 ion to brute force. It is the system which despises freedom, and annihi¬ 
 lates mind. This form of aristocracy, far from aspiring to interpret jus¬ 
 tice, aims only at asserting its own will. 
 
 The fraction of the wealthy next urges its claim. This claim is more 
 frequently maintained. It is the part of wisdom to found government on 
 property, says Webster, giving utterance to the creed of our American 
 modern whigs. The poet Addison, once secretary of state, was a good 
 English whig in his day. He maintained the same opinion. And John 
 Locke, the great philosopher of the whigs, declares the very design and 
 object of government to be the protection of property. 
 
 Now, to every rich man there are two things: —First, he is a man : as 
 such, democracy respects him, and gives him equal rights. Next is his 
 wealth ; but wealth is blind. It cannot reason, and it cannot feel. The 
 money-bag has neither heart nor mind. The love of riches is a base pas¬ 
 sion. If government is surrendered to it, then the question will be, “ What 
 will be said of this measure by the speculators in real estate ? What will 
 be thought of it by the bears and bulls in the stock-market ? ” Therefore 
 Democracy rejects the government of wealth. She insists on putting the 
 question, not to note-shavers and money-makers, not to those who are 
 rich, and are struggling to grow richer, but to conscience and to mind. 
 
 The fraction of the learned comes next — the wise men after the flesh. 
 But the people collectively is wiser than they, for it includes within itself 
 their wisdom also. And further: Excellent as men of learning are in their 
 place, I should be loath to resign the government of the country into the 
 hands of college professors or the learned of the land. For learning has a 
 pride and an arrogance of its own. Besides, the pedant’s chair may hold 
 every passion, mean as well as noble, that human nature knows. It is a 
 remarkable fact, that the great progress in science and government has not 
 been made at universities. Our fathers were outcasts from the universi¬ 
 ties ; and Oxford in England taught the doctrine of passive obedience to 
 
THE PRINCIPLE OF DEMOCRACY. 
 
 4 
 
 .( 
 
 kings, long after Hooker and Haynes had founded government in Con¬ 
 necticut on undivided obedience to God. When the angel of advancing 
 reform knocks at the gate of our colleges, he is too often met with a re¬ 
 buff, and compelled, as in the days of the patriarch, to go out and break 
 bread with the herdsman beneath a tree. And though a hearty sympathy 
 with popular liberty is the sole condition on which an American scholar 
 can hope for enduring fanie, or a college can attain highest success, it 
 still proves hard for the very learned to acknowledge that learning is but 
 a cistern, and that in every mind there is a living fountain of truth. 
 Therefore it is that Lord Bacon holds it necessary for the inquirer to be¬ 
 come as a little child, or he cannot hope to enter into the kingdom of 
 intelligence ; and we have good authority for believing that Heaven, in 
 its high purposes of reform, selects for its agents not many wise after the 
 flesh. God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the 
 wise, and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound 
 the things which are mighty. 
 
 Thus Justice refuses to plead before a fraction of the people. She 
 establishes her open tribunal, and seeks a decree in harmony with con¬ 
 science and the voice of God, by appointing the whole people as the 
 umpire and sovereign arbiter. Her court is an open court. Thither 
 may repair the oppressor and the oppressed ; the poor and the rich ; the 
 wise after the flesh, and the chosen of God, whose wisdom is as that of 
 children; the strong and the weak; the learned and the unlearned ; the 
 benevolent and the churl. All are admitted, all are heard ; but the de¬ 
 cision is the voice of conscience as expressed by the common mind ; the 
 voice of God “ as it breathes through the people: ” the power is to the 
 people. 
 
 In this judgment of the people, the several fractions indeed appear and 
 are heard. But the influence of those fractions is merged in the general 
 influence. The excesses of one class cancel the excesses of the other. 
 
 Just so geographically. The voice of universal reason, in Massachu¬ 
 setts, is sometimes affected by the clamor of associated wealth; at the 
 South, by a selfishness of an opposite tendency. . The errors balance 
 each other. As in algebra, the minus and the plus, if equal, neutralize 
 each other. Thus it is that the voice of the people is the voice of pure 
 reason ; opposite, unjust passions balancing each other, justice emerges. 
 
 Give power to a fraction of the people, and you have a partial exposi¬ 
 tion of justice. Give power to the whole people, and you gain the near¬ 
 est expression of the law of God, the voice of conscience, the oracle of 
 universal reason. 
 
 Thus, then, we see, that the moral law is graven on the heart of every 
 man ; that, while each individual has personal biases and passions, the uni¬ 
 versal principles of the moral law exist in every man; that, therefore, to 
 gain institutions and laws founded upon universal reason and universal 
 justice, the appeal must be made to the whole people. 
 
 This is the democratic principle. Democracy is eternal justice, 
 
 RULING THROUGH THE PEOPLE. 
 
 II. The principle of democracy, of itself, dictates the forms under 
 which it establishes itself in the fundamental laws. 
 
 And here the character of democracy exhibits itself at the very begin¬ 
 ning. For, on what basis does government rest ? 
 
 A respectable and very ambitious party represent that the people meet 
 in convention, and form a compact; that this compact at once obtains a 
 
THE FORMS OF DEMOCRACY. 
 
 5 
 
 character of sanctity, and that it constitutes the basis on which society 
 rests. This is the whig doctrine. It rests government not on any thing 
 that is in man, but on parchments and title deeds. 
 
