ful, its foliage bright and beautiful, and its fruits have carried gladness to every quarter of the globe. The oppressed of other lands, finding, like the wearied dove, no rest amid the old world's desolation, have conquered the holiest instincts of the soul, the love of early home, of birth-place, of the streams of childhood, of the graves of their beloved dead, and have sought a gathering-place of affection under its protecting branches. Here they have reposed in peace and plenty and fancied security, from the struggles which cursed their native land. No groans of oppression are heard beneath it, no deadly malaria sickens in its shade, but its sheltering influences, refreshing as the dews and genial as the sunshine, have blessed and cherished all. Ah! what government has so protected its children, so ennobled man, so elevated woman, so inspired youth, so given hope and promise to budding childhood, so smoothed the descent of dreary age; has so guarded freedom of conscience, so diffused intelligence, so fostered letters and the arts, so secured to all "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?" The triumphs of freedom, moral and material, under this new dispensation, have excelled the hope of the most sanguine. From three our population has increased to thirty millions, from thirteen feeble colonies along the Atlantic slope to thirty-four powerful States, with numerous others in the process of formation and on their way for admittance to the Union. Two strong European powers have withdrawn from the continent, leaving us the fruits of their possessions. Great and prosperous States and cities and towns, teeming with the elements of enterprise and social culture, and abounding with institutions of religion and learning, have arisen as if by magic on the far distant Pacific, where we have only paused, lest to cross it might put us on our return voyage and bring us nearer home; and the river which the ambition of our early history essayed to fix for our western limit now runs nearest our eastern boundary. Numerous aboriginal nations have been displaced before the prevailing current of our arts and arms and free principles. He who listens may hear the pattering feet of coming millions; and whoever will look back upon the past and forward upon the future must see that there are further races for us to civilize, educate, and absorb, and that new triumphs await us in the cause of progress and civilization. Thus have we passed from infancy to childhood, from childhood to robust and buoyant youth, and from youth to vigorous manhood; and with an overgrowth so superabundant we should neither be surprised nor alarmed that we have provoked foreign envy as well as unwilling admiration; that cankers of discontent are gnawing at our heartstrings, and that we are threatened with checks and trials and reverses. The continent of North America presents to the observing mind one great geographical system, every portion of which, under the present facilities for intercommunication, may be more accessible to every other than were the original States to each other at the time the confederacy was formed. It is destined at no distant day to become permanently the commercial centre, when France and England will pay tribute to New York, and the Rothschilds and the Barings will sell exchange on Wall street at a premium. And it requires no romantic stretch of the imagination to believe that the time is at hand, when man, regarding his own wants, yielding to his own impulses, and acting in obedience to laws more potent than the laws of a blind ambition, will ordain that the continent shall be united in political as well as natural bonds, and form but one great Uniona Free, Self-Governed, Confederated Republic, exhibiting to an admiring world the results which have been achieved for man's freedom and elevation in this western hemisphere. In ordinary times, a correct taste would suggest that upon occasions like the present all subjects of political concern, however measured by moderation and seasoned with philosophy and historic truth, should be left for discussion to some appropriate forum, and those only considered which are more in sympathy with the objects of the societies of Amherst; but when the glorious edifice which protects and shelters all is threatened with the fate of the Ephesian dome, the patriotic scholar, before he sits down to his favorite banquet, will raise his voice and nerve his arm to aid in extinguishing the flames, that he may preserve to posterity institutions without which all the learning of the schools would be but mockery, and give place to violence and ignorance and barbarism. This is emphatically a utilitarian and practical age, and when the foundations upon which the ark of our political safety rests are threatened; when rebellion is wafted on every breeze, and the rude din of arms greets us on either hand, menacing our very existence as a great and prosperous people, letters as well as laws may sympathize with the danger and become silent in our midst. Bad government is the foe of knowledge. Under its destructive reign, learning is neglected, ignorance is honored and commended, and free opinion is persecuted as an enemy of state. Its schools are military despotisms, and the dungeon, the rack, and the gibbet are its teachers. Under its haughty sway, the energies of mind are bowed and broken, the spirit subdued and restrained in its search for sustenance, and literature and the sciences droop, languish, and die. This glorious Union is our world; while we maintain its integrity, all the nations of the earth must recognize our supremacy and pay us homage; disjointed, forming two or more fragmentary republics, we shall deserve and receive less consideration than the states of Barbary. And now that it is threatened with destruction, let us as one people, from the North and the South, the East and the West, rising above