Chapter I · (continued 2)

[Footnote 15: A Baptist divine, born in New York city, where he has long been settled over a church; eminent for general scholarship and literary ability.]

* * * * *

=George B. Cheever, 1807-=(Manual, pp. 480, 490.)

From "The Wanderings of a Pilgrim."

=41.= MONT BLANC.

It is like those heights of ambition so much coveted in the world, and so glittering in the distance, where, if men live to reach them, they cannot live upon them. They may have all the appliances and means of life, as these French savants carried their tents to pitch upon the summit of Mont Blanc; but the peak that looked so warm and glittering in the sunshine, and of such a rosy hue in the evening rays, was too deadly cold, and swept by blasts too fierce and cutting; they were glad to relinquish the attempt, and come down. The view of the party a few hours below the summit, was a sight of deep interest. So was the spectacle of the immeasurable ridges and fields, gulfs and avalanches, heights and depths, unfathomable chasms and impassable precipices, of ice and snow, of such dazzling whiteness, of such endless extent, in such gigantic masses.

* * * * *

From "Lectures on the Pilgrim's Progress."

=42.=. SIN DISTORTS THE JUDGMENT.

On the other hand, those who do not love God, cannot expect to find in his Word a system of truth that will please their own hearts. A sinful heart can have no right views of God, and of course will have defective views of his Word: for sin distorts the judgment, and overturns the balance of the mind on all moral subjects, far more than even the best of men are aware of. There is, there can be, no true reflection of God or of his Word, from the bosom darkened with guilt, from the heart at enmity with him. That man will always look at God through the medium of his own selfishness, and at God's Word through the coloring of his own wishes, prejudices, and fears.

A heart that loves the Saviour, and rejoices in God as its Sovereign, reflects back in calmness the perfect view of his character, which it finds in his Word. Behold on the borders of a mountain lake, the reflection of the scene above, received into the bosom of the lake below! See that crag projecting, the wild flowers that, hang out from it, and bend as if to gaze at their own forms in the water beneath. Observe that plot of green grass above, that tree springing from the cleft, and over all, the quiet sky reflected in all its softness and depth from the lake's steady surface. Does it not seem as if there were two heavens. How perfect the reflection! And just as perfect and clear, and free from confusion and perplexity, is the reflection of God's character, and of the truths of his Word, from the quietness of the heart that loves the Saviour, and rejoices in his supreme and sovereign glory.

Now look again. The wind is on the lake, and drives forward its waters in crested and impetuous waves, angry and turbulent. Where is that sweet image? There is no change above: the sky is as clear, the crag projects as boldly, the flowers look just as sweet in their unconscious simplicity; but below, banks, trees, and skies are all mingled in confusion. There is just as much confusion in every unholy mind's idea of God and his blessed Word. God and his truth are always clear, always the same, but the passions of men fill their own hearts with obscurity and turbulence; their depravity is itself obscurity; and through all this perplexity and wilful ignorance, they contend that God is just such a being as they behold him, and that they are very good beings in his sight. We have heard of a defect in the bodily vision, that represents all objects upside down; that man would certainly be called insane, who, under the influence of this misfortune, should so blind his understanding, as to believe and assert that men walked on their heads, and that the trees grew downwards. Now, is it not a much greater insanity for men who in their hearts do not love God, and in their lives perhaps insult and disobey him, to give credit to their own perverted misrepresentations of him and of his Word? As long as men will continue to look at God's truth through the medium of their own pride and prejudice, so long will they have mistaken views of God and eternity, so long will their own self righteousness look better to them for a resting place, than the glorious righteousness of Him, who of God is made unto us our Wisdom, Righteousness, Sanctification, and Redemption.

* * * * *

=Horace Bushnell, 1804-= (Manual, p, 480.)

From the "Sermons for the New Life."

=43.= UNCONSCIOUS INFLUENCE.

The Bible calls the good man's life a light, and it is the nature of light to flow out spontaneously in all directions, and fill the world unconsciously with its beams. So the Christian shines, it would say, not so much because he will, as because he is a luminous object. Not that the active influence of Christians is made of no account in the figure, but only that this symbol of light has its propriety in the fact that their unconscious influence is the chief influence, end has the precedence in its power over the world. And yet there are many who will be ready to think that light is a very tame and feeble instrument, because it is noiseless. An earthquake for example, is to them a much more vigorous, and effective agency. Hear how it comes thundering through the solid foundations of nature. It rocks a whole continent. The noblest works of man—cities, monuments, and temples—are in a moment levelled to the ground or swallowed down the opening gulfs of fire…. But lot the light of the morning cease, and return no more: let the hour of morning come, and bring with it no dawn; the outcries of a horror-stricken world fill the air, and make, as it were, the darkness audible. The beasts go wild and frantic at the loss of the sun. The vegetable growths turn pale and die. A. chill creeps on, and frosty winds begin to howl across the freezing earth. Colder and yet colder is the night. The vital blood, at length, of all creatures stops, congealed. Down goes the frost toward the earth's centre. The heart of the sea is frozen; nay, the earthquakes are themselves frozen in, under their fiery caverns. The very globe itself, too, and all the fellow-planets that have lost their sun, are become mere balls of ice, swinging silent in the darkness. Such is the light which revisits us in the silence of the morning. It make no shock or scar. It would not wake an infant in his cradle. And yet it perpetually new creates the world, rescuing it each morning as a prey from night and chaos. So the Christian is a light, even "the light of the world;" and we must not think that, because he shines insensibly or silently, as a mere luminous object, he is therefore powerless. The greatest powers are ever those which lie back of the little stirs and commotions of nature: and I verily believe that the insensible influences of good men are as much more potent than what I have called their voluntary or active, as the great silent powers of nature are of greater consequence than her little disturbances and tumults. The law of human influence is deeper than many suspect, and they lose sight of it altogether. The outward endeavors made by good men or bad, to sway others, they call their influence; whereas it is, in fact, but a fraction, and in most cases, but a very small fraction, of the good or evil that flows out of their lives.

* * * * *

From "Christ and His Salvation."

=44.= THE TRUE REST OF THE CHRISTIAN.

Once more the analogies of the sleep of Jesus suggest the Christian right, and even duty, of those relaxations, which are necessary, at times, to loosen the strain of life and restore the freshness of its powers. Christ, as we have seen, actually tore himself away from multitudes waiting to be healed, that he might refit himself by sleep. He had a way, too, of retiring often to mountain solitudes and by-places on the sea, partly for the resting of his exhausted energies. Sometimes also he called his disciples off in this manner, saying, "come ye yourselves apart into a desert place and rest awhile." Not that every disciple is, of course, to retire into solitudes and desert places, when he wants recreation. Jesus was obliged to seek such places to escape the continual press of the crowd. In our day, a waking rest of travel, change of scene, new society, is permitted, and when it is a privilege assumed by faithful men, to recruit them for their works of duty they have it by God's sanction, and even as a part of the sound economy of life. Going after a turn of gaiety, or dissipation, not after Christian rest, or going after rest only because you are wearied and worried by selfish overdoings, troubled and spent by toils that serve an idol, is a very different matter. The true blessing of rest is on you, only when you carry a good mind with you, able to look back on works of industry and faithfulness, suspended for a time, that you may do them more effectually. Going in such a frame, you shall rest awhile, as none but such can rest. Nature will dress herself in beauty to your eye, calm thoughts will fan you with their cooling breath, and the joy of the Lord will be strength to your wasted brain and body. Ah, there is no luxury of indulgence to be compared with this true Christian rest! Money will not buy it, shows and pleasures can not woo its approach, no conjuration of art, or contrived gaiety, will compass it even for an hour: but it settles, like dew, unsought, upon the faithful servant of duty, bathing his weariness and recruiting his powers for a new engagement in his calling. Go ye thus apart and rest awhile if God permits.

* * * * *

=Albert Taylor Bledsoe,[16] about 1809-=

From "The Theodicy."

=45.= MORAL EVIL CONSISTENT WITH THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

The argument of the atheist assumes, as we have seen, that a Being of infinite power could easily prevent sin, and cause holiness to exist. It assumes that it is possible, that it implies no contradiction, to create an intelligent moral agent, and place It beyond all liability to sin. But this is a mistake. Almighty power itself, we may say with, the most profound reverence, cannot create such a being, and place it beyond the possibility of sinning. If it could not sin, there would be no merit, no virtue, in its obedience. That is to say, it would not be a moral agent at all, but a machine merely. The power to do wrong, as well as to do right, is included in the very idea of a moral and accountable agent, and no such agent can possibly exist without being invested with such a power. To suppose such an agent to be created, and placed beyond all liability to sin, is to suppose it to be what it is, and not what it is, at one and the same time; it is to suppose a creature to be endowed with a power to do wrong, and yet destitute of such a power, which is a plain contradiction. Hence Omnipotence cannot create such a being, and deny to it a power to do evil, or secure it against the possibility of sinning.