 This theory gives no higher authority to government, than the accident 
 of agreement; it is, therefore, essentially relative, and is remote from the 
 high idea of justice in its origin, as in its character. A party adopting 
 this theory may look for safety to checks and balances ; it cannot invoke a 
 higher sanction : it may have maxims ; it never can have principles. 
 
 And here is the reason why the whig party has no faith. Whiggism 
 gives sanctity to the form, and not to the principle which led to the adop¬ 
 tion of the form. It adheres to the letter, and neglects the spirit; and 
 the dead letter cannot inspire faith. Whiggism values forms in them¬ 
 selves, because they may be used as so many checks on the people. 
 
 Is it denied that the whigs prefer forms to the substance ? Have w6 
 not seen, in Massachusetts, an executive council refuse to bend their ear 
 to hear the voices of the yeomanry and hardy mechanics of Westfield, 
 and reject a vote of which the accuracy was undisputed, because the 
 town clerk wrote his name in the centre of the fourth page, instead of on 
 a corner of the third ? Have we not seen the whole whig party claiming 
 on the floor of Congress for abroad seal, under a notoriously false record, 
 a higher power than for the voice of the Commonwealth, as registered at 
 its polls and preserved in its archives ? 
 
 Or, is it denied that the whigs have no faith in their own cause ? That 
 they have not faith, is evident from a flood of reasons. They appeal to 
 the passions of men, and not to their reason. They are perpetually stim¬ 
 ulating the minions of calumny to the work of personal defamation. As if 
 ashamed of themselves, they are perpetually attempting to wear democ¬ 
 racy as a mask. They dare not present to the people, as candidates for 
 high offices, the men who most adequately represent their party. The 
 doings of the late convention of whigs at Harrisburg are fraught with a 
 sublime moral. By not daring to ask the suffrages of the people for 
 Henry Clay, the gifted champion of their cause, they themselves made a 
 confession in advance that they deserve defeat, that a true representa¬ 
 tive of the whig party is not an available candidate. To them, availa¬ 
 bility consists in that happy mediocrity, which, from its own weakness, 
 has escaped being identified with any prominent measure whatever. 
 
 Democracy, on the other hand, regards government as springing from 
 the necessity implanted in man’s nature. Wherever there are human 
 beings, wherever there are intelligent life and freedom, there, also, the in¬ 
 ward voice of God in the soul commands society to be instituted. So¬ 
 ciety exists of necessity, and from God ; and rests primarily on the law 
 of justice imprinted on man’s heart, long before a parchment was scrawled 
 upon, or a constitution devised. Society rests on immutable justice ; and 
 justice, like all moral truth, lives not in books, not in letters of black andj 
 white, not in archives or compacts, but in the souls of men. 
 
 When the people assemble in convention to settle the forms of govern¬ 
 ment, they do not create government, they only institute it. The office j 
 of the members of a convention is, to inquire what justice commands. 
 They do not arbitrarily create forms ; they do but ask after the forms 
 which are best adapted to the great ends of society. And not claiming 
 for themselves infallibility, they do not regard their work as an inviolable 
 compact, but as an institution to be amended, reformed, and perfected, 
 as fast as the increase of knowledge and uprightness shall demand 
 
6 
 
 THE FORMS OF DEMOCRACT. 
 
 Thus democracy rests government on the strongest possible founda¬ 
 tion ; —on the law of God in the soul of man. It seeks to establish 
 fundamental laws, in conformity to the immutable principles of never- 
 changing justice. And as the race is constantly advancing in intelligence, 
 democracy secures to the people the right to make constant progress in 
 the form of government. Thus the people have taken care to provide a 
 method for amending the constitution of the United States; and in our 
 own bill of rights, it is energetically declared, that “ The people have an 
 incontestable, inalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government, 
 and to reform, alter, or totally change the same.” This is the great 
 doctrine of progress, as applied to the Union and the Commonwealth. 
 
 In framing a constitution, democracy demands, that, in every branch of 
 government, that system shall be adopted which permits the most ready 
 and certain career to the expression of the public conviction. The form 
 which leaves power nearest the 'people, is the form chosen by democracy. 
 
 First, then, it asserts the doctrine of universal franchise in the election 
 of legislators. The whole people must participate in the appointing 
 power, and must participate in it directly. 
 
 In the next place, when elections have been made by the people, 
 democracy respects them. It gets up no Ritner rebellions: it adds up 
 the column of figures accurately and promptly, and does not delay its 
 report for week after week, in the vain hope that some new discoveries 
 may be made in the science of counting nicely. 
 
 The legislators thus elected are but trustees of the people ; therefore 
 responsible; and swift responsibility is secured by frequent elections. 
 Here we, of New England, have cause of gratitude to our forefathers. 
 
 If office is a burden, it should not be forced upon a few ; if it be a 
 benefit, it should be dispensed as widely as possible. To this end de¬ 
 mocracy enjoins rotation in office. 
 
 Further, the legislator is but the servant or trustee of the people* 
 therefore he is bound to obey instructions from the people. Does he 
 prove false to his professions and promises ? Let him be reproved by his 
 masters. Does he turn against their interests or their rights ? Let him 
 learn to obey his sovereign. 
 
 The Quakers who settled West New Jersey, were good democrats. 
 They established the right of instruction as a part of their laws; and 
 gave to each elector the power of presenting himself in the legislative 
 body, and, face to face, of arraigning the recreant representative who 
 should prove false to his bond. 
 
 I know it is said this doctrine of instruction interferes with the delib¬ 
 erative character of the representative body. The answer to this is, that 
 laws are to express the convictions of the people ; that the representative, 
 if he has a good purpose, can undertake to explain it to his constituents. 
 When a legislator asserts his own will against the will of his constituents, 
 he becomes the exponent of the smallest possible fraction, to wit, himself. 
 
