ADDRESS
BEFORE THE
PHI BETA KAPPA
AT
YALE  COLLEGE,
July 26, 1854.
BY
WILLIAM  H.: SEWARD.
NEW HAVEN:
PRINTED BY B. L. HAMLEN,
Printer to Yale College.
1854.








New Haven, July 26, 1854.
HON. WILLIAM H. SEWARD:
Dear Sir-We are directed by a vote of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, Yale
College, to thank you for the luminous and profound Discourse delivered by
you before the Society this evening, and to request in behalf of the Society
a copy for publication.
With great regard, we are very respectfully yours,
A. N. SKINNER,
HORACE BUSHNELL, - Committee.
HENRY DIITTON,   )
Washington, July 29, 1854.
Tentlemen —-I send herewith, a copy of the Address to which you have so
kindly referred, and have the honor to be, very respectfully,
Your humble servant,
WILLIAM H. SEWARD.
Messrs. A. N1. Skinner, Horace Bushnell, and Henry Dutton, Committee,
&c. &c., New Haven.








ADDRESS,
GENTLEMEN:
A POLITICAL discourse may seem out of time and out of
place at a classic festival and in academic groves. Nevertheless, the office of instructor to a prince brought something more of dignity even to the learning and piety of
Fenelon. To study the forces and tendency of a Republic
which is not obscure, cannot, therefore, at any time or in
any place, be unbecoming an association which regards
universal philosophy as the proper guide of human life.
Nations are intelligent, moral persons, existing for the
ends of their own happiness and the improvement of mankind. They grow, mature, and decline. Their physical
development, being most obvious, always attracts our attention first. Certainly we cannot too well understand the material condition of our own country. " I think," said Burke,
sadly, addressing the British House of Commons, just after
the American war, " I think I can trace all the calamities of
this country to the single source of not having had steadily
before our eyes a general, comprehensive, well-connected,
and well-proportioned view of the whole of our dominions,
and a just sense of their bearings and relations."
Trace on a map the early boundaries of the United States,
as they were defined by the treaty of Versailles, in 1783.
See with what jealousy Great Britain abridged their enjoyment of the fisheries on the Northeast coast, and how tenaciously she locked up against them the St. Lawrence, the
only possible channel between their inland regions and the
Atlantic ocean. Observe how Spain, while retaining the




vast and varied solitudes which spread out westward from
the Mississippi river to the Pacific ocean, at the same time
assigned the thirty-first parallel of north latitude as the
southern boundary of the United States, and thus shut
them out from access by that river or otherwise to the Gulf
of Mexico. See now how the massive and unpassable Alleghany Mountains traversed the new Republic from north
to south, dividing it into two regions-the inner one rich in
agricultural resources, but without markets; and the outer
one adapted to defence and markets, but wanting the materials for commerce. Were not the Europeans astute in thus
confining the United States within limits which would
probably render an early separation of them inevitable, and
would also prevent equally the whole and each of the future
parts from ever becoming a formidable or even a really independent Atlantic power? They had cause for their jealousies. They were monarchies, and they largely divided
the western hemisphere between them. The United States
aimed to become a maritime nation, and their success would
tend to make that hemisphere not only republican, but also
independent of Europe. That success was foreseen. A
British statesman, in describing the American Colonies just
before the peace, had said to his countrymen: "Your children do not grow faster from infancy to manhood than they
spread fromr families to communities, and from villages to
nations."
The United States, thus confined landward, betook themselves to the sea, whose broad realm lay unappropriated;
and, having furnished themselves with shipping and seamen equal to the adventurous pursuit of the whale fishery under the Poles, they presented themselves in European ports as a maritime people. Afterwards, their wellknown attitude of neutrality, in a season of general war,
enabled them to become carriers for the world. But they
never forgot for a moment the importance of improving
their position on the coast. France was now the owner of




7
the Province of Louisiana, which stretched all along the
western bank of the Mississippi. She wisely sold a possession, which she was unable to defend, to the United States,
who thus, only twenty years after the treaty of Versailles,
secured the exclusive navigation of the great river; and,
descending from their inland frontier, established themselves on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Spain soon
saw that her colonies on that coast, east of the Mississippi,
now virtually surrounded by the United States, were untenable. She therefore, for an equivalent, ceded the Floridas,
and retired behind the Sabine; and so the sea coast of the
United States was now seen to begin at that river, and
passing along the Gulf and around the Peninsula, and beyond the Capes, to terminate at the St. Croix, in the Bay
of Fundy.
The course of the European war showed that Spain was
exhausted. Nearly all her American Colonies, inspired by
the example of the United States, and sustained by their
sympathy, struck for independence, established Republican.
systems, and entered into treaties of amity and commerce
with the Republic of the North.
But the United States yet needed a northern passage
from their western valleys to the Atlantic ocean. The new
channel to be opened must necessarily have connections,
natural or artificial, with the inland rivers and lakes. An
internal trade ramifying the country was a necessary basis
for commerce, and it would constitute the firmest possible
national union. Practically, there was in the country
neither a canal to serve for a model, nor an engineer competent to project one. The railroad invention had not yet
been perfected in Europe, nor even conceived in the United
States. The Federal Government alone had adequate resources, but, after long consideration and some unprofitable
experiments, it not only disavowed the policy, but also disclaimed the power of making internal improvements. Private capital was unavailable for great national enterprises.




