Daniel Webster for Young Americans
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Title: Daniel Webster for Young Americans
Author: Daniel Webster
Editor: Charles F. Richardson
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Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DANIEL WEBSTER FOR YOUNG AMERICANS ***
Speeches by Daniel Webster
[Illustration: DANIEL WEBSTER.
_From a daguerreotype by T. D. Jones. Copyright, 1901, by Dartmouth
College._]
DANIEL WEBSTER
FOR YOUNG AMERICANS
COMPRISING
THE GREATEST SPEECHES OF THE DEFENDER
OF THE CONSTITUTION
WITH NOTES BY
CHARLES F. RICHARDSON
PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN DARTMOUTH COLLEGE
School Edition
ILLUSTRATED
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1907
_Copyright, 1903, 1906,_
BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
_All rights reserved_
The Eastern Press Co.
BOSTON, MASS.
CONTENTS
PAGE
DANIEL WEBSTER, CHRONOLOGY ix
THE FIRST SETTLEMENT OF NEW ENGLAND 3
THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT 30
THE COMPLETION OF THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT 50
ADAMS AND JEFFERSON 67
THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE 111
THE REPLY TO HAYNE 115
EXECUTIVE PATRONAGE AND REMOVAL FROM OFFICE 174
THE CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON 175
THE CONSTITUTION AND THE UNION 194
THE ADDITION TO THE CAPITOL 200
INDEX 213
ILLUSTRATIONS
Daniel Webster _Frontispiece_
From a daguerreotype by T. D. Jones, in the
possession of Dartmouth College
Daniel Webster _Page_ vii
From the crayon drawing by John Martin, in the
possession of Mrs. Richard W. Grinnell
Birthplace of Daniel Webster, Franklin (formerly
Salisbury), N. H. " viii
The Embarkation of the Pilgrims from Delfthaven _Facing page_ 14
The Landing of the Pilgrims " " 16
The Battle of Bunker Hill " " 30
Joseph Warren _Page_ 37
Marquis de Lafayette " 40
Bunker Hill Monument " 50
John Tyler " 54
Faneuil Hall " 68
John Adams " 74
James Otis " 77
Independence Hall, Philadelphia " 80
Thomas Jefferson " 82
The Declaration of Independence _Facing page_ 84
John Hancock _Page_ 91
Samuel Adams " 97
Patrick Henry " 101
Benjamin Franklin " 102
The Reply to Hayne _Facing page_ 118
Thomas H. Benton _Page_ 120
John Quincy Adams " 123
Robert Y. Hayne " 135
The Battle of Lexington _Facing page_ 144
George Washington _Page_ 175
The Resignation of Washington _Facing page_ 178
Henry Clay _Page_ 195
The Capitol at Washington " 200
Washington Monument " 208
Millard Fillmore " 211
[Illustration]
DANIEL WEBSTER
CHRONOLOGY
Born at Salisbury, now Franklin, New Hampshire January 18, 1782
Graduated at Dartmouth College 1801
Admitted to the bar 1805
Practised law in Boscawen, New Hampshire 1805-7
Removed to Portsmouth, New Hampshire 1807
Member of the United States House of Representatives from
New Hampshire 1813-7
Removed to Boston 1816
Dartmouth College case, United States Supreme Court 1818
Member of the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention 1820-1
Oration at Plymouth, Massachusetts 1820
Member of the United States House of Representatives from
Massachusetts 1823-7
Gibbons _versus_ Ogden case 1823
Oration at the laying of the corner-stone of Bunker Hill
Monument 1825
Eulogy on Adams and Jefferson 1826
Senator from Massachusetts 1827-41
Reply to Hayne 1830
Argument in White murder case, Salem, Massachusetts 1830
Reply to Calhoun: The Constitution not a Compact between
Sovereign States 1833
Secretary of State under Presidents Harrison and Tyler 1841-3
Webster-Ashburton Treaty between the United States and England 1842
Oration on the completion of Bunker Hill Monument 1843
Senator from Massachusetts 1845-50
Seventh of March Speech for compromise between Northern and
Southern States 1850
Secretary of State under President Fillmore 1850-2
Died at Marshfield, Massachusetts October 24, 1852
[Illustration]
DANIEL WEBSTER _for_ YOUNG AMERICANS
THE FIRST SETTLEMENT OF NEW ENGLAND
A DISCOURSE DELIVERED AT PLYMOUTH, MASSACHUSETTS, DEC. 22, 1820.
[In 1820 the "Pilgrim Society" was formed by the citizens of
Plymouth, Massachusetts, and the descendants of the Pilgrims in
other places, desirous of uniting "to commemorate the landing, and
to honor the memory of the intrepid men who first set foot on
Plymouth Rock." The foundation of this society gave a new impulse to
the anniversary celebrations of the two hundredth anniversary of the
landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth. Mr. Webster was requested to
deliver the public address on the 22d of December of that year, and
the following discourse was pronounced by him, in the presence of a
great gathering of people.]
[Sidenote: Beginning of the third century of New England history.]
Let us rejoice that we behold this day. Let us be thankful that we have
lived to see the bright and happy breaking of the auspicious morn which
commences the third century of the history of New England. Auspicious,
indeed,--bringing a happiness beyond the common allotment of Providence
to men,--full of present joy, and gilding with bright beams the prospect
of futurity, is the dawn that awakens us to the commemoration of the
landing of the Pilgrims.
Living at an epoch which naturally marks the progress of the history of
our native land, we have come hither to celebrate the great event with
which that history commenced. Forever honored be this, the place of our
fathers' refuge! Forever remembered the day which saw them, weary and
distressed, broken in everything but spirit, poor in all but faith and
courage, at last secure from the dangers of wintry seas, and impressing
this shore with the first footsteps of civilized man!
[Sidenote: New England's ancestors.]
It is a noble faculty of our nature which enables us to connect our
thoughts, our sympathies, and our happiness with what is distant in
place or time; and, looking before and after, to hold communion at once
with our ancestors and our posterity. Human and mortal although we are,
we are nevertheless not mere insulated beings, without relation to the
past or the future. Neither the point of time, nor the spot of earth, in
which we physically live, bounds our rational and intellectual
enjoyments. We live in the past by a knowledge of its history; and in
the future, by hope and anticipation. By ascending to an association
with our ancestors, by contemplating their example and studying their
character, by partaking their sentiments and imbibing their spirit, by
accompanying them in their toils, by sympathizing in their sufferings,
and rejoicing in their successes and their triumphs, we seem to belong
to their age and to mingle our own existence with theirs. We become
their contemporaries, live the lives which they lived, endure what they
endured, and partake in the rewards which they enjoyed. And in like
manner, by running along the line of future time, by contemplating the
probable fortunes of those who are coming after us, by attempting
something which may promote their happiness and leave some not
dishonorable memorial of ourselves for their regard when we shall sleep
with the fathers, we protract our own earthly being, and seem to crowd
whatever is future, as well as all that is past, into the narrow compass
of our earthly existence. As it is not a vain and false, but an exalted
and religious imagination which leads us to raise our thoughts from the
orb which, amidst this universe of worlds, the Creator has given us to
inhabit, and to send them with something of the feeling which nature
prompts, and teaches to be proper among children of the same Eternal
Parent, to the contemplation of the myriads of fellow-beings with which
his goodness has peopled the infinite of space; so neither is it false
or vain to consider ourselves as interested and connected with our whole
race, through all time; allied to our ancestors; allied to our
posterity; closely compacted on all sides with others; ourselves being
but links in the great chain of being, which begins with the origin of
our race, runs onward through its successive generations, binding
together the past, the present, and the future, and terminating at last,
with the consummation of all things earthly, at the throne of God.
[Sidenote: The Pilgrim Fathers.]
We have come to this Rock, to record here our homage for our Pilgrim
Fathers;[1] our sympathy in their sufferings; our gratitude for their
labors; our admiration of their virtues; our veneration for their piety;
and our attachment to those principles of civil and religious liberty
which they encountered the dangers of the ocean, the storms of heaven,
the violence of savages, disease, exile, and famine, to enjoy and to
establish. And we would leave here, also, for the generations which are
rising up rapidly to fill our places, some proof that we have endeavored
to transmit the great inheritance unimpaired; that in our estimate of
public principles and private virtue, in our veneration of religion and
piety, in our devotion to civil and religious liberty, in our regard for
whatever advances human knowledge or improves human happiness, we are
not altogether unworthy of our origin.
[Sidenote: The genius of the place.]
[Sidenote: Plymouth Rock.]
There is a local feeling connected with this occasion, too strong to be
resisted; a sort of genius of the place, which inspires and awes us. We
feel that we are on the spot where the first scene of our history was
laid; where the hearths and altars of New England were first placed;
where Christianity and civilization and letters made their first
lodgment, in a vast extent of country, covered with a wilderness, and
peopled by roving barbarians. We are here at the season of the year at
which the event took place. The imagination irresistibly and rapidly
draws around us the principal features and the leading characters in the
original scene. We cast our eyes abroad on the ocean, and we see where
the little bark, with the interesting group upon its deck, made its slow
progress to the shore. We look around us, and behold the hills and
promontories where the anxious eyes of our fathers first saw the places
of habitation and of rest. We feel the cold which benumbed, and listen
to the winds which pierced them. Beneath us is the Rock on which New
England received the feet of the Pilgrims. We seem even to behold them
as they struggle with the elements, and with toilsome efforts gain the
shore. We listen to the chiefs in council; we see the unexampled
exhibition of female fortitude and resignation; we hear the whisperings
of youthful impatience; and we see what a painter of our own has also
represented by his pencil,[2] chilled and shivering childhood, houseless
but for a mother's arms, couchless but for a mother's breast, till our
own blood almost freezes. The mild dignity of Carver and of Bradford;
the decisive and soldier-like air and manner of Standish; the devout
Brewster; the enterprising Allerton; the general firmness and
thoughtfulness of the whole band; their conscious joy for dangers
escaped; their deep solicitude about dangers to come; their trust in
Heaven; their high religious faith, full of confidence and
anticipation,--all of these seem to belong to this place, and to be
present upon this occasion, to fill us with reverence and admiration.
[Sidenote: Importance of the landing at Plymouth as an historical
event.]
The settlement of New England by the colony which landed here on the
twenty-second[3] of December, 1620, although not the first European
establishment in what now constitutes the United States, was yet so
peculiar in its causes and character, and has been followed and must
still be followed by such consequences, as to give it a high claim to
lasting commemoration. On these causes and consequences, more than on
its immediately attendant circumstances, its importance as an historical
event depends. Great actions and striking occurrences, having excited a
temporary admiration, often pass away and are forgotten, because they
leave no lasting results affecting the prosperity and happiness of
communities. Such is frequently the fortune of the most brilliant
military achievements. Of the ten thousand battles which have been
fought, of all the fields fertilized with carnage, of the banners which
have been bathed in blood, of the warriors who have hoped that they had
risen from the field of conquest to a glory as bright and as durable as
the stars, how few that continue long to interest mankind! The victory
of yesterday is reversed by the defeat of to-day; the star of military
glory, rising like a meteor, like a meteor has fallen; disgrace and
disaster hang on the heels of conquest and renown; victor and vanquished
presently pass away to oblivion, and the world goes on in its course,
with the loss only of so many lives and so much treasure.
[Sidenote: The Battle of Marathon.]
But if this be frequently, or generally, the fortune of military
achievements, it is not always so. There are enterprises, military as
well as civil, which sometimes check the current of events, give a new
turn to human affairs, and transmit their consequences through ages. We
see their importance in their results, and call them great, because
great things follow. There have been battles which have fixed the fate
of nations. These come down to us in history with a solid and permanent
interest, not created by a display of glittering armor, the rush of
adverse battalions, the sinking and rising of pennons, the flight, the
pursuit, and the victory; but by their effect in advancing or retarding
human knowledge, in overthrowing or establishing despotism, in extending
or destroying human happiness. When the traveller pauses on the plain of
Marathon,[4] what are the emotions which most strongly agitate his
breast? What is that glorious recollection which thrills through his
frame, and suffuses his eyes? Not, I imagine, that Grecian skill and
Grecian valor were here most signally displayed; but that Greece herself
was saved. It is because to this spot, and to the event which has
rendered it immortal, he refers all the succeeding glories of the
republic. It is because, if that day had gone otherwise, Greece had
perished. It is because he perceives that her philosophers and orators,
her poets and painters, her sculptors and architects, her governments
and free institutions, point backward to Marathon, and that their future
existence seems to have been suspended on the contingency whether the
Persian or the Grecian banner should wave victorious in the beams of
that day's setting sun. And, as his imagination kindles at the
retrospect, he is transported back to the interesting moment; he counts
the fearful odds of the contending hosts; his interest for the result
overwhelms him; he trembles, as if it were still uncertain, and seems to
doubt whether he may consider Socrates and Plato, Demosthenes,
Sophocles, and Phidias, as secure yet to himself and to the world.
[Sidenote: The high purpose of the Pilgrim Fathers.]
"If we conquer," said the Athenian commander on the approach of that
decisive day, "if we conquer, we shall make Athens the greatest city of
Greece." A prophecy how well fulfilled! "If God prosper us," might have
been the more appropriate language of our fathers, when they landed upon
this Rock, "if God prosper us, we shall here begin a work which shall
last for ages; we shall plant here a new society, in the principles of
the fullest liberty and the purest religion; we shall subdue this
wilderness which is before us; we shall fill this region of the great
continent, which stretches almost from pole to pole, with civilization
and Christianity; the temples of the true God shall rise where now
ascends the smoke of idolatrous sacrifice; fields and gardens, the
flowers of summer, and the waving and golden harvest of autumn, shall
spread over a thousand hills and stretch along a thousand valleys, never
yet, since the creation, reclaimed to the use of civilized man. We shall
whiten this coast with the canvas of a prosperous commerce; we shall
stud the long and winding shore with a hundred cities. That which we sow
in weakness shall be raised in strength. From our sincere but houseless
worship there shall spring splendid temples to record God's goodness;
from the simplicity of our social union there shall arise wise and
politic constitutions of government, full of the liberty which we
ourselves bring and breathe; from our zeal for learning, institutions
shall spring which shall scatter the light of knowledge throughout the
land, and in time, paying back where they have borrowed, shall
contribute their part to the great aggregate of human knowledge; and our
descendants, through all generations, shall look back to this spot and
to this hour with unabated affection and regard.
[Sidenote: Love of religious liberty the motive for the settlement of
New England.]
Of the motives which influenced the first settlers to a voluntary exile,
induced them to relinquish their native country, and to seek an asylum
in this then unexplored wilderness, the first and principal, no doubt,
were connected with religion. They sought to enjoy a higher degree of
religious freedom, and what they esteemed a purer form of religious
worship, than was allowed to their choice, or presented to their
imitation, in the Old World. The love of religious liberty is a stronger
sentiment, when fully excited, than an attachment to civil or political
freedom. That freedom which the conscience demands, and which men feel
bound by their hope of salvation to contend for, can hardly fail to be
attained. Conscience, in the cause of religion and the worship of the
Deity, prepares the mind to act and to suffer beyond almost all other
causes. It sometimes gives an impulse so irresistible that no fetters of
power or of opinion can withstand it. History instructs us that this
love of religious liberty, a compound sentiment in the breast of man,
made up of the clearest sense of right and the highest conviction of
duty, is able to look the sternest despotism in the face, and, with
means apparently most inadequate, to shake principalities and powers.
There is a boldness, a spirit of daring, in religious reformers, not to
be measured by the general rules which control men's purposes and
actions. If the hand of power be laid upon it, this only seems to
augment its force and its elasticity, and to cause its action to be more
formidable and violent. Human invention has devised nothing, human power
has compassed nothing, that can forcibly restrain it when it breaks
forth. Nothing can stop it, but to give way to it; nothing can check it,
but indulgence. It loses its power only when it has gained its object.
The principle of toleration, to which the world has come so slowly, is
at once the most just and the most wise of all principles. Even when
religious feeling takes a character of extravagance and enthusiasm, and
seems to threaten the order of society and shake the columns of the
social edifice, its principal danger is in its restraint. If it be
allowed indulgence and expansion, like the elemental fires, it only
agitates, and perhaps purifies, the atmosphere; while its efforts to
throw off restraint would burst the world asunder.
[Sidenote: Religious persecutions in England.]
It is certain, that, although many of them were republicans in
principle, we have no evidence that our New England ancestors would have
emigrated, as they did, from their own native country, would have become
wanderers in Europe, and finally would have undertaken the establishment
of a colony here, merely from their dislike of the political systems of
Europe. They fled not so much from the civil government as from the
hierarchy, and the laws which enforced conformity to the church
establishment. Mr. Robinson[5] had left England as early as 1608, on
account of the persecutions for non-conformity, and had retired to
Holland. He left England from no disappointed ambition in affairs of
state, from no regrets at the want of preferment in the church, nor from
any motive of distinction or of gain. Uniformity in matters of religion
was pressed with such extreme rigor that a voluntary exile seemed the
most eligible mode of escaping from the penalties of non-compliance. The
accession of Elizabeth had, it is true, quenched the fires of
Smithfield,[6] and put an end to the easy acquisition of the crown of
martyrdom. Her long reign had established the Reformation, but
toleration was a virtue beyond her conception and beyond the age. She
left no example of it to her successor; and he was not of a character
which rendered it probable that a sentiment either so wise or so liberal
would originate with him. At the present period it seems incredible that
the learned, accomplished, unassuming, and inoffensive Robinson should
neither be tolerated in his peaceable mode of worship in his own
country, nor suffered quietly to depart from it. Yet such was the fact.
He left his country by stealth, that he might elsewhere enjoy those
rights which ought to belong to men in all countries. The departure of
the Pilgrims for Holland is deeply interesting, from its circumstances,
and also as it marks the character of the times, independently of its
connection with names now incorporated with the history of empire. The
embarkation was intended to be made in such a manner that it might
escape the notice of the officers of government. Great pains had been
taken to secure boats which should come undiscovered to the shore and
receive the fugitives; and frequent disappointments had been experienced
in this respect.
[Sidenote: The embarkation from Lincolnshire.]
[Sidenote: The stormy voyage to Holland.]
At length the appointed time came, bringing with it unusual severity of
cold and rain. An unfrequented and barren heath, on the shores of
Lincolnshire, was the selected spot where the feet of the Pilgrims were
to tread for the last time the land of their fathers. The vessel which
was to receive them did not come until the next day, and in the mean
time the little band was collected, and men and women and children and
baggage were crowded together, in melancholy and distressed confusion.
The sea was rough, and the women and children were already sick, from
their passage down the river to the place of embarkation on the sea. At
length the wished-for boat silently and fearfully approaches the shore,
and men and women and children, shaking with fear and with cold, as many
as the small vessel could bear, venture off on a dangerous sea.
Immediately the advance of horses is heard from behind, armed men
appear, and those not yet embarked are seized and taken into custody. In
the hurry of the moment, the first parties had been sent on board
without any attempt to keep members of the same family together; and on
account of the appearance of the horsemen, the boat never returned for
the residue. Those who had got away, and those who had not, were in
equal distress. A storm, of great violence and long duration, arose at
sea, which not only protracted the voyage, rendered distressing by the
want of all those accommodations which the interruption of the
embarkation had occasioned, but also forced the vessel out of her
course, and menaced immediate shipwreck; while those on shore, when they
were dismissed from the custody of the officers of justice, having no
longer homes or houses to retire to, and their friends and protectors
being already gone, became objects of necessary charity as well as of
deep commiseration.
