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Alger, William Rounseville
The genius and posture of America. An oration
Boston, 1864.

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From the Library of
SIMEON E. BALDWIN, Y '6i
Gift of his children
HELEN BALDWIN GILMAN
ROGER SHERMAN BALDWIN, Y '90

1927

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THE GENIUS AND POSTURE OF AMERICA.

AN

ORATION
DELIVERED BEFORE THE CITIZENS OF BOSTON,
JULY 4, 1857,
WILLIAM KOUNSEVILLE ALGEE,

BOSTON:
J, E. FAKWELL AND COMPANY, PEINTEBS TO THE OITY,
37 CONQKKSS Stbkbt.
1864.

^'¦^-^ ^'

THE GENIUS AND POSTURE OF AMERICA,

AN

ORATION

DELIVERED BEFORE THE CITIZENS OF BOSTON,

JtTLY 4, 1857,

WILLIAM EOUNSEVILLE ALGEK.

BOSTON:
J. E. FAKWELL AND COMPANY, PRINTERS TO THE CITY,
37 CoiroKESs Street.
1861.

CITY OF BOSTON,

/» Common Council, Nov, 17, 1864.
Ordered : That the thanks of the City Council be presented to the
Eev. William E. Alger for the Oration delivered by him to the muni
cipal authorities on the celebration of the Declaration of American
Independence, July 4, 1857, and that he be requested to furnish a
copy for publication.
Sent up for concurrence, GEOEGE S. HALE, President.
In Board of Aldermen, Nov. 21, 1864.
Concurred.

Approved Nov.. 22, 1864.

OTIS NOECEOSS, Chairman,
F. W. LINCOLN, Jr., Mayor.

A true copy.
Attest: S, F. McCLEAEY, City Clerk.

Boston, Nov.' 25, 1864.
To the Common Council and Board of Aldermen : —
Gentlemen : Gratefully acknowledging the honor of your vote, I
herewith, in accordance with your request, send a copy of the Oration
which, at the invitation of the City Authorities, I pronounced on the
Fourth of July in the year eighteen hundred and fifty-seven.
Very respectfully, your fellow-citizen,
WILLIAM E. ALGEE.

ORATION.

The first duty of every American . on this day, after
he has reverently owned the kind providence of God, is
to remember with grateful honors the heroic men who
achieved our National Independence. They deserve
our honor for the firmness of their characters, and the
devotedness of tlieir deeds. They claim our gratitude
for the examples they set before us, and the privileges
they obtained for us. Brought up ourselves in the
enjoym-ent of freedom, — surrounded by safety, pros
perity, and the fulness of every human right, — having
never known anything of the aggravating trials of
despotic dictation, nor anything of the sufferings and
perils of an unequal conflict with it, — it is hard for us
to appreciate the appalling position of our Fathers
when they hoisted the standard of revolution, and reso
lutely planted themselves at its foot. It is hard for us
to appreciate the merits of their bearing in the- thick
and dark emergencies of the strife that ensUed. To do
this fully, we need to have experienced something like
it ourselves : and that, owing to them, we have never
been called upon to do.

THE GENIUS AND

At the very outset their property sunk to half its
value, and the whole trembled on a desperate risk. At
every turn the penalty of high treason — the black gib
bet with its ghastly cord, the deathman's block and axe
— gloomed in their imaginations. With each succes
sive step, for a long time, their embarrassments and
hardships grew heavier, discouragements flocked upon
them, pitfalls lurked athwart their way, and deepening
darkness covered the close. Still they yielded not;
but with wills like adamant? faith like inspiration, and
self-sacrifice like martyrdom, they bore up the burden
of the land, cheered the faint-hearted, and maintained
their cause until a brighter day. If we could in im
agination reproduce their circumstances, and place our
selves in their situation, and see what spirit and nerve
it required calmly to confront, as a helpless handful of
them did on the church-green, the minions of tyranny
who coldly shot them down, their blood staining the
April swards for many a hundred springs to come-
without experience or discipline unflinchingly to face
the serried and blazing ranks of the most veteran sol
diery in the world, as they did in the sun of Bunker
Hill, with no weapons but their clubbed muskets, and
no defence bnt their farmers' frocks over their beating
bosoms,- to stand by the cause with incorruptible in
tegnty and irrepressible hope when staggering bribe^
beset them in field and forum, when traitors s;aggered

POSTURE OF AMERICA. 7
in the camp and tories swarmed in the town, and when
the overwhelming forces of the foe, flushed with vic
tory, drove them at every passage, — still, to hold un
falteringly by their holy purpose, with no end but
duty and no motive but freedom, vanquishing the
temptations which must have assailed them when, de
feated, neglected, disheartened, their numbers fearfully
thinned by battle, disease, and hardship, hunger reduced
them to the gaunt verge of starvation, the winter's cold
benumbed their emaciated limbs, andthey reddened the
snow over which they walked with their bare and
bleeding feet ; — if by mental experience of this we
were able for a moment actually to feel the merit im
plied in undergoing what they underwent, daring and
struggling as they dared and struggled, and accomplish
ing at last what they finally accomplished, we could not
help setting their names on. high, and often reverting
to read their story with thrills of admiration. And
when we thought, in addition, of the illimitable benefits
resulting from what they did, we could not help cele
brating their memories with perennial praises. "Yea,"
we should exclaim, 'Sso often as the anniversary pf
their triumphant crisis rolls round, let the jubilant
bells peal, and the thunderous cannon boom, and the
gay flags flutter, and the people's jocund shouts greet
the sun as he mounts in the morning : let the vbices of
eloquent orators, and the chanting of hymns, and the

THE GENIUS AND

thrilling blasts of martial music, and every sort of re
joicing, all over the land, freight the air at noon, while
the statues of departed heroes and statesmen are set up
amidst acclamations, and emulous purposes are kindled
in fresh aspirants, and groups of young men in athletic
sports form living pictures on grass and stream, and
innocent children with flowers and mottoes move in
procession through the streets ; and, when night falls,
let illuminations and pyrotechnics put out the stars !
Let all this be done, for it is right and well ! " we
should say.
Fortunately for us, and for the world, their fidelity
needed not the prophetic incentive of posthumous
honors. They were of that stuff heroes are made of;
and, enduring all things, hoping all things, they clung
to their original objects till the stormy and disastrous
night of their feebleness rolled away, and the morning
light of promise broke, and successive triumphs fol
lowed, and independence rose upon the land where,
in the foreground, two groups reflected its eariiest
lustre in the adoption of the Constitution and the
mauguration of Washington, They lived — the most
of thera — to see their desperate enterprise crowned
with complete success. And afterwards, year by year
as long as they lived, they saw more than the fulfil-'
ment of more than their most brilliant expectations.
And when, attended by the benedictions of their coun-

POSTURE OF AMERICA. 9
try, they went to the house appointed for all the living,
they were comforted with the reflection that they had
fought a good fight, and should leave their children an
unparalleled heritage.
Rapidly, too rapidly, the years have fled, and the
gray revolutionary sires are nearly all gone. Only a few
now linger, here and there, time-hallowed memorials of
other days and of other men. Only a few scattered
and tremulous stalks are left in the great field that has
been reaped and garnered by death. Soon none at all
will be left. Well, they will sleep in honored dust.
The historian and the poet shall hand down their fame.
As long as time endures, with this returning day their
' story shall be recalled, and votive wreaths be freshly
twined around their names. Pious hands and fond
hearts shall guard and deck their graves, and keep
their monuments whole, and their memories green.
This is little, but it is all they ask, and all that we can
give. Shall we ever fail to grant it? No, not until we
forget that whUe they are resting beyond the touch
of mortal feeling, the comforts we enjoy are the
lineal fruits, of what was willingly purchased for us by
them at the price of their prayers, toils, tears, and blood.
Peaceful, then, be the slumbers of those who have fallen
on sleep, "Dying, they have but exchanged their coun
try's arms for their country's heart," wherein they'shall
live forever. Long may the survivors be spared to enjoy