[Footnote 16: The most prominent among the living philosophical writers of the South: at present editor of the Southern Review.]

* * * * *

=Richard Fuller,[17] 1808-=

From a Sermon.

=46.= THE DESIRE OF ALL NATIONS SHALL COME. Haggai ii. 7.

Follow the adorable Jesus from scene to scene of ever deepening insult and sorrow, tracked everywhere by spies hunting for the precious blood. Behold his sacred face swollen with tears and stripes; and, last of all, ascend Mount Calvary, and view there the amazing spectacle: earth and hell gloating on the gashed form of the Lord of Glory; men and devils glutting their malice in the agony of the Prince of Life; and all the scattered rays of vengeance which would have consumed our guilty race, converging and beating in focal intensity upon Him of whom the Eternal twice exclaimed, in a voice from heaven, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." After this, what are our emotions? Can we ever be cold or faithless? No, my brethren, it is impossible, unless we forget this Saviour, and lose sight of that cross on which he poured out his soul for us.

That is an affecting passage in Roman history which records the death of Manlius. At night, and on the Capitol, fighting hand to hand, had he repelled the Gauls, and saved the city, when all seemed lost. Afterwards he was accused; but the Capitol towered in sight of the forum where he was tried, and, as he was about to be condemned, he stretched out his hands, and pointed, weeping, to that arena of his triumph. At this the people burst into tears, and the judges could not pronounce sentence. Again the trial proceeded, but was again defeated; nor could he be convicted until they had removed him to a low spot, from which the Capitol was invisible. And behold my brethren, what I am saying. While the cross is in view, vainly will earth and sin seek to shake the Christian's loyalty and devotion; one look at that purple monument of a love which alone, and when all was dark and lost, interposed for our rescue, and their efforts will be baffled. Low must we sink, and blotted from our hearts must be the memory of that deed, before we can become faithless to the Redeemer's cause, and perfidious to his glory.

[Footnote 17: A Baptist divine of much distinction: a native of South Carolina but long settled in Baltimore.]

* * * * *

=Henry Ward Beecher, 1813-= (Manual, p. 480.)

From the "Star Papers."

=47.= A PICTURE IN A COLLEGE AT OXFORD.

I was much affected by a head of Christ. Not that it met my ideal of that sacred front, but because it took me in a mood that clothed it with life and reality. For one blessed moment I was with the Lord. I know him. I loved him. My eyes I could not close for tears. My poor tongue kept silence; but my heart spoke, and I loved and adored. The amazing circuit of one's thoughts in so short a period is wonderful. They circle round through all the past, and up through the whole future; and both the past and future are the present, and are one. For one moment there arose a keen anguish, like a shooting pang, for that which I was; and I thought my heart would break that I could bring but only such a nature to my Lord; but in a moment, as quick as the flash of sunlight which follows the shadow of summer clouds across the fields, there seemed to spring out upon me from my Master a certainty of love so great and noble as utterly to consume my unworth, and leave me shining bright, as if it were impossible for Christ to love a heart without making it pure and beautiful by the resting on it of that illuming affection, just as the sun bathes into beauty the homeliest object when he looks full upon it.

* * * * *

=48.= FROST ON THE WINDOW.

But the indefatigable night repairs the desolation. New pictures supply the waste ones. New cathedrals there are, new forests, fringed and blossoming, new sceneries, and new races of extinct animals. We are rich every morning, and poor every noon. One day with us measures the space of two hundred years in kingdoms—a hundred years to build up, and a hundred years to decay and destroy; twelve hours to overspread the evanescent pane with glorious beauty, and twelve to extract and dissipate the pictures…. Shall we not reverently and rejoicingly behold in these morning pictures, wrought without color, and kissed upon the window by the cold lips of Winter, another instance of that Divine Beneficence of beauty which suffuses the heavens?

* * * * *

From "Lectures to Young Men."

=49.= NATURE, DESIGNED FOR OUR ENJOYMENT.

The necessity of amusement is admitted on all hands. There is an appetite of the eye, of the ear, and of every sense, for which God has provided the material. Gaiety of every degree, this side of puerile levity, is wholesome to the body, to the mind, and to the morals. Nature is a vast repository of manly enjoyments. The magnitude of God's works is not less admirable than its exhilarating beauty. The rudest forms have something of beauty; the ruggedest strength is graced with some charm; the very pins, and rivets, and clasps of nature, are attractive by qualities of beauty, more than is necessary for mere utility. The sun could go down without gorgeous clouds; evening could advance without its evanescent brilliance; trees might have flourished without symmetry; flowers have existed without odor, and fruit without flavor. When I have journeyed through forests, where ten thousand shrubs and vines exist without apparent use; through prairies, whose undulations exhibit sheets of flowers innumerable, and absolutely dazzling the eye with their prodigality of beauty—beauty, not a tithe of which is ever seen by man—I have said, it is plain that God is himself passionately fond of beauty, and the earth is his garden, as an acre is man's. God has made us like Himself, to be pleased by the universal beauty of the world. He has made provision in nature, in society, and in the family, for amusement and exhilaration enough to fill the heart with the perpetual sunshine of delight.

Upon this broad earth, purfled with flowers, scented with odors, brilliant in colors, vocal with echoing and re-echoing melody, I take my stand against all demoralizing pleasure. Is it not enough that our Father's house is so full of dear delights, that we must wander prodigal to the swine-herd for husks, and to the slough for drink?—when the trees of God's heritage bend over our head and solicit our hand to pluck the golden fruitage, must we still go in search of the apples of Sodom, outside fair and inside ashes.

Men shall crowd to the circus to hear clowns, and see rare feats of horsemanship; but a bird may poise beneath the very sun, or flying downward, swoop from the high heaven; then flit with graceful ease hither and thither, pouring liquid song as if it were a perennial fountain of sound—no man cares for that.

Upon the stage of life, the vastest tragedies are performing in every act; nations pitching headlong to their final catastrophe; others, raising their youthful forms to begin the drama of existence. The world of society is as full of exciting interest, as nature is full of beauty. The great dramatic throng of life is bustling along—the wise, the fool, the clown, the miser, the bereaved, the broken-hearted. Life mingles before us smiles and tears, sighs and laughter, joy and gloom, as the spring mingles the winter-storm and summer-sunshine. To this vast Theatre which God hath builded, where stranger plays are seen than ever author writ, man seldom cares to come. When God dramatizes, when nations act, or all the human kind conspire to educe the vast catastrophe, men sleep and snore, and let the busy scene go on, unlocked, unthought upon…. It is my object then, not to withdraw the young from pleasure, but from unworthy pleasures; not to lessen their enjoyments, but to increase them, by rejecting the counterfeit and the vile.

* * * * *

From "Norwood."

=50.= LIFE IN THE COUNTRY.

It was this union of seclusion and publicity that made Norwood a place of favorite resort, through the summer, of artists, of languid scholars, and of persons of quiet tastes. There was company for all that shunned solitude, and solitude for all that were weary of company. Each house was secluded from its neighbor. Yards and gardens full of trees and shrubbery, the streets lined with venerable trees, gave the town at a little distance the appearance of having been built in an orchard or a forest-park. A few steps and you could be alone—a few steps too would bring you among crowds. Where else could one watch the gentle conflict between sounds and silence with such dreamy joy?—or make idleness seem so nearly like meditation?—or more nimbly chase the dreams of night with even brighter day-dreams, wondering every day what has become of the day before, and each week where the week has gone, and in autumn what has become of the summer, that trod so noiselessly that none knew how swift were its footsteps! The town filled by July, and was not empty again till late October.

There are but two perfect months in our year—June and October. People from the city usually arrange to miss both. June is the month of gorgeous greens; October, the month of all colors. June has the full beauty of youth; October has the splendor of ripeness. Both of them are out-of-door months. If the year has anything to tell you, listen now! If these months teach the heart nothing, one may well shut up the book of the year.

* * * * *

From "The Life of Jesus the Christ."

=51.= THE CONCEPTION OF ANGELS, SUPERHUMAN.

