submissive to the learning and intellect of other days. The influence of
ancient Greece still remains. We copy her architecture, borrow from her
philosophy, admire her poetry, and bow with humility before the remnants
of her majestic literature. So the policy of Rome is perceptible in the
civilization of every European country, and it is a potent element in
the laws and jurisprudence of America. The eloquence of Demosthenes has
been impressed upon every succeeding generation of civilized men; the
genius of Hannibal has stimulated the ambition of warriors from his own
time to that of Napoleon; while Shakspeare's power has been the wonder
of all modern authors and readers. It is a great representative fact in
mental philosophy, which we cannot too much contemplate, that
Demosthenes and Cicero not only enchained the thousands of Greece and
Rome in whose presence they stood, but that their eloquence has had a
controlling influence over myriads to whom the language in which they
spoke was unknown. The words that the houseless Homer sung in the
streets of Smyrna have commanded the admiration of all later times; and
even the mud walls around Plato's garden, on which are preserved the
fragments of statuary with which the garden was once adorned, attract
and instruct the wanderers and students about Athens.
But let us not deceive ourselves with the idea that we can illustrate
anew the greatness which has distinguished a few men only in all the
long centuries of the world's existence. Be not imitators nor followers
of other men's glory. There is a path for each one, and his duty lies
therein. Yet the leading men of the world are lights which ought not to
be hid from the young, for they serve to show the extent of the field in
which human powers may be employed. The rule of the successful life is
to neglect no present opportunity of good either to yourself or to
others; and the rule of the successful student is to gather information
from whatever source he may, not doubting that it will prove useful to
himself or to his fellow-men.
Our own age has furnished two men,--one living, the other dead,--quite
opposite in talents and attainments, whose power and influence may not
have been surpassed in ancient or modern times. I speak of Kossuth and
Webster. Our history has no parallel for the first. Most men, young or
old, gay or severe, radical or conservative, were touched by his
mournful strains, and influenced by his magic words. He came from a land
of which we knew little, and so laid open the history of its wrongs that
he enlisted multitudes in its behalf. I speak not now of the views he
presented, nor of the demands he made upon the American people. If he
taught error and asked wrong, so the more wonderful was his career. No
doubt his cause did much for him; but other patriots and exiles have
had equal opportunities with Kossuth, yet no one has so swayed the
public mind.
He was distinguished in intellect, a master of much learning, a man of
nice moral feeling and strong religious sentiments, all of which were
combined and blended in his addresses to the people. But he spoke a
language whose rudiments he first learned in manhood. In his speech he
neglected the chief rule of Grecian eloquence. With one theme,
only,--the wrongs of Hungary; with one object, only,--her relief and
elevation,--he commanded the general attention of the American mind. The
mission of Kossuth in America deserves to be remembered as an
intellectual phenomenon, whose like, we of this generation may not again
see.
Mr. Webster had never great personal popularity. His presence was
majestic, but forbidding. His manners were agreeable, and sometimes
fascinating to his friends, when he was in a genial mood; but he was
often reserved or even austere to strangers, and terrible to his
enemies. His style of thought was mathematical, his language expressive,
but never popular. He wrote as a man would dictate an essay which was to
appear as a posthumous work. His eloquence was not that which often
passes for eloquence upon the stump or at the bar. He seldom attempted
to court the people, and when he did, it was as if he mocked himself,
and scorned the spirit which could be moved by the breezes of popular
favor. He was not free from faults, personal and political; yet he
acquired a control which has not been possessed by any man since
Washington. Whenever he was to speak, the public were anxious to hear
and to read. Hardly any man has had the fortune to present his views in
addresses, letters, and speeches, to so large a portion of his
countrymen; yet the people whom he addressed, and who were anxious for
his words and opinions, did not always, or even generally, agree with
him. Mr. Webster's power was chiefly, if not solely, intellectual. He
had not the personal qualities of Mr. Clay or General Jackson; he was
not, like Mr. Jefferson the chosen exponent of a political creed, and
the admitted leader of a great political party; nor had he the military
character and universally acknowledged patriotism of General Washington,
which made him first in the hearts of his countrymen. Mr. Webster stands
alone. His domain is the intellect, and thus far in America he is
without a rival. To Mr. Webster, and to all men proportionately,
according to the measure of their gifts and attainments, we may apply
his great words: "A superior and commanding human intellect, a truly
great man, when Heaven vouchsafes so rare a gift, is not a temporary
flame, burning brightly for a while, and then giving place to returning
darkness. It is rather a spark of fervent heat, as well as radiant
light, with power to enkindle the common mass of human mind; so that,
when it glimmers in its own decay, and finally goes out in death, no
night follows, but it leaves the world all light, all on fire, from the
potent contact of its own spirit."
