YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

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Anderson, Charles
An Oration on the Real Nature and Value of the
American Revolution;
Cincinnati, 1855

YALE
UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

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O H A, T I o nsr

REAt NATURE AND YALUE
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OF THE
AMERICAN REVOLUTION;
DELIVERED IN CINCINNATI,
BETOEE
Citizens of all Races, Seels and Parties,

.ON THE

FOURTH- OF JULY, A. D. 1855,

BY CHARLES ANDERSON.

PUBLISHED' .BY THE COMMITTEE OF ARRANGEMENTS.

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ADDRESS

Fellow Countrymen: —
As we meet to celebrate a most famous event, I propose
to you now, after the lapse of almost eighty years, that we shall
all calmly consider what has been, to ourselves and to mankind,
its real value. And this (contrary to usage on these occasions)
I propose to do, by a simple and practical comparison of what
the Colonies were or would now have been, if that event had not
occurred, and what the United States have become in consequence
of it. The customary course of Addresses on this day has
been a historical review of the contest itself, mingled with philo
sophical reflections upon the natural and social rights of man,
and glowing eulogies of our Revolutionary Fathers, and, some
times, of ourselves. I leave this beaten track, not because it
is beaten ; for its universality only bespeaks, (what is the truth)
that such a treatment of the subject is both natural and proper.
Nor, ought it ever to become wearisome to the ears of Americans.
Such meditations, like the prayers of infancy, like the songs of
home, never can grow stale. However brief, and simple, and
rude in form they may be, they are full to bursting, with deep
thought and ardent emotions.
My reasons for pursuing this humble walk, instead of essay
ing these serial flights, were, first — that the suddenness of the
notice prevented more serious preparations, but chiefly, because
I do earnestly believe, that a more every-day sort of an exami
nation of the incontrovertible facts of this comparison, has
been too long neglected.
What, then, my fellow countrymen, have been, what are, and
what shall he the result, to Americans and to Mankiruji, of

[2]
the American Revolution ? Let us proceed to examine as
much of these momentous questions, as our time will permit, in
the most plain and practical way, without any of the bias of
that enthusiasm, natural to the occasion ; but with that stern
and most brave impartiality of mind and feeling which become
a consideration of simple facts, when submitted to the simple
judgment. For I am not one of that class of patriots or phi
losophers, who believe that any rights, or principles, or results are
too precious in their value, or too sacred in their origin, for us
to .attempt an appraisement and practical contemplation of them.
Nor, as you shall observe, am I, as an American, upon its Nation
al Anniversary, at all afraid of this method of estimating those
of our Nation.
Upon the 4th of July, 1776, the American Colonies of Great
Britain, of which I have spoken, numbered thirteen. The Uni
ted States (themselves the first immediate and most grand re
sult of the Revolution,) have become thirty-one in number. To
us this increase has become so familiar, like a great many won
derful things in the same condition, as to excite no surprise, not
even to be suggestive of reflection. This mere fact, however,
would well bear grave deliberation, and lead to far future and
most valuable conclusions.
Then ; the surface of territory owned by the Colonies inclu
ding Maine and Vermont, but not the Western lands, (for the
charters were too vague for reliance, and England had no title
from the Indians,) contained about 389,641 square miles. Now;
our possessions in land, obtained by purchase and conquest,
amount to 3,260,073 square miles.
In other words, we have acquired nine times as much territory
as the Colonies at that time contained, and its area exceeds all
Europe by 467,073 square miles. What may be the ultimate
effects upon our moral and political condition, of this amazing in
crease of our territorial surface, it might be difficult to conjecture.
But as a physical result, and according to the opinions prevalent in
the world, no one will deny them to be most novel and stupendous.

[3]
Then ; the population of the Colonies (which had been mainly
seduced hither by the special privileges and bounties of royal
charters, or driven here by religious persecution and tyranny,)
was about 3,000,000. Now; we have a population of more than
24,000,000; or we have multiplied our population more than eight
fold. And, so far as the immigrant portion of the latter body is
concerned, they were attracted hither only by their free choice of
our country and its institutions. Of this entire population, it ia
variously estimated that, from eight up to fifteen millions, are
either foreign born or the children of foreign born parents. So
that without this source of population, and if we had depended
only upon our Revolutionary stock and its natural increase, our
present population would have been now from sixteen down to
nine millions.
What would have been, in that case, the physical consequen
ces, — in the settlement of our states, towns and cities, and upon
our public works — in the productions from our forests, fields,
and factories — in our intermediate history and present rank as
a military and naval power, — it were a vain effort for me here
to investigate. Doubtless, any approximation to the truth of
these differences would amaze you all, the more profound think
ers amongst you far the most.
Whatever may be the just and reasonable limit of that popu
lation, which can be protected and blessed by a single govern
ment of this form — whether considered abstractly or relatively to
our extent of lands, our almost isolation from the civilized world,
(across oceans and on another continent,) our lot in this particular
era of the world's history in civilization, etc. — I shall not here and
now discuss. I presume few will conclude, that we have, by any
means, as yet filled our complement of numbers, either for pur
poses of peace or war. In war, our numbers must bear some pro
portion to the class of nations, with which we shall most proba
bly contend in arms. And to a nation, as grasping and bellige-
rant as ours, (especially in its native population,) and with such

[4]
European nations as we have heretofore battled, and may here
after contend with, no wise statesman will deny, that numbers is
strength ! More than this — in the arts of peace, (for peace hath
her victories as well as war,) a nation cannot possess that variety
of productions and pursuits, which is essential to the true de
velopment of civilization, as well as to the highest and widest
prosperity and happiness of her individual citizens, without a
large population. This is an abstract truth. But when we
come to consider one particular condition of things, affecting us
peculiarly, viz.: that the public wild lands, belonging to the
General Government, covered an area of 1,584,000,000 acres,
and that about one-fourth only of this has been sold, we dis
cover an influence greatly disturbing and modifying any abstract
theory of republican or federative governments. If, for exam
ple, we set off against those portions of them, which have been
sold and settled, the immensely greater bodies of private lands
in all our States, which are still wholly out of use or enjoyment,
we shall still find left, to be populated and civilized, an area
equal to this inconceivably vast domain ! Now, what countless
millions of human beings, with all their highest intelligence
and by all their most active arts and energies, are there not
indispensable, to gather the neighborhoods.; to form the socie
ties ; to organize the territories ; to found the states ; and to
build and establish all the farms, villages, towns, and cities,
with all their roads, turnpikes, bridges, canals, railroads, schools,
colleges, churches, and all the other innumerable mental, moral,
social, and legal incidents of civilized life ? Surely, no man can
believe that our nation is within centuries of a repletion. Why,
this body of land is, if my figures do not deceive me, 2,475,000
square miles. It is larger than the empire of Russia in Europe ;
and more than twice as large as France, England, Ireland,
Scotland, Austria and Prussia — all put together! I suppose
that five centuries of such immigration as we have had in our
greatest years in that trade, would not sufficiently populate it for

