Address on the 200
Year Anniversary of the Mayflower Landing at Plymouth Rock
delivered 22
December 1820
Let us rejoice that we behold this day. Let us be
thankful that we have
lived to see the bright and happy breaking of the auspicious morn, which
commences the third century of the history of New England. Auspicious,
indeed,--bringing a happiness beyond the common allotment of Providence to
men,--full of present joy, and gilding with bright beams the prospect of
futurity, is the dawn that awakens us to the commemoration of the landing of the
Pilgrims.
Living at an epoch which naturally marks the
progress of the history of
our native land, we have come hither to celebrate the great event with
which that history commenced. For ever honored be this, the place of our
fathers' refuge! For ever remembered the day which saw them, weary and
distressed, broken in every thing but spirit, poor in all but faith and
courage, at last secure from the dangers of wintry seas, and impressing
this shore with the first footsteps of civilized man!
It is a noble faculty of our nature which enables
us to connect our
thoughts, our sympathies, and our happiness with what is distant in place
or time; and, looking before and after, to hold communion at once with our
ancestors and our posterity. Human and mortal although we are, we are
nevertheless not mere insulated beings, without relation to the past or the
future. Neither the point of time, nor the spot of earth, in which we physically
live, bounds our rational and intellectual enjoyments. We live in the past by a
knowledge of its history; and in the future, by hope and anticipation. By
ascending to an association with our ancestors; by
contemplating their example and studying their character; by partaking
their sentiments, and imbibing their spirit; by accompanying them in their
toils, by sympathizing in their sufferings, and rejoicing in their successes and
their triumphs; we seem to belong to their age, and to mingle our own existence
with theirs. We become their contemporaries, live the lives which they lived,
endure what they endured, and partake in the rewards which they enjoyed. And in
like manner, by running along the line of future time, by contemplating the
probable fortunes of those who are coming after us, by attempting something
which may promote their happiness, and leave some not dishonorable memorial of
ourselves for their regard, when we shall sleep with the fathers, we protract
our own earthly being, and seem to crowd whatever is future, as well as all that
is past, into the narrow compass of our earthly existence.
As it is not a vain and false, but an exalted and
religious imagination, which leads us to raise our thoughts from the orb, which,
amidst this universe of worlds, the Creator has given us to inhabit, and to send
them with something of the feeling which nature prompts, and teaches to be
proper among children of the same Eternal Parent, to the contemplation of the
myriads of fellow-beings with which his goodness has peopled the infinite of
space; so neither is it false or vain to consider ourselves as interested and
connected with our whole race, through all time; allied to our ancestors; allied
to our posterity; closely compacted on all sides with others; ourselves being
but links in the great chain of being, which begins with the origin of our race,
runs onward through its successive generations, binding together the past, the
present, and the future, and terminating at last, with the consummation of all
things earthly, at the throne of God.
There may be, and there often is, indeed, a regard
for ancestry, which
nourishes only a weak pride; as there is also a care for posterity, which
only disguises an habitual avarice, or hides the workings of a low and
groveling vanity. But there is also a moral and philosophical respect for
our ancestors, which elevates the character and improves the heart. Next to the
sense of religious duty and moral feeling, I hardly know what
should bear with stronger obligation on a liberal and enlightened mind,
than a consciousness of alliance with excellence which is departed; and a
consciousness, too, that in its acts and conduct, and even in its
sentiments and thoughts, it may be actively operating on the happiness of those
who come after it. Poetry is found to have few stronger conceptions, by which it
would affect or overwhelm the mind, than those in which it presents the moving
and speaking image of the departed dead to the senses of the living. This
belongs to poetry, only because it is congenial to our nature. Poetry is, in
this respect, but the handmaid of true philosophy and morality; it deals with us
as human beings, naturally reverencing those whose visible connection with this
state of existence is severed, and who may yet exercise we know not what
sympathy with ourselves; and when it carries us forward, also, and shows us the
long continued result of all the good we do, in the prosperity of those who
follow us, till it bears us from ourselves, and absorbs us in an intense
interest for what shall happen to the generations after us, it speaks only in
the language of our nature, and affects us with sentiments which belong to us as
human beings.