[Illustration: THE EMBARKATION OF THE PILGRIMS FROM DELFTSHAVEN]
As this scene passes before us, we can hardly forbear asking whether
this be a band of malefactors and felons flying from justice. What are
their crimes, that they hide themselves in darkness? To what punishment
are they exposed, that, to avoid it, men and women and children thus
encounter the surf of the North Sea and the terrors of a night storm?
What induces this armed pursuit and this arrest of fugitives, of all
ages and both sexes? Truth does not allow us to answer these
inquiries in a manner that does credit to the wisdom or the justice of
the times. This was not the flight of guilt, but of virtue. It was an
humble and peaceable religion, flying from causeless oppression. It was
conscience, attempting to escape from the arbitrary rule of the Stuarts.
It was Robinson and Brewster, leading off their little band from their
native soil, at first to find shelter on the shore of the neighboring
continent, but ultimately to come hither; and having surmounted all
difficulties and braved a thousand dangers, to find here a place of
refuge and of rest. Thanks be to God, that this spot was honored as the
asylum of religious liberty! May its standard, reared here, remain
forever! May it rise up as high as heaven, till its banner shall fan the
air of both continents, and wave as a glorious ensign of peace and
security to the nations!
[Illustration: THE LANDING OF THE PILGRIMS]
[Sidenote: The Pilgrims sought a home, not a place of exile.]
They came hither to a land from which they were never to return. Hither
they had brought, and here they were to fix, their hopes, their
attachments, and their objects in life. Some natural tears they shed, as
they left the pleasant abodes of their fathers, and some emotions they
suppressed, when the white cliffs of their native country, now seen for
the last time, grew dim to their sight. They were acting, however, upon
a resolution not to be daunted. With whatever stifled regrets, with
whatever occasional hesitation, with whatever appalling apprehensions,
which might sometimes arise with force to shake the firmest purpose,
they had yet committed themselves to Heaven and the elements; and a
thousand leagues of water soon interposed to separate them forever from
the region which gave them birth. A new existence awaited them here;
and when, they saw these shores, rough, cold, barbarous, and barren, as
then they were, they beheld their country. That mixed and strong feeling
which we call love of country, and which is, in general, never
extinguished in the heart of man, grasped and embraced its proper object
here. Whatever constitutes country, except the earth and the sun, all
the moral causes of affection and attachment which operate upon the
heart, they had brought with them to their new abode. Here were now
their families and friends, their homes and their property. Before they
reached the shore, they had established the elements of a social system,
and at a much earlier period had settled their forms of religious
worship. At the moment of their landing, therefore, they possessed
institutions of government and institutions of religion; and friends and
families, and social and religious institutions, framed by consent,
founded on choice and preference, how nearly do these fill up our whole
idea of country! The morning that beamed on the first night of their
repose saw the Pilgrims already at home in their country. There were
political institutions, and civil liberty, and religious worship. Poetry
has fancied nothing, in the wanderings of heroes, so distinct and
characteristic. Here was man, indeed, unprotected, and unprovided for,
on the shore of a rude and fearful wilderness; but it was politic,
intelligent, and educated man. Everything was civilized but the physical
world. Institutions, containing in substance all that ages had done for
human government, were organized in a forest. Cultivated mind was to act
on uncultivated nature; and, more than all, a government and a country
were to commence, with the very first foundations laid under the divine
light of the Christian religion. Happy auspices of a happy futurity!
Who would wish that his country's existence had otherwise begun? Who
would desire the power of going back to the ages of fable? Who would
wish for an origin obscured in the darkness of antiquity? Who would wish
for other emblazoning of his country's heraldry, or other ornaments of
her genealogy, than to be able to say, that her first existence was with
intelligence, her first breath the inspiration of liberty, her first
principle the truth of divine religion?
Local attachments and sympathies would erelong spring up in the breasts
of our ancestors, endearing to them the place of their refuge. Whatever
natural objects are associated with interesting scenes and high efforts
obtain a hold on human feeling, and demand from the heart a sort of
recognition and regard. This Rock soon became hallowed in the esteem of
the Pilgrims, and these hills grateful to their sight. Neither they nor
their children were again to till the soil of England, nor again to
traverse the seas which surround her. But here was a new sea, now open
to their enterprise, and a new soil, which had not failed to respond
gratefully to their laborious industry, and which was already assuming a
robe of verdure. Hardly had they provided shelter for the living, ere
they were summoned to erect sepulchres for the dead. The ground had
become sacred, by enclosing the remains of some of their companions and
connections. A parent, a child, a husband, or a wife had gone the way of
all flesh, and mingled with the dust of New England. We naturally look
with strong emotions to the spot, though it be a wilderness, where the
ashes of those we have loved repose. Where the heart has laid down what
it loved most, there it is desirous of laying itself down. No sculptured
marble, no enduring monument, no honorable inscription, no ever-burning
taper that would drive away the darkness of the tomb, can soften our
sense of the reality of death, and hallow to our feelings the ground
which is to cover us, like the consciousness that we shall sleep, dust
to dust, with the objects of our affections.
[Sidenote: Their chosen land.]
In a short time other causes sprung up to bind the Pilgrims with new
cords to their chosen land. Children were born, and the hopes of future
generations arose, in the spot of their new habitation. The second
generation found this the land of their nativity, and saw that they were
bound to its fortunes. They beheld their fathers' graves around them,
and while they read the memorials of their toils and labors, they
rejoiced in the inheritance which they found bequeathed to them.
[Sidenote: Popular government in America.]
The nature and constitution of society and government in this country
are interesting topics, to which I would devote what remains of the time
allowed to this occasion. Of our system of government the first thing to
be said is, that it is really and practically a free system. It
originates entirely with the people, and rests on no other foundation
than their assent. To judge of its actual operation, it is not enough to
look merely at the form of its construction. The practical character of
government depends often on a variety of considerations, besides the
abstract frame of its constitutional organization. Among these are the
condition and tenure of property; the laws regulating its alienation and
descent; the presence or absence of a military power; an armed or
unarmed yeomanry; the spirit of the age, and the degree of general
intelligence. In these respects it cannot be denied that the
circumstances of this country are most favorable to the hope of
maintaining the government of a great nation on principles entirely
popular. In the absence of military power, the nature of government must
essentially depend on the manner in which property is holden and
distributed. There is a natural influence belonging to property, whether
it exists in many hands or few; and it is on the rights of property that
both despotism and unrestrained popular violence ordinarily commence
their attacks. Our ancestors began their system of government here under
a condition of comparative equality in regard to wealth, and their early
laws were of a nature to favor and continue this equality.
[Sidenote: The distribution of property in New England.]
A republican form of government rests not more on political
constitutions than on those laws which regulate the descent and
transmission of property. Governments like ours could not have been
maintained where property was holden according to the principles of the
feudal system; nor, on the other hand, could the feudal constitution
possibly exist with us. Our New England ancestors brought hither no
great capitals from Europe; and if they had, there was nothing
productive in which they could have been invested. They left behind them
the whole feudal policy of the other continent. They broke away at once
from the system of military service established in the Dark Ages, and
which continues, down even to the present time, more or less to affect
the condition of property all over Europe. They came to a new country.
There were, as yet, no lands yielding rent, and no tenants rendering
service. The whole soil was unreclaimed from barbarism. They were
themselves, either from their original condition or from the necessity
of their common interest, nearly on a general level in respect to
property. Their situation demanded a parcelling out and division of the
lands, and it may be fairly said, that this necessary act fixed the
future frame and form of their government. The character of their
political institutions was determined by the fundamental laws respecting
property.
The laws rendered estates divisible among sons and daughters. The right
of primogeniture, at first limited and curtailed, was afterwards
abolished. The property was all freehold. The entailment of estates,
long trusts, and the other processes for fettering and tying up
inheritances, were not applicable to the condition of society, and
seldom made use of. On the contrary, alienation of the land was every
way facilitated, even to the subjecting of it to every species of debt.
The establishment of public registries, and the simplicity of our forms
of conveyance, have greatly facilitated the change of real estate from
one proprietor to another. The consequence of all these causes has been
a great subdivision of the soil, and a great equality of condition; the
true basis, most certainly, of a popular government. "If the people,"
says Harrington, "hold three parts in four of the territory, it is plain
there can neither be any single person nor nobility able to dispute the
government with them; in this case, therefore, except force be
interposed, they govern themselves."
[Sidenote: The American system of government.]
[Sidenote: The Roman commonwealth.]
The division of governments into departments, and the division, again,
of the legislative department into two chambers, are essential
provisions in our system. This last, although not new in itself, yet
seems to be new in its application to governments wholly popular. The
Grecian republics, it is plain, knew nothing of it; and in Rome, the
check and balance of legislative power, such as it was, lay between the
people and the senate. Indeed, few things are more difficult than to
ascertain accurately the true nature and construction of the Roman
commonwealth. The relative power of the senate and the people, of the
consuls and the tribunes, appears not to have been at all times the
same, nor at any time accurately defined or strictly observed. Cicero,
indeed, describes to us an admirable arrangement of political power, and
a balance of the constitution, in that beautiful passage in which he
compares the democracies of Greece with the Roman commonwealth.
But at what time this wise system existed in this perfection at Rome, no
proofs remain to show. Her constitution, originally framed for a
monarchy, never seemed to be adjusted in its several parts after the
expulsion of the kings. Liberty there was, but it was a disputatious, an
uncertain, an ill-secured liberty. The patrician and plebeian orders,
instead of being matched and joined, each in its just place and
proportion, to sustain the fabric of the state, were rather like hostile
powers, in perpetual conflict. With us, an attempt has been made, and so
far not without success, to divide representation into chambers, and, by
difference of age, character, qualification, or mode of election, to
establish salutary checks, in governments altogether elective.
[Sidenote: Education in New England.]
Having detained you so long with these observations, I must yet advert
to another most interesting topic,--the Free Schools. In this particular
New England may be allowed to claim, I think, a merit of a peculiar
character. She early adopted, and has constantly maintained, the
principle that it is the undoubted right and the bounden duty of
government to provide for the instruction of all youth. That which is
elsewhere left to chance or to charity, we secure by law. For the
purpose of public instruction, we hold every man subject to taxation in
proportion to his property, and we look not to the question, whether he
himself have, or have not, children to be benefited by the education for
which he pays. We regard it as a wise and liberal system of police, by
which property, and life, and the peace of society are secured. We seek
to prevent in some measure the extension of the penal code, by inspiring
a salutary and conservative principle of virtue and of knowledge in an
early age. We strive to excite a feeling of respectability, and a sense
of character, by enlarging the capacity and increasing the sphere of
intellectual enjoyment. By general instruction, we seek, as far as
possible, to purify the whole moral atmosphere; to keep good sentiments
uppermost, and to turn the strong current of feeling and opinion, as
well as the censures of the law and the denunciations of religion,
against immorality and crime. We hope for a security beyond the law, and
above the law, in the prevalence of an enlightened and well-principled
moral sentiment. We hope to continue and prolong the time when, in the
villages and farm-houses of New England, there may be undisturbed sleep
within unbarred doors. And knowing that our government rests directly on
the public will, in order that we may preserve it we endeavor to give a
safe and proper direction to that public will. We do not, indeed, expect
all men to be philosophers or statesmen; but we confidently trust, and
our expectation of the duration of our system of government rests on
that trust, that, by the diffusion of general knowledge and good and
virtuous sentiments, the political fabric may be secure, as well against
open violence and overthrow as against the slow, but sure, undermining
of licentiousness.
A conviction of the importance of public instruction was one of the
earliest sentiments of our ancestors. No lawgiver of ancient or modern
times has expressed more just opinions, or adopted wiser measures, than
the early records of the Colony of Plymouth show to have prevailed here.
Assembled on this very spot, a hundred and fifty-three years ago, the
legislature of this Colony declared, "Forasmuch as the maintenance of
good literature doth much tend to the advancement of the weal and
flourishing state of societies and republics, this Court doth therefore
order, that in whatever township in this government, consisting of fifty
families or upwards, any meet man shall be obtained to teach a grammar
school, such township shall allow at least twelve pounds, to be raised
by rate on all the inhabitants."
[Sidenote: Harvard College.]
Having provided that all youth should be instructed in the elements of
learning by the institution of free schools, our ancestors had yet
another duty to perform. Men were to be educated for the professions and
the public. For this purpose they founded the university, and with
incredible zeal and perseverance they cherished and supported it,
through all trials and discouragements. On the subject of the
university, it is not possible for a son of New England to think without
pleasure, or to speak without emotion. Nothing confers more honor on the
state where it is established, or more utility on the country at large.
A respectable university is an establishment which must be the work of
time. If pecuniary means were not wanting, no new institution could
possess character and respectability at once. We owe deep obligation to
our ancestors, who began, almost on the moment of their arrival, the
work of building up this institution.
[Illustration: _A View of Harvard College._]
Although established in a different government, the Colony of Plymouth
manifested warm friendship for Harvard College. At an early period, its
government took measures to promote a general subscription throughout
all the towns in this Colony, in aid of its small funds. Other colleges
were subsequently founded and endowed, in other places, as the ability
of the people allowed; and we may flatter ourselves that the means of
education at present enjoyed in New England are not only adequate to the
diffusion of the elements of knowledge among all classes, but sufficient
also for respectable attainments in literature and the sciences.
[Sidenote: Religious influences.]
Lastly, our ancestors established their system of government on morality
and religious sentiment. Moral habits, they believed, cannot safely be
trusted on any other foundation than religious principle, nor any
government be secure which is not supported by moral habits. Living
under the heavenly light of revelation, they hoped to find all the
social dispositions, all the duties which men owe to each other and to
society, enforced and performed. Whatever makes men good Christians,
makes them good citizens. Our fathers came here to enjoy their religion
free and unmolested; and, at the end of two centuries, there is nothing
upon which we can pronounce more confidently, nothing of which we can
express a more deep and earnest conviction, than of the inestimable
importance of that religion to man, both in regard to this life and that
which is to come.
[Sidenote: The duty of the descendants of the Pilgrims.]
If the blessings of our political and social condition have not been too
highly estimated, we cannot well overrate the responsibility and duty
which they impose upon us. We hold these institutions of government,
religion, and learning to be transmitted as well as enjoyed. We are in
the lines of conveyance, through which whatever has been obtained by the
spirit and efforts of our ancestors is to be communicated to our
children.
[Sidenote: American constitutional history.]
We are bound not only to maintain the general principles of public
liberty, but to support also those existing forms of government which
have so well secured its enjoyment, and so highly promoted the public
prosperity. It is now more than thirty years that these States have been
united under the Federal Constitution, and whatever fortune may await
them hereafter, it is impossible that this period of their history
should not be regarded as distinguished by signal prosperity and
success. They must be sanguine, indeed, who can hope for benefit from
change. Whatever division of the public judgment may have existed in
relation to particular measures of the government, all must agree, one
should think, in the opinion that in its general course it has been
eminently productive of public happiness. Its most ardent friends could
not well have hoped from it more than it has accomplished; and those who
disbelieved or doubted ought to feel less concern about predictions
which the event has not verified than pleasure in the good which has
been obtained. Whoever shall hereafter write this part of our history,
although he may see occasional errors or defects, will be able to record
no great failure in the ends and objects of government. Still less will
he be able to record any series of lawless and despotic acts, or any
successful usurpation. His page will contain no exhibition of provinces
depopulated, of civil authority habitually trampled down by military
power, or of a community crushed by the burden of taxation. He will
speak, rather, of public liberty protected, and public happiness
advanced; of increased revenue, and population augmented beyond all
example; of the growth of commerce, manufactures, and the arts; and of
that happy condition in which the restraint and coercion of government
are almost invisible and imperceptible, and its influence felt only in
the benefits which it confers. We can entertain no better wish for our
country than that this government may be preserved; nor have a clearer
duty than to maintain and support it in the full exercise of all its
just constitutional powers.
[Sidenote: American literature.]
The cause of science and literature also imposes upon us an important
and delicate trust. The wealth and population of the country are now so
far advanced as to authorize the expectation of a correct literature and
a well-formed taste, as well as respectable progress in the abstruse
sciences. The country has risen from a state of colonial subjection; it
has established an independent government, and is now in the
undisturbed enjoyment of peace and political security. The elements of
knowledge are universally diffused, and the reading portion of the
community is large. Let us hope that the present may be an auspicious
era of literature. If, almost on the day of their landing, our ancestors
founded schools and endowed colleges, what obligations do not rest upon
us, living under circumstances so much more favorable both for providing
and for using the means of education? Literature becomes free
institutions. It is the graceful ornament of civil liberty, and a happy
restraint on the asperities which political controversies sometimes
occasion. Just taste is not only an embellishment of society, but it
rises almost to the rank of the virtues, and diffuses positive good
throughout the whole extent of its influence. There is a connection
between right feeling and right principles, and truth in taste is allied
with truth in morality. With nothing in our past history to discourage
us, and with something in our present condition and prospects to animate
us, let us hope that, as it is our fortune to live in an age when we may
behold a wonderful advancement of the country in all its other great
interests, we may see also equal progress and success attend the cause
of letters.
[Sidenote: The influence of religion.]
Finally, let us not forget the religious character of our origin. Our
fathers were brought hither by their high veneration for the Christian
religion. They journeyed by its light, and labored in its hope. They
sought to incorporate its principles with the elements of their society,
and to diffuse its influence through all their institutions, civil,
political, or literary. Let us cherish these sentiments, and extend this
influence still more widely, in the full conviction that that is the
happiest society which partakes in the highest degree of the mild and
peaceful spirit of Christianity.
[Sidenote: The future progress of New England.]
The hours of this day are rapidly flying, and this occasion will soon be
passed. Neither we nor our children can expect to behold its return.
They are in the distant regions of futurity, they exist only in the
all-creating power of God, who shall stand here a hundred years hence,
to trace, through us, their descent from the Pilgrims, and to survey, as
we have now surveyed, the progress of their country during the lapse of
a century. We would anticipate their concurrence with us in our
sentiments of deep regard for our common ancestors. We would anticipate
and partake the pleasure with which they will then recount the steps of
New England's advancement. On the morning of that day, although it will
not disturb us in our repose, the voice of acclamation and gratitude,
commencing on the Rock of Plymouth, shall be transmitted through
millions of the sons of the Pilgrims, till it lose itself in the murmurs
of the Pacific seas.
We would leave, for the consideration of those who shall then occupy our
places, some proof that we hold the blessings transmitted from our
fathers in just estimation; some proof of our attachment to the cause of
good government, and of civil and religious liberty; some proof of a
sincere and ardent desire to promote everything which may enlarge the
understandings and improve the hearts of men. And when, from the long
distance of a hundred years, they shall look back upon us, they shall
know, at least, that we possessed affections which, running backward and
warming with gratitude for what our ancestors have done for our
happiness, run forward also to our posterity, and meet them with cordial
salutation, ere yet they have arrived on the shore of being.