 I ““ Besides, legislation, to be abiding, must represent the will of the people; 
 the security, therefore, and the honesty of legislation are both promoted 
 by the doctrine of instructions. Without this, there is no check upon 
 the personal passions, or peculiar schemes, of the individual representative. 
 
 The representative, chosen for a season, soon to go into retirement, 
 may have selfish purposes. Hence a second limitation. Democracy 
 holds him not only responsible to the people, but circumscribes his power 
 Within the strict boundaries marked out for him. It reserves rights to 
 
THE FORMS OF DEMOCRACY. 7 
 
 I 
 
 the individual, rights to the state, rights to the collective people; and 
 the legislator who dares to step beyond them, does but make himself 
 guilty of a usurpation, which is in itself null and void. Hence the 
 rights of personal freedom, of individual freedom of mind, are reserved 
 rights; hence the inalienable, indefeasible rights, which no legislation 
 can create or abrogate; hence state rights, which, rightly construed and 
 applied, are a cherished portion of our liberties; hence the doctrine in 
 our national constitution, that powers not conceded;—that, for instance, 
 of chartering a bank, or granting a monopoly — are never to be exercised. 
 
 The legislature, when assembled, is but a transient body; it can, there¬ 
 fore, never give immortality to its acts. Whatever laws it establishes are 
 liable to be repealed. It can establish no perpetuities. Democracy 
 knows nothing, recognizes nothing, as a perpetuity, but the law of God. 
 All the forms and enactments of legislation are the work of man’s hand, 
 and are perishable like man. 
 
 Once more: Democracy is eternal justice, ruling through the people. 
 Hence democracy demands equal laws for the general good; hence de¬ 
 mocracy tolerates no monopolies. They are at war with providence, 
 which always acts by general laws. The law of God knows no dis¬ 
 tinction of persons; and just so democracy, in its legislation, acts with¬ 
 out fear and without favor; it abrogates all privileges; it forbids all 
 monopolies; and it establishes the equal rights of the people on the sure 
 rock of Divine truth. 
 
 In organizing the judiciary, democracy is equally vigilant: First, by 
 circumscribing the subjects on which judgment is to be rendered. There 
 may arise, in civil suits, two classes of questions. One relates merely to 
 property as such, and to contracts between man and man. These belong 
 to the judiciary to decide. And there is no danger that this power will 
 be seriously abused. But there is another class, which involves political 
 questions; and here democracy imperatively reserves to the people the 
 ultimate decision of every political question, and also refuses to the judi¬ 
 ciary all participation in legislative power. The judges are the ministers 
 of the law, not the tribunes of the people. 
 
 Just so in criminal suits. The judges are to act under existing laws, 
 but cannot of themselves constitute crimes. They have no power to 
 enlarge or to alter the criminal code. 
 
 Democracy asserts the concurrent power of the jury. It claims for 
 the jury the right of deciding on the law, as well as on the fact. The 
 jury is the organ through which the people qualify and restrict the other-:, 
 wise arbitrary and nearly irresponsible power of the bench. 
 
 Again: Democracy insists upon the responsibility of the judiciary 
 to the people. And this it secures, and can secure, only by limiting 
 their tenure of office. In your Commonwealth, a judge is liable to be 
 dismissed by an address of two thirds; and, in the general government, 1 
 a vote of two thirds is needed to give effect to an impeachment. This 
 provision is entirely nugatory. The better way is to restrict the term 
 of office. Then responsibility becomes perfect, by the prospect of reap-: 
 pointment. The good judge need not fear the people. From the avowed j 
 convictions of the late President, at the time of the appointment, I infer, 
 that it is the opinion of the present Chief Justice of the United States 
 that the term of the judicial office should be limited, and not be for life. 
 
 Finally : Democracy does not allow of appeals from a final judicial 
 decision, in a mere question of property; but every improper or unjust 
 
8 
 
 THE FORMS OF DEMOCRACY, 
 
 exposition of law can be reformed by legislation ; and the whole system 
 can be amended, altered, and reformed, by the people in convention. 
 
 I have thus traced the forms of democracy through the legislature and 
 the judiciary; it remains to explain them with regard to the executive. 
 
 In the first place, democracy claims the right of electing the chief 
 magistrate directly by the people. Thus, throughout New England, 
 we vote directly for the governor. In some states, the governor is 
 chosen by the legislature. To this democracy objects; for it leads to 
 selfish intrigues and cabals. 
 
 Again: The legislature expresses the will of the people bylaws; the 
 executive enforces it. The powers become blended, and, by a law 
 of universal efficacy, the aristocratic influence gains a new chance of 
 securing power, when the legislature appoints the executive. 
 
 The chief magistrate obtains a proper independence, and a proper 
 responsibility, by receiving his appointment directly from the people. 
 
 The supreme executive is, moreover, a check upon the legislature, 
 and should, therefore, derive his power directly from the people. 
 
 Hence the recent changes in the constitution of North Carolina and 
 of Maryland, by which the choice of governor is transferred from 
 legislatures to the people, is strictly a democratic triumph. 
 
 So, too, in the choice of president, to vote for electors directly by the 
 people, and not through the legislature, is the democratic rule. 
 
 And here is the reason why democracy opposes the throwing of the 
 choice of president of the United States into Congress. It is because 
 Congress, by electing the president, constitutes itself his author. It is 
 because members of Congress, in making a president, may have private 
 purposes. It is because Congress may be distracted by selfish intrigues, 
 and so, after weeks and months of promises and counter-promises, of 
 chafferings and bargainings, elect a president by a corrupted majority. 
 
