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Select Speeches of Daniel Webster, 1817-1845

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Title: Select Speeches of Daniel Webster, 1817-1845

Author: Daniel Webster

Editor: Andrew Jackson George


        
Release date: February 1, 2005 [eBook #7600]
                Most recently updated: March 25, 2014

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SELECT SPEECHES OF DANIEL WEBSTER, 1817-1845 ***




Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon, Jerry
Fairbanks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.











SELECT SPEECHES OF DANIEL WEBSTER

1817-1845

WITH PREFACE, INTRODUCTION, AND NOTES BY

A. J. GEORGE, A.M.

Instructor in Rhetoric and English Literature in the Newton, Mass.,
High School


            "The front of Jove himself;
  An eye like Mars to threaten and command;
  A combination and a form indeed,
  Where every god did seem to set his seal,
  To give the world assurance of a man"


  Boston, U.S.A.
  D.C. Heath & Co., Publishers
  1903



  TO
  THE HON. GEORGE F. HOAR, LL.D.
  A WORTHY SUCCESSOR OF
  DANIEL WEBSTER
  IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES




  Blest Statesman He, whose Mind's unselfish will
  Leaves him at ease among grand thoughts: whose eye
  Sees that, apart from magnanimity,
  Wisdom exists not; nor the humbler skill
  Of Prudence, disentangling good and ill
  With patient care. What tho' assaults run high,
  They daunt not him who holds his ministry,
  Resolute, at all hazards, to fulfil
  Its duties; prompt to move, but firm to wait;
  Knowing, things rashly sought are rarely found;
  That, for the functions of an ancient State--
  Strong by her charters, free because imbound,
  Servant of Providence, not slave of Fate--
  Perilous is sweeping change, all chance unsound.




Preface.



Burke and Webster are models in the forensic literature of our own
language as truly as are Demosthenes and Cicero in the language of the
ancient classics. Each has distinct and inimitable characteristics
which give force and beauty to his work. The study of each should be
ordered in such a way as to put one in touch with those qualities of
mind and heart, of intellectual and moral manhood, by which each became
a leader in political philosophy and a model in literary style. One who
studies such authors in order to formulate a historical or a personal
estimate merely, or to compare each as to certain externals of
rhetorical form, has lost the true perspective of literary judgment.

Reading in the school and in the home is far too often pursued with a
purpose to controvert and prove rather than to weigh and consider.
Reading which does not result in enlarging, stimulating, and refining
one's nature is but a busy idleness. The schools must see to it that
the desultory and dissipating methods of reading, so prevalent in the
home, are not encouraged. Pupils must be stimulated first of all to
enjoy what is beautiful in nature and in art: for here is

  "A world of ready wealth,
  Their minds and hearts to bless--
  Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,
  Truth breathed by cheerfulness."

The wisdom of the classroom is too often "art tongue-tied by
authority," and hence it is not wisdom at all, but a sham and a
pretence. Not until pupils rise to the spontaneity which betokens a
genuine love for the work in hand do they secure the richest results.

The publication of the masterpieces of the epic, the lyric, and the
drama; of the novel, the essay, and the oration, in a convenient form
and at such a price as to bring them within the reach of our schools,
makes it inexcusable if pupils are allowed to be ignorant of the great
literary, ethical, and artistic impulses which have touched and
quickened the life of the past.

Burke's _American Orations_ present him at his best as a statesman, an
orator, and a stylist. When the edition of those speeches was prepared,
a selection from Webster's great speeches was contemplated as a
companion volume. The present edition represents Webster in the various
and distinct fields in which his genius manifested itself so powerfully
and so nobly. He is here seen before a jury, before the Supreme Court
of the United States, on a great historical occasion, in the Senate of
the United States, in a great national canvass, and as a eulogist.

Had it not been for making the volume too large for school use I should
have included the famous speech delivered in the Senate on the 7th of
March, 1850. This speech has been considered by many as the _vulnus
immedicabile_ of Mr. Webster's political life; it is certain that for
it he was most rankly abused. "Massachusetts," as Hon. John D. Long has
said, "smote and broke the heart of Webster, her idol, and then broke
her own above his grave, and to-day writes his name highest upon her
roll of statesmen."

I find in this speech nothing but what is consistent with Mr. Webster's
noble adherence to the Constitution and the Union; nothing but what is
consistent with the solemn duty of a great man in a great national
crisis.

In his address at Buffalo on the 22d of May, 1851, he expressed himself
very freely in regard to this speech, saying: "I felt that I had a duty
to perform to my country, to my own reputation; for I flattered myself
that a service of forty years had given me some character, on which I
had a right to repose for my justification in the performance of a duty
attended with some degree of local unpopularity. I thought it was my
duty to pursue this course, and I did not care what was to be the
consequence. And, Gentlemen, allow me to say here to-day, that if the
fate of John Rogers had stared me in the face, if I had seen the stake,
if I had heard the fagots already crackling, by the blessing of
Almighty God I would have gone on and discharged the duty which I
thought my country called upon me to perform."

Does this seem the language of one who had abandoned his post and was
merely "bidding for the Presidency"?

The address of Hon. Rufus Choate, before the students of Dartmouth
College, commemorative of Daniel Webster, has a remark on this subject
so just that I cannot refrain from quoting it. He says: "Until the
accuser who charges Mr. Webster with having 'sinned against his
conscience' will assert that the conscience of a public man may not,
must not, be instructed by profound knowledge of the vast
subject-matter with which public life is conversant, and will assert
that he is certain that the consummate science of our great statesman
was _felt by himself to prescribe to his morality_ another conduct than
that which he adopted, and that he thus consciously outraged that
'sense of duty which pursues us ever,'--is he not inexcusable, whoever
he is, that so judges another?"

At the meeting held in Faneuil Hall, Oct. 27, 1852, commemorative of
Mr. Webster's life and work, Mr. Edward Everett said: "Whoever, in
after time, shall write the history of the United States for the last
forty years will write the life of Daniel Webster; and whoever writes
the life of Daniel Webster as it ought to be written will write the
history of the Union from the time he took a leading part in its
concerns." Mr. Choate, at a meeting of the Supreme Court of
Massachusetts, Oct. 25, 1852, said: "Happier than the younger Pliny,
happier than Cicero, he has found his historian, unsolicited, in his
lifetime, and his countrymen have him all by heart."

If this volume shall aid in bringing the young of this generation "to
have him all by heart," to ascend his imaginative heights and sit under
the shadow of his profound reflections on that which is fundamental in
civil and religious liberty, its purpose will be accomplished.

With few exceptions these selections are given entire. Whenever they
have been abridged, the continuity of the discourse has not been
impaired.

In the matter of annotation the purpose has been to furnish sufficient
aid to the general reader, and at the same time to indicate to the
special student lines along which he may study the speeches.

In Edward Everett's Memoir, found in the first volume of Mr. Webster's
works; in the life of Mr. Webster by George Tichnor Curtis, and in
Henry Cabot Lodge's _Daniel Webster_, in the American Statesman Series,
the student has exhaustive, scholarly, and judicious estimates of Mr.
Webster's work.

I am indebted to the Hon. George F. Hoar and the Hon. Edward J. Phelps
for assistance in the task of selecting representative speeches; and to
the former for permission to associate his name with this edition of
Mr. Webster's work.

A. J. G.

Brookline, November, 1892.




Introduction.



Mr. Webster approaches as nearly to the _beau ideal_ of a republican
Senator as any man that I have ever seen in the course of my life;
worthy of Rome or Venice rather than of our noisy and wrangling
generation.--Hallam.

Coleridge used to say that he had seldom known or heard of any great
man who had not much of the woman in him. Even so the large intellect
of Daniel Webster seemed to be coupled with all softer feelings; and
his countenance and bearing, at the very first, impressed me with this.
A commanding brow, thoughtful eyes, and a mouth that seemed to respond
to all humanities. He deserves his fame, I am sure.--John Kenyon.

He is a magnificent specimen. You might say to all the world, "This is
our Yankee Englishman; such limbs we make in Yankee-land!" As a
parliamentary Hercules one would incline to back him at first sight
against all the extant world. The tanned complexion; that amorphous
craglike face; the dull black eyes under the precipice of brows, like
dull anthracite furnaces needing only to be _blown_; the mastiff mouth,
accurately closed; I have not traced so much of _silent Berserkir rage_
that I remember of in any other man.--Thomas Carlyle.

When the historian shall look back upon the first century of the
American Republic, the two names that will shine with most unfading
lustre and the serenest glory, high above all others, are Washington
and Webster.--Professor Felton.

Consider the remarkable phenomenon of excellence in three unkindred,
one might have thought incompatible, forms of public speech,--that of
the forum, with its double audience of bench and jury, of the halls of
legislation, and of the most thronged and tumultuous assemblies of the
people. Consider, further, that this multiform eloquence, exactly as
his words fell, became at once so much accession to permanent
literature in the strictest sense,--solid, attractive, rich,--and ask
how often in the history of public life such a thing has been
exemplified.--Rufus Choate.

The noblest monument to Daniel Webster is in his works. As a repository
of political truth and practical wisdom, applied to the affairs of
government, I know not where we shall find their equal. The works of
Burke naturally suggest themselves to the mind, as the only writings in
our language that can sustain the comparison.--Edward Everett.

He writes like a man who is thinking of his subject, and not of his
style, and thus he wastes no time upon the mere garb of his thoughts.
His style is Doric, not Corinthian. His sentences are like shafts hewn
from the granite of his own hills,--simple, massive, strong. We may
apply to him what Quinctilian says of Cicero, that a relish for his
writings is itself a mark of good taste.--George S. Hillard.

He taught the people of the United States, in the simplicity of common
understanding, the principles of the Constitution and government of the
country, and he wrought for them, in a style of matchless strength and
beauty, the literature of statesmanship. He made his language the very
household words of a nation. They are the library of the people. They
are the school-book of the citizen.--John D. Long.

Take him for all in all, he was not only the greatest orator this
country has ever known, but in the history of eloquence his name will
stand with those of Demosthenes and Cicero, Chatham and Burke.--Henry
Cabot Lodge.

It may be said that the style of Webster is pre-eminently distinguished
by manliness. The intellect and moral manliness of Webster underlies
all his great orations and speeches; and this plain force of manhood,
this sturdy grapple with every question that comes before his
understanding for settlement, leads him to reject all the meretricious
aids and ornaments of mere rhetoric, and is prominent, among the many
exceptional qualities of his large nature, which have given him a high
position among the prose-writers of his country as a consummate master
of English style.--Edwin P. Whipple.

His broad, wise statesmanship is to be the ample and refreshing shade,
his character the bright and breezy presence, in which all the members
of this great and illustrious Republic may meet and sit down and feast
together.--H. N. Hudson.




Contents.



  Defence of the Kennistons
  The Dartmouth College Case
  First Settlement of New England
  The Bunker Hill Monument
  The Reply to Hayne
  The Murder of Captain Joseph White
  The Constitution Not a Compact Between Sovereign States
  Speech at Saratoga
  Eulogy on Mr. Justice Story
  Biographical
  Notes




Defence of the Kennistons.



Gentlemen of the Jury,--It is true that the offence charged in the
indictment in this case is not capital; but perhaps this can hardly be
considered as favorable to the defendants. To those who are guilty, and
without hope of escape, no doubt the lightness of the penalty of
transgression gives consolation. But if the defendants are innocent, it
is more natural for them to be thinking upon what they have lost by
that alteration of the law which has left highway robbery no longer
capital, than upon what the guilty might gain by it. They have lost
those great privileges in their trial, which the law allows, in capital
cases, for the protection of innocence against unfounded accusation.
They have lost the right of being previously furnished with a copy of
the indictment, and a list of the government witnesses. They have lost
the right of peremptory challenge; and, notwithstanding the prejudices
which they know have been excited against them, they must show legal
cause of challenge, in each individual case, or else take the jury as
they find it. They have lost the benefit of assignment of counsel by
the court. They have lost the benefit of the Commonwealth's process to
bring in witnesses in their behalf. When to these circumstances it is
added that they are strangers, almost wholly without friends, and
without the means for preparing their defence, it is evident they must
take their trial under great disadvantages.

But without dwelling on these considerations, I proceed, Gentlemen of
the Jury, to ask your attention to those circumstances which cannot but
cast doubts on the story of the prosecutor.

In the first place, it is impossible to believe that a robbery of this
sort could have been committed by three or four men without previous
arrangement and concert, and of course without the knowledge of the
fact that Goodridge would be there, and that he had money. They did not
go on the highway, in such a place, in a cold December's night, for the
general purpose of attacking the first passenger, running the chance of
his being somebody who had money. It is not easy to believe that a gang
of robbers existed, that they acted systematically, communicating
intelligence to one another, and meeting and dispersing as occasion
required, and that this gang had their head-quarters in such a place as
Newburyport. No town is more distinguished for the general correctness
of the habits of its citizens; and it is of such a size that every man
in it may be known to all the rest. The pursuits, occupations, and
habits of every person within it are within the observation of his
neighbors. A suspicious stranger would be instantly observed, and all
his movements could be easily traced. This is not the place to be the
general rendezvous of a gang of robbers. Offenders of this sort hang on
the skirts of large towns. From the commission of their crimes they
hasten into the crowd, and hide themselves in the populousness of great
cities. If it be wholly improbable that a gang existed in such a place
for the purpose of general plunder, the next inquiry is, Is there any
reason to think that there was a special or particular combination, for
the single purpose of robbing the prosecutor? Now it is material to
observe, that not only is there no evidence of any such combination,
but also, that circumstances existed which render it next to impossible
that the defendants could have been parties to such a combination, or
even that they could have any knowledge of the existence of any such
man as Goodridge, or that any person, with money, was expected to come
from the eastward, and to be near Essex Bridge, at or about nine
o'clock, the evening when the robbery is said to have been committed.

One of the defendants had been for some weeks in Newburyport, the other
passed the bridge from New Hampshire at twelve o'clock on the 19th of
December, 1816. At this time, Goodridge had not yet arrived at Exeter,
twelve or fourteen miles from the bridge. How, then, could either of
the defendants know that he was coming? Besides, he says that nobody,
as far as he is aware, knew on the road that he had money, and nothing
happened till he reached Exeter, according to his account, from which
it might be conjectured that such was the case. Here, as he relates it,
it became known that he had pistols; and he must wish you to infer that
the plan to rob him was laid here, at Exeter, by some of the persons
who inferred that he had money from his being armed. Who were these
persons? Certainly not the defendants, or either of them. Certainly not
Taber. Certainly not Jackman. Were they persons of suspicious
characters? Was he in a house of a suspicious character? On this point
he gives us no information. He has either not taken the pains to
inquire, or he chooses not to communicate the result of his inquiries.
Yet nothing could be more important, since he seems compelled to lay
the scene of the plot against him at Exeter, than to know who the
persons were that he saw, or who saw him, at that place. On the face of
the facts now proved, nothing could be more improbable than that the
plan of robbery was concerted at Exeter. If so, why should those who
concerted it send forward to Newburyport to engage the defendants,
especially as they did not know that they were there? What should
induce any persons so suddenly to apply to the defendants to assist in
a robbery? There was nothing in their personal character or previous
history that should induce this.

Nor was there time for all this. If the prosecutor had not lingered on
the road, for reasons not yet discovered, he must have been in
Newburyport long before the time at which he states the robbery to have
been committed. How, then, could any one expect to leave Exeter, come
to Newburyport, fifteen miles, there look out for and find out
assistants for a highway robbery, and get back two miles to a
convenient place for the commission of the crime? That any body should
have undertaken to act thus is wholly improbable; and, in point of
fact, there is not the least proof of any body's travelling, that
afternoon, from Exeter to Newburyport, or of any person who was at the
tavern at Exeter having left it that afternoon. In all probability,
nothing of this sort could have taken place without being capable of
detection and proof. In every particular, the prosecutor has wholly
failed to show the least probability of a plan to rob him having been
laid at Exeter.

But how comes it that Goodridge was near or quite four hours and a half
in travelling a distance which might have been travelled in two hours
or two hours and a half. He says he missed his way, and went the
Salisbury road. But some of the jury know that this could not have
delayed him more than five or ten minutes. He ought to be able to give
some better account of this delay.