Standing in this relation to our ancestors and our posterity, we are assembled
on this memorable spot, to perform the duties which that relation and the
present occasion impose upon us. We have come to this Rock, to record here our
homage for our Pilgrim Fathers; our sympathy in their sufferings; our gratitude
for their labors; our admiration of their virtues; our veneration for their
piety; and our attachment to those principles of civil and religious liberty,
which they encountered the dangers of the ocean, the storms of heaven, the
violence of savages, disease, exile, and famine, to enjoy and to establish. And
we would leave here, also, for the generations which are rising up rapidly to
fill our places, some proof that we have endeavored to transmit the great
inheritance unimpaired; that in our estimate of public principles and private
virtue, in our veneration of religion and piety, in our devotion to civil and
religious liberty, in our regard for whatever advances human knowledge or
improves human happiness, we are not altogether unworthy of our origin.
There is a local feeling connected with this
occasion, too strong to be resisted; a sort of genius of the place, which
inspires and awes us. We feel that we are on the spot where the first scene of
our history was laid; where the hearths and altars of New England were first
placed; where Christianity, and civilization, and letters made their first
lodgment, in a vast extent of country, covered with a wilderness, and peopled by
roving barbarians. We are here, at the season of the year at which the event
took place. The imagination irresistibly and rapidly draws around us the
principal features and the leading characters in the original scene. We cast our
eyes abroad on the ocean, and we see where the little bark, with the interesting
group upon its deck, made its slow progress to the shore. We look around us, and
behold the hills and promontories where the anxious eyes of our fathers first
saw the places of habitation and of rest. We feel the cold which benumbed, and
listen to the winds which pierced them. Beneath us is the Rock, on which New
England received the feet of the Pilgrims. We seem even to behold them, as they
struggle with the elements, and, with toilsome efforts, gain the shore. We
listen to the chiefs in council; we see the unexampled exhibition of female
fortitude and resignation; we hear the whisperings of youthful impatience, and
we see, what a painter of our own has also represented by his pencil, chilled
and shivering childhood, houseless, but for a mother's arms, couchless, but for
a mother's breast, till our own blood almost freezes. The mild dignity of Carver
and of Bradford; the decisive and soldier-like air and manner of Standish; the
devout Brewster; the enterprising Allerton; the general firmness and
thoughtfulness of the whole band; their conscious joy for dangers escaped; their
deep solicitude about dangers to come; their trust in Heaven; their high
religious faith, full of confidence and anticipation; all of these seem to
belong to this place, and to be present upon this occasion, to fill us with
reverence and admiration.
The settlement of New England by the colony which
landed here on the
twenty-second of December, sixteen hundred and twenty, although not the first
European establishment in what now constitutes the United
States, was yet so peculiar in its causes and character, and has been
followed and must still be followed by such consequences, as to give it a
high claim to lasting commemoration. On these causes and consequences, more than
on its immediately attendant circumstances, its importance, as an historical
event, depends. Great actions and striking occurrences, having excited a
temporary admiration, often pass 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 pass
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 retarding human knowledge, in overthrowing or establishing
despotism, in extending or destroying human happiness. When the traveler pauses
on the plain 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 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 institutions, point backward to Marathon, and that their
future existence seems to have been suspended on the contingency, whether the
Persian or the Grecian 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.
"If we conquer," said the Athenian commander on
the approach of that
decisive day, "if we conquer, we shall make Athens the greatest city of
Greece." A prophecy how well fulfilled! "If God prosper us," might have been the
more appropriate language of our fathers, when they landed upon this Rock, "if
God prosper us, we shall here begin a work which shall last for ages; we shall
plant here a new society, in the principles of the fullest liberty and the
purest religion; we shall subdue this wilderness which is before us; we shall
fill this region of the great continent, which stretches almost from pole to
pole, with civilization and Christianity; the temples of the true God shall
rise, where now ascends the smoke of idolatrous sacrifice; fields and gardens,
the flowers of summer, and the waving and golden harvest of autumn, shall spread
over a thousand hills, and stretch along a thousand valleys, never yet, since
the creation, reclaimed to the use of civilized man. We shall whiten this coast
with the canvas of a prosperous commerce; we shall stud the long and winding
shore with a hundred cities. That which we sow in weakness shall be raised in
strength. From our sincere, but houseless worship, there shall spring splendid
temples to record God's goodness; from the simplicity of our social union, there
shall arise wise and politic constitutions of government, full of the liberty
which we ourselves bring and breathe; from our zeal for learning, institutions
shall spring which shall scatter the light of knowledge throughout the land,
and, in time, paying back where they have borrowed, shall contribute their part
to the great aggregate of human knowledge; and our descendants, through all
generations, shall look back to this spot, and to this hour, with unabated
affection and regard."
