VALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

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Fondey, William H.
An oration before the young men's association
for mutual improvement in Albany.
Albany, 1838.

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AXIS^aAlMQ aivA

AN ORATION,
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
YOUNG MEN'S ASSOCIATION OF ALBANY,
By WILLIAM H. FONDEY,
JVL,¥^ 4, 183S.

AN

ORATION

BEFORE THE

YOUNG MEN'S ASSOCIATION

FOR MUTUAL IMPROVEMENT IN THE CITY OF ALBANY.

DELIVERED JULY 4, ISJS.

BY WILLIAM H. FONDEY.

ALBANY:
PRINTED BY J. MUNSELL, 58 STATE STREET,
1838.

CORRESPONDENCE.

Albany, July 7, 1838.
Dear Sir — At a meeting of the Committee of Arrangements of the "Youno- Men's
Association," held at their rooms on the 6th iiist. the following resolution was unani
mously adopted :
Resolved, That the Committee of Arrangements tender to Wm. H. Fondey Esq. their
warmest thanks for the very eloquent and classic oration delivered by him before the
Association on the 4th inst. and that he be earnestly requested to famish a copy of the
same for publication.
Believing that the publication of your oration is eminently calculated to promote the
interests of our Association, and knowing the general wish expressed by our members as
well as many of our citizens, that the same be published, we hope that these considera
tions M'ill induce you to comply with our request. JOHN V. s. HAZARD,
WM. G. DEY ERMAND,
BENJ. C. TRUE,

To Wm. H. Fondey Esq.

IRA PORTER,
D, NEWLAND JR.
GEORGE B. STEELE.!

Albany, July 9, 1838.
Gentlemen, — Your polite request was not expected by me. The oration was not pre
pared with a design to its publication, and hence many parts necessary to present the sub
ject in a connected view remain incomplete. I do not, however, feel myself at liberty to
disregard your wishes go warmly expressed, and if the address shall in any way aid in
directing public attention to the principles and sentiments it attempts to enforce, my high
est desire will be gratified. Permit me to return to the committee and its members indi
vidually, my sincere thanks for their uniform courtesy and kindness,
I remain respectfully, Your obedient servant,
WM. H. FONDEY.
To Messrs. J. V. S. Hazard, W. G. Dey Ermand,
B. C. True, Ira Porter, D. Newlandjun., G. B.
Steele, Com. of Arrange ts.

ORATION

The brightest hopes of the future, the proudest
remembrances of the past, are linked with the
event we commemorate. From the pyramid of
their glory, the spirits of our fathers bend to re
ceive our gratitude and to mingle in our exulta
tions. They recall us to the thrilling scenes of
their fortitude, their devotion, and their martyr
dom, and our minds are hurried back irresistibly
to join with them in the contest, the struggle, the
carnage and the victory. Breathing the air of
that loftier ground, we have come up to the altar
reared by their valor, again to animate our zeal,
again to enkindle our patriotism. Youth in its
buoyancy and ardor, manhood in its vigor and
maturity, age in its silvered livery and venerable
aspect, have assembled to fill the soul with one
generous tide of national sympathy. Nobly has
the prophecy been fulfilled, that this day would,
to coming generations, be the jubilee of freedom.
Let the lustre of its fame be immortal, let it be
sacred through all time, sacred to all posterity.
Wherever human rights are unshackled, where
ver human liberty has found a home, wherever

6
man walks erect in the image of liis God : on
every mountain top, and in every valley, from
sea to sea, and from shore to shore, forever swell
the anthem of the free !
We are met together to participate, not only
in the joyousness, but also in the solemnity, of
this festival. The mantle of our sires has de
scended upon us as their chariot wheels have
rolled onward and upward, and their voices dy
ing upon our ear, have committed to our charge
the precious trust won by their blood — if well
kept, to clothe us with honor and shield us from
peril ; but if forgotten and violated, to consign us
to the scorn and obloquy of mankind. Time has
sealed up in our national history the pages of an
epoch rendered memorable by their exalted pat
riotism. Its inscriptions have become part of the
mighty past, whose unalterable characters chal
lenge our wonder and admiration. It has been
our fortune to enter upon the second stage of the
existence of our country, when the living lights
that warned and encouraged us, have gone out
silently one by one, and we are left to uphold the
experiment so gloriously begun, and by our ef
forts and devotion to transmit its blessings unim
paired to the most distant future. As the found
ers of our republic have accounted to us for the
discharge of their high obligations, so must we
to whom its guidance is entrusted, account for
the just performance of our duties to those who

shall sit in judgment on the memory of our deeds.
And hence this day is to us a season to blend the
vigilance of fear with the joy of repose. The
warm emotions gushing from our hearts are soft
ened and subdued by the uncertain shadows
which flit across our vision. A sense of high re
sponsibility is upon us, and in the midst of us.
We feel that with this generation rests a power,
for good or evil, of giving a bent to our institu
tions which shall affect them forever : which, if
well employed, shall be the source of benefits
great beyond conception ; but if abused, shall re
tard the cause of human liberty for ages : so that
•whenever and under whatever forms and combi
nations it may again arise, the world shall be
doomed to witness an unspeakable amount of
suffering attendant on its revival. By every mo
tive, therefore, which can appeal to us, by the
gratitude we profess to the authors of our privi
leges, by the self-interest which should stimulate
us to their ample enjoyment, by the solemn du
ties we owe to those who shall succeed us, we
are urged to secure our political inheritance from
aggression, and if it ultimately perish to prevent
that ignominy from being branded upon our me
mories. And in order rightly to appreciate our
position, philosophy teaches us to examine the
relations that surround us, and taking lessons
from example to learn the dangers that may rob
us of our rights, and the safeguards by which
they may be preserved; to inquire what are the