8
The States were not convinced of the wisdom of undertaking singly works within their own borders which would
be wholly or in part useless, unless extended beyond them
by other States, and which, even although they should be
useful to themselves, would be equally or more beneficial
to States which refused or neglected to join in their construction. Moreover, the only source of revenue in the
States was direct taxation-always unreliable in a popular
Government-and they had no established credits, at home
or abroad. Nevertheless, the people comprehended the
exigency, and their will opened a way through all these
embarrassments. The State of New York began, and she
has hitherto, although sometimes faltering, prosecuted this
great enterprise with unsurpassed fidelity.  The other
States, according to their respective abilities and convictions
of interest and duty, have cooperated. By canals we have
extended the navigation of Chesapeake bay to the coalfields of Maryland at Cumberland, and also by the way of
Columbia to the coal-fields of Pennsylvania. By canals we
have united Chesapeake bay with the Delaware river, and
have, with alternating railroads, connected that river with
the Ohio river and with Lake Erie. By canals we have
opened a navigation between Philadelphia and New York,
mingling the waters of the Delaware with those of the
Raritan. By canals we have given access from two several
ports on the Hudson to two different coal-fields in Pennsylvania. By canals we have also extended the navigation of
the Hudson through Lake Champlain and its outlet, to the
St. Lawrence near Montreal. We are just opening a channel from the Hudson to Cape Vincent, on Lake Ontario,
near its eastern termination, while we long since have
opened one from the same river to a central harbor on that
lake at Oswego. A corresponding improvement, made by
the Canadian authorities on the opposite shore, prolongs
our navigation from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie. We have
also connected the Hudson river with the eastern branch of




9
the Susquehanna, through the valley of the Chenango, and
again with its western tributaries through the Seneca Lake.
We are also uniting the Hudson with the Alleghany, a
tributary of the Mississippi, through the valley of the Genesee. One long trunk of canal receives the trade gathered
by most of these tributary channels, while it directly unites
the Hudson with Lake Erie at Buffalo. The shores of that
great lake are the basis of a second part of the same system.
Canals connect the Alleghany, in the State of Pennsylvania,
with Lake Erie at Erie; the Ohio river, at Portage and at
Cincinnati, with Lake Erie, at Cleveland and Toledo; and
again the Ohio river, in the State of Indiana, with Lake
Erie, through the valley of the Wabash. Lake Superior,
hitherto secluded from even internal commerce, is now
being connected with the other great lakes by the canal of
the Falls of St. Mary; and, to complete the whole, the Illinois canal unites the lakes and all the extensive system I
have described, with the Mississippi. Thus, by substituting
works purely artificial, we have not only dispensed with the
navigation of the St. Lawrence, but have also opened a
complete circuit of inland navigation and traffic between
New Orleans, on the Gulf, and New York, Philadelphia,
and Baltimore, on the Atlantic. The aggregate length of
those canals is five thousand miles, and that of the inland
coasts thus washed by natural and artificial channels exceeds twenty thousand miles.
Railroads constitute an auxiliary system of improvements,
at once more complex and more comprehensive. By railroads we have connected, or are in the act of connecting,
together all the principal seaports on the Atlantic coast and
on the coasts of the Gulf of Mexico, namely: Portland, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Norfolk, Charleston, Mobile, and New Orleans. Again-railroads from each
or most of these ports proceed inland through important
towns, to great dep6ts on the St. Lawrence, the Lakes, the
Ohio, and the Mississippi, namely: Quebec, Montreal, Og2