A brief remembrance of the causes which led to the
settlement of this
place; some account of the peculiarities and characteristic qualities of
that settlement, as distinguished from other instances of colonization; a
short notice of the progress of New England in the great interests of
society, during the century which is now elapsed; with a few observations on the
principles upon which society and government are established in this country:
comprise all that can be attempted, and much more than can be satisfactorily
performed, on the present occasion.
Of the motives which influenced the first settlers
to a voluntary exile,
induced them to relinquish their native country, and to seek an asylum in
this then unexplored wilderness, the first and principal, no doubt, were
connected with religion. They sought to enjoy a higher degree of religious
freedom, and what they esteemed a purer form of religious worship, than
was allowed to their choice, or presented to their imitation, in the Old
World. The love of religious liberty is a stronger sentiment, when fully
excited, than an attachment to civil or political freedom. That freedom
which the conscience demands, and which men feel bound by their hope of
salvation to contend for, can hardly fail to be attained. Conscience, in
the cause of religion and the worship of the Deity, prepares the mind to
act and to suffer beyond almost all other causes. It sometimes gives an
impulse so irresistible, that no fetters of power or of opinion can
withstand it. History instructs us that this love of religious liberty, a
compound sentiment in the breast of man, made up of the clearest sense of right
and the highest conviction of duty, is able to look the sternest
despotism in the face, and, with means apparently most inadequate, to
shake principalities and powers. There is a boldness, a spirit of daring,
in religious reformers, not to be measured by the general rules which
control men's purposes and actions. If the hand of power be laid upon it,
this only seems to augment its force and its elasticity, and to cause its
action to be more formidable and violent. Human invention has devised
nothing, human power has compassed nothing, that can forcibly restrain it, when
it breaks forth. Nothing can stop it, but to give way to it; nothing can check
it, but indulgence. It loses its power only when it has gained its object. The
principle of toleration, to which the world has come so slowly, is at once the
most just and the most wise of all principles. Even when religious feeling takes
a character of extravagance and enthusiasm, and seems to threaten the order of
society and shake the columns of the social edifice, its principal danger is in
its restraint. If it be allowed indulgence and expansion, like the elemental
fires, it only agitates, and perhaps purifies, the atmosphere; while its efforts
to throw off restraint would burst the world asunder.
It is certain, that, although many of them were
republicans in principle,
we have no evidence that our New England ancestors would have emigrated, as they
did, from their own native country, would have become wanderers in Europe, and
finally would have undertaken the establishment of a colony here, merely from
their dislike of the political systems of Europe. They fled not so much from the
civil government, as from the hierarchy, and the laws which enforced conformity
to the church establishment. Mr. Robinson had left England as early as 1608, on
account of the persecutions for non-conformity, and had retired to Holland. He
left England from no disappointed ambition in affairs of state, from no regrets
at the want of preferment in the church, nor from any motive of distinction or
of gain.
Uniformity in matters of religion was pressed with
such extreme rigor,
that a voluntary exile seemed the most eligible mode of escaping from the
penalties of non-compliance. The accession of Elizabeth had, it is true,
quenched the fires of Smithfield, and put an end to the easy acquisition
of the crown of martyrdom. Her long reign had established the Reformation, but
toleration was a virtue beyond her conception, and beyond the age. She left no
example of it to her successor; and he was not of a character which rendered it
probable that a sentiment either so wise or so liberal would originate with him.
At the present period it seems incredible that the learned, accomplished,
unassuming, and inoffensive Robinson should neither be tolerated in his
peaceable mode of worship in his own country, nor suffered quietly to depart
from it. Yet such was the fact. He left his country by stealth, that he might
elsewhere enjoy those rights which ought to belong to men in all countries. The
departure of the Pilgrims for Holland is deeply interesting, from its
circumstances, and also as it marks the character of the times, independently of
its connection with names now incorporated with the history of empire. The
embarkation was intended to be made in such a manner that it might escape the
notice of the officers of government. Great pains had been taken to secure
boats, which should come undiscovered to the shore, and receive the fugitives;
and frequent disappointments had been experienced in this respect.