 The executive, being thus elected, is the representative of the whole 
 people. The governor of a commonwealth is, in the eye of democracy, 
 the representative of its people, and, as such, is bound to watch over 
 their freedom and protect their rights. 
 
 The president of the United States is, in like manner, the repre¬ 
 sentative of the people of the United States; and, as a faithful repre¬ 
 sentative, he is bound to sustain the power of the people. 
 
 Hence it is, that, in the true spirit of democracy, the people have 
 intrusted him with a tribunitial power. He is, by the constitution, the 
 grand tribune of the people, possessing for the people the power of a 
 Veto, bound to restrain the aristocratic tendencies of legislation, and to 
 negative every law that interferes with the constitution, with freedom, 
 with popular power. The corrupt and corrupting influence of a gigantic 
 moneyed aristocracy was arrested by the tribunitial act of Andrew Jackson. 
 The whole country, the world, now recognizes the justice of that act. 
 
 And this brings me to the great executive question of the sword and 
 *- 3 the purse. 
 
 If the sword is to be used at all, it must certainly be to execute the 
 laws ordained by the people, and, when the sad necessity occurs, must 
 be used by the executive. God forbid it should ever be used except 
 in conformity to law, by those who are bound to execute the law! But 
 against its unjust use dembcracy erects barriers. In relation to indi¬ 
 viduals, a trial in open court, and a verdict by a jury, must precede the 
 punishment of a capital crime. 
 
THE FORMS OF DEMOCRACY. 
 
 9 
 
 As it regards the people, a legislative act must of necessity precede 
 the use of the sword. Democracy, I have said, is reason ruling through 
 the people. It therefore never can begin an offensive war; and, if it 
 could pervade the civilized world, there would be an end of all wars. 
 The sword would be beaten into the ploughshare and the sickle, and the 
 din of arms would be hushed in the peaceful reign of justice. But as, 
 in our imperfect state of society, the possession of arms is needed for 
 self-defence, the employment of military force is forbidden except under 
 an act of legislation. Thus the courts of justice, the people’s jury, the 
 legislature, the people themselves, stand between the executive and the 
 wrongful use of the sword. I have no apprehension of tyranny, not¬ 
 withstanding the governor in each New England commonwealth pos¬ 
 sesses the sword. Nay, rather, I hold it as an evidence of advancing 
 civilization, that, in your state and in the United States, “the military is, 
 in all cases, and at all times, in strict subordination to the civil power.” 
 
 In like manner, the executive must, by the very nature of the case, 
 have from the public purse the moneys needed by the public appropria¬ 
 tions. Who shall keep the revenue ? Democracy answers, The officers of 
 the people ; those who are appointed for that purpose by the people them¬ 
 selves: if the people intrust the appointing power to the president, then 
 the officers whom the president shall appoint under the constitution and 
 the laws. The.constitution of the United States is explicit on this sub¬ 
 ject ; it declares, in emphatic language, that “ no money shall be drawn 
 from the treasury but in consequence of appropriations made by law.” 
 
 But this does not satisfy the aristocracy. That aristocracy wishes, in 
 advance of appropriations made by law, to take all the public revenue 
 out of the treasury of the people, and place it where it will be independ¬ 
 ent of the government, and therefore independent of the people. Yes, 
 the wish is to take the revenues of the United States out of the power 
 and control of the people of the United States, and place them, by a 
 permanent law, in the custody of corporations, that, by their very nature, 
 are the representatives of the aristocracy of wealth. The consequence 
 of this is twofold. First, it gives to the moneyed interest, through the 
 banks, a veto power on every executive act; for the irresponsible corpo¬ 
 rations may refuse to the United States the use of the public revenues. 
 And next, by taking the public funds out of the custody of officers 
 directly or indirectly appointed by the people, it of necessity creates an 
 aristocracy, and places the treasury in the perpetual custody of corpora¬ 
 tions. We object to appointments for life; but this organisation of the 
 treasury implies a perpetuity of trust, conferred on bodies which, though 
 they possess no moral life, would yet never die, if it were not that every 
 unjust institution is essentially mortal. The effect is, in fact, to create, 
 in connection with the treasury, a perpetuity of office-holders, and to 
 neutralize and destroy a portion of the executive power by legislative 
 enactments, in direct violation of the intention of the constitution. 
 
 Such, then, are the appropriate forms of democracy; all designed to 
 give free course to the popular will. 
 
 III. The first and most marked, the characteristic tendency of 
 democracy, is towards improvement. Not bound down by experience, 
 not satisfied with the results of the past, it is restless in its struggles after 
 advancement in freedom, in equality, in public happiness, in the widest 
 extension of the benefits of civilization. It longs for a brighter and a 
 happier futurity. It does not believe that the legislators of old time have 
 
10 
 
 THE TENDENCIES OF DEMOCRACY. 
 
 established landmarks of civilization never to be carried forward; on the 
 contrary, it believes rather that the boundaries of civilization have been 
 constantly advancing, and are destined to be yet more widely extended. 
 