The angels of the oldest records are like the angels of the latest. The Hebrew thought had moved through a vast arc of the infinite cycle of truth, between the days when Abraham came from Ur of Chaldea, and the times of our Lord's stay on earth. But there is no development in angels of later over those of an earlier date. They were as beautiful, as spiritual, as pure and noble, at the beginning as at the close of the old dispensation. Can such creatures, transcending earthly experience, and far out-running any thing in the life of man, be creations of the rude ages of the human understanding? We could not imagine the Advent stripped of its angelic lore. The dawn without a twilight, the sun without clouds of silver and gold, the morning on the fields without dew-diamonds,—but not the Saviour without his angels? They shine within the Temple, they bear to the matchless mother a message which would have been a disgrace from mortal lips, but which from theirs fell upon her as pure as dew-drops upon the lilies of the plain of Esdraelon. They communed with the Saviour in his glory of transfiguration, sustained him in the anguish of the garden, watched at the tomb; and as they had thronged the earth at his coming, so they seem to have hovered in the air in multitudes at the hour of his ascension. Beautiful as they seem, they are never mere poetic adornments. The occasions of their appearing are grand. The reasons are weighty. Their demeanor suggests and befits the highest conception of superior beings. These are the very elements that a rude age could not fashion. Could a sensuous age invent an order of beings, which, touching the earth from a heavenly height on its most momentous occasions, could still, after ages of culture had refined the human taste and moral appreciation, remain ineffably superior in delicacy, in pure spirituality, to the demands of criticism? Their very coming and going is not with earthly movement. They suddenly are seen in the air as one sees white clouds round out from the blue sky, in a summer's day, that melt back even while one looks upon them. They vibrate between the visible and the invisible. They come without motion. They go without flight. They dawn and disappear. Their words are few, but the Advent Chorus yet is sounding its music through the world.

* * * * *

=John McClintock,[18] 1814-1870.=

From a Sermon on "The Ground of Man's Love to God."

=52.= THE CHRISTIAN THE ONLY TRUE LOVER OF NATURE.

It is not too much to say that the only true lover of nature, is he that loves God in Christ. It is as with one standing in one of those caves of unknown beauty of which travellers tell us. While it is dark, nothing can be seen but the abyss, or at most, a faint glimmer of ill-defined forms. But flash into it the light of a single torch, and myriad splendors crowd upon the gaze of the beholder. He sees long-drawn colonnades, sparkling with gems; chambers of beauty and glory open on every hand, flashing back the light a thousand fold increased, and in countless varied hues. So the sense of God's love in the heart gives an eye for nature, and supplies the torch to illuminate its recesses of beauty. For the ear that can hear them, ten thousand voices speak, and all in harmony, the name of God! The sun, rolling in his majesty,—

"And with his tread, of thunder force, Fulfilling his appointed course,"—

is but a faint and feeble image of the great central Light of the universe. The spheres of heaven, in the perpetual harmony of their unsleeping motion, swell the praise of God; the earth, radiant with beauty, and smiling in joy, proclaims its Maker's love; and the ocean,—that

"Glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Glasses itself in tempests,"—

as it murmurs on the shore, or foams with its broad billows over the deep, declares its God; and even the tempests, that, in their "rising wrath, sweep sea and sky," still utter the name of Him who rides upon the whirlwind and directs the storm. In a word, the whole universe is but a temple, with God for its deity, and the redeemed man for its worshipper.

[Footnote 18: Distinguished among the Methodist clergy for eloquence and learning; a native of Pennsylvania.]

* * * * *

=Noah Porter,[19] 1811-=

From "The Science of Nature versus the Science of Man."

=53.= SCIENCE MAGNIFIES GOD.

We contend at present only for the position that we cannot have a science of nature which does not regard the spirit of man as a part of nature. But is this all? Do man and nature exhaust the possibilities of being? We cannot answer this question here. But we find suggestions from the spectrum and the spectroscope which may be worth our heeding. The materials with which we have to do in their most brilliant scientific theories seem at first to overwhelm us with their vastness and complexity. The hulks are so enormous, the forces are so mighty, the laws are so wide-sweeping, and at times so pitiless, the distances are so over-mastering, even the uses and beauties are so bewildering, that we bow in mute and almost abject submission to the incomprehensible all; of which we hesitate to affirm aught, except what has been manifest to our observant senses and connected by our inseparable associations. We forget what our overmastering thought has done in subjecting this universe to its interpretations. Its vast distances have been annihilated, for we have connected the distant with the near by the one pervading force which Newton divined. We have analyzed the flame that burns in our lamp, and the flame that burns in the sun, by the same instrument,—connecting by a common affinity, at the same instant and under the same eye, two agents, the farthest removed in place and the most subtle in essence. As we have overcome distances, so we have conquered time, reading the story of antecedent cycles with a confidence equal to that with which we forecast the future ages. The philosopher who penetrates the distant portions of the universe by the omnipresence of his scientific generalizations, who reads the secret of the sun by the glance of his penetrating eye, has little occasion to deny that all its forces may be mastered by a single all-knowing and omnipresent Spirit, and that its secrets can be read by one all-seeing eye. The scientist who evolves the past in his confident thought, under a few grand titles of generalized forces and relations, and who develops and almost gives law to the future by his faith in the persistence of force, has little reason to question the existence of an intellect capable of deeper insight and larger foresight than his own, which can grasp all the past and the future by an all-comprehending intelligence, and can control its wants by a personal energy that is softened to personal tenderness and love.

[Footnote 19: A Congregational divine, born in Connecticut, long Professor of Metaphysics in Yale College, and writer of many critical Essays and Reviews. His treatise on "The Human Intellect," is the most elaborate American work upon Psychology.]

* * * * *

=William Henry Milburn,[20] 1823-=

From "Lectures."

=54.= THE PIONEER PREACHERS OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY.

The spoken eloquence of New England is for the most part from manuscript. Her first settlers brought old-world forms, and fashions from the old world, with them. Their preachers were set an appalling distance from their congregations. Between the pulpit, perched far up toward the ceiling, and the seats, was an awful abysmal depth. Above the lofty desk was dimly seen the white cravat, and above that the head of the preacher. His eye was averted and fastened downward upon his manuscript, and his discourse, or exercitation, or whatever it might be, was delivered in a monotonous, regular cadence, probably relieved from time to time by some quaint blunder, the result of indistinct penmanship, or dim religious light. It was not this preacher's business to arouse his audience. The theory of worship of the period was opposed to that. This people did not wish excitement, or stimulus, or astonishment, or agitation. They simply desired information; they wished to be instructed; to have their judgment informed, or their reason enlightened. Thus the preacher might safely remain perched up in his far distant unimpassioned eyrie.

But how would such a style of eloquence—if, indeed, truth will permit the name of eloquence to be applied to the reading of matter from a preconcerted manuscript—how would such a style of delivery be received out in the wild West? Place your textual speaker out in the backwoods, on the stump, where a surging tide of humanity streams strongly around him, where the people press up toward him on every side, their keen eyes intently perusing his to see if he be in real earnest,—"dead in earnest"—and where, as with a thousand darts, their contemptuous scorn would pierce him through if he were found playing a false game, trying to pump up tears by mere acting, or arousing an excitement without feeling it. Would such a style of oratory succeed there? By no means. The place is different; the hearers are different; the time, the thing required, all the circumstances, are totally different. Here, in the vast unwalled church of nature, with the leafy tree-tops for a ceiling, their massy stems for columns; with the endless mysterious cadences of the forest for a choir; with the distant or nearer music and murmur of streams, and the ever-returning voice of birds, sounding in their ears for the made-up music of a picked band of exclusive singers: here stand men whose ears are trained to catch the faintest foot-fall of the distant deer, or the rustle of their antlers against branch or bough of the forest track—whose eyes are skilled to discern the trail of savages who leave scarce a track behind them; and who will follow upon that trail—utterly invisible to the untrained eye—as surely as a blood-hound follows the scent, ten or twenty, or a hundred miles, whose eye and hand are so well practised that they can drive a nail, or snuff a candle, with the long, heavy western rifle. Such men, educated for years, or even generations, in that hard school of necessity, where every one's hand and wood-man's skill must keep his head; where incessant pressing necessities required ever a prompt and sufficient answer in deeds; and where words needed to be but few, and those the plainest and directest, required no delay nor preparation, nor oratorical coquetting, nor elaborate preliminary scribble; no hesitation nor doubts in deeds; no circumlocution in words. To restrain, influence, direct, govern, such a surging sea of life as this, required something very different from a written address.

[Footnote 20: Born in Philadelphia; a Methodist divine, long afflicted with blindness; but widely popular as a preacher and lecturer.]

* * * * *

ORATORS, AND LEGAL AND POLITICAL WRITERS, OF THE ERA OF THE REVOLUTION.

=John Dickinson, 1732-1808.= (Manual, p. 486.)

From "The Address of Congress to the States." May 26, 1779.

=55.= THE ASPECT OF THE WAR.