evils to be avoided, and what the antidotes to be
administered. In all governments there exists a controlling
power, by which the opposing interests of the
community are kept in union, like the centripetal
force of the universe, by which its majestic orbs
are held together in harmony. Under the sway
of an absolute sovereign, public sentiment is
moulded to conform to his dictates ; and the un
broken strength of hereditary habits, the jealous
eye of military despotism, the dread of the severe
penalties of rebellion, the dislike of violent chan
ges, inherent in man, all tend to repress popular
commotions. In systems more aristocratic, wealth
and pomp, in their most fascinating array, are
lavished on the high-born few, whose influence
modifies and directs the feelings of the mass.
Not so with the plain, honest, unassuming repub
lic. Its first act on the threshold of power is to
break the kingly crown, to efface the blazonries
of the noble, to sweep away the distinctions of
rank, with its titles, and corruptions, and gilded
gewgaws. It proclaims the great fundamental
truths, that all men are born equal, that the rio-ht
thus inherited by man from his Creator can never
be divested, that human government is a mere in
strument of good, a means not an end, a trust
framed for the benefit of the governed and de
signed to interfere in the least possible degree
with their comfort and happiness. At once' we

perceive the broad distinction between this and
all other forms of society, that while the latter
are suspended on the hereditary chains that bind
the mass, on the despotism of arms, the glare of
pomp, the fears and poverty of the people, the
former strikes off every fetter from the mind, and
throws itself for protection and support on the
best feelings of our nature. Under every free
constitution there is a monarch that makes and
unmakes laws, enforces or resists their obser
vance, exalts and depresses, punishes and ap
plauds, stimulates to the right pursuit of happi
ness or inflames to deeds of violence and crime —
and that monarch is popular opinion, and the
seat of its empire is the human heart.
And here the momentous question breaks in
upon us, where is placed the great conservative
principle that shall guide and control this vast
engine of weal or woe, this maker or destroyer
of empires ? What Prospero shall with magic
wand " require some heavenly music to work upon
the senses," and tame the elements that play
around in vivid majesty? How shall the citizen
be taught to be true to himself, true to his own
dearest rights and interests, what shall curb the
lawlessness and assuage the passions of his
breast, and direct his mind to a clear perception
of the right, the just, the good? By what means
shall the public sentiment be always well and
faithfully expressed, neither seduced by selfish
ness, nor overawed by menace, nor blinded by
2

10

prejudice 1 If its voice be omnipotent in a free
state, what shall rule the ruler itself, and check
the evils it may inflict ; if its uncontrolled license
be the bane of liberty, where shall we seek a suf
ficient and effectual antidote? We tremble in
contemplating the immense risks that encompass
the cause of freedom while it reposes so confi
dently on the capacity of man to govern himself,
and on his willingness and ability to consult his
own substantial happiness. Fortunately to an
ticipate our danger, is more than half to avert it.
The benignant genius of public opinion, the great
conservative element of free institutions, is that
lofty moral excellence which constitutes the vir
tue of the citizen, the virtue of the state. This
is the sacred herb that purifies the fountains of
national feeling, the charmed oil that smoothes
the ruffled waters of popular commotion, the elixir
that gives life and health to the body politic.
The proposition may be affirmed without the
fear of exception, That no nation has ever per
manently LOST ITS LIBERTY WHILE IT RETAINED
ITS VIRTUE, NOR EVER PERMANENTLY RETAINED ITS
LIBERTY AFTER ITS VIRTUE HAD BEEN SAPPED AND
UNDERMINED. And this truth the history of all free countries
doth manifestly confirm. The spirit of freedom
has never deserted the republic, until the people
have deserted themselves, until the great interests
of society have been swallowed up in the corrup-

11
tion of the mass, and the perfidy of their rulers.
The lessons of antiquity display the sad example
of more than one nation sinking from its rigid
and virtuous simplicity, through the dark series
of venality and submission, to the lowest depths
of servile degradation. Greece cowered not be
neath the sword of the man of Macedon, until his
gold had silenced her orators and betrayed her
citizens. The austere and primitive habits which
characterised infant Rome, were supplanted by
ostentatious wealth and enervating pleasures :
the votes of her populace had been bought and
sold long before the mummery was superseded
by an imperial edict, and Sylla and Marius were
the fit precursors of Nero and Caligula. The
fate of the two greatest states of ancient times
establishes too well, that intellectual eminence
alone is utterly inadequate to prevent the sub
version of liberty. What sages so profound,
what poets so sublime, what artists so renown
ed, what orators so eloquent, as those who
adorned the days of classic gracefulness, when
Fancy peopled every stream and dell with her
living images of beauty, and Philosophy dis
coursed amid the groves of the academy, and
Genius lingered upon the banks of the Ilyssus ?
Alas ! that such unearthly conception, such glori
ous exterior, concealed only the rottenness that
cankered at the core.
But we need not dwell on illustrations drawn

12

from remote antiquity. We may refer our own
political progress to this standard, and measure
its effects on the lights and shades that have
crossed our path. The history of our country,
from its earliest settlement to the present day,
has been the history of a nation deeply imbued
with the spirit of sound principles and the love of
civil and religious freedom. Our ancestors fled
from their native homes to avoid persecution for
conscience sake, and sought in the wilds of the
forest to enjoy a refuge and a sanctuary. The
ease, comforts and refinements of life, the rank
and emoluments of station, the parade of enticing
splendor, had no allurements for their stern souls.
In the midst of personal privations, ere their feet
had scarce touched a strange and forbidding
coast, surrounded by every circumstance that
could appal and dishearten, they framed an ordi
nance of government whose foundations were
bedded in the firmest principles of civil order and
enduring truth. The institutions, social, religious
and political, which they established, bore testi
mony to their incorruptible and unbending cha
racter. Nor was that virtuous influence confined
to their immediate circle, but it has expanded and
diffused itself wherever their blood flows in the
veins of an active, daring and restless posterity.
Its features may be traced in the outlines of our
most valuable privileges ; it has descended to us as
a birthright and a safeguard. During the whole
of their dependence, the colonies never lost sight

