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Daniel Webster

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Title: Select Speeches of Daniel Webster

Author: Daniel Webster

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SELECT SPEECHES OF DANIEL WEBSTER

1817-1845

WITH PREFACE, INTRODUCTION, AND NOTES BY

A. J. GEORGE, A.M.

Instructor in Rhetoric and English Literature in the Newton, Mass., High

School

"The front of Jove himself;

An eye like Mars to threaten and command;

A combination and a form indeed,

Where every god did seem to set his seal,

To give the world assurance of a man"

Boston, U.S.A.

D.C. Heath & Co., Publishers

1903

THE HON. GEORGE F. HOAR, LL.D.

A WORTHY SUCCESSOR OF

DANIEL WEBSTER

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

Blest Statesman He, whose Mind's unselfish will

Leaves him at ease among grand thoughts: whose eye

Sees that, apart from magnanimity,

Wisdom exists not; nor the humbler skill

Of Prudence, disentangling good and ill

With patient care. What tho' assaults run high,

They daunt not him who holds his ministry,

Resolute, at all hazards, to fulfil

Its duties; prompt to move, but firm to wait;

Knowing, things rashly sought are rarely found;

That, for the functions of an ancient State--

Strong by her charters, free because imbound,

Servant of Providence, not slave of Fate--

Perilous is sweeping change, all chance unsound.

Preface.

Burke and Webster are models in the forensic literature of our own language

as truly as are Demosthenes and Cicero in the language of the ancient

ads:

classics. Each has distinct and inimitable characteristics which give force

and beauty to his work. The study of each should be ordered in such a way

as to put one in touch with those qualities of mind and heart, of

intellectual and moral manhood, by which each became a leader in political

philosophy and a model in literary style. One who studies such authors in

order to formulate a historical or a personal estimate merely, or to

compare each as to certain externals of rhetorical form, has lost the true

perspective of literary judgment.

Reading in the school and in the home is far too often pursued with a

purpose to controvert and prove rather than to weigh and consider. Reading

which does not result in enlarging, stimulating, and refining one's nature

is but a busy idleness. The schools must see to it that the desultory and

dissipating methods of reading, so prevalent in the home, are not

encouraged. Pupils must be stimulated first of all to enjoy what is

beautiful in nature and in art: for here is

"A world of ready wealth,

Their minds and hearts to bless--

Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,

Truth breathed by cheerfulness."

The wisdom of the classroom is too often "art tongue-tied by authority,"

and hence it is not wisdom at all, but a sham and a pretence. Not until

pupils rise to the spontaneity which betokens a genuine love for the work

in hand do they secure the richest results.

The publication of the masterpieces of the epic, the lyric, and the drama;

of the novel, the essay, and the oration, in a convenient form and at such

a price as to bring them within the reach of our schools, makes it

inexcusable if pupils are allowed to be ignorant of the great literary,

ethical, and artistic impulses which have touched and quickened the life

of the past.

Burke's _American Orations_ present him at his best as a statesman,

an orator, and a stylist. When the edition of those speeches was prepared,

a selection from Webster's great speeches was contemplated as a companion

volume. The present edition represents Webster in the various and distinct

fields in which his genius manifested itself so powerfully and so nobly.

He is here seen before a jury, before the Supreme Court of the United

States, on a great historical occasion, in the Senate of the United

States, in a great national canvass, and as a eulogist.

Had it not been for making the volume too large for school use I should

have included the famous speech delivered in the Senate on the 7th of

March, 1850. This speech has been considered by many as the _vulnus

immedicabile_ of Mr. Webster's political life; it is certain that for

it he was most rankly abused. "Massachusetts," as Hon. John D. Long has

said, "smote and broke the heart of Webster, her idol, and then broke her

own above his grave, and to-day writes his name highest upon her roll of

statesmen."

I find in this speech nothing but what is consistent with Mr. Webster's

noble adherence to the Constitution and the Union; nothing but what is

consistent with the solemn duty of a great man in a great national crisis.

In his address at Buffalo on the 22d of May, 1851, he expressed himself

very freely in regard to this speech, saying: "I felt that I had a duty to

perform to my country, to my own reputation; for I flattered myself that a

service of forty years had given me some character, on which I had a right

to repose for my justification in the performance of a duty attended with

some degree of local unpopularity. I thought it was my duty to pursue this

course, and I did not care what was to be the consequence. And, Gentlemen,

allow me to say here to-day, that if the fate of John Rogers had stared me

in the face, if I had seen the stake, if I had heard the fagots already

crackling, by the blessing of Almighty God I would have gone on and

discharged the duty which I thought my country called upon me to perform."

Does this seem the language of one who had abandoned his post and was

merely "bidding for the Presidency"?

The address of Hon. Rufus Choate, before the students of Dartmouth

College, commemorative of Daniel Webster, has a remark on this subject so

just that I cannot refrain from quoting it. He says: "Until the accuser

who charges Mr. Webster with having 'sinned against his conscience' will

assert that the conscience of a public man may not, must not, be

instructed by profound knowledge of the vast subject-matter with which

public life is conversant, and will assert that he is certain that the

consummate science of our great statesman was _felt by himself to

prescribe to his morality_ another conduct than that which he adopted,

and that he thus consciously outraged that 'sense of duty which pursues us

ever,'--is he not inexcusable, whoever he is, that so judges another?"

At the meeting held in Faneuil Hall, Oct. 27, 1852, commemorative of Mr.

Webster's life and work, Mr. Edward Everett said: "Whoever, in after time,

shall write the history of the United States for the last forty years will

write the life of Daniel Webster; and whoever writes the life of Daniel

Webster as it ought to be written will write the history of the Union from

the time he took a leading part in its concerns." Mr. Choate, at a meeting

of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, Oct. 25, 1852, said: "Happier than

the younger Pliny, happier than Cicero, he has found his historian,

unsolicited, in his lifetime, and his countrymen have him all by heart."

If this volume shall aid in bringing the young of this generation "to have

him all by heart," to ascend his imaginative heights and sit under the

shadow of his profound reflections on that which is fundamental in civil

and religious liberty, its purpose will be accomplished.

With few exceptions these selections are given entire. Whenever they have

been abridged, the continuity of the discourse has not been impaired.

In the matter of annotation the purpose has been to furnish sufficient aid

to the general reader, and at the same time to indicate to the special

student lines along which he may study the speeches.

In Edward Everett's Memoir, found in the first volume of Mr. Webster's

works; in the life of Mr. Webster by George Tichnor Curtis, and in Henry

Cabot Lodge's _Daniel Webster_, in the American Statesman Series, the

student has exhaustive, scholarly, and judicious estimates of Mr.

Webster's work.

I am indebted to the Hon. George F. Hoar and the Hon. Edward J. Phelps for

assistance in the task of selecting representative speeches; and to the

former for permission to associate his name with this edition of Mr.

Webster's work.

A. J. G.

Brookline, November, 1892.

Introduction.

Mr. Webster approaches as nearly to the _beau ideal_ of a republican

Senator as any man that I have ever seen in the course of my life; worthy

of Rome or Venice rather than of our noisy and wrangling generation.--

Hallam.

Coleridge used to say that he had seldom known or heard of any great man

who had not much of the woman in him. Even so the large intellect of

Daniel Webster seemed to be coupled with all softer feelings; and his

countenance and bearing, at the very first, impressed me with this. A

commanding brow, thoughtful eyes, and a mouth that seemed to respond to

all humanities. He deserves his fame, I am sure.--John Kenyon.

He is a magnificent specimen. You might say to all the world, "This is our

Yankee Englishman; such limbs we make in Yankee-land!" As a parliamentary

Hercules one would incline to back him at first sight against all the

extant world. The tanned complexion; that amorphous craglike face; the

dull black eyes under the precipice of brows, like dull anthracite

furnaces needing only to be _blown_; the mastiff mouth, accurately

closed; I have not traced so much of _silent Berserkir rage_ that I

remember of in any other man.--Thomas Carlyle.

When the historian shall look back upon the first century of the American

Republic, the two names that will shine with most unfading lustre and the

serenest glory, high above all others, are Washington and Webster.--

Professor Felton.

Consider the remarkable phenomenon of excellence in three unkindred, one

might have thought incompatible, forms of public speech,--that of the

forum, with its double audience of bench and jury, of the halls of

legislation, and of the most thronged and tumultuous assemblies of the

people. Consider, further, that this multiform eloquence, exactly as his

words fell, became at once so much accession to permanent literature in

the strictest sense,--solid, attractive, rich,--and ask how often in the

history of public life such a thing has been exemplified.--Rufus Choate.

The noblest monument to Daniel Webster is in his works. As a repository of

political truth and practical wisdom, applied to the affairs of

government, I know not where we shall find their equal. The works of Burke

naturally suggest themselves to the mind, as the only writings in our

language that can sustain the comparison.--Edward Everett.

He writes like a man who is thinking of his subject, and not of his style,

and thus he wastes no time upon the mere garb of his thoughts. His style

is Doric, not Corinthian. His sentences are like shafts hewn from the

granite of his own hills,--simple, massive, strong. We may apply to him

what Quinctilian says of Cicero, that a relish for his writings is itself

a mark of good taste.--George S. Hillard.

He taught the people of the United States, in the simplicity of common

understanding, the principles of the Constitution and government of the

country, and he wrought for them, in a style of matchless strength and

beauty, the literature of statesmanship. He made his language the very

household words of a nation. They are the library of the people. They are

the school-book of the citizen.--John D. Long.

Take him for all in all, he was not only the greatest orator this country

has ever known, but in the history of eloquence his name will stand with

those of Demosthenes and Cicero, Chatham and Burke.--Henry Cabot Lodge.

It may be said that the style of Webster is pre-eminently distinguished by

manliness. The intellect and moral manliness of Webster underlies all his

great orations and speeches; and this plain force of manhood, this sturdy

grapple with every question that comes before his understanding for

settlement, leads him to reject all the meretricious aids and ornaments of

mere rhetoric, and is prominent, among the many exceptional qualities of

his large nature, which have given him a high position among the prose-

writers of his country as a consummate master of English style.--Edwin P.

Whipple.

His broad, wise statesmanship is to be the ample and refreshing shade, his

character the bright and breezy presence, in which all the members of this

great and illustrious Republic may meet and sit down and feast together.--

H. N. Hudson.

Contents.

Defence of the Kennistons

The Dartmouth College Case

First Settlement of New England

The Bunker Hill Monument

The Reply to Hayne

The Murder of Captain Joseph White

The Constitution Not a Compact Between Sovereign States

Speech at Saratoga

Eulogy on Mr. Justice Story

Biographical

Notes

Defence of the Kennistons.

Gentlemen of the Jury,--It is true that the offence charged in the

indictment in this case is not capital; but perhaps this can hardly be

considered as favorable to the defendants. To those who are guilty, and

without hope of escape, no doubt the lightness of the penalty of

transgression gives consolation. But if the defendants are innocent, it is

more natural for them to be thinking upon what they have lost by that

alteration of the law which has left highway robbery no longer capital,

than upon what the guilty might gain by it. They have lost those great

privileges in their trial, which the law allows, in capital cases, for the

protection of innocence against unfounded accusation. They have lost the

right of being previously furnished with a copy of the indictment, and a

list of the government witnesses. They have lost the right of peremptory

challenge; and, notwithstanding the prejudices which they know have been

excited against them, they must show legal cause of challenge, in each

individual case, or else take the jury as they find it. They have lost the

benefit of assignment of counsel by the court. They have lost the benefit

of the Commonwealth's process to bring in witnesses in their behalf. When

to these circumstances it is added that they are strangers, almost wholly

without friends, and without the means for preparing their defence, it is

evident they must take their trial under great disadvantages.

But without dwelling on these considerations, I proceed, Gentlemen of the

Jury, to ask your attention to those circumstances which cannot but cast

doubts on the story of the prosecutor.

In the first place, it is impossible to believe that a robbery of this

sort could have been committed by three or four men without previous

arrangement and concert, and of course without the knowledge of the fact

that Goodridge would be there, and that he had money. They did not go on

the highway, in such a place, in a cold December's night, for the general

purpose of attacking the first passenger, running the chance of his being

somebody who had money. It is not easy to believe that a gang of robbers

existed, that they acted systematically, communicating intelligence to one

another, and meeting and dispersing as occasion required, and that this

gang had their head-quarters in such a place as Newburyport. No town is

more distinguished for the general correctness of the habits of its

citizens; and it is of such a size that every man in it may be known to

all the rest. The pursuits, occupations, and habits of every person within

it are within the observation of his neighbors. A suspicious stranger

would be instantly observed, and all his movements could be easily traced.

This is not the place to be the general rendezvous of a gang of robbers.

Offenders of this sort hang on the skirts of large towns. From the

commission of their crimes they hasten into the crowd, and hide themselves

in the populousness of great cities. If it be wholly improbable that a

gang existed in such a place for the purpose of general plunder, the next

inquiry is, Is there any reason to think that there was a special or

particular combination, for the single purpose of robbing the prosecutor?

Now it is material to observe, that not only is there no evidence of any

such combination, but also, that circumstances existed which render it

next to impossible that the defendants could have been parties to such a

combination, or even that they could have any knowledge of the existence

of any such man as Goodridge, or that any person, with money, was expected

to come from the eastward, and to be near Essex Bridge, at or about nine

o'clock, the evening when the robbery is said to have been committed.

One of the defendants had been for some weeks in Newburyport, the other

passed the bridge from New Hampshire at twelve o'clock on the 19th of

December, 1816. At this time, Goodridge had not yet arrived at Exeter,

twelve or fourteen miles from the bridge. How, then, could either of the

defendants know that he was coming? Besides, he says that nobody, as far

as he is aware, knew on the road that he had money, and nothing happened

till he reached Exeter, according to his account, from which it might be

conjectured that such was the case. Here, as he relates it, it became

known that he had pistols; and he must wish you to infer that the plan to

rob him was laid here, at Exeter, by some of the persons who inferred that

he had money from his being armed. Who were these persons? Certainly not

the defendants, or either of them. Certainly not Taber. Certainly not

Jackman. Were they persons of suspicious characters? Was he in a house of

a suspicious character? On this point he gives us no information. He has

either not taken the pains to inquire, or he chooses not to communicate

the result of his inquiries. Yet nothing could be more important, since he

seems compelled to lay the scene of the plot against him at Exeter, than

to know who the persons were that he saw, or who saw him, at that place.

On the face of the facts now proved, nothing could be more improbable than

that the plan of robbery was concerted at Exeter. If so, why should those

who concerted it send forward to Newburyport to engage the defendants,

especially as they did not know that they were there? What should induce

any persons so suddenly to apply to the defendants to assist in a robbery?

There was nothing in their personal character or previous history that

should induce this.

Nor was there time for all this. If the prosecutor had not lingered on the

road, for reasons not yet discovered, he must have been in Newburyport

long before the time at which he states the robbery to have been

committed. How, then, could any one expect to leave Exeter, come to

Newburyport, fifteen miles, there look out for and find out assistants for

a highway robbery, and get back two miles to a convenient place for the

commission of the crime? That any body should have undertaken to act thus

is wholly improbable; and, in point of fact, there is not the least proof

of any body's travelling, that afternoon, from Exeter to Newburyport, or

of any person who was at the tavern at Exeter having left it that

afternoon. In all probability, nothing of this sort could have taken place

without being capable of detection and proof. In every particular, the

prosecutor has wholly failed to show the least probability of a plan to

rob him having been laid at Exeter.

But how comes it that Goodridge was near or quite four hours and a half in

travelling a distance which might have been travelled in two hours or two

hours and a half. He says he missed his way, and went the Salisbury road.

But some of the jury know that this could not have delayed him more than

five or ten minutes. He ought to be able to give some better account of

this delay.

Failing, as he seems to do, to create any belief that a plan to rob him

was arranged at Exeter, the prosecutor goes back to Alfred, and says he

saw there a man whom Taber resembles. But Taber is proved to have been at

that time, and at the time of the robbery, in Boston. This is proved

beyond question. It is so certain, that the Solicitor-General has _nol

prossed_ the indictment against him.

There is an end, then, of all pretence of the adoption of a scheme of

robbery at Alfred. This leaves the prosecutor altogether unable to point

out any manner in which it should become known that he had money, or in

which a design to rob him should originate.

It is next to be considered whether the prosecutor's story is either

natural or consistent. But, on the threshold of the inquiry, every one

puts the question, What motive had the prosecutor to be guilty of the

abominable conduct of feigning a robbery? It is difficult to assign

motives. The jury do not know enough of his character or circumstances.

Such things have happened, and may happen again. Suppose he owed money in

Boston, and had it not to pay? Who knows how high he might estimate the

value of a plausible apology? Some men have also a whimsical ambition of

distinction. There is no end to the variety of modes in which human vanity

exhibits itself. A story of this nature excites the public sympathy. It

attracts general attention. It causes the name of the prosecutor to be

celebrated as a man who has been attacked, and, after a manly resistance,

overcome by robbers, and who has renewed his resistance as soon as

returning life and sensation enabled him, and, after a second conflict,

has been quite subdued, beaten and bruised out of all sense and sensation,

and finally left for dead on the field. It is not easy to say how far such

motives, trifling and ridiculous as most men would think them, might

influence the prosecutor, when connected with any expectation of favor or

indulgence, if he wanted such, from his creditors. It is to be remembered

that he probably did not see all the consequences of his conduct, if his

robbery be a pretence. He might not intend to prosecute any body. But he

probably found, and indeed there is evidence to show, that it was

necessary for him to do something to find out the authors of the alleged

robbery. He manifested no particular zeal on this subject. He was in no

haste. He appears rather to have been pressed by others to do that which,

if he had really been robbed, we should suppose he would have been most

earnest to do, the earliest moment.

But could he so seriously wound himself? Could he or would he shoot a

pistol-bullet through his hand, in order to render the robbery probable,

and to obtain belief in his story? All exhibitions are subject to

accidents. Whether they are serious or farcical, they may, in some

particulars, not proceed exactly as they are designed to do. If we knew

that this shot through the hand, if made by himself, must have been

intentionally made by himself, it would be a circumstance of greater

weight. The bullet went through the sleeve of his coat. He might have

intended it should go through nothing else. It is quite certain he did not

receive the wound in the way he described. He says he was pulling or

thrusting aside the robber's pistol, and while his hand was on it, it was

fired, and the contents passed through his hand. This could not have been

so, because no part of the contents went through the hand, except the

ball. There was powder on the sleeve of his coat, and from the appearance

one would think the pistol to have been three or four feet from the hand

when fired. The fact of the pistol-bullet being fired through the hand, is

doubtless a circumstance of importance. It may not be easy to account for

it; but it is to be weighed with other circumstances.

It is most extraordinary, that, in the whole case, the prosecutor should

prove hardly any fact in any way but by his own oath. He chooses to trust

every thing on his own credit with the jury. Had he the money with him

which he mentions? If so, his clerks or persons connected with him in

business must have known it; yet no witness is produced. Nothing can be

more important than to prove that he had the money. Yet he does not prove

it. Why should he leave this essential fact without further support? He is

not surprised with this defence, he knew what it would be. He knew that

nothing could be more important than to prove that, in truth, he did

possess the money which he says he lost; yet he does not prove it. All

that he saw, and all that he did, and everything that occurred to him

until the alleged robbery, rests solely on his own credit. He does not see

fit to corroborate any fact by the testimony of any witness. So he went to

New York to arrest Jackman. He did arrest him. He swears positively that

he found in his possession papers which he lost at the time of the

robbery; yet he neither produces the papers themselves, nor the persons

who assisted in the search.

In like manner, he represents his intercourse with Taber at Boston. Taber,

he says, made certain confessions. They made a bargain for a disclosure or

confession on one side, and a reward on the other. But no one heard these

confessions except Goodridge himself. Taber now confronts him, and

pronounces this part of his story to be wholly false; and there is nobody

who can support the prosecutor.

A jury cannot too seriously reflect on this part of the case. There are

many most important allegations of fact, which, if true, could easily be

shown by other witnesses, and yet are not so shown.

How came Mr. Goodridge to set out from Bangor, armed in this formal and

formidable manner? How came he to be so apprehensive of a robbery? The

reason he gives is completely ridiculous. As the foundation of his alarm,

he tells a story of a robbery which he had heard of, but which, as far as

appears, no one else ever heard of; and the story itself is so perfectly

absurd, it is difficult to resist the belief that it was the product of

his imagination at the moment. He seems to have been a little too

confident that an attempt would be made to rob him. The manner in which he

carried his money, as he says, indicated a strong expectation of this

sort. His gold he wrapped in a cambric cloth, put it into a shot bag, and

then into a portmanteau. One parcel of bills, of a hundred dollars in

amount, he put into his pocket-book; another, of somewhat more than a

thousand dollars, he carried next his person, underneath all his clothes.

Having disposed of his money in this way, and armed himself with two good

pistols, he set out from Bangor. The jury will judge whether this

extraordinary care of his money, and this formal arming of himself to

defend it, are not circumstances of a very suspicious character.

He stated that he did not travel in the night; that he would not so much

expose himself to robbers. He said that, when he came near Alfred, he did

not go into the village, but stopped a few miles short, because night was

coming on, and he would not trust himself and his money out at night. He

represents himself to have observed this rule constantly and invariably

until he got to Exeter. Yet, when the time came for the robbery, he was

found out at night. He left Exeter about sunset, intending to go to

Newburyport, fifteen miles distant, that evening. When he is asked how

this should happen, he says he had no fear of robbers after he left the

District of Maine. He thought himself quite safe when he arrived at

Exeter. Yet he told the jury, that at Exeter he thought it necessary to

load his pistol afresh. He asked for a private room at the inn. He told

the persons in attendance that he wished such a room for the purpose of

changing his clothes. He charged them not to suffer him to be interrupted.

But he now testifies that his object was not to change his dress, but to

put new loading into his pistols. What sort of a story is this?

He says he now felt himself out of all danger from robbers, and was

therefore willing to travel at night. At the same time, he thought himself

in very great danger from robbers, and therefore took the utmost pains to

keep his pistols well loaded and in good order. To account for the pains

he took about loading his pistols at Exeter, he says it was his invariable

practice, every day after he left Bangor, to discharge and load again one

or both of his pistols; that he never missed doing this; that he avoided

doing it at the inns, lest he should create suspicion, but that he did it,

while alone, on the road, every day.

How far this is probable the jury will judge. It will be observed that he

gave up his habits of caution as he approached the place of the robbery.

He then loaded his pistols at the tavern, where persons might and did see

him; and he then also travelled in the night. He passed the bridge over

Merrimack River a few minutes before nine o'clock. He was now at a part of

his progress where he was within the observation of other witnesses, and

something could be known of him besides what he told of himself.

Immediately after him passed the two persons with their wagons, Shaw and

Keyser. Close upon them followed the mail-coach. Now, these wagons and the

mail must have passed within three rods, at most, of Goodridge, at the

very time of the robbery. They must have been very near the spot, the very

moment of the attack; and if he was under the robbers' hands as long as he

represents, or if they staid on the spot long enough to do half what he

says they did, they must have been there when the wagons and the stage

passed. At any rate, it is next to impossible, by any computation of time,

to put these carriages so far from the spot, that the drivers should not

have heard the cry of murder, which he says he raised, or the report of

the two pistols, which he says were discharged. In three quarters of an

hour, or an hour, he returned, and repassed the bridge.

The jury will next naturally look to the appearances exhibited on the

field after the robbery. The portmanteau was there. The witnesses say,

that the straps which fastened it to the saddle had been neither cut nor

broken. They were carefully unbuckled. This was very considerate for

robbers. It had been opened, and its contents were scattered about the

field. The pocket-book, too, had been opened, and many papers it contained

found on the ground. Nothing valuable was lost but money. The robbers did

not think it well to go off at once with the portmanteau and the pocket-

book. The place was so secure, so remote, so unfrequented; they were so

far from the highway, at least one full rod; there were so few persons

passing, probably not more than four or five then in the road, within

hearing of the pistols and the cries of Goodridge; there being, too, not

above five or six dwelling-houses, full of people, within the hearing of

the report of a pistol; these circumstances were all so favorable to their

safety, that the robbers sat down to look over the prosecutor's papers,

carefully examined the contents of his pocket-book and portmanteau, and

took only the things which they needed! There was money belonging to other

persons. The robbers did not take it. They found out it was not the

prosecutor's, and left it. It may be said to be favorable to the

prosecutor's story, that the money which did not belong to him, and the

plunder of which would seem to be the most probable inducement he could

have to feign a robbery, was not taken. But the jury will consider whether

this circumstance does not bear quite as strongly the other way, and

whether they can believe that robbers could have left this money, either

from accident or design.

The robbers, by Goodridge's account, were extremely careful to search his

person. Having found money in his portmanteau and in his pocket-book, they

still forthwith stripped him to the skin, and searched until they found

the sum which had been so carefully deposited under his clothes. Was it

likely, that, having found money in the places where it is ordinarily

carried, robbers should proceed to search for more, where they had no

reason to suppose more would be found? Goodridge says that no person knew

of his having put his bank-notes in that situation. On the first attack,

however, they proceeded to open one garment after another, until they

penetrated to the treasure, which was beneath them all.

The testimony of Mr. Howard is material. He examined Goodridge's pistol,

which was found on the spot, and thinks it had not been fired at all. If

this be so, it would follow that the wound through the hand was not made

by this pistol; but then, as the pistol is now discharged, if it had not

been fired, he is not correct in swearing that he fired it at the robbers,

nor could it have been loaded at Exeter, as he testified.

In the whole case, there is nothing, perhaps, more deserving

consideration, than the prosecutor's statement of the violence which the

robbers used towards him. He says he was struck with a heavy club, on the

back part of his head. He fell senseless to the ground. Three or four

rough-handed villains then dragged him to the fence, and through it or

over it, with such force as to break one of the boards. They then

plundered his money. Presently he came to his senses; perceived his

situation; saw one of the robbers sitting or standing near; he valiantly

sprung upon, and would have overcome him, but the ruffian called out for

his comrades, who returned, and all together they renewed their attack

upon, subdued him, and redoubled their violence. They struck him heavy

blows; they threw him violently to the ground; they kicked him in the

side; they choked him; one of them, to use his own words, jumped upon his

breast. They left him only when they supposed they had killed him. He went

back to Pearson's, at the bridge, in a state of delirium, and it was

several hours before his recollection came to him. This is his account.

Now, in point of fact, it is certain that on no part of his person was

there the least mark of this beating and wounding. The blow on the head,

which brought him senseless to the ground, neither broke the skin, nor

caused any tumor, nor left any mark whatever. He fell from his horse on

the frozen ground, without any appearance of injury. He was drawn through

or over the fence with such force as to break the rail, but not so as to

leave any wound or scratch on him. A second time he is knocked down,

kicked, stamped upon, choked, and in every way abused and beaten till

sense had departed, and the breath of life hardly remained; and yet no

wound, bruise, discoloration, or mark of injury was found to result from

all this. Except the wound in his hand, and a few slight punctures in his

left arm, apparently made with his own penknife, which was found open on

the spot, there was no wound or mark which the surgeons, upon repeated

examinations, could anywhere discover. This is a story not to be believed.

No matter who tells it, it is so impossible to be true, that all belief is

set at defiance. No man can believe it. All this tale of blows which left

no marks, and of wounds which could not be discovered, must be the work of

imagination. If the jury can believe that he was robbed, it is impossible

they can believe his account of the manner of it.

With respect, next, to delirium. The jury have heard the physicians. Two

of them have no doubt it was all feigned. Dr. Spofford spoke in a more

guarded manner, but it was very evident his opinion agreed with theirs. In

the height of his raving, the physician who was present said to others,

that he could find nothing the matter with the man, and that his pulse was

perfectly regular. But consider the facts which Dr. Balch testifies. He

suspected the whole of this illness and delirium to be feigned. He wished

to ascertain the truth. While he or others were present, Goodridge

appeared to be in the greatest pains and agony from his wounds. He could

not turn himself in bed, nor be turned by others, without infinite

distress. His mind, too, was as much disordered as his body. He was

constantly raving about robbery and murder. At length the physicians and

others withdrew, and left him alone in the room. Dr. Balch returned softly

to the door, which he had left partly open, and there he had a full view

of his patient, unobserved by him. Goodridge was then very quiet. His

incoherent exclamations had ceased. Dr. Balch saw him turn over without

inconvenience. Pretty soon he sat up in bed, and adjusted his neckcloth

and his hair. Then, hearing footsteps on the staircase, he instantly sunk

into the bed again; his pains all returned, and he cried out against

robbers and murderers as loud as ever. Now, these facts are all sworn to

by an intelligent witness, who cannot be mistaken in them; a respectable

physician, whose veracity or accuracy is in no way impeached or

questioned. After this, it is difficult to retain any good opinion of the

prosecutor. Robbed or not robbed, this was his conduct; and such conduct

necessarily takes away all claim to sympathy and respect. The jury will

consider whether it does not also take away all right to be believed in

anything. For if they should be of opinion that in any one point he has

intentionally misrepresented facts, he can be believed in nothing. No man

is to be convicted on the testimony of a witness whom the jury has found

wilfully violating the truth in any particular.

The next part of the case is the conduct of the prosecutor in attempting

to find out the robbers, after he had recovered from his illness. He

suspected Mr. Pearson, a very honest, respectable man, who keeps the

tavern at the bridge. He searched his house and premises. He sent for a

conjuror to come, with his metallic rods and witch-hazel, to find the

stolen money. Goodridge says now, that he thought he should find it, if

the conjuror's instruments were properly prepared. He professes to have

full faith in the art. Was this folly, or fraud, or a strange mixture of

both? Pretty soon after the last search, gold pieces were actually found

near Mr. pearson's house, in the manner stated by the female witness. How

came they there? Did the robber deposit them there? That is not possible.

Did he accidentally leave them there? Why should not a robber take as good

care of his money as others? It is certain, too, that the gold pieces were

not put there at the time of the robbery, because the ground was then

bare; but when these pieces were found, there were several inches of snow

below them. When Goodridge searched here with his conjuror, he was on this

spot, alone and unobserved, as he thought. Whether he did not, at that

time, drop his gold into the snow, the jury will judge. When he came to

this search, he proposed something very ridiculous. He proposed that all

persons about to assist in the search should be examined, to see that they

had nothing which they could put into Pearson's possession, for the

purpose of being found there. But how was this examination to be made?

Why, truly, Goodridge proposed that every man should examine himself, and

that, among others, he would examine himself, till he was satisfied he had

nothing in his pockets which he could leave at pearson's, with the

fraudulent design of being afterwards found there, as evidence against

pearson. What construction would be given to such conduct?

As to Jackman, Goodridge went to New York and arrested him. In his room he

says he found paper coverings of gold, with his own figures on them, and

pieces of an old and useless receipt, which he can identify, and which he

had in his possession at the time of the robbery. He found these things

lying on the floor in Jackman's room. What should induce the robbers, when

they left all other papers, to take this receipt? And what should induce

Jackman to carry it to New York, and keep it, with the coverings of the

gold, in a situation where it was likely to be found, and used as evidence

against him?

There is no end to the series of improbabilities growing out of the

prosecutor's story.

One thing especially deserves notice. Wherever Goodridge searches, he

always finds something; and what he finds, he always can identify and

swear to, as being his. The thing found has always some marks by which he

knows it. Yet he never finds much. He never finds the mass of his lost

treasure. He finds just enough to be evidence, and no more.

These are the circumstances which tend to raise doubts of the truth of the

prosecutor's relation. It is for the jury to say, whether it would be safe

to convict any man for this robbery until these doubts shall be cleared

up. No doubt they are to judge him candidly; but they are not to make

every thing yield to a regard to his reputation, or a desire to vindicate

him from the suspicion of a fraudulent prosecution.

He stands like other witnesses, except that he is a very interested

witness; and he must hope for credit, if at all, from the consistency and

general probability of the facts to which he testifies. The jury will not

convict the prisoners to save the prosecutor from disgrace. He has had

every opportunity of making out his case. If any person in the State could

have corroborated any part of his story, that person he could have

produced. He has had the benefit of full time, and good counsel, and of

the Commonwealth's process, to bring in his witnesses. More than all, he

has had an opportunity of telling his own story, with the simplicity that

belongs to truth, if it were true, and the frankness and earnestness of an

honest man, if he be such. It is for the jury to say, under their oaths,

how he has acquitted himself in these particulars, and whether he has left

their minds free from doubt as to the truth of his narration.

But if Goodridge were really robbed, is there satisfactory evidence that

the defendants had a hand in the commission of this offence? The evidence

relied on is the finding of the money in their house. It appears that

these defendants lived together, and, with a sister, constituted one

family. Their father lived in another part of the same house, and with his

wife constituted another and distinct family. In this house, some six

weeks after the robbery, the prosecutor made a search; and the result has

been stated by the witnesses. Now, if the money had been passed or used by

the defendants it might have been conclusive. If found about their

persons, it might have been very strong proof. But, under the

circumstances of this case, the mere finding of money in their house, and

that only in places where the prosecutor had previously been, is no

evidence at all. With respect to the gold pieces, it is certainly true

that they were found in Goodridge's track. They were found only where he

had been, and might have put them.

When the sheriff was in the house and Goodridge in the cellar, gold was

found in the cellar. When the sheriff was up stairs and Goodridge in the

rooms below, the sheriff was called down to look for money where Goodridge

directed, and there money was found. As to the bank-note, the evidence is

not quite so clear. Mr. Leavitt says he found a note in a drawer in a room

in which none of the party had before been; that he thought it an

uncurrent or counterfeit note, and not a part of Goodridge's money, and

left it where he found it, without further notice. An hour or two

afterward, Upton perceived a note in the same drawer, Goodridge being then

with or near him, and called to Leavitt. Leavitt told him that he had

discovered that note before, but that it could not be Goodridge's. It was

then examined. Leavitt says he looked at it, and saw writing on the back

of it. Upton says he looked at it, and saw writing on the back of it. He

says also that it was shown to Goodridge, who examined it in the same way

that he and Leavitt examined it. None of the party at this time suspected

it to be Goodridge's. It was then put into Leavitt's pocket-book, where it

remained till evening, when it was taken out at the tavern; and then it

turns out to be, plainly and clearly, one of Goodridge's notes, and has

the name of "James Poor, Bangor," in Goodridge's own handwriting, on the

back of it. The first thing that strikes one in this account is, Why was

not this discovery made at the time? Goodridge was looking for notes, as

well as gold. He was looking for Boston notes, for such he had lost. He

was looking for ten-dollar notes, for such he had lost. He was looking for

notes which he could recognize and identify. He would, therefore,

naturally be particularly attentive to any writing or marks upon such as

he might find. Under these circumstances, a note is found in the house of

the supposed robbers. It is a Boston note, it is a ten-dollar note, it has

writing on the back of it; that writing is the name of his town and the

name of one of his neighbors; more than all, that writing is his own

handwriting! Notwithstanding all this, neither Goodridge, nor Upton, nor

the sheriff, examined it so as to see whether it was Goodridge's money.

Notwithstanding it so fully resembled, in all points, the money they were

looking for, and notwithstanding they also saw writing on the back of it,

which, they must know, if they read it, would probably have shown where it

came from, neither of them did so far examine it as to see any proof of

its being Goodridge's.

This is hardly to be believed. It must be a pretty strong faith in the

prosecutor that could credit this story. In every part of it, it is

improbable and absurd. It is much more easy to believe that the note was

changed. There might have been, and there probably was, an uncurrent or

counterfeit note found in the drawer by Leavitt. He certainly did not at

the time think it to be Goodridge's, and he left it in the drawer where he

found it. Before he saw it again, the prosecutor had been in that room,

and was in or near it when the sheriff was again called in, and asked to

put that bill in his pocket-book. How do the jury know that this was the

same note which Leavitt had before seen? Or suppose it was. Leavitt

carried it to Coffin's; in the evening he produced it, and, after having

been handed about for some time among the company, it turns out to be

Goodridge's note, and to have upon it infallible marks of identity. How do

the jury know that a sleight of hand had not changed the note at Coffin's?

It is sufficient to say, the note might have been changed. It is not

certain that this is the note which Leavitt first found in the drawer, and

this not being certain, it is not proof against the defendants.

Is it not extremely improbable, if the defendants are guilty, that they

should deposit the money in the places where it was found? Why should they

put it in small parcels in so many places, for no end but to multiply the

chances of detection? Why, especially, should they put a doubloon in their

father's pocket-book? There is no evidence, nor any ground of suspicion,

that the father knew of the money being in his pocket-book. He swears he

did not know it. His general character is unimpeached, and there is

nothing against his credit. The inquiry at Stratham was calculated to

elicit the truth; and, after all, there is not the slightest reason to

suspect that he knew that the doubloon was in his pocket-book. What could

possibly induce the defendants to place it there? No man can conjecture a

reason. On the other hand, if this is a fraudulent proceeding on the part

of the prosecutor, this circumstance could be explained. He did not know

that the pocket-book, and the garment in which it was found, did not

belong to one of the defendants. He was as likely, therefore, to place it

there as elsewhere. It is very material to consider that nothing was found

in that part of the house which belonged to the defendants. Every thing

was discovered in the father's apartments. They were not found, therefore,

in the possession of the defendants, any more than if they had been

discovered in any other house in the neighborhood. The two tenements, it

is true, were under the same roof; but they were not on that account the

same tenements. They were as distinct as any other houses. Now, how should

it happen that the several parcels of money should all be found in the

father's possession? He is not suspected, certainly there is no reason to

suspect him, of having had any hand either in the commission of the

robbery or the concealing of the goods. He swears he had no knowledge of

any part of this money being in his house. It is not easy to imagine how

it came there, unless it be supposed to have been put there by some one

who did not know what part of the house belonged to the defendants and

what part did not.

The witnesses on the part of the prosecution have testified that the

defendants, when arrested, manifested great agitation and alarm; paleness

overspread their faces, and drops of sweat stood on their temples. This

satisfied the witnesses of the defendants' guilt, and they now state the

circumstances as being indubitable proof. This argument manifests, in

those who use it, an equal want of sense and sensibility. It is precisely

fitted to the feeling and the intellect of a bum-bailiff. In a court of

justice it deserves nothing but contempt. Is there nothing that can

agitate the frame or excite the blood but the consciousness of guilt? If

the defendants were innocent, would they not feel indignation at this

unjust accusation? If they saw an attempt to produce false evidence

against them, would they not be angry? And, seeing the production of such

evidence, might they not feel fear and alarm? And have indignation, and

anger, and terror, no power to affect the human countenance or the human

frame?

Miserable, miserable, indeed, is the reasoning which would infer any man's

guilt from his agitation when he found himself accused of a heinous

offence; when he saw evidence which he might know to be false and

fraudulent brought against him; when his house was filled, from the garret

to the cellar, by those whom he might esteem as false witnesses; and when

he himself, instead of being at liberty to observe their conduct and watch

their motions, was a prisoner in close custody in his own house, with the

fists of a catch-poll clenched upon his throat.

The defendants were at Newburyport the afternoon and evening of the

robbery. For the greater part of the time they show where they were, and

what they were doing. Their proof, it is true, does not apply to every

moment. But when it is considered that, from the moment of their arrest,

they have been in close prison, perhaps they have shown as much as could

be expected. Few men, when called on afterwards, can remember, and fewer

still can prove, how they have passed every half-hour of an evening. At a

reasonable hour they both came to the house where Laban had lodged the

night before. Nothing suspicious was observed in their manner or

conversation. Is it probable they would thus come unconcernedly into the

company of others, from a field of robbery, and, as they must have

supposed, of murder, before they could have ascertained whether the stain

of blood was not on their garments? They remained in the place a part of

the next day. The town was alarmed; a strict inquiry was made of all

strangers, and of the defendants among others. Nothing suspicious was

discovered. They avoided no inquiry, nor did they leave the town in any

haste. The jury has had an opportunity of seeing the defendants. Does

their general appearance indicate that hardihood which would enable them

to act this cool, unconcerned part? Is it not more likely they would have

fled?

From the time of the robbery to the arrest, five or six weeks, the

defendants were engaged in their usual occupations. They are not found to

have passed a dollar of money to any body. They continued their ordinary

habits of labor. No man saw money about them, nor any circumstance that

might lead to a suspicion that they had money. Nothing occurred tending in

any degree to excite suspicion against them. When arrested, and when all

this array of evidence was brought against them, and when they could hope

in nothing but their innocence, immunity was offered them again if they

would confess. They were pressed, and urged, and allured, by every motive

which could be set before them, to acknowledge their participation in the

offence, and to bring out their accomplices. They steadily protested that

they could confess nothing because they knew nothing. In defiance of all

the discoveries made in their house, they have trusted to their innocence.

On that, and on the candor and discernment of an enlightened jury, they

still rely. If the jury are satisfied that there is the highest

improbability that these persons could have had any previous knowledge of

Goodridge, or been concerned in any previous concert to rob him; if their

conduct that evening and the next day was marked by no circumstances of

suspicion; if from that moment until their arrest nothing appeared against

them; if they neither passed money, nor are found to have had money; if

the manner of the search of their house, and the circumstances attending

it, excite strong suspicions of unfair and fraudulent practices; if, in

the hour of their utmost peril, no promises of safety could draw from the

defendants any confession affecting themselves or others, it will be for

the jury to say whether they can pronounce them guilty.

The Dartmouth College Case.

The general question is, whether the acts of the legislature of New

Hampshire of the 27th of June, and of the 18th and 26th of December, 1816,

are valid and binding on the plaintiffs, _without their acceptance or

assent_.

The charter of 1769 created and established a corporation, to consist of

twelve persons, and no more; to be called the "Trustees of Dartmouth

College."

After the institution thus created and constituted had existed,

uninterruptedly and usefully, nearly fifty years, the legislature of New

Hampshire passed the acts in question.

The first act makes the twelve trustees under the charter, and nine other

individuals, to be appointed by the Governor and Council, a corporation,

by a new name; and to this new corporation transfers all the _property,

rights, powers, liberties, and privileges_ of the old corporation; with

further power to establish new colleges and an institute, and to apply all

or any part of the funds to these purposes; subject to the power and

control of a board of twenty-five overseers, to be appointed by the

Governor and Council.

The second act makes further provisions for executing the objects of the

first, and the last act authorizes the defendant, the treasurer of the

plaintiffs, to retain and hold their property, against their will.

If these acts are valid, the old corporation is abolished, and a new one

created. The first act does, in fact, if it can have any effect, create a

new corporation, and transfer to it all the property and franchises of the

old. The two corporations are not the same in anything which essentially

belongs to the existence of a corporation. They have different names, and

different powers, rights, and duties. Their organization is wholly

different. The powers of the corporation are not vested in the same, or

similar hands. In one, the trustees are twelve, and no more. In the other,

they are twenty-one. In one, the power is in a single board. In the other,

it is divided between two boards. Although the act professes to include

the old trustees in the new corporation, yet that was without their

assent, and against their remonstrance; and no person can be compelled to

be a member of such a corporation against his will. It was neither

expected nor intended that they should be members of the new corporation.

The act itself treats the old corporation as at an end, and, going on the

ground that all its functions have ceased, it provides for the first

meeting and organization of the new corporation. It expressly provides,

also, that the new corporation shall have and hold all the property of the

old; a provision which would be quite unnecessary upon any other ground,

than that the old corporation was dissolved. But if it could be contended

that the effect of these acts was not entirely to abolish the old

corporation, yet it is manifest that they impair and invade the rights,

property, and powers of the trustees under the charter, as a corporation,

and the legal rights, privileges, and immunities which belong to them, as

individual members of the corporation.

The twelve trustees were the _sole_ legal owners of all the property

acquired under the charter. By the acts, others are admitted, against

_their_ will, to be joint owners. The twelve individuals who are

trustees were possessed of all the franchises and immunities conferred by

the charter. By the acts, _nine_ other trustees and _twenty-

five_ overseers are admitted, against their will, to divide these

franchises and immunities with them.

If, either as a corporation or as individuals, they have any legal rights,

this forcible intrusion of others violates those rights, as manifestly as

an entire and complete ouster and dispossession. These acts alter the

whole constitution of the corporation. They affect the rights of the whole

body as a corporation, and the rights of the individuals who compose it.

They revoke corporate powers and franchises. They alienate and transfer

the property of the college to others. By the charter, the trustees had a

right to fill vacancies in their own number. This is now taken away. They

were to consist of twelve, and, by express provision, of no more. This is

altered. They and their successors, appointed by themselves, were for ever

to hold the property. The legislature has found successors for them,

before their seats are vacant. The powers and privileges which the twelve

were to exercise exclusively, are now to be exercised by others. By one of

the acts, they are subjected to heavy penalties if they exercise their

offices, or any of those powers and privileges granted them by charter,

and which they had exercised for fifty years. They are to be punished for

not accepting the new grant and taking its benefits. This, it must be

confessed, is rather a summary mode of settling a question of

constitutional right. Not only are new trustees forced into the

corporation, but new trusts and uses are created. The college is turned

into a university. Power is given to create new colleges, and, to

authorize any diversion of the funds which may be agreeable to the new

boards, sufficient latitude is given by the undefined power of

establishing an institute. To these new colleges, and this institute, the

funds contributed by the founder, Dr. Wheelock, and by the original

donors, the Earl of Dartmouth and others, are to be applied, in plain and

manifest disregard of the uses to which they were given.

The president, one of the old trustees, had a right to his office, salary,

and emoluments, subject to the twelve trustees alone. His title to these

is now changed, and he is made accountable to new masters. So also all the

professors and tutors. If the legislature can at pleasure make these

alterations and changes in the rights and privileges of the plaintiffs, it

may, with equal propriety, abolish these rights and privileges altogether.

The same power which can do any part of this work can accomplish the

whole. And, indeed, the argument on which these acts have been hitherto

defended goes altogether on the ground, that this is such a corporation as

the legislature may abolish at pleasure; and that its members have _no

rights, liberties, franchises, property, or privileges_, which the

legislature may not revoke, annul, alienate, or transfer to others,

whenever it sees fit.

It will be contended by the plaintiffs, that these acts are not valid and

binding on them without their assent,--

1. Because they are against common right, and the Constitution of New

Hampshire.

2. Because they are repugnant to the Constitution of the United States.

I am aware of the limits which bound the jurisdiction of the court in this

case, and that on this record nothing can be decided but the single

question, whether these acts are repugnant to the Constitution of the

United States. Yet it may assist in forming an opinion of their true

nature and character to compare them with those fundamental principles

introduced into the State governments for the purpose of limiting the

exercise of the legislative power, and which the Constitution of New

Hampshire expresses with great fulness and accuracy.

It is not too much to assert, that the legislature of New Hampshire would

not have been competent to pass the acts in question, and to make them

binding on the plaintiffs without their assent, even if there had been, in

the Constitution of New Hampshire, or of the United States, no special

restriction on their power, because these acts are not the exercise of a

power properly legislative. Their effect and object are to take away, from

one, rights, property, and franchises, and to grant them to another. This

is not the exercise of a legislative power. To justify the taking away of

vested rights there must be a forfeiture, to adjudge upon and declare

which is the proper province of the judiciary. Attainder and confiscation

are acts of sovereign power, not acts of legislation. The British

Parliament, among other unlimited powers, claims that of altering and

vacating charters; not as an act of ordinary legislation, but of

uncontrolled authority. It is theoretically omnipotent. Yet, in modern

times, it has very rarely attempted the exercise of this power.

The legislature of New Hampshire has no more power over the rights of the

plaintiffs than existed somewhere, in some department of government,

before the Revolution. The British Parliament could not have annulled or

revoked this grant as an act of ordinary legislation. If it had done it at

all, it could only have been in virtue of that sovereign power, called

omnipotent, which does not belong to any legislature in the United States.

The legislature of New Hampshire has the same power over this charter

which belonged to the king who granted it, and no more. By the law of

England, the power to create corporations is a part of the royal

prerogative. By the Revolution, this power may be considered as having

devolved on the legislature of the State, and it has accordingly been

exercised by the legislature. But the king cannot abolish a corporation,

or new-model it, or alter its powers, without its assent. This is the

acknowledged and well-known doctrine of the common law.

There are prohibitions in the Constitution and Bill of Rights of New

Hampshire, introduced for the purpose of limiting the legislative power

and protecting the rights and property of the citizens. One prohibition

is, "that no person shall be deprived of his property, immunities, or

privileges, put out of the protection of the law, or deprived of his life,

liberty, or estate, but by judgment of his peers or the law of the land."

In the opinion, however, which was given in the court below, it is denied

that the trustees under the charter had any property, immunity, liberty,

or privilege in this corporation, within the meaning of this prohibition

in the Bill of Rights. It is said that it is a public corporation and

public property; that the trustees have no greater interest in it than any

other individuals; that it is not private property, which they can sell or

transmit to their heirs, and that therefore they have no interest in it;

that their office is a public trust, like that of the Governor or a judge,

and that they have no more concern in the property of the college than the

Governor in the property of the State, or than the judges in the fines

which they impose on the culprits at their bar; that it is nothing to them

whether their powers shall be extended or lessened, any more than it is to

their honors whether their jurisdiction shall be enlarged or diminished.

It is necessary, therefore, to inquire into the true nature and character

of the corporation which was created by the charter of 1769.

There are divers sorts of corporations; and it may be safely admitted that

the legislature has more power over some than others. Some corporations

are for government and political arrangement; such, for example, as

cities, counties, and towns in New England. These may be changed and

modified as public convenience may require, due regard being always had to

the rights of property. Of such corporations, all who live within the

limits are of course obliged to be members, and to submit to the duties

which the law imposes on them as such. Other civil corporations are for

the advancement of trade and business, such as banks, insurance companies,

and the like. These are created, not by general law, but usually by grant.

Their constitution is special. It is such as the legislature sees fit to

give, and the grantees to accept.

The corporation in question is not a civil, although it is a lay

corporation. It is an eleemosynary corporation. It is a private charity,

originally founded and endowed by an individual, with a charter obtained

for it at his request, for the better administration of his charity. "The

eleemosynary sort of corporations are such as are constituted for the

perpetual distributions of the free alms or bounty of the founder of them,

to such persons as he has directed. Of this are all hospitals for the

maintenance of the poor, sick, and impotent; and all colleges both in our

universities and out of them." Eleemosynary corporations are for the

management of private property, according to the will of the donors. They

are private corporations. A college is as much a private corporation as a

hospital; especially a college founded, as this was, by private bounty. A

college is a charity. "The establishment of learning," says Lord

Hardwicke, "is a charity, and so considered in the statute of Elizabeth.

To devise to a college, for their benefit, is a laudable charity, and

deserves encouragement."

The legal signification of _a charity_ is derived chiefly from the

statute 43 Eliz. ch. 4. "Those purposes," says Sir William Grant, "are

considered _charitable_ which that statute enumerates." Colleges are

enumerated as charities in that statute. The government, in these cases,

lends its aid to perpetuate the beneficent intention of the donor, by

granting a charter under which his private charity shall continue to be

dispensed after his death. This is done either by incorporating the

objects of the charity, as, for instance, the scholars in a college or the

poor in a hospital, or by incorporating those who are to be governors or

trustees of the charity. In cases of the first sort, the founder is, by

the common law, visitor. In early times it became a maxim, that he who

gave the property might regulate it in future. "Cujus est dare, ejus est

disponere." This right of visitation descended from the founder to his

heir as a right of property, and precisely as his other property went to

his heir; and in default of heirs it went to the king, as all other

property goes to the king for the want of heirs. The right of visitation

arises from the property. It grows out of the endowment. The founder may,

if he please, part with it at the time when he establishes the charity,

and may vest it in others. Therefore, if he chooses that governors,

trustees, or overseers should be appointed in the charter, he may cause it

to be done, and his power of visitation may be transferred to them,

instead of descending to his heirs. The persons thus assigned or appointed

by the founder will be visitors, with all the powers of the founder, in

exclusion of his heir. The right of visitation, then, accrues to them, as

a matter of property, by the gift, transfer, or appointment of the

founder. This is a private right, which they can assert in all legal

modes, and in which they have the same protection of the law as in all

other rights. As visitors they may make rules, ordinances, and statutes,

and alter and repeal them, as far as permitted so to do by the charter.

Although the charter proceeds from the crown or the government, it is

considered as the will of the donor. It is obtained at his request. He

uses it as the rule which is to prevail in the dispensation of his bounty

in all future times. The king or government which grants the charter is

not thereby the founder, but he who furnishes the funds. The gift of the

revenues is the foundation.

The leading case on this subject is _Phillips v. Bury_. This was an

ejectment brought to recover the rectory-house, &c. of Exeter College in

Oxford. The question was whether the plaintiff or defendant was legal

rector. Exeter College was founded by an individual, and incorporated by a

charter granted by Queen Elizabeth. The controversy turned upon the power

of the visitor, and, in the discussion of the cause, the nature of college

charters and corporations was very fully considered.

Lord Holt's judgment is that that college was a _private

corporation_, and that the founder had a right to appoint a visitor,

and to give him such power as he saw fit.

The learned Bishop Stillingfleet's argument in the same cause, as a member

of the House of Lords, when it was there heard, exhibits very clearly the

nature of colleges and similar corporations. It is to the following

effect. "That colleges, although founded by private persons, are yet

incorporated by the king's charter; but although the kings by their

charter made the colleges to be such in law, that is, to be legal

corporations, yet they left to the particular founders authority to

appoint what statutes they thought fit for the regulation of them. And not

only the statutes, but the appointment of visitors, was left to them, and

the manner of government, and the several conditions on which any persons

were to be made or continue partakers of their bounty."

These opinions received the sanction of the House of Lords, and they seem

to be settled and undoubted law.

"There is nothing better established," says Lord Commissioner Eyre, "than

that this court does not entertain a general jurisdiction, or regulate and

control charities _established by charter_. There the establishment

is fixed and determined; and the court has no power to vary it. If the

governors established for the regulation of it are not those who have the

management of the revenue, this court has no jurisdiction, and if it is

ever so much abused, as far as it respects the jurisdiction of this court

it is without remedy; but if those established as governors have also the

management of the revenues, this court does assume a jurisdiction of

necessity, so far as they are to be considered as trustees of the

revenue."

"The foundations of colleges," says Lord Mansfield, "are to be considered

in two views; namely, as they are _corporations_ and as they are

_eleemosynary_. As eleemosynary, they are the creatures of the

founder; he may delegate his power, either generally or specially; he may

prescribe particular modes and manners, as to the exercise of part of it."

In New England, and perhaps throughout the United States, eleemosynary

corporations have been generally established by incorporating governors,

or trustees, and vesting in them the right of visitation. The case before

the court is clearly that of an eleemosynary corporation. It is, in the

strictest legal sense, a private charity. In _King v. St. Catherine's

Hall_, that college is called a private eleemosynary lay corporation.

It was endowed by a private founder, and incorporated by letters patent.

And in the same manner was Dartmouth College founded and incorporated. Dr.

Wheelock is declared by the charter to be its founder. It was established

by him, or funds contributed and collected by himself.

As such founder, he had a right of visitation, which he assigned to the

trustees, and they received it by his consent and appointment, and held it

under the charter. He appointed these trustees visitors, and in that

respect to take place of his heir; as he might have appointed devisees, to

take his estate instead of his heir. Little, probably, did he think, at

that time, that the legislature would ever take away this property and

these privileges, and give them to others. Little did he suppose that this

charter secured to him and his successors no legal rights. Little did the

other donors think so. If they had, the college would have been, what the

university is now, a thing upon paper, existing only in name.

The numerous academies in New England have been established substantially

in the same manner. They hold their property by the same tenure, and no

other. Nor has Harvard College any surer title than Dartmouth College. It

may to-day have more friends; but to-morrow it may have more enemies. Its

legal rights are the same. So also of Yale College; and, indeed, of all

the others. When the legislature gives to these institutions, it may and

does accompany its grants with such conditions as it pleases. The grant of

lands by the legislature of New Hampshire to Dartmouth College, in 1789,

was accompanied with various conditions. When donations are made, by the

legislature or others, to a charity already existing, without any

condition, or the specification of any new use, the donation follows the

nature of the charity. Hence the doctrine, that all eleemosynary

corporations are private bodies. They are founded by private persons, and

on private property. The public cannot be charitable in these

institutions. It is not the money of the public, but of private persons,

which is dispensed. It may be public, that is general, in its uses and

advantages; and the State may very laudably add contributions of its own

to the funds; but it is still private in the tenure of the property, and

in the right of administering the funds.

The charter declares that the powers conferred on the trustees are

"privileges, advantages, liberties, and immunities"; and that they shall

be for ever holden by them and their successors. The New Hampshire Bill of

Rights declares that no one shall be deprived of his "property,

privileges, or immunities," but by judgment of his peers, or the law of

the land. The argument on the other side is, that, although these terms

may mean something in the Bill of Rights, they mean nothing in this

charter. They are equivalent with _franchises_. Blackstone says that

_franchise_ and _liberty_ are used as synonymous terms.

The privilege, then, of being a member of a corporation, under a lawful

grant, and of exercising the rights and powers of such member, is such a

privilege, _liberty_, or _franchise_, as has been the object of

legal protection, and the subject of a legal interest, from the time of

Magna Charta to the present moment. The plaintiffs have such an interest

in this corporation, individually, as they could assert and maintain in a

court of law, not as agents of the public, but in their own right. Each

trustee has a _franchise_, and if he be disturbed in the enjoyment of

it, he would have redress, on appealing to the law, as promptly as for any

other injury. If the other trustees should conspire against any one of

them to prevent his equal right and voice in the appointment of a

president or professor, or in the passing of any statute or ordinance of

the college, he would be entitled to his action, for depriving him of his

franchise. It makes no difference, that this property is to be holden and

administered, and these franchises exercised, for the purpose of diffusing

learning. No principle and no case establishes any such distinction. The

public may be benefited by the use of this property. But this does not

change the nature of the property, or the rights of the owners. The object

of the charter may be public good; so it is in all other corporations; and

this would as well justify the resumption or violation of the grant in any

other case as in this. In the case of an advowson, the use is public, and

the right cannot be turned to any private benefit or emolument. It is

nevertheless a legal private right, and the _property_ of the owner,

as emphatically as his freehold. The rights and privileges of trustees,

visitors, or governors of incorporated colleges, stand on the same

foundation. They are so considered, both by Lord Holt and Lord Hardwicke.