JO THE GENIUS AND
the public prosperity, and to read their reward in a grate
ful nation's eyes ! And when at length all shall have
gone, — when the whole country, amidst, the mighty
dirge of a people's grief, shall have poured its tears
around the fresh grave of the last one,— green be the
turf above them, and hallowed the spots where they lie.
Let the feet of happy children tread lightly there, and
there the pilgrim patriot pause as he passes, to invoke
a blessing on their souls, and breathe a prayer for the
land they served so well.
Our distinct National existence began with the
flinging forth of the daring and lofty manifesto
known throughout the world as the American Dec
laration of Independence. We observe to-day the
eighty-first anniversary of that proclamation. The
theme be^t fitting such an occasion is obviously the
characteristic privileges, duties, and dangers of the
country. To the treatment of that theme one reluct
ant word must form the introduction. Every honest
patriot who this day speaks the praises of America
must first confess — though it be wrung from him
in shame and anguish — that so far as slavery extends
its dismal anomaly over our soil, it is an unmitigated
contradiction to his boasts. Where this wedded mis
fortune and sin exists, and while it lasts, our pic
turesque displays fade out in sable groups of woe,
weary coffies, and sundered families ; and the pfeans

POSTURE OF AMERICA, 11
of the platform die away in the wails of the planta
tion. But slavery is not properly any part of our
National Government, — not an element in our organic
life, but a sectional disease, a temporary excrescence.
It is rightfully no more a part of our country than a
snake's nest is a part of a granite cliff. The Free
States alone fairly represent the true genius and his
toric posture of the Republic.
With the exception now stated, let us see in what
particulars we, as a people, are favored beyond the
subjects of other nations. It will be useful to answer
this question with distinct thoughts and feelings. For
then w^e shall understand definitely what we have to
be thankful for, to cherish, and to guard.
First among our national advantages is to be reck
oned an organized political equality. No unjust and
irritating favoritisms are interwrought with the order
of our habits and the substance of our institutions.
Among us is no legal distinction between peer and
peasant, prelate and mechanic ; but before the laws
of the land, and before the possibilities of life, all
are politically equal. In the fixed and wonted enjoy
ment of this great right we have but the faintest
conception of its importance, and of the bitter griev-.,
ances imposed on those who are deprived of it. What
should we think if compelled to submit, as so many
still are, to the law of primogeniture, by which

^2 THE GENIUS AND
nearly all the wealth of a family goes to the eldest
male descendant, leaving the others dependent, and
introducing, without a reason, the crudest inequalities
of social standing and public opportunity even among
members of the same household 1 How should we
feel if a large class, with no claim but ancient
prescription, covered with hereditary titles and hon
ors, should lord it over the mass of the people, making
thousands, far their superiors in every attribute of real
greatness, cringe at their bidding? What should we
say if a set of men were born to be our rulers,
whether fit or unfit, and if the chief offices of author
ity and emolument among us were fiUed by the in
competent favorites of pompous dignitaries, without
consulting us in the least ? The trial would be greater
than we could bear. Heaven be thanked that we can
choose our own men for our own offices ; that with
us the condition of rank and glory is not the acci
dent of family descent, but the possession of personal
merit; that there are here no impassable limits of
caste, and hedges of prerogative ; that with us the
incentives to effort are diffused, and the doors of
preferment are open to all, leaving every poor man's
boy free to rise in proportion to his genius, virtue,
and labor, even till they bear him to the chief throne
in the Nation, This republican equality of all classes,
and universal accessibleness of honors, is a glorious

POSTURE OF AMERICA. 13
thing, that we do not think enough of, and cannot
prize too highly.
The next prominent ingredient in the happiness
of our people, is the enjoyment of untrammelled
speech and printing. We write, talk, and publish
without the galling interference of a despotic censor
ship. The press is free on these shores, however
broadly it shines or threateningly it fulminates.
There is no dictating official clique here, armed with
absolute power by the Govemment, to whom every
author must submit his book before he dares to pub
lish it, and at whose condemnation it must be in
stantly suppressed. No ; our poets freely breathe
forth the sentiments of their souls, — our historians
and essayists discuss their subjects as they please, —
our novelists write tales with what moral they choose,
— our reviewers criticize books, men, and measures,
according to their consciences or their fancies, — our
wildest reformers scatter their fierce invectives and
appeals in every mode and quantity, — and none of
them has the slightest fear of a spy or an arrest.
God made the heart and the intellect free, and con
sistent republicanism leaves the lips without a padlock,
and the press without a hinderance, trusting that
preponderant common sense and right feeling will, in
the long run, evolve the best results from full, un
molested argument. But it is not left so everywhere.

14 THE GENIUS AND

There are countries where sleepless, heartless tyranny,
made cowardly and cruel by its peril, .watches to
suppress free thought, and to tread out the generous
sparkles of its ashes. Official informers, paid and
fed for the purpose, prying in every corner, snuff the
first breath of heresy, catch the first whisper of
liberty, and straightway the word goes forth from the
priestly and political censors; — the press of the print
er is confiscated, the editors are fined and degraded
from their post, the authors go to the dungeon or into
banishment. How galling such dictation must be to
men of genius, compelled, on peril of every comfort,
perchance of life itself, to hold down the words which
burn for utterance, and which every honest thought
, and noble impulse tell them to shout aloud to heaven
and earth ! Can we be half grateful enough that we
are free to say and print, on any .subject, what we
believe is 'true and ought to be proclaimed, with no
dread of despotic supervision or judicial penalties ?
The third benefit we owe to our American form of
government, is theological freedom, an escape from
religious disabiUties, and hierarchical tyranny, Jew
and Gentile, Catholic and Protestant, Orthodox and
Heterodox, — all possess the same unrestricted rights
and immunities, all alike are eligible to every elective
office; equal facility of access to every source of
education, business, and preferment, is afforded to all

POSTURE OF AMERICA. 15
In other ages it was not so. In other lands now it is
not so. Even in free and favored England, bigoted
religious proscriptions weigh on the whole realm, from
the monarch — who must be a sworn Episcopalian,
and whose conscientious avowal of a different opinion
would convulse the empire, and perhaps cause a dis-
crownal — to the peasant, who, if a Dissenter, finds the
national colleges shut from him, the appointing power
of the State, the dread influence of the Church, and
the vast patronage of the nobility, frowning upon him,
and closing every door of privilege against him. The
temptations to falsify his genuine convictions are thus
brought to bear terribly on every gifted and ambitious
man, and it is notorious that many of the ablest men in
the Esta;blishment, for the sake of retaining their
places, sign articles which they both disbelieve and
loathe ! What ar# a man's chances of executive rec
ognition and preferment ifhe be a Dissenterl Though
his eloquence shake forum and temple, and his genius
illumine the earth, and his virtues awaken the admir
ing love of men, yet shall the government and its
lackeys sneer at him and overlook hin, and — unless
the people defiantly lift him on their throbbing heart
to a level face to face with earls and dukes — he shall
remain in neglected obscurity, while supple mediocrity,
by conforming to the orthodox statutes, rises from
station to station, receives title after title, and rolls