[5]
the general welfare. To exemplify this last remark — provided
the world could supply the hives or fountains, for human beings
so to swarm or inundate — I believe that if the State of Ohio
contained five times its present numbers, of the same sort as the
present population, we should all be the more prosperous and
happy for the increase.
Upon the other aspects of this subject — its moral and social
views — I shall say but little ; because I do not wish to give
unnecessary offence, to any persons whomsoever, on this
day. I will only remark, that, if it is a right of civilization
to occupy wild surplus lands, the Europeans of the present age
have just as much right to possess themselves of our surplus
domain, as our European fathers, of an earlier date, had to set
tle upon those of the Indians. And if the public policy of the
Government ever needed an immigrant population to settle and
civilize its wildernesses, it has more want of it now, because we
have more public domain, (even in proportion to our population,)
than we had at the adoption of the Federal Constitution. I am,
therefore, as I always have been, decidedly in favor of their com
ing, and when they shall have come, of our treating them with a
hearty welcome, as men and Christians. I consider the harm
they have done to my party — angry as they have often made me
when I was a partizan — as far below their benefit to the whole
country. And, in addition to all this, it is unwise to attempt to
do a vain thing. In a republican government, we could neither
prevent their coming, nor abridge the privileges of those who
shall come. The former would be unconstitutional, or, at least,
against the spirit of a republican government; the latter is
acting against all the probabilities of the real state of parties
and opinions, even among the native Americans, and if there
were no other voices to be considered.
Of the religious aspect of the subject of immigration, I shall
say as little. First, because 1 know myself unfit, properly, to
treat that general question, Next, because I am here in. a

[0]
representative capacity, and addressing the most opposite and
even most antagonistic sectarian sentiments ; and though many
men will hear with calmness and good nature, political opinions
the most adverse to those of their party, very few can listen with
out indignation to any allegations against tbe principles of their
churches. So much more tenderly do we cherish this delicate
flower of the soul, Religion, than its rougher and hardier growths.
And lastly, my distinct and settled opinions of the spheres of
government and of the right of religions, as institutions, (though I
may be wrong,) are that, in its essential nature, human govern
ment is a purely secular or worldly concern, and can have noth
ing whatsoever, to do with religion, unless it be to let it alone,
and to compel every citizen or subject to leave undisturbed that
of every other. And my notion of religion is, that in its essen
tial nature, it is so wholly spiritual, unworldly and sensitive to
the rude touch of the palpable, tangible and gross materials
and instrumentalities, of which governments are formed and
with which they operate, as to be greatly shocked, if not wholly
paralyzed, by any union or collision with them,
I will say however, (what can justly give no offence to any one)
that I had supposed that all parties believed, that the Christian
Religion had this superiority over all its predecessors — that it
was to be propagated throughout the world by giving the Gos
pel free course ; that it can make no difference whether we car
ry the Gospel, or Gospel principles, to the Gentiles, or lead the
Gentiles to them ; and, above all, that it was to be taught by its
genuine apostles, by great meekness of spirit, by sweet mild
ness and persuasiveness of language and manner, and an ever
active perseverance in good works and brotherly offices. And,
whether this be the Christian method of self-propagation or not,
this I do know, that in all other matters of conscience and of
faith, it is the only system for success. Boldness and firmness
in the defence of our principles especially, are noble mental and
moral qualities. But denunciations, and epithets, and restraints

and invidious comparisons, can never either convert or secure
the faith of the understanding or affection from the heart, to
any human doctrine. You may scourge and chain the body
and its limbs into formal obedience to your will ; but, God be
praised ! the subtler and nobler nature of man — the human
soul, though you can frighten, and wound, aye, lacerate it by
unkind and cruel speeches and deeds, yet can you never drive
it to your purposes or faith, or chain it from its own. From
the darkest and deppest dungeons; between the thickest and
hardest walls; under the sharpest and keenest scourgings; amid
the slowest yet hottest fires, though the poltroon tongue of agon
ized flesh may utter the lying word of renunciation, or the cow
ard hand of selfish craft may make the deceitful sign for pardon,
none- of these can reach or change the free thought within.
Under them all, the soul and all its faculties are unchained, un-
scourged, unburnt, unmoved and unalterable in her faith. And
from them all she can soar, in the flash of an eye-lid, forward
¦ through all space, or backward through all time.
To recur to our comparisons: — At that period, our foreign
commerce exhibited an annual exportation of $7,161,534, and
an annual importation of $8,907,372. Now; our exports exceed
an average of $220,000,000 per year, and our imports an ave
rage of $200,000,000. In one respect, this immense increase
of industrial products only exemplifies the former facts, from
another point of view. But it will be seen that the increase of
our trade is much greater, than in the ratio of our increase of
population. Consequently; it also contains, within itself, an
entirely additional and independent benefit, arising from our
new institutions.
Then ; we manufactured scarcely anything. Our productions
were almost wholly agricultural, or from the fisheries and forests.
Now; there is scarcely a fabric, or tool, or machine, too costly
or complicated, too delicate or massive, in all the arts, for our
ingenuity and enterprise not boldly to undertake and nobly to
accomplish.

[8]
Then; our roads were the rudest and most natural highways,
which a civilized people could use or endure. Now; as a nation,
by the energy of the General Government, or of States, and
through the enterprise of private corporations, it is no boast to
say, that we have expended such vast sums of money in the
completion of such great and so many turnpikes, canals, rail
roads, bridges, tunnels, harbors, lighthouses, public edifices and
other works of internal improvement, that no nation, except
England, and perhaps Rome, ever excelled them in numbers,
beauty, or strength.
To pass, however, from the domain of physical results, (of
which these remarks are scarcely full enough for an index to
the volumes which I might say,) let us now, with like brevity
and generalization, merely glance at specimens of our achieve
ments in the higher spheres of mental, moral, social and of le
gal rights and results. For, be it distinctly understood, that all
these departments of human life are wonderfully stimulated to
development and consequent action, by national independence
and even national pride. Few of you can have imagined,
(unless you have had opportunities to have observed,) how a
provincial and colonial state of dependency and uncertainty,
humiliates the courage and overshadows the hopes of all its
individuals, even in their personal improvement or private
enterprises. As inventors, for example, what was the character of our
then population ? It is scarcely credible, but notwithstanding
the present seeming of our national character, that we take to
invention and discoveries, as naturally as "ducks to water," and
notwithstanding the fact that the exigences of a residence in a wild
country should seem to have instantly started these capacities to
work, you will look in vain for inventions, either of sufficient num
ber or merit, to indicate that there was the germ of a nation of
whittlers, carvers, turners, sawmakers, filemakers, and makers,
in fine, of all instruments, machines and oddities, from apple-