To contend that the rights of the plaintiffs may be taken away, because

they derive from them no pecuniary benefit or private emolument, or

because they cannot be transmitted to their heirs, or would not be assets

to pay their debts, is taking an extremely narrow view of the subject.

According to this notion, the case would be different, if, in the charter,

they had stipulated for a commission on the disbursement of the funds; and

they have ceased to have any interest in the property, because they have

undertaken to administer it gratuitously.

It cannot be necessary to say much in refutation of the idea, that there

cannot be a legal interest, or ownership, in any thing which does not

yield a pecuniary profit; as if the law regarded no rights but the rights

of money, and of visible, tangible property. Of what nature are all rights

of suffrage? No elector has a particular personal interest; but each has a

legal right, to be exercised at his own discretion, and it cannot be taken

away from him. The exercise of this right directly and very materially

affects the public; much more so than the exercise of the privileges of a

trustee of this college. Consequences of the utmost magnitude may

sometimes depend on the exercise of the right of suffrage by one or a few

electors. Nobody was ever yet heard to contend, however, that on that

account the public might take away the right, or impair it. This notion

appears to be borrowed from no better source than the repudiated doctrine

of the three judges in the Aylesbury case. The doctrine having been

exploded for a century, seems now for the first time to be revived.

Individuals have a right to use their own property for purposes of

benevolence, either towards the public, or towards other individuals. They

have a right to exercise this benevolence in such lawful manner as they

may choose; and when the government has induced and excited it, by

contracting to give perpetuity to the stipulated manner of exercising it,

it is not law, but violence, to rescind this contract, and seize on the

property. Whether the State will grant these franchises, and under what

conditions it will grant them, it decides for itself. But when once

granted, the constitution holds them to be sacred, till forfeited for just

cause.

That all property, of which the use may be beneficial to the public,

belongs therefore to the public, is quite a new doctrine. It has no

precedent, and is supported by no known principle. Dr. Wheelock might have

answered his purposes, in this case, by executing a private deed of trust.

He might have conveyed his property to trustees, for precisely such uses

as are described in this charter. Indeed, it appears that he had

contemplated the establishing of his school in that manner, and had made

his will, and devised the property to the same persons who were afterwards

appointed trustees in the charter. Many literary and other charitable

institutions are founded in that manner, and the trust is renewed, and

conferred on other persons, from time to time, as occasion may require. In

such a case, no lawyer would or could say, that the legislature might

divest the trustees, constituted by deed or will, seize upon the property,

and give it to other persons, for other purposes. And does the granting of

a charter, which is only done to perpetuate the trust in a more convenient

manner, make any difference? Does or can this change the nature of the

charity, and turn it into a public political corporation? Happily, we are

not without authority on this point. It has been considered and adjudged.

Lord Hardwicke says, in so many words, "The charter of the crown cannot

make a charity more or less public, but only more permanent than it would

otherwise be."

The granting of the corporation is but making the trust perpetual, and

does not alter the nature of the charity. The very object sought in

obtaining such charter, and in giving property to such a corporation, is

to make and keep it private property, and to clothe it with all the

security and inviolability of private property. The intent is, that there

shall be a legal private ownership, and that the legal owners shall

maintain and protect the property, for the benefit of those for whose use

it was designed. Who ever endowed the public? Who ever appointed a

legislature to administer his charity? Or who ever heard, before, that a

gift to a college, or a hospital, or an asylum, was, in reality, nothing

but a gift to the State?

The State of Vermont is a principal donor to Dartmouth College. The lands

given lie in that State. This appears in the special verdict. Is Vermont

to be considered as having intended a gift to the State of New Hampshire

in this case, as, it has been said, is to be the reasonable construction

of all donations to the college? The legislature of New Hampshire affects

to represent the public, and therefore claims a right to control all

property destined to public use. What hinders Vermont from considering

herself equally the representative of the public, and from resuming her

grants, at her own pleasure? Her right to do so is less doubtful than the

power of New Hampshire to pass the laws in question. I hope enough has

been said to show that the trustees possessed vested liberties,

privileges, and immunities, under this charter; and that such liberties,

privileges, and immunities, being once lawfully obtained and vested, are

as inviolable as any vested rights of property whatever. Rights to do

certain acts, such, for instance, as the visitation and superintendence of

a college and the appointment of its officers, may surely be vested

rights, to all legal intents, as completely as the right to possess

property. A late learned judge of this court has said, "When I say that a

_right_ is vested in a citizen, I mean that he has the power to do

_certain actions_, or to possess _certain things_, according to

the law of the land."

If such be the true nature of the plaintiffs' interests under this

charter, what are the articles in the New Hampshire Bill of Rights which

these acts infringe?

They infringe the second article; which says, that the citizens of the

State have a right to hold and possess property. The plaintiffs had a

legal property in this charter; and they had acquired property under it.

The acts deprive them of both. They impair and take away the charter; and

they appropriate the property to new uses, against their consent. The

plaintiffs cannot now hold the property acquired by themselves, and which

this article says they have a right to hold.

They infringe the twentieth article. By that article it is declared that,

in questions of property, there is a right to trial. The plaintiffs are

divested, without trial or judgment.

They infringe the twenty-third article. It is therein declared that no

retrospective laws shall be passed. This article bears directly on the

case. These acts must be deemed to be retrospective, within the settled

construction of that term. What a retrospective law is, has been decided,

on the construction of this very article, in the Circuit Court for the

First Circuit, The learned judge of that circuit says: "Every statute

which takes away or impairs vested rights, acquired under existing laws,

must be deemed retrospective." That all such laws are retrospective was

decided also in the case of _Dash v. Van Kleek_, where a most learned

judge quotes this article from the constitution of New Hampshire, with

manifest approbation, as a plain and clear expression of those fundamental

and unalterable principles of justice, which must lie at the foundation of

every free and just system of laws. Can any man deny that the plaintiffs

had rights, under the charter, which were legally vested, and that by

these acts those rights are impaired?

"It is a principle in the English law," says Chief Justice Kent, in the

case last cited, "as ancient as the law itself, that a statute, even of

its omnipotent Parliament, is not to have a retrospective effect. 'Nova

constitutio futuris formam imponere debet, et non praeteritis.' The maxim

in Bracton was taken from the civil law, for we find in that system the

same principle, expressed substantially in the same words, that the law-

giver cannot alter his mind to the prejudice of a vested right. 'Nemo

potest mutare concilium suum in alterius injuriam.'"

These acts infringe also the thirty-seventh article of the constitution of

New Hampshire; which says, that the powers of government shall be kept

separate. By these acts, the legislature assumes to exercise a judicial

power. It declares a forfeiture, and resumes franchises, once granted,

without trial or hearing.

If the constitution be not altogether waste-paper, it has restrained the

power of the legislature in these particulars. If it has any meaning, it

is that the legislature shall pass no act directly and manifestly

impairing private property and private privileges. It shall not judge by

act. It shall not decide by act. It shall not deprive by act. But it shall

leave all these things to be tried and adjudged by the law of the land.

The fifteenth article has been referred to before. It declares that no one

shall be "deprived of his property, immunities, or privileges, but by the

judgment of his peers or the law of the land." Notwithstanding the light

in which the learned judges in New Hampshire viewed the rights of the

plaintiffs under the charter, and which has been before adverted to, it is

found to be admitted in their opinion, that those rights are privileges

within the meaning of this fifteenth article of the Bill of Rights. Having

quoted that article, they say: "That the right to manage the affairs of

this college is a privilege, within the meaning of this clause of the Bill

of Rights, is not to be doubted." In my humble opinion, this surrenders

the point. To resist the effect of this admission, however, the learned

judges add: "But how a privilege can be protected from the operation of

the law of the land by a clause in the constitution, declaring that it

shall not be taken away but by the law of the land, is not very easily

understood." This answer goes on the ground, that the acts in question are

laws of the land, within the meaning of the constitution. If they be so,

the argument drawn from this article is fully answered. If they be not so,

it being admitted that the plaintiffs' rights are "privileges," within the

meaning of the article, the argument is not answered, and the article is

infringed by the acts. Are, then, these acts of the legislature, which

affect only particular persons and their particular privileges, laws of

the land? Lord Coke citing and commenting on the celebrated twenty-ninth

chapter of Magna Charta, says: "No man shall be disseized, &c., unless it

be by the lawful judgment, that is, verdict of equals, or by the law of

the land, that is (to speak it once for all), by the due course and

process of law." Have the plaintiffs lost their franchises by "due course

and process of law"? On the contrary, are not these acts "particular acts

of the legislature, which have no relation to the community in general,

and which are rather sentences than laws"?

By the law of the land is most clearly intended the general law; a law

which hears before it condemns; which proceeds upon inquiry, and renders

judgment only after trial. The meaning is, that every citizen shall hold

his life, liberty, property, and immunities under the protection of the

general rules which govern society. Every thing which may pass under the

form of an enactment is not therefore to be considered the law of the

land. If this were so, acts of attainder, bills of pains and penalties,

acts of confiscation, acts reversing judgments, and acts directly

transferring one man's estate to another, legislative judgments, decrees,

and forfeitures in all possible forms, would be the law of the land.

Such a strange construction would render constitutional provisions of the

highest importance completely inoperative and void. It would tend directly

to establish the union of all powers in the legislature. There would be no

general, permanent law for courts to administer or men to live under. The

administration of justice would be an empty form, an idle ceremony. Judges

would sit to execute legislative judgments and decrees; not to declare the

law or to administer the justice of the country.

That the power of electing and appointing the officers of this college is

not only a right of the trustees as a corporation, generally, and in the

aggregate, but that each individual trustee has also his own individual

franchise in such right of election and appointment, is according to the

language of all the authorities. Lord Holt says: "It is agreeable to

reason and the rules of law, that a franchise should be vested in the

corporation aggregate, and yet the benefit of it to redound to the

particular members, and to be enjoyed by them in their private capacity.

Where the privilege of election is used by particular persons, _it is a

particular right, vested in every particular man_."

It is also to be considered, that the president and professors of this

college have rights to be affected by these acts. Their interest is

similar to that of fellows in the English colleges; because they derive

their living, wholly or in part, from the founders' bounty. The president

is one of the trustees or corporators. The professors are not necessarily

members of the corporation; but they are appointed by the trustees, are

removable only by them, and have fixed salaries payable out of the general

funds of the college. Both president and professors have freeholds in

their offices; subject only to be removed by the trustees, as their legal

visitors, for good cause. All the authorities speak of fellowships in

colleges as freeholds, notwithstanding the fellows may be liable to be

suspended or removed, for misbehavior, by their constituted visitors.

Nothing could have been less expected, in this age, than that there should

have been an attempt, by acts of the legislature, to take away these

college livings, the inadequate but the only support of literary men who

have devoted their lives to the instruction of youth. The president and

professors were appointed by the twelve trustees. They were accountable to

nobody else, and could be removed by nobody else. They accepted their

offices on this tenure. Yet the legislature has appointed other persons,

with power to remove these officers and to deprive them of their livings;

and those other persons have exercised that power. No description of

private property has been regarded as more sacred than college livings.

They are the estates and freeholds of a most deserving class of men; of

scholars who have consented to forego the advantages of professional and

public employments, and to devote themselves to science and literature and

the instruction of youth in the quiet retreats of academic life. Whether

to dispossess and oust them; to deprive them of their office, and to turn

them out of their livings; to do this, not by the power of their legal

visitors or governors, but by acts of the legislature, and to do it

without forfeiture and without fault; whether all this be not in the

highest degree an indefensible and arbitrary proceeding, is a question of

which there would seem to be but one side fit for a lawyer or a scholar to

espouse.

If it could be made to appear that the trustees and the president and

professors held their offices and franchises during the pleasure of the

legislature, and that the property holden belonged to the State, then

indeed the legislature have done no more than they had a right to do. But

this is not so. The charter is a charter of privileges and immunities; and

these are holden by the trustees expressly against the State for ever.

It is admitted that the State, by its courts of law, can enforce the will

of the donor, and compel a faithful execution of the trust. The plaintiffs

claim no exemption from legal responsibility. They hold themselves at all

times answerable to the law of the land, for their conduct in the trust

committed to them. They ask only to hold the property of which they are

owners, and the franchises which belong to them, until they shall be

found, by due course and process of law, to have forfeited them.

It can make no difference whether the legislature exercise the power it

has assumed by removing the trustees and the president and professors,

directly and by name, or by appointing others to expel them. The principle

is the same, and in point of fact the result has been the same. If the

entire franchise cannot be taken away, neither can it be essentially

impaired. If the trustees are legal owners of the property, they are sole

owners. If they are visitors, they are sole visitors. No one will be found

to say, that, if the legislature may do what it has done, it may not do

any thing and every thing which it may choose to do, relative to the

property of the corporation, and the privileges of its members and

officers.

If the view which has been taken of this question be at all correct, this

was an eleemosynary corporation, a private charity. The property was

private property. The trustees were visitors, and the right to hold the

charter, administer the funds, and visit and govern the college, was a

franchise and privilege, solemnly granted to them. The use being public in

no way diminishes their legal estate in the property, or their title to

the franchise. There is no principle, nor any case, which declares that a

gift to such a corporation is a gift to the public. The acts in question

violate property. They take away privileges, immunities, and franchises.

They deny to the trustees the protection of the law; and they are

retrospective in their operation. In all which respects they are against

the constitution of New Hampshire.

The plaintiffs contend, in the second place, that the acts in question are

repugnant to the tenth section of the first article of the Constitution of

the United States. The material words of that section are: "No State shall

pass any bill of attainder, _ex post facto_ law, or law impairing the

obligation of contracts."

The object of these most important provisions in the national constitution

has often been discussed, both here and elsewhere. It is exhibited with

great clearness and force by one of the distinguished persons who framed

that instrument. "Bills of attainder, _ex post facto_ laws, and laws

impairing the obligation of contracts, are contrary to the first

principles of the social compact, and to every principle of sound

legislation. The two former are expressly prohibited by the declarations

prefixed to some of the State constitutions, and all of them are

prohibited by the spirit and scope of these fundamental charters. Our own

experience has taught us, nevertheless, that additional fences against

these dangers ought not to be omitted. Very properly, therefore, have the

convention added this constitutional bulwark, in favor of personal

security and private rights; and I am much deceived, if they have not, in

so doing, as faithfully consulted the genuine sentiments as the undoubted

interests of their constituents. The sober people of America are weary of

the fluctuating policy which has directed the public councils. They have

seen with regret, and with indignation, that sudden changes, and

legislative interferences in cases affecting personal rights, become jobs

in the hands of enterprising and influential speculators, and snares to

the more industrious and less informed part of the community. They have

seen, too, that one legislative interference is but the link of a long

chain of repetitions; every subsequent interference being naturally

produced by the effects of the preceding."

It has already been decided in this court, that a _grant_ is a

contract, within the meaning of this provision; and that a grant by a

State is also a contract, as much as the grant of an individual. In the

case of _Fletcher v. Peck_, this court says: "A contract is a compact

between two or more parties, and is either executory or executed. An

executory contract is one in which a party binds himself to do, or not to

do, a particular thing; such was the law under which the conveyance was

made by the government. A contract executed is one in which the object of

contract is performed; and this, says Blackstone, differs in nothing from

a grant. The contract between Georgia and the purchasers was executed by

the grant. A contract executed, as well as one which is executory,

contains obligations binding on the parties. A grant, in its own nature,

amounts to an extinguishment of the right of the grantor, and implies a

contract not to reassert that right. If, under a fair construction of the

Constitution, grants are comprehended under the term contracts, is a grant

from the State excluded from the operation of the provision? Is the clause

to be considered as inhibiting the State from impairing the obligation of

contracts between two individuals, but as excluding from that inhibition

contracts made with itself? The words themselves contain no such

distinction. They are general, and are applicable to contracts of every

description. If contracts made with the State are to be exempted from

their operation, the exception must arise from the character of the

contracting party, not from the words which are employed. Whatever respect

might have been felt for the State sovereignties, it is not to be

disguised that the framers of the Constitution viewed with some

apprehension the violent acts which might grow out of the feelings of the

moment; and that the people of the United States, in adopting that

instrument, have manifested a determination to shield themselves and their

property from the effects of those sudden and strong passions to which men

are exposed. The restrictions on the legislative power of the States are

obviously founded in this sentiment; and the Constitution of the United

States contains what may be deemed a bill of rights for the people of each

State."

It also has been decided that a grant by a State before the Revolution is

as much to be protected as a grant since. But the case of _Terrett v.

Taylor_, before cited, is of all others most pertinent to the present

argument. Indeed, the judgment of the court in that case seems to leave

little to be argued or decided in this. "A private corporation," say the

court, "created by the legislature, may lose its franchises by a

_misuser_ or a _nonuser_ of them; and they may be resumed by the

government under a judicial judgment upon a _quo warranto_ to

ascertain and enforce the forfeiture. This is the common law of the land,

and is a tacit condition annexed to the creation of every such

corporation. Upon a change of government, too, it may be admitted, that

such exclusive privileges attached to a private corporation as are

inconsistent with the new government may be abolished. In respect, also,

to _public_ corporations which exist only for public purposes, such

as counties, towns, cities, and so forth, the legislature may, under

proper limitations, have a right to change, modify, enlarge, or restrain

them, securing, however, the property for the uses of those for whom and

at whose expense it was originally purchased. But that the legislature can

repeal statutes creating private corporations, or confirming to them

property already acquired under the faith of previous laws, and by such

repeal can vest the property of such corporations exclusively in the

State, or dispose of the same to such purposes as they please, without the

consent or default of the corporators, we are not prepared to admit; and

we think ourselves standing upon the principles of natural justice, upon

the fundamental laws of every free government, upon the spirit and letter

of the Constitution of the United States, and upon the decisions of most

respectable judicial tribunals, in resisting such a doctrine."

This court, then, does not admit the doctrine, that a legislature can

repeal statutes creating private corporations. If it cannot repeal them

altogether, of course it cannot repeal any part of them, or impair them,

or essentially alter them, without the consent of the corporators. If,

therefore, it has been shown that this college is to be regarded as a

private charity, this case is embraced within the very terms of that

decision. A grant of corporate powers and privileges is as much a contract

as a grant of land. What proves all charters of this sort to be contracts

is, that they must be accepted to give them force and effect. If they are

not accepted, they are void. And in the case of an existing corporation,

if a new charter is given it, it may even accept part and reject the rest.

In _Rex v. Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge_, Lord Mansfield says: "There

is a vast deal of difference between a new charter granted to a new

corporation, (who must take it as it is given,) and a new charter given to

a corporation already in being, and acting either under a former charter

or under prescriptive usage. The latter, a corporation already existing,

are not obliged to accept the new charter _in toto_, and to receive

either all or none of it; they may act partly under it, and partly under

their old charter or prescription. The validity of these new charters must

turn upon the acceptance of them." In the same case Mr. Justice Wilmot

says: "It is the concurrence and acceptance of the university that gives

the force to the charter of the crown." In the _King v. Pasmore_,

Lord Kenyon observes: "Some things are clear: when a corporation exists

capable of discharging its functions, the crown cannot obtrude another

charter upon them; they may either accept or reject it."

And because charters of incorporation are of the nature of contracts, they

cannot be altered or varied but by consent of the original parties. If a

charter be granted by the king, it may be altered by a new charter granted

by the king, and accepted by the corporators. But if the first charter be

granted by Parliament, the consent of Parliament must be obtained to any

alteration. In _King v. Miller_, Lord Kenyon says: "Where a

corporation takes its rise from the king's charter, the king by granting,

and the corporation by accepting another charter, may alter it, because it

is done with the consent of all the parties who are competent to consent

to the alteration."

There are, in this case, all the essential constituent parts of a

contract. There is something to be contracted about, there are parties,

and there are plain terms in which the agreement of the parties on the

subject of the contract is expressed. There are mutual considerations and

inducements. The charter recites, that the founder, on his part, has

agreed to establish his seminary in New Hampshire, and to enlarge it

beyond its original design, among other things, for the benefit of that

Province; and thereupon a charter is given to him and his associates,

designated by himself, promising and assuring to them, under the plighted

faith of the State, the right of governing the college and administering

its concerns in the manner provided in the charter. There is a complete

and perfect grant to them of all the power of superintendence, visitation,

and government. Is not this a contract? If lands or money had been granted

to him and his associates, for the same purposes, such grant could not be

rescinded. And is there any difference, in legal contemplation, between a

grant of corporate franchises and a grant of tangible property? No such

difference is recognized in any decided case, nor does it exist in the

common apprehension of mankind.

It is therefore contended, that this case falls within the true meaning of

this provision of the Constitution, as expounded in the decisions of this

court; that the charter of 1769 is a contract, a stipulation or agreement,

mutual in its considerations, express and formal in its terms, and of a

most binding and solemn nature. That the acts in question impair this

contract, has already been sufficiently shown. They repeal and abrogate

its most essential parts.

A single observation may not be improper on the opinion of the court of

New Hampshire, which has been published. The learned judges who delivered

that opinion have viewed this question in a very different light from that

in which the plaintiffs have endeavored to exhibit it. After some general

remarks, they assume that this college is a public corporation; and on

this basis their judgment rests. Whether all colleges are not regarded as

private and eleemosynary corporations, by all law writers and all judicial

decisions; whether this college was not founded by Dr. Wheelock; whether

the charter was not granted at his request, the better to execute a trust,

which he had already created; whether he and his associates did not become

visitors, by the charter; and whether Dartmouth College be not, therefore,

in the strictest sense, a private charity, are questions which the learned

judges do not appear to have discussed.

It is admitted in that opinion, that, if it be a private corporation, its

rights stand on the same ground as those of an individual. The great

question, therefore, to be decided is, To which class of corporations do

colleges thus founded belong? And the plaintiffs have endeavored to

satisfy the court, that, according to the well-settled principles and

uniform decisions of law, they are private, eleemosynary corporations.

Much has heretofore been said on the necessity of admitting such a power

in the legislature as has been assumed in this case. Many cases of

possible evil have been imagined, which might otherwise be without remedy.

Abuses, it is contended, might arise in the management of such

institutions, which the ordinary courts of law would be unable to correct.

But this is only another instance of that habit of supposing extreme

cases, and then of reasoning from them, which is the constant refuge of

those who are obliged to defend a cause, which, upon its merits, is

indefensible. It would be sufficient to say in answer, that it is not

pretended that there was here any such case of necessity. But a still more

satisfactory answer is, that the apprehension of danger is groundless, and

therefore the whole argument fails. Experience has not taught us that

there is danger of great evils or of great inconvenience from this source.

Hitherto, neither in our own country nor elsewhere have such cases of

necessity occurred. The judicial establishments of the State are presumed

to be competent to prevent abuses and violations of trust, in cases of

this kind, as well as in all others. If they be not, they are imperfect,

and their amendment would be a most proper subject for legislative wisdom.

Under the government and protection of the general laws of the land, these

institutions have always been found safe, as well as useful. They go on,

with the progress of society, accommodating themselves easily, without

sudden change or violence, to the alterations which take place in its

condition, and in the knowledge, the habits, and pursuits of men. The

English colleges were founded in Catholic ages. Their religion was

reformed with the general reformation of the nation; and they are suited

perfectly well to the purpose of educating the Protestant youth of modern

times. Dartmouth College was established under a charter granted by the

Provincial government; but a better constitution for a college or one more

adapted to the condition of things under the present government, in all

material respects, could not now be framed. Nothing in it was found to

need alteration at the Revolution. The wise men of that day saw in it one

of the best hopes of future times, and commended it as it was, with

parental care, to the protection and guardianship of the government of the

State. A charter of more liberal sentiments, of wiser provisions, drawn

with more care, or in a better spirit, could not be expected at any

time or from any source. The college needed no change in its organization

or government. That which it did need was the kindness, the patronage, the

bounty of the legislature; not a mock elevation to the character of a

university, without the solid benefit of a shilling's donation to sustain

the character; not the swelling and empty authority of establishing

institutes and other colleges. This unsubstantial pageantry would seem to

have been in derision of the scanty endowment and limited means of an

unobtrusive, but useful and growing seminary. Least of all was there a

necessity, or pretence of necessity, to infringe its legal rights, violate

its franchises and privileges, and pour upon it these overwhelming streams

of litigation.

But this argument from necessity would equally apply in all other cases.

If it be well founded, it would prove, that, whenever any inconvenience or

evil is experienced from the restrictions imposed on the legislature by

the Constitution, these restrictions ought to be disregarded. It is enough

to say, that the people have thought otherwise. They have, most wisely,

chosen to take the risk of occasional inconvenience from the want of

power, in order that there might be a settled limit to its exercise, and a

permanent security against its abuse. They have imposed prohibitions and

restraints; and they have not rendered these altogether vain and nugatory

by conferring the power of dispensation. If inconvenience should arise

which the legislature cannot remedy under the power conferred upon it, it

is not answerable for such inconvenience. That which it cannot do within

the limits prescribed to it, it cannot do at all. No legislature in this

country is able, and may the time never come when it shall be able, to

apply to itself the memorable expression of a Roman pontiff: "Licet hoc

_de jure_ non possumus, volumus tamen _de plenitudine potestatis_."

The case before the court is not of ordinary importance, nor of every-day

occurrence. It affects not this college only, but every college, and all

the literary institutions of the country. They have flourished hitherto,

and have become in a high degree respectable and useful to the community.

They have all a common principle of existence, the inviolability of their

charters. It will be a dangerous, a most dangerous experiment, to hold

these institutions subject to the rise and fall of popular parties, and

the fluctuations of political opinions. If the franchise may be at any

time taken away, or impaired, the property also may be taken away, or its

use perverted. Benefactors will have no certainty of effecting the object

of their bounty; and learned men will be deterred from devoting themselves

to the service of such institutions, from the precarious title of their

offices. Colleges and halls will be deserted by all better spirits, and

become a theatre for the contentions of politics, Party and faction will

be cherished in the places consecrated to piety and learning. These

consequences are neither remote nor possible only. They are certain and

immediate.

When the court in North Carolina declared the law of the State, which

repealed a grant to its university, unconstitutional and void, the

legislature had the candor and the wisdom to repeal the law. This example,

so honorable to the State which exhibited it, is most fit to be followed

on this occasion. And there is good reason to hope that a State, which has

hitherto been so much distinguished for temperate counsels, cautious

legislation, and regard to law, will not fail to adopt a course which will

accord with her highest and best interests, and in no small degree elevate

her reputation. It was for many and obvious reasons most anxiously desired

that the question of the power of the legislature over this charter should

have been finally decided in the State court. An earnest hope was

entertained that the judges of the court might have viewed the case in a

light favorable to the rights of the trustees. That hope has failed. It is

here that those rights are now to be maintained, or they are prostrated

for ever. "Omnia alia perfugia bonorum, subsidia, consilia, auxilia, jura

ceciderunt. Quem enim alium appellem? quem obtester? quern implorem? Nisi

hoc loco, nisi apud vos, nisi per vos, judices, salutem nostram, quae spe

exigua extremaque pendet, tenuerimus; nihil est praeterea quo confugere

possimus." [1]

This, sir, is my case. It is the case, not merely of that humble

institution, it is the case of every college in the land. It is more. It

is the case of every eleemosynary institution throughout our country--of

all those great charities formed by the piety of our ancestors, to

alleviate human misery, and scatter blessings along the pathway of life.

It is more! It is, in some sense, the case of every man among us who has

property, of which he may be stripped, for the question is simply this:

Shall our State legislatures be allowed to take that which is not their

own, to turn it from its original use, and apply it to such ends or

purposes as they in their discretion shall see fit?

Sir, you may destroy this little institution; it is weak; it is in your

hands! I know it is one of the lesser lights in the literary horizon of

our country. You may put it out. But, if you do so, you must carry through

your work! You must extinguish, one after another, all those greater

lights of science, which, for more than a century, have thrown their

radiance over our land!

It is, sir, as I have said, a small college, and yet there are those who

love it. [2]

Sir, I know not how others may feel (glancing at the opponents of the

colleges before him), but for myself, when I see my Alma Mater surrounded,

like Caesar, in the senate house, by those who are reiterating stab after

stab, I would not, for this right hand, have her turn to me, and say,

_et tu quoque, mi fili! And thou too, my son!_ [3]

First Settlement of New England.

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. For ever honored be this, the place of our

fathers' refuge! For ever remembered the day which saw them, weary and

distressed, broken in every thing 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!

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.

There may be, and there often is, indeed, a regard for ancestry, which

nourishes only a weak pride; as there is also a care for posterity, which

only disguises an habitual avarice, or hides the workings of a low and

grovelling vanity. But there is also a moral and philosophical respect for

our ancestors, which elevates the character and improves the heart. Next

to the sense of religious duty and moral feeling, I hardly know what

should bear with stronger obligation on a liberal and enlightened mind,

than a consciousness of alliance with excellence which is departed; and a

consciousness, too, that in its acts and conduct, and even in its

sentiments and thoughts, it may be actively operating on the happiness of

those who come after it. Poetry is found to have few stronger conceptions,

by which it would affect or overwhelm the mind, than those in which it

presents the moving and speaking image of the departed dead to the senses

of the living. This belongs to poetry, only because it is congenial to our

nature. Poetry is, in this respect, but the handmaid of true philosophy

and morality; it deals with us as human beings, naturally reverencing

those whose visible connection with this state of existence is severed,

and who may yet exercise we know not what sympathy with ourselves; and

when it carries us forward, also, and shows us the long continued result

of all the good we do, in the prosperity of those who follow us, till it

bears us from ourselves, and absorbs us in an intense interest for what

shall happen to the generations after us, it speaks only in the language

of our nature, and affects us with sentiments which belong to us as human

beings.

Standing in this relation to our ancestors and our posterity, we are

assembled on this memorable spot, to perform the duties which that

relation and the present occasion impose upon us. We have come to this

Rock, to record here our homage for our Pilgrim Fathers; 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.

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

lodgement, 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 [1], 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; [2] 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.

The settlement of New England by the colony which landed here on the

twenty-second [3] of December, sixteen hundred and twenty, 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.

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, 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.

"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." [4] 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."

A brief remembrance of the causes which led to the settlement of this

place; some account of the peculiarities and characteristic qualities of

that settlement, as distinguished from other instances of colonization; a

short notice of the progress of New England in the great interests of

society, during the century which is now elapsed; with a few observations

on the principles upon which society and government are established in

this country: comprise all that can be attempted, and much more than can

be satisfactorily performed, on the present occasion.

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.

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

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, 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. [5] 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.

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 meantime

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.

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 for ever! 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!

The peculiar character, condition, and circumstances of the colonies which

introduced civilization and an English race into New England, afford a

most interesting and extensive topic of discussion. On these, much of our

subsequent character and fortune has depended. Their influence has

essentially affected our whole history, through the two centuries which

have elapsed; and as they have become intimately connected with

government, laws, and property, as well as with our opinions on the

subjects of religion and civil liberty, that influence is likely to

continue to be felt through the centuries which shall succeed. Emigration

from one region to another, and the emission of colonies to people

countries more or less distant from the residence of the parent stock, are

common incidents in the history of mankind; but it has not often, perhaps

never, happened, that the establishment of colonies should be attempted

under circumstances, however beset with present difficulties and dangers,

yet so favorable to ultimate success, and so conducive to magnificent

results, as those which attended the first settlements on this part of the

American continent. In other instances, emigration has proceeded from a

less exalted purpose, in periods of less general intelligence, or more

without plan and by accident; or under circumstances, physical and moral,

less favorable to the expectation of laying a foundation for great public

prosperity and future empire.

A great resemblance exists, obviously, between all the English colonies

established within the present limits of the United States; but the

occasion attracts our attention more immediately to those which took

possession of New England, and the peculiarities of these furnish a strong

contrast with most other instances of colonization.

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!

THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT.

This uncounted multitude before me and around me proves the feeling which

the occasion has excited. These thousands of human faces, glowing with

sympathy and joy, and from the impulses of a common gratitude turned

reverently to heaven in this spacious temple of the firmament, proclaim

that the day, the place, and the purpose of our assembling have made a

deep impression on our hearts.

If, indeed, there be anything in local association fit to affect the mind

of man, we need not strive to repress the emotions which agitate us here.

We are among the sepulchres of our fathers. We are on ground,

distinguished by their valor, their constancy, and the shedding of their

blood. We are here, not to fix an uncertain date in our annals, nor to

draw into notice an obscure and unknown spot. If our humble purpose had

never been conceived, if we ourselves had never been born, the 17th of

June, 1775, would have been a day on which all subsequent history would

have poured its light, and the eminence where we stand a point of

attraction to the eyes of successive generations. But we are Americans. We

live in what may be called the early age of this great continent; and we

know that our posterity, through all time, are here to enjoy and suffer

the allotments of humanity. We see before us a probable train of great

events; we know that our own fortunes have been happily cast; and it is

natural, therefore, that we should be moved by the contemplation of

occurrences which have guided our destiny before many of us were born, and

settled the condition in which we should pass that portion of our

existence which God allows to men on earth.

We do not read even of the discovery of this continent, without feeling

something of a personal interest in the event; without being reminded how

much it has affected our own fortunes and our own existence. It would be

still more unnatural for us, therefore, than for others, to contemplate

with unaffected minds that interesting, I may say that most touching and

pathetic scene, when the great discoverer of America stood on the deck of

his shattered bark, the shades of night falling on the sea, yet no man

sleeping; tossed on the billows of an unknown ocean, yet the stronger

billows of alternate hope and despair tossing his own troubled thoughts;

extending forward his harassed frame, straining westward his anxious and

eager eyes, till Heaven at last granted him a moment of rapture and

ecstasy, in blessing his vision with the sight of the unknown world.

Nearer to our times, more closely connected with our fates, and therefore

still more interesting to our feelings and affections, is the settlement

of our own country by colonists from England. We cherish every memorial of

these worthy ancestors; we celebrate their patience and fortitude; we

admire their daring enterprise; we teach our children to venerate their

piety; and we are justly proud of being descended from men who have set

the world an example of founding civil institutions on the great and

united principles of human freedom and human knowledge. To us, their

children, the story of their labors and sufferings can never be without

its interest. We shall not stand unmoved on the shore of Plymouth, while

the sea continues to wash it; nor will our brethren in another early and

ancient Colony forget the place of its first establishment, till their

river shall cease to flow by it. [1] No vigor of youth, no maturity of

manhood, will lead the nation to forget the spots where its infancy was

cradled and defended.

But the great event in the history of the continent, which we are now met

here to commemorate, that prodigy of modern times, at once the wonder and

the blessing of the world, is the American Revolution. In a day of

extraordinary prosperity and happiness, of high national honor,

distinction, and power, we are brought together, in this place, by our

love of country, by our admiration of exalted character, by our gratitude

for signal services and patriotic devotion.

The Society whose organ I am [2] was formed for the purpose of rearing

some honorable and durable monument to the memory of the early friends of

American Independence. They have thought, that for this object no time

could be more propitious than the present prosperous and peaceful period;

that no place could claim preference over this memorable spot; and that no

day could be more auspicious to the undertaking than the anniversary of

the battle which was here fought. The foundation of that monument we have

now laid. With solemnities suited to the occasion, with prayers to

Almighty God for his blessing, and in the midst of this cloud of

witnesses, we have begun the work. We trust it will be prosecuted, and

that, springing from a broad foundation, rising high in massive solidity

and unadorned grandeur, it may remain as long as Heaven permits the works

of men to last, a fit emblem, both of the events in memory of which it is

raised, and of the gratitude of those who have reared it.

We know, indeed, that the record of illustrious actions is most safely

deposited in the universal remembrance of mankind. We know, that if we

could cause this structure to ascend, not only till it reached the skies,

but till it pierced them, its broad surfaces could still contain but part

of that which, in an age of knowledge, hath already been spread over the

earth, and which history charges itself with making known to all future

times. We know that no inscription on entablatures less broad than the

earth itself can carry information of the events we commemorate where it

has not already gone; and that no structure, which shall not outlive the

duration of letters and knowledge among men, can prolong the memorial. But

our object is, by this edifice, to show our own deep sense of the value

and importance of the achievements of our ancestors; and, by presenting

this work of gratitude to the eye, to keep alive similar sentiments, and

to foster a constant regard for the principles of the Revolution. Human

beings are composed, not of reason only, but of imagination also, and

sentiment; and that is neither wasted nor misapplied which is appropriated

to the purpose of giving right direction to sentiments, and opening proper

springs of feeling in the heart. Let it not be supposed that our object is

to perpetuate national hostility, or even to cherish a mere military

spirit. It is higher, purer, nobler. We consecrate our work to the spirit

of national independence, and we wish that the light of peace may rest

upon it forever. We rear a memorial of our conviction of that unmeasured

benefit which has been conferred on our own land, and of the happy

influences which have been produced, by the same events, on the general

interests of mankind. We come, as Americans, to mark a spot which must

forever be dear to us and our posterity. We wish that whosoever, in all

coming time, shall turn his eye hither, may behold that the place is not

undistinguished where the first great battle of the Revolution was fought.

We wish that this structure may proclaim the magnitude and importance of

that event to every class and every age. We wish that infancy may learn

the purpose of its erection from maternal lips, and that weary and

withered age may behold it, and be solaced by the recollections which it

suggests. We wish that labor may look up here, and be proud, in the midst

of its toil. We wish that, in those days of disaster, which, as they come

upon all nations, must be expected to come upon us also, desponding

patriotism may turn its eyes hitherward, and be assured that the

foundations of our national power are still strong. We wish that this

column, rising towards heaven among the pointed spires of so many temples

dedicated to God, may contribute also to produce, in all minds, a pious

feeling of dependence and gratitude. We wish, finally, that the last

object to the sight of him who leaves his native shore, and the first to

gladden his who revisits it, may be something which shall remind him of

the liberty and the glory of his country. Let it rise! let it rise, till

it meet the sun in his coming; let the earliest light of the morning gild

it, and parting day linger and play on its summit.

We live in a most extraordinary age. Events so various and so important

that they might crowd and distinguish centuries are, in our times,

compressed within the compass of a single life. When has it happened that

history has had so much to record in the same term of years, as since the

17th of June, 1775? Our own Revolution, which, under other circumstances,

might itself have been expected to occasion a war of half a century, has

been achieved; twenty-four sovereign and independent States erected; and a

general government established over them, so safe, so wise, so free, so

practical, that we might well wonder its establishment should have been

accomplished so soon, were it not far the greater wonder that it should

have been established at all. Two or three millions of people have been

augmented to twelve, [3] the great forests of the West prostrated beneath

the arm of successful industry, and the dwellers on the banks of the Ohio

and the Mississippi become the fellow-citizens and neighbors of those who

cultivate the hills of New England. [4] We have a commerce, that leaves no

sea unexplored; navies, which take no law from superior force; revenues,

adequate to all the exigencies of government, almost without taxation; and

peace with all nations, founded on equal rights and mutual respect.

Europe, within the same period, has been agitated by a mighty revolution,

which, while it has been felt in the individual condition and happiness of

almost every man, has shaken to the centre her political fabric, and

dashed against one another thrones which had stood tranquil for ages. On

this, our continent, our own example has been followed, and colonies have

sprung up to be nations. Unaccustomed sounds of liberty and free

government have reached us from beyond the track of the sun; and at this

moment the dominion of European power in this continent, from the place

where we stand to the south pole, is annihilated forever.

In the mean time, both in Europe and America, such has been the general

progress of knowledge, such the improvement in legislation, in commerce,

in the arts, in letters, and, above all, in liberal ideas and the general

spirit of the age, that the whole world seems changed.

Yet, notwithstanding that this is but a faint abstract of the things which

have happened since the day of the battle of Bunker Hill, we are but fifty

years removed from it; and we now stand here to enjoy all the blessings of

our own condition, and to look abroad on the brightened prospects of the

world, while we still have among us some of those who were active agents

in the scenes of 1775, and who are now here, from every quarter of New

England, to visit once more, and under circumstances so affecting, I had

almost said so overwhelming, this renowned theatre of their courage and

patriotism.

VENERABLE MEN! you have come down to us from a former generation. Heaven

has bounteously lengthened out your lives, that you might behold this

joyous day. You are now where you stood fifty years ago, this very hour,

with your brothers and your neighbors, shoulder to shoulder, in the strife

for your country. Behold, how altered! The same heavens are indeed over

your heads; the same ocean rolls at your feet; but all else, how changed!

You hear now no roar of hostile cannon, you see no mixed volumes of smoke

and flame rising from burning Charlestown. The ground strewed with the

dead and the dying; the impetuous charge; the steady and successful

repulse; the loud call to repeated assault; the summoning of all that is

manly to repeated resistance; a thousand bosoms freely and fearlessly

bared in an instant to whatever of terror there may be in war and death;--

all these you have witnessed, but you witness them no more. All is peace.

The heights of yonder metropolis, its towers and roofs, which you then saw

filled with wives and children and countrymen in distress and terror, and

looking with unutterable emotions for the issue of the combat, have

presented you to-day with the sight of its whole happy population, come

out to welcome and greet you with a universal jubilee. Yonder proud ships,

by a felicity of position appropriately lying at the foot of this mount,

and seeming fondly to cling around it, are not means of annoyance to you,

but your country's own means of distinction and defence.[5] All is peace;

and God has granted you the sight of your country's happiness, ere you

slumber in the grave. He has allowed you to behold and to partake the

reward of your patriotic toils; and he has allowed us, your sons and

countrymen, to meet you here, and in the name of the present generation,

in the name of your country, in the name of liberty, to thank you! [6]

But, alas! you are not all here! Time and the sword have thinned your

ranks. Prescott, Putnam, Stark, Brooks, Read, Pomeroy, Bridge! our eyes

seek for you in vain amid this broken band. You are gathered to your

fathers, and live only to your country in her grateful remembrance and

your own bright example. But let us not too much grieve, that you have met

the common fate of men. You lived at least long enough to know that your

work had been nobly and successfully accomplished. You lived to see your

country's independence established, and to sheathe your swords from war.

On the light of Liberty you saw arise the light of Peace, like

"another morn,

Risen on mid-noon"; [7]

and the sky on which you closed your eyes was cloudless.

But ah! Him! the first great martyr in this great cause! Him! the

premature victim of his own self-devoting heart! Him! the head of our

civil councils, and the destined leader of our military bands, whom

nothing brought hither but the unquenchable fire of his own spirit! Him!

cut off by Providence in the hour of overwhelming anxiety and thick gloom;

falling ere he saw the star of his country rise; pouring out his generous

blood like water, before he knew whether it would fertilize a land of

freedom or of bondage!--how shall I struggle with the emotions that stifle

the utterance of thy name! Our poor work may perish; but thine shall

endure! [8]

This monument may moulder away; the solid ground it rests upon may sink

down to a level with the sea; but thy memory shall not fail! Wheresoever

among men a heart shall be found that beats to the transports of

patriotism and liberty, its aspirations shall be to claim kindred with thy

spirit!

But the scene amidst which we stand does not permit us to confine our

thoughts or our sympathies to those fearless spirits who hazarded or lost

their lives on this consecrated spot. We have the happiness to rejoice

here in the presence of a most worthy representation of the survivors of

the whole Revolutionary army.

Veterans! you are the remnant of many a well-fought field. You bring with

you marks of honor from Trenton and Monmouth, from Yorktown, Camden,

Bennington, and Saratoga. VETERANS OF HALF A CENTURY! when in your

youthful days you put everything at hazard in your country's cause, good

as that cause was, and sanguine as youth is, still your fondest hopes did

not stretch onward to an hour like this! At a period to which you could

not reasonably have expected to arrive, at a moment of national prosperity

such as you could never have foreseen, you are now met here to enjoy the

fellowship of old soldiers, and to receive the overflowings of a universal

gratitude.

But your agitated countenances and your heaving breasts inform me that

even this is not an unmixed joy. I perceive that a tumult of contending

feeling rushes upon you. The images of the dead, as well as the persons of

the living, present themselves before you. The scene overwhelms you and I

turn from it. May the Father of all mercies smile upon your declining

years, and bless them! And when you shall here have exchanged your

embraces, when you shall once more have pressed the hands which have been

so often extended to give succor in adversity, or grasped in the

exultation of victory, then look abroad upon this lovely land which your

young valor defended, and mark the happiness with which it is filled; yea,

look abroad upon the whole earth, and see what a name you have contributed

to give to your country, and what a praise you have added to freedom, and

then rejoice in the sympathy and gratitude which beam upon your last days

from the improved condition of mankind!

The occasion does not require of me any particular account of the battle

of the 17th of June, 1775, nor any detailed narrative of the events which

immediately preceded it. These are familiarly known to all. In the

progress of the great and interesting controversy, Massachusetts and the

town of Boston had become early and marked objects of the displeasure of

the British Parliament. This had been manifested in the act for altering

the government of the Province, and in that for shutting up the port of

Boston. Nothing sheds more honor on our early history, and nothing better

shows how little the feelings and sentiments of the Colonies were known or

regarded in England, than the impression which these measures everywhere

produced in America. [9] It had been anticipated, that, while the Colonies

in general would be terrified by the severity of the punishment inflicted

on Massachusetts, the other seaports would be governed by a mere spirit of

gain; and that, as Boston was now cut off from all commerce, the

unexpected advantage which this blow on her was calculated to confer on

other towns would be greedily enjoyed. How miserably such reasoners

deceived themselves! How little they knew of the depth, and the strength,

and the intenseness of that feeling of resistance to illegal acts of

power, which possessed the whole American people! Everywhere the unworthy

boon was rejected with scorn. The fortunate occasion was seized

everywhere, to show to the whole world that the Colonies were swayed by no

local interest, no partial interest, no selfish interest. The temptation

to profit by the punishment of Boston was strongest to our neighbors of

Salem. Yet Salem was precisely the place where this miserable proffer was

spurned, in a tone of the most lofty self-respect and the most indignant

patriotism. "We are deeply affected," said its inhabitants, "with the

sense of our public calamities; but the miseries that are now rapidly

hastening on our brethren in the capital of the Province greatly excite

our commiseration. By shutting up the port of Boston, some imagine that

the course of trade might be turned hither and to our benefit; but we must

be dead to every idea of justice, lost to all feelings of humanity, could

we indulge a thought to seize on wealth and raise our fortunes on the ruin

of our suffering neighbors." These noble sentiments were not confined to

our immediate vicinity. In that day of general affection and brotherhood,

the blow given to Boston smote on every patriotic heart from one end of

the country to the other. Virginia and the Carolinas, as well as

Connecticut and New Hampshire, felt and proclaimed the cause to be their

own. The Continental Congress, then holding its first session in

Philadelphia, expressed its sympathy for the suffering inhabitants of

Boston, and addresses were received from all quarters, assuring them that

the cause was a common one, and should be met by common efforts and common

sacrifices. The Congress of Massachusetts responded to these assurances;

and in an address to the Congress at Philadelphia, bearing the official

signature, perhaps among the last, of the immortal Warren, notwithstanding

the severity of its suffering and the magnitude of the dangers which

threatened it, it was declared, that this Colony "is ready, at all times,

to spend and to be spent in the cause of America."

But the hour drew nigh which was to put professions to the proof, and to

determine whether the authors of these mutual pledges were ready to seal

them in blood. The tidings of Lexington and Concord had no sooner spread,

than it was universally felt that the time was at last come for action. A

spirit pervaded all ranks, not transient, not boisterous, but deep,

solemn, determined,

"totamque infusa per artus

Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet." [10]

War, on their own soil and at their own doors, was, indeed, a strange work

to the yeomanry of New England; but their consciences were convinced of

its necessity, their country called them to it, and they did not withhold

themselves from the perilous trial. The ordinary occupations of life were

abandoned; the plough was staid in the unfinished furrow; wives gave up

their husbands, and mothers gave up their sons, to the battles of a civil

war. Death might come, in honor, on the field; it might come, in disgrace,

on the scaffold. For either and for both they were prepared. The sentiment

of Quincy was full in their hearts. "Blandishments," said that

distinguished son of genius and patriotism, "will not fascinate us, nor

will threats of a halter intimidate; for, under God, we are determined

that, wheresoever, whensoever, or howsoever we shall be called to make our

exit, we will die free men."

The 17th of June saw the four New England Colonies standing here, side by

side, to triumph or to fall together; and there was with them from that

moment to the end of the war, what I hope will remain with them forever:

one cause, one country, one heart.

The battle of Bunker Hill was attended with the most important effects

beyond its immediate results as a military engagement. It created at once

a state of open, public war. There could now be no longer a question of

proceeding against individuals, as guilty of treason or rebellion. That

fearful crisis was past. The appeal lay to the sword, and the only

question was, whether the spirit and the resources of the people would

hold out, till the object should be accomplished. Nor were its general

consequences confined to our own country. The previous proceedings of the

Colonies, their appeals, resolutions, and addresses, had made their cause

known to Europe. Without boasting, we may say, that in no age or country

has the public cause been maintained with more force of argument, more

power of illustration, or more of that persuasion which excited feeling

and elevated principle can alone bestow, than the Revolutionary state

papers exhibit. These papers will forever deserve to be studied, not only

for the spirit which they breathe, but for the ability with which they

were written. [11]

To this able vindication of their cause, the Colonies had now added a

practical and severe proof of their own true devotion to it, and given

evidence also of the power which they could bring to its support. All now

saw, that if America fell, she would not fall without a struggle. Men felt

sympathy and regard, as well as surprise, when they beheld these infant

states, remote, unknown, unaided, encounter the power of England, and, in

the first considerable battle, leave more of their enemies dead on the

field, in proportion to the number of combatants, than had been recently

known to fall in the wars of Europe.

Information of these events, circulating throughout the world, at length

reached the ears of one who now hears me.[12]

He has not forgotten the emotion which the fame of Bunker Hill, and the

name of Warren, excited in his youthful breast.

Sir, we are assembled to commemorate the establishment of great public

principles of liberty, and to do honor to the distinguished dead. The

occasion is too severe for eulogy of the living. But, Sir, your

interesting relation to this country, the peculiar circumstances which

surround you and surround us, call on me to express the happiness which we

derive from your presence and aid in this solemn commemoration.

Fortunate, fortunate man! with what measure of devotion will you not thank

God for the circumstances of your extraordinary life! You are connected

with both hemispheres and with two generations. Heaven saw fit to ordain,

that the electric spark of liberty should be conducted, through you, from

the New World to the Old; and we, who are now here to perform this duty of

patriotism, have all of us long ago received it in charge from our fathers

to cherish your name and your virtues. You will account it an instance of

your good fortune, Sir, that you crossed the seas to visit us at a time

which enables you to be present at this solemnity. You now behold the

field, the renown of which reached you in the heart of France, and caused

a thrill in your ardent bosom. You see the lines of the little redoubt

thrown up by the incredible diligence of Prescott; defended, to the last

extremity, by his lion-hearted valor; and within which the corner-stone of

our monument has now taken its position. You see where Warren fell, and

where Parker, Gardner, McCleary, Moore, and other early patriots, fell

with him. Those who survived that day, and whose lives have been prolonged

to the present hour, are now around you. Some of them you have known in

the trying scenes of the war. Behold! they now stretch forth their feeble

arms to embrace you. Behold! they raise their trembling voices to invoke

the blessing of God on you and yours forever!

Sir, you have assisted us in laying the foundation of this structure. You

have heard us rehearse, with our feeble commendation, the names of

departed patriots. Monuments and eulogy belong to the dead. We give them

this day to Warren and his associates. On other occasions they have been

given to your more immediate companions in arms, to Washington, to Greene,

to Gates, to Sullivan, and to Lincoln. We have become reluctant to grant

these, our highest and last honors, further. We would gladly hold them yet

back from the little remnant of that immortal band. _Serus in coelum

redeas_. Illustrious as are your merits, yet far, O very far distant be

the day, when any inscription shall bear your name, or any tongue

pronounce its eulogy!

The leading reflection to which this occasion seems to invite us, respects

the great changes which have happened in the fifty years since the battle

of Bunker Hill was fought. And it peculiarly marks the character of the

present age, that, in looking at these changes, and in estimating their

effect on our condition, we are obliged to consider, not what has been

done in our own country only, but in others also. In these interesting

times, while nations are making separate and individual advances in

improvement, they make, too, a common progress; like vessels on a common

tide, propelled by the gales at different rates, according to their

several structure and management, but all moved forward by one mighty

current, strong enough to bear onward whatever does not sink beneath it.

A chief distinction of the present day is a community of opinions and

knowledge amongst men in different nations, existing in a degree

heretofore unknown. Knowledge has, in our time, triumphed, and is

triumphing, over distance, over difference of languages, over diversity of

habits, over prejudice, and over bigotry. The civilized and Christian

world is fast learning the great lesson, that difference of nation does

not imply necessary hostility, and that all contact need not be war. The

whole world is becoming a common field for intellect to act in. Energy of

mind, genius, power, wheresoever it exists, may speak out in any tongue,

and the _world_ will hear it. A great cord of sentiment and feeling

runs through two continents, and vibrates over both. Every breeze wafts

intelligence from country to country; every wave rolls it; all give it

forth, and all in turn receive it. There is a vast commerce of ideas;

there are marts and exchanges for intellectual discoveries, and a

wonderful fellowship of those individual intelligences which make up the

mind and opinion of the age. Mind is the great lever of all things; human

thought is the process by which human ends are ultimately answered; and

the diffusion of knowledge, so astonishing in the last half-century, has

rendered innumerable minds, variously gifted by nature, competent to be

competitors or fellow-workers on the theatre of intellectual operation.

From these causes important improvements have taken place in the personal

condition of individuals. Generally speaking, mankind are not only better

fed and better clothed, but they are able also to enjoy more leisure; they

possess more refinement and more self-respect. A superior tone of

education, manners, and habits prevails. This remark, most true in its

application to our own country, is also partly true when applied

elsewhere. It is proved by the vastly augmented consumption of those

articles of manufacture and of commerce which contribute to the comforts

and the decencies of life; an augmentation which has far outrun the

progress of population. And while the unexampled and almost incredible use

of machinery would seem to supply the place of labor, labor still finds

its occupation and its reward; so wisely has Providence adjusted men's

wants and desires to their condition and their capacity.

Any adequate survey, however, of the progress made during the last half-

century in the polite and the mechanic arts, in machinery and

manufactures, in commerce and agriculture, in letters and in science,

would require volumes. I must abstain wholly from these subjects, and turn

for a moment to the contemplation of what has been done on the great

question of politics and government. This is the master topic of the age;

and during the whole fifty years it has intensely occupied the thoughts of

men. The nature of civil government, its ends and uses, have been

canvassed and investigated; ancient opinions attacked and defended; new

ideas recommended and resisted, by whatever power the mind of man could

bring to the controversy. From the closet and the public halls the debate

has been transferred to the field; and the world has been shaken by wars

of unexampled magnitude, and the greatest variety of fortune. A day of

peace has at length succeeded; and now that the strife has subsided, and

the smoke cleared away, we may begin to see what has actually been done,

permanently changing the state and condition of human society. And,

without dwelling on particular circumstances, it is most apparent, that,

from the before-mentioned causes of augmented knowledge and improved

individual condition, a real, substantial, and important change has taken

place, and is taking place, highly favorable, on the whole, to human

liberty and human happiness.

The great wheel of political revolution began to move in America. Here its

rotation was guarded, regular, and safe. Transferred to the other

continent, from unfortunate but natural causes, it received an irregular

and violent impulse; it whirled along with a fearful celerity; till at

length, like the chariot-wheels in the races of antiquity, it took fire

from the rapidity of its own motion, and blazed onward, spreading

conflagration and terror around.

We learn from the result of this experiment, how fortunate was our own

condition, and how admirably the character of our people was calculated

for setting the great example of popular governments. The possession of

power did not turn the heads of the American people, for they had long

been in the habit of exercising a great degree of self-control. Although

the paramount authority of the parent state existed over them, yet a large

field of legislation had always been open to our Colonial assemblies. They

were accustomed to representative bodies and the forms of free government;

they understood the doctrine of the division of power among different

branches, and the necessity of checks on each. The character of our

countrymen, moreover, was sober, moral, and religious; and there was

little in the change to shock their feelings of justice and humanity, or

even to disturb an honest prejudice. We had no domestic throne to

overturn, no privileged orders to cast down, no violent changes of

property to encounter. In the American Revolution, no man sought or wished

for more than to defend and enjoy his own. None hoped for plunder or for

spoil. Rapacity was unknown to it; the axe was not among the instruments

of its accomplishment; and we all know that it could not have lived a

single day under any well-founded imputation of possessing a tendency

adverse to the Christian religion.

It need not surprise us, that, under circumstances less auspicious,

political revolutions elsewhere, even when well intended, have terminated

differently. It is, indeed, a great achievement, it is the master-work of

the world, to establish governments entirely popular on lasting

foundations; nor is it easy, indeed, to introduce the popular principle at

all into governments to which it has been altogether a stranger. It cannot

be doubted, however, that Europe has come out of the contest, in which she

has been so long engaged, with greatly superior knowledge, and, in many

respects, in a highly improved condition. Whatever benefit has been

acquired is likely to be retained, for it consists mainly in the

acquisition of more enlightened ideas. And although kingdoms and provinces

may be wrested from the hands that hold them, in the same manner they were

obtained; although ordinary and vulgar power may, in human affairs, be

lost as it has been won; yet it is the glorious prerogative of the empire

of knowledge, that what it gains it never loses. On the contrary, it

increases by the multiple of its own power; all its ends become means; all

its attainments, helps to new conquests. Its whole abundant harvest is but

so much seed wheat, and nothing has limited, and nothing can limit, the

amount of ultimate product.

Under the influence of this rapidly increasing knowledge, the people have

begun, in forms of government, to think and to reason, on affairs of

state. Regarding government as an institution for the public good, they

demand a knowledge of its operations, and a participation in its exercise.