 Such was the faith of Jefferson, and his public life was in harmony 
 with it. His first act as a legislator was the expression of sympathy for 
 the weakest and most oppressed — a demand for the freedom of emanci¬ 
 pating the enslaved African. His first great act in the American Congress, 
 was to write, in letters of light, the new doctrine of the independence of 
 America, and to connect with that independence the great ideas of the 
 rights of man. His proclamation to the world, on taking the oath of 
 office as president, was, Freedom of Inquiry, and the Power of the 
 People; that is, the right to discover new truth, and to imbody that truth 
 in legislation ; and in his latest old age, beautiful visions of the future 
 still floated before his eyes, and even to the hour of death, in the calm 
 serenity that springs from faith in human progress, he gave up his spirit 
 to God, from whom it emanated, with the tranquillizing words, “ Now t , 
 Lord, lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.” 
 
 This constant hope of progress is denounced by our opponents as de¬ 
 structive of present institutions — a war against the past. But in truth, 
 Democracy is not destructive; she makes no war on the past; she plans 
 no overthrow of the present. On the contrary, she garners up and bears 
 along with her all the truths that past generations have discovered ; she 
 will not let go one single idea, not one principle, not one truth. She has 
 an honest lineage ; she is, under God’s providence, the lawful offspring of 
 advancing humanity, and she claims as her rightful inheritance the glori¬ 
 ous inventions, the rich discoveries of the past. But Democracy does not, 
 like the Egyptians, embalm the dead ; she does not bear along with her 
 decayed institutions, errors that have inflicted on themselves their own 
 death blow. She leaves the self-styled conservative to stagger along 
 under the accumulated superstitions and wasting structures of past cen¬ 
 turies, to totter under the piles of charters that have expired, of contracts 
 that have been broken; and she herself keeps on in her course, having 
 for her companions all the noble institutions which rest, self-sustained, in 
 their own integrity; and for the guaranty of her success, the natural 
 immortality of truth, and the ever-active providence of God. 
 
 I know that this faith in man’s advancement is, by many, esteemed 
 visionary: I know that many of our opponents assert, that the immense 
 difference between the favored classes and the toilsome children of labor, 
 is the order of providence ; that the history of the future, like the his¬ 
 tory of the past, must show the largest number in a state of ignorance 
 and suffering, and all the benefits of civilization the exclusive enjoyment 
 of the few. The argument, as far as it regards society, is refuted by 
 facts. Each year has given to humanity new trophies, in its effort to 
 diffuse the benefits of freedom. At this moment, throughout our whole 
 country, the highest activity prevails in the public mind to check, on the 
 one hand, every tendency to exclusiveness in legislation, and, on the other, 
 to assert, for every class of the community, its right to the equal benefits 
 of our institutions. 
 
 But the faith in advancement admits of a nobler justification. It rests 
 on the highest elements of morality; is blended with all that is noble in 
 human nature; and, far from being the faith of fanatics and visionaries, 
 we avow, as a part of our democratic creed, that this faith is essential to 
 the character of a good practical statesman ; that every truly great legis * 
 
THE TENDENCIES OF DEMOCRACY. 
 
 11 
 
 lator is not limited in the action of his mind to experience, to examples, 
 to decided cases, but acknowledges that there is an ideal which states and 
 nations should strive to realize. 
 
 To any one who admits the distinctions of morals, this proposition is 
 capable of demonstration. Politics, rightly considered, are morals applied 
 to public affairs ; for the providence of God is supreme every where ; He 
 is the God of nations, as well as the God of man. Now, then, go into 
 private life. Young men, you who are striving to build up for yourselves 
 a pure fame, will you seek in those around you for the high ideal of moral 
 worth ? Shall the example of men around you, swayed to and fro by 
 the passions of the moment, soured by disappointment, kindling with ex¬ 
 citement, debased by desires, ever the dupes of their own selfishness; 
 shall the example of beings, as imperfect as each individual of our race, 
 constitute the rule of conduct ? If it were so, there could be no such 
 thing as striving after virtue ; for no man is in himself a personification 
 of virtue ; no man has realized perfection. To establish, then, a rule of 
 morality, deduced from the practice of individuals, has, for its necessary 
 result, the abandonment of highest excellence, and substituting for it im¬ 
 perfect experience. Such a system would destroy all morality ; would 
 substitute human imperfection for the divine law, the actual passions of 
 mortals for the bright though unrealized image of the divine man, which 
 God has implanted in the heart. 
 
 The same is true of politics. Follow experience, you may renew mon¬ 
 archy, feudalism, the dominion of a selfish stock aristocracy. You ne¬ 
 cessarily vitiate legislation, by proposing in the outset to shape it after im¬ 
 perfect models. Democracy, on the contrary, seeks to represent to itself 
 an ideal republic, possessed of all the qualities belonging to the social 
 condition, in harmony with each other, and each adapted to its end. It 
 is necessary for the statesman to have in his mind the conception of a 
 perfect legislation; that he may thus, by the comparison, be constantly 
 led to discover existing defects, and to move, if slowly yet certainly, in 
 the paths of improvement. 
 
 The immediate tendency of democratic legislation is towards a true 
 and full declaration of national independence, — a perfect relief from the 
 last remaining bonds of the old colonial system, which was but a branch 
 of the false mercantile system. That system founded commerce not on 
 reciprocity, but on privileges secured by treaty or enforced by oppression, 
 making commerce, which should be a pledge of peace, the fruitful parent 
 of wars. This system was dominant in European politics for a century. 
 Our declaration of independence was its death-warrant; and though it 
 still lingered into the lap of a better century, it never could effect a re¬ 
 versal of its doom. When these United States began their existence as 
 a nation, the traces of the false mercantile system were branded deeply 
 into the code of every European maritime power. The principle involved 
 in our very existence as a nation, was perpetually coming in conflict 
 with the many European abuses which protruded themselves into our 
 path, and attempted to block up our progress. For the nations of Eu¬ 
 rope to recognize a colony as an equal; for the monarchs and aristocracies 
 of Europe to admit a democratic republic to equal influence in the inter¬ 
 pretation of international law, implied changes in the European world as 
 vast as those which were effected by our independence itself. England 
 has not yet learned to respect our republic as her equal. The same spirit 
 which, in the days of Washington, dictated its refusal to surrender the 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 ILLINOIS LIBRARY 
 AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 
 