[9]
tree combs and self-setting mouse-traps, up to wooden bacon
hams, and steam mountain-borers ! With a few and most obscure
exceptions, our colonies were alike destitute of inventors and
inventions. No sooner, however, had the colonial chrysalis —
— " Cabin' d, cribb'd, confined, hound in
To saucy doubts and fears," —
broke from its close and husky shell, and breathed the
outer life of free air, and basked itself in freedom's sunshine,
than did those faculties spread their strong and glowing wings
for their various and high careerings. And we now find a
Franklin, with his lightning-rod, like another shield of Ajax,
defying and turning harmlessly aside the swift and fiery thun
derbolt; a Fitch, and Fulton, and Rumsey, (strangely enough, of
all the world,) the three first, and independently of each other,
the original inventors of the steamboat — an instrument of com
merce and civilization which has doubtless advanced the world,
by a century of progress and improvement in those depart
ments; a Whitney, whose cotton-gin has not merely, as it
is said, "been worth hundreds of millions of dollars to his
country," but has done infinitely more ; it has supplied cheap
clothing to hundreds of millions of the poor, naked and cold
inhabitants of every country and clime of the world ; a Morse,
whose magic wire, quivering with its electric energies, with the
speed of lightning, and the docility of the human breath and
tongue ; — across the continents, spanning its valleys and wading
its rivers; diving under its lakes and seas; climbing or perforating
its mountains ; girdling the round globe, indeed far faster than
she can spin upon her axle; — pulsates the thrilling messages of
^ve to the trembling maiden, or the wail of her doom to an
assembled nation.
Why, what a countless host of inventors and inventions,
useful and ingenious — greatly, grandly useful, and quaintly
ingenious — in all the arts of life, and in all the sciences, whether
2

[10]
of philosophy or of conceits, have we not devoted to mankind
since we became a nation ?
In literature, the colonies had indeed produced Edwards and
Dwight, great names in theology; and Barlow and Hopkins,
very small names in poetry; and these were all. Whilst, since
that period, the United States have given to all, and to more
than all, who shall ever speak or read the English tongue, a
Washington, Franklin, Hamilton, Marshall, and Jefferson; a
Brockden Brown, Cooper, Irving, Paulding, Bancroft, and Pres
cott ; a Halleck, Longfellow, and Bryant.
In the fine arts, the colonies claimed Benjamin West, whom
Byron described, with very great bitterness and exaggeration,
and with little taste and truth, as "Europe's worst dauber, and
poor England's best;" and Copley, whose best work was certainly
his great son, the Lord Chancellor Lyndhurst.
Since then, we have produced, amongst many others, in the
art of miniature painting— Mallone, Hite, Wood, Officer, Dodge,
Watkins, and Miller ; in that of portraiture — Gilbert Stuart,
Jarvis, Sully, Jewett, Inman, Page, Ingham, Baker, Elliot, Kyle,
Buchanan Read, Soule, and Eaton; in historical1 painting —
Alston, Trumbull, the Peales, Vanderlyn, Chapman, Rossiter,
Huntington, Leutze, Beard, and Powell; in landscape paint
ing — Cole, Doughty, Durand, Fisher, Cropsey, Church, Kensett,
Frankenstein, Sontagg, and Whittridge ; and in statuary and
sculpture — Greenough, Crawford, Brackett, Brown, Clevinger,
and, (above them all, the pride of his country, the admiration of
Europe,) our own great Hiram Powers.
It is not too much to say, of any or all of these, that they
are quite equal to their cotemporaneous classes of any country;
and, in some of these branches of art, they will compare, most
favorably, with the artists of the classic and palmy days of art.
In statesmanship and oratory, the Colonies had in the egg
shell, or in the callow and downy state of subject life, Samuel
and John Adams and Fisher Ames of Massachusetts ; Benja-

[11]
min Franklin of Pensylvania ; Patrick Henry and Thomas Jef
ferson of Virginia — but it was for the Revolution and for Na
tional Independence, to hatch and plume these and many more
their equals, like young eagles, strengthened by the vital morn
ing, for their swift and high flight, before the upturned face of the
Earth, and into the open and blazing eye of the sun ! The
United States have had not only these, but Washington, Ham
ilton, Madison, Jay and King ; John Quincy Adams, Calhoun,
Webster, and our own "Great Western, Henry Clay" — names
which, whether considered by the endowments of genius or the
culture of education ; whether estimated by the standard of
moral worth or mental power, will survive as long as fame
shall descend by tradition, or as their works can be set and stand
fixed in type. With the best and the greatest of the world's
noblest times and places let them stand, for perpetual compar
isons. They, too, have passed up into history.
In war, the Colonies divided, were without heroes. They
were defended as they were watched, by a foreign and hireling
soldiery. But the United States have had "the foremost man of
all this world" — General George Washington. And after him,
in the Revolutionary armies, but with a long interval truly, the
Lees, and Green, and Gates, and Morgan, and Wayne, and Air
Jen, and Paul Jones, and Lafayette. We cannot on this day at
least, forget Lafayette or France, to whom we and our children
to the latest posterity, owe so very much.
In our subsequent wars and battles, we likewise commend to
the historians of mankind, Jackson and Perry and Decatur and
Stewart and Brown and Gaines and Taylor and Winfield Scott.
If the world in her greenest and palmiest ages, in tent or field,
in cabin or on deck, on land or sea, in the battle or before the
breeze, can show wiser heads in council, steadier hands at helm,
or braver hearts in fight than these, then has history forgotten or
failed to make true record of them. Let Bunker Hill, Trenton,
Monmouth, Germantown, Ticonderoga, the Cowpens and York-