A call for the representative system, wherever it is not enjoyed, and

where there is already intelligence enough to estimate its value, is

perseveringly made. Where men may speak out, they demand it; where the

bayonet is at their throats, they pray for it.

When Louis the Fourteenth said: "I am the state," he expressed the essence

of the doctrine of unlimited power. By the rules of that system, the

people are disconnected from the state; they are its subjects; it is their

lord. These ideas, founded in the love of power, and long supported by the

excess and the abuse of it, are yielding, in our age, to other opinions;

and the civilized world seems at last to be proceeding to the conviction

of that fundamental and manifest truth, that the powers of government are

but a trust, and that they cannot be lawfully exercised but for the good

of the community. As knowledge is more and more extended, this conviction

becomes more and more general. Knowledge, in truth, is the great sun in

the firmament. Life and power are scattered with all its beams. The prayer

of the Grecian champion, when enveloped in unnatural clouds and darkness,

is the appropriate political supplication for the people of every country

not yet blessed with free institutions:--

"Dispel this cloud, the light of heaven restore,

Give me TO SEE,--and Ajax asks no more." [13]

We may hope that the glowing influence of enlightened sentiment will

promote the permanent peace of the world. Wars to maintain family

alliances, to uphold or to cast down dynasties, and to regulate

successions to thrones, which have occupied so much room in the history of

modern times, if not less likely to happen at all, will be less likely to

become general and involve many nations, as the great principle shall be

more and more established, that the interest of the world is peace, and

its first great statute, that every nation possesses the power of

establishing a government for itself. But public opinion has attained also

an influence over governments which do not admit the popular principle

into their organization. A necessary respect for the judgment of the world

operates, in some measure, as a control over the most unlimited forms of

authority. It is owing, perhaps, to this truth, that the interesting

struggle of the Greeks has been suffered to go on so long, without a

direct interference, either to wrest that country from its present

masters, or to execute the system of pacification by force, and, with

united strength, lay the neck of Christian and civilized Greek at the foot

of the barbarian Turk. [14] Let us thank God that we live in an age when

something has influence besides the bayonet, and when the sternest

authority does not venture to encounter the scorching power of public

reproach. Any attempt of the kind I have mentioned should be met by one

universal burst of indignation; the air of the civilized world ought to be

made too warm to be comfortably breathed by any one who would hazard it.

It is, indeed, a touching reflection, that, while, in the fulness of our

country's happiness, we rear this monument to her honor, we look for

instruction in our undertaking to a country which is now in fearful

contest, not for works of art or memorials of glory, but for her own

existence. Let her be assured that she is not forgotten in the world; that

her efforts are applauded, and that constant prayers ascend for her

success. And let us cherish a confident hope for her final triumph. If the

true spark of religious and civil liberty be kindled, it will burn. Human

agency cannot extinguish it. Like the earth's central fire, it may be

smothered for a time; the ocean may overwhelm it; mountains may press it

down; but its inherent and unconquerable force will heave both the ocean

and the land, and at some time or other, in some place or other, the

volcano will break out and flame up to heaven.

Among the great events of the half-century, we must reckon, certainly, the

revolution of South America; and we are not likely to overrate the

importance of that revolution, either to the people of the country itself

or to the rest of the world. The late Spanish colonies, now independent

states, under circumstances less favorable, doubtless, than attended our

own revolution, have yet successfully commenced their national existence.

They have accomplished the great object of establishing their

independence; they are known and acknowledged in the world; and although

in regard to their systems of government, their sentiments on religious

toleration, and their provisions for public instruction, they may have yet

much to learn, it must be admitted that they have risen to the condition

of settled and established states more rapidly than could have been

reasonably anticipated. They already furnish an exhilarating example of

the difference between free governments and despotic misrule. Their

commerce, at this moment, creates a new activity in all the great marts of

the world. They show themselves able, by an exchange of commodities, to

bear a useful part in the intercourse of nations.

A new spirit of enterprise and industry begins to prevail; all the great

interests of society receive a salutary impulse; and the progress of

information not only testifies to an improved condition, but itself

constitutes the highest and most essential improvement.

When the Battle of Bunker Hill was fought, the existence of South America

was scarcely felt in the civilized world. The thirteen little Colonies of

North America habitually called themselves the "Continent." Borne down by

colonial subjugation, monopoly, and bigotry, these vast regions of the

South were hardly visible above the horizon. But in our day there has

been, as it were, a new creation. The southern hemisphere emerges from the

sea. Its lofty mountains begin to lift themselves into the light of

heaven; its broad and fertile plains stretch out, in beauty, to the eye of

civilized man, and at the mighty bidding of the voice of political liberty

the waters of darkness retire.

And now, let us indulge an honest exultation in the conviction of the

benefit which the example of our country has produced, and is likely to

produce, on human freedom and human happiness. Let us endeavor to

comprehend in all its magnitude, and to feel in all its importance, the

part assigned to us in the great drama of human affairs. We are placed at

the head of the system of representative and popular governments. Thus far

our example shows that such governments are compatible, not only with

respectability and power, but with repose, with peace, with security of

personal rights, with good laws, and a just administration.

We are not propagandists. Wherever other systems are preferred, either as

being thought better in themselves, or as better suited to existing

condition, we leave the preference to be enjoyed. Our history hitherto

proves, however, that the popular form is practicable, and that with

wisdom and knowledge men may govern themselves; and the duty incumbent on

us is, to preserve the consistency of this cheering example, and take care

that nothing may weaken its authority with the world. If, in our case, the

representative system ultimately fail, popular governments must be

pronounced impossible. No combination of circumstances more favorable to

the experiment can ever be expected to occur. The last hopes of mankind,

therefore, rest with us; and if it should be proclaimed, that our example

had become an argument against the experiment, the knell of popular

liberty would be sounded throughout the earth.

These are excitements to duty; but they are not suggestions of doubt. Our

history and our condition, all that is gone before us, and all that

surrounds us, authorize the belief, that popular governments, though

subject to occasional variations, in form perhaps not always for the

better, may yet, in their general character, be as durable and permanent

as other systems. We know, indeed, that in our country any other is

impossible. The _principle_ of free governments adheres to the

American soil. It is bedded in it, immovable as its mountains.

And let the sacred obligations which have devolved on this generation, and

on us, sink deep into our hearts. Those who established our liberty and

our government are daily dropping from among us. The great trust now

descends to new hands. Let us apply ourselves to that which is presented

to us, as our appropriate object. We can win no laurels in a war for

independence. Earlier and worthier hands have gathered them all. Nor are

there places for us by the side of Solon, and Alfred, and other founders

of states. Our fathers have filled them. But there remains to us a great

duty of defence and preservation; and there is opened to us, also, a noble

pursuit, to which the spirit of the times strongly invites us. Our proper

business is improvement. Let our age be the age of improvement. In a day

of peace, let us advance the arts of peace and the works of peace. Let us

develop the resources of our land, call forth its powers, build up its

institutions, promote all its great interests, and see whether we also, in

our day and generation, may not perform something worthy to be remembered.

Let us cultivate a true spirit of union and harmony. In pursuing the great

objects which our condition points out to us, let us act under a settled

conviction, and an habitual feeling, that these twenty-four States are one

country. Let our conceptions be enlarged to the circle of our duties. Let

us extend our ideas over the whole of the vast field in which we are

called to act. Let our object be, OUR COUNTRY, OUR WHOLE COUNTRY, AND

NOTHING BUT OUR COUNTRY. And, by the blessing of God, may that country

itself become a vast and splendid monument, not of oppression and terror,

but of Wisdom, of Peace, and of Liberty, upon which the world may gaze

with admiration forever!

The Reply to Hayne.

Mr. President,--When the mariner has been tossed for many days in thick

weather, and on an unknown sea, he naturally avails himself of the first

pause in the storm, the earliest glance of the sun, to take his latitude,

and ascertain how far the elements have driven him from his true course.

Let us imitate this prudence, and, before we float farther on the waves of

this debate, refer to the point from which we departed, that we may at

least be able to conjecture where we now are. I ask for the reading of the

resolution before the Senate. [1]

The Secretary read the resolution, as follows:--

"Resolved, That the Committee on Public Lands be instructed to inquire and

report the quantity of public lands remaining unsold within each State and

Territory, and whether it be expedient to limit for a certain period the

sales of the public lands to such lands only as have heretofore been

offered for sale, and are now subject to entry at the minimum price. And,

also, whether the office of Surveyor-General, and some of the land

offices, may not be abolished without detriment to the public interest; or

whether it be expedient to adopt measures to hasten the sales and extend

more rapidly the surveys of the public lands."

We have thus heard, Sir, what the resolution is which is actually before

us for consideration; and it will readily occur to every one, that it is

almost the only subject about which something has not been said in the

speech, running through two days, by which the Senate has been entertained

by the gentleman from South Carolina. Every topic in the wide range of our

public affairs, whether past or present,--every thing, general or local,

whether belonging to national politics or party politics,--seems to have

attracted more or less of the honorable member's attention, save only the

resolution before the Senate. He has spoken of every thing but the public

lands; they have escaped his notice. To that subject, in all his

excursions, he has not paid even the cold respect of a passing glance.

When this debate, Sir, was to be resumed, on Thursday morning, it so

happened that it would have been convenient for me to be elsewhere. The

honorable member, however, did not incline to put off the discussion to

another day. He had a shot, he said, to return, and he wished to discharge

it. That shot, Sir, which he thus kindly informed us was coming, that we

might stand out of the way, or prepare ourselves to fall by it and die

with decency, has now been received. Under all advantages, and with

expectation awakened by the tone which preceded it, it has been

discharged, and has spent its force. It may become me to say no more of

its effect, than that, if nobody is found, after all, either killed or

wounded, it is not the first time, in the history of human affairs, that

the vigor and success of the war have not quite come up to the lofty and

sounding phrase of the manifesto. [2]

The gentleman, Sir, in declining to postpone the debate, told the Senate,

with the emphasis of his hand upon his heart, that there was something

rankling _here_, which he wished to relieve. [Mr. Hayne rose, and

disclaimed having used the word _rankling_.] It would not, Mr.

President, be safe for the honorable member to appeal to those around him,

upon the question whether he did in fact make use of that word. But he may

have been unconscious of it. At any rate, it is enough that he disclaims

it. But still, with or without the use of that particular word, he had yet

something _here_, he said, of which he wished to rid himself by an

immediate reply. In this respect, Sir, I have a great advantage over the

honorable gentleman. There is nothing _here_, Sir, which gives me the

slightest uneasiness; neither fear, nor anger, nor that which is sometimes

more troublesome than either, the consciousness of having been in the

wrong. There is nothing, either originating _here_, or now received

_here_ by the gentleman's shot. Nothing originating here, for I had

not the slightest feeling of unkindness towards the honorable member. Some

passages, it is true, had occurred since our acquaintance in this body,

which I could have wished might have been otherwise; but I had used

philosophy and forgotten them. I paid the honorable member the attention

of listening with respect to his first speech; and when he sat down,

though surprised, and I must even say astonished, at some of his opinions,

nothing was farther from my intention than to commence any personal

warfare. Through the whole of the few remarks I made in answer, I avoided,

studiously and carefully, every thing which I thought possible to be

construed into disrespect. And, Sir, while there is thus nothing

originating _here_ which I have wished at any time, or now wish, to

discharge, I must repeat, also, that nothing has been received _here_

which _rankles_, or in any way gives me annoyance. I will not accuse

the honorable member of violating the rules of civilized war; I will not

say, that he poisoned his arrows. But whether his shafts were, or were

not, dipped in that which would have caused rankling if they had reached

their destination, there was not, as it happened, quite strength enough in

the bow to bring them to their mark. If he wishes now to gather up those

shafts, he must look for them elsewhere; they will not be found fixed and

quivering in the object at which they were aimed. [3]

The honorable member complained that I had slept on his speech. I must

have slept on it, or not slept at all. The moment the honorable member sat

down, his friend from Missouri rose, [4] and, with much honeyed

commendation of the speech, suggested that the impressions which it had

produced were too charming and delightful to be disturbed by other

sentiments or other sounds, and proposed that the Senate should adjourn.

Would it have been quite amiable in me, Sir, to interrupt this excellent

good feeling? Must I not have been absolutely malicious, is; I could have

thrust myself forward, to destroy sensations thus pleasing? Was it not

much better and kinder, both to sleep upon them myself, and to allow

others also the pleasure of sleeping upon them? But if it be meant, by

sleeping upon his speech, that I took time to prepare a reply to it, it is

quite a mistake. Owing to other engagements, I could not employ even the

interval between the adjournment of the Senate and its meeting the next

morning, in attention to the subject of this debate. [5] Nevertheless,

Sir, the mere matter of fact is undoubtedly true. I did sleep on the

gentleman's speech, and slept soundly. And I slept equally well on his

speech of yesterday, to which I am now replying. It is quite possible that

in this respect, also, I possess some advantage over the honorable member,

attributable, doubtless, to a cooler temperament on my part; for, in

truth, I slept upon his speeches remarkably well.

But the gentleman inquires why _he_ was made the object of such a

reply. Why was _he_ singled out? If an attack has been made on the

East, he, he assures us, did not begin it; it was made by the gentleman

from Missouri. Sir, I answered the gentleman's speech because I happened

to hear it; and because, also, I chose to give an answer to that speech,

which, if unanswered, I thought most likely to produce injurious

impressions. I did not stop to inquire who was the original drawer of the

bill. I found a responsible indorser before me, and it was my purpose to

hold him liable, and to bring him to his just responsibility, without

delay. But, Sir, this interrogatory of the honorable member was only

introductory to another. He proceeded to ask me whether I had turned upon

him, in this debate, from the consciousness that I should find an

overmatch, if I ventured on a contest with his friend from Missouri. If,

Sir, the honorable member, _modestiae gratia_, had chosen thus to

defer to his friend, and to pay him a compliment, without intentional

disparagement to others, it would have been quite according to the

friendly courtesies of debate, and not at all ungrateful to my own

feelings. I am not one of those, Sir, who esteem any tribute of regard,

whether light and occasional, or more serious and deliberate, which may be

bestowed on others, as so much unjustly withholden from themselves. But

the tone and manner of the gentleman's question forbid me thus to

interpret it. I am not at liberty to consider it as nothing more than a

civility to his friend. It had an air of taunt and disparagement,

something of the loftiness of asserted superiority, which does not allow

me to pass it over without notice. It was put as a question for me to

answer, and so put as if it were difficult for me to answer, whether I

deemed the member from Missouri an overmatch for myself in debate here. It

seems to me, Sir, that this is extraordinary language, and an

extraordinary tone, for the discussions of this body.

Matches and overmatches! Those terms are more applicable elsewhere than

here, and fitter for other assemblies than this. Sir, the gentleman seems

to forget where and what we are. This is a Senate, a Senate of equals, of

men of individual honor and personal character, and of absolute

independence. We know no masters, we acknowledge no dictators. This is a

hall for mutual consultation and discussion; not an arena for the

exhibition of champions. I offer myself, Sir, as a match for no man; I

throw the challenge of debate at no man's feet. But then, Sir, since the

honorable member has put the question in a manner that calls for an

answer, I will give him an answer; and I tell him, that, holding myself to

be the humblest of the members here, I yet know nothing in the arm of his

friend from Missouri, either alone or when aided by the arm of _his_

friend from South Carolina, that need deter even me from espousing

whatever opinions I may choose to espouse, from debating whenever I may

choose to debate, or from speaking whatever I may see fit to say, on the

floor of the Senate. Sir, when uttered as matter of commendation or

compliment, I should dissent from nothing which the honorable member might

say of his friend. Still less do I put forth any pretensions of my own.

But when put to me as matter of taunt, I throw it back, and say to the

gentleman, that he could possibly say nothing less [6] likely than such a

comparison to wound my pride of personal character. The anger of its tone

rescued the remark from intentional irony, which otherwise, probably,

would have been its general acceptation. But, Sir, if it be imagined that

by this mutual quotation and commendation; if it be supposed that, by

casting the characters of the drama, assigning to each his part, to one

the attack, to another the cry of onset; or if it be thought that, by a

loud and empty vaunt of anticipated victory, any laurels are to be won

here; if it be imagined, especially, that any or all these things will

shake any purpose of mine,--I can tell the honorable member, once for all,

that he is greatly mistaken, and that he is dealing with one of whose

temper and character he has yet much to learn. Sir, I shall not allow

myself, on this occasion, I hope on no occasion, to be betrayed into any

loss of temper; but if provoked, as I trust I never shall be, into

crimination and recrimination, the honorable member may perhaps find,

that, in that contest, there will be blows to take as well as blows to

give; that others can state comparisons as significant, at least, as his

own, and that his impunity may possibly demand of him whatever powers of

taunt and sarcasm he may possess. I commend him to a prudent husbandry of

his resources.

But, Sir, the Coalition! [7] The Coalition! Ay, "the murdered Coalition!"

The gentleman asks, if I were led or frighted into this debate by the

spectre of the Coalition. "Was it the ghost of the murdered Coalition," he

exclaims, "which haunted the member from Massachusetts; and which, like

the ghost of Banquo, would never down?"

"The murdered Coalition!" Sir, this charge of a coalition, in reference to

the late administration, is not original with the honorable member. It did

not spring up in the Senate. Whether as a fact, as an argument, or as an

embellishment, it is all borrowed. He adopts it, indeed, from a very low

origin, and a still lower present condition. It is one of the thousand

calumnies with which the press teemed, during an excited political

canvass. It was a charge, of which there was not only no proof or

probability, but which was in itself wholly impossible to be true. No man

of common information ever believed a syllable of it. Yet it was of that

class of falsehoods, which, by continued repetition, through all the

organs of detraction and abuse, are capable of misleading those who are

already far misled, and of further fanning passion already kindling into

flame. Doubtless it served in its day, and in greater or less degree, the

end designed by it. Having done that, it has sunk into the general mass of

stale and loathed calumnies. It is the very cast-off slough of a polluted

and shameless press. Incapable of further mischief, it lies in the sewer,

lifeless and despised. It is not now, Sir, in the power of the honorable

member to give it dignity or decency, by attempting to elevate it, and to

introduce it into the Senate. He cannot change it from what it is, an

object of general disgust and scorn. On the contrary, the contact, if he

choose to touch it, is more likely to drag him down, down, to the place

where it lies itself.

But, Sir, the honorable member was not, for other reasons, entirely happy

in his allusion to the story of Banquo's murder and Banquo's ghost. It was

not, I think, the friends, but the enemies of the murdered Banquo, at

whose bidding his spirit would not _down_. The honorable gentleman is

fresh in his reading of the English classics, and can put me right if I am

wrong; but, according to my poor recollection, it was at those who had

begun with caresses and ended with foul and treacherous murder that the

gory locks were shaken. The ghost of Banquo, like that of Hamlet, was an

honest ghost. It disturbed no innocent man. It knew where its appearance

would strike terror, and who would cry out, A ghost! It made itself

visible in the right quarter, and compelled the guilty and the conscience-

smitten, and none others, to start, with,

"Pr'ythee, see there! behold!--look! lo,

If I stand here, I saw him!"

Their eyeballs were seared (was it not so, Sir?) who had thought to shield

themselves by concealing their own hand, and laying the imputation of the

crime on a low and hireling agency in wickedness; who had vainly attempted

to stifle the workings of their own coward consciences by ejaculating

through white lips and chattering teeth, "Thou canst not say I did it!" I

have misread the great poet if those who had no way partaken in the deed

of the death, either found that they were, or _feared that they should

be_, pushed from their stools by the ghost of the slain, or exclaimed

to a spectre created by their own fears and their own remorse, "Avaunt!

and quit our sight!"

There is another particular, Sir, in which the honorable member's quick

perception of resemblances might, I should think, have seen something in

the story of Banquo, making it not altogether a subject of the most

pleasant contemplation. Those who murdered Banquo, what did they win by

it? Substantial good? Permanent power? Or disappointment, rather, and sore

mortification,--dust and ashes, the common fate of vaulting ambition

overleaping itself? Did not even-handed justice erelong commend the

poisoned chalice to their own lips? Did they not soon find that for

another they had "filed their mind"? that their ambition, though

apparently for the moment successful, had but put a barren sceptre in

their grasp? [8] Ay, Sir,

"a barren sceptre in their gripe,

_Thence to be wrenched with an unlineal hand,

No son of theirs succeeding_."

Sir, I need pursue the allusion no farther. I leave the honorable

gentleman to run it out at his leisure, and to derive from it all the

gratification it is calculated to administer. If he finds himself pleased

with the associations, and prepared to be quite satisfied, though the

parallel should be entirely completed, I had almost said, I am satisfied

also; but that I shall think of. Yes, Sir, I will think of that.

In the course of my observations the other day, Mr. President, I paid a

passing tribute of respect to a very worthy man, Mr. Dane of

Massachusetts. It so happened that he drew the Ordinance of 1787, for the

government of the Northwestern Territory. A man of so much ability, and so

little pretence; of so great a capacity to do good, and so unmixed a

disposition to do it for its own sake; a gentleman who had acted an

important part, forty years ago, in a measure the influence of which is

still deeply felt in the very matter which was the subject of debate,--

might, I thought, receive from me a commendatory recognition. But the

honorable member was inclined to be facetious on the subject. He was

rather disposed to make it matter of ridicule, that I had introduced into

the debate the name of one Nathan Dane, of whom he assures us he had never

before heard. Sir, if the honorable member had never before heard of Mr.

Dane, I am sorry for it. It shows him less acquainted with the public men

of the country than I had supposed. Let me tell him, however, that a sneer

from him at the mention of the name of Mr. Dane is in bad taste. It may

well be a high mark of ambition, Sir, either with the honorable gentleman

or myself, to accomplish as much to make our names known to advantage, and

remembered with gratitude, as Mr. Dane has accomplished. But the truth is,

Sir, I suspect, that Mr. Dane lives a little too far north. He is of

Massachusetts, and too near the north star to be reached by the honorable

gentleman's telescope. If his sphere had happened to range south of Mason

and Dixon's line, he might, probably, have come within the scope of his

vision.

I spoke, Sir, of the Ordinance of 1787, which prohibits slavery, in all

future times, northwest of the Ohio, as a measure of great wisdom and

foresight, and one which had been attended with highly beneficial and

permanent consequences. I supposed that, on this point, no two gentlemen

in the Senate could entertain different opinions. But the simple

expression of this sentiment has led the gentleman, not only into a

labored defence of slavery, in the abstract, and on principle, but also

into a warm accusation against me, as having attacked the system of

domestic slavery now existing in the Southern States. For all this, there

was not the slightest foundation, in anything said or intimated by me. I

did not utter a single word which any ingenuity could torture into an

attack on the slavery of the South. I said, only, that it was highly wise

and useful, in legislating for the Northwestern country while it was yet a

wilderness, to prohibit the introduction of slaves; and I added, that I

presumed there was no reflecting and intelligent person, in the

neighboring State of Kentucky, who would doubt that, if the same

prohibition had been extended, at the same early period, over that

commonwealth, her strength and population would, at this day, have been

far greater than they are. If these opinions be thought doubtful, they are

nevertheless, I trust, neither extraordinary nor disrespectful. They

attack nobody and menace nobody. And yet, Sir, the gentleman's optics have

discovered, even in the mere expression of this sentiment, what he calls

the very spirit of the Missouri question! [9] He represents me as making

an onset on the whole South, and manifesting a spirit which would

interfere with, and disturb, their domestic condition!

Sir, this injustice no otherwise surprises me, than as it is committed

here, and committed without the slightest pretence of ground for it. I say

it only surprises me as being done here; for I know full well, that it is,

and has been, the settled policy of some persons in the South, for years,

to represent the people of the North as disposed to interfere with them in

their own exclusive and peculiar concerns. This is a delicate and

sensitive point in Southern feeling; and of late years it has always been

touched, and generally with effect, whenever the object has been to unite

the whole South against Northern men or Northern measures. This feeling,

always carefully kept alive, and maintained at too intense a heat to admit

discrimination or reflection, is a lever of great power in our political

machine. It moves vast bodies, and gives to them one and the same

direction. But it is without adequate cause, and the suspicion which

exists is wholly groundless. There is not, and never has been, a

disposition in the North to interfere with these interests of the South.

Such interference has never been supposed to be within the power of

government; nor has it been in any way attempted. The slavery of the South

has always been regarded as a matter of domestic policy, left with the

States themselves, and with which the Federal government had nothing to

do. Certainly, Sir, I am, and ever have been, of that opinion. The

gentleman, indeed, argues that slavery, in the abstract, is no evil. Most

assuredly I need not say I differ with him, altogether and most widely, on

that point. I regard domestic slavery as one of the greatest evils, both

moral and political. But whether it be a malady, and whether it be

curable, and if so, by what means; or, on the other hand, whether it be

the _vulnus immedicabile_ of the social system, I leave it to those

whose right and duty it is to inquire and to decide. And this I believe,

Sir, is, and uniformly has been, the sentiment of the North.

When it became necessary, or was thought so, by some political persons, to

find an unvarying ground for the exclusion of Northern men from confidence

and from lead in the affairs of the republic, then, and not till then, the

cry was raised, and the feeling industriously excited, that the influence

of Northern men in the public counsels would endanger the relation of

master and slave. For myself, I claim no other merit than that this gross

and enormous injustice towards the whole North has not wrought upon me to

change my opinions or my political conduct. I hope I am above violating my

principles, even under the smart of injury and false imputations. Unjust

suspicions and undeserved reproach, whatever pain I may experience from

them, will not induce me, I trust, to overstep the limits of

constitutional duty, or to encroach on the rights of others. The domestic

slavery of the Southern States I leave where I find it,--in the hands of

their own governments. It is their affair, not mine. Nor do I complain of

the peculiar effect which the magnitude of that population has had in the

distribution of power under this Federal government. We know, Sir, that

the representation of the States in the other house is not equal. We know

that great advantage in that respect is enjoyed by the slave-holding

States; and we know, too, that the intended equivalent for that advantage,

that is to say, the imposition of direct taxes in the same ratio, has

become merely nominal, the habit of the government being almost invariably

to collect its revenue from other sources and in other modes.

Nevertheless, I do not complain; nor would I countenance any movement to

alter this arrangement of representation. It is the original bargain, the

compact; let it stand; let the advantage of it be fully enjoyed. The Union

itself is too full of benefit to be hazarded in propositions for changing

its original basis. I go for the Constitution as it is, and for the Union

as it is. But I am resolved not to submit in silence to accusations,

either against myself individually or against the North, wholly unfounded

and unjust,--accusations which impute to us a disposition to evade the

constitutional compact, and to extend the power of the government over the

internal laws and domestic condition of the States. All such accusations,

wherever and whenever made, all insinuations of the existence of any such

purposes, I know and feel to be groundless and injurious. And we must

confide in Southern gentlemen themselves; we must trust to those whose

integrity of heart and magnanimity of feeling will lead them to a desire

to maintain and disseminate truth, and who possess the means of its

diffusion with the Southern public; we must leave it to them to disabuse

that public of its prejudices. But in the mean time, for my own part, I

shall continue to act justly, whether those towards whom justice is

exercised receive it with candor or with contumely.

Having had occasion to recur to the Ordinance of 1787, in order to defend

myself against the inferences which the honorable member has chosen to

draw from my former observations on that subject, I am not willing now

entirely to take leave of it without another remark. It need hardly be

said, that that paper expresses just sentiments on the great subject of

civil and religious liberty. Such sentiments were common, and abound in

all our state papers of that day. But this Ordinance did that which was

not so common, and which is not even now universal; that is, it set forth

and declared it to be a high and binding duty of government itself to

support schools and advance the means of education, on the plain reason

that religion, morality, and knowledge are necessary to good government,

and to the happiness of mankind. One observation further. The important

provision incorporated into the Constitution of the United States, and

into several of those of the States, and recently, as we have seen,

adopted into the reformed constitution of Virginia, restraining

legislative power in questions of private right, and from impairing the

obligation of contracts, is first introduced and established, as far as I

am informed, as matter of express written constitutional law, in this

Ordinance of 1787. And I must add, also, in regard to the author of the

Ordinance, who has not had the happiness to attract the gentleman's notice

heretofore, nor to avoid his sarcasm now, that he was chairman of that

select committee of the old Congress, whose report first expressed the

strong sense of that body, that the old Confederation was not adequate to

the exigencies of the country, and recommended to the States to send

delegates to the convention which formed the present Constitution.

An attempt has been made to transfer from the North to the South the honor

of this exclusion of slavery from the Northwestern Territory. The journal,

without argument or comment, refutes such attempts. The cession by

Virginia was made in March, 1784. On the 19th of April following, a

committee, consisting of Messrs. Jefferson, Chase, and Howell, reported a

plan for a temporary government of the territory, in which was this

article: "That, after the year 1800, there shall be neither slavery nor

involuntary servitude in any of the said States, otherwise than in

punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been convicted." Mr.

Spaight of North Carolina moved to strike out this paragraph. The question

was put, according to the form then practised, "Shall these words stand as

a part of the plan?" New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island,

Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, seven States, voted

in the affirmative; Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina, in the

negative. North Carolina was divided. As the consent of nine States was

necessary, the words could not stand, and were struck out accordingly. Mr.

Jefferson voted for the clause, but was overruled by his colleagues.

In March of the next year (1785), Mr. King of Massachusetts, seconded by

Mr. Ellery of Rhode Island, proposed the formerly rejected article, with

this addition: "And that this regulation shall be an article of compact,

and remain a fundamental principle of the constitutions between the

thirteen original States, and each of the States described in the

resolve." On this clause, which provided the adequate and thorough

security, the eight Northern States at that time voted affirmatively, and

the four Southern States negatively. The votes of nine States were not yet

obtained, and thus the provision was again rejected by the Southern

States. The perseverance of the North held out, and two years afterwards

the object was attained. It is no derogation from the credit, whatever

that may be, of drawing the Ordinance, that its principles had before been

prepared and discussed, in the form of resolutions. If one should reason

in that way, what would become of the distinguished honor of the author of

the Declaration of Independence? There is not a sentiment in that paper

which had not been voted and resolved in the assemblies, and other popular

bodies in the country, over and over again.

But the honorable member has now found out that this gentleman, Mr. Dane,

was a member of the Hartford Convention. [10] However uninformed the

honorable member may be of characters and occurrences at the North, it

would seem that he has at his elbow, on this occasion, some highminded and

lofty spirit, some magnanimous and true-hearted monitor, possessing the

means of local knowledge, and ready to supply the honorable member with

every thing, down even to forgotten and moth-eaten two-penny pamphlets,

which may be used to the disadvantage of his own country. But as to the

Hartford Convention, Sir, allow me to say, that the proceedings of that

body seem now to be less read and studied in New England than farther

South. They appear to be looked to, not in New England, but elsewhere, for

the purpose of seeing how far they may serve as a precedent. But they will

not answer the purpose, they are quite too tame. The latitude in which

they originated was too cold. Other conventions, of more recent existence,

have gone a whole bar's length beyond it. The learned doctors of Colleton

and Abbeville have pushed their commentaries on the Hartford collect so

far, that the original text-writers are thrown entirely into the shade. I

have nothing to do, Sir, with the Hartford Convention. Its journal, which

the gentleman has quoted, I never read. So far as the honorable member may

discover in its proceedings a spirit in any degree resembling that which

was avowed and justified in those other conventions to which I have

alluded, or so far as those proceedings can be shown to be disloyal to the

Constitution, or tending to disunion, as far I shall be as ready as any

one to bestow on them reprehension and censure.

Having dwelt long on this convention, and other occurrences of that day,

in the hope, probably, (which will not be gratified), that I should leave

the course of this debate to follow him at length in those excursions, the

honorable member returned, and attempted another object. He referred to a

speech of mine in the other house, the same which I had occasion to allude

to myself, the other day; and has quoted a passage or two from it, with a

bold, though uneasy and laboring, air of confidence, as if he had detected

in me an inconsistency. Judging from the gentleman's manner, a stranger to

the course of the debate and to the point in discussion would have

imagined, from so triumphant a tone, that the honorable member was about

to overwhelm me with a manifest contradiction. Any one who heard him, and

who had not heard what I had, in fact, previously said, must have thought

me routed and discomfited, as the gentleman had promised. Sir, a breath

blows all this triumph away. There is not the slightest difference in the

purport of my remarks on the two occasions. What I said here on Wednesday

is in exact accordance with the opinion expressed by me in the other house

in 1825. Though the gentleman had the metaphysics of Hudibras, though he

were able

"to sever and divide

A hair 'twixt north and northwest side,"

he could yet not insert his metaphysical scissors between the fair reading

of my remarks in 1825, and what I said here last week. There is not only

no contradiction, no difference, but, in truth, too exact a similarity,

both in thought and language, to be entirely in just taste. I had myself

quoted the same speech; had recurred to it, and spoke with it open before

me; and much of what I said was little more than a repetition from it.

I need not repeat at large the general topics of the honorable gentleman's

speech. When he said yesterday that he did not attack the Eastern States,

he certainly must have forgotten, not only particular remarks, but the

whole drift and tenor of his speech; unless he means by not attacking,

that he did not commence hostilities, but that another had preceded him in

the attack. He, in the first place, disapproved of the whole course of the

government, for forty years, in regard to its disposition of the public

lands; and then, turning northward and eastward, and fancying he had found

a cause for alleged narrowness and niggardliness in the "accursed policy"

of the tariff, to which he represented the people of New England as

wedded, he went on for a full hour with remarks, the whole scope of which

was to exhibit the results of this policy, in feelings and in measures

unfavorable to the West. I thought his opinions unfounded and erroneous,

as to the general course of the government, and ventured to reply to them.

The gentleman had remarked on the analogy of other cases, and quoted the

conduct of European governments towards their own subjects settling on

this continent, as in point, to show that we had been harsh and rigid in

selling, when we should have given the public lands to settlers without

price. I thought the honorable member had suffered his judgment to be

betrayed by a false analogy; that he was struck with an appearance of

resemblance where there was no real similitude. I think so still. The

first settlers of North America were enterprising spirits, engaged in

private adventure, or fleeing from tyranny at home. When arrived here,

they were forgotten by the mother country, or remembered only to be

oppressed. Carried away again by the appearance of anology, or struck with

the eloquence of the passage, the honorable member yesterday observed,

that the conduct of government towards the Western emigrants, or my

representation of it, brought to his mind a celebrated speech in the

British Parliament. It was, Sir, the speech of Colonel Barre. On the

question of the stamp act, or tea tax, I forget which, Colonel Barre had

heard a member on the treasury bench argue, that the people of the United

States, being British colonists, planted by the maternal care, nourished

by the indulgence, and protected by the arms of England, would not grudge

their mite to relieve the mother country from the heavy burden under which

she groaned. The language of Colonel Barre, in reply to this, was: "They

planted by your care? Your oppression planted them in America. They fled

from your tyranny, and grew by your neglect of them. So soon as you began

to care for them, you showed your care by sending persons to spy out their

liberties, misrepresent their character, prey upon them, and eat out their

substance."

And how does the honorable gentleman mean to maintain, that language like

this is applicable to the conduct of the government of the United States

towards the Western emigrants, or to any representation given by me of

that conduct? Were the settlers in the West driven thither by our

oppression? Have they flourished only by our neglect of them? Has the

government done nothing but prey upon them, and eat out their substance?

Sir, this fervid eloquence of the British speaker, just when and where it

was uttered, and fit to remain an exercise for the schools, is not a

little out of place, when it is brought thence to be applied here to the

conduct of our own country towards her own citizens. From America to

England, it may be true; from Americans to their own government, it would

be strange language. Let us leave it, to be recited and declaimed by our

boys against a foreign nation; not introduce it here, to recite and

declaim ourselves against our own.

But I come to the point of the alleged contradiction. In my remarks on

Wednesday, I contended that we could not give away gratuitously all the

public lands; that we held them in trust; that the government had solemnly

pledged itself to dispose of them as a common fund for the common benefit,

and to sell and settle them as its discretion should dictate. Now, Sir,

what contradiction does the gentleman find to this sentiment in the speech

of 1825? He quotes me as having then said, that we ought not to hug these

lands as a very great treasure. Very well, Sir, supposing me to be

accurately reported in that expression, what is the contradiction? I have

not now said, that we should hug these lands as a favorite source of

pecuniary income. No such thing. It is not my view. What I have said, and

what I do say, is, that they are a common fund, to be disposed of for the

common benefit, to be sold at low prices for the accommodation of

settlers, keeping the object of settling the lands as much in view as that

of raising money from them. This I say now, and this I have always said.

Is this hugging them as a favorite treasure? Is there no difference

between hugging and hoarding this fund, on the one hand, as a great

treasure, and, on the other, of disposing of it at low prices, placing the

proceeds in the general treasury of the Union? My opinion is, that as much

is to be made of the land as fairly and reasonably may be, selling it all

the while at such rates as to give the fullest effect to settlement. This

is not giving it all away to the States, as the gentleman would propose;

nor is it hugging the fund closely and tenaciously, as a favorite

treasure; but it is, in my judgment, a just and wise policy, perfectly

according with all the various duties which rest on government. So much

for my contradiction. And what is it? Where is the ground of the

gentleman's triumph? What inconsistency in word or doctrine has he been

able to detect? Sir, if this be a sample of that discomfiture with which

the honorable gentleman threatened me, commend me to the word

_discomfiture_ for the rest of my life.

We approach, at length, Sir, to a more important part of the honorable

gentleman's observations. Since it does not accord with my views of

justice and policy to give away the public lands altogether, as a mere

matter of gratuity, I am asked by the honorable gentleman on what ground

it is that I consent to vote them away in particular instances. How, he

inquires, do I reconcile with these professed sentiments, my support of

measures appropriating portions of the lands to particular roads,

particular canals, particular rivers, and particular institutions of

education in the West? This leads, Sir, to the real and wide difference in

political opinion between the honorable gentleman and myself. On my part,

I look upon all these objects as connected with the common good, fairly

embraced in its object and its terms; he, on the contrary, deems them all,

if good at all, only local good. This is our difference. The interrogatory

which he proceeded to put at once explains this difference. "What

interest," asks he, "has South Carolina in a canal in Ohio?" Sir, this

very question is full of significance. It develops the gentleman's whole

political system; and its answer expounds mine. Here we differ. I look

upon a road over the Alleghenies, a canal round the falls of the Ohio, or

a canal or railway from the Atlantic to the Western waters, as being an

object large and extensive enough to be fairly said to be for the common

benefit. The gentleman thinks otherwise, and this is the key to his

construction of the powers of the government. He may well ask what

interest has South Carolina in a canal in Ohio. On his system, it is true,

she has no interest. On that system, Ohio and Carolina are different

governments, and different countries; connected here, it is true, by some

slight and ill-defined bond of union, but in all main respects separate

and diverse. On that system, Carolina has no more interest in a canal in

Ohio than in Mexico. The gentleman, therefore, only follows out his own

principles; he does no more than arrive at the natural conclusions of his

own doctrines; he only announces the true results of that creed which he

has adopted himself, and would persuade others to adopt, when he thus

declares that South Carolina has no interest in a public work in Ohio.

Sir, we narrow-minded people of New England do not reason thus. Our

_notion_ of things is entirely different. We look upon the States,

not as separated, but as united. We love to dwell on that union, and on

the mutual happiness which it has so much promoted, and the common renown

which it has so greatly contributed to acquire. In our contemplation,

Carolina and Ohio are parts of the same country; States, united under the

same general government, having interests, common, associated,

intermingled. In whatever is within the proper sphere of the

constitutional power of this government, we look upon the States as one.

We do not impose geographical limits to our patriotic feeling or regard;

we do not follow rivers and mountains, and lines of latitude, to find

boundaries, beyond which public improvements do not benefit us. We who

come here, as agents and representatives of these narrow-minded and

selfish men of New England, consider ourselves as bound to regard with an

equal eye the good of the whole, in whatever is within our powers of

legislation. Sir, if a railroad or canal beginning in South Carolina and

ending in South Carolina, appeared to me to be of national importance and

national magnitude, believing, as I do, that the power of government

extends to the encouragement of works of that description, if I were to

stand up here and ask, What interest has Massachusetts in a railroad in

South Carolina? I should not be willing to face my constituents. [11]

These same narrow-minded men would tell me, that they had sent me to act

for the whole country, and that one who possessed too little

comprehension, either of intellect or feeling, one one who was not large

enough, both in mind and in heart, to embrace the whole, was not fit to be

intrusted with the interest of any part.

Sir, I do not desire to enlarge the powers of the government by

unjustifiable construction, nor to exercise any not within a fair

interpretation. But when it is believed that a power does exist, then it

is, in my judgment, to be exercised for the general benefit of the whole.

So far as respects the exercise of such a. power, the States are one. It

was the very object of the Constitution to create unity of interests to

the extent of the powers of the general government. In war and peace we

are one; in commerce, one; because the authority of the general government

reaches to war and peace, and to the regulation of commerce. I have never

seen any more difficulty in erecting light-houses on the lakes, than on

the ocean; in improving the harbors of inland seas, than if they were

within the ebb and flow of the tide; or in removing obstructions in the

vast streams of the West, more than in any work to facilitate commerce on

the Atlantic coast. If there be any power for one, there is power also for

the other; and they are all and equally for the common good of the

country.

There are other objects, apparently more local, or the benefit of which is

less general, towards which, nevertheless, I have concurred with others,

to give aid by donations of land. It is proposed to construct a road, in

or through one of the new States, in which this government possesses large

quantities of land. Have the United States no right, or, as a great and

untaxed proprietor, are they under no obligation to contribute to an

object thus calculated to promote the common good of all the proprietors,

themselves included? And even with respect to education, which is the

extreme case, let the question be considered. In the first place, as we

have seen, it was made matter of compact with these States, that they

should do their part to promote education. In the next place, our whole

system of land laws proceeds on the idea that education is for the common

good; because, in every division, a certain portion is uniformly reserved

and appropriated for the use of schools. And, finally, have not these new

States singularly strong claims, founded on the ground already stated,

that the government is a great untaxed proprietor, in the ownership of the

soil? It is a consideration of great importance, that probably there is in

no part of the country, or of the world, so great call for the means of

education, as in these new States, owing to the vast number's of persons

within those ages in which education and instruction are usually received,

if received at all. This is the natural consequence of recency of

settlement and rapid increase. The census of these States shows how great

a proportion of the whole population occupies the classes between infancy

and manhood. These are the wide fields, and here is the deep and quick

soil for the seeds of knowledge and virtue; and this is the favored

season, the very spring-time for sowing them. Let them be disseminated

without stint. Let them be scattered with a bountiful hand, broadcast.

Whatever the government can fairly do towards these objects, in my

opinion, ought to be done.

These, Sir, are the grounds, succinctly stated, on which my votes for

grants of lands for particular objects rest; while I maintain, at the same

time, that it is all a common fund, for the common benefit. And reasons

like these, I presume, have influenced the votes of other gentlemen from

New England. Those who have a different view of the powers of the

government, of course, come to different conclusions, on these, as on

other questions. I observed, when speaking on this subject before, that if

we looked to any measure, whether for a road, a canal, or any thing else,

intended for the improvement of the West, it would be found that, if the

New England _ayes_ were struck out of the lists of votes, the

Southern _noes_ would always have rejected the measure. The truth of

this has not been denied, and cannot be denied. In stating this, I thought

it just to ascribe it to the constitutional scruples of the South, rather

than to any other less favorable or less charitable cause. But no sooner

had I done this, than the honorable gentleman asks if I reproach him and

his friends with their constitutional scruples. Sir, I reproach nobody. I

stated a fact, and gave the most respectful reason for it that occurred to

me. The gentleman cannot deny the fact; he may, if he choose, disclaim the

reason. It is not long since I had occasion, in presenting a petition from

his own State, to account for its being intrusted to my hands, by saying,

that the constitutional opinions of the gentleman and his worthy colleague

prevented them from supporting it. Sir, did I state this as matter of

reproach? Far from it. Did I attempt to find any other cause than an

honest one for these scruples? Sir, I did not. It did not become me to

doubt or to insinuate that the gentleman had either changed his

sentiments, or that he had made up a set of constitutional opinions

accommodated to any particular combination of political occurrences. Had I

done so, I should have felt, that, while I was entitled to little credit

in thus questioning other people's motives, I justified the whole world in

suspecting my own. But how has the gentleman returned this respect for

others' opinions? His own candor and justice, how have they been exhibited

towards the motives of others, while he has been at so much pains to

maintain, what nobody has disputed, the purity of his own? Why, Sir, he

has asked _when_, and _how_, and _why_ New England votes were

found going for measures favorable to the West. He has demanded to be

informed whether all this did not begin in 1825, and while the election of

President was still pending.

Sir, to these questions retort would be justified; and it is both cogent

and at hand. Nevertheless, I will answer the inquiry, not by retort, but

by facts. I will tell the gentleman when, and how, and why New England has

supported measures favorable to the West. I have already referred to the

early history of the government, to the first acquisition of the lands, to

the original laws for disposing of them, and for governing the territories

where they lie; and have shown the influence of New England men and New

England principles in all these leading measures. I should not be pardoned

were I to go over that ground again. Coming to more recent times, and to

measures of a less general character, I have endeavored to prove that

every thing of this kind, designed for Western improvement, has depended

on the votes of New England; all this is true beyond the power of

contradiction. And now, Sir, there are two measures to which I will refer,

not so ancient as to belong to the early history of the public lands, and

not so recent as to be on this side of the period when the gentleman

charitably imagines a new direction may have been given to New England

feeling and New England votes. These measures, and the New England votes

in support of them, may be taken as samples and specimens of all the rest.

In 1820 (observe, Mr. President, in 1820) the people of the West besought

Congress for a reduction in the price of lands. In favor of that

reduction, New England, with a delegation of forty members in the other

house, gave thirty-three votes, and one only against it. The four Southern

States, with more than fifty members, gave thirty-two votes for it, and

seven against it. Again, in 1821, (observe again, Sir, the time,) the law

passed for the relief of the purchasers of the public lands. This was a

measure of vital importance to the West, and more especially to the

Southwest. It authorized the relinquishment of contracts for lands which

had been entered into at high prices, and a reduction in other cases of

not less than thirty-seven and a half per cent on the purchase-money. Many

millions of dollars, six or seven, I believe, probably much more, were

relinquished by this law. On this bill, New England, with her forty

members, gave more affirmative votes than the four Southern States, with

their fifty-two or fifty-three members. These two are far the most

important general measures respecting the public lands which have been

adopted within the last twenty years. They took place in 1820 and 1821.

That is the time _when_.

As to the manner _how_, the gentleman already sees that it was by

voting in solid column for the required relief; and, lastly, as to the

cause _why_, I tell the gentleman it was because the members from New

England thought the measures just and salutary; because they entertained

towards the West neither envy, hatred, nor malice; because they deemed it

becoming them, as just and enlightened public men, to meet the exigency

which had arisen in the West with the appropriate measure of relief;

because they felt it due to their own characters, and the characters of

their New England predecessors in this government, to act towards the new

States in the spirit of a liberal, patronizing, magnanimous policy. So

much, Sir, for the cause _why_; and I hope that by this time, Sir,

the honorable gentleman is satisfied; if not, I do not know _when_,

or _how_, or _why_ he ever will be. Having recurred to these two

important measures, in answer to the gentleman's inquiries, I must now beg

permission to go back to a period somewhat earlier, for the purpose of

still further showing how much, or rather how little, reason there is for

the gentleman's insinuation that political hopes or fears, or party

associations, were the grounds of these New England votes. And after what

has been said, I hope it may be forgiven me if I allude to some political

opinions and votes of my own, of very little public importance certainly,

but which, from the time at which they were given and expressed, may pass

for good witnesses on this occasion.

This government, Mr. President, from its origin to the peace of 1815, had

been too much engrossed with various other important concerns to be able

to turn its thoughts inward, and look to the development of its vast

internal resources. In the early part of President Washington's

administration, it was fully occupied with completing its own

organization, providing for the public debt, defending the frontiers, and

maintaining domestic peace. Before the termination of that administration,

the fires of the French Revolution blazed forth, as from a new-opened

volcano, and the whole breadth of the ocean did not secure us from its

effects. The smoke and the cinders reached us, though not the burning

lava. Difficult and agitating questions, embarrassing to government and

dividing public opinion, sprung out of the new state of our foreign

relations, and were succeeded by others, and yet again by others, equally

embarrassing and equally exciting division and discord, through the long

series of twenty years, till they finally issued in the war with England.

Down to the close of that war, no distinct, marked, and deliberate

attention had been given, or could have been given, to the internal

condition of the country, its capacities of improvement, or the

constitutional power of the government in regard to objects connected with

such improvement.

The peace, Mr. President, brought about an entirely new and a most

interesting state of things; it opened to us other prospects and suggested

other duties. We ourselves were changed, and the whole world was changed.

The pacification of Europe, after June, 1815, assumed a firm and permanent

aspect. The nations evidently manifested that they were disposed for

peace. Some agitation of the waves might be expected, even after the storm

had subsided; but the tendency was, strongly and rapidly, towards settled

repose.

It so happened, Sir, that I was at that time a member of Congress, and,

like others, naturally turned my thoughts to the contemplation of the

recently altered condition of the country and of the world. It appeared

plainly enough to me, as well as to wiser and more experienced men, that

the policy of the government would naturally take a start in a new

direction; because new directions would necessarily be given to the

pursuits and occupations of the people. We had pushed our commerce far and

fast, under the advantage of a neutral flag. But there were now no longer

flags, either neutral or belligerent. The harvest of neutrality had been

great, but we had gathered it all. With the peace of Europe, it was

obvious there would spring up in her circle of nations a revived and

invigorated spirit of trade, and a new activity in all the business and

objects of civilized life. Hereafter, our commercial gains were to be

earned only by success in a close and intense competition. Other nations

would produce for themselves, and carry for themselves, and manufacture

for themselves, to the full extent of their abilities. The crops of our

plains would no longer sustain European armies, nor our ships longer

supply those whom war had rendered unable to supply themselves. It was

obvious, that, under these circumstances, the country would begin to

survey itself, and to estimate its own capacity of improvement.

And this improvement,--how was it to be accomplished, and who was to

accomplish it? We were ten or twelve millions of people, spread over

almost half a world. We were more than twenty States, some stretching

along the same seaboard, some along the same line of inland frontier, and

others on opposite banks of the same vast rivers. Two considerations at

once presented themselves with great force, in looking at this state of

things. One was, that that great branch of improvement which consisted in

furnishing new facilities of intercourse necessarily ran into different

States in every leading instance, and would benefit the citizens of all

such States. No one State, therefore, in such cases, would assume the

whole expense, nor was the co-operation of several States to be expected.

Take the instance of the Delaware breakwater. It will cost several

millions of money. Would Pennsylvania alone ever have constructed it?

Certainly never, while this Union lasts, because it is not for her sole

benefit. Would Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware have united to

accomplish it at their joint expense? Certainly not, for the same reason.

It could not be done, therefore, but by the general government. The same

may be said of the large inland undertakings, except that, in them,

government, instead of bearing the whole expense, co-operates with others

who bear a part. The other consideration is, that the United States have

the means. They enjoy the revenues derived from commerce, and the States

have no abundant and easy sources of public income. The custom-houses fill

the general treasury, while the States have scanty resources, except by

resort to heavy direct taxes.

Under this view of things, I thought it necessary to settle, at least for

myself, some definite notions with respect to the powers of the government

in regard to internal affairs. It may not savor too much of self-

commendation to remark, that, with this object, I considered the

Constitution, its judicial construction, its contemporaneous exposition,

and the whole history of the legislation of Congress under it; and I

arrived at the conclusion, that government had power to accomplish sundry

objects, or aid in their accomplishment, which are now commonly spoken of

as INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS. That conclusion, Sir, may have been right, or it

may have been wrong. I am not about to argue the grounds of it at large. I

say only, that it was adopted and acted on even so early as in 1816. Yes,

Mr. President, I made up my opinion, and determined on my intended course

of political conduct, on these subjects, in the Fourteenth Congress, in

1816. And now, Mr. President, I have further to say, that I made up these

opinions, and entered on this course of political conduct, _Teucro

duce_. [12] Yes, Sir, I pursued in all this a South Carolina track on

the doctrines of internal improvement. South Carolina, as she was then

represented in the other house, set forth in 1816 under a fresh and

leading breeze, and I was among the followers. But if my leader sees new

lights and turns a sharp corner, unless I see new lights also, I keep

straight on in the same path. I repeat, that leading gentlemen from South

Carolina were first and foremost in behalf of the doctrines of internal

improvements, when those doctrines came first to be considered and acted

upon in Congress. The debate on the bank question, on the tariff of 1816,

and on the direct tax, will show who was who, and what was what, at that

time.

The tariff of 1816, (one of the plain cases of oppression and usurpation,

from which, if the government does not recede, individual States may

justly secede from the government,) is, Sir, in truth, a South Carolina

tariff, supported by South Carolina votes. But for those votes, it could

not have passed in the form in which it did pass; whereas, if it had

depended on Massachusetts votes, it would have been lost. Does not the

honorable gentleman well know all this? There are certainly those who do,

full well, know it all. I do not say this to reproach South Carolina. I

only state the fact; and I think it will appear to be true, that among the

earliest and boldest advocates of the tariff, as a measure of protection,

and on the express ground of protection, were leading gentlemen of South

Carolina in Congress. I did not then, and cannot now, understand their

language in any other sense. While this tariff of 1816 was under

discussion in the House of Representatives, an honorable gentleman from

Georgia, [13] now of this house, moved to reduce the proposed duty on

cotton. He failed, by four votes, South Carolina giving three votes

(enough to have turned the scale) against his motion. The act, Sir, then

passed, and received on its passage the support of a majority of the

Representatives of South Carolina present and voting. This act is the

first in the order of those now denounced as plain usurpations. We see it

daily in the list, by the side of those of 1824 and 1828, as a case of

manifest oppression, justifying disunion. I put it home to the honorable

member from South Carolina, that his own State was not only "art and part"

in this measure, but the _causa causans_. Without her aid, this

seminal principle of mischief, this root of Upas, could not have been

planted. I have already said, and it is true, that this act proceeded on

the ground of protection. It interfered directly with existing interests

of great value and amount. It cut up the Calcutta cotton trade by the

roots; but it passed, nevertheless, and it passed on the principle of

protecting manufactures, on the principle against free trade, on the

principle opposed to that _which lets us alone_. [14]

Such, Mr. President, were the opinions of important and leading gentlemen

from South Carolina, on the subject of internal improvement, in 1816. I

went out of Congress the next year, and, returning again in 1823, thought

I found South Carolina where I had left her. I really supposed that all

things remained as they were, and that the South Carolina doctrine of

internal improvements would be defended by the same eloquent voices, and

the same strong arms, as formerly. In the lapse of these six years, it is

true, political associations had assumed a new aspect and new divisions. A

strong party had arisen in the South hostile to the doctrine of internal

improvements. Anti-consolidation was the flag under which this party

fought; and its supporters inveighed against internal improvements, much

after the manner in which the honorable gentleman has now inveighed

against them, as part and parcel of the system of consolidation. Whether

this party arose in South Carolina itself, or in the neighborhood, is more

than I know. I think the latter. However that may have been, there were

those found in South Carolina ready to make war upon it, and who did make

intrepid war upon it. Names being regarded as things in such

controversies, they bestowed on the anti-improvement gentlemen the

appellation of Radicals. Yes, Sir, the appellation of Radicals, as a term

of distinction applicable and applied to those who denied the liberal

doctrines of internal improvement, originated, according to the best of my

recollection, somewhere between North Carolina and Georgia. Well, Sir,

these mischievous Radicals were to be put down, and the strong arm of

South Carolina was stretched out to put them down. About this time I

returned to Congress. The battle with the Radicals had been fought, and

our South Carolina champions of the doctrines of internal improvement had

nobly maintained their ground, and were understood to have achieved a

victory. We looked upon them as conquerors. They had driven back the enemy

with discomfiture, a thing, by the way, Sir, which is not always performed

when it is promised. A gentleman to whom I have already referred in this

debate had come into Congress, during my absence from it, from South

Carolina, and had brought with him a high reputation for ability. He came

from a school with which we had been acquainted, _et noscitur a

sociis_. I hold in my hand, Sir, a printed speech of this distinguished

gentleman,[15] "ON INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS," delivered about the period to

which I now refer, and printed with a few introductory remarks upon

_consolidation_; in which, Sir, I think he quite consolidated the

arguments of his opponents, the Radicals, if to _crush_ be to

consolidate. I give you a short but significant quotation from these

remarks. He is speaking of a pamphlet, then recently published, entitled

"Consolidation"; and, having alluded to the question of renewing the

charter of the former Bank of the United States, he says:--

"Moreover, in the early history of parties, and when Mr. Crawford

advocated a renewal of the old charter, it was considered a Federal

measure; which internal improvement never was, as this author erroneously

states. This latter measure originated in the administration of Mr.

Jefferson, with the appropriation for the Cumberland Road; and was first

proposed, _as a system_, by Mr. Calhoun, and carried through the

House of Representatives by a large majority of the Republicans, including

almost every one of the leading men who carried us through the late war."

So, then, internal improvement is not one of the Federal heresies.

When I took my seat there as a member from Massachusetts in 1823, we had a

bill before us, and passed it in that house, entitled, "An Act to procure

the necessary surveys, plans, and estimates upon the subject of roads and

canals." It authorized the President to cause surveys and estimates to be

made of the routes of such roads and canals as he might deem of national

importance in a commercial or military point of view, or for the

transportation of the mail, and appropriated thirty thousand dollars out

of the treasury to defray the expense. This act, though preliminary in its

nature, covered the whole ground. It took for granted the complete power

of internal improvement, as far as any of its advocates had ever contended

for it. Having passed the other house, the bill came up to the Senate, and

was here considered and debated in April, 1824. The honorable member from

South Carolina was a member of the Senate at that time. While the bill was

under consideration here, a motion was made to add the following proviso:

"_Provided_, That nothing herein contained shall be construed to

affirm _or admit_ a power in Congress, on their own authority, to

make roads or canals within any of the States of the Union." The yeas and

nays were taken on this proviso, and the honorable member voted _in the

negative!_ The proviso failed.