10
densburgh, Oswego, Rochester, Buffalo, Erie, Cleveland,
Sandusky, Toledo, Monroe, Detroit, Chicago, Pittsburgh,
Cincinnati, Louisville, St. Louis, Cairo, and Memphis. Again
-there are tributaries which search out agricultural and
mineral productions and fabrics, accumulated at less notable
points; and so a complete system is perfected, which leaves
no inhabited region unexplored, while it has for its base the
long line of seaboard. The aggregate length of these railroads is sixteen thousand miles, and the total cost is six
hundred millions of dollars.
Immediately after the purchase of Louisiana, President
Jefferson having conceived the idea of a national establishment on the Pacific coast, an exploration of the intervening
wastes was made. An American navigator about the same
time visited the coast itself, and thus laid the foundation of
a title by discovery. A commercial settlement, afterwards
planted on the Columbia river by the late John Jacob Astor,
perished in the war of 1812. Ten years ago, the great
thought of Pacific colonization revived, under the influence
of the commercial activity resulting from the successful
progress of the system of Internal Improvements. Oregon
was settled. Two years afterwards, its boundaries were
defined, and it was politically organized; and now it constitutes two prosperous Territories.
The social, military, and ecclesiastical institutions of Mexico, proved unfavorable to an immediate success of the Republican system. Revolution became a chronic disease
there. Texas separated, and practically became independent, although Mexico refused to recognize her separation.
After some years, Texas was admitted as a State into our
Federal Union. A war which ensued, resulted not only in
the relinquishment of Mexican claims upon Texas, but in
the extension of her coast frontier to the Rio Grande, and
also in the annexation of New Mexico and Upper California
to the United States.




11
Thus, in sixty-five years after the peace of Versailles, the
United States advanced from the Mississippi, and occupied
a line stretching through eighteen degrees of latitude on
the Pacific coast, overlooking the Sandwich Islands and
Japan, and confronting China, (the Cathay for which Columbus was in search when he encountered the bewildering
vision of San Domingo.) The new possession was divided
into two Territories and the State of California. The simultaneous discovery of native gold in the sands and rocks of
that State resulted in the instantaneous establishment of an
active commerce, not only with our Atlantic cities, but also
with the ports of South America and with the maritime
countries of Europe, with the Sandwich Islands, and even
with China. Thus the United States ceased to be a mere
Atlantic Nation, and assumed the attitude of a great Continental Power, enjoying ocean navigation on either side, and
bearing equal and similar relations to the eastern and to the
western coast of the old world. The national connections
between the Atlantic and Pacific regions are yet incomplete;
but the same spirit which has brought them into political
union is at work still, and no matter what the Government
may do or may leave undone, the necessary routes of commerce, altogether within and across our own domain, will
be established.
The number of States has increased since this aggrandizement began, from seventeen to thirty-one; the population
from five millions to twenty-four millions; the tonnage
employed in commerce from one million to four and a half
millions; and the National revenue from ten millions to
sixty millions of dollars. Within that period, Spain has
retired altogether from the Continent, and two considerable
islands in the Antilles are all that remains of the New
World, which, hardly four centuries ago, the generous and
pious Genoese navigator, under the patronage of Isabella,
gave to the Kingdoms of Castile and Leon. Great Britain
tenders us now the freedom of the fisheries and of the St.




12
Lawrence, on conditions of favor to the commerce of her
Colonies, and even deliberates on the policy of releasing
them from their allegiance. The influences of the United
States on the American continent have resulted already in
the establishment of the Republican system everywhere,
except in Brazil, and even there, in limiting Imperial power.
In Europe, they have awakened a war of opinion, that,
after spreading desolation into the steppes of Russia, and
to the base of the Carpathian Mountains, has only been
suppressed for a time by combination of the capital and of
the political forces of that continent. In Africa, those influences, aided by the benevolent efforts of our citizens, have
produced the establishment of a Republic, which, beginning
with the abolition of the traffic in slaves, is going steadily
on towards the moral regeneration of its savage races. In
the Sandwich Islands, those influences have already effected,
not only such a regeneration of the natives, but also a political organization, which is bringing that important commercial station directly under our protection. Those influences have opened the ports of Japan, and secured an intercourse of commerce and friendship with its extraordinary
people —numbering forty millions —thus overcoming a policy of isolation which they had practised for an hundred
and fifty years. The same influences have not only procured for us access to the five principal ports of China, but
also have generated a revolution there, which promises to
bring the three hundred millions living within that vast
empire into the society of the western nations.
How magnificent is the scene which the rising curtain
discloses to us here! and how sublime the pacific part
assigned to us!
"The Eastern nations sink, their glory ends,
And Empire rises where the sun descends."
But, restraining the imagination from its desire to follow
the influences of the United States in their future progress