[121
town — let Chippawa, Lundy's Lane and New Orleans — let Palo
Alto, Monterey, Buena Vista, Vera Cruz, Cerro Gordo, Chapul-
tepec, Molino del Rey and Mexico, attest the civic wisdom and
the warlike valor of our generals and their troops. And these
are all the fruits, ripe and gathered for present enjoyment or
for future seed, of our Revolution. They at least, are passed
and recorded and sealed. History is safe as to them !
I omit all allusion to our systems of Education, not only be
cause there is not time to particularize further on these topics,
but because, although far in advance of England in the matter
of free schools, we cannot boast ourselves in respect of educa
tion over other countries of Europe. Education is by no means
what it might be, and with our advantages, what it ought to be
in our country.
But there is a fountain from which all these qualities and char
acteristics and events must flow. What were and are the re
spective privileges and duties of the Colonial and independent
Americans ? To say that those were under a monarchy and these
are in a republic, does not truly and fully set forth the whole
answer. In this case names are not things ; for there may be
more personal freedom, and consequent individual and national
prosperity and developement, under a monarchy, so called, than
in a nominal republic. What in fact is the truth, in our in
stance ? Let us look into the public laws of these respective
periods for our answer.
The colonies, in the first place, were a sort of wards in Chan
cery, to the parent government. They were minors, whose proper
ty and rights of property were under guardianship. Navigation
laws prohibited colonial ships to court God's free breeze, and to
plough God's open ocean, without a license from his anointed
Vicegerent. Any British subject could freely choose his own
pursuit and follow whatsoever channel of trade, his enterprise and
whim might select, provided only, he was born and dwelt in the
southern part of the Isle of Albion. But, if he were a North

[13]
American Colonist, an Irishman or Scotchman, he could only
manufacture, export, or import, such commodities and navigate in
such bottoms and in such directions, as might not compete with
the interests of the elder brothers in these trades, at home. For
centuries it had been the inherent right of Englishmen not to
be taxed without representation, not indeed, except by their own
representatives alone. It was discovered that the American
colonists were not British subjects in this sense. They could not
only be taxed without their consent and against their expressed
will, but for purposes not before known to the English laws, for
purposes special and peculiar, though not beneficial to them ;
and not merely to support large standing armies in time of
peace, but to support armies, not for defence against their com
mon enemies, but to subject and enslave themselves.
Your time and patience would fail me indeed, if I were to
enumerate by the most general classifications, all the restraints
and inequalities which distinguished the condition of the colo
nists and their brethren, British subjects, at home. But, we may
be told, such must be the natural condition of colonists, as of all
wards and minors. It was their own choice, that they immigra
ted hither, or were born here. Very well ! Let us look then,
into that better condition, to which they might have aspired, by
having returned to England or by having gradually attained
such maturity of civil manhood, as might have justified the
transplantation of the fullest and freest rights and privileges of
British subjects, to this, the other side of the Atlantic, What
were the constitutional and legal rights of British subjects at
home, before and on the ith of July, 1776 ?
I shall only ask your attention now to two of the many divi
sions which might be made of this question, vis: to the restraints
upon the natural rights of man, in his relation to the outward
world, to society and government, and upon his religious liberties.
And let us see what regard the British laws then actually paid
to a man's right to live; to go where and when he pleased ; t»

L 14 ]
think what he pleased., and to say and do what he thought ; and
to worship whatever God or Gods he pleased, at his own times
and places, and in his own way.
We are very formally and solemnly, and as a great proof of
the liberality and freedom of the Constitution of England, in
formed by its ablest expounder, Sir William Blackstone, that
the language of the great charter is, "that no freeman shall be
taken or imprisoned, but by the laivful judgment of his equals,
or by the laws of the land"— 1 Blackstone's eom. 135. This immu
nity of Magna Charta would be, theoretically, something better,
if every freeman could have had some infinitesimally small voice
in making these laws of the land. His natural right to do this,
depended at the time of our Revolution, upon his being the owner
of a freehold estate, in the county, of some £20 or $1 00, annual
income, clear of all taxes. Nevertheless, these "laws of the land,"
which could so constitutionally restrain a man's natural liberties,
may have been very good, although but few of the freemen had
any voice in their enactment. Let us consider a small number of
them, as specimens of the whole.
The State neither directly, nor indirectly, made the slightest
provision for the education of the subject. Let us see how the Brit
ish laws for ages after the- Magna Charta treated ignorance,
which by this and by other means, they themselves produced.
Until 1707, if two persons should have been guilty of the
same theft — of a pocket handkerchief, for instance — the one
who could not read, was put to death, by hanging, and the other,
who could read, (and ought therefore to have known so much
the better not to have stolen it,) was released, with a nominal
or no punishment. This privilege of priests and afterwards of
scholars, or such as could read, was called t\\z" Benefit of Clergy."
The privilege in favor of scholars was never repealed until the
reign of Queen Ann.
But long after the repeal of this absurd and pedantic test of
reading, as a question of life and death, and long after our In-

[15 1
dependence, "all clerks in order, were without any branding and
without any transportation fine or whipping, immediately
discharged" for hundreds and hundreds of different crimes as high
up and heinous as aiding and abetting in murder ; and this, says
the law, "as often as they shall offend." Again ; "all lords of
Parliament, and peers of the Realm, having places and voices
in Parliament, (which is likewise held to extend to peeresses,)
were discharged, without any burning in the hand, or imprison
ment, or other punishment in its stead, for the same crimes and
in the same manner as real clerks convict ; but this is only for
the first offence." But "all the commoners of the realm," former
ly it had been, only those who could read, — "whether male or
female, were, for the first offence of any one of these same
crimes, burnt in the hand, or whipped, or fined, or sent to jail,
or to the penitentiary, or transported for seven years, as the of
fence and disposition of the Judge might be." — 4 Blacks' com.
373, 374, 370. 371. For the second offence, the laymen
were hanged. And actually the Duchess of Kingston, who was
convicted of the crime of bigamy, was so discharged, free from
all punishment whatever, on the 22d of April, 1776, only sev
enty-two days before our declaration of Independence, by the
unanimous voice of all the judges in Parliament. — 45 London
Magazine, pp. 218, 389. If she had been an "even Christian"
she would at that time have been sent to the penitentiary or
transported to Botany Bay. A few years before, if she had
been a commoner and also unable to read, she would have been
put to death. So much for the miserable fictions of which the
the English: laws were stuck full, working the greatest injustice
and hardship between the different classes of the subjects.
Let us look for a moment, now, into their humanity, and
their due proportion to the offences committed, when they were
not of those offences called " clergyable." By the Statute of
9 Geo. I, c. xxii — "To hunt, wound, or steal any deer; to rob a
warren," (of one blind young rabbit, for example;) "or to steal