16 THE GENIUS AND

through princely parks in the envied wealth and pomp
of a state-minister, or flaunts its bloated luxury in
metropolitan sees. Such a state of things arouses the
indignation of the good, ruins the souls of the weak,
disturbs the religious peace, and corrupts the moral
health of the kingdom. In this respect how favored
we are ! Every person may follow and avow his real
religious preferences without any public disability or
social injury, according to the provisions of the Con
stitution and the hearted customs of the people. So
ought it to be. What a man shall believe, as he lives
in this solemn universe, is a sacred thing between him
and his God. No tampering of bribes and threats
should ever be suffered to interfere with it. The de-
libeiate organization of such an influence is a gigantic
outrage, so old and so common on the earth that we
ought to rejoice heartily at being free from it.
Fourthly, we enjoy in this country a whole class of
priceless privileges which may be comprised under the
¦ general description of exemption from all those enor
mous, unrighteous, vampire burdens of accumulated
debt, war establishments, feudal laws, tythings, brood
ing antiquity and fear, which crush the over-crowded
populations of the old world to the earth, and drain
out the energy of their life-blood. From the intoler
able load of these transmitted and growing ills we
are delivered. A form of government marvellously

POSTURE OF AMERICA. 17
cheap, nearly all the business being transacted by the
people themselves in their primary town meetings, at
small expense of time, and less of money, — makes our
taxation light. We are neither goaded by the arro
gant whims, and ruled by the selfish policy of an auto
crat, nor insulted with the mockery of a royal family
on whom we are obliged to lavish millions a year, for
no service they render, but simply that they may honor
us by living in magnificence, and riding in state, being
guarded by bayonets, and gazed at by gaping ctowds!
No interest on immense debts unjustly incurred ages
ago, bearing only the fruit of blood, wretchedness, and
starvation, — no swollen salaries paid to locust hordes
of useless officials, — no priestly tythes enforced whether
we will or not, wring away the honest earnings of our
independent laborers ; but a simple, self-ruling democ
racy, peace and plenty, the common school, the open
church, and all the natural rights of the individual, un
infringed, make them happy and contented. In this
refulgent summer day, as they pause, leaning on their
scythes, and wipe the sweet from their brows, and
look around on the teeming fields, to be distrained by
no cormorant landlords ; or as they quaff refreshment
from the mossy old bucket poised on the well-curb, —
deeply should they sympathize with the suffering
peasantry of other lands, and bless the unrivalled
institutions of their own.
3

2g THE GENIUS AND
Unlike some nations, where a mob in a single city
has repeatedly built and unbuilt the entire government
in twenty-four hours, we are not at the mercy of local
excitements. The safe and extended stability of our
country is such that before one of these surprising
effervescences can spread far enough for serious alarm,
it cools and dies. Therefore we are not afraid pf
sudden explosion and revolutionary overthrow. Our
Government has an expansiveness, a flexibility, a recu
perative power, that mock at such fears. No legiti
mate evil can reach a really dangerous pitch before
the popular election may redress it. When winter
comes, the snowflakes gently descend, and clothe the
fields with a garment of freshness, hiding the ffith of
decay, and the ruggedness of the rocks; so, without
difficulty or turmoil, when the majority wish it, the
ballots of this free people fall, and spread a new law
over society, beneath which the ugliness of wrong and
the noise of contention disappear. In the old world
countries, the antiquated customs, dead traditions, bur
densome rules of bygone ages, still cramp the minds
and hearts of men, as the crushing armor of those
times would their bodies if they now wore it. With
us no such things remain. We have thrown them
away, never more to shackle with the iron bigotries of
the past the buoyant movements of our free spirits.
Here, on this young Western strand, exempt from

POSTURE OF AMERICA. 19
the ills that curse and paralyze other nations, bidding
a frank good by to the wornout things of old, we have
taken possession of a new country, victoriously fought
a new battle, and founded new. institutions, and are
now training ourselves up, a newly commingled people,
who, animated with new plans and faith, the morning
sunlight of heaven's guiding favor on their foreheads,
and tiie great clock of time striking a new hour in the
affairs of mankind, shall press forward to new destinies,
resplendent with unimagined boons of freedom aild
love. In view of the fact that we are enjoying such glo
rious advantages j what is the true mission of America?
Evidently it is to *preserVe, incresise,' and perpetuate
these blessings here, and to try to secure them else
where. The Work providentially brought bofore this
people, in the line of the testamentary ages and ex
perimenting nations, plainly is the organization of ,
political and ' social ' liberty in just and bfeneficent
institutions. And how clear it is that to do that well,
and establish the perfect result firmly, setting its grand
and shinii% success on high before the unimpeded
gaze of mankind in such unstained brightness and
towering eminence that purblind tyrants shall own
that they see it, and lynx-eyed critics confess that they
discern no flaw in it, — is the way to do the utmost
good for the other nations of the earth! Regarding

20 THE GENIUS AND
this point a's .admitted,-namely, that the mission of
our country, both for her own lasting salvation and for
the redemption of her groaning brother-lands, is to
achieve, and enthrone in dazzling exhibition to the
world, a national example of pohtical perfection,— the
most important part of our theme at once opens upon
us. The question, charged with those grave consid
erations which ought to occupy the attention of every
citizen, irresistibly rises,— What are our immediate
duties as constituents of the Representative Republic
of the world ?
The indispensable work, reaching through the
whole scale of our obligations, is to secure national
righteousness at home. In the first place this is the
most immediate requisition of morahty. The essential
thing for a man or for a nation to do is to put away
vices, and cultivate virtues. This is the eternal claim
whose light and sanction no one can avoid seeing and
feeling, whether he obeys it or not. We as a people
are bound to strive with banded earnestness to pui-ify
the land from every removable iniquity, and fill it
with all attainable righteousness: because hf the terms
this is the very meaning qf the word duty, the vitality
of the moral law. If an individual who was cruel
and selfish in his family, careless and fraudulent in
his business, should go about urging the claims of
domestic love and mercantile integrity, every one

POSTURE OF AMERICA, 21
would say that he had perversely mistaken his voca
tion, that his real duty was to reduce right principles
to practice in his own sphere. So with a nation : its
first obligaHon, its very function, is to organize justice,
freedom, and beneficence in its own laws of life ; to
plant liberty on its public hills, joy in its private
valleys, holiness in its courts, and mercy in its high
ways. The nation . that recklessly disregards that,
tramples on the elements of ethics, insults mankind,
and defies God. A genuine patriotism will, therefore,
labor to destroy the wrong and build up the right
• in its country, for the same reason that a pure and
undefiled religion visits the afflicted, and keeps itself
unspotted from the world : namely, that that is the
very essence of its being.
But, secondly, we must endeavor to establish na
tional righteousness at home, because that is the only
possible way of securing permanent success and pros
perity. Without internal holiness — conformity to
that rule of right which is the will of God, in its
institutions, laws, character, and conduct — no nation
can long stand. Every reality of things and of morals
is unchangeably leagued and invisibly arrayed against
it. Every omen is sombre, the perilous portents of
retribution swarm around, and the day of downfall
moves fatally on. Crime inevitably breeds trouble.
Sin is necessarily cumulative and destructive, like an

22 THE GENIUS AND
Obstructed river. Injustice is essentially disorganizing
and revolutionary. It is the nature of evil that it
cannot stay quiet, but must work, and grow worse,
spreading and dilating till it snatches the flash of rev
elation and shudders with the bolt of judgment. Let
a palpable wrong be in the working machinery of the
State, and, if it be suffered to continue, it will produce
friction, interference, extending disorder, till all is
stopped in a general crash. Wherever there is, in the
political fabric of society, an organized, 'unnecessary
evil of any kind, it infallibly provokes hostility, awak
ens dissension, and causes deepening danger and alarm,
till it is removed. Those whose moral convictions it
offends, must protest and strike against it. Those
whose interests it injures, will be indignant towards it.
Those whose selfishness it subserves and whose pre
judices it pleases, with reckless fierceness will seek to
uphold it. And so all passions are enlisted, and the
debate gets loud,' and animosities are inflamed, and
plots and counterplots are laid. Meanwhile, if it be
an actual wrong, and be forcibly maintained, the ele
ments of explosion are mustering and muttering, and
at last break out in the lurid upheaval of mobs,
insurrection, stndmutuar terror, — to result, perchance,
in successful revolution, perchance in suppressal by
a heavier despotism, perchance in cure, or, perchance,
in utter ruin. History reads us many a dread lesson
of this sort.