Failing, as he seems to do, to create any belief that a plan to rob him
was arranged at Exeter, the prosecutor goes back to Alfred, and says he
saw there a man whom Taber resembles. But Taber is proved to have been
at that time, and at the time of the robbery, in Boston. This is proved
beyond question. It is so certain, that the Solicitor-General has _nol
prossed_ the indictment against him.

There is an end, then, of all pretence of the adoption of a scheme of
robbery at Alfred. This leaves the prosecutor altogether unable to
point out any manner in which it should become known that he had money,
or in which a design to rob him should originate.

It is next to be considered whether the prosecutor's story is either
natural or consistent. But, on the threshold of the inquiry, every one
puts the question, What motive had the prosecutor to be guilty of the
abominable conduct of feigning a robbery? It is difficult to assign
motives. The jury do not know enough of his character or circumstances.
Such things have happened, and may happen again. Suppose he owed money
in Boston, and had it not to pay? Who knows how high he might estimate
the value of a plausible apology? Some men have also a whimsical
ambition of distinction. There is no end to the variety of modes in
which human vanity exhibits itself. A story of this nature excites the
public sympathy. It attracts general attention. It causes the name of
the prosecutor to be celebrated as a man who has been attacked, and,
after a manly resistance, overcome by robbers, and who has renewed his
resistance as soon as returning life and sensation enabled him, and,
after a second conflict, has been quite subdued, beaten and bruised out
of all sense and sensation, and finally left for dead on the field. It
is not easy to say how far such motives, trifling and ridiculous as
most men would think them, might influence the prosecutor, when
connected with any expectation of favor or indulgence, if he wanted
such, from his creditors. It is to be remembered that he probably did
not see all the consequences of his conduct, if his robbery be a
pretence. He might not intend to prosecute any body. But he probably
found, and indeed there is evidence to show, that it was necessary for
him to do something to find out the authors of the alleged robbery. He
manifested no particular zeal on this subject. He was in no haste. He
appears rather to have been pressed by others to do that which, if he
had really been robbed, we should suppose he would have been most
earnest to do, the earliest moment.

But could he so seriously wound himself? Could he or would he shoot a
pistol-bullet through his hand, in order to render the robbery
probable, and to obtain belief in his story? All exhibitions are
subject to accidents. Whether they are serious or farcical, they may,
in some particulars, not proceed exactly as they are designed to do. If
we knew that this shot through the hand, if made by himself, must have
been intentionally made by himself, it would be a circumstance of
greater weight. The bullet went through the sleeve of his coat. He
might have intended it should go through nothing else. It is quite
certain he did not receive the wound in the way he described. He says
he was pulling or thrusting aside the robber's pistol, and while his
hand was on it, it was fired, and the contents passed through his hand.
This could not have been so, because no part of the contents went
through the hand, except the ball. There was powder on the sleeve of
his coat, and from the appearance one would think the pistol to have
been three or four feet from the hand when fired. The fact of the
pistol-bullet being fired through the hand, is doubtless a circumstance
of importance. It may not be easy to account for it; but it is to be
weighed with other circumstances.

It is most extraordinary, that, in the whole case, the prosecutor
should prove hardly any fact in any way but by his own oath. He chooses
to trust every thing on his own credit with the jury. Had he the money
with him which he mentions? If so, his clerks or persons connected with
him in business must have known it; yet no witness is produced. Nothing
can be more important than to prove that he had the money. Yet he does
not prove it. Why should he leave this essential fact without further
support? He is not surprised with this defence, he knew what it would
be. He knew that nothing could be more important than to prove that, in
truth, he did possess the money which he says he lost; yet he does not
prove it. All that he saw, and all that he did, and everything that
occurred to him until the alleged robbery, rests solely on his own
credit. He does not see fit to corroborate any fact by the testimony of
any witness. So he went to New York to arrest Jackman. He did arrest
him. He swears positively that he found in his possession papers which
he lost at the time of the robbery; yet he neither produces the papers
themselves, nor the persons who assisted in the search.

In like manner, he represents his intercourse with Taber at Boston.
Taber, he says, made certain confessions. They made a bargain for a
disclosure or confession on one side, and a reward on the other. But no
one heard these confessions except Goodridge himself. Taber now
confronts him, and pronounces this part of his story to be wholly
false; and there is nobody who can support the prosecutor.

A jury cannot too seriously reflect on this part of the case. There are
many most important allegations of fact, which, if true, could easily
be shown by other witnesses, and yet are not so shown.

How came Mr. Goodridge to set out from Bangor, armed in this formal and
formidable manner? How came he to be so apprehensive of a robbery? The
reason he gives is completely ridiculous. As the foundation of his
alarm, he tells a story of a robbery which he had heard of, but which,
as far as appears, no one else ever heard of; and the story itself is
so perfectly absurd, it is difficult to resist the belief that it was
the product of his imagination at the moment. He seems to have been a
little too confident that an attempt would be made to rob him. The
manner in which he carried his money, as he says, indicated a strong
expectation of this sort. His gold he wrapped in a cambric cloth, put
it into a shot bag, and then into a portmanteau. One parcel of bills,
of a hundred dollars in amount, he put into his pocket-book; another,
of somewhat more than a thousand dollars, he carried next his person,
underneath all his clothes. Having disposed of his money in this way,
and armed himself with two good pistols, he set out from Bangor. The
jury will judge whether this extraordinary care of his money, and this
formal arming of himself to defend it, are not circumstances of a very
suspicious character.

He stated that he did not travel in the night; that he would not so
much expose himself to robbers. He said that, when he came near Alfred,
he did not go into the village, but stopped a few miles short, because
night was coming on, and he would not trust himself and his money out
at night. He represents himself to have observed this rule constantly
and invariably until he got to Exeter. Yet, when the time came for the
robbery, he was found out at night. He left Exeter about sunset,
intending to go to Newburyport, fifteen miles distant, that evening.
When he is asked how this should happen, he says he had no fear of
robbers after he left the District of Maine. He thought himself quite
safe when he arrived at Exeter. Yet he told the jury, that at Exeter he
thought it necessary to load his pistol afresh. He asked for a private
room at the inn. He told the persons in attendance that he wished such
a room for the purpose of changing his clothes. He charged them not to
suffer him to be interrupted. But he now testifies that his object was
not to change his dress, but to put new loading into his pistols. What
sort of a story is this?

He says he now felt himself out of all danger from robbers, and was
therefore willing to travel at night. At the same time, he thought
himself in very great danger from robbers, and therefore took the
utmost pains to keep his pistols well loaded and in good order. To
account for the pains he took about loading his pistols at Exeter, he
says it was his invariable practice, every day after he left Bangor, to
discharge and load again one or both of his pistols; that he never
missed doing this; that he avoided doing it at the inns, lest he should
create suspicion, but that he did it, while alone, on the road, every
day.

How far this is probable the jury will judge. It will be observed that
he gave up his habits of caution as he approached the place of the
robbery. He then loaded his pistols at the tavern, where persons might
and did see him; and he then also travelled in the night. He passed the
bridge over Merrimack River a few minutes before nine o'clock. He was
now at a part of his progress where he was within the observation of
other witnesses, and something could be known of him besides what he
told of himself. Immediately after him passed the two persons with
their wagons, Shaw and Keyser. Close upon them followed the mail-coach.
Now, these wagons and the mail must have passed within three rods, at
most, of Goodridge, at the very time of the robbery. They must have
been very near the spot, the very moment of the attack; and if he was
under the robbers' hands as long as he represents, or if they staid on
the spot long enough to do half what he says they did, they must have
been there when the wagons and the stage passed. At any rate, it is
next to impossible, by any computation of time, to put these carriages
so far from the spot, that the drivers should not have heard the cry of
murder, which he says he raised, or the report of the two pistols,
which he says were discharged. In three quarters of an hour, or an
hour, he returned, and repassed the bridge.

The jury will next naturally look to the appearances exhibited on the
field after the robbery. The portmanteau was there. The witnesses say,
that the straps which fastened it to the saddle had been neither cut
nor broken. They were carefully unbuckled. This was very considerate
for robbers. It had been opened, and its contents were scattered about
the field. The pocket-book, too, had been opened, and many papers it
contained found on the ground. Nothing valuable was lost but money. The
robbers did not think it well to go off at once with the portmanteau
and the pocket-book. The place was so secure, so remote, so
unfrequented; they were so far from the highway, at least one full rod;
there were so few persons passing, probably not more than four or five
then in the road, within hearing of the pistols and the cries of
Goodridge; there being, too, not above five or six dwelling-houses,
full of people, within the hearing of the report of a pistol; these
circumstances were all so favorable to their safety, that the robbers
sat down to look over the prosecutor's papers, carefully examined the
contents of his pocket-book and portmanteau, and took only the things
which they needed! There was money belonging to other persons. The
robbers did not take it. They found out it was not the prosecutor's,
and left it. It may be said to be favorable to the prosecutor's story,
that the money which did not belong to him, and the plunder of which
would seem to be the most probable inducement he could have to feign a
robbery, was not taken. But the jury will consider whether this
circumstance does not bear quite as strongly the other way, and whether
they can believe that robbers could have left this money, either from
accident or design.

The robbers, by Goodridge's account, were extremely careful to search
his person. Having found money in his portmanteau and in his
pocket-book, they still forthwith stripped him to the skin, and
searched until they found the sum which had been so carefully deposited
under his clothes. Was it likely, that, having found money in the
places where it is ordinarily carried, robbers should proceed to search
for more, where they had no reason to suppose more would be found?
Goodridge says that no person knew of his having put his bank-notes in
that situation. On the first attack, however, they proceeded to open
one garment after another, until they penetrated to the treasure, which
was beneath them all.

The testimony of Mr. Howard is material. He examined Goodridge's
pistol, which was found on the spot, and thinks it had not been fired
at all. If this be so, it would follow that the wound through the hand
was not made by this pistol; but then, as the pistol is now discharged,
if it had not been fired, he is not correct in swearing that he fired
it at the robbers, nor could it have been loaded at Exeter, as he
testified.

In the whole case, there is nothing, perhaps, more deserving
consideration, than the prosecutor's statement of the violence which
the robbers used towards him. He says he was struck with a heavy club,
on the back part of his head. He fell senseless to the ground. Three or
four rough-handed villains then dragged him to the fence, and through
it or over it, with such force as to break one of the boards. They then
plundered his money. Presently he came to his senses; perceived his
situation; saw one of the robbers sitting or standing near; he
valiantly sprung upon, and would have overcome him, but the ruffian
called out for his comrades, who returned, and all together they
renewed their attack upon, subdued him, and redoubled their violence.
They struck him heavy blows; they threw him violently to the ground;
they kicked him in the side; they choked him; one of them, to use his
own words, jumped upon his breast. They left him only when they
supposed they had killed him. He went back to Pearson's, at the bridge,
in a state of delirium, and it was several hours before his
recollection came to him. This is his account. Now, in point of fact,
it is certain that on no part of his person was there the least mark of
this beating and wounding. The blow on the head, which brought him
senseless to the ground, neither broke the skin, nor caused any tumor,
nor left any mark whatever. He fell from his horse on the frozen
ground, without any appearance of injury. He was drawn through or over
the fence with such force as to break the rail, but not so as to leave
any wound or scratch on him. A second time he is knocked down, kicked,
stamped upon, choked, and in every way abused and beaten till sense had
departed, and the breath of life hardly remained; and yet no wound,
bruise, discoloration, or mark of injury was found to result from all
this. Except the wound in his hand, and a few slight punctures in his
left arm, apparently made with his own penknife, which was found open
on the spot, there was no wound or mark which the surgeons, upon
repeated examinations, could anywhere discover. This is a story not to
be believed. No matter who tells it, it is so impossible to be true,
that all belief is set at defiance. No man can believe it. All this
tale of blows which left no marks, and of wounds which could not be
discovered, must be the work of imagination. If the jury can believe
that he was robbed, it is impossible they can believe his account of
the manner of it.

With respect, next, to delirium. The jury have heard the physicians.
Two of them have no doubt it was all feigned. Dr. Spofford spoke in a
more guarded manner, but it was very evident his opinion agreed with
theirs. In the height of his raving, the physician who was present said
to others, that he could find nothing the matter with the man, and that
his pulse was perfectly regular. But consider the facts which Dr. Balch
testifies. He suspected the whole of this illness and delirium to be
feigned. He wished to ascertain the truth. While he or others were
present, Goodridge appeared to be in the greatest pains and agony from
his wounds. He could not turn himself in bed, nor be turned by others,
without infinite distress. His mind, too, was as much disordered as his
body. He was constantly raving about robbery and murder. At length the
physicians and others withdrew, and left him alone in the room. Dr.
Balch returned softly to the door, which he had left partly open, and
there he had a full view of his patient, unobserved by him. Goodridge
was then very quiet. His incoherent exclamations had ceased. Dr. Balch
saw him turn over without inconvenience. Pretty soon he sat up in bed,
and adjusted his neckcloth and his hair. Then, hearing footsteps on the
staircase, he instantly sunk into the bed again; his pains all
returned, and he cried out against robbers and murderers as loud as
ever. Now, these facts are all sworn to by an intelligent witness, who
cannot be mistaken in them; a respectable physician, whose veracity or
accuracy is in no way impeached or questioned. After this, it is
difficult to retain any good opinion of the prosecutor. Robbed or not
robbed, this was his conduct; and such conduct necessarily takes away
all claim to sympathy and respect. The jury will consider whether it
does not also take away all right to be believed in anything. For if
they should be of opinion that in any one point he has intentionally
misrepresented facts, he can be believed in nothing. No man is to be
convicted on the testimony of a witness whom the jury has found
wilfully violating the truth in any particular.

The next part of the case is the conduct of the prosecutor in
attempting to find out the robbers, after he had recovered from his
illness. He suspected Mr. Pearson, a very honest, respectable man, who
keeps the tavern at the bridge. He searched his house and premises. He
sent for a conjuror to come, with his metallic rods and witch-hazel, to
find the stolen money. Goodridge says now, that he thought he should
find it, if the conjuror's instruments were properly prepared. He
professes to have full faith in the art. Was this folly, or fraud, or a
strange mixture of both? Pretty soon after the last search, gold pieces
were actually found near Mr. pearson's house, in the manner stated by
the female witness. How came they there? Did the robber deposit them
there? That is not possible. Did he accidentally leave them there? Why
should not a robber take as good care of his money as others? It is
certain, too, that the gold pieces were not put there at the time of
the robbery, because the ground was then bare; but when these pieces
were found, there were several inches of snow below them. When
Goodridge searched here with his conjuror, he was on this spot, alone
and unobserved, as he thought. Whether he did not, at that time, drop
his gold into the snow, the jury will judge. When he came to this
search, he proposed something very ridiculous. He proposed that all
persons about to assist in the search should be examined, to see that
they had nothing which they could put into Pearson's possession, for
the purpose of being found there. But how was this examination to be
made? Why, truly, Goodridge proposed that every man should examine
himself, and that, among others, he would examine himself, till he was
satisfied he had nothing in his pockets which he could leave at
pearson's, with the fraudulent design of being afterwards found there,
as evidence against pearson. What construction would be given to such
conduct?

As to Jackman, Goodridge went to New York and arrested him. In his room
he says he found paper coverings of gold, with his own figures on them,
and pieces of an old and useless receipt, which he can identify, and
which he had in his possession at the time of the robbery. He found
these things lying on the floor in Jackman's room. What should induce
the robbers, when they left all other papers, to take this receipt? And
what should induce Jackman to carry it to New York, and keep it, with
the coverings of the gold, in a situation where it was likely to be
found, and used as evidence against him?

There is no end to the series of improbabilities growing out of the
prosecutor's story.

One thing especially deserves notice. Wherever Goodridge searches, he
always finds something; and what he finds, he always can identify and
swear to, as being his. The thing found has always some marks by which
he knows it. Yet he never finds much. He never finds the mass of his
lost treasure. He finds just enough to be evidence, and no more.

These are the circumstances which tend to raise doubts of the truth of
the prosecutor's relation. It is for the jury to say, whether it would
be safe to convict any man for this robbery until these doubts shall be
cleared up. No doubt they are to judge him candidly; but they are not
to make every thing yield to a regard to his reputation, or a desire to
vindicate him from the suspicion of a fraudulent prosecution.