A motion was then made to add this proviso, viz.: "_Provided_, That

the faith of the United States is hereby pledged, that no money shall ever

be expended for roads or canals, except it shall be among the several

States, and in the same proportion as direct taxes are laid and assessed

by the provisions of the Constitution." The honorable member voted

_against this proviso_ also, and it failed. The bill was then put on

its passage, and the honorable member voted _for it_, and it passed,

and became a law.

Now, it strikes me, Sir, that there is no maintaining these votes, but

upon the power of internal improvement, in its broadest sense. In truth,

these bills for surveys and estimates have always been considered as test

questions; they show who is for and who against internal improvement. This

law itself went the whole length, and assumed the full and complete power.

The gentleman's votes sustained that power, in every form in which the

various propositions to amend presented it. He went for the entire and

unrestrained authority, without consulting the States, and without

agreeing to any proportionate distribution. And now suffer me to remind

you, Mr. President, that it is this very same power, thus sanctioned, in

every form, by the gentleman's own opinion, which is so plain and manifest

a usurpation, that the State of South Carolina is supposed to be justified

in refusing submission to any laws carrying the power into effect. Truly,

Sir, is not this a little too hard? May we not crave some mercy, under

favor and protection of the gentleman's own authority? Admitting that a

road, or a canal, must be written down flat usurpation as was ever

committed, may we find no mitigation in our respect for his place, and his

vote, as one that knows the law?

The tariff, which South Carolina had an efficient hand in establishing, in

1816, and this asserted power of internal improvement, advanced by her in

the same year, and, as we have seen, approved and sanctioned by her

Representatives in 1824,--these two measures are the great grounds on

which she is now thought to be justified in breaking up the Union, if she

sees fit to break it up!

I may now safely say, I think, that we have had the authority of leading

and distinguished gentlemen from South Carolina in support of the doctrine

of internal improvement. I repeat, that, up to 1824, I for one followed

South Carolina; but when that star, in its ascension, veered off in an

unexpected direction, I relied on its light no longer. I have thus, Sir,

perhaps not without some tediousness of detail, shown, if I am in error on

the subject of internal improvement, how, and in what company, I fell into

that error. If I am wrong, it is apparent who misled me.

I go to other remarks of the honorable member; and I have to complain of

an entire misapprehension of what I said on the subject of the national

debt, though I can hardly perceive how any one could misunderstand me.

What I said was, not that I wished to put off the payment of the debt,

but, on the contrary, that I had always voted for every measure for its

reduction, as uniformly as the gentleman himself. He seems to claim the

exclusive merit of a disposition to reduce the public charge. I do not

allow it to him. As a debt, I was, I am for paying it, because it is a

charge on our finances, and on the industry of the country. But I

observed, that I thought I perceived a morbid fervor on that subject, an

excessive anxiety to pay off the debt, not so much because it is a debt

simply, as because, while it lasts, it furnishes one objection to

disunion. It is, while it continues, a tie of common interest. I did not

impute such motives to the honorable member himself, but that there is

such an opinion in existence I have not a particle of doubt. The most I

said was, that, if one effect of the debt was to strengthen our Union,

that effect itself was not regretted by me, however much others might

regret it. The gentleman has not seen how to reply to this, otherwise than

by supposing me to have advanced the doctrine that a national debt is a

national blessing. Others, I must hope, will find much less difficulty in

understanding me. I distinctly and pointedly cautioned the honorable

member not to understand me as expressing an opinion favorable to the

continuance of the debt. I repeated this caution, and repeated it more

than once; but it was thrown away.

On yet another point, I was still more unaccountably misunderstood. The

gentleman had harangued against "consolidation." I told him, in reply,

that there was one kind of consolidation to which I was attached, and that

was the consolidation of our Union; that this was precisely that

consolidation to which I feared others were not attached, and that such

consolidation was the very end of the Constitution, the leading object, as

they had informed us themselves, which its framers had kept in view. I

turned to their communication,[16] and read their very words, "the

consolidation of the Union," and expressed my devotion to this sort of

consolidation. I said, in terms, that I wished not in the slightest degree

to augment the powers of this government; that my object was to preserve,

not to enlarge; and that by consolidating the Union I understood no more

than the strengthening of the Union, and perpetuating it. Having been thus

explicit, having thus read from the printed book the precise words which I

adopted, as expressing my own sentiments, it passes comprehension how any

man could understand me as contending for an extension of the powers of

the government, or for consolidation in that odious sense in which it

means an accumulation, in the federal government, of the powers properly

belonging to the States.

I repeat, Sir, that, in adopting the sentiment of the framers of the

Constitution, I read their language audibly, and word for word; and I

pointed out the distinction, just as fully as I have now done, between the

consolidation of the Union and that other obnoxious consolidation which I

disclaimed. And yet the honorable member misunderstood me. The gentleman

had said that he wished for no fixed revenue,--not a shilling. If by a

word he could convert the Capitol into gold, he would not do it. Why all

this fear of revenue? Why, Sir, because, as the gentleman told us, it

tends to consolidation. Now this can mean neither more nor less than, that

a common revenue is a common interest, and that all common interests tend

to preserve the union of the States. I confess I like that tendency; if

the gentleman dislikes it, he is right in deprecating a shilling of fixed

revenue. So much, Sir, for consolidation.

As well as I recollect the course of his remarks, the honorable gentleman

next recurred to the subject of the tariff. He did not doubt the word must

be of unpleasant sound to me, and proceeded, with an effort neither new

nor attended with new success, to involve me and my votes in inconsistency

and contradiction. I am happy the honorable gentleman has furnished me an

opportunity of a timely remark or two on that subject. I was glad he

approached it, for it is a question I enter upon without fear from

anybody. The strenuous toil of the gentleman has been to raise an

inconsistency between my dissent to the tariff in 1824, and my vote in

1828. It is labor lost. He pays undeserved compliment to my speech in

1824; but this is to raise me high, that my fall, as he would have it, in

1828, may be more signal. Sir, there was no fall. Between the ground I

stood on in 1824 and that I took in 1828, there was not only no precipice,

but no declivity. It was a change of position to meet new circumstances,

but on the same level. A plain tale explains the whole matter. In 1816 I

had not acquiesced in the tariff, then supported by South Carolina. To

some parts of it, especially, I felt and expressed great repugnance. I

held the same opinions in 1820, at the meeting in Faneuil Hall, to which

the gentleman has alluded.

With a great majority of the Representatives of Massachusetts, I voted

against the tariff of 1824.[17] My reasons were then given, and I will not

now repeat them. But, notwithstanding our dissent, the great States of New

York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Kentucky went for the bill, in almost

unbroken column, and it passed. Congress and the President sanctioned it,

and it became the law of the land. What, then, were we to do? Our only

option was, either to fall in with this settled course of public policy,

and accommodate ourselves to it as well as we could, or to embrace the

South Carolina doctrine, and talk of nullifying the statute by State

interference.

This last alternative did not suit our principles, and of course we

adopted the former. In 1827, the subject came again before Congress, on a

proposition to afford some relief to the branch of wool and woollens. We

looked upon the system of protection as being fixed and settled. The law

of 1824 remained. It had gone into full operation, and, in regard to some

objects intended by it, perhaps most of them, had produced all its

expected effects. No man proposed to repeal it; no man attempted to renew

the general contest on its principle. But, owing to subsequent and

unforeseen occurrences, the benefit intended by it to wool and woollen

fabrics had not been realized. Events not known here when the law passed

had taken place, which defeated its object in that particular respect. A

measure was accordingly brought forward to meet this precise deficiency,

to remedy this particular defect. It was limited to wool and woollens. Was

ever anything more reasonable? If the policy of the tariff laws had become

established in principle, as the permanent policy of the government,

should they not be revised and amended, and made equal, like other laws,

as exigencies should arise, or justice require? Because we had doubted

about adopting the system, were we to refuse to cure its manifest defects,

after it had been adopted, and when no one attempted its repeal? And this,

Sir, is the inconsistency so much bruited. I had voted against the tariff

of 1824, but it passed; and in 1827 and 1828 I voted to amend it, in a

point essential to the interest of my constituents. Where is the

inconsistency? Could I do otherwise? Sir, does political consistency

consist in always giving negative votes? Does it require of a public man

to refuse to concur in amending laws, because they passed against his

consent? Having voted against the tariff originally, does consistency

demand that I should do all in my power to maintain an unequal tariff,

burdensome to my own constituents in many respects, favorable in none? To

consistency of that sort, I lay no claim. And there is another sort to

which I lay as little, and that is, a kind of consistency by which persons

feel themselves as much bound to oppose a proposition after it has become

a law of the land as before.

Sir, as to the general subject of the tariff, I have little now to say.

Another opportunity may be presented. I remarked the other day, that this

policy did not begin with us in New England; and yet, Sir, New England is

charged with vehemence as being favorable, or charged with equal vehemence

as being unfavorable, to the tariff policy, just as best suits the time,

place, and occasion for making some charge against her. The credulity of

the public has been put to its extreme capacity of false impression

relative to her conduct in this particular. Through all the South, during

the late contest, it was New England policy and a New England

administration that were afflicting the country with a tariff beyond all

endurance; while on the other side of the Alleghanies even the act of 1828

itself, the very sublimated essence of oppression, according to Southern

opinions, was pronounced to be one of those blessings for which the West

was indebted to the "generous South."

With large investments in manufacturing establishments, and many and

various interests connected with and dependent on them, it is not to be

expected that New England, any more than other portions of the country,

will now consent to any measure destructive or highly dangerous. The duty

of the government, at the present moment, would seem to be to preserve,

not to destroy; to maintain the position which it has assumed; and, for

one, I shall feel it an indispensable obligation to hold it steady, as far

as in my power, to that degree of protection which it has undertaken to

bestow. No more of the tariff.

Professing to be provoked by what he chose to consider a charge made by me

against South Carolina, the honorable member, Mr. President, has taken up

a new crusade against New England. Leaving altogether the subject of the

public lands, in which his success, perhaps, had been neither

distinguished nor satisfactory, and letting go, also, of the topic of the

tariff, he sallied forth in a general assault on the opinions, politics,

and parties of New England, as they have been exhibited in the last thirty

years. This is natural. The "narrow policy" of the public lands had proved

a legal settlement in South Carolina, and was not to be removed. The

"accursed policy" of the tariff, also, had established the fact of its

birth and parentage in the same State. No wonder, therefore, the gentleman

wished to carry the war, as he expressed it, into the enemy's country.

Prudently willing to quit these subjects, he was, doubtless, desirous of

fastening on others, which could not be transferred south of Mason and

Dixon's line. The politics of New England became his theme; and it was in

this part of his speech, I think, that he menaced me with such sore

discomfiture. Discomfiture! Why, Sir, when he attacks anything which I

maintain, and overthrows it, when he turns the right or left of any

position which I take up, when he drives me from any ground I choose to

occupy, he may then talk of discomfiture, but not till that distant day.

What has he done? Has he maintained his own charges? Has he proved what he

alleged? Has he sustained himself in his attack on the government, and on

the history of the North, in the matter of the public lands? Has he

disproved a fact, refuted a proposition, weakened an argument, maintained

by me? Has he come within beat of drum of any position of mine? O, no; but

he has "carried the war into the enemy's country"! Carried the war into

the enemy's country! Yes, Sir, and what sort of a war has he made of it?

Why, Sir, he has stretched a drag-net over the whole surface of perished

pamphlets, indiscreet sermons, frothy paragraphs, and fuming popular

addresses,--over whatever the pulpit in its moments of alarm, the press

in its heats, and parties in their extravagance, have severally thrown off

in times of general excitement and violence. He has thus swept together a

mass of such things as, but that they are now old and cold, the public

health would have required him rather to leave in their state of

dispersion. For a good long hour or two, we had the unbroken pleasure of

listening to the honorable member, while he recited with his usual grace

and spirit, and with evident high gusto, speeches, pamphlets, addresses,

and all the _et caeteras_ of the political press, such as warm heads

produce in warm times; and such as it would be "discomfiture" indeed for

any one, whose taste did not delight in that sort of reading, to be

obliged to peruse. This is his war. This it is to carry the war into the

enemy's country. It is in an invasion of this sort, that he flatters

himself with the expectation of gaining laurels fit to adorn a Senator's

brow!

Mr. President, I shall not, it will not, I trust, be expected that I

should, either now or at any time, separate this farrago into parts, and

answer and examine its components. I shall barely bestow upon it all a

general remark or two. In the run of forty years, Sir, under this

Constitution, we have experienced sundry successive violent party

contests. Party arose, indeed, with the Constitution itself, and, in some

form or other, has attended it through the greater part of its history.

Whether any other constitution than the old Articles of Confederation was

desirable, was itself a question on which parties divided; if a new

constitution were framed, what powers should be given to it was another

question; and when it had been formed, what was, in fact, the just extent

of the powers actually conferred was a third. Parties, as we know, existed

under the first administration, as distinctly marked as those which have

manifested themselves at any subsequent period. The contest immediately

preceding the political change in 1801, and that, again, which existed at

the commencement of the late war, are other instances of party excitement,

of something more than usual strength and intensity. In all these

conflicts there was, no doubt, much of violence on both and all sides. It

would be impossible, if one had a fancy for such employment, to adjust the

relative _quantum_ of violence between these contending parties.

There was enough in each, as must always be expected in popular

governments. With a great deal of popular and decorous discussion, there

was mingled a great deal, also, of declamation, virulence, crimination,

and abuse. In regard to any party, probably, at one of the leading epochs

in the history of parties, enough may be found to make out another

inflamed exhibition, not unlike that with which the honorable member has

edified us. For myself, Sir, I shall not rake among the rubbish of bygone

times, to see what I can find, or whether I cannot find something by which

I can fix a blot on the escutcheon of any State, any party, or any part of

the country. General Washington's administration was steadily and

zealously maintained, as we all know, by New England. It was violently

opposed elsewhere. We know in what quarter he had the most earnest,

constant, and persevering support, in all his great and leading measures.

We know where his private and personal character was held in the highest

degree of attachment and veneration; and we know, too, where his measures

were opposed, his services slighted, and his character vilified. We know,

or we might know, if we turned to the journals, who expressed respect,

gratitude, and regret, when he retired from the chief magistracy, and who

refused to express either respect, gratitude, or regret. I shall not open

those journals. Publications more abusive or scurrilous never saw the

light, than were sent forth against Washington, and all his leading

measures, from presses south of New England. But I shall not look them up.

I employ no scavengers, no one is in attendance on me, furnishing such

means of retaliation; and if there were, with an ass's load of them, with

a bulk as huge as that which the gentleman himself has produced, I would

not touch one of them. I see enough of the violence of our own times, to

be no way anxious to rescue from forgetfulness the extravagances of times

past.

Besides, what is all this to the present purpose? It has nothing to do

with the public lands, in regard to which the attack was begun; and it has

nothing to do with those sentiments and opinions which, I have thought,

tend to disunion and all of which the honorable member seems to have

adopted himself, and undertaken to defend. New England has, at times, so

argues the gentleman, held opinions as dangerous as those which he now

holds. Suppose this were so; why should _he_ therefore abuse New

England? If he finds himself countenanced by acts of hers, how is it that,

while he relies on these acts, he covers, or seeks to cover, their authors

with reproach? But, Sir, if, in the course of forty years, there have been

undue effervescences of party in New England, has the same thing happened

nowhere else? Party animosity and party outrage, not in New England, but

elsewhere, denounced President Washington, not only as a Federalist, but

as a Tory, a British agent, a man who, in his high office, sanctioned

corruption. But does the honorable member suppose, if I had a tender here

who should put such an effusion of wickedness and folly into my hand, that

I would stand up and read it against the South? Parties ran into great

heats again in 1799 and 1800. What was said, Sir, or rather what was not

said, in those years, against John Adams, one of the committee that

drafted the Declaration of Independence, and its admitted ablest defender

on the floor of Congress? If the gentleman wishes to increase his stores

of party abuse and frothy violence, if he has a determined proclivity to

such pursuits, there are treasures of that sort south of the Potomac, much

to his taste, yet untouched. I shall not touch them.

The parties which divided the country at the commencement of the late war

were violent. But then there was violence on both sides, and violence in

every State. Minorities and majorities were equally violent. There was no

more violence against the war in New England, than in other States; nor

any more appearance of violence, except that, owing to a dense population,

greater facility of assembling, and more presses, there may have been more

in quantity spoken and printed there than in some other places. In the

article of sermons, too, New England is somewhat more abundant than South

Carolina; and for that reason the chance of finding here and there an

exceptionable one may be greater. I hope, too, there are more good ones.

Opposition may have been more formidable in New England, as it embraced a

larger portion of the whole population; but it was no more unrestrained in

principle, or violent in manner. The minorities dealt quite as harshly

with their own State governments as the majorities dealt with the

administration here. There were presses on both sides, popular meetings on

both sides, ay, and pulpits on both sides also. The gentleman's purveyors

have only catered for him among the productions of one side. I certainly

shall not supply the deficiency by furnishing samples of the other. I

leave to him, and to them, the whole concern.

It is enough for me to say, that if, in any part of this their grateful

occupation, if, in all their researches, they find anything in the history

of Massachusetts, or New England, or in the proceedings of any legislative

or other public body, disloyal to the Union, speaking slightingly of its

value, proposing to break it up, or recommending non-intercourse with

neighboring States, on account of difference of political opinion, then,

Sir, I give them all up to the honorable gentleman's unrestrained rebuke;

expecting, however, that he will extend his buffetings in like manner

_to all similar proceedings, wherever else found_.

The gentleman, Sir, has spoken at large of former parties, now no longer

in being, by their received appellations, and has undertaken to instruct

us, not only in the knowledge of their principles, but of their respective

pedigrees also. He has ascended to their origin, and run out their

genealogies. With most exemplary modesty, he speaks of the party to which

he professes to have himself belonged, as the true Pure, the only honest,

patriotic party, derived by regular descent, from father to son, from the

time of the virtuous Romans! Spreading before us the _family tree_ of

political parties, he takes especial care to show himself snugly perched

on a popular bough! He is wakeful to the expediency of adopting such rules

of descent as shall bring him in, to the exclusion of others, as an heir

to the inheritance of all public virtue, and all true political principle.

His party and his opinions are sure to be orthodox; heterodoxy is confined

to his opponents. He spoke, Sir, of the Federalists, and I thought I saw

some eyes begin to open and stare a little, when he ventured on that

ground. I expected he would draw his sketches rather lightly, when he

looked on the circle round him, and especially if he should cast his

thoughts to the high places out of the Senate. [18] Nevertheless, he went

back to Rome, _ad annum urbis condita_, and found the fathers of the

Federalists in the primeval aristocrats of that renowned--city! He traced

the flow of Federal blood down through successive ages and centuries, till

he brought it into the veins of the American Tories, of whom, by the way,

there were twenty in the Carolinas for one in Massachusetts. From the

Tories he followed it to the Federalists; and, as the Federal party was

broken up, and there was no possibility of transmitting it further on this

side the Atlantic, he seems to have discovered that it has gone off

collaterally, though against all the canons of descent, into the Ultras of

France, and finally become extinguished, like exploded gas, among the

adherents of Don Miguel! [19]

This, Sir, is an abstract of the gentleman's history of Federalism. I am

not about to controvert it. It is not, at present, worth the pains of

refutation; because, Sir, if at this day any one feels the sin of

Federalism lying heavily on his conscience, he can easily procure

remission. He may even obtain an indulgence, if he be desirous of

repeating the same transgression. It is an affair of no difficulty to get

into this same right line of patriotic descent. A man now-a-days is at

liberty to choose his political parentage. He may elect his own father.

Federalist or not, he may, if he choose, claim to belong to the favored

stock, and his claim will be allowed. He may carry back his pretensions

just as far as the honorable gentleman himself; nay, he may make himself

out the honorable gentleman's cousin, and prove, satisfactorily, that he

is descended from the same political great-grandfather. All this is

allowable. We all know a process, Sir, by which the whole Essex Junto

[Footnote:20] could, in one hour, be all washed white from their ancient

Federalism, and come out, every one of them, original Democrats, dyed in

the wool! Some of them have actually undergone the operation, and they say

it is quite easy. The only inconvenience it occasions, as they tell us, is

a slight tendency of the blood to the face, a soft suffusion, which,

however, is very transient, since nothing is said by those whom they join

calculated to deepen the red on the cheek, but a prudent silence is

observed in regard to all the past. Indeed, Sir, some smiles of

approbation have been bestowed, and some crumbs of comfort have fallen,

not a thousand miles from the door of the Hartford Convention itself. And

if the author of the Ordinance of 1787 possessed the other requisite

qualifications, there is no knowing, notwithstanding his Federalism, to

what heights of favor he might not yet attain.

Mr. President, in carrying his warfare, such as it is, into New England,

the honorable gentleman all along professes to be acting on the defensive.

He chooses to consider me as having assailed South Carolina, and insists

that he comes forth only as her champion, and in her defence. Sir, I do

not admit that I made any attack whatever on South Carolina. Nothing like

it. The honorable member, in his first speech, expressed opinions, in

regard to revenue and some other topics, which I heard both with pain and

with surprise. I told the gentleman I was aware that such sentiments were

entertained _out_ of the government, but had not expected to find

them advanced in it; that I knew there were persons in the South who speak

of our Union with indifference or doubt, taking pains to magnify its

evils, and to say nothing of its benefits; that the honorable member

himself, I was sure, could never be one of these; and I regretted the

expression of such opinions as he had avowed, because I thought their

obvious tendency was to encourage feelings of disrespect to the Union, and

to impair its strength. This, Sir, is the sum and substance of all I said

on the subject. And this constitutes the attack which called on the

chivalry of the gentleman, in his own opinion, to harry us with such a

foray among the party pamphlets and party proceedings of Massachusetts! If

he means that I spoke with dissatisfaction or disrespect of the

ebullitions of individuals in South Carolina, it is true. But if he means

that I assailed the character of the State, her honor, or patriotism, that

I reflected on her history or her conduct, he has not the slightest ground

for any such assumption. I did not even refer, I think, in my

observations, to any collection of individuals. I said nothing of the

recent conventions. I spoke in the most guarded and careful manner, and

only expressed my regret for the publication of opinions, which I presumed

the honorable member disapproved as much as myself. In this, it seems, I

was mistaken. I do not remember that the gentleman has disclaimed any

sentiment, or any opinion, of a supposed anti-union tendency, which on all

or any of the recent occasions has been expressed. [21] The whole drift of

his speech has been rather to prove, that, in divers times and manners,

sentiments equally liable to my objection have been avowed in New England.

And one would suppose that his object, in this reference to Massachusetts,

was to find a precedent to justify proceedings in the South, were it not

for the reproach and contumely with which he labors, all along, to load

these his own chosen precedents. By way of defending South Carolina from

what he chooses to think an attack on her, he first quotes the example of

Massachusetts, and then denounces that example in good set terms. This

twofold purpose, not very consistent, one would think, with itself, was

exhibited more than once in the course of his speech. He referred, for

instance, to the Hartford Convention. Did he do this for authority, or for

a topic of reproach? Apparently for both, for he told us that he should

find no fault with the mere fact of holding such a convention, and

considering and discussing such questions as he supposes were then and

there discussed; but what rendered it obnoxious was its being held at the

time, and under the circumstances of the country then existing. We were in

a war, he said, and the country needed all our aid; the hand of government

required to be strengthened, not weakened; and patriotism should have

postponed such proceedings to another day. The thing itself, then, is a

precedent; the time and manner of it only, a subject of censure.

Now, Sir, I go much further, on this point, than the honorable member.

Supposing, as the gentleman seems to do, that the Hartford Convention

assembled for any such purpose as breaking up the Union, because they

thought unconstitutional laws had been passed, or to consult on that

subject, or _to calculate the value of the Union_; supposing this to

be their purpose, or any part of it, then I say the meeting itself was

disloyal, and was obnoxious to censure, whether held in time of peace or

time of war, or under whatever circumstances. The material question is the

_object_. Is dissolution the _object_? If it be, external

circumstances may make it a more or less aggravated case, but cannot

affect the principle. I do not hold, therefore, Sir, that the Hartford

Convention was pardonable, even to the extent of the gentleman's

admission, if its objects were really such as have been imputed to it.

Sir, there never was a time, under any degree of excitement, in which the

Hartford Convention, or any other convention, could have maintained itself

one moment in New England, if assembled for any such purpose as the

gentleman says would have been an allowable purpose. To hold conventions

to decide constitutional law! To try the binding validity of statutes by

votes in a convention! Sir, the Hartford Convention, I presume, would not

desire that the honorable gentleman should be their defender or advocate,

if he puts their case upon such untenable and extravagant grounds.

Then, Sir, the gentleman has no fault to find with these recently

promulgated South Carolina opinions. And certainly he need have none; for

his own sentiments, as now advanced, and advanced on reflection, as far as

I have been able to comprehend them, go the full length of all these

opinions. I propose, Sir, to say something on these, and to consider how

far they are just and constitutional. Before doing that, however, let me

observe that the eulogium pronounced by the honorable gentleman on the

character of the State of South Carolina, for her Revolutionary and other

merits, meets my hearty concurrence. I shall not acknowledge that the

honorable member goes before me in regard for whatever of distinguished

talent, or distinguished character, South Carolina has produced. I claim

part of the honor, I partake in the pride, of her great names. I claim

them for countrymen, one and all, the Laurenses, the Rutledges, the

Pinckneys, the Sumpters, the Marions, Americans all, whose fame is no more

to be hemmed in by State lines, than their talents and patriotism were

capable of being circumscribed within the same narrow limits. In their day

and generation, they served and honored the country, and the whole

country; and their renown is of the treasures of the whole country. Him

whose honored name the gentleman himself bears,--does he esteem me less

capable of gratitude for his patriotism, or sympathy for his sufferings,

than if his eyes had first opened upon the light of Massachusetts, instead

of South Carolina? Sir, does he suppose it in his power to exhibit a

Carolina name so bright as to produce envy in my bosom? No, Sir, increased

gratification and delight, rather. I thank God, that, if I am gifted with

little of the spirit which is able to raise mortals to the skies, I have

yet none, as I trust, of that other spirit, which would drag angels down.

When I shall be found, Sir, in my place here in the Senate, or elsewhere,

to sneer at public merit, because it happens to spring up beyond the

little limits of my own State or neighborhood; when I refuse, for any such

cause or for any cause, the homage due to American talent, to elevated

patriotism, to sincere devotion to liberty and the country; or, if I see

an uncommon endowment of Heaven, if I see extraordinary capacity and

virtue, in any son of the South, and if, moved by local prejudice or

gangrened by State jealousy, I get up here to abate the tithe of a hair

from his just character and just fame, may my tongue cleave to the roof of

my mouth!

Sir, let me recur to pleasing recollections; let me indulge in refreshing

remembrance of the past; let me remind you that, in early times, no States

cherished greater harmony, both of principle and feeling, than

Massachusetts and South Carolina. Would to God that harmony might again

return! Shoulder to shoulder they went through the Revolution, hand in

hand they stood round the administration of Washington, and felt his own

great arm lean on them for support. Unkind feeling, if it exist,

alienation, and distrust are the growth, unnatural to such soils, of false

principles since sown. They are weeds, the seeds of which that same great

arm never scattered.

Mr. President, I shall enter on no encomium upon Massachusetts; she needs

none. There she is. Behold her, and judge for yourselves. There is her

history; the world knows it by heart. The past, at least, is secure. There

is Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill; and there they

will remain for ever. The bones of her sons, falling in the great struggle

for Independence, now lie mingled with the soil of every State from New

England to Georgia; and there they will lie for ever. And, Sir, where

American Liberty raised its first voice, and where its youth was nurtured

and sustained, there it still lives, in the strength of its manhood and

full of its original spirit. If discord and disunion shall wound it, if

party strife and blind ambition shall hawk at and tear it, if folly and

madness, if uneasiness under salutary and necessary restraint, shall

succeed in separating it from that Union, by which alone its existence is

made sure, it will stand, in the end, by the side of that cradle in which

its infancy was rocked; it will stretch forth its arm with whatever of

vigor it may still retain over the friends who gather round it; and it

will fall at last, if fall it must, amidst the proudest monuments of its

own glory, and on the very spot of its origin. [22]

There yet remains to be performed, Mr. President, by far the most grave

and important duty, which I feel to be devolved on me by this occasion. It

is to state, and to defend, what I conceive to be the true principles of

the Constitution under which we are here assembled. I might well have

desired that so weighty a task should have fallen into other and abler

hands. I could have wished that it should have been executed by those

whose character and experience give weight and influence to their

opinions, such as cannot possibly belong to mine. But, Sir, I have met the

occasion, not sought it; and I shall proceed to state my own sentiments,

without challenging for them any particular regard, with studied

plainness, and as much precision as possible.

I understand the honorable gentleman from South Carolina to maintain, that

it is a right of the State legislatures to interfere, whenever, in their

judgment, this government transcends its constitutional limits, and to

arrest the operation of its laws.

I understand him to maintain this right, as a right existing _under_

the Constitution, not as a right to overthrow it on the ground of extreme

necessity, such as would justify violent revolution.

I understand him to maintain an authority, on the part of the States, thus

to interfere, for the purpose of correcting the exercise of power by the

general government, of checking it, and of compelling it to conform to

their opinion of the extent of its powers.

I understand him to maintain, that the ultimate power of judging of the

constitutional extent of its own authority is not lodged exclusively in

the general government, or any branch of it; but that, on the contrary,

the States may lawfully decide for themselves, and each State for itself,

whether, in a given case, the act of the general government transcends its

power.

I understand him to insist, that, if the exigency of the case, in the

opinion of any State government, require it, such State government may, by

its own sovereign authority, annul an act of the general government which

it deems plainly and palpably unconstitutional.

This is the sum of what I understand from him to be the South Carolina

doctrine, and the doctrine which he maintains. I propose to consider it,

and compare it with the Constitution. Allow me to say, as a preliminary

remark, that I call this the South Carolina doctrine only because the

gentleman himself has so denominated it. I do not feel at liberty to say

that South Carolina, as a State, has ever advanced these sentiments. I

hope she has not, and never may. That a great majority of her people are

opposed to the tariff laws, is doubtless true. That a majority, somewhat

less than that just mentioned, conscientiously believe these laws

unconstitutional, may probably also be true. But that any majority holds

to the right of direct State interference at State discretion, the right

of nullifying acts of Congress by acts of State legislation, is more than

I know, and what I shall be slow to believe.

That there are individuals besides the honorable gentleman who do maintain

these opinions, is quite certain. I recollect the recent expression of a

sentiment, which circumstances attending its utterance and publication

justify us in supposing was not unpremeditated. "The sovereignty of the

State,--never to be controlled, construed, or decided on, but by her own

feelings of honorable justice." [23]

We all know that civil institutions are established for the public

benefit, and that when they cease to answer the ends of their existence

they may be changed. But I do not understand the doctrine now contended

for to be that, which, for the sake of distinction, we may call the right

of revolution. I understand the gentleman to maintain, that it is

constitutional to interrupt the administration of the Constitution itself,

in the hands of those who are chosen and sworn to administer it, by the

direct interference, in form of law, of the States, in virtue of their

sovereign capacity. The inherent right in the people to reform their

government I do not deny; and they have another right, and that is, to

resist unconstitutional laws, without overturning the government. It is no

doctrine of mine that unconstitutional laws bind the people. The great

question is, Whose prerogative is it to decide on the constitutionality or

unconstitutionality of the laws? On that, the main debate hinges. The

proposition, that, in case of a supposed violation of the Constitution by

Congress, the States have a constitutional right to interfere and annul

the law of Congress, is the proposition of the gentleman. I do not admit

it. If the gentleman had intended no more than to assert the right of

revolution for justifiable cause, he would have said only what all agree

to. But I cannot conceive that there can be a middle course, between

submission to the laws, when regularly pronounced constitutional, on the

one hand, and open resistance, which is revolution or rebellion, on the

other.

This leads us to inquire into the origin of this government and the source

of its power. Whose agent is it? Is it the creature of the State

legislatures, or the creature of the people? If the government of the

United States be the agent of the State governments, then they may control

it, provided they can agree in the manner of controlling it; if it be the

agent of the people, then the people alone can control it, restrain it,

modify, or reform it. It is observable enough, that the doctrine for which

the honorable gentleman contends leads him to the necessity of

maintaining, not only that this general government is the creature of the

States, but that it is the creature of each of the States severally, so

that each may assert the power for itself of determining whether it acts

within the limits of its authority. It is the servant of four-and-twenty

masters, of different wills and different purposes, and yet bound to obey

all. This absurdity (for it seems no less) arises from a misconception as

to the origin of this government and its true character. It is, Sir, the

people's Constitution, the people's government, made for the people, made

by the people, and answerable to the people. The people of the United

States have declared that this Constitution shall be the supreme law. We

must either admit the proposition, or dispute their authority. The States

are, unquestionably, sovereign, so far as their sovereignty is not

affected by the supreme law. But the State legislatures, as political

bodies, however sovereign, are yet not sovereign over the people. So far

as the people have given power to the general government, so far the grant

is unquestionably good, and the government holds of the people, and not of

the State governments. We are all agents of the same supreme power, the

people. The general government and the State governments derive their

authority from the same source. Neither can, in relation to the other, be

called primary, though one is definite and restricted, and the other

general and residuary. The national government possesses those powers

which it can be shown the people have conferred on it, and no more. All

the rest belongs to the State governments, or to the people themselves. So

far as the people have restrained State sovereignty, by the expression of

their will, in the Constitution of the United States, so far, it must be

admitted, State sovereignty is effectually controlled. I do not contend

that it is, or ought to be, controlled farther. The sentiment to which I

have referred propounds that State sovereignty is only to be controlled by

its own "feeling of justice"; that is to say, it is not to be controlled

at all, for one who is to follow his own feelings is under no legal

control. Now, however men may think this ought to be, the fact is, that

the people of the United States have chosen to impose control on State

sovereignties. There are those, doubtless, who wish they had been left

without restraint; but the Constitution has ordered the matter

differently. To make war, for instance, is an exercise of sovereignty; but

the Constitution declares that no State shall make war. To coin money is

another exercise of sovereign power; but no State is at liberty to coin

money. Again, the Constitution says that no sovereign State shall be so

sovereign as to make a treaty. These prohibitions, it must be confessed,

are a control on the State sovereignty of South Carolina, as well as of

the other States, which does not arise "from her own feelings of honorable

justice." The opinion referred to, therefore, is in defiance of the

plainest provisions of the Constitution.

There are other proceedings of public bodies which have already been

alluded to, and to which I refer again for the purpose of ascertaining

more fully what is the length and breadth of that doctrine, denominated

the Carolina doctrine, which the honorable member has now stood up on this

floor to maintain. In one of them I find it resolved, that "the tariff of

1828, and every other tariff designed to promote one branch of industry at

the expense of others, is contrary to the meaning and intention of the

federal compact; and such a dangerous, palpable, and deliberate usurpation

of power, by a determined majority, wielding the general government beyond

the limits of its delegated powers, as calls upon the States which compose

the suffering minority, in their sovereign capacity, to exercise the

powers which, as sovereigns, necessarily devolve upon them, when their

compact is violated."

Observe, Sir, that this resolution holds the tariff of 1828, and every

other tariff designed to promote one branch of industry at the expense of

another, to be such a dangerous, palpable, and deliberate usurpation of

power, as calls upon the States, in their sovereign capacity, to interfere

by their own authority. This denunciation, Mr. President, you will please

to observe, includes our old tariff of 1816, as well as all others;

because that was established to promote the interest of the manufacturers

of cotton, to the manifest and admitted injury of the Calcutta cotton

trade. Observe, again, that all the qualifications are here rehearsed and

charged upon the tariff, which are necessary to bring the case within the

gentleman's proposition. The tariff is a usurpation; it is a dangerous

usurpation; it is a palpable usurpation; it is a deliberate usurpation. It

is such a usurpation, therefore, as calls upon the States to exercise

their right of interference. Here is a case, then, within the gentleman's

principles, and all his qualifications of his principles. It is a case for

action. The Constitution is plainly, dangerously, palpably, and

deliberately violated; and the States must interpose their own authority

to arrest the law. Let us suppose the State of South Carolina to express

this same opinion, by the voice of her legislature. That would be very

imposing; but what then? Is the voice of one State conclusive? It so

happens that, at the very moment when South Carolina resolves that the

tariff laws are unconstitutional, Pennsylvania and Kentucky resolve

exactly the reverse. _They_ hold those laws to be both highly proper

and strictly constitutional. And now, Sir, how does the honorable member

propose to deal with this case? How does he relieve us from this

difficulty, upon any principle of his? His construction gets us into it;

how does he propose to get us out?

In Carolina, the tariff is a palpable, deliberate usurpation; Carolina,

therefore, may nullify it, and refuse to pay the duties. In Pennsylvania,

it is both clearly constitutional and highly expedient; and there the

duties are to be paid. And yet we live under a government of uniform laws,

and under a Constitution too, which contains an express provision, as it

happens, that all duties shall be equal in all the States. Does not this

approach absurdity?

If there be no power to settle such questions, independent of either of

the States, is not the whole Union a rope of sand? Are we not thrown back

again, precisely, upon the old Confederation?

It is too plain to be argued. Four-and-twenty interpreters of

constitutional law, each with a power to decide for itself, and none with

authority to bind anybody else, and this constitutional law the only bond

of their union! What is such a state of things but a mere connection

during pleasure, or, to use the phraseology of the times, _during

feeling_? And that feeling, too, not the feeling of the people, who

established the Constitution, but the feeling of the State governments.

In another of the South Carolina addresses, having premised that the

crisis requires "all the concentrated energy of passion," an attitude of

open resistance to the laws of the Union is advised. Open resistance to

the laws, then, is the constitutional remedy, the conservative power of

the State, which the South Carolina doctrines teach for the redress of

political evils, real or imaginary. And its authors further say, that,

appealing with confidence to the Constitution itself, to justify their

opinions, they cannot consent to try their accuracy by the courts of

justice. In one sense, indeed, Sir, this is assuming an attitude of open

resistance in favor of liberty. But what sort of liberty? The liberty of

establishing their own opinions, in defiance of the opinions of all

others; the liberty of judging and of deciding exclusively themselves, in

a matter in which others have as much right to judge and decide as they;

the liberty of placing their own opinions above the judgment of all

others, above the laws, and above the Constitution. This is their liberty,

and this is the fair result of the proposition contended for by the

honorable gentleman. Or, it may be more properly said, it is identical

with it, rather than a result from it.

Resolutions, Sir, have been recently passed by the legislature of South

Carolina. I need not refer to them; they go no farther than the honorable

gentleman himself has gone, and I hope not so far. I content myself,

therefore, with debating the matter with him.

And now, Sir, what I have first to say on this subject is, that at no

time, and under no circumstances, has New England, or any State in New

England, or any respectable body of persons in New England, or any public

man of standing in New England, put forth such a doctrine as this Carolina

doctrine.

The gentleman has found no case, he can find none, to support his own

opinions by New England authority. New England has studied the

Constitution in other schools, and under other teachers. She looks upon it

with other regards, and deems more highly and reverently both of its just

authority and its utility and excellence. The history of her legislative

proceedings may be traced. The ephemeral effusions of temporary bodies,

called together by the excitement of the occasion, may be hunted up; they

have been hunted up. The opinions and votes of her public men, in and out

of Congress, may be explored. It will all be in vain. The Carolina

doctrine can derive from her neither countenance nor support. She rejects

it now; she always did reject it; and till she loses her senses, she

always will reject it. The honorable member has referred to expressions on

the subject of the embargo law, made in this place, by an honorable and

venerable gentleman, now favoring us with his presence. [24] He quotes

that distinguished Senator as saying, that, in his judgment, the embargo

law was unconstitutional, and that therefore, in his opinion, the people

were not bound to obey it. That, Sir, is perfectly constitutional

language. An unconstitutional law is not binding; _but then it does not

rest with a resolution or a law of a State legislature to decide whether

an act of Congress be or be not constitutional_. An unconstitutional

act of Congress would not bind the people of this District, although they

have no legislature to interfere in their behalf; and, on the other hand,

a constitutional law of Congress does bind the citizens of every State,

although all their legislatures should undertake to annul it by act or

resolution. The venerable Connecticut Senator is a constitutional lawyer,

of sound principles and enlarged knowledge; a statesman practised and

experienced, bred in the company of Washington, and holding just views

upon the nature of our governments. He believed the embargo

unconstitutional, and so did others; but what then? Who did he suppose was

to decide that question? The State legislatures? Certainly not. No such

sentiment ever escaped his lips.

Let us follow up, Sir, this New England opposition to the embargo laws;

let us trace it, till we discern the principle which controlled and

governed New England throughout the whole course of that opposition. We

shall then see what similarity there is between the New England school of

constitutional opinions, and this modern Carolina school. The gentleman, I

think, read a petition from some single individual addressed to the

legislature of Massachusetts, asserting the Carolina doctrine; that is,

the right of State interference to arrest the laws of the Union. The fate

of that petition shows the sentiment of the legislature. It met no favor.

The opinions of Massachusetts were very different. They had been expressed

in 1798, in answer to the resolutions of Virginia, and she did not depart

from them, nor bend them to the times. Misgoverned, wronged, oppressed, as

she felt herself to be, she still held fast her integrity to the Union.

The gentleman may find in her proceedings much evidence of dissatisfaction

with the measures of government, and great and deep dislike to the

embargo; all this makes the case so much the stronger for her; for,

notwithstanding all this dissatisfaction and dislike, she still claimed no

right to sever the bonds of the Union. There was heat, and there was anger

in her political feeling. Be it so; but neither her heat nor her anger

betrayed, her into infidelity to the government. The gentleman labors to

prove that she disliked the embargo as much as South Carolina dislikes the

tariff, and expressed her dislike as strongly. Be it so; but did she

propose the Carolina remedy? did she threaten to interfere, by State

authority, to annul the laws of the Union? That is the question for the

gentleman's consideration.

No doubt, Sir, a great majority of the people of New England

conscientiously believed the embargo law of 1807 unconstitutional; [25] as

conscientiously, certainly, as the people of South Carolina hold that

opinion of the tariff. They reasoned thus: Congress has power to regulate

commerce; but here is a law, they said, stopping all commerce, and

stopping it indefinitely. The law is perpetual; that is, it is not limited

in point of time, and must of course continue until it shall be repealed

by some other law. It is as perpetual, therefore, as the law against

treason or murder. Now, is this regulating commerce, or destroying it? Is

it guiding, controlling, giving the rule to commerce, as a subsisting

thing or is it putting an end to it altogether? Nothing is more certain,

than that a majority in New England deemed this law a violation of the

Constitution. The very case required by the gentleman to justify State

interference had then arisen. Massachusetts believed this law to be "a

deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of a power not granted by the

Constitution." Deliberate it was, for it was long continued; palpable she

thought it, as no words in the Constitution gave the power, and only a

construction, in her opinion most violent, raised it; dangerous it was,

since it threatened utter ruin to her most important interests. Here,

then, was a Carolina case. How did Massachusetts deal with it? It was, as

she thought, a plain, manifest, palpable violation of the Constitution,

and it brought ruin to her doors. Thousands of families, and hundreds of

thousands of individuals, were beggared by it. While she saw and felt all

this, she saw and felt also, that, as a measure of national policy, it was

perfectly futile; that the country was no way benefited by that which

caused so much individual distress; that it was efficient only for the

production of evil, and all that evil inflicted on ourselves. In such a

case, under such circumstances, how did Massachusetts demean herself? Sir,

she remonstrated, she memorialized, she addressed herself to the general

government, not exactly "with the concentrated energy of passion," but

with her own strong sense, and the energy of sober conviction. But she did

not interpose the arm of her own power to arrest the law, and break the

embargo. Far from it. Her principles bound her to two things; and she

followed her principles, lead where they might. First, to submit to every

constitutional law of Congress, and secondly, if the constitutional

validity of the law be doubted, to refer that question to the decision of

the proper tribunals. The first principle is vain and ineffectual without

the second. A majority of us in New England believed the embargo law

unconstitutional; but the great question was, and always will be in such

cases, Who is to decide this? Who is to judge between the people and the

government? And, Sir, it is quite plain, that the Constitution of the

United States confers on the government itself, to be exercised by its

appropriate department, and under its own responsibility to the people,

this power of deciding ultimately and conclusively upon the just extent of

its own authority. If this had not been done, we should not have advanced

a single step beyond the old Confederation.

Being fully of the opinion that the embargo law was unconstitutional, the

people of New England were yet equally clear in the opinion, (it was a

matter they did doubt upon,) that the question, after all, must be decided

by the judicial tribunals of the United States. Before those tribunals,

therefore, they brought the question. Under the provisions of the law,

they had given bonds to millions in amount, and which were alleged to be

forfeited. They suffered the bonds to be sued, and thus raised the

question. In the old-fashioned way of settling disputes, they went to law.

The case came to hearing and solemn argument; and he who espoused their

cause, and stood up for them against the validity of the embargo act, was

none other than that great man, of whom the gentleman has made honorable

mention, Samuel Dexter. He was then, Sir, in the fulness of his knowledge,

and the maturity of his strength. He had retired from long and

distinguished public service here, to the renewed pursuit of professional

duties, carrying with him all that enlargement and expansion, all the new

strength and force, which an acquaintance with the more general subjects

discussed in the national councils is capable of adding to professional

attainment, in a mind of true greatness and comprehension. He was a

lawyer, and he was also a statesman. He had studied the Constitution, when

he filled public station, that he might defend it; he had examined its

principles that he might maintain them. More than all men, or at least as

much as any man, he was attached to the general government and to the

union of the States. His feelings and opinions all ran in that direction.

A question of constitutional law, too, was, of all subjects, that one

which was best suited to his talents and learning. Aloof from

technicality, and unfettered by artificial rule, such a question gave

opportunity for that deep and clear analysis, that mighty grasp of

principle, which so much distinguished his higher efforts. His very

statement was argument; his inference seemed demonstration. The

earnestness of his own conviction wrought conviction in others. One was

convinced, and believed, and assented, because it was gratifying,

delightful, to think, and feel, and believe, in unison with an intellect

of such evident superiority.

Mr. Dexter, Sir, such as I have described him, argued the New England

cause. He put into his effort his whole heart, as well as all the powers

of his understanding; for he had avowed, in the most public manner, his

entire concurrence with his neighbors on the point in dispute. He argued

the cause; it was lost, and New England submitted. The established

tribunals pronounced the law constitutional, and New England acquiesced.

Now, Sir, is not this the exact opposite of the doctrine of the gentleman

from South Carolina? According to him, instead of referring to the

judicial tribunals, we should have broken up the embargo by laws of our

own; we should have repealed it, _quoad_ New England; for we had a

strong, palpable, and oppressive case. Sir, we believed the embargo

unconstitutional; but still that was matter of opinion, and who was to

decide it? We thought it a clear case; but, nevertheless, we did not take

the law into our own hands, because we did not wish to bring about a

revolution, nor to break up the Union; for I maintain, that between

submission to the decision of the constituted tribunals, and revolution,

or disunion, there is no middle ground; there is no ambiguous condition,

half allegiance and half rebellion. And, Sir, how futile, how very futile

it is, to admit the right of State interference, and then attempt to save

it from the character of unlawful resistance, by adding terms of

qualification to the causes and occasions, leaving all these

qualifications, like the case itself, in the discretion of the State

governments. It must be a clear case, it is said, a deliberate case, a

palpable case, a dangerous case. But then the State is still left at

liberty to decide for herself what is clear, what is deliberate, what is

palpable, what is dangerous. Do adjectives and epithets avail any thing?

Sir, the human mind is so constituted, that the merits of both sides of a

controversy appear very clear, and very palpable, to those who

respectively espouse them; and both sides usually grow clearer as the

controversy advances. South Carolina sees unconstitutionality in the

tariff; she sees oppression there also, and she sees danger. Pennsylvania,

with a vision not less sharp, looks at the same tariff, and sees no such

thing in it; she sees it all constitutional, all useful, all safe. The

faith of South Carolina is strengthened by opposition, and she now not

only sees, but _resolves_, that the tariff is palpably unconstitutional,

oppressive, and dangerous; but Pennsylvania, not to be behind her

neighbors, and equally willing to strengthen her own faith by a confident

asseveration, _resolves_, also, and gives to every warm affirmative of

South Carolina, a plain, downright, Pennsylvania negative. South Carolina,

to show the strength and unity of her opinion, brings her assembly to a

unanimity, within seven voices; Pennsylvania, not to be outdone in this

respect any more than in others, reduces her dissentient fraction to a

single vote. Now, Sir, again, I ask the gentleman, What is to be done?

Are these States both right? Is he bound to consider them both right?

If not, which is in the wrong? or rather, which has the best right to

decide? And if he, and if I, are not to know what the Constitution

means, and what it is, till those two State legislatures, and the twenty-

two others, shall agree in its construction, what have we sworn to, when

we have sworn to maintain it? I was forcibly struck, Sir, with one

reflection, as the gentleman went on in his speech. He quoted Mr.

Madison's resolutions, to prove that a State may interfere, in a case of

deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of a power not granted. The

honorable member supposes the tariff law to be such an exercise of power;

and that consequently a case has arisen in which the State may, if it see

fit, interfere by its own law. Now it so happens, nevertheless, that Mr.

Madison deems this same tariff law quite constitutional. Instead of a

clear and palpable violation, it is, in his judgment, no violation at all.

So that, while they use his authority for a hypothetical case, they reject

it in the very case before them. All this, Sir, shows the inherent

futility, I had almost used a stronger word, of conceding this power of

inference to the State, and then attempting to secure it from abuse by

imposing qualifications of which the States themselves are to judge. One

of two things is true; either the laws of the Union are beyond the

discretion and beyond the control of the States; or else we have no

constitution of general government, and are thrust back again to the days

of the Confederation.

Let me here say, Sir, that if the gentleman's doctrine had been received

and acted upon in New England, in the times of the embargo and non-

intercourse, we should probably not now have been here. The government

would very likely have gone to pieces, and crumbled into dust. No stronger

case can ever arise than existed under those laws; no States can ever

entertain a clearer conviction than the New England States then

entertained; and if they had been under the influence of that heresy of

opinion, as I must call it, which the honorable member espouses, this

Union would, in all probability, have been scattered to the four winds. I

ask the gentleman, therefore, to apply his principles to that case; I ask

him to come forth and declare, whether, in his opinion, the New England

States would have been justified in interfering to break up the embargo

system under the conscientious opinions which they held upon it? Had they

a right to annul that law? Does he admit or deny? If what is thought

palpably unconstitutional in South Carolina justifies that State in

arresting the progress of the law, tell me whether that which was thought

palpably unconstitutional also in Massachusetts would have justified her

in doing the same thing? Sir, I deny the whole doctrine. It has not a foot

of ground in the Constitution to stand on. No public man of reputation

ever advanced it in Massachusetts in the warmest times, or could maintain

himself upon it there at any time.

I must now beg to ask, Sir, Whence is this supposed right of the States

derived? Where do they find the power to interfere with the laws of the

Union? Sir, the opinion which the honorable gentleman maintains is a

notion founded in a total misapprehension, in my judgment, of the origin

of this government, and of the foundation on which it stands. I hold it to

be a popular government, erected by the people; those who administer it,

responsible to the people; and itself capable of being amended and

modified, just as the people may choose it should be. It is as popular,

just as truly emanating from the people, as the State governments. It is

created for one purpose; the State governments for another. It has its own

powers; they have theirs. There is no more authority with them to arrest

the operation of a law of Congress, than with Congress to arrest the

operation of their laws. We are here to administer a Constitution

emanating immediately from the people, and trusted by them to our

administration. It is not the creature of the State governments. It is of

no moment to the argument, that certain acts of the State legislatures are

necessary to fill our seats in this body. That is not one of their

original State powers, a part of the sovereignty of the State. It is a

duty which the people, by the Constitution itself, have imposed on the

State legislatures; and which they might have left to be performed

elsewhere, if they had seen fit. So they have left the choice of President

with electors; but all this does not affect the proposition that this

whole government, President, Senate, and House of Representatives, is a

popular government. It leaves it still all its popular character. The

governor of a State (in some of the States) is chosen, not directly by the

people, but by those who are chosen by the people, for the purpose of

performing, among other duties, that of electing a governor. Is the

government of the State, on that account, not a popular government? This

government, Sir, is the independent offspring of the popular will. It is

not the creature of State legislatures; nay, more, if the whole truth must

be told, the people brought it into existence, established it, and have

hitherto supported it, for the very purpose, amongst others, of imposing

certain salutary restraints on State sovereignties. The States cannot now

make war; they cannot contract alliances; they cannot make, each for

itself, separate regulations of commerce; they cannot lay imposts; they

cannot coin money. If this Constitution, Sir, be the creature of State

legislatures, it must be admitted that it has obtained a strange control

over the volitions of its creators.

The people, then, Sir, erected this government. They gave it a

Constitution, and in that Constitution they have enumerated the powers

which they bestow on it. They have made it a limited government. They have

defined its authority. They have restrained it to the exercise of such

powers as are granted; and all others, they declare, are reserved to the

States or the people. But, Sir, they have not stopped here. If they had,

they would have accomplished but half their work. No definition can be so

clear, as to avoid possibility of doubt; no limitation so precise as to

exclude all uncertainty. Who, then, shall construe this grant of the

people? Who shall interpret their will, where it may be supposed they have

left it doubtful? With whom do they repose this ultimate right of deciding

on the powers of the government? Sir, they have settled all this in the

fullest manner. They have left it with the government itself, in its

appropriate branches. Sir, the very chief end, the main design, for which

the whole Constitution was framed and adopted, was to establish a

government that should not be obliged to act through State agency, or

depend on State opinion and State discretion. The people had had quite

enough of that kind of government under the Confederation. Under that

system, the legal action, the application of law to individuals, belonged

exclusively to the States. Congress could only recommend; their acts were

not of binding force, till the States had adopted and sanctioned them. Are

we in that condition still? Are we yet at the mercy of State discretion

and State construction? Sir, if we are, then vain will be our attempt to

maintain the Constitution under which we sit.

But, Sir, the people have wisely provided, in the Constitution itself, a

proper, suitable mode and tribunal for settling questions of

constitutional law. There are in the Constitution grants of powers to

Congress, and restrictions on these powers. There are, also, prohibitions

on the States. Some authority must, therefore, necessarily exist, having

the ultimate jurisdiction to fix and ascertain the interpretation of these

grants, restrictions, and prohibitions. The Constitution has itself

pointed out, ordained, and established that authority. How has it

accomplished this great and essential end? By declaring, Sir, that "_the

Constitution, and the laws of the United States made in pursuance thereof,

shall be the supreme law of the land, anything in the constitution or laws

of any State to the contrary notwithstanding_."

This, Sir, was the first great step. By this the supremacy of the

Constitution and laws of the United States is declared. The people so will

it. No State law is to be valid which comes in conflict with the

Constitution, or any law of the United States passed in pursuance of it.

But who shall decide this question of interference? To whom lies the last

appeal? This, Sir, the Constitution itself decides also, 25 by declaring,

"_that the judicial power shall extend to all cases arising under the

Constitution and laws of the United States_." These two provisions

cover the whole ground. They are, in truth, the keystone of the arch! With

these it is a government; without them it is a confederation. In pursuance

of these clear and express provisions, Congress established, at its very

first session, in the judicial act, a mode for carrying them into full

effect, and for bringing all questions of constitutional power to the

final decision of the Supreme Court. It then, Sir, became a government. It

then had the means of self-protection; and but for this, it would, in all

probability, have been now among things which are past. Having constituted

the government, and declared its powers, the people have further said,

that, since somebody must decide on the extent of these powers, the

government shall itself decide; subject, always, like other popular

governments, to its responsibility to the people. And now, Sir, I repeat,

how is it that a State legislature acquires any power to interfere? Who,

or what, gives them the right to say to the people, "We, who are your

agents and servants for one purpose, will undertake to decide, that your

other agents and servants, appointed by you for another purpose, have

transcended the authority you gave them!" The reply would be, I think, not

impertinent, "Who made you a judge over another's servants? To their own

masters they stand or fall."

Sir, I deny this power of State legislatures altogether. It cannot stand

the test of examination. Gentlemen may say, that, in an extreme case, a

State government might protect the people from intolerable oppression.

Sir, in such a case, the people might protect themselves, without the aid

of the State governments. Such a case warrants revolution. It must make,

when it comes, a law for itself. A nullifying act of a State legislature

cannot alter the case, nor make resistance any more lawful. In maintaining

these sentiments, Sir, I am but asserting the rights of the people. I

state what they have declared, and insist on their right to declare it.

They have chosen to repose this power in the general government, and I

think it my duty to support it, like other constitutional powers.

For myself, Sir, I do not admit the competency of South Carolina, or any

other State, to prescribe my constitutional duty; or to settle, between me

and the people, the validity of laws of Congress for which I have voted. I

decline her umpirage. I have not sworn to support the Constitution

according to her construction of its clauses. I have not stipulated, by my

oath of office or otherwise, to come under any responsibility, except to

the people, and those whom they have appointed to pass upon the question,

whether laws, supported by my votes, conform to the Constitution of the

country. And, Sir, if we look to the general nature of the case, could

anything have been more preposterous, than to make a government for the

whole Union, and yet leave its powers subject, not to one interpretation,

but to thirteen or twenty-four interpretations? Instead of one tribunal,

established by all, responsible to all, with power to decide for all,

shall constitutional questions be left to four-and-twenty popular bodies,

each at liberty to decide for itself, and none bound to respect the

decisions of others,--and each at liberty, too, to give a new

construction on every new election of its own members? Would anything,

with such a principle in it, or rather with such a destitution of all

principle, be fit to be called a government? No, Sir. It should not be

denominated a Constitution. It should be called, rather, a collection of

topics for everlasting controversy; heads of debate for a disputatious

people. It would not be a government. It would not be adequate to any

practical good, or fit for any country to live under.

