The American Union Speaker Part 18

DEFENCE OF AMERICAN CLERGYMEN.

By this Will, no minister of the Gospel of any sect or denomination whatever can be authorized or allowed to hold any office within the college; and not only that, but no minister or clergyman of any sect can, for any purpose whatever, enter within the walls that are to surround this college.

Now I will not arraign the founder of this inst.i.tution or his motives for this. I will not inquire into his opinions upon religion. But I feel bound to say, the occasion demands that I should say that this is the most opprobrious, the most insulting and unmerited stigma, that ever was cast, or attempted to be cast, upon the preachers of Christianity, from north to south, from east to west, through the length and breadth of the land, in the history of the country. When have they deserved it? Where have they deserved it? How have they deserved it? They are not to be allowed even the ordinary rights of hospitality; not even to be permitted to put their foot over the threshold of this college!

Sir, I take it upon myself to say, that in no country in the world, upon either continent, can there be found a body of ministers of the Gospel who perform so much service to man, in such a full spirit of self-denial, under so little encouragement from government of any kind, and under circ.u.mstances almost always much straitened and often distressed, at the ministers of the Gospel in the United States, of all denominations. They form no part of any established order of religion; they const.i.tute no hierarchy; they enjoy no peculiar privileges. In some of the states they are even shut out from all partic.i.p.ation in the political rights and privileges enjoyed by their fellow-citizens. They enjoy no t.i.thes, no public provision of any kind. Except here and there in large cities, where a wealthy individual occasionally makes a donation for the support of public wors.h.i.+p, what have they to depend upon? They have to depend entirely on the voluntary contributions of those who hear them.

And this body of clergymen has shown, to the honor of their own country and to the astonishment of the hierarchies of the Old World that it is practicable in free governments to raise and sustain by voluntary contributions alone a body of clergymen which, for devotedness to their sacred calling, for purity of life and character, for learning, intelligence, piety, and that wisdom which cometh from above, is inferior to none, and superior to most others.

I hope that our learned men have done something for the honor of our literature abroad. I hope that the courts of justice and members of the bar of this country have done something to elevate the character of the profession of the law. I hope that the discussions above (in Congress) have done something to meliorate the condition of the human race, to secure and extend the great charter of human rights, and to strengthen and advance the great principles of human liberty. But I contend that no literary efforts, no adjudications, no const.i.tutional discussions, nothing that has been said or done in favor of the great interests of universal man, has done this country more credit, at home and abroad, than the establishment of our body of clergymen, their support by voluntary contributions, and the general excellence off their character for piety and learning.

The great truth has thus been proclaimed and proved, a truth which I believe will in time to come shake all the hierarchies of Europe, that the voluntary support of such a ministry, under free inst.i.tutions, is a practicable idea.

D. Webster.

CXVII.

PEACEABLE SECESSION IMPOSSIBLE.

Mr. President, I should much prefer to have heard from every member on this floor declarations of opinion that this Union could never be dissolved, than the declaration of opinion by any body, that, in any case, under the pressure of any circ.u.mstances, such a dissolution was possible. I hear with distress and anguish the word "secession," especially when it falls from the lips of those who are patriotic, and known to the country, and known all over the world, for their political services.

Secession! Peaceable secession! Sir, your eyes and mine are never destined to see that miracle. The dismemberment of this vast country without convulsion! The breaking up of the fountains of the great deep without ruffling the surface! Who is so foolish, I beg everybody's pardon, as to expect to see any such thing? Sir, he who sees these States, now revolving in harmony around a common centre, and expects to see them quit their places and fly off without convulsion, may look the next hour to see the heavenly bodies rush from their spheres, and jostle against each other in the realms of s.p.a.ce, without causing the wreck of the universe.

There can be no such thing as peaceable secession. Peaceable secession is an utter impossibility. Is the great Const.i.tution under which we live, covering this whole country, is it to be thawed and melted away by secession, as the snows on the mountain melt under the influence of a vernal sun, disappear almost un.o.bserved, and run off? No, sir! No, sir! I will not state what might produce the disruption of the Union; but, sir, I see as plainly as I see the sun in heaven what that disruption itself must produce; I see that it must produce war, and such a war as I will not describe, in its twofold character.

