Among the ancient nations, the Greeks, no doubt, sent forth from their

territories the greatest number of colonies. So numerous, indeed, were

they, and so great the extent of space over which they were spread,

that the parent country fondly and naturally persuaded herself, that by

means of them she had laid a sure foundation for the universal

civilization of the world. These establishments, from obvious causes,

were most numerous in places most contiguous; yet they were found on

the coasts of France, on the shores of the Euxine Sea, in Africa, and

even, as is alleged, on the borders of India. These emigrations appear

to have been sometimes voluntary and sometimes compulsory; arising from

the spontaneous enterprise of individuals, or the order and regulation

of government. It was a common opinion with ancient writers, that they

were undertaken in religious obedience to the commands of oracles, and

it is probable that impressions of this sort might have had more or

less influence; but it is probable, also, that on these occasions the

oracles did not speak a language dissonant from the views and purposes

of the state.

Political science among the Greeks seems never to have extended to the

comprehension of a system, which should be adequate to the government

of a great nation upon principles of liberty. They were accustomed only

to the contemplation of small republics, and were led to consider an

augmented population as incompatible with free institutions. The desire

of a remedy for this supposed evil, and the wish to establish marts for

trade, led the governments often to undertake the establishment of

colonies as an affair of state expediency. Colonization and commerce,

indeed, would naturally become objects of interest to an ingenious and

enterprising people, inhabiting a territory closely circumscribed in

its limits, and in no small part mountainous and sterile; while the

islands of the adjacent seas, and the promontories and coasts of the

neighboring continents, by their mere proximity, strongly solicited the

excited spirit of emigration. Such was this proximity, in many

instances, that the new settlements appeared rather to be the mere

extension of population over contiguous territory, than the

establishment of distant colonies. In proportion as they were near to

the parent state, they would be under its authority, and partake of its

fortunes. The colony at Marseilles might perceive lightly, or not at

all, the sway of Phocis; while the islands in the Aegean Sea could

hardly attain to independence of their Athenian origin. Many of these

establishments took place at an early age; and if there were defects in

the governments of the parent states, the colonists did not possess

philosophy or experience sufficient to correct such evils in their own

institutions, even if they had not been, by other causes, deprived of

the power. An immediate necessity, connected with the support of life,

was the main and direct inducement to these undertakings, and there

could hardly exist more than the hope of a successful imitation of

institutions with which they were already acquainted, and of holding an

equality with their neighbors in the course of improvement. The laws

and customs, both political and municipal, as well as the religious

worship of the parent city, were transferred to the colony; and the

parent city herself, with all such of her colonies as were not too far

remote for frequent intercourse and common sentiments, would appear

like a family of cities, more or less dependent, and more or less

connected. We know how imperfect this system was, as a system of

general politics, and what scope it gave to those mutual dissensions

and conflicts which proved so fatal to Greece.

But it is more pertinent to our present purpose to observe, that

nothing existed in the character of Grecian emigrations, or in the

spirit and intelligence of the emigrants, likely to give a new and

important direction to human affairs, or a new impulse to the human

mind. Their motives were not high enough, their views were not

sufficiently large and prospective. They went not forth, like our

ancestors, to erect systems of more perfect civil liberty, or to enjoy

a higher degree of religious freedom. Above all, there was nothing in

the religion and learning of the age, that could either inspire high

purposes, or give the ability to execute them. Whatever restraints on

civil liberty, or whatever abuses in religious worship, existed at the

time of our fathers' emigration, yet even then all was light in the

moral and mental world, in comparison with its condition in most

periods of the ancient states. The settlement of a new continent, in an

age of progressive knowledge and improvement, could not but do more

than merely enlarge the natural boundaries of the habitable world. It

could not but do much more even than extend commerce and increase

wealth among the human race. We see how this event has acted, how it

must have acted, and wonder only why it did not act sooner, in the

production of moral effects, on the state of human knowledge, the

general tone of human sentiments, and the prospects of human happiness.

It gave to civilized man not only a new continent to be inhabited and

cultivated, and new seas to be explored; but it gave him also a new

range for his thoughts, new objects for curiosity, and new excitements

to knowledge and improvement.

Roman colonization resembled, far less than that of the Greeks, the

original settlements of this country. Power and dominion were the

objects of Rome, even in her colonial establishments. Her whole

exterior aspect was for centuries hostile and terrific. She grasped at

dominion, from India to Britain, and her measures of colonization

partook of the character of her general system. Her policy was

military, because her objects were power, ascendency, and subjugation.

Detachments of emigrants from Rome incorporated themselves with, and

governed, the original inhabitants of conquered countries. She sent

citizens where she had first sent soldiers; her law followed her sword.

Her colonies were a sort of military establishment; so many advanced

posts in the career of her dominion. A governor from Rome ruled the new

colony with absolute sway, and often with unbounded rapacity. In

Sicily, in Gaul, in Spain, and in Asia, the power of Rome prevailed,

not nominally only, but really and effectually. Those who immediately

exercised it were Roman; the tone and tendency of its administration,

Roman. Rome herself continued to be the heart and centre of the great

system which she had established. [6] Extortion and rapacity, finding a

wide and often rich field of action in the provinces, looked

nevertheless to the banks of the Tiber, as the scene in which their

ill-gotten treasures should be displayed; or, if a spirit of more

honest acquisition prevailed, the object, nevertheless, was ultimate

enjoyment in Rome itself. If our own history and our own times did not

sufficiently expose the inherent and incurable evils of provincial

government, we might see them portrayed, to our amazement, in the

desolated and ruined provinces of the Roman empire. We might hear them,

in a voice that terrifies us, in those strains of complaint and

accusation, which the advocates of the provinces poured forth in the

Roman Forum:--"Quas res luxuries in flagitiis, crudelitas in

suppliciis, avaritia in rapinis, superbia in contumeliis, efficere

potuisset, eas omnes sese pertulisse."

As was to be expected, the Roman Provinces partook of the fortunes, as

well as of the sentiments and general character, of the seat of empire.

They lived together with her, they flourished with her, and fell with

her. The branches were lopped away even before the vast and venerable

trunk itself fell prostrate to the earth. Nothing had proceeded from

her which could support itself, and bear up the name of its origin,

when her own sustaining arm should be enfeebled or withdrawn. It was

not given to Rome to see, either at her zenith or in her decline, a

child of her own, distant, indeed, and independent of her control, yet

speaking her language and inheriting her blood, springing forward to a

competition with her own power, and a comparison with her own great

renown. She saw not a vast region of the earth peopled from her stock,

full of states and political communities, improving upon the models of

her institutions, and breathing in fuller measure the spirit which she

had breathed in the best periods of her existence; enjoying and

extending her arts and her literature; rising rapidly from political

childhood to manly strength and independence; her offspring, yet now

her equal; unconnected with the causes which might affect the duration

of her own power and greatness; of common origin, but not linked to a

common fate; giving ample pledge, that her name should not be

forgotten, that her language should not cease to be used among men;

that whatsoever she had done for human knowledge and human happiness

should be treasured up and preserved; that the record of her existence

and her achievements should not be obscured, although, in the

inscrutable purposes of Providence, it might be her destiny to fall

from opulence and splendor; although the time might come, when darkness

should settle on all her hills; when foreign or domestic violence

should overturn her altars and her temples; when ignorance and

despotism should fill the places where Laws, and Arts, and Liberty had

flourished; when the feet of barbarism should trample on the tombs of

her consuls, and the walls of her senate-house and forum echo only to

the voice of savage triumph. She saw not this glorious vision, to

inspire and fortify her against the possible decay or downfall of her

power. Happy are they who in our day may behold it, if they shall

contemplate it with the sentiments which it ought to inspire!

