Speeches by Daniel Webster
[Illustration: DANIEL WEBSTER.
_From a daguerreotype by T. D. Jones. Copyright, 1901, by Dartmouth
College._]
DANIEL WEBSTER
FOR YOUNG AMERICANS
COMPRISING
THE GREATEST SPEECHES OF THE DEFENDER
OF THE CONSTITUTION
WITH NOTES BY
CHARLES F. RICHARDSON
PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN DARTMOUTH COLLEGE
School Edition
ILLUSTRATED
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1907
_Copyright, 1903, 1906,_
BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
_All rights reserved_
The Eastern Press Co.
BOSTON, MASS.
CONTENTS
PAGE
DANIEL WEBSTER, CHRONOLOGY ix
THE FIRST SETTLEMENT OF NEW ENGLAND 3
THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT 30
THE COMPLETION OF THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT 50
ADAMS AND JEFFERSON 67
THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE 111
THE REPLY TO HAYNE 115
EXECUTIVE PATRONAGE AND REMOVAL FROM OFFICE 174
THE CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON 175
THE CONSTITUTION AND THE UNION 194
THE ADDITION TO THE CAPITOL 200
INDEX 213
ILLUSTRATIONS
Daniel Webster _Frontispiece_
From a daguerreotype by T. D. Jones, in the
possession of Dartmouth College
Daniel Webster _Page_ vii
From the crayon drawing by John Martin, in the
possession of Mrs. Richard W. Grinnell
Birthplace of Daniel Webster, Franklin (formerly
Salisbury), N. H. " viii
The Embarkation of the Pilgrims from Delfthaven _Facing page_ 14
The Landing of the Pilgrims " " 16
The Battle of Bunker Hill " " 30
Joseph Warren _Page_ 37
Marquis de Lafayette " 40
Bunker Hill Monument " 50
John Tyler " 54
Faneuil Hall " 68
John Adams " 74
James Otis " 77
Independence Hall, Philadelphia " 80
Thomas Jefferson " 82
The Declaration of Independence _Facing page_ 84
John Hancock _Page_ 91
Samuel Adams " 97
Patrick Henry " 101
Benjamin Franklin " 102
The Reply to Hayne _Facing page_ 118
Thomas H. Benton _Page_ 120
John Quincy Adams " 123
Robert Y. Hayne " 135
The Battle of Lexington _Facing page_ 144
George Washington _Page_ 175
The Resignation of Washington _Facing page_ 178
Henry Clay _Page_ 195
The Capitol at Washington " 200
Washington Monument " 208
Millard Fillmore " 211
[Illustration]
DANIEL WEBSTER
CHRONOLOGY
Born at Salisbury, now Franklin, New Hampshire January 18, 1782
Graduated at Dartmouth College 1801
Admitted to the bar 1805
Practised law in Boscawen, New Hampshire 1805-7
Removed to Portsmouth, New Hampshire 1807
Member of the United States House of Representatives from
New Hampshire 1813-7
Removed to Boston 1816
Dartmouth College case, United States Supreme Court 1818
Member of the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention 1820-1
Oration at Plymouth, Massachusetts 1820
Member of the United States House of Representatives from
Massachusetts 1823-7
Gibbons _versus_ Ogden case 1823
Oration at the laying of the corner-stone of Bunker Hill
Monument 1825
Eulogy on Adams and Jefferson 1826
Senator from Massachusetts 1827-41
Reply to Hayne 1830
Argument in White murder case, Salem, Massachusetts 1830
Reply to Calhoun: The Constitution not a Compact between
Sovereign States 1833
Secretary of State under Presidents Harrison and Tyler 1841-3
Webster-Ashburton Treaty between the United States and England 1842
Oration on the completion of Bunker Hill Monument 1843
Senator from Massachusetts 1845-50
Seventh of March Speech for compromise between Northern and
Southern States 1850
Secretary of State under President Fillmore 1850-2
Died at Marshfield, Massachusetts October 24, 1852
[Illustration]
DANIEL WEBSTER _for_ YOUNG AMERICANS
THE FIRST SETTLEMENT OF NEW ENGLAND
A DISCOURSE DELIVERED AT PLYMOUTH, MASSACHUSETTS, DEC. 22, 1820.