Peaceable secession! Peaceable secession! The concurrent agreement of all the members of this great republic to separate! A voluntary separation, with alimony on one side and on the other. Why, what would be the result?

Where is the line to be drawn? What States are to secede? What is to remain American? What am I to be? An American no longer? Am I to become a sectional man, a local man, a separatist, with no country in common with the gentlemen who sit around me here, or who fill the other house of Congress? Heaven forbid! Where is the flag of the republic to remain? Where is the eagle still to tower? or is he to cower, and shrink, and fall to the ground? Why, sir, our ancestors, our fathers and our grandfathers, those of them that are yet living amongst us with prolonged lives, would rebuke and reproach us; and our children and our grandchildren would cry out shame upon us, if we of this generation should dishonor these ensigns of the power of the government and the harmony of that Union which is every day felt among us with so much joy and grat.i.tude.

What is to become of the army? What is to become of the navy? What is to become of the public lands? How is each of tile thirty States to defend itself? But, sir, I am ashamed to pursue this line of remark, I dislike it, I have an utter disgust for it. I would rather hear of natural blasts and mildews, war, pestilence, and famine, than to hear gentlemen talk of secession. To break up this great government! to dismember this glorious country! to astonish Europe with an act of folly such as Europe for two centuries has never beheld in any government or any people! No, Sir! no, Sir! There will be no secession! Gentlemen are not serious when they talk of secession.

D. Webster.

CXVIII.

LIBERTY AND UNION.

I profess, sir, 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 us most proud of our country. That Union we reached only by the discipline of our virtues, in the severe school of adversity. It had its origin in the necessities of disordered finance, prostrate commerce, and ruined credit. Under its benign influences, these great interests immediately awoke, as from the dead, and sprang forth with newness of life. Every year of its duration has teemed with fresh proofs of its utility and its blessings; and though our territory has stretched out wider and wider, and our population spread farther and farther, they have not outrun its protection or its benefits. It has been to us all a copious fountain of national, social, personal happiness.

I have not allowed myself sir, to look beyond the Union, to see what might lie hidden in the dark recesses behind. I have not coolly weighted the chances of preserving liberty, when the bonds that unite us together shall be broken asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of disunion, to see whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the depth of the abyss below; nor could I regard him as a safe counsellor in the affairs of this government, whose thoughts should be mainly bent on considering, not how the Union may be best preserved, but how tolerable might be the condition of the people when it shall be broken up and destroyed.

While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out before us, for us and our children. Beyond that I seek not to penetrate the veil. G.o.d grant that in my day, at least, that curtain may not rise!

G.o.d grant that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind! When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him s.h.i.+ning on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known and clamored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original l.u.s.tre, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured, bearing for its motto, no such miserable interrogatory as "What is all this worth?" nor those other words of delusion and folly, "Liberty first and Union afterwards," but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment dear to every true American heart,--Liberty AND Union, Now And For Ever, One And Inseparable.

D. Webster.

CXIX.

EVENTS GREAT, BECAUSE OF THEIR RESULTS.

Great actions and striking occurrences having excited a temporary admiration, often pa.s.s away and are forgotten, because they leave no lasting results, affecting the prosperity and happiness of communities.

Such is frequently the fortune of the most brilliant military achievements.

Of the ten thousand battles which have been fought, of all the fields fertilized with carnage, of the banners which have been bathed in blood, of the warriors who have hoped that they had risen from the field of conquest to a glory as bright and as durable as the stars, how few that continue long to interest mankind! The victory of yesterday is reversed by the defeat of to-day; the star of military glory, rising like a meteor, like a meteor has fallen; disgrace and disaster hang on the heels of conquest and renown; victor and vanquished presently pa.s.s away to oblivion, and the world goes on in its course, with the loss only of so many lives and so much treasure.

