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The distinguishing characteristic of the speeches of Henry Clay is an eminent practicalness. They are not imaginative, nor poetical, nor impassioned. They lack the solidity, compactness and inherent force of Webster, and the philosophic generalization of Calhoun; Wright is more plausible and ingenious, Preston is more graceful and fervid, and Choate more brilliant and classically ornate. Yet there is an unaffected earnestness of conviction, a profound heartiness of purpose, a frank and perfect ingenuousness, a manly good sense, exhibited in the works of this great statesman which commend them to the reader's understanding and approval. Although the manner of the orator adds force and significance to the matter, so that his speeches should be heard to be justly estimated, they are found to bear a value in the closet not possessed by the productions of many who have enjoyed the highest eminence in the senate, the forum and the world of letters.

Mr. Calhoun is another author of the highest rank, and his works, though in many respects very different from those of the great orators I have mentioned, are scarcely less peculiar and national. It has been too much the habit to consider him only as a politician. His claims as a philosopher have been almost overlooked. No one has more skill as a dialectician. His sententious and close diction, his remarkable power of analysis, his simplicity and dignity -his doctrines, and all the elements of the power with which they are maintained-will secure for his works a permanent place in the world's consideration.

I may here allude to John Quincy Adams as altogether one of the most remarkable men of this century, in whose various and voluminous works there is not only marked nationality, but a wisdom which astonishes by its universality and profoundness; to Edward Everett, as an orator of the most comprehensive learning, elegant taste, and noble spirit; to Hugh S. Legare, as one of the finest of our senatorial rhetoricians; to Tristram Burgess, and many others, whose speeches, when their histories as partisans are forgotten, will be regarded as portions of the classical literature of the country, fit to be ranked among the finest works of their kind produced in the most cultivated ancient or modern nations.

No other of the immortal company by whose genius, virtue and suffering our independence was achieved and our government established, has suffered so much from misrepresentation as Alexander Hamilton, of whom Guizot says justly that there is not one element of order, strength and durability in our constitution which he did not powerfully contribute to introduce into the

scheme and cause to be adopted." He was the first of our great legislators; and though the world has made some advances since his time in political philosophy, his works are still resorted to by the judicious as a storehouse of the profoundest wisdom. Much of his celebrated Report on Manufactures combats objections to the protective policy, which are no longer urged, and has therefore now only an historical value, but The Federalist will always be a text book among statesmen.†

The writings of Madison, though less important than those of Hamilton, show that he also was a consummate statesman. They are distinguished for an extent and fulness of information, soundness of reasoning, and sagacity, which characterize but few even of the most celebrated works in their department.

The political writings of John Adams, Dickinson, Jefferson, Jay, and others of that age, are likewise remarkable for great and peculiar merits.

A very large proportion of our works in Political Economy relate to the Circulating Medium and Manufactures, and have been occasioned by the movements of parties or the immediate wants of the country. Those on currency and banking by Mr. Gallatin, Mr. Raguet, Mr. Tucker, and some others, with the discussions of this subject by our leading statesmen in the legislative assemblies and through the press, have shown a depth of research and an acuteness of understanding very rarely equalled. Commerce as affecting manufactures has constantly engaged public attention since the days of Hamilton and Madison. Parties have been for or against the American System-for free trade or for protection. Jefferson engaged in the controversy, but to suit temporary purposes, and without consistency.‡ Dr. Cooper, when in Pennsylvania, wrote forcibly in favour of protection, and subsequently, when in South Carolina, against it. Mr. Clay has advocated the protective system with consistency and a lucid ability hardly ever surpassed. No man has been more successful in his treatment of the subject in its secondary aspects, though he may have produced little which will survive the changes of the times. Mr. Webster has written ably on both sides of the question, as the circumstances of the country seemed to require; before 1824 for free trade, and

* Washington, par M. Guizot. Paris, 1840.

It ought to be familiar to the statesmen of every nation.-De Tocqueville.

It exhibits an extent and precision of information, a profundity of research, and an acuteness of understanding which would have done honour to the most illustrious statesmen of ancient or modern times. -Edinburgh Review, No. xxiv.

See his letters to B. Austin in 1816, and a letter written by him on the same subject in 1823.

since for protection. Mr. Calhoun has in both periods been opposed to Mr. Webster, and he is now undoubtedly the ablest economist of his party. The protective policy has also been defended by Mr. Mathew Carey, Mr. Alexander H. Everett, Mr. Lawrence, and Mr. Greeley; and a perfect freedom of trade advocated by Mr. Condy Raguet, Mr. Bryant, Mr. Clement Biddle, Mr. Legget, and Mr. Walker. Many other writers have been more or less prominently engaged in this controversy. Works on Political Economy have also been written by Mr. Cardoza, Professor Dew, Dr. McVickar, Dr. Vethake, Dr. Wayland, Mr. C. Colton, Mr. Middleton, and Mr. Raymond, several of which are text-books in the colleges. Mr. Everett is also the author of a work on New Principles of Population, and Mr. Henry C. Carey has written largely and with ability on Population, the Production of Wealth, and Wages.*

Among our writers in Jurisprudence have been many of great ability. Our books of Codes, Statutes, Reports and Essays on Rights, Crimes and Punish

Wayland, Tucker, Dew, etc., agree very well with Ricardo and Malthus. Mr. Carey does not, and he has attempted to show that a proper examination of the facts that are before us prove that their views are unsound. Ricardo teaches that profits fall as wages rise-that the one must fall with the rise of the other that rent is paid because of a constantly increasing difficulty of obtaining food, as population increases, and consequently that the interests of landlord and labourer are always opposed; the one fattening upon the starvation of the other. This whole system is one of discords. Mr. Carey holds, on the contrary, that wages and profits both tend to increase with the growth of capital and the increase of production, but that with the increased productiveness of labour the labourer obtains a constantly increasing proportion, leaving to the capitalist a constantly decreasing proportion, but to both an increased quantity. Thus if at one time the labour of a man produces fifty bushels, of which the landlord takes half, and at another one hundred, of which he takes only one-third, both are improved, although the apparent condition of the landlord is deteriorated from half to one-third.