The New England Colonies differ quite as widely from the Asiatic

establishments of the modern European nations, as from the models of

the ancient states. The sole object of those establishments was

originally trade; although we have seen, in one of them, the anomaly of

a mere trading company attaining a political character, disbursing

revenues, and maintaining armies and fortresses, until it has extended

its control over seventy millions of people. Differing from these, and

still more from the New England and North American Colonies, are the

European settlements in the West India Islands. It is not strange,

that, when men's minds were turned to the settlement of America,

different objects should be proposed by those who emigrated to the

different regions of so vast a country. Climate, soil, and condition

were not equally favorable to all pursuits. In the West Indies, the

purpose of those who went thither was to engage in that species of

agriculture, suited to the soil and climate, which seems to bear more

resemblance to commerce than to the hard and plain tillage of New

England. The great staples of these countries, being partly an

agricultural and partly a manufactured product, and not being of the

necessaries of life, become the object of calculation, with respect to

a profitable investment of capital, like any other enterprise of trade

or manufacture. The more especially, as, requiring, by necessity or

habit, slave labor for their production, the capital necessary to carry

on the work of this production is very considerable. The West Indies

are resorted to, therefore, rather for the investment of capital than

for the purpose of sustaining life by personal labor. Such as possess a

considerable amount of capital, or such as choose to adventure in

commercial speculations without capital, can alone be fitted to be

emigrants to the islands. The agriculture of these regions, as before

observed, is a sort of commerce; and it is a species of employment in

which labor seems to form an inconsiderable ingredient in the

productive causes, since the portion of white labor is exceedingly

small, and slave labor is rather more like profit on stock or capital

than _labor_ properly so called. The individual who undertakes an

establishment of this kind takes into the account the cost of the

necessary number of slaves, in the same manner as he calculates the

cost of the land. The uncertainty, too, of this species of employment,

affords another ground of resemblance to commerce. Although gainful on

the whole, and in a series of years, it is often very disastrous for a

single year, and, as the capital is not readily invested in other

pursuits, bad crops or bad markets not only affect the profits, but the

capital itself. Hence the sudden depressions which take place in the

value of such estates.

But the great and leading observation, relative to these

establishments, remains to be made. It is, that the owners of the soil

and of the capital seldom consider themselves _at home_ in the colony.

A very great portion of the soil itself is usually owned in the mother

country; a still greater is mortgaged for capital obtained there; and,

in general, those who are to derive an interest from the products look

to the parent country as the place for enjoyment of their wealth. The

population is therefore constantly fluctuating. Nobody comes but to

return. A constant succession of owners, agents, and factors takes

place. Whatsoever the soil, forced by the unmitigated toil of slavery,

can yield, is sent home to defray rents, and interest, and agencies, or

to give the means of living in a better society. In such a state, it is

evident that no spirit of permanent improvement is likely to spring up.

Profits will not be invested with a distant view of benefiting

posterity. Roads and canals will hardly be built; schools will not be

founded; colleges will not be endowed. There will be few fixtures in

society; no principles of utility or of elegance, planted now, with the

hope of being developed and expanded hereafter. Profit, immediate

profit, must be the principal active spring in the social system. There

may be many particular exceptions to these general remarks, but the

outline of the whole is such as is here drawn.[7]

Another most important consequence of such a state of things is, that

no idea of independence of the parent country is likely to arise;

unless, indeed, it should spring up in a form that would threaten

universal desolation. The inhabitants have no strong attachment to the

place which they inhabit. The hope of a great portion of them is to

leave it; and their great desire, to leave it soon. However useful they

may be to the parent state, how much soever they may add to the

conveniences and luxuries of life, these colonies are not favored spots

for the expansion of the human mind, for the progress of permanent

improvement, or for sowing the seeds of future independent empire.

Different, indeed, most widely different, from all these instances, of

emigration and plantation, were the condition, the purposes, and the

prospects of our fathers, when they established their infant colony

upon this spot. They came hither to a land from which they were never

to return. Hither they had brought, and here they were to fix, their

hopes, their attachments, and their objects in life. Some natural tears

they shed, as they left the pleasant abodes of their fathers, and some

emotions they suppressed, when the white cliffs of their native

country, now seen for the last time, grew dim to their sight. They were

acting, however, upon a resolution not to be daunted. With whatever

stifled regrets, with whatever occasional hesitation, with whatever

appalling apprehensions, which might sometimes arise with force to

shake the firmest purpose, they had yet committed themselves to Heaven

and the elements; and a thousand leagues of water soon interposed to

separate them for ever from the region which gave them birth. A new

existence awaited them here; and when they saw these shores, rough,

cold, barbarous, and barren, as then they were, they beheld their

country. That mixed and strong feeling, which we call love of country,

and which is, in general, never extinguished in the heart of man,

grasped and embraced its proper object here. Whatever constitutes

_country_, except the earth and the sun, all the moral causes of

affection and attachment which operate upon the heart, they had brought

with them to their new abode. Here were now their families and friends,

their homes, and their property. Before they reached the shore, they

had established the elements of a social system,[8] and at a much

earlier period had settled their forms of religious worship. At the

moment of their landing, therefore, they possessed institutions of

government, and institutions of religion: and friends and families, and

social and religious institutions, framed by consent, founded on choice

and preference, how nearly do these fill up our whole idea of country!

The morning that beamed on the first night of their repose saw the

Pilgrims already _at home_ in their country. There were political

institutions, and civil liberty, and religious worship. Poetry has

fancied nothing, in the wanderings of heroes, so distinct and

characteristic. Here was man, indeed, unprotected, and unprovided for,

on the shore of a rude and fearful wilderness; but it was politic,

intelligent, and educated man. Every thing was civilized but the

physical world. Institutions, containing in substance all that ages had

done for human government, were organized in a forest.[9] Cultivated

mind was to act on uncultivated nature; and, more than all, a

government and a country were to commence, with the very first

foundations laid under the divine light of the Christian religion.

Happy auspices of a happy futurity! Who would wish that his country's

existence had otherwise begun? Who would desire the power of going back

to the ages of fable? Who would wish for an origin obscured in the

darkness of antiquity? Who would wish for other emblazoning of his

country's heraldry, or other ornaments of her genealogy, than to be

able to say, that her first existence was with intelligence, her first

breath the inspiration of liberty, her first principle the truth of

divine religion?

Local attachments and sympathies would ere long spring up in the

breasts of our ancestors, endearing to them the place of their refuge.

Whatever natural objects are associated with interesting scenes and

high efforts obtain a hold on human feeling, and demand from the heart

a sort of recognition and regard. This Rock soon became hallowed in the

esteem of the Pilgrims, and these hills grateful to their sight.

Neither they nor their children were again to till the soil of England,

nor again to traverse the seas which surround her. But here was a new

sea, now open to their enterprise, and a new soil, which had not failed

to respond gratefully to their laborious industry, and which was

already assuming a robe of verdure. Hardly had they provided shelter

for the living, ere they were summoned to erect sepulchres for the

dead. The ground had become sacred, by enclosing the remains of some of

their companions and connections. A parent, a child, a husband, or a

wife, had gone the way of all flesh, and mingled with the dust of New

England. We naturally look with strong emotions to the spot, though it

be a wilderness, where the ashes of those we have loved repose. Where

the heart has laid down what it loved most, there it is desirous of

laying itself down. No sculptured marble, no enduring monument, no

honorable inscription, no ever-burning taper that would drive away the

darkness of the tomb, can soften our sense of the reality of death, and

hallow to our feelings the ground which is to cover us, like the

consciousness that we shall sleep, dust to dust, with the objects of

our affections.

In a short time other causes sprung up to bind the Pilgrims with new

cords to their chosen land. Children were born, and the hopes of future

generations arose, in the spot of their new habitation. The second

generation found this the land of their nativity, and saw that they

were bound to its fortunes. They beheld their fathers' graves around

them, and while they read the memorials of their toils and labors, they

rejoiced in the inheritance which they found bequeathed to them.