13
of the principles that marked their earliest origin,
and although occasionally vexed by weak and
indiscreet rulers, they enjoyed in the main a large
exemption from tyrannical restraints. Their
arms shed lustre on the British name, while their
hardihood and enterprise felled the forest and
ploughed the most distant seas, and extended
their fame to the remotest corners of the earth.
In an ill-fated hour, an ungrateful as well as un
gracious ministry, conceived the bold project of
deriving an internal revenue from the colonies.
Our ancestors foresaw clearly that the claim
of taxation for objects foreign to the policy of
trade, opened the field wide to the unlimited dis
cretion of the mother country, a discretion which
wielded by aliens to their laws, interests and
sympathies, would inevitably swell through all
the gradations of force, rapacity and dominion,
into utter despotism. Thus they snuffed the taint
of corruption in the breeze that was wafted three
thousand miles from the farthest shore of the At
lantic. Through the long vista of the future, they
discerned the extended train of injuries and usur
pations, the fetters and manacles which were
destined to confine them under a worse than
Egyptian bondage. The right to divest them of
their property for such ends, and to such extent
as might suit the caprice or the necessities of a
foreign potentate, involved the essence of consti
tutional liberty, which, if surrendered, left all
other rights frail as the morning mist : it involved

14
the power to reduce them to vassalage, to destroy
the basis of free government, to impoverish them
to beggary, to brand them forever as the Helots
of the earth. They advanced to meet the mo
mentous question, and grappled with it boldly.
It was enough that they saw the shadow on the
ground, though as yet the rod had been barely
lifted, and spurning the base control, they pre
pared at once energetically, heroically and so
lemnly for the contest. And thus clearly dis
cerning, and firmly resolving, they paused not to
count the cost, but hazarded life and fortune on
the issue of the conflict. They were but the
germ of a nation, a mere handful of defenceless
men, scattered along a strip of the sea-shore.
The war-cry of the savage rang upon their ears
from the brink of the lonely rivers and the deep
recesses of the impenetrable forests. Before
them was the sea, behind them was the wilder
ness. Yet trusting for strength in the God of
battles, they girded themselves for fight with the
most formidable power of Christendom, whose
dominion stretched to both the Indies, and whose
banners floated in every zone from pole to pole.
On the one hand stood the scaffold, the sword
and the chain of bondage ; on the other hand was
liberty — liberty for themselves and their chil
dren — that liberty, without which life is value
less and existence but a prison-house — that li
berty for which countless martyrs have in every
clime offered up their lives, for which a Russell

15
and a Sydney died. And in the light of this
great alternative, standing in view of the world
and all posterity, they nobly preferred death to
captivity and baseness, feeling the inspiration of
the sentiment, that, " They npver fail who die
In a great cause : the block may soak their gore,
Their heads may sodden in the sun : their limbs
Be strung to city gates and castle walls,
But still their spirit walks abroad. Though years
Elapse and others share as dark a doom,
They but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts
Which overpower all others, and conduct
The world at last to freedom."
Throughout the whole controversy which pre
ceded the Revolution, we find constant occasion
to admire the prudence, forbearance and concilia
tory temper that shone so conspicuously in our
forefathers. As men of high principles, they en
tered carefully into the question thus forced upon
their attention. They reasoned, they deliberat
ed, they cautioned, they admonished, they ad
jured. The ties of consanguinity, the remem
brance of a common ancestry, the cords of a com
mon interest were wound around the fibres of
their souls, and they felt that they too were of
the lineage of Bacon and Locke, of Milton and
Shakspeare. From time to time the continental
congress addressed to the mother country peti
tions, entreaties and remonstrances, whose unri
valled eloquence and overwhelming body of ar-

16
gument, whose matchless strength, beauty and
reasoning, commanded the admiration of Burke
and Chatham. On what a group of giant forms
did the morning beams of the Revolution shine !
Men who sprang up as in a night, armed in the
panoply of intellect ; men whose glory will not
fade until the eternal stars shall be dimmed with
affe. The ball of the Revolution rested on such
Atlantean shoulders, and nobly and fearlessly did
they sustain its weight. When compelled to
draw the sword, they cast aside all timid waver
ing, and braved the issue as men to whose memo
ries suspicion and dishonor should never cling.
Crippled at all points, with an exhausted treasu
ry, a small and half-organized army, with an im
paired and almost ruined pecuniary credit, with
out fleets, and well nigh without the munitions of
war, they desponded not in the darkest hour, but
like Antaeus gathered strength at the moment
they were crushed to the ground. There was an
humanity too in their greatest excitement, that
indicated the high motives under which they
fought, and contrasted most favorably with the
wanton butcheries and the employment of savage
allies, which will forever affix a stigma to the
British name. What wonder is it that such men,
in defence of a righteous cause, and advocating
their principles in so firm, humane and exalted a
manner, should have won the sympathy and suc
cour of mankind, and forced a stern enemy to
relent? Nay, rather what amazement woidd