POSTURE OF AMERICA. 23
The dead nations whose giant skeletons now lie
bleaching and crumbling on the sands of time, all
died of sin. It was their crimes that dug their graves
and pushed them in. Licentious luxury sapped the
strength and rotted' the virtue of one, — and it disap
peared beneath the green pool of its own corruption.
Brutal war, made a business of, and carried in every
direction, drew upon another the wrath of the world,
— and it was dashed on the rock of its own barbarous
force. Domestic bondage, grown enormous, trodden
under foot, and goaded to madness, rose on another, —
and buried it in the confiagration and slaughter of its
own provocation. Internal antipathy, based on sec
tional differences, fed by selfish interest and taunting
debate, finally exploded in the quarrelling parties of
another, — and hurled its dissevered fragments to ruin
by the convulsive eruption of its own wrong and
hatred. Of all the empires whose melancholy ghosts
now pace the margin of oblivion, not one ever sunk
but its fall was caused by internal iniquity in some
way or other. Shall the stately shade of repub
lican America, too, go down to join the doleful com
pany of crowned spectres, moving them beneath to
rise up at her coming with the sardonic mock, " Art
thou also become as we ? " If we would avoid their
doom of vengeance we must not tread their path of
guilt. ¦

24 THE GENIUS AND
In complete opposition to this nature and effect of
wickedness, righteousness in a nation's politics and
dwellings has a vivifying power, an assimilating and
preservative tendency. The people whose rights are
equally secured to them all, whose interests are well
protected, who, free from irritating wrongs and jeal-^
ousies, may all alike approach the sublime gifts and
opportunities of nature and society, can hardly help
dwelling in contentment and flourishing in progressive
strength. The secret causes of convulsion or decay
do not exist there, but all are sympathetically happy, —
from the counting-room millionaire, watching his com
plex web of enterprise, to the hillside ploughboy,
whistling an echo to the lark in the clouds, — and
their country may well hope to survive forever.
We ought to strive towards this end also because
it is the direct way to exert the strongest influence
for good upon foreign countries. Indeed, without the
realization of internal integrity, we can do very little
good abroad. Our example will be so sullied and
compromised as almost to be spoiled and powerless.
Our brave preaching will be flung back to us with the
taunt, " Physician, heal thyself," But let us lift up
a front of unmarred holiness above all our hearths and
altars, -let there not be a single shackled bondsman
m our territory, -let there be an entire consistency'
between our customs and our glorious professions,-

POSTURE OF AMERICA. 25
let US show here a vast land with no lowering military,
because peace and safety are so stable ; with no sick
ening almshouses, because there are no paupers to
need them ; with no dismal prisons, because there
are no criminals to require them ; bounteous fruits
loading the fields, smiling faces lining the streets, the
awful and resplendent segis of righteousness extended
firnlly over all, — and the spectacle of that spotless
Republic would be an omnipotent '¦'¦power on earth" —
would set the gazing nations delirious to imitate it.
The first duty, therefore, of every American, is to
cleanse his country from wrong, and to establish im
partial righteousness at home,. He must lend his aid
in every proper method to those reforms which aim
to remove human bondage, intemperance, the gallows,
and every other legal crime and shameful custom
fastened on us in the pagan night of the past; that
no more manacled hands and streaming eyes may be
upturned, pleading to us for pity and to Heaven for
justice ; that no more corpses, swinging in the gibbets
of our jail-yards, may curdle the blood of Christian
ized humanity in its veins ; that the matted and
seething masses of licentiousness and pauperism,
abated from their dens, may no more infect and
.upbraid our civilization. Let this be done, and
we shall indeed be blessed within and influential
ft
without. Our country will be an impregnable for-

26

THE GENIUS AND

tress, furnished to stand the eternal siege of the ele
ments ; and our people, if ever alien hosts should
threaten, animated by one resistless impulse, will
gather at the landing, and either whip them from the
shore, or bury them in the strand.
But if our institutions and conduct are righteous,
there will be no occasion for anything of that kind.
For, the second emphatic obligation resulting from
the American posture is to preserve national fraternity
in its relations abroad. To such an attitude, unless
absolutely driven from it, we are pledged by the his
toric policy of our wisest men, urged by the force of
interest, and bound by the sanctity of right. There
may be different opinions upon some particulars touch
ing our duty towards foreign races, but a few points
are unmistakably clear. In the first place, we can
not help sympathizing profoundly with the victims of
oppression in Italy, Poland, Austria, Hungary, Ireland,
and elsewhere. Their children starving, their hands
tied, their mouths stopped, their noblest representa
tives pining in prison, or wandering broken-hearted
in exile ; — in our favored circumstances to view these
facts, and then to withhold all commiseration from
the sufferers, and refuse them a welcome here, would
be to prove our souls ahen from every moral attiibute
of God, and recreant to every generous fibre of hu
manity. Exempt here, under the palladium of our

POSTURE OF AMERICA. 27
democracy, and in the citadel of our independence,
from all the stinging wrongs heaped on the persecuted
laborers and patriots of despotic countries, cold and
mean is the heart that will not waft them a sigh of
sympathy, and offer them a cheerful invitation. Our
forefathers meant this land should be an asylum where
the hunted exile might come and find shelter and
brotherhood. So may it ever be ! Let the mighty
doors of the West, through which the setting sun
rushes in floods of gold alid purple, stancropen for the
longing multitudes to come in. What though they
share our plenty and lessen our monopoly? They
are our brothers, and their coming diminishes the
average wrong and misery of humanity; and, ming
ling with our republican population, there will be so
many happy freemen the more. Ay, let them come,
with our hearts' greeting, for we have room enough.
Let their axes wake the echoes of the primeval forests,
their ploughs and spades encroach on the boundless
prairies, and the smoke of their cabins curl to the
astonished clouds, in those teeming regions where
lonesome Nature yet waits for the ornament and hum
of man's companionship.
But this sympathizing reception of the spurned la
borers and flying refugees of other lands does not bind
our country to be made a common sewer and recep
tacle for the offscourings of the old world, the empty-

.-JO THE GENIUS AND
ings of its jails, hulks, almshouses, and hospitals.
This indecent outrage has been deliberately inflicted
on us too long. Have we not a right to protect our
selves against the ravenous dregs of anarchy and
crime, the tainted swarms of pauperism and vice
Europe shakes on our shores from her diseased robes ?
When this naked mass of unkempt and priest-ridden.
degradation, bruised' with abuse, festering with igno
rance, inflamed with rancor, elated with blind expecta
tions, has s^ung on our continent, and turning round,
shakes its offcast fetters and rags in one hand, bran
dishes sword and torch in the other, its eyeballs
glaring vindictive rage upon the governments which
have expatriated it, — shall we, without the shghtest
regard to its preparedness, our own safety, or the peace
of the world, give this monstrous multitude instanta
neous possession of every political prerogative, letting
it storm our ballot-boxes with its drift of mad votes,
and fill half our offices with its unnaturalized fanatics ?
Our own sons serve an apprenticeship to republican
institutions before they can throw a ballot or occupy
an elective seat. Should not the banished insurgents,
the honest immigrants, the unfortunate exiles, who
seek a new home here, be willing to undergo a proba
tion in some degree proportionate ? Above all, should
not that foreign spawn, which, with fierce and idiotic
stubbornness, persists in remaining foreign in the midst