To our constituents we submit the propriety and purity of our intentions, well knowing they will not forget that we lay no burdens upon them but those in which we participate with them—a happy sympathy, that pervades societies formed on the basis of equal liberty. Many cares, many labors, and may we not add, reproaches, are peculiar to us. These are the emoluments of our unsolicited stations; and with these we are content, if YOU approve our conduct. If you do not, we shall return to our private condition, with no other regret than that which will arise from our not having served you as acceptably and essentially as we wished and strove to do, though as cheerfully and faithfully as we could.

Think not we despair of the commonwealth, or endeavor to shrink from opposing difficulties. No! Your cause is too good, your objects too sacred, to be relinquished. We tell you truths because you are freemen, who can bear to hear them, and may profit by them; and when they reach your enemies, we fear not the consequences, because we are not ignorant of their resources or our own. Let your good sense decide upon the comparison….

We well remember what you said at the commencement of this war. You saw the immense difference between your circumstances and those of your enemies, and you knew the quarrel must decide on no less than your lives, liberties, and estates. All these you greatly put to every hazard, resolving rather to die freemen than to live slaves; and justice will oblige the impartial world to confess you have uniformly acted on the same generous principle. Persevere, and you insure peace, freedom, safety, glory, sovereignty, and felicity to yourselves, your children, and your children's children.

Encouraged by favors already received from Infinite Goodness, gratefully acknowledging them, earnestly imploring their continuance, constantly endeavoring to draw them down on your heads by an amendment of your lives, and a conformity to the Divine will, humbly confiding in the protection so often and wonderfully experienced, vigorously employ the means placed by Providence in your hands for completing your labors.

Fill up your battalions—be prepared in every part to repel the incursions of your enemies—place your several quotas in the continental treasury—lend money for public uses—sink the emissions of your respective States—provide effectually for expediting the conveyance of supplies for your armies and fleets, and for your allies—prevent the produce of the country from being monopolized—effectually superintend the behavior of public officers—diligently promote piety, virtue, brotherly love, learning, frugality, and moderation—and may you be approved before Almighty God, worthy of those blessings we devoutly wish you to enjoy.

* * * * *

=John Adams, 1735-1826.= (Manual, p. 486.)

From his "Life and Works."

=56.= CHARACTER OF JAMES OTIS.

JAMES OTIS, of Boston, sprang from families among the earliest of the planters of the Colonies, and the most respectable in rank, while the word rank, and the idea annexed to it, were tolerated in America. He was a gentleman of general science and extensive literature. He had been an indefatigable student during the whole course of his education in college and at the bar. He was well versed in Greek and Roman history, philosophy, oratory, poetry, and mythology. His classical studies had been unusually ardent, and his acquisitions uncommonly great…. It was a maxim which he inculcated on his pupils, as his patron in the profession, Mr. Gridley, had done before him, "that a lawyer ought never to be without a volume of natural or public law, or moral philosophy, on his table or in his pocket." In the history, the common law, and statute laws, of England, he had no superior, at least in Boston.

Thus qualified to resist the system of usurpation and despotism, meditated by the British ministry, under the auspices of the Earl of Bute, Mr. Otis resigned his commission from the crown, as Advocate-General,—an office very lucrative at that time, and a sure road to the highest favors of government in America,—and engaged in the cause of his country without fee or reward. His argument, speech, discourse, oration, harangue,—call it by which name you will, was the most impressive upon his crowded audience of any that I ever heard before or since, excepting only many speeches by himself in Faneuil Hall, and in the House of Representatives, which he made from time to time for ten years afterwards. There were no stenographers in those days. Speeches were not printed; and all that was not remembered, like the harangues of Indian orators, was lost in air. Who, at the distance of fifty-seven years, would attempt, upon memory, to give even a sketch of it? Some of the heads are remembered, out of which Livy or Sallust would not scruple to compose an oration for history. I shall not essay an analysis or a sketch of it at present. I shall only say, and I do say in the most solemn manner, that Mr. Otis's oration against "writs of assistance" breathed into this nation the breath of life.

* * * * *

From the "Thoughts on Government."

=57.= REQUISITES OF A GOOD GOVERNMENT.

The dignity and stability of government in all its branches, the morals of the people, and every blessing of society, depend so much upon an upright and skilful administration of justice, that the judicial power ought to be distinct from both the legislative and executive, and independent upon both, that so it may be a check upon both, as both should be checks upon that.

… Laws for the liberal education of youth, especially of the lower class of people, are so extremely wise and useful, that, to a humane and generous mind, no expense for this purpose would be thought extravagant…. You and I, my dear friend, have been sent into life at a time when the greatest lawgivers of antiquity would have wished to live. How few of the human race have ever enjoyed an opportunity of making an election of government, more than of air, soil, or climate, for themselves or their children! When, before the present epocha, had three millions of people full power and a fair opportunity, to form and establish the wisest and happiest government that human wisdom can contrive?

* * * * *

=Patrick Henry, 1736-1799.= (Manual, p. 484.)

From "Speech in the Convention of Virginia," 1775.

=58.= THE NECESSITY OF THE WAR.

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to know what has been the conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the house. Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received. Trust it not, Sir, it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war, and subjugation—the last arguments to which kings resort. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free, if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending, if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest is obtained, we must fight, I repeat it, sir, we must fight. An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us.

They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance, by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot?

Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God, who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery. Our chains are forged. Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston. The war is inevitable—and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come!

It is vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, peace; but there is no peace. The war is actually begun. The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms. Our brethren are already in the field. Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!

* * * * *

From a Speech on the Ratification of the Federal Constitution.

=59.= NECESSITY OF AMENDMENT BEFORE ADOPTION.

I exhort gentlemen to think seriously, before they ratify this constitution, and to indulge a salutary doubt of their being able to succeed in any effort they may make to get amendments after adoption. With respect to that part of the proposal, which says that every power not specially granted to Congress remains with the people; it must be previous to adoption, or it will involve this country in inevitable destruction. To talk of it, as a thing to be subsequently obtained, and not as one of your unalienable rights, is leaving it to the casual opinion of the Congress who shall take up the consideration of that most important right. They will not reason with you about the effect of this constitution. They will not take the opinion of this committee concerning its operation. They will construe it even as they please. If you place it subsequently, let me ask the consequences? Among ten thousand implied powers which they may assume, their may, if we be engaged in war, liberate every one of your slaves if they please. And this must and will be done by men, a majority of whom have not a common interest with you. They will, therefore, have no feeling for your interests…. Is it not worth while to turn your eyes for a moment from subsequent amendments, to the real situation of your country? You may have a union, but can you have a lasting union in these circumstances? It will be in vain to expect it. But if you agree to previous amendments, you will have union, firm, solid, permanent. I cannot conclude without saying, that I shall have nothing to do with it, if subsequent amendments be determined upon. Oppressions will be carried on as radically by the majority when adjustments and accommodations will be held up. I say, I conceive it my duty, if this government be adopted before it is amended, to go home. I shall act as I think my duty requires. Every other gentleman will do the same. Previous amendments, in my opinion, are necessary to procure peace and tranquility. I fear, if they be not agreed to, every movement and operation of government will cease, and how long that baneful thing, civil discord, will stay from this country, God only knows. When men are free from restraint, how long will you suspend their fury? The interval between this and bloodshed is but a moment. The licentious and wicked of the community will seize with avidity every thing you hold. In this unhappy situation, what is to be done? It surpasses my stock of wisdom to determine. If you will, in the language of freemen, stipulate that there are rights which no man under heaven can take from you, you shall have me going along with you; but not otherwise.

* * * * *

=John Rutledge, 1739-1800.= (Manual, p. 484.)

From "Speech on the Judiciary Establishment."

=60.= AN INDEPENDENT JUDICIARY THE SAFEGUARD OF LIBERTY.

While this shield remains to the states, it will be difficult to dissolve the ties which knit and bind them together. As long as this buckler remains to the people, they cannot be liable to much, or permanent oppression. The government may be administered with violence, offices may be bestowed exclusively upon those who have no other merit than that of carrying votes at elections,—the commerce of our country may be depressed by nonsensical theories, and public credit may suffer from bad intentions; but so long as we have an independent judiciary, the great interests of the people will be safe. Neither the president, nor the legislature, can violate their constitutional rights. Any such attempt would be checked by the judges, who are designed by the constitution to keep the different branches of the government within the spheres of their respective orbits, and say thus far shall you legislate, and no further. Leave to the people an independent judiciary, and they will prove that man is capable of governing himself,—they will be saved from what has been the fate of all other republics, and they will disprove the position that governments of a republican form cannot endure.