To avoid all possibility of being misunderstood, allow me to repeat again,

in the fullest manner, that I claim no powers for the government by forced

or unfair construction. I admit that it is a government of strictly

limited powers; of enumerated, specified, and particularized powers; and

that whatsoever is not granted, is withheld. But notwithstanding all this,

and however the grant of powers may be expressed, its limit and extent may

yet, in some cases, admit of doubt; and the general government would be

good for nothing, it would be incapable of long existing, if some mode had

not been provided in which those doubts, as they should arise, might be

peaceably, but authoritatively, solved.

And now, Mr. President, let me run the honorable gentleman's doctrine a

little into its practical application. Let us look at his probable

_modus operandi_. If a thing can be done, an ingenious man can tell

how it is to be done, and I wish to be informed how this State

interference is to be put in practice, without violence, bloodshed, and

rebellion. We will take the existing case of the tariff law. South

Carolina is said to have made up her opinion upon it. If we do not repeal

it, (as we probably shall not,) she will then apply to the case the remedy

of her doctrine. She will, we must suppose, pass a law of her legislature,

declaring the several acts of Congress usually called the tariff laws null

and void, so far as they respect South Carolina, or the citizens thereof.

So far, all is a paper transaction, and easy enough. But the collector at

Charleston is collecting the duties imposed by these tariff laws. He,

therefore, must be stopped. The collector will seize the goods if the

tariff duties are not paid. The State authorities will undertake their

rescue, the marshal, with his posse, will come to the collector's aid, and

here the contest begins. The militia of the State will be called out to

sustain the nullifying act. They will march, Sir, under a very gallant

leader; for I believe the honorable member himself commands the militia of

that part of the State. He will raise the NULLIFYING ACT on his standard,

and spread it out as his banner! It will have a preamble, setting forth

that the tariff laws are palpable, deliberate, and dangerous violations of

the Constitution! He will proceed, with this banner flying, to the custom-

house in Charleston,

"All the while

Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds." [26]

Arrived at the custom-house, he will tell the collector that he must

collect no more duties under any of the tariff laws. This he will be

somewhat puzzled to say, by the way, with a grave countenance, considering

what hand South Carolina herself had in that of 1816. But, Sir, the

collector would not, probably, desist, at his bidding. He would show him

the law of Congress, the treasury instruction, and his own oath of office.

He would say, he should perform his duty, come what come might.

Here would ensue a pause; for they say that a certain stillness precedes

the tempest. The trumpeter would hold his breath awhile, and before all

this military array should fall on the custom-house, collector, clerks,

and all, it is very probable some of those composing it would request of

their gallant commander-in-chief to be informed a little upon the point of

law; for they have, doubtless, a just respect for his opinions as a

lawyer, as well as for his bravery as a soldier. They know he has read

Blackstone and the Constitution, as well as Turenne and Vauban. They would

ask him, therefore, something concerning their rights in this matter. They

would inquire, whether it was not somewhat dangerous to resist a law of

the United States. What would be the nature of their offence, they would

wish to learn, if they, by military force and array, resisted the

execution in Carolina of a law of the United States, and it should turn

out, after all, that the law _was constitutional_? He would answer,

of course, Treason. No lawyer could give any other answer. John Fries,[27]

he would tell them, had learned that, some years ago. How, then, they

would ask, do you propose to defend us? We are not afraid of bullets, but

treason has a way of taking people off that we do not much relish. How do

you propose to defend us? "Look at my floating banner," he would reply;

"see there the _nullifying law!_" Is it your opinion, gallant

commander, they would then say, that, if we should be indicted for

treason, that same floating banner of yours would make a good plea in bar?

"South Carolina is a sovereign state," he would reply. That is true; but

would the judge admit our plea? "These tariff laws," he would repeat, "are

unconstitutional, palpably, deliberately, dangerously." That may all be

so; but if the tribunal should not happen to be of that opinion, shall we

swing for it? We are ready to die for our country, but it is rather an

awkward business, this dying without touching the ground! After all, that

is a sort of hemp tax worse than any part of the tariff.

Mr. President, the honorable gentleman would be in a dilemma, like that of

another great general. He would have a knot before him which he could not

untie. He must cut it with his sword. He must say to his followers,

"Defend yourselves with your bayonets"; and this is war,--civil war.

Direct collision, therefore, between force and force, is the unavoidable

result of that remedy for the revision of unconstitutional laws which the

gentleman contends for. It must happen in the very first case to which it

is applied. Is not this the plain result? To resist by force the execution

of a law, generally, is treason. Can the courts of the United States take

notice of the indulgence of a State to commit treason? The common saying,

that a State cannot commit treason herself, is nothing to the purpose. Can

she authorize others to do it? If John Fries had produced an act of

Pennsylvania, annulling the law of Congress, would it have helped his

case? Talk about it as we will, these doctrines go the length of

revolution. They are incompatible with any peaceable administration of the

government. They lead directly to disunion and civil commotion; and

therefore it is, that at their commencement, when they are first found to

be maintained by respectable men, and in a tangible form, I enter my

public protest against them all.

The honorable gentleman argues, that, if this government be the sole judge

of the extent of its own powers, whether that right of judging be in

Congress or the Supreme Court, it equally subverts State sovereignty. This

the gentleman sees, or thinks he sees, although he cannot perceive how the

right of judging, in this matter, if left to the exercise of State

legislatures, has any tendency to subvert the government of the Union. The

gentleman's opinion may be, that the right ought not to have been lodged

with the general government; he may like better such a constitution as we

should have under the right of State interference; but I ask him to meet

me on the plain matter of fact. I ask him to meet me on the Constitution

itself. I ask him if the power is not found there, clearly and visibly

found there? But, Sir, what is this danger, and what are the grounds of

it? Let it be remembered, that the Constitution of the United States is

not unalterable. It is to continue in its present form no longer than the

people who established it shall choose to continue it. If they shall

become convinced that they have made an injudicious or inexpedient

partition and distribution of power between the State governments and the

general government, they can alter that distribution at will.

If anything be found in the national Constitution, either by original

provision or subsequent interpretation, which ought not to be in it, the

people know how to get rid of it. If any construction, unacceptable to

them, be established, so as to become practically a part of the

Constitution, they will amend it at their own sovereign pleasure. But

while the people choose to maintain it as it is, while they are satisfied

with it, and refuse to change it, who has given, or who can give, to the

State legislatures a right to alter it, either by interference,

construction, or otherwise? Gentlemen do not seem to recollect that the

people have any power to do anything for themselves. They imagine there is

no safety for them, any longer than they are under the close guardianship

of the State legislatures. Sir, the people have not trusted their safety

in regard to the general Constitution to these hands. They have required

other security, and taken other bonds. They have chosen to trust

themselves, first, to the plain words of the instrument, and to such

construction as the government themselves, in doubtful cases, should put

on their own powers, under their oaths of office, and subject to their

responsibility to them; just as the people of a State trust their own

State governments with a similar power. Secondly, they have reposed their

trust in the efficacy of frequent elections, and in their own power to

remove their own servants and agents whenever they see cause. Thirdly,

they have reposed trust in the judicial power, which, in order that it

might be trustworthy, they have made as respectable, as disinterested, and

as independent as was practicable. Fourthly, they have seen fit to rely,

in case of necessity, or high expediency, on their known and admitted

power to alter or amend the Constitution, peaceably and quietly, whenever

experience shall point out defects or imperfections. And, finally, the

people of the United States have at no time, in no way, directly or

indirectly, authorized any State legislature to construe or interpret

_their_ high instrument of government; much less to interfere, by

their own power, to arrest its course and operation.

If, Sir, the people in these respects had done otherwise than they have

done, their Constitution could neither have been preserved, nor would it

have been worth preserving. And if its plain provisions shall now be

disregarded, and these new doctrines interpolated in it, it will become as

feeble and helpless a being as its enemies, whether early or more recent,

could possibly desire. It will exist in every State but as a poor

dependent on State permission. It must borrow leave to be; and will be, no

longer than State pleasure, or State discretion, sees fit to grant the

indulgence, and to prolong its poor existence.

But, Sir, although there are fears, there are hopes also. The people have

preserved this, their own chosen Constitution, for forty years, and have

seen their happiness, prosperity, and renown grow with its growth, and

strengthen with its strength. They are now, generally, strongly attached

to it. Overthrown by direct assault, it cannot be; evaded, undermined,

NULLIFIED, it will not be, if we and those who shall succeed us here as

agents and representatives of the people shall conscientiously and

vigilantly discharge the two great branches of our public trust,

faithfully to preserve, and wisely to administer it.

Mr. President, I have thus stated the reasons of my dissent to the

doctrines which have been advanced and maintained. I am conscious of

having detained you and the Senate much too long. I was drawn into the

debate with no previous deliberation, such as is suited to the discussion

of so grave and important a subject. But it is a subject of which my heart

is full, and I have not been willing to suppress the utterance of its

spontaneous sentiments. I cannot, even now, persuade myself to relinquish

it, without expressing once more my deep conviction, that, since it

respects nothing less than the Union of the States, it is of most vital

and essential importance to the public happiness. I profess, Sir, in my

career hitherto, to have kept steadily in view the prosperity and honor of

the whole country, and the preservation of our Federal Union. It is to

that Union we owe our safety at home, and our consideration and dignity

abroad. It is to that Union that we are chiefly indebted for whatever

makes us most proud of our country. That Union we reached only by the

discipline of our virtues in the severe school of adversity. It had its

origin in the necessities of disordered finance, prostrate commerce, and

ruined credit. Under its benign influences, these great interests

immediately awoke, as from the dead, and sprang forth with newness of

life. Every year of its duration has teemed with fresh proofs of its

utility and its blessings; and although our territory has stretched out

wider and wider, and our population spread farther and farther, they have

not outrun its protection or its benefits. It has been to us all a copious

fountain of national, social, and personal happiness.

I have not allowed myself, Sir, to look beyond the Union, to see what

might lie hidden in the dark recess behind. I have not coolly weighed the

chances of preserving liberty when the bonds that unite us together shall

be broken asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice

of disunion, to see whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the depth

of the abyss below; nor could I regard him as a safe counsellor in the

affairs of this government, whose thoughts should be mainly bent on

considering, not how the Union may be best preserved, but how tolerable

might be the condition of the people when it should be broken up and

destroyed. While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying

prospects spread out before us, for us and our children. Beyond that I

seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant that, in my day, at least, that

curtain may not rise! God grant that on my vision never may be opened what

lies behind! When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the

sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored

fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant,

belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in

fraternal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold

the gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known and honored throughout the

earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their

original lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star

obscured, bearing for its motto, no such miserable interrogatory as "What

is all this worth?" nor those other words of delusion and folly, "Liberty

first and Union afterwards"; but everywhere, spread all over in characters

of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the

sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that

other sentiment, dear to every true American heart,--Liberty _and_

Union, now and for ever, one and inseparable! [28]

The Murder of Captain Joseph White.

I am little accustomed, Gentlemen, to the part which I am now attempting

to perform. Hardly more than once or twice has it happened to me to be

concerned on the side of the government in any criminal prosecution

whatever; and never, until the present occasion, in any case affecting

life.

But I very much regret that it should have been thought necessary to

suggest to you that I am brought here to "hurry you against the law and

beyond the evidence." I hope I have too much regard for justice, and too

much respect for my own character, to attempt either; and 10 were I to

make such attempt, I am sure that in this court nothing can be carried

against the law, and that gentlemen, intelligent and just as you are, are

not, by any power, to be hurried beyond the evidence. Though I could well

have wished to shun this occasion, I have not felt at liberty to withhold

my professional assistance, when it is supposed that I may be in some

degree useful in investigating and discovering the truth respecting this

most extraordinary murder. It has seemed to be a duty incumbent on me, as

on every other citizen, to do my best and my utmost to bring to light the

perpetrators of this crime. Against the prisoner at the bar, as an

individual, I cannot have the slightest prejudice. I would not do him the

smallest injury or injustice. But I do not affect to be indifferent to the

discovery and the punishment of this deep guilt. I cheerfully share in the

opprobrium, how great soever it may be, which is cast on those who feel

and manifest an anxious concern that all who had a part in planning, or a

hand in executing, this deed of midnight assassination, may be brought to

answer for their enormous crime at the bar of public justice.

Gentlemen, it is a most extraordinary case. In some respects, it has

hardly a precedent anywhere; certainly none in our New England history.

This bloody drama exhibited no suddenly excited, ungovernable rage. The

actors in it were not surprised by any lion-like temptation springing upon

their virtue, and overcoming it, before resistance could begin. Nor did

they do the deed to glut savage vengeance, or satiate long-settled and

deadly hate. It was a cool, calculating, money-making murder. It was all

"hire and salary, not revenge." It was the weighing of money against life;

the counting out of so many pieces of silver against so many ounces of

blood.

An aged man, without an enemy in the world, in his own house, and in his

own bed, is made the victim of a butcherly murder, for mere pay. Truly,

here is a new lesson for painters and poets. Whoever shall hereafter draw

the portrait of murder, if he will show it as it has been exhibited, where

such example was last to have been looked for, in the very bosom of our

New England society, let him not give it the grim visage of Moloch, the

brow knitted by revenge, the face black with settled hate, and the

bloodshot eye emitting livid fires of malice. Let him draw, rather, a

decorous, smooth-faced, bloodless demon; a picture in repose, rather than

in action; not so much an example of human nature in its depravity, and in

its paroxysms of crime, as an infernal being, a fiend, in the ordinary

display and development of his character.

The deed was executed with a degree of self-possession and steadiness

equal to the wickedness with which it was planned. The circumstances now

clearly in evidence spread out the whole scene before us. Deep sleep had

fallen on the destined victim, and on all beneath his roof. A healthful

old man, to whom sleep was sweet, the first sound slumbers of the night

held him in their soft but strong embrace. The assassin enters, through

the window already prepared, into an unoccupied apartment. With noiseless

foot he paces the lonely hall, half lighted by the moon; he winds up the

ascent of the stairs, and reaches the door of the chamber. Of this, he

moves the lock, by soft and continued pressure, till it turns on its

hinges without noise; and he enters, and beholds his victim before him.

The room is uncommonly open to the admission of light. The face of the

innocent sleeper is turned from the murderer, and the beams of the moon,

resting on the gray locks of his aged temple, show him where to strike.

The fatal blow is given! and the victim passes, without a struggle or a

motion, from the repose of sleep to the repose of death! It is the

assassin's purpose to make sure work; and he plies the dagger, though it

is obvious that life has been destroyed by the blow of the bludgeon. He

even raises the aged arm, that he may not fail in his aim at the heart,

and replaces it again over the wounds of the poinard! To finish the

picture, he explores the wrist for the pulse! He feels for it, and

ascertains that it beats no longer! It is accomplished. The deed is done.

He retreats, retraces his steps to the window, passes out through it as he

came in, and escapes. He has done the murder. No eye has seen him, no ear

has heard him. The secret is his own, and it is safe!

Ah! Gentlemen, that was a dreadful mistake. Such a secret can be safe

nowhere. The whole creation of God has neither nook nor corner where the

guilty can bestow it, and say it is safe. Not to speak of that eye which

pierces all disguises, and beholds every thing as in the splendor of noon,

such secrets of guilt are never safe from detection, even by men. True it

is, generally speaking, that "murder will out." True it is, that

Providence hath so ordained, and doth so govern things, that those who

break the great law of Heaven by shedding man's blood seldom succeed in

avoiding discovery. Especially, in a case exciting so much attention as

this, discovery must come, and will come, sooner or later. A thousand eyes

turn at once to explore every man, every thing, every circumstance,

connected with the time and place; a thousand ears catch every whisper; a

thousand excited minds intensely dwell on the scene, shedding all their

light, and ready to kindle the slightest circumstance into a blaze of

discovery. Meantime the guilty soul cannot keep its own secret. It is

false to itself; or rather it feels an irresistible impulse of conscience

to be true to itself. It labors under its guilty possession, and knows not

what to do with it. The human heart was not made for the residence of such

an inhabitant. It finds itself preyed on by a torment, which it dares not

acknowledge to God or man. A vulture is devouring it, and it can ask no

sympathy or assistance, either from heaven or earth. The secret which the

murderer possesses soon comes to possess him; and, like the evil spirits

of which we read, it overcomes him, and leads him whithersoever it will.

He feels it beating at his heart, rising to his throat, and demanding

disclosure. He thinks the whole world sees it in his face, reads it in his

eyes, and almost hears its workings in the very silence of his thoughts.

It has become his master. It betrays his discretion, it breaks down his

courage, it conquers his prudence. When suspicions from without begin to

embarrass him, and the net of circumstances to entangle him, the fatal

secret struggles with still greater violence to burst forth. It must be

confessed, it will be confessed; there is no refuge from confession but

suicide, and suicide is confession.[1]

Much has been said, on this occasion, of the excitement which has existed,

and still exists, and of the extraordinary measures taken to discover and

punish the guilty. No doubt there has been, and is, much excitement, and

strange indeed it would be had it been otherwise. Should not all the

peaceable and well-disposed naturally feel concerned, and naturally exert

themselves to bring to punishment the authors of this secret

assassination? Was it a thing to be slept upon or forgotten? Did you,

Gentlemen, sleep quite as quietly in your beds after this murder as

before? Was it not a case for rewards, for meetings, for committees, for

the united efforts of all the good, to find out a band of murderous

conspirators, of midnight ruffians, and to bring them to the bar of

justice and law? If this be excitement, is it an unnatural or an improper

excitement?

It seems to me, Gentlemen, that there are appearances of another feeling,

of a very different nature and character; not very extensive, I would

hope, but still there is too much evidence of its existence. Such is human

nature, that some persons lose their abhorrence of crime in their

admiration of its magnificent exhibitions. Ordinary vice is reprobated by

them, but extraordinary guilt, exquisite wickedness, the high flights and

poetry of crime, seize on the imagination, and lead them to forget the

depths of the guilt, in admiration of the excellence of the performance,

or the unequalled atrocity of the purpose. There are those in our day who

have made great use of this infirmity of our nature, and by means of it

done infinite injury to the cause of good morals. They have affected not

only the taste, but I fear also the principles, of the young, the

heedless, and the imaginative, by the exhibition of interesting and

beautiful monsters. They render depravity attractive, sometimes by the

polish of its manners, and sometimes by its very extravagance; and study

to show off crime under all the advantages of cleverness and dexterity.

Gentlemen, this is an extraordinary murder, but it is still a murder. We

are not to lose ourselves in wonder at its origin, or in gazing on its

cool and skilful execution. We are to detect and to punish it; and while

we proceed with caution against the prisoner, and are to be sure that we

do not visit on his head the offences of others, we are yet to consider

that we are dealing with a case of most atrocious crime, which has not the

slightest circumstance about it to soften its enormity. It is murder;

deliberate, concerted, malicious murder.

Although the interest of this case may have diminished by the repeated

investigation of the facts; still, the additional labor which it imposes

upon all concerned is not to be regretted, if it should result in removing

all doubts of the guilt of the prisoner.

The learned counsel for the prisoner has said truly, that it is your

individual duty to judge the prisoner; that it is your individual duty to

determine his guilt or innocence; and that you are to weigh the testimony

with candor and fairness. But much at the same time has been said, which,

though it would seem to have no distinct bearing on the trial, cannot be

passed over without some notice.

A tone of complaint so peculiar has been indulged, as would almost lead us

to doubt whether the prisoner at the bar, or the managers of this

prosecution, are now on trial. Great pains have been taken to complain of

the manner of the prosecution. We hear of getting up a case; of setting in

motion trains of machinery; of foul testimony; of combinations to

overwhelm the prisoner; of private prosecutors; that the prisoner is

hunted, persecuted, driven to his trial; that everybody is against him;

and various other complaints, as if those who would bring to punishment

the authors of this murder were almost as bad as they who committed it.

In the course of my whole life, I have never heard before so much said

about the particular counsel who happen to be employed; as if it were

extraordinary that other counsel than the usual officers of the government

should assist in the management of a case on the part of the

government.[2] In one of the last criminal trials in this county, that of

Jackman for the "Goodridge robbery" (so called), I remember that the

learned head of the Suffolk Bar, Mr. Prescott, came down in aid of the

officers of the government. This was regarded as neither strange nor

improper. The counsel for the prisoner, in that case, contented themselves

with answering his arguments, as far as they were able, instead of carping

at his presence.

Complaint is made that rewards were offered, in this case, and temptations

held out to obtain testimony. Are not rewards always offered, when great

and secret offences are committed? Rewards were offered in the case to

which I have alluded; and every other means taken to discover the

offenders, that ingenuity or the most persevering vigilance could suggest.

The learned counsel have suffered their zeal to lead them into a strain of

complaint at the manner in which the perpetrators of this crime were

detected, almost indicating that they regard it as a positive injury to

them to have found but their guilt. Since no man witnessed it, since they

do not now confess it, attempts to discover it are half esteemed as

officious intermeddling and impertinent inquiry.

It is said, that here even a Committee of Vigilance was appointed. This is

a subject of reiterated remark. This committee are pointed at, as though

they had been officiously intermeddling with the administration of

justice. They are said to have been "laboring for months" against the

prisoner. Gentlemen, what must we do in such a case? Are people to be dumb

and still, through fear of overdoing? Is it come to this, that an effort

cannot be made, a hand cannot be lifted, to discover the guilty, without

its being said there is a combination to overwhelm innocence? Has the

community lost all moral sense? Certainly, a community that would not be

roused to action upon an occasion such as this was, a community which

should not deny sleep to their eyes, and slumber to their eyelids, till

they had exhausted all the means of discovery and detection, must indeed

be lost to all moral sense, and would scarcely deserve protection from the

laws. The learned counsel have endeavored to persuade you, that there

exists a prejudice against the persons accused of this murder. They would

have you understand that it is not confined to this vicinity alone; but

that even the legislature have caught this spirit. That through the

procurement of the gentleman here styled private prosecutor, who is a

member of the Senate, a special session of this court was appointed for

the trial of these offenders. That the ordinary movements of the wheels of

justice were too slow for the purposes devised. But does not everybody see

and know, that it was matter of absolute necessity to have a special

session of the court? When or how could the prisoners have been tried

without a special session? In the ordinary arrangement of the courts, but

one week in a year is allotted for the whole court to sit in this county.

In the trial of all capital offences a majority of the court, at least, is

required to be present. In the trial of the present case alone, three

weeks have already been taken up. Without such special session, then,

three years would not have been sufficient for the purpose. It is answer

sufficient to all complaints on this subject to say, that the law was

drawn by the late Chief Justice [3] himself, to enable the court to

accomplish its duties, and to afford the persons accused an opportunity

for trial without delay.

Again, it is said that it was not thought of making Francis Knapp, the

prisoner at the bar, a PRINCIPAL till after the death of Richard

Crowningshield, Jr.; that the present indictment is an afterthought; that

"testimony was got up" for the occasion. It is not so. There is no

authority for this suggestion. The case of the Knapps had not then been

before the grand jury. The officers of the government did not know what

the testimony would be against them. They could not, therefore, have

determined what course they should pursue. They intended to arraign all as

principals who should appear to have been principals, and all as

accessories who should appear to have been accessories. All this could be

known only when the evidence should be produced. But the learned counsel

for the defendant take a somewhat loftier flight still. They are more

concerned, they assure us, for the law itself, than even for their client.

Your decision in this case, they say, will stand as a precedent.

Gentlemen, we hope it will. We hope it will be a precedent both of candor

and intelligence, of fairness and of firmness; a precedent of good sense

and honest purpose pursuing their investigation discreetly, rejecting

loose generalities, exploring all the circumstances, weighing each, in

search of truth, and embracing and declaring the truth when found.

It is said, that "laws are made, not for the punishment of the guilty, but

for the protection of the innocent." This is not quite accurate, perhaps,

but if so, we hope they will be so administered as to give that

protection. But who are the innocent whom the law would protect?

Gentlemen, Joseph White was innocent. They are innocent who, having lived

in the fear of God through the day, wish to sleep in his peace through the

night, in their own beds. The law is established that those who live

quietly may sleep quietly; that they who do no harm may feel none. The

gentleman can think of none that are innocent except the prisoner at the

bar, not yet convicted. Is a proved conspirator to murder innocent? Are

the Crowningshields and the Knapps innocent? What is innocence? How deep

stained with blood, how reckless in crime, how deep in depravity may it

be, and yet remain innocence? The law is made, if we would speak with

entire accuracy, to protect the innocent by punishing the guilty. But

there are those innocent out of a court, as well as in; innocent citizens

not suspected of crime, as well as innocent prisoners at the bar.

The criminal law is not founded in a principle of vengeance. It does not

punish that it may inflict suffering. The humanity of the law feels and

regrets every pain it causes, every hour of restraint it imposes, and more

deeply still every life it forfeits. But it uses evil as the means of

preventing greater evil. It seeks to deter from crime by the example of

punishment. This is its true, and only true main object. It restrains the

liberty of the few offenders, that the many who do not offend may enjoy

their liberty. It takes the life of the murderer, that other murders may

not be committed. The law might open the jails, and at once set free all

persons accused of offences, and it ought to do so if it could be made

certain that no other offences would hereafter be committed, because it

punishes, not to satisfy any desire to inflict pain, but simply to prevent

the repetition of crimes. When the guilty, therefore, are not punished,

the law has so far failed of its purpose; the safety of the innocent is so

far endangered. Every unpunished murder takes away something from the

security of every man's life. Whenever a jury, through whimsical and ill-

founded scruples, suffer the guilty to escape, they make themselves

answerable for the augmented danger of the innocent.

We wish nothing to be strained against this defendant. Why, then, all this

alarm? Why all this complaint against the manner in which the crime is

discovered? The prisoner's counsel catch at supposed flaws of evidence, or

bad character of witnesses, without meeting the case. Do they mean to deny

the conspiracy? Do they mean to deny that the two Crowningshields and the

two Knapps were conspirators? Why do they rail against Palmer, while they

do not disprove, and hardly dispute, the truth of any one fact sworn to by

him? Instead of this, it is made matter of sentimentality that Palmer has

been prevailed upon to betray his bosom companions and to violate the

sanctity of friendship. Again I ask, Why do they not meet the case? If the

fact is out, why not meet it? Do they mean to deny that Captain White is

dead? One would have almost supposed even that, from some remarks that

have been made. Do they mean to deny the conspiracy? Or, admitting a

conspiracy, do they mean to deny only that Frank Knapp, the prisoner at

the bar, was abetting in the murder, being present, and so deny that he

was a principal? If a conspiracy is proved, it bears closely upon every

subsequent subject of inquiry. Why do they not come to the fact? Here the

defence is wholly indistinct. The counsel neither take the ground, nor

abandon it. They neither fly, nor light. They hover. But they must come to

a closer mode of contest. They must meet the facts, and either deny or

admit them. Had the prisoner at the bar, then, a knowledge of this

conspiracy or not? This is the question. Instead of laying out their

strength in complaining of the _manner_ in which the deed is

discovered, of the extraordinary pains taken to bring the prisoner's guilt

to light, would it not be better to show there was no guilt? Would it not

be better to show his innocence? They say, and they complain, that the

community feel a great desire that he should be punished for his crimes.

Would it not be better to convince you that he has committed no crime?

Gentlemen, let us now come to the case. Your first inquiry, on the

evidence, will be, Was Captain White murdered in pursuance of a

conspiracy, and was the defendant one of this conspiracy? If so, the

second inquiry is, Was he so connected with the murder itself as that he

is liable to be convicted as a _principal_? The defendant is indicted

as a _principal_. If not guilty _as such_, you cannot convict

him. The indictment contains three distinct classes of counts. In the

first, he is charged as having done the deed with his own hand; in the

second, as an aider and abettor to Richard Crowningshield, Jr., who did

the deed; in the third, as an aider and abettor to some person unknown. If

you believe him guilty on either of these counts, or in either of these

ways, you must convict him.

It may be proper to say, as a preliminary remark, that there are two

extraordinary circumstances attending this trial. One is, that Richard

Crowningshield, Jr., the supposed immediate perpetrator of the murder,

since his arrest, has committed suicide. He has gone to answer before a

tribunal of perfect infallibility. The other is, that Joseph Knapp, the

supposed originator and planner of the murder, having once made a full

disclosure of the facts, under a promise of indemnity, is, nevertheless,

not now a witness. Notwithstanding his disclosure and his promise of

indemnity, he now refuses to testify. He chooses to return to his original

state, and now stands answerable himself, when the time shall come for his

trial. These circumstances it is fit you should remember, in your

investigation of the case.

Your decision may affect more than the life of this defendant. If he be

not convicted as principal, no one can be. Nor can any one be convicted of

a participation in the crime as accessory. The Knapps and George

Crowningshield will be again on the community. This shows the importance

of the duty you have to perform, and serves to remind you of the care and

wisdom necessary to be exercised in its performance. But certainly these

considerations do not render the prisoner's guilt any clearer, nor enhance

the weight of the evidence against him. No one desires you to regard

consequences in that light. No one wishes any thing to be strained, or too

far pressed against the prisoner. Still, it is fit you should see the full

importance of the duty which devolves upon you.[4] . . .

Gentlemen, your whole concern should be to do your duty, and leave

consequences to take care of themselves. You will receive the law from the

court. Your verdict, it is true, may endanger the prisoner's life, but

then it is to save other lives. If the prisoner's guilt has been shown and

proved beyond all reasonable doubt, you will convict him. If such

reasonable doubts of guilt still remain, you will acquit him. You are the

judges of the whole case. You owe a duty to the public, as well as to the

prisoner at the bar. You cannot presume to be wiser than the law. Your

duty is a plain, straightforward one. Doubtless we would all judge him in

mercy. Towards him, as an individual, the law inculcates no hostility; but

towards him, if proved to be a murderer, the law, and the oaths you have

taken, and public justice, demand that you do your duty.

With consciences satisfied with the discharge of duty, no consequences can

harm you. There is no evil that we cannot either face or fly from, but the

consciousness of duty disregarded. A sense of duty pursues us ever. It is

omnipresent, like the Deity. If we take to ourselves the wings of the

morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, duty performed, or

duty violated, is still with us, for our happiness or our misery. If we

say the darkness shall cover us, in the darkness as in the light our

obligations are yet with us. We cannot escape their power, nor fly from

their presence. They are with us in this life, will be with us at its

close; and in that scene of inconceivable solemnity, which lies yet

further onward, we shall still find ourselves surrounded by the

consciousness of duty, to pain us wherever it has been violated, and to

console us so far as God may have given us grace to perform it.

THE CONSTITUTION NOT A COMPACT BETWEEN SOVEREIGN STATES.

Mr. President,-The gentleman from South Carolina has admonished us to be

mindful of the opinions of those who shall come after us. We must take our

chance, Sir, as to the light in which posterity will regard us. I do not

decline its judgment, nor withhold myself from its scrutiny. Feeling that

I am performing my public duty with singleness of heart and to the best of

my ability, I fearlessly trust myself to the country, now and hereafter,

and leave both my motives and my character to its decision.

The gentleman has terminated his speech in a tone of threat and defiance

towards this bill, even should it become a law of the land, altogether

unusual in the halls of Congress. But I shall not suffer myself to be

excited into warmth by his denunciation of the measure which I support.

Among the feelings which at this moment fill my breast, not the least is

that of regret at the position in which the gentleman has placed himself.

Sir, he does himself no justice. The cause which he has espoused finds no

basis in the Constitution, no succor from public sympathy, no cheering

from a patriotic community. He has no foothold on which to stand while he

might display the powers of his acknowledged talents. Every thing beneath

his feet is hollow and treacherous. He is like a strong man struggling in

a morass: every effort to extricate himself only sinks him deeper and

deeper. And I fear the resemblance may be carried still farther; I fear

that no friend can safely come to his relief, that no one can approach

near enough to hold out a helping hand, without danger of going down

himself, also, into the bottomless depths of this Serbonian bog.

The honorable gentleman has declared, that on the decision of the question

now in debate may depend the cause of liberty itself. I am of the same

opinion; but then, Sir, the liberty which I think is staked on the contest

is not political liberty, in any general and undefined character, but our

own well-understood and long-enjoyed _American_ liberty,

Sir, I love Liberty no less ardently than the gentleman himself, in

whatever form she may have appeared in the progress of human history. As

exhibited in the master states of antiquity, as breaking out again from

amidst the darkness of the Middle Ages, and beaming on the formation of

new communities in modern Europe, she has, always and everywhere, charms

for me. Yet, Sir, it is our own liberty, guarded by constitutions and

secured by union, it is that liberty which is our paternal inheritance, it

is our established, dear-bought, peculiar American liberty, to which I am

chiefly devoted, and the cause of which I now mean, to the utmost of my

power, to maintain and defend.

Mr. President, if I considered the constitutional question now before us

as doubtful as it is important, and if I supposed that its decision,

either in the Senate or by the country, was likely to be in any degree

influenced by the manner in which I might now discuss it, this would be to

me a moment of deep solicitude. Such a moment has once existed. There has

been a time, when, rising in this place, on the same question, I felt, I

must confess, that something for good or evil to the Constitution of the

country might depend on an effort of mine. But circumstances are changed.

Since that day, Sir, the public opinion has become awakened to this great

question; it has grasped it; it has reasoned upon it, as becomes an

intelligent and patriotic community, and has settled it, or now seems in

the progress of settling it, by an authority which none can disobey, the

authority of the people themselves.

I shall not, Mr. President, follow the gentleman, step by step, through

the course of his speech. Much of what he has said he has deemed necessary

to the just explanation and defence of his own political character and

conduct. On this I shall offer no comment. Much, too, has consisted of

philosophical remark upon the general nature of political liberty, and the

history of free institutions; and upon other topics, so general in their

nature as to possess, in my opinion, only a remote bearing on the

immediate subject of this debate.

But the gentleman's speech made some days ago, upon introducing his

resolutions, those resolutions themselves, and parts of the speech now

just concluded, may, I presume, be justly regarded as containing the whole

South Carolina doctrine. That doctrine it is my purpose now to examine,

and to compare it with the Constitution of the United States. I shall not

consent, Sir, to make any new constitution, or to establish another form

of government. I will not undertake to say what a constitution for these

United States ought to be. That question the people have decided for

themselves; and I shall take the instrument as they have established it,

and shall endeavor to maintain it, in its plain sense and meaning, against

opinions and notions, which, in my judgment, threaten its subversion.

The resolutions introduced by the gentleman were apparently drawn up with

care, and brought forward upon deliberation. I shall not be in danger,

therefore, of misunderstanding him, or those who agree with him, if I

proceed at once to these resolutions, and consider them as an authentic

statement of those opinions upon the great constitutional question by

which the recent proceedings in South Carolina are attempted to be

justified.

These resolutions are three in number.

The third seems intended to enumerate, and to deny, the several opinions

expressed in the President's proclamation, respecting the nature and

powers of this government. Of this third resolution, I purpose, at

present, to take no particular notice.

The first two resolutions of the honorable member affirm these

propositions, viz.:--

1. That the political system under which we live, and under which Congress

is now assembled, is a _compact_, to which the people of the several

States, as separate and sovereign communities, are _the parties_.

2. That these sovereign parties have a right to judge, each for itself, of

any alleged violation of the Constitution by Congress; and, in case of

such violation, to choose, each for itself, its own mode and measure of

redress.

It is true, Sir, that the honorable member calls this a "constitutional"

compact; but still he affirms it to be a compact between sovereign States.

What precise meaning, then, does he attach to the term _constitutional_?

When applied to compacts between sovereign States, the term

_constitutional_ affixes to the word _compact_ no definite idea. Were we

to hear of a constitutional league or treaty between England and France,

or a constitutional convention between Austria and Russia, we should not

understand what could be intended by such a league, such a treaty, or such

a convention. In these connections, the word is void of all meaning; and

yet, Sir, it is easy, quite easy, to see why the honorable gentleman has

used it in these resolutions. He cannot open the book, and look upon our

written frame of government, without seeing that it is called a

_constitution_. This may well be appalling to him. It threatens his whole

doctrine of compact, and its darling derivatives, nullification and

secession, with instant confutation. Because, if he admits our instrument

of government to be a _constitution_, then, for that very reason, it is

not a compact between sovereigns; a constitution of government and a

compact between sovereign powers being things essentially unlike in their

very natures, and incapable of ever being the same. Yet the word

_constitution_ is on the very front of the instrument. He cannot

overlook it. He seeks, therefore, to compromise the matter, and to sink

all the substantial sense of the word, while he retains a resemblance of

its sound. He introduces a new word of his own, viz. _compact_, as

importing the principal idea, and designed to play the principal part,

and degrades _constitution_ into an insignificant, idle epithet, attached

to _compact_. The whole then stands as a _"constitutional compact"!_

And in this way he hopes to pass off a plausible gloss, as satisfying the

words of the instrument. But he will find himself disappointed. Sir, I must

say to the honorable gentleman, that, in our American political grammar,

CONSTITUTION is a noun substantive; it imports a distinct and clear idea

of itself; and it is not to lose its importance and dignity, it is not to

be turned into a poor, ambiguous, senseless, unmeaning adjective, for the

purpose of accommodating any new set of political notions. Sir, we reject

his new rules of syntax altogether. We will not give up our forms of

political speech to the grammarians of the school of nullification. By

the Constitution, we mean, not a "constitutional compact," but, simply

and directly, the Constitution, the fundamental law; and if there be one

word in the language which the people of the United States understand,

this is that word. We know no more of a constitutional compact between

sovereign powers, than we know of a _constitutional_ indenture of

copartnership, a _constitutional_ deed of conveyance, or a

_constitutional_ bill of exchange. But we know what the _Constitution_

is; we know what the plainly written fundamental law is; we know what

the bond of our Union and the security of our liberties is; and we mean

to maintain and to defend it, in its plain sense and unsophisticated

meaning.

The sense of the gentleman's proposition, therefore, is not at all

affected, one way or the other, by the use of this word. That proposition

still is, that our system of government is but a _compact_ between

the people of separate and sovereign States.

Was it Mirabeau, Mr. President, or some other master of the human

passions, who has told us that words are things? They are indeed things,

and things of mighty influence, not only in addresses to the passions and

high-wrought feelings of mankind, but in the discussion of legal and

political questions also; because a just conclusion is often avoided, or a

false one reached, by the adroit substitution of one phrase, or one word,

for another. Of this we have, I think, another example in the resolutions

before us.

The first resolution declares that the people of the several States

_"acceded"_ to the Constitution, or to the constitutional compact, as

it is called. This word "accede," not found either in the Constitution

itself, or in the ratification of it by any one of the States, has been

chosen for use here, doubtless, not without a well-considered purpose.

The natural converse of _accession_ is _secession_; and,

therefore, when it is stated that the people of the States acceded to the

Union, it may be more plausibly argued that they may secede from it. If,

in adopting the Constitution, nothing was done but acceding to a compact,

nothing would seem necessary, in order to break it up, but to secede from

the same compact. But the term is wholly out of place. _Accession_,

as a word applied to political associations, implies coming into a league,

treaty, or confederacy, by one hitherto a stranger to it; and

_secession_ implies departing from such league or confederacy. The

people of the United States have used no such form of expression in

establishing the present government. They do not say that they

_accede_ to a league, but they declare that they _ordain_ and

_establish_ a Constitution. Such are the very words of the instrument

itself; and in all the States, without an exception, the language used by

their conventions was, that they "_ratified the Constitution_"; some

of them employing the additional words "assented to" and "adopted," but

all of them "ratifying."

There is more importance than may, at first sight, appear, in the

introduction of this new word, by the honorable mover of these

resolutions. Its adoption and use are indispensable to maintain those

premises from which his main conclusion is to be afterwards drawn. But

before showing that, allow me to remark, that this phraseology tends to

keep out of sight the just view of a previous political history, as well

as to suggest wrong ideas as to what was actually done when the present

Constitution was agreed to. In 1789, and before this Constitution was

adopted, the United States had already been in a union, more or less

close, for fifteen years. At least as far back as the meeting of the first

Congress, in 1774, they had been in some measure, and for some national

purposes, united together. Before the Confederation of 1781, they had

declared independence jointly, and had carried on the war jointly, both by

sea and land; and this not as separate States, but as one people. When,

therefore, they formed that Confederation, and adopted its articles as

articles of perpetual union, they did not come together for the first

time; and therefore they did not speak of the States as _acceding_ to

the Confederation, although it was a league, and nothing but a league, and

rested on nothing but plighted faith for its performance. Yet, even then,

the States were not strangers to each other; there was a bond of union

already subsisting between them; they were associated, united States; and

the object of the Confederation was to make a stronger and better bond of

union. Their representatives deliberated together on these proposed

Articles of Confederation, and being authorized by their respective

States, finally "_ratified and confirmed_" them. Inasmuch as they

were already in union, they did not speak of _acceding_ to the new

Articles of Confederation, but of _ratifying_ and _confirming_

them; and this language was not used inadvertently, because, in the same

instrument, _accession_ is used in its proper sense, when applied to

Canada, which was altogether a stranger to the existing union. "Canada,"

says the eleventh article, "_acceding_ to this Confederation, and

joining in the measures of the United States, shall be admitted into the

Union."

Having thus used the terms _ratify_ and _confirm_, even in

regard to the old Confederation, it would have been strange indeed, if the

people of the United States, after its formation, and when they came to

establish the present Constitution, had spoken of the States, or the

people of the States, as _acceding_ to this constitution. Such

language would have been ill-suited to the occasion. It would have implied

an existing separation or disunion among the States, such as never has

existed since 1774. No such language, therefore, was used. The language

actually employed is, _adopt, ratify, ordain, establish_.

Therefore, Sir, since any State, before she can prove her right to

dissolve the Union, must show her authority to undo what has been done, no

State is at liberty to _secede_, on the ground that she and other

States have done nothing but _accede_. She must show that she has a

right to _reverse_ what has been _ordained_, to _unsettle_

and _overthrow_ what has been _established_, to _reject_

what the people have _adopted_, and to breakup what have

_ratified_; because these are the terms which express the

transactions which have actually taken place. In other words, she must

show her right to make a revolution.

If, Mr. President, in drawing these resolutions, the honorable member and

confined himself to the use of constitutional language, there would have

been a wide and awful _hiatus_ between his premises and his

conclusion. Leaving out the two words _compact_ and _accession_,

which are not constitutional modes of expression, and stating the matter

precisely as the truth is, his first resolution would have affirmed that

_the people of the several States ratified this Constitution, or form of

government_. These are the very words of South Carolina herself, in her

act of ratification. Let, then, his first resolution tell the exact truth;

let it state the fact precisely as it exists; let it say that the people

of the several States ratified a constitution, or form of government, and

then, Sir, what will become of his inference in his second resolution,

which is in these words, viz. "that, as in all other cases of compact

among sovereign parties, each has an equal right to judge for itself, as

well of the infraction as of the mode and measure of redress"? It is

obvious, is it not, Sir? that this conclusion requires for its support

quite other premises; it requires premises which speak of _accession_

and of _compact_ between sovereign powers; and, without such

premises, it is altogether unmeaning.

Mr. President, if the honorable member will truly state what the people

did in forming this Constitution, and then state what they must do if they

would now undo what they then did, he will unavoidably state a case of

revolution.

Let us see if it be not so. He must state, in the first place, that the

people of the several States adopted and ratified this Constitution, or

form of government; and, in the next place, he must state that they have a

right to undo this; that is to say, that they have a right to discard the

form of government which they have adopted, and to break up the

Constitution which they have ratified. Now, Sir, this is neither more nor

less than saying that they have a right to make a revolution. To reject an

established government, to break up a political constitution, is

revolution.

I deny that any man can state accurately what was done by the people, in

establishing the present Constitution, and then state accurately what the

people, or any part of them, must now do to get rid of its obligations,

without stating an undeniable case of the overthrow of government. I

admit, of course, that the people may, if they choose, overthrow the

government. But, then, that is revolution. The doctrine how contended for

is, that, by _nullification_, or _secession_, the obligations

and authority of the government may be set aside or rejected, without

revolution. But that is what I deny; and what I say is, that no man can

state the case with historical accuracy, and in constitutional language,

without showing that the honorable gentleman's right, as asserted in his

conclusion, is a revolutionary right merely; that it does not and cannot

exist under the Constitution, or agreeably to the Constitution, but can

come into existence only when the Constitution is overthrown. This is the

reason, Sir, which makes it necessary to abandon the use of constitutional

language for a new vocabulary, and to substitute, in the place of plain

historical facts, a series of assumptions. This is the reason why it is

necessary to give new names to things, to speak of the Constitution, not

as a constitution, but as a compact, and of the ratifications by the

people, not as ratifications, but as acts of accession.

Sir, I intend to hold the gentlemen to the written record. In the

discussion of a constitutional question, I intend to impose upon him the

restraints of constitutional language. The people have ordained a

Constitution; can they reject it without revolution? They have established

a form of government; can they overthrow it without revolution? These are

the true questions.

Allow me now, Mr. President, to inquire further into the extent of the

propositions contained in the resolutions, and their necessary

consequences.

Where sovereign communities are parties, there is no essential difference

between a compact, a confederation, and a league. They all equally rest on

the plighted faith of the sovereign party. A league, or confederacy, is

but a subsisting or continuing treaty.

The gentleman's resolutions, then, affirm, in effect, that these twenty-

four United States are held together only by a subsisting treaty, resting

for its fulfilment and continuance on no inherent power of its own, but on

the plighted faith of each State; or, in other words, that our Union is

but a league; and, as a consequence from this proposition, they further

affirm that, as sovereigns are subject to no superior power, the States

must judge, each for itself, of any alleged violation of the league; and

if such violation be supposed to have occurred, each may adopt any mode or

measure of redress which it shall think proper.

Other consequences naturally follow, too, from the main proposition. If a

league between sovereign powers have no limitation as to the time of its

duration, and contain nothing making it perpetual, it subsists only during

the good pleasure of the parties, although no violation be complained of.

If, in the opinion of either party, it be violated, such party may say

that he will no longer fulfil its obligations on his part, but will

consider the whole league or compact at an end, although it might be one

of its stipulations that it should be perpetual. Upon this principle, the

Congress of the United States, in 1798, declared null and void the treaty

of alliance between the United States and France, though it professed to

be a perpetual alliance.

If the violation of the league be accompanied with serious injuries, the

suffering party, being sole judge of his own mode and measure of redress,

has a right to indemnify himself by reprisals on the offending members of

the league; and reprisals, if the circumstances of the case require it,

may be followed by direct, avowed, and public war.

The necessary import of the resolution, therefore, is that the United

States are connected only by a league; that it is in the good pleasure of

every State to decide how long she will choose to remain a member of this

league; that any State may determine the extent of her own obligations

under it, and accept or reject what shall be decided by the whole; that

she may also determine whether her rights have been violated, what is the

extent of the injury done her, and what mode and measure of redress her

wrongs may make it fit and expedient for her to adopt. The result of the

whole is, that any State may secede at pleasure; that any State may resist

a law which she herself may choose to say exceeds the power of Congress;

and that, as a sovereign power, she may redress her own grievances, by her

own arm, at her own discretion. She may make reprisals; she may cruise

against the property of other members of the league; she may authorize

captures, and make open war.

If, Sir, this be our political condition, it is time the people of the

United States understood it. Let us look for a moment to the practical

consequences of these opinions. One State, holding an embargo law

unconstitutional, may declare her opinion, and withdraw from the Union.

_She_ secedes. Another, forming and expressing the same judgment on a

law laying duties on imports, may withdraw also. _She_ secedes. And

as, in her opinion, money has been taken out of the pockets of her

citizens illegally, under pretence of this law, and as she has power to

redress their wrongs, she may demand satisfaction; and, if refused, she

may take it with a strong hand. The gentleman has himself pronounced the

collection of duties, under existing laws, to be nothing but robbery.

Robbers, of course, may be rightfully dispossessed of the fruits of their

flagitious crimes; and therefore, reprisals, impositions on the commerce

of other States, foreign alliances against them, or open war, are all

modes of redress justly open to the discretion and choice of South

Carolina; for she is to judge of her own rights, and to seek satisfaction

for her own wrongs, in her own way.

But, Sir, a _third_ State is of opinion, not only that these laws of

imposts are constitutional, but that it is the absolute duty of Congress

to pass and to maintain such laws; and that, by omitting to pass and

maintain them, its constitutional obligations would be grossly

disregarded. She herself relinquished the power of protection, she might

allege, and allege truly, and gave it up to Congress, on the faith that

Congress would exercise it. If Congress now refuse to exercise it,

Congress does, as she may insist, break the condition of the grant, and

thus manifestly violate the Constitution; and for this violation of the

Constitution, _she_ may threaten to secede also. Virginia may secede,

and hold the fortresses in the Chesapeake. The Western States may secede,

and take to their own use the public lands. Louisiana may secede, if she

choose, form a foreign alliance, and hold the mouth of the Mississippi. If

one State may secede, ten may do so, twenty may do so, twenty-three may do

so. Sir, as these secessions go on, one after another, what is to

constitute the United States? Whose will be the army? Whose the navy? Who

will pay the debts? Who fulfil the public treaties? Who perform the

constitutional guaranties? Who govern this District and the Territories?

Who retain the public property?

Mr. President, every man must see that these are all questions which can

arise only _after a revolution_. They presuppose the breaking up of

the government. While the Constitution lasts, they are repressed; they

spring up to annoy and startle us only from its grave.

The Constitution does not provide for events which must be preceded by its

own destruction. SECESSION, therefore, since it must bring these

consequences with it, is REVOLUTIONARY, and NULLIFICATION is equally

REVOLUTIONARY. What is revolution? Why, Sir, that is revolution which

overturns, or controls, or successfully resists, the existing public

authority; that which arrests the exercise of the supreme power; that

which introduces a new paramount authority into the rule of the State.

Now, Sir, this is the precise object of nullification. It attempts to

supersede the supreme legislative authority. It arrests the arm of the

executive magistrate. It interrupts the exercise of the accustomed

judicial power. Under the name of an ordinance, it declares null and void,

within the State, all the revenue laws of the United States. Is not this

revolutionary? Sir, so soon as this ordinance shall be carried into

effect, a _revolution_ will have commenced in South Carolina. She

will have thrown off the authority to which her citizens have heretofore

been subject. She will have declared her own opinions and her own will to

be above the laws and above the power of those who are intrusted with

their administration. If she makes good these declarations, she is

revolutionized. As to her, it is as distinctly a change of the supreme

power as the American Revolution of 1776. That revolution did not subvert

government in all its forms. It did not subvert local laws and municipal

administrations. It only threw off the dominion of a power claiming to be

superior, and to have a right, in many important respects, to exercise

legislative authority. Thinking this authority to have been usurped or

abused, the American Colonies, now the United States, bade it defiance,

and freed themselves from it by means of a revolution. But that revolution

left them with their own municipal laws still, and the forms of local

government. If Carolina now shall effectually resist the laws of Congress;

if she shall be her own judge, take her remedy into her own hands, obey

the laws of the Union when she pleases and disobey them when she pleases,

she will relieve herself from a paramount power as distinctly as the

American Colonies did the same thing in 1776. In other words, she will

achieve, as to herself, a revolution.

But, Sir, while practical nullification in South Carolina would be, as to

herself, actual and distinct revolution, its necessary tendency must also

be to spread revolution, and to break up the Constitution, as to all the

other States. It strikes a deadly blow at the vital principle of the whole

Union. To allow State resistance to the laws of Congress to be rightful

and proper, to admit nullification in some States, and yet not expect to

see a dismemberment of the entire government, appears to me the wildest

illusion, and the most extravagant folly. The gentleman seems not

conscious of the direction or the rapidity of his own course. The current

of his opinions sweeps him along, he knows not whither. To begin with

nullification, with the avowed intent, nevertheless, not to proceed to

secession, dismemberment, and general revolution, is as if one were to

take the plunge of Niagara, and cry out that he would stop half-way down.

In the one case, as in the other, the rash adventurer must go to the

bottom of the dark abyss below, were it not that that abyss has no

discovered bottom.

Nullification, if successful, arrests the power of the law, absolves

citizens from their duty, subverts the foundation both of protection and

obedience, dispenses with oaths and obligations of allegiance, and

elevates another authority to supreme command. Is not this revolution? And

it raises to supreme command four-and-twenty distinct powers, each

professing to be under a general government, and yet each setting its laws

at defiance at pleasure. Is not this anarchy, as well as revolution? Sir,

the Constitution of the United States was received as a whole, and for the

whole country. If it cannot stand altogether, it cannot stand in parts;

and if the laws cannot be executed everywhere, they cannot long be

executed anywhere. The gentleman very well knows that all duties and

imposts must be uniform throughout the country. He knows that we cannot

have one rule or one law for South Carolina, and another for other States.

He must see, therefore, and does see, and every man sees, that the only

alternative is a repeal of the laws throughout the whole Union, or their

execution in Carolina as well as elsewhere. And this repeal is demanded

because a single State interposes her veto, and threatens resistance! The

result of the gentleman's opinion, or rather the very text of his

doctrine, is, that no act of Congress can bind all the States, the

constitutionality of which is not admitted by all; or, in other words,

that no single State is bound, against its own dissent, by a law of

imposts. This is precisely the evil experienced under the old

Confederation, and for remedy of which this Constitution was adopted. The

leading object in establishing this government, an object forced on the

country by the conditions of the times and the absolute necessity of the

law, was to give to Congress power to lay and collect imposts _without

the consent of particular States_. The Revolutionary debt remained

unpaid; the national treasury was bankrupt; the country was destitute of

credit; Congress issued its requisitions on the States, and the States

neglected them; there was no power of coercion but war, Congress could not

lay imposts, or other taxes, by its own authority; the whole general

government, therefore, was little more than a name. The Articles of

Confederation, as to purposes of revenue and finance, were nearly a dead

letter. The country sought to escape from this condition, at once feeble

and disgraceful, by constituting a government which should have power, of

itself, to lay duties and taxes, and to pay the public debt, and provide

for the general welfare; and to lay these duties and taxes in all the

States, without asking the consent of the State governments. This was the

very power on which the new Constitution was to depend for all its ability

to do good; and without it, it can be no government, now or at any time.

Yet, Sir, it is precisely against this power, so absolutely indispensable

to the very being of the government, that South Carolina directs her

ordinance. She attacks the government in its authority to raise revenue,

the very mainspring of the whole system; and if she succeed, every

movement of that system must inevitably cease. It is of no avail that she

declares that she does not resist the law as a revenue law, but as a law

for protecting manufacturers. It is a revenue law; it is the very law by

force of which the revenue is collected; if it be arrested in any State,

the revenue ceases in that State; it is, in a word, the sole reliance of

the government for the means of maintaining itself and performing its

duties.

Mr. President, the alleged right of a State to decide constitutional

questions for herself necessarily leads to force because other States must

have the same right, and because different States will decide differently;

and when these questions arise between States, if there be no superior

power, they can be decided only by the law of force. On entering into the

Union, the people of each State gave up a part of their own power to make

laws for themselves, in consideration, that, as to common objects, they

should have a part in making laws for other States. In other words, the

people of all the States agreed to create a common government, to be

conducted by common counsels. Pennsylvania, for example, yielded the right

of laying imposts in her own ports, in consideration that the new

government, in which she was to have a share, should possess the power of

laying imposts on all the States. If South Carolina now refuses to submit

to this power, she breaks the condition on which other States entered into

the Union. She partakes of the common counsels, and therein assists to

bind others, while she refuses to be bound herself. It makes no difference

in the case whether she does all this without reason or pretext, or

whether she sets up as a reason, that, in her judgment, the acts

complained of are unconstitutional. In the judgment of other States, they

are not so. It is nothing to them that she offers some reason or some

apology for her conduct, if it be one which they do not admit. It is not

to be expected that any State will violate her duty without some plausible

pretext. That would be too rash a defiance of the opinion of mankind. But

if it be a pretext which lies in her own breast, if it be no more than an

opinion which she says she has formed, how can other States be satisfied

with this? How can they allow her to be judge of her own obligations? Or,

if she may judge of her obligations, may they not judge of their rights

also? May not the twenty-three entertain an opinion as well as the twenty-

fourth? And if it be their right, in their own opinion, as expressed in

the common council, to enforce the law against her, how is she to say that

her right and her opinion are to be every thing, and their right and their

opinion nothing?

Mr. President, if we are to receive the Constitution as the text, and then

to lay down in its margin the contradictory commentaries which have been,

and which may be, made by different States, the whole page would be a

polyglot indeed. It would speak with as many tongues as the builders of

Babel, and in dialects as much confused, and mutually as unintelligible.

The very instance now before us presents a practical illustration. The law

of the last session is declared unconstitutional in South Carolina, and in

obedience to it is refused. In other States, it is admitted to be strictly

constitutional. You walk over the limit of its authority, therefore, when

you pass a State line. On one side it is law, on the other side a nullity;

and yet it is passed by a common government, having the same authority in

all the States.

Such, Sir, are the inevitable results of this doctrine. Beginning with the

original error, that the Constitution of the United States is nothing but

a compact between sovereign States; asserting, in the next step, that each

State has a right to be its own sole judge of the extent of its own

obligations, and consequently of the constitutionality of laws of

Congress; and, in the next, that it may oppose whatever it sees fit to

declare unconstitutional, and that it decides for itself on the mode and

measure of redress,--the argument arrives at once at the conclusion, that

what a State dissents from, it may nullify; what it opposes, it may oppose

by force; what it decides for itself, it may execute by its own power; and

that, in short, it is itself supreme over the legislation of Congress, and

supreme over the decisions of the national judicature; supreme over the

constitution of the country, supreme over the supreme law of the land.