POSTURE OF AMERICA. 29
of US, keeping alive all its old clannish peculiarities,
and refusing to blend itself, by assimilating processes,
with our composite and hospitable nationality, —
sheuld not ftiis alien horde be compelled to refrain
from ruling America until it has become a little Amer
icanized ? This should be insisted on, for a few such
viperous traitors as those whose incendiary appeals
and fiendish curses 'against their native country have
thickened our air ever since they landed, — if admitted
to influential public posts among us, might transform
the Genius of America, now standing tiptoe on the
kindling mountains of the West, a halo on his serene
forehead, and a peace-branch in his hand, into a
stamping Fury, mustering a fleet of war-ships, and
foaming through the sea towards the cliffs of England.
Not only are we to give a friendly reception to
those deprived of what we enjoy, considering them as
good as ourselves, and entitled to all our privileges
just in the degree that they become a part of our
nationality ; we may, furthermore, utter the earnest
expostulation of our public sentiment against the
injustice under which they groan in their native
countries. But we ought, before doing this, to clear
our skirts of the glaring inconsistencies which will
provoke retort and rob our appeals of their divine
point. And we ought to make our protest in a moral
tone, without arrogance or threats. After all, we

30 THE GENIUS AND
shall have to trust for real influence in improving the
old world despotisms, to the power of our example.
Set before the rulers and their people the example
of our exuberant and diffused natural* wealth, the
rapidity of our unrivalled growth, the self-directing
quietude of our 'prodigious power, our enthusiastic
popular patriotism, — set this in significant contrast
with their starving poverty, overshadowing alarms,
revolutionary outbreaks, compulsory standing armies,
general disaffection, and retrogression or paralysis.
Let that contrast be seen and felt, and it must work
far more mightily than any other agency we can
devise. Let not Americans be deceived with the vain notion
that by a propagandist war they could overthrow
monarchy and estabhsh republicanism abroad. While
the people in despotic countries are unequally pitted
against their prescriptive oppressors and need military
help from without, obviously the fit time for a forcible
change has not come. *Any physical interf-erence on
our part, upon whatever pretext, would be equally a
mistake and a tragedy. There is hardly a government
in the Eastern hemisphere which would not, at the
first signal of such a thing, join a coalition of crowned
heads against us ; and after wading in carnage up to
our horses' bridles, we should reap only a disastrous
discomfiture. I know the specious plea which may

POSTURE OF AMERICA, 31
be made, under certain circumstances, in behalf of such
an enterprise, I know the attraction with which a
generous heart, full of faith and sympathy, will respond
to it. The blood must tingle and jump when one of
our chivalrous countrymen, in answer to the magic
voice of Kossuth, cries, " Unfurl the stars and stripes
on the plains of Hungary in front of a hundred thou
sand American frogmen, and then welcome be the
armies of perjured Austria to the shock." The soul
stirs wildly at the thought. But ah ! the Angel of
Humanity would hover o'er the death-strown field,
and when the night-damp fell, bedew the mangled
forms of her children with her tears. Long enough
has this sort of experiment been tried ; long enough
have men sought redemption by battle, rending the
nations with hate, and baptizing the new-born children
of liberty in blood! Now, let a, different course be
fully tested. Let us improve the unparalleled oppor
tunity Providence has given us, to try the policy of
peace and magnanimous example. From all mortal
contests — in the name of righteousness — in the name
of humanity — in the name of Christ — in the awful
name of God — stand we aloof, henceforth, with clean
hands ! If our brethren of the old countries cannot
gradually win democratic emancipation by ripening
steps of reform, but are compelled to snatch the prize
with violence, when, at length, the rising regiments of

32 THE GENIUS AND

the populace strike, we shall best keep the laws of
wisdom and right, and best subserve the real interests
of the world, not by plunging into the murderous
struggle, but by tilling our fields and tending our
tasks, praying God to preside over the issue which we
may not arbitrate, and when the last great tempest
of revolution has passed, to span the Eastern firmament
with a bright republican bow, like that which soars
across our Western. •
Under the leading of a manifest destiny, Fate sitting
on our helms, a demoniac audacity possessing our
wills, inevitable victory following our march, we have
already fought no less than seven wars. First we
contended with the jealous Aborigines ; secondly with
the allied French and Indians ; then with the British,
first when we were a colony, afterwards when we
were an independent nation ; next with the pirates of
Barbary ; then with the despairing Seminoles ; and
finally with the weak and bewildered Mexicans, Our
cannon have volleyed, our banners have fiapped, our
sabres have dripped, our bugles have sung triumph,
from the wigwams of the Pequot and the fortress of
Tripoli, to the swamps of Florida and the heights
of Monterey. From the death of king Philip to the
fall of Vera Cruz, our eagle, with fatal swoop and
clutch, has pounced on his quarry, and slowly floated
off, gorged and incarnadined. Surely we have done

POSTURE OF AMERICA. 33
enough of this bloody business. It is time we were
sick of it. We are strong enough not to fight any
more. By straightforward justice, conciliating heed,
and intelligent industry, we can amply protect our
selves and conquer opposition. Let us now distrust
and check the passion for military aggrandizement.
For the future, let us swear by our altars, our homes,
our thriving villages, our fruitful fields, and the lovely
canopy smiling over them, that we will cherish peace
as the central duty of our posture, and the blessedest
boon of HeaveUi However numerous and astonishing
our victories in the past, however ascendant our fatal
istic star in the present, let us remember it is re
corded in holy writ, that sooner or later " God scatters
the people that delight in war."
The same extravagant self-estimate, lawless passion,
uneasy and audacious vanity, which have been eager
for a foreign crusade, have also broken forth in fiUibus-
tering expeditions, winning favor from a large class of
the population. The fact' that such forays, insulting
the civilization of the century, have been so powerfully
aided, so openly applauded, so generally winked at, is
disgraceful and ominous. It reflects infamy on our
Government, that an iron hand of suppressal was not
promptly laid on these marauding parties. The un
principled characters, the cruel and treacherous con
duct of their leaders, are helping to bring on them
S

Q^ THE GENIUS AND
the odium they deserve. The atrocious violation of
all law which they directly propose in their predatory
programme, is their unmitigated condemnation. The
shocking massacres and utter failure which have re
sulted thus far, check them for the present. But
new expeditions are threatened. The very spirit of
the enterprise riots in the breasts of thousands. And
unless the indignation of the higher public, or the too
long slumbering arm of the executive interfere, we
may soon see the tragedy of the last year re-enacted
on a vaster scale by a fresh irruption of United States
ruffians upon the unhappy fields of South America.
If we must have for our own that country, so wretched
with misrule, so rich in array of tropical splendors, so
neglected and undeveloped, — how much better to win
its voluntary entrance, State after State, into our Union,
by the overpowering attraction of an example of uni
versal liberty, justice, peace and happiness, than to
harass it by sallies of brigands, who track every step
of their way with pillage and murder ! Let superior
advantages of stable rule, freedom and prosperity, be
plainly attainable from annexation to us, and Central
America may be drawn to us, and absorbed, by her own
desire. But gangs of outlaws, robbing and claiming
by sheer crime and force, wdll hardly add any more
to our territory than they will to our reputation. If
henceforward we could so quicken the moral senti-

