shut our eyes to them. We know the importance of a firm and intelligent judiciary; but how shall we secure the continuance of a firm and intelligent judiciary? Gentlemen, the judiciary is in the appointment of the executive power. It cannot continue or renew itself. Its vacancies are to be filled in the ordinary modes of executive appointment. If the time shall ever come (which Heaven avert), when men shall be placed in the supreme tribunal of the country, who entertain opinions hostile to the just powers of the Constitution, we shall then be visited by an evil defying all remedy. Our case will be "past surgery." From that moment the Constitution is at an end. If they who are appointed to defend the castle shall betray it, wo betide those within! If I live to see that day come, I shall despair of the country. I shall be prepared to give it back to all its former afflictions, in the days of the confederation. I know no security, Gentlemen, against the possibility of this evil, but an awakened public vigilance. I know no safety, but in that state of public opinion, which shall lead it to rebuke and put down every attempt, either to gratify party, by judicial appointments, or to dilute the Constitution by creating a court which shall construe away its provisions. If members of Congress betray their trust, the people will find it out, before they are ruined. If the President should, at any time, violate his duty, his term of office is short, and popular elections may supply a seasonable remedy. But the judges of the Supreme Court possess, for very good reasons, an independent tenure of office. No election reaches them. If, with this tenure, they betray their trusts, Heaven save us! Let us hope for better results. The past, certainly, may encourage us. Let us hope that we shall never see the time when there shall exist such an awkward posture of affairs, as that the Government shall be found in opposition to the Constitution, and when the guardians of the Union shall become its betrayers.

Gentlemen, our country stands, at the present time, on commanding ground. Older nations, with different systems of government, may be somewhat slow to acknowledge all that justly belongs to us. But we may feel, without vanity, that America is doing her part in the great work of improving human affairs. There are two principles, Gentlemen, strictly and purely American, which are now likely to overrun the civilized world. Indeed, they seem the necessary result of the progress of civilization and knowledge. These are, first, popular governments, restrained by written constitutions; and, secondly, universal education. Popular governments and general education, acting and re-acting, mutually producing and reproducing each other, are the mighty agencies which, in our days, appear to be exciting, stimulating, and changing civilized societies. Man, every where, is now found demand

ing a participation in government-and he will not be refused; and he demands knowledge as necessary to self-government. On the basis of these two principles, liberty and knowledge, our own American systems rest. Thus far, we have not been disappointed in their results. Our existing institutions, raised on these foundations, have conferred on us almost unmixed happiness. Do we hope to better our condition by change? When we shall have nullified the present Constitution, what are we to receive in its place? As fathers, do we wish for our children better government, or better laws? As members of society, as lovers of our country, is there any thing we can desire for it better than that, as ages and centuries roll over it, it may possess the same invaluable institutions which it now enjoys? For my part, Gentlemen, I can only say, that I desire to thank the beneficent Author of all good, for being born where I was born, and when I was born; that the portion of human existence, allotted to me, has been meted out to me in this goodly land, and at this interesting period. I rejoice that I have lived to see so much developement of truthso much progress of liberty-so much diffusion of virtue and happiness. And, through good report and evil report, it will be my consolation to be a citizen of a republic unequalled in the annals of the world, for the freedom of its institutions, its high prosperity, and the prospects of good which yet lie before it. lie before it. Our course, Gentlemen, is onward, straight onward, and forward. Let us not turn to the right hand, nor to the left. Our path is marked out for us, clear, plain, bright, distinctly defined, like the milky way across the heavens. If we are true to our country, in our day and generation, and those who come after us shall be true to it also, assuredly, assuredly, we shall elevate her to a pitch of prosperity and happiness, of honor and power, never yet reached by any nation beneath the sun.

Gentlemen, before I resume my seat, a highly gratifying duty remains to be performed. In signifying your sentiments of regard, you have kindly chosen to select, as your organ for expressing them, the eminent person* near whom I stand. I feel, I cannot well say how sensibly, the manner in which he has seen fit to speak, on this occasion. Gentlemen, if I may be supposed to have made any attainment in the knowledge of constitutional law, he is among the masters in whose schools I have been taught. You see near him a distinguished magistrate,† long associated with him in judicial labors, which have conferred lasting benefits, and lasting character, not only on the State, but on the whole country. Gentlemen, I acknowledge myself much their debtor. While yet a youth, unknown, and with little expectation of becoming known,

* Chancellor Kent, the presiding officer.