12 DEMOCRACY PROTECTS THE MANUFACTURER. 
 
 north-western posts, inspires her counsels now in her arrogant usurpa¬ 
 tions on our north-eastern frontier. Aristocratic England has not yet 
 learned a due respect for the Plebeian Republic, which is spreading her 
 language from one end of the continent to the other. On questions of 
 international law, democracy, asserting equality, and submitting, self-re¬ 
 strained, to the limitations of justice, tends towards establishing freedom 
 of goods for free ships, and guarding a vessel on the high seas as a float¬ 
 ing colony. 
 
 In like manner, democracy upholds American industry, and asserts its 
 independence. In a former century, English legislation did, as it were, 
 forbid all American manufactures in wool and in iron, and built up Eng¬ 
 lish industry by prohibitory laws. New England would at that time, 
 in defiance of English competition, have succeeded in manufactures. 
 Then, when there was no tariff at all, prohibitory laws were required, to 
 restrain the active enterprise of our fathers. The consequence of this 
 tyranny was American independence — not as a struggle for power to ap¬ 
 ply the same false system, but as an assertion of the right of freedom of 
 enterprise and industry. A powerful party among us has attempted to 
 renew the tariff policy of that old mercantile system, — a system which 
 has never succeeded but in connection with the dominion of the seas; a 
 system which, in its old intensity, has become impossible every where, and 
 against which the current of advancing civilization is sweeping with 
 irresistible energy. To trust the prosperity of manufactures to such an an¬ 
 tiquated legislation, would be like building a fortress on the verge of a 
 bluff, which the deep waters of the Mississippi had already undermined. 
 
 But the industry of New England has not only been led into this most 
 dangerous position of leaning for support on a floating tariff, regulated by 
 uncertain majorities, and modified by changing interests ; it has been 
 made a victim to the false financial system in which we have become in¬ 
 volved, and which the spasmodic energies of the whole whig party are 
 now summoned to maintain. I appeal to the manufacturers themselves; 
 I ask only to be heard: let the manufacturers pronounce the verdict. 
 
 First, then, the United States Bank, concentrating its influences in 
 our large commercial cities, and dealing immensely in foreign bills of 
 exchange, having also its agencies in London and Paris, where it negotia¬ 
 ted largest loans, was, by its very nature, calculated to stimulate commer¬ 
 cial activity, and by its sympathies to sustain the interests of foreign 
 manufactures. 
 
 Next, the surplus revenues of the government, increased by the high 
 tariff, were loaned out, chiefly in the mercantile cities, to importing mer¬ 
 chants ; so that the very excess of duties, by occasioning fresh importa¬ 
 tions, accumulated evils alike on the American manufacturer and on the 
 merchant, till the day of reckoning drew near, to spread sorrow and 
 bankruptcy throughout the land. 
 
 Next came the disastrous expansion of our own currency. Our oppo¬ 
 nents extol the benefits of a mixed currency, and yet they resist all 
 efforts to make even the least advance towards a mixed currency. You 
 in Connecticut, we in Massachusetts, have not a mixed currency of specie 
 and paper, but an unmixed currency, composed of paper alone. Specie 
 has been banished almost entirely, except for purposes of making change. 
 In consequence, while a high tariff, by its very nature, excluded the 
 American manufactures from the foreign market, each protective tariff 
 was, in succession, rendered nugatory at home ; for, as the tariff was 
 
DEMOCRACY PROTECTS THE MANUFACTURER, 
 
 13 
 
 advanced, the currency expanded, till in the fever of speculation and 
 extravagant prices, the cost of production rose to such a degree, that the 
 foreigner could pay the high duties, and yet compete with the American 
 manufacturer in the American market. 
 
 Wide suspensions of specie payments have occurred twice already ; 
 and these again operate ruinously on the manufacturer. If, in the time 
 of suspension, he borrows, he must give his notes at par, and receive a 
 depreciated currency. If, now, the New England mechanic attempts to 
 collect moneys due him south or west of New Jersey, he has no option 
 but between a lawsuit and receiving payment in broken promises; in 
 other words, he must submit to a loss of ten per cent, on his dues. 
 
 But this is not all: This same unnatural mercantile system has been 
 followed by immense public debts, and for these state scrip was negotia¬ 
 ted abroad. But in fact the money was raised here at home; England 
 sent nothing in exchange for our hundreds of millions of stocks but more 
 bales of broadcloths, larger importations from the workshops of Birming¬ 
 ham and Manchester. So true is this, that one of the agents for the sale 
 of state stocks appealed to British capitalists in behalf of British manufac* 
 turers to participate in the loans. “ The capital borrowed by the United 
 States ” — I quote the words of the agent — “ is transferred by bills from 
 the banker to the merchant , and is taken to America , riot in bullion , but in 
 British goods ; every investment made , while it adds to the income of the 
 capitalists , swells the profits of the British manufacturer .” Here is the 
 cause of most of the recent distress. But for these disastrous loans, and 
 the consequent flood of foreign manufactures inundating the country, the 
 workshop of many a manufactory, which is now inactive from the impov¬ 
 erishment of its owner, would have still been the happy scene of con¬ 
 tented, prosperous industry. 
 