He stands like other witnesses, except that he is a very interested
witness; and he must hope for credit, if at all, from the consistency
and general probability of the facts to which he testifies. The jury
will not convict the prisoners to save the prosecutor from disgrace. He
has had every opportunity of making out his case. If any person in the
State could have corroborated any part of his story, that person he
could have produced. He has had the benefit of full time, and good
counsel, and of the Commonwealth's process, to bring in his witnesses.
More than all, he has had an opportunity of telling his own story, with
the simplicity that belongs to truth, if it were true, and the
frankness and earnestness of an honest man, if he be such. It is for
the jury to say, under their oaths, how he has acquitted himself in
these particulars, and whether he has left their minds free from doubt
as to the truth of his narration.

But if Goodridge were really robbed, is there satisfactory evidence
that the defendants had a hand in the commission of this offence? The
evidence relied on is the finding of the money in their house. It
appears that these defendants lived together, and, with a sister,
constituted one family. Their father lived in another part of the same
house, and with his wife constituted another and distinct family. In
this house, some six weeks after the robbery, the prosecutor made a
search; and the result has been stated by the witnesses. Now, if the
money had been passed or used by the defendants it might have been
conclusive. If found about their persons, it might have been very
strong proof. But, under the circumstances of this case, the mere
finding of money in their house, and that only in places where the
prosecutor had previously been, is no evidence at all. With respect to
the gold pieces, it is certainly true that they were found in
Goodridge's track. They were found only where he had been, and might
have put them.

When the sheriff was in the house and Goodridge in the cellar, gold was
found in the cellar. When the sheriff was up stairs and Goodridge in
the rooms below, the sheriff was called down to look for money where
Goodridge directed, and there money was found. As to the bank-note, the
evidence is not quite so clear. Mr. Leavitt says he found a note in a
drawer in a room in which none of the party had before been; that he
thought it an uncurrent or counterfeit note, and not a part of
Goodridge's money, and left it where he found it, without further
notice. An hour or two afterward, Upton perceived a note in the same
drawer, Goodridge being then with or near him, and called to Leavitt.
Leavitt told him that he had discovered that note before, but that it
could not be Goodridge's. It was then examined. Leavitt says he looked
at it, and saw writing on the back of it. Upton says he looked at it,
and saw writing on the back of it. He says also that it was shown to
Goodridge, who examined it in the same way that he and Leavitt examined
it. None of the party at this time suspected it to be Goodridge's. It
was then put into Leavitt's pocket-book, where it remained till
evening, when it was taken out at the tavern; and then it turns out to
be, plainly and clearly, one of Goodridge's notes, and has the name of
"James Poor, Bangor," in Goodridge's own handwriting, on the back of
it. The first thing that strikes one in this account is, Why was not
this discovery made at the time? Goodridge was looking for notes, as
well as gold. He was looking for Boston notes, for such he had lost. He
was looking for ten-dollar notes, for such he had lost. He was looking
for notes which he could recognize and identify. He would, therefore,
naturally be particularly attentive to any writing or marks upon such
as he might find. Under these circumstances, a note is found in the
house of the supposed robbers. It is a Boston note, it is a ten-dollar
note, it has writing on the back of it; that writing is the name of his
town and the name of one of his neighbors; more than all, that writing
is his own handwriting! Notwithstanding all this, neither Goodridge,
nor Upton, nor the sheriff, examined it so as to see whether it was
Goodridge's money. Notwithstanding it so fully resembled, in all
points, the money they were looking for, and notwithstanding they also
saw writing on the back of it, which, they must know, if they read it,
would probably have shown where it came from, neither of them did so
far examine it as to see any proof of its being Goodridge's.

This is hardly to be believed. It must be a pretty strong faith in the
prosecutor that could credit this story. In every part of it, it is
improbable and absurd. It is much more easy to believe that the note
was changed. There might have been, and there probably was, an
uncurrent or counterfeit note found in the drawer by Leavitt. He
certainly did not at the time think it to be Goodridge's, and he left
it in the drawer where he found it. Before he saw it again, the
prosecutor had been in that room, and was in or near it when the
sheriff was again called in, and asked to put that bill in his
pocket-book. How do the jury know that this was the same note which
Leavitt had before seen? Or suppose it was. Leavitt carried it to
Coffin's; in the evening he produced it, and, after having been handed
about for some time among the company, it turns out to be Goodridge's
note, and to have upon it infallible marks of identity. How do the jury
know that a sleight of hand had not changed the note at Coffin's? It is
sufficient to say, the note might have been changed. It is not certain
that this is the note which Leavitt first found in the drawer, and this
not being certain, it is not proof against the defendants.

Is it not extremely improbable, if the defendants are guilty, that they
should deposit the money in the places where it was found? Why should
they put it in small parcels in so many places, for no end but to
multiply the chances of detection? Why, especially, should they put a
doubloon in their father's pocket-book? There is no evidence, nor any
ground of suspicion, that the father knew of the money being in his
pocket-book. He swears he did not know it. His general character is
unimpeached, and there is nothing against his credit. The inquiry at
Stratham was calculated to elicit the truth; and, after all, there is
not the slightest reason to suspect that he knew that the doubloon was
in his pocket-book. What could possibly induce the defendants to place
it there? No man can conjecture a reason. On the other hand, if this is
a fraudulent proceeding on the part of the prosecutor, this
circumstance could be explained. He did not know that the pocket-book,
and the garment in which it was found, did not belong to one of the
defendants. He was as likely, therefore, to place it there as
elsewhere. It is very material to consider that nothing was found in
that part of the house which belonged to the defendants. Every thing
was discovered in the father's apartments. They were not found,
therefore, in the possession of the defendants, any more than if they
had been discovered in any other house in the neighborhood. The two
tenements, it is true, were under the same roof; but they were not on
that account the same tenements. They were as distinct as any other
houses. Now, how should it happen that the several parcels of money
should all be found in the father's possession? He is not suspected,
certainly there is no reason to suspect him, of having had any hand
either in the commission of the robbery or the concealing of the goods.
He swears he had no knowledge of any part of this money being in his
house. It is not easy to imagine how it came there, unless it be
supposed to have been put there by some one who did not know what part
of the house belonged to the defendants and what part did not.

The witnesses on the part of the prosecution have testified that the
defendants, when arrested, manifested great agitation and alarm;
paleness overspread their faces, and drops of sweat stood on their
temples. This satisfied the witnesses of the defendants' guilt, and
they now state the circumstances as being indubitable proof. This
argument manifests, in those who use it, an equal want of sense and
sensibility. It is precisely fitted to the feeling and the intellect of
a bum-bailiff. In a court of justice it deserves nothing but contempt.
Is there nothing that can agitate the frame or excite the blood but the
consciousness of guilt? If the defendants were innocent, would they not
feel indignation at this unjust accusation? If they saw an attempt to
produce false evidence against them, would they not be angry? And,
seeing the production of such evidence, might they not feel fear and
alarm? And have indignation, and anger, and terror, no power to affect
the human countenance or the human frame?

Miserable, miserable, indeed, is the reasoning which would infer any
man's guilt from his agitation when he found himself accused of a
heinous offence; when he saw evidence which he might know to be false
and fraudulent brought against him; when his house was filled, from the
garret to the cellar, by those whom he might esteem as false witnesses;
and when he himself, instead of being at liberty to observe their
conduct and watch their motions, was a prisoner in close custody in his
own house, with the fists of a catch-poll clenched upon his throat.

The defendants were at Newburyport the afternoon and evening of the
robbery. For the greater part of the time they show where they were,
and what they were doing. Their proof, it is true, does not apply to
every moment. But when it is considered that, from the moment of their
arrest, they have been in close prison, perhaps they have shown as much
as could be expected. Few men, when called on afterwards, can remember,
and fewer still can prove, how they have passed every half-hour of an
evening. At a reasonable hour they both came to the house where Laban
had lodged the night before. Nothing suspicious was observed in their
manner or conversation. Is it probable they would thus come
unconcernedly into the company of others, from a field of robbery, and,
as they must have supposed, of murder, before they could have
ascertained whether the stain of blood was not on their garments? They
remained in the place a part of the next day. The town was alarmed; a
strict inquiry was made of all strangers, and of the defendants among
others. Nothing suspicious was discovered. They avoided no inquiry, nor
did they leave the town in any haste. The jury has had an opportunity
of seeing the defendants. Does their general appearance indicate that
hardihood which would enable them to act this cool, unconcerned part?
Is it not more likely they would have fled?

From the time of the robbery to the arrest, five or six weeks, the
defendants were engaged in their usual occupations. They are not found
to have passed a dollar of money to any body. They continued their
ordinary habits of labor. No man saw money about them, nor any
circumstance that might lead to a suspicion that they had money.
Nothing occurred tending in any degree to excite suspicion against
them. When arrested, and when all this array of evidence was brought
against them, and when they could hope in nothing but their innocence,
immunity was offered them again if they would confess. They were
pressed, and urged, and allured, by every motive which could be set
before them, to acknowledge their participation in the offence, and to
bring out their accomplices. They steadily protested that they could
confess nothing because they knew nothing. In defiance of all the
discoveries made in their house, they have trusted to their innocence.
On that, and on the candor and discernment of an enlightened jury, they
still rely.  If the jury are satisfied that there is the highest
improbability that these persons could have had any previous knowledge
of Goodridge, or been concerned in any previous concert to rob him; if
their conduct that evening and the next day was marked by no
circumstances of suspicion; if from that moment until their arrest
nothing appeared against them; if they neither passed money, nor are
found to have had money; if the manner of the search of their house,
and the circumstances attending it, excite strong suspicions of unfair
and fraudulent practices; if, in the hour of their utmost peril, no
promises of safety could draw from the defendants any confession
affecting themselves or others, it will be for the jury to say whether
they can pronounce them guilty.




The Dartmouth College Case.



The general question is, whether the acts of the legislature of New
Hampshire of the 27th of June, and of the 18th and 26th of December,
1816, are valid and binding on the plaintiffs, _without their
acceptance or assent_.

The charter of 1769 created and established a corporation, to consist
of twelve persons, and no more; to be called the "Trustees of Dartmouth
College."

After the institution thus created and constituted had existed,
uninterruptedly and usefully, nearly fifty years, the legislature of
New Hampshire passed the acts in question.

The first act makes the twelve trustees under the charter, and nine
other individuals, to be appointed by the Governor and Council, a
corporation, by a new name; and to this new corporation transfers all
the _property, rights, powers, liberties, and privileges_ of the old
corporation; with further power to establish new colleges and an
institute, and to apply all or any part of the funds to these purposes;
subject to the power and control of a board of twenty-five overseers,
to be appointed by the Governor and Council.

The second act makes further provisions for executing the objects of
the first, and the last act authorizes the defendant, the treasurer of
the plaintiffs, to retain and hold their property, against their will.

If these acts are valid, the old corporation is abolished, and a new
one created. The first act does, in fact, if it can have any effect,
create a new corporation, and transfer to it all the property and
franchises of the old. The two corporations are not the same in
anything which essentially belongs to the existence of a corporation.
They have different names, and different powers, rights, and duties.
Their organization is wholly different. The powers of the corporation
are not vested in the same, or similar hands. In one, the trustees are
twelve, and no more. In the other, they are twenty-one. In one, the
power is in a single board. In the other, it is divided between two
boards. Although the act professes to include the old trustees in the
new corporation, yet that was without their assent, and against their
remonstrance; and no person can be compelled to be a member of such a
corporation against his will. It was neither expected nor intended that
they should be members of the new corporation. The act itself treats
the old corporation as at an end, and, going on the ground that all its
functions have ceased, it provides for the first meeting and
organization of the new corporation. It expressly provides, also, that
the new corporation shall have and hold all the property of the old; a
provision which would be quite unnecessary upon any other ground, than
that the old corporation was dissolved. But if it could be contended
that the effect of these acts was not entirely to abolish the old
corporation, yet it is manifest that they impair and invade the rights,
property, and powers of the trustees under the charter, as a
corporation, and the legal rights, privileges, and immunities which
belong to them, as individual members of the corporation.

The twelve trustees were the _sole_ legal owners of all the property
acquired under the charter. By the acts, others are admitted, against
_their_ will, to be joint owners. The twelve individuals who are
trustees were possessed of all the franchises and immunities conferred
by the charter. By the acts, _nine_ other trustees and _twenty-five_
overseers are admitted, against their will, to divide these franchises
and immunities with them.

If, either as a corporation or as individuals, they have any legal
rights, this forcible intrusion of others violates those rights, as
manifestly as an entire and complete ouster and dispossession. These
acts alter the whole constitution of the corporation. They affect the
rights of the whole body as a corporation, and the rights of the
individuals who compose it. They revoke corporate powers and
franchises. They alienate and transfer the property of the college to
others. By the charter, the trustees had a right to fill vacancies in
their own number. This is now taken away. They were to consist of
twelve, and, by express provision, of no more. This is altered. They
and their successors, appointed by themselves, were for ever to hold
the property. The legislature has found successors for them, before
their seats are vacant. The powers and privileges which the twelve were
to exercise exclusively, are now to be exercised by others. By one of
the acts, they are subjected to heavy penalties if they exercise their
offices, or any of those powers and privileges granted them by charter,
and which they had exercised for fifty years. They are to be punished
for not accepting the new grant and taking its benefits. This, it must
be confessed, is rather a summary mode of settling a question of
constitutional right. Not only are new trustees forced into the
corporation, but new trusts and uses are created. The college is turned
into a university. Power is given to create new colleges, and, to
authorize any diversion of the funds which may be agreeable to the new
boards, sufficient latitude is given by the undefined power of
establishing an institute. To these new colleges, and this institute,
the funds contributed by the founder, Dr. Wheelock, and by the original
donors, the Earl of Dartmouth and others, are to be applied, in plain
and manifest disregard of the uses to which they were given.

The president, one of the old trustees, had a right to his office,
salary, and emoluments, subject to the twelve trustees alone. His title
to these is now changed, and he is made accountable to new masters. So
also all the professors and tutors. If the legislature can at pleasure
make these alterations and changes in the rights and privileges of the
plaintiffs, it may, with equal propriety, abolish these rights and
privileges altogether. The same power which can do any part of this
work can accomplish the whole. And, indeed, the argument on which these
acts have been hitherto defended goes altogether on the ground, that
this is such a corporation as the legislature may abolish at pleasure;
and that its members have _no rights, liberties, franchises, property,
or privileges_, which the legislature may not revoke, annul, alienate,
or transfer to others, whenever it sees fit.

It will be contended by the plaintiffs, that these acts are not valid
and binding on them without their assent,--

1. Because they are against common right, and the Constitution of New
Hampshire.

2. Because they are repugnant to the Constitution of the United States.

I am aware of the limits which bound the jurisdiction of the court in
this case, and that on this record nothing can be decided but the
single question, whether these acts are repugnant to the Constitution
of the United States. Yet it may assist in forming an opinion of their
true nature and character to compare them with those fundamental
principles introduced into the State governments for the purpose of
limiting the exercise of the legislative power, and which the
Constitution of New Hampshire expresses with great fulness and accuracy.

It is not too much to assert, that the legislature of New Hampshire
would not have been competent to pass the acts in question, and to make
them binding on the plaintiffs without their assent, even if there had
been, in the Constitution of New Hampshire, or of the United States, no
special restriction on their power, because these acts are not the
exercise of a power properly legislative. Their effect and object are
to take away, from one, rights, property, and franchises, and to grant
them to another. This is not the exercise of a legislative power. To
justify the taking away of vested rights there must be a forfeiture, to
adjudge upon and declare which is the proper province of the judiciary.
Attainder and confiscation are acts of sovereign power, not acts of
legislation. The British Parliament, among other unlimited powers,
claims that of altering and vacating charters; not as an act of
ordinary legislation, but of uncontrolled authority. It is
theoretically omnipotent. Yet, in modern times, it has very rarely
attempted the exercise of this power.

