first magistrate of our common country not to incur the penalty of its
laws, but use the influence that a father would over his children whom he
saw rushing to certain ruin. In that paternal language, with that, paternal
feeling, let me tell you, my countrymen, that you are deluded by men who
are either deceived themselves, or wish to deceive you. Contemplate the
condition of that country of which you still form an important part!
Consider its government, uniting in one bond of common interest and general
protection so many different States--giving to all their inhabitants the
proud title of American citizen--protecting their commerce--securing their
literature and arts--facilitating their intercommunication--defending their
frontiers and making their name respected in the remotest parts of the
earth! Consider the extent of its territory, its increasing and happy
population, its advance in arts which render life agreeable, and the
sciences which elevate the mind! See education spreading the lights of
religion, morality, and general information into every cottage in this wide
extent of our Territories and States! Behold it, as the asylum where the
wretched and the oppressed find a refuge and support! Look on this picture
of happiness and honor, and say "We, too, are citizens of America! Carolina
is one of these proud States; her arms have defended, her best blood has
cemented this happy Union!" And then add, if you can, with out horror and
remorse, "This happy Union we will dissolve this picture of peace and
prosperity we will deface--this free intercourse we will interrupt--these
fertile fields we will deluge with blood--the protection of that glorious
flag we renounce--the very name of Americans we discard!" And for what,
mistaken men! for what do you throw away these inestimable blessings--for
what would you exchange your share in the advantages and honor of the
Union? For the dream of a separate independence--a dream interrupted by
bloody conflicts with your neighbors, and a vile dependence on a foreign
power.
A. Jackson.
L.
THE SAME CONCLUDED.
There is yet time to show, that the descendants of the Pinckneys, the
Sumters the Rutledges, and of the thousand other names which adorn the
pages of your Revolutionary history, will not abandon that Union to support
which so many of them fought, and bled, and died. I adjure you, as you
honor their memory, as you love the cause of freedom to which they
dedicated their lives, as you prize the peace of your country, the lives of
its best citizens, and your own fair fame, to retrace your steps. Snatch
from the archives of your State the disorganizing edict of its
convention,--bid its members to reassemble and promulgate the decided
expression of your will, to remain in the path which alone can conduct you
to safety, prosperity, and honor;--tell them that compared to disunion, all
other evils are light, because that brings with it an accumulation of
all;--declare that you will never take the field, unless the star-spangled
banner of your country shall float over you; that you will not be
stigmatized when dead, and dishonored and scorned while you live, as the
authors of the first attack on the Constitution of your country,--its
destroyers you cannot be.
Fellow-citizens, the momentous case is before you. On your undivided
support of the Government depends the decision of the great question it
involves: whether our sacred Union will be preserved, and the blessings it
secures to us as one people shall be perpetuated. No one can doubt that the
unanimity with which that decision will be expressed, will be such as to
inspire new confidence in republican institutions; and that the prudence,
the wisdom, and the courage, which it will bring to their defense, will
transmit them unimpaired and invigorated to our children. May the Great
Ruler of nations grant that the signal blessings with which He has favored
ours, may not, by the madness of party or personal ambition, be disregarded
and lost; and may His wise Providence bring those who have produced this
crisis, to see their folly, before they feel the misery of civil strife;
and inspire a returning veneration for that Union, which, if we may dare to
penetrate His designs, He has chosen as the only means of obtaining the
high destinies to which we may reasonably aspire.
A. Jackson.
LI.
BURR AND BLENNERHASSETT.
A plain man, who knew nothing of the curious transmutation which the wit of
man can work, would be very apt to wonder by what kind of legerdemain Aaron
Burr had contrived to shuffle himself down to the bottom of the pack, as an
accessory, and turn up poor Blennerhassett as principal, in this treason.
Who, then, is Aaron Burr, and what the part which he has borne in this
transaction? He is its author, its projector, its active executor. Bold,
ardent, restless, and aspiring, his brain conceived it, his hand brought it
into action.
Who is Blennerhassett? A native of Ireland a man of letters, who fled from
the storms of his own country to find quiet in ours. On his arrival in
America, he retired, even from the population of the Atlantic States, and
sought quiet and solitude in the bosom of our western forests. But he
brought with him taste, and science, and wealth; and "lo the desert
smiled!" Possessing himself of a beautiful island in the Ohio, he rears
upon it a palace, and decorates it with every romantic embellishment of
fancy. A shrubbery, that Shenstone might have envied, blooms around him.