POSTURE OF AMERICA, 35
ments and sanctify the will of the nation as to curb its
rampant pride, prevent fillibustering, and avoid war,
we should escape one of our greatest darigers, — an
easily besetting danger, which has proved. the downfall
of many a powerful people before us.
The next palpable danger of our country is from
the prevalence of egotistic demagogues, who crave
notoriety and spoils, but care not for principle, for the
honor of the nation, or for the good of the world.
Such a style of character is apt to appear in leaders
and aspirants among a constituency whose ignorance
and coarseness, taken with low qualities, make idols of
the mere declaimer and braggadocio. This evil is fear
fully rife in many parts of the land, and thoughtful
men must put forth strenuous efforts against it ; for
when the voters, through crudeness of mind and de
gradation of feeling, select for their offices the showy
sophists and rough champions who cater to their pre
judices and wheedle their simplicity, then peril is
immitient. Between the vile example of immorality
and insubordination set by those in high places, and
the mobocratic spirit in the Sovereign herd below,
what can be expected but pitchefl battles between rival
claimants for the functions of favoritism and the emolu
ments of patronage, and the summary execution of its
own behests by every excited multitude ? Herein lies
the deadliest foe to a democracy. And when a public

36 THE GENIUS AND
functionary, from sinister motives of rewarding partisan
service foully rendered, gives an office to a brutal bully,
— be he the mayor of a city appointing a pohceman,
or the President of the United States appointing a mar
shal, — he insults the majesty of his prerogative, dis
graces himself, and should be smitten with popular dis
approbation. Whoever in any degree or manner helps
to keep alive and pamper the spirit of bludgeonry, is
the worst curse of his country. Under republican
institutions, where equal law has its way, where the
free ballot-box can swiftly end any grievance, and
establish any right, a resort to insurrectionary violence
is inexcusable. Whoever, therefore, incites a mob is
guilty of the most aggravated offence possible to a citi
zen. There is no teUing where the evU wUl stop.
Every ringleader in such an outbreak deserves instantly
to have a bullet in his brain.
General culture is the solid foundation beneath free
institutions, the guardian wall around them, and the
high watchtower upon them ; because, where educated
inteUect and refined sentiment are prominent traits in
electors, they quickly discriminate between the philan-,
thropic statesman who is to be revered and foUowed,
and the reckless adventurer who would welcome in any
form an eruption of the worst passions of the populace,
hoping in the confusion to snatch the reins of notoriety]
and ride into power ;- between the demagogue who

POSTURE OF AMERICA. 37
flatters and cajoles the people, making use of them to
compass his own ends, and the patriot who disinter
estedly seeks, by reason and right alone, to enhance
the welfare of his countrymen. They accordingly take
good care to secure for their leaders, teachers, and
rulers, men of enlarged views, elevated principles,
peaceful spirit, honest and generous policy. The eagle
is the national symbol, common both to our demagogues
and patriots. By stigmatizing every appearance of Ihe
demagogue spirit, and applauding every manifestation
of genuine patriotism, let us see that our country be
truly represented, not by the imperious fierceness of
that majestic bird, but by his royal courage ; not by
his talons and- beak, that drip with the blood of
the lamb and the sparrow, but by his eye, that never
blenches in the blazing beams, and his wing, that out-
wearies the tug of the tempest and sails above the
thunder. For the healthy state and administration of affairs
in a democratic country, it should be found that the
common sentiment is formed and guided by the wisest
and best, from above the level, — not by the most
conceited and unprincipled, from below it. Scholars,
divines, civilians, statesmen, authors, — the most com
petent students of subjects, — those whose lives are de
voted to moral and intellectual pursuits, in their several
spheres, should try to correct and lead, not echo and

38 THE GENIUS AND
flatter, public opinion. It is alike shameful and alarm
ing thatthe press, the pulpit, the forum, are so often
occupied by men who, either from want of mind; or
from selfish and cowardly subserviency, do not give the
direction which is needed, but take that which suits the
majority. Every man in a public post who faUs in with
this common meanness and evil, should be hissed from
his place, to make way for one of nobler aim and
sterner stuff. In this respect it seems as if there were
a growing degeneracy among us. Have we not edi
tors, who form no opinion of their own, or, forming
one, never stand by it? Clergymen, who say a man
need not follow his sense of right? Representatives,
who make speeches of hollow fustian, cast votes for
unqualified infamy, diversify the tedium of Congress
by the interpolation of drunken brawls, and profane
the steps of the capitol with murderous assaults?
Upon their debauched brows a nation's scorn should be
branded whUe they live, and out of their avoided
graves, when they die, nightshade should grow. The
indifference of a large part of our population to the
character and fitness of the men they elevate to sta
tions of trust and power is wicked and insane. Its
consequences may at any time plunge us headlong
into the flaming abyss of civil strife, or the jaws
of foreign war. Verily a new proclamation is wanted
in our national hustings, of what are the first rudiments

POSTURE OF AMERICA. 39
of morality, manliness, and merit ; affirming in every
ear and conscience, — what appears not to be under
stood, — that the true qualifications for office are not
drunkenness, pugilism, licentiousness, and bribery ;
but virtue, intelligence, loyalty, experience, and patri
otism.
• Another danger to which we are exposed is from the
craft and ambition of the priestly spirit, claiming that
its ritual holds the exclusive means of salvation, and
that its head is vested with supreme authority. We
have among us, powerless at present, but diligent,
selfish, and arrogant as ever behind its seeming meek
ness, sleeplessly biding the time when it may unsheath
its weapons, and assume total supervision of school,
pulpit, and press, .and make the State its supple in
strument, — that priesthood, which, wherever it goes,
still preserves its denationalized unity, paying fealty to
one celibate old man ; remaining always a separate
body in the midst of the people ; seeking its own cor
porate ends at the expense of everything else, Ro
manism is as much a grasping political, as it is an
irresponsible spiritual, power. Flourishing best amorg
a people characterized by superstitious puerility of
thought and abject dependence of condition, it estab
lishes eternal ignorance and beggardom that it may
possess eternal dominion. Its unearthly pretensions
and persecuting mind necessarily make it an enemy to

^0 THE GENIUS AND
the genius of republicafn institutions ; and it must at
any cost be kept froin seizing here those coveted priv
ileges which it so tyranically exercises in Catholic
countries. Could the prisons of the Papacy this day
burst, and show their contents to the light, America
would stand aghast at the cruelty, and oppose, with
leagued conscience and heart, the insinuating ad
vances of so feU a power. If it had authoritative
sway, no Protestant teacher or author would for a
day be allowed to exercise his functions unmolested,
nor could the secular government ever be free from its
intrigues and assumptions. It has boasted that the
Pope shall yet set up his chair on the Rocky Moun
tains, and it will spare no pains to compass that fond
consummation. Its propagandist zeal flits from the
damp mould of mediaeval vaults, and hangs over the
open nest of America, in the democratic sunlight of
the nineteenth century, dripping sacerdotal poison on
our young eaglets. Let care be taken that neither the
papal, nor any other hierarchical priesthood, ever ob
tains power on these shores to apply the rack and
fagot, which are the legitimate contents equally of
its faith, its logic, and its spirit.
But such are the elastic strength and remedial
vitality of our national organism, — such are the con
spiring agencies of providential destiny combined to
neutralize the hurts and shocks, and aid the victorious