Some humble measure of this greatness may be attained by all; and, if I
have sought to lead you in the way of improvement by considerations too
purely personal and selfish, I will implore you, in conclusion, as
teachers and as citizens, to consider yourselves as the servants of your
country and your race. There can be no real greatness of mind without
generosity of soul. If a superior human intellect seems to be specially
the gift of God, how is he wanting in true religion who fails to
dedicate it to humanity, justice, and virtue!
An eminent historian, seeing at one view, and as in the present moment,
the fall of great states, ancient and modern, and anticipating a like
fate for his own beloved land, has predicted that in two centuries there
will be three hundred millions of people in North America speaking the
language of England, reading its authors, and glorying in their
descent. If this be so, what limits can we assign to the work, or how
estimate the duty, of those intrusted with the education of the young?
Who can say what share of responsibility for the future of America is
upon the teachers of the land?
LIBERTY AND LEARNING.
[An Address delivered at Montague, July 4th, 1857.]
I congratulate you upon the auspicious moments of this, the eighty-first
anniversary of our National Independence; and its return, now and ever,
should be the occasion of gratitude to the Author of all good, that He
hath vouchsafed to our fathers and to their descendants the wisdom to
establish and the wisdom to preserve the institutions of Liberty in
America.
And I congratulate you that you accept this anniversary as the occasion
for considering the subject of education. Ignorant and blind worshippers
of Liberty can do but little for its support; but, whatever of change or
decay may come to our institutions, Liberty itself can never die in the
presence of a people universally and thoroughly educated. It is not,
then, inappropriate nor unphilosophical for us to connect Education and
Liberty together; and I therefore propose, after presenting some
thoughts upon the Declaration of Independence, and its relations to the
American Union, to consider the value of political learning, its
neglect, and the means by which it may be promoted.
The events and epochs of life are logical in their nature, and are
harmonious or inharmonious as the affairs of men are controlled by
principle, policy, or accident. Humboldt, Maury, and Guyot, Arago,
Agassiz, and Pierce, by observation, philosophy, and mathematics,
demonstrate the harmony of the physical creation. In the microscopic
animalculæ; in the gigantic remains, whether vegetable or animal, of
other ages and conditions of life; in the coral reef and the mountain
range; in the hill-side rivulet that makes "the meadows green;" in the
ocean current that bathes and vivifies a continent; in the setting of
the leaf upon its stem, and the moving of Uranus in its orbit, they
trace a law whose harmony is its glory, and whose mystery is the
evidence of its divinity.
National changes, the movements and progress of the human race, as a
whole and in its parts, are obedient, likewise, to law; and are,
therefore, logical in their character, though generally lacking in
precision of connection and order of succession. Or it may be, rather,
that we lack power to trace the connection between events that depend in
part, at least, upon the prejudices, passions, vices, and weaknesses, of
men. The development of the logic of human affairs waits for a
philosopher who shall study and comprehend the living millions of our
race, as the philosophers now study and comprehend the subjects of
physical science. We have no guaranty that this can ever be done. As
mind is above matter, the mental philosopher enters upon the most varied
and difficult field of labor.
Keeping this fact in mind, it appears to be true that every person of
observation, reading, and reflection, is something of a mental
philosopher, though much the larger number have no knowledge of physical
science. And especially must the student of history have a system of
mental philosophy; but often, no doubt, his system is too crude for
general notice. Every historian connects the events of his narrative by
some thread of philosophy or speculation; every reader observes some
connection, though he may never develop it to himself, between the
events and changes of national and ethnological life; and even the
observer whose vision is limited by his own horizon in time and space
marks a dependence, and speaks of cause and effect. All this follows
from the existence and nature of man. Man is not inert, nor even
passive, merely; and his activity will continually organize itself into
facts and forms, ever changing in character, it may be, yet subject to
a law as wise and fixed as that of planetary motion.
The Independence of the British Colonies in America, declared on the 4th
of July, 1776, is not an isolated fact; nor is the Declaration itself a
hasty and overwrought production of a young and enthusiastic adventurer
in the cause of liberty.
