Let the statesmen of the age read that epitaph and be humble. Let the kings and aristocracies of the earth read it and tremble. Who has ever accomplished so much for human freedom, with means so feeble? Who but he has ever given liberty to a people by the mere utterance of his voice, without an army, navy, or revenues-without a sword, a spear, or even a shield? Who but he ever subverted tyranny, and saved the lives of the oppressed, and yet spared the oppressor? Who but he ever detached from a venerable constitution a column of aristocracy, dashed it to the earth, and yet left the ancient fabric stronger and more beautiful than before? Who but he has ever lifted up seven millions of people from the debasement of ages to the dignity of freedom, without exacting an ounce of gold or wasting the blood of one human heart? Whose voice yet lingers like O'Connell's in the ear of tyrants, making them sink with fear of change, and in the ear of the most degraded slaves on earth awaking hopes of freedom? Who before him has brought the schismatics of two centuries together, conciliating them at the altar of universal liberty? Who but he ever brought Papal Rome and Protestant America to burn incense together? It was O'Connell's mission to teach mankind that Liberty was not estranged from Christianity, as was proclaimed by revolutionary France; that she was not divorced from law and public order; that she was not a demon like Moloch, requiring to be propitiated with the blood of human sacrifice; that Democracy is the daughter of Peace, and like true religion worketh by love. I see in Catholic emancipation, and in the repeal of the act of union between Great Britain and Ireland, only incidents of an all-pervading phenomenon-a -a phenomenon of mighty interest, but not portentous of evil. It is the universal dissolution of mo. narchical and aristocratical governments, and the establishment of pure democracies in their place. I know this change must come, for even the menaced governments feel and confess it. I know that it will be resisted, for it is not in the nature of power to relax. It is a fearful inquiry, 'How shall that change be passed? Shall there never be an end to devastation and carnage? Is every step of human progress in the future, as in the past, to be marked by blood? Must the nations of the earth, after groaning for ages under vicious institutions established without their consent, wade through deeper seas to reach that condition of more perfect liberty to which they are so rapidly, so irresistibly impelled? Or shall they be able, notwithstanding involuntary ignorance and debasement contracted without their fault, and notwithstanding the blind resistance of despotism, to change their forms of government by slow and measured degrees, without entirely or all at once subverting them, and from time to time to repair their ancient constitutions so as to adapt them peacefully to the progress of the age, the diffusion of knowledge, the cultivation of virtue, and the promotion of happiness?' When that crisis shall come, the colossal fabric or the British empire will have given way under its always-accumulating weight. I see England then, in solitude and in declining greatness, as Rome was when her provinces were torn away-as Spain now is since the loss of the Indies. I see Ireland, invigorated by the severe experience of a long though peaceful revolution, extending her arms east and west in fraternal embrace toward new rising states; her resources restored and improved; her people prosperous and happy, and her institutions again shedding the lights of piety, art, and freedom, over the world. Then I see among the perplexed and disturbed nations the now proud and all-conquering Anglo-Saxons looking up to the regenerated Celtic people for guidance and protection. Come forward, then, ye nations who are trembling between the dangers of anarchy and the pressure of despotism, and hear a voice that addresses the Liberator of Ireland from the caverns of Silence where Prophecy is born : "To thee, now sainted spirit, Whether they would restore or build. To thee! JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. WE are in the midst of extraordinary events. British-American civilization and Spanish-American society have come into collision, each in its fullest maturity. The armies of the north have penetrated the chapparels at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palmapassed the fortresses of Monterey, and rolled back upon the heart of Mexico the unavailing tide of strong resistance from the mountain-side of Buena Vista. Martial colonists are encamped on the coasts of California, while San Juan d'Ulloa has fallen, and the invaders have swept the gorge of Cerro Gordo-carried Peroté and Puebla, and planted the banner of burning stars, and ever-multiplying stripes on the towers of the city of the Aztecs. The thirtieth Congress assembles in this conjuncture, and the debates are solemn, earnest, and bewildering. Interest, Passion, Conscience, Freedom, and Humanity, all have their advocates. Shall new loans and levies be granted to prosecute still further a war so glorious? or shall it be abandoned? Shall we be content with the humiliation of the foe? or shall we complete his subjugation? Would that severity be magnanimous, or even just? Nay, is the war itself just? Who provoked, and by what unpardonable offence, this disastrous strife between two eminent republics, so scandalous to democratic institutions? Where shall we trace anew the ever-advancing line of our empire? Shall it be drawn on the banks of the Rio Grande, or on the summit of the Sierra Madre? or shall Mexican independence be extinguished, and our eagle close his adventurous pinions only when he looks off upon the waves that separate us from the Indies? Does Freedom own and accept our profuse oblations of blood, or NOTE.