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The rent of land is held to be subject to the same law, it being only profit of capital, under another With the increased facility of obtaining food, as capital is applied to the land, the landlord takes a constantly decreasing proportion, and the labourer has a constantly increasing one. The interests of all therefore are in perfect harmony with each other, and all are benefited by every measure tending to the maintenance of peace and the growth of capital.

Every part of Political Economy is included in the great law, " Do unto your neighbour as you would have your neighbour do unto you." Security of person and property succeed the growth of capital— physical, moral and intellectual improvement are a necessary consequence of such growth, and with every step in his material or moral advancement man becomes more conscious of the existence of poutical rights, and more able to maintain them. Democracy-self-government-is therefore a necessary consequence of the growth of wealth, and it arises out of the change of proportions, above noted. With every increase in the proportion which capital bears to labour, their relative value changes— labour goes up and capital down-but only so far as proportions go—not quantities.

ments, have had a powerful influence on the common and positive laws of Christendom. Bradford and Livingston, with many others, entitled themselves to gratitude by efforts to overthrow the tyranny of Revenge, which until recently has been the first principle in criminal legislation. Their influence has been widely acknowledged in Europe as well as in America. I need but refer to the great Marshall, to Hamilton, "the first of our constitutional lawyers;" to Parsons, who had no superior in the common law; to Kent, whose decisions are "more signally entitled to respect than those of any English chancellor since the American Revolution, with the single exception, perhaps, of Lord Eldon;"† to the voluminous and able works of Story; or to those of Livingston, Wheaton, Stearns, Duer, Verplanck, Philips, Greenleaf, Binney, and others whose names are associated with these in the memories of the legal profession.

In archæological, oriental and classical learning our scholars may claim an equality with any contemporaries except the Germans. In Biblical Criticism‡ the names of J. A. Alexander, Albert Barnes, George Bush, Charles Hodge, Andrews Norton, Edward Robinson, Moses Stuart, § James H. Thornwell, and others, are everywhere honourably distinguished. Professors Lewis, Felton, and Woolsey have published editions of Greek classics eminently creditable to themselves and their respective universities, and Dr. Robinson had acquired an enduring fame as a Hellenist before he established a new era in the study of sacred antiquities. Few Americans have written much in the Latin language. The occasions for its use are less frequent than formerly. It is commonly taught however in our schools, and numerous works of unquestionable

* 3 Sergeant and Rawle, 194.

† Justice Gibson: 3 Rawle, 139.

+ Our American neighbours are really outstripping us in Biblical Literature.-Samuel Lee, Professor of Arabic and Hebrew in the University of Cambridge.

§ Bloomfield, in his Notes, Critical, Philological and Exegetical upon the New Testament-the most elaborate and popular work of its sort produced in England in the present age-acknowledges that he has made large use of Stuart; and he might say of his last edition that it owes its chief value to Stuart and Robinson.

Professor Ritter, of Berlin, wrote, on reading Dr. Robinson's Researches Now just begins a second great era in our knowledge of the Promised Land."

The number of Latin orations before our colleges has been very large. Among the principal other Latin works by natives of the country are the Pietas et Gratulatio addressed to George III. by the President and Fellows of Harvard College; Telemachus, in hexameter verse, by the Abbe Veil, of New Orleans; the Life of Washington, by Francis Glass, of Ohio; and a System of Divinity, by Bishop Kendrick, of Pennsylvania.

merit, among which those of Mr. Leverett and Dr. Anthon may be particularly referred to, have appeared here to facilitate its study.

The philological labours of Dr. Webster are universally known and appreciated. After the devotion of nearly half a century to his Dictionary he saw it become the most generally approved standard of English orthography. The services of the late Dr. John Pickering and others in this department are likewise honourable to American scholarship.

The Crania Americana of Dr. Morton, a work of immense research, in which are described the cranial peculiarities of many races which in this respect were little known, is one of the most important ethnographical works produced in this age. Mr. Gallatin-on many accounts one of the most remarkable of men-is perhaps to be longest remembered for his profound investigations of the languages of the American continent. To the laborious and ingenious Schoolcraft future ages are to owe the most valuable part of their knowledge of the habits and intellectual character of the Indian race. Mr. Catlin, Mr. Hodgson and other American travellers, and our noble company of missionaries, whose heroism puts to shame all that is recorded of the ages of chivalry, have likewise contributed very largely to our knowledge of the families of mankind.

The cultivation of purely mechanical and natural science has been carried much too far in this country, or rather has been made too exclusive and absorbing. It is not the highest science, for it concerns only that which is around us—which is altogether outward. Man is greater than the world of nature in which he lives, and just as clearly must the science of man, the philosophy of his moral and intellectual being, rank far above that of the soulless creation which was made to minister to his wants. When, therefore, this lower science so draws to itself the life of any age, as to disparage and shut out the higher, it works to the well being of that age an injury. Still it is only thus in comparison with a nobler and more lofty study, that the faintest reproach should be cast upon that natural science, which in no slight degree absorbs the intellectual effort of the present generation. Regarded as related to, and a part of, a complete system of education, with a powerful influence

* The American Dictionary of the English Language was published in two quarto volumes in 1828, after more than thirty years' laborious study by the author. It contained about twelve thousand words and more than thirty thousand definitions not found in any similar work. Dr. Webster soon after commenced a new edition, which he completed and published in 1841.

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