17
have seized upon the general mind, had so much
magnanimity and nobleness proved fruitless and
unavailing ?
The same lofty virtue, which sustained and
rewarded the valor of the patriots of the Revolu
tion, presided over and harmonised their counsels
in peace. No one who is not familiar with the
occurrences of the period immediately .succeeding
the war, can estimate aright the gloomy uncer
tainty that impended over our country at that
crisis. Order was to be restored, a bankrupt
treasury was to be replenished, an impoverished
people were to be fed and clothed, an immense
public debt was to be cancelled, commerce was
to be revived, and the states which formed " one
nation to-day and thirteen to-morrow," were to be
bound together by firm and enduring ties. From
this mighty chaos arose the glorious edifice of the
Constitution. We owe as much for our national
existence to the minds of the great men who con
summated our Union, as to the swords of the
brave men who achieved our independence.
Without that charter which sprang from the wis
dom, conciliation, sagacity and patriotism of our
fathers, the Revolution would have been but half
accomplished. Discarding the sordid and selfish
policy of the moment, they reared the pillars of
that Union on the broad basis of public faith, on
the profoundest reverence of the laws, on the in
violability of public credit, on the maintenance of
3

the general peace and order, on all those princi
ples that bear on their front a sacred impress,
and give a solemn sanction to government itself
And it is under the broad and ample shade which
they have so benignly cast around us that we
are this day permitted to assemble and offer to
them the tribute of gratitude and veneration.
In melancholy contrast with our own success
ful struggle against tyranny stands another Revo
lution, whose awful crimes are chiselled in let
ters more enduring than the marble. Warmed
by our genial example, a nation whose alliance
had most essentially contributed to our aid,
awoke from its lethargy and shook off the chains
that bound it to the earth. But a few brief
years had elapsed since her youthful monarch
ascended a throne, around which still played
the lustre of Louis the Fourteenth. He stood
surrounded by the glitter of the most polish
ed court, by the pomp and array of state that
betokened the homage rendered to his person
and reflected the loyalty of a confiding people,
by a high-born nobility, whose chivalry had ga
thered around the banner of their country, upon
fields the most memorable in the annals of the
world, by the bulwarks of a mighty and extend
ed empire, whose strength had defied the com
bined forces of Europe, and rallied under every
reverse with incomparable energy. Beneath this
smooth surface flowed an under-current of scepti-

19
cism and infidelity, of spurious wit and false phi
losophy, which assailed both the altar and the
throne, and overwhelmed not only the forms but
the substance of government ; not only the abuses
but the solemnity of religion. Vices the most de
graded corrupted the morals and depraved the
manners of private life, until in every circle athe
ism and disloyalty reigned paramount. Sudden
ly, in the midst of gay licentiousness, the vast de
luge rolled its billows over the face of beautiful
France, and swept into one common vortex all
distinctions of rank, all institutions of society, all
sympathies of nature. No ark of safety had been
built, no hills reared their tops as a refuge from
that appalling desolation, but all around was a
vast unfathomable sea of anarchy, and blood, and
wretchedness, and death. When the waters be
gan to recede, on what a mighty wreck did the
messenger of peace first light his foot ! The tem
ples of worship were mutilated, the barriers of
civilization were overthrown, provinces were de
populated, every mark of refinement had been
eflaced, the decencies of life were a scoff, religion
was banished as a mockery by a national edict,
and the most holy of human institutions was de
secrated by the infernal marriages of the Loire.
Amidst such a chaos of massacre and ruin, with
hands reeking from the blood of the innocent, the
phrenzy of the populace founded a republic whose
rule was fitly confided to a Danton, a Marat, and
a Robespierre, and whose engines of freedom were

20
the guillotine and the lantern. Well might such
a scene have drawn forth the eloquent exclama
tion of Madame Roland on her way to the scaflfold,
O Liberty ! Liberty ! what crimes are perpetrat
ed in thy sacred name !" For this novel govern
ment, in which virtue was branded with infamy,
and cruelty and meanness were exalted to the
high places of honor, the frequent and ephemeral
factions that supplanted each other in quick suc
cession, framed various constitutions, each an
nounced as eternal, and adopted by the acclama
tions of millions. But a people steeped in all the
excesses of vice were totally unfitted to enjoy
the blessings of rational freedom. The empire
reared so enthusiastically, fell from weakness to
imbecility, until it crumbled in the grasp of a
mightier hand, that demolished every vestige of
its constitution. And happy will it be for man, if
that lesson, so fearfully inscribed on the tablets
of the past, shall teach him the rocks and quick
sands that obstruct his path, and warn him of the
frailties and passions that render him his own
worst enemy.
In an era prolific of great men there were two
remarkable individuals, whose lives were inti
mately blended with the fates of their respective
countries, and whose example and influence de
termined in the largest degree the character
which these widely contrasted revolutions finally
assumed.

21
On a distant rock in the ocean, beneath a few
drooping willows lie the bones of one at whose
nod the civilized world has trembled. Ambi
tion, fame, immortal glory were the gods whom
he worshipped. From the humbler ranks of life
he won for himself through scenes of carnage the
throne of the proudest empire in Christendom
and encircled his brow with the diadem of Char
lemagne and Henry the Fourth. A decision ra
pid as the lightning, a vigor of execution terrible
as the rolling thunder, an intellect A^ast in its
conceptions and god-like in its energies, an eye
beneath whose glance the stoutest quailed, stamp
ed him as an extraordinary being who appeared
among mankind like " one with them, but not of
them," like a star shooting from another sphere.
At his feet unnumbered flatterers offered up their
incense and the fidelity of a million arms cdvered
him from harm with their solid phalanx. His
mighty soul revelled amid successes almost incre
dible, states and principalities were his tribute,
hereditary power knelt to him in vassalage, the
earth seemed born to be his undivided dominion.
His statue crowned a noble column reared from
the spoils of splendid victories, from the cannon
of Jena and Austerlitz. The cup of intoxicating
pleasure was filled to the brim, but in a moment
the bowl was shivered and its wine dashed to the
ground. Hurled from the high pinnacle his for
tune had so suddenly mounted, he fell like the
first son of the morning, from the battlements of