Under the influence of these causes, it was to be expected that an

interest and a feeling should arise here, entirely different from the

interest and feeling of mere Englishmen; and all the subsequent history

of the Colonies proves this to have actually and gradually taken place.

With a general acknowledgment of the supremacy of the British crown,

there was, from the first, a repugnance to an entire submission to the

control of British legislation. The Colonies stood upon their charters,

which, as they contended, exempted them from the ordinary power of the

British Parliament, and authorized them to conduct their own concerns

by their own counsels. They utterly resisted the notion that they were

to be ruled by the mere authority of the government at home, and would

not endure even that their own charter governments should be

established on the other side of the Atlantic. It was not a controlling

or protecting board in England, but a government of their own, and

existing immediately within their limits, which could satisfy their

wishes. It was easy to foresee, what we know also to have happened,

that the first great cause of collision and jealousy would be, under

the notion of political economy then and still prevalent in Europe, an

attempt on the part of the mother country to monopolize the trade of

the Colonies. Whoever has looked deeply into the causes which produced

our Revolution has found, if I mistake not, the original principle far

back in this claim, on the part of England, to monopolize our trade,

and a continued effort on the part of the Colonies to resist or evade

that monopoly; if, indeed, it be not still more just and philosophical

to go farther back, and to consider it decided, that an independent

government must arise here, the moment it was ascertained that an

English colony, such as landed in this place, could sustain itself

against the dangers which surrounded it, and, with other similar

establishments, overspread the land with an English population.

Accidental causes retarded at times, and at times accelerated, the

progress of the controversy. The Colonies wanted strength, and time

gave it to them. They required measures of strong and palpable

injustice, on the part of the mother country, to justify resistance;

the early part of the late king's reign furnished them. They needed

spirits of high order, of great daring, of long foresight, and of

commanding power, to seize the favoring occasion to strike a blow,

which should sever, for all time, the tie of colonial dependence; and

these spirits were found, in all the extent which that or any crisis

could demand, in Otis, Adams, Hancock, and the other immediate authors

of our independence.

Still, it is true that, for a century, causes had been in operation

tending to prepare things for this great result. In the year 1660 the

English Act of Navigation was passed; the first and grand object of

which seems to have been, to secure to England the whole trade with her

plantations. It was provided by that act, that none but English ships

should transport American produce over the ocean, and that the

principal articles of that produce should be allowed to be sold only in

the markets of the mother country. Three years afterwards another law

was passed, which enacted, that such commodities as the Colonies might

wish to purchase should be bought only in the markets of the mother

country. Severe rules were prescribed to enforce the provisions of

these laws, and heavy penalties imposed on all who should violate them.

In the subsequent years of the same reign, other statutes were enacted

to re-enforce these statutes, and other rules prescribed to secure a

compliance with these rules. In this manner was the trade to and from

the Colonies restricted, almost to the exclusive advantage of the

parent country. But laws, which rendered the interest of a whole people

subordinate to that of another people, were not likely to execute

themselves; nor was it easy to find many on the spot, who could be

depended upon for carrying them into execution. In fact, these laws

were more or less evaded or resisted, in all the Colonies. To enforce

them was the constant endeavor of the government at home; to prevent or

elude their operation, the perpetual object here. "The laws of

navigation," says a living British writer, "were nowhere so openly

disobeyed and contemned as in New England." "The people of

Massachusetts Bay," he adds, "were from the first disposed to act as if

independent of the mother country, and having a governor and

magistrates of their own choice, it was difficult to enforce any

regulation which came from the English Parliament, adverse to their

interests." To provide more effectually for the execution of these

laws, we know that courts of admiralty were afterwards established by

the crown, with power to try revenue causes, as questions of admiralty,

upon the construction given by the crown lawyers to an act of

Parliament; a great departure from the ordinary principles of English

jurisprudence, but which has been maintained, nevertheless, by the

force of habit and precedent, and is adopted in our own existing

systems of government.

"There lie," says another English writer, whose connection with the

Board of Trade has enabled him to ascertain many facts connected with

Colonial history, "There lie among the documents in the board of trade

and state-paper office, the most satisfactory proofs, from the epoch of

the English Revolution in 1688, throughout every reign, and during

every administration, of the settled purpose of the Colonies to acquire

direct independence and positive sovereignty." Perhaps this may be

stated somewhat too strongly; but it cannot be denied, that, from the

very nature of the establishments here, and from the general character

of the measures respecting their concerns early adopted and steadily

pursued by the English government, a division of the empire was the

natural and necessary result to which every thing tended.

I have dwelt on this topic, because it seems to me, that the peculiar

original character of the New England Colonies, and certain causes

coeval with their existence, have had a strong and decided influence on

all their subsequent history, and especially on the great event of the

Revolution. Whoever would write our history, and would understand and

explain early transactions, should comprehend the nature and force of

the feeling which I have endeavored to describe. As a son, leaving the

house of his father for his own, finds, by the order of nature, and the

very law of his being, nearer and dearer objects around which his

affections circle, while his attachment to the parental roof becomes

moderated, by degrees, to a composed regard and an affectionate

remembrance; so our ancestors, leaving their native land, not without

some violence to the feelings of nature and affection, yet, in time,

found here a new circle of engagements, interests, and affections; a

feeling, which more and more encroached upon the old, till an undivided

sentiment, _that this was their country_, occupied the heart; and

patriotism, shutting out from its embraces the parent realm, became

_local_ to America. Some retrospect of the century which has now

elapsed is among the duties of the occasion. It must, however,

necessarily be imperfect, to be compressed within the limits of a

single discourse. I shall content myself, therefore, with taking notice

of a few of the leading and most important occurrences which have

distinguished the period.

When the first century closed, the progress of the country appeared to

have been considerable; notwithstanding that, in comparison with its

subsequent advancement, it now seems otherwise. A broad and lasting

foundation had been laid; excellent institutions had been established;

many of the prejudices of former times had been removed; a more liberal

and catholic spirit on subjects of religious concern had begun to

extend itself, and many things conspired to give promise of increasing

future prosperity. Great men had arisen in public life, and the liberal

professions. The Mathers, father and son, were then sinking low in the

western horizon; Leverett, the learned, the accomplished, the excellent

Leverett, was about to withdraw his brilliant and useful light. In

Pemberton great hopes had been suddenly extinguished, but Prince and

Colman were in our sky; and along the east had begun to flash the

crepuscular light of a great luminary which was about to appear, and

which was to stamp the age with his own name, as the age of Franklin.

The bloody Indian wars, which harassed the people for a part of the

first century; the restrictions on the trade of the Colonies, added to

the discouragements inherently belonging to all forms of colonial

government; the distance from Europe, and the small hope of immediate

profit to adventurers, are among the causes which had contributed to

retard the progress of population. Perhaps it may be added, also, that

during the period of the civil wars in England, and the reign of

Cromwell, many persons, whose religious opinions and religious temper

might, under other circumstances, have induced them to join the New

England colonists, found reasons to remain in England; either on

account of active occupation in the scenes which were passing, or of an

anticipation of the enjoyment, in their own country, of a form of

government, civil and religious, accommodated to their views and

principles. The violent measures, too, pursued against the Colonies in

the reign of Charles the Second, the mockery of a trial, and the

forfeiture of the charters, were serious evils. And during the open

violences of the short reign of James the Second, and the tyranny of

Andros, as the venerable historian of Connecticut observes, "All the

motives to great actions, to industry, economy, enterprise, wealth, and

population, were in a manner annihilated. A general inactivity and

languishment pervaded the public body. Liberty, property, and every

thing which ought to be dear to men, every day grew more and more

insecure." With the Revolution in England, a better prospect had

opened on this country, as well as on that. The joy had been as great

at that event, and far more universal, in New than in Old England. A

new charter had been granted to Massachusetts, which, although it did

not confirm to her inhabitants all their former privileges, yet

relieved them from great evils and embarrassments, and promised future

security. More than all, perhaps, the Revolution in England had done

good to the general cause of liberty and justice. A blow had been

struck in favor of the rights and liberties, not of England alone, but

of descendants and kinsmen of England all over the world. Great

political truths had been established the champions of liberty had been

successful in a fearful and perilous conflict. Somers, and Cavendish,

and Jekyl, and Howard, had triumphed in one of the most noble causes

ever undertaken by men. A revolution had been made upon principle. A

monarch had been dethroned for violating the original compact between

king and people. The rights of the people to partake in the government,

and to limit the monarch by fundamental rules of government, had been

maintained; and however unjust the government of England might

afterwards be towards other governments or towards her colonies, she

had ceased to be governed herself by the arbitrary maxims of the

Stuarts.

