Page images
PDF
EPUB

suppose her equally forgetful of the past, and blind to the present, alike ignorant of her own history, and her own interest, metamorphosed, from all that she has been, into a being, tired of its prosperity, sick of its own growth and greatness, and infatuated for its own destruction. Every blow aimed at the Union of the States strikes on the tenderest nerve of her interest and her happiness. To bring the Union into debate, is to bring her own future prosperity into debate also. To speak of arresting the laws of the Union, of interposing State power in matters of Commerce and Revenue, of weakening the full and just authority of the General Government, would be, in regard to this City, but another mode of speaking of commercial ruin, of abandoned wharves, of vacated houses, of diminished and dispersing population, of bankrupt merchants, of mechanics without employment, and laborers without bread. The growth of this City, and the Constitution of the United States, are coevals and cotemporaries. They began together, they have flourished together, and if rashness and folly destroy one, the other will follow it to the tomb.

Gentlemen, it is true, indeed, that the growth of this City is extraordinary, and almost unexampled. It is now, I believe, sixteen or seventeen years since I first saw it. Within that compar

atively short period, it has added to its number three times the whole amount of its population when the Constitution was adopted. Of all things having power to check this prosperity; of all things potent to blight and blast it; of all things capable of compelling this City to recede as fast as she has advanced, a disturbed government, an enfeebled public authority, a broken or a weakened Union of the States,-would be most sovereign. This would be cause efficient enough. Every thing else, in the common fortune of communities, she may hope to resist or to prevent. But this would be fatal as the arrow of death.

Gentlemen, you have personal recollections and associations, connected with the establishment and adoption of the Constitution, which are necessarily called up on an occasion like this. It is impossible to forget the prominent agency which eminent citizens of your own fulfilled, in regard to that great measure. Those great men are now recorded among the illustrious dead; but they have left names never to be forgotten, and never to be remembered without respect and veneration. Least of all, can they be forgotten by you, when assembled here for the purpose of signifying your attachment to the Constitution, and your sense of its inestimable importance to the happiness of the people.

I should do violence to my own feelings, gentlemen-I think I should offend yours-if I omitted respectful mention of distinguished names, yet fresh in your recollections. How can I stand here, to speak of the Constitution of the United States, of the wisdom of its

provisions, of the difficulties attending its adoption, of the evils from which it rescued the country, and of the prosperity and power to which it has raised it, and yet pay no tribute to those who were highly instrumental in accomplishing the work? While we are here, to rejoice that it yet stands firm and strong; while we congratulate one another that we live under its benign influence, and cherish hopes of its long duration,we cannot forget who they were that, in the day of our national infancy, in the times of despondency and despair, mainly assisted to work out our deliverance. I should feel that I disregarded the strong recollections which the occasion presses upon us, that I was not true to gratitude, not true to patriotism, not true to the living or the dead, not true to your feelings or my own, if I should forbear to make mention of ALEXANDER HAMILTON.

Coming from the military service of the country, yet a youth, but with knowledge and maturity, even in civil affairs, far beyond his years, he made this City the place of his adoption; and he gave the whole powers of his mind to the contemplation of the weak and distracted condition of the country. Daily increasing in acquaintance and confidence with the people of this City, he saw, what they also saw, the absolute necessity of some closer bond of union for the States. This was the great object of desire. He never appears to have lost sight of it, but was found in the lead, whenever any thing was to be attempted for its accomplishment. One experiment after another, as is well known, was tried, and all failed. The States were urgently called on to confer such further powers on the old Congress as would enable it to redeem the public faith, or to adopt, themselves, some general and common principle of commercial regulation. But the States had not agreed, and were not likely to agree. In this posture of affairs, so full of public difficulty, and public distress, Commissioners from five or six of the States met, on the request of Virginia, at Annapolis, in Sept., 1786. The precise object of their appointment was, to take into consideration the trade of the United States; to examine the relative situations and trade of the several States; and to consider how far a uniform system of commercial regulations was necessary to their common interest and permanent harmony. Mr. Hamilton was one of these Commissioners; and I have understood, though I cannot assert the fact, that their Report was drawn by him. His associate from this State was the venerable Judge BENSON, who has lived long, and still lives, to see the happy results of the counsels which originated in this meeting. Of its members, he and Mr. Madison are, I believe, now the only survivors. These Commissioners recommended, what took place the next year, a General Convention of all the States, to take into serious deliberation the condition of the country, and devise such provisions as should render the

Constitution of the Federal Government adequate to the exigencies of the Union. I need not remind you, that of this Convention Mr. Hamilton was an active and efficient member. The Constitution was framed, and submitted to the country. And then another great work was to be undertaken. The Constitution would naturally find, and did find, enemies and opposers. Objections to it were numerous, and powerful, and spirited. They were to be answered; and they were, effectually, answered. The writers of the numbers of the Federalist, Mr. Hamilton, Mr. Madison, and Mr. Jay, so greatly distinguished themselves in their discussions of the Constitution, that those numbers are generally received as important commentaries on the text, and accurate expositions, in general, of its objects and purposes. Those papers were all written and published in this City. Mr. Hamilton was elected one of the distinguished delegation from the City, into the State Convention at Poughkeepsie, called to ratify the new Constitution. Its debates are published. Mr. Hamilton appears to have exerted, on this occasion, to the utmost, every power and faculty of his mind.