POSTURE OF AMERICA. 41
course, of this country, — so irresistibly do our palpa
ble interests, as well as our solemn duties, plead for a
policy of internal development by the arts of peaceful
industry, casting discredit on the crimson lures of con
quest, — so spontaneously do the affairs of our thrifty
and energetic people prosper, whether fostered or ne
glected by legislation, — so smoothly do the wheels of
our governmental mechanism run and achieve its func
tions, easily recovering from any friction or strain re
sulting from the carelessness or rashness of unfit over
seers, — such a tremendous check and healing power
for the abuse and damage inflicted by demagogues and
traitors, exist in the limited prerogatives and brief ten
ure of our officials, and in their condign dependence on
public opinion and the electoral urn, — and so rootedly
averse is the whole genius and operation of our institu
tions to the domination of a priestly hierarchy, whose
history is hateful to the mind of democracy, whose
antiquated dogmas, formalism, and haughtiness are ir
reconcilable with the fresh thought, practical taste, ancj
social generosity of our pgople, — that America might
laugh to scorn all the evils threatened by her irritable
pride, by her army of selflsh politicians every four years
clamorously knocking at the official doors, as if they
were inscribed, "Ask, and ye shall receive," and by the
determined encroachments of sacerdotal ambition, —
did not that fearful curse and danger, the problem
6

42

THE GENIUS AND

of slavery, lower over the land, the prodigious horrors
its bosom holds, big with portents of explosion, the
rasping hostUities its relationship engenders, charging
the atmosphere with angry hghtnings of debate.
For three-quarters of a century, the Constitution has
re-enacted for America the part of Amphion, to whose
charmed strain the spontaneous stones moved and built
the capital of Boeotia, To the music of the Union,
our more than Theban waUs have been rising, and are
rapidly buUding stUl, On this, the anniversary day of
the ffi-st triumphant prelude of that edifying music, it
were a delightful privilege, if we might, for one hal
lowed hour, forget every later alienation, turn from
every unwelcome sight, listen not to a single dissonant
note, but revive, the old concord that made our Fathers
one, and let the souls of our people, from the lumber
ers of Aroostook to the miners of Mariposa, all flow
together in common memories, loyalties, and hopes.
Alas, that patriotism, honor, and religion should unite
to dispel the vision and forbid the dream.
The fierce clamor of the slaveholding interest for
more room, fresh prey, new chains, and whips, and a
longer lease of power, drowns the voices of the Rev
olutionary Fathers, vilifies the Declaration of Indepen
dence, incenses the country, disgraces the age, and
insults the world. The madness of these retrograde
fanatics, facing directly into barbaric night, seriously

POSTURE OF AMERICA, 43
threatens the disruption of our Union, the extinguish
ment of the world's latest, brightest expectations.
This is no exaggeration. The infinite wrong the insti
tution of slavery is in itself; the inexpressible wrongs
it infhcts on its victims ; the insulting arrogance it
breeds, the deteriorating sloth it pampers, the loathsome
lust it inflames and feeds, in the master ; the generous
sympathies and moral sentiments it outrages in the
contemplator ; — all these facts are necessarily fraught
with the combustible elements of strife. Besides, the
want of educational institutions, of high culture, of
diffused skill and enterprise — a want obviously attend
ant on Slavery — naturally leads to exhaustion of the
soU, decay of wealth, and decrease of society, where
it is long established, and so force it to seek new terri
tory. The North and the West, by their comparative
enlightenment, liberty, and progressive thrift are
girding the South as with a ring of sacred fire. She
must either get new life and land in Nebraska, Cuba,
South America, or die of inanition. The clutch on this
resource by the Slave States is not more tenacious than
the opposition by the FrOe States to such a seizure, is
resolute. The contest between the obstinacy and aris
tocratic passions on one side, the firm convictions and
clear lights on the other, is grave already, and more
ominous ahead.
Under these circumstances, appointed to speak on

44

THE GENIUS AND

the Fourth of July, to the citizens of Boston, I should
deem myself a recreant son of old Massachusetts,
guilty of a contemptible trick of cowardice, — the
blood of the Fifth of March, 1770, would cry against
me from the pavement of yonder street, — did I, while
treating of our exposures, evade, through fear of
touching a delicate subject, a frank reference to the
chiefest evU and alarm of the land. That ostrich-
pohcy, which, amidst thickening sounds of combat
and signs of dissolution, hides the head in sandy
generalities, and, quietly ignoring the facts, babbles of
peace and union, is neither manly nor useful. Far
nobler is it, and better, to open the eyes, summon
intellect, heart, and conscience to their work, and
submit your conclusions with direct candor to the
wholesome agitation of criticism and argument.
One thing, then, is as sure as the footsteps of des
tiny, namely, that the battle between Slavery and Free
dom in America is irreconcilable. One of the parties
must triumph, and one must yield. Which it shall be,
and how soon, — there all the question lies.
There are four conceivable modes of action, one of
which must be foUowed, and we may take our choice.
First: If the Slave States would, as every truth in
sound pohcy, as aU calm and devou,t wisdom, requires,
seek, in union with the Free States, by any feasible
means, to deliver themselves and the country from the

POSTURE OF AMERICA. 45
wretched misfortune of negro bondage, we might hon
orably co-operate with them, and bear a generous
portion of the pecuniary burden and of the tutoring
;responsibility. Would to Heaven that might be ? But ,
plainly it cannot be at present. Judicial delusion and
exasperated obstinacy prevent it. It can come only, if
at all, when accumulated defeat, perplexity, pecuniary
ruin and social peril leave the infatuated, baffled op
pressors no other door of relief.
Secondly: If the Slave States, confessing the insti
tution to be an unhappy accident, a pernicious mis
take, and its removal a desirable consummation, would
let it be limited to its present domain, with no effort to
fortify or to spread it, honestly allowing it to gradually
ameliorate and diminish before the light of a higher
polity, and under the influence of natural causes, the
purer instincts of men, the laws of political economy,
and the requirements of righteousness, — we might
justifiably consent, standing on the provisions of the
Constitution, to compromise so far as to wait patiently
the time of its legitimate surcease. But how clear
it is that in their frenzy they will do no such thing !
Under a perturbed judgment, they are, for the first
time, asserting the divine right and benignity of slave-
holding, identifying their total welfare with its con
tinuance, and devoting their entire energies to its
diffusion. Day and night they are plotting for new

^g THE GENIUS AND
fields, and devising new intrenchments. Within the
year, with incredible impudence and piratical animus,
they' have clamored on the floor of Congress, for the
legahzed reopening of the African slave-trade, — the
most unreUeved system of robbery, murder, and oppres
sion ever revealed in history. Affirming the sectional
ism of Freedom, and the nationality of Slavery, they
insist on our compHcity with them, commanding us to
serve as dogs to hunt and return their panting fugitives.
Can we endure this, and sit tamely down and do nothing
to stay the advance of the aU-grasping despotism? No!
It is hard enough to leave the evU alone where it is,
until what time its unnourished being might end. But
when its supporters demand more of us than that, they
ask too much. We cannot let it tramp over its sec
tional bounds with obscene hoof to befoul the fountain
heads of new States, and roil the silver spring where
our national eagle drinks.
Thirdly : If the Slave States be suffered to retain
the preponderant shaping power which their single-
aiming persistency has given them in the Government,
and to carry their policy through, concentrating the
life-passion and stake of the country in Slavery, why
then America wUl inevitably be plunged into the
lowest pit of infamy, and thence into bottomless ruin.
Demoralization, poverty, hostility, and contempt from
abroad, war, and at last, black destruction, wUl be