13
through the Manillas, and along the Indian coast, and beyond the Persian Gulf, to the far-off Mozambique, let us
dwell for a moment on the visible results of the national
aggrandizement at home.  Wealth has everywhere increased, and has been equalized with much success in all
the States, new as well as old. Industry has persevered in
opening newly discovered resources, and bringing forth
their treasures, as well as in the establishment of the productive arts. The Capitol, which at first seemed too pretentious, is extending itself northward and southward upon
its noble terrace, to receive the representatives of new incoming States. The departments of Executive administration continually expand under their lofty arches and behind
their lengthening colonades. The Federal city so recently
ridiculed for its ambitious solitudes, is extending its broad
avenues in all directions, and, under the hands of native
artists, is taking on the graces, as well as the fullness, of a
capital. Where else will you find authority so august as in
a Council composed of the Representatives of thirty States,
attended by embassadors from every free city, every republic, and every court, in the civilized world? In near proximity and in intimate connection with that capital, a metropolis has arisen, which gathers, by the agency of canals,
of railroads, and of coastwise navigation, the products of
industry in every form throughout the North American
States, as well those under foreign jurisdiction as those
which constitute the Union, and distributes them  in exchange over the globe; a city whose wealth and credit supply or procure the capital employed in all the great financial
movements within the Republic, and whose press, in all its
departments of science, literature, religion, philanthropy,
and politics, is a national one. Thus expansion and aggrandizement, whose natural tendency is to produce debility and
dissolution, have operated here to create, what before was
wanting, a social, political, and commercial centre.




14
In considering the causes of this material growth, allowance must be made, liberally made for great advantages of
space, climate, and resources, as well as for the weakness of
outward resistance, for the vices of foreign Governments,
and for the disturbed and painful condition of society under
them-causes which have created and sustained a tide of
emigration towards the United States unparalleled, at least,
in modern times. But when all this allowance shall have
been made, we shall still find that the phenomena is chiefly
due to the operation here of some great ideas, either unknown before, or not before rendered so effective. These
ideas are, first, the equality of men in a State, that is to
say, the equality of men constituting a State; secondly, the
equality of States in a combination, or, in other words, the
equality of States constituting a nation. By the Constitution of every State in the American Union, each citizen is
guarantied his natural rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness; and he, at the same time, is guarantied a
share of the sovereign power, equal to that which can be
assumed by any other citizen. This is the equality of men
in the State. By the Constitution of the United States,
there are no subjects. Every citizen of any one State is a
free and equal citizen of the United States. Again, by the
Constitution of the United States, there are no permanent
provinces, or dependencies. The Union is constituted by
States, and all of them stand upon the same level of political rights. This is the equality of States in the Nation.
The reduction of the two abstractions which I have mentioned into the concrete, in the Constitution of the United
States, was like most other inventions, mainly due to accident. There were thirteen several States, in each of which,
owing to fortunate circumstances attending their original
colonization, each citizen was not only free, but also practically equal in his exercise of political power to every other
citizen of that State. The freedom and equality of the
citizen, and the inalienability of his natural rights were sol



15
emnly reaffirmed in the Declaration of Independence. These
thirteen States were severally free and independent of each
other. They therefore were equal States. Each was a
sovereign. They needed free and mutual commerce among
themselves, and some regulations for securing to each equal
facilities of commerce with foreign countries. A union was
necessary to the attainment of these ends. But the citizens
of each State were unwilling to surrender either their natural and inalienable rights, or the guardianship of them, to a
common Government over them all, even to attain the union
which they needed so much. So a Federal Central Government was established, which was sovereign only in commerce, at home and abroad, and in the necessary communications with other nations; that is to say, sovereign only in
regard to the mutual internal relations of the States themselves, and in regard to foreign affairs. In this Government
the States are practically equal constituents, although the
equality was modified by some limitations found necessary
to secure the assent of some of the States. The States
were not dissolved, nor disorganized, but they remained
really States, just as before, existing independently of each
other and of the Union, and exercising sovereignty in all
the municipal departments of society. The citizen of each
State also retained all his natural rights equally in the Union
and in the State to which he belonged, and the United
States were constituted by the whole mass of such citizens
throughout all the several States. There was an unoccupied common domain, which the several States surrendered
to the Federal authorities, to the end that it might be settled, colonized, and divided into other States, to be organized and to become members of the Union on an equal
footing with the original States. When additions to this
domain were made from foreign countries, the same principles seemed to be the only ones upon which the Government could be extended over them, and so, with some qualifications unimportant on the present occasion, they became
universal in their application.