the narrow instincts of parties and associa tions, relume our lamps of liberty as the vestals replenished their sacred fire, though not extinguished, from the rays of the morning sun. Let us renew our covenant, and swear upon the holy altars of our faith to maintain and defend it and its glorious emblem, the stars and stripes, so replete with pleasing memories; and if there are any who distrust their own firmness, and fear that they may be seduced, or may fall out by the wayside, or be frightened from their purpose, let them, like Fernando Cortez, destroy the means of retreat behind them, that they may remain faithful to the end. When the sunlight of the last autumn was supplanted by the premonitions of winter, by drifting clouds, and eddying leaves, and the flight of birds to a milder clime, our land was emphatically blessed. We were at peace with all the powers of earth, and enjoying undisturbed domestic repose. A beneficent Providence had smiled upon the labors of the husbandman, and our granaries groaned under the burden of their golden treasures. Industry found labor and compensation, and the poor man's latch was never raised except in the sacred name of friendship or by the authority of law. No taxation consumed, no destitution appalled, no sickness wasted, but health and joy beamed from every face. The fruits of toil, from the North and the South, the East and the West, were bringing to our feet the contributions of the earth; and trade, which for a time had fallen back to recover breath from previous over-exertion, had resumed her place "where merchants most do congregate." The land was replete with gladness, and vocal with thanksgivings of its sons and daughters, up its sunny hill-slopes and through its smiling valleys, out upon its vast prairies, along its majestic rivers, and down its meandering streamlets; and its institutions of religion and learning and charity echoed back the sound. "But bringing up the rear of this bright host, A spirit of a different aspect waved His wings, like thunder clouds above some coast, Whose barren beach with frequent wrecks is paved. Eternal wrath on his immortal face, And where he gazed, a gloom pervaded space. Yes, in the moment of our country's triumphs, in the plentitude of its pride, in the heyday of its hope, and the fulness of its beauty, the serpent which crawled into Eden and whispered his glozing story of delusion to the unsuspecting victim of his guile, unable to rise from the original curse which rests upon him, sought to coil his snaky folds around it and sting it to the heart. From the arts and the enjoyments of peace we have plunged deep into the horrors of civil war. Our once happy land resounds with the clangor of rebellious arms, and is polluted with the dead bodies of its children; some seeking to destroy, some struggling to maintain the common beneficent government of all, established by our fathers. This effort to divide the Union and subvert the government, whatever may be the pretence, is, in fact, a dangerous and daring crusade against free institutions. It should be opposed by the whole power of a patriotic people, and crushed beyond the prospect of a resurrection; and to attain that end, the gov ernment should be sustained in every just and reasonable effort to maintain the authority and integrity of the nation; to uphold and vindicate the supremacy of the Constitution and the majesty of the laws by all lawful means; not grudgingly sus tained, with one hesitating, shuffling, unwilling step forward to save appearances, and two stealthy ones backwards to secure a seasonable retreat; nor with the shallow craft of a mercenary politician, calculating chances and balancing between expedients; but with the generous alacrity and energy which have a meaning, and prove a loyal, a patriotic, and a willing heart. It is not a question of administration but of government; not of politics, but of patriotism; not of policy, but of principles which uphold us all; a question too great for party; between the Constitution and the laws on one hand, and misrule and anarchy on the other; between existence and destruction. The Union was formed under the Constitution by an association of equals; like the temple of Diana, every pillar which upholds its arches was the gift of a sovereign; not a sovereign created by man's usurpation, and serving upon gala-days to exhibit to plundered subjects the diadems and diamonds and gorgeous trappings of royalty, but of a sovereign people, created in the image of their Maker, and bearing in their bosoms the crown jewels of immortality. In the administration of its government, and in the relations of its members with each other, each and every one is entitled to complete equality; the right to enjoy unmolested all the privileges of the compact, in their full length and breadth, in letter and in spirit. Whenever and wherever there has been a departure from this plain and just stipulation, in theory or in practice, in either section; or where either party has employed means or agencies calculated to disturb or irritate or annoy the other, there has been error and cause of grievance which demand redress and restitution; and when rebellion has sheathed its sword and lowered its front, and the obligations of the Constitution are again recognized by all who owe it obedience, may every true friend of the Constitution and Union unite in a common purpose and an earnest effort in seeing that there remains no just cause of complaint unredressed in any portion of the confederacy. But there has been no grievance alleged which, if true, could justify armed rebellion and disunion. The Constitution, with defects and imperfections from which human creations are inseparable, bears upon its bosom remedies for every abuse which is practised in its name, and power to punish every violation of its salutary provisions; and those who are unable to "bear the ills they |