[16]
fish from a river or pond, or by gift or promise of reward to
procure any person to join them in such unlawful act, all these
are felonies without the benefit of clergy," (4 Bl. Com. p.
295,) and subjected the offender to death. But in the year of
Grace, (4 Geo. IV, c. liv,) i. e., in the precious year of our Lord,
1823, clergy was restored to those awful crimes; and for steal
ing a jack salmon, no longer than your little finger, the British
law no longer hanged a man, but only sent him to the peniten
tiary, or transported him for seven years for the first offence.
The Statute of James, c. xxi, allowed women who were con
victed of simple larcenies under the value of ten shillings, to
be publicly whipped, set in the stocks, or imprisoned. And
this law, for whipping women, was not repealed until 1 Geo. IV,
c. xlvii, in 1826.
" The punishment of stealing anything over the value of
twelve pence is, at common law," (and was for years after
the Declaration of Independence,) "regularly death; which,
considering the great intermediate alterations in the price of
money, is," says Blackstone, "a very rigorous constitution, and
made Sir Henry Spelman complain, that while every thing was
risen in its nominal value and become dearer, the life of man
had continually grown cheaper." (4 Bl. Com. p. 239.)
The benefit of clergy was extended to a simple larceny, for
the first offence ; but for horse-stealing, or aiding in stealing a
horse, or concealing him after the theft ; for taking woolen cloth
of any value off the tenters; or linens, fustians, calicoes, or other
goods from the place of manufacture, which extends, in the last
case, to all aiders, assisters, procurers, buyers, and receivers ;
for feloniously driving away, or otherwise stealing one or more
sheep or other cattle, or killing them with intent to steal the
whole or any part of the carcass, or aiding or assisting therein ;
for thefts on navigable rivers, above the value of forty shillings ;
for stealing a letter from the post ; for stealing deer, fish, hares,
and conies, (4 Blackstone's Commentaries, page 240,) were all

L17]
punished by the law and in fact, as well as in countless other
similar and equally frivolous offences.
The laws in relation to insolvent debtors were almost as cruel
and unnatural, though not so sanguinary. They were often
legally subjected to the keenest indignities and sufferings of
the body and mind, from the merest malice of their disap
pointed and enraged creditors ; and many thousands of them
have lived and died in prison for petty debts.
Let us now briefly see how they estimated human rights,
when considered with reference to the king and his church.
"Natural allegiance is due from all men born within the
king's dominions, immediately upon their birth," says the great
commentator on British law. So early, in the subject's life,
begins the encroachment on his natural liberties ! " Natural
allegiance," he adds, " is, therefore, a debt of gratitude ; which
cannot be forfeited,' cancelled, or altered, by any change of
time, place, or circumstance; nor by anything but the united
concurrence of the legislature. An Englishman who removes
to France or to China, owes the same allegiance to the king of
England there as at home, and twenty years hence as now.
For it is a principle of universal law, that the natural born sub
ject of one prince cannot, by any act of his own — no, not by
swearing allegiance to another — put off or discharge his
allegiance to the former." (1 Bl. Com. p. 370.) So great is
the debt of gratitude due to the king of England, for his grace
in permitting the infant-subject to be born within his realm !
Such being the strength and length of the tie by which he is
bound to the king, it may be well enough to learn with what
tenderness the king repays this gratitude.
All the world knows the unimaginable horrors of the punishment
of high treason under British law. In brief, and not to disgust you
with minor particulars, it is, first, to draw the offender to the gallows
on a hurdle ; second, to hang him by the neck, and then cut him
down alive ; third, to take out his entrails, and burn them, while
3

[18]
he is yet alive ; fourth, to cut off his head ; fifth, to divide his
body into four parts ; sixth, to place his head and quarters at the
king's disposal. This was the law of punishment for males, in
cases of high treason, until the year 1814. Women, for all kinds
of treason, (as well against their husbands as against the king,)
were drawn and burnt alive. (4 Id. p. 92-3.)
Of what elements, (can you guess ?) did this crime consist, for
which a more than demoniac malignity could have invented a
penalty so terrible ? We have these specifications of what con
stitutes high treason : First, " To compass or imagine the death
of our lord the king, of our lady his queen, or of their eldest
son and heir." Under this head, one British freeman was exe
cuted, as above described, for saying that he would make his
son heir of the Crown, being the sign of the house in which he
lived; the other, a gentleman whose favorite buck the king
killed in hunting, whereupon he wished it, " horns and all, in
the king's belly." But we are gravely informed, that, after
they were executed, " these were considered hard cases."
The second species of treason is, to "violate the king's com
panion, or eldest daughter unmarried, or the wife of the king's
eldest son and heir — even with her full consent."
The third species of treason is, "to levy war against our lord
the king, in his realm."
The. fourth is, "to adhere to. the king's enemies in his realm
giving to them aid and comfort in the realm, or elsewhere."
Fifth. " If a man counterfeit the king's great or privy seal, it
is treason." Sixth. " If a man counterfeit the king's money; or bring false
money into the realm, knowing the money to be false, to mer
chandize and make payment with all."
^ Seventh. " The last species of treason is, if a man slay the
king's chancellor, treasurer, or the justices of the one bench, or
the other, justices in eyre, or justices of assize, and all other
justices assigned to hear and determine, being in their places

[19]
doing their offices." (4 Id. pages 77-85.) Still other kinds of
treason have since been declared by statute ; which it is not
necessary to note. So much for the inhumanity of the laws to
enforce this natural allegiance to the king.
Let us now ascertain what regard these laws paid to man's
natural right to worship God. Is it possible that I was wrong
in supposing, that, in the nature of things, human govern
ments have nothing whatever to do with religion ? That the
institution of human government is, in its essence, secular and
temporal — not spiritual, or having reference to eternity? That
religion must be an affair of each soul, and between each indi
vidual soul, and its God? That any enforced obedience or
conformity to God's law, is, in His eyes, no obedience or con
formity at all ? And, finally, that any exertion, by a State or
any other extrinsic power, in favor of religion or the church, is
not merely an unauthorised and illegitimate invasion of the
rights of the individual man, who is put under restraint or pun
ishment, but is a desecration of the religious principle, and a
great injury really committed to the church itself, as an insti
tution of Religion1? All these are, I repeat, my opinions,
whether they be the true theory of government and church, or
not. And without pausing now to attempt, by discussion, to
establish them, I shall proceed, in their light, to examine the
state of the British law on these subjects, at the period of our
Revolution. It is unnecessary to speak at large of their enactments,
which punish apostacy and heresy, although they violate these
principles, by imprisonment, for denying the truth of the Holy
Scriptures in the one case, and in the other for "teaching
erroneous opinions, contrary to the faith and blessed determina
tion of the Holy Church." As an instance of the utter self
ishness and tyranny of this whole system, a denial of the
existence of God, and of the truth of the Holy Scriptures, was
punished only by imprisonment for three years ; whilst at the

