battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There 5 is no retreat, but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable,—and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come!

It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen 10 may cry, peace, peace, but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale, that sweeps from the north, will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What 15 would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!

LESSON CXCVII.-DUTIES OF AMERICAN CITIZENS.-LEVI
WOODBURY.

It behooves us to look our perils and difficulties, such as they are, in the face. Then, with the exercise of candor, calmness, and fortitude, being able to comprehend fully their character and extent, let us profit by the teachings of 5 almost every page in our annals, that any defects, under our existing system, have resulted more from the manner of administering it, than from its substance or form.

We less need new laws, new institutions, or new powers, than we need, on all occasions, at all times, and in 10 all places, the requisite intelligence concerning the true spirit of our present ones; the high moral courage, under every hazard, and against every offender, to execute with fidelity the authority already possessed; and the manly independence to abandon all supineness, irresolution, vacil15 lation, and time-serving pusillanimity, and enforce our present mild system with that uniformity and steady vigor throughout, which alone can supply the place of the greater severity of less free institutions.

To arm and encourage us in renewed efforts to accom20 plish every thing on this subject which is desirable, our history constantly points her finger to a most efficient resource, and indeed to the only elixir, to secure a long life

to any popular government, in increased attention to useful education and sound morals, with the wise description of equal measures and just practices they inculcate on every leaf of recorded time. Before their alliance, the 5 spirit of misrule will always, in time, stand rebuked, and those who worship at the shrine of unhallowed ambition, must quail.

Storms, in the political atmosphere, may occasionally happen by the encroachments of usurpers, the corruption 10 or intrigues of demagogues, or in the expiring agonies of faction, or by the sudden fury of popular frenzy; but, with the restraints and salutary influences of the allies before described, these storms will purify as healthfully as they often do in the physical world, and cause the tree of lib15 erty, instead of falling, to strike its roots deeper. In this struggle, the enlightened and moral possess also a power, auxiliary and strong, in the spirit of the age, which is not only with them, but onward, in every thing to ameliorate or improve.

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When the struggle assumes the form of a contest with power, in all its subtlety, or with undermining and corrupting wealth, as it sometimes may, rather than with turbulence, sedition, or open aggression by the needy and desperate, it will be indispensable to employ still greater 25 diligence; to cherish earnestness of purpose, resoluteness in conduct; to apply hard and constant blows to real abuses, rather than milk-and-water remedies, and encourage not only bold, free, and original thinking, but determined action.

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In such a cause, our fathers were men whose hearts were not accustomed to fail them, through fear, however formidable the obstacles. Some of them were companions of Cromwell, and imbued deeply with his spirit and iron decision of character, in whatever they deemed right: "If 35 Pope, and Spaniard, and devil, (said he,) all set themselves against us, though they should compass us about as bees, as it is in the 18th Psalm, yet in the name of the Lord we will destroy them." We are not, it is trusted, such degenerate descendants, as to prove recreant, and fail to defend, 40 with gallantry and firmness as unflinching, all which we have either derived from them, or since added to the rich inheritance.

At such a crisis, therefore, and in such a cause, yielding to neither consternation nor despair, may we not all profit

by the vehement exhortations of Cicero to Atticus: "If you are asleep, awake; if you are standing, move; if you are moving, run; if you are running, fly?"

All these considerations warn us, the grave-stones of 5 almost every former republic warn us, that a high standard of moral rectitude, as well as of intelligence, is quite as indispensable to communities, in their public doings, as to individuals, if they would escape from either degeneracy or disgrace.

LESSON CXCVIII.-POLITICAL CORRUPTION.-GEO. M'Duffie. SIR, we are apt to treat the idea of our own corruptibility, as utterly visionary, and to ask, with a grave affectation of dignity,-what! do you think a member of congress can be corrupted? Sir, I speak what I have long and de5 liberately considered, when I say, that since man was created, there never has been a political body on the face of the earth, that would not be corrupted under the same circumstances. Corruption steals upon us, in a thousand insidious forms, when we are least aware of its approaches.