However it seeks to protect itself against these plain inferences, by

saying that an unconstitutional law is no law, and that it only opposes

such laws as are unconstitutional, yet this does not in the slightest

degree vary the result; since it insists on deciding this question for

itself; and, in opposition to reason and argument, in opposition to

practice and experience, in opposition to the judgment of others, having

an equal right to judge, it says, only, "Such is my opinion, and my

opinion shall be my law, and I will support it by my own strong hand. I

denounce the law; I declare it unconstitutional; that is enough; it shall

not be executed. Men in arms are ready to resist its execution. An attempt

to enforce it shall cover the land with blood. Elsewhere it may be

binding; but here it is trampled under foot." This, Sir, is practical

nullification.

And now, Sir, against all these theories and opinions, I maintain,--

1. That the Constitution of the United States is not a league,

confederacy, or compact between the people of the several States in their

sovereign capacities; but a government proper, founded on the adoption of

the people, and creating direct relations between itself and individuals.

2. That no State authority has power to dissolve these relations; that

nothing can dissolve them but revolution; and that, consequently, there

can be no such thing as secession without revolution.

3. That there is a supreme law, consisting of the Constitution of the

United States, and acts of Congress passed in pursuance of it, and

treaties; and that, in cases not capable of assuming the character of a

suit in law or equity, Congress must judge of, and finally interpret, this

supreme law so often as it has occasion to pass acts of legislation; and

in cases capable of assuming, and actually assuming, the character of a

suit, the Supreme Court of the United States is the final interpreter.

4. That an attempt by a State to abrogate, annul, or nullify an act of

Congress, or to arrest its operation within her limits, on the ground

that, in her opinion, such law is unconstitutional, is a direct usurpation

on the just powers of the general government, and on the equal rights of

other States; a plain violation of the Constitution, and a proceeding

essentially revolutionary in its character and tendency.

Whether the Constitution be a compact between States in their sovereign

capacities, is a question which must be mainly argued from what is

contained in the instrument itself. We all agree that it is an instrument

which has been in some way clothed with power. We all admit that it speaks

with authority. The first question then is, What does it say of itself?

What does it purport to be? Does it style itself a league, confederacy, or

compact between sovereign States? It is to be remembered, Sir, that the

Constitution began to speak only after its adoption. Until it was ratified

by nine States, it was but a proposal, the mere draught of an instrument.

It was like a deed drawn, but not executed. The Convention had framed it;

sent it to Congress, then sitting under the Confederation; Congress had

transmitted it to the State legislatures; and by these last it was laid

before conventions of the people in the several States. All this while it

was inoperative paper. It had received no stamp of authority, no sanction;

it spoke no language. But when ratified by the people in their respective

conventions, then it had a voice, and spoke authentically. Every word in

it had then received the sanction of the popular will, and was to be

received as the expression of that will. What the Constitution says of

itself, therefore, is as conclusive as what it says on any other point.

Does it call itself a "compact"? Certainly not. It uses the word

_compact_ but once, and that is when it declares that the States

shall enter into no compact. Does it call itself a "league," a

"confederacy," a "subsisting treaty between the States"? Certainly not.

There is not a particle of such language in all its pages. But it declares

itself a CONSTITUTION. What is a _constitution_? Certainly not a

league, compact, or confederacy, but a _fundamental law_. That

fundamental regulation which determines the manner in which the public

authority is to be executed, is what forms the _constitution_ of a

state. Those primary rules which concern the body itself, and the very

being of the political society, the form of government, and the manner in

which power is to be exercised,--all, in a word, which form together the

_constitution of a state_,--these are the fundamental laws. This,

Sir, is the language of the public writers. But do we need to be informed,

in this country, what a _constitution_ is? Is it not an idea

perfectly familiar, definite, and settled? We are at no loss to understand

what is meant by the constitution of one of the States; and the

Constitution of the United States speaks of itself as being an instrument

of the same nature. It says this _Constitution_ shall be the law of

the land, anything in any State _constitution_ to the contrary

notwithstanding. And it speaks of itself, too, in plain contradistinction

from a confederation; for it says that all debts contracted, and all

engagements entered into, by the United States, shall be as valid under

this _Constitution_ as under the _Confederation_. It does not

say, as valid under this _compact_, or this league, or this

confederation, as under the former confederation, but as valid under this

_Constitution_.

This, then, Sir, is declared to be a _constitution_. A constitution

is the fundamental law of the state; and this is expressly declared to be

the supreme law. It is as if the people had said, "We prescribe this

fundamental law," or "this supreme law," for they do say that they

establish this Constitution, and that it shall be the supreme law. They

say that they _ordain and establish_ it. Now, Sir, what is the common

application of these words? We do not speak of ordaining leagues and

compacts. If this was intended to be a compact or league, and the States

to be parties to it, why was it not so said? Why is there found no one

expression in the whole instrument indicating such intent? The old

Confederation was expressly called a _league_, and into this league

it was declared that the States, as States, severally entered. Why was not

similar language used in the Constitution, if a similar intention had

existed? Why was it not said, "the States enter into this new league,"

"the States form this new confederation," or "the States agree to this new

compact"? Or why was it not said, in the language of the gentleman's

resolution, that the people of the several States acceded to this compact

in their sovereign capacities? What reason is there for supposing that the

framers of the Constitution rejected expressions appropriate to their own

meaning, and adopted others wholly at war with that meaning?

Again, Sir, the Constitution speaks of that political system which is

established as "the government of the United States." Is it not doing

strange violence to language to call a league or a compact between

sovereign powers a _government_? The government of a state is that

organization in which the political power resides. It is the political

being created by the constitution or fundamental law. The broad and clear

difference between a government and a league or compact is, that a

government is a body politic; it has a will of its own; and it possesses

powers and faculties to execute its own purposes. Every compact looks to

some power to enforce its stipulations. Even in a compact between

sovereign communities, there always exists this ultimate reference to a

power to insure its execution; although, in such case, this power is but

the force of one party against the force of another; that is to say, the

power of war. But a _government_ executes its decisions by its own

supreme authority. Its use of force in compelling obedience to its own

enactments is not war. It contemplates no opposing party having a right of

resistance. It rests on its own power to enforce its own will; and when it

ceases to possess this power, it is no longer a government.

Mr. President, I concur so generally to the very able speech of the

gentleman from Virginia near me [1], that it is not without diffidence and

regret that I venture to differ with him on any point. His opinions, Sir,

are redolent of the doctrines of a very distinguished school, for which I

have the highest regard, of whose doctrines I can say, what I can also say

of the gentleman's speech, that, while I concur in the results, I must be

permitted to hesitate about some of the premises. I do not agree that the

Constitution is a compact between States in their sovereign capacities. I

do not agree, that, in strictness of language, it is a compact at all. But

I do agree that it is founded on consent or agreement, or on compact, if

the gentleman prefers that word, and means no more by it than voluntary

consent or agreement. The Constitution, Sir, is not a contract, but the

result of a contract; meaning by contract no more than assent. Founded on

consent, it is a government proper. Adopted by the agreement of the people

of the United States, when adopted, it has become a Constitution. The

people have agreed to make a Constitution; but when made, that

Constitution becomes what its name imports. It is no longer a mere

agreement. Our laws, Sir, have their foundation in the agreement or

consent of the two houses of Congress. We say, habitually, that one house

proposes a bill, and the other agrees to it; but the result of this

agreement is not a compact, but a law. The law, the statute, is not the

agreement, but something created by the agreement; and something which,

when created, has a new character, and acts by its own authority. So the

Constitution of the United States, founded in or on the consent of the

people, may be said to rest on compact or consent; but it is not itself

the compact, but its result. When the people agree to erect a government,

and actually erect it, the thing is done, and the agreement is at an end.

The compact is executed, and the end designed by it attained. Henceforth,

the fruit of the agreement exists, but the agreement itself is merged in

its own accomplishment; since there can be no longer a subsisting

agreement or compact _to form_ a constitution or government, after

that constitution or government has been actually formed and established.

It appears to me, Mr. President, that the plainest account of the

establishment of this government presents the most just and philosophical

view of its foundation. The people of the several States had their

separate State governments; and between the States there also existed a

Confederation. With this condition of things the people were not

satisfied, as the Confederation had been found not to fulfil its intended

objects. It was _proposed_, therefore, to erect a new, common

government, which should possess certain definite powers, such as regarded

the prosperity of the people of all the States, and to be formed upon the

general model of American constitutions. This proposal was assented to,

and an instrument was presented to the people of the several States for

their consideration. They approved it, and agreed to adopt it, as a

Constitution. They executed that agreement; they adopted the Constitution

as a Constitution, and henceforth it must stand as a Constitution until it

shall be altogether destroyed. Now, Sir, is not this the truth of the

whole matter? And is not all that we have heard of compact between

sovereign States the mere effect of a theoretical and artificial mode of

reasoning upon the subject? a mode of reasoning which disregards plain

facts for the sake of hypothesis?

Mr. President, the nature of sovereignty or sovereign power has been

extensively discussed by gentlemen on this occasion, as it generally is

when the origin of our government is debated. But I confess myself not

entirely satisfied with arguments and illustrations drawn from that topic.

The sovereignty of government is an idea belonging to the other side of

the Atlantic. No such thing is known in North America. Our governments are

all limited. In Europe, sovereignty is of feudal origin, and imports no

more than the state of the sovereign. It comprises his rights, duties,

exemptions, prerogatives, and powers. But with us, all power is with the

people. They alone are sovereign; and they erect what governments they

please, and confer on them such powers as they please. None of these

governments is sovereign, in the European sense of the word, all being

restrained by written constitutions. It seems to me, therefore, that we

only perplex ourselves when we attempt to explain the relations existing

between the general government and the several State governments according

to those ideas of sovereignty which prevail under systems essentially

different from our own.

But, Sir, to return to the Constitution itself; let me inquire what it

relies upon for its own continuance and support. I hear it often

suggested, that the States, by refusing to appoint Senators and Electors,

might bring this government to an end. Perhaps that is true; but the same

may be said of the State governments themselves. Suppose the legislature

of a State, having the power to appoint the governor and the judges,

should omit that duty, would not the State government remain unorganized?

No doubt, all elective governments may be broken up by a general

abandonment on the part of those intrusted with political powers of their

appropriate duties. But one popular government has, in this respect, as

much security as another. The maintenance of this Constitution does not

depend on the plighted faith of the States, as States, to support it; and

this again shows that it is not a league. It relies on individual duty and

obligation.

The Constitution of the United States creates direct relations between

this government and individuals. This government may punish individuals

for treason, and all other crimes in the code, when committed against the

United States. It has power also to tax individuals, in any mode and to

any extent; and it possesses the further power of demanding from

individuals military service. Nothing, certainly, can more clearly

distinguish a government from a confederation of states than the

possession of these powers. No closer relations can exist between

individuals and any government.

On the other hand, the government owes high and solemn duties to every

citizen of the country. It is bound to protect him in his most important

rights and interests. It makes war for his protection, and no other

government in the country can make war. It makes peace for his protection,

and no other government can make peace. It maintains armies and navies for

his defence and security, and no other government is allowed to maintain

them. He goes abroad beneath its flag, and carries over all the earth a

national character imparted to him by this government, and which no other

government can impart. In whatever relates to war, to peace, to commerce,

he knows no other government. All these, Sir, are connections as dear and

as sacred as can bind individuals to any government on earth. It is not,

therefore, a compact between States, but a government proper, operating

directly upon individuals, yielding to them protection on the one hand,

and demanding from them obedience on the other.

There is no language in the whole Constitution applicable to a

confederation of States. If the States be parties, as States, what are

their rights, and what their respective covenants and stipulations? And

where are their rights, covenants, and stipulations expressed? The States

engage for nothing, they promise nothing. In the Articles of

Confederation, they did make promises, and did enter into engagements, and

did plight the faith of each State for their fulfilment; but In the

Constitution there is nothing of that kind. The reason is, that, in the

Constitution, it is the _people_ who speak, and not the States. The

people ordain the Constitution, and therein address themselves to the

States, and to the legislatures of the States, in the language of

injunction and prohibition. The Constitution utters its behests in the

name and by authority of the people, and it does not exact from States any

plighted public faith to maintain it. On the contrary, it makes its own

preservation depend on individual duty and individual obligation. Sir, the

States cannot omit to appoint Senators and Electors. It is not a matter

resting in State discretion or State pleasure. The Constitution has taken

better care of its own preservation. It lays its hand on individual

conscience and individual duty. It incapacitates any man to sit in the

legislature of a State who shall not first have taken his solemn oath to

support the Constitution of the United States. From the obligation of this

oath no State power can discharge him. All the members of all the State

legislatures are as religiously bound to support the Constitution of the

United States as they are to support their own State constitution. Nay,

Sir, they are as solemnly sworn to support it as we ourselves are, who are

members of Congress.

No member of a State legislature can refuse to proceed, at the proper

time, to elect Senators to Congress, or to provide for the choice of

Electors of President and Vice-President, any more than the members of

this Senate can refuse, when the appointed day arrives, to meet the

members of the other house, to count the votes for those officers, and

ascertain who are chosen. In both cases, the duty binds, and with equal

strength, the conscience of the individual member, and it is imposed on

all by an oath in the same words. Let it then never be said, Sir, that it

is a matter of discretion with the States whether they will continue the

government, or break it up by refusing to appoint Senators and to elect

Electors. They have no discretion in the matter. The members of their

legislatures cannot avoid doing either, so often as the time arrives,

without a direct violation of their duty and their oaths; such a violation

as would break up any other government.

Looking still further to the provisions of the Constitution itself, in

order to learn its true character, we find its great apparent purpose to

be, to unite the people of all the States under one general government,

for certain definite objects, and, to the extent of this union, to

restrain the separate authority of the States. Congress only can declare

war; therefore, when one State is at war with a foreign nation, all must

be at war. The President and the Senate only can make peace; when peace is

made for one State, therefore, it must be made for all.

Can anything be conceived more preposterous, than that any State should

have power to nullify the proceedings of the general government respecting

peace and war? When war is declared by a law of Congress, can a single

State nullify that law, and remain at peace? And yet she may nullify that

law as well as any other. If the President and Senate make peace, may one

State, nevertheless, continue the war? And yet, if she can nullify a law,

she may quite as well nullify a treaty.

The truth is, Mr. President, and no ingenuity of argument, no subtilty of

distinction can evade it, that, as to certain purposes, the people of the

United States are one people. They are one in making war, and one in

making peace; they are one in regulating commerce, and one in laying

duties of imposts. The very end and purpose of the Constitution was, to

make them one people in these particulars; and it has effectually

accomplished its object. All this is apparent on the face of the

Constitution itself. I have already said, Sir, that to obtain a power of

direct legislation over the people, especially in regard to imposts, was

always prominent as a reason for getting rid of the Confederation, and

forming a new Constitution. Among innumerable proofs of this, before the

assembling of the Convention, allow me to refer only to the report of the

committee of the old Congress, July, 1785.

But, Sir, let us go to the actual formation of the Constitution; let us

open the journal of the Convention itself, and we shall see that the very

first resolution which the Convention adopted was, "That a national

government ought to be established, consisting of a supreme legislature,

judiciary, and executive."

This itself completely negatives all idea of league, and compact, and

confederation. Terms could not be chosen more fit to express an intention

to establish a national government, and to banish for ever all notion of a

compact between sovereign States.

This resolution was adopted on the 30th of May, 1787. Afterwards, the

style was altered, and, instead of being called a national government, it

was called the government of the United States; but the substance of this

resolution was retained, and was at the head of that list of resolutions

which was afterwards sent to the committee who were to frame the

instrument.

It is true, there were gentlemen in the Convention, who were for retaining

the Confederation, and amending its Articles; but the majority was against

this, and was for a national government. Mr. Patterson's propositions,

which were for continuing the Articles of Confederation with additional

powers, were submitted to the Convention on the 15th of June, and referred

to the committee of the whole. The resolutions forming the basis of a

national government, which had once been agreed to in the committee of the

whole, and reported, were recommitted to the same committee, on the same

day. The Convention, then, in committee of the whole, on the 19th of June,

had both these plans before them; that is to say, the plan of a

confederacy, or compact, between States, and the plan of a national

government. Both these plans were considered and debated, and the

committee reported, "That they do not agree to the propositions offered by

the honorable Mr. Patterson, but that they again submit the resolutions

formerly reported." If, Sir, any historical fact in the world be plain and

undeniable, it is that the Convention deliberated on the expediency of

continuing the Confederation, with some amendments, and rejected that

scheme, and adopted the plan of a national government, with a

legislature, an executive, and a judiciary of its own. They were asked to

preserve the league; they rejected the proposition. They were asked to

continue the existing compact between States; they rejected it. They

rejected compact, league, and confederation, and set themselves about

framing the constitution of a national government; and they accomplished

what they undertook.

If men will open their eyes fairly to the lights of history, it is

impossible to be deceived on this point. The great object was to supersede

the Confederation by a regular government; because, under the

Confederation, Congress had power only to make requisitions on States; and

if States declined compliance, as they did, there was no remedy but war

against such delinquent States. It would seem, from Mr. Jefferson's

correspondence, in 1786 and 1787, that he was of opinion that even this

remedy ought to be tried. "There will be no money in the treasury," said

he, "till the confederacy shows its teeth"; and he suggests that a single

frigate would soon levy, on the commerce of a delinquent State, the

deficiency of its contribution. But this would be war; and it was evident

that a confederacy could not long hold together, which should be at war

with its members. The Constitution was adopted to avoid this necessity. It

was adopted that there might be a government which should act directly on

individuals, without borrowing aid from the State governments. This is

clear as light itself on the very face of the provisions of the

Constitution, and its whole history tends to the same conclusion. Its

framers gave this very reason for their work in the most distinct terms.

Allow me to quote but one or two proofs, out of hundreds. That State, so

small in territory, but so distinguished for learning and talent,

Connecticut, had sent to the general Convention, among other members,

Samuel Johnston and Oliver Ellsworth. The Constitution having been framed,

it was submitted to a convention of the people of Connecticut for

ratification on the part of that State; and Mr. Johnston and Mr. Ellsworth

were also members of this convention. On the first day of the debates,

being called on to explain the reasons which led the Convention at

Philadelphia to recommend such a Constitution, after showing the

insufficiency of the existing confederacy, inasmuch as it applied to

States, as States, Mr. Johnston proceeded to say:--

"The Convention saw this imperfection in attempting to legislate for

States in their political capacity, that the coercion of law can be

exercised by nothing but a military force. They have, therefore, gone upon

entirely new ground. They have formed one new nation out of the individual

States. The Constitution vests in the general legislature a power to make

laws in matters of national concern; to appoint judges to decide upon

these laws; and to appoint officers to carry them into execution. This

excludes the idea of an armed force. The power which is to enforce these

laws is to be a legal power, vested in proper magistrates. The force which

is to be employed is the energy of law; and this force is to operate only

upon individuals who fail in their duty to their country. This is the

peculiar glory of the Constitution, that it depends upon the mild and

equal energy of the magistracy for the execution of the laws."

In the further course of the debate, Mr. Ellsworth said:--

"In republics, it is a fundamental principle, that the majority govern,

and that the minority comply with the general voice. How contrary, then,

to republican principles, how humiliating, is our present situation! A

single State can rise up, and put a veto upon the most important public

measures. We have seen this actually take place; a single State has

controlled the general voice of the Union; a minority, a very small

minority, has governed us. So far is this from being consistent with

republican principles, that it is, in effect, the worst species of

monarchy.

"Hence we see how necessary for the Union is a coercive principle. No man

pretends the contrary. We all see and feel this necessity. The only

question is, Shall it be a coercion of law, or a coercion of arms? There

is no other possible alternative. Where will those who oppose a coercion

of law come out? Where will they end? A necessary consequence of their

principles is a war of the States one against another. I am for coercion

by law; that coercion which acts only upon delinquent individuals. This

Constitution does not attempt to coerce sovereign bodies, States, in their

political capacity. No coercion is applicable to such bodies, but that of

an armed force. If we should attempt to execute the laws of the Union by

sending an armed force against a delinquent State, it would involve the

good and bad, the innocent and guilty, in the same calamity. But this

legal coercion singles out the guilty individual, and punishes him for

breaking the laws of the Union."

Indeed, Sir, if we look to all contemporary history, to the numbers of the

Federalist, to the debates in the conventions, to the publications of

friends and foes, they all agree, that a change had been made from a

confederacy of States to a different system; they all agree, that the

Convention had formed a Constitution for a national government. With this

result some were satisfied, and some were dissatisfied; but all admitted

that the thing had been done. In none of these various productions and

publications did any one intimate that the new Constitution was but

another compact between States in their sovereign capacities. I do not

find such an opinion advanced in a single instance. Everywhere, the people

were told that the old Confederation was to be abandoned, and a new system

to be tried; that a proper government was proposed, to be founded in the

name of the people, and to have a regular organization of its own.

Everywhere, the people were told that it was to be a government with

direct powers to make laws over individuals, and to lay taxes and imposts

without the consent of the States. Everywhere, it was understood to be a

popular Constitution. It came to the people for their adoption, and was to

rest on the same deep foundation as the State constitutions themselves.

Its most distinguished advocates, who had been themselves members of the

Convention, declared that the very object of submitting the Constitution

to the people was, to preclude the possibility of its being regarded as a

mere compact. "However gross a heresy," say the writers of the Federalist,

"it may be to maintain that a party to a _compact_ has a right to

revoke that _compact_, the doctrine itself has had respectable

advocates. The possibility of a question of this nature proves the

necessity of laying the foundations of our national government deeper than

in the mere sanction of delegated authority. The fabric of American empire

ought to rest on the solid basis of THE CONSENT OF THE PEOPLE."

Such is the language, Sir, addressed to the people, while they yet had the

Constitution under consideration. The powers conferred on the new

government were perfectly well understood to be conferred, not by any

State, or the people of any State, but by the people of the United States.

Virginia is more explicit, perhaps, in this particular, than any other

State. Her convention, assembled to ratify the Constitution, "in the name

and behalf of the people of Virginia, declare and make known, that the

powers granted under the Constitution, _being derived from the people of

the United States_, may be resumed by them whenever the same shall be

perverted to their injury or oppression."

Is this language which describes the formation of a compact between

States? or language describing the grant of powers to a new government, by

the whole people of the United States?

Among all the other ratifications, there is not one which speaks of the

Constitution as a compact between States. Those of Massachusetts and New

Hampshire express the transaction, in my opinion, with sufficient

accuracy. They recognize the Divine goodness "in affording THE PEOPLE OF

THE UNITED STATES an opportunity of entering into an explicit and solemn

compact with each other _by assenting to and ratifying a new

Constitution_." You will observe, Sir, that it is the PEOPLE, and not

the States, who have entered into this compact; and it is the PEOPLE of

all the United States. These conventions, by this form of expression,

meant merely to say, that the people of the United States had, by the

blessing of Providence, enjoyed the opportunity of establishing a new

Constitution, _founded in the consent of the people_. This consent of

the people has been called, by European writers, the _social

compact_; and, in conformity to this common mode of expression, these

conventions speak of that assent, on which the new Constitution was to

rest, as an explicit and solemn compact, not which the States had entered

into with each other, but which the _people_ of the United States had

entered into.

Finally, Sir, how can any man get over the words of the Constitution

itself?--"WE, THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES, DO ORDAIN AND ESTABLISH

THIS CONSTITUTION." These words must cease to be a part of the

Constitution, they must be obliterated from the parchment on which they

are written, before any human ingenuity or human argument can remove the

popular basis on which that Constitution rests, and turn the instrument

into a mere compact between sovereign States.

The second proposition, Sir, which I propose to maintain, is, that no

State authority can dissolve the relations subsisting between the

government of the United States and individuals; that nothing can dissolve

these relations but revolution; and that, therefore, there can be no such

thing as _secession_ without revolution. All this follows, as it

seems to me, as a just consequence, if it be first proved that the

Constitution of the United States is a government proper, owing protection

to individuals, and entitled to their obedience.

The people, Sir, in every State, live under two governments. They owe

obedience to both. These governments, though distinct, are not adverse.

Each has its separate sphere, and its peculiar powers and duties. It is

not a contest between two sovereigns for the same power, like the wars of

the rival houses of England; nor is it a dispute between a government

_de facto_ and a government _de jure_. It is the case of a

division of powers between two governments, made by the people, to whom

both are responsible. Neither can dispense with the duty which individuals

owe to the other; neither can call itself master of the other; the people

are masters of both. This division of power, it is true, is in a great

measure unknown in Europe. It is the peculiar system of America; and,

though new and singular, it is not incomprehensible. The State

constitutions are established by the people of the States. This

Constitution is established by the people of all the States. How, then,

can a State secede? How can a State undo what the whole people have done?

How can she absolve her citizens from their obedience to the laws of the

United States? How can she annul their obligations and oaths? How can the

members of her legislature renounce their own oaths? Sir, secession, as a

revolutionary right, is intelligible; as a right to be proclaimed in the

midst of civil commotions, and asserted at the head of armies, I can

understand it. But as a practical right, existing under the Constitution,

and in conformity with its provisions, it seems to me to be nothing but a

plain absurdity; for it supposes resistance to government, under the

authority of government itself; it supposes dismemberment, without

violating the principles of union; it supposes opposition to law, without

crime; it supposes the violation of oaths, without responsibility; it

supposes the total overthrow of government, without revolution. The

Constitution, Sir, regards itself as perpetual and immortal. It seeks to

establish a union among the people of the States, which shall last through

all time. Or, if the common fate of things human must be expected at some

period to happen to it, yet that catastrophe is not anticipated.

The instrument contains ample provisions for its amendment, at all times;

none for its abandonment at any time. It declares that new States may come

into the Union, but it does not declare that old States may go out. The

Union is not a temporary partnership of States. It is the association of

the people, under a constitution of government, uniting their power,

joining together their highest interests, cementing their present

enjoyments, and blending, in one indivisible mass, all their hopes for the

future. Whatsoever is steadfast in just political principles; whatsoever

is permanent in the structure of human society; whatsoever there is which

can derive an enduring character from being founded on deep-laid

principles of constitutional liberty and on the broad foundations of the

public will,--all these unite to entitle this instrument to be regarded as

a permanent constitution of government.

In the next place, Mr. President, I contend that there is a supreme law of

the land, consisting of the Constitution, acts of Congress passed in

pursuance of it, and the public treaties. This will not be denied, because

such are the very words of the Constitution. But I contend, further, that

it rightfully belongs to Congress, and to the courts of the United States,

to settle the construction of this supreme law, in doubtful cases. This is

denied; and here arises the great practical question, _Who is to

construe finally the Constitution of the United States_? We all agree

that the Constitution is the supreme law; but who shall interpret that law?

In our system of the division of powers between different governments,

controversies will necessarily sometimes arise, respecting the extent of

the powers of each. Who shall decide these controversies? Does it rest with

the general government, in all or any of its departments, to exercise the

office of final interpreter? Or may each of the States, as well as the

general government, claim this right of ultimate decision? The practical

result of this whole debate turns on this point. The gentleman contends

that each State may judge for itself of any alleged violation of the

Constitution, and may finally decide for itself, and may execute its own

decisions by its own power. All the recent proceedings in South Carolina

are founded on this claim of right. Her convention has pronounced the

revenue laws of the United States unconstitutional; and this decision she

does not allow any authority of the United States to overrule or reverse.

Of course she rejects the authority of Congress, because the very object

of the ordinance is to reverse the decision of Congress; and she rejects,

too, the authority of the courts of the United States, because she

expressly prohibits all appeal to those courts. It is in order to sustain

this asserted right of being her own judge, that she pronounces the

Constitution of the United States to be but a compact, to which she is a

party, and a sovereign party. If this be established, then the inference

is supposed to follow, that, being sovereign, there is no power to control

her decision; and her own judgment on her own compact is, and must be,

conclusive.

I have already endeavored, Sir, to point out the practical consequences of

this doctrine, and to show how utterly inconsistent it is with all ideas

of regular government, and how soon its adoption would involve the whole

country in revolution and absolute anarchy. I hope it is easy now to show,

Sir, that a doctrine bringing such consequences with it is not well

founded; that it has nothing to stand on but theory and assumption; and

that it is refuted by plain and express constitutional provisions. I think

the government of the United States does possess, in its appropriate

departments, the authority of final decision on questions of disputed

power. I think it possesses this authority, both by necessary implication

and by express grant.

It will not be denied, Sir, that this authority naturally belongs to all

governments. They all exercise it from necessity, and as a consequence of

the exercise of other powers. The State governments themselves possess it,

except in that class of questions which may arise between them and the

general government, and in regard to which they have surrendered it, as

well by the nature of the case as by clear constitutional provisions. In

other and ordinary cases, whether a particular law be in conformity to the

constitution of the State is a question which the State legislature or the

State judiciary must determine. We all know that these questions arise

daily in the State governments, and are decided by those governments; and

I know no government which does not exercise a similar power.

Upon general principles, then, the government of the United States

possesses this authority; and this would hardly be denied were it not that

there are other governments. But since there are State governments, and

since these, like other governments, ordinarily construe their own powers,

if the government of the United States construes its own powers also,

which construction is to prevail in the case of opposite constructions?

And again, as in the case now actually before us, the State governments

may undertake, not only to construe their own powers, but to decide

directly on the extent of the powers of Congress. Congress has passed a

law as being within its just powers; South Carolina denies that this law

is within its just powers, and insists that she has the right so to decide

this point, and that her decision is final. How are these questions to be

settled?

In my opinion, Sir, even if the Constitution of the United States had made

no express provision for such cases, it would yet be difficult to

maintain, that, in a Constitution existing over four-and-twenty States,

with equal authority over all, one could claim a right of construing it

for the whole. This would seem a manifest impropriety; indeed, an

absurdity. If the Constitution is a government existing over all the

States, though with limited powers, it necessarily follows, that, to the

extent of those powers, it must be supreme. If it be not superior to the

authority of a particular State, it is not a national government. But as

it is a government, as it has a legislative power of its own, and a

judicial power coextensive with the legislative, the inference is

irresistible that this government, thus created _by_ the whole and

_for_ the whole, must have an authority superior to that of the

particular government of any one part. Congress is the legislature of all

the people of the United States; the judiciary of the general government

is the judiciary of all the people of the United States. To hold,

therefore, that this legislature and this judiciary are subordinate in

authority to the legislature and judiciary of a single State, is doing

violence to all common sense, and overturning all established principles.

Congress must judge of the extent of its own powers so often as it is

called on to exercise them, or it cannot act at all; and it must also act

independent of State control, or it cannot act at all.

The right of State interposition strikes at the very foundation of the

legislative power of Congress. It possesses no effective legislative

power, if such right of State interposition exists; because it can pass no

law not subject to abrogation. It cannot make laws for the Union, if any

part of the Union may pronounce its enactments void and of no effect. Its

forms of legislation would be an idle ceremony, if, after all, any one of

four-and-twenty States might bid defiance to its authority. Without

express provision in the Constitution, therefore, Sir, this whole question

is necessarily decided by those provisions which create a legislative

power and a judicial power. If these exist in a government intended for

the whole, the inevitable consequence is, that the laws of this

legislative power and the decisions of this judicial power must be binding

on and over the whole. No man can form the conception of a government

existing over four-and-twenty States, with a regular legislative and

judicial power, and of the existence at the same time of an authority,

residing elsewhere, to resist, at pleasure or discretion, the enactments

and the decisions of such a government. I maintain, therefore, Sir, that,

from the nature of the case, and as an inference wholly unavoidable, the

acts of Congress and the decisions of the national courts must be of

higher authority than State laws and State decisions. If this be not so,

there is, there can be, no general government.

But, Mr. President, the Constitution has not left this cardinal point

without full and explicit provisions. First, as to the authority of

Congress. Having enumerated the specific powers conferred on Congress, the

Constitution adds, as a distinct and substantive clause, the following,

viz.: "To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying

into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this

Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department

or officer thereof." If this means anything, it means that Congress may

judge of the true extent and just interpretation of the specific powers

granted to it, and may judge also of what is necessary and proper for

executing those powers. If Congress is to judge of what is necessary for

the execution of its powers, it must, of necessity, judge of the extent

and interpretation of those powers.

And in regard, Sir, to the judiciary, the Constitution is still more

express and emphatic. It declares that the judicial power shall extend to

all _cases_ in law or equity arising under the Constitution, laws of

the United States, and treaties; that there shall be _one_ Supreme

Court, and that this Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction of

all these cases, subject to such exceptions as Congress may make. It is

impossible to escape from the generality of these words. If a case arises

under the Constitution, that is, if a case arises depending on the

construction of the Constitution, the judicial power of the United States

extends to it. It reaches _the case, the question_; it attaches the

power of the national judicature to the _case_ itself, in whatever

court it may arise or exist; and in this _case_ the Supreme Court has

appellate jurisdiction over all courts whatever. No language could provide

with more effect and precision than is here done, for subjecting

constitutional questions to the ultimate decision of the Supreme Court.

And, Sir, this is exactly what the Convention found it necessary to

provide for, and intended to provide for. It is, too, exactly what the

people were universally told was done when they adopted the Constitution.

One of the first resolutions adopted by the Convention was in these words,

viz.: "That the jurisdiction of the national judiciary shall extend to

cases which respect _the collection of the national revenue_, and

questions which involve the national peace and harmony." Now, Sir, this

either had no sensible meaning at all, or else it meant that the

jurisdiction of the national judiciary should extend to these questions,

_with a paramount authority_. It is not to be supposed that the

Convention intended that the power of the national judiciary should extend

to these questions, and that the power of the judicatures of the States

should also extend to them, _with equal power of final decision_.

This would be to defeat the whole object of the provision. There were

thirteen judicatures already in existence. The evil complained of, or the

danger to be guarded against, was contradiction and repugnance in the

decisions of these judicatures. If the framers of the Constitution meant

to create a fourteenth, and yet not to give it power to revise and control

the decisions of the existing thirteen, then they only intended to augment

the existing evil and the apprehended danger by increasing still further

the chances of discordant judgments. Why, Sir, has it become a settled

axiom in politics that every government must have a judicial power

coextensive with its legislative power? Certainly, there is only this

reason, namely, that the laws may receive a uniform interpretation and a

uniform execution. This object cannot be otherwise attained. A statute is

what it is judicially interpreted to be; and if it be construed one way in

New Hampshire, and another way in Georgia, there is no uniform law. One

supreme court, with appellate and final jurisdiction, is the natural and

only adequate means, in any government, to secure this uniformity. The

Convention saw all this clearly; and the resolution which I have quoted,

never afterwards rescinded, passed through various modifications, till it

finally received the form which the article now bears in the Constitution.

It is undeniably true, then, that the framers of the Constitution intended

to create a national judicial power, which should be paramount on national

subjects. And after the Constitution was framed, and while the whole

country was engaged in discussing its merits, one of its most

distinguished advocates, Mr. Madison, told the people that it _was true,

that, in controversies relating to the boundary between the two

jurisdictions, the tribunal which is ultimately to decide is to be

established under the general government_. Mr. Martin, who had been a

member of the Convention, asserted the same thing to be the legislature of

Maryland, and urged it as a reason for rejecting the Constitution. Mr.

Pinckney, himself also a leading member of the Convention, declared it to

the people of South Carolina. Everywhere it was admitted, by friends and

foes, that this power was in the Constitution. By some it was thought

dangerous, by most it was thought necessary; but by all it was agreed to

be a power actually contained in the instrument. The Convention saw the

absolute necessity of some control in the national government over State

laws. Different modes of establishing this control were suggested and

considered. At one time, it was proposed that the laws of the States

should, from time to time, be laid before Congress, and that Congress

should possess a negative over them. But this was thought inexpedient and

inadmissible; and in its place, and expressly as a substitute for it, the

existing provision was introduced; that is to say, a provision by which

the federal courts should have authority to overrule such State laws as

might be in manifest contravention of the Constitution. The writers of the

Federalist, in explaining the Constitution, while it was yet pending

before the people, and still unadopted, give this account of the matter in

terms, and assign this reason for the article as it now stands. By this

provision Congress escaped the necessity of any revision of State laws,

left the whole sphere of State legislation quite untouched, and yet

obtained a security against any infringement of the constitutional power

of the general government. Indeed, Sir, allow me to ask again, if the

national judiciary was not to exercise a power of revision on

constitutional questions over the judicatures of the States, why was any

national judicature erected at all? Can any man give a sensible reason for

having a judicial power in this government, unless it be for the sake of

maintaining a uniformity of decision on questions arising under the

Constitution and laws of Congress, and insuring its execution? And does

not this very idea of uniformity necessarily imply that the construction

given by the national courts is to be the prevailing construction? How

else, Sir, is it possible that uniformity can be preserved?

Gentlemen appear to me, Sir, to look at but one side of the question. They

regard only the supposed danger of trusting a government with the

interpretation of its own powers. But will they view the question in its

other aspect? Will they show us how it is possible for a government to get

along with four-and-twenty interpreters of its laws and powers? Gentlemen

argue, too, as if, in these cases, the State would be always right, and

the general government always wrong. But suppose the reverse,--suppose the

State wrong (and, since they differ, some of them must be wrong),--are the

most important and essential operations of the government to be

embarrassed and arrested, because one State holds the contrary opinion?

Mr. President, every argument which refers the constitutionality of acts

of Congress to State decision appeals from the majority to the minority;

it appeals from the common interest to a particular interest; from the

counsels of all to the counsel of one; and endeavors to supersede the

judgment of the whole by the judgment of a part.

I think it is clear, Sir, that the Constitution, by express provision, by

definite and unequivocal words, as well as by necessary implication, has

constituted the Supreme Court of the United States the appellate tribunal

in all cases of a constitutional nature which assume the shape of a suit,

in law or equity. And I think I cannot do better than to leave this part

of the subject by reading the remarks made upon it in the convention of

Connecticut, by Mr. Ellsworth; a gentleman, Sir, who has left behind him,

on the records of the government of his country, proofs of the clearest

intelligence and the deepest sagacity, as well as of the utmost purity and

integrity of character. "This Constitution," says he, "defines the extent

of the powers of the general government. If the general legislature

should, at any time, overleap their limits, the judicial department is a

constitutional check. If the United States go beyond their powers, if they

make a law which the Constitution does not authorize, it is void; and the

judiciary power, the national judges, who, to secure their impartiality,

are to be made independent, will declare it to be void. On the other hand,

if the States go beyond their limits, if they make a law which is a

usurpation upon the general government, the law is void; and upright,

independent judges will declare it to be so." Nor did this remain merely

matter of private opinion. In the very first session of the first

Congress, with all these well-known objects, both of the Convention and

the people, full and fresh in his mind, Mr. Ellsworth, as is generally

understood, reported the bill for the organization of the judicial

department, and in that bill made provision for the exercise of this

appellate power of the Supreme Court, in all the proper cases, in

whatsoever court arising; and this appellate power has now been exercised

for more than forty years, without interruption, and without doubt.

As to the cases, Sir, which do not come before the courts, those political

questions which terminate with the enactments of Congress, it is of

necessity that these should be ultimately decided by Congress itself. Like

other legislatures, it must be trusted with this power. The members of

Congress are chosen by the people, and they are answerable to the people;

like other public agents, they are bound by oath to support the

Constitution. These are the securities that they will not violate their

duty, nor transcend their powers. They are the same securities that

prevail in other popular governments; nor is it easy to see how grants of

power can be more safely guarded, without rendering them nugatory. If the

case cannot come before the courts, and if Congress be not trusted with

its decision, who shall decide it? The gentleman says, each State is to

decide it for herself. If so, then, as I have already urged, what is law

in one State is not law in another. Or, if the resistance of one State

compels an entire repeal of the law, then a minority, and that a small

one, governs the whole country.

Sir, those who espouse the doctrines of nullification reject, as it seems

to me, the first great principle of all republican liberty; that is, that

the majority _must_ govern. In matters of common concern, the

judgment of a majority _must_ stand as the judgment of the whole.

This is a law imposed on us by the absolute necessity of the case; and if

we do not act upon it, there is no possibility of maintaining any

government but despotism. We hear loud and repeated denunciations against

what is called _majority government_. It is declared, with much

warmth, that a majority government cannot be maintained in the United

States. What, then, do gentlemen wish? Do they wish to establish a

_minority_ government? Do they wish to subject the will of the many

to the will of the few? The honorable gentleman from South Carolina has

spoken of absolute majorities and majorities concurrent; language wholly

unknown to our Constitution, and to which it is not easy to affix definite

ideas. As far as I understand it, it would teach us that the absolute

majority may be found in Congress, but the majority concurrent must be

looked for in the States; that is to say, Sir, stripping the matter of

this novelty of phrase, that the dissent of one or more States, as States,

renders void the decision of a majority of Congress, so far as that State

is concerned. And so this doctrine, running but a short career, like other

dogmas of the day, terminates in nullification.

If this vehement invective against _majorities_ meant no more than

that, in the construction of government, it is wise to provide checks and

balances, so that there should be various limitations on the power of the

mere majority, it would only mean what the Constitution of the United

States has already abundantly provided. It is full of such checks and

balances. In its very organization, it adopts a broad and most effective

principle in restraint of the power of mere majorities. A majority of the

people elects the House of Representatives, but it does not elect the

Senate. The Senate is elected by the States, each State having, in this

respect, an equal power. No law, therefore, can pass, without the assent

of the representatives of the people, and a majority of the

representatives of the States also. A majority of the representatives of

the people must concur, and a majority of the States must concur, in every

act of Congress; and the President is elected on a plan compounded of both

these principles. But having composed one house of representatives chosen

by the people in each State, according to their numbers, and the other of

an equal number of members from every State, whether larger or smaller,

the Constitution gives to majorities in these houses thus constituted the

full and entire power of passing laws, subject always to the

constitutional restrictions and to the approval of the President. To

subject them to any other power is clear usurpation. The majority of one

house may be controlled by the majority of the other; and both may be

restrained by the President's negative. These are checks and balances

provided by the Constitution, existing in the government itself, and

wisely intended to secure deliberation and caution in legislative

proceedings. But to resist the will of the majority in both houses, thus

constitutionally exercised; to insist on the lawfulness of interposition

by an extraneous power; to claim the right of defeating the will of

Congress, by setting up against it the will of a single State,--is neither

more nor less, as it strikes me, than a plain attempt to overthrow the

government. The constituted authorities of the United States are no longer

a government, if they be not masters of their own will; they are no longer

a government, if an external power may arrest their proceedings; they are

no longer a government, if acts passed by both houses, and approved by the

President, may be nullified by State vetoes or State ordinances. Does any

one suppose it could make any difference, as to the binding authority of

an act of Congress, and of the duty of a State to respect it, whether it

passed by a mere majority of both houses, or by three fourths of each, or

the unanimous vote of each? Within the limits and restrictions of the

Constitution, the government of the United States, like all other popular

governments, acts by majorities. It can act no otherwise. Whoever,

therefore, denounces the government of majorities, denounces the

government of his own country, and denounces all free governments. And

whoever would restrain these majorities, while acting within their

constitutional limits, by an external power, whatever he may intend,

asserts principles which, if adopted, can lead to nothing else than the

destruction of the government itself.

Does not the gentleman perceive, Sir, how his argument against majorities

might here be retorted upon him? Does he not see how cogently he might be

asked, whether it be the character of nullification to practise what it

preaches? Look to South Carolina, at the present moment. How far are the

rights of minorities there respected? I confess, sir, I have not known, in

peaceable times, the power of the majority carried with a higher hand, or

upheld with more relentless disregard of the rights, feelings, and

principles of the minority;--a minority embracing, as the gentleman

himself will admit, a large portion of the worth and respectability of the

state;--a minority comprehending in its numbers men who have been

associated with him, and with us, in these halls of legislation; men who

have served their country at home and honored it abroad; men who would

cheerfully lay down their lives for their native state, in any cause which

they could regard as the cause of honor and duty; men above fear, and

above reproach, whose deepest grief and distress spring from the

conviction, that the present proceedings of the state must ultimately

reflect discredit upon her. How is this minority, how are these men,

regarded? They are enthralled and disfranchised by ordinances and acts of

legislation; subjected to tests and oaths incompatible, as they

conscientiously think, with oaths already taken, and obligations already

assumed; they are proscribed and denounced as recreants to duty and

patriotism, and slaves to a foreign power. Both the spirit which pursues

them, and the positive measures which emanate from that spirit, are harsh

and proscriptive beyond all precedent within my knowledge, except in

periods of professed revolution.

It is not, sir, one would think, for those who approve these proceedings

to complain of the power of majorities.

Mr. President, all popular governments rest on two principles, or two

assumptions:--

First, That there is so far a common interest among those over whom the

government extends, as that it may provide for the defence, protection,

and good government of the whole, without injustice or oppression to

parts; and

Secondly, That the representatives of the people, and especially the

people themselves, are secure against general corruption, and may be

trusted, therefore, with the exercise of power.

Whoever argues against these principles argues against the practicability

of all free governments. And whoever admits these, must admit, or cannot

deny, that power is as safe in the hands of Congress as in those of other

representative bodies. Congress is not irresponsible. Its members are

agents of the people, elected by them, answerable to them, and liable to

be displaced or superseded, at their pleasure; and they possess as fair a

claim to the confidence of the people, while they continue to deserve it,

as any other public political agents.

If, then, Sir, the manifest intention of the Convention, and the

contemporary admission of both friends and foes, prove anything; if the

plain text of the instrument itself, as well as the necessary implication

from other provisions, prove anything; if the early legislation of

Congress, the course of judicial decisions, acquiesced in by all the

States for forty years, prove any thing,--then it is proved that there is

a supreme law, and a final interpreter.

My fourth and last proposition, Mr. President, was, that any attempt by a

State to abrogate or nullify acts of Congress is a usurpation on the

powers of the general government and on the equal rights of other States,

a violation of the Constitution, and a proceeding essentially

revolutionary. This is undoubtedly true, if the preceding propositions be

regarded as proved. If the government of the United States be trusted with

the duty, in any department, of declaring the extent of its own powers,

then a State ordinance, or act of legislation, authorizing resistance to

an act of Congress, on the alleged ground of its unconstitutionality, is

manifestly a usurpation upon its powers. If the States have equal rights

in matters concerning the whole, then for one State to set up her judgment

against the judgment of the rest, and to insist on executing that judgment

by force, is also a manifest usurpation on the rights of other States. If

the Constitution of the United States be a government proper, with

authority to pass laws, and to give them a uniform interpretation and

execution, then the interposition of a State, to enforce her own

construction, and to resist, as to herself, that law which binds the other

States, is a violation of the Constitution.

If that be revolutionary which arrests the legislative, executive, and

judicial power of government, dispenses with existing oaths and

obligations of obedience, and elevates another power to supreme dominion,

then nullification is revolutionary. Or if that be revolutionary the

natural tendency and practical effect of which are to break the Union into

fragments, to sever all connection among the people of the respective

States, and to prostrate this general government in the dust, then

nullification is revolutionary.

Nullification, Sir, is as distinctly revolutionary as secession; but I

cannot say that the revolution which it seeks is one of so respectable a

character. Secession would, it is true, abandon the Constitution

altogether; but then it would profess to abandon it. Whatever other

inconsistencies it might run into, one, at least, it would avoid. It would

not belong to a government, while it rejected its authority. It would not

repel the burden, and continue to enjoy the benefits. It would not aid in

passing laws which others are to obey, and yet reject their authority as

to itself. It would not undertake to reconcile obedience to public

authority with an asserted right of command over that same authority. It

would not be in the government, and above the government, at the same

time. But though secession may be a more respectable mode of attaining the

object than nullification, it is not more truly revolutionary. Each, and

both, resist the constitutional authorities; each, and both, would sever

the Union and subvert the government.

Mr. President, having detained the Senate so long already, I will not now

examine at length the ordinance and laws of South Carolina. These papers

are well drawn for their purpose. Their authors understood their own

objects. They are called a peaceable remedy, and we have been told that

South Carolina, after all, intends nothing but a lawsuit. A very few

words, Sir, will show the nature of this peaceable remedy, and of the

lawsuit which South Carolina contemplates.

In the first place, the ordinance declares the law of last July, and all

other laws of the United States laying duties, to be absolutely null and

void, and makes it unlawful for the constituted authorities of the United

States to enforce the payment of such duties. It is therefore, Sir, an

indictable offence, at this moment, in South Carolina, for any person to

be concerned in collecting revenue under the laws of the United States. It

being declared, by what is considered a fundamental law of the State,

unlawful to collect these duties, an indictment lies, of course, against

any one concerned in such collection; and he is, on general principles,

liable to be punished by fine and imprisonment. The terms, it is true,

are, that it is unlawful "to enforce the payment of duties"; but every

custom-house officer enforces payment while he detains the goods in order

to obtain such payment. The ordinance, therefore, reaches everybody

concerned in the collection of the duties.

This is the first step in the prosecution of the peaceable remedy. The

second is more decisive. By the act commonly called _replevin_ law,

any person whose goods are seized or detained by the collector for the

payment of duties may sue out a writ of replevin, and, by virtue of that

writ, the goods are to be restored to him. A writ of replevin is a writ

which the sheriff is bound to execute, and for the execution of which he

is bound to employ force, if necessary. He may call out the _posse_,

and must do so, if resistance be made. This _posse_ may be armed or

unarmed. It may come forth with military array, and under the lead of

military men. Whatever number of troops may be assembled in Charleston,

they may be summoned, with the governor, or commander-in-chief, at their

head, to come in aid of the sheriff. It is evident, then, Sir, that the

whole military power of the State is to be employed, if necessary, in

dispossessing the custom-house officers, and in seizing and holding the

goods, without paying the duties. This is the second step in the peaceable

remedy.

Sir, whatever pretences may be set up to the contrary, this is the direct

application of force, and of military force. It is unlawful, in itself, to

replevy goods in the custody of the collectors. But this unlawful act is

to be done, and it is to be done by force. Here is a plain interposition,

by physical force, to resist the laws of the Union. The legal mode of

collecting duties is to detain the goods till such duties are paid or

secured. But force comes, and overpowers the collector and his assistants,

and takes away the goods, leaving the duties unpaid. There cannot be a

clearer case of forcible resistance to law. And it is provided that the

goods thus seized shall be held against any attempt to retake them, by the

same force which seized them.

Having thus dispossessed the officers of the government of the goods,

without payment of duties, and seized and secured them by the strong arm

of the State, only one thing more remains to be done, and that is, to cut

off all possibility of legal redress; and that, too, is accomplished, or

thought to be accomplished. The ordinance declares, _that all judicial

proceedings founded on the revenue laws_ (including, of course,

proceedings in the courts of the United States), _shall be null and

void_. This nullifies the judicial power of the United States. Then

comes the test-oath act. This requires all State judges and jurors in the

State courts to swear that they will execute the ordinance, and all acts

of the legislature passed in pursuance thereof. The ordinance declares,

that no appeal shall be allowed from the decision of the State courts to

the Supreme Court of the United States; and the replevin act makes it an

indictable offence for any clerk to furnish a copy of the record, for the

purpose of such appeal.

The two principal provisions on which South Carolina relies, to resist the

laws of the United States, and nullify the authority of this government,

are, therefore, these:--

1. A forcible seizure of goods, before duties are paid or secured, by the

power of the State, civil and military.

2. The taking away, by the most effectual means in her power, of all legal

redress in the courts of the United States; the confining of judicial

proceedings to her own State tribunals; and the compelling of her judges

and jurors of these her own courts to take an oath, beforehand, that they

will decide all cases according to the ordinance, and the acts passed

under it; that is, that they will decide the cause one way. They do not

swear to _try_ it, on its own merits; they only swear to

_decide_ it as nullification requires.

The character, Sir, of these provisions defies comment. Their object is as

plain as their means are extraordinary. They propose direct resistance, by

the whole power of the State, to laws of Congress, and cut off, by methods

deemed adequate, any redress by legal and judicial authority. They arrest

legislation, defy the executive, and banish the judicial power of this

government. They authorize and command acts to be done, and done by force,

both of numbers and of arms, which, if done, and done by force, are

clearly acts of rebellion and treason.

Such, Sir, are the laws of South Carolina; such, Sir, is the peaceable

remedy of nullification. Has not nullification reached, Sir, even thus

early, that point of direct and forcible resistance to law to which I

intimated, three years ago, it plainly tended?

And now, Mr. President, what is the reason for passing laws like these?

What are the oppressions experienced under the Union, calling for measures

which thus threaten to sever and destroy it? What invasions of public

liberty, what ruin to private happiness, what long list of rights

violated, or wrongs unredressed, is to justify to the country, to

posterity, and to the world, this assault upon the free Constitution of

the United States, this great and glorious work of our fathers? At this

very moment, Sir, the whole land smiles in peace, and rejoices in plenty.

A general and a high prosperity pervades the country; and, judging by the

common standard, by increase of population and wealth, or judging by the

opinions of that portion of her people not embarked in these dangerous and

desperate measures, this prosperity overspreads South Carolina herself.

Thus happy at home, our country, at the same time, holds high the

character of her institutions, her power, her rapid growth, and her future

destiny, in the eyes of all foreign states. One danger only creates

hesitation; one doubt only exists, to darken the otherwise unclouded

brightness of that aspect which she exhibits to the view and to the

admiration of the world. Need I say, that that doubt respects the

permanency of our Union? and need I say, that that doubt is now caused,

more than any thing else, by these very proceedings of South Carolina?

Sir, all Europe is, at this moment, beholding us, and looking for the

issue of this controversy; those who hate free institutions, with

malignant hope; those who love them, with deep anxiety and shivering fear.

The cause, then, Sir, the cause! Let the world know the cause which has

thus induced one State of the Union to bid defiance to the power of the

whole, and openly to talk secession. Sir, the world will scarcely believe

that this whole controversy, and all the desperate measures which its

support requires, have no other foundation than a difference of opinion

upon a provision of the Constitution, between a majority of the people of

South Carolina, on one side, and a vast majority of the whole people of

the United States, on the other. It will not credit the fact, it will not

admit the possibility, that, in an enlightened age, in a free, popular

republic, under a constitution where the people govern, as they must

always govern under such systems, by majorities, at a time of

unprecedented prosperity, without practical oppression, without evils such

as may not only be pretended, but felt and experienced,--evils not slight

or temporary, but deep, permanent, and intolerable,--a single State should

rush into conflict with all the rest, attempt to put down the power of the

Union by her own laws, and to support those laws by her military power,

and thus break up and destroy the world's last hope. And well the world

may be incredulous. We, who see and hear it, can ourselves hardly yet

believe it. Even after all that had preceded it this ordinance struck the

country with amazement. It was incredible and inconceivable that South

Carolina should plunge headlong into resistance to the laws on a matter of

opinion and on a question in which the preponderance of opinion, both of

the present day and of all past time, was so overwhelmingly against her.

The ordinance declares that Congress has exceeded its just power by laying

duties on imports, intended for the protection of manufactures. This is

the opinion of South Carolina; and on the strength of that opinion she

nullifies the laws. Yet has the rest of the country no right to its

opinion also? Is one State to sit sole arbitress? She maintains that those

laws are plain, deliberate, and palpable violations of the Constitution;

that she has a sovereign right to decide this matter; and that, having so

decided, she is authorized to resist their execution by her own sovereign

power; and she declares that she will resist it, though such resistance

should shatter the Union into atoms.

Mr. President, I do not intend to discuss the propriety of these laws at

large; but I will ask, How are they shown to be thus plainly and palpably

unconstitutional? Have they no countenance at all in the Constitution

itself? Are they quite new in the history of the government? Are they a

sudden and violent usurpation on the rights of the States? Sir, what will

the civilized world say, what will posterity say, when they learn that

similar laws have existed from the very foundation of the government, that

for thirty years the power was never questioned, and that no State in the

Union has more freely and unequivocally admitted it than South Carolina

herself?

To lay and collect duties and imposts is an _express power_ granted

by the Constitution to Congress. It is, also, an _exclusive power_;

for the Constitution as expressly prohibits all the States from exercising

it themselves. This express and exclusive power is unlimited in the terms

of the grant, but is attended with two specific restrictions: first, that

all duties and imposts shall be equal in all the States; second, that no

duties shall be laid on exports. The power, then, being granted, and being

attended with these two restrictions, and no more, who is to impose a

third restriction on the general words of the grant? If the power to lay

duties, as known among all other nations, and as known in all our history,

and as it was perfectly understood when the Constitution was adopted,

includes a right of discriminating while exercising the power, and of

laying some duties heavier and some lighter, for the sake of encouraging

our own domestic products, what authority is there for giving to the words

used in the Constitution a new, narrow, and unusual meaning? All the

limitations which the Constitution intended, it has expressed; and what it

has left unrestricted is as much a part of its will as the restraints

which it has imposed.

But these laws, it is said, are unconstitutional on account of the

_motive_. How, Sir, can a law be examined on any such ground? How is

the motive to be ascertained? One house, or one member, may have one

motive; the other house, or another member, another. One motive may

operate to-day, and another to-morrow. Upon any such mode of reasoning as

this, one law might be unconstitutional now, and another law, in exactly

the same words, perfectly constitutional next year. Besides, articles may

not only be taxed for the purpose of protecting home products, but other

articles may be left free, for the same purpose and with the same motive.

A law, therefore, would become unconstitutional from what it omitted, as

well as from what it contained. Mr. President, it is a settled principle,

acknowledged in all legislative halls, recognized before all tribunals,

sanctioned by the general sense and understanding of mankind, that there

can be no inquiry into the motives of those who pass laws, for the purpose

of determining on their validity. If the law be within the fair meaning of

the words in the grant of the power, its authority must be admitted until

it is repealed. This rule, everywhere acknowledged, everywhere admitted,

is so universal and so completely without exception, that even an

allegation of fraud, in the majority of a legislature, is not allowed as a

ground to set aside a law.

But, Sir, is it true that the motive for these laws is such as is stated?