We are asked by the gentleman from Virginia, if the people want judges to protect them? Yes, sir, in popular governments constitutional checks are necessary for their preservation; the people want to be protected against themselves; no man is so absurd as to propose the people collectedly will consent to the prostration of their liberties; but if they be not shielded by some constitutional checks, they will suffer them to be destroyed—to be destroyed by demagogues, who at the time they are soothing and cajoling the people, with bland and captivating speeches, are forging chains for them; demagogues who carry, daggers in their hearts, and seductive smiles in their hypocritical faces, who are dooming the people to despotism, when they profess to be exclusively the friends of the people; against such designs and such artifices, were our constitutional checks made, to preserve the people of this country.

* * * * *

=Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826.= (Manual, pp. 486, 490.)

From his "Inaugural Address", March 4th, 1801.

=61.= ESSENTIAL PRINCIPLES OF AMERICAN GOVERNMENT.

Kindly separated by nature and a wide ocean from the exterminating havoc of one quarter of the globe, too high-minded to endure the degradations of the others, possessing a chosen country with room enough for our descendants to the hundredth and thousandth generation, entertaining a due sense of our equal right to the use of our own faculties, to the acquisitions of our industry, to honor and confidence from our fellow citizens, resulting not from birth but from our actions and their sense of them, enlightened by a benign religion, professed, indeed, and practised, in various forms, yet all of them including honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man; acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence, which by all its dispensations proves that it delights in the happiness of man here and his greater happiness hereafter; with all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow-citizens, a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.

About to enter, fellow-citizens, on the exercise of duties which comprehend everything dear and valuable to you, it is proper that you should understand what I deem the essential principles of our government, and consequently those which ought to shape its administration. I will compress them within the narrowest compass they will bear, stating the general principle, but not all its limitations. Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious, or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship, with all nations, entangling alliances with none; the support of the state governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies; the preservation of the general government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad; a jealous care of the right of election by the people, a mild and safe corrective of abuses which are lopped by the sword of revolution where peaceable remedies are unprovided; absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority, the vital, principle of republics, from which there is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism; a well disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace and for the first moments of war, till regulars may relieve them; the supremacy of the civil over the military authority; economy in the public expense, that labor may be lightly burdened; the honest payment of our debts send sacred preservation of the public faith; encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce as its handmaid; the diffusion of information and the arraignment of all abuses at the bar of public reason; freedom of religion; freedom of the press; freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus; and trial by juries impartially selected; these principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us, and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and the blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civil instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety.

* * * * *

=62.= CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON.

His mind was great and powerful, without being of the very first order; his penetration strong, though not so acute as a Newton, Bacon, or Locke; and as far as he saw no judgment was ever sounder. It was slow in operation, being little aided by invention or imagination, but sure in conclusion. Hence the common remark of his officers, of the advantage he derived from councils of war, where hearing all suggestions, he selected whatever was best; and certainly no General ever planned his battles more judiciously. But if deranged during the course of the action, if any member of his plan was dislocated by sudden circumstances, he was slow in re-adjustment. The consequence was that he often failed in the field, and rarely against an enemy in station, as at Boston and York. He was incapable of fear, meeting personal dangers with the calmest unconcern. Perhaps the strongest feature in his character was prudence; never acting until every circumstance, every consideration was maturely weighed; refraining if he saw a doubt, but when once decided, going through with his purpose, whatever obstacles opposed. His integrity was most pure, his justice the most inflexible I have ever known; no motives of interest or consanguinity, of friendship or hatred, being able to bias his decision. He was indeed in every sense of the words, a wise, a good, and a great man. His temper was naturally irritable, and high toned; but reflection and resolution had obtained a firm and habitual ascendancy over it. If ever however it broke its bonds, he was most tremendous in his wrath. In his expenses he was honorable, but exact; liberal in contributions to whatever promised utility, but frowning and unyielding on all visionary projects, and all unworthy calls on his charity. His heart was not warm in its affections; but he exactly calculated every man's value, and gave him a solid esteem proportioned to it. His person, you know, was fine, his stature exactly what one would wish, his deportment easy, erect, and noble; the best horseman of his age, and the most graceful figure that could be seen on horseback. Although in the circle of his friends, where he might be unreserved with safety, he took a free share in conversation, his colloquial talents were not above mediocrity, possessing neither copiousness of ideas, nor fluency of words. In public, when called on for a sudden opinion, he was unready, short, and embarrassed. Yet he wrote readily, rather diffusely, in an easy and correct style. This he had acquired by conversation with the world, for his education was merely reading, writing, and common arithmetic, to which he added surveying at a later day. His time was employed in action chiefly, reading little, and that only in agriculture and English history. His correspondence became necessarily extensive, and with journalizing his agricultural proceedings, occupied most of his leisure hours within doors. On the whole, his character was in its mass, perfect; in nothing, bad; in few points indifferent; and it may truly be said that never did nature and fortune combine more perfectly to make a man great.

* * * * *

From the "Notes on Virginia."

=63.= GEOGRAPHICAL LIMITS OF THE ELEPHANT AND THE MAMMOTH. 1781.

From the thirtieth degree of south latitude to the thirtieth of north are nearly the limits which nature has fixed for the existence and multiplication of the elephant known to us. Proceeding thence northwardly to thirty-six and a half degrees, we enter those assigned to the mammoth. The farther we advance north, the more their vestiges multiply, as far as the earth has been explored in that direction; and it is as probable as otherwise, that this progression continues to the pole itself, if land extends so far. The centre of the frozen zone, then, may be the acme of their vigor, as that of the torrid is of the elephant. Thus nature seems to have drawn a belt of separation between these two tremendous animals, whose breadth indeed is not precisely known, though at present we may suppose it to be about six and a half degrees of latitude; to have assigned to the elephant the regions south of these confines, and those north to the mammoth, founding the constitution of the one in her extreme of heat, and that of the other in the extreme of cold. When the Creator has therefore separated their nature as far as the extent of the scale of animal life allowed to this planet would permit, it seems perverse to declare it the same, from a partial resemblance of their tusks and bones. But to whatever animal we ascribe these remains, it is certain such a one has existed in America, and that it has been the largest of all terrestrial beings.

* * * * *

=64.= THE UNHAPPY EFFECTS OF SLAVERY.

These must doubtless be an unhappy influence on the manners of our people produced by the existence of slavery among us…. With the morals of the people, their industry also is destroyed. For in a warm climate no man will labor for himself who can make another labor for him. This is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves a very small proportion indeed are ever seen to labor. And can the liberties, of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis—a conviction in the minds of the people that they are the gift of God? that they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever; that considering numbers, nature, and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events; that it may become probable by supernatural interference. The Almighty has no attribute which can take sides with us in such a contest. But it is impossible to be temperate, and to pursue this subject through the various considerations of policy, of morals, of history, natural and civil. We must be contented to hope they will force their way into every one's mind. I think a change already perceptible since the origin of the present revolution. The spirit of the master is abating, that of the slave is rising from the dust, his condition mollifying, the way I hope preparing, under the auspices of Heaven, for a total emancipation.

* * * * *

=John Jay, 1745-1829.= (Manual, pp. 484, 486.)

From the "Address from the Convention." December 23, 1776.

=65.= AN APPEAL TO ARMS.

Rouse, brave citizens! Do your duty like men; and be persuaded that Divine Providence will not permit this western world to be involved in the horrors of slavery. Consider that, from the earliest ages of the world, religion, liberty, and reason have been bending their course towards the setting sun. The holy Gospels are yet to be preached to these western regions; and we have the highest reason to believe that the Almighty will not suffer slavery and the gospel to go hand in hand. It cannot, it will not be.

But if there be any among us dead to all sense of honor and love of their country; if deaf to all the calls of liberty, virtue, and religion; if forgetful of the magnanimity of their ancestors, and the happiness of their children; if neither the examples nor the success of other nations, the dictates of reason and of nature, or the great duties they owe to their God, themselves, and their posterity have any effect upon them; if neither the injuries they have received, the prize they are contending for, the future blessings or curses of their children, the applause or the reproach of all mankind, the approbation or displeasure of the great Judge, or the happiness or misery consequent upon their conduct, in this and a future state can move them,—then let them be assured that they deserve to be slaves, and are entitled to nothing but anguish and tribulation…. Let them forget every duty, human and divine, remember not that they have children, and beware how they call to mind the justice of the Supreme Being.

* * * * *

=Alexander Hamilton, 1757-1804.= (Manual, pp. 484, 486.)

From "Vindication of the Funding System."

=66.= CHARACTER OF THE DEBT.