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Of all the forms in which it can present itself, the bribery of office is the most dangerous, because it assumes the guise of patriotism to accomplish its fatal sorcery. We are often asked, where is the evidence of corruption? Have you seen it? Sir, do you expect to see it? You 15 might as well expect to see the embodied forms of pestilence and famine stalking before you, as to see the latent operations of this insidious power. We may walk amidst it, and breathe its contagion, without being conscious of its presence. All experience teaches us the irresistible 20 power of temptation, when vice assumes the form of virtue. The great enemy of mankind could not have consummated his infernal scheme for the seduction of our first parents, but for the disguise in which he presented himself. Had he appeared, as the devil, in his proper form; had the 25 spear of Ithuriel disclosed the naked deformity of the fiend of hell, the inhabitants of Paradise would have shrunk, with horror, from his presence. But he came, as the insinuating serpent, and presented a beautiful apple, the most delicious fruit in all the garden. He told his glowing story, 30 to the unsuspecting victim of his guile. "It can be no crime to taste of this delightful fruit. It will disclose to you the knowledge of good and evil. It will raise you to an equality with the angels." Such, sir, was the process

5

and, in this simple but impressive narrative, we have the most beautiful and philosophical illustration of the frailty of man, and the power of temptation, that could possibly be exhibited.

Mr. Chairman, I have been forcibly struck with the similarity between our present situation and that of Eve, after it was announced that Satan was on the borders of Paradise. We, too, have been warned that the enemy is on our borders. But God forbid that the similitude should be car10 ried any farther. Eve, conscious of her innocence, sought temptation, and defied it. The catastrophe is too fatally known to us all. She went, "with the blessings of Heaven on her head, and its purity in her heart," guarded by the ministry of angels,—she returned, covered with shame, un15 der the heavy denunciation of Heaven's everlasting curse.

Sir, it is innocence that temptation conquers. If our first parent, pure as she came from the hand of God, was overcome by the seductive power, let us not imitate her fatal rashness, seeking temptation, when it is in our power 20 to avoid it. Let us not vainly confide in our own infallibility. We are liable to be corrupted. To an ambitious man, an honorable office will appear as beautiful and fascinating, as the apple of Paradise.

I admit, sir, that ambition is a passion, at once the most 25 powerful and the most useful. Without it, human affairs would become a mere stagnant pool. By means of his patronage, the president addresses himself, in the most irresistible manner, to this, the noblest and strongest of our passions. All that the imagination can desire,-honor, 30 power, wealth, ease,—are held out, as the temptation. Man was not made to resist such temptations. It is impossible to conceive, Satan himself could not devise, a system which would more infallibly introduce corruption and death, into our political Eden. Sir, the angels fell from heaven, 35 with less temptation.

LESSON CXCIX.-INTELLIGENCE NECESSARY TO PERPETUATE

INDEPENDENCE.-DAWES.

That education is one of the deepest principles of independence, need not be labored in this assembly. In arbitrary governments, where the people neither make the law, nor choose those who legislate, the more ignorance, the 5 more peace. But in a government, where the people fill all the branches of the sovereignty, intelligence is the life

of liberty. An American would resent his being denied the use of his musket; but he would deprive himself of a stronger safeguard, if he should want that learning which is necessary to a knowledge of the constitution. It is easy 5 to see, that our Agrarian law, and the law of education, were calculated to make republicans, to make men. Servitude could never long consist with the habits of such citizens. Enlightened minds, and virtuous manners, lead to the gates of glory.

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The sentiment of independence must have been connatural in the bosoms of Americans; and, sooner or later, must have blazed out, into public action. Independence fits the soul of her residence, for every noble enterprise of humanity and greatness. Her radiant smile lights up celestial ardor 15 in poets and orators, who sound her praises through all ages; in legislators and philosophers, who fabricate wise and happy governments, as dedications to her fame; in patriots and heroes, who shed their lives in sacrifice to her divinity. At this idea, do not our minds swell with the 20 memory of those, whose godlike virtues have founded her most magnificent temple in America? It is easy for us to maintain her doctrines, at this late day, when there is but one party, on the subject, an immense people.

But what tribute shall we bestow, what sacred pæan 25 shall we raise over the tombs of those who dared, in the face of unrivalled power, and within the reach of majesty, to blow the blast of freedom throughout a subject continent? Nor did those brave countrymen of ours only express the emotions of glory; the nature of their principles 30 inspired them with the power of practice, and they offered their bosoms to the shafts of battle. Bunker's awful mount is the capacious urn of their ashes; but the flaming bounds of the universe could not limit the flight of their minds. They fled to the union of kindred souls; and those who 35 fell at the strait of Thermopyla, and those who bled on the heights of Charlestown, now reap congenial joys, in the fields of the blessed.

LESSON CC.-SOUTH AMERICAN REPUBLICS.-DANIEL WEBSTER.

Sir, I do not wish to overrate,-I do not overrate,—the progress of these new states in the great work of establishing a well-secured popular liberty. I know that to be a great attainment, and I know they are but pupils in the 5 school. But, thank God, they are in the school. They are called to meet difficulties, such as neither we nor our