I think not. The great object of all these laws is, unquestionably,

revenue. If there were no occasion for revenue, the laws would not have

been passed; and it is notorious that almost the entire revenue of the

country is derived from them. And as yet we have collected none too much

revenue. The treasury has not been more reduced for many years than it is

at the present moment. All that South Carolina can say is, that, in

passing the laws which she now undertakes to nullify, _particular

imparted articles were taxed, from a regard to the protection of certain

articles of domestic manufacture, higher than they would have been had no

such regard been entertained_. And she insists, that, according to the

Constitution, no such discrimination can be allowed; that duties should be

laid for revenue, and revenue only; and that it is unlawful to have

reference, in any case, to protection. In other words, she denies the

power of DISCRIMINATION. She does not, and cannot, complain of excessive

taxation; on the contrary, she professes to be willing to pay any amount

for revenue, merely as revenue; and up to the present moment there is no

surplus of revenue. Her grievance, then, that plain and palpable violation

of the Constitution which she insists has taken place, is simply the

exercise of the power of DISCRIMINATION. Now, Sir, is the exercise of this

power of discrimination plainly and palpably unconstitutional?

I have already said, the power to lay duties is given by the Constitution

in broad and general terms. There is also conferred on Congress the whole

power of regulating commerce, in another distinct provision. Is it clear

and palpable, Sir, can any man say it is a case beyond doubt, that, under

these two powers, Congress may not justly _discriminate_, in laying

duties, _for the purpose of countervailing the policy of foreign

nations, or of favoring our own home productions?_ Sir, what ought to

conclude this question for ever, as it would seem to me, is, that the

regulation of commerce and the imposition of duties are, in all commercial

nations, powers avowedly and constantly exercised for this very end. That

undeniable truth ought to settle the question; because the Constitution

ought to be considered, when it uses well-known language, as using it in

its well-known sense. But it is equally undeniable, that it has been, from

the very first, fully believed that this power of discrimination was

conferred on Congress; and the Constitution was itself recommended, urged

upon the people, and enthusiastically insisted on in some of the States,

for that very reason. Not that, at that time, the country was extensively

engaged in manufactures, especially of the kinds now existing. But the

trades and crafts of the seaport towns, the business of the artisans and

manual laborers,--those employments, the work in which supplies so great a

portion of the daily wants of all classes,--all these looked to the new

Constitution as a source of relief from the severe distress which followed

the war. It would, Sir, be unpardonable, at so late an hour, to go into

details on this point; but the truth is as I have stated. The papers of

the day, the resolutions of public meetings, the debates in the

conventions, all that we open our eyes upon in the history of the times,

prove it.

Sir, the honorable gentleman from South Carolina has referred to two

incidents connected with the proceedings of the Convention at

Philadelphia, which he thinks are evidence to show that the power of

protecting manufactures by laying duties, and by commercial regulations,

was not intended to be given to Congress. The first is, as he says, that a

power to protect manufactures was expressly proposed, but not granted. I

think, Sir, the gentleman is quite mistaken in relation to this part of

the proceedings of the Convention. The whole history of the occurrence to

which he alludes is simply this. Towards the conclusion of the Convention,

after the provisions of the Constitution had been mainly agreed upon,

after the power to lay duties and the power to regulate commerce had both

been granted, a long list of propositions was made and referred to the

committee, containing various miscellaneous powers, some or all of which

it was thought might be properly vested in Congress. Among these was a

power to establish a university; to grant charters of incorporation; to

regulate stage-coaches on the post-roads; and also the power to which the

gentleman refers, and which is expressed in these words: "To establish

public institutions, rewards, and immunities, for the promotion of

agriculture, commerce, trades, and manufactures." The committee made no

report on this or various other propositions in the same list. But the

only inference from this omission is, that neither the committee nor the

Convention thought it proper to authorize Congress "to establish public

institutions, rewards, and immunities," for the promotion of manufactures,

and other interests. The Convention supposed it had done enough,--at any

rate, it had done all it intended,--when it had given to Congress, in

general terms, the power to lay imposts and the power to regulate trade.

It is not to be argued, from its omission to give more, that it meant to

take back what it had already given. It had given the impost power; it had

given the regulation of trade; and it did not deem it necessary to give

the further and distinct power of establishing public institutions.

The other fact, Sir, on which the gentleman relies, is the declaration of

Mr. Martin to the legislature of Maryland. The gentleman supposes Mr.

Martin to have urged against the Constitution, that it did not contain the

power of protection. But if the gentleman will look again at what Mr.

Martin said, he will find, I think, that what Mr. Martin complained of

was, that the Constitution, by its prohibitions on the States, had taken

away from the States themselves the power of protecting their own

manufactures by duties on imports. This is undoubtedly true; but I find no

expression of Mr. Martin intimating that the Constitution had not

conferred on Congress the same power which it had thus taken from the

States.

But, Sir, let us go to the first Congress; let us look in upon this and

the other house, at the first session of their organization.

We see, in both houses, men distinguished among the framers, friends, and

advocates of the Constitution. We see in both, those who had drawn,

discussed, and matured the instrument in the Convention, explained and

defended it before the people, and were now elected members of Congress,

to put the new government into motion, and to carry the powers of the

Constitution into beneficial execution. At the head of the government was

WASHINGTON himself, who had been President of the Convention; and in his

cabinet were others most thoroughly acquainted with the history of the

Constitution, and distinguished for the part taken in its discussion. If

these persons were not acquainted with the meaning of the Constitution, if

they did not undergo stand the work of their own hands, who can understand

it, or who shall now interpret it to us?

Sir, the volume which records the proceedings and debates of the first

session of the House of Representatives lies before me. I open it, and I

find that, having provided for the administration of the necessary oaths,

the very first measure proposed for consideration is, the laying of

imposts; and in the very first committee of the whole into which the House

of Representatives ever resolved itself, on this its earliest subject, and

in this its very first debate, the duty of so laying the imposts as to

encourage manufactures was advanced and enlarged upon by almost every

speaker, and doubted or denied by none. The first gentleman who suggests

this as the clear duty of Congress, and as an object necessary to be

attended to, is Mr. Fitzsimons, of Pennsylvania; the second, Mr. White, of

Virginia; the third, Mr. Tucker, of South Carolina.

But the great leader, Sir, on this occasion, was Mr. Madison. Was

_he_ likely to know the intentions of the Convention and the people?

Was _he_ likely to understand the Constitution? At the second sitting

of the committee, Mr. Madison explained his own opinions of the duty of

Congress, fully and explicitly. I must not detain you, Sir, with more than

a few short extracts from these opinions, but they are such as are clear,

intelligible, and decisive. "The States," says he, "that are most advanced

in population, and ripe for manufacturers, ought to have their particular

interest attended to, in some degree. While these States retained the

power of making regulations of trade, they had the power to cherish such

institutions. By adopting the present Constitution, they have thrown the

exercise of this power into other hands; they must have done this with an

expectation that those interests would not be neglected here." In another

report of the same speech, Mr. Madison is represented as using still

stronger language; as saying that, the Constitution having taken this

power away from the States and conferred it on Congress, it would be a

_fraud_ on the States and on the people were Congress to refuse to

exercise it.

Mr. Madison argues, Sir, on this early and interesting occasion, very

justly and liberally, in favor of the general principles of unrestricted

commerce. But he argues, also, with equal force and clearness, for certain

important exceptions to these general principles. The first, Sir, respects

those manufactures which had been brought forward under encouragement by

the State governments. "It would be cruel," says Mr. Madison, "to neglect

them, and to divert their industry into other channels; for it is not

possible for the hand of man to shift from one employment to another

without being injured by the change." Again: "There may be some

manufactures which, being once formed, can advance towards perfection

without any adventitious aid; while others, for want of the fostering hand

of government, will be unable to go on at all. Legislative provision,

therefore, will be necessary to collect the proper objects for this

purpose; and this will form another exception to my general principle."

And again: "The next exception that occurs is one on which great stress is

laid by some well-informed men, and this with great plausibility; that

each nation should have, within itself, the means of defence, independent

of foreign supplies; that, in whatever relates to the operations of war,

no State ought to depend upon a precarious supply from any part of the

world. There may be some truth in this remark; and therefore it is proper

for legislative attention."

In the same debate, Sir, Mr. Burk, from South Carolina, supported a duty

on hemp, for the express purpose of encouraging its growth on the strong

lands of South Carolina. "Cotton," he said, "was also in contemplation

among them, and, if good seed could be procured, he hoped might succeed."

Afterwards, Sir, the cotton was obtained, its culture was protected, and

it did succeed. Mr. Smith, a very distinguished member from the same

state, observed: "It has been said, and justly, that the States which

adopted this Constitution expected its administration would be conducted

with a favorable hand. The manufacturing States wished the encouragement

of manufactures, the maritime States the encouragement of shipbuilding,

and the agricultural States the encouragement of agriculture."

Sir, I will detain the Senate by reading no more extracts from these

debates. I have already shown a majority of the members of South Carolina,

in this very first session, acknowledging this power of protection, voting

for its exercise, and proposing its extension to their own products.

Similar propositions came from Virginia; and, indeed, Sir, in the whole

debate, at whatever page you open the volume, you find the power admitted,

and you find it applied to the protection of particular articles, or not

applied, according to the discretion of Congress. No man denied the power,

no man doubted it; the only questions were, in regard to the several

articles proposed to be taxed, whether they were fit subjects for

protection, and what the amount of that protection ought to be. Will

gentlemen, Sir, now answer the argument drawn from these proceedings of

the first Congress? Will they undertake to deny that that Congress did act

on the avowed principle of protection? Or, if they admit it, will they

tell us how those who framed the Constitution fell, thus early, into this

great mistake about its meaning? Will they tell us how it should happen

that they had so soon forgotten their own sentiments and their own

purposes? I confess I have seen no answer to this argument, nor any

respectable attempt to answer it. And, Sir, how did this debate terminate?

What law was passed? There it stands, Sir, among the statutes, the second

law in the book. It has a _preamble_, and that preamble expressly

recites, that the duties which it imposes are laid "for the support of

government, for the discharge of the debts of the United States, and

_the encouragement and protection of manufactures_." Until, Sir, this

early legislation, thus coeval with the Constitution itself, thus full and

explicit, can be explained away, no man can doubt of the meaning of that

instrument in this respect.

Mr. President, this power of _discrimination_, thus admitted, avowed,

and practised upon in the first revenue act, has never been denied or

doubted until within a few years past. It was not at all doubted in 1816,

when it became necessary to adjust the revenue to a state of peace. On the

contrary, the power was then exercised, not without opposition as to its

expediency, but, as far as I remember or have understood, without the

slightest opposition founded on any supposed want of constitutional

authority. Certainly, South Carolina did not doubt it. The tariff of 1816

was introduced, carried through, and established, under the lead of South

Carolina. Even the minimum policy is of South Carolina origin. The

honorable gentleman himself supported, and ably supported, the tariff of

1816. He has informed us, Sir, that his speech on that occasion was sudden

and off-hand, he being called up by the request of a friend. I am sure the

gentleman so remembers it, and that it was so; but there is, nevertheless,

much method, arrangement, and clear exposition in that extempore speech.

It is very able, very, very much to the point, and very decisive. And in

another speech, delivered two months earlier, on the proposition to repeal

the internal taxes, the honorable gentleman had touched the same subject,

and had declared "_that a certain encouragement ought to be extended at

least to our woollen and cotton manufactures_." I do not quote these

speeches, Sir, for the purpose of showing that the honorable gentleman has

changed his opinion: my object is other and higher. I do it for the sake

of saying that that cannot be so plainly and palpably unconstitutional as

to warrant resistance to law, nullification, and revolution, which the

honorable gentleman and his friends have heretofore agreed to and acted

upon without doubt and without hesitation. Sir, it is no answer to say

that the tariff of 1816 was a revenue bill. So are they all revenue bills.

The point is, and the truth is, that the tariff of 1816, like the rest,

_did discriminate_; it did distinguish one article from another; it

did lay duties for protection. Look to the case of coarse cottons under

the minimum calculation: the duty on these was from sixty to eighty per

cent. Something beside revenue, certainly, was intended in this; and, in

fact, the law cut up our whole commerce with India in that article.

It is, Sir, only within a few years that Carolina has denied the

constitutionality of these protective laws. The gentleman himself has

narrated to us the true history of her proceedings on this point. He says,

that, after the passing of the law of 1828, despairing then of being able

to abolish the system of protection, political men went forth among the

people, and set up the doctrine that the system was unconstitutional.

"_And the people_," says the honorable gentleman, "_received the

doctrine_." This, I believe, is true, Sir. The people did then receive

the doctrine; they had never entertained it before. Down to that period,

the constitutionality of these laws had been no more doubted in South

Carolina than elsewhere. And I suspect it is true, Sir, and I deem it a

great misfortune, that, to the present moment, a great portion of the

people of the State have never yet seen more than one side of the

argument. I believe that thousands of honest men are involved in scenes

now passing, led away by one-sided views of the question, and following

their leaders by the impulses of an unlimited confidence. Depend upon it,

Sir, if we can avoid the shock of arms, a day for reconsideration and

reflection will come; truth and reason will act with their accustomed

force, and the public opinion of South Carolina will be restored to its

usual constitutional and patriotic tone.

But, Sir, I hold South Carolina to her ancient, her cool, her

uninfluenced, her deliberate opinions. I hold her to her own admissions,

nay, to her own claims and pretensions, in 1789, in the first Congress,

and to her acknowledgments and avowed sentiments through a long series of

succeeding years. I hold her to the principles on which she led Congress

to act in 1816; or, if she have changed her own opinions, I claim some

respect for those who still retain the same opinions. I say she is

precluded from asserting that doctrines, which she has herself so long and

so ably sustained, are plain, palpable, and dangerous violations of the

Constitution. Mr. President, if the friends of nullification should be

able to propagate their opinions, and give them practical effect, they

would, in my judgment, prove themselves the most skilful "architects of

ruin," the most effectual extinguishers of high-raised expectation, the

greatest blasters of human hopes, that any age has produced. They would

stand up to proclaim, in tones which would pierce the ears of half the

human race, that the last great experiment of representative government

had failed. They would send forth sounds, at the hearing of which the

doctrine of the divine right of kings would feel, even in its grave, a

returning sensation of vitality and resuscitation. Millions of eyes, of

those who now feed their inherent love of liberty on the success of the

American example, would turn away from beholding our dismemberment, and

find no place on earth whereon to rest their gratified sight. Amidst the

incantations and orgies of nullification, secession, disunion, and

revolution, would be celebrated the funeral rites of constitutional and

republican liberty.

But, Sir, if the government do its duty, if it act with firmness and with

moderation, these opinions cannot prevail. Be assured, Sir, be assured,

that, among the political sentiments of this people, the love of union is

still uppermost. They will stand fast by the Constitution, and by those

who defend it. I rely on no temporary expedients, on no political

combination; but I rely on the true American feeling, the genuine

patriotism of the people, and the imperative decision of the public voice.

Disorder and confusion, indeed, may arise; scenes of commotion and contest

are threatened, and perhaps may come. With my whole heart, I pray for the

continuance of the domestic peace and quiet of the country.

I desire, most ardently, the restoration of affection and harmony to all

its parts. I desire that every citizen of the whole country may look to

this government with no other sentiments than those of grateful respect

and attachment. But I cannot yield even to kind feelings the cause of the

Constitution, the true glory of the country, and the great trust which we

hold in our hands for succeeding ages. If the Constitution cannot be

maintained without meeting these scenes of commotion and contest, however

unwelcome, they must come. We cannot, we must not, we dare not, omit to do

that which, in our judgment, the safety of the Union requires. Not

regardless of consequences, we must yet meet consequences; seeing the

hazards which surround the discharge of public duty, it must yet be

discharged. For myself, Sir, I shun no responsibility justly devolving on

me, here or elsewhere, in attempting to maintain the cause. I am bound to

it by indissoluble ties of affection and duty, and I shall cheerfully

partake in its fortunes and its fate. I am ready to perform my own

appropriate part, whenever and wherever the occasion may call on me, and

to take my chance among those upon whom blows may fall first and fall

thickest. I shall exert every faculty I possess in aiding to prevent the

Constitution from being nullified, destroyed, or impaired; and even should

I see it fall, I will still, with a voice feeble, perhaps, but earnest as

ever issued from human lips, and with fidelity and zeal which nothing

shall extinguish, call on the PEOPLE to come to its rescue. [2]

SPEECH AT SARATOGA.

We are, my friends, in the midst of a great movement of the people. That a

revolution in public sentiment on some important questions of public

policy has begun, and is in progress, it is vain to attempt to conceal,

and folly to deny. What will be the extent of this revolution, what its

immediate effects upon political men and political measures, what ultimate

influence it may have on the integrity of the Constitution, and the

permanent prosperity of the country, remains to be seen. Meantime, no one

can deny that an extraordinary excitement exists in the country, such as

has not been witnessed for more than half a century; not local, nor

confined to any two, or three, or ten States, but pervading the whole,

from north to south, and from east to west, with equal force and

intensity. For an effect so general, a cause of equal extent must exist.

No cause, local or partial, can produce consequences so general and

universal. In some parts of the country, indeed, local causes may in some

degree add to the flame; but no local cause, nor any number of local

causes, can account for the generally excited state of the public mind.

In portions of the country devoted to agriculture and manufactures, we

hear complaints of want of market and low prices. Yet there are other

portions of the country, which are consumers, and not producers, of food

and manufactures; and, as purchasers, they should, it would seem, be

satisfied with the low prices of which the sellers complain; but in these

portions, too, of the country, there are dissatisfaction and discontent.

Everywhere we find complaining and a desire for change.

There are those who think that this excitement among the people will prove

transitory and evanescent. I am not of that opinion. So far as I can

judge, attention to public affairs among the people of the United States,

has increased, is increasing, and is not likely to be diminished; and this

not in one part of the country, but all over it. This certainly is the

fact, if we may judge from recent information. The breeze of popular

excitement is blowing everywhere. It fans the air in Alabama and the

Carolinas; and I am of opinion, that, when it shall cross the Potomac, and

range along the Northern Alleghanies, it will grow stronger and stronger,

until, mingling with the gales of the Empire State, and the mountain

blasts of New England, it will blow a perfect hurricane.

There are those, again, who think these vast popular meetings are got up

by effort; but I say that no effort could get them up, and no effort can

keep them down. There must, then, be some general cause that animates the

whole country. What is that cause? It is upon this point I propose to give

my opinion to-day. I have no design to offend the feelings of any, but I

mean in perfect plainness to express my views to the vast multitude

assembled around. I know there are among them many who from first to last

supported General Jackson. I know there are many who, if conscience and

patriotism permitted, would support his successor; and I should ill repay

the attention with which they may honor me by any reviling or

denunciation. Again, I come to play no part of oratory before you. If

there have been times and occasions in my life when I might be supposed

anxious to exhibit myself in such a light, that period has passed, and

this is not one of the occasions. I come to dictate and prescribe to no

man. If my experience, not now short, in the affairs of government,

entitle my opinions to any respect, those opinions are at the service of

my fellow-citizens. What I shall state as facts, I hold myself and my

character responsible for; what I shall state as opinions, all are alike

at liberty to reject or to receive. I ask such consideration for them only

as the fairness and sincerity with which they are uttered may claim.

What, then, has excited the whole land, from Maine to Georgia, and gives

us assurance, that, while we are meeting here in New York in such vast

numbers, other like meetings are holding throughout all the States? That

this cause must be general is certain, for it agitates the whole country,

and not parts only.

When that fluid in the human system indispensable to life becomes

disordered, corrupted, or obstructed in its circulation, not the head or

the heart alone suffers; but the whole body--head, heart, and hand, all

the members, and all the extremities--is affected with debility,

paralysis, numbness, and death. The analogy between the human system and

the social and political system is complete; and what the lifeblood is to

the former, circulation, money, currency, is to the latter; and if that be

disordered or corrupted, paralysis must fall on the system.

The original, leading, main cause, then, of all our difficulties and

disasters, is the disordered state of the circulation. This is, perhaps,

not a perfectly obvious truth; and yet it is one susceptible of easy

demonstration. In order to explain this the more readily, I wish to bring

your minds to the consideration of the internal condition, and the vast

domestic trade, of the United States. Our country is not a small province

or canton, but an empire, extending over a large and diversified surface,

with a population of various conditions and pursuits. It is in this

variety that consists its prosperity; for the different parts become

useful one to the other, not by identity, but by difference, of

production, and thus each by interchange contributes to the interest of

the other. Hence, our internal trade, that which carries on this exchange

of the products and industry of the different portions of the United

States, is one of our most important interests, I had almost said the most

important. Its operations are easy and silent, not always perceptible, but

diffusing health and life throughout the system by the intercourse thus

promoted, from neighborhood to neighborhood, and from State to State.

This circuit of trade, in a country of such great extent as ours, demands,

more than in any country under heaven, a uniform currency for the whole

people; that what is money in Carolina shall be so elsewhere; that what

the Kentucky drover receives, what the planter of Alabama sells for, what

the laborer in New York gets in pay for his work, and carries home to

support his family, shall be of ascertained and uniform value.

This is not the time nor the occasion for an essay or dissertation on

money; but I mean distinctly to express the opinion, that until the

general government shall take in hand the currency of the country, until

that government shall devise some means, I say not what, of raising the

whole currency to the level of gold and silver, there can be no

prosperity.

Let us retrace briefly the history of the currency question in this

country, a most important branch of the commercial question. I appeal to

all who have studied the history of the times, and of the Constitution,

whether our fathers, in framing the Constitution which should unite us in

common rights and a common glory, had not also among their chief objects

to provide a uniform system of commerce, including a uniform system of

currency for the whole country. I especially invite the ingenuous youth of

the country to go back to the history of those times, and particularly to

the Virginia resolutions of 1786, and to the proceedings of the convention

at Annapolis, and they will there find that the prevailing motive for

forming a general government was, to secure a uniform system of commerce,

of customhouse duties, and a general regulation of the trade, external and

internal, of the whole country. It was no longer to be the commerce of New

York, or of Massachusetts, but of the United States, to be carried on

under that star-spangled banner, which was to bear to every shore, and

over every sea, the glorious motto, _E Pluribus Unum_.

At the second session, of the first Congress, the United States Bank was

established. From the incorporation of the bank to the expiration of its

charter,[1] embracing a period of great commercial and political

vicissitudes, the currency furnished by that bank was never objected to:

it, indeed, surpassed the hopes and equalled the desires of everybody.

Of the hundreds here, possibly, who supported General Jackson, not one

dreamed that he was elected to put down established institutions and

overthrow the currency of the country. Who, among all those that, in the

honest convictions of their hearts, cried, Hurrah for Jackson! believed or

expected or desired that he would interfere with the Bank of the United

States, or destroy the circulating medium of the country? [Here there

arose a cry from the crowd, "None! None!"] I stand here upon the fact, and

defy contradiction from any quarter, that there was no complaint then,

anywhere, of the bank. There never before was a country, of equal extent,

where exchanges and circulation were carried on so cheaply, so

conveniently, and so securely. General Jackson was inaugurated in March,

1829, and pronounced an address upon that occasion, which I heard, as I

did the oath which he took to support the Constitution. In that address

were enumerated various objects, requiring, as he said, reform; but among

them was not the Bank of the United States, nor the currency. This was in

March, 1829. In December, 1829, General Jackson came out with the

declaration (than which none I have ever heard surprised me more), that

"the constitutionality of the Bank of the United States might be well

questioned," and that it had failed to furnish a sound and uniform

currency to the country.

What produced this change of views? Down to March of the same year,

nothing of this sort was indicated or threatened. What, then, induced the

change? [A voice from the crowd said, "Martin Van Buren."] If that be so,

it was the production of mighty consequences by a cause not at all

proportioned. I will state, in connection with, and in elucidation of,

this subject, certain transactions, which constitute one of those

contingencies in human affairs, in which casual circumstances, acting upon

the peculiar temper and character of a man of very decided temper and

character, affect the fate of nations. A movement was made in the summer

of 1829, for the purpose of effecting a change of certain officers of the

branch of the Bank of the United States in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Mr.

Woodbury, then a Senator from New Hampshire, transmitted to the president

of the bank at Philadelphia a request; purporting to proceed from

merchants and men of business of all parties, asking the removal of the

president of that branch, _not on political grounds_, but as

acceptable and advantageous to the business community. At the same time,

Mr. Woodbury addressed a letter to the then Secretary of the Treasury, Mr.

Ingham, suggesting that his department should, on _political

grounds_, obtain from the mother bank the removal of the branch

president. This letter was transmitted to the president of the mother

bank, and reached him about the same time with the other, so that, looking

upon this picture and upon that, upon one letter, which urged the removal

on political grounds, and upon the other, which denied that political

considerations entered into the matter at all, he concluded to let things

remain as they were. Appeals were then artfully made to the President of

the United States. His feelings were enlisted, and it is well known that,

when he had an object in view, his character was to go ahead.[2] I mean to

speak no evil nor disrespect of General Jackson. He has passed off the

stage to his retirement at the Hermitage, which it would be as well,

perhaps, that friends should not disturb, and where I sincerely wish he

may, in tranquillity, pass the residue of his days. But General Jackson's

character was imperious; he took the back track never; and however his

friends might differ, or whether they concurred or dissented, they were

fain always to submit. General Jackson put forth the pretension, that

appointments by the bank should have regard to the wishes of the treasury;

the matter was formally submitted to the directors of the bank, and they

as formally determined that the treasury could not rightly or properly

have any thing to say in the matter. A long and somewhat angry

correspondence ensued; for General Jackson found in the president of the

bank a man who had something of his own quality. The result was that the

bank resisted, and refused the required acquiescence in the dictation of

the treasury.

This happened in the summer and autumn of 1829, and in December we had the

message in which, for the first time, the bank was arraigned and

denounced. Then came the application of the bank for re-incorporation, the

passage of a bill for that purpose through both houses, and the

Presidential veto.[3] The Bank of the United States being thus put down, a

multitude of new State banks sprang up; and next came a law, adopting some

of these as deposit banks. Now, what I have to say in regard to General

Jackson in this matter is this: he said he could establish a better

currency; and, whether successful or not in this, it is at least to be

said in his favor and praise, that he never did renounce the obligation of

the federal government to take care of the currency, paper as well as

metallic, of the people. It was in furtherance of this duty, which he felt

called on to discharge, of "providing a better currency," that he

recommended the prohibition of small bills. Why? Because, as it was

argued, it would improve the general mixed currency of the country; and

although he did not as distinctly as Mr. Madison admit and urge the duty

of the federal government to provide a currency for the people, _he

never renounced it_, but, on the contrary, in his message of December,

1835, held this explicit language:--

"By the use of the State banks, which do not derive their charters from

the general government, and are not controlled by its authority, it is

ascertained that the moneys of the United States can be collected and

distributed without loss or inconvenience, and that all the wants of the

community, in relation to exchange and currency, are supplied as well as

they have ever been before."

It is not here a question whether these banks did, or did not, effect the

purpose which General Jackson takes so much praise to himself for

accomplishing through their agency, that of supplying the country with as

good a currency as it ever enjoyed. But why, if this was not a duty of the

federal government, is it mentioned at all?

Two months only after General Jackson had retired, and when his vigorous

hand was no longer there to uphold it, the league of State banks fell, and

crumbled into atoms; and when Mr. Van Buren had been only three months

President, he convoked a special session of Congress for the ensuing

September. The country was in wide-spread confusion, paralyzed in its

commerce, its currency utterly deranged.[4] What was to be done? What

would Mr. Van Buren recommend? He could not go back to the Bank of the

United States, for he had committed himself against its constitutionality;

nor could he, with any great prospect of success, undertake to reconstruct

the league of deposit banks; for it had recently failed, and the country

had lost confidence in it. What, then, was to be done? He could go neither

backward nor forward. What did he do? I mean not to speak disrespectfully,

but I say he--_escaped!_ Afraid to touch the fragments of the broken

banks, unable to touch the United States Bank, he folded up his arms, and

said, The government has nothing to do with providing a currency for the

people. That I may do him no wrong, I will read his own language. His

predecessors had all said, We _will not_ turn our backs upon this

duty of government to provide a uniform currency; his language is, We

_will_ turn our backs on this duty. He proposes nothing for the

country, nothing for the relief of commerce, or the regulation of

exchanges, but simply the means of getting money into the treasury without

loss. In his first message to Congress, he thus expresses himself:--

"It is not the province of our government to aid individuals in the

transfer of their funds, otherwise than through the facilities of the

Post-Office Department. As justly might it be called on to provide for the

transportation of their merchandise.

"If, therefore, I refrain from suggesting to Congress any specific plan

for regulating the exchanges or the currency, relieving mercantile

embarrassments, or interfering with the ordinary operations of foreign or

domestic commerce, it is from a conviction that such are not within the

constitutional province of the general government, and that their adoption

would not promote the real and permanent welfare of those they might be

designed to aid."

I put it to you, my friends, if this is a statesman's argument. You can

transport your merchandise yourselves; you can build ships, and make your

own wagons; but can you make a currency? Can you say what shall be money,

and what shall not be money, and determine its value here and elsewhere?

Why, it would be as reasonable to say, that the people make war for

themselves, and peace for themselves, as to say that they may exercise

this other not less exclusive attribute of sovereignty, of making a

currency for themselves. He insists that Congress has no power to regulate

currency or exchanges, none to mitigate the embarrassments of the country,

none to relieve its prostrate industry, and even if the power did exist,

it would be unwise, in his opinion, to exercise it!

Let us compare this declaration with that of one now numbered with the

mighty dead; of one who has left behind a reputation excelled by that of

no other man, as understanding thoroughly the Constitution; of one taking

a leading part in its inception, and closing his public career by

administering its highest office; I need not name JAMES MADISON.[5]

In his message to Congress, in December, 1815, when the war had closed,

and the country was laboring under the disordered currency of that period,

the President thus spoke:--

"It is essential to every modification of the finances, that the benefits

of a uniform national currency should be restored to the community. The

absence of the precious metals will, it is believed, be a temporary evil;

but until they can again be rendered the general medium of exchange, it

devolves on the wisdom of Congress to provide a substitute, which shall

equally engage the confidence and accommodate the wants of the citizens

throughout the Union."

The new doctrine which the administration had set up is one vitally

affecting the business and pursuits of the people at large, extending its

efforts to the interests of every family, and of every individual; and you

must determine for yourselves if it shall be the doctrine of the country.

But, before determining, look well at the Constitution, weigh all the

precedents, and if names and authority are to be appealed to, contrast

those of President Van Buren with those of the dead patriarch whose words

I have just read to you, and decide accordingly.

But Mr. Van Buren's message contains a principle,--one altogether

erroneous as a doctrine, and fatal in its operations,--the principle that

the government has nothing to do with providing a currency for the

country; in other words, proposing a separation between the money of the

government and the money of the people. This is the great error, which

cannot be compromised with, which is susceptible of no amelioration or

modification, like a disease which admits no remedy and no palliative but

the caustic which shall totally eradicate it.

Do we not know that there must always be bank paper? Is there a man here

who expects that he, or his children, or his children's children, shall

see the day when only gold coin, glittering through silk purses, will be

the currency of the country, to the entire exclusion of bank notes? Not

one. But we are told that the value of these notes is questionable. It is

the neglect of government to perform its duties that makes them so. You

here, in New York, have sound bank paper, redeemable in coin; and if you

were surrounded by a Chinese wall, it might be indifferent to you whether

government looked after the currency elsewhere or not. But you have daily

business relations with Pennsylvania, and with the West, and East, and

South, and you have a direct interest that their currency too shall be

sound; for otherwise the very superiority of yours is, to a certain

degree, an injury and loss to you, since you pay in the equivalent of

specie for what you buy, and you sell for such money as may circulate in

the States with which you deal. But New York cannot affect the general

restoration of the currency, nor any one State, nor any number of States

short of the whole, and hence the duty of the general government to

superintend this interest.

But what does the sub-treasury propose? [6] Its basis is a separation of

the concerns of the treasury from those of the people. It directs that

there shall be certain vaults, and safes, and rooms for deposit of the

money of the government. But it has not been for want of adequate vaults

and rooms that we have lost our money, but owing to the hands to which we

have intrusted the keys. It is in the character of the officers, and not

in the strength of bars and vaults, that we must look for the security of

the public treasure. There are no securities under this new system of

keeping the public moneys that we had not before; while many that did

exist, in the personal character, high trusts, and diversified duties of

the officers and directors of banks are removed. Moreover, the number of

receiving and disbursing officers is increased, and the danger to the

public treasure is increased in proportion. The next provision is, that

money once received into the treasury is not to be lent out. Yet the

practice of this government hitherto has always been opposed to this

policy of locking up the money of the people, when and while it is not

required for the public service. Until this time the public deposits, like

private deposits, were used by the banks in which they were placed, as

some compensation for the trouble of safe-keeping, and in furtherance of

the general convenience. The next provision is that requiring, after 1843,

all dues to the government to be paid in gold and silver. But what are we

promised as the equivalent for all this inconvenience and oppression? Why,

that the government in its turn will pay its debts in specie, and that

thus what it receives with one hand it will pay out with the other, and a

metallic circulation will be established. I undertake to say, that no

greater fallacy than this was ever uttered; the thing is impossible, and

for this plain reason. The dues which the government collects come from

individuals; each pays for himself. But it is far otherwise with the

disbursements of government. They do not go down to individuals, and,

seeking out the workmen and the laborers, pay to each his dues. Government

pays in large sums, to large contractors, and to these it may pay gold and

silver. But do the gold and silver reach those whom the contractor

employs? On the contrary, the contractors deal as they see fit, with those

whom they employ, or of whom they purchase. I speak of what is in proof. A

contractor came to Washington last winter, and received a draft of

$180,000 on a specie-paying bank in New York. This he sold at ten per cent

premium, and with the avails purchased funds in the West, with which he

paid the producer, the farmer, the laborer. This is the operation of

specie payments. It gives to the government hard money, to the rich

contractor hard money; but to the producer and the laborer it gives paper,

and bad paper only. And yet this system is recommended as specially

favoring the poor man, rather than the rich, and credit is claimed for

this administration as the poor man's friend.

Let us look a little more nearly at this matter, and see whom, in truth,

it does favor. Who are the rich in this country? There is very little

hereditary wealth among us; and large capitalists are not numerous. But

some there are, nevertheless, who live upon the interest of their money;

and these, certainly, do not suffer by this new doctrine; for their

revenues are increased in amount, while the means of living are reduced in

value. There is the money-lender, too, who suffers not by the reduction of

prices all around him. Who else are the rich in this country? Why, the

holders of office. He who has a fixed salary of from $2,500 to $5,000

finds prices falling; but does his salary fall? On the contrary, three

fourths of that salary will now purchase more than the whole of it would

purchase before; and he, therefore, is not dissatisfied with this new

state of things.

I live on the sea-coast of New England, and one of my nearest neighbors is

the largest ship-owner, probably, in the United States. During the past

year, he has made what might suffice for two or three fortunes of moderate

size; and how has he made it? He sends his ships to Alabama, Louisiana,

Mississippi, to take freights of cotton. This staple, whatever may be the

price abroad, cannot be suffered to rot at home; and therefore it is

shipped. My friend tells his captain to provision his ship at Natchez, for

instance, where he buys flour and stores in the currency of that region,

which is so depreciated that he is able to sell his bills on Boston at

forty-eight per cent premium! Here, at once, it will be seen, he gets his

provisions for half price, because prices do not always rise suddenly, as

money depreciates. He delivers his freight in Europe, and gets paid for it

in good money. The disordered currency of the country to which he belongs

does not follow and afflict him abroad. He gets his freight in good money,

places it in the hands of his owner's banker, who again draws at a premium

for it. The ship-owner, then, makes money, when all others are suffering,

_because he can escape from the influence of the bad laws and bad

currency of his own country_.

Now, I will contrast the story of this neighbor with that of another of my

neighbors, not rich. He is a New England mechanic, hard-working, sober,

and intelligent, a tool-maker by trade, who wields his own sledge-hammer.

His particular business is the making of augers for the South and

Southwest. He has for years employed many hands, and been the support

thereby of many families around him, himself, meanwhile, moderately

prosperous until these evil times came on. Annually, however, for some

years, he has been going backwards. Not less industrious, not less frugal,

he has yet found, that, however good nominally the prices he might receive

at the South and Southwest for his tools, the cost of converting his

Southern or Western funds into money current in New England was ruinous.

He has persevered, however, always hoping for some change for the better,

and contracting gradually the circle of his work and the number of his

workmen, until at length, the little earnings of the past wasted, and the

condition of the currency becoming worse and worse, he is reduced to

bankruptcy; and he, and the twenty families that he supported, are

beggared by no fault of their own. What was his difficulty? He _could

not escape_ from the evils of bad laws and bad currency at home; and

while his rich neighbor, who could and did, is made richer by these very

causes, he, the honest and industrious mechanic, is crushed to the earth;

and yet we are told that this is a system for promoting the interests of

the poor!

This leads me naturally to the great subject of _American labor_,

which has hardly been considered or discussed as carefully as it deserves.

What is _American labor_? It is best described by saying, _it is

not_ European labor. Nine tenths of the whole labor of this country is

performed by those who cultivate the land they or their fathers own, or

who, in their workshops, employ some little capital of their own, and mix

it up with their manual toil. No such thing exists in other countries.

Look at the different departments of industry, whether agricultural,

manufacturing, or mechanical, and you will find that, in almost all, the

laborers mix up some little capital with the work of their hands. The

laborer of the United States is the United States. Strike out the laborers

of the United States, including therein all who in some way or other

belong to the industrious and working classes, and you reduce the

population of the United States from sixteen millions to one million. The

American laborer is expected to have a comfortable home, decent though

frugal living, and to be able to clothe and educate his children, to

qualify them to take part, as all are called to do, in the political

affairs and government of their country. Can this be said of any European

laborer? Does he take any share in the government of his country, or feel

it an obligation to educate his children? In most parts of Europe, nine

tenths of the laborers have no interest in the soil they cultivate, nor in

the fabrics they produce; no hope, under any circumstances, of rising

themselves, or of raising their children, above the condition of a day-

laborer at wages; and only know the government under which they live by

the sense of its burdens, which they have no voice in mitigating.

To compare such a state of labor with the labor of this country, or to

reason from that to ours, is preposterous. And yet the doctrine now is,

not of individuals only, but of the administration, that the wages of

American labor must be brought down to the level of those of Europe.

I have said this is not the doctrine of a few individuals; and on that

head I think injustice has been done to a Senator from Pennsylvania, who

has been made to bear a large share of the responsibility of suggesting

such a policy. If I mistake not, the same idea is thrown out in the

President's message at the commencement of the last session, and in the

treasury report. Hear what Mr. Woodbury says:--

"Should the States not speedily suspend more of their undertakings which

are unproductive, but, by new loans or otherwise, find means to employ

armies of laborers in consuming rather than raising crops, and should

prices thus continue in many cases to be unnaturally inflated, as they

have been of late years, in the face of a contracting currency, the effect

of it on our finances would be still more to lessen exports, and,

consequently, the prosperity and revenue of our foreign trade."

He is for turning off from the public works these "armies of laborers,"

who consume without producing crops, and thus bring down prices, both of

crops and labor. Diminish the mouths that consume, and multiply the arms

that produce, and you have the treasury prescription for mitigating

distress and raising prices! How would that operate in this great State?

You have, perhaps, some fifteen thousand men employed on your public

works, works of the kind that the Secretary calls "unproductive"; and,

even with such a demand as they must produce for provisions, prices are

very low. The Secretary's remedy is to set them to raise provisions

themselves, and thus augment the supply, while they diminish the demand.

In this way, the wages of labor are to be reduced, as well as the prices

of agricultural productions. But this is not all. I have in my hand an

extract from a speech in the House of Representatives of a zealous

supporter, as it appears, of the administration, who maintains that, other

things being reduced in proportion, you may reduce the wages of labor,

without evil consequences. And where does he seek this example? On the

shores of the Mediterranean. He fixes upon Corsica and Sardinia. But what

is the Corsican laborer, that he should be the model upon which American

labor is to be formed? Does he know any thing himself? Has he any

education, or does he give any to his children? Has he a home, a freehold,

and the comforts of life around him? No: with a crust of bread and a

handful of olives, his daily wants are satisfied. And yet, from such a

state of society, the laborer of New England, the laborer of the United

States, is to be taught submission to low wages. The extract before me

states that the wages of Corsica are,

"For the male laborer, 24 cents a day;

And the female do. 11 cents do.";--

both, I presume, finding their own food. And the honorable gentleman

argues, that, owing to the greater cheapness of other articles, this is

relatively as much as the American laborer gets; and he illustrates the

fact by this bill of clothing for a Corsican laborer:--

"Jacket, lasting 24 months, 8 francs;

Cap, do. 24 do. 2 do.

Waistcoat, do. 36 do. 4 do.

Pantaloons, do. 18 do. 5 do.

Shirt, do. 12 do. 3 do.

Pair of shoes, do. 6 do. 6 do.

---

28 francs."

Eight francs are equal to one dollar and sixty cents, and five francs to

one dollar. Now, what say you, my friends? What will the farmer of New

York, of Pennsylvania, or of New England say to the idea of walking on

Sunday to church, at the head of his family, in his jacket _two years

old?_ What will the young man say, when, his work ended, he desires to

visit the families of his neighbors, to the one pair of pantaloons, not

quite two years old, indeed, but, as the farmers say of a colt, "coming

two next grass," and which, for eighteen months, have every day done

yeoman's service? Away with it all! Away with this plan of humbling and

degrading the free, intelligent, well-educated, and well-paid laborer of

the United States to the level of the almost brute laborer of Europe!

There is not much danger that schemes and doctrines such as these shall

find favor with the people. They understand their own interest too well

for that. Gentlemen, I am a farmer, on the sea-shore, [7] and have, of

course, occasion to employ some degree of agricultural labor. I am

sometimes also rowed out to sea, being, like other New England men, fond

of occasionally catching a fish, and finding health and recreation, in

warm weather, from the air of the ocean. For the few months during which I

am able to enjoy this retreat from labor, public or professional, I do not

often trouble my neighbors, or they me, with conversation on politics. It

happened, however, about three weeks ago, that, on such an excursion as I

have mentioned, with one man only with me, I mentioned this doctrine of

the reduction of prices, and asked him his opinion of it. He said he did

not like it. I replied, "The wages of labor, it is true, are reduced; but

then flour and beef, and perhaps clothing, all of which you buy, are

reduced also. What, then, can be your objections?" "Why," said he, "it is

true that flour is now low; but then it is an article that may rise

suddenly, by means of a scanty crop in England, or at home; and if it

should rise from five dollars to ten, I do not know for certain that it

would fetch the price of my labor up with it. But while wages are high,

then I am safe; and if produce chances to fall, so much the better for me.

But there is another thing. I have but one thing to sell, that is, my

labor; but I must buy many things, not only flour, and meat, and clothing,

but also some articles that come from other countries,--a little sugar, a

little coffee, a little tea, a little of the common spices, and such like.

Now, I do not see how these foreign articles will be brought down by

reducing wages at home; and before the price is brought down of the only

thing I have to sell, I want to be sure that the prices will fall also,

not of a part, but of all the things which I must buy."

Now, Gentlemen, though he will be astonished, or amused, that I should

tell the story before such a vast and respectable assemblage as this, I

will place the argument of _Seth Peterson_, sometimes farmer and

sometimes fisherman on the coast of Massachusetts, stated to me while

pulling an oar with each hand, and with the sleeves of his red shirt

rolled up above his elbows, against the reasonings, the theories, and the

speeches of the administration and all its friends, in or out of Congress,

and take the verdict of the country, and of the civilized world, whether

he has not the best of the argument.

Since I have adverted to this conversation, Gentlemen, allow me to say

that this neighbor of mine is a man fifty years of age, one of several

sons of a poor man; that by his labor he has obtained some few acres, his

own unencumbered freehold, has a comfortable dwelling, and plenty of the

poor man's blessings. Of these, I have known six, decently and cleanly

clad, each with the book, the slate, and the map proper to its age, all

going at the same time daily to enjoy the blessing of that which is the

great glory of New England, the common free school. Who can contemplate

this, and thousands of other cases like it, not as pictures, but as common

facts, without feeling how much our free institutions, and the policy

hitherto pursued, have done for the comfort and happiness of the great

mass of our citizens? Where in Europe, where in any part of the world out

of our own country, shall we find labor thus rewarded, and the general

condition of the people so good? Nowhere; nowhere! Away, then, with the

injustice and the folly of reducing the cost of productions with us to

what is called the common standard of the world! Away, then, away at once

and for ever, with the miserable policy which would bring the condition of

a laborer in the United States to that of a laborer in Russia or Sweden,

in France or Germany, in Italy or Corsica! Instead of following these

examples, let us hold up our own, which all nations may well envy, and

which, unhappily, in most parts of the earth, it is easier to envy than to

imitate.

But it is the cry and effort of the times to stimulate those who are

called poor against those who are called rich; and yet, among those who

urge this cry, and seek to profit by it, there is betrayed sometimes an

occasional sneer at whatever savors of humble life. Witness the reproach

against a candidate now before the people for their highest honors, that a

log cabin, with plenty of hard cider, is good enough for him!

It appears to some persons, that a great deal too much use is made of the

symbol of the log cabin. No man of sense supposes, certainly, that the

having lived in a log cabin is any further proof of qualification for the

Presidency, than as it creates a presumption that any one who, rising from

humble condition, or under unfavorable circumstances, has been able to

attract a considerable degree of public attention, is possessed of

reputable qualities, moral and intellectual.

But it is to be remembered, that this matter of the log cabin originated,

not with the friends of the Whig candidate, but with his enemies. Soon

after his nomination at Harrisburg, a writer for one of the leading

administration papers spoke of his "log cabin," and his use of "hard

cider," by way of sneer and reproach. As might have been expected, (for

pretenders are apt to be thrown off their guard,) this taunt at humble

life proceeded from the party which claims a monopoly of the purest

democracy. The whole party appeared to enjoy it, or, at least, they

countenanced it by silent acquiescence; for I do not know that, to this

day, any eminent individual or any leading newspaper attached to the

administration has rebuked this scornful jeering at the supposed humble

condition or circumstances in life, past or present, of a worthy man and a

war-worn soldier. But it touched a tender point in the public feeling. It

naturally roused indignation. What was intended as reproach was

immediately seized on as merit. "Be it so! Be it so!" was the instant

burst of the public voice. "Let him be the log cabin candidate. What you

say in scorn, we will shout with all our lungs. From this day forward, we

have our cry of rally; and we shall see whether he who has dwelt in one of

the rude abodes of the West may not become the best house in the country!"

All this is natural, and springs from sources of just feeling. Other

things, Gentlemen, have had a similar origin. We all know that the term

"Whig" was bestowed in derision, two hundred years ago, on those who were

thought too fond of liberty; and our national air of "Yankee Doodle" was

composed by British officers, in ridicule of the American troops. Yet, ere

long, the last of the British armies laid down its arms at Yorktown, while

this same air was playing in the ears of officers and men. Gentlemen, it

is only shallow-minded pretenders who either make distinguished origin

matter of personal merit, or obscure origin matter of personal reproach.

Taunt and scoffing at the humble condition of early life affect nobody, in

this country, but those who are foolish enough to indulge in them, and

they are generally sufficiently punished by public rebuke. A man who is

not ashamed of himself need not be ashamed of his early condition.

Gentlemen, it did not happen to me to be born in a log cabin; but my elder

brothers and sisters were born in a log cabin, raised amid the snow-drifts

of New Hampshire, at a period so early that, when the smoke first rose

from its rude chimney, and curled over the frozen hills, there was no

similar evidence of a white man's habitation between it and the

settlements on the rivers of Canada. Its remains still exist. I make to it

an annual visit. I carry my children to it, to teach them the hardships

endured by the generations which have gone before them. I love to dwell on

the tender recollections, the kindred ties, the early affections, and the

touching narratives and incidents, which mingle with all I know of this

primitive family abode. I weep to think that none of those who inhabited

it are now among the living; and if ever I am ashamed of it, or if I ever

fail in affectionate veneration for him who reared it, and defended it

against savage violence and destruction, cherished all the domestic

virtues beneath its roof, and, through the fire and blood of a seven

years' revolutionary war, shrunk from no danger, no toil, no sacrifice, to

serve his country, and to raise his children to a condition better than

his own, may my name and the name of my posterity be blotted for ever from

the memory of mankind!

I have now frankly stated my opinions as to the nature of the present

excitement, and have answered the question I propounded as to the causes

of the revolution in public sentiment now in progress. Will this

revolution succeed? Does it move the masses, or is it an ebullition merely

on the surface? And who is it that opposes the change which seems to be

going forward? [Here some one in the crowd cried out, "None, hardly, but

the office-holders, oppose it."] I hear one say that the office-holders

oppose it; and that is true. If they were quiet, in my opinion, a change

would take place almost by common consent. I have heard of an anecdote,

perhaps hardly suited to the sobriety and dignity of this occasion, but

which confirms the answer which my friend in the crowd has given to my

question. It happened to a farmer's son, that his load of hay was blown

over by a sudden gust, on an exposed plain. Those near him, seeing him

manifest a degree of distress, which such an accident would not usually

occasion, asked him the reason; he said he should not _take on_ so

much about it, only father was under the load. I think it very probable,

Gentlemen, that there are many now very active and zealous friends, who

would not care much whether the wagon of the administration were blown

over or not, if it were not for the fear that father, or son, or uncle, or

brother, might be found under the load. Indeed, it is remarkable how

frequently the fire of patriotism glows in the breast of the holders of

office. A thousand favored contractors shake with horrid fear, lest the

proposed change should put the interests of the public in great danger.

Ten thousand post-offices, moved by the same apprehension, join in the cry

of alarm, while a perfect earthquake of disinterested remonstrance

proceeds from the custom-houses. Patronage and favoritism tremble and

quake, through every limb and every nerve, lest the people should be found

in favor of a change, which might endanger the liberties of the country,

or at least break down its present eminent and distinguished prosperity,

by abandoning the measures, so wise, so beneficent, so successful, and so

popular, which the present administration has pursued!

Fellow-citizens, we have all sober and important duties to perform. I have

not addressed you to-day for the purpose of joining in a premature note of

triumph, or raising a shout for anticipated victories. We are in the

controversy, not through it. It is our duty to spare no pains to circulate

information, and to spread the truth far and wide. Let us persuade those

who differ from us, if we can, to hear both sides. Let us remind them that

we are all embarked together, with a common interest and a common fate.

And let us, without rebuke or unkindness, beseech them to consider what

the good of the whole requires, what is best for them and for us.

There are two causes which keep back thousands of honest men from joining

those who wish for a change. The first of these is the fear of reproach

from former associates, and the pain which party denunciation is capable

of inflicting. But, surely, the manliness of the American character is

superior to this! Surely, no American citizen will feel himself chained to

the wheels of any party, nor bound to follow it, against his conscience

and his sense of the interest of the country. Resolution and decision

ought to dissipate such restraints, and to leave men free at once to act

upon their own convictions. Unless this can be done, party has entailed

upon us a miserable slavery, by compelling us to act against our

consciences on questions of the greatest importance.

The other cause is the constant cry that the party of the administration

is the true democratic party, or the more popular party in the government

and in the country. The falsity of this claim has not been sufficiently

exposed. It should have been met, and should be now met, not only by

denial, but by proof. If they mean the new democracy,--the cry against

credit, against industry, against labor, against a man's right to leave

his own earnings to his own children,--why, then, doubtless, they are

right; all this sort of democracy is theirs. But if by democracy they mean

a conscientious and stern adherence to the true popular principles of the

Constitution and the government, then I think they have very little claim

to it. Is the augmentation of executive power a democratic principle? Is

the separation of the currency of the government from the currency of the

people a democratic principle? Is the imbodying a large military force, in

time of peace, a democratic principle?

Let us entreat honest men not to take names for things, nor pretences for

proofs. If democracy, in any constitutional sense, belongs to our

adversaries, let them show their title and produce their evidence. Let the

question be examined; and let not intelligent and well-meaning citizens be

kept to the support of measures which in their hearts and consciences they

disapprove, because their authors put forth such loud claims to the sole

possession of regard for the people.

Fellow-citizens of the County of Saratoga, in taking leave of you, I

cannot but remind you how distinguished a place your county occupies in

the history of the country. I cannot be ignorant, that in the midst of you

are many, at this moment, who saw in this neighborhood the triumph of

republican arms in the surrender of General Burgoyne. I cannot doubt that

a fervent spirit of patriotism burns in their breasts and in the breasts

of their children. They helped to save their country amidst the storms of

war; they will help to save it, I am fully persuaded, in the present

severe civil crisis. I verily believe it is true, that, of all that are

left to us from the Revolution, nine tenths are with us in the existing

contest. If there be living a Revolutionary officer, or soldier, who has

joined in the attacks upon General Harrison's military character, I have

not met with him. It is not, therefore, in the county of Saratoga, that a

cause sustained by such means is likely to prevail.

Fellow-citizens, the great question is now before the country. If, with

the experience of the past, the American people think proper to confirm

power in the hands which now hold it, and thereby sanction the leading

policy of the administration, it will be your duty and mine to bow, with

submission, to the public will; but, for myself, I shall not believe it

possible for me to be of service to the country, in any department of

public life. I shall look on, with no less love of country than ever, but

with fearful forebodings of what may be near at hand.

But I do not at all expect that result. I fully believe the change is

coming. If we all do our duty, we shall restore the government to its

former policy, and the country to its former prosperity. And let us here,

to-day, fellow-citizens, with full resolution and patriotic purpose of

heart, give and take pledges, that, until this great controversy be ended,

our time, our talents, our efforts, are all due, and shall all be

faithfully given, to OUR COUNTRY.

Mr. Justice Story.

Your solemn announcement, Mr. Chief Justice, has confirmed the sad

intelligence which had already reached us, through the public channels of

information, and deeply afflicted us all.

Joseph Story, one of the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the

United States, and for many years the presiding judge of this Circuit,

died on Wednesday evening last, at his house in Cambridge, wanting only a

few days for the completion of the sixty-sixth year of his age.

This most mournful and lamentable event has called together the whole Bar

of Suffolk, and all connected with the courts of law or the profession. It

has brought you, Mr. Chief Justice, and your associates of the Bench of

the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, into the midst of us; and you have

done us the honor, out of respect to the occasion, to consent to preside

over us, while we deliberate on what is due, as well to our own afflicted

and smitten feelings, as to the exalted character and eminent distinction

of the deceased judge. The occasion has drawn from his retirement, also,

that venerable man, whom we all so much respect and honor, (Judge Davis,)

who was, for thirty years, the associate of the deceased upon the same

Bench. It has called hither another judicial personage, now in retirement,

(Judge Putnam,) but long an ornament of that Bench of which you are now

the head, and whose marked good fortune it is to have been the

professional teacher of Mr. Justice Story, and the director of his early

studies. He also is present to whom this blow comes near; I mean, the

learned judge (Judge Sprague) from whose side it has struck away a friend

and a highly venerated official associate. The members of the Law School

at Cambridge, to which the deceased was so much attached, and who returned

that attachment with all the ingenuousness and enthusiasm of educated and

ardent youthful minds, are here also, to manifest their sense of their own

severe deprivation, as well as their admiration of the bright and shining

professional example which they have so loved to contemplate,--an example,

let me say to them, and let me say to all, as a solace in the midst of

their sorrows, which death hath not touched and which time cannot obscure.

Mr. Chief Justice, one sentiment pervades us all. It is that of the most

profound and penetrating grief, mixed, nevertheless, with an assured

conviction, that the great man whom we deplore is yet with us and in the

midst of us. He hath not wholly died. He lives in the affections of

friends and kindred, and in the high regard of the community. He lives in

our remembrance of his social virtues, his warm and steady friendships,

and the vivacity and richness of his conversation. He lives, and will live

still more permanently, by his words of written wisdom, by the results of

his vast researches and attainments, by his imperishable legal judgments,

and by those juridical disquisitions which have stamped his name, all over

the civilized world, with the character of a commanding authority. "Vivit,

enim, vivetque semper; atque etiam latius in memoria hominum et sermone

versabitur, postquam ab oculis recessit."

Mr. Chief Justice, there are consolations which arise to mitigate our

loss, and shed the influence of resignation over unfeigned and heart-felt

sorrow. We are all penetrated with gratitude to God that the deceased

lived so long; that he did so much for himself, his friends, the country,

and the world; that his lamp went out, at last, without unsteadiness or

flickering. He continued to exercise every power of his mind without

dimness or obscuration, and every affection of his heart with no abatement

of energy or warmth, till death drew an impenetrable veil between us and

him. Indeed, he seems to us now, as in truth he is, not extinguished or

ceasing to be, but only withdrawn; as the clear sun goes down at its

setting, not darkened, but only no longer seen.

This calamity, Mr. Chief Justice, is not confined to the bar or the courts

of this Commonwealth. It will be felt by every bar throughout the land, by

every court, and indeed by every intelligent and well informed man in or

out of the profession. It will be felt still more widely, for his

reputation had a still wider range. In the High Court of Parliament, in

every tribunal in Westminster Hall, in the judicatories of Paris and

Berlin, of Stockholm and St. Petersburg, in the learned universities of

Germany, Italy, and Spain, by every eminent jurist in the civilized world,

it will be acknowledged that a great luminary has fallen from the

firmament of public jurisprudence.[1]

Sir, there is no purer pride of country than that in which we may indulge

when we see America paying back the great debt of civilization, learning,

and science to Europe. In this high return of light for light and mind for

mind, in this august reckoning and accounting between the intellects of

nations, Joseph Story was destined by Providence to act, and did act, an

important part. Acknowledging, as we all acknowledge, our obligations to

the original sources of English law, as well as of civil liberty, we have

seen in our generation copious and salutary streams turning and running

backward, replenishing their original fountains, and giving a fresher and

a brighter green to the fields of English jurisprudence. By a sort of

reversed hereditary transmission, the mother, without envy or humiliation,

acknowledges that she has received a valuable and cherished inheritance

from the daughter. The profession in England admits with frankness and

candor, and with no feeling but that of respect and admiration, that he

whose voice we have so recently heard within these walls, but shall now

hear no more, was of all men who have yet appeared, most fitted by the

comprehensiveness of his mind, and the vast extent and accuracy of his

attainments, to compare the codes of nations, to trace their differences

to difference of origin, climate, or religious or political institutions,

and to exhibit, nevertheless, their concurrence in those great principles

upon which the system of human civilization rests.