At length the appointed time came, bringing with
it unusual severity of
cold and rain. An unfrequented and barren heath, on the shores of
Lincolnshire, was the selected spot, where the feet of the Pilgrims were
to tread, for the last time, the land of their fathers. The vessel which
was to receive them did not come until the next day, and in the meantime the
little band was collected, and men and women and children and baggage were
crowded together, in melancholy and distressed confusion. The sea was rough, and
the women and children were already sick, from their passage down the river to
the place of embarkation on the sea. At length the wished-for boat silently and
fearfully approaches the shore, and men and women and children, shaking with
fear and with cold, as many as the small vessel could bear, venture off on a
dangerous sea. Immediately the advance of horses is heard from behind, armed men
appear, and those not yet embarked are seized and taken into custody. In the
hurry of the moment, the first parties had been sent on board without any
attempt to keep members of the same family together, and on account of the
appearance of the horsemen, the boat never returned for the residue. Those who
had got away, and those who had not, were in equal distress. A storm, of great
violence and long duration, arose at sea, which not only protracted the voyage,
rendered distressing by the want of all those accommodations which the
interruption of the embarkation had occasioned, but also forced the vessel out
of her course, and menaced immediate shipwreck; while those on shore, when they
were dismissed from the custody of the officers of justice, having no longer
homes or houses to retire to, and their friends and protectors being already
gone, became objects of necessary charity, as well as of deep commiseration.
As this scene passes before us, we can hardly
forbear asking whether this be a band of malefactors and felons flying from
justice. What are their crimes, that they hide themselves in darkness? To what
punishment are they exposed, that, to avoid it, men, and women, and children,
thus encounter the surf of the North Sea and the terrors of a night storm? What
induces this armed pursuit, and this arrest of fugitives, of all ages and both
sexes? Truth does not allow us to answer these inquiries in a manner that does
credit to the wisdom or the justice of the times. This was not the flight of
guilt, but of virtue. It was an humble and peaceable religion, flying from
causeless oppression. It was conscience, attempting to escape from the arbitrary
rule of the Stuarts. It was Robinson and Brewster, leading off their little band
from their native soil, at first to find
shelter on the shore of the neighboring continent, but ultimately to come
hither; and having surmounted all difficulties and braved a thousand
dangers, to find here a place of refuge and of rest. Thanks be to God,
that this spot was honored as the asylum of religious liberty! May its
standard, reared here, remain for ever! May it rise up as high as heaven,
till its banner shall fan the air of both continents, and wave as a
glorious ensign of peace and security to the nations!
The peculiar character, condition, and
circumstances of the colonies which introduced civilization and an English race
into New England, afford a most interesting and extensive topic of discussion.
On these, much of our subsequent character and fortune has depended. Their
influence has
essentially affected our whole history, through the two centuries which
have elapsed; and as they have become intimately connected with
government, laws, and property, as well as with our opinions on the
subjects of religion and civil liberty, that influence is likely to continue to
be felt through the centuries which shall succeed. Emigration from one region to
another, and the emission of colonies to people countries more or less distant
from the residence of the parent stock, are common incidents in the history of
mankind; but it has not often, perhaps never, happened, that the establishment
of colonies should be attempted under circumstances, however beset with present
difficulties and dangers, yet so favorable to ultimate success, and so conducive
to magnificent results, as those which attended the first settlements on this
part of the American continent. In other instances, emigration has proceeded
from a less exalted purpose, in periods of less general intelligence, or more
without plan and by accident; or under circumstances, physical and moral, less
favorable to the expectation of laying a foundation for great public prosperity
and future empire.
A great resemblance exists, obviously, between all
the English colonies
established within the present limits of the United States; but the
occasion attracts our attention more immediately to those which took
possession of New England, and the peculiarities of these furnish a strong
contrast with most other instances of colonization.
Among the ancient nations, the Greeks, no doubt,
sent forth from their
territories the greatest number of colonies. So numerous, indeed, were
they, and so great the extent of space over which they were spread, that the
parent country fondly and naturally persuaded herself, that by means of them she
had laid a sure foundation for the universal civilization of the world. These
establishments, from obvious causes, were most numerous in places most
contiguous; yet they were found on the coasts of France, on the shores of the
Euxine Sea, in Africa, and even, as is alleged, on the borders of India. These
emigrations appear to have been sometimes voluntary and sometimes compulsory;
arising from the spontaneous enterprise of individuals, or the order and
regulation of government. It was a common opinion with ancient writers, that
they were undertaken in religious obedience to the commands of oracles, and it
is probable that impressions of this sort might have had more or less influence;
but it is probable, also, that on these occasions the oracles did not speak a
language dissonant from the views and purposes of the state.