22
heaven into the profoundest abyss beneath. De
serted save by a few faithful followers among all
the legions he had once commanded, surrounded
by no relics of faded grandeur but the remem
brance of the past, his haughty spirit pined like
the caged eagle, and Death in mercy closed the
career of Napoleon.
Under a verdant mound shaded by his paternal
trees, beside the waters of the blue Potomac,
sleep with his kindred the ashes of the father of
his country. The joy of a nation was his crown,
the heart of a nation was his throne. Modest and
retiring in spirit the voice of a bleeding people
summoned him from the plough to the tented
field. No sordid ambition, no mean desire of self-
aggrandizement sullied the pure character that
enrobed him in the majesty of virtue. Prudent
in counsel, patient in suffering, inflexible in pur
pose, invincible in fortitude and heroic in action,
he combined the glory of the soldier with the no
bleness of the man. Amid perils the most appal
ling, with unpaid and vmdisciplined forces, sur
rounded by jealousies, and discord, and want, his
lofty spirit stood unmoved in the storm, and fixing
his eye on the good of his country, as the bright
polar star of his horizon, he led her armies to vic
tory, and at the summit of his fame retired to the
tranquil scenes of private enjoyment. His life
was gentle, and his death serene. Fortunate
man! Fortunate people ! Their happiness is the

23
noblest monument raised to thy glory, and all
ages yet to come shall entwine fresh leaves in
the civic wreath that adorns thy brow, when the
laurel of the victor lies withered in the dust.
These two great men, whom the last half cen
tury has witnessed, may not inaptly be deemed
types of the great revolutions in which they figured
so conspicuously. The contest of the one nation
we have seen was eminently a contest of* princi
ple, springing from the assertion of those great
primary rights, on which liberty depends, con
ducted with reason and justice, appealing to the
best sentiments of man, and terminating in a free
and stable constitution. The contest of the other
nation, in whatever grievances it may have ori
ginated, soon became a tragic scene of blood, out
raging all humanity, striking horror throughout
the world by its monstrous atrocities, violating
all rights human and divine, and arrested in its
madness by a military despotism. The leader of
the one was forced from his home reluctantly, to
direct the councils of an infant republic, and by
his prudence, energy and moderation, served to
establish its liberties at home, and exalt its dig
nity abroad. The leader of the other on the 18th
Brumaire, at the head of an armed soldiery,
wrested the power of state from the civil autho
rities, and left France not even the shadow of-
freedom. The one was ambitious, but his was
the ambition of being greatly good. The other

24
by unholy ambition fell, and the world again saw
Dionysius of Syracuse sink into the schoolmaster
at Corinth. Ah ! to have made his country his
first, last, dearest thought, to have consummated
her freedom by subduing himself,
'• Had been an act of purer fame
Than gathers round Marengo's name,
And gilded his decline,
Through the long twilight of all time,
Despite some passing cloud of crime."
Analogy and reason also confirm the conside
rations drawn from history, to illustrate the great
truth, that public virtue is the essential founda
tion of public freedom. We live in a world of
conditions. The enjoyment of pleasure is made
dependent on the right exercise of the faculties
through which that pleasure is derived. Our
physical, moral and intellectual oi-ganizations
sustain definite relations to each other, and to the
world around us. If each preserves its appro
priate tone, we find the physical frame in health
and vigor, our intellectual powers fully developed,
and equally free from weakness and error, our
moral feelings temperate without coldness, and
ardent without fanaticism; while on the other
hand, a violation of the laws of our physical na
ture is followed by pain, disease and death, an in
fringement of the relations of our intellect deran
ges or paralyzes the reason, a breach of the moral
law terminates in crime and infamy. Happiness

25
is the reward of the appropriate exercise of each
function, in the manner and degree designed by
its constitution, The same general rules which
govern men individually are equally applicable
to men combined in masses. A community, in
order to enjoy the greatest amount of prosperity,
must conform to those laws which the Creator
has ordained for the peace and welfare of socie
ties. As a nation neglecting its physical advan
tages will lose all the benefits that their improve
ment would produce, and will incur all the evils
resulting from its apathy, so will a nation disre
garding the culture of its morals and mind, suffer
the consequences of its ignorance and profligacy.
But in comparing the different social systems, we
observe this radical distinction. While the real
prosperity of all nations is proportionate to their
respective degrees of virtue, the existence of a li
beral government alone is conditional on the
maintenance of its virtue. The vices of a sove
reign may cause his expulsion, but do not of ne
cessity destroy the2kingly^dynasty. But in a re
public the vices of a people tend rapidly and
fatally to disorganization. The first step is a
breach of the laws, and a contempt of their au
thority ; the second is mob violence ; the third
is anarchy; the fourth is despotism. Such has
been, and will be, the brief but melancholy his
tory of every free nation whose virtue is pros
trated.

26
The causes which produce these opposite re
sults are obvious. In other national systems we
have noticed that countervailing forces operate
to check the tendency of the elements of a state
to dissolution. Whereas in a democracy, public
opinion, the ruler and sovereign of the state, the
very restraining power, the balance-wheel to the
social movement, becomes itself, when deranged,
the most fatal instrument of destruction. Under
the sway of this opinion, men submit themselves
not only to the reason by which it is directed, but
to the passions by which it is agitated and per
verted. If this supreme dictator be well regu
lated, it gives strength to the laws and ligaments
to the union of society. It secures obedience to
the rules, respect to the rights, order to the sys
tem established by government. But if unre
strained, there are no privileges so sacred that it
may not trample on, no institutions so valuable
that it may not destroy, no curses so severe that
it may not inflict. Power may overawe, corrup
tion may seduce, sycophancy may cajole the ge
neral mind. The standard of moral sentiment is
thus depressed, the rights of individuals are tossed
about on an uncertain sea, factions are engen
dered, party spirit runs rife, the republic is hur
ried to the brink of a precipice. Every thing,
whether life, or property, or possession, is inse
cure ; the state is rent by its own convulsions ;
the cry of universal danger rises from erery quar
ter. But whither shall the community flee for