Justice, Sir, is the great interest of man on earth. It is the ligament

which holds civilized beings and civilized nations together. Wherever her

temple stands, and so long as it is duly honored, there is a foundation

for social security, general happiness, and the improvement and progress

of our race. And whoever labors on this edifice with usefulness and

distinction, whoever clears its foundations, strengthens its pillars,

adorns its entablatures, or contributes to raise its august dome still

higher in the skies, connects himself, in name, and fame, and character,

with that which is and must be as durable as the frame of human society.

All know, Mr. Chief Justice, the pure love of country which animated the

deceased, and the zeal, as well as the talent, with which he explained and

defended her institutions. His work on the Constitution of the United

States is one of his most eminently successful labors. But all his

writings, and all his judgments, all his opinions, and the whole influence

of his character, public and private, leaned strongly and always to the

support of sound principles, to the restraint of illegal power, and to the

discouragement and rebuke of licentious and disorganizing sentiments. "Ad

rempublicam firmandam, et ad stabiliendas vires, et sanandum populum,

omnis ejus pergebat institutio."

But this is not the occasion, Sir, nor is it for me to consider and

discuss at length the character and merits of Mr. Justice Story, as a

writer or a judge. The performance of that duty, with which this Bar will

no doubt charge itself, must be deferred to another opportunity, and will

be committed to abler hands. But in the homage paid to his memory, one

part may come with peculiar propriety and emphasis from ourselves. We have

known him in private life. We have seen him descend from the bench, and

mingle in our friendly circles. We have known his manner of life, from his

youth up. We can bear witness to the strict uprightness and purity of his

character, his simplicity and unostentatious habits, the ease and

affability of his intercourse, his remarkable vivacity amidst severe

labors, the cheerful and animating tones of his conversation, and his fast

fidelity to friends. Some of us, also, can testify to his large and

liberal charities, not ostentatious or casual, but systematic and silent,

--dispensed almost without showing the hand, and falling and distilling

comfort and happiness, like the dews of heaven. But we can testify, also,

that in all his pursuits and employments, in all his recreations, in all

his commerce with the world, and in his intercourse with the circle of his

friends, the predominance of his judicial character was manifest. He never

forgot the ermine which he wore. The judge, the judge, the useful and

distinguished judge, was the great picture which he kept constantly before

his eyes, and to a resemblance of which all his efforts, all his thoughts,

all his life, were devoted. We may go the world over, without finding a

man who shall present a more striking realization of the beautiful

conception of D'Aguesseau: "C'est en vain que l'on cherche a distinguer en

lui la personne privee et la personne publique; un meme esprit les anime,

un meme objet les reunit; l'homme, le pere de famille, le citoyen, tout

est en lui consacre a la gloire du magistrat."

Mr. Chief Justice, one may live as a conqueror, a king, or a magistrate;

but he must die as a man. The bed of death brings every human being to his

pure individuality; to the intense contemplation of that deepest and most

solemn of all relations, the relation between the creature and his

Creator. Here it is that fame and renown cannot assist us; that all

external things must fail to aid us; that even friends, affection, and

human love and devotedness, cannot succor us. This relation, the true

foundation of all duty, a relation perceived and felt by conscience and

confirmed by revelation, our illustrious friend, now deceased, always

acknowledged.

He reverenced the Scriptures of truth, honored the pure morality which

they teach, and clung to the hopes of future life which they impart. He

beheld enough in nature, in himself, and in all that can be known of

things seen, to feel assured that there is a Supreme Power, without whose

providence not a sparrow falleth to the ground. To this gracious being he

entrusted himself for time and for eternity; and the last words of his

lips ever heard by mortal ears were a fervent supplication to his Maker to

take him to himself. [2]

Biographical.

First Period: Law and Politics in New Hampshire.

1782 Born at Salisbury, New Hampshire, January 18.

Early Education.

1797 Enters Dartmouth College.

1805 Admitted to the Bar,

1805.

Practises in Boscawen.

1807 Removes to Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

1813 Elected to Congress from Portsmouth.

1814-15 The Hartford Convention.

Second Period: Leader at the Bar and in the Forum.

1816 Removes to Boston, Massachusetts.

1817 "The Defence of the Kennistons."

1818 "The Dartmouth College Case."

1820 Massachusetts Convention.

Third Period: Expounder and Defender of the Constitution.

1827 Elected to the Senate from Massachusetts.

1830 "The Reply to Hayne."

1833 "The Constitution not a Compact between Sovereign States."

1833-34 Removal of the Deposits from the United States Bank.

Rise of the Whig Party.

1835 Nominated to the Presidency by the Whigs of Massachusetts.

1837 Reception in New York.

1839 Visits England.

1840 Presidential Canvass.

1840-43 Secretary of State.

Ashburton Treaty.

Resigns the Department of State.

1844 Re-elected to the Senate from Massachusetts.

1845 "Eulogy on Justice Story."

Annexation of Texas.

1846 Banquet in Philadelphia.

1850 Seventh of March Speech.

Secretary of State under President Fillmore.

1852 Public Reception in Boston.

Last Illness and Death.

Notes.

_DEFENCE OF THE KENNISTONS_

April, 1817.

Mr. Webster had been elected to Congress from Portsmouth, New Hampshire,

in 1813, and his term expired in March, 1816. In August of that year

(1816) he removed his family to Boston, and decided to devote himself

exclusively to the profession of the law. He had won a high position both

in law and politics in New Hampshire. The change of residence marks an era

in the life of Mr. Webster. Mr. Lodge says that there is a tradition that

the worthies of the Puritan city were disposed at first to treat the

newcomer somewhat cavalierly, but that they soon learned that it was worse

than useless to attempt such a course with a man whose magnificent

physical and intellectual bearing won the admiration of all who met him.

He now began a career of great professional distinction, and took a place

at the Boston bar even more conspicuous than his friends had anticipated--

that of an equal of the most famous of its members. His cases called him

before the Massachusetts Supreme Court, the Circuit Court of the United

States, and the United States Supreme Court. Among the first cases which

came to him on his retirement from political life was the Goodridge

Robbery Case, the argument in which was addressed to the jury at the term

of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts held at Ipswich in April,

1817.

The singularly dramatic story of the prosecutor, the almost universal

belief in the guilt of the accused, both by the public and by the members

of the Essex bar, and the impossibility of accounting for the motive

(self-robbery) assumed by the defence, make this exhibition of Mr.

Webster's "acute, penetrating, and terrifying" power of cross-

examination,--by which such a complicated and ingenious story was

unravelled,--one of the most memorable in the history of the

Massachusetts bar. It is a model of close, simple, unadorned argument,

adapted to the minds of the jurymen. In it there are no attempts to carry

the jury off their feet by lofty appeals to their sense of justice, nor to

cover the weak points in the case by fine oratory. The oft-repeated, "It

is for the jury to determine," illustrates Mr. Webster's respect for the

common sense of the jurymen before him and his reliance upon evidence to

win the case. The following are the facts relating to the case:--Major

Goodridge of Bangor, Maine, professed to have been robbed of a large sum

of money at nine o'clock on the night of Dec. 19, 1816, while travelling

on horseback, near the bridge between Exeter and Newburyport. In the

encounter with the robbers he received a pistol wound in his left hand; he

was then dragged from his horse into a field, beaten until insensible, and

robbed. On recovering, he procured the assistance of several persons, and

with a lantern returned to the place of the robbery and found his watch

and some papers. The next day he went to Newburyport, and remained ill for

several weeks, suffering from delirium caused by the shock. When he

recovered he set about the discovery of the robbers. His story seemed so

probable that he had the sympathy of all the country-folk. He at once

charged with the crime Levi and Laban Kenniston, two poor men, who lived

in an obscure part of the town of Newmarket, New Hampshire, and finding

some of his money (which he had previously marked) in their cellar, he had

them arrested, and held for trial. By and by a few of the people began to

doubt the story of Goodridge; this led him to renewed efforts, and he

arrested the toll gatherer, Mr. Pearson, in whose house, by the aid of a

conjurer, he found some of his money. On examination by the magistrate,

Pearson was discharged. It now became necessary to find some accomplice of

the Kennistons, and he arrested one Taber of Boston, whom he had seen (he

said) on his way up, and from whom he had obtained his information against

the Kennistons. In Taber's house was found some of the money; he was

accordingly bound over for trial with the Kennistons. As none of these men

lived near the scene of the robbery, Mr. Jackman, who, soon after the

robbery, had gone to New York, was arrested, his house searched, and some

of the money found in the garret. The guilt of these men seemed so

conclusive that no eminent member of the Essex bar would undertake their

defence. A few of those who mistrusted Goodridge determined to send to

Suffolk County for counsel.

Mr. Webster had been well known in New Hampshire, and his services were at

once secured; without having time to examine any of the details of the

case--as he had arrived at Ipswich on the night before the trial--he at

once undertook the defence of the Kennistons and secured their acquittal.

The indictment against Taber was _nol prossed_. Later, he defended

Jackman and secured his acquittal. Mr. Pearson brought action against

Goodridge for malicious prosecution, and was awarded $2000, but Goodridge

took the poor debtor's oath and left the State.

Cf. Curtis's _Life of Webster_, Ch. VIII.; Everett's _Memoir of

Webster_, in Vol. I. of Webster's Works.

* * * * *

_THE DARTMOUTH COLLEGE CASE_.

March, 1818.

Within a year after the defence of the Kennistons, Mr. Webster was called

upon to defend his Alma Mater against the acts of the Legislature of his

native State.

The case was one of the most interesting ever argued before the Supreme

Court of the United States, because there were involved in it certain

constitutional questions which had never been tested. "Mr. Webster by his

management of this case," says Edward Everett, "took the lead in

establishing what might almost be called a new school of constitutional

law." Not until within a few years has the complete history of the case

been accessible. In 1879, a volume of "Dartmouth College Causes" was

published by Mr. John M. Shirley, and in it we have, for the first time, a

clear statement of all the points relating to the origin and development

of the case.

Dartmouth College was originally a charity school, and was founded by

Eleazor Wheelock at Lebanon, Connecticut, in 1754. Afterwards private

subscriptions were solicited in England, and the Earl of Dartmouth was a

large donor and became one of the trustees. The site was soon moved to

Hanover, New Hampshire, where large grants of land had been made by the

proprietors. It was chartered by the Crown in 1769, and was created a

perpetual corporation, with Dr. Wheelock as founder and President; he was

empowered to name his own successor subject to the approval of the

trustees, to whom was given power to fill vacancies in their own body and

to make laws for the College subject to the Crown.

It seems that in his early days Dr. Wheelock had a controversy on

religious matters with Dr. Bellamy. These men were graduates of Yale; the

former was a Presbyterian, and the latter a Congregationalist. This

religious war was carried on by the successors of these men, the son of

Dr. Wheelock, and President of the College, and a pupil of Dr. Bellamy,

who had been elected a trustee; it soon, however, became a political

contest between factions of the trustees, one of which objected to what it

called the "family dynasty." In 1809 this faction became a majority and

opposed the other so vigorously that in 1815 the Wheelock party set forth

its case in a lengthy pamphlet. Much ink was shed upon both sides as a

result. Wheelock then sent a memorial to the Legislature charging the

trustees with violation of trust and religious intolerance, and prayed for

an investigation by a committee of the Legislature. The trustees were

Federalists and Congregationalists, the ruling power in State and Church.

Mr. Mason, Mr. Webster's old antagonist at the New Hampshire bar, was

secured as counsel for the trustees. The Wheelock party made advances to

Mr. Webster, but he saw that the case was fast assuming a political tone,

and he declined the offer. Contrary to Mr. Mason's advice, the trustees

removed President Wheelock, and appointed Rev. Francis Brown in his place.

As a result all the Democrats and all religious orders, other than the

Congregational, united against the trustees--and the political die was

cast.

At the next election the Democrats carried the State, and the Governor in

his message took occasion to declare against the trustees. The

Legislature, in June, 1816, passed an act to reorganize the College, and

under this law the new trustees were chosen; thus the College became a

State institution. Woodward, the Secretary of the old board, had been

removed, and became the Secretary of the newly constituted board. Suit was

brought against him by the old board, for the College seal and other

property, and the case in charge of Mr. Mason and Judge Smith came up for

trial in May, 1817; it was argued and then went over to the September term

of the same year at Exeter. It was at this stage of the proceedings that

Mr. Webster joined the counsel for the College. He made the closing

argument of such force and pathos as to draw tears from the crowd in the

court-room. The decision was against the College.

In Mr. Mason's brief we find that there were three points made against the

Acts of the Legislature: (1) that they were not within the power of that

body; (2) that they violated the Constitution of New Hampshire; and (3)

that they violated the Constitution of the United States, or the right of

private contracts. The third point was not, however, pressed by the

counsel, and was not considered as very important; they based their case

mostly upon the first point: that the College was founded by private

parties, for special purposes, and that any quarrel of the trustees was a

question for the courts to settle, and not for the Legislature. When it

was decided against them, they removed the case to the Supreme Court of

the United States on this one point, that the acts impaired the obligation

of contracts. The friends of the College now desired Mr. Webster to take

entire charge of the case; he consented, and selected as his assistant,

Mr. Hopkinson, of Philadelphia. Mr. Holmes of Maine and Mr. Wirt conducted

the defence.

The case was heard on March 10, 1818, and was opened by Mr. Webster. With

the notes and minutes of the previous counsel Mr. Webster was familiar,

and he said that the credit of the legal points and theories he set forth

was due to them; he was only the arranger and reciter of what they had

prepared. Mr. Webster had a remarkable power of selecting and using the

material of other men, but he was always ready to give them the credit

due.

With a skill and judgment which Chief Justice Marshall said he never saw

equalled, Mr. Webster outlined the question at issue, and by his

marvellous adroitness in arranging, and clearness in presenting the facts,

together with that wealth of legal and historical illustration with which

he was always so well endowed, he seemed to carry with him every man in

the court-room. Such was the ease, grace, and fascination of his argument,

that Justice Story, who sat, pen in hand, to take notes, was completely

absorbed and forgot his pen and paper.

[1]P. 58, l. 15. I. Here, the argument being ended, Mr. Webster stood

still for some time before the court, while every eye was fixed upon him,

and then addressing the Chief Justice, he proceeded with that noble

peroration which has become one of the masterpieces of eloquence, and

which is an expansion of the closing argument which he delivered at the

previous trial in New Hampshire. This does not appear in the printed

argument; I have added it from the report of Dr. Goodrich.

[2]P. 59, l. 5. 1. I give the beautiful description which Dr. Goodrich

wrote to Mr. Choate in 1853. "Here the feelings, which he had thus far

succeeded in keeping down, broke forth. His lips quivered; his firm cheeks

trembled with emotion; his eyes were filled with tears; his voice choked,

and he seemed struggling to the utmost simply to gain that mastery over

himself which might save him from an unmanly burst of feeling. I will not

attempt to give you the few broken words of tenderness in which he went on

to speak of his attachment for the college. The whole seemed to be mingled

throughout with recollections of father, mother, brother, and all the

privations and trials through which he had made his way into life. Every

one saw that it was wholly unpremeditated, a pressure on his heart, which

sought relief in words and tears." The court-room during these two or

three minutes presented an extraordinary spectacle. Chief Justice

Marshall, with his tall and gaunt figure, bent over as if to catch the

slightest whisper, the deep furrows of his cheek expanded with emotion,

and his eyes suffused with tears; Mr. Justice Washington at his side, with

his small and emaciated frame, and countenance more like marble than I

ever saw on any other human being--leaning forward with an eager troubled

look; and the remainder of the Court at the two extremities, pressing, as

it were, toward a single point, while the audience below were wrapping

themselves around in closer folds beneath the bench, to catch each look

and every feature of the speaker's face. If a painter could give us the

scene on canvas,--those forms and countenances, and Daniel Webster as he

there stood in their midst,--it would be one of the most touching pictures

in the history of eloquence. One thing it taught me, that the

_pathetic_ depends not merely on the words uttered, but still more on

the estimate we put upon him who utters them. There was not one among the

strong-minded men of that assembly who could think it unmanly to weep,

when he saw standing before him the man who had made such an argument,

melted into the tenderness of a child. Mr. Webster had now recovered his

composure, and, fixing his keen eye on the Chief Justice, in that deep

tone with which he sometimes thrilled the heart of an audience,

continued."[3] L. 10. 2. When Mr. Webster sat down, there was a stillness

as of death in the court-room, and when the audience had slowly recovered

itself the replies of the opposing counsel were made, but seemed weak

indeed in comparison to what had just been heard. On the conclusion of the

arguments, the Chief Justice announced that the Court could not agree, and

that the case must be continued to the next term. During the interim, the

utmost effort was used by the friends of the College, the press, and the

Federalists, to bring the matter before the public, and to impress the

judges with the condition of the public mind. The defence prepared to

renew the contest, and able counsel was secured. At the next term,

however, the Chief Justice ruled that the Acts of the Legislature were

void, as they impaired the right of private contract. Of this argument Mr.

Justice Story said: "For the first hour we listened with perfect

astonishment; for the second hour with perfect delight; and for the third

hour with perfect conviction."

Mr. Lodge says: "From the day when it was announced, to the present time,

the Doctrine of Marshall in the Dartmouth College Case has continued to

exert an enormous influence."

After the trial Mr. Hopkinson wrote to the President of the College and

said: "I would have an inscription over the door of your building:

'Founded by Eleazor Wheelock, Refounded by Daniel Webster.'"

Cf. Curtis's _Life of Webster_, Ch. VIII.; Lodge's _Webster_,

Ch. III.; Everett's _Memoir_, in Vol. I. of Webster's Works;

Shirley's _Dartmouth College Causes; Correspondence of Webster_, Vol.

I., pp. 266-70; Magruder's _Life of John Marshall_.

* * * * *

_FIRST SETTLEMENT OF NEW ENGLAND_.

December, 1820.

The "Old Colony Club," formed for social intercourse in 1769, was the

first to celebrate Forefathers' Day. Although the club was dissolved in

1773, the anniversary celebrations were continued until 1780; between this

time and 1820, when the "Pilgrim Society" was founded, they were held with

but few interruptions.

The foundation of the "Pilgrim Society" in 1820 gave a new impetus to the

celebrations, and in that year Mr. Webster was chosen to give the address.

[1]P. 64, l. 17. 1. The allusion is to the painting by Sargent; it was

presented by him to the Society in 1824.

[2]L. 22. 2. Cf. Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

[3]L. 30. 3. Cf. the report of the Pilgrim Society on the correct date of

the landing of the Pilgrims. The 21st is now considered to be the date.

[4]P. 66, l. 31. 1. Cf. _Herodotus_, Ch. VI., S 109.

[5]P. 70, l. 23. 1. Cf. "The Start from Delfshaven," by Rev. D. Van Pelt,

in the _New England Magazine_, November, 1891. For a through

treatment of the whole subject read Chapter II., "The Puritan Exodus" in

_Beginnings of New England_, by John Fiske.

[6]P. 77, l. 13. 1. Cf. _Beginnings of New England_, by John Fiske,

pp. 12-20, "The Roman Method of Nation-Making."

[7]P. 81, l. 18. 1. Cf. _Beginnings of New England_, pp. 20-49, "The

English Method of Nation-Making."

[8]P. 82, l. 30. 1. Cf. Hutchinson's _History_, Vol. II., App. I.

"The men who wrote in the cabin of the _Mayflower_ the first charter

of freedom, were a little band of protestants against every form of

injustice and tyranny. The leaven of their principles made possible the

Declaration of Independence, liberated the slaves, and founded the free

Commonwealths which form the Republic of the United States."--C. M. DEPEW,

Columbian oration.

[9]P. 83, l. 15. 1. Cf. _Germanic Origin of New England Towns_, H. B.

Adams.

[10]P. 108, l. 7. 1. Cf. Cicero's _Oratio pro Flacco_, S 7.

[11]L. 29. 2. The first free public school established by law in Plymouth

Colony was in 1670.

[12]P. 111, l. 17. 1. Cf. _Beginnings of New England_, p. 110,

"Founding of Harvard College." Lowell's "Harvard Anniversary."

In 1647 the Colony of Massachusetts Bay passed the law requiring every

town of one hundred families to set up a grammar school which should

prepare youth for the university.

If Mr. Webster by his handling of the Dartmouth College Case founded a new

school of constitutional law, by the Plymouth Oration he founded a new

school of oratory. This field of occasional oratory was a new and peculiar

one for him. He had never before spoken upon a great historical subject

demanding not only wealth of imagination, but the peculiar quality of mind

and heart which unites dignity and depth of thought with ease and grace of

manner. But he was equal to the task. The simplicity and beauty of the

thought, the grand and inspiring manner of presentation, gave evidence of

commanding genius, and gave Mr. Webster a place in the front rank of

orators and stylists.

"I never saw him," says Mr. Ticknor, "when he seemed to me to be more

conscious of his own powers, or to have a more true and natural enjoyment

from their possession."

John Adams, who had heard Pitt and Fox, Burke and Sheridan, says: "It is

the effort of a great mind, richly stored with every species of

information. If there be an American who can read it without tears, I am

not that American. Mr. Burke is no longer entitled to the praise--the most

consummate orator of modern times. What can I say of what regards myself?

To my humble name '_Exegisti monumentum are perennius_.' The oration

ought to be read at the end of every century."

"It is doubtful," says Edward Everett, "whether any extra-professional

literary effort by a public man has attained equal celebrity."

Cf. Curtis's _Life of Webster_, Ch. IX.; Lodge's _Webster_, Ch.

IV.; De Tocqueville's _Democracy in America_, Vol. I.; Whipple's

_American Literature_, "Webster as a Master of English Style";

Bancroft's _History of the United States_, Vol. I., Chs. XII., XIII.,

XIV.; Burke's _Orations on the American War_, edited by A. J. George;

Fiske's _Beginnings of New England_.

* * * * *

_THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT._

June, 1825.

As early as 1776, the Massachusetts Lodge of Masons, over which General

Warren had presided, asked the Government of Massachusetts for permission

to take up his remains, which were buried on the hill the day after the

battle, and bury them with the usual solemnities. The request was granted

on condition that the government of the colony should be permitted to

erect a monument to his memory.

The ceremonies of burial were performed, but no steps were taken to build

the monument. General Warren was, at the time of his death, Grand Master

of the Masonic Lodges of America, and as nothing had been done toward

erecting a memorial, King Solomon's Lodge of Charlestown voted to erect a

monument. The land was purchased, and a monument dedicated by the Lodge

Dec. 2, 1794. It was a wooden pillar of Tuscan order, eighteen feet high,

raised on a pedestal ten feet in height. The pillar was surmounted by a

gilt urn. An appropriate inscription was placed on the south side of the

pedestal.

The half-century from the date of the battle was at hand, and, despite a

resolution of Congress and the efforts of a committee of the Legislature

of Massachusetts, no suitable monument had been erected by the people. It

was then that, at the suggestion of William Tudor, the matter was taken up

in earnest and an association was formed known as the Bunker Hill Monument

Association. Ground was broken for the monument June 7, 1825. On the

morning of the 17th of June, 1825, the ceremonies of laying the corner-

stone of the monument took place. It was a typical June day, and thousands

flocked to see the pageant and to hear the greatest orator in the land.

The procession started from the State House at ten o'clock. The military

led the van. About two hundred veterans of the Revolution rode in

carriages, and among them were forty survivors of the battle. Some wore

their old uniform, others various decorations of their service, and some

bore the scars of honorable wounds. Following the patriots came the

Monument Association, and then the Masonic fraternity to the number of

thousands. Then came the noble Frenchman, Lafayette, the admiration of all

eyes. Following him were numerous societies with banners and music. The

head of the procession touched Charlestown Bridge before the rear had left

the State House, and the march was a continual ovation. Arriving at

Breed's Hill, the Grand Master of the Masons, Lafayette, and the President

of the Monument Association laid the corner-stone, and then moved to the

spacious amphitheatre on the northern side of the hill, where the address

was delivered by Mr. Webster.

[1]P. 122, l. 7. 1. An account of the voyage of the emigrants to the

Maryland Colony is given by the report of Father White, written soon after

the landing at St. Mary's. The original in Latin is still preserved by the

Jesuits at Rome.

The _Ark_ and the _Dove_ occupy the same place of interest in

the memory of the descendants of the colony as does the _Mayflower_

with us.

[2]L. 18. 2. Mr. Webster was at this time President of the Monument

Association.

[3]P. 125, l. 13. 1. Even the poetical nature of Webster would not have

been equal to the conception, that within the century the number would

reach sixty million.

[4]L. 16. 2. "The first railroad on the continent was constructed for the

purpose of accelerating the erection of this monument."--EVERETT.

[5]P. 127, l. 15. 1. The allusion is, of course, to the ships about the

Charlestown Navy Yard, which is located at the base of Breed's Hill. [6]L.

21. 2. This magnificent address to the "Venerable Men" was composed while

Mr. Webster was fishing in Marshpee brook.

[7]P. 128, l. 4. 1. Milton's _Paradise Lost_, V.

[8]L. 17. 2. Cf. Bancroft's _History of the United States_, Vol. IV.,

p. 133. A prelude to Warren's patriotism at Bunker Hill is well

illustrated in his oration at the old South Meeting House, commemorating

the Boston Massacre; in the presence of British soldiers he said: "Our

streets are again filled with armed men, our harbour is crowded with ships

of war; but these cannot intimidate us; my fellow-citizens, you will

maintain your rights or perish in the generous struggle."

[9]P. 130, l. 9. 1. Cf. Burke's _Orations on the American War_,

edited by A. J. George.

[10]P. 131, l. 32. 1. Virgil's _Aeneid_, VI. 726. Compare Burke's use

of this same quotation in his speech on American Taxation, page 13, line

13. Edited by A. J. George.

[11]P. 133, l. 9. 1. Cf. Bancroft's _History of the United States_,

Vol. IV., Ch. XIV.

[12]L. 22. 2. General Lafayette had arranged his progress through the

other States so that he might be present on the 17th.

[13]P. 140, l. 22. 1. Homer's _Iliad_, Book XVII.

[14]P. 141, l. 13. 1. Cf. account of Webster's speech on the Revolution in

Greece, made on the 19th of January, 1824, in Everett's _Memoir_,

Vol. I. of Webster's Works.

Great as the Plymouth Oration was acknowledged by all to be, the Bunker

Hill Address was a distinct advance upon it, both in the scope of the

ideas and in the skill with which they are wrought into an organic whole.

It is more compact, more picturesque, more vigorous, more finished. In

this field of oratory he probably has never had any equal in the English-

speaking world.

Mr. Everett said of the Address: "From such an orator as Mr. Webster, on

such a platform, on such a theme, in the flower of his age, and the

maturity of his faculties, discoursing upon an occasion of transcendent

interest, and kindling with the enthusiasm of the day and the spot, it

might well be regarded as an intellectual treat of the highest order.

Happy the eyes that saw that most glorious gathering! Happy the ears that

heard that heart-stirring strain!"

Lafayette wrote to Webster on the 28th of December, 1825, from La Grange,

saying: "Your Bunker Hill has been translated into French, and other

languages, to the very great profit of European readers."

Mr. Hillard, in his Eulogy on Webster, says: "His occasional discourses

rise above the rest of their class, as the Bunker Hill Monument soars

above the objects around it."

Mr. Choate, in his address to the students of Dartmouth College in 1853,

in that sublime paragraph in which he reviews the history of oratory and

contrasts the eloquence of despair with the eloquence of hope, says: "Let

the downward age of America find its orators, and poets, and artists, to

erect its spirit, or grace and soothe its dying; be it ours to go up with

Webster to the rock, the monument, the capitol, and bid the distant

generations hail."

Cf. Curtis's _Life of Webster_, Ch. XI.; Everett's _Memoir_, in

Vol. I. of Webster's Works; Lodge's _Webster_, Ch. IV.; Memorial of

Webster; Mr. Hillard's and Mr. Choate's Address; J. Fiske's _The

American Revolution_.

* * * * *

_THE REPLY TO HAYNE_.

January, 1830.

The third period of Mr. Webster's life and work may be said to begin with

his new honor--his election to the United States Senate in 1827, and his

changed attitude toward the question of the tariff as seen in his great

speech on the tariff of 1828.

To understand Mr. Webster's position on the question of the tariff, one

must remember that he insisted upon the principle that the question of the

tariff was purely a business question, and that it was to be determined by

the conditions affecting business. Up to this time Webster had opposed

Protection, but now as the business of New England required assistance, he

boldly stood forth as the champion of a Protective Tariff. It was in

connection with the tariff legislation of 1816, 1824, and 1828 that the

monster Nullification--carefully disguised until 1830--had its birth. In

this year it was found stalking abroad, and in the halls of Congress

menacing the bulwark of our liberties--the Constitution of the country. It

fell to the lot of Mr. Webster to grapple with this monster and to

strangle it in his giant grasp.

On the 29th of December, 1829, Senator Foot of Connecticut moved a

resolution in regard to the Public Lands, and a long and weary discussion

followed until Mr. Hayne, a Senator from South Carolina, on June 19, 1830,

took part and introduced a new element into the discussion by making an

elaborate attack on the New England States. Mr. Webster had taken no

special interest in the question, and on the day in which Mr. Hayne began

his speech he was engaged in the Supreme Court, but came into the Senate

in season to hear the closing paragraphs. Thinking that such an attack

upon New England required a reply, Mr. Webster at once rose, but yielded

to a motion to adjourn. On the next day, the 20th, Mr. Webster proceeded

with his reply, in which he showed the absurdity of Hayne's accusations

and by which he completely shattered his whole elaborate argument. There

was hardly an allusion in Mr. Webster's speech to the question of the

tariff as it concerned South Carolina, but so aroused was Hayne by

Webster's defence of New England, that on the following day he spoke a

second time and in a tone of even greater severity and bitterness than

that which marked his previous speech; he indulged in personal allusion to

Mr. Webster, and strove to bring odium upon him and the State which he

represented; he openly espoused the cause of Nullification and declared

war upon the tariff. Before he concluded the Senate adjourned until the

25th, when he completed his speech; Mr. Webster immediately rose to reply,

but as it was late yielded to a motion to adjourn. Mr. Hayne's speech had

caused the greatest alarm throughout the North; many were afraid that it

was unanswerable. This was an evidence that the true nature of the

Constitution was not thoroughly understood. "It is a critical moment,"

said Mr. Bell of New Hampshire to Mr. Webster on the morning of the 26th,

"and it is time, it is high time, that the people of this country should

know what this Constitution _is_." "Then," said Mr. Webster, "by the

blessing of Heaven, they shall learn, this day, before the sun goes down,

what I understand it to be." With this utterance upon his lips, he entered

the Senate Chamber, which was already crowded. Every seat on the floor and

in the galleries was occupied; the House of Representatives was deserted;

the lobbies and staircases were packed. The vast audience was composed, on

the one hand, of those who feared and trembled lest the rushing tide of

hostility to the Constitution and the Union should sweep over the country;

and on the other, of those who believed that New England had no champion

strong enough to stand in the breach. This scene in the Senate Chamber is

rivalled only by that in the House of Commons, when Burke, in 1774, stood

forth as the defender of the American colonies. Such was the anxiety to

hear the speech that all the ordinary preliminaries of senatorial action

were postponed, and Mr. Webster began his "Second Speech on Foot's

Resolution," better known as "The Reply to Hayne."

[1]P. 146, l. 10. 1. Mr. Webster rose with great calmness, and in the

majesty of that personal presence which could cause the English navvy to

shout as he saw him, "By Jove, there goes a king!" with a confidence in

his own resources which was the result of experience, in a clear, calm,

and firm tone pronounced this magnificent exordium which was such a piece

of consummate art that its effect was electric; all who feared, and all

who hated, knew that he was master of the situation.

[ 2] P. 147, l. 27. 1. When on the 21st Mr. Chambers asked that there be a

delay to enable Mr. Webster, who had engagements out of the house, to be

present, Mr. Hayne was unwilling to grant the request, saying that the

gentleman (Mr. Webster) has discharged his fire in the presence of the

Senate, and he wanted an opportunity to return it. Mr. Webster said, "Let

the discussion proceed: I am ready now to receive the gentleman's fire."

[3] P. 149, l. 8. 1. The notes, covering only five sheets of ordinary

letter paper, from which Webster developed the entire speech of seventy

pages, contain no hint of the exordium, but begin with

"No man hurt. If his 'rankling' is relieved, glad of it."

"I have no 'rankling' fear, anger, consciousness of refutation."

"No 'rankling,' original, or received--bow not strong enough."

[4]L. 12. 2. Mr. Benton.

[5]L. 27. 3. Mr. Webster's preparation for this reply lay in the nature of

his thought and reading from his first entrance into public life, and

especially from the nature of the constitutional questions which he has

argued before the Supreme Court of the United States.

[6]P. 152, l. 1. 1. Should not this be "_more_"?

[7]L. 24. 2. This was a political cry raised against President Adams, who

was elected by the House of Representatives. Clay had been a candidate,

and because Adams gave him a seat in his Cabinet, a cry went up that they

had made a bargain, by which Mr. Clay's friends were to vote for Adams in

the House, and in return Clay was to receive a Cabinet position. This was

a piece of political clap-trap. Cf. _American Politics_, Johnston,

Ch. XI.

[8]P. 155, l. 5. 1. If there had been a coalition and it was killed, it

was killed by Calhoun, who threw all his influence against Adams and for

Jackson. But at the time of this speech Calhoun was treated somewhat

cavalierly by Jackson, and had not much reward in party succession.

[9]P. 157, l. 13. 1. "The Missouri Compromise." Cf. _American

Politics_, Johnston, Ch. VIII.

[10]P. 162, l. 22. 1. This Convention of 1814 was composed of men of the

old Federal party, strongly opposed to war with Great Britain. Cf.

_American Politics_, Johnston, Ch. VIII.

[11]P. 170, l. 3. 1. The "South Carolina Canal & Railroad Company" had on

Jan. 9, 1830, asked Mr. Webster to present its claims to government

assistance.

[12]P. 179, l. 5. 1. Calhoun, Vice-President, and President of Senate.

[13]P. 180, l. 5. 1. Mr. Forsyth.

[14]L. 25. 2. Cf. Calhoun's speech in the House of Representatives in

April, 1816.

[15]P. 182, l. 6. 1. Mr. McDuffie.

[16]P. 186, l. 12. 1. Letter of the Federal Convention to the Congress of

the Confederation transmitting the plan of the Constitution.

[17]P. 188, l. 4. 1. Cf. Lodge's _Webster_, Ch. VI.

[18]P. 197, l. 1. 1. President Jackson, who had been an avowed Federalist

all his life.

[19]L. 15. 2. A Portuguese prince, who led the revolutionists against the

constitutional government.

[20]P. 198, l. 1. 1. A body of Federalists in Essex County, Massachusetts,

strongly opposing the Embargo of 1807, and the War of 1812.

[21]P. 199, l. 24. 1. After the passage of the Tariff of 1828, the

legislature of South Carolina set forth a "Protest" asserting the

principle of Nullification.

[22]P. 203, l. 29. 1. "At the conclusion of this paragraph there was

scarcely a dry eye in the Senate, the Massachusetts men shed tears like

girls," _Reminiscence of Congress_, March.

[23]P. 205, l. 28. 1. A toast proposed at a Democratic dinner, April 30,

1830, in New York, in honor of Jefferson's birthday.

[24]P. 212, l. 16. 1. Senator Hillhouse of Connecticut.

[25]P. 214, l. 8. 1. The purpose of this Embargo was to retaliate on both

Great Britain and France. In the commercial war waged by those two

countries, the foreign trade of the United States was cut off. The Embargo

fell with crushing weight upon New England.

[26]P. 227, l. 11. 1. _Paradise Lost_, Bk. I., l. 540.

[27]P. 228, l. 9. 1. The leader of the Whiskey Rebellion in Pennsylvania.

[28]P. 234, l. 9. 1. This celebrated peroration was entirely

unpremeditated, there is no allusion to it in the "notes" of Mr. Webster.

Mr. March says, "The exulting rush of feeling with which he went through

the peroration threw a glow over his countenance like inspiration. Eye,

brow, each feature, every line of the face, seemed touched as with

celestial fire.... His voice penetrated every recess or corner of the

Senate,--penetrated even the anterooms and stairways." Mr. Webster himself

said: "I never spoke in the presence of an audience so eager and so

sympathetic." Mr. Everett says: "Of the effectiveness of Mr. Webster's

manner in many parts, it would be in vain to attempt to give any one not

present the faintest idea. It has been my fortune to hear some of the

ablest speeches of the greatest living orators on both sides of the water,

but I must confess I never heard anything which so completely realized my

conception of what Demosthenes was when he delivered the Oration for the

Crown."

Mr. Lodge in his excellent review of the speech says: "The speech as a

whole has all the qualities which made Mr. Webster a great orator. An

analysis of the Reply to Hayne, therefore, gives us all the conditions

necessary to forming a correct idea of Mr. Webster's eloquence, of its

characteristics, and its value." Cf. Ch. VI., _Webster_, American

Statesman Series. This book should be a constant companion of the student

while reading these selections.

Dr. Francis Lieber wrote: "To test Webster's oratory, I read a portion of

my favorite speeches of Demosthenes, and then read, always aloud, parts of

Webster; then returned to the Athenian; and Webster stood the test." As a

result of this great effort, Mr. Webster was overwhelmed with

congratulations from all parts of the land. The speech was the universal

theme of conversation, and there was a general demand for the printed

copy. Probably no speech in history has had so many readers as the Reply

to Hayne.

Cf. Healey's historical painting of the scene of this great debate, in

Faneuil Hall; Curtis's _Life of Webster_, Ch. XVI.; Everett's

_Memoir_, Vol. I. of Webster's Works; _Correspondence of

Webster_, Vol. I., p. 488.

* * * * *

_THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH WHITE_.

August, 1830.

Almost immediately after the Reply to Hayne, Mr. Webster was engaged with

the Attorney-General of Massachusetts in one of the most remarkable

criminal cases on record, and on August 3d made the argument in the trial

of John Francis Knapp for the murder of Captain Joseph White.

The following is a summary of the facts: On the night of the 6th of April,

1830, the town of Salem was visited by a desperado who entered the house

of Joseph White, a wealthy and respectable citizen, and murdered him in

his bed. The citizens formed a vigilance committee and worked without

avail until there came a rumor that a prisoner in the New Bedford jail

knew something of the affair. He was accordingly brought up before the

grand jury, and on his testimony Richard Crowningshield, of Danvers, was

indicted. A few weeks later Captain Joseph Knapp, a shipmaster of good

character, received a strange note from Belfast, Maine, which was signed

by Charles Grant, Jr. This note threatened exposure unless money was

forwarded. Knapp could not understand it. He showed it to his sons,

Francis and Joseph, Jr., who resided in Wenham. The wife of the latter was

a niece of the late Mr. White, and was his housekeeper prior to the

murder. When Joseph saw the letter he said it contained trash, and told

his father to hand it to the vigilance committee. When they received the

letter they sent to Belfast to find the writer. This proved to be one

Palmer, who had been in state prison and who was intimate with

Crowningshield. He said he saw, on the 2nd of April, Frank Knapp and a

man, Allen, in company with Crowningshield, and that he heard the latter

say that Frank Knapp wished them to kill Mr. White, and that Joseph Knapp

would pay them one thousand dollars.

After the murder the Knapps reported that, on the 27th of April, they had

been attacked by robbers on their way from Salem to Wenham. The purpose of

this will be seen in what follows. On the testimony of Palmer the Knapps

were held for investigation, and on the third day Joseph made a full

confession of the murder and of the fabrication of the robbery story. He

had found that Mr. White intended to leave his (Knapp's) wife but fifteen

thousand dollars by will, and he thought that if he died intestate she

would come in for one-half of the estate, as the sole representative of

Mr. White's sister. Under this impression he determined to destroy the

will. Frank agreed to hire the assassin, and he (Joseph) was to pay one

thousand dollars for the deed. Crowningshield was hired; he entered the

house by a window and committed the murder. So cool was he that, as he

said, he paused to feel the pulse of the old man to be sure he was dead.

Frank was waiting the issue, while Joseph, who had got the will, was in

Wenham at his home. When Crowningshield heard that the Knapps were in

custody, and that Joseph had confessed, he committed suicide in his cell.

At a special term of the Supreme Court at Salem, July 20th, indictments

for murder were found against Francis Knapp as principal, and Joseph Knapp

and George Crowningshield (a companion of Richard) as accessories. The

trial of Francis took place August 3d, with Mr. Franklin Dexter and Mr. W.

H. Gardner for the defence, and Mr. Webster assisting the Attorney-General

in the prosecution.

[1]P. 239, l. 13. 1. Mr. Lodge says that this account of the murder and

analysis of the workings of a mind, haunted with the remembrance of the

horrid crime, must be placed among the very finest masterpieces of modern

oratory. "I have studied this famous exordium," he says, "with extreme

care, and I have sought diligently in the works of all the great modern

orators, and of some of the ancient as well, for similar passages of

higher merit. My quest has been in vain."

[2]P. 241, l. 23. 1. Mr. Webster's appearance for the prosecution gave

rise to some complaints on the part of the defence, who intimated that he

was in the interest of Mr. Stephen White, a residuary legatee of the

murdered man. The fact was that both the Attorney-General and the

Solicitor-General were old men, and had asked for Mr. Webster's

assistance.

[3]P. 243, l. 20. 1. Chief Justice Parker.

[4]P. 248, l. 10. 1. Mr. Webster's presentation of the evidence is

omitted. Cf. Webster's Complete Works, Vol. VI., p. 61.

Knapp was convicted as principal and sentenced to death. At the November

term Joseph was convicted as accessory and sentenced to share the same

fate. George Crowningshield proved an _alibi_, and was acquitted. The

argument in the Goodridge case stands in marked contrast to this; and it

must be conceded that, as a presentation of the law and the evidence, with

no attempt to work upon the feelings of the jurymen, it is a work of

higher quality. As a specimen of eloquence, of dramatic setting forth of

the horror of such a deed, of the experiences of the criminal, and of the

certainty that "murder will out," the argument has no equal in the

language.

For a remarkable analysis of Mr. Webster's career as a lawyer, see Rufus

Choate's address before the students of Dartmouth College in 1853 in

"Memorial of Daniel Webster from the City of Boston."

* * * * *

_THE CONSTITUTION NOT A COMPACT_.

February, 1833.

Mr. Webster had intimated in his Reply to Hayne that South Carolina was

playing a high game. There were some at that time who thought that he had

sounded the note of alarm in too loud a strain; but when in November,

1832, the State Convention, assembled at Columbia, South Carolina, adopted

an ordinance declaring the revenue laws of the United States null and

void, the voice of the croakers ceased to be heard in the general

excitement that filled the country. The Legislature assembled on the 27th,

and the governor in his message said that "the die has been at last cast,"

and that the Legislature was called upon to make "such enactments as would

make it utterly impossible to collect within our limits the duties imposed

by the protective tariffs thus nullified." The Legislature passed acts

providing that any one who should attempt to collect the revenue should be

punished, and made it lawful to use the military force of the State to

resist any attempt of the United States to enforce the tariff laws. Mr.

Webster now had a very difficult and delicate task before him; he was

bound to criticise the general tone of the administration of Jackson, for

he believed that it had not met the needs of the country, and yet he was

equally bound not to put himself in such antagonism as to prevent him from

aiding the administration, should his aid be sought, against those who

were determined to destroy the laws of the land. In the then impending

presidental canvass he took the ground that President Jackson was in

hostility to the idea of protection, and that therefore he could not be

safely trusted with the executive power. But President Jackson, whatever

had been his record on the question of the tariff, showed that he had no

desire to shirk his duty, for he at once issued a proclamation, which

embodied the principles maintained by Mr. Webster in his Reply to Hayne,

and warned the authorities of South Carolina that all opposition to the

laws of the United States would be put down. He thus served notice that

treason was not to win by default of the President. Calhoun had resigned

the vice-presidency and had taken his seat in the Senate, and it was known

that such an act meant the attempt to raise the flag of nullification high

in the Senate-chamber.

Mr. Webster was on his way to Washington when he heard of the prompt and

decisive action of the President. At Philadelphia he met Mr. Clay, who

told him that he had a plan for settling the difficulty by gradually

reducing the tariff, and for levying duties "without regard to protection

or encouragement of any branch of domestic industry." When Mr. Clay

brought in his bill, it was not so strong as the one he had submitted to

Mr. Webster a short time before, but yet Mr. Webster could not think of

taking any step at such a time that would look like concession. The first

thing to be done was to enforce the existing laws and sustain the

administration by suitable legislation. There was to be no surrender of

constitutional power. At the opening of the session the President asked

Congress for the power to use the land and naval forces if necessary to

enforce the laws. The committee to which the message was referred reported

what is known as the "Force Bill," which granted the President the powers

asked for. Some of the senators doubted that the President had such

"daring effrontery" as to ask for such power. Mr. Webster said, "I will

tell you gentlemen that the President _has_ had the 'daring

effrontery' to ask for these powers, no matter how high may be the

offence."

President Jackson had used very strong language against the leaders of

Nullification, and this made many of the (Southern) administration

senators hostile to the measures of the "Force Bill." When it was found

that the President had called for the assistance of Mr. Webster, Mr.

Calhoun became very uneasy, and at once sought for Mr. Clay, who promised

to bring in his bill for reducing the tariff. On the 8th of February, Mr.

Clay introduced the measure and claimed that its purpose was to save the

tariff, which he considered to be in imminent danger. Mr. Webster, as was

expected, opposed the bill and introduced a series of resolutions. On the

two following days he was prevented from addressing the Senate on his

resolutions because of the discussion of the "Force Bill," when Mr.

Calhoun took the opportunity to expound the theory and practice of

Nullification. The speech was in Mr. Calhoun's very best style of close,

logical argument, with but little that made for eloquence. Calhoun was a

master of logical method, and such was his skill in dovetailing together

the elements of his speculations that he was a powerful antagonist. He had

waited until most of the senators in opposition had spoken and then broke

upon them and tore their arguments into shreds. It was an able supplement

to the speech of Hayne and was likely to produce quite as much alarm,

unless its position could be turned. Here were sown the seeds of secession

which grew into that frightful civil war. By establishing the principle of

the Union as but a confederacy of States the right of secession was

assured.

Mr. Webster felt the importance of the occasion; he saw clearly the

direction in which such appeals were sure to lead the people, and he at

once determined to throw himself into the conflict. The doctrines which he

had maintained in the Reply to Hayne had now taken strong hold of the

people of the Central and Western States, and of many of the strongest

public men of both parties; it was from this vantage ground that (on the

16th) he began his great speech known as "The Constitution not a Compact

between Sovereign States."

[1]P. 275, l. 9. 1. Mr. Rives.

[2]P. 326, l. 27. 1. "The vital question went to the great popular jury.

The world knows what the verdict was, and will never forget that it was

largely due to the splendid eloquence of Daniel Webster when he defended

the cause of nationality against the slave-holding separatists of South

Carolina."--HENRY CABOT LODGE.

"Whoever," says Mr. Curtis, "would understand that theory of the

Constitution of the United States which regards it as the enactment of a

fundamental law must go to this speech to find the best and clearest

exposition."

"Then and there," says Dr. Hudson, "it was that real battles of the Union

were fought and won. For the cause had to be tried in the courts of

legislative reason before it could come to trial on field of battle."

This speech is much less rhetorical than the Reply to Hayne. The subject

was not a new one, nor was the condition of the public mind so feverish as

in 1830; consequently the case required not so much an appeal to the

emotions as to the reason. It has always been considered as the most

compact, close, logical, and convincing of all Mr. Webster's speeches. The

people have relied upon it from that day to this to teach them the

principles of the Constitution: in it they find the origin, the history,

and the purpose of our great national fabric. By this speech Webster

placed himself upon the highest pinnacle of fame, and added to his title

of first orator that of the greatest statesman of his time, winning the

proud distinction of "Expounder, Commentator, and Defender of the

Constitution." On the 12th of October, 1835, the citizens of Boston

presented to Mr. Webster a massive silver vase in testimony of their

gratitude for his services in defence of the Constitution against South

Carolina Nullification.

It contained the following inscription:--

PRESENTED TO

DANIEL WEBSTER,

The Defender of the Constitution,

BY THE CITIZENS OF BOSTON,

Oct. 12, 1835.

In reply to the address of presentation Mr. Webster said:--

"In one respect, Gentlemen, your present oppresses me. It assigns to me a

character of which I feel I am not worthy. 'The Defender of the

Constitution' is a title quite too high for me. He who shall prove himself

the ablest among the able men of the country, he who shall serve it

longest among those who may serve it long, he on whose labors all the

stars of benignant fortune shall shed their selectest influence, will have

praise enough, and reward enough, if, at the end of his political and

earthly career, though that career may have been as bright as the track of

the sun across the sky, the marble under which he sleeps, and that much

better record, the grateful breasts of his living countrymen, shall

pronounce him 'the Defender of the Constitution.' It is enough for me,

Gentlemen, to be connected, in the most humble manner, with the defence

and maintenance of this great wonder of modern times, and this certain

wonder of all future times. It is enough for me to stand in the ranks, and

only to be counted as one of its defenders."

Cf. Curtis's _Life of Webster_, Ch. XIX.; Lodge's _Webster_, Ch.

VII.; Address of Dr. Hudson on the Hundredth Anniversary of the Birth of

Daniel Webster, June 18, 1882.

* * * * *

_SPEECH AT SARATOGA_.

August, 1840.

Mr. Webster had been in almost continual public service since 1813, and

during that period the two great questions which demanded the attention of

statesmen were the tariff and the currency. The history of the former is

to be found in the Reply to Hayne and the Reply to Calhoun; the history of

the latter, in that memorable series of speeches during the session of

1831-1833 on the policy of President Jackson regarding the United States

Bank. Out of this great controversy the Whig party arose, and its first

nominee for the presidency was William Henry Harrison in 1835, but the

friends of Jackson were strong, and Van Buren was elected. He continued

the financial policy of his predecessor, or at least made no effort to

remedy the evils which it had brought upon the country. Mr. Webster gave

himself to the task of exposing the financial heresies of the

administration and of preventing further injurious legislation. In the

summer of 1839 he visited England for rest, and was everywhere received

with the honor due to his high position and his distinguished attainments;

he received courtesies usually confined to ambassadors and foreign

ministers. On his return he found that the Whigs had again nominated

Harrison. Although he had reason to expect his own nomination, for this

was the desire of _the people_, he at once threw himself into the

campaign in support of the nominee. The people from all sections of the

country wished to hear and see the man who had done such noble service for

them in Congress. His speeches during this campaign are a fit supplement

to those which he had just completed on the subject of the bank. The theme

was essentially the same, but the audience was in many respects a more

difficult one to reach. In the familiarity with financial questions Mr.

Webster had shown himself second only to Hamilton himself, and in

presenting the subject to a popular audience he reached the high-water

mark of political oratory; there is no cant, no bluster, no personal

abuse, but the dignity and simplicity of the simple and dignified friend

of the people.

On the 19th of August, 1840, he addressed the citizens of New York in a

mass meeting at Saratoga. Of all the great speeches of this campaign this

best represents the mind and art of Mr. Webster, and is especially

interesting in this year (1892) when essentially the same questions--the

tariff and the currency--are before the people, and when the nominee of

the party, which is the child of the old Whig party, is Benjamin Harrison.

[1]P. 331, l. 28. 1. The history of banking in the United States is

interesting as a chapter in the general history of banking. It began with

that great financier, Alexander Hamilton. When Secretary of the Treasury

he conceived the plan of a great national bank, which should take charge

of the disbursement of the revenues, and which should furnish a paper

circulation,--founded on national resources,--which should be current all

over the country. After a prolonged opposition by the Anti-federalists,

who claimed that the establishment of such a bank would be

unconstitutional, he prevailed upon Washington to sign the bill of

incorporation, and in 1791 the bank began its work. It continued its

existence until 1811, when the Anti-federalists refused to recharter it.

Owing to the disordered currency resulting from the War of 1812, Mr.

Madison brought the matter before Congress in his message, and in 1816 the

second Bank of the United States was established.

[2]P. 333, l. 27. 1. Cf. Sumner's _Life of Andrew Jackson_, Chs.

XIII., XIV.

[3]P. 334, l. 20. 1. In the session of 1831-1832 the bank applied for a

new charter, and here began the great struggle with President Jackson. The

bill to recharter the bank passed both Houses in 1832, and was vetoed by

the President. Mr. Webster made a notable speech against the veto, and at

once took the lead as an authority on questions of finance. The following

year the President struck his hardest blow against the bank, by ordering

the removal of the deposits. The Senate passed resolutions condemning the

act, and Mr. Webster, on presenting resolutions to the same effect from

Boston, made a most powerful speech in which he depicted the great

commercial distress resulting from the removal and from the institution of

State banks. Between the time of this speech and the close of the session

he spoke on the subject of the bank and national finance over sixty times.

No other such exhibition of intellectual power and grasp of intricate

problems, united with commanding eloquence, has ever been made in our

history. As a result of the censure by the Senate, the President sent a

protest in which he argued that the Senate had exceeded its power. Mr.

Webster replied to this in what is now considered the greatest of all his

speeches during the great struggle.

[4]P. 335, l. 26. 1. After the removal of the deposits, effected by

Jackson, State banks were formed in large numbers, and certain of these

became deposit banks. The notes of State banks were used for the purchase

of public lands from the United States, and the treasury was thus

accumulating paper currency of doubtful value. The Secretary of the

Treasury (1836) issued the so-called "Specie Circular," ordering the

government agents to receive in future only gold and silver. Only those

banks which held government revenue deposits could furnish coin, and

widespread bankruptcy was the result.

[5]P. 337, l. 17. 1. Cf. Gay's _Life of James Madison_.

[6]P. 339, l. 9, 1. Jackson had never questioned the right of the

government to regulate the currency, but had asserted it when he made

certain State banks banks of deposit. Van Buren was obliged either to

return to the policy of a national bank, or to renounce all rights of the

Government to regulate the currency. He chose the latter, and by means of

the "Sub-Treasury Scheme" completed the separation of "bank and State."

The speech of Mr. Webster on the "Sub-Treasury" is the most complete and

convincing of all his speeches on the right of the Government to regulate

the currency.

[7]P. 346, l. 24. 1. Mr. Webster was living at this time at Marshfield,

Massachusetts.

Cf. Curtis's _Life of Webster_, Chs. XIX.-XXIII.; Lodge's

_Webster_, Ch. VII.; _Works of Daniel Webster_, Vols. III., IV.;

_Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster_, Vol. II., p. 83.

* * * * *

_MR. JUSTICE STORY_.

September, 1845.

Of the many friends of Webster during his long political career, there was

no one more constant in his attentions, more sympathetic in his judgments,

or more helpful in his counsels than was Mr. Justice Story. Ever since

they had acted together in the Massachusetts Convention in 1820 they had

maintained for each other's character and attainments the most generous

and cordial enthusiasm. The death of Mr. Story on the 10th of September,

1845, was a great affliction to Mr. Webster, and cast a gloom over his

Marshfield home, where they had passed so many delightful hours together.

At a meeting of the Suffolk Bar held in the Circuit Court Room, on the

morning of the 12th of September, the day of the funeral, Chief Justice

Shaw having taken the chair and announced the object of the meeting, Mr.

Webster pronounced the following noble and beautiful eulogium.

The following letter of dedication to the mother of Judge Story

accompanied these remarks in the original edition:--

"BOSTON, September 15, 1845.

"Venerable Madam,--I pray you to allow me to present to you the brief

remarks which I made before the Suffolk Bar, on the 12 instant, at a

meeting occasioned by the sudden and afflicting death of your

distinguished son. I trust, dear Madam, that as you enjoyed through his

whole life constant proofs of his profound respect and ardent filial

affection, so you may yet live long to enjoy the remembrance of his virtue

and his exalted reputation.

"I am with very great regard, your obedient servant,

"DANIEL WEBSTER.

"To Madam Story."

[1]P. 358, l. 28. 1. Cf. _Life and Works of Judge Story_.

[2]P. 362, l. 10. 1. The following inscription, which Mr. Webster wrote

with his own hand a short time before his death, and which he desired to

have placed on his monument, is interesting in connection with these

closing words of the eulogy:--

"LORD, I BELIEVE; HELP THOU

MINE UNBELIEF."

Philosophical

argument, especially

that drawn from the vastness of

the Universe, in comparison with the

apparent insignificance of this globe, has some-

times shaken my reason for the faith which is in me;

but my heart has always assured and reassured me, that the

Gospel of Jesus Christ must be a Divine Reality. The

Sermon on the Mount cannot be a merely human

production. This belief enters into the

very depth of my conscience.

The whole history of man

proves it.

DANIEL WEBSTER.

When he wrote the above, he said to a friend: "If I get well and write a

book on Christianity, about which we have talked, we can attend more fully

to this matter; but if I should be taken away suddenly, I do not wish to

leave any duty of this kind unperformed. I want to leave somewhere a

declaration of my belief in Christianity."

It was not Mr. Webster's custom to make a parade of his religious beliefs;

he was simple, sincere, and unaffected in his religious life. That he was

a lover and student of our English Bible, no one familiar with his thought

and style needs to be told. Mr. Choate, in speaking of Webster's models in

the matter of style, mentions Cicero, Virgil, our English Bible,

Shakespeare, Addison, and Burke.

For the latest estimates of Webster's work the student should consult the

following:

The Proceedings of the Webster Centennial, Dartmouth College (1902).

Address of Hon. Henry Cabot Lodge at the unveiling of the Webster Memorial

in Washington, in the volume _The Fighting Frigate_ and other essays.

John B. McMaster's Life of Daniel Webster.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Select Speeches of Daniel Webster

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