Music, that might have charmed Calypso and her nymphs is his. An extensive
library spreads its treasures before him. A philosophical apparatus offers
to him all the secrets and mysteries of Nature. Peace, tranquillity, and
innocence, shed their mingled delights around him. And, to crown the
enchantment of the scene, a wife, who is said to be lovely even beyond her
sex, and graced with every accomplishment that can render it irresistible,
had blessed him with her love, and made him the father of several children.
The evidence would convince you, sir, that this is but a faint picture of
the real life. In the midst of all this peace, this innocence, and this
tranquillity, this feast of the mind, this pure banquet of the heart,--the
destroyer comes. He comes to turn this paradise into a hell. Yet the
flowers do not wither at his approach, and no monitory shuddering through
the bosom of their unfortunate possessor warns him of the ruin that is
coming upon him. A stranger presents himself. It is Aaron Burr. Introduced
to their civilities by the high rank which he had lately held in his
country, he soon finds his way to their hearts, by the dignity and
elegance of his demeanor, the light and beauty of his conversation, and the
seductive and fascinating power of his address. The conquest was not
difficult. Innocence is ever simple and credulous. Conscious of no designs
itself, it suspects none in others. It wears no guards before its breast.
Every door and portal and avenue of the heart is thrown open, and all who
choose it enter. Such was the state of Eden, when the serpent entered its
bowers!
The prisoner, in a more engaging form, winding himself into the open and
unpracticed heart of the unfortunate Blennerhassett, found but little
difficulty in changing the native character of that heart, and the object
of its affection. By degrees, he infuses into it the poison of his own
ambition. He breathes into it the fire of his own courage; a daring,
desperate thirst for glory; an ardor, panting for all the storm, and
bustle, and hurricane of life. In a short time, the whole man is changed,
and every object of his former delight relinquished. No more he enjoys the
tranquil scene; it has become flat and insipid to his taste. His books are
abandoned. His retort and crucible are thrown aside. His shrubbery bloom's
and breathes its fragrance upon the air in vain he likes it not. His ear no
longer drinks the rich melody of music; it longs for the trumpet's clangor,
and the cannon's roar. Even the prattle of his babes, once so sweet, no
longer affects him; and the angel smile of his wife, which hitherto touched
his bosom with ecstasy so unspeakable, is now unfelt and unseen. Greater
objects have taken possession of his soul. His imagination has been dazzled
by visions of diadems, and stars, and garters, and titles of nobility. He
has been taught to burn with restless emulation at the names of great
heroes and conquerors,--of Cromwell, and Cæsar, and Bonaparte. His
enchanted island is destined soon to relapse into a wilderness; and, in a
few months, we find the tender and beautiful partner of his bosom, whom he
lately "permitted not the winds" of summer "to visit too roughly,"--we
find her shivering, at midnight, on the wintry banks of the Ohio, and
mingling her tears with the torrents that froze as they fell.
Yet this unfortunate man, thus deluded from his interest and his
happiness,--thus seduced from the paths of innocents and peace,--thus
confounded in the toils which were deliberately spread for him, and
overwhelmed by the mastering spirit and genius of another,--this man, thus
ruined and undone, and made to play a subordinate part in this grand drama
of guilt and treason,--this man is to be called the principal offender;
while he, by whom he was thus plunged in misery, is comparatively innocent,
a mere accessory! Is this reason? Is it law? Is it humanity? Sir, neither
the human heart nor the human understanding will bear a perversion so
monstrous and absurd; so shocking to the soul; so revolting to reason!
Wm. Wirt.
LII.
CAUSE F0R INDIAN RESENTMENT.
You say you have bought the country. Bought it? Yes; of whom? Of the poor,
trembling natives, who knew that refusal would be vain; and who strove to
make a merit of necessity, by seeming to yield with a grace what they knew
they had not the power to retain.