[In 1820 the "Pilgrim Society" was formed by the citizens of
Plymouth, Massachusetts, and the descendants of the Pilgrims in
other places, desirous of uniting "to commemorate the landing, and
to honor the memory of the intrepid men who first set foot on
Plymouth Rock." The foundation of this society gave a new impulse to
the anniversary celebrations of the two hundredth anniversary of the
landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth. Mr. Webster was requested to
deliver the public address on the 22d of December of that year, and
the following discourse was pronounced by him, in the presence of a
great gathering of people.]
[Sidenote: Beginning of the third century of New England history.]
Let us rejoice that we behold this day. Let us be thankful that we have
lived to see the bright and happy breaking of the auspicious morn which
commences the third century of the history of New England. Auspicious,
indeed,--bringing a happiness beyond the common allotment of Providence
to men,--full of present joy, and gilding with bright beams the prospect
of futurity, is the dawn that awakens us to the commemoration of the
landing of the Pilgrims.
Living at an epoch which naturally marks the progress of the history of
our native land, we have come hither to celebrate the great event with
which that history commenced. Forever honored be this, the place of our
fathers' refuge! Forever remembered the day which saw them, weary and
distressed, broken in everything but spirit, poor in all but faith and
courage, at last secure from the dangers of wintry seas, and impressing
this shore with the first footsteps of civilized man!
[Sidenote: New England's ancestors.]
It is a noble faculty of our nature which enables us to connect our
thoughts, our sympathies, and our happiness with what is distant in
place or time; and, looking before and after, to hold communion at once
with our ancestors and our posterity. Human and mortal although we are,
we are nevertheless not mere insulated beings, without relation to the
past or the future. Neither the point of time, nor the spot of earth, in
which we physically live, bounds our rational and intellectual
enjoyments. We live in the past by a knowledge of its history; and in
the future, by hope and anticipation. By ascending to an association
with our ancestors, by contemplating their example and studying their
character, by partaking their sentiments and imbibing their spirit, by
accompanying them in their toils, by sympathizing in their sufferings,
and rejoicing in their successes and their triumphs, we seem to belong
to their age and to mingle our own existence with theirs. We become
their contemporaries, live the lives which they lived, endure what they
endured, and partake in the rewards which they enjoyed. And in like
manner, by running along the line of future time, by contemplating the
probable fortunes of those who are coming after us, by attempting
something which may promote their happiness and leave some not
dishonorable memorial of ourselves for their regard when we shall sleep
with the fathers, we protract our own earthly being, and seem to crowd
whatever is future, as well as all that is past, into the narrow compass
of our earthly existence. As it is not a vain and false, but an exalted
and religious imagination which leads us to raise our thoughts from the
orb which, amidst this universe of worlds, the Creator has given us to
inhabit, and to send them with something of the feeling which nature
prompts, and teaches to be proper among children of the same Eternal
Parent, to the contemplation of the myriads of fellow-beings with which
his goodness has peopled the infinite of space; so neither is it false
or vain to consider ourselves as interested and connected with our whole
race, through all time; allied to our ancestors; allied to our
posterity; closely compacted on all sides with others; ourselves being
but links in the great chain of being, which begins with the origin of
our race, runs onward through its successive generations, binding
together the past, the present, and the future, and terminating at last,
with the consummation of all things earthly, at the throne of God.
[Sidenote: The Pilgrim Fathers.]
We have come to this Rock, to record here our homage for our Pilgrim
Fathers;[1] our sympathy in their sufferings; our gratitude for their
labors; our admiration of their virtues; our veneration for their piety;
and our attachment to those principles of civil and religious liberty
which they encountered the dangers of the ocean, the storms of heaven,
the violence of savages, disease, exile, and famine, to enjoy and to
establish. And we would leave here, also, for the generations which are
rising up rapidly to fill our places, some proof that we have endeavored
to transmit the great inheritance unimpaired; that in our estimate of
public principles and private virtue, in our veneration of religion and
piety, in our devotion to civil and religious liberty, in our regard for
whatever advances human knowledge or improves human happiness, we are
not altogether unworthy of our origin.
[Sidenote: The genius of the place.]
[Sidenote: Plymouth Rock.]