The passions and the reason of men connected the Declaration of
Independence with the massacre in King-street, of March 5th, 1770; with
the passage and repeal of the Stamp Act; with the attempt to enforce the
Writs of Assistance; with the act to close the port of Boston; with the
peace of 1763; with the Act of Settlement of 1688; with the execution of
Charles I., and the Protectorate of Cromwell; with the death of Hampden;
with the confederation of 1643; with the royal charters granted to the
respective colonies; with the compact made on board the Mayflower; and,
finally, and distinctly, and chiefly,--as the basis of the greatest
legal argument of modern times, made by the Massachusetts House of
Representatives, from 1765 to 1775,--with the events at Runnymede, and
the grant of the Great Charter to the nobles and people of England in
1215, which is itself based upon the concessions of Edward the
Confessor, and the affirmation of the Saxon laws in the eleventh
century. Our Independence is, then, one logical fact or event in a long
succession, to the enumeration of which we may yet add the confederation
of 1778, the constitution of 1787, the French Revolution of 1789, the
rapid increase of American territory and States, the revolutionary
spirit of continental Europe, the reforms in the British government at
home, the wise modifications of its colonial policy, and for us a long
career of prosperity based upon the cardinal doctrine of the equality of
all men before the law.
Nor can any reader of the Declaration itself assume that it contains one
statement, proposition, idea, or word, not carefully considered, and
carefully expressed. It was not the production of hasty, thoughtless, or
reckless men. The country had been gradually prepared for the great
event. States, counties, and towns, had made the most distinct
expressions of opinion upon the relations of the colonies to the mother
country. On the 7th of June, 1776, Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia,
moved, in the Congress of the United Colonies, a resolution declaring,
That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and
independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the
British crown, and that all political connection between them and the
state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved. The
subject was considered on the tenth; and, on the eleventh instant, the
committee, consisting of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Dr. Franklin,
Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston, was appointed. On the
twenty-fifth of June, a Declaration of the Deputies of Pennsylvania, in
favor of Independence, was read. On the twenty-eighth, the credentials
of the delegates from New Jersey, in which they were instructed to favor
Independence, were presented; and on the first of July similar
instructions to the Maryland delegates were laid before Congress. At
this time Congress proceeded to consider the Declaration and resolution
reported by the committee. The Declaration was carefully considered, and
materially amended in committee of the whole, on the first, second,
third, and fourth, when it was finally adopted. It was then signed by
the president and secretary, and copies were transmitted to the several
colonies. The order for its engrossment, and for the signature by every
member, was not passed until the nineteenth of July, and it was not
really signed until the second of August following. It is not likely,
considering the circumstances, and the known character of the members of
Congress, among whom may be mentioned John Hancock, Samuel Adams,
Benjamin Rush, Robert Morris, Benjamin Harrison, Elbridge Gerry, John
Witherspoon, a descendant of John Knox, the Scottish Reformer, Charles
Carroll, and Samuel Huntington,--all distinguished for coolness,
probity, and patriotism,--that the immortal document can contain one
thought or word unworthy its sacred associations, and the character of
the American people!
And it is among the alarming symptoms of public sentiment that the
Declaration of Independence is by some publicly condemned, and by others
quietly accepted as entitled to just the consideration, and no more,
that is given to an excited advocate's speech to a jury, or a
demagogue's electioneering harangue, or the daily contribution of the
partisan editor to the stock of political capital that aids the election
of his favorite candidates. And upon this evidence is the nation and the
world to be taught that but little was meant by the assertions, "that
all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are
instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the
governed"? Would it not be wiser to test the government we have, by a
statesmanlike application of the principles of the Declaration of
Independence in the management of public affairs?
The Union is connected with the Declaration of Independence. The Union
is an institution: the Declaration of Independence is an assertion of
rights, and an exposition of principles. When principles are
disregarded, institutions do not, for any considerable time, retain
their original value. And it would be the folly of other nations,
without excuse in us, were we to worship blindly any institution,
whatever its origin or its history. I do not, myself, doubt the value of
the American Union. It was the necessity of the time when it was formed;
it is the necessity of the present moment; it was, indeed, the claim of
our whole colonial life, and its recognition could be postponed no
longer when the colonies crossed the threshold of national existence.
The colonies had carried on a correspondence among themselves upon
important matters; the New England settlements formed a confederation in
1643, that was the prototype of the present Union; and the convention at
Albany, in 1754, considered in connection with various resolutions and
declarations, indicated a growing desire "to form a more perfect union,
establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common
defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of
liberty" to the successive generations that should occupy the American
continent.