[20]
same time the teaching of erroneous opinions, against the faith
as determined by the Holy Church, of St, Henry VIII, (who
was at once its founder and its head,) was punished by the
heretic's being burnt alive ! The virtuous and pious Queen
Bess, burnt the last two Ana-Baptists, and James the First, the
last pair of Unitarians. This penalty of burning heretics was
repealed by Stat. 29, Car. II, c. ix; which, according to Black
stone, delivered the British " minds from the tyranny of super
stitious bigotry, by demolishing the last badge of persecution
in the English law." (4 Id. p. 48.) I proceed to demonstrate
how well-founded this boast was.
This repeal took place in the year 1689. For one hundred
years after that date, (perhaps now,) a law which was then on
the Statute Book, (1 EKz. c. ii,) punished " any minister who
should speak in derogation of the Book of Common Prayer ;
and any person whatsoever who shall, in plays, songs, or other
open words, speak anything in derogation, depraving, or des
pising of the said book, or shall forcibly prevent the reading
of it, or cause any other service to be used in its stead, to be
fined most heavily for the first offence ; doubly for the second ;
and for the third, shall forfeit all his goods and chattels, and
suffer imprisonment for life." These offences were called —
" reviling the ordinances of the church." (4 Id. 51.) Similar
but milder laws were enacted against non-conformity to the wor
ship of the church. And all these were in full, vogue, when
that author wrote, and our Declaration of Independence was
made. But I must pass to other instances of bigoted intoler
ance and persecution by British law.
The Corporation Act forbids any one from being legally
elected to any office relating to the government of any city or
corporation, unless, within a twelvemonth before, he has re
ceived the sacrament of the Lord's supper, according to the
rites of the Church of England, and at the same time to take
the oath of supremacy and allegiance." And the Test Act,

[21]
directs all officers, and the military, to take the oath, and make
the declaration against transubstantiation, in any of the King's
Courts of Westminster, or at the Quarter Sessions, within six
calendar months after their admission; and also within the same
time, to receive the sacrament of the Lord's supper, according
to the usage of the Church of England, and to deliver unto
Court a certificate thereof, signed by the minister and church
warden, and also to prove the same by two credible witnesses,
upon forfeiture of 500 pounds, and disability to hold said office.
(4 Id. 58-9.) Of the same nature is 7 Jac. I, c. ii, which per
mits no " person to be naturalized or restored in blood, but such
as undergo a like test." Is not this a mockery of religious
faith and of holy sacraments — a reward upon hypocrisy, and a
heartless, faithless conformity, and a most horrible and cruel
invasion of the consciences of those who are made to take them,
and of the rights of those who refuse them ? And yet the
same author, who congratulates the British public that the "last
badge of persecution in the English law had been demolished,"
announces these acts to be "'two bulwarks erected, the better to
secure the established church against perils from non-conformists
of all denominations — infidels, turks, jews, heretics, papists,
and sectaries."
Against Protestant Dissenters, a great number of severe dis
abilities and penalties had also been enacted and were in force,
(though occasionally and upon most unconscionable conditions,
suspended.) Amongst the conditions, upon which these severe
penalties were removed, were the regular repairing, by Dissent
ers, to some congregation, certified to in the court of the Bishop
or Archdeacon. And Dissenting teachers must subscribe certain
articles of religion, specified in 13 Eliz. c. xii, or else by 17
Car. II, c. ii, they were both fined and imprisoned for teaching
school. Another specimen of such toleration is, that "no mayor
or principal magistrate must appear at any dissenting meeting
with the ensigns of his office, on pain of disability to hold thsd]
or any other office," (4 Id. p. 53-4.)

[22]
But harsh as are all these violations of the genuine and essen
tial principles of Religious Liberty, the natural right of every
human soul, their ingenious severity is far exceeded in the
legislation against Papacy. " Persons professing the popish re
ligion, besides the former penalties, for not frequenting their
parish church, are disabled from taking their lands either by
descent or purchase, after eighteen years of age, until they re
nounce their errors ; nor can they keep or teach any school
under pain of perpetual imprisonment ; and if they willingly
say or hear mass, they forfeit, the one, two hundred, the other,
one hundred marks, and each shall suffer one year's imprison
ment." (4 lb. 53.)
These are but the tythe of like disabilities and penalties.
And we are told by the same author, that "where these errors
are also aggravated by apostacy .or perversion; where a person
is reconciled to the See of Rome, or procures others to be
reconciled, the offence amounts to high treason," (4: Id. 56.) In
brief; for not clearly understanding the difference between
^^substantiation, (which the Romish hierarchy taught,) and
cowsubstantiation, (which I think, the British hierarchy then
taught,) a doctrine which no impudence of pretext can dis
tort into any danger to any government or temporal institution;
— a "British freeman" was disinherited of all his father's or his
own property, and imprisoned for life.
Heaven forgive our stupidity ! To this day, if I were to be
hung and quartered for it, I cannot understand, — can any of you ?
the difference between transubstantiation, which represented
the bread and wine to be in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper,
transubstantiated into the body and blood of Christ, and the
''consubstantiation" of Luther, or "the existence of the real,
though not bodily presence of the body of Christ in the sacra
ment," as Calvin taught. And so, also, because a "British free
man" were perverse enough to become reconciled to the See
of Rome, or to prefer it to the See of Canterbery or of York,

[23]
preferring, in his conscience, it may be, the red silk stockings
of John Wiseman, (Cardinal,) to the black plush hose of John
Bird Sumner, (Lord primate,) ; or because he honestly believed
that the divine and exclusive right of ordaining preachers, to
declare the gospel of salvation to men, by laying of hands on
the backs of their heads, descended from St. Peter, by apostolic
succession, through the elder electric chain of Roman, and
not through the later of London Bishops — he was to be dragged
over the rough stones of long streets to the gallows, to be hung
and taken down alive, to be disemboweled, and to see his bow
els burned by the common hangman ; and to be quartered, and
vhis quarters and head, (for its stupidity, perhaps,) presented as rel-
iques to his most sacred Majesty, St. Charles II. or perhaps St.
George IV. the head of the Holy Church of the meek and
lowly Jesus.
I might give you a long list of the punishments due to pa-
pish recusancy, or the crime of not attending the service of the
Church of England. "These recusants are considered as persons
excommunicated. They can hold no office or employment ; can
keep no arms in their houses ; cannot come within ten miles of
London; can bring no suit at law ; can not, without license, travel
above five miles from their homes; can have no marriage, or burial,
or baptism of their child by any other than by a minister of the
Church of England ; if a married woman, she shall forfeit two
thirds of her dower or jointure ; cannot be executrix or admin
istratrix to her husband, nor take any part of his goods ; and
during the marriage she may be kept in prison, unless her hus
band redeems her at the rate of £10 or $50 per month, and
the third part of his lands. And lastly ; as a feme-covert, may
be imprisoned. So all others must, within three months after
conviction, either submit and renounce their errors, or must ab
jure and renounce their native land ; and if they do not depart,
or if they return without the King's license, they shall be guil
ty of felony, and suffer death as felons, without the benefit of
Clergy." {ild.pbl.)