The legislature of New Hampshire has no more power over the rights of
the plaintiffs than existed somewhere, in some department of
government, before the Revolution. The British Parliament could not
have annulled or revoked this grant as an act of ordinary legislation.
If it had done it at all, it could only have been in virtue of that
sovereign power, called omnipotent, which does not belong to any
legislature in the United States. The legislature of New Hampshire has
the same power over this charter which belonged to the king who granted
it, and no more. By the law of England, the power to create
corporations is a part of the royal prerogative. By the Revolution,
this power may be considered as having devolved on the legislature of
the State, and it has accordingly been exercised by the legislature.
But the king cannot abolish a corporation, or new-model it, or alter
its powers, without its assent. This is the acknowledged and well-known
doctrine of the common law.

There are prohibitions in the Constitution and Bill of Rights of New
Hampshire, introduced for the purpose of limiting the legislative power
and protecting the rights and property of the citizens. One prohibition
is, "that no person shall be deprived of his property, immunities, or
privileges, put out of the protection of the law, or deprived of his
life, liberty, or estate, but by judgment of his peers or the law of
the land."

In the opinion, however, which was given in the court below, it is
denied that the trustees under the charter had any property, immunity,
liberty, or privilege in this corporation, within the meaning of this
prohibition in the Bill of Rights. It is said that it is a public
corporation and public property; that the trustees have no greater
interest in it than any other individuals; that it is not private
property, which they can sell or transmit to their heirs, and that
therefore they have no interest in it; that their office is a public
trust, like that of the Governor or a judge, and that they have no more
concern in the property of the college than the Governor in the
property of the State, or than the judges in the fines which they
impose on the culprits at their bar; that it is nothing to them whether
their powers shall be extended or lessened, any more than it is to
their honors whether their jurisdiction shall be enlarged or
diminished. It is necessary, therefore, to inquire into the true nature
and character of the corporation which was created by the charter of
1769.

There are divers sorts of corporations; and it may be safely admitted
that the legislature has more power over some than others. Some
corporations are for government and political arrangement; such, for
example, as cities, counties, and towns in New England. These may be
changed and modified as public convenience may require, due regard
being always had to the rights of property. Of such corporations, all
who live within the limits are of course obliged to be members, and to
submit to the duties which the law imposes on them as such. Other civil
corporations are for the advancement of trade and business, such as
banks, insurance companies, and the like. These are created, not by
general law, but usually by grant. Their constitution is special. It is
such as the legislature sees fit to give, and the grantees to accept.

The corporation in question is not a civil, although it is a lay
corporation. It is an eleemosynary corporation. It is a private
charity, originally founded and endowed by an individual, with a
charter obtained for it at his request, for the better administration
of his charity. "The eleemosynary sort of corporations are such as are
constituted for the perpetual distributions of the free alms or bounty
of the founder of them, to such persons as he has directed. Of this are
all hospitals for the maintenance of the poor, sick, and impotent; and
all colleges both in our universities and out of them." Eleemosynary
corporations are for the management of private property, according to
the will of the donors. They are private corporations. A college is as
much a private corporation as a hospital; especially a college founded,
as this was, by private bounty. A college is a charity. "The
establishment of learning," says Lord Hardwicke, "is a charity, and so
considered in the statute of Elizabeth. To devise to a college, for
their benefit, is a laudable charity, and deserves encouragement."

The legal signification of _a charity_ is derived chiefly from the
statute 43 Eliz. ch. 4. "Those purposes," says Sir William Grant, "are
considered _charitable_ which that statute enumerates." Colleges are
enumerated as charities in that statute. The government, in these
cases, lends its aid to perpetuate the beneficent intention of the
donor, by granting a charter under which his private charity shall
continue to be dispensed after his death. This is done either by
incorporating the objects of the charity, as, for instance, the
scholars in a college or the poor in a hospital, or by incorporating
those who are to be governors or trustees of the charity. In cases of
the first sort, the founder is, by the common law, visitor. In early
times it became a maxim, that he who gave the property might regulate
it in future. "Cujus est dare, ejus est disponere." This right of
visitation descended from the founder to his heir as a right of
property, and precisely as his other property went to his heir; and in
default of heirs it went to the king, as all other property goes to the
king for the want of heirs. The right of visitation arises from the
property. It grows out of the endowment. The founder may, if he please,
part with it at the time when he establishes the charity, and may vest
it in others. Therefore, if he chooses that governors, trustees, or
overseers should be appointed in the charter, he may cause it to be
done, and his power of visitation may be transferred to them, instead
of descending to his heirs. The persons thus assigned or appointed by
the founder will be visitors, with all the powers of the founder, in
exclusion of his heir. The right of visitation, then, accrues to them,
as a matter of property, by the gift, transfer, or appointment of the
founder. This is a private right, which they can assert in all legal
modes, and in which they have the same protection of the law as in all
other rights. As visitors they may make rules, ordinances, and
statutes, and alter and repeal them, as far as permitted so to do by
the charter. Although the charter proceeds from the crown or the
government, it is considered as the will of the donor. It is obtained
at his request. He uses it as the rule which is to prevail in the
dispensation of his bounty in all future times. The king or government
which grants the charter is not thereby the founder, but he who
furnishes the funds. The gift of the revenues is the foundation.

The leading case on this subject is _Phillips v. Bury_. This was an
ejectment brought to recover the rectory-house, &c. of Exeter College
in Oxford. The question was whether the plaintiff or defendant was
legal rector. Exeter College was founded by an individual, and
incorporated by a charter granted by Queen Elizabeth. The controversy
turned upon the power of the visitor, and, in the discussion of the
cause, the nature of college charters and corporations was very fully
considered.

Lord Holt's judgment is that that college was a _private corporation_,
and that the founder had a right to appoint a visitor, and to give him
such power as he saw fit.

The learned Bishop Stillingfleet's argument in the same cause, as a
member of the House of Lords, when it was there heard, exhibits very
clearly the nature of colleges and similar corporations. It is to the
following effect. "That colleges, although founded by private persons,
are yet incorporated by the king's charter; but although the kings by
their charter made the colleges to be such in law, that is, to be legal
corporations, yet they left to the particular founders authority to
appoint what statutes they thought fit for the regulation of them. And
not only the statutes, but the appointment of visitors, was left to
them, and the manner of government, and the several conditions on which
any persons were to be made or continue partakers of their bounty."

These opinions received the sanction of the House of Lords, and they
seem to be settled and undoubted law.

"There is nothing better established," says Lord Commissioner Eyre,
"than that this court does not entertain a general jurisdiction, or
regulate and control charities _established by charter_. There the
establishment is fixed and determined; and the court has no power to
vary it. If the governors established for the regulation of it are not
those who have the management of the revenue, this court has no
jurisdiction, and if it is ever so much abused, as far as it respects
the jurisdiction of this court it is without remedy; but if those
established as governors have also the management of the revenues, this
court does assume a jurisdiction of necessity, so far as they are to be
considered as trustees of the revenue."

"The foundations of colleges," says Lord Mansfield, "are to be
considered in two views; namely, as they are _corporations_ and as they
are _eleemosynary_. As eleemosynary, they are the creatures of the
founder; he may delegate his power, either generally or specially; he
may prescribe particular modes and manners, as to the exercise of part
of it."

In New England, and perhaps throughout the United States, eleemosynary
corporations have been generally established by incorporating
governors, or trustees, and vesting in them the right of visitation.
The case before the court is clearly that of an eleemosynary
corporation. It is, in the strictest legal sense, a private charity. In
_King v. St. Catherine's Hall_, that college is called a private
eleemosynary lay corporation. It was endowed by a private founder, and
incorporated by letters patent. And in the same manner was Dartmouth
College founded and incorporated. Dr. Wheelock is declared by the
charter to be its founder. It was established by him, or funds
contributed and collected by himself.

As such founder, he had a right of visitation, which he assigned to the
trustees, and they received it by his consent and appointment, and held
it under the charter. He appointed these trustees visitors, and in that
respect to take place of his heir; as he might have appointed devisees,
to take his estate instead of his heir. Little, probably, did he think,
at that time, that the legislature would ever take away this property
and these privileges, and give them to others. Little did he suppose
that this charter secured to him and his successors no legal rights.
Little did the other donors think so. If they had, the college would
have been, what the university is now, a thing upon paper, existing
only in name.

The numerous academies in New England have been established
substantially in the same manner. They hold their property by the same
tenure, and no other. Nor has Harvard College any surer title than
Dartmouth College. It may to-day have more friends; but to-morrow it
may have more enemies. Its legal rights are the same. So also of Yale
College; and, indeed, of all the others. When the legislature gives to
these institutions, it may and does accompany its grants with such
conditions as it pleases. The grant of lands by the legislature of New
Hampshire to Dartmouth College, in 1789, was accompanied with various
conditions. When donations are made, by the legislature or others, to a
charity already existing, without any condition, or the specification
of any new use, the donation follows the nature of the charity. Hence
the doctrine, that all eleemosynary corporations are private bodies.
They are founded by private persons, and on private property. The
public cannot be charitable in these institutions. It is not the money
of the public, but of private persons, which is dispensed. It may be
public, that is general, in its uses and advantages; and the State may
very laudably add contributions of its own to the funds; but it is
still private in the tenure of the property, and in the right of
administering the funds.

The charter declares that the powers conferred on the trustees are
"privileges, advantages, liberties, and immunities"; and that they
shall be for ever holden by them and their successors. The New
Hampshire Bill of Rights declares that no one shall be deprived of his
"property, privileges, or immunities," but by judgment of his peers, or
the law of the land. The argument on the other side is, that, although
these terms may mean something in the Bill of Rights, they mean nothing
in this charter. They are equivalent with _franchises_. Blackstone says
that _franchise_ and _liberty_ are used as synonymous terms.

The privilege, then, of being a member of a corporation, under a lawful
grant, and of exercising the rights and powers of such member, is such
a privilege, _liberty_, or _franchise_, as has been the object of legal
protection, and the subject of a legal interest, from the time of Magna
Charta to the present moment. The plaintiffs have such an interest in
this corporation, individually, as they could assert and maintain in a
court of law, not as agents of the public, but in their own right. Each
trustee has a _franchise_, and if he be disturbed in the enjoyment of
it, he would have redress, on appealing to the law, as promptly as for
any other injury. If the other trustees should conspire against any one
of them to prevent his equal right and voice in the appointment of a
president or professor, or in the passing of any statute or ordinance
of the college, he would be entitled to his action, for depriving him
of his franchise. It makes no difference, that this property is to be
holden and administered, and these franchises exercised, for the
purpose of diffusing learning. No principle and no case establishes any
such distinction. The public may be benefited by the use of this
property. But this does not change the nature of the property, or the
rights of the owners. The object of the charter may be public good; so
it is in all other corporations; and this would as well justify the
resumption or violation of the grant in any other case as in this. In
the case of an advowson, the use is public, and the right cannot be
turned to any private benefit or emolument. It is nevertheless a legal
private right, and the _property_ of the owner, as emphatically as his
freehold. The rights and privileges of trustees, visitors, or governors
of incorporated colleges, stand on the same foundation. They are so
considered, both by Lord Holt and Lord Hardwicke.

To contend that the rights of the plaintiffs may be taken away, because
they derive from them no pecuniary benefit or private emolument, or
because they cannot be transmitted to their heirs, or would not be
assets to pay their debts, is taking an extremely narrow view of the
subject. According to this notion, the case would be different, if, in
the charter, they had stipulated for a commission on the disbursement
of the funds; and they have ceased to have any interest in the
property, because they have undertaken to administer it gratuitously.

It cannot be necessary to say much in refutation of the idea, that
there cannot be a legal interest, or ownership, in any thing which does
not yield a pecuniary profit; as if the law regarded no rights but the
rights of money, and of visible, tangible property. Of what nature are
all rights of suffrage? No elector has a particular personal interest;
but each has a legal right, to be exercised at his own discretion, and
it cannot be taken away from him. The exercise of this right directly
and very materially affects the public; much more so than the exercise
of the privileges of a trustee of this college. Consequences of the
utmost magnitude may sometimes depend on the exercise of the right of
suffrage by one or a few electors. Nobody was ever yet heard to
contend, however, that on that account the public might take away the
right, or impair it. This notion appears to be borrowed from no better
source than the repudiated doctrine of the three judges in the
Aylesbury case. The doctrine having been exploded for a century, seems
now for the first time to be revived.

Individuals have a right to use their own property for purposes of
benevolence, either towards the public, or towards other individuals.
They have a right to exercise this benevolence in such lawful manner as
they may choose; and when the government has induced and excited it, by
contracting to give perpetuity to the stipulated manner of exercising
it, it is not law, but violence, to rescind this contract, and seize on
the property. Whether the State will grant these franchises, and under
what conditions it will grant them, it decides for itself. But when
once granted, the constitution holds them to be sacred, till forfeited
for just cause.

That all property, of which the use may be beneficial to the public,
belongs therefore to the public, is quite a new doctrine. It has no
precedent, and is supported by no known principle. Dr. Wheelock might
have answered his purposes, in this case, by executing a private deed
of trust. He might have conveyed his property to trustees, for
precisely such uses as are described in this charter. Indeed, it
appears that he had contemplated the establishing of his school in that
manner, and had made his will, and devised the property to the same
persons who were afterwards appointed trustees in the charter. Many
literary and other charitable institutions are founded in that manner,
and the trust is renewed, and conferred on other persons, from time to
time, as occasion may require. In such a case, no lawyer would or could
say, that the legislature might divest the trustees, constituted by
deed or will, seize upon the property, and give it to other persons,
for other purposes. And does the granting of a charter, which is only
done to perpetuate the trust in a more convenient manner, make any
difference? Does or can this change the nature of the charity, and turn
it into a public political corporation? Happily, we are not without
authority on this point. It has been considered and adjudged. Lord
Hardwicke says, in so many words, "The charter of the crown cannot make
a charity more or less public, but only more permanent than it would
otherwise be."

The granting of the corporation is but making the trust perpetual, and
does not alter the nature of the charity. The very object sought in
obtaining such charter, and in giving property to such a corporation,
is to make and keep it private property, and to clothe it with all the
security and inviolability of private property. The intent is, that
there shall be a legal private ownership, and that the legal owners
shall maintain and protect the property, for the benefit of those for
whose use it was designed. Who ever endowed the public? Who ever
appointed a legislature to administer his charity? Or who ever heard,
before, that a gift to a college, or a hospital, or an asylum, was, in
reality, nothing but a gift to the State?

The State of Vermont is a principal donor to Dartmouth College. The
lands given lie in that State. This appears in the special verdict. Is
Vermont to be considered as having intended a gift to the State of New
Hampshire in this case, as, it has been said, is to be the reasonable
construction of all donations to the college? The legislature of New
Hampshire affects to represent the public, and therefore claims a right
to control all property destined to public use. What hinders Vermont
from considering herself equally the representative of the public, and
from resuming her grants, at her own pleasure? Her right to do so is
less doubtful than the power of New Hampshire to pass the laws in
question. I hope enough has been said to show that the trustees
possessed vested liberties, privileges, and immunities, under this
charter; and that such liberties, privileges, and immunities, being
once lawfully obtained and vested, are as inviolable as any vested
rights of property whatever. Rights to do certain acts, such, for
instance, as the visitation and superintendence of a college and the
appointment of its officers, may surely be vested rights, to all legal
intents, as completely as the right to possess property. A late learned
judge of this court has said, "When I say that a _right_ is vested in a
citizen, I mean that he has the power to do _certain actions_, or to
possess _certain things_, according to the law of the land."

If such be the true nature of the plaintiffs' interests under this
charter, what are the articles in the New Hampshire Bill of Rights
which these acts infringe?

They infringe the second article; which says, that the citizens of the
State have a right to hold and possess property. The plaintiffs had a
legal property in this charter; and they had acquired property under
it. The acts deprive them of both. They impair and take away the
charter; and they appropriate the property to new uses, against their
consent. The plaintiffs cannot now hold the property acquired by
themselves, and which this article says they have a right to hold.

They infringe the twentieth article. By that article it is declared
that, in questions of property, there is a right to trial. The
plaintiffs are divested, without trial or judgment.