New England had submitted to the violence of James the Second not

longer than Old England. Not only was it reserved to Massachusetts,

that on her soil should be acted the first scene of that great

revolutionary drama, which was to take place near a century afterwards,

but the English Revolution itself, as far as the Colonies were

concerned, commenced in Boston. The seizure and imprisonment of Andros,

in April, 1689, were acts of direct and forcible resistance to the

authority of James the Second. The pulse of liberty beat as high in the

extremities as at the heart. The vigorous feeling of the Colony burst

out before it was known how the parent country would finally conduct

herself. The king's representative, Sir Edmund Andros, was a prisoner

in the castle at Boston, before it was or could be known that the king

himself had ceased to exercise his full dominion on the English throne.

Before it was known here whether the invasion of the Prince of Orange

would or could prove successful, as soon as it was known that it had

been undertaken, the people of Massachusetts, at the imminent hazard of

their lives and fortunes, had accomplished the Revolution as far as

respected themselves. It is probable that, reasoning on general

principles and the known attachment of the English people to their

constitution and liberties, and their deep and fixed dislike of the

king's religion and politics, the people of New England expected a

catastrophe fatal to the power of the reigning prince. Yet it was

neither certain enough, nor near enough, to come to their aid against

the authority of the crown, in that crisis which had arrived, and in

which they trusted to put themselves, relying on God and their own

courage. There were spirits in Massachusetts congenial with the spirits

of the distinguished friends of the Revolution in England. There were

those who were fit to associate with the boldest asserters of civil

liberty; and Mather himself, then in England, was not unworthy to be

ranked with those sons of the Church, whose firmness and spirit in

resisting kingly encroachments in matters of religion, entitled them to

the gratitude of their own and succeeding ages.

The second century opened upon New England under circumstances which

evinced that much had already been accomplished, and that still better

prospects and brighter hopes were before her. She had laid, deep and

strong, the foundations of her society. Her religious principles were

firm, and her moral habits exemplary. Her public schools had begun to

diffuse widely the elements of knowledge; and the College, under the

excellent and acceptable administration of Leverett, had been raised to

a high degree of credit and usefulness.

The commercial character of the country, notwithstanding all

discouragements, had begun to display itself, and _five hundred

vessels_, then belonging to Massachusetts, placed her, in relation to

commerce, thus early at the head of the Colonies. An author who wrote

very near the close of the first century says:--"New England is almost

deserving that _noble name_, so mightily hath it increased; and from a

small settlement at first, is now become a very _populous_ and

_flourishing_ government. The _capital city_, Boston, is a place of

_great wealth and trade_; and by much the largest of any in the English

empire of America; and not exceeded but by few cities, perhaps two or

three, in all the American world." But if our ancestors at the close of

the first century could look back with joy and even admiration, at the

progress of the country, what emotions must we not feel, when, from the

point on which we stand, we also look back and run along the events of

the century which has now closed! The country which then, as we have

seen, was thought deserving of a "noble name,"--which then had

"mightily increased," and become "very populous,"--what was it, in

comparison with what our eyes behold it? At that period, a very great

proportion of its inhabitants lived in the eastern section of

Massachusetts proper, and in Plymouth Colony. In Connecticut, there

were towns along the coast, some of them respectable, but in the

interior all was a wilderness beyond Hartford. On Connecticut River,

settlements had proceeded as far up as Deerfield, and Fort Dummer had

been built near where is now the south line of New Hampshire. In New

Hampshire no settlement was then begun thirty miles from the mouth of

Piscataqua River, and in what is now Maine the inhabitants were

confined to the coast. The aggregate of the whole population of New

England did not exceed one hundred and sixty thousand. Its present

amount (1820) is probably one million seven hundred thousand. Instead

of being confined to its former limits, her population has rolled

backward, and filled up the spaces included within her actual local

boundaries. Not this only, but it has overflowed those boundaries, and

the waves of emigration have pressed farther and farther toward the

West. The Alleghany has not checked it; the banks of the Ohio have been

covered with it. New England farms, houses, villages, and churches

spread over and adorn the immense extent from the Ohio to Lake Erie,

and stretch along from the Alleghany onwards, beyond the Miamis, and

towards the Falls of St. Anthony. Two thousand miles westward from the

rock where their fathers landed, may now be found the sons of the

Pilgrims, cultivating smiling fields, rearing towns and villages, and

cherishing, we trust, the patrimonial blessings of wise institutions,

of liberty, and religion. The world has seen nothing like this. Regions

large enough to be empires, and which, half a century ago, were known

only as remote and unexplored wildernesses, are now teeming with

population, and prosperous in all the great concerns of life; in good

governments, the means of subsistence, and social happiness. It may be

safely asserted, that there are now more than a million of people,

descendants of New England ancestry, living, free and happy, in regions

which scarce sixty years ago were tracts of unpenetrated forest. Nor do

rivers, or mountains, or seas resist the progress of industry and

enterprise. Erelong, the sons of the Pilgrims will be on the shores of

the Pacific. The imagination hardly keeps pace with the progress of

population, improvement, and civilization.

It is now five-and-forty years since the growth and rising glory of

America were portrayed in the English Parliament, with inimitable

beauty, by the most consummate orator of modern times. Going back

somewhat more than half a century, and describing our progress as

foreseen from that point by his amiable friend Lord Bathurst, then

living, he spoke of the wonderful progress which America had made

during the period of a single human life. There is no American heart, I

imagine, that does not glow, both with conscious, patriotic pride, and

admiration for one of the happiest efforts of eloquence, so often as

the vision of "that little speck, scarce visible in the mass of

national interest, a small seminal principle, rather than a formed

body," and the progress of its astonishing development and growth, are

recalled to the recollection. But a stronger feeling might be produced,

if we were able to take up this prophetic description where he left it,

and, placing ourselves at the point of time in which he was speaking,

to set forth with equal felicity the subsequent progress of the

country. There is yet among the living a most distinguished and

venerable name, a descendant of the Pilgrims; one who has been attended

through life by a great and fortunate genius; a man illustrious by his

own great merits, and favored of Heaven in the long continuation of his

years. The time when the English orator was thus speaking of America

preceded but by a few days the actual opening of the revolutionary

drama at Lexington. He to whom I have alluded, then at the age of

forty, was among the most zealous and able defenders of the violated

rights of his country. He seemed already to have filled a full measure

of public service, and attained an honorable fame. The moment was full

of difficulty and danger, and big with events of immeasurable

importance. The country was on the very brink of a civil war, of which

no man could foretell the duration or the result. Something more than a

courageous hope, or characteristic ardor, would have been necessary to

impress the glorious prospect on his belief, if, at that moment, before

the sound of the first shock of actual war had reached his ears, some

attendant spirit had opened to him the vision of the future;--if it had

said to him, "The blow is struck, and America is severed from England

for ever!"--if it had informed him, that he himself, during the next

annual revolution of the sun, should put his own hand to the great

instrument of independence, and write his name where all nations should

behold it and all time should not efface it; that erelong he himself

should maintain the interests and represent the sovereignty of his

new-born country in the proudest courts of Europe; that he should one

day exercise her supreme magistracy; that he should yet live to behold

ten millions of fellow-citizens paying him the homage of their deepest

gratitude and kindest affections; that he should see distinguished

talent and high public trust resting where his name rested; that he

should even see with his own unclouded eyes the close of the second

century of New England, who had begun life almost with its

commencement, and lived through nearly half the whole history of his

country; and that on the morning of this auspicious day he should be

found in the political councils of his native State, revising, by the

light of experience, that system of government which forty years before

he had assisted to frame and establish; and, great and happy as he

should then behold his country, there should be nothing in prospect to

cloud the scene, nothing to check the ardor of that confident and

patriotic hope which should glow in his bosom to the end of his long

protracted and happy life.

