We must educate! We must educate! or we must perish by our own prosperity.
If we do not, short will be our race from the cradle to the grave. If, in
our haste to be rich and mighty, we outrun our literary and religious
institutions, they will never overtake us; or only come up after the
battle of liberty is fought and lost, as spoils to grace the victory, and
as resources of inexorable despotism for the perpetuity of our bondage.
But what will become of the West if her prosperity rushes up to such a
majesty of power, while those great institutions linger which are
necessary to form the mind, and the conscience, and the heart of the vast
world? It must not be permitted. And yet what is done must be done
quickly; for population will not wait, and commerce will not cast anchor,
and manufactures will not shut off the steam, nor shut down the gate, and
agriculture, pushed by millions of freemen on their fertile soil, will not
withhold her corrupting abundance.
And let no man at the East quiet himself, and dream of liberty, whatever
may become of the West. Our alliance of blood, and political institutions,
and common interests, is such, that we can not stand aloof in the hour of
her calamity, should it ever come. Her destiny is our destiny; and the day
that her gallant ship goes down, our little boat sinks in the vortex!
The great experiment is now making, and from its extent and rapid filling
up, is making in the West, whether the perpetuity of our republican
institutions can be reconciled with universal suffrage. Without the
education of the head and heart of the nation, they can not be; and the
question to be decided is, can the nation, or the vast balance power of
it, be so imbued with intelligence and virtue as to bring out, in laws and
their administration, a perpetual self-preserving energy. We know that the
work is a vast one, and of great difficulty; and yet we believe it can be
done.
I am aware that our ablest patriots are looking out on the deep, vexed
with storms, with great forebodings and failings of heart, for fear of the
things that are coming upon us; and I perceive a spirit of impatience
rising, and distrust in respect to the perpetuity of our republic; and I
am sure that these fears are well founded, and am glad that they exist. It
is the star of hope in our dark horizon. Fear is what we need, as the ship
needs wind on a rocking sea, after a storm, to prevent foundering. But
when our fear and our efforts shall correspond with our danger, the danger
is past.
For it is not the impossibility of self-preservation which threatens us;
nor is it the unwillingness of the nation to pay the price of the
preservation, as she has paid the price of the purchase of our liberties.
It is inattention and inconsideration, protracted till the crisis is past,
and the things which belong to our peace are hid from our eyes. And
blessed be God, that the tokens of a national waking up, the harbinger of
God's mercy, are multiplying upon us!
We did not, in the darkest hour, believe that God had brought our fathers
to this goodly land to lay the foundation of religious liberty, and
wrought such wonders in their preservation, and raised their descendants
to such heights of civil and religious liberty, only to reverse the
analogy of his providence, and abandon his work.
And though there now be clouds, and the sea roaring, and men's hearts
failing, we believe there is light behind the cloud, and that the
imminence of our danger is intended, under the guidance of Heaven, to call
forth and apply a holy, fraternal fellowship between the East and the
West, which shall secure our preservation, and make the prosperity of our
nation durable as time, and as abundant as the waves of the sea.
I would add, as a motive to immediate action, that if we do fail in our
great experiment of self-government, our destruction will be as signal as
the birthright abandoned, the mercies abused, and the provocation offered
to beneficent Heaven. The descent of desolation will correspond with the
past elevation.
No punishments of Heaven are so severe as those for mercies abused; and no
instrumentality employed in their infliction is so dreadful as the wrath
of man. No spasms are like the spasms of expiring liberty, and no wailing
such as her convulsions extort.
It took Rome three hundred years to die; and our death, if we perish, will
be as much more terrific as our intelligence and free institutions have
given us more bone, sinew, and vitality. May God hide from me the day when
the dying agonies of my country shall begin! O thou beloved land, bound
together by the ties of brotherhood, and common interest, and perils! live
forever--one and undivided!
--Lyman Beecher.