27
refuge from themselves? Not to liberty — they
have already drank its dregs : not to public
opinion — they are already writhing under its
scorpion sting: not to the law — for it is crushed
under foot: not to justice — for it is a mockery.
No society has long endured, or will long endure,
the evils of anarchy. The very pirate, rather
than submit to this many-headed monster, yields
to the absolute will of his chief And men rush
to despotism itself, as a refuge from their own
weakness and licentiousness.
If the danger be thus intrinsic in ourselves, we
rnu^ apply the remedies to the root of the dis
ease. The fountains of impurity from which the
gathering torrent of revolution descends, must be
cleansed. We mvist realize in the fullest degree
the great truth that freedom is held only on the
condition that it shall be virtuously enjoyed and
maintained. And to this end, a nation desirous
of preserving its liberty, will foster to the utmost
the means of moral and intellectual culture. It
will enforce the education of all who claim its
protection, and diffuse and inculcate those sound
principles of right, and justice, and virtue, which
alone can give stability to its institutions. Thus
will its public opinion be transformed into the de
fender and stay of its freedom, into a mighty mo
ral sovereign that shall repress the factious, the
lawless, and the agitators; that shall approve
the right and condemn the wrong ; that shall re-

ward the just and punish the vile ; that shall ap
plaud the honest and expose the demagogue to
scorn ; that shall remove every motive and ten
dency to a change in the government by its me
liorating influence and its firm and impartial ad
ministration. A nation thus complying with the
terms of its being, will be peaceful and prosper
ous at home, and formidable abroad. Its happi
ness will increase or diminish in the direct ratio
of its obeying or infringing the laws of its exist
ence. So that the benefits conferred on a people
by pure morals and just principles, will be found
incalculably great even in an economical view —
greater than those which a bountiful Heaven may
have shed on its territory by a fertile soil or a be
nignant sky. I do not assert that a republic thus
fortified and protected will endure forever, for no
mortal skill can foresee the vicissitudes to which
the most perfect works of man may be exposed ;
but I think it may be advanced without the ha
zard of contradiction, that the same probabilities
exist that such a republic will be honored, and
respected, and enduring, as that an individual
conforming to the laws of his moral nature will be
at ease in his own breast and esteemed in society,
or that an individual conforming to the laws of
his physical nature will enjoy bodily health and
comfort. In our own day this continent has furnished
mournful examples of premature attempts to es-

29
tablish liberty before the capacity of fulfilling its
conditions had been acquired. The cry of inde
pendence has resounded along the Cordilleras of
Mexico and the Andes of Central America. Our
souls have exulted as we heard the shackles of
colonial bondage falling off from an immense sec
tion of this hemisphere redeemed from Spanish
thraldom. But the welcome has sunk into a sigh.
The states we so fondly hailed as affiliated in li
berty, have only reached her vantage ground.
They have ceased to be slaves, without learning
to be masters. And if we seek to avoid their un
timely fate, it will only be gained by such a mo
ral cultivation as will secure us against our own
passions and weaknesses, by such an intellectual
advancement as will teach us to value and im
prove our own substantial interests and hap
piness. It is to be feared indeed, that the views which
establish the connection between the virtue and
the prosperity of a nation, have not among us
been at all times fully regarded. The same acts
that appear laudable or infamous in private life,
gain tenfold force when applied to the delicate
texture of national honor. Character is like
glass ; entire, it reflects all that is lovely and at
tractive, but if once broken, the fragments may
remain, but no art can restore its unity and lus
tre. And immeasurably is the effect of all inci
dents involving the reputation of a whole people

30
increased ; especially when they have proclaimed
perfect confidence in their ability to preserve
their own rights inviolate. It has been our mis
fortune to hear daily of deeds of the most bar
barous nature, in various parts of our country,
from whose brutal details humanity revolts. Still
worse, the press has come loaded with fearful
tales of the wanton and wholesale destruction of
life, on our crowded avenues and channels of in
tercourse, following each other with awful and
unparalleled rapidity. The shrieks of the dying
have scarce been hushed, ere another wail of woe
has poured its agonizing notes upon the ear. Is
the press muzzled — are the halls of legislation
vacant — is the public voice dead ? Are we con
tent to stand before the world a self-dishonored,
self-degraded people ? Shall the character of our
country be thus stereotyped in infamy ? Shall
these fiendish homicides, shall these atrocious
butcheries that have rent so many thousand ties
but yesterday, go forth to strike mankind with
horror ? Must not the standing of our land be
depressed in the eyes of enlightened men abroad,
by the constant repetition of outrages that cur
dle the blood, and would disgrace even a savage
tribe ? What else can they draw but the stern
inference, that human life, in a vast many parts
of our land, has become of no more value than
the bubble that a child sports with ?
A spirit of lawlessness has also arisen, threat-

31
ening to trample on our most sacred privileges
and shake their foundations to the very centre.
We are in danger of confounding an equality of
rights with a total subversion of all rights. In a
free state the law is emphatically the sceptre of
power. It protects the weak and controls the
strong. Its halls are opened alike to the most
abject and the most exalted, and from its firm de
crees no age or character or station can escape.
Civil Liberty itself may be defined to consist in
the enjoyment of wise laws justly administered.
But of what avail are laws in any community un
less properly respected and rigidly enforced, and
how shall their empire be maintained if popular
opinion, the right arm of the state, be unnerved,
and be not vigorous in its purity ? What secu
rity have we that the volcanic fires of violence
may not be suppressed only for the moment, and
may not hereafter burst forth with overwhelming
rage, to devastate our institutions, and involve all
things sacred and valuable in indiscriminate ruin ?
It behoves each and all of us to avert these cala
mities, by exerting a beneficial influence on the
sentiments that pervade the common mind. As
in our physical frame there is still hope that an
external disease may be removed so long as the
vital organs remain unimpaired in their functions,
so in the body politic, we may have confidence
that temporary eruptions will subside, while the
great heart of the nation exerts its energies, and
transmits a healthy action through every artery
of the system.