For these exalted purposes the Constitution was framed, and the Union
established; and the Constitution and the Union will remain as long as
these exalted purposes, with any considerable share of fidelity, are
secured. The Union will not be destroyed by declamation, nor can
declamation preserve it. Words have power only when they awaken a
response in the minds of those who listen. The Union will be judged,
finally, by its merits; and they are not powerful enemies for evil who
attack it through the press and from the rostrum; but rather they who,
clothed with authority, brief or permanent, interpret the constitution
so as to defeat the end for which it was framed. Nor are they the best
friends of the Union who lavishly bestow upon it nicely-wrought
encomiums, as though the gilding of rhetoric and the ornament of praise
could shield a human institution from the judgment of a free people; but
rather they who, under Heaven, and in the presence of men, seek to so
interpret the constitution as, in the language and in the order of its
preamble, "to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure
domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the
general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty" to themselves and
their posterity. Words are powerless, and enemies--envious, jealous, or
deluded--are powerless, when they war upon a system of government that
secures such exalted results. And, if in these later days of our
national existence patriotism has been weakened, respect and reverence
for the constitution and the Union have been diminished, it is because
the actual government under the constitution has, in the judgment of
many, failed to realize the government of the constitution.
But let no one despair of the Republic. Men are now building better than
they know; possibly, better than they wish. A great government, powerful
in its justice, and therefore to be respected and maintained, must also
be powerful in its errors, prejudices, and wrongs, and therefore to be
changed and reformed in these respects. The declaration "that all men
are created equal" is vital, and will live in the presence of all
governments, strong as well as weak, hostile as well as friendly. It has
no respect for worldly authority, so evidently is it a direct emanation
of the Divine Mind, and so does it harmonize with the highest
manifestations of the nature of man. But the Declaration of Independence
does not, in this particular, assert that all men are created equal in
height or weight, equal in physical strength, intellectual power, or
moral worth. It is not dealing with these qualities at all, but with the
natural political rights and relations of men. In its view, all are born
free from any political subordination to others on account of the
accidents or incidents of family or historic name. And hence it follows
that no man, by birth or nature, has any right in political affairs to
control his fellow-man; and hence it follows further, as there is
neither subjection anywhere nor authority anywhere, that all men are
created equal, that governments derive their "just powers from the
consent of the governed." And hence it must, ere long, be demonstrated
by this country, under the light of Christianity, and in the presence of
the world, that man cannot have property in his fellow-man.
And, again, let no one despair of the Republic or of the Union; nor let
any, with rash confidence, believe that they are indestructible. They
are human institutions built up through great sacrifices, and by the
exercise of a high order of worldly wisdom. But the government is not an
end--it is a means. The end is Liberty regulated by law; and the means
will exist as long as the end thereof is attained. But, should the time
ever come when the institutions of the country fail to secure the
blessings of liberty to the living generation, and hold out no promise
of better things in the future, I know not that these institutions could
longer exist, of that they ought longer to exist. To be sure, the
horizon is not always distinctly seen. The sky is not always clear;
there are dark spots upon the disk of Liberty, as upon the sun in the
heavens; but, like the sun, its presence is for all. And, whether there
be night, or clouds, or distance, its blessings can never be wholly
withdrawn from the human race.
It is not to be concealed, however, that the affections of the people
have been alienated from the American Union during the last seven years,
as they were from the union with Great Britain during the years of our
colonial life immediately previous to the Massacre in King-street, in
1770. This solemn personal and public experience is fraught with a great
lesson. It should teach those who are intrusted with the administration
of public affairs to translate the language of the constitution into the
stern realities of public policy, in the light of the Declaration of
Independence, and of Liberty; and it should warn those who constitute
the government, and who judge it, not to allow their opposition to men
or to measures to degenerate into indifference or hostility to the
institutions of the country.
A little distrust of ourselves, who see not beyond our own horizon,
might sometimes lend charity to our judgment, and discretion to our
opposition; for, in the turmoil of politics, and the contests of
statesmanship, even, it is not always
"----the sea that sinks and shelves,
But ourselves,
That rook and rise
With endless and uneasy motion,
Now touching the very skies,
Now sinking into the depths of ocean."
And, as there must be in every society of men something of evil that can
be traced to the government, and something of good neglected that a wise
and efficient government might have accomplished, it is easy to build up
an argument against an existing government, however good when compared
with others. This is a narrow, superficial, unsatisfactory, dangerous
view to take of public affairs.
We should seek to comprehend the relations of the government, the
principles on which it is founded; and, while we justly complain of its
defects, and seek to remedy them, we ought also to compare it with other
systems that exist, or that might be established. This proposition
involves an intelligent realization by the people of the character of
their institutions; and I am thus led to express the apprehension that
the popular political education of our day is inferior to that of the
revolutionary era, and of the age that immediately succeeded it.