16
No other nation, pursuing a career of aggrandizement,
has adopted the great ideas thus developed in the United
States. The Macedonian conquered kingdoms for the mere
gratification of conquest, and they threw off the sway he
established over them as soon as the sword dropped from
his hand. The Romans conquered, because the alien was a
barbarian rival and enemy, and because Rome must fill the
world alone. The empire, thus extended, fell under the
blows of enemies, subjugated but not subdued, as soon as
the central power had lost its vigor. The Ottoman, although
he conquered with the sword, conciliated the subjected tribes
by admitting them to the rites of a new and attractive religion. The religion, however, was of this world, and sensual,
and therefore it debased its votaries. France attempted to
conquer Europe in retaliation for wrongs committed against
herself; but the bow broke in her hands, just as it was bent
to discharge the last shaft. Spain has planted many Colonies and conquered many States, but the Castillian was
proud and haughty; he enslaved the native and oppressed
the creole. The Czar wins his way amid kindred races, as
a parent extending protection in the enjoyment of a common religion. But the paternal relation in politics is a
fiction of despotism, which extinguishes all individual energy and all social ambition. Great Britain has been distinguished from all these vulgar conquerors. She is a
civilizer and a missionary. She has planted many Colonies
in the West, and conquered many and vast countries in the
East, and has carried English laws and the English language around the world. But Great Britain at home is an
aristocracy. Her Colonies can neither be equal to her, nor
yet independent. Her subjects in those countries may be
free, but they cannot be Britons. Consequently, her dependencies are always discontented, and insomuch as they
are possessed or swayed by freemen, they are only retained
in their connection with the British throne by the presence
of military and naval force. You identify an American




17
State or Colony by the absence of the Federal power.
Everywhere, on the contrary, you identify a British Colony,
whether in British America, or on the Pacific coast, or on
its islands, or in Bombay, and or at St. Helena, or at Gibraltar, or on the Ionian isles, by the music of the imperial
drum-beat and the frown of royal battlements. Great Britain always inspires fear, and often commands respect, but
she has no friends in the wide family of nations. So it has
happened, that heretofore nations have either repelled, or
exhausted, or disgusted the Colonies they planted and the
countries they conquered.
The United States, on the contrary, expand by force, not
of arms, but of attraction. The native colonist no sooner
reaches a new and distant home, whether in a cleft of the
Rocky Mountains or on the seashore, than he proceeds to
found a State, in which his natural and inalienable rights
shall be secure, and which shall become an equal member
of the Federal Union, enjoying its protection, and sharing
its growing greatness and renown. Adjacent States, though
of foreign habits, religion, and descent, especially if they
are defenceless, look with favor upon the approach of a
power that will leave them in full enjoyment of the rights
of nature, and, at the same time that it may absorb them,
will spare their corporate existence and individuality. The
attraction increases as commerce widens the circle of the
national influence.
If these positions seem to require qualification at all, the
very modifications will nevertheless, serve to illustrate and
sustain, the general principles involved. The people of
Mexico resist annexation because they fear it would result
in their being outnumbered by Americans, and so lead to
the restoration of African slavery, which they have abolished. The natives of the Sandwich Islands take alarm lest
by annexation they may themselves be reduced to slavery.
The people of the Canadas hesitate because they disapprove
the modification of the principles of equality of men and
3




of States in favor of slaveholding States, which were admitted in the Federal Constitution.
What is the moral to be drawn from the physical progress of the United States? It is, that the strongest bonds
of cohesion in society are commerce and gratitude for protected freedom.
While the majestic physical progress of the United States
is no longer denied as a fact, it is, nevertheless, too generally
regarded as purely accidental, and likely to cease through a
want of corresponding intelligence and virtue. The principle assumed in this reasoning is just. A nation deficient
in intelligence and virtue is an ignoble one, and no ignoble
race can enlarge or even retain empire. But examination
will show that the facts assumed are altogether erroneous.
In order to prove that we are deficient in intelligence, the
monuments of ancient and modern nations, all of whom
have either completed their courses or passed the middle
point, are arrayed before us, and we are challenged to exhibit similar monuments of equal merit on the part of the
United States; as if time was not an essential condition of
achievement, and as if, also, circumstances exerted no influence in directing the activity of nations. It is true that we
can show no campaigns equal to those of Caesar, or of Frederick, or of Napoleon; and no inspirations of the divine
art equal to the Iliad, or the Eneid, or the Inferno, or the
dramas of Shakspeare. But it is equally true, that neither
Greece, nor Rome, nor France, nor England, has erected a
tower as high as Babel, or a mausoleum so massive as the
grand Pyramid.
Reasoning &a priori, it is manifest, that insomuch as the
physical progress of the United States has been unprecedented while it has followed a method, and insomuch as
this progress has been conducted with magnanimity through
many temptations and embarrassments, it is of itself no
unworthy monument of national intelligence.