But if this be frequently, or generally, the fortune of military achievements, it is not always so. There are enterprises, military as well as civil, which sometimes check the current of events, give a new turn to human affairs, and transmit their consequences through ages. We see their importance in their results, and call them great because great things follow. There have been battles which have fixed the fate of nations. These come down to us in history with a solid and permanent interest not created by a display of glittering armor, the rush of adverse battalions, the sinking and rising of pennons, the flight, the pursuit, and the victory; but by their effect in advancing or r.e.t.a.r.ding human knowledge, in overthrowing or establis.h.i.+ng despotism, in extending or destroying human happiness.

When the traveller pauses on the plains of Marathon, what are the emotions which most strongly agitate his breast? What is that glorious recollection, which thrills through his frame and suffuses his eyes? Not I imagine that Grecian skill and Grecian valor were here most signally displayed; but that Greece herself was here saved. It is because to this spot, and to the event which has rendered it immortal, he refers all the succeeding glories of the republic. It is because if that day had gone otherwise, Greece had perished. It is because he perceives that her philosophers and orators, her poets and painters, her sculptors and architects, her governments and free inst.i.tutions, point backward to Marathon, and that their future existence seems to have been suspended on the contingency, whether the Persian or the Greek banner should wave victorious in the beams of that day's setting sun.

And as his imagination kindles at the retrospect, he is transported back to the interesting moment, he counts the fearful odds of the contending hosts, his interest for the result overwhelms him; he trembles, as if it were still uncertain, and seems to doubt whether he may consider Socrates and Plato, Demosthenes, Sophocles, and Phidias, as secure, yet, to himself and to the world.

D. Webster.

CXX.

THE FUTURE OF AMERICA.

Fellow-citizens, the hours of this day are rapidly flying, and this occasion will soon be pa.s.sed. Neither we nor our children can expect to behold its return. They are in the distant regions of futurity, they exist only in the all-creating power of G.o.d, who shall stand here, a hundred years hence, to trace, through us, their descent from the Pilgrims, and to survey, as we have now surveyed, the progress of their country during the lapse of a century. We would antic.i.p.ate their concurrence with us in our sentiments of deep regard for our common ancestors. We would antic.i.p.ate and partake the pleasure with which they will then recount the steps of New England's advancement. On the morning of that day, although it will not disturb us in our repose, the voice of acclamation and grat.i.tude, commencing on the rock of Plymouth, shall be transmitted through millions of the sons of the Pilgrims, till it lose itself in the murmurs of the Pacific seas. We would leave, for the consideration of those who shall then occupy our places, some proof that we hold the blessings transmitted from our fathers in just estimation; some proof of our attachment to the cause of good government, and of civil and religious liberty; some proof of a sincere and ardent desire to promote everything which may enlarge the understandings, and improve the hearts, of men. And when, from the long distance of a hundred years, they shall look back upon us, they shall know, at least, that we possessed affections, which, running backward and warming with grat.i.tude for what our ancestors have done for our happiness, run forward also to our posterity and meet them with cordial salutation, ere yet they have arrived on the sh.o.r.e of being.

Advance, then, ye future generations! We would hail you, as you rise in your long succession, to fill the places which we now fill, and to taste the blessings of existence, where we are pa.s.sing, and soon shall have pa.s.sed, our human duration. We bid you welcome to the healthful skies and the verdant fields of New England. We greet your accession to the great inheritance which we have enjoyed. We welcome you to the blessings of good government, and religious liberty. We welcome you to the treasures of science, and the delights of learning. We welcome you to the transcendent sweets of domestic life, to the happiness of kindred, and parents, and children. We welcome you to the immeasurable blessings of rational existence, the immortal hope of Christianity and the light of everlasting truth.

D. Webster.

CXXI.

LIBERTY OF SPEECH.

Important, sir, as I deem it to discuss, on all proper occasions, the policy of the measures at present pursued, it is still more important to maintain the right of such discussion in its full and just extent.