-John Quincy Adams died at Washington, on the 23d of February, 1848. Mr. Seward was invited by the legislature of the state of New York, to deliver a eulogy on the deceased, before that body. He accepted the invitation, and, on the 6th of April, 1848, delivered this oration in the capitol at Albany. does she reject the sacrifice? Will these conquests extend her domain, or will they be usurped by ever-grasping slavery? What effect will this new-born ambition have upon ourselves? Will it leave us the virtue to continue the career of social progress? How shall we govern the conquered people? Shall we incorporate their mingled races with ourselves, or shall we rule them with the despotism of pro-consular power? Can we preserve these remote and hostile possessions, in any way, without forfeiting our own blood-bought heritage of freedom? Steam and lightning, which have become docile messengers, make the American people listeners to this high debate, and anxiety and interest, intense, and universal, absorb them all. Suddenly the council is dissolved. Silence is in the capitol, and sorrow has thrown its pall over the land. What new event is this? Has some Cromwell closed the legislative chambers? or has some Cæsar, returning from his distant conquests, passed the Rubicon, seized the purple, and fallen in the senate beneath the swords of self-appointed executioners of his country's vengeance? No! Nothing of all this. What means, then, this abrupt and fearful silence? What unlooked for calamity has quelled the debates of the senate and calmed the excitement of the people? An old man, whose tongue once indeed was eloquent, but now, through age, had well nigh lost its cunning, has fallen into the swoon of death. He had not been an actor in the drama of conquest-nor had his feeble voice yet mingled in the lofty argument “A gray-haired sire, whose eye intense And now he has dreamed out at last the troubled dream of life. Sighs of unavailing grief ascend to heaven. Panegyric, fluent in long-stifled praise, performs its office. The army and the navy pay conventional honors, with the pomp of national wo, and then the hearse moves onward. It rests appropriately on its way in the hall where independence was proclaimed, and again under the dome where freedom was born. At length the tomb of John Adams opens to receive a son, who also, born a subject of a king, had stood as a representative of his emancipated country, before principalities and powers, and had won by merit, and worn without reproach, the honors of the republic. From that scene so impressive in itself, and so impressive because it has never happened before, and can never happen again, we have come up to this place surrounded with the decent drapery of public mourning, on a day set apart by authority, to recite the history of the citizen who, in the ripeness of age and fullness of honors, has thus descended to his rest. It is fit to do so, because it is by such exercises that nations regenerate their early virtues and renew their constitutions. All nations must perpetually renovate their virtues and their constitutions, or perish. Never was there more need to renovate ours than now, when we seem to be passing from the safe old policy of peace and moderation into a career of conquest and martial renown. Never was the duty of preserving our free institutions, in all their purity, more obvious than it is now, when they have become beacons to mankind in what seems to be a general dissolution of their ancient social systems. The history of JOHN QUINCY ADAMS is one that opens no new truth in the philosophy of virtue; for there is no undiscovered truth in that philosophy. But it is a history that sheds marvellous confirmation on maxims which all mankind know, and yet are prone to undervalue and forget. The exalted character before us was formed by the combination of virtue, courage, assiduity, and modesty, under favorable conditions, with native talent and genius, and it illustrates the truth that, in morals as in nature, simplicity is the chief element of the sublime. John Quincy Adams was fortunate in his lineage; in the period, and in the place of his nativity; in all the circumstances of education; in the age and country in which he lived; in the incidents, as well as the occasions of his public service; and in the period and manner of his death. He was a descendant from one of the Puritan planters of Massachusetts, and a son of the most intrepid actor in the Revolution of independence. Quincy, the place of his birth, is a plain bounded on the west by towering granite hills, and swept without defence by every wind from the ocean. Its soil was in ancient times as sterile as its climate is always rigorous. Born on the eleventh day of July, 1767, in the hour of the agitation of rebellion, and reared within sight and sound of gathering war, the earliest political ideas he received were such as John Adams then uttered: "We must fight." "Sink or swim-live |