 And now, when it is proposed to assume the state debts, this branch of 
 the whig financial system also menaces intense suffering to the American 
 manufacturers. Were the assumption to take place, it would stimulate 
 the mercantile interest once more to extravagant importations, thus con¬ 
 summating the wreck of our domestic industry, and producing in our 
 cities all the embarrassments consequent on excess of commercial action. 
 
 But when I hear men assert that the interests of labor are bound up 
 inseparably with the unstable character of our currency, my heart bleeds 
 within me at the thought of the monstrous deception which is attempted. 
 The argument, stripped of its sophistry, is this : High wages can be 
 maintained only by the present elastic credit system ; therefore, take care 
 of the banks, and by so doing you take cafe of the laboring class. 
 
 Again: It is said Spain, and Germany, and Italy, are hard money 
 countries; America is a paper money country. Therefore, restrain the 
 licentiousness of our present credit system, curb the arbitrary power of 
 the banks over the currency, and the American laborer would be as wretch¬ 
 ed as the Spanish, the German, or the Italian laborer. So indifferent are 
 the whigs to popular freedom and popular education, they can see no 
 difference between Italy and New England, except that Italy has no 
 banks of circulation, and that New England has them thick as the fallen 
 leaves in autumn. 
 
 These arguments need only to be stated, in order to expose their fal¬ 
 lacy ; let the harmlessness of such false appeals teach our opponents 
 respect for the intelligence of the people. 
 
 But is it seriously apprehended by any that an increase of specie in 
 
14 
 
 DEMOCRACY THE FRIEND TO THE RIGHTS OF LABOR. 
 
 the circulation would unreasonably depress the wages of the laborer ? 
 The laboring class in the United States is not dependent on banks, but 
 rests self-sustained and is safe for three causes : 1. The laboring class is 
 not in debt, and therefore has no sympathy with speculators and men 
 who seek wealth without labor. 2. The nation has a vast domain, where 
 most fertile land is always open to the purchaser at moderate prices; 
 where the industrious squatter can, without aid from paper money, 
 achieve an independence. 3. Our currency is alternately contracting 
 as well as expanding. By drawing nearer to the true specie standard, 
 depression is guarded against, even more than its opposite; and steady 
 prices, a sure market for manufactures, and a uniform demand for labor, 
 would be the consequence. The pendulum swings too far each way ; 
 the tendency of democracy is to repress the extravagances from which 
 speculators alone reap benefits, and to guard against the depressions 
 which at last spread through the land, dismissing the laborer from his 
 employment, diminishing the prices of produce, and carrying grief into 
 the families of the independent manufacturers, whose hearths, but for our 
 unstable currency, would have been gladdened by an honest competence. 
 
 And now I turn on the men who make a pretence of contending for 
 the laboring classes, when, in fact, they are pleading the cause of large 
 corporations; and I say, the tendency of democracy is toward the elevation 
 of the industrious classes, the increase of their comfort , the assertion of 
 their dignity , the establishment of their power. This cannot be done by 
 any system of artificial legislation; for of that the great corporations 
 will always appropriate the benefits. The large corporations, it is true, 
 are forever calling in the laboring classes to advocate their demands for 
 monopoly; Tom Thumb fights the battle, but the giant takes the spoils. 
 The laboring classes can be elevated only by a system of equal laws. 
 But I go farther: nothing so much retards their progress as the vices 
 of our currency, which expands when rising prices require a check to 
 enterprise, and contracts when falling prices make credit most desirable; 
 which, at one time, excites fallacious hopes, by creating a sudden and 
 unnatural demand for laborers, and, at another, sacrifices their happiness 
 and abruptly turns them off by double scores. 
 
 My bosom swells with indignation, when I find men commending to 
 the affections of the laboring class the very evils in our currency which 
 inflict on them the most vital injury. I stand amazed at the desperate 
 recklessness of the ambition which, for the vain hope of political success, 
 can hazard the prosperity of every independent manufacturer in the land, 
 by striving to keep up a little longer the delusion which has already been 
 productive of so much misery. I feel a summons to go out among the 
 people, and to denounce the fallacies of these false appeals. But a 
 moment’s reflection restores tranquillity. God has implanted the gift 
 of reason in every breast; and, let the new panic-makers attempt, as 
 loudly as they will, to prove that, in a free country, where the people 
 govern themselves, unless arbitrary power over the currency is given to 
 the banks, the people will be as degraded and as impoverished as in 
 a despotism; — against this sophistry there is a living and an eloquent 
 witness in the breast of each one of the myriads of the producing 
 classes. I call on the laborer himself to pause and reflect; and his own 
 mind will whisper to him full replies to the artful appeals of aspiring 
 statesmen, who, pretending to advance his interests, are, in reality, the 
 advocates of the maxims of aristocracy. 
 
TENDENCIES OF DEMOCRACY. 
 
 15 
 
 It is the observation of the tendencies of legislation, that gives a deep 
 faith in the wisdom and security of the policy of the present national ad¬ 
 ministration. It is not a policy suddenly devised, but the ripe offspring 
 of time; the centuries bear witness to its seasonableness and its virtues. 
 The providence of God is over all his works. He controls the destinies 
 of nations; and, whether men desire it or not, his decrees are fulfilled. 
 Our independence was the first great movement in the progress of a re¬ 
 form, which is penetrating the codes of every civilized nation on the earth, 
 [t is by a calm acquiescence in this direction, by a willingness to act in 
 harmony with the tendencies of civilization, that the national administra¬ 
 tion has sustained itself, and will continue to do so. It did not create its 
 system; it did but adopt the policy, which the spirit of the age, the 
 genius of advancing humanity, inspired. It brought to the work integrity 
 and sagacity, prudence and courage ; but the work itself was marked out 
 by the designs of a Power higher than that of man. 
 