Advance, then, ye future generations! We would hail you, as you rise in
your long succession, to fill the places which we now fill, and to taste
the blessings of existence where we are passing, and soon shall have
passed, our own human duration. We bid you welcome to this pleasant land
of the fathers. We bid you welcome to the healthful skies and the
verdant fields of New England. We greet your accession to the great
inheritance which we have enjoyed. We welcome you to the blessings of
good government and religious liberty. We welcome you to the treasures
of science and the delights of learning. We welcome you to the
transcendent sweets of domestic life, to the happiness of kindred and
parents and children. We welcome you to the immeasurable blessings of
rational existence, the immortal hope of Christianity, and the light of
everlasting truth!
THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT
AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE LAYING OF THE CORNER-STONE AT CHARLESTOWN,
MASSACHUSETTS, JUNE 17, 1825[7]
This uncounted multitude before me and around me proves the feeling
which the occasion has excited. These thousands of human faces, glowing
with sympathy and joy, and from the impulses of a common gratitude
turned reverently to heaven in this spacious temple of the firmament,
proclaim that the day, the place, and the purpose of our assembling have
made a deep impression on our hearts.
[Illustration: THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL]
[Sidenote: The Battle of Bunker Hill, June 17, 1775.]
If, indeed, there be anything in local association fit to affect the
mind of man, we need not strive to repress the emotions which agitate us
here. We are among the sepulchres of our fathers. We are on ground
distinguished by their valor, their constancy, and the shedding of their
blood. We are here, not to fix an uncertain date in our annals, nor to
draw into notice an obscure and unknown spot. If our humble purpose had
never been conceived, if we ourselves had never been born, the 17th
of June, 1775, would have been a day on which all subsequent history
would have poured its light, and the eminence where we stand a point of
attraction to the eyes of successive generations. But we are Americans.
We live in what may be called the early age of this great continent; and
we know that our posterity, through all time, are here to enjoy and
suffer the allotments of humanity. We see before us a probable train of
great events; we know that our own fortunes have been happily cast; and
it is natural, therefore, that we should be moved by the contemplation
of occurrences which have guided our destiny before many of us were
born, and settled the condition in which we should pass that portion of
our existence which God allows to men on earth.
[Sidenote: The discovery of America.]
We do not read even of the discovery of this continent, without feeling
something of a personal interest in the event; without being reminded
how much it has affected our own fortunes and our own existence. It
would be still more unnatural for us, therefore, than for others, to
contemplate with unaffected minds that interesting, I may say that most
touching and pathetic scene, when the great discoverer of America stood
on the deck of his shattered bark, the shades of night falling on the
sea, yet no man sleeping; tossed on the billows of an unknown ocean, yet
the stronger billows of alternate hope and despair tossing his own
troubled thoughts; extending forward his harassed frame, straining
westward his anxious and eager eyes, till Heaven at last granted him a
moment of rapture and ecstasy, in blessing his vision with the sight of
the unknown world.
[Sidenote: The first settlement of New England.]
Nearer to our times, more closely connected with our fates, and
therefore still more interesting to our feelings and affections, is the
settlement of our own country by colonists from England. We cherish
every memorial of these worthy ancestors; we celebrate their patience
and fortitude; we admire their daring enterprise; we teach our children
to venerate their piety; and we are justly proud of being descended from
men who have set the world an example of founding civil institutions on
the great and united principles of human freedom and human knowledge. To
us, their children, the story of their labors and sufferings can never
be without its interest. We shall not stand unmoved on the shore of
Plymouth, while the sea continues to wash it; nor will our brethren in
another early and ancient colony forget the place of its first
establishment, till their river shall cease to flow by it.[8] No vigor
of youth, no maturity of manhood, will lead the nation to forget the
spots where its infancy was cradled and defended.
[Sidenote: The American Revolution.]
But the great event in the history of the continent, which we are now
met here to commemorate, that prodigy of modern times, at once the
wonder and the blessing of the world, is the American Revolution. In a
day of extraordinary prosperity and happiness, of high national honor,
distinction, and power, we are brought together, in this place, by our
love of country, by our admiration of exalted character, by our
gratitude for signal services and patriotic devotion.
[Sidenote: The object of the monument.]
The Society whose organ I am was formed for the purpose of rearing some
honorable and durable monument to the memory of the early friends of
American Independence. They have thought that for this object no time
could be more propitious than the present prosperous and peaceful
period, that no place could claim preference over this memorable spot,
and that no day could be more auspicious to the undertaking than the
anniversary of the battle which was here fought. The foundation of that
monument we have now laid. With solemnities suited to the occasion, with
prayers to Almighty God for his blessing, and in the midst of this cloud
of witnesses, we have begun the work. We trust it will be prosecuted,
and that, springing from a broad foundation, rising high in massive
solidity and unadorned grandeur, it may remain as long as Heaven permits
the works of man to last, a fit emblem, both of the events in memory of
which it is raised, and of the gratitude of those who have reared it.
We know, indeed, that the record of illustrious actions is most safely
deposited in the universal remembrance of mankind. We know that if we
could cause this structure to ascend, not only till it reached the
skies, but till it pierced them, its broad surfaces could still contain
but part of that which, in an age of knowledge, hath already been spread
over the earth, and which history charges itself with making known to
all future times. We know that no inscription on entablatures less broad
than the earth itself can carry information of the events we commemorate
where it has not already gone; and that no structure which shall not
outlive the duration of letters and knowledge among men can prolong the
memorial. But our object is, by this edifice, to show our own deep sense
of the value and importance of the achievements of our ancestors; and,
by presenting this work of gratitude to the eye, to keep alive similar
sentiments, and to foster a constant regard for the principles of the
Revolution. Human beings are composed, not of reason only, but of
imagination also, and sentiment; and that is neither wasted nor
misapplied which is appropriated to the purpose of giving right
direction to sentiments, and opening proper springs of feeling in the
heart.
[Sidenote: Importance of the site.]
Let it not be supposed that our object is to perpetuate national
hostility, or even to cherish a mere military spirit. It is higher,
purer, nobler. We consecrate our work to the spirit of national
independence, and we wish that the light of peace may rest upon it
forever. We rear a memorial of our conviction of that unmeasured benefit
which has been conferred on our own land, and of the happy influences
which have been produced, by the same events, on the general interests
of mankind. We come, as Americans, to mark a spot which must forever be
dear to us and our posterity. We wish that whosoever, in all coming
time, shall turn his eye hither, may behold that the place is not
undistinguished where the first great battle of the Revolution was
fought. We wish that this structure may proclaim the magnitude and
importance of that event to every class and every age. We wish that
infancy may learn the purpose of its erection from maternal lips, and
that weary and withered age may behold it, and be solaced by the
recollections which it suggests. We wish that labor may look up here,
and be proud in the midst of its toil. We wish that, in those days of
disaster which, as they come upon all nations, must be expected to come
upon us also, desponding patriotism may turn its eyes hitherward, and be
assured that the foundations of our national power are still strong. We
wish that this column, rising towards heaven among the pointed spires of
so many temples dedicated to God, may contribute also to produce, in all
minds, a pious feeling of dependence and gratitude. We wish, finally,
that the last object to the sight of him who leaves his native shore,
and the first to gladden his who revisits it, may be something which
shall remind him of the liberty and the glory of his country. Let it
rise! let it rise, till it meet the sun in his coming; let the earliest
light of the morning gild it, and parting day linger and play on its
summit.
[Sidenote: The survivors of 1775.]
We still have among us some of those who were active agents in the
scenes of 1775, and who are now here, from every quarter of New England,
to visit once more, and under circumstances so affecting, I had almost
said so overwhelming, this renowned theatre of their courage and
patriotism.
Venerable men! you have come down to us from a former generation. Heaven
has bounteously lengthened out your lives, that you might behold this
joyous day. You are now where you stood fifty years ago, this very hour,
with your brothers and your neighbors, shoulder to shoulder, in the
strife for your country. Behold, how altered! The same heavens are
indeed over your heads; the same ocean rolls at your feet; but all else
how changed! You hear now no roar of hostile cannon, you see no mixed
volumes of smoke and flame rising from burning Charlestown. The ground
strewed with the dead and the dying; the impetuous charge; the steady
and successful repulse; the loud call to repeated assault; the summoning
of all that is manly to repeated resistance; a thousand bosoms freely
and fearlessly bared in an instant to whatever of terror there may be in
war and death,--all these you have witnessed, but you witness them no
more. All is peace. The heights of yonder metropolis, its towers and
roofs, which you then saw filled with wives and children and countrymen
in distress and terror, and looking with unutterable emotions for the
issue of the combat, have presented you to-day with the sight of its
whole happy population, come out to welcome and greet you with a
universal jubilee. Yonder proud ships, by a felicity of position
appropriately lying at the foot of this mount, and seeming fondly to
cling around it, are not means of annoyance to you, but your country's
own means of distinction and defence. All is peace; and God has granted
you this sight of your country's happiness, ere you slumber in the
grave. He has allowed you to behold and to partake the reward of your
patriotic toils; and he has allowed us, your sons and countrymen, to
meet you here, and in the name of the present generation, in the name of
your country, in the name of liberty, to thank you!
[Sidenote: The dead patriots.]
But, alas! you are not all here! Time and the sword have thinned your
ranks. Prescott, Putnam, Stark, Brooks, Read, Pomeroy, Bridge! our eyes
seek for you in vain amid this broken band. You are gathered to your
fathers, and live only to your country in her grateful remembrance and
your own bright example. But let us not too much grieve that you have
met the common fate of men. You lived at least long enough to know that
your work had been nobly and successfully accomplished. You lived to see
your country's independence established, and to sheathe your swords from
war. On the light of Liberty you saw arise the light of Peace, like
"another morn,
Risen on mid-noon;"
and the sky on which you closed your eyes was cloudless.
[Illustration: _Joseph Warren._]
But ah! Him![9] the first great martyr in this great cause! Him! The
premature victim of his own self-devoting heart! Him! the lead of our
civil councils, and the destined leader of our military bands, whom
nothing brought hither but the unquenchable fire of his own spirit! Him!
cut off by Providence in the hour of overwhelming anxiety and thick
gloom; falling ere he saw the star of his country rise; pouring out his
generous blood like water, before he knew whether it would fertilize a
land of freedom or of bondage!--how shall I struggle with the emotions
that stifle the utterance of thy name! Our poor work may perish; but
thine shall endure! This monument may moulder away; the soil ground it
rests upon may sink down to a level with the sea; but thy memory shall
not fail! Wheresoever among men a heart shall be found that beats to the
transports of patriotism and liberty, its aspirations shall be to claim
kindred with thy spirit!
But the scene amidst which we stand does not permit us to confine our
thoughts or our sympathies to those fearless spirits who hazarded or
lost their lives on this consecrated spot. We have the happiness to
rejoice here in the presence of a most worthy representation of the
survivors of the whole Revolutionary army.
[Sidenote: The veterans of the Revolution.]
Veterans! you are the remnant of many a well-fought field. You bring
with you marks of honor from Trenton and Monmouth, from Yorktown,
Camden, Bennington, and Saratoga. Veterans of half a century! when in
your youthful days you put everything at hazard in your country's cause,
good as that cause was, and sanguine as youth is, still your fondest
hopes did not stretch onward to an hour like this! At a period to which
you could not reasonably have expected to arrive, at a moment of
national prosperity such as you could never have foreseen, you are now
met here to enjoy the fellowship of old soldiers, and to receive the
overflowings of a universal gratitude.
But your agitated countenances and your heaving breasts inform me that
even this is not an unmixed joy. I perceive that a tumult of contending
feelings rushes upon you. The images of the dead, as well as the persons
of the living, present themselves before you. The scene overwhelms you,
and I turn from it. May the Father of all mercies smile upon your
declining years, and bless them! And when you shall here have exchanged
your embraces, when you shall once more have pressed the hands which
have been so often extended to give succor in adversity, or grasped in
the exultation of victory, then look abroad upon this lovely land which
your young valor defended, and mark the happiness with which it is
filled; yea, look abroad upon the whole earth, and see what a name you
have contributed to give to your country, and what a praise you have
added to freedom, and then rejoice in the sympathy and gratitude which
beam upon your last days from the improved condition of mankind!
[Sidenote: Tribute to Lafayette.]
Sir, we are assembled to commemorate the establishment of great public
principles of liberty, and to do honor to the distinguished dead. The
occasion is too severe for eulogy of the living. But, Sir, your
interesting relation to this country, the peculiar circumstances which
surround you and surround us, call on me to express the happiness which
we derive from your presence and aid in this solemn commemoration.[10]
Fortunate, fortunate man! with what measure of devotion will you not
thank God for the circumstances of your extraordinary life! You are
connected with both hemispheres and with two generations. Heaven saw
fit to ordain that the electric spark of liberty should be conducted,
through you, from the New World to the Old; and we, who are now here to
perform this duty of patriotism, have all of us long ago received it in
charge from our fathers to cherish your name and your virtues. You will
account it an instance of your good fortune, Sir, that you crossed the
seas to visit us at a time which enables you to be present at this
solemnity. You now behold the field, the renown of which reached you in
the heart of France, and caused a thrill in your ardent bosom. You see
the lines of the little redoubt thrown up by the incredible diligence of
Prescott; defended, to the last extremity, by his lion-hearted valor;
and within which the corner-stone of our monument has now taken its
position. You see where Warren fell, and where Parker, Gardner,
McCleary, Moore, and other early patriots, fell with him. Those who
survived that day, and whose lives have been prolonged to the present
hour, are now around you. Some of them you have known in the trying
scenes of the war. Behold! they now stretch forth their feeble arms to
embrace you. Behold! they raise their trembling voices to invoke the
blessing of God on you and yours forever.
[Illustration: _Marquis de Lafayette._]
Sir, you have assisted us in laying the foundation of this structure.
You have heard us rehearse, with our feeble commendation, the names of
departed patriots. Monuments and eulogy belong to the dead. We give them
this day to Warren and his associates. On other occasions they have been
given to your more immediate companions in arms, to Washington, to
Greene, to Gates, to Sullivan, and to Lincoln. We have become reluctant
to grant these, our highest and last honors, further. We would gladly
hold them yet back from the little remnant of that immortal band. _Serus
in coelum redeas._[11] Illustrious as are your merits, yet far, oh,
very far distant be the day when any inscription shall bear your name,
or any tongue pronounce its eulogy!
[Sidenote: The common progress of nations.]
The leading reflection to which this occasion seems to invite us
respects the great changes which have happened in the fifty years since
the battle of Bunker Hill was fought. And it peculiarly marks the
character of the present age, that, in looking at these changes, and in
estimating their effect on our condition, we are obliged to consider,
not what has been done in our own country only, but in others also. In
these interesting times, while nations are making separate and
individual advances in improvement, they make, too, a common progress;
like vessels on a common tide, propelled by the gales at different
rates, according to their several structure and management, but all
moved forward by one mighty current, strong enough to bear onward
whatever does not sink beneath it.
A chief distinction of the present day is a community of opinions and
knowledge amongst men in different nations, existing in a degree
heretofore unknown. Knowledge has, in our time, triumphed, and is
triumphing, over distance, over difference of languages, over diversity
of habits, over prejudice, and over bigotry. The civilized and Christian
world is fast learning the great lesson, that difference of nation does
not imply necessary hostility, and that all contact need not be war. The
whole world is becoming a common field for intellect to act in. Energy
of mind, genius, power, wheresoever it exists, may speak out in any
tongue, and the world will hear it. A great chord of sentiment and
feeling runs through two continents, and vibrates over both. Every
breeze wafts intelligence from country to country; every wave rolls it;
all give it forth, and all in turn receive it. There is a vast commerce
of ideas; there are marts and exchanges for intellectual discoveries,
and a wonderful fellowship of those individual intelligences which make
up the mind and opinion of the age. Mind is the great lever of all
things; human thought is the process by which human ends are ultimately
answered; and the diffusion of knowledge, so astonishing in the last
half-century, has rendered innumerable minds, variously gifted by
nature, competent to be competitors or fellow-workers on the theatre of
intellectual operation.
[Sidenote: Influence of the American Revolution upon Europe.]
The great wheel of political revolution began to move in America. Here
its rotation was guarded, regular, and safe. Transferred to the other
continent, from unfortunate but natural causes, it received an irregular
and violent impulse; it whirled along with a fearful celerity; till at
length, like the chariot-wheels in the races of antiquity, it took fire
from the rapidity of its own motion, and blazed onward, spreading
conflagration and terror around.
We learn from the result of this experiment, how fortunate was our own
condition, and how admirably the character of our people was calculated
for setting the great example of popular governments. The possession of
power did not turn the heads of the American people, for they had long
been in the habit of exercising a great degree of self-control. Although
the paramount authority of the parent state existed over them, yet a
large field of legislation had always been open to our Colonial
assemblies. They were accustomed to representative bodies and the forms
of free government; they understood the doctrine of the division of
power among different branches, and the necessity of checks on each. The
character of our countrymen, moreover, was sober, moral, and religious;
and there was little in the change to shock their feelings of justice
and humanity, or even to disturb an honest prejudice. We had no domestic
throne to overturn, no privileged orders to cast down, no violent
changes of property to encounter. In the American Revolution, no man
sought or wished for more than to defend and enjoy his own. None hoped
for plunder or for spoil. Rapacity was unknown to it; the axe was not
among the instruments of its accomplishment; and we all know that it
could not have lived a single day under any well-founded imputation of
possessing a tendency adverse to the Christian religion.
It need not surprise us, that, under circumstances less auspicious,
political revolutions elsewhere, even when well intended, have
terminated differently. It is, indeed, a great achievement, it is the
master-work of the world, to establish governments entirely popular on
lasting foundations; nor is it easy, indeed, to introduce the popular
principle at all into governments to which it has been altogether a
stranger. It cannot be doubted, however, that Europe has come out of
the contest, in which she has been so long engaged, with greatly
superior knowledge, and, in many respects, in a highly improved
condition. Whatever benefit has been acquired is likely to be retained,
for it consists mainly in the acquisition of more enlightened ideas. And
although kingdoms and provinces may be wrested from the hands that hold
them, in the same manner they were obtained; although ordinary and
vulgar power may, in human affairs, be lost as it has been won; yet it
is the glorious prerogative of the empire of knowledge, that what it
gains it never loses. On the contrary, it increases by the multiple of
its power; all its ends become means; all its attainments, helps to new
conquests. Its whole abundant harvest is but so much seed wheat, and
nothing has limited, and nothing can limit the amount of ultimate
product.
[Sidenote: The representative system of government.]
Under the influence of this rapidly increasing knowledge, the people
have begun, in all forms of government, to think and to reason on
affairs of state. Regarding government as an institution for the public
good, they demand a knowledge of its operations, and a participation in
its exercise. A call for the representative system, wherever it is not
enjoyed, and where there is already intelligence enough to estimate its
value, is perseveringly made. Where men may speak out, they demand it;
where the bayonet is at their throats, they pray for it.
[Sidenote: Respect for the judgment of the world.]