The Constitutions (of the States and of the Union) are confessedly unsurpassed. Grant, as is true, that all the great
political ideas which are embodied in them, were before
known; grant, moreover, that a favorable conjuncture for
reducing those abstractions to the concrete had come; grant,
also, that favorable conditions of nature and human society
concurred-nevertheless, even then was ever higher genius,
or greater talent, displayed, in conducting the affairs of men,
than were exercised first in framing the many peculiar and
delicate parts of that system of Government, with proportions so accurate that each might bear the very tension and
pressure to which it was to be exposed, and then in bringing all those parts together, and forging them into one great
machine with such wonderful skill, that at the very first
touch of the propelling popular spring, it went at once into
full and perfect operation, and has continued its movements
for seventy years, in prosperity as well as in adversity, amid
the factions generated by a long peace, and the disturbances
of war-not only without interruption or irregularity, but
even without a jar. Consider the sagacity of the people
that, amid the clouds of jealousy and the storms of passion,
raised by heated partisans, deliberately examined, and resolutely adopted, that wonderful yet untried mechanism, so
contrived for their use, and decided that it should not
merely have a trial, but should stand forever, the only Government of themselves and of their posterity. Consider,
that not only was this vast engine set in motion by the voluntary act of the people, but it has also been kept in motion
by their own perpetually renewed consent and direct activity; and that, although like every other combination of
forces, it has its dead points, yet it passes through them
with perfect regularity, and without even any sensible diminution of motion, owing to the watchful performance by
the people at critical moments, of the functions devolved
upon them. Consider how many and various are the human
wills, which meet and concur every time a fresh impulse is




20
given to the great mechanism. A majority of the States,
neglecting or refusing to act on any such occasion, could
bring the Government to a dead stand. Consider that the
people not only interfere on such critical occasions, but also
that they are continually supplying the necessary force to
sustain the movements of the subordinate parts of the
machine.
There are two and a half millions of electors, and every
one of these is charged with the performance, for the most
part annually, of four classes of functions, in as many
distinct spheres. Once, generally in each year, the electors
choose a mayor or supervisor, aldermen or trustees, or selectmen, justices of the peace, police officers, clerks, assessors
of taxes, commissioners of public charities, commissioners
of streets, roads, and bridges, and subalterns, or other officers of the militia, in their respective cities, towns, or other
forms of municipalities. Again-the electors, generally
once in each year, choose officers nearly as numerous, and
of a higher grade, to execute, judicial, ministerial, and fiscal
powers, of a similar nature, within the counties, which embrace several cities, towns, and municipalities. Again-they
elect Governors, Lieutenant Governors, Senators and Representatives, Judges, Treasurers, and Ministers of Finance,
of Education, of Public Works and of Charities, in the
States constituted by such counties-States sovereign in all
things, except the few departments they have voluntarily
assigned to the Federal Union. Once more —the citizens
choose, once in two years, Representatives, and once in
three years, Senators, who exercise the legislative powers of
the Republic; and once in four years, the Vice President
and President of the United States, its Chief Executive
Magistrates. The peace, order, prosperity, and happiness,
and even the safety of society, rest manifestly on the soundness of judgment with which these many and various electoral trusts are discharged.  Reflect, now, for a moment, on
the perturbations of society, the devices and combinations




21
of parties, and the appliances of corruption, to which the
electoral body is at all times exposed. Could these functions be performed with results so generally auspicious, if
the people of the United States did not, as a mass, excel
other nations in intelligence, as much as in the good fortune of inheriting such extraordinary institutions?
Look at the operation of this system in yet another aspect. Not only the Constitutions of the several States, but;
even the Constitution of the Union, stands only by the vol —
untary consent of the People. By physical force, which
the Government could not suppress, they could subvert any
or all of these Constitutions. Even without force, and acting only by agreement, but in conformity to certain established conditions, they can change or subvert all these Constitutions. There is indeed no restraining power acting
upon them, from within or from without. Practically, they
do change the Constitutions of the several States once in
twenty years. Yet they work such changes generally without commotion, and they have never made one without replacing the Constitution removed by a better one. A few
of the States inherited the jurisprudence of the civil law,
and all the others the common and statute laws of England.
Does any one deny that they have sagaciously retained all
the parts of those excellent codes which were essential to
order and civil liberty, and have modified others only so far
as was required by the changing circumstances of society
and the ever-unfolding sentiments of justice and humanity?
Let our logical amendments of the rules of evidence, and
our simple processes of pleading and practice in courts of justice and our meliorations of imprisonment for debt, and of
eleemosynary laws, and of penitentiary systems, vindicate
the intellectual vigor and wisdom of the American people.
Modern invention, until the close of the last century, was
chiefly employed in discovering new laws of nature, and in
shaping those discoveries into the forms of theories and
maxims. Thus far, in the present century, Invention has