There is a local feeling connected with this occasion, too strong to be
resisted; a sort of genius of the place, which inspires and awes us. We
feel that we are on the spot where the first scene of our history was
laid; where the hearths and altars of New England were first placed;
where Christianity and civilization and letters made their first
lodgment, in a vast extent of country, covered with a wilderness, and
peopled by roving barbarians. We are here at the season of the year at
which the event took place. The imagination irresistibly and rapidly
draws around us the principal features and the leading characters in the
original scene. We cast our eyes abroad on the ocean, and we see where
the little bark, with the interesting group upon its deck, made its slow
progress to the shore. We look around us, and behold the hills and
promontories where the anxious eyes of our fathers first saw the places
of habitation and of rest. We feel the cold which benumbed, and listen
to the winds which pierced them. Beneath us is the Rock on which New
England received the feet of the Pilgrims. We seem even to behold them
as they struggle with the elements, and with toilsome efforts gain the
shore. We listen to the chiefs in council; we see the unexampled
exhibition of female fortitude and resignation; we hear the whisperings
of youthful impatience; and we see what a painter of our own has also
represented by his pencil,[2] chilled and shivering childhood, houseless
but for a mother's arms, couchless but for a mother's breast, till our
own blood almost freezes. The mild dignity of Carver and of Bradford;
the decisive and soldier-like air and manner of Standish; the devout
Brewster; the enterprising Allerton; the general firmness and
thoughtfulness of the whole band; their conscious joy for dangers
escaped; their deep solicitude about dangers to come; their trust in
Heaven; their high religious faith, full of confidence and
anticipation,--all of these seem to belong to this place, and to be
present upon this occasion, to fill us with reverence and admiration.
[Sidenote: Importance of the landing at Plymouth as an historical
event.]
The settlement of New England by the colony which landed here on the
twenty-second[3] of December, 1620, although not the first European
establishment in what now constitutes the United States, was yet so
peculiar in its causes and character, and has been followed and must
still be followed by such consequences, as to give it a high claim to
lasting commemoration. On these causes and consequences, more than on
its immediately attendant circumstances, its importance as an historical
event depends. Great actions and striking occurrences, having excited a
temporary admiration, often pass away and are forgotten, because they
leave no lasting results affecting the prosperity and happiness of
communities. Such is frequently the fortune of the most brilliant
military achievements. Of the ten thousand battles which have been
fought, of all the fields fertilized with carnage, of the banners which
have been bathed in blood, of the warriors who have hoped that they had
risen from the field of conquest to a glory as bright and as durable as
the stars, how few that continue long to interest mankind! The victory
of yesterday is reversed by the defeat of to-day; the star of military
glory, rising like a meteor, like a meteor has fallen; disgrace and
disaster hang on the heels of conquest and renown; victor and vanquished
presently pass away to oblivion, and the world goes on in its course,
with the loss only of so many lives and so much treasure.
[Sidenote: The Battle of Marathon.]
But if this be frequently, or generally, the fortune of military
achievements, it is not always so. There are enterprises, military as
well as civil, which sometimes check the current of events, give a new
turn to human affairs, and transmit their consequences through ages. We
see their importance in their results, and call them great, because
great things follow. There have been battles which have fixed the fate
of nations. These come down to us in history with a solid and permanent
interest, not created by a display of glittering armor, the rush of
adverse battalions, the sinking and rising of pennons, the flight, the
pursuit, and the victory; but by their effect in advancing or retarding
human knowledge, in overthrowing or establishing despotism, in extending
or destroying human happiness. When the traveller pauses on the plain of
Marathon,[4] what are the emotions which most strongly agitate his
breast? What is that glorious recollection which thrills through his
frame, and suffuses his eyes? Not, I imagine, that Grecian skill and
Grecian valor were here most signally displayed; but that Greece herself
was saved. It is because to this spot, and to the event which has
rendered it immortal, he refers all the succeeding glories of the
republic. It is because, if that day had gone otherwise, Greece had
perished. It is because he perceives that her philosophers and orators,
her poets and painters, her sculptors and architects, her governments
and free institutions, point backward to Marathon, and that their future
existence seems to have been suspended on the contingency whether the
Persian or the Grecian banner should wave victorious in the beams of
that day's setting sun. And, as his imagination kindles at the
retrospect, he is transported back to the interesting moment; he counts
the fearful odds of the contending hosts; his interest for the result
overwhelms him; he trembles, as if it were still uncertain, and seems to
doubt whether he may consider Socrates and Plato, Demosthenes,
Sophocles, and Phidias, as secure yet to himself and to the world.
[Sidenote: The high purpose of the Pilgrim Fathers.]