Alas, the poor Indians! No wonder that they continue so implacably
vindictive against the white people. No wonder that the rage of resentment
is handed down from generation to generation. No wonder that they refuse to
associate and mix permanently with their unjust and cruel invaders and
exterminators. No wonder that, in the unabating spite and frenzy of
conscious impotence, they wage an eternal war, as well as they are able;
that they triumph in the rare opportunity of revenge; that they dance,
sing, and rejoice, as the victim shrinks and faints amid the flames, when
they imagine all the crimes of their oppressors collected on his head, and
fancy the spirits of their injured forefathers hovering over the scene,
smiling with ferocious delight at the grateful spectacle: and feasting on
the precious odor as it arises from the burning blood of the white man. Yet
the people here affect to wonder that the Indians are so very unsusceptible
of civilization; or, in other words, that they so obstinately refuse to
adopt the manners of the white man.
Go, Virginians, erase from the Indian nation the tradition of their wrongs.
Make them forget, if you can, that once this charming country was theirs;
that over these fields and through these forests their beloved forefathers
once, in careless gayety, pursued their sports and hunted their game; that
every returning day found them the sole, the peaceful, and happy
proprietors of this extensive and beautiful domain. Go, administer the cup
of oblivion to recollections like these, and then you will cease to
complain that the Indian refuses to be civilized. But, until then, surely
it is nothing wonderful that a nation, even yet bleeding afresh from the
memory of ancient wrongs, perpetually agonized by new outrages, and goaded
into desperation and madness at the prospect of the certain ruin which
awaits their descendants, should hate the authors of their miseries, of
their desolation, their destruction; should hate their manners, hate their
color, hate their language, hate their name, hate everything that belongs
to them. No, never, until time shall wear out the history of their sorrows
and their sufferings, will the Indian be brought to love the white man, and
to imitate his manners.
Wm. Wirt.
LIII.
SPEECH ON THE BRITISH TREATY.
The refusal of the posts (inevitable if we reject the treaty) is a measure
too decisive in its nature to be neutral in its consequences. If any should
still maintain, that the peace with the Indians will be stable without the
posts, to them I will urge another reply. I will appeal directly to the
hearts of those who hear me, and ask whether conviction is not already
planted there. I resort especially to the convictions of the Western
gentlemen, whether, supposing no posts and no treaty! the settlers will
remain in security? Can they take it upon them to say, that an Indian
peace, under these circumstances, will prove firm? No, sir, it will not be
peace, but a sword; it will be no better than a lure to draw victims within
reach of the tomahawk. On this theme my emotions are unutterable. If I
could find words for them, if my powers bore any proportion to my zeal, I
would swell my voice to such a note of remonstrance, it should reach every
log house beyond the mountains. I would say to the inhabitants, Wake from
your false security! Your cruel dangers, your more cruel apprehensions, are
soon to be renewed. The wounds yet unhealed are to be torn open again. In
the daytime, your path through the woods will be ambushed. The darkness of
midnight will glitter with the blaze of your dwellings. You are a
father--the blood of your sons shall fatten your corn-field. You are a
mother,--the war-whoop shall wake the sleep of the cradle.
On this subject you need not suspect any deception on your feelings. It is
a spectacle of horror which cannot be overdrawn. If you have nature in your
hearts, they will speak a language compared with which all I have said or
can say will be poor and frigid.
Who will accuse me of wandering out of the subject? Who will say that I
exaggerate the tendencies of our measures? Will any one answer by a sneer,
that all this is idle preaching? Would any one deny that we are bound, and
I would hope to good purpose, by the most solemn sanctions of duty for the
vote we give? Are despots alone to be reproached for unfeeling indifference
to the tears and blood of their subjects? Are republicans irresponsible?
Have the principles on which you ground the reproach upon cabinets and
kings no practical influence, no binding force? Are they merely themes of
idle declamation, introduced to decorate the morality of a newspaper essay,
or to furnish pretty topics of harangue from the windows of that State
House? I trust it is neither too presumptuous nor too late to ask, Can you
put the dearest interest of society at risk, without guilt and without
remorse?
It is in vain to offer as an excuse, that public men are not to be
reproached for the evils that may happen to ensue from their measures. This
is very true where they are unforeseen or inevitable. Those I have depicted
are not unforeseen. They are so far from inevitable, we are going to bring
them into being by our vote; we choose the consequences, and become as
justly answerable for them, as for the measure that we know will produce
them.
By rejecting the posts, we light the savage fires, we bind the victims.