We may hope that the growing influence of enlightened sentiment will
promote the permanent peace of the world. Wars to maintain family
alliances, to uphold or to cast down dynasties, and to regulate
successions to thrones, which have occupied so much room in the history
of modern times, if not less likely to happen at all, will be less
likely to become general and involve many nations, as the great
principle shall be more and more established, that the interest of the
world is peace, and its first great statute that every nation possesses
the power of establishing a government for itself. But public opinion
has attained also an influence over governments which do not admit the
popular principle into their organization. A necessary respect for the
judgment of the world operates, in some measure, as a control over the
most unlimited forms of authority. It is owing, perhaps, to this truth,
that the interesting struggle of the Greeks has been suffered to go on
so long, without a direct interference, either to wrest that country
from its present masters, or to execute the system of pacification by
force, and, with united strength, lay the neck of Christian and
civilized Greek at the foot of the barbarian Turk. Let us thank God that
we live in an age when something has influence besides the bayonet, and
when the sternest authority does not venture to encounter the scorching
power of public reproach. Any attempt of the kind I have mentioned
should be met by one universal burst of indignation; the air of the
civilized world ought to be made too warm to be comfortably breathed by
any one who would hazard it.
[Sidenote: The Greek struggle for independence.]
It is, indeed, a touching reflection, that, while, in the fulness of our
country's happiness, we rear this monument to her honor, we look for
instruction in our undertaking to a country which is now in fearful
contest, not for works of art or memorials of glory, but for her own
existence.[12] Let her be assured that she is not forgotten in the
world; that her efforts are applauded, and that constant prayers ascend
for her success. And let us cherish a confident hope for her final
triumph. If the true spark of religious and civil liberty be kindled, it
will burn. Human agency cannot extinguish it. Like the earth's central
fire, it may be smothered for a time; the ocean may overwhelm it;
mountains may press it down; but its inherent and unconquerable force
will heave both the ocean and the land, and at some time or other, in
some place or other, the volcano will break out and flame up to heaven.
[Sidenote: South American liberty.]
When the battle of Bunker Hill was fought, the existence of South
America was scarcely felt in the civilized world. The thirteen little
Colonies of North America habitually called themselves the "Continent."
Borne down by Colonial subjugation, monopoly, and bigotry, these vast
regions of the South were hardly visible above the horizon. But in our
day there has been, as it were, a new creation. The southern hemisphere
emerges from the sea. Its lofty mountains begin to lift themselves into
the light of heaven; its broad and fertile plains stretch out, in
beauty, to the eye of civilized man, and at the mighty bidding of the
voice of political liberty the waters of darkness retire.
[Sidenote: The example of the republic of the United States.]
And, now, let us indulge an honest exultation in the conviction of the
benefit which the example of our country has produced, and is likely to
produce, on human freedom and human happiness. Let us endeavor to
comprehend in all its magnitude, and to feel in all its importance, the
part assigned to us in the great drama of human affairs. We are placed
at the head of the system of representative and popular governments.
Thus far our example shows that such governments are compatible not only
with respectability and power, but with repose, with peace, with
security of personal rights, with good laws, and a just administration.
We are not propagandists. Wherever other systems are preferred, either
as being thought better in themselves, or as better suited to existing
condition, we leave the preference to be enjoyed. Our history hitherto
proves, however, that the popular form is practicable, and that with
wisdom and knowledge men may govern themselves; and the duty incumbent
on us is to preserve the consistency of this cheering example, and take
care that nothing may weaken its authority with the world. If, in our
case, the representative system ultimately fail, popular governments
must be pronounced impossible. No combination of circumstances more
favorable to the experiment can ever be expected to occur. The last
hopes of mankind, therefore, rest with us; and if it should be
proclaimed that our example had become an argument against the
experiment, the knell of popular liberty would be sounded throughout the
earth.
These are excitements to duty; but they are not suggestions of doubt.
Our history and our condition, all that is gone before us, and all that
surrounds us, authorize the belief that popular governments, though
subject to occasional variations, in form perhaps not always for the
better, may yet, in their general character, be as durable and permanent
as other systems. We know, indeed, that in our country any other is
impossible. The _principle_ of free governments adheres to the American
soil. It is bedded in it, immovable as its mountains.
[Sidenote: The obligations of Americans.]
And let the sacred obligations which have devolved on this generation,
and on us, sink deep into our hearts. Those who established our liberty
and our government are daily dropping from among us. The great trust now
descends to new hands. Let us apply ourselves to that which is presented
to us, as our appropriate object. We can win no laurels in a war for
independence. Earlier and worthier hands have gathered them all. Nor are
there places for us by the side of Solon, and Alfred, and other founders
of states. Our fathers have filled them. But there remains to us a great
duty of defence and preservation; and there is open to us, also, a noble
pursuit, to which the spirit of the times strongly invites us. Our
proper business is improvement. Let our age be the age of improvement.
In a day of peace, let us advance the arts of peace and the works of
peace. Let us develop the resources of our land, call forth its powers,
build up its institutions, promote all its great interests, and see
whether we also, in our day and generation, may not perform something
worthy to be remembered. Let us cultivate a true spirit of union and
harmony. In pursuing the great objects which our condition points out
to us, let us act under a settled conviction, and an habitual feeling,
that these twenty-four States are one country. Let our conceptions be
enlarged to the circle of our duties. Let us extend our ideas over the
whole of the vast field in which we are called to act. Let our object
be, OUR COUNTRY, OUR WHOLE COUNTRY, AND NOTHING BUT OUR COUNTRY. And, by
the blessing of God, may that country itself become a vast and splendid
monument, not of oppression and terror, but of Wisdom, of Peace, and of
Liberty, upon which the world may gaze with admiration forever!
THE COMPLETION OF THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT
AN ADDRESS DELIVERED JUNE 17, 1843
[It was determined by the directors of the Bunker Hill Monument
Association, that the completion of the work should be celebrated
in a manner not less imposing than that in which the laying of the
corner-stone had been celebrated, seventeen years before. The
co-operation of Mr. Webster was again invited, and, notwithstanding
the pressure of his engagements as Secretary of State at
Washington, was again patriotically yielded. The President of the
United States and his Cabinet had accepted invitations to be
present; and delegations of the descendants of New England attended
from all parts of the Union, including one hundred and eight
surviving veterans of the Revolution, among whom were some who were
in the battle of Bunker Hill. According to the estimate of Richard
Frothingham, one hundred thousand persons were gathered, and nearly
half that number are supposed to have been within the reach of the
orator's voice. The ground rises slightly between the platform and
the Monument Square, so that the whole of this concourse, compactly
crowded together, was within the full view of the speaker. When,
after saying, "It is not from my lips, it could not be from any
human lips, that that strain of eloquence is this day to flow most
competent to move and excite the vast multitudes around me,--the
powerful speaker stands motionless before us," Mr. Webster paused,
and pointed to the monument, the audience burst into long and loud
applause. It was some moments before he could go on with his
address.]
A duty has been performed. A work of gratitude and patriotism is
completed. This structure, having its foundations in soil which drank
deep of early Revolutionary blood, has at length reached its destined
height, and now lifts its summit to the skies.
[Illustration: _Bunker Hill Monument._]
[Sidenote: The changes of eighteen years.]
Time and nature have had their course in diminishing the number of those
whom we met here on the 17th of June, 1825. Most of the Revolutionary
characters then present have since deceased; and Lafayette sleeps in his
native land. Yet the name and blood of Warren are with us; the kindred
of Putnam are also here; and near me, universally beloved for his
character and his virtues, and now venerable for his years, sits the son
of the noble-hearted and daring Prescott.
[Sidenote: The purpose of the monument.]
The Bunker Hill Monument is finished. Here it stands.[13] Fortunate in
the high natural eminence on which it is placed, higher, infinitely
higher in its objects and purpose, it rises over the land and over the
sea; and visible at their homes to three hundred thousand of the people
of Massachusetts, it stands a memorial of the last, and a monitor to the
present, and to all succeeding generations. I have spoken of the
loftiness of its purpose. If it had been without any other design than
the creation of a work of art, the granite of which it is composed would
have slept in its native bed. It has a purpose, and that purpose gives
it its character. That purpose enrobes it with dignity and moral
grandeur. That well-known purpose it is which causes us to look up to it
with a feeling of awe. It is itself the orator of this occasion. It is
not from my lips, it could not be from any human lips, that that strain
of eloquence is this day to flow most competent to move and excite the
vast multitudes around me. The powerful speaker stands motionless before
us. It is a plain shaft. It bears no inscriptions, fronting to the
rising sun, from which the future antiquary shall wipe the dust. Nor
does the rising sun cause tones of music to issue from its summit. But
at the rising of the sun, and at the setting of the sun; in the blaze of
noonday, and beneath the milder effulgence of lunar light; it looks, it
speaks, it acts, to the full comprehension of every American mind, and
the awakening of glowing enthusiasm in every American heart. Its silent,
but awful utterance; its deep pathos, as it brings to our contemplation
the 17th of June, 1775, and the consequences which have resulted to us,
to our country, and to the world, from the events of that day, and which
we know must continue to rain influence on the destinies of mankind to
the end of time; the elevation with which it raises us high above the
ordinary feelings of life,--surpass all that the study of the closet,
or even the inspiration of genius, can produce. To-day it speaks to us.
Its future auditories will be the successive generations of men, as they
rise up before it and gather around it. Its speech will be of patriotism
and courage; of civil and religious liberty; of free government; of the
moral improvement and elevation of mankind; and of the immortal memory
of those who, with heroic devotion, have sacrificed their lives for
their country.
[Sidenote: The monuments of the past.]
In the older world, numerous fabrics still exist, reared by human hands,
but whose object has been lost in the darkness of ages. They are now
monuments of nothing but the labor and skill which constructed them.
The mighty pyramid itself, half buried in the sands of Africa, has
nothing to bring down and report to us but the power of kings and the
servitude of the people. If it had any purpose beyond that of a
mausoleum, such purpose has perished from history and from tradition. If
asked for its moral object, its admonition, its sentiment, its
instruction to mankind, or any high end in its erection, it is silent;
silent as the millions which lie in the dust at its base, and in the
catacombs which surround it. Without a just moral object, therefore,
made known to man, though raised against the skies, it excites only
conviction of power, mixed with strange wonder. But if the civilization
of the present race of men, founded, as it is, in solid science, the
true knowledge of nature, and vast discoveries in art, and which is
elevated and purified by moral sentiment and by the truths of
Christianity, be not destined to destruction before the final
termination of human existence on earth, the object and purpose of this
edifice will be known till that hour shall come. And even if
civilization should be subverted, and the truths of the Christian
religion obscured by a new deluge of barbarism, the memory of Bunker
Hill and the American Revolution will still be elements and parts of the
knowledge which shall be possessed by the last man to whom the light of
civilization and Christianity shall be extended.
[Illustration: _John Tyler._]
[Sidenote: President Tyler.]
This celebration is honored by the presence of the chief executive
magistrate of the Union. An occasion so national in its object and
character, and so much connected with that Revolution from which the
government sprang at the head of which he is placed, may well receive
from him this mark of attention and respect. Well acquainted with
Yorktown, the scene of the last great military struggle of the
Revolution, his eye now surveys the field of Bunker Hill, the theatre of
the first of those important conflicts. He sees where Warren fell, where
Putnam, and Prescott, and Stark, and Knowlton, and Brooks fought. He
beholds the spot where a thousand trained soldiers of England were
smitten to the earth, in the first effort of revolutionary war, by the
arm of a bold and determined yeomanry, contending for liberty and their
country.
[Sidenote: Visitors present at the dedication.]
Banners and badges, processions and flags, announce to us, that amidst
this uncounted throng are thousands of natives of New England now
residents in other States. Welcome, ye kindred names, with kindred
blood! From the broad savannas of the South, from the newer regions of
the West, from amidst the hundreds of thousands of men of Eastern origin
who cultivate the rich valley of the Genesee or live along the chain of
the lakes, from the mountains of Pennsylvania, and from the thronged
cities of the coast, welcome, welcome! Wherever else you may be
strangers, here you are all at home. You assemble at this shrine of
liberty, near the family altars at which your earliest devotions were
paid to Heaven, near to the temples of worship first entered by you, and
near to the schools and colleges in which your education was received.
You come hither with a glorious ancestry of liberty. You bring names
which are on the rolls of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill. You come,
some of you, once more to be embraced by an aged Revolutionary father,
or to receive another, perhaps a last, blessing, bestowed in love and
tears by a mother yet surviving to witness and to enjoy your prosperity
and happiness.
But if family associations and the recollections of the past bring you
hither with greater alacrity, and mingle with your greeting much of
local attachment and private affection, greeting also be given, free and
hearty greeting, to every American citizen who treads this sacred soil
with patriotic feeling, and respires with pleasure in an atmosphere
perfumed with the recollections of 1775! This occasion is respectable,
nay, it is grand, it is sublime, by the nationality of its sentiment.
Among the seventeen millions of happy people who form the American
community there is not one who has not an interest in this monument, as
there is not one that has not a deep and abiding interest in that which
it commemorates.
[Sidenote: The American Union.]
Woe betide the man who brings to this day's worship feeling less than
wholly American! Woe betide the man who can stand here with the fires of
local resentments burning, or the purpose of fomenting local jealousies
and the strifes of local interests festering and rankling in his heart!
Union, established in justice, in patriotism, and the most plain and
obvious common interest,--union, founded on the same love of liberty,
cemented by blood shed in the same common cause,--union has been the
source of all our glory and greatness thus far, and is the ground of all
our highest hopes. This column stands on Union. I know not that it might
not keep its position, if the American Union, in the mad conflict of
human passions, and in the strife of parties and factions, should be
broken up and destroyed. I know not that it would totter and fall to the
earth, and mingle its fragments with the fragments of Liberty and the
Constitution, when state should be separated from state, and faction and
dismemberment obliterate forever all the hopes of the founders of our
republic, and the great inheritance of their children. It might stand.
But who, from beneath the weight of mortification and shame that would
oppress him, could look up to behold it? Whose eyeballs would not be
seared by such a spectacle? For my part, should I live to such a time, I
shall avert my eyes from it forever.
[Sidenote: Importance of the battle of Bunker Hill.]
It is not as a mere military encounter of hostile armies that the battle
of Bunker Hill presents its principal claim to attention. Yet even as a
mere battle there were circumstances attending it extraordinary in
character, and entitling it to peculiar distinction. It was fought on
this eminence; in the neighborhood of yonder city; in the presence of
many more spectators than there were combatants in the conflict. Men,
women, and children, from every commanding position, were gazing at the
battle, and looking for its results with all the eagerness natural to
those who knew that the issue was fraught with the deepest consequences
to themselves, personally, as well as to their country. Yet, on the 16th
of June, 1775, there was nothing around this hill but verdure and
culture. There was, indeed, the note of awful preparation in Boston.
There was the Provincial army at Cambridge, with its right flank resting
on Dorchester, and its left on Chelsea. But here all was peace.
Tranquillity reigned around. On the 17th, everything was changed. On
this eminence had arisen, in the night, a redoubt, built by Prescott,
and in which he held command. Perceived by the enemy at dawn, it was
immediately cannonaded from the floating batteries in the river, and
from the opposite shore. And then ensued the hurried movement in Boston,
and soon the troops of Britain embarked in the attempt to dislodge the
Colonists. In an hour everything indicated an immediate and bloody
conflict. Love of liberty on one side, proud defiance of rebellion on
the other, hopes and fears, and courage and daring, on both sides,
animated the hearts of the combatants as they hung on the edge of
battle.
[Sidenote: The motive for the engagement.]
I suppose it would be difficult, in a military point of view, to ascribe
to the leaders on either side any just motive for the engagement which
followed. On the one hand, it could not have been very important to the
Americans to attempt to hem the British within the town, by advancing
one single post a quarter of a mile; while, on the other hand, if the
British found it essential to dislodge the American troops, they had it
in their power at no expense of life. By moving up their ships and
batteries, they could have completely cut off all communication with the
mainland over the Neck, and the forces in the redoubt would have been
reduced to a state of famine in forty-eight hours.
But that was not the day for any such consideration on either side! Both
parties were anxious to try the strength of their arms. The pride of
England would not permit the rebels, as she termed them, to defy her to
the teeth; and, without for a moment calculating the cost, the British
general determined to destroy the fort immediately. On the other side,
Prescott and his gallant followers longed and thirsted for a decisive
trial of strength and of courage. They wished a battle, and wished it at
once. And this is the true secret of the movements on this hill.
I will not attempt to describe that battle. The cannonading; the landing
of the British; their advance; the coolness with which the charge was
met; the repulse; the second attack; the second repulse; the burning of
Charlestown; and, finally, the closing assault, and the slow retreat of
the Americans,--the history of all these is familiar.
[Sidenote: The consequences of the battle.]
But the consequences of the battle of Bunker Hill were greater than
those of any ordinary conflict, although between armies of far greater
force, and terminating with more immediate advantage on the one side or
the other. It was the first great battle of the Revolution; and not only
the first blow, but the blow which determined the contest. It did not,
indeed, put an end to the war, but in the then existing hostile state
of feeling, the difficulties could only be referred to the arbitration
of the sword. And one thing is certain: that after the New England
troops had shown themselves able to face and repulse the regulars, it
was decided that peace never could be established, but upon the basis of
the independence of the Colonies. When the sun of that day went down,
the event of Independence was no longer doubtful. In a few days
Washington heard of the battle, and he inquired if the militia had stood
the fire of the regulars. When told that they had not only stood that
fire, but reserved their own till the enemy was within eight rods, and
then poured it in with tremendous effect, "Then," exclaimed he, "the
liberties of the country are safe!"
[Sidenote: The purposes of the Pilgrims of Plymouth.]
The Mayflower sought our shores under no high-wrought spirit of
commercial adventure, no love of gold, no mixture of purpose warlike or
hostile to any human being. Like the dove from the ark she had put forth
only to find rest. Solemn supplications on the shore of the sea, in
Holland, had invoked for her, at her departure, the blessings of
Providence. The stars which guided her were the unobscured
constellations of civil and religious liberty. Her deck was the altar of
the living God. Fervent prayers on bended knees mingled, morning and
evening, with the voices of ocean, and the sighing of the wind in her
shrouds. Every prosperous breeze which, gently swelling her sails,
helped the Pilgrims onward in their course, awoke new anthems of praise;
and when the elements were wrought into fury, neither the tempest,
tossing their fragile bark like a feather, nor the darkness and howling
of the midnight storm, ever disturbed, in man or woman, the firm and
settled purpose of their souls, to undergo all, and to do all, that the
meekest patience, the boldest resolution, and the highest trust in God
could enable human beings to suffer or to perform.
[Sidenote: English liberty and Spanish greed.]
The Colonists of English America were of the people, and a people
already free. They were of the middle, industrious, and already
prosperous class, the inhabitants of commercial and manufacturing
cities, among whom liberty first revived and respired, after a sleep of
a thousand years in the bosom of the Dark Ages. Spain descended on the
New World in the armed and terrible image of her monarchy and her
soldiery; England approached it in the winning and popular garb of
personal rights, public protection, and civil freedom. England
transplanted liberty to America; Spain transplanted power. England,
through the agency of private companies and the efforts of individuals,
colonized this part of North America by industrious individuals, making
their own way in the wilderness, defending themselves against the
savages, recognizing their right to the soil, and with a general honest
purpose of introducing knowledge as well as Christianity among them.
Spain stooped on South America like a vulture on its prey. Everything
was force. Territories were acquired by fire and sword. Cities were
destroyed by fire and sword. Hundreds of thousands of human beings fell
by fire and sword. Even conversion to Christianity was attempted by fire
and sword.