"If we conquer," said the Athenian commander on the approach of that
decisive day, "if we conquer, we shall make Athens the greatest city of
Greece." A prophecy how well fulfilled! "If God prosper us," might have
been the more appropriate language of our fathers, when they landed upon
this Rock, "if God prosper us, we shall here begin a work which shall
last for ages; we shall plant here a new society, in the principles of
the fullest liberty and the purest religion; we shall subdue this
wilderness which is before us; we shall fill this region of the great
continent, which stretches almost from pole to pole, with civilization
and Christianity; the temples of the true God shall rise where now
ascends the smoke of idolatrous sacrifice; fields and gardens, the
flowers of summer, and the waving and golden harvest of autumn, shall
spread over a thousand hills and stretch along a thousand valleys, never
yet, since the creation, reclaimed to the use of civilized man. We shall
whiten this coast with the canvas of a prosperous commerce; we shall
stud the long and winding shore with a hundred cities. That which we sow
in weakness shall be raised in strength. From our sincere but houseless
worship there shall spring splendid temples to record God's goodness;
from the simplicity of our social union there shall arise wise and
politic constitutions of government, full of the liberty which we
ourselves bring and breathe; from our zeal for learning, institutions
shall spring which shall scatter the light of knowledge throughout the
land, and in time, paying back where they have borrowed, shall
contribute their part to the great aggregate of human knowledge; and our
descendants, through all generations, shall look back to this spot and
to this hour with unabated affection and regard.
[Sidenote: Love of religious liberty the motive for the settlement of
New England.]
Of the motives which influenced the first settlers to a voluntary exile,
induced them to relinquish their native country, and to seek an asylum
in this then unexplored wilderness, the first and principal, no doubt,
were connected with religion. They sought to enjoy a higher degree of
religious freedom, and what they esteemed a purer form of religious
worship, than was allowed to their choice, or presented to their
imitation, in the Old World. The love of religious liberty is a stronger
sentiment, when fully excited, than an attachment to civil or political
freedom. That freedom which the conscience demands, and which men feel
bound by their hope of salvation to contend for, can hardly fail to be
attained. Conscience, in the cause of religion and the worship of the
Deity, prepares the mind to act and to suffer beyond almost all other
causes. It sometimes gives an impulse so irresistible that no fetters of
power or of opinion can withstand it. History instructs us that this
love of religious liberty, a compound sentiment in the breast of man,
made up of the clearest sense of right and the highest conviction of
duty, is able to look the sternest despotism in the face, and, with
means apparently most inadequate, to shake principalities and powers.
There is a boldness, a spirit of daring, in religious reformers, not to
be measured by the general rules which control men's purposes and
actions. If the hand of power be laid upon it, this only seems to
augment its force and its elasticity, and to cause its action to be more
formidable and violent. Human invention has devised nothing, human power
has compassed nothing, that can forcibly restrain it when it breaks
forth. Nothing can stop it, but to give way to it; nothing can check it,
but indulgence. It loses its power only when it has gained its object.
The principle of toleration, to which the world has come so slowly, is
at once the most just and the most wise of all principles. Even when
religious feeling takes a character of extravagance and enthusiasm, and
seems to threaten the order of society and shake the columns of the
social edifice, its principal danger is in its restraint. If it be
allowed indulgence and expansion, like the elemental fires, it only
agitates, and perhaps purifies, the atmosphere; while its efforts to
throw off restraint would burst the world asunder.
[Sidenote: Religious persecutions in England.]
It is certain, that, although many of them were republicans in
principle, we have no evidence that our New England ancestors would have
emigrated, as they did, from their own native country, would have become
wanderers in Europe, and finally would have undertaken the establishment
of a colony here, merely from their dislike of the political systems of
Europe. They fled not so much from the civil government as from the
hierarchy, and the laws which enforced conformity to the church
establishment. Mr. Robinson[5] had left England as early as 1608, on
account of the persecutions for non-conformity, and had retired to
Holland. He left England from no disappointed ambition in affairs of
state, from no regrets at the want of preferment in the church, nor from
any motive of distinction or of gain. Uniformity in matters of religion
was pressed with such extreme rigor that a voluntary exile seemed the
most eligible mode of escaping from the penalties of non-compliance. The
accession of Elizabeth had, it is true, quenched the fires of
Smithfield,[6] and put an end to the easy acquisition of the crown of
martyrdom. Her long reign had established the Reformation, but
toleration was a virtue beyond her conception and beyond the age. She
left no example of it to her successor; and he was not of a character
which rendered it probable that a sentiment either so wise or so liberal
would originate with him. At the present period it seems incredible that
the learned, accomplished, unassuming, and inoffensive Robinson should
neither be tolerated in his peaceable mode of worship in his own
country, nor suffered quietly to depart from it. Yet such was the fact.