[24]
" The remaining species or degree, viz : papish priests," — pur
sues our great commentator on British law and freedom,— "are
in a still more dangerous condition. For, by statute 11 and 12,
W. III. c, iv. (in 1700, or eleven years after his repeal of the
last badge of persecution in the English law,) any papish
priests or bishops celebrating mass, or exercising any part of
their functions in England, except in the houses of ambassa
dors, are liable to perpetual imprisonment. And by the statute
27 Eliz. c. ii, not repealed by 29. Car. II, c. ix, any popish priest,
born in the dominions of the crown of England, who shall come
over hither from beyond sea, (unless driven by stress of weather,
and tarrying only a reasonable time,) or shall be in England
three days without conforming and taking the oaths, is guilty of
high treason ; and all persons harboring him are guilty of felony,
without benefit of clergy" — 4 Id. p. 57. Of which laws the pres
ident Montesquieu, innocently remarks, that "they are so rigor
ous, though not of the sanguinary kind" — God preserve us all
from that kind, then ! — "that they do all the hurt that can possi
bly be done, in cold blood." And all these laws were in full force
long after the event which we now celebrate. It was against
these laws, and such as these, that our forefathers rebelled. They
were not even amended until 1791, or fifteen years after that
event. Such, then, my fellow countrymen, is a very limited and im
perfect, though fair-minded statement, of the condition of the
British laws, in reference to the rights of persons, on these sub
jects, at the time our fathers declared their independence of them.
You observe, that I make no account of the horrid disorders,
riots, conflagrations, assassinations and murders, by steel and by
fire, which occurred under the raw-head and bloody-bones excite
ments, from the perjured invention of a popish plot, by Titus
Oates, in 1678, and the many "no popery riots" which succeed
ed it. I have only spoken of the public laws and institutions of the
Realm, They were the outbreaks of an insane and superstitious •

[25]
furor of the people. We are, it seems, as likely to have them now
and here, as they were then and there. I am ashamed to say,
that neither the principles of the New Testament, nor of the De
claration of Independence, seem to have rendered our people
any more wise or humane on such questions and occasions, than
our fathers were, just two hundred years ago. The only new
principles I know of, which cm cure this evil of persecution and
riots by mobs, is that of one Napoleon Buonaparte, — to sweep the
streets in their whole lengths and breadths, by cannon balls and
canaister and grape shot. These are my ideas of religion, on the
one hand, and government on the other.. Human life is a precious
thing in my eyes and heart. And therefore it is, that I would
save the best of it, and as much of it as possible, by preserving
it from the daggers, and colts, and revolvers, and firebrands of
a lawless, drunken, infuriate, fiendish mob, ravening for blood and
bespattered with brains. Aye, let the artillery if need be,
sweep your streets from the canal to the river, and back again,
from the canal to the Vine Street Hill. Let it spare no race,
no religion, no party, no officer, no rank, no man, who is tumult-
uously engaged, under any pretext or cry, in the work of con
flagration and murder ! And, especially, let its most central, its
most deadly aim be directed, point-blank and with the heaviest
charges, against the demagogues of these riots — both pious and
political ! I am a man of peace, and not, alas ! much given to
prayer ; but in such a case, how fervently could I supplicate the
God of Armies for another " Rough and Ready," to whisper to
another Captain Bragg, — "a little more grape, sir !"
But, though I do not claim any improvement of the Ameri
can people, either in the matter of lawless mobs or of National
wars, I do claim that in the great and general matter of human
government, and especially with reference to natural human
rio-hts, — both in temporal and spiritual affairs, that we have
made infinite and most glorious progress. And now, on this
anniversary of ^t day jtp which we owe all this, I submit to
4

[26]
your calm determination, that first question which I pro
pounded to you :— Whether we have not gained greatly by
that Declaration of Independence, and the victorious war which
. followed it ?
I know very well what can and will be said in behalf of Eng
land ; — that, bad as these laws were, they were yet as mild as
any in Europe ; that many of them were rarely put in force ;
that many of them have been since totally repealed, and all,
which are unrepealed, have been humanized and ameliorated ;
and that England now stands in the van of all nations, except
our own, (her fair daughter,) battling in war, and laboring in peace,
in the cause of personal human rights and national and popular
independence. I know it all. With many indispensable, and a
few voluntary, and therefore most disgraceful exceptions, her
individual subjects can now proudly compare their own present
legal and constitutional rights with ours, or those of any other
peoples, past or present. I have performed but inefficient work
here if my purpose, in this parallel, can be construed into an
assault on the English institutions and the English people, as
they are. Nor do I mean to be understood as disparaging the
present Church of England, of which, I confess, I know but
little. And least of all must I be understood, in anything
which I have said, as intimating the slightest reflection upon
that Church, which, in our country, uses most of its ritual and
services, but which has no other connection with it. As my
subject required, I have spoken of the laws of England in
1776, as well concerning religious liberty as the Church of
England, for which I have neither original nor inherited regard,
without fear, favor or affection, whilst of the Episcopal Church
of the United States, for which I have both, I have neither said
nor intimated anything whatever.
I have indicated my estimate of the rank of England as a
power. As a people — with all their institutions, good and bad,
in my judgment and in my sympathies, but with a long inter-