[Sidenote: The consequences of the two principles.]
Behold, then, fellow-citizens, the difference resulting from the
operation of the two principles! Here, to-day, on the summit of Bunker
Hill, and at the foot of this monument, behold the difference! I would
that the fifty thousand voices present could proclaim it with a shout
which should be heard over the globe. Our inheritance was of liberty,
secured and regulated by law, and enlightened by religion and knowledge;
that of South America was of power, stern, unrelenting, tyrannical,
military power. And now look to the consequences of the two principles
on the general and aggregate happiness of the human race. Behold the
results in all the regions conquered by Cortéz and Pizarro, and the
contrasted results here. I suppose the territory of the United States
may amount to one-eighth, or one-tenth, of that colonized by Spain on
this continent; and yet in all that vast region there are but between
one and two millions of people of European color and European blood,
while in the United States there are fourteen millions who rejoice in
their descent from the people of the more northern part of Europe.
[Sidenote: The seeds of government sown by the Colonists.]
The great elements of the American system of government, originally
introduced by the Colonists, and which were early in operation, and
ready to be developed, more and more, as the progress of events should
justify or demand, were,--
Escape from the existing political systems of Europe, including its
religious hierarchies, but the continued possession and enjoyment of its
science and arts, its literature, and its manners;
Home government, or the power of making in the Colony the municipal laws
which were to govern it;
Equality of rights;
Representative assemblies, or forms of government founded on popular
elections.
[Sidenote: American institutions.]
Few topics are more inviting, or more fit for philosophical discussion,
than the effect on the happiness of mankind of institutions founded upon
these principles; or, in other words, the influence of the New World
upon the Old.
Her obligations to Europe for science and art, laws, literature, and
manners, America acknowledges, as she ought, with respect and gratitude.
The people of the United States, descendants of the English stock,
grateful for the treasures of knowledge derived from their English
ancestors, admit also, with thanks and filial regard, that among those
ancestors, under the culture of Hampden and Sydney and other assiduous
friends, that seed of popular liberty first germinated which on our soil
has shot up to its full height, until its branches overshadow all the
land.
[Sidenote: America's contributions to European welfare.]
But America has not failed to make returns. If she has not wholly
cancelled the obligation, or equalled it by others of like weight, she
has, at least, made respectable advances towards repaying the debt. And
she admits that, standing in the midst of civilized nations, and in a
civilized age, a nation among nations, there is a high part which she is
expected to act, for the general advancement of human interests and
human welfare.
American mines have filled the mints of Europe with the precious metals.
The productions of the American soil and climate have poured out their
abundance of luxuries for the tables of the rich, and of necessaries for
the sustenance of the poor. Birds and animals of beauty and value have
been added to the European stocks; and transplantations from the
unequalled riches of our forests have mingled themselves profusely with
the elms, and ashes, and Druidical oaks of England.
America has made contributions to Europe far more important. Who can
estimate the amount, or the value, of the augmentation of the commerce
of the world that has resulted from America? Who can imagine to himself
what would now be the shock to the Eastern Continent, if the Atlantic
were no longer traversable, or if there were no longer American
productions or American markets?
[Sidenote: The American example.]
But America exercises influences, or holds out examples, for the
consideration of the Old World, of a much higher, because they are of a
moral and political character.
America has furnished to Europe proof of the fact that popular
institutions, founded on equality and the principle of representation,
are capable of maintaining governments able to secure the rights of
person, property, and reputation.
America has proved that it is practicable to elevate the mass of
mankind,--that portion which in Europe is called the laboring, or lower
class;--to raise them to self-respect, to make them competent to act a
part in the great right and great duty of self-government; and she has
proved that this may be done by education and the diffusion of
knowledge. She holds out an example, a thousand times more encouraging
than ever was presented before, to those nine-tenths of the human race
who are born without hereditary fortune or hereditary rank.
[Sidenote: The character of Washington.]
America has furnished to the world the character of Washington! And if
our American institutions had done nothing else, that alone would have
entitled them to the respect of mankind.
Washington! "First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of
his countrymen!" Washington is all our own! The enthusiastic veneration
and regard in which the people of the United States hold him, prove them
to be worthy of such a countryman; while his reputation abroad reflects
the highest honor on his country. I would cheerfully put the question
to-day to the intelligence of Europe and the world, what character of
the century, upon the whole, stands out, in the relief of history, most
pure, most respectable, most sublime; and I doubt not that, by a
suffrage approaching to unanimity, the answer would be Washington!
The structure now standing before us, by its uprightness, its solidity,
its durability, is no unfit emblem of his character. His public virtues
and public principles were as firm as the earth on which it stands; his
personal motives as pure as the serene heaven in which its summit is
lost. But, indeed, though a fit, it is an inadequate emblem. Towering
high above the column which our hands have builded; beheld, not by the
inhabitants of a single city or a single State, but by all the families
of man, ascends the colossal grandeur of the character and life of
Washington. In all the constituents of the one, in all the acts of the
other, in all its titles to immortal love, admiration, and renown, it is
an American production. It is the embodiment and vindication of our
transatlantic liberty. Born upon our soil, of parents also born upon it;
never for a moment having had sight of the Old World; instructed,
according to the modes of his time, only in the spare, plain, but
wholesome elementary knowledge which our institutions provide for the
children of the people; growing up beneath, and penetrated by, the
genuine influences of American society; living from infancy to manhood
and age amidst our expanding but not luxurious civilization; partaking
in our great destiny of labor, our long contest with unreclaimed nature
and uncivilized man, our agony of glory, the war of Independence, our
great victory of peace, the formation of the Union, and the
establishment of the Constitution,--he is all, all our own! Washington
is ours. That crowded and glorious life,--
"Where multitudes of virtues passed along,
Each pressing foremost, in the mighty throng
Ambitious to be seen, then making room
For greater multitudes that were to come,"--
that life was the life of an American citizen.
I claim him for America. In all the perils, in every darkened moment of
the state, in the midst of the reproaches of enemies and the misgiving
of friends, I turn to that transcendent name for courage and for
consolation. To him who denies or doubts whether our fervid liberty can
be combined with law, with order, with the security of property, with
the pursuits and advancement of happiness; to him who denies that our
forms of government are capable of producing exaltation of soul, and the
passion of true glory; to him who denies that we have contributed
anything to the stock of great lessons and great examples;--to all these
I reply by pointing to Washington!
And now, friends and fellow-citizens, it is time to bring this discourse
to a close.
[Sidenote: The obligations of Americans.]
We have indulged in gratifying recollections of the past, in the
prosperity and pleasures of the present, and in high hopes for the
future. But let us remember that we have duties and obligations to
perform, corresponding to the blessings which we enjoy. Let us remember
the trust, the sacred trust, attaching to the rich inheritance which we
have received from our fathers. Let us feel our personal
responsibility, to the full extent of our power and influence, for the
preservation of the principles of civil and religious liberty. And let
us remember that it is only religion, and morals, and knowledge, that
can make men respectable and happy, under any form of government. Let us
hold fast the great truth, that communities are responsible, as well as
individuals; that no government is respectable which is not just; that
without unspotted purity of public faith, without sacred public
principle, fidelity, and honor, no mere forms of government, no
machinery of laws, can give dignity to political society. In our day and
generation let us seek to raise and improve the moral sentiment, so that
we may look not for a degraded, but for an elevated and improved future.
And when both we and our children shall have been consigned to the house
appointed for all living, may love of country and pride of country glow
with equal fervor among those to whom our names and our blood shall have
descended! And then, when honored and decrepit age shall lean against
the base of this monument, and troops of ingenuous youth shall be
gathered round it, and when the one shall speak to the other of its
objects, the purposes of its construction, and the great and glorious
events with which it is connected, there shall rise from every youthful
breast the ejaculation, "Thank God, I--I also--AM AN AMERICAN!"
ADAMS AND JEFFERSON
A DISCOURSE IN COMMEMORATION OF THE LIVES AND SERVICES OF JOHN ADAMS AND
THOMAS JEFFERSON; DELIVERED IN FANEUIL HALL, BOSTON, AUGUST 2, 1826
[Since the death of Washington, on the 14th of December, 1799, the
public mind had never been so powerfully affected by any similar
event as by the death of John Adams, on the 4th of July, 1826. The
news reached Boston in the evening of that day. It acquired a
singular interest from the year and the day on which it took
place;--the 4th of July of the year completing the half-century
from the Declaration of Independence, a measure in which Mr. Adams
himself had taken so distinguished a part. The emotions of the
public were greatly increased by the indications given by Mr. Adams
in his last hours, that he was fully aware that the day was the
anniversary of Independence, and by his dying allusion to the
supposed fact that his colleague, Jefferson, survived him. When, in
the course of a few days, the news arrived from Virginia, that
Jefferson also had died on the same day and a few hours before Mr.
Adams, the patriotic emotions of the country at large were touched
beyond all example. The occurrence was justly deemed without a
parallel in history. The various circumstances of association and
coincidence which marked the characters and careers of these great
men, and especially their simultaneous decease on the 4th of July,
were dwelt upon with deep interest. The circles of private life,
the press, public bodies, and the pulpit, were for some time almost
engrossed with the topic; and exercises of commemoration were held
throughout the country.]
This is an unaccustomed spectacle. For the first time, fellow-citizens,
badges of mourning shroud the columns and overhang the arches of this
hall. These walls, which were consecrated, so long ago, to the cause of
American liberty, which witnessed her infant struggles, and rung with
the shouts of her earliest victories, proclaim, now, that distinguished
friends and champions of that great cause have fallen. It is right that
it should be thus. The tears which flow, and the honors that are paid,
when the founders of the republic die, give hope that the republic
itself may be immortal. It is fit that, by public assembly and solemn
observance, by anthem and by eulogy, we commemorate the services of
national benefactors, extol their virtues, and render thanks to God for
eminent blessings, early given and long continued, through their agency,
to our favored country.
[Illustration: _Faneuil Hall._]
Adams and Jefferson are no more; and we are assembled, fellow-citizens,
the aged, the middle-aged, and the young, by the spontaneous impulse of
all, under the authority of the municipal government, with the presence
of the chief magistrate of the Commonwealth, and others its official
representatives, the University, and the learned societies, to bear our
part in those manifestations of respect and gratitude which pervade the
whole land. Adams and Jefferson are no more. On our fiftieth
anniversary, the great day of national jubilee, in the very hour of
public rejoicing, in the midst of echoing and re-echoing voices of
thanksgiving, while their own names were on all tongues, they took their
flight together to the world of spirits.
[Sidenote: An epic consummation.]
If it be true that no one can safely be pronounced happy while he lives,
if that event which terminates life can alone crown its honors and its
glory, what felicity is here! The great epic of their lives, how happily
concluded! Poetry itself has hardly terminated illustrious lives, and
finished the career of earthly renown, by such a consummation. If we had
the power, we could not wish to reverse this dispensation of the Divine
Providence. The great objects of life were accomplished, the drama was
ready to be closed. It has closed; our patriots have fallen; but so
fallen, at such age, with such coincidence, on such a day, that we
cannot rationally lament that the end has come which we knew could not
be long deferred.
Neither of these great men, fellow-citizens, could have died, at any
time, without leaving an immense void in our American society. They have
been so intimately, and for so long a time, blended with the history of
the country, and especially so united, in our thoughts and
recollections, with the events of the Revolution, that the death of
either would have touched the chords of public sympathy. We should have
felt that one great link connecting us with former times was broken;
that we had lost something more, as it were, of the presence of the
Revolution itself, and of the act of independence, and were driven on,
by another great remove from the days of our country's early
distinction, to meet posterity, and to mix with the future. Like the
mariner, whom the currents of the ocean and the winds carry along, till
he sees the stars which have directed his course and lighted his
pathless way descend, one by one, beneath the rising horizon, we should
have felt that the stream of time had borne us onward till another great
luminary, whose light had cheered us and whose guidance we had
followed, had sunk away from our sight.
[Sidenote: The remarkable similarity between Adams and Jefferson in
their lives and in their deaths.]
But the concurrence of their death on the anniversary of Independence
has naturally awakened stronger emotions. Both had been Presidents, both
had lived to great age, both were early patriots, and both were
distinguished and ever honored by their immediate agency in the act of
independence. It cannot but seem striking and extraordinary that these
two should live to see the fiftieth year from the date of that act; that
they should complete that year; and that then, on the day which had fast
linked forever their own fame with their country's glory, the heavens
should open to receive them both at once. As their lives themselves were
the gifts of Providence, who is not willing to recognize in their happy
termination, as well as in their long continuance, proofs that our
country and its benefactors are objects of His care?
[Sidenote: Their example.]
Adams and Jefferson, I have said, are no more. As human beings, indeed,
they are no more. They are no more, as in 1776, bold and fearless
advocates of independence; no more, as at subsequent periods, the head
of the government; no more, as we have recently seen them, aged and
venerable objects of admiration and regard. They are no more. They are
dead. But how little is there of the great and good which can die! To
their country they yet live, and live forever. They live in all that
perpetuates the remembrance of men on earth; in the recorded proofs of
their own great actions, in the offspring of their intellect, in the
deep-engraved lines of public gratitude, and in the respect and homage
of mankind. They live in their example; and they live, emphatically, and
will live, in the influence which their lives and efforts, their
principles and opinions, now exercise, and will continue to exercise, on
the affairs of men, not only in their own country, but throughout the
civilized world. A superior and commanding human intellect, a truly
great man, when Heaven vouchsafes so rare a gift, is not a temporary
flame, burning brightly for a while, and then giving place to returning
darkness. It is rather a spark of fervent heat, as well as radiant
light, with power to enkindle the common mass of human mind; so that
when it glimmers in its own decay, and finally goes out in death, no
night follows; but it leaves the world all light, all on fire, from the
potent contact of its own spirit. Bacon died; but the human
understanding, roused by the touch of his miraculous wand to a
perception of the true philosophy and the just mode of inquiring after
truth, has kept on its course successfully and gloriously. Newton died;
yet the courses of the spheres are still known, and they yet move on by
the laws which he discovered, and in the orbits which he saw, and
described for them, in the infinity of space.
[Sidenote: Their work.]
No two men now live, fellow-citizens, perhaps it may be doubted whether
any two men have ever lived in one age, who, more than those we now
commemorate, have impressed on mankind their own sentiments in regard to
politics and government, infused their own opinions more deeply into the
opinions of others, or given a more lasting direction to the current of
human thought. Their work doth not perish with them. The tree which they
assisted to plant will flourish, although they water it and protect it
no longer; for it has struck its roots deep, it has sent them to the
very centre; no storm, not of force to burst the orb, can overturn it;
its branches spread wide; they stretch their protecting arms broader and
broader, and its top is destined to reach the heavens. We are not
deceived. There is no delusion here. No age will come in which the
American Revolution will appear less than it is, one of the greatest
events in human history. No age will come in which it shall cease to be
seen and felt, on either continent, that a mighty step, a great advance,
not only in American affairs, but in human affairs, was made on the 4th
of July, 1776. And no age will come, we trust, so ignorant or so unjust
as not to see and acknowledge the efficient agency of those we now honor
in producing that momentous event.
We are not assembled, therefore, fellow-citizens, as men overwhelmed
with calamity by the sudden disruption of the ties of friendship or
affection, or as in despair for the republic by the untimely blighting
of its hopes. Death has not surprised us by an unseasonable blow. We
have, indeed, seen the tomb close, but it has closed only over mature
years, over long-protracted public service, over the weakness of age,
and over life itself only when the ends of living had been fulfilled.
These suns, as they rose slowly and steadily, amidst clouds and storms,
in their ascendant, so they have not rushed from their meridian to sink
suddenly in the west. Like the mildness, the serenity, the continuing
benignity of a summer's day, they have gone down with slow-descending,
grateful, long-lingering light; and now that they are beyond the visible
margin of the world, good omens cheer us from "the bright track of their
fiery car"!
[Sidenote: Their public services.]
The occasion, fellow-citizens, requires some account of the lives and
services of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. This duty must necessarily
be performed with great brevity, and in the discharge of it I shall be
obliged to confine myself, principally, to those parts of their history
and character which belonged to them as public men.
[Sidenote: Adams the chief advocate of the Declaration of Independence.]
[Sidenote: His education.]
John Adams was born at Quincy, then part of the ancient town of
Braintree, on the nineteenth day of October (Old Style), 1735.[14] He
was a descendant of the Puritans, his ancestors having early emigrated
from England, and settled in Massachusetts. Discovering in childhood a
strong love of reading and of knowledge, together with marks of great
strength and activity of mind, proper care was taken by his worthy
father to provide for his education. He pursued his youthful studies in
Braintree, under Mr. Marsh, a teacher whose fortune it was that Josiah
Quincy, Jr., as well as the subject of these remarks, should receive
from him his instruction in the rudiments of classical literature.
Having been admitted, in 1751, a member of Harvard College, Mr. Adams
was graduated, in course, in 1755; and on the catalogue of that
institution, his name, at the time of his death, was second among the
living Alumni, being preceded only by that of the venerable Holyoke.
With what degree of reputation he left the University is not now
precisely known. We know only that he was distinguished in a class
which numbered Locke and Hemmenway among its members.
[Illustration: _John Adams._]
[Sidenote: Studies law.]
Choosing the law for his profession, he commenced and prosecuted its
studies at Worcester, under the direction of Samuel Putnam, a gentleman
whom he has himself described as an acute man, an able and learned
lawyer, and as being in large professional practice at that time. In
1758 he was admitted to the bar, and entered upon the practice of the
law in Braintree. He is understood to have made his first considerable
effort, or to have attained his first signal success, at Plymouth, on
one of those occasions which furnish the earliest opportunity for
distinction to many young men of the profession, a jury trial, and a
criminal cause. His business naturally grew with his reputation, and his
residence in the vicinity afforded the opportunity, as his growing
eminence gave the power, of entering on a larger field of practice in
the capital. In 1766 he removed his residence to Boston, still
continuing his attendance on the neighboring circuits, and not
unfrequently called to remote parts of the Province. In 1770 his
professional firmness was brought to a test of some severity, on the
application of the British officers and soldiers to undertake their
defence, on the trial of the indictments found against them on account
of the transactions of the memorable 5th of March.[15] He seems to have
thought, on this occasion, that a man can no more abandon the proper
duties of his profession, than he can abandon other duties. The event
proved that as he judged well for his own reputation, so, too, he judged
well for the interest and permanent fame of his country. The result of
that trial proved that notwithstanding the high degree of excitement
then existing in consequence of the measures of the British government,
a jury of Massachusetts would not deprive the most reckless enemies,
even the officers of that standing army quartered among them, which they
so perfectly abhorred, of any part of that protection which the law, in
its mildest and most indulgent interpretation, affords to persons
accused of crimes.
[Sidenote: An early prophecy.]
Without following Mr. Adams's professional course further, suffice it to
say, that on the first establishment of the judicial tribunals under the
authority of the State, in 1776, he received an offer of the high and
responsible station of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of
Massachusetts. But he was destined for another and a different career.