POSTURE OF AMERICA. 47
unavoidable consequents. On the other hand, if we,
while refusing to submit and go with them, permit
them in their selfish revulsion to withdraw from the
Union and set up a separate confederacy, a great Slave
Empire covering the southern half of the continent,
the terrible crisis will not thereby be averted. The
conflicting ideas, interests, sentiments of North and
South will then be \astly aggravated, and present
restraints no longer be felt. Dislikes will be fo
mented, jealousies rankle, quarrels occur, and fraternal
slaughter unquestionably close the day.
Fourthly : There remains, therefore, but one course
for the Free States to follow, and in that course inter
est and duty blend their parallel lines to form a plain
path. We must rally in our might at the ballot-box,
and assume that controlling power in the National
Government which properly belongs to us. On the
basis of the Constitution, in the spirit of the Fathers,
we must organize a party animated by the American
ideas of democratic liberty and progress, to take the
legitimate supervision of our. public policy, and to
mould our legislation in such a way as to secure the
strict confinement of Slavery to its present possessions,
and so to provide for its final abolition. Such a party
can be formed in a magnanimous spirit of justice and
kindness to all, equally generous to the slaveholder,
considerate to humanity, and loyal to God, Its first

48 vw- THE GENIUS AND
victory wiU carry the Declaration of Independence into
the sky of the Supreme Court, where each one of its
"glittering generalities" wiU be a bright particular
star to guide the oppressed out of their bondage. The
Free States are simply caUed on to unite in one grand
party of righteous sentiment, take lawful possession of
the executive power, and direct the future conduct of
the country. This power is our right by the demo
cratic rule of majorities, and we have been'buUied out
of it too long ; for the free voters outnumber the slave
holders, ten to one. To wield it is also our duty,
because our civihzation is higher, our temper purer,
than theirs: and the superior ought to govern the
inferior. We contend by argument, example and per
suasion; they, by knife, pistol, and mob. When we
are lifting our marble martyr to his niche on Bunker
Hill, the odious slaveholder who forced the Fugitive
Slave Bill down our throats, is introduced with compU-
mentary flunkeyism, in the very shadow of the awful
place, and we listen to his haughty-toned common
places with respectful patience ; they will not permit a
harmless private abolitionist, known to be such, to
enter one of their viUages, except at the imminent risk
of outrage and death ; and notoriously there is hardly
a slaveholding community in the country where a free
word in pubhc on this subject wiU not raise a mob to
hang the speaker on the nearest tree !

POSTURE or AMERICA. 49
ft
Furthermore, the Free States are obligated to rouse
and conjoin their forces to snatch the office of the
National Executive from the slaveholding oligarchy,
because otherwise the doom of .the Republic is sealed :
for lasting peace and safety are whoUy impossible,
except in the triumph of right and liberty. Then
they will be secured ; for we can, if we will, easily
wield the prerogatives of a ruling majority, and exe
cute the behests of just principles with a high right
arm. And it is the only way to save the country.
If we unitedly resolve on it, the South will be as impo
tent to resist right and wise measures, as we shall be
able to enforce them, — as helpless to destroy, as we
shaU be competent to preserve, the Union, and to pun-
isfi every attempt to thwart its great ends. Our duty,
accordingly, in relation to Slavery, is, by consolidated
voting, to shut it within its jail-limits, and cut off its
nutriment. Then it will die, and we shall stand justi
fied. If we do not this, we shall deserve to become a
byword and a hissing forever.
America is at once the oldest and the youngest of
nations. Inheriting the experience of the past, the
ages of foregone countries are to be added to hers to
date, her true longevity. Just started on her career,
the first throbbing glow of promise and ambition in
her veins, with fuller knowledge, with new elements
of success, and under more auspicious coiiditions than
7

gg THE GENIUS AND

?

any country ever enjoyed before, humanity and the
worid watch, with unprecedented intensity of interest,
the incidents of her course and the goal of her des
tination, ShaU her children fail her now ? WiU they
not see to it that she is represented before the nations
in a manner worthy of her peerless endowment and her
providential mission? Let not America appear, in
genius and posture, a booted and spurred FUhbuster, in
tawdry uniform and brisj;ling with weapons ; not a
propagandist Slave-driver, with slouched garb and furi^
ous mien, a whip in one hand, a bowie-knife in the
other, the hated renegade of the world ; but a "virgin
Goddess, newly descended on the summits, olive and
sheaf in her grasp, love and futurity in her eye, celes
tial wisdom on her brow, i and the hemisphere at her
feet. If all warning omens be neglected, and our really
good and able men stand back, refraining from their
proper place and part in public affairs, and demagogues
and mobs rule, and fanatics feed their bale-fires, and
the war-spirit be nourished, and a foreign clergy carry
out their plans, and it be attempted to enlarge and
eternize the organic injustice and excitement of Slavery,
— then, just so surely as human natui-e remains what
it always has been, fatal alienations will spring up,
public sentiment wUl be demoralized, and passion wiU
be embittered, tiU some earthquake of patty madness

POSTURE OP AMERICA, 51
yawns for our fabricated strength, or some volcanic in
surrection overwhelms the scene in a deluge of fire and
blood. There are lessons for us of this sort in the
shuddering annals of the past, which I need not dra-^iv ;
and portents of dreadful note forius in the dilating con
troversies and corruption of the present, which I wUI
notde,scribe; because there are also fair prospects for us
in the promising possibilities of the future, to which I
eagerly turn, to close in a tone of cheer more befitting
this festive day.
There is, I believe, a better fate in store for us and
our children, than that prophesied by the lugubrious
croakers of the time. The day brightejis above Kaiusas.
Conscientious citizens are arousing to their duties*
The paoderates — tiie golden party of reason, justice,
and liberty — will overbalance the fevered extremists of
both sections, and rally a majority aroun,d the genuine
mission of our country, inspired with love and resolvo
to defend from every enemy, within and without, the
cause of free self-government, the precious legacy in
herited from all the ages gone, and now jeopa,rded here
in this pass of the world. It is in the power of that
party, within the present generation, to shape for this;
conjtiftent the stupendous issues of the future; and
they are trying to do it. Be their numbers reinforced,,
their zeal augmented. Go, all faithful men, to theip

52

THE GENIUS AND

side, and labor with heart and hand to conform your
country's laws and policy to the ideal standard of do
mestic righteousness and universal fraternity. Looking
about your broad homS-borders, say to Slavery, Intem
perance, Ignorance, and the various shapes of Sensual
ism and Sin,— Avaunt! feU Fiends, horrible forms of
Crime and .Woe, brooding Threats, begone from our
coasts! Then, gazing across the sea, exclaim with
open mien and frank voice —
" Though dwelling in a far-off isle,
• We bear no hate to other lands,
But think that all the earth might smile
If they and we but joined our hands."
Let that spirit be cultivated and that work be pursu
ed by the mass of the American people, and year after
year the results will be seen in the diminution of the
evils which now so sadly qualify our honor and our in
fluence, and in the purification from all its stains of
that banner of stripes and stars, whose solemn and
splendid folds, streaming from the central mountains,
shaU yet be reflected at once in the girdling waters of
the North, the East, the South, and the West, — when
this e'iitire continent, untrod by the foot of a slave, un-
profaned by the throne of a tyrant, unshadowed by the
mitre of a priest, shall be one united nation, powerful
enough to overawe the world in arms, virtuous enough
to keep the cardinal laws of God in peace, generous

POSTURE OF .^ERICA. 53
enough to win the grateful love of foreign empires,
wise enough to insure the perpetuity of its own boun
teous prosperity to the crowding generations which
shaU ^ccessively flourish on ite soil aud migrate to
its sky.

HUICBtS
Syracuse, R. Y.
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