A person who, unacquainted with the fact, should learn the history of our debt from the declamations with which certain newspapers are perpetually charged, would be led to suppose that it is the mere creature of the present government, for the purpose of burthening the people with taxes, and producing an artificial and corrupt influence over them; he would, at least, take it for granted that it had been contracted in the pursuit of some wanton or vain project of ambition or glory; he would scarcely be able to conceive that every part of it was the relict of a war which had given independence, and preserved liberty to the country; that the present government found it as it is, in point of magnitude (except as to the diminutions made by itself), and has done nothing more than to bring under a regular regimen and provision, what was before a scattered and heterogeneous mass.

And yet this is the simple and exact state of the business. The whole of the debt embraced by the provisions of the funding system, consisted of the unextinguished principal and arrears of interest, of the debt which had been contracted by the United States in the course of the late war with Great Britain, and which remained uncancelled, and the principal and arrears of interest of the separate debts of the respective States contracted during the same period, which remained, outstanding, and unsatisfied, relating to services and supplies for carrying on the war. Nothing more was done by that system, than to incorporate these two species of debt into the mass, and to make for the whole, one general, comprehensive provision. There is therefore, no arithmetic, no logic, by which it can be shown that the funding system has augmented the aggregate debt of the country. The sum total is manifestly the same; though the parts which were before divided are now united. There is, consequently, no color for an assertion, that the system in question either created any new debt, or made any addition to the old.

And it follows, that the collective burthen upon the people of the United States must have been as great without as with the union of the different portions and descriptions of the debt. The only difference can be, that without it that burthen would have been otherwise distributed, and would have fallen with unequal weight, instead of being equally borne as it now is.

These conclusions which have been drawn respecting the non-increase of the debt, proceed upon the presumption that every part of the public debt, as well that of the States individually, as that of the United States, was to have been honestly paid. If there is any fallacy in this supposition, the inferences may be erroneous; but the error would imply the disgrace of the United States, or parts of them,—a disgrace from which every man of true honor and genuine patriotism will be happy to see them rescued.

When we hear the epithets, "vile matter," "corrupt mass," bestowed upon the public debt, and the owners of it indiscriminately maligned as the harpies and vultures of the community, there is ground to suspect that those who hold the language, though they may not dare to avow it, contemplate a more summary process for getting rid of debts than that of paying them. Charity itself cannot avoid concluding from the language and conduct of some men, (and some of them of no inconsiderable importance,) that in their vocabularies creditor and enemy are synonymous terms, and that they have a laudable antipathy against every man to whom they owe money, either as individuals or as members of the society.

* * * * *

From a "Letter to Lafayette," October 6, 1789.

=67.= THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

I have seen, with a mixture of pleasure and apprehension, the progress of events which have lately taken place in your country. As a friend to mankind and to liberty, I rejoice in the efforts which you are making to establish it, while I fear much for the final success of the attempts, for the fate of those I esteem who are engaged in them, and for the danger in case of success, of innovations greater than will consist with the real felicity of your nation. If your affairs still go well when this reaches you, you will ask why this foreboding of ill, when all the appearances have been so much in your favor. I will tell you: I dread disagreements among those who are now united (which will be likely to be improved by the adverse party) about the nature of your constitution; I dread the vehement character of your people, whom I fear you may find it more easy to bring on, than to keep within proper bounds after you have put them in motion. I dread the interested refractoriness of your nobles, who cannot all be gratified, and who may be unwilling to submit to the requisite sacrifices. And I dread the reveries of your philosophic politicians, who appear in the moment to have great influence, and who, being mere speculatists, may aim at more refinement than suits either with human nature, or the composition of your nation.

* * * * *

=Fisher Ames, 1738-1808.= (Manual, p. 487.)

From the "Speech on the British Treaty." April 15, 1795.

=68.= OBLIGATION OF NATIONAL GOOD FAITH.

The consequences of refusing to make provision for the treaty are not all to be foreseen. By rejecting, vast interests are committed to the sport of the winds: chance becomes the arbiter of events, and it is forbidden to human foresight to count their number, or measure their extent. Before we resolve to leap into this abyss, so dark and so profound, it becomes us to pause, and reflect upon such of the dangers as are obvious and inevitable. If this assembly should be wrought into a temper to defy these consequences, it is vain, it is deceptive, to pretend that we can escape them. It is worse than weakness to say, that as to public faith, our vote has already settled the question. Another tribunal than our own is already erected; the public opinion, not merely of our own country, but of the enlightened world, will pronounce a judgment that we cannot resist, that we dare not even affect to despise.

… This, sir, is a cause that would be dishonored and betrayed if I contented myself with appealing only to the understanding. It is too cold, and its processes are too slow, for the occasion. I desire to thank God that since he has given me an intellect so fallible, he has impressed upon me an instinct that is sure. On a question of shame and honor, reasoning is sometimes useless, and worse. I feel the decision in my pulse; if it throws no light upon the brain, it kindles a fire at the heart.

What is patriotism? Is it a narrow affection for the spot where a man was born? Are the very clods where we tread entitled to this ardent preference, because they are greener? No, sir, this is not the character of the virtue, and it soars higher for its object. It is an extended self-love, mingling with all the enjoyments of life, and twisting itself with the minutest filaments of the heart. It is thus we obey the laws of society, because they are the laws of virtue. In their authority we see not the array of force and terror, but the venerable image of our country's honor. Every good citizen makes that honor his own, and cherishes it not only as precious, but as sacred. He is willing to risk his life in its defence; and is conscious that he gains protection, while he gives it. For what rights of a citizen will be deemed inviolable, when a state renounces the principles that constitute their security? Or, if his life should not be invaded, what would its enjoyments be in a country odious in the eyes of strangers, and dishonored in his own? Could he look with affection and veneration to such a country as his parent? The sense of having one would die within him; he would blush for his patriotism, if he retained any, and justly. for it would be a vice; he would be a banished man in his native land.

I see no exception to the respect that is paid among nations to the law of good faith. If there are cases in this enlightened period when it is violated, then are none when it is decried. It is the philosophy of politics, the religion of governments. It is observed by barbarians; a whiff of tobacco smoke, or a string of beads, gives not merely binding force, but sanctity, to treaties. Even in Algiers, a truce may be bought for money; but when ratified, even Algiers is too wise or too just, to disown and annul its obligation. Thus we see, neither the ignorance of savages, nor the principles of an association for piracy and rapine, permit a nation to despise its engagements. If, sir, there could be a resurrection from the foot of the gallows, if the victims of justice could live again, collect together, and form a society, they would, however loath, soon find themselves obliged to make justice, that justice under which they fell, the fundamental law of their state. They would perceive it was their interest to make others respect, and they would, therefore, soon pay some respect themselves, to the obligations of good faith.

* * * * *

=Gouverneur Morris, 1752-1816.= (Manual, p. 484.)

From a "Report to Congress in 1780."

=69.= QUALIFICATIONS OF A MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS.

A minister of foreign affairs should have a genius quick, lively, penetrating; should write on all occasions with clearness and perspicuity; be capable of expressing his sentiments with dignity, and conveying strong sense and argument in easy and agreeable diction; his temper mild, cool, and placid; festive, insinuating, and pliant, yet obstinate; communicative, and yet reserved. He should know the human face and heart, and the connections between them; should be versed in the laws of nature and nations, and not ignorant of the civil and municipal law; should be acquainted with the history of Europe, and with the interests, views, commerce, and productions of the commercial and maritime powers; should know the interests and commerce of America, understand the French and Spanish languages, at least the former, and be skilled in the modes and forms of public business; a man educated more in the world than in the closet, that by use, as well as by nature, he may give proper attention to great objects, and have proper contempt for small ones. He should be attached to the independence of America, and the alliance with France, as the great pillars of our politics; and this attachment should not be slight and accidental, but regular, consistent, and founded in strong conviction. His manners, gentle and polite; above all things, honest, and least of all things, avaricious. His circumstances and connections should be such as to give solid pledges for his fidelity; and he should by no means be disagreeable to the prince with whom we are in alliance, his ministers, or subjects.

* * * * *

=William Pinkney,[21] 1764-1820.=

From "Speech in the Maryland Legislature." 1798.

=70.= RESPONSIBILITY FOR SLAVERY.

For my own part, I would willingly draw the veil of oblivion over this disgusting scene of iniquity, but that the present abject state of those who are descended from these kidnapped sufferers, perpetually brings it forward to the memory.

But wherefore should we confine the edge of censure to our ancestors, or those from whom they purchased? Are not we equally guilty? They strewed around the seeds of slavery; we cherish and sustain the growth. They introduce the system; we enlarge, invigorate, and confirm it. Yes, let it be handed down to posterity, that the people of Maryland, who could fly to arms with the promptitude of Roman citizens, when the hand of oppression was lifted up against themselves; who could behold their country desolated and their citizens slaughtered; who could brave with unshaken firmness every calamity of war before they would submit to the smallest infringement of their rights—that this very people could yet see thousands of their fellow-creatures, within the limits of their territory, bending beneath an unnatural yoke, and, instead of being assiduous to destroy their shackles, be anxious to immortalize their duration, so that a nation of slaves might forever exist in a country whose freedom is its boast.