This day we undertake to render account to the widows and orphans whom our
decision will make,--to the wretches that will be roasted at the stake,--to
our country,--and I do not deem it too serious to say, to conscience and to
God. We are answerable; and if duty be anything more than a word of
imposture, if conscience be not a bugbear, we are preparing to make
ourselves as wretched as our country. There is no mistake in this case;
there can be none. Experience has already been the prophet of events, and
the cries of our future victims has already reached us. The Western
inhabitants are not a silent and uncomplaining sacrifice. The voice of
humanity issues from the shade of the wilderness. It exclaims, that while
one hand is held up to reject this treaty, the other grasps the tomahawk.
It summons our imagination to the scenes that will open. It is no great
effort of the imagination to conceive that events so near are already
begun. I can fancy that I listen to the yells of savage vengeance and the
shrieks of torture! Already they seem to sigh in the western wind! Already
they mingle with every echo from the mountains!
F. Ames.
LIV.
SPEECH AGAINST A LIBELLER.
I am one of those who believe that the heart of the wilful and deliberate
libeller is blacker than that of the highway robber, or of one who commits
the crime of midnight arson. The man who plunders on the highway may have
the semblance of an apology for what he does. An affectionate wife may
demand subsistence; a circle of helpless children raise to him the
supplicating hand for food. He may be driven to the desperate act by the
high mandate of imperative necessity. The mild features of the husband and
father may intermingle with those of the robber and soften the roughness of
the shade. But the robber of character plunders that which "not enricheth
him," though it makes his neighbor "poor indeed." The man who at the
midnight hour consumes his neighbor's dwelling does him an injury which
perhaps is not irreparable. Industry may rear another habitation. The storm
may indeed descend upon him until charity opens a neighboring door; the
rude winds of heaven may whistle around his uncovered family. But he looks
forward to better days; he has yet a hook left to hang a hope on. No such
consolation cheers the heart of him whose character has been torn from him.
If innocent he may look, like Anaxagoras, to the heavens; but he must be
constrained to feel this world is to him a wilderness. For whither shall he
go? Shall he dedicate himself to the service of his country? But will his
country receive him? Will she employ in her councils, or in her armies, the
man at whom the "slow unmoving finger of scorn" is pointed? Shall he betake
himself to the fireside? The story of his disgrace will enter his own doors
before him. And can he bear, think you, can he bear the sympathizing
agonies of a distressed wife? Can he endure the formidable presence of
scrutinizing, sneering domestics? Will his children receive instructions
from the lips of a disgraced father?
Gentlemen, I am not ranging on fairy ground. I am telling the plain story
of my client's wrongs. By the guiltless hand of malice his character has
been wantonly massacred,--and he now appears before a jury of his country
for redress. Will you deny him this redress? Is character valuable? On this
point I will not insult you with argument. There are certain things to
argue which is treason against nature. The Author of our being did not
intend to leave this point afloat at the mercy of opinion, but with His own
hand has He kindly planted in the soul of man an instinctive love of
character. This high sentiment has no affinity to pride. It is the
ennobling quality of the soul; and if we have hitherto been elevated above
the ranks of surrounding creation, human nature owes its elevation to the
love of character. It is the love of character for which the poet has sung,
the philosopher toiled, the hero bled. It is the love of character which
wrought miracles at ancient Greece; the love of character is the eagle on
which Rome rose to empire. And it is the love of character, animating the
bosoms of her sons, on which America must depend in those approaching
crises that may "try men's soul's." Will a jury weaken this our nation's
hope? Will they by their verdict pronounce to the youth of our country,
that character is scarce worth possessing?
We read of that philosophy which can smile at the destruction of
property--of that religion which enables its possessor to extend the benign
look of forgiveness and complacency to his murderers. But it is not in the
soul of man to bear the laceration of slander. The philosophy which could
bear it we should despise. The religion which could bear it we should not
despise,--but we should be constrained to say, that its kingdom was not of
this world.
Griffin.
LV.
NEW ENGLAND AND THE UNION.
Glorious New England! thou art still time to thy ancient fame, and worthy
of thy ancestral honors. We, thy children, have assembled in this
far-distant land to celebrate thy birthday. A thousand fond associations
throng upon us, roused by the spirit of the hour. On thy pleasant valleys
rest, like sweet dews of morning, the gentle recollections of our early
life; around thy hills and mountains cling, like gathering mists, the
mighty memories of the Revolution; and, far away in the horizon of thy
past, gleam, like thy own bright northern lights, the awful virtues of our
Pilgrim Sires!