From early life the bent of his mind was toward politics; a propensity
which the state of the times, if it did not create, doubtless very much
strengthened. Public subjects must have occupied the thoughts and filled
up the conversation in the circles in which he then moved; and the
interesting questions at that time just arising could not but seize on a
mind like his, ardent, sanguine, and patriotic. A letter, fortunately
preserved, written by him at Worcester, so early as the 12th of October,
1755, is a proof of very comprehensive views, and uncommon depth of
reflection, in a young man not yet quite twenty. In this letter he
predicted the transfer of power, and the establishment of a new seat of
empire in America; he predicted, also, the increase of population in the
Colonies; and anticipated their naval distinction, and foretold that all
Europe combined could not subdue them. All this is said, not on a public
occasion or for effect, but in the style of sober and friendly
correspondence, as the result of his own thoughts. "I sometimes retire,"
said he, at the close of the letter, "and, laying things together, form
some reflections pleasing to myself. The produce of one of these
reveries you have read above." This prognostication so early in his own
life, so early in the history of the country, of independence, of vast
increase of numbers, of naval force, of such augmented power as might
defy all Europe, is remarkable. It is more remarkable that its author
should live to see fulfilled to the letter what could have seemed to
others, at the time, but the extravagance of youthful fancy. His
earliest political feelings were thus strongly American, and from this
ardent attachment to his native soil he never departed.
[Sidenote: James Otis.]
While still living at Quincy, and at the age of twenty-four, Mr. Adams
was present, in this town, at the argument before the Supreme Court
respecting Writs of Assistance,[16] and heard the celebrated and
patriotic speech of James Otis. Unquestionably, that was a masterly
performance. No flighty declamation about liberty, no superficial
discussion of popular topics, it was a learned, penetrating, convincing,
constitutional argument, expressed in a strain of high and resolute
patriotism. He grasped the question then pending between England and her
Colonies with the strength of a lion; and if he sometimes sported, it
was only because the lion himself is sometimes playful. Its success
appears to have been as great as its merits, and its impression was
widely felt. Mr. Adams himself seems never to have lost the feeling it
produced, and to have entertained constantly the fullest conviction of
its important effects. "I do say," he observes, "in the most solemn
manner, that Mr. Otis's Oration against Writs of Assistance breathed
into this nation the breath of life."
[Illustration: _James Otis._]
In 1765 Mr. Adams laid before the public, anonymously, a series of
essays, afterwards collected in a volume in London, under the title of
"A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law." The object of this work
was to show that our New England ancestors, in consenting to exile
themselves from their native land, were actuated mainly by the desire of
delivering themselves from the power of the hierarchy, and from the
monarchical and aristocratical systems of the other continent; and to
make this truth bear with effect on the politics of the times. Its tone
is uncommonly bold and animated for that period. He calls on the people,
not only to defend, but to study and understand, their rights and
privileges; urges earnestly the necessity of diffusing general
knowledge; invokes the clergy and the bar, the colleges and academies,
and all others who have the ability and the means to expose the
insidious designs of arbitrary power, to resist its approaches, and to
be persuaded that there is a settled design on foot to enslave all
America. "Be it remembered," says the author, "that liberty must, at all
hazards, be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker.
But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the
expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood.
And liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the
people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge,
as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them
understandings and a desire to know. But, besides this, they have a
right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right, to that
most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean of the characters and
conduct of their rulers. Rulers are no more than attorneys, agents, and
trustees for the people; and if the cause, the interest and trust, is
insidiously betrayed, or wantonly trifled away, the people have a right
to revoke the authority that they themselves have deputed, and to
constitute abler and better agents, attorneys, and trustees."
[Sidenote: Adams first public office.]
The citizens of this town conferred on Mr. Adams his first political
distinction, and clothed him with his first political trust, by electing
him one of their representatives, in 1770. Before this time he had
become extensively known throughout the Province, as well by the part he
had acted in relation to public affairs, as by the exercise of his
professional ability. He was among those who took the deepest interest
in the controversy with England, and, whether in or out of the
legislature, his time and talents were alike devoted to the cause. In
the years 1773 and 1774 he was chosen a Councillor by the members of the
General Court, but rejected by Governor Hutchinson in the former of
those years, and by Governor Gage in the latter.
[Illustration: _Independence Hall, Philadelphia._]
[Sidenote: Election to the Congress of Delegates.]
The time was now at hand, however, when the affairs of the Colonies
urgently demanded united counsels throughout the country. An open
rupture with the parent state appeared inevitable, and it was but the
dictate of prudence that those who were united by a common interest and
a common danger should protect that interest and guard against that
danger by united efforts. A general Congress of Delegates from all the
Colonies having been proposed and agreed to, the House of
Representatives, on the 17th of June, 1774, elected James Bowdoin,
Thomas Cushing, Samuel Adams, John Adams, and Robert Treat Paine
delegates from Massachusetts. This appointment was made at Salem, where
the General Court had been convened by Governor Gage, in the last hour
of the existence of a House of Representatives under the Provincial
Charter. While engaged in this important business, the Governor, having
been informed of what was passing, sent his secretary with a message
dissolving the General Court. The secretary, finding the door locked,
directed the messenger to go in and inform the Speaker that the
secretary was at the door with a message from the Governor. The
messenger returned, and informed the secretary that the orders of the
House were that the doors should be kept fast; whereupon the secretary
soon after read upon the stairs a proclamation dissolving the General
Court. Thus terminated, forever, the actual exercise of the political
power of England in or over Massachusetts. The four last-named delegates
accepted their appointments, and took their seats in Congress the first
day of its meeting, the 5th of September, 1774, in Philadelphia.
[Sidenote: The First Continental Congress.]
The proceedings of the first Congress are well known, and have been
universally admired. It is in vain that we would look for superior
proofs of wisdom, talent, and patriotism. Lord Chatham said that, for
himself, he must declare that he had studied and admired the free states
of antiquity, the master states of the world, but that for solidity of
reasoning, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion, no body of men
could stand in preference to this Congress. It is hardly inferior praise
to say that no production of that great man himself can be pronounced
superior to several of the papers published as the proceedings of this
most able, most firm, most patriotic assembly. There is, indeed, nothing
superior to them in the range of political disquisition. They not only
embrace, illustrate, and enforce everything which political philosophy,
the love of liberty, and the spirit of free inquiry had antecedently
produced, but they add new and striking views of their own, and apply
the whole, with irresistible force, in support of the cause which had
drawn them together.
Mr. Adams was a constant attendant on the deliberations of this body,
and bore an active part in its important measures. He was of the
committee to state the rights of the Colonies, and of that also which
reported the Address to the King.
[Sidenote: The author of the Declaration of Independence.]
THOMAS JEFFERSON, descended from ancestors who had been settled in
Virginia for some generations, was born near the spot on which he died,
in the county of Albemarle, on the 2d of April (Old Style), 1743. His
youthful studies were pursued in the neighborhood of his father's
residence until he was removed to the College of William and Mary, the
highest honors of which he in due time received. Having left the college
with reputation, he applied himself to the study of the law under the
tuition of George Wythe, one of the highest judicial names of which that
State can boast. At an early age he was elected a member of the
legislature, in which he had no sooner appeared than he distinguished
himself by knowledge, capacity, and promptitude.
[Illustration: _Thomas Jefferson._]
Mr. Jefferson appears to have been imbued with an early love of letters
and science, and to have cherished a strong disposition to pursue these
objects. To the physical sciences, especially, and to ancient classic
literature, he is understood to have had a warm attachment, and never
entirely to have lost sight of them in the midst of the busiest
occupations. But the times were times for action rather than for
contemplation. The country was to be defended and to be saved, before it
could be enjoyed. Philosophic leisure and literary pursuits, and even
the objects of professional attention, were all necessarily postponed to
the urgent calls of the public service. The exigency of the country
made the same demand on Mr. Jefferson that it made on others who had the
ability and the disposition to serve it; and he obeyed the call.
Entering with all his heart into the cause of liberty, his ability,
patriotism, and power with the pen naturally drew upon him a large
participation in the most important concerns. Wherever he was, there was
found a soul devoted to the cause, power to defend and maintain it, and
willingness to incur all its hazards. In 1774 he published a "Summary
View of the Rights of British America," a valuable production among
those intended to show the dangers which threatened the liberties of the
country, and to encourage the people in their defence. In June, 1775, he
was elected a member of the Continental Congress, as successor to Peyton
Randolph, who had resigned his place on account of ill health, and took
his seat in that body on the 21st of the same month.
[Sidenote: The Declaration of Independence.]
And now, fellow-citizens, without pursuing the biography of these
illustrious men further, for the present, let us turn our attention to
the most prominent act of their lives, their participation in the
Declaration of Independence.
Preparatory to the introduction of that important measure, a committee,
at the head of which was Mr. Adams, had reported a resolution, which
Congress adopted on the 10th of May, recommending, in substance, to all
the Colonies which had not already established governments suited to the
exigencies of their affairs, _to adopt such government as would, in the
opinion of the representatives of the people, best conduce to the
happiness and safety of their constituents in particular, and America in
general_.
This significant vote was soon followed by the direct proposition which
Richard Henry Lee had the honor to submit to Congress, by resolution,
on the seventh day of June. The published journal does not expressly
state it, but there is no doubt, I suppose, that this resolution was in
the same words, when originally submitted by Mr. Lee, as when finally
passed. Having been discussed on Saturday, the 8th, and Monday, the 10th
of June, this resolution was on the last-mentioned day postponed for
further consideration to the first day of July; and at the same time it
was voted, that a committee be appointed to prepare a Declaration to the
effect of the resolution. This committee was elected by ballot, on the
following day, and consisted of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin
Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston.
[Illustration: THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE]
[Sidenote: The original draft.]
It is usual, when committees are elected by ballot, that their members
should be arranged in order, according to the number of votes which each
has received. Mr. Jefferson, therefore, had received the highest, and
Mr. Adams the next highest number of votes. The difference is said to
have been but of a single vote. Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Adams, standing
thus at the head of the committee, were requested by the other members
to act as a subcommittee to prepare the draft; and Mr. Jefferson drew up
the paper. The original draft, as brought by him from his study, and
submitted to the other members of the committee, with interlineations in
the handwriting of Dr. Franklin, and others in that of Mr. Adams, was in
Mr. Jefferson's possession at the time of his death. The merit of this
paper is Mr. Jefferson's. Some changes were made in it at the suggestion
of other members of the committee, and others by Congress while it was
under discussion. But none of them altered the tone, the frame, the
arrangement, or the general character of the instrument. As a
composition, the Declaration is Mr. Jefferson's. It is the production of
his mind, and the high honor of it belongs to him, clearly and
absolutely.
It has sometimes been said, as if it were a derogation from the merits
of this paper, that it contains nothing new; that it only states grounds
of proceeding, and presses topics of argument, which had often been
stated and pressed before. But it was not the object of the Declaration
to produce anything new. It was not to invent reasons for independence,
but to state those which governed the Congress. For great and sufficient
causes, it was proposed to declare independence; and the proper business
of the paper to be drawn was to set forth those causes, and justify the
authors of the measure, in any event of fortune, to the country and to
posterity. The cause of American independence, moreover, was now to be
presented to the world in such manner, if it might so be, as to engage
its sympathy, to command its respect, to attract its admiration; and in
an assembly of most able and distinguished men, Thomas Jefferson had the
high honor of being the selected advocate of this cause. To say that he
performed his great work well, would be doing him injustice. To say that
he did excellently well, admirably well, would be inadequate and halting
praise. Let us rather say, that he so discharged the duty assigned him,
that all Americans may well rejoice that the work of drawing the
title-deed of their liberties devolved upon him.
[Sidenote: The debate on the Declaration.]
The Declaration having been reported to Congress by the committee, the
resolution itself was taken up and debated on the first day of July, and
again on the 2d, on which last day it was agreed to and adopted, in
these words:--
"_Resolved_, That these united Colonies are, and of right ought to be,
free and independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance
to the British crown, and that all political connection between them and
the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved."
[Sidenote: July 4, 1776.]
Having thus passed the main resolution, Congress proceeded to consider
the reported draft of the Declaration. It was discussed on the second
and third and fourth days of the month in committee of the whole; and on
the last of those days, being reported from that committee, it received
the final approbation and sanction of Congress. It was ordered, at the
same time, that copies be sent to the several States, and that it be
proclaimed at the head of the army. The Declaration thus published did
not bear the names of the members, for as yet it had not been signed by
them. It was authenticated, like other papers of the Congress, by the
signatures of the President and Secretary. On the 19th of July, as
appears by the secret journal, Congress "_Resolved_, That the
Declaration, passed on the fourth, be fairly engrossed on parchment,
with the title and style of 'The unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen
United States of America;' and that the same, when engrossed, be signed
by every member of Congress." And on the second day of August following,
"the Declaration, being engrossed and compared at the table, was signed
by the members." So that it happens, fellow-citizens, that we pay these
honors to their memory on the anniversary of that day (2d of August) on
which these great men actually signed their names to the Declaration.
The Declaration was thus made, that is, it passed and was adopted as an
act of Congress, on the 4th of July; it was then signed, and certified
by the President and Secretary like other acts. The Fourth of July,
therefore, is the anniversary of the Declaration. But the signatures of
the members present were made to it, being then engrossed on parchment,
on the second day of August. Absent members afterwards signed, as they
came in; and indeed it bears the names of some who were not chosen
members of Congress until after the 4th of July. The interest belonging
to the subject will be sufficient, I hope, to justify these details.
The Congress of the Revolution, fellow-citizens, sat with closed doors,
and no report of its debates was ever made. The discussion, therefore,
which accompanied this great measure, has never been preserved, except
in memory and by tradition. But it is, I believe, doing no injustice to
others to say, that the general opinion was, and uniformly has been,
that in debate, on the side of independence, John Adams had no equal.
The great author of the Declaration himself has expressed that opinion
uniformly and strongly. "John Adams," said he, in the hearing of him who
has now the honor to address you, "John Adams was our colossus on the
floor. Not graceful, not elegant, not always fluent, in his public
addresses, he yet came out with a power, both of thought and of
expression, which moved us from our seats."
For the part which he was here to perform, Mr. Adams doubtless was
eminently fitted. He possessed a bold spirit, which disregarded danger,
and a sanguine reliance on the goodness of the cause, and the virtues of
the people, which led him to overlook all obstacles. His character, too,
had been formed in troubled times. He had been rocked in the early
storms of the controversy, and had acquired a decision and a hardihood
proportioned to the severity of the discipline which he had undergone.
He not only loved the American cause devoutly, but had studied and
understood it. It was all familiar to him. He had tried his powers on
the questions which it involved, often and in various ways; and had
brought to their consideration whatever of argument or illustration the
history of his own country, the history of England, or the stores of
ancient or of legal learning could furnish. Every grievance enumerated
in the long catalogue of the Declaration had been the subject of his
discussion, and the object of his remonstrance and reprobation. From
1760 the Colonies, the rights of the Colonies, the liberties of the
Colonies, and the wrongs inflicted on the Colonies, had engaged his
constant attention; and it has surprised those who have had the
opportunity of witnessing it, with what full remembrance and with what
prompt recollection he could refer, in his extreme old age, to every act
of Parliament affecting the Colonies, distinguishing and stating their
respective titles, sections, and provisions; and to all the colonial
memorials, remonstrances, and petitions, with whatever else belonged to
the intimate and exact history of the times from that year to 1775. It
was, in his own judgment, between these years that the American people
came to a full understanding and thorough knowledge of their rights, and
to a fixed resolution of maintaining them; and bearing himself an active
part in all important transactions,--the controversy with England being
then in effect the business of his life,--facts, dates, and particulars
made an impression which was never effaced. He was prepared, therefore,
by education and discipline, as well as by natural talent and natural
temperament, for the part which he was now to act.
[Sidenote: The nature of true eloquence.]
The eloquence of Mr. Adams resembled his general character, and formed,
indeed, a part of it. It was bold, manly, and energetic; and such the
crisis required. When public bodies are to be addressed on momentous
occasions, when great interests are at stake, and strong passions
excited, nothing is valuable in speech farther than as it is connected
with high intellectual and moral endowments. Clearness, force, and
earnestness are the qualities which produce conviction. True eloquence,
indeed, does not consist in speech. It cannot be brought from far. Labor
and learning may toil for it, but they will toil in vain. Words and
phrases may be marshalled in every way, but they cannot compass it. It
must exist in the man, in the subject, and in the occasion. Affected
passion, intense expression, the pomp of declamation, all may aspire to
it; they cannot reach it. It comes, if it come at all, like the
outbreaking of a fountain from the earth, or the bursting forth of
volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original, native force. The graces
taught in the schools, the costly ornaments and studied contrivances of
speech, shock and disgust men, when their own lives, and the fate of
their wives, their children, and their country, hang on the decision of
the hour. Then words have lost their power, rhetoric is vain, and all
elaborate oratory contemptible. Even genius itself then feels rebuked
and subdued, as in the presence of higher qualities. Then patriotism is
eloquent; then self-devotion is eloquent. The clear conception,
outrunning the deductions of logic, the high purpose, the firm resolve,
the dauntless spirit, speaking on the tongue, beaming from the eye,
informing every feature, and urging the whole man onward, right onward
to his object,--this, this is eloquence; or rather, it is something
greater and higher than all eloquence,--it is action, noble, sublime,
godlike action.
In July, 1776, the controversy had passed the stage of argument. An
appeal had been made to force, and opposing armies were in the field.
Congress, then, was to decide whether the tie which had so long bound us
to the parent state was to be severed at once, and severed forever. All
the Colonies had signified their resolution to abide by this decision,
and the people looked for it with the most intense anxiety. And surely,
fellow-citizens, never, never were men called to a more important
political deliberation. If we contemplate it from the point where they
then stood, no question could be more full of interest; if we look at it
now, and judge of its importance by its effects, it appears of still
greater magnitude.
Let us, then, bring before us the assembly which was about to decide a
question thus big with the fate of empire. Let us open their doors and
look in upon their deliberations. Let us survey the anxious and careworn
countenances, let us hear the firm-toned voices, of this band of
patriots.
Hancock presides over the solemn sitting; and one of those not yet
prepared to pronounce for absolute independence is on the floor, and is
urging his reasons for dissenting from the Declaration.
[Illustration: _John Hancock._]
[Sidenote: An imaginary speech in opposition to the Declaration.]
"Let us pause! This step, once taken, cannot be retraced. This
resolution, once passed, will cut off all hope of reconciliation. If
success attend the arms of England, we shall then be no longer Colonies
with charters and with privileges; these will all be forfeited by this
act; and we shall be in the condition of other conquered people, at the
mercy of the conquerors. For ourselves, we may be ready to run the
hazard; but are we ready to carry the country to that length? Is success
so probable as to justify it? Where is the military, where the naval
power, by which we are to resist the whole strength of the arm of
England,--for she will exert that strength to the utmost? Can we rely on
the constancy and perseverance of the people? or will they not act as
the people of other countries have acted, and, wearied with a long war,
submit, in the end, to a worse oppression? While we stand on our old
ground, and insist on redress of grievances, we know we are right, and
are not answerable for consequences. Nothing, then, can be imputed to
us. But if we now change our object, carry our pretensions farther, and
set up for absolute independence, we shall lose the sympathy of mankind.