[Footnote 21: Highly distinguished as a lawyer, orator, and diplomatist; a native of Maryland.]

* * * * *

From "Speech in the Nereide Case."

=71.= WAR, AND AMERICAN BELLIGERENT RIGHTS.

I throw into the opposite scale the ponderous claim of War; a claim of high concernment, not to us only, but to the world; a claim connected with the maritime strength of this maritime state, with public honor and individual enterprise, with all those passions and motives which can be made subservient to national success and glory, in the hour of national trial and danger. I throw into the same scale the venerable code of universal law, before which it is the duty of this Court, high as it is in dignity, and great as are its titles to reverence, to bow down with submission, I throw into the same scale a solemn treaty, binding upon the claimant and upon you. In a word, I throw into that scale the rights of belligerent America, and, as embodied with them, the rights of these captors, by whose efforts and at whose cost the naval exertions of the government have been seconded, until our once despised and drooping flag has been made to wave in triumph, where neither France nor Spain could venture to show a prow. You may call these rights by what name you please. You may call them iron rights:—I care not. It is more than enough for me that they are RIGHTS. It is more than enough for me that they come before you encircled and adorned by the laurels which we have torn from the brow of the naval genius of England: that they come before you recommended, and endeared, and consecrated by a thousand recollections, which it would be baseness and folly not to cherish, and that they are mingled in fancy and in fact with all the elements of our future greatness….

We are now, thank God, once more at peace. Our belligerent rights may therefore sleep for a season. May their repose be long and profound! But the time must arrive when the interests and honor of this great nation will command them to awake; and when it does arrive, I feel undoubting confidence that they will rise from their slumber in the fullness of their strength and majesty, unenfeebled and unimpaired by the judgment of this high court.

The skill and valor of our infant navy, which has illuminated every sea, and dazzled the master states of Europe by the splendor of its triumphs, have given us a pledge which I trust will continue to be dear to every American heart, and to influence the future course of our policy, that the ocean is destined to acknowledge the youthful dominion of the West.

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=James Madison, 1751-1836.= (Manual, p. 486.)

From his "Report of Debates in the Federal Convention."

=72.= VALUE OF A RECORD OF THE DEBATES.

The close of the war, however, brought no cure for the public embarrassments. The states relieved from the pressure of foreign danger, and flushed with the enjoyment of independent and sovereign power, instead of a diminished disposition to part with it, persevered in omissions, and in measures, incompatible with their relations to the federal government, and with those among themselves.

… It was known that there were individuals who had betrayed a bias towards monarchy, and there had always been some not unfavorable to a partition of the Union into several confederacies; either from a better chance of figuring on a sectional theatre, or that the sections would require stronger governments, or by their hostile conflicts lead to a monarchical consolidation. The idea of dismemberment had recently made its appearance in the newspapers.

Such were the defects, the deformities, the diseases, and the ominous prospects, for which the convention were to provide a remedy, and which ought never to be overlooked in expounding and appreciating the constitutional charter—the remedy that was provided.

The curiosity I had felt during my researches into the history of the most distinguished confederacies, particularly those of antiquity, and the deficiency I found in the means of satisfying it, more especially in what related to the process, the principles, the reasons, and the anticipations, which prevailed in the formation of them, determined me to preserve, as far as I could, an exact account of what might pass in the convention whilst executing its trust—with the magnitude of which I was fully impressed, as I was by the gratification promised to future curiosity by an authentic exhibition of the objects, the opinions, and the reasonings, from which the new system of government was to receive its peculiar structure and organization. Nor was I unaware of the value of such a contribution to the fund of materials for the history of a constitution, on which would be staked the happiness of a people great even in its infancy, and possibly the cause of liberty throughout the world.

Of the ability and intelligence of those who composed the Convention the debates and proceedings may be a test, as the character of the work which was the offspring of their deliberations must be tested by the experience of the future added to that of nearly half a century that has passed.

But whatever may be the judgment pronounced on the competency of the architects of the Constitution, or whatever may be the destiny of the edifice prepared by them, I feel it a duty to express my profound and solemn conviction, derived from my intimate opportunity of observing and appreciating the views of the Convention, collectively and individually, that there never was an assembly of men, charged with a great, and arduous trust, who were more pure in their motives, or more exclusively or anxiously devoted to the object committed to them, than were the members of the Federal Convention of 1787, to the object of devising and proposing a constitutional system which should best supply the defects of that which it was to replace, and best secure the permanent liberty and happiness of their country.

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=73.= INSCRIPTION FOR A STATUE OF WASHINGTON.

The General Assembly of Virginia have caused this statue to be erected as a monument of affection and gratitude to George Washington, who, uniting to the endowments of the hero the virtues of the patriot, and exerting both in establishing the liberties of his country, has rendered his name dear to his fellow-citizens, and given to the world an immortal example of true glory.

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=John Randolph, 1773-1832.= (Manual, p. 487.)

From a Speech in the Virginia Convention.

=74.= "CHANGE IS NOT REFORM."

Sir, I see no wisdom in making this provision for future changes. You must give Governments time to operate on the People, and give the People time to become gradually assimilated to their institutions. Almost any thing is better than this state of perpetual uncertainty. A People may have the best form of Government that the wit of man ever devised, and yet, from its uncertainty alone, may, in effect, live under the worst Government in the world. Sir, how often must I repeat, that change is not reform? I am willing that this new Constitution shall stand as long as it is possible for it to stand; and that, believe me, is a very short time. Sir, it is vain to deny it. They may say what they please about the old Constitution,—the defect is not there. It is not in the form of the old edifice,—neither in the design nor in the elevation; it is in the material, it is in the People of Virginia. To my knowledge that People are changed from what they have been. The four hundred men who went out with David were in debt. The fellow-laborers of Catiline were in debt. The partizans of Caesar were in debt. And I defy you to show me a desperately indebted People, anywhere, who can bear a regular, sober Government. I throw the challenge to all who hear me. I say that the character of the good old Virginia planter,—the man who owned from five to twenty slaves, or less, who, lived by hard work, and who paid his debts,—is passed away. A new order of things is come. The period has arrived of living by one's wits; of living by contracting debts that one cannot pay; and above all, of living by office-hunting.

Sir, what do we see? Bankrupts,—branded bankrupts,—giving great dinners, sending their children to the most expensive schools, giving grand parties, and just as well received as anybody in society! I say that, in such a state of things, the old Constitution was too good for them,—they could not bear it. No, Sir; they could not bear a freehold suffrage, and a property representation. I have always endeavored to do the People justice; but I will not flatter them,—I will not pander to their appetite for change. I will do nothing to provide for change. I will not agree to any rule of future apportionment, or to any provision for future changes, called amendments to the Constitution. Those who love change,—who delight in public confusion, who wish to feed the cauldron, and make it bubble,—may vote if they please for future changes. But by what spell, by what formula, are you going to bind the People to all future time? The days of Lycurgus are gone by, when we could swear the People not to alter the Constitution until he should return. You may make what entries on parchment you please; give me a Constitution that will last for half a century; that is all I wish for. No Constitution that you can make will last the one-half of half a century. Sir, I will stake anything, short of my salvation, that those who are malcontent now, will be more malcontent, three years hence, than they are at this day. I have no favor for this Constitution. I shall vote against its adoption, and I shall advise all the people of my district to set their faces, aye, and their shoulders, too, against it.

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From "Letters to a young Relative."

=75.= THE ERROR OF DECAYED FAMILIES.

One of the best and wisest men I ever knew has often said to me that a decayed family could never recover its loss of rank in the world, until the members of it left off talking and dwelling upon its former opulence. This remark, founded in a long and clear observation of mankind, I have seen verified in numerous instances in my own connections, who, to use the words of my oracle, will never thrive until they can become poor folks. He added, they may make some struggles, and with apparent success, to recover lost ground; they may, and sometimes do, get half way up again; but they are sure to fall back, unless, reconciling themselves to circumstances, they become in form, as well as in fact, poor folks.

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=James Kent, 1763-1847.= (Manual, pp. 488, 504.)

From "Commentaries on American Law."

=76.= LAW OF THE STATES.