+ Judge Spencer.

beyond a very limited circle, I have passed days and nights, not of tedious, but of happy and gratified labor, in the study of the judicature of the State of New York. I am most happy to have this opportunity of publicly acknowledging the obligation, and of repaying it, so far as it can be repaid, by the poor tribute of my profound regard, and most sincere good wishes.

Gentlemen, I will no longer detain you than to propose a toast.

"THE CITY OF NEW YORK; HERSELF THE NOBLEST EULOGY ON THE UNION OF THE STATES."

SPEECH

AT THE DINNER IN HONOR OF THE CENTENNIAL BIRTH-DAY OF WASHINGTON.

On the 22d day of February, 1832, being the Centennial Birth-Day of GEORGE WASHINGTON, a number of Gentlemen, from different parts of the United States, honored the occasion by a Public Dinner, at Barnard's Hotel, in the City of Washington.

The arrangements for the Dinner were made under the direction of a Com mittee, consisting of Mr. Chambers, of Maryland; Mr. Waggaman, of Louisiana; Mr. Letcher, of Kentucky; Mr. Bates, of Massachusetts; Mr. Peters, of Pennsylvania.

According to the arrangements by this Committee, Mr. Webster, Senator of the United States, from the State of Massachusetts, presided; and Gen. Charles Fenton Mercer, a Representative from Virginia, Gen. Walter Jones, of the District of Columbia, and Gen. Joseph Vance, a Representative from Ohio, were selected to act as Vice-Presidents.

After the Dinner was removed, information was given by the Chairman of the Committee of Arrangements, that the President of the Day would announce the Toasts prepared for the occasion.

Mr. WEBSTER, the President of the Day, then rose, and addressed the Company to the following effect :

I RISE, Gentlemen, to propose to you the name of that great man, in commemoration of whose birth, and in honor of whose character and services, we have here assembled.

I am sure that I express a sentiment common to every one present when I say, that there is something more than ordinarily solemn and affecting in this occasion.

We are met to testify our regard for him whose name is intimately blended with whatever belongs most essentially to the prosperity, the liberty, the free institutions, and the renown of our country. That name was of power to rally a nation, in the hour of thick-thronging public disasters and calamities; that name shone, amid the storm of war, a beacon light, to cheer and guide the country's friends; it flamed, too, like a meteor, to repel her foes. That name, in the days of peace, was a loadstone, attracting to itself a whole people's confidence, a whole people's love,

and the whole world's respect; that name, descending with all time, spreading over the whole earth, and uttered in all the languages belonging to the tribes and races of men, will forever be pronounced with affectionate gratitude by every one, in whose breast there shall arise an aspiration for human rights and human liberty. We perform this grateful duty, Gentlemen, at the expiration of a hundred years from his birth, near the place so cherished and beloved by him, where his dust now reposes, and in the capital which bears his own immortal name.

All experience evinces, that human sentiments are strongly influenced by associations. The recurrence of anniversaries, or of longer periods of time, naturally freshens the recollection, and deepens the impression, of events with which they are historically connected. Renowned places, also, have a power to awaken feeling, which all acknowledge. No American can pass by the fields of Bunker Hill, Monmouth, or Camden, as if they were ordinary spots on the earth's surface. Whoever visits them feels the sentiment of love of country kindling anew, as if the spirit that belonged to the transactions which have rendered these places distinguished, still hovered round, with power to move and excite all who in future time may approach them.

But neither of these sources of emotion equals the power with which great moral examples affect the mind. When sublime virtues cease to be abstractions, when they become imbodied in human character, and exemplified in human conduct, we should be false to our own nature, if we did not indulge in the spontaneous effusions of our gratitude and our admiration. A true lover of the virtue of patriotism delights to contemplate its purest models; and that love of country may be well suspected, which affects to soar so high into the regions of sentiment as to be lost and absorbed in the abstract feeling, and becomes too elevated, or too refined, to glow with fervor in the commendation or the love of individual benefactors. All this is unnatural. It is as if one

should be so enthusiastic a lover of poetry as to care nothing for Homer or Milton; so passionately attached to eloquence as to be indifferent to Tully and Chatham; or such a devotee to the arts, in such an ecstasy with the elements of beauty, proportion, and expression, as to regard the master-pieces of Raphael and Michael Angelo with coldness or contempt. We may be assured, Gentlemen, that he who really loves the thing itself, loves its finest exhibitions. A true friend of his country loves her friends and benefactors, and thinks it no degradation to commend and commemorate them. The voluntary outpouring of the public feeling, made to-day, from the north to the south, and from the east to the west, proves this sentiment to be both just and natural. In the cities and in the villages, in the public temples and in the family circles,