It would far exceed the limits of this discourse even to mention the

principal events in the civil and political history of New England

during the century; the more so, as for the last half of the period

that history has, most happily, been closely interwoven with the

general history of the United States. New England bore an honorable

part in the wars which took place between England and France. The

capture of Louisburg gave her a character for military achievement; and

in the war which terminated with the peace of 1763, her exertions on

the frontiers were of most essential service, as well to the mother

country as to all the Colonies.

In New England the war of the Revolution commenced. I address those who

remember the memorable 19th of April, 1775; who shortly after saw the

burning spires of Charlestown; who beheld the deeds of Prescott, and

heard the voice of Putnam amidst the storm of war, and saw the generous

Warren fall, the first distinguished victim in the cause of liberty. It

would be superfluous to say, that no portion of the country did more

than the States of New England to bring the Revolutionary struggle to a

successful issue. It is scarcely less to her credit, that she saw early

the necessity of a closer union of the States, and gave an efficient

and indispensable aid to the establishment and organization of the

Federal government.

Perhaps we might safely say, that a new spirit and a new excitement

began to exist here about the middle of the last century. To whatever

causes it may be imputed, there seems then to have commenced a more

rapid improvement. The Colonies had attracted more of the attention of

the mother country, and some renown in arms had been acquired. Lord

Chatham was the first English minister who attached high importance to

these possessions of the crown, and who foresaw any thing of their

future growth and extension. His opinion was, that the great rival of

England was chiefly to be feared as a maritime and commercial power,

and to drive her out of North America and deprive her of her West

Indian possessions was a leading object in his policy. He dwelt often

on the fisheries, as nurseries for British seamen, and the colonial

trade, as furnishing them employment. The war, conducted by him with so

much vigor, terminated in a peace, by which Canada was ceded to

England. The effect of this was immediately visible in the New England

Colonies; for, the fear of Indian hostilities on the frontiers being

now happily removed, settlements went on with an activity before that

time altogether unprecedented, and public affairs wore a new and

encouraging aspect. Shortly after this fortunate termination of the

French war, the interesting topics connected with the taxation of

America by the British Parliament began to be discussed, and the

attention and all the faculties of the people drawn towards them. There

is perhaps no portion of our history more full of interest than the

period from 1760 to the actual commencement of the war. The progress of

opinion in this period, though less known, is not less important than

the progress of arms afterwards. Nothing deserves more consideration

than those events and discussions which affected the public sentiment

and settled the Revolution in men's minds, before hostilities openly

broke out.

Internal improvement followed the establishment and prosperous

commencement of the present government. More has been done for roads,

canals, and other public works, within the last thirty years, than in

all our former history. In the first of these particulars, few

countries excel the New England States. The astonishing increase of

their navigation and trade is known to every one, and now belongs to

the history of our national wealth.

We may flatter ourselves, too, that literature and taste have not been

stationary, and that some advancement has been made in the elegant, as

well as in the useful arts.

The nature and constitution of society and government in this country

are interesting topics, to which I would devote what remains of the

time allowed to this occasion. Of our system of government the first

thing to be said is, that it is really and practically a free system.

It originates entirely with the people, and rests on no other

foundation than their assent. To judge of its actual operation, it is

not enough to look merely at the form of its construction. The

practical character of government depends often on a variety of

considerations, besides the abstract frame of its constitutional

organization. Among these are the condition and tenure of property; the

laws regulating its alienation and descent; the presence or absence of

a military power; an armed or unarmed yeomanry; the spirit of the age,

and the degree of general intelligence. In these respects it cannot be

denied that the circumstances of this country are most favorable to the

hope of maintaining the government of a great nation on principles

entirely popular. In the absence of military power, the nature of

government must essentially depend on the manner in which property is

holden and distributed. There is a natural influence belonging to

property, whether it exists in many hands or few; and it is on the

rights of property that both despotism and unrestrained popular

violence ordinarily commence their attacks. Our ancestors began their

system of government here under a condition of comparative equality in

regard to wealth, and their early laws were of a nature to favor and

continue this equality.

A republican form of government rests not more on political

constitutions, than on those laws which regulate the descent and

transmission of property. Governments like ours could not have been

maintained, where property was holden according to the principles of

the feudal system; nor, on the other hand, could the feudal

constitution possibly exist with us. Our New England ancestors brought

hither no great capitals from Europe; and if they had, there was

nothing productive in which they could have been invested. They left

behind them the whole feudal policy of the other continent. They broke

away at once from the system of military service established in the

Dark Ages, and which continues, down even to the present time, more or

less to affect the condition of property all over Europe. They came to

a new country. There were, as yet, no lands yielding rent, and no

tenants rendering service. The whole soil was unreclaimed from

barbarism. They were themselves, either from their original condition,

or from the necessity of their common interest, nearly on a general

level in respect to property. Their situation demanded a parcelling out

and division of the lands, and it may be fairly said, that this

necessary act _fixed the future frame and form of their government_.

The character of their political institutions was determined by the

fundamental laws respecting property. The laws rendered estates

divisible among sons and daughters. The right of primogeniture, at

first limited and curtailed, was afterwards abolished. The property was

all freehold. The entailment of estates, long trusts, and the other

processes for fettering and tying up inheritances, were not applicable

to the condition of society, and seldom made use of. On the contrary,

alienation of the land was every way facilitated, even to the

subjecting of it to every species of debt. The establishment of public

registries, and the simplicity of our forms of conveyance, have greatly

facilitated the change of real estate from one proprietor to another.

The consequence of all these causes has been a great subdivision of the

soil, and a great equality of condition; the true basis, most

certainly, of a popular government. "If the people," says Harrington,

"hold three parts in four of the territory, it is plain there can

neither be any single person nor nobility able to dispute the

government with them; in this case, therefore, _except force be

interposed_, they govern themselves."

The history of other nations may teach us how favorable to public

liberty are the division of the soil into small freeholds, and a system

of laws, of which the tendency is, without violence or injustice, to

produce and to preserve a degree of equality of property. It has been

estimated, if I mistake not, that about the time of Henry the Seventh

four fifths of the land in England was holden by the great barons and

ecclesiastics. The effects of a growing commerce soon afterwards began

to break in on this state of things, and before the Revolution, in

1688, a vast change had been wrought. It may be thought probable, that,

for the last half-century, the process of subdivision in England has

been retarded, if not reversed; that the great weight of taxation has

compelled many of the lesser freeholders to dispose of their estates,

and to seek employment in the army and navy, in the professions of

civil life, in commerce, or in the colonies. The effect of this on the

British constitution cannot but be most unfavorable. A few large

estates grow larger; but the number of those who have no estates also

increases; and there may be danger, lest the inequality of property

become so great, that those who possess it may be dispossessed by

force; in other words, that the government may be overturned.