They infringe the twenty-third article. It is therein declared that no
retrospective laws shall be passed. This article bears directly on the
case. These acts must be deemed to be retrospective, within the settled
construction of that term. What a retrospective law is, has been
decided, on the construction of this very article, in the Circuit Court
for the First Circuit, The learned judge of that circuit says: "Every
statute which takes away or impairs vested rights, acquired under
existing laws, must be deemed retrospective." That all such laws are
retrospective was decided also in the case of _Dash v. Van Kleek_,
where a most learned judge quotes this article from the constitution of
New Hampshire, with manifest approbation, as a plain and clear
expression of those fundamental and unalterable principles of justice,
which must lie at the foundation of every free and just system of laws.
Can any man deny that the plaintiffs had rights, under the charter,
which were legally vested, and that by these acts those rights are
impaired?

"It is a principle in the English law," says Chief Justice Kent, in the
case last cited, "as ancient as the law itself, that a statute, even of
its omnipotent Parliament, is not to have a retrospective effect. 'Nova
constitutio futuris formam imponere debet, et non praeteritis.' The
maxim in Bracton was taken from the civil law, for we find in that
system the same principle, expressed substantially in the same words,
that the law-giver cannot alter his mind to the prejudice of a vested
right. 'Nemo potest mutare concilium suum in alterius injuriam.'"

These acts infringe also the thirty-seventh article of the constitution
of New Hampshire; which says, that the powers of government shall be
kept separate. By these acts, the legislature assumes to exercise a
judicial power. It declares a forfeiture, and resumes franchises, once
granted, without trial or hearing.

If the constitution be not altogether waste-paper, it has restrained
the power of the legislature in these particulars. If it has any
meaning, it is that the legislature shall pass no act directly and
manifestly impairing private property and private privileges. It shall
not judge by act. It shall not decide by act. It shall not deprive by
act. But it shall leave all these things to be tried and adjudged by
the law of the land.

The fifteenth article has been referred to before. It declares that no
one shall be "deprived of his property, immunities, or privileges, but
by the judgment of his peers or the law of the land." Notwithstanding
the light in which the learned judges in New Hampshire viewed the
rights of the plaintiffs under the charter, and which has been before
adverted to, it is found to be admitted in their opinion, that those
rights are privileges within the meaning of this fifteenth article of
the Bill of Rights. Having quoted that article, they say: "That the
right to manage the affairs of this college is a privilege, within the
meaning of this clause of the Bill of Rights, is not to be doubted." In
my humble opinion, this surrenders the point. To resist the effect of
this admission, however, the learned judges add: "But how a privilege
can be protected from the operation of the law of the land by a clause
in the constitution, declaring that it shall not be taken away but by
the law of the land, is not very easily understood." This answer goes
on the ground, that the acts in question are laws of the land, within
the meaning of the constitution. If they be so, the argument drawn from
this article is fully answered. If they be not so, it being admitted
that the plaintiffs' rights are "privileges," within the meaning of the
article, the argument is not answered, and the article is infringed by
the acts. Are, then, these acts of the legislature, which affect only
particular persons and their particular privileges, laws of the land?
Lord Coke citing and commenting on the celebrated twenty-ninth chapter
of Magna Charta, says: "No man shall be disseized, &c., unless it be by
the lawful judgment, that is, verdict of equals, or by the law of the
land, that is (to speak it once for all), by the due course and process
of law." Have the plaintiffs lost their franchises by "due course and
process of law"? On the contrary, are not these acts "particular acts
of the legislature, which have no relation to the community in general,
and which are rather sentences than laws"?

By the law of the land is most clearly intended the general law; a law
which hears before it condemns; which proceeds upon inquiry, and
renders judgment only after trial. The meaning is, that every citizen
shall hold his life, liberty, property, and immunities under the
protection of the general rules which govern society. Every thing which
may pass under the form of an enactment is not therefore to be
considered the law of the land. If this were so, acts of attainder,
bills of pains and penalties, acts of confiscation, acts reversing
judgments, and acts directly transferring one man's estate to another,
legislative judgments, decrees, and forfeitures in all possible forms,
would be the law of the land.

Such a strange construction would render constitutional provisions of
the highest importance completely inoperative and void. It would tend
directly to establish the union of all powers in the legislature. There
would be no general, permanent law for courts to administer or men to
live under. The administration of justice would be an empty form, an
idle ceremony. Judges would sit to execute legislative judgments and
decrees; not to declare the law or to administer the justice of the
country.

That the power of electing and appointing the officers of this college
is not only a right of the trustees as a corporation, generally, and in
the aggregate, but that each individual trustee has also his own
individual franchise in such right of election and appointment, is
according to the language of all the authorities. Lord Holt says: "It
is agreeable to reason and the rules of law, that a franchise should be
vested in the corporation aggregate, and yet the benefit of it to
redound to the particular members, and to be enjoyed by them in their
private capacity. Where the privilege of election is used by particular
persons, _it is a particular right, vested in every particular man_."

It is also to be considered, that the president and professors of this
college have rights to be affected by these acts. Their interest is
similar to that of fellows in the English colleges; because they derive
their living, wholly or in part, from the founders' bounty. The
president is one of the trustees or corporators. The professors are not
necessarily members of the corporation; but they are appointed by the
trustees, are removable only by them, and have fixed salaries payable
out of the general funds of the college. Both president and professors
have freeholds in their offices; subject only to be removed by the
trustees, as their legal visitors, for good cause. All the authorities
speak of fellowships in colleges as freeholds, notwithstanding the
fellows may be liable to be suspended or removed, for misbehavior, by
their constituted visitors.

Nothing could have been less expected, in this age, than that there
should have been an attempt, by acts of the legislature, to take away
these college livings, the inadequate but the only support of literary
men who have devoted their lives to the instruction of youth. The
president and professors were appointed by the twelve trustees. They
were accountable to nobody else, and could be removed by nobody else.
They accepted their offices on this tenure. Yet the legislature has
appointed other persons, with power to remove these officers and to
deprive them of their livings; and those other persons have exercised
that power. No description of private property has been regarded as
more sacred than college livings. They are the estates and freeholds of
a most deserving class of men; of scholars who have consented to forego
the advantages of professional and public employments, and to devote
themselves to science and literature and the instruction of youth in
the quiet retreats of academic life. Whether to dispossess and oust
them; to deprive them of their office, and to turn them out of their
livings; to do this, not by the power of their legal visitors or
governors, but by acts of the legislature, and to do it without
forfeiture and without fault; whether all this be not in the highest
degree an indefensible and arbitrary proceeding, is a question of which
there would seem to be but one side fit for a lawyer or a scholar to
espouse.

If it could be made to appear that the trustees and the president and
professors held their offices and franchises during the pleasure of the
legislature, and that the property holden belonged to the State, then
indeed the legislature have done no more than they had a right to do.
But this is not so. The charter is a charter of privileges and
immunities; and these are holden by the trustees expressly against the
State for ever.

It is admitted that the State, by its courts of law, can enforce the
will of the donor, and compel a faithful execution of the trust. The
plaintiffs claim no exemption from legal responsibility. They hold
themselves at all times answerable to the law of the land, for their
conduct in the trust committed to them. They ask only to hold the
property of which they are owners, and the franchises which belong to
them, until they shall be found, by due course and process of law, to
have forfeited them.

It can make no difference whether the legislature exercise the power it
has assumed by removing the trustees and the president and professors,
directly and by name, or by appointing others to expel them. The
principle is the same, and in point of fact the result has been the
same. If the entire franchise cannot be taken away, neither can it be
essentially impaired. If the trustees are legal owners of the property,
they are sole owners. If they are visitors, they are sole visitors. No
one will be found to say, that, if the legislature may do what it has
done, it may not do any thing and every thing which it may choose to
do, relative to the property of the corporation, and the privileges of
its members and officers.

If the view which has been taken of this question be at all correct,
this was an eleemosynary corporation, a private charity. The property
was private property. The trustees were visitors, and the right to hold
the charter, administer the funds, and visit and govern the college,
was a franchise and privilege, solemnly granted to them. The use being
public in no way diminishes their legal estate in the property, or
their title to the franchise. There is no principle, nor any case,
which declares that a gift to such a corporation is a gift to the
public. The acts in question violate property. They take away
privileges, immunities, and franchises. They deny to the trustees the
protection of the law; and they are retrospective in their operation.
In all which respects they are against the constitution of New
Hampshire.

The plaintiffs contend, in the second place, that the acts in question
are repugnant to the tenth section of the first article of the
Constitution of the United States. The material words of that section
are: "No State shall pass any bill of attainder, _ex post facto_ law,
or law impairing the obligation of contracts."

The object of these most important provisions in the national
constitution has often been discussed, both here and elsewhere. It is
exhibited with great clearness and force by one of the distinguished
persons who framed that instrument. "Bills of attainder, _ex post
facto_ laws, and laws impairing the obligation of contracts, are
contrary to the first principles of the social compact, and to every
principle of sound legislation. The two former are expressly prohibited
by the declarations prefixed to some of the State constitutions, and
all of them are prohibited by the spirit and scope of these fundamental
charters. Our own experience has taught us, nevertheless, that
additional fences against these dangers ought not to be omitted. Very
properly, therefore, have the convention added this constitutional
bulwark, in favor of personal security and private rights; and I am
much deceived, if they have not, in so doing, as faithfully consulted
the genuine sentiments as the undoubted interests of their
constituents. The sober people of America are weary of the fluctuating
policy which has directed the public councils. They have seen with
regret, and with indignation, that sudden changes, and legislative
interferences in cases affecting personal rights, become jobs in the
hands of enterprising and influential speculators, and snares to the
more industrious and less informed part of the community. They have
seen, too, that one legislative interference is but the link of a long
chain of repetitions; every subsequent interference being naturally
produced by the effects of the preceding."

It has already been decided in this court, that a _grant_ is a
contract, within the meaning of this provision; and that a grant by a
State is also a contract, as much as the grant of an individual. In the
case of _Fletcher v. Peck_, this court says: "A contract is a compact
between two or more parties, and is either executory or executed. An
executory contract is one in which a party binds himself to do, or not
to do, a particular thing; such was the law under which the conveyance
was made by the government. A contract executed is one in which the
object of contract is performed; and this, says Blackstone, differs in
nothing from a grant. The contract between Georgia and the purchasers
was executed by the grant. A contract executed, as well as one which is
executory, contains obligations binding on the parties. A grant, in its
own nature, amounts to an extinguishment of the right of the grantor,
and implies a contract not to reassert that right. If, under a fair
construction of the Constitution, grants are comprehended under the
term contracts, is a grant from the State excluded from the operation
of the provision? Is the clause to be considered as inhibiting the
State from impairing the obligation of contracts between two
individuals, but as excluding from that inhibition contracts made with
itself? The words themselves contain no such distinction. They are
general, and are applicable to contracts of every description. If
contracts made with the State are to be exempted from their operation,
the exception must arise from the character of the contracting party,
not from the words which are employed. Whatever respect might have been
felt for the State sovereignties, it is not to be disguised that the
framers of the Constitution viewed with some apprehension the violent
acts which might grow out of the feelings of the moment; and that the
people of the United States, in adopting that instrument, have
manifested a determination to shield themselves and their property from
the effects of those sudden and strong passions to which men are
exposed. The restrictions on the legislative power of the States are
obviously founded in this sentiment; and the Constitution of the United
States contains what may be deemed a bill of rights for the people of
each State."

It also has been decided that a grant by a State before the Revolution
is as much to be protected as a grant since. But the case of _Terrett
v. Taylor_, before cited, is of all others most pertinent to the
present argument. Indeed, the judgment of the court in that case seems
to leave little to be argued or decided in this. "A private
corporation," say the court, "created by the legislature, may lose its
franchises by a _misuser_ or a _nonuser_ of them; and they may be
resumed by the government under a judicial judgment upon a _quo
warranto_ to ascertain and enforce the forfeiture. This is the common
law of the land, and is a tacit condition annexed to the creation of
every such corporation. Upon a change of government, too, it may be
admitted, that such exclusive privileges attached to a private
corporation as are inconsistent with the new government may be
abolished. In respect, also, to _public_ corporations which exist only
for public purposes, such as counties, towns, cities, and so forth, the
legislature may, under proper limitations, have a right to change,
modify, enlarge, or restrain them, securing, however, the property for
the uses of those for whom and at whose expense it was originally
purchased. But that the legislature can repeal statutes creating
private corporations, or confirming to them property already acquired
under the faith of previous laws, and by such repeal can vest the
property of such corporations exclusively in the State, or dispose of
the same to such purposes as they please, without the consent or
default of the corporators, we are not prepared to admit; and we think
ourselves standing upon the principles of natural justice, upon the
fundamental laws of every free government, upon the spirit and letter
of the Constitution of the United States, and upon the decisions of
most respectable judicial tribunals, in resisting such a doctrine."

This court, then, does not admit the doctrine, that a legislature can
repeal statutes creating private corporations. If it cannot repeal them
altogether, of course it cannot repeal any part of them, or impair
them, or essentially alter them, without the consent of the
corporators. If, therefore, it has been shown that this college is to
be regarded as a private charity, this case is embraced within the very
terms of that decision. A grant of corporate powers and privileges is
as much a contract as a grant of land. What proves all charters of this
sort to be contracts is, that they must be accepted to give them force
and effect. If they are not accepted, they are void. And in the case of
an existing corporation, if a new charter is given it, it may even
accept part and reject the rest. In _Rex v. Vice-Chancellor of
Cambridge_, Lord Mansfield says: "There is a vast deal of difference
between a new charter granted to a new corporation, (who must take it
as it is given,) and a new charter given to a corporation already in
being, and acting either under a former charter or under prescriptive
usage. The latter, a corporation already existing, are not obliged to
accept the new charter _in toto_, and to receive either all or none of
it; they may act partly under it, and partly under their old charter or
prescription. The validity of these new charters must turn upon the
acceptance of them." In the same case Mr. Justice Wilmot says: "It is
the concurrence and acceptance of the university that gives the force
to the charter of the crown." In the _King v. Pasmore_, Lord Kenyon
observes: "Some things are clear: when a corporation exists capable of
discharging its functions, the crown cannot obtrude another charter
upon them; they may either accept or reject it."

And because charters of incorporation are of the nature of contracts,
they cannot be altered or varied but by consent of the original
parties. If a charter be granted by the king, it may be altered by a
new charter granted by the king, and accepted by the corporators. But
if the first charter be granted by Parliament, the consent of
Parliament must be obtained to any alteration. In _King v. Miller_,
Lord Kenyon says: "Where a corporation takes its rise from the king's
charter, the king by granting, and the corporation by accepting another
charter, may alter it, because it is done with the consent of all the
parties who are competent to consent to the alteration."

There are, in this case, all the essential constituent parts of a
contract. There is something to be contracted about, there are parties,
and there are plain terms in which the agreement of the parties on the
subject of the contract is expressed. There are mutual considerations
and inducements. The charter recites, that the founder, on his part,
has agreed to establish his seminary in New Hampshire, and to enlarge
it beyond its original design, among other things, for the benefit of
that Province; and thereupon a charter is given to him and his
associates, designated by himself, promising and assuring to them,
under the plighted faith of the State, the right of governing the
college and administering its concerns in the manner provided in the
charter. There is a complete and perfect grant to them of all the power
of superintendence, visitation, and government. Is not this a contract?
If lands or money had been granted to him and his associates, for the
same purposes, such grant could not be rescinded. And is there any
difference, in legal contemplation, between a grant of corporate
franchises and a grant of tangible property? No such difference is
recognized in any decided case, nor does it exist in the common
apprehension of mankind.

It is therefore contended, that this case falls within the true meaning
of this provision of the Constitution, as expounded in the decisions of
this court; that the charter of 1769 is a contract, a stipulation or
agreement, mutual in its considerations, express and formal in its
terms, and of a most binding and solemn nature. That the acts in
question impair this contract, has already been sufficiently shown.
They repeal and abrogate its most essential parts.

A single observation may not be improper on the opinion of the court of
New Hampshire, which has been published. The learned judges who
delivered that opinion have viewed this question in a very different
light from that in which the plaintiffs have endeavored to exhibit it.
After some general remarks, they assume that this college is a public
corporation; and on this basis their judgment rests. Whether all
colleges are not regarded as private and eleemosynary corporations, by
all law writers and all judicial decisions; whether this college was
not founded by Dr. Wheelock; whether the charter was not granted at his
request, the better to execute a trust, which he had already created;
whether he and his associates did not become visitors, by the charter;
and whether Dartmouth College be not, therefore, in the strictest
sense, a private charity, are questions which the learned judges do not
appear to have discussed.