Sentiments lately sprung up, and now growing fas.h.i.+onable, make it necessary to be explicit on this point. The more I perceive a disposition to check the freedom of inquiry by extravagant and unconst.i.tutional pretences, the firmer shall be the tone in which I shall a.s.sert, and the freer the manner in which I shall exercise it.

It is the ancient and undoubted prerogative of this people to canva.s.s public measures, and the merits of public men. It is a "home-bred"

right, a fireside privilege. It hath ever been enjoyed in every house, cottage, and cabin, in the nation. It is not to be drawn into controversy. It is as undoubted as the right of breathing the air, or walking on the earth. Belonging to private life as a right, it belongs to public life as a duty; and it is the last duty which those whose representative I am shall find me to abandon. Aiming at all times to be courteous and temperate in its use, except when the right itself shall be questioned, I shall then carry it to its extent. I shall place myself on the extreme boundary of my right, and bid defiance to any arm that would move me from my ground.

This high const.i.tutional privilege I shall defend and exercise within this house, and in all places; in times of peace, and in all times. Living, I shall a.s.sert it; and, should I leave no other inheritance to my children, by the blessing of G.o.d I will leave them the inheritance of free principles, and the example of a manly, independent, and const.i.tutional defence of them.

D. Webster.

CXXII.

WAs.h.i.+NGTON TO THE PRESENT GENERATION.

Fellow-citizens,--What contemplations are awakened in our minds, as we a.s.semble here to reenact a scene like that performed by Was.h.i.+ngton!

Methinks I see his venerable form now before me, as presented in the glorious statue by Houdon, now in the capital of Virginia. He is dignified and grave; but his concern and anxiety seem to soften the lineaments of his countenance. The government over which he presides is yet in the crisis of experiment. Not free from troubles at home, he sees the world in commotion and arms, all around him. He sees that imposing foreign powers are half disposed to try the strength of the recently established American government. We perceive that mighty thoughts, mingled with fears as well as hopes, are struggling within him. He heads a short procession over these then naked fields; he crosses yonder stream on a fallen tree; he ascends to the top of this eminence, whose original oaks of the forest stand as thick around him as if the spot had been devoted to Druidical wors.h.i.+p, and here he performs the appointed duty of the day.

And now, fellow-citizens, if this vision were a reality,--if Was.h.i.+ngton actually were now amongst us,--and if he could draw around him the shades of the great public men of his own days,--patriots and warriors, orators and statesmen, and were to address us, in their presence, would he not say to us,--"Ye men of this generation, I rejoice, and thank G.o.d for being able to see that our labors, and toils, and sacrifices, were not in vain. You are prosperous,--you are happy,--you are grateful. The fire of liberty burns brightly and steadily in your hearts, while duty and the law restrain it from bursting forth in wild and destructive conflagration. Cherish liberty, as you love it;--cherish its securities, as you wish to preserve it. Maintain the Const.i.tution which we labored so painfully to establish and which has been to you such a source of inestimable blessings. Preserve the Union of the States, cemented as it was by our prayers, our tears, and our blood. Be true to G.o.d, to your country, and to your duty. So shall the whole Eastern world follow the morning sun, to contemplate you as a nation; so shall all succeeding generations honor you as they honor us; and so shall that Almighty Power which so graciously protected us, and which now protects you, shower its everlasting blessings upon you and your posterity."

Great father of your country! we heed your words; we feel their force as if you uttered them with life of flesh and blood. Your example teaches us; your affectionate addresses teach us; your public life teaches us your sense of the value of the blessings of the Union. Those blessings our fathers have tasted, and we have tasted, and still taste. Nor do we intend that those who come after us shall be denied the same high fruition, Our honor as well as our happiness is concerned. We cannot, we dare not, we will not, betray our sacred trust. We will not filch from posterity the treasure placed in our hands to be transmitted to other generations. The bow that gilds the clouds in the heavens, tile pillars that uphold the firmament, may disappear and fall away, in the hour appointed by the will of G.o.d; but, until that day comes, or so long as our lives may last, no ruthless hand shall undermine that bright arch of Union and Liberty which spans the continent from Was.h.i.+ngton to California.

D. Webster.

CXXIII.