LA FAYETTE'S RETURN.

BY PHILIP CARRIGAIN.

NORTH and South, and East and West,
A cordial welcome have addressed,
Loud and warm, the Nation's Guest,
Dear son of Liberty;

Whom tyrants cursed, when Heaven approved,
And millions long have mourned and loved,
He comes, by fond entreaties moved,
The GRANITE STATE to see.

Our mountains tower with matchless pride,
And mighty torrents from them glide,
And wintry tempests, far and wide,
Ridge deep our drifts of snow;
Yet does our hardening climate form
Patriots with hearts as bold and warm,
At social feast, or battle storm,
As e'er met friend or foe.

Bliss domestic, rank, wealth, ease,
Our guest resigned for stormy seas,
And for war's more stormy breeze,
To make our country free;
And potent Britain saw, dismayed,
The lightning of his virgin blade
To Freedom flash triumphant aid,
But death to Tyranny.

Now, in his life's less perilous wane,
He has re-crossed the Atlantic main,
Preserved by Heaven, to greet again

The land he bled to save,

And those who with him, hand in hand,
Fought 'neath his mighty sire's command, -
Alas! how thinned that gallant band,
Band of the free and brave!

Angels, 't is said, at times have stood
Unseen among the great and good,
For country's rights who shed their blood,
Nor has their influence ceased;

LA FAYETTE'S RETURN.

For party feuds far off are driven,
Foes reconciled, and wrongs forgiven,

And this green spot of earth made Heaven,
For these old heroes' feast.

They 've met in war, to toil and bleed,
They 've met in peace, their country freed;
And unborn millions will succeed

To their dower, the Rights of Man;
The Patriot of both hemispheres,

Though first on earth, deems all his peers,
Who joined his war-cry with their cheers,
Where raged the battle's van.

Such were the men our land did save,
Nor e'er can reach oblivion's wave,
(Though booming o'er the statesman's grave,)
Our deep, redeemless debt.

No! Merrimack may cease to flow,
And our White Mountains sink below;
But nought can cancel what we owe

To them and La Fayette.

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VINDICATION OF NEW ENGLAND.

FROM A SPEECH IN REPLY TO MR. HAYNE OF SOUTH CAROLINA.

BY DANIEL WEBSTER.

THE eulogium pronounced on the character of the State of South Carolina, for her revolutionary and other merits, meets my hearty concurrence. I shall not acknowledge that any man goes before me in regard for whatever of distinguished talent, or distinguished character, South Carolina has produced. I claim part of the honor, I partake in the pride of her great names. I claim them for countrymen, one and all. The Lawrences, the Rutledges, the Pinckneys, the Sumpters, the Marions Americans all-whose fame is no more to be hemmed in by state lines, than their talents and patriotism were capable of being circumscribed within the same narrow limits. In their day and generation, they served and honored the country, and the whole country; and their renown is of the treasures of the whole country. Him, whose honored name the gentleman himself bears — does he suppose me less capable of gratitude for his patriotism or sympathy for his sufferings, than if his eyes had first opened upon the light in Massachusetts, instead of South Carolina? Does he suppose it in his power to exhibit a Carolina name so bright, as to produce envy in my bosom? No, increased gratification and delight rather. I thank God, that if I am gifted with little of the spirit which is able to raise mortals to the skies, I have yet none, as I trust, of that other spirit, which would drag angels down. When I shall be found, in my place

here, in the Senate, or elsewhere, to sneer at public merit,

VINDICATION OF NEW ENGLAND.

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because it happened to spring up beyond the little limits of my own State or neighborhood; when I refuse, for any such cause, or for any cause, the homage due to American talent, to elevated patriotism, to sincere devotion to liberty and the country; or if I see an uncommon endowment of Heaven if I see extraordinary capacity and virtue in any son of the South — and if, moved by local prejudice or gangrened by state jealousy, I get up here to abate the tithe of a hair from his just character and just fame, may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!

Let me recur to pleasing recollections - let me indulge in refreshing remembrance of the past let me remind you that in early times no States cherished greater harmony, both of principle and feeling, than Massachusetts and South Carolina. Would to God, that harmony might again return! Shoulder to shoulder they went through the Revolution — hand in hand they stood round the Administration of Washington, and felt his own great arm lean on them for support. Unkind feeling, if it exist, alienation and distrust, are the growth, unnatural to such soils, of false principles since sown. They are weeds, the seeds of which that same great arm never scattered.

I shall enter on no encomiums upon Massachusetts she needs none. There she is behold her and judge for yourselves. There is her history—the world knows it by heart. The past, at least, is secure. There is Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill and there they will remain for ever. The bones of her sons, falling in the great struggle for Independence, now lie mingled with the soil of every State, from New England to Georgia; and there they will lie for ever. And, sir, where American liberty raised its infant voice; and where its youth was nurtured and sustained, there it still lives, in the strength of its manhood, and full of its original spirit. If discord and disunion shall wound it; if party strife and blind ambition shall hawk at and tear it; if folly and madness, if

uneasiness under salutary and necessary restraint, shall succeed to separate it from that Union by which alone its existence is made sure; it will stand, in the end, by the side of that cradle in which its infancy was rocked; it will stretch forth its arm, with whatever of vigor it may still retain, over the friends who may gather round it; and it will fall at last, if fall it must, amidst the proudest monuments of its own glory, and on the very spot of its origin.

But, although there are fears, there are hopes also. The people have preserved this, their own chosen Constitution, for forty years, and have seen their happiness, prosperity and renown grow with its growth, and strengthen with its strength. They are now, generally, strongly attached to it. Overthrown by direct assault, it cannot be; evaded, undermined, NULLIFIED, it will not be, if we, and those who shall succeed us here, as agents and representatives of the people, shall conscientiously and vigilantly discharge the two great branches of our public trust-faithfully to preserve, and wisely to administer it.

I have thus stated the reasons of my dissent to the doctrines which have been advanced and maintained. I am conscious of having detained you much too long. I was drawn into the debate, with no previous deliberation, such as is suited to the discussion of so grave and important a subject. But it is a subject of which my heart is full, and I have not been willing to suppress the utterance of its spontaneous sentiments. I cannot, even now, persuade myself to relinquish it, without expressing once more my deep conviction, that, since it respects nothing less than the union of the States, it is of most vital and essential importance to the public happiness. I profess, in my career hitherto, to have kept steadily in view the prosperity and honor of the whole country, and the preservation of our Federal Union. It is to that union we owe our safety at home, and our consideration and dignity abroad. It is to that union that we are chiefly indebted for whatever makes