It is admitted in that opinion, that, if it be a private corporation,
its rights stand on the same ground as those of an individual. The
great question, therefore, to be decided is, To which class of
corporations do colleges thus founded belong? And the plaintiffs have
endeavored to satisfy the court, that, according to the well-settled
principles and uniform decisions of law, they are private, eleemosynary
corporations.

Much has heretofore been said on the necessity of admitting such a
power in the legislature as has been assumed in this case. Many cases
of possible evil have been imagined, which might otherwise be without
remedy. Abuses, it is contended, might arise in the management of such
institutions, which the ordinary courts of law would be unable to
correct. But this is only another instance of that habit of supposing
extreme cases, and then of reasoning from them, which is the constant
refuge of those who are obliged to defend a cause, which, upon its
merits, is indefensible. It would be sufficient to say in answer, that
it is not pretended that there was here any such case of necessity. But
a still more satisfactory answer is, that the apprehension of danger is
groundless, and therefore the whole argument fails. Experience has not
taught us that there is danger of great evils or of great inconvenience
from this source. Hitherto, neither in our own country nor elsewhere
have such cases of necessity occurred. The judicial establishments of
the State are presumed to be competent to prevent abuses and violations
of trust, in cases of this kind, as well as in all others. If they be
not, they are imperfect, and their amendment would be a most proper
subject for legislative wisdom. Under the government and protection of
the general laws of the land, these institutions have always been found
safe, as well as useful. They go on, with the progress of society,
accommodating themselves easily, without sudden change or violence, to
the alterations which take place in its condition, and in the
knowledge, the habits, and pursuits of men. The English colleges were
founded in Catholic ages. Their religion was reformed with the general
reformation of the nation; and they are suited perfectly well to the
purpose of educating the Protestant youth of modern times. Dartmouth
College was established under a charter granted by the Provincial
government; but a better constitution for a college or one more adapted
to the condition of things under the present government, in all
material respects, could not now be framed. Nothing in it was found to
need alteration at the Revolution. The wise men of that day saw in it
one of the best hopes of future times, and commended it as it was, with
parental care, to the protection and guardianship of the government of
the State. A charter of more liberal sentiments, of wiser provisions,
drawn with more care, or in a better spirit, could not be expected at
any time or from any source. The college needed no change in its
organization or government. That which it did need was the kindness,
the patronage, the bounty of the legislature; not a mock elevation to
the character of a university, without the solid benefit of a
shilling's donation to sustain the character; not the swelling and
empty authority of establishing institutes and other colleges. This
unsubstantial pageantry would seem to have been in derision of the
scanty endowment and limited means of an unobtrusive, but useful and
growing seminary. Least of all was there a necessity, or pretence of
necessity, to infringe its legal rights, violate its franchises and
privileges, and pour upon it these overwhelming streams of litigation.

But this argument from necessity would equally apply in all other
cases. If it be well founded, it would prove, that, whenever any
inconvenience or evil is experienced from the restrictions imposed on
the legislature by the Constitution, these restrictions ought to be
disregarded. It is enough to say, that the people have thought
otherwise. They have, most wisely, chosen to take the risk of
occasional inconvenience from the want of power, in order that there
might be a settled limit to its exercise, and a permanent security
against its abuse. They have imposed prohibitions and restraints; and
they have not rendered these altogether vain and nugatory by conferring
the power of dispensation. If inconvenience should arise which the
legislature cannot remedy under the power conferred upon it, it is not
answerable for such inconvenience. That which it cannot do within the
limits prescribed to it, it cannot do at all. No legislature in this
country is able, and may the time never come when it shall be able, to
apply to itself the memorable expression of a Roman pontiff: "Licet hoc
_de jure_ non possumus, volumus tamen _de plenitudine potestatis_."

The case before the court is not of ordinary importance, nor of
every-day occurrence. It affects not this college only, but every
college, and all the literary institutions of the country. They have
flourished hitherto, and have become in a high degree respectable and
useful to the community. They have all a common principle of existence,
the inviolability of their charters. It will be a dangerous, a most
dangerous experiment, to hold these institutions subject to the rise
and fall of popular parties, and the fluctuations of political
opinions. If the franchise may be at any time taken away, or impaired,
the property also may be taken away, or its use perverted. Benefactors
will have no certainty of effecting the object of their bounty; and
learned men will be deterred from devoting themselves to the service of
such institutions, from the precarious title of their offices. Colleges
and halls will be deserted by all better spirits, and become a theatre
for the contentions of politics, Party and faction will be cherished in
the places consecrated to piety and learning. These consequences are
neither remote nor possible only. They are certain and immediate.

When the court in North Carolina declared the law of the State, which
repealed a grant to its university, unconstitutional and void, the
legislature had the candor and the wisdom to repeal the law. This
example, so honorable to the State which exhibited it, is most fit to
be followed on this occasion. And there is good reason to hope that a
State, which has hitherto been so much distinguished for temperate
counsels, cautious legislation, and regard to law, will not fail to
adopt a course which will accord with her highest and best interests,
and in no small degree elevate her reputation. It was for many and
obvious reasons most anxiously desired that the question of the power
of the legislature over this charter should have been finally decided
in the State court. An earnest hope was entertained that the judges of
the court might have viewed the case in a light favorable to the rights
of the trustees. That hope has failed. It is here that those rights are
now to be maintained, or they are prostrated for ever. "Omnia alia
perfugia bonorum, subsidia, consilia, auxilia, jura ceciderunt. Quem
enim alium appellem? quem obtester? quern implorem? Nisi hoc loco, nisi
apud vos, nisi per vos, judices, salutem nostram, quae spe exigua
extremaque pendet, tenuerimus; nihil est praeterea quo confugere
possimus." [1]

This, sir, is my case. It is the case, not merely of that humble
institution, it is the case of every college in the land. It is more.
It is the case of every eleemosynary institution throughout our
country--of all those great charities formed by the piety of our
ancestors, to alleviate human misery, and scatter blessings along the
pathway of life. It is more! It is, in some sense, the case of every
man among us who has property, of which he may be stripped, for the
question is simply this: Shall our State legislatures be allowed to
take that which is not their own, to turn it from its original use, and
apply it to such ends or purposes as they in their discretion shall see
fit?

Sir, you may destroy this little institution; it is weak; it is in your
hands! I know it is one of the lesser lights in the literary horizon of
our country. You may put it out. But, if you do so, you must carry
through your work! You must extinguish, one after another, all those
greater lights of science, which, for more than a century, have thrown
their radiance over our land!

It is, sir, as I have said, a small college, and yet there are those
who love it. [2]

Sir, I know not how others may feel (glancing at the opponents of the
colleges before him), but for myself, when I see my Alma Mater
surrounded, like Caesar, in the senate house, by those who are
reiterating stab after stab, I would not, for this right hand, have her
turn to me, and say, _et tu quoque, mi fili! And thou too, my son!_ [3]




First Settlement of New England.



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. For ever honored be this, the place of
our fathers' refuge! For ever remembered the day which saw them, weary
and distressed, broken in every thing 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!

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.

There may be, and there often is, indeed, a regard for ancestry, which
nourishes only a weak pride; as there is also a care for posterity,
which only disguises an habitual avarice, or hides the workings of a
low and grovelling vanity. But there is also a moral and philosophical
respect for our ancestors, which elevates the character and improves
the heart. Next to the sense of religious duty and moral feeling, I
hardly know what should bear with stronger obligation on a liberal and
enlightened mind, than a consciousness of alliance with excellence
which is departed; and a consciousness, too, that in its acts and
conduct, and even in its sentiments and thoughts, it may be actively
operating on the happiness of those who come after it. Poetry is found
to have few stronger conceptions, by which it would affect or overwhelm
the mind, than those in which it presents the moving and speaking image
of the departed dead to the senses of the living. This belongs to
poetry, only because it is congenial to our nature. Poetry is, in this
respect, but the handmaid of true philosophy and morality; it deals
with us as human beings, naturally reverencing those whose visible
connection with this state of existence is severed, and who may yet
exercise we know not what sympathy with ourselves; and when it carries
us forward, also, and shows us the long continued result of all the
good we do, in the prosperity of those who follow us, till it bears us
from ourselves, and absorbs us in an intense interest for what shall
happen to the generations after us, it speaks only in the language of
our nature, and affects us with sentiments which belong to us as human
beings.

Standing in this relation to our ancestors and our posterity, we are
assembled on this memorable spot, to perform the duties which that
relation and the present occasion impose upon us. We have come to this
Rock, to record here our homage for our Pilgrim Fathers; 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.

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 lodgement, 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 [1],
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; [2] 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.

The settlement of New England by the colony which landed here on the
twenty-second [3] of December, sixteen hundred and twenty, 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.

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, 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.

"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." [4] 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."

A brief remembrance of the causes which led to the settlement of this
place; some account of the peculiarities and characteristic qualities
of that settlement, as distinguished from other instances of
colonization; a short notice of the progress of New England in the
great interests of society, during the century which is now elapsed;
with a few observations on the principles upon which society and
government are established in this country: comprise all that can be
attempted, and much more than can be satisfactorily performed, on the
present occasion.

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.

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 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, 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. [5] 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.

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
meantime 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.

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 for ever! 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!

The peculiar character, condition, and circumstances of the colonies
which introduced civilization and an English race into New England,
afford a most interesting and extensive topic of discussion. On these,
much of our subsequent character and fortune has depended. Their
influence has essentially affected our whole history, through the two
centuries which have elapsed; and as they have become intimately
connected with government, laws, and property, as well as with our
opinions on the subjects of religion and civil liberty, that influence
is likely to continue to be felt through the centuries which shall
succeed. Emigration from one region to another, and the emission of
colonies to people countries more or less distant from the residence of
the parent stock, are common incidents in the history of mankind; but
it has not often, perhaps never, happened, that the establishment of
colonies should be attempted under circumstances, however beset with
present difficulties and dangers, yet so favorable to ultimate success,
and so conducive to magnificent results, as those which attended the
first settlements on this part of the American continent. In other
instances, emigration has proceeded from a less exalted purpose, in
periods of less general intelligence, or more without plan and by
accident; or under circumstances, physical and moral, less favorable to
the expectation of laying a foundation for great public prosperity and
future empire.

A great resemblance exists, obviously, between all the English colonies
established within the present limits of the United States; but the
occasion attracts our attention more immediately to those which took
possession of New England, and the peculiarities of these furnish a
strong contrast with most other instances of colonization.

Among the ancient nations, the Greeks, no doubt, sent forth from their
territories the greatest number of colonies. So numerous, indeed, were
they, and so great the extent of space over which they were spread,
that the parent country fondly and naturally persuaded herself, that by
means of them she had laid a sure foundation for the universal
civilization of the world. These establishments, from obvious causes,
were most numerous in places most contiguous; yet they were found on
the coasts of France, on the shores of the Euxine Sea, in Africa, and
even, as is alleged, on the borders of India. These emigrations appear
to have been sometimes voluntary and sometimes compulsory; arising from
the spontaneous enterprise of individuals, or the order and regulation
of government. It was a common opinion with ancient writers, that they
were undertaken in religious obedience to the commands of oracles, and
it is probable that impressions of this sort might have had more or
less influence; but it is probable, also, that on these occasions the
oracles did not speak a language dissonant from the views and purposes
of the state.

Political science among the Greeks seems never to have extended to the
comprehension of a system, which should be adequate to the government
of a great nation upon principles of liberty. They were accustomed only
to the contemplation of small republics, and were led to consider an
augmented population as incompatible with free institutions. The desire
of a remedy for this supposed evil, and the wish to establish marts for
trade, led the governments often to undertake the establishment of
colonies as an affair of state expediency. Colonization and commerce,
indeed, would naturally become objects of interest to an ingenious and
enterprising people, inhabiting a territory closely circumscribed in
its limits, and in no small part mountainous and sterile; while the
islands of the adjacent seas, and the promontories and coasts of the
neighboring continents, by their mere proximity, strongly solicited the
excited spirit of emigration. Such was this proximity, in many
instances, that the new settlements appeared rather to be the mere
extension of population over contiguous territory, than the
establishment of distant colonies. In proportion as they were near to
the parent state, they would be under its authority, and partake of its
fortunes. The colony at Marseilles might perceive lightly, or not at
all, the sway of Phocis; while the islands in the Aegean Sea could
hardly attain to independence of their Athenian origin. Many of these
establishments took place at an early age; and if there were defects in
the governments of the parent states, the colonists did not possess
philosophy or experience sufficient to correct such evils in their own
institutions, even if they had not been, by other causes, deprived of
the power. An immediate necessity, connected with the support of life,
was the main and direct inducement to these undertakings, and there
could hardly exist more than the hope of a successful imitation of
institutions with which they were already acquainted, and of holding an
equality with their neighbors in the course of improvement. The laws
and customs, both political and municipal, as well as the religious
worship of the parent city, were transferred to the colony; and the
parent city herself, with all such of her colonies as were not too far
remote for frequent intercourse and common sentiments, would appear
like a family of cities, more or less dependent, and more or less
connected. We know how imperfect this system was, as a system of
general politics, and what scope it gave to those mutual dissensions
and conflicts which proved so fatal to Greece.

But it is more pertinent to our present purpose to observe, that
nothing existed in the character of Grecian emigrations, or in the
spirit and intelligence of the emigrants, likely to give a new and
important direction to human affairs, or a new impulse to the human
mind. Their motives were not high enough, their views were not
sufficiently large and prospective. They went not forth, like our
ancestors, to erect systems of more perfect civil liberty, or to enjoy
a higher degree of religious freedom. Above all, there was nothing in
the religion and learning of the age, that could either inspire high
purposes, or give the ability to execute them. Whatever restraints on
civil liberty, or whatever abuses in religious worship, existed at the
time of our fathers' emigration, yet even then all was light in the
moral and mental world, in comparison with its condition in most
periods of the ancient states. The settlement of a new continent, in an
age of progressive knowledge and improvement, could not but do more
than merely enlarge the natural boundaries of the habitable world. It
could not but do much more even than extend commerce and increase
wealth among the human race. We see how this event has acted, how it
must have acted, and wonder only why it did not act sooner, in the
production of moral effects, on the state of human knowledge, the
general tone of human sentiments, and the prospects of human happiness.
It gave to civilized man not only a new continent to be inhabited and
cultivated, and new seas to be explored; but it gave him also a new
range for his thoughts, new objects for curiosity, and new excitements
to knowledge and improvement.

Roman colonization resembled, far less than that of the Greeks, the
original settlements of this country. Power and dominion were the
objects of Rome, even in her colonial establishments. Her whole
exterior aspect was for centuries hostile and terrific. She grasped at
dominion, from India to Britain, and her measures of colonization
partook of the character of her general system. Her policy was
military, because her objects were power, ascendency, and subjugation.
Detachments of emigrants from Rome incorporated themselves with, and
governed, the original inhabitants of conquered countries. She sent
citizens where she had first sent soldiers; her law followed her sword.
Her colonies were a sort of military establishment; so many advanced
posts in the career of her dominion. A governor from Rome ruled the new
colony with absolute sway, and often with unbounded rapacity. In
Sicily, in Gaul, in Spain, and in Asia, the power of Rome prevailed,
not nominally only, but really and effectually. Those who immediately
exercised it were Roman; the tone and tendency of its administration,
Roman. Rome herself continued to be the heart and centre of the great
system which she had established. [6] Extortion and rapacity, finding a
wide and often rich field of action in the provinces, looked
nevertheless to the banks of the Tiber, as the scene in which their
ill-gotten treasures should be displayed; or, if a spirit of more
honest acquisition prevailed, the object, nevertheless, was ultimate
enjoyment in Rome itself. If our own history and our own times did not
sufficiently expose the inherent and incurable evils of provincial
government, we might see them portrayed, to our amazement, in the
desolated and ruined provinces of the Roman empire. We might hear them,
in a voice that terrifies us, in those strains of complaint and
accusation, which the advocates of the provinces poured forth in the
Roman Forum:--"Quas res luxuries in flagitiis, crudelitas in
suppliciis, avaritia in rapinis, superbia in contumeliis, efficere
potuisset, eas omnes sese pertulisse."