We shall no longer be defending what we possess, but struggling for
something which we never did possess, and which we have solemnly and
uniformly disclaimed all intention of pursuing, from the very outset of
the troubles. Abandoning thus our old ground of resistance only to
arbitrary acts of oppression, the nations will believe the whole to have
been mere pretence, and they will look on us, not as injured, but as
ambitious subjects. I shudder before this responsibility. It will be on
us, if, relinquishing the ground on which we have stood so long, and
stood so safely, we now proclaim independence, and carry on the war for
that object, while these cities burn, these pleasant fields whiten and
bleach with the bones of their owners, and these streams run blood. It
will be upon us, it will be upon us, if, failing to maintain this
unseasonable and ill-judged declaration, a sterner despotism, maintained
by military power, shall be established over our posterity, when we
ourselves, given up by an exhausted, a harassed, a misled people, shall
have expiated our rashness and atoned for our presumption on the
scaffold."
It was for Mr. Adams to reply to arguments like these. We know his
opinions, and we know his character. He would commence with his
accustomed directness and earnestness.
[Sidenote: Supposed speech of John Adams in favor of the Declaration.]
"Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my
heart to this vote. It is true, indeed, that in the beginning we aimed
not at independence. But there's a divinity which shapes our ends. The
injustice of England has driven us to arms; and, blinded to her own
interest for our good, she has obstinately persisted, till independence
is now within our grasp. We have but to reach forth to it, and it is
ours. Why, then, should we defer the Declaration? Is any man so weak as
now to hope for a reconciliation with England which shall leave either
safety to the country and its liberties, or safety to his own life and
his own honor? Are not you, Sir, who sit in that chair,--is not he, our
venerable colleague near you,--are you not both already the proscribed
and predestined objects of punishment and of vengeance? Cut off from
all hope of royal clemency, what are you, what can you be, while the
power of England remains, but outlaws? If we postpone independence, do
we mean to carry on, or to give up, the war? Do we mean to submit to the
measures of Parliament, Boston Port Bill[17] and all? Do we mean to
submit, and consent that we ourselves shall be ground to powder, and our
country and its rights trodden down in the dust? I know we do not mean
to submit. We never shall submit. Do we intend to violate that most
solemn obligation ever entered into by men, that plighting, before God,
of our sacred honor to Washington, when, putting him forth to incur the
dangers of war, as well as the political hazards of the times, we
promised to adhere to him, in every extremity, with our fortunes and our
lives? I know there is not a man here who would not rather see a general
conflagration sweep over the land, or an earthquake sink it, than one
jot or tittle of that plighted faith fall to the ground. For myself,
having, twelve months ago, in this place, moved you that George
Washington be appointed commander of the forces raised, or to be raised,
for defence of American liberty, may my right hand forget her cunning,
and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I hesitate or waver in
the support I give him.
"The war, then, must go on. We must fight it through. And if the war
must go on, why put off longer the Declaration of Independence? That
measure will strengthen us. It will give us character abroad. The
nations will then treat with us, which they never can do while we
acknowledge ourselves subjects, in arms against our sovereign. Nay, I
maintain that England herself will sooner treat for peace with us on the
footing of independence, than consent, by repealing her acts, to
acknowledge that her whole conduct towards us has been a course of
injustice and oppression. Her pride will be less wounded by submitting
to that course of things which now predestinates our independence, than
by yielding the points in controversy to her rebellious subjects. The
former she would regard as the result of fortune; the latter she would
feel as her own deep disgrace. Why then, why then, Sir, do we not as
soon as possible change this from a civil to a national war? And since
we must fight it through, why not put ourselves in a state to enjoy all
the benefits of victory, if we gain the victory?
"If we fail, it can be no worse for us. But we shall not fail. The cause
will raise up armies; the cause will create navies. The people, the
people, if we are true to them, will carry us, and will carry
themselves, gloriously through this struggle. I care not how fickle
other people have been found. I know the people of these Colonies, and I
know that resistance to British aggression is deep and settled in their
hearts and cannot be eradicated. Every Colony, indeed, has expressed its
willingness to follow, if we but take the lead. Sir, the Declaration
will inspire the people with increased courage. Instead of a long and
bloody war for the restoration of privileges, for redress of grievances,
for chartered immunities, held under a British king, set before them the
glorious object of entire independence and it will breathe into them
anew the breath of life. Read this Declaration at the head of the army;
every sword will be drawn from its scabbard, and the solemn vow
uttered, to maintain it, or to perish on the bed of honor. Publish it
from the pulpit; religion will approve it, and the love of religious
liberty will cling round it, resolved to stand with it or fall with it.
Send it to the public halls; proclaim it there; let them hear it who
heard the first roar of the enemy's cannon; let them see it who saw
their brothers and their sons fall on the field of Bunker Hill, and in
the streets of Lexington and Concord, and the very walls will cry out in
its support.
"Sir, I know the uncertainty of human affairs, but I see, I see clearly,
through this day's business. You and I, indeed, may rue it. We may not
live to the time when this Declaration shall be made good. We may die;
die colonists; die slaves; die, it may be, ignominiously and on the
scaffold. Be it so. Be it so. If it be the pleasure of Heaven that my
country shall require the poor offering of my life, the victim shall be
ready, at the appointed hour of sacrifice, come when that hour may. But
while I do live, let me have a country, or at least the hope of a
country, and that a free country.
"But whatever may be our fate, be assured, be assured that this
Declaration will stand. It may cost treasure, and it may cost blood; but
it will stand, and it will richly compensate for both. Through the thick
gloom of the present, I see the brightness of the future, as the sun in
heaven. We shall make this a glorious, an immortal day. When we are in
our graves, our children will honor it. They will celebrate it with
thanksgiving, with festivity, with bonfires, and illuminations. On its
annual return they will shed tears, copious, gushing tears, not of
subjection and slavery, not of agony and distress, but of exultation, of
gratitude, and of joy. Sir, before God, I believe the hour is come. My
judgment approves this measure, and my whole heart is in it. All that I
have, and all that I am, and all that I hope, in this life, I am now
ready here to stake upon it; and I leave off as I begun, that live or
die, survive or perish, I am for the Declaration. It is my living
sentiment, and by the blessing of God it shall be my dying sentiment,
Independence _now_, and Independence forever."
And so that day shall be honored, illustrious prophet and patriot! so
that day shall be honored, and as often as it returns, thy renown shall
come along with it, and the glory of thy life, like the day of thy
death, shall not fail from the remembrance of men.
[Illustration: _Samuel Adams._]
[Sidenote: Tributes to John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and Robert Treat
Paine.]
It would be unjust, fellow-citizens, on this occasion, while we express
our veneration for him who is the immediate subject of these remarks,
were we to omit a most respectful, affectionate, and grateful mention of
those other great men, his colleagues, who stood with him, and with the
same spirit, the same devotion, took part in the interesting
transaction. Hancock, the proscribed Hancock, exiled from his home by a
military governor, cut off by proclamation from the mercy of the
crown,--Heaven reserved for him the distinguished honor of putting this
great question to the vote, and of writing his own name first, and most
conspicuously, on that parchment which spoke defiance to the power of
the crown of England. There, too, is the name of that other proscribed
patriot, Samuel Adams, a man who hungered and thirsted for the
independence of his country, who thought the Declaration halted and
lingered, being himself not only ready, but eager for it, long before it
was proposed; a man of the deepest sagacity, the clearest foresight,
and the profoundest judgment in men. And there is Gerry, himself among
the earliest and the foremost of the patriots, found when the battle of
Lexington summoned them to common counsels, by the side of Warren; a man
who lived to serve his country at home and abroad, and to die in the
second place in the government. There, too, is the inflexible, the
upright, the Spartan character, Robert Treat Paine. He also lived to
serve his country through the struggle, and then withdrew from her
councils, only that he might give his labors and his life to his native
State, in another relation. These names, fellow-citizens, are the
treasures of the Commonwealth; and they are treasures which grow
brighter by time.
It is now necessary to resume the narrative, and to finish with great
brevity the notice of the lives of those whose virtues and services we
have met to commemorate.
[Sidenote: Adams appointed Minister to France.]
Mr. Adams remained in Congress from its first meeting till November,
1777, when he was appointed Minister to France. He proceeded on that
service in the February following, embarking in the frigate "Boston,"
from the shore of his native town, at the foot of Mount Wollaston. The
year following, he was appointed commissioner to treat of peace with
England. Returning to the United States, he was a delegate from
Braintree in the Convention for framing the Constitution of this
Commonwealth, in 1780. At the latter end of the same year, he again went
abroad in the diplomatic service of the country, and was employed at
various courts, and occupied with various negotiations, until 1788. The
particulars of these interesting and important services this occasion
does not allow time to relate. In 1782 he concluded our first treaty
with Holland. His negotiations with that republic, his efforts to
persuade the States-General[18] to recognize our independence, his
incessant and indefatigable exertions to represent the American cause
favorably on the Continent, and to counteract the designs of its
enemies, open and secret, and his successful undertaking to obtain loans
on the credit of a nation yet new and unknown, are among his most
arduous, most useful, most honorable services. It was his fortune to
bear a part in the negotiation for peace with England, and in something
more than six years from the Declaration which he had so strenuously
supported, he had the satisfaction of seeing the minister
plenipotentiary of the crown subscribe his name to the instrument which
declared that his "Britannic Majesty acknowledged the United States to
be free, sovereign, and independent." In these important transactions,
Mr. Adams's conduct received the marked approbation of Congress and of
the country.
[Sidenote: Vice-President, 1789-1797; President, 1797-1801.]
Returning to the United States in 1788, he found the new government
about going into operation, and was himself elected the first
Vice-President,[19] a situation which he filled with reputation for
eight years, at the expiration of which he was raised to the
Presidential chair, as immediate successor to the immortal Washington.
In this high station he was succeeded by Mr. Jefferson, after a
memorable controversy between their respective friends, in 1801; and
from that period his manner of life has been known to all who hear me.
He has lived, for five-and-twenty years, with every enjoyment that could
render old age happy. Not inattentive to the occurrences of the times,
political cares have yet not materially, or for any long time, disturbed
his repose. In 1820 he acted as Elector of President and Vice-President,
and in the same year we saw him, then at the age of eighty-five, a
member of the Convention of this Commonwealth called to revise the
Constitution. Forty years before, he had been one of those who formed
that Constitution; and he had now the pleasure of witnessing that there
was little which the people desired to change. Possessing all his
faculties to the end of his long life, with an unabated love of reading
and contemplation, in the centre of interesting circles of friendship
and affection, he was blessed in his retirement with whatever of repose
and felicity the condition of man allows. He had, also, other
enjoyments. He saw around him that prosperity and general happiness
which had been the object of his public cares and labors. No man ever
beheld more clearly, and for a longer time, the great and beneficial
effects of the services rendered by himself to his country. That liberty
which he so early defended, that independence of which he was so able an
advocate and supporter, he saw, we trust, firmly and securely
established. The population of the country thickened around him faster,
and extended wider, than his own sanguine predictions had anticipated;
and the wealth, respectability, and power of the nation sprang up to a
magnitude which it is quite impossible he could have expected to witness
in his day. He lived also to behold those principles of civil freedom
which had been developed, established, and practically applied in
America, attract attention, command respect, and awaken imitation, in
other regions of the globe; and well might, and well did, he exclaim,
"Where will the consequences of the American Revolution end?"
If anything yet remain to fill this cup of happiness, let it be added,
that he lived to see a great and intelligent people bestow the highest
honor in their gift where he had bestowed his own kindest parental
affections and lodged his fondest hopes.[20] Thus honored in life, thus
happy at death, he saw the jubilee,[21] and he died; and with the last
prayers which trembled on his lips was the fervent supplication for his
country, "Independence forever!"
[Illustration: _Patrick Henry._]
[Illustration: _Benjamin Franklin._]
[Sidenote: Jefferson elected Governor of Virginia.]
[Sidenote: Minister to France.]
[Sidenote: Is made Secretary of State by Washington.]
Mr. Jefferson, having been occupied in the years 1778 and 1779 in the
important service of revising the laws of Virginia, was elected Governor
of that State, as successor to Patrick Henry, and held the situation
when the State was invaded by the British arms. In 1781 he published his
"Notes on Virginia," a work which attracted attention in Europe as well
as America, dispelled many misconceptions respecting this continent,
and gave its author a place among men distinguished for science. In
November, 1783, he again took his seat in the Continental Congress, but
in the May following was appointed Minister Plenipotentiary, to act
abroad, in the negotiation of commercial treaties, with Dr. Franklin and
Mr. Adams. He proceeded to France, in execution of this mission,
embarking at Boston; and that was the only occasion on which he ever
visited this place. In 1785 he was appointed Minister to France, the
duties of which situation he continued to perform until October, 1789,
when he obtained leave to retire, just on the eve of that tremendous
revolution which has so much agitated the world in our times. Mr.
Jefferson's discharge of his diplomatic duties was marked by great
ability, diligence, and patriotism; and while he resided at Paris, in
one of the most interesting periods, his character for intelligence, his
love of knowledge and of the society of learned men, distinguished him
in the highest circles of the French capital. No court in Europe had at
that time in Paris a representative commanding or enjoying higher
regard, for political knowledge or for general attainments, than the
minister of this then infant republic. Immediately on his return to his
native country, at the organization of the government under the present
Constitution, his talents and experience recommended him to President
Washington for the first office in his gift. He was placed at the head
of the Department of State. In this situation, also, he manifested
conspicuous ability. His correspondence with the ministers of other
powers residing here, and his instructions to our own diplomatic agents
abroad, are among our ablest state papers. A thorough knowledge of the
laws and usages of nations, perfect acquaintance with the immediate
subject before him, great felicity, and still greater facility, in
writing, show themselves in whatever effort his official situation
called on him to make. It is believed by competent judges, that the
diplomatic intercourse of the government of the United States, from the
first meeting of the Continental Congress in 1774 to the present time,
taken together, would not suffer, in respect to the talent with which it
has been conducted, by comparison with anything which other and older
governments can produce; and to the attainment of this respectability
and distinction Mr. Jefferson has contributed his full part.
[Sidenote: Vice-President, 1797-1801; President, 1801-1809.]
On the retirement of General Washington from the Presidency, and the
election of Mr. Adams to that office in 1797, he was chosen
Vice-President. While presiding in this capacity over the deliberations
of the Senate, he compiled and published a Manual of Parliamentary
Practice, a work of more labor and more merit than is indicated by its
size. It is now received as the general standard by which proceedings
are regulated, not only in both Houses of Congress, but in most of the
other legislative bodies in the country. In 1801 he was elected
President, in opposition to Mr. Adams, and re-elected in 1805, by a vote
approaching towards unanimity.
From the time of his final retirement from public life, in 1809, Mr.
Jefferson lived as became a wise man. Surrounded by affectionate
friends, his ardor in the pursuit of knowledge undiminished, with
uncommon health and unbroken spirits, he was able to enjoy largely the
rational pleasures of life, and to partake in that public prosperity
which he had so much contributed to produce. His kindness and
hospitality, the charm of his conversation, the ease of his manners, the
extent of his acquirements, and, especially, the full store of
Revolutionary incidents which he had treasured in his memory, and which
he knew when and how to dispense, rendered his abode in a high degree
attractive to his admiring countrymen, while his high public and
scientific character drew towards him every intelligent and educated
traveller from abroad. Both Mr. Adams and Mr. Jefferson had the pleasure
of knowing that the respect which they so largely received was not paid
to their official stations. They were not men made great by office; but
great men, on whom the country for its own benefit had conferred
office. There was that in them which office did not give, and which the
relinquishment of office did not, and could not, take away. In their
retirement, in the midst of their fellow-citizens, themselves private
citizens, they enjoyed as high regard and esteem as when filling the
most important places of public trust.
[Sidenote: Establishes the University of Virginia.]
There remained to Mr. Jefferson yet one other work of patriotism and
beneficence, the establishment of a university in his native State. To
this object he devoted years of incessant and anxious attention, and by
the enlightened liberality of the Legislature of Virginia, and the
co-operation of other able and zealous friends, he lived to see it
accomplished. May all success attend this infant seminary; and may those
who enjoy its advantages, as often as their eyes shall rest on the
neighboring height, recollect what they owe to their disinterested and
indefatigable benefactor; and may letters honor him who thus labored in
the cause of letters![22]
Thus useful, and thus respected, passed the old age of Thomas Jefferson.
But time was on its ever-ceaseless wing, and was now bringing the last
hour of this illustrious man. He saw its approach with undisturbed
serenity. He counted the moments as they passed, and beheld that his
last sands were falling. That day, too, was at hand which he had helped
to make immortal. One wish, one hope, if it were not presumptuous, beat
in his fainting breast. Could it be so, might it please God, he would
desire once more to see the sun, once more to look abroad on the scene
around him, on the great day of liberty. Heaven, in its mercy, fulfilled
that prayer. He saw that sun; he enjoyed its sacred light; he thanked
God for this mercy, and bowed his aged head to the grave. "Felix, non
vitæ tantum claritate, sed etiam opportunitate mortis."[23]
The last public labor of Mr. Jefferson naturally suggests the expression
of the high praise which is due, both to him and to Mr. Adams, for their
uniform and zealous attachment to learning, and to the cause of general
knowledge. Of the advantages of learning, indeed, and of literary
accomplishments, their own characters were striking recommendations and
illustrations. They were scholars, ripe and good scholars; widely
acquainted with ancient as well as modern literature, and not altogether
uninstructed in the deeper sciences. Their acquirements, doubtless, were
different, and so were the particular objects of their literary
pursuits; as their tastes and characters, in these respects, differed
like those of other men. Being, also, men of busy lives, with great
objects requiring action constantly before them, their attainments in
letters did not become showy or obtrusive. Yet I would hazard the
opinion that if we could now ascertain all the causes which gave them
eminence and distinction in the midst of the great men with whom they
acted, we should find not among the least their early acquisitions in
literature, the resources which it furnished, the promptitude and
facility which it communicated, and the wide field it opened for analogy
and illustration; giving them thus, on every subject, a larger view and
a broader range, as well for discussion as for the government of their
own conduct.
Fellow-citizens, I will detain you no longer by this faint and feeble
tribute to the memory of the illustrious dead. Even in other hands
adequate justice could not be done to them, within the limits of this
occasion. Their highest, their best praise is your deep conviction of
their merits, your affectionate gratitude for their labors and their
services. It is not my voice, it is this cessation of ordinary pursuits,
this arresting of all attention, these solemn ceremonies, and this
crowded house, which speak their eulogy. Their fame, indeed, is safe.
That is now treasured up beyond the reach of accident. Although no
sculptured marble should rise to their memory, nor engraved stone bear
record of their deeds, yet will their remembrance be as lasting as the
land they honored. Marble columns may, indeed, moulder into dust; time
may erase all impress from the crumbling stone; but their fame remains;
for with American Liberty it rose, and with American Liberty only can it
perish. It was the last swelling peal of yonder choir: "Their bodies are
buried in peace, but their name liveth evermore." I catch that solemn
song, I echo that lofty strain of funeral triumph, "Their name liveth
evermore."
[Sidenote: Charles Carroll, in 1826 the last of the signers of the
Declaration.]