22
employed itself in applying those theories and maxims, by
various devices of mechanism, or otherwise, to practical use.
In Europe, those devices are chiefly such as regard esthetic
effect. In America, on the other hand, those devices are
such as have for their object the increase of power. Required to subdue nature through a broad range quickly, and
to bring forth her various resources with haste, and yet
having numbers inadequate and capital quite unequal to
such labors, the American studies chiefly economy and efficiency. He has examined every instrument, and engine,
and combination, and composition, received from his elder
trans-atlantic brother, in the light of those objects, and has
either improved it, or devised a new and better one. He
aims at doing the most that is possible as quickly as possible; and this characteristic is manifested equally in his weapons of war and in his instruments of peace, whether they are
to be used in the field, or in the workshop, on the land, or
on the sea-the fire-arm, the ax, the plow, the railroad, the
clipper-ship, the steam-engine, and the printing-press. His
railroads cost less and are less perfect than those in other
countries, but he builds ten miles where they have only
three. He moves passengers and freights on such roads and
in his ships with less safety, but with greater cheapness and
velocity. IHe prepares his newspapers, his magazines, and
his treatises, with less care, but he prints a hundred for one.
If the European has failed to give him a necessary principle, or to embody it in a practical machine, he finds out the
one, or constructs the other promptly for himself.  He
wanted machines for working up his forests, and he invented the saw-gang, and the grooving and planing machines;
for cleaning his cotton, and he invented the gin; for harvesting his wheat, and he invented the reaper. He needed mechanical force to navigate his long rivers and broad lakes,
and he converted the steam engine into a marine power.
He needed dispatch in communicating intelligence, and he
placed his lightning-rod horizontally, and beating it into a
wire, converted it into a writing telegraph.




Fifty years ago there was no American Science and no
American Literature. Now there is an American tenancy
in every intellectual department, and none acknowledge its
presence and usefulness more freely than those whose fame
has least to fear from competition.
It seems to me that this intellectual development of the
United States is due chiefly to the adoption of the great
idea of universal emulation. Our constitutions and laws,
open every department of human enterprise and ambition
to all citizens without respect to birth, or class, or condition?
and steadily though cautiously exert a power quite effective
in preventing any accidental social inequality from becoming fixed and permanent.
There still remains the question whether the moral development is coordinate with those of physical power and
mind in the United States. A republic may be safe, even
though it be weak, and though it be in a considerable degree intellectually inactive, as is seen in Switzerland; but
a republic cannot exist without virtue.
It will not suffice to examine the question through the
lens of traditional prejudice. A kind of reverence is paid
by all nations to antiquity. There is no one that does not
trace its lineage from the gods, or from those who were especially favored by the gods. Every people has had its age of
gold, or Augustan age, or heroic age-an age, alas! forever
passed. These prejudices are not altogether unwholesome.
Although they produce a conviction of declining virtue,
which is unfavorable to generous emulation, yet a People
at once ignorant and irreverential would necessarily become
licentious. Nevertheless, such prejudices ought to be modified. It is untrue, that in the period of a nation's rise from
disorder to refinement, it is not able to continually surpass
itself. We see the present plainly, distinctly, with all its
coarse outlines, its rough inequalities, its dark blots, and its
glaring deformities. We hear all its tumultuous sounds
and jarring discords. We see and hear the past, through a




24
distance which reduces all its inequalities to a plane, mellows all its shades into a pleasing hue, and subdues even its
hoarsest voices into harmony. In our own case, the prejudice is less erroneous than in most others.  The Revolutionary age was truly a heroic one. Its exigencies called forth
the genius and the talents and the virtues of society, and
they ripened amid the hardships of a long and severe trial.
But there were selfishness, and vice, and factions, then, as
now, although comparatively subdued and repressed. You
have only to consult impartial history, to learn that neither
public faith, nor public loyalty, nor private virtue, culminated at that period in our own country,* while a mere glance
at the literature, or at the stage, or at the politics, of any
European country, in any previous age, reveals the fact that
it was marked, more distinctly than the present, by licentious morals and mean ambition.
Reasoning c priori again, as we did in another case, it is
only just to infer in favor of the United States an improvement of morals from their established progress in knowledge and power; otherwise, the philosophy of society is
misunderstood, and we must change all our courses, and
henceforth seek safety in imbecility, and virtue in superstition and ignorance.
VWhat shall be the test of the national morals?  Shall it
be the eccentricity of crimes?  Certainly not; for then we
must compare the criminal eccentricity of to-day with that
of yesterday. The result of the comparison would be only
*i "I ought not to object to your reverence for your fathers, as you call
them, meaning, I presume, the Government, and those concerned in the direction of public affairs; much less could I be displeased at your numbering me
among them. But, to tell you a very great secret, as far as I am capable of
comparing the merits of different periods, I have no reason to believe that we
were better than you are. We had as many poor creatures and selfish beings
in proportion, among us, as you have among you; nor were there then more
enlightened men, or in greater number, in proportion, than there are now."John Adams's Letter to Josiah Quincy, Feb. 9, 1811.