As was to be expected, the Roman Provinces partook of the fortunes, as
well as of the sentiments and general character, of the seat of empire.
They lived together with her, they flourished with her, and fell with
her. The branches were lopped away even before the vast and venerable
trunk itself fell prostrate to the earth. Nothing had proceeded from
her which could support itself, and bear up the name of its origin,
when her own sustaining arm should be enfeebled or withdrawn. It was
not given to Rome to see, either at her zenith or in her decline, a
child of her own, distant, indeed, and independent of her control, yet
speaking her language and inheriting her blood, springing forward to a
competition with her own power, and a comparison with her own great
renown. She saw not a vast region of the earth peopled from her stock,
full of states and political communities, improving upon the models of
her institutions, and breathing in fuller measure the spirit which she
had breathed in the best periods of her existence; enjoying and
extending her arts and her literature; rising rapidly from political
childhood to manly strength and independence; her offspring, yet now
her equal; unconnected with the causes which might affect the duration
of her own power and greatness; of common origin, but not linked to a
common fate; giving ample pledge, that her name should not be
forgotten, that her language should not cease to be used among men;
that whatsoever she had done for human knowledge and human happiness
should be treasured up and preserved; that the record of her existence
and her achievements should not be obscured, although, in the
inscrutable purposes of Providence, it might be her destiny to fall
from opulence and splendor; although the time might come, when darkness
should settle on all her hills; when foreign or domestic violence
should overturn her altars and her temples; when ignorance and
despotism should fill the places where Laws, and Arts, and Liberty had
flourished; when the feet of barbarism should trample on the tombs of
her consuls, and the walls of her senate-house and forum echo only to
the voice of savage triumph. She saw not this glorious vision, to
inspire and fortify her against the possible decay or downfall of her
power. Happy are they who in our day may behold it, if they shall
contemplate it with the sentiments which it ought to inspire!

The New England Colonies differ quite as widely from the Asiatic
establishments of the modern European nations, as from the models of
the ancient states. The sole object of those establishments was
originally trade; although we have seen, in one of them, the anomaly of
a mere trading company attaining a political character, disbursing
revenues, and maintaining armies and fortresses, until it has extended
its control over seventy millions of people. Differing from these, and
still more from the New England and North American Colonies, are the
European settlements in the West India Islands. It is not strange,
that, when men's minds were turned to the settlement of America,
different objects should be proposed by those who emigrated to the
different regions of so vast a country. Climate, soil, and condition
were not equally favorable to all pursuits. In the West Indies, the
purpose of those who went thither was to engage in that species of
agriculture, suited to the soil and climate, which seems to bear more
resemblance to commerce than to the hard and plain tillage of New
England. The great staples of these countries, being partly an
agricultural and partly a manufactured product, and not being of the
necessaries of life, become the object of calculation, with respect to
a profitable investment of capital, like any other enterprise of trade
or manufacture. The more especially, as, requiring, by necessity or
habit, slave labor for their production, the capital necessary to carry
on the work of this production is very considerable. The West Indies
are resorted to, therefore, rather for the investment of capital than
for the purpose of sustaining life by personal labor. Such as possess a
considerable amount of capital, or such as choose to adventure in
commercial speculations without capital, can alone be fitted to be
emigrants to the islands. The agriculture of these regions, as before
observed, is a sort of commerce; and it is a species of employment in
which labor seems to form an inconsiderable ingredient in the
productive causes, since the portion of white labor is exceedingly
small, and slave labor is rather more like profit on stock or capital
than _labor_ properly so called. The individual who undertakes an
establishment of this kind takes into the account the cost of the
necessary number of slaves, in the same manner as he calculates the
cost of the land. The uncertainty, too, of this species of employment,
affords another ground of resemblance to commerce. Although gainful on
the whole, and in a series of years, it is often very disastrous for a
single year, and, as the capital is not readily invested in other
pursuits, bad crops or bad markets not only affect the profits, but the
capital itself. Hence the sudden depressions which take place in the
value of such estates.

But the great and leading observation, relative to these
establishments, remains to be made. It is, that the owners of the soil
and of the capital seldom consider themselves _at home_ in the colony.
A very great portion of the soil itself is usually owned in the mother
country; a still greater is mortgaged for capital obtained there; and,
in general, those who are to derive an interest from the products look
to the parent country as the place for enjoyment of their wealth. The
population is therefore constantly fluctuating. Nobody comes but to
return. A constant succession of owners, agents, and factors takes
place. Whatsoever the soil, forced by the unmitigated toil of slavery,
can yield, is sent home to defray rents, and interest, and agencies, or
to give the means of living in a better society. In such a state, it is
evident that no spirit of permanent improvement is likely to spring up.
Profits will not be invested with a distant view of benefiting
posterity. Roads and canals will hardly be built; schools will not be
founded; colleges will not be endowed. There will be few fixtures in
society; no principles of utility or of elegance, planted now, with the
hope of being developed and expanded hereafter. Profit, immediate
profit, must be the principal active spring in the social system. There
may be many particular exceptions to these general remarks, but the
outline of the whole is such as is here drawn.[7]

Another most important consequence of such a state of things is, that
no idea of independence of the parent country is likely to arise;
unless, indeed, it should spring up in a form that would threaten
universal desolation. The inhabitants have no strong attachment to the
place which they inhabit. The hope of a great portion of them is to
leave it; and their great desire, to leave it soon. However useful they
may be to the parent state, how much soever they may add to the
conveniences and luxuries of life, these colonies are not favored spots
for the expansion of the human mind, for the progress of permanent
improvement, or for sowing the seeds of future independent empire.

Different, indeed, most widely different, from all these instances, of
emigration and plantation, were the condition, the purposes, and the
prospects of our fathers, when they established their infant colony
upon this spot. 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 for ever 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,[8] 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. Every thing was civilized but the
physical world. Institutions, containing in substance all that ages had
done for human government, were organized in a forest.[9] 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 ere long 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.

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.

Under the influence of these causes, it was to be expected that an
interest and a feeling should arise here, entirely different from the
interest and feeling of mere Englishmen; and all the subsequent history
of the Colonies proves this to have actually and gradually taken place.
With a general acknowledgment of the supremacy of the British crown,
there was, from the first, a repugnance to an entire submission to the
control of British legislation. The Colonies stood upon their charters,
which, as they contended, exempted them from the ordinary power of the
British Parliament, and authorized them to conduct their own concerns
by their own counsels. They utterly resisted the notion that they were
to be ruled by the mere authority of the government at home, and would
not endure even that their own charter governments should be
established on the other side of the Atlantic. It was not a controlling
or protecting board in England, but a government of their own, and
existing immediately within their limits, which could satisfy their
wishes. It was easy to foresee, what we know also to have happened,
that the first great cause of collision and jealousy would be, under
the notion of political economy then and still prevalent in Europe, an
attempt on the part of the mother country to monopolize the trade of
the Colonies. Whoever has looked deeply into the causes which produced
our Revolution has found, if I mistake not, the original principle far
back in this claim, on the part of England, to monopolize our trade,
and a continued effort on the part of the Colonies to resist or evade
that monopoly; if, indeed, it be not still more just and philosophical
to go farther back, and to consider it decided, that an independent
government must arise here, the moment it was ascertained that an
English colony, such as landed in this place, could sustain itself
against the dangers which surrounded it, and, with other similar
establishments, overspread the land with an English population.
Accidental causes retarded at times, and at times accelerated, the
progress of the controversy. The Colonies wanted strength, and time
gave it to them. They required measures of strong and palpable
injustice, on the part of the mother country, to justify resistance;
the early part of the late king's reign furnished them. They needed
spirits of high order, of great daring, of long foresight, and of
commanding power, to seize the favoring occasion to strike a blow,
which should sever, for all time, the tie of colonial dependence; and
these spirits were found, in all the extent which that or any crisis
could demand, in Otis, Adams, Hancock, and the other immediate authors
of our independence.

Still, it is true that, for a century, causes had been in operation
tending to prepare things for this great result. In the year 1660 the
English Act of Navigation was passed; the first and grand object of
which seems to have been, to secure to England the whole trade with her
plantations. It was provided by that act, that none but English ships
should transport American produce over the ocean, and that the
principal articles of that produce should be allowed to be sold only in
the markets of the mother country. Three years afterwards another law
was passed, which enacted, that such commodities as the Colonies might
wish to purchase should be bought only in the markets of the mother
country. Severe rules were prescribed to enforce the provisions of
these laws, and heavy penalties imposed on all who should violate them.
In the subsequent years of the same reign, other statutes were enacted
to re-enforce these statutes, and other rules prescribed to secure a
compliance with these rules. In this manner was the trade to and from
the Colonies restricted, almost to the exclusive advantage of the
parent country. But laws, which rendered the interest of a whole people
subordinate to that of another people, were not likely to execute
themselves; nor was it easy to find many on the spot, who could be
depended upon for carrying them into execution. In fact, these laws
were more or less evaded or resisted, in all the Colonies. To enforce
them was the constant endeavor of the government at home; to prevent or
elude their operation, the perpetual object here. "The laws of
navigation," says a living British writer, "were nowhere so openly
disobeyed and contemned as in New England." "The people of
Massachusetts Bay," he adds, "were from the first disposed to act as if
independent of the mother country, and having a governor and
magistrates of their own choice, it was difficult to enforce any
regulation which came from the English Parliament, adverse to their
interests." To provide more effectually for the execution of these
laws, we know that courts of admiralty were afterwards established by
the crown, with power to try revenue causes, as questions of admiralty,
upon the construction given by the crown lawyers to an act of
Parliament; a great departure from the ordinary principles of English
jurisprudence, but which has been maintained, nevertheless, by the
force of habit and precedent, and is adopted in our own existing
systems of government.

"There lie," says another English writer, whose connection with the
Board of Trade has enabled him to ascertain many facts connected with
Colonial history, "There lie among the documents in the board of trade
and state-paper office, the most satisfactory proofs, from the epoch of
the English Revolution in 1688, throughout every reign, and during
every administration, of the settled purpose of the Colonies to acquire
direct independence and positive sovereignty." Perhaps this may be
stated somewhat too strongly; but it cannot be denied, that, from the
very nature of the establishments here, and from the general character
of the measures respecting their concerns early adopted and steadily
pursued by the English government, a division of the empire was the
natural and necessary result to which every thing tended.

I have dwelt on this topic, because it seems to me, that the peculiar
original character of the New England Colonies, and certain causes
coeval with their existence, have had a strong and decided influence on
all their subsequent history, and especially on the great event of the
Revolution. Whoever would write our history, and would understand and
explain early transactions, should comprehend the nature and force of
the feeling which I have endeavored to describe. As a son, leaving the
house of his father for his own, finds, by the order of nature, and the
very law of his being, nearer and dearer objects around which his
affections circle, while his attachment to the parental roof becomes
moderated, by degrees, to a composed regard and an affectionate
remembrance; so our ancestors, leaving their native land, not without
some violence to the feelings of nature and affection, yet, in time,
found here a new circle of engagements, interests, and affections; a
feeling, which more and more encroached upon the old, till an undivided
sentiment, _that this was their country_, occupied the heart; and
patriotism, shutting out from its embraces the parent realm, became
_local_ to America. Some retrospect of the century which has now
elapsed is among the duties of the occasion. It must, however,
necessarily be imperfect, to be compressed within the limits of a
single discourse. I shall content myself, therefore, with taking notice
of a few of the leading and most important occurrences which have
distinguished the period.

When the first century closed, the progress of the country appeared to
have been considerable; notwithstanding that, in comparison with its
subsequent advancement, it now seems otherwise. A broad and lasting
foundation had been laid; excellent institutions had been established;
many of the prejudices of former times had been removed; a more liberal
and catholic spirit on subjects of religious concern had begun to
extend itself, and many things conspired to give promise of increasing
future prosperity. Great men had arisen in public life, and the liberal
professions. The Mathers, father and son, were then sinking low in the
western horizon; Leverett, the learned, the accomplished, the excellent
Leverett, was about to withdraw his brilliant and useful light. In
Pemberton great hopes had been suddenly extinguished, but Prince and
Colman were in our sky; and along the east had begun to flash the
crepuscular light of a great luminary which was about to appear, and
which was to stamp the age with his own name, as the age of Franklin.

The bloody Indian wars, which harassed the people for a part of the
first century; the restrictions on the trade of the Colonies, added to
the discouragements inherently belonging to all forms of colonial
government; the distance from Europe, and the small hope of immediate
profit to adventurers, are among the causes which had contributed to
retard the progress of population. Perhaps it may be added, also, that
during the period of the civil wars in England, and the reign of
Cromwell, many persons, whose religious opinions and religious temper
might, under other circumstances, have induced them to join the New
England colonists, found reasons to remain in England; either on
account of active occupation in the scenes which were passing, or of an
anticipation of the enjoyment, in their own country, of a form of
government, civil and religious, accommodated to their views and
principles. The violent measures, too, pursued against the Colonies in
the reign of Charles the Second, the mockery of a trial, and the
forfeiture of the charters, were serious evils. And during the open
violences of the short reign of James the Second, and the tyranny of
Andros, as the venerable historian of Connecticut observes, "All the
motives to great actions, to industry, economy, enterprise, wealth, and
population, were in a manner annihilated. A general inactivity and
languishment pervaded the public body. Liberty, property, and every
thing which ought to be dear to men, every day grew more and more
insecure."  With the Revolution in England, a better prospect had
opened on this country, as well as on that. The joy had been as great
at that event, and far more universal, in New than in Old England. A
new charter had been granted to Massachusetts, which, although it did
not confirm to her inhabitants all their former privileges, yet
relieved them from great evils and embarrassments, and promised future
security. More than all, perhaps, the Revolution in England had done
good to the general cause of liberty and justice. A blow had been
struck in favor of the rights and liberties, not of England alone, but
of descendants and kinsmen of England all over the world. Great
political truths had been established the champions of liberty had been
successful in a fearful and perilous conflict. Somers, and Cavendish,
and Jekyl, and Howard, had triumphed in one of the most noble causes
ever undertaken by men. A revolution had been made upon principle. A
monarch had been dethroned for violating the original compact between
king and people. The rights of the people to partake in the government,
and to limit the monarch by fundamental rules of government, had been
maintained; and however unjust the government of England might
afterwards be towards other governments or towards her colonies, she
had ceased to be governed herself by the arbitrary maxims of the
Stuarts.

New England had submitted to the violence of James the Second not
longer than Old England. Not only was it reserved to Massachusetts,
that on her soil should be acted the first scene of that great
revolutionary drama, which was to take place near a century afterwards,
but the English Revolution itself, as far as the Colonies were
concerned, commenced in Boston. The seizure and imprisonment of Andros,
in April, 1689, were acts of direct and forcible resistance to the
authority of James the Second. The pulse of liberty beat as high in the
extremities as at the heart. The vigorous feeling of the Colony burst
out before it was known how the parent country would finally conduct
herself. The king's representative, Sir Edmund Andros, was a prisoner
in the castle at Boston, before it was or could be known that the king
himself had ceased to exercise his full dominion on the English throne.

Before it was known here whether the invasion of the Prince of Orange
would or could prove successful, as soon as it was known that it had
been undertaken, the people of Massachusetts, at the imminent hazard of
their lives and fortunes, had accomplished the Revolution as far as
respected themselves. It is probable that, reasoning on general
principles and the known attachment of the English people to their
constitution and liberties, and their deep and fixed dislike of the
king's religion and politics, the people of New England expected a
catastrophe fatal to the power of the reigning prince. Yet it was
neither certain enough, nor near enough, to come to their aid against
the authority of the crown, in that crisis which had arrived, and in
which they trusted to put themselves, relying on God and their own
courage. There were spirits in Massachusetts congenial with the spirits
of the distinguished friends of the Revolution in England. There were
those who were fit to associate with the boldest asserters of civil
liberty; and Mather himself, then in England, was not unworthy to be
ranked with those sons of the Church, whose firmness and spirit in
resisting kingly encroachments in matters of religion, entitled them to
the gratitude of their own and succeeding ages.