32
If as a people we have been too often faithless
to our own true interests, have we not likewise
been criminally unjust to the rights of others?
Our minds painfully revert to another topic of
regret for the past, not unmingled with sorrow
for the present. Our ancestors landed on an un
explored coast, few in numbers and defenceless
in condition. Around them spread a wide con
tinent, inhabited by a warlike and powerful race.
It was theirs by the right we best acknowledge,
the right of possession not contravened by a su
perior title. The mighty forest, stretching its
broad arms to the very verge of the horizon ; the
green and sunny slopes, basking in verdure be
neath the beams of a summer sky; the giant
rivers, sweeping in their majesty, and rolling
their vast volume to the sea ; the placid lake, em
bosomed in the hills ; the lofty mountains, rear
ing their snow^-clad summits to the vaulted arch
of Heaven — all were theirs. For ages the calu
met of peace had been passed around the council
fire, the hunter had roused the chase from his
covert lair, the warrior had bent his bow for bat
tle and won the trophies of valor, the maiden had
welcomed her lover returning from victory. In
an unsuspicious hour the red man had taken the
hand of the pale-faced brother, who pierced the
limits of his once unbroken domain. From that
moment a blight more fatal than the pestilence
has preyed upon his vitals and clung to his frame
like the tainted garment of Nessus. He has fled
in terror from the approach of the stranger, whose

touch has been to him the touch of poison, whose
embrace has been to him the embrace of death.
A few and scattered remnant have hastened from
valley to valley before the rushing tide, now
pausing beside the banks of the broad Ohio, until
another wave has swept them beyond the " Fa
ther of Waters." In view of this heart-rending
destiny of the Indian, who does not shudder at
the thought that private avarice and rapacity
doomed to damning infamy, have wrested his pos
sessions, and exposed them to the gambling of a
lottery ? Whose soul does not sympathize with
the Seminole chief, when begging some pittance
of the dense hammocks and everglades of the
south ? In all the pathos of untutored eloquence
he urged his petition: "It is," said the young
warrior to his invader, " the home of my people,
it was the home of their fathers ; there they lived
and died, and there we ask to live and die also."
Are these things told in a Christian land, and
among a civUized people ? Who shall say that
the sword of retributive justice is not suspend
ed over our heads but by the breadth of a hair,
and that in some moment least expected it may
not fall in vengeance for our crimes ?*
From the laxity of public sentiment, advantage
* It is not intended by those remarks to discuss the expediency of remov
ing the Indian tribes. Under the circumstances of the case, tliis has per
haps been the only humane and feasible course left, to prevent their exter
mination. But while we palliate the harsh remedies employed to save
them from our further inj ustice, shall we not condemn the flagrant frauds
and crimes and vices by which we have debased them almost beyond re
covery ? 5

34
has also been seized at times, by designing indi
viduals, to weaken the foundations of our federal
union. A disposition to undervalue its immense
benefits has thus grown up, which in a more
healthy state of popular feeling, would have been
quelled by the frown of an indignant community.
Men who have found their visionary schemes and
rash excitements frustrated by its spirit, have
cavilled at its articles, and disputed its authority.
Local feelings and schisms have marred its fair
proportions and endangered its very stability.
Not so did the framers of our glorious constitu
tion think and act, when the responsibility de
volved on them of devising a system of govern
ment adapted through all time to every section
and circumstance. They saw clearly the diver
sity of interests, habits, pursuits and in«titutions,
extending throughout our wide-spread land, and
perceiving with prophetic eye the grand advanta
ges which this cement would confer, they magnan
imously abjured on the altar of the common wel
fare, whatever could feed the selfishness of party,
or minister to the jealousies of the disaffected.
In times of national danger, we are ever ready to
fly to the Union for refuge, and seek shelter under
its protecting wings ; but in the hour of peace,
rancor and animosity revive, and we embark on
the first sea of contention, forgetful of the sacri
fices offered up by our fathers to preserve to their
descendants this heritage of freedom entire. And
the rights of the Union on the one hand, and the

reserved rights of the States on the other hand,
are brought into collision, and men and associa
tions of men, attempt to burn into the body of
the constitution their plans and innovations, with
the fire and the faggot. Are such discontented
spirits willing alone to assume the fatal results
that must ensue from its demolition ? What in
demnity will they offer us against the heavy bur
dens to be imposed on the public purse, against
the rivalry and feuds that wdl rend the public
peace, against the diversity of laws, habits and re
gulations that will derange the public intercourse?
When these United States have been split into
so many petty German municipalities, with a
custom-house stationed at each rivulet, or when
civil war has shrouded the land in blackness, the
authors of these evils may furnish us with some
tables of logarithms to calculate the worth of the
Union. Calculate its worth ! Yes, as the profli
gate in his rags sums up the value of the splendid
patrimony he has wasted. Under the blessing
of heaven, our country owes to the Union its pre
sent prosperity, honor and opulence: by it we
have acquired a name and a title to be respected.
Let the sentiments of gratitude and veneration,
the desire of contentment and security, and the
inspirations of hope cluster around for its preser
vation. Let the bones of our fathers, scattered
over the hard-fought fields of the Revolution —
let their voices yet rising from the theatres of
their valor, from Eutaw, and Monmouth, and