25
this, that the crimes of Society change with changing circumstances.
Loyalty to the State is a public virtue. Was it ever
deeper-toned or more universal than it is now? I know
there are ebullitions of passion and discontent, sometimes
breaking out into disorder and violence; but was faction
ever more effectually disarmed and harmless than it is now?
There is a loyalty that springs from the affection that we
bear to our native soil. This we have as strong as any people. But it is not the soil alone, nor yet the soil beneath
our feet and the skies over our heads, that constitute our
country. It is its freedom, equality, justice, greatness and
glory. Who among us is so low as to be insensible of an
interest in them?  Four hundred thousand natives of other
lands every year voluntarily renounce their own sovereigns,
and swear fealty to our own. Who has ever known an
American to transfer his allegiance permanently to a foreign
power?
The spirit of the laws, in any country, is a true index to
the morals of a people, just in proportion to the power they
exercise in making them. Who complains, here or elsewhere, that crime or immorality blots our statute-books with
licentious enactments?
The character of a country's magistrates, legislators, and
captains, chosen by a people, reflect their own. It is true
that in the earnest canvassing which so frequently recurring
elections require, suspicion often follows the magistrate, and
scandal follows in the footsteps of the statesman. Yet,
when his course has been finished, what magistrate has left
a name tarnished by corruption, or what statesman has left
an act or an opinion so erroneous that decent charity cannot
excuse, though it may disapprove?  What chieftain ever
tempered military triumph with so much moderation as he
who, when he had placed our standard on the battlements
of the capital of Mexico, not only received an offer of supreme authority from the conquered nation, but declined it?
4




26
The manners of a nation are the outward form of its inner life. Where is woman held in so chivalrous respect,
and where does she deserve that eminence better? Where
is property more safe, commercial honor better sustained,
or human life more sacred?
Moderation is a virtue in private and in public life. Has
not the great increase of private wealth manifested itself
chiefly in widening the circle of education and elevating
the standard of popular intelligence? With forces which,
if combined and directed by ambition, would subjugate this
continent at once, we have made only two very short wars
-the one confessedly a war of defense, and the other ended
by paying for a peace and for a domain already fully conquered.
Where lies the secret of the increase of virtue which has
thus been established? I think it will be found in the entire emancipation of the consciences of men from either direct or indirect control by established ecclesiastical or political systems. Religious classes, like political parties, have
been left to compete in the great work of moral education,
and to entitle themselves to the confidence and affection of
society, by the purity of their faith and of their morals.
I am well aware that some, who may be willing to adopt
the general conclusions of this argument, will object that it
is not altogether sustained by the action of the Government itself, however true it may be that it is sustained by
the great action of society. I cannot enter a field where
truth is to be sought among the disputations of passion and
prejudice. I may say, however, in reply first, that the Governments of the United States, although more perfect than
any other, and although they embrace the great ideas of
the age more fully than any other, are, nevertheless, like all
other Governments, founded on compromises of some abstract truths and of some natural rights.
As Government is impressed by its Constitution, so it
must necessarily act. This may suffice to explain the phe



27
nomenon complained of. But it is true, also, that no Government ever did altogether act out, purely and for a long
period, all the virtues of its original Constitution. Hence it
is that we are so well told by Bolingbroke, that every nation
must perpetually renew its Constitution or perish.  Hence,
moreover, it is a great excellence of our system, that sovereignty resides, not in Congress and the President, nor yet
in the Governments of the States, but in the people of the
United States.  If the sovereign be just and firm and uncorrupted, the Governments can always be brought back
from any aberrations, and even the Constitutions themselves,
if in any degree imperfect, can be amended.  This great
idea of the sovereignty of the people over their government glimmers in the British system, while it fills our own
with a broad and glowing light.
"Let not your King and Parliament in one,
Much less apart, mistake themselves for that
WVhich is most worthy to be thought upon,
Nor think they are essentially the STATE.
Let them not fancy that the authority
And privileges on them bestowed,
Confer'dl, are to set up a majesty,
Or a power or a glory of their own;
But let them know it was for a deeper life
Which they but represent;
That there's on earth a yet auguster thing,
Veil'd though it be, than Parliament or King."
Gentlemen, you are devoted to the pursuit of knowledge
in order that you may impart it to the State.  What Fenelon was to France, you may be to your country. Before
you teach, let me enjoin upon you to study well the capacity and the disposition of the American people.  I have
tried to prove to you only that while they inherit the imperfections of humanity they are yet youthful, apt, vigorous,
and virtuous, and therefore, that they are worthy, and will
make noble uses of your best instructions.