A most interesting experiment of the effect of a subdivision of

property on government is now making in France. It is understood, that

the law regulating the transmission of property in that country, now

divides it, real and personal, among all the children equally, both

sons and daughters; and that there is, also, a very great restraint on

the power of making dispositions of property by will. It has been

supposed, that the effects of this might probably be, in time, to break

up the soil into such small subdivisions, that the proprietors would be

too poor to resist the encroachments of executive power. I think far

otherwise. What is lost in individual wealth will be more than gained

in numbers, in intelligence, and in a sympathy of sentiment. If,

indeed, only one or a few landholders were to resist the crown, like

the barons of England, they must, of course, be great and powerful

landholders, with multitudes of retainers, to promise success. But if

the proprietors of a given extent of territory are summoned to

resistance, there is no reason to believe that such resistance would be

less forcible, or less successful, because the number of such

proprietors happened to be great. Each would perceive his own

importance, and his own interest, and would feel that natural elevation

of character which the consciousness of property inspires. A common

sentiment would unite all, and numbers would not only add strength, but

excite enthusiasm. It is true, that France possesses a vast military

force, under the direction of an hereditary executive government; and

military power, it is possible, may overthrow any government. It is in

vain, however, in this period of the world, to look for security

against military power to the arm of the great landholders. That notion

is derived from a state of things long since past; a state in which a

feudal baron, with his retainers, might stand against the sovereign and

his retainers, himself but the greatest baron. But at present, what

could the richest landholder do, against one regiment of disciplined

troops? Other securities, therefore, against the prevalence of military

power must be provided. Happily for us, we are not so situated as that

any purpose of national defence requires, ordinarily and constantly,

such a military force as might seriously endanger our liberties.

In respect, however, to the recent law of succession in France, to

which I have alluded, I would, presumptuously perhaps, hazard a

conjecture, that, if the government do not change the law, the law in

half a century will change the government; and that this change will

be, not in favor of the power of the crown, as some European writers

have supposed, but against it. Those writers only reason upon what they

think correct general principles, in relation to this subject. They

acknowledge a want of experience. Here we have had that experience; and

we know that a multitude of small proprietors, acting with

intelligence, and that enthusiasm which a common cause inspires,

constitute not only a formidable, but an invincible power.

The true principle of a free and popular government would seem to be,

so to construct it as to give to all, or at least to a very great

majority, an interest in its preservation; to found it, as other things

are founded, on men's interest. The stability of government demands

that those who desire its continuance should be more powerful than

those who desire its dissolution. This power, of course, is not always

to be measured by mere numbers. Education, wealth, talents, are all

parts and elements of the general aggregate of power; but numbers,

nevertheless, constitute ordinarily the most important consideration,

unless, indeed, there be _a military force_ in the hands of the few, by

which they can control the many. In this country we have actually

existing systems of government, in the maintenance of which, it should

seem, a great majority, both in numbers and in other means of power and

influence, must see their interest. But this state of things is not

brought about solely by written political constitutions, or the mere

manner of organizing the government; but also by the laws which

regulate the descent and transmission of property. The freest

government, if it could exist, would not be long acceptable, if the

tendency of the laws were to create a rapid accumulation of property in

few hands, and to render the great mass of the population dependent and

penniless. In such a case, the popular power would be likely to break

in upon the rights of property, or else the influence of property to

limit and control the exercise of popular power. Universal suffrage,

for example, could not long exist in a community where there was great

inequality of property. The holders of estates would be obliged, in

such case, in some way to restrain the right of suffrage, or else such

right of suffrage would, before long, divide the property. In the

nature of things, those who have not property, and see their neighbors

possess much more than they think them to need, cannot be favorable to

laws made for the protection of property. When this class becomes

numerous, it grows clamorous. It looks on property as its prey and

plunder, and is naturally ready, at all times, for violence and

revolution.

It would seem, then, to be the part of political wisdom to found

government on property; and to establish such distribution of property,

by the laws which regulate its transmission and alienation, as to

interest the great majority of society in the support of the

government. This is, I imagine, the true theory and the actual practice

of our republican institutions. With property divided as we have it, no

other government than that of a republic could be maintained, even were

we foolish enough to desire it. There is reason, therefore, to expect a

long continuance of our system. Party and passion, doubtless, may

prevail at times, and much temporary mischief be done. Even modes and

forms may be changed, and perhaps for the worse. But a great revolution

in regard to property must take place, before our governments can be

moved from their republican basis, unless they be violently struck off

by military power. The people possess the property, more emphatically

than it could ever be said of the people of any other country, and they

can have no interest to overturn a government which protects that

property by equal laws.

Let it not be supposed, that this state of things possesses too strong

tendencies towards the production of a dead and uninteresting level in

society. Such tendencies are sufficiently counteracted by the infinite

diversities in the characters and fortunes of individuals. Talent,

activity, industry, and enterprise tend at all times to produce

inequality and distinction; and there is room still for the

accumulation of wealth, with its great advantages, to all reasonable

and useful extent. It has been often urged against the state of society

in America, that it furnishes no class of men of fortune and leisure.

This may be partly true, but it is not entirely so, and the evil, if it

be one, would affect rather the progress of taste and literature, than

the general prosperity of the people. But the promotion of taste and

literature cannot be primary objects of political institutions; and if

they could, it might be doubted whether, in the long course of things,

as much is not gained by a wide diffusion of general knowledge, as is

lost by diminishing the number of those who are enabled by fortune and

leisure to devote themselves exclusively to scientific and literary

pursuits. However this may be, it is to be considered that it is the

spirit of our system to be equal and general, and if there be

particular disadvantages incident to this, they are far more than

counterbalanced by the benefits which weigh against them. The important

concerns of society are generally conducted, in all countries, by the

men of business and practical ability; and even in matters of taste and

literature, the advantages of mere leisure are liable to be overrated.

If there exist adequate means of education and a love of letters be

excited, that love will find its way to the object of its desire,

through the crowd and pressure of the most busy society.

Connected with this division of property, and the consequent

participation of the great mass of people in its possession and

enjoyments, is the system of representation, which is admirably

accommodated to our condition, better understood among us, and more

familiarly and extensively practised, in the higher and in the lower

departments of government, than it has been by any other people. Great

facility has been given to this in New England by the early division of

the country into townships or small districts, in which all concerns of

local police are regulated, and in which representatives to the

legislature are elected. Nothing can exceed the utility of these little

bodies. They are so many councils or parliaments, in which common

interests are discussed, and useful knowledge acquired and

communicated. The division of governments into departments, and the

division, again, of the legislative department into two chambers, are

essential provisions in our system. This last, although not new in

itself, yet seems to be new in its application to governments wholly

popular. The Grecian republics, it is plain, knew nothing of it; and in

Rome, the check and balance of legislative power, such as it was, lay

between the people and the senate. Indeed, few things are more

difficult than to ascertain accurately the true nature and construction

of the Roman commonwealth. The relative power of the senate and the

people, of the consuls and the tribunes, appears not to have been at

all times the same, nor at any time accurately defined or strictly

observed. Cicero, indeed, describes to us an admirable arrangement of

political power, and a balance of the constitution, in that beautiful

passage, in which he compares the democracies of Greece with the Roman

commonwealth. "O morem preclarum, disciplinamque, quam a majoribus,

accepimus, si quidem teneremus! sed nescio quo pacto jam de manibus

elabitur. Nullam enim illi nostri sapientissimi et sanctissimi viri vim

concionis esse voluerunt, quae scisseret plebs, aut quae populus

juberet; summota concione, distributis partibus, tributim et

centuriatim descriptis ordinibus, classibus, aetatibus, auditis

auctoribus, re multos dies promulgata et cognita, juberi vetarique

voluerunt. Graecorum autem totae respublicae sedentis concionis

temeritate administrantur." [10]

But at what time this wise system existed in this perfection at Rome,

no proofs remain to show. Her constitution, originally framed for a

monarchy, never seemed to be adjusted in its several parts after the

expulsion of the kings. Liberty there was, but it was a disputatious,

an uncertain, an ill-secured liberty. The patrician and plebeian

orders, instead of being matched and joined, each in its just place and

proportion, to sustain the fabric of the state, were rather like

hostile powers, in perpetual conflict. With us, an attempt has been

made, and so far not without success, to divide representation into

chambers, and, by difference of age, character, qualification, or mode

of election, to establish salutary checks, in governments altogether

elective.