[27]
val — .England stands second to this, "my own, my native
land." Defeat and shame attend her, in all her contests with
us; victory and glory lead and crown her, whenever and
wherever she may battle with any other power or people !
For — besides our kinship — being freer than they, she is better
than them all.
But why is it, that the British laws have been improved,
since our independence ? It was solely because of our indepen
dence ! It was that impetus, which the Declaration and Revolu
tion of Freedom gave to the spirit of Freedom, through France,
England, Germany, and the world, indeed; and more yet, by the
proofs and examples which our earlier history showed, that liberty
was not incompatible with order, — that tyranny and bigotry have
been ahke shamed into hberality and common sense. Let us
claim, then, the present improved condition of England and the
world, as the unquestioned fruits of our original Fourth of July;
and that to mankind, as to us and our posterity, the results of
that day have been most useful and glorious.
¦ There remains, then, but one question for us to solve. What
will be the result — to Americans and mankind — of these prin
ciples ? It is not too much to say, that this solution depends
wholly upon us of this generation. For this, indeed, seems to
be the era of our national crisis. New doctrines and new prac
tices in the administration of our government, and the conduct
of our people, have seized upon both, and spread like the con
tagion of leprosy over the entire body politic. Strange ideas,
and old, worn-out ideas in religion, philosophy and govern
ment — revamped and polished up as novel. — are embraced and
hugged with all the dotage of senile paternity or maternity,
(as it may be, that some beardless boy, or some old woman
of either sex shall fancy himself or herself to have begotten
or conceived them.) And they are written and gabbled about,
as if the human intellect, with all its varieties of faculties,
and all the power of each, was only created for the nurture

[28]
and development of one pet idea. And as the world — like
different groups of school-boys chasing their respective soap-
bubbles, Iris-like and beautiful indeed, but only composed of
thin air for their contents and a thinner film for their cover
ings — is divided into so many one-idead "isms," so each
" Ism" has its society, open or secret, with its Constitution and
By-laws, and President and Treasurer and Secretary, and Board
of Directors ; or, if female, with the proper suffixes to indicate
the sex, of the Presidentess and other officers. A baby has to
be born, now, into the arms of a committee, and recorded by
some Secretary with a corporate seal ; it is christened by a
chartered company; he is taught his A, B, Cs, by a Board of
Trustees ; is married by the Head of a Congregation ; sympa
thises and distributes his charities through an Anti-Slavery
Society, and a Relief Union ; is nursed in sickness by a succes
sion of lay sisters of one church or the other ; and has his eyes
closed and is taken to his grave, in charge of an association of
brothers, who are privileged to mourn, by ordinance, with a
society-banner draped in blacker crape than his natural sisters
can wear, and a society brass band, outwailing the natural sobs
of mother and wife. But, as before his birth, not Societies, nor
Chapters, nor Orders, nor Leagues, nor Sodalities — but Nature
only' — had anything to do with his earthly being ; so, may we
trust, that, after his death and burial, he will arise from his sleep
of centuries, and that he may be saved without the support
or encouragement of any committee of them all ! If these
cliques thus continue to take to themselves all our men and
women, and all our boys and girls, into their legions of
organizations, the time will soon come, when a simple, natural,
self-relying, self-developed individual man, will be so great
an exception and curiosity, that some Napoleon-Buonaparte-
Barnum will kidnap and exhibit him for a show to the rest of
mankind. Understand me ! These things in themselves, and in

L29]
moderation, are all well enough. But, whilst you are all and
severally, cherishing unduly your favorite thought or pas-
sion, and enslaving yourselves to this or the other "most
important society," beware, lest you forget that you are a man
and an American — a man by nature, and an American by birth
or free choice. Remember, as a man, how many mental
faculties, how many moral sentiments, make up your single
being, all to be watched, developed, restrained and improved,
in order to fulfil the precious trusts' which nature, like rough
diamonds, bestowed upon you to be polished. And as an
American, — a national, United States American, — oh! do not
forget how many privileges, and therefore how many various
and arduous duties, you owe to the whole people, and to the
General Government !
This is indeed a fearful crisis in the formation and preservation
of a just public sentiment of national loyalty, by a people, whose
sentiment is at once both law and destiny. Not merely are
the individuals and populaces taking to themselves "other gods"
for exclusive and fanatical worship, and forgetting their nation
as a Whole Edifice, and their Union and Constitution as its
material and cement, but organized States, through officers
sworn first to fealty to that Union and Constitution, have pub
licly and deliberately forsaken their solemn trust. Of the three
most patriotic and loyal States of the Revolution, two have
ignominiously betrayed their posts. The Orator of History
could once say, (and how nobly he did say it ?) of Massachu
setts — " There she is ; behold her, and judge for yourselves.
There is her history ; the world knows it by heart. The past,
at least, is secure." And the Orator of Prophecy did also say —
" Where American Liberty raised its first voice ; and where its
youth was nurtured and sustained ; there it still lives, in the
strength of its manhood and full of its original spirit; — if discord
and disunion shall wound it — if party strife and blind ambition
shall hawk at and tear it — if folly and madness shall succeed-

[30]
to separate it from that Union, by which alone, its existence is
made sure — it will stand, in the end, by the side of that cradle,
in which its infancy was rocked ; it will stretch forth its arm,
with whatever of vigor it may still retain, over the friends who
gather around it ; and it will fall at last, if fall it must, amidst
the proudest monuments of its own glory, and on the very spot
of its origin."
Alas ! for that prophet and prophecy. The breath of life and
light of inspiration have alike passed from his lips and eye. He
sleeps unhonored — aye, dishonored — in the cold bosom of his
beloved Massachusetts, which had taught him to love the Union
more than herself, and which, by word and work, he had so
much honored and glorified. And, alas ! alas ! ! for Massachu
setts. Like another Israel, she has gainsayed the law and
the prophecy of her own Moses. She is recreant to her
own grand history. She is faithless to his sublime pro
phecy. The earliest and brightest Northern Star of the Revo
lutionary Constellation ; she that circled the first glorious orbit
in our national sky, humming, as she whirled upon her own
axis, and hymning, as she wheeled in her sublimer course of
Federal duties, with that " music of the spheres," so still and
silent to earthly ears, but so heavenly grand and sweet to the
wide Universe, her Anthem-Harmony of —
" Liberty and Union ; one and inseparable ;
Now AND FOREVER."
That Star has, madly and wildly, dashed from her glorious
sphere, and plunged, darkling, dimmed and degraded, after her
sister — the lost Pleiad of the South — down into the midnight-
abyss of Nullification.
What, then, my fellow-countrymen, — with such signs of the
times, — shall be our national destiny? Clouds, dark and lurid,
gather in all our sky, and, with their sombre shadows, checker

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and blacken all our land. And, upon the far and future hori
zon, there rises, like the funeral pall of a nation, a yet deeper
and blacker storm-cloud of pitchy smoke, threatening to over
whelm and bury us forever. I cannot pierce its murky gloom.
But, beyond and around it, flickering faintly and dimly, but
still fringing and illumining the edges of its dusky folds, the
Eye of Faith and Hope sees, or trusts it sees, the day-spring
of a calmer and brighter era. May Heaven speed its coming
and its spread.