The whole question was likely to depend on the decision of New York. He felt the full importance of the crisis; and the reports of his speeches, imperfect as they probably are, are yet lasting monuments to his genius and patriotism. He saw at last his hopes fulfilled; he saw the Constitution adopted, and the government under it established and organized. The discerning eye of Washington immediately called him to that post, which was infinitely the most important in the administration of the new system. He was made Secretary of the Treasury; and how he fulfilled the duties of such a place, at such a time, the whole country perceived with delight, and the whole world saw with admiration. He smote the rock of the national resources, and abundant streams of revenue gushed forth. He touched the dead corpse of the Public Credit, and it sprung upon its feet. The fabled birth of Minerva, from the brain of Jove, was hardly more sudden, or more perfect, than the financial system of the United States, burst forth from the conceptions of ALEXANDER HAMILTON.

Your recollections, gentlemen, your respect, and your affections, all conspire to bring before you, at such a time as this, another great man, now, too, numbered with the dead. I mean the pure, the disinterested, the patriotic JOHN JAY. His character is a brilliant jewel in the sacred treasures of national reputation. Leaving his profession at an early period, yet not before he had singularly distinguished himself in it, from the commencement of the revolution, his whole life, until his final retirement, was a life of public service. A member of the first Congress, he was the author of that political paper which is generally acknowledged to stand first

among the incomparable productions of that body; productions which called forth that decisive strain of commendation from the great Lord Chatham, in which he pronounced them not inferior to the finest productions of the master States of the world. Mr. Jay had been abroad, and he had also been long intrusted with the difficult duties of our foreign correspondence at home. He had seen and felt, in the fullest measure, and to the greatest possible extent, the difficulty of conducting our foreign affairs honorably and usefully, without a stronger and more perfect domestic union. Though not a member of the Convention which framed the Constitution, he was yet present while it was in session, and looked anxiously for its result. By the choice of this City, he had a seat in the State Convention, and took an active and zealous part for the adoption of the Constitution. On the organization of the new Government, he was selected by Washington to be the first Chief Justice of the United States; and surely the high and most responsible duties of that station could not have been trusted to abler or safer hands. It is the duty, one of equal importance and delicacy, of that tribunal, to decide constitutional questions, arising occasionally on State laws. The general learning and ability, and especially the prudence, the mildness, and the firmness of his character, eminently fitted Mr. Jay to be the head of such a court. When the spotless ermine of the judicial robe fell on JOHN JAY, it touched nothing not as spotless as itself.

These eminent men, gentlemen, the cotemporaries of some of you, known to most, and revered by all, were so conspicuous in the framing and adopting of the Constitution, and called so early to important stations under it, that a tribute, better, indeed, than I have given, or am able to give, seemed due to them from us.

There was yet another, of whom mention is to be made. In the revolutionary history of the country, the name of Chancellor LIVINGSTON became early prominent. He was a member of that Congress which declared Independence; and a member, too, of the Committee which drew and reported the immortal Declaration. At the period of the adoption of the Constitution, he was its firm friend and able advocate. He was a member of the State Convention, being one of that list of distinguished and gifted men, who represented this city in that body; and he threw the whole weight of his talents and influence into the doubtful scale of the Constitution.

Gentlemen, as connected with the Constitution, you have also local recollections which must bind it still closer to your attachment and affection. It commenced its being, and its blessings, here. It was in this City, in the midst of friends, anxious, hopeful, and devoted, that the new Government started in its course. To us, gentlemen, who are younger, it has come down by tradition; but some around me are old enough to have witnessed, and did witness, the interesting scene of the first inauguration. They re

member what voices of gratified patriotism, what shouts of enthusiastic hope, what acclamations, rent the air-how many eyes were suffused with tears of joy-how cordially each man pressed the hand of him who was next to him, when, standing in the open air, in the centre of the City, in the view of assembled thousands, the first President was heard solemnly to pronounce the words of his official oath, repeating them from the lips of Chancellor LIVINGSTON. You then thought, gentlemen, that the great work of the revolution was accomplished. You then felt that you had a Governmentthat the United States were then, indeed, united. Every benignant star seemed to shed its selectest influence on that auspicious hour. Here were heroes of the Revolution; here were sages of the Convention; here were minds, disciplined and schooled in all the various fortunes of the country, acting now in several relations, but all co-operating to the same great end, the successful administration of the new and untried Constitution. And he-how shall I speak of him?—he was at the head, who was already first in war,—who was already first in the hearts of his countrymen,—and who was now shown also, by the unanimous suffrage of the country, to be first in peace.

Gentlemen, how gloriously have the hopes, then indulged, been fulfilled! Whose expectation was then so sanguine-I may almost ask, whose imagination then so extravagant-as to run forward and contemplate as probable, the one half of what has been accomplished in forty years? Who among you can go back to 1789, and see what this City, and this country too, then were-and then, beholding what they now are, can be ready to consent that the Constitution of the United States shall be weakened, nullified, or dishonored?

Gentlemen, before I leave these pleasant recollections, I feel it an irresistible impulse of duty to pay a tribute of respect to another distinguished person, not, indeed, a fellow-citizen of your own, but associated with those I have already mentioned, in important labors, and an early and indefatigable friend and advocate in the great cause of the Constitution. Gentlemen, I refer to Mr. MADISON. I am aware, gentlemen, that a tribute of regard from me to him is of little importance; but if it shall receive your approbation and sanction, it will become of value. Mr. Madison, thanks to a kind Providence, is yet among the living, and there is certainly no other individual living, to whom the country is so much indebted for the blessings of the Constitution. He was one of the Commissioners at Annapolis, in 1786, at the meeting of which I have already spoken; a meeting which, to the great credit of Virginia, had its origin in a proceeding of that State. He was a member of the Convention of 1789, and of that of Virginia the following year. He was thus intimately acquainted with the whole progress of the

« PreviousContinue »