Having detained you so long with these observations, I must yet advert

to another most interesting topic,--the Free Schools. In this

particular, New England may be allowed to claim, I think, a merit of a

peculiar character. She early adopted, and has constantly maintained

the principle, that it is the undoubted right and the bounden duty of

government to provide for the instruction of all youth. That which is

elsewhere left to chance or to charity, we secure by law. [11] For the

purpose of public instruction, we hold every man subject to taxation in

proportion to his property, and we look not to the question, whether he

himself have, or have not, children to be benefited by the education

for which he pays. We regard it as a wise and liberal system of police,

by which property, and life, and the peace of society are secured. We

seek to prevent in some measure the extension of the penal code, by

inspiring a salutary and conservative principle of virtue and of

knowledge in an early age. We strive to excite a feeling of

respectability, and a sense of character, by enlarging the capacity and

increasing the sphere of intellectual enjoyment. By general

instruction, we seek, as far as possible, to purify the whole moral

atmosphere; to keep good sentiments uppermost, and to turn the strong

current of feeling and opinion, as well as the censures of the law and

the denunciations of religion, against immorality and crime. We hope

for a security beyond the law, and above the law, in the prevalence of

an enlightened and well-principled moral sentiment. We hope to continue

and prolong the time, when, in the villages and farm-houses of New

England, there may be undisturbed sleep within unbarred doors. And

knowing that our government rests directly on the public will, in order

that we may preserve it we endeavor to give a safe and proper direction

to that public will. We do not, indeed, expect all men to be

philosophers or statesmen; but we confidently trust, and our

expectation of the duration of our system of government rests on that

trust, that, by the diffusion of general knowledge and good and

virtuous sentiments, the political fabric may be secure, as well

against open violence and overthrow, as against the slow, but sure,

undermining of licentiousness.

We know that, at the present time, an attempt is making in the English

Parliament to provide by law for the education of the poor, and that a

gentleman of distinguished character (Mr. Brougham) has taken the lead

in presenting a plan to government for carrying that purpose into

effect. And yet, although the representatives of the three kingdoms

listened to him with astonishment as well as delight, we hear no

principles with which we ourselves have not been familiar from youth;

we see nothing in the plan but an approach towards that system which

has been established in New England for more than a century and a half.

It is said that in England not more than _one child in fifteen_

possesses the means of being taught to read and write; in Wales, _one

in twenty_; in France, until lately, when some improvement was made,

not more than _one in thirty-five_. Now, it is hardly too strong to

say, that in New England _every child possesses_ such means. It would

be difficult to find an instance to the contrary, unless where it

should be owing to the negligence of the parent; and, in truth, the

means are actually used and enjoyed by nearly every one. A youth of

fifteen, of either sex, who cannot both read and write, is very seldom

to be found. Who can make this comparison, or contemplate this

spectacle, without delight and a feeling of just pride? Does any

history show property more beneficently applied? Did any government

ever subject the property of those who have estates to a burden, for a

purpose more favorable to the poor, or more useful to the whole

community?

A conviction of the importance of public instruction was one of the

earliest sentiments of our ancestors. No lawgiver of ancient or modern

times has expressed more just opinions, or adopted wiser measures, than

the early records of the Colony of Plymouth show to have prevailed

here. Assembled on this very spot, a hundred and fifty-three years ago,

the legislature of this Colony declared, "Forasmuch as the maintenance

of good literature doth much tend to the advancement of the weal and

flourishing state of societies and republics, this Court doth therefore

order, that in whatever township in this government, consisting of

fifty families or upwards, any meet man shall be obtained to teach a

grammar school, such township shall allow at least twelve pounds, to be

raised by rate on all the inhabitants."

Having provided that all youth should be instructed in the elements of

learning by the institution of free schools, our ancestors had yet

another duty to perform. Men were to be educated for the professions

and the public. For this purpose they founded the University, and with

incredible zeal and perseverance they cherished and supported it,

through all trials and discouragements.[12] On the subject of the

University, it is not possible for a son of New England to think

without pleasure, or to speak without emotion. Nothing confers more

honor on the State where it is established, or more utility on the

country at large. A respectable university is an establishment which

must be the work of time. If pecuniary means were not wanting, no new

institution could possess character and respectability at once. We owe

deep obligation to our ancestors, who began, almost on the moment of

their arrival, the work of building up this institution.

Although established in a different government, the Colony of Plymouth

manifested warm friendship for Harvard College. At an early period, its

government took measures to promote a general subscription throughout

all the towns in this Colony, in aid of its small funds. Other colleges

were subsequently founded and endowed, in other places, as the ability

of the people allowed; and we may flatter ourselves, that the means of

education at present enjoyed in New England are not only adequate to

the diffusion of the elements of knowledge among all classes, but

sufficient also for respectable attainments in literature and the

sciences.

Lastly, our ancestors established their system of government on

morality and religious sentiment. Moral habits, they believed, cannot

safely be trusted on any other foundation than religious principle, nor

any government be secure which is not supported by moral habits. Living

under the heavenly light of revelation, they hoped to find all the

social dispositions, all the duties which men owe to each other and to

society, enforced and performed. Whatever makes men good Christians,

makes them good citizens. Our fathers came here to enjoy their religion

free and unmolested; and, at the end of two centuries, there is nothing

upon which we can pronounce more confidently, nothing of which we can

express a more deep and earnest conviction, than of the inestimable

importance of that religion to man, both in regard to this life and

that which is to come.

If the blessings of our political and social condition have not been

too highly estimated, we cannot well overrate the responsibility and

duty which they impose upon us. We hold these institutions of

government, religion, and learning, to be transmitted, as well as

enjoyed. We are in the line of conveyance, through which whatever has

been obtained by the spirit and efforts of our ancestors is to be

communicated to our children.

We are bound to maintain public liberty, and, by the example of our own

systems, to convince the world that order and law, religion and

morality, the rights of conscience, the rights of persons, and the

rights of property, may all be preserved and secured, in the most

perfect manner, by a government entirely and purely elective. If we

fail in this, our disaster will be signal, and will furnish an

argument, stronger than has yet been found, in support of those

opinions which maintain that government can rest safely on nothing but

power and coercion. As far as experience may show errors in our

establishments, we are bound to correct them; and if any practices

exist contrary to the principles of justice and humanity within the

reach of our laws or our influence, we are inexcusable if we do not

exert ourselves to restrain and abolish them.

I deem it my duty on this occasion to suggest, that the land is not yet

wholly free from the contamination of a traffic, at which every feeling

of humanity must forever revolt,--I mean the African slave-trade.

Neither public sentiment, nor the law, has hitherto been able entirely

to put an end to this odious and abominable trade. At the moment when

God in his mercy has blessed the Christian world with a universal

peace, there is reason to fear, that, to the disgrace of the Christian

name and character, new efforts are making for the extension of this

trade by subjects and citizens of Christian states, in whose hearts

there dwell no sentiments of humanity or of justice, and over whom

neither the fear of God nor the fear of man exercises a control. In the

sight of our law, the African slave-trader is a pirate and a felon; and

in the sight of Heaven, an offender far beyond the ordinary depth of

human guilt. There is no brighter page of our history, than that which

records the measures which have been adopted by the government at an

early day, and at different times since, for the suppression of this

traffic; and I would call on all the true sons of New England to

cooperate with the laws of man, and the justice of Heaven. If there be,

within the extent of our knowledge or influence, any participation in

this traffic, let us pledge ourselves here, upon the rock of Plymouth,

to extirpate and destroy it. It is not fit that the land of the

Pilgrims should bear the shame longer. I hear the sound of the hammer,

I see the smoke of the furnaces where manacles and fetters are still

forged for human limbs. I see the visages of those who by stealth and

at midnight labor in this work of hell, foul and dark, as may become

the artificers of such instruments of misery and torture. Let that spot

be purified, or let it cease to be of New England. Let it be purified

or let it be set aside from the Christian world; let it be put out of

the circle of human sympathies and human regards, and let civilized man

henceforth have no communion with it.