The judicial power of the United States is necessarily limited to national objects. The vast field of the law of property, the very extensive head of equity jurisdiction, and the principal rights and duties which flow from our civil and domestic relations, fall within the control, and we might almost say the exclusive cognizance, of the state governments. We look essentially to the state courts for protection to all these momentous interests. They touch, in their operation, every chord of human sympathy, and control our best destinies. It is their province to reward and to punish. Their blessings and their terrors will accompany us to the fireside, and "be in constant activity before the public eye." The elementary principles of the common law are the same in every state, and equally enlighten and invigorate every part of our country. Our municipal codes can be made to advance with equal steps with that of the nation, in discipline, in wisdom, and in lustre, if the state governments (as they ought in all honest policy) will only render equal patronage and security to the administration of justice. The true interests and the permanent freedom of this country require that the jurisprudence of the individual states should be cultivated, cherished, and exalted, and the dignity and reputation of the state authorities sustained, with becoming pride. In their subordinate relation to the United States, they should endeavor to discharge the duty which they owe to the latter, without forgetting the respect which they owe to themselves. In the appropriate language of Sir William Blackstone, and which he applies to the people of his own country, they should be "loyal, yet free; obedient, yet independent."

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=Edward Livingston,[22] 1764-1836.=

From the "Report on the Penal Code for Louisiana."

=77.= THE PROPER OFFICE OF THE JUDGE.

Judges are generally men who have grown old in the practice at the bar. With the knowledge which this experience gives, they acquire a habit, very difficult to be shaken off, of taking a side in every question that they hear debated, and when the mind is once enlisted, their passions, prejudices, and professional ingenuity are always arrayed on the same side, and furnish arms for the contest. Neutrality cannot, under these circumstances, be expected; but the law should limit as much as possible, the evil that this almost inevitable state of things must produce. In the theory of our law, judges are the counsel for the accused, in practice they are, with a few honorable exceptions, his most virulent prosecutors. The true principles of criminal jurisprudence require that they should be neither. Perfect impartiality is incompatible with these duties. A good judge should have no wish that the guilty should escape, or that the innocent should suffer; no false pity, no undue severity, should bias the unshaken rectitude of his judgment; calm in deliberation, firm in resolve, patient in investigating the truth, tenacious of it when discovered, he should join urbanity of manners, to dignity of demeanor, and an integrity above suspicion, to learning and talent; such a judge is what, according to the true structure of our courts, he ought to be,—the protector, not the advocate of the accused; his judge, not his accuser; and while executing these functions, he is the organ by which the sacred will of the law is pronounced. Uttered by such a voice, it will be heard, respected, felt, obeyed; but impose on him the task of argument, of debate; degrade him from the bench to the bar; suffer him to overpower the accused with his influence, or to enter the lists with his advocate, to carry on the contest of sophisms, of angry arguments, of tart replies, and all the wordy war of forensic debate; suffer him to do this, and his dignity is lost; his decrees are no longer considered as the oracles of the law; they are submitted to, but not respected; and even the triumph of his eloquence or ingenuity, in the conviction of the accused, must be lessened by the suspicion that it has owed its success to official influence, and the privilege of arguing without reply. For these reasons, the judge is forbidden to express any opinion on the facts which are alleged in evidence, much less to address any argument to the jury; but his functions are confined to expounding the law, and stating the points of evidence on which the recollection of the jury may differ.

[Footnote 22: Was born in New York; eminent as a statesman, and as the author of a code of laws for Louisiana, his adopted state.]

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=John Quincy Adams, 1767-1848.= (Manual, pp. 487, 504.)

From the "Speech on the Right of Petition."

=78.= THE RIGHT OF PETITION UNIVERSAL.

Sir, it is well known, that, from the time I entered this House, down to the present day, I have felt it a sacred duty to present any petition, couched in respectful language, from any citizen of the United States, be its object what it may; be the prayer of it that in which I could concur, or that to which I was utterly opposed. It is for the sacred right of petition that I have adopted this course…. Where is your law which says that the mean, and the low, and the degraded, shall be deprived of the right of petition, if their moral character is not good? Where, in the land of freemen, was the right of petition ever placed on the exclusive basis of morality and virtue? Petition is supplication—it is entreaty—it is prayer! And where is the degree of vice or immorality which shall deprive the citizen of the right to supplicate for a boon, or to pray for mercy! Where is such a law to be found?… And what does your law say? Does it say that, before presenting a petition, you shall look into it, and see whether it comes from the virtuous, and the great, and the mighty. No, sir; it says no such thing. The right of petition belongs to all. And so far from refusing to present a petition because it might come from those low in the estimation of the world, it, would be an additional incentive, if such incentive were wanting.

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From a "Discourse on the Jubilee of the Constitution."

=79.= THE ADMINISTRATION OF WASHINGTON.

When Solon, by the appointment of the people of Athens, had formed, and prevailed upon them to adopt a code of fundamental laws, the best that they would bear, he went into voluntary banishment for ten years, to save his system from the batteries of rival statesmen working upon popular passions and prejudices excited against his person. In eight years of a turbulent and tempestuous administration, Washington had settled upon firm foundations the practical execution of the Constitution of the United States. In the midst of the most appalling obstacles, through the bitterest internal dissensions, and the most formidable combinations of foreign antipathies and cavils, he had subdued all opposition to the Constitution itself; had averted all dangers of European war; had redeemed the captive children of his country from Algiers; had reduced by chastisement, and conciliated by kindness, the most hostile of the Indian tribes; had restored the credit of the nation, and redeemed their reputation of fidelity to the performance of their obligations; had provided for the total extinguishment of the public debt; had settled the union upon the immovable foundation of principle; and had drawn around his head, for the admiration and emulation of after times, a brighter blaze of glory than had ever encircled the brows of hero or statesman, patriot or sage.

The administration of Washington fixed the character of the Constitution of the United States, as a practical system of government, which it retains to this day. Upon his retirement, its great antagonist, Mr. Jefferson, came into the government again, as Vice-President of the United States, and four years after succeeded to the Presidency itself. But the funding system and the bank were established. The peace with both the great belligerent powers of Europe was secured. The disuniting doctrines of unlimited separate State sovereignty were laid aside. Louisiana, by a stretch of power in Congress, far beyond the highest tone of Hamilton, was annexed to the Union—and although dry-docks, and gun-boats, and embargoes, and commercial restrictions, still refused the protection of the national arm to commerce, and although an overweening love of peace, and a reliance upon reason as a weapon of defence against foreign aggression, eventuated in a disastrous though glorious war with the gigantic power of Britain,—the Constitution as construed by Washington, still proved an effective government for the country.

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=Henry Clay, 1777-1832.= (Manual, p. 486.)

From a "Speech in the United States Senate," March 24, 1818.

=80.= EMANCIPATION OF THE SOUTH AMERICAN STATES.

Our Revolution was mainly directed against the mere theory of tyranny. We had suffered comparatively but little; we had, in some respects, been kindly treated; but our intrepid and intelligent forefathers saw, in the usurpation of the power to levy an inconsiderable tax, the long train of oppressive acts that were to follow. They rose; they breasted the storm; they achieved our freedom, Spanish America for centuries has been doomed to the practical effects of an odious tyranny. If we were justified, she is more than justified.

I am no propagandist. I would not seek to force upon other nations our principles and our liberty if they did not want them. I would not disturb the repose even of a detestable despotism. But if an abused and oppressed people will their freedom; if they seek to establish it; if, in truth, they have established it,—we have a right, as a sovereign power, to notice the fact, and to act as circumstances and our interest require. I will say, in the language of the venerated father of my country, "born in a land of liberty, my anxious recollections, my sympathetic feelings, and my best wishes, are irresistibly excited, whensoever, in any country, I see an oppressed nation unfurl the banners of freedom."

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From the "Speech in the Senate on the Compromise Bill."

=81.= DANGERS OF DISUNION.

South Carolina must perceive the embarrassments of her situation. She must be desirous,—it is unnatural to suppose that she is not,—to remain in the Union. What! a State whose heroes in its gallant ancestry fought so many glorious battles along with the other States of this Union,—a State with which this confederacy is linked by bonds of such a powerful character! I have sometimes fancied what would be her condition if she goes out of this Union; if her five hundred thousand people should at once be thrown upon their own resources. She is out of the Union. What is the consequence? She is an independent power. What then does she do? She must have armies and fleets, and an expensive government; have foreign missions; she must raise taxes; enact this very tariff, which has driven her out of the Union, in order to enable her to raise money, and to sustain the attitude of an independent power. If she should have no force, no navy to protect her, she would be exposed to piratical incursions. Their neighbor, St. Domingo, might pour down a horde of pirates on her borders, and desolate her plantations. She must have her embassies; therefore she must have a revenue. And, let me tell you, there is another consequence, an inevitable one. She has a certain description of persons recognized as property South of the Potomac, and West of the Mississippi, which would be no longer recognized as such, except within their own limits. This species of property would sink to one half of its present value, for it is Louisiana and the southwestern States which are her great market.