Of the illustrious signers of the Declaration of Independence there now
remains only Charles Carroll. He seems an aged oak, standing alone on
the plain, which time has spared a little longer after all its
contemporaries have been levelled with the dust. Venerable object! we
delight to gather round its trunk, while yet it stands, and to dwell
beneath its shadow. Sole survivor of an assembly of as great men as the
world has witnessed, in a transaction one of the most important that
history records, what thoughts, what interesting reflections, must fill
his elevated and devout soul! If he dwell on the past, how touching its
recollections; if he survey the present, how happy, how joyous, how full
of the fruition of that hope which his ardent patriotism indulged; if he
glance at the future, how does the prospect of his country's advancement
almost bewilder his weakened conception! Fortunate, distinguished
patriot! Interesting relic of the past! Let him know that, while we
honor the dead, we do not forget the living; and that there is not a
heart here which does not fervently pray that Heaven may keep him yet
back from the society of his companions.
[Sidenote: America's debt to the fathers.]
And now, fellow-citizens, let us not retire from this occasion without a
deep and solemn conviction of the duties which have devolved upon us.
This lovely land, this glorious liberty, these benign institutions, the
dear purchase of our fathers, are ours; ours to enjoy, ours to preserve,
ours to transmit. Generations past and generations to come hold us
responsible for this sacred trust. Our fathers, from behind, admonish
us, with their anxious paternal voices; posterity calls out to us, from
the bosom of the future; the world turns hither its solicitous eyes;
all, all conjure us to act wisely, and faithfully, in the relation which
we sustain. We can never, indeed, pay the debt which is upon us; but by
virtue, by morality, by religion, by the cultivation of every good
principle and every good habit, we may hope to enjoy the blessing,
through our day, and to leave it unimpaired to our children. Let us feel
deeply how much of what we are and of what we possess we owe to this
liberty, and to these institutions of government. Nature has, indeed,
given us a soil which yields bounteously to the hand of industry; the
mighty and fruitful ocean is before us; and the skies over our heads
shed health and vigor. But what are lands, and seas, and skies to
civilized man, without society, without knowledge, without morals,
without religious culture; and how can these be enjoyed, in all their
extent and all their excellence, but under the protection of wise
institutions and a free government? Fellow-citizens, there is not one of
us, there is not one of us here present, who does not, at this moment,
and at every moment, experience, in his own condition, and in the
condition of those most near and dear to him, the influence and the
benefits of this liberty and these institutions. Let us then acknowledge
the blessing, let us feel it deeply and powerfully, let us cherish a
strong affection for it, and resolve to maintain and perpetuate it. The
blood of our fathers, let it not have been shed in vain; the great hope
of posterity, let it not be blasted.
The striking attitude, too, in which we stand to the world around us, a
topic to which, I fear, I advert too often and dwell on too long, cannot
be altogether omitted here. Neither individuals nor nations can perform
their part well until they understand and feel its importance, and
comprehend and justly appreciate all the duties belonging to it. It is
not to inflate national vanity, nor to swell a light and empty feeling
of self-importance, but it is that we may judge justly of our situation,
and of our own duties, that I earnestly urge upon you this consideration
of our position and our character among the nations of the earth. It
cannot be denied, but by those who would dispute against the sun, that
with America, and in America, a new era commences in human affairs.
This era is distinguished by free representative governments, by entire
religious liberty, by improved systems of national intercourse, by a
newly awakened and an unconquerable spirit of free inquiry, and by a
diffusion of knowledge through the community, such as has been before
altogether unknown and unheard of. America, America, our country,
fellow-citizens, our own dear and native land, is inseparably connected,
fast bound up, in fortune and by fate, with these great interests. If
they fall, we fall with them; if they stand, it will be because we have
maintained them. Let us contemplate, then, this connection, which binds
the prosperity of others to our own; and let us manfully discharge all
the duties which it imposes. If we cherish the virtues and the
principles of our fathers, Heaven will assist us to carry on the work of
human liberty and human happiness. Auspicious omens cheer us. Great
examples are before us. Our own firmament now shines brightly upon our
path. Washington is in the clear, upper sky. These other stars have now
joined the American constellation; they circle round their centre, and
the heavens beam with new light. Beneath this illumination let us walk
the course of life, and at its close devoutly commend our beloved
country, the common parent of us all, to the Divine Benignity.[24]
THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE[25]
FROM AN ARGUMENT ON THE TRIAL OF JOHN FRANCIS KNAPP, AT SALEM,
MASSACHUSETTS, AUG. 3, 1830
Gentlemen, it is a most extraordinary case. In some respects, it has
hardly a precedent anywhere; certainly none in our New England history.
This bloody drama exhibited no suddenly excited, ungovernable rage. The
actors in it were not surprised by any lion-like temptation springing
upon their virtue, and overcoming it, before resistance could begin. Nor
did they do the deed to glut savage vengeance, or satiate long-settled
and deadly hate. It was a cool, calculating, money-making murder. It was
all "hire and salary, not revenge." It was the weighing of money against
life; the counting out of so many pieces of silver against so many
ounces of blood.
An aged man, without an enemy in the world, in his own house, and in his
own bed, is made the victim of a butcherly murder, for mere pay. Truly,
here is a new lesson for painters and poets. Whoever shall hereafter
draw the portrait of murder, if he will show it as it has been
exhibited, where such example was last to have been looked for, in the
very bosom of our New England society, let him not give it the grim
visage of Moloch, the brow knitted by revenge, the face black with
settled hate, and the bloodshot eye emitting livid fires of malice. Let
him draw, rather, a decorous, smooth-faced, bloodless demon; a picture
in repose, rather than in action; not so much an example of human nature
in its depravity, and in its paroxysms of crime, as an infernal being, a
fiend, in the ordinary display and development of his character.
The deed was executed with a degree of self-possession and steadiness
equal to the wickedness with which it was planned. The circumstances now
clearly in evidence spread out the whole scene before us. Deep sleep had
fallen on the destined victim, and on all beneath his roof. A healthful
old man, to whom sleep was sweet, the first sound slumbers of the night
held him in their soft but strong embrace. The assassin enters, through
the window already prepared, into an unoccupied apartment. With
noiseless foot he paces the lonely hall, half lighted by the moon; he
winds up the ascent of the stairs, and reaches the door of the chamber.
Of this, he moves the lock, by soft and continued pressure, till it
turns on its hinges without noise; and he enters, and beholds his victim
before him. The room is uncommonly open to the admission of light. The
face of the innocent sleeper is turned from the murderer, and the beams
of the moon, resting on the gray locks of his aged temple, show him
where to strike. The fatal blow is given! and the victim passes, without
a struggle or a motion, from the repose of sleep to the repose of death!
It is the assassin's purpose to make sure work; and he plies the dagger,
though it is obvious that life has been destroyed by the blow of the
bludgeon. He even raises the aged arm, that he may not fail in his aim
at the heart, and replaces it again over the wounds of the poniard! To
finish the picture, he explores the wrist for the pulse! He feels for
it, and ascertains that it beats no longer! It is accomplished. The deed
is done. He retreats, retraces his steps to the window, passes out
through it as he came in, and escapes. He has done the murder. No eye
has seen him, no ear has heard him. The secret is his own, and it is
safe!
[Sidenote: "Murder will out."]
Ah! gentlemen, that was a dreadful mistake. Such a secret can be safe
nowhere. The whole creation of God has neither nook nor corner where the
guilty can bestow it, and say it is safe. Not to speak of that eye which
pierces through all disguises, and beholds everything as in the splendor
of noon, such secrets of guilt are never safe from detection, even by
men. True it is, generally speaking, that "murder will out." True it is,
that Providence hath so ordained, and doth so govern things, that those
who break the great law of Heaven by shedding man's blood seldom succeed
in avoiding discovery. Especially, in a case exciting so much attention
as this, discovery must come, and will come, sooner or later. A
thousand eyes turn at once to explore every man, every thing, every
circumstance, connected with the time and place; a thousand ears catch
every whisper; a thousand excited minds intensely dwell on the scene,
shedding all their light, and ready to kindle the slightest circumstance
into a blaze of discovery. Meantime the guilty soul cannot keep its own
secret. It is false to itself; or, rather, it feels an irresistible
impulse of conscience to be true to itself. It labors under its guilty
possession, and knows not what to do with it. The human heart was not
made for the residence of such an inhabitant. It finds itself preyed on
by a torment, which it dares not acknowledge to God or man. A vulture is
devouring it, and it can ask no sympathy or assistance, either from
heaven or earth. The secret which the murderer possesses soon comes to
possess him; and, like the evil spirits of which we read, it overcomes
him, and leads him whithersoever it will. He feels it beating at his
heart, rising to his throat, and demanding disclosure. He thinks the
whole world sees it in his face, reads it in his eyes, and almost hears
its workings in the very silence of his thoughts. It has become his
master. It betrays his discretion, it breaks down his courage, it
conquers his prudence. When suspicions from without begin to embarrass
him, and the net of circumstance to entangle him, the fatal secret
struggles with still greater violence to burst forth. It must be
confessed, it will be confessed; there is no refuge from confession but
suicide, and suicide is confession.
THE REPLY TO HAYNE
FROM THE SECOND SPEECH ON FOOT'S RESOLUTION, DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF
THE UNITED STATES, JAN. 26 AND 27, 1830[26]
MR. PRESIDENT,--When the mariner has been tossed for many days in thick
weather, and on an unknown sea, he naturally avails himself of the first
pause in the storm, the earliest glance of the sun, to take his
latitude, and ascertain how far the elements have driven him from his
true course. Let us imitate this prudence, and, before we float farther
on the waves of this debate, refer to the point from which we departed,
that we may at least be able to conjecture where we now are. I ask for
the reading of the resolution before the Senate.
[Sidenote: The resolution which caused the debate]
[The Secretary read the resolution, as follows:--
"_Resolved_, That the Committee on Public Lands be instructed to inquire
and report the quantity of public lands remaining unsold within each
State and Territory, and whether it be expedient to limit for a certain
period the sales of the public lands to such lands only as have
heretofore been offered for sale, and are now subject to entry at the
minimum price. And, also, whether the office of Surveyor-General, and
some of the land offices, may not be abolished without detriment to the
public interest; or whether it be expedient to adopt measures to hasten
the sales and extend more rapidly the surveys of the public lands."]
We have thus heard, Sir, what the resolution is which is actually before
us for consideration; and it will readily occur to every one, that it is
almost the only subject about which something has not been said in the
speech, running through two days, by which the Senate has been
entertained by the gentleman from South Carolina. Every topic in the
wide range of our public affairs, whether past or present,--everything,
general or local, whether belonging to national politics or party
politics,--seems to have attracted more or less of the honorable
member's attention, save only the resolution before the Senate. He has
spoken of everything but the public lands; they have escaped his notice.
To that subject, in all his excursions, he has not paid even the cold
respect of a passing glance.
[Sidenote: Hayne's "return-shot."]
When this debate, Sir, was to be resumed, on Thursday morning, it so
happened that it would have been convenient for me to be elsewhere. The
honorable member, however, did not incline to put off the discussion to
another day. He had a shot, he said, to return, and he wished to
discharge it. That shot, Sir, which he thus kindly informed us was
coming, that we might stand out of the way, or prepare ourselves to fall
by it and die with decency, has now been received. Under all advantages,
and with expectation awakened by the tone which preceded it, it has been
discharged, and has spent its force. It may become me to say no more of
its effect than that, if nobody is found, after all, either killed or
wounded, it is not the first time, in the history of human affairs, that
the vigor and success of the war have not quite come up to the lofty and
sounding phrase of the manifesto.
The gentleman, Sir, in declining to postpone the debate, told the
Senate, with the emphasis of his hand upon his heart, that there was
something rankling _here_, which he wished to relieve. [Mr. Hayne rose,
and disclaimed having used the word _rankling_.] It would not, Mr.
President, be safe for the honorable member to appeal to those around
him, upon the question whether he did in fact make use of that word. But
he may have been unconscious of it. At any rate, it is enough that he
disclaims it. But still, with or without the use of that particular
word, he had yet something _here_, he said, of which he wished to rid
himself by an immediate reply. In this respect, Sir, I have a great
advantage over the honorable gentleman. There is nothing _here_, Sir,
which gives me the slightest uneasiness; neither fear, nor anger, nor
that which is sometimes more troublesome than either, the consciousness
of having been in the wrong. There is nothing, either originating
_here_, or now received _here_ by the gentleman's shot. Nothing
originating here, for I had not the slightest feeling of unkindness
towards the honorable member. Some passages, it is true, had occurred
since our acquaintance in this body, which I could have wished might
have been otherwise; but I had used philosophy and forgotten them. I
paid the honorable member the attention of listening with respect to his
first speech; and when he sat down, though surprised, and I must even
say astonished, at some of his opinions, nothing was farther from my
intention than to commence any personal warfare. Through the whole of
the few remarks I made in answer, I avoided, studiously and carefully,
everything which I thought possible to be construed into disrespect.
And, Sir, while there is thus nothing originating _here_ which I have
wished at any time, or now wish, to discharge, I must repeat, also, that
nothing has been received _here_ which _rankles_, or in any way gives me
annoyance. I will not accuse the honorable member of violating the rules
of civilized war; I will not say that he poisoned his arrows. But
whether his shafts were or were not dipped in that which would have
caused rankling if they had reached their destination, there was not, as
it happened, quite strength enough in the bow to bring them to their
mark. If he wishes now to gather up those shafts, he must look for them
elsewhere; they will not be found fixed and quivering in the object at
which they were aimed.
[Illustration: THE REPLY TO HAYNE]
The honorable member complained that I had slept on his speech. I must
have slept on it, or not slept at all. The moment the honorable member
sat down, his friend from Missouri rose, and, with much honeyed
commendation of the speech, suggested that the impressions which it had
produced were too charming and delightful to be disturbed by other
sentiments or other sounds, and proposed that the Senate should adjourn.
Would it have been quite amiable in me, Sir, to interrupt this excellent
good feeling? Must I not have been absolutely malicious, if I could have
thrust myself forward, to destroy sensations thus pleasing? Was it not
much better and kinder, both to sleep upon them myself, and to allow
others also the pleasure of sleeping upon them? But if it be meant, by
sleeping upon his speech, that I took time to prepare a reply to it, it
is quite a mistake. Owing to other engagements, I could not employ even
the interval between the adjournment of the Senate and its meeting the
next morning, in attention to the subject of this debate. Nevertheless,
Sir, the mere matter of fact is undoubtedly true. I did sleep on the
gentleman's speech, and slept soundly. And I slept equally well on his
speech of yesterday, to which I am now replying. It is quite possible
that in this respect, also, I possess some advantage over the honorable
member, attributable, doubtless, to a cooler temperament on my part;
for, in truth, I slept upon his speeches remarkably well.
[Illustration: _Thomas H. Benton._]
[Sidenote: Thomas H. Benton's part in the debate.]
But the gentleman inquires why _he_ was made the object of such a reply.
Why was _he_ singled out? If an attack has been made on the East, he, he
assures us, did not begin it; it was made by the gentleman from
Missouri. Sir, I answered the gentleman's speech because I happened to
hear it; and because, also, I chose to give an answer to that speech,
which, if unanswered, I thought most likely to produce injurious
impressions. I did not stop to inquire who was the original drawer of
the bill. I found a responsible indorser before me, and it was my
purpose to hold him liable, and to bring him to his just responsibility,
without delay. But, Sir, this interrogatory of the honorable member was
only introductory to another. He proceeded to ask me whether I had
turned upon him, in this debate, from the consciousness that I should
find an overmatch, if I ventured on a contest with his friend from
Missouri. If, Sir, the honorable member, _modestiæ gratia_, had chosen
thus to defer to his friend, and to pay him a compliment, without
intentional disparagement to others, it would have been quite according
to the friendly courtesies of debate, and not at all ungrateful to my
own feelings. I am not one of those, Sir, who esteem any tribute of
regard, whether light and occasional, or more serious and deliberate,
which may be bestowed on others, as so much unjustly withholden from
themselves. But the tone and manner of the gentleman's question forbid
me thus to interpret it. I am not at liberty to consider it as nothing
more than a civility to his friend. It had an air of taunt and
disparagement, something of the loftiness of asserted superiority, which
does not allow me to pass it over without notice. It was put as a
question for me to answer, and so put as if it were difficult for me to
answer, whether I deemed the member from Missouri an overmatch for
myself in debate here. It seems to me, Sir, that this is extraordinary
language, and an extraordinary tone, for the discussions of this body.
[Sidenote: A Senate of equals.]
Matches and overmatches! Those terms are more applicable elsewhere than
here, and fitter for other assemblies than this. Sir, the gentleman
seems to forget where and what we are. This is a Senate, a Senate of
equals, of men of individual honor and personal character, and of
absolute independence. We know no masters, we acknowledge no dictators.
This is a hall for mutual consultation and discussion; not an arena for
the exhibition of champions. I offer myself, Sir, as a match for no man;
I throw the challenge of debate at no man's feet. But then, Sir, since
the honorable member has put the question in a manner that calls for an
answer, I will give him an answer; and I tell him, that, holding myself
to be the humblest of the members here, I yet know nothing in the arm of
his friend from Missouri, either alone or when aided by the arm of _his_
friend from South Carolina, that need deter even me from espousing
whatever opinions I may choose to espouse, from debating whenever I may
choose to debate, or from speaking whatever I may see fit to say, on the
floor of the Senate. Sir, when uttered as matter of commendation or
compliment, I should dissent from nothing which the honorable member
might say of his friend. Still less do I put forth any pretensions of my
own. But when put to me as matter of taunt, I throw it back, and say to
the gentleman that he could possibly say nothing less likely than such a
comparison to wound my pride of personal character. The anger of its
tone rescued the remark from intentional irony, which otherwise,
probably, would have been its general acceptation. But, Sir, if it be
imagined that, by this mutual quotation and commendation; if it be
supposed that, by casting the characters of the drama, assigning to each
his part,--to one the attack, to another the cry of onset; or if it be
thought that, by a loud and empty vaunt of anticipated victory, any
laurels are to be won here; if it be imagined, especially, that any or
all these things will shake any purpose of mine, I can tell the
honorable member, once for all, that he is greatly mistaken, and that he
is dealing with one of whose temper and character he has yet much to
learn. Sir, I shall not allow myself, on this occasion, I hope on no
occasion, to be betrayed into any loss of temper; but if provoked, as I
trust I never shall be, into crimination and recrimination, the
honorable member may perhaps find, that, in that contest, there will be
blows to take as well as blows to give; that others can state
comparisons as significant, at least, as his own; and that his impunity
may possibly demand of him whatever powers of taunt and sarcasm he may
possess. I commend him to a prudent husbandry of his resources.
[Illustration: _John Quincy Adams._]
[Sidenote: The "Coalition".]
But, Sir, the Coalition![27] The Coalition! Ay, "the murdered
Coalition!" The gentleman asks if I were led or frighted into this
debate by the spectre of the Coalition. "Was it the ghost of the
murdered Coalition," he exclaims, "which haunted the member from
Massachusetts; and which, like the ghost of Banquo, would never down?"
"The murdered Coalition!" Sir, this charge of a coalition, in reference
to the late administration, is not original with the honorable member.
It did not spring up in the Senate. Whether as a fact, as an argument,
or as an embellishment, it is all borrowed. He adopts it, indeed, from a
very low origin, and a still lower present condi
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