I would invoke those who fill the seats of justice, and all who

minister at her altar, that they execute the wholesome and necessary

severity of the law. I invoke the ministers of our religion, that they

proclaim its denunciation of these crimes, and add its solemn sanctions

to the authority of human laws. If the pulpit be silent whenever or

wherever there may be a sinner bloody with this guilt within the

hearing of its voice, the pulpit is false to its trust. I call on the

fair merchant, who has reaped his harvest upon the seas, that he assist

in scourging from those seas the worst pirates that ever infested them.

That ocean, which seems to wave with a gentle magnificence to waft the

burden of an honest commerce, and to roll along its treasures with a

conscious pride,--that ocean, which hardy industry regards, even when

the winds have ruffled its surface, as a field of grateful toil,--what

is it to the victim of this oppression, when he is brought to its

shores, and looks forth upon it, for the first time, loaded with

chains, and bleeding with stripes? What is it to him but a wide-spread

prospect of suffering, anguish, and death? Nor do the skies smile

longer, nor is the air longer fragrant to him. The sun is cast down

from heaven. An inhuman and accursed traffic has cut him off in his

manhood, or in his youth, from every enjoyment belonging to his being,

and every blessing which his Creator intended for him.

The Christian communities send forth their emissaries of religion and

letters, who stop, here and there, along the coast of the vast

continent of Africa, and with painful and tedious efforts make some

almost imperceptible progress in the communication of knowledge, and in

the general improvement of the natives who are immediately about them.

Not thus slow and imperceptible is the transmission of the vices and

bad passions which the subjects of Christian states carry to the land.

The slave-trade having touched the coast, its influence and its evils

spread, like a pestilence, over the whole continent, making savage wars

more savage and more frequent, and adding new and fierce passions to

the contests of barbarians.

I pursue this topic no further, except again to say, that all

Christendom, being now blessed with peace, is bound by everything which

belongs to its character, and to the character of the present age, to

put a stop to this inhuman and disgraceful traffic.

We are bound, not only to maintain the general principles of public

liberty, but to support also those existing forms of government which

have so well secured its enjoyment, and so highly promoted the public

prosperity. It is now more than thirty years that these States have

been united under the Federal Constitution, and whatever fortune may

await them hereafter, it is impossible that this period of their

history should not be regarded as distinguished by signal prosperity

and success. They must be sanguine indeed, who can hope for benefit

from change. Whatever division of the public judgment may have existed

in relation to particular measures of the government, all must agree,

one should think, in the opinion, that in its general course it has

been eminently productive of public happiness. Its most ardent friends

could not well have hoped from it more than it has accomplished; and

those who disbelieved or doubted ought to feel less concern about

predictions which the event has not verified, than pleasure in the good

which has been obtained. Whoever shall hereafter write this part of our

history, although he may see occasional errors or defects, will be able

to record no great failure in the ends and objects of government. Still

less will he be able to record any series of lawless and despotic acts,

or any successful usurpation. His page will contain no exhibition of

provinces depopulated, of civil authority habitually trampled down by

military power, or of a community crushed by the burden of taxation. He

will speak, rather, of public liberty protected, and public happiness

advanced; of increased revenue, and population augmented beyond all

example; of the growth of commerce, manufactures, and the arts; and of

that happy condition, in which the restraint and coercion of government

are almost invisible and imperceptible, and its influence felt only in

the benefits which it confers. We can entertain no better wish for our

country, than that this government may be preserved; nor have a clearer

duty than to maintain and support it in the full exercise of all its

just constitutional powers.

The cause of science and literature also imposes upon us an important

and delicate trust. The wealth and population of the country are now so

far advanced, as to authorize the expectation of a correct literature

and a well formed taste, as well as respectable progress in the

abstruse sciences. The country has risen from a state of colonial

subjection; it has established an independent government, and is now in

the undisturbed enjoyment of peace and political security. The elements

of knowledge are universally diffused, and the reading portion of the

community is large. Let us hope that the present may be an auspicious

era of literature. If, almost on the day of their landing, our

ancestors founded schools and endowed colleges, what obligations do not

rest upon us, living under circumstances so much more favorable both

for providing and for using the means of education? Literature becomes

free institutions. It is the graceful ornament of civil liberty, and a

happy restraint on the asperities which political controversies

sometimes occasion. Just taste is not only an embellishment of society,

but it rises almost to the rank of the virtues, and diffuses positive

good throughout the whole extent of its influence. There is a

connection between right feeling and right principles, and truth in

taste is allied with truth in morality. With nothing in our past

history to discourage us, and with something in our present condition

and prospects to animate us, let us hope, that, as it is our fortune to

live in an age when we may behold a wonderful advancement of the

country in all its other great interests, we may see also equal

progress and success attend the cause of letters.

Finally, let us not forget the religious character of our origin. Our

fathers were brought hither by their high veneration for the Christian

religion. They journeyed by its light, and labored in its hope. They

sought to incorporate its principles with the elements of their

society, and to diffuse its influence through all their institutions,

civil, political, or literary. Let us cherish these sentiments, and

extend this influence still more widely; in the full conviction, that

that is the happiest society which partakes in the highest degree of

the mild and peaceful spirit of Christianity.

The hours of this day are rapidly flying, and this occasion will soon

be passed. Neither we nor our children can expect to behold its return.

They are in the distant regions of futurity, they exist only in the

all-creating power of God, who shall stand here a hundred years hence,

to trace, through us, their descent from the Pilgrims, and to survey,

as we have now surveyed, the progress of their country, during the

lapse of a century. We would anticipate their concurrence with us in

our sentiments of deep regard for our common ancestors. We would

anticipate and partake the pleasure with which they will then recount

the steps of New England's advancement. On the morning of that day,

although it will not disturb us in our repose, the voice of acclamation

and gratitude, commencing on the Rock of Plymouth, shall be transmitted

through millions of the sons of the Pilgrims, till it lose itself in

the murmurs of the Pacific seas.

We would leave for the consideration of those who shall then occupy our

places, some proof that we hold the blessings transmitted from our

fathers in just estimation; some proof of our attachment to the cause

of good government, and of civil and religious liberty; some proof of a

sincere and ardent desire to promote every thing which may enlarge the

understandings and improve the hearts of men. And when, from the long

distance of a hundred years, they shall look back upon us, they shall

know, at least, that we possessed affections, which, running backward

and warming with gratitude for what our ancestors have done for our

happiness, run forward also to our posterity, and meet them with

cordial salutation, ere yet they have arrived on the shore of being.

Advance, then, ye future generations! We would hail you, as you rise in

your long succession, to fill the places which we now fill, and to

taste the blessings of existence where we are passing, and soon shall

have passed, our own human duration. We bid you welcome to this

pleasant land of the fathers. We bid you welcome to the healthful skies

and the verdant fields of New England. We greet your accession to the

great inheritance which we have enjoyed. We welcome you to the

blessings of good government and religious liberty. We welcome you to

the treasures of science and the delights of learning. We welcome you

to the transcendent sweets of domestic life, to the happiness of

kindred, and parents, and children. We welcome you to the immeasurable

blessings of rational existence, the immortal hope of Christianity, and

the light of everlasting truth!