But while we devote this day to the remembrance of our native land, we
forget not that in which our happy lot is cast. We exult in the reflection,
that though we count by thousands the miles which separate us from our
birthplace, still our country is the same. We are no exiles, meeting upon
the banks of a foreign river to swell its waters with our homesick tears.
Here floats the same banner which rustled above our boyish heads, except
that its mighty folds are wider, and its glittering stars increased in
number.
The sons of New England are found in every State of the broad Republic. In
the East, the South, and the unbounded West, their blood mingles freely
with every kindred current. We have but changed our chamber in the paternal
mansion; in all its rooms we are at home, and all who inhabit it are our
brothers. To us the Union has but one domestic hearth; its household gods
are all the same. Upon us then peculiarly devolves the duty of feeding the
fires upon that kindly hearth, of guarding with pious care those sacred
household gods.
We cannot do with less than the whole Union; to us it admits of no
division. In the veins of our children flows Northern and Southern blood.
How shall it be separated? Who shall put asunder the best affections of the
heart, the noblest instincts of our nature? We love the land of our
adoption; so do we that of our birth. Let us ever be true to both, and
always exert ourselves in maintaining the unity of our country, the
integrity of the Republic. Accursed, then, be the hand put forth to loosen
the golden cord of the Union!--thrice accursed the traitorous lips which
shall propose its severance! But no; the Union cannot be dissolved. Its
fortunes are too brilliant to be marred; its destinies too powerful to be
resisted. Here will be their greatest triumphs, their most mighty
development. And when, a century hence, this Crescent City shall have
filled her golden horns,--when within her broad-armed port shall be
gathered the products of the industry of a hundred millions of
freemen,--when galleries of art and halls of learning shall have made
classic this mart of trade,--then may the sons of the Pilgrims, still
wandering from the bleak hills of the North, stand upon the banks of the
great river and exclaim with mingled pride and wonder,--"Lo, this is our
country: when did the world ever behold so rich and magnificent a city,--so
great and glorious a Republic!"
S. S. Prentiss.
LVI.
ON SENDING RELIEF TO IRELAND.
We have assembled, not to respond to shouts of triumph from the West, but
to answer to the cry of want and suffering which comes from the East. The
Old World stretches out her arms to the New. The starving parent
supplicates the young and vigorous child for bread. There lies, upon the
other side of the wide Atlantic, a beautiful island famous in history and
in song. Its area is not so great as that of the State of Louisiana, while
its population is almost half that of the Union. It has given to the world
more than its share of genius and of greatness. It has been prolific in
statesmen, warriors, and poets. Its brave and generous sons have fought
successfully all battles but their own. In wit and humor it has no equal,
while its harp, like its history, moves to tears, by its sweet but
melancholy pathos. Into this fair region God has seen fit to send the most
terrible of all those fearful ministers who fulfil his inscrutable decrees.
The earth has failed to give her increase; the common mother has forgotten
her offspring, and her breast no longer affords them their accustomed
nourishment. Famine, gaunt and ghastly famine, has seized a nation in its
strangling grasp; and unhappy Ireland, in the sad woes of the present,
forgets, for a moment, the gloomy history of the past.
Oh, it is terrible, in this beautiful world: which the good God has given
us, and in which there is plenty for us all, that men should die of
starvation! You who see, each day, poured into the lap of your city, food
sufficient to assuage the hunger of a nation, can form but an imperfect
idea of the horrors of famine. In battle, in the fulness of his pride and
strength, little recks the soldier whether the hissing bullet sings his
sudden requiem, or the cords of life are severed by the sharp steel. But he
who dies of hunger, wrestles alone, day after day with his grim and
unrelenting enemy. The blood recedes, the flesh deserts, the muscles relax,
and the sinews grow powerless. At last, the mind, which, at first, had
bravely nerved itself for the contest, gives way, under the mysterious
influences which govern its union with the body. Then he begins to doubt
the existence of an overruling Providence; he hates his fellow-men, and
glares upon them with the longings of a cannibal, and it may be, dies
blaspheming!