36
York-Town, and Bunker-Hill, adjure us to pre
serve it unmutilated. And as from their hands it
has descended to us the charter of our liberty
and the shield of our defence, so let it descend to
the most distant posterity, in turn to dispense to
them its glory and its protection.
Patriotism is the love of our country, warmed
into the love of purifying, strengthening and
adorning her institutions. Thus rising into an
active principle, as well as a fervid emotion, it
becomes an expanded virtue. It embraces its
native land in its length and breadth ; it knows
neither the North nor the South ; it mingles
abroad in the cares of business, and at home in
the household scenes of life ; it blends with the
charity that distils as the gentle dew from hea
ven ; with the justice whose sacred ermine the
meanest may touch and live ; with the sympathy
that links man to his kind; with the heroism, that
in defence of the right, sacrifices comfort, fortune,
life itself, and all but honor ; with the intellect
that makes tributary all science, and grasps at
stars, and orbs, and worlds, in their revolving or
der ; with the devotion that kneels at the shrine
of a pure religion, and offers up its incense to the
skies. No rivers so broad that it cannot tra
verse, no mountains so lofty that it cannot over
leap; it recognizes but one soil, one home, one
kindred. Wherever the feet of the patriot may
wander, whether he linger beside the stream of

37
the Nile or the Indus, whether chilled in the re
gions of polar cold or burned by the rays of
a torrid sun, whatever lands divide, whatever
oceans roll between, he shall look upward to the
banner of his country and draw hope and re
viving courage from the symbols of her freedom.
It is the nature of man to desire that his works
should bear the impress of perpetuity. His soul
yearns that some abiding form may breathe around
his creations and embalm them to distant ages.
The pyramid in its massive grandeur, the triumph
al column in its symmetry, the proud city in its
splendid luxury have been reared to transmit the
renown of their founders to immortality. But
death has set his pale signet on the brow of the
warrior, the orator, the statesman and the mon
arch whose genius once controlled the destinies
of nations. The grandest monuments of human
art, the brightest illuminations of human intellect
have been swept away by Time the destroyer.
Of the vast empires of antiquity, the Persian, the
Mede, the Assyrian, whose power once wrapt the
world in astonishment and awe, not one stone is
left upon another to tell the story of their unrival
led magnificence. The wisdom of the Pylian Nes
tor, the prowess of the Telamonian Ajax live but
in the song of the blind old man of Scio. Faded
is the purple, broken is the sceptre of the long line
of all the Caesars. And of the history of the past,
of the records of powerful states, of the treasures

38
of their wealth, of the tokens of their refinement,
of the trophies of their conquest, but the smallest
fragment has been rescued from the shadowy
tales of tradition. Men die, institutions perish,
but principles alone endure. That virtue which
is the instinct of our nobler being and the percep
tion of our greater good, sustains the fabric of the
moral world. In the stormy hour of trial — in
the gloomy revulsions from which no nation can
hope to be exempt — which may blacken our ho
rizon at a day not distant, it shall nerve us in the
conflict and crown us in the triumph. Above the
surges of that tempest it shall bear aloft the ark
of constitutional liberty untouched by the waters
of strife. If in the dispensations of a merciful
Providence, the spirit of revolution, the strong
man of terror roused to his work of havoc shall
burst the cords that bind him and bow himself in
his might between the pillars of our national edi
fice, its lofty arches shall stand unbroken in their
eternal strength, though all empires around us
totter in his grasp. God grant that here the light
of that day may yet shine upon a free, a generous,
and a gallant people. May the busy hum of in
dustry swell upon the ear, may their canvass
whiten every sea, and on a fertile soil teeming
with a hardy race, may the snow of a thousand
winters rest, and the sun of a thousand summers
smile. May countless spires of solemn temples
pierce upward to the skies, and testify of a per
vading religion. May the institutions of science

39
we have founded carry the blessings of know
ledge to every cottage, and teach to the lowest
mind its high prerogatives. May this day be to
them as to us the birthday of liberty, and may
Lexington and Bunker-Hill be as imperishable in
their recollection, as to the Greek was the memo
ry of undying Salamis and Marathon.
Gentlemen op the Association:
A noble and expanded view is thus offered
to our contemplation. The purposes of our insti
tution stretch into the boundlessness of the future,
they become invested with the dignity and glow
with the fervor of patriotism. We are inspired
to loftier efforts by the prospect of exalting the
character, and advancing the happiness of our
common country. We feel that each individual
however humble his station, or contracted his
sphere, may enrich her treasures, and pay to her
the tribute of grateful devotion. By the right di
rection which we may give to our political pri
vileges, by the cultivation of order, by the reve
rence of the laws, by the inflexible love of justice,
by enlightening the public intellect and reforming
the public morals, we shall transmit our inestima
ble advantages to coming generations. We shall
harden into manhood an empire that will become
a landmark to every people, and kindred, and na
tion under heaven ; that will animate the wrest
lers for rational liberty in every clime, and give
the feeble strength and the faint-hearted courage.

40
to whose shrine, the captive exile from distant
lands, shall hasten to be free. It is thus that we
may best exhibit our veneration for the past.
And as it was the custom of an oriental people to
bury their illustrious chieftains at the fountain-
head of some mighty stream, so let us bury our
immortal ancestors deep in our hearts, from
whose fountains a stream of virtue and enduring
honor shall be perpetually welling to water
their memory. It is thus that we shall grat
ify a far-reaching ambition for the future, that
oversteps the boundaries of time, and treads
the very confines of eternity. It is thus that we
shall preserve unsullied to other ages, the noblest
empire of freedom — freedom from external as
saults and internal dissensions ; freedom from
crime, freedom from ignorance, freedom from
licentiousness, freedom from corruption. It is
thus that we shall elevate, refine, and adorn our
country with a virtue and a dignity which the
flood may not drown, and the fire may not con
sume ; which shall survive as the monument of
her glory, though the heart of her crowded cities
should cease to throb, and her lofty palaces lie
crumbling in ruins, and the scenes of her gran
deur be solitary and desolate, as Tyre and Pal
myra, and the hundred-gated Thebes.