The second century opened upon New England under circumstances which
evinced that much had already been accomplished, and that still better
prospects and brighter hopes were before her. She had laid, deep and
strong, the foundations of her society. Her religious principles were
firm, and her moral habits exemplary. Her public schools had begun to
diffuse widely the elements of knowledge; and the College, under the
excellent and acceptable administration of Leverett, had been raised to
a high degree of credit and usefulness.

The commercial character of the country, notwithstanding all
discouragements, had begun to display itself, and _five hundred
vessels_, then belonging to Massachusetts, placed her, in relation to
commerce, thus early at the head of the Colonies. An author who wrote
very near the close of the first century says:--"New England is almost
deserving that _noble name_, so mightily hath it increased; and from a
small settlement at first, is now become a very _populous_ and
_flourishing_ government. The _capital city_, Boston, is a place of
_great wealth and trade_; and by much the largest of any in the English
empire of America; and not exceeded but by few cities, perhaps two or
three, in all the American world." But if our ancestors at the close of
the first century could look back with joy and even admiration, at the
progress of the country, what emotions must we not feel, when, from the
point on which we stand, we also look back and run along the events of
the century which has now closed! The country which then, as we have
seen, was thought deserving of a "noble name,"--which then had
"mightily increased," and become "very populous,"--what was it, in
comparison with what our eyes behold it? At that period, a very great
proportion of its inhabitants lived in the eastern section of
Massachusetts proper, and in Plymouth Colony. In Connecticut, there
were towns along the coast, some of them respectable, but in the
interior all was a wilderness beyond Hartford. On Connecticut River,
settlements had proceeded as far up as Deerfield, and Fort Dummer had
been built near where is now the south line of New Hampshire. In New
Hampshire no settlement was then begun thirty miles from the mouth of
Piscataqua River, and in what is now Maine the inhabitants were
confined to the coast. The aggregate of the whole population of New
England did not exceed one hundred and sixty thousand. Its present
amount (1820) is probably one million seven hundred thousand. Instead
of being confined to its former limits, her population has rolled
backward, and filled up the spaces included within her actual local
boundaries. Not this only, but it has overflowed those boundaries, and
the waves of emigration have pressed farther and farther toward the
West. The Alleghany has not checked it; the banks of the Ohio have been
covered with it. New England farms, houses, villages, and churches
spread over and adorn the immense extent from the Ohio to Lake Erie,
and stretch along from the Alleghany onwards, beyond the Miamis, and
towards the Falls of St. Anthony. Two thousand miles westward from the
rock where their fathers landed, may now be found the sons of the
Pilgrims, cultivating smiling fields, rearing towns and villages, and
cherishing, we trust, the patrimonial blessings of wise institutions,
of liberty, and religion. The world has seen nothing like this. Regions
large enough to be empires, and which, half a century ago, were known
only as remote and unexplored wildernesses, are now teeming with
population, and prosperous in all the great concerns of life; in good
governments, the means of subsistence, and social happiness. It may be
safely asserted, that there are now more than a million of people,
descendants of New England ancestry, living, free and happy, in regions
which scarce sixty years ago were tracts of unpenetrated forest. Nor do
rivers, or mountains, or seas resist the progress of industry and
enterprise. Erelong, the sons of the Pilgrims will be on the shores of
the Pacific. The imagination hardly keeps pace with the progress of
population, improvement, and civilization.

It is now five-and-forty years since the growth and rising glory of
America were portrayed in the English Parliament, with inimitable
beauty, by the most consummate orator of modern times. Going back
somewhat more than half a century, and describing our progress as
foreseen from that point by his amiable friend Lord Bathurst, then
living, he spoke of the wonderful progress which America had made
during the period of a single human life. There is no American heart, I
imagine, that does not glow, both with conscious, patriotic pride, and
admiration for one of the happiest efforts of eloquence, so often as
the vision of "that little speck, scarce visible in the mass of
national interest, a small seminal principle, rather than a formed
body," and the progress of its astonishing development and growth, are
recalled to the recollection. But a stronger feeling might be produced,
if we were able to take up this prophetic description where he left it,
and, placing ourselves at the point of time in which he was speaking,
to set forth with equal felicity the subsequent progress of the
country. There is yet among the living a most distinguished and
venerable name, a descendant of the Pilgrims; one who has been attended
through life by a great and fortunate genius; a man illustrious by his
own great merits, and favored of Heaven in the long continuation of his
years. The time when the English orator was thus speaking of America
preceded but by a few days the actual opening of the revolutionary
drama at Lexington. He to whom I have alluded, then at the age of
forty, was among the most zealous and able defenders of the violated
rights of his country. He seemed already to have filled a full measure
of public service, and attained an honorable fame. The moment was full
of difficulty and danger, and big with events of immeasurable
importance. The country was on the very brink of a civil war, of which
no man could foretell the duration or the result. Something more than a
courageous hope, or characteristic ardor, would have been necessary to
impress the glorious prospect on his belief, if, at that moment, before
the sound of the first shock of actual war had reached his ears, some
attendant spirit had opened to him the vision of the future;--if it had
said to him, "The blow is struck, and America is severed from England
for ever!"--if it had informed him, that he himself, during the next
annual revolution of the sun, should put his own hand to the great
instrument of independence, and write his name where all nations should
behold it and all time should not efface it; that erelong he himself
should maintain the interests and represent the sovereignty of his
new-born country in the proudest courts of Europe; that he should one
day exercise her supreme magistracy; that he should yet live to behold
ten millions of fellow-citizens paying him the homage of their deepest
gratitude and kindest affections; that he should see distinguished
talent and high public trust resting where his name rested; that he
should even see with his own unclouded eyes the close of the second
century of New England, who had begun life almost with its
commencement, and lived through nearly half the whole history of his
country; and that on the morning of this auspicious day he should be
found in the political councils of his native State, revising, by the
light of experience, that system of government which forty years before
he had assisted to frame and establish; and, great and happy as he
should then behold his country, there should be nothing in prospect to
cloud the scene, nothing to check the ardor of that confident and
patriotic hope which should glow in his bosom to the end of his long
protracted and happy life.

It would far exceed the limits of this discourse even to mention the
principal events in the civil and political history of New England
during the century; the more so, as for the last half of the period
that history has, most happily, been closely interwoven with the
general history of the United States. New England bore an honorable
part in the wars which took place between England and France. The
capture of Louisburg gave her a character for military achievement; and
in the war which terminated with the peace of 1763, her exertions on
the frontiers were of most essential service, as well to the mother
country as to all the Colonies.

In New England the war of the Revolution commenced. I address those who
remember the memorable 19th of April, 1775; who shortly after saw the
burning spires of Charlestown; who beheld the deeds of Prescott, and
heard the voice of Putnam amidst the storm of war, and saw the generous
Warren fall, the first distinguished victim in the cause of liberty. It
would be superfluous to say, that no portion of the country did more
than the States of New England to bring the Revolutionary struggle to a
successful issue. It is scarcely less to her credit, that she saw early
the necessity of a closer union of the States, and gave an efficient
and indispensable aid to the establishment and organization of the
Federal government.

Perhaps we might safely say, that a new spirit and a new excitement
began to exist here about the middle of the last century. To whatever
causes it may be imputed, there seems then to have commenced a more
rapid improvement. The Colonies had attracted more of the attention of
the mother country, and some renown in arms had been acquired. Lord
Chatham was the first English minister who attached high importance to
these possessions of the crown, and who foresaw any thing of their
future growth and extension. His opinion was, that the great rival of
England was chiefly to be feared as a maritime and commercial power,
and to drive her out of North America and deprive her of her West
Indian possessions was a leading object in his policy. He dwelt often
on the fisheries, as nurseries for British seamen, and the colonial
trade, as furnishing them employment. The war, conducted by him with so
much vigor, terminated in a peace, by which Canada was ceded to
England. The effect of this was immediately visible in the New England
Colonies; for, the fear of Indian hostilities on the frontiers being
now happily removed, settlements went on with an activity before that
time altogether unprecedented, and public affairs wore a new and
encouraging aspect. Shortly after this fortunate termination of the
French war, the interesting topics connected with the taxation of
America by the British Parliament began to be discussed, and the
attention and all the faculties of the people drawn towards them. There
is perhaps no portion of our history more full of interest than the
period from 1760 to the actual commencement of the war. The progress of
opinion in this period, though less known, is not less important than
the progress of arms afterwards. Nothing deserves more consideration
than those events and discussions which affected the public sentiment
and settled the Revolution in men's minds, before hostilities openly
broke out.

Internal improvement followed the establishment and prosperous
commencement of the present government. More has been done for roads,
canals, and other public works, within the last thirty years, than in
all our former history. In the first of these particulars, few
countries excel the New England States. The astonishing increase of
their navigation and trade is known to every one, and now belongs to
the history of our national wealth.

We may flatter ourselves, too, that literature and taste have not been
stationary, and that some advancement has been made in the elegant, as
well as in the useful arts.

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.

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."

The history of other nations may teach us how favorable to public
liberty are the division of the soil into small freeholds, and a system
of laws, of which the tendency is, without violence or injustice, to
produce and to preserve a degree of equality of property. It has been
estimated, if I mistake not, that about the time of Henry the Seventh
four fifths of the land in England was holden by the great barons and
ecclesiastics. The effects of a growing commerce soon afterwards began
to break in on this state of things, and before the Revolution, in
1688, a vast change had been wrought. It may be thought probable, that,
for the last half-century, the process of subdivision in England has
been retarded, if not reversed; that the great weight of taxation has
compelled many of the lesser freeholders to dispose of their estates,
and to seek employment in the army and navy, in the professions of
civil life, in commerce, or in the colonies. The effect of this on the
British constitution cannot but be most unfavorable. A few large
estates grow larger; but the number of those who have no estates also
increases; and there may be danger, lest the inequality of property
become so great, that those who possess it may be dispossessed by
force; in other words, that the government may be overturned.

A most interesting experiment of the effect of a subdivision of
property on government is now making in France. It is understood, that
the law regulating the transmission of property in that country, now
divides it, real and personal, among all the children equally, both
sons and daughters; and that there is, also, a very great restraint on
the power of making dispositions of property by will. It has been
supposed, that the effects of this might probably be, in time, to break
up the soil into such small subdivisions, that the proprietors would be
too poor to resist the encroachments of executive power. I think far
otherwise. What is lost in individual wealth will be more than gained
in numbers, in intelligence, and in a sympathy of sentiment. If,
indeed, only one or a few landholders were to resist the crown, like
the barons of England, they must, of course, be great and powerful
landholders, with multitudes of retainers, to promise success. But if
the proprietors of a given extent of territory are summoned to
resistance, there is no reason to believe that such resistance would be
less forcible, or less successful, because the number of such
proprietors happened to be great. Each would perceive his own
importance, and his own interest, and would feel that natural elevation
of character which the consciousness of property inspires. A common
sentiment would unite all, and numbers would not only add strength, but
excite enthusiasm. It is true, that France possesses a vast military
force, under the direction of an hereditary executive government; and
military power, it is possible, may overthrow any government. It is in
vain, however, in this period of the world, to look for security
against military power to the arm of the great landholders. That notion
is derived from a state of things long since past; a state in which a
feudal baron, with his retainers, might stand against the sovereign and
his retainers, himself but the greatest baron. But at present, what
could the richest landholder do, against one regiment of disciplined
troops? Other securities, therefore, against the prevalence of military
power must be provided. Happily for us, we are not so situated as that
any purpose of national defence requires, ordinarily and constantly,
such a military force as might seriously endanger our liberties.

In respect, however, to the recent law of succession in France, to
which I have alluded, I would, presumptuously perhaps, hazard a
conjecture, that, if the government do not change the law, the law in
half a century will change the government; and that this change will
be, not in favor of the power of the crown, as some European writers
have supposed, but against it. Those writers only reason upon what they
think correct general principles, in relation to this subject. They
acknowledge a want of experience. Here we have had that experience; and
we know that a multitude of small proprietors, acting with
intelligence, and that enthusiasm which a common cause inspires,
constitute not only a formidable, but an invincible power.

The true principle of a free and popular government would seem to be,
so to construct it as to give to all, or at least to a very great
majority, an interest in its preservation; to found it, as other things
are founded, on men's interest. The stability of government demands
that those who desire its continuance should be more powerful than
those who desire its dissolution. This power, of course, is not always
to be measured by mere numbers. Education, wealth, talents, are all
parts and elements of the general aggregate of power; but numbers,
nevertheless, constitute ordinarily the most important consideration,
unless, indeed, there be _a military force_ in the hands of the few, by
which they can control the many. In this country we have actually
existing systems of government, in the maintenance of which, it should
seem, a great majority, both in numbers and in other means of power and
influence, must see their interest. But this state of things is not
brought about solely by written political constitutions, or the mere
manner of organizing the government; but also by the laws which
regulate the descent and transmission of property. The freest
government, if it could exist, would not be long acceptable, if the
tendency of the laws were to create a rapid accumulation of property in
few hands, and to render the great mass of the population dependent and
penniless. In such a case, the popular power would be likely to break
in upon the rights of property, or else the influence of property to
limit and control the exercise of popular power. Universal suffrage,
for example, could not long exist in a community where there was great
inequality of property. The holders of estates would be obliged, in
such case, in some way to restrain the right of suffrage, or else such
right of suffrage would, before long, divide the property. In the
nature of things, those who have not property, and see their neighbors
possess much more than they think them to need, cannot be favorable to
laws made for the protection of property. When this class becomes
numerous, it grows clamorous. It looks on property as its prey and
plunder, and is naturally ready, at all times, for violence and
revolution.

It would seem, then, to be the part of political wisdom to found
government on property; and to establish such distribution of property,
by the laws which regulate its transmission and alienation, as to
interest the great majority of society in the support of the
government. This is, I imagine, the true theory and the actual practice
of our republican institutions. With property divided as we have it, no
other government than that of a republic could be maintained, even were
we foolish enough to desire it. There is reason, therefore, to expect a
long continuance of our system. Party and passion, doubtless, may
prevail at times, and much temporary mischief be done. Even modes and
forms may be changed, and perhaps for the worse. But a great revolution
in regard to property must take place, before our governments can be
moved from their republican basis, unless they be violently struck off
by military power. The people possess the property, more emphatically
than it could ever be said of the people of any other country, and they
can have no interest to overturn a government which protects that
property by equal laws.

Let it not be supposed, that this state of things possesses too strong
tendencies towards the production of a dead and uninteresting level in
society. Such tendencies are sufficiently counteracted by the infinite
diversities in the characters and fortunes of individuals. Talent,
activity, industry, and enterprise tend at all times to produce
inequality and distinction; and there is room still for the
accumulation of wealth, with its great advantages, to all reasonable
and useful extent. It has been often urged against the state of society
in America, that it furnishes no class of men of fortune and leisure.
This may be partly true, but it is not entirely so, and the evil, if it
be one, would affect rather the progress of taste and literature, than
the general prosperity of the people. But the promotion of taste and
literature cannot be primary objects of political institutions; and if
they could, it might be doubted whether, in the long course of things,
as much is not gained by a wide diffusion of general knowledge, as is
lost by diminishing the number of those who are enabled by fortune and
leisure to devote themselves exclusively to scientific and literary
pursuits. However this may be, it is to be considered that it is the
spirit of our system to be equal and general, and if there be
particular disadvantages incident to this, they are far more than
counterbalanced by the benefits which weigh against them. The important
concerns of society are generally conducted, in all countries, by the
men of business and practical ability; and even in matters of taste and
literature, the advantages of mere leisure are liable to be overrated.
If there exist adequate means of education and a love of letters be
excited, that love will find its way to the object of its desire,
through the crowd and pressure of the most busy society.

Connected with this division of property, and the consequent
participation of the great mass of people in its possession and
enjoyments, is the system of representation, which is admirably
accommodated to our condition, better understood among us, and more
familiarly and extensively practised, in the higher and in the lower
departments of government, than it has been by any other people. Great
facility has been given to this in New England by the early division of
the country into townships or small districts, in which all concerns of
local police are regulated, and in which representatives to the
legislature are elected. Nothing can exceed the utility of these little
bodies. They are so many councils or parliaments, in which common
interests are discussed, and useful knowledge acquired and
communicated. 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 ba

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