He left his country by stealth, that he might elsewhere enjoy those
rights which ought to belong to men in all countries. The departure of
the Pilgrims for Holland is deeply interesting, from its circumstances,
and also as it marks the character of the times, independently of its
connection with names now incorporated with the history of empire. The
embarkation was intended to be made in such a manner that it might
escape the notice of the officers of government. Great pains had been
taken to secure boats which should come undiscovered to the shore and
receive the fugitives; and frequent disappointments had been experienced
in this respect.
[Sidenote: The embarkation from Lincolnshire.]
[Sidenote: The stormy voyage to Holland.]
At length the appointed time came, bringing with it unusual severity of
cold and rain. An unfrequented and barren heath, on the shores of
Lincolnshire, was the selected spot where the feet of the Pilgrims were
to tread for the last time the land of their fathers. The vessel which
was to receive them did not come until the next day, and in the mean
time the little band was collected, and men and women and children and
baggage were crowded together, in melancholy and distressed confusion.
The sea was rough, and the women and children were already sick, from
their passage down the river to the place of embarkation on the sea. At
length the wished-for boat silently and fearfully approaches the shore,
and men and women and children, shaking with fear and with cold, as many
as the small vessel could bear, venture off on a dangerous sea.
Immediately the advance of horses is heard from behind, armed men
appear, and those not yet embarked are seized and taken into custody. In
the hurry of the moment, the first parties had been sent on board
without any attempt to keep members of the same family together; and on
account of the appearance of the horsemen, the boat never returned for
the residue. Those who had got away, and those who had not, were in
equal distress. A storm, of great violence and long duration, arose at
sea, which not only protracted the voyage, rendered distressing by the
want of all those accommodations which the interruption of the
embarkation had occasioned, but also forced the vessel out of her
course, and menaced immediate shipwreck; while those on shore, when they
were dismissed from the custody of the officers of justice, having no
longer homes or houses to retire to, and their friends and protectors
being already gone, became objects of necessary charity as well as of
deep commiseration.
[Illustration: THE EMBARKATION OF THE PILGRIMS FROM DELFTSHAVEN]
As this scene passes before us, we can hardly forbear asking whether
this be a band of malefactors and felons flying from justice. What are
their crimes, that they hide themselves in darkness? To what punishment
are they exposed, that, to avoid it, men and women and children thus
encounter the surf of the North Sea and the terrors of a night storm?
What induces this armed pursuit and this arrest of fugitives, of all
ages and both sexes? Truth does not allow us to answer these
inquiries in a manner that does credit to the wisdom or the justice of
the times. This was not the flight of guilt, but of virtue. It was an
humble and peaceable religion, flying from causeless oppression. It was
conscience, attempting to escape from the arbitrary rule of the Stuarts.
It was Robinson and Brewster, leading off their little band from their
native soil, at first to find shelter on the shore of the neighboring
continent, but ultimately to come hither; and having surmounted all
difficulties and braved a thousand dangers, to find here a place of
refuge and of rest. Thanks be to God, that this spot was honored as the
asylum of religious liberty! May its standard, reared here, remain
forever! May it rise up as high as heaven, till its banner shall fan the
air of both continents, and wave as a glorious ensign of peace and
security to the nations!
[Illustration: THE LANDING OF THE PILGRIMS]
[Sidenote: The Pilgrims sought a home, not a place of exile.]
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 forever 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,
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. Everything was civilized but the physical
world. Institutions, containing in substance all that ages had done for
human government, were organized in a forest. 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 erelong 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.
[Sidenote: Their chosen land.]
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.
[Sidenote: Popular government in America.]
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.
[Sidenote: The distribution of property in New England.]
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."
[Sidenote: The American system of government.]
[Sidenote: The Roman commonwealth.]
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.
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.
[Sidenote: Education in New England.]
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. 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.
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."
[Sidenote: Harvard College.]
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. 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.
[Illustration: _A View of Harvard College._]
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.
[Sidenote: Religious influences.]
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.
[Sidenote: The duty of the descendants of the Pilgrims.]
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 lines of conveyance, through which whatever has been obtained by the
spirit and efforts of our ancestors is to be communicated to our
children.
[Sidenote: American constitutional history.]
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.
[Sidenote: American literature.]
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.
[Sidenote: The influence of religion.]
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.
[Sidenote: The future progress of New England.]
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.