 The effects of that system will be wider than the borders of our own 
 land. It will break the last bonds of the colonial system throughout the 
 world; it will compel every nation which has colonies to emancipate 
 them, that is, to give them either independence or equal laws. By fires 
 from our hearths, the redeeming spirit of democratic freedom shall yet kin¬ 
 dle its light on the banks of the St. Lawrence, and beyond Lake Su¬ 
 perior, on Hudson’s Bay and Nootka Sound. 
 
 The night would wear away, and the stars of morning vanish into the 
 sky, before I could enumerate all the methods in which democracy tends 
 to effect the happiness of the nation. 
 
 By cultivating the power of reason, it diminishes alike the frequency of 
 crimes and punishments. 
 
 It tends to order and security of property ; for, by reconciling legisla¬ 
 tion with justice, it invokes always the energy of conscience, and gives 
 to public law not the force only of an arm of flesh, but that infinitely 
 higher power, the force of moral opinion. 
 
 It tends to equality; for, by founding government on reason, it is 
 pledged to recognize the equal claims of all who are endowed with 
 reason. 
 
 It tends to promote education; seeking to make a common stock of 
 the stores of intelligence, the fruits of mind, which, far from being 
 diminished by being shared, are increased the more rapidly, the more 
 widely they are diffused. 
 
 Once more: The tendency of democratic truth is, to inspire not only 
 a confidence in itself, but a confidence in its success. We believe in 
 democratic truth, and we believe also in the overruling providence of 
 God. The ultimate prevalence of the right is therefore certain ; for, 
 while every error is essentially mortal, and every wrong, of necessity, in 
 the end avenges itself, justice partakes of the Divine immortality, and is 
 destined always to outlive and to rise above its adversaries. This hearty 
 confidence forms one of the most striking contrasts between the two 
 parties that divide the country. When a series of apparent reverses 
 seemed, a year or two ago, to promise the national ascendency to the 
 whigs, I never met with a democrat who despaired. It was my lot to be 
 present in Washington during the extra session; and among those who 
 resisted the immense influences that were directed against the measures 
 required by the best interests of freedom and the country, no one was 
 more conspicuous for manly integrity, for a clear perception of the merits 
 
16 
 
 PROGRESS OF DEMOCRACY IN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 of the questions at issue, for an energetic, able, and unflinching support 
 of the truth, than the distinguished citizen, to whose honored name you 
 have assigned the most conspicuous station in your coming contest. The 
 country applauds your choice; for in him you have a statesman whom 
 prosperity could never elate, nor the heaviest gloom appall. True to his 
 principles, he has within himself a calm which the fury of his assailants 
 cannot disturb, and which, indifferent to personal considerations, can 
 never despair of the triumph of the democratic principle. On the other 
 hand, our opponents regarded the apparent changes in their favor more 
 as an unexpected accident, than as a natural and necessary consequence 
 of sufficient causes; and thus, accepting this shadow of power, clutched 
 at this semblance, which proved, after all, to be only a lifeless spectre. 
 On the slightest show of a victory, they are almost as susceptible as a 
 person in a hectic; and if a state is unexpectedly carried, they cannot 
 find at any foundery letters large enough for their handbills. 
 
 The democratic party is not indifferent to the successful efforts of its 
 friends; but it does not express its exultations by staring capitals, or 
 intoxicating revelries, or empty noise. Its pleasure is of a deeper and a 
 heartier kind. It recognizes a victory as an expected event, and hears 
 of success (vith that pleasure with which you would, on a fine summer’s 
 inornifig, watch the glorious coming of the king of day, rejoicing in the 
 east, cheering the nation with his beams, and yet an expected visitant. 
 
 The pleasant news of success will soon flow in upon us from the 
 north. The glad voices of successful New Hampshire come not as a 
 strange message, but like the pleasant murmurings of the winds, in the 
 month of June, singing forth their ancient melodies among the bursting 
 flowers and the fresh foliage of the forest. And Massachusetts also has 
 reconciled herself to the principle of popular rights: her election of 
 Marcus Morton, the pride of her democracy, is the homage of a 
 commonwealth to truth; it is the offering of a state on the altar of 
 patriotism ; it is the throbbing of the mighty heart of a people, sending 
 the beautiful life-blood of freedom through its whole body politic. 
 
 Young men of Connecticut! it is not enough that democracy is 
 victorious around, us ; let it be victorious here. Here, wfliere the strug¬ 
 gle is the hardest, a triumph must be achieved. 
 
 There never was a period when your exertions were more needed, 
 or were more sure of being crowned with the widest and the happiest 
 influence. If I read rightly the signs of the times, it rests with you to 
 unite New England in one close array on the side of the democratic 
 principle. I own myself animated with the pride of a New England 
 man ; I exult in the land of my nativity; I glory in the intelligence, the 
 frugality, the integrity, the industry, of our portion of the common 
 country. The lines of our lives have fallen to us in pleasant places; 
 we have a goodly heritage in the institutions, the habits, the caution, 
 and the bold enthusiasm, that come down to us from our fathers. And 
 I fondly believe that the open union of New England on the side of the 
 democratic principle, would not only leave most glorious traces of its 
 power on the legislation of the Union, but would hasten by a generation 
 the progress of liberal opinions throughout the globe.