Political science among the Greeks seems never to
have extended to the
comprehension of a system, which should be adequate to the government of a great
nation upon principles of liberty. They were accustomed only to the
contemplation of small republics, and were led to consider an augmented
population as incompatible with free institutions. The desire of a remedy for
this supposed evil, and the wish to establish marts for trade, led the
governments often to undertake the establishment of colonies as an affair of
state expediency. Colonization and commerce, indeed, would naturally become
objects of interest to an ingenious and enterprising people, inhabiting a
territory closely circumscribed in its limits, and in no small part mountainous
and sterile; while the islands of the adjacent seas, and the promontories and
coasts of the neighboring continents, by their mere proximity, strongly
solicited the excited spirit of emigration.
Such was this proximity, in many instances, that
the new settlements
appeared rather to be the mere extension of population over contiguous
territory, than the establishment of distant colonies. In proportion as
they were near to the parent state, they would be under its authority, and
partake of its fortunes. The colony at Marseilles might perceive lightly, or not
at all, the sway of Phocis; while the islands in the Aegean Sea could hardly
attain to independence of their Athenian origin. Many of these establishments
took place at an early age; and if there were defects in the governments of the
parent states, the colonists did not possess philosophy or experience sufficient
to correct such evils in their own institutions, even if they had not been, by
other causes, deprived of the power. An immediate necessity, connected with the
support of life, was the main and direct inducement to these undertakings, and
there could hardly exist more than the hope of a successful imitation of
institutions with which they were already acquainted, and of holding an equality
with their neighbors in the course of improvement. The laws and customs, both
political and municipal, as well as the religious worship of the parent city,
were transferred to the colony; and the parent city herself, with all such of
her colonies as were not too far remote for frequent intercourse and common
sentiments, would appear like a family of cities, more or less dependent, and
more or less connected. We know how imperfect this system was, as a system of
general politics, and what scope it gave to those mutual dissensions and
conflicts which proved so fatal to Greece.
But it is more pertinent to our present purpose to
observe, that nothing
existed in the character of Grecian emigrations, or in the spirit and
intelligence of the emigrants, likely to give a new and important
direction to human affairs, or a new impulse to the human mind. Their
motives were not high enough, their views were not sufficiently large and
prospective. They went not forth, like our ancestors, to erect systems of
more perfect civil liberty, or to enjoy a higher degree of religious
freedom. Above all, there was nothing in the religion and learning of the
age, that could either inspire high purposes, or give the ability to
execute them. Whatever restraints on civil liberty, or whatever abuses in
religious worship, existed at the time of our fathers' emigration, yet
even then all was light in the moral and mental world, in comparison with
its condition in most periods of the ancient states. The settlement of a
new continent, in an age of progressive knowledge and improvement, could not but
do more than merely enlarge the natural boundaries of the
habitable world. It could not but do much more even than extend commerce and
increase wealth among the human race. We see how this event has acted, how it
must have acted, and wonder only why it did not act sooner, in the production of
moral effects, on the state of human knowledge, the general tone of human
sentiments, and the prospects of human happiness. It gave to civilized man not
only a new continent to be inhabited and cultivated, and new seas to be
explored; but it gave him also a new range for his thoughts, new objects for
curiosity, and new excitements to knowledge and improvement.
Roman colonization resembled, far less than that
of the Greeks, the original settlements of this country. Power and dominion were
the objects of Rome, even in her colonial establishments. Her whole exterior
aspect was for centuries hostile and terrific. She grasped at dominion, from
India to Britain, and her measures of colonization partook of the character of
her general system. Her policy was military, because her objects were power,
ascendancy, and subjugation. Detachments of emigrants from Rome incorporated
themselves with, and governed, the original inhabitants of conquered countries.
She sent citizens where she had first sent soldiers; her law followed her sword.
Her colonies were a sort of military establishment; so many advanced posts in
the career of her dominion. A governor from Rome ruled the new colony with
absolute sway, and often with unbounded rapacity. In Sicily, in Gaul, in Spain,
and in Asia, the power of Rome prevailed, not nominally only, but really and
effectually. Those who immediately exercised it were Roman; the tone and
tendency of its administration, Roman. Rome herself continued to be the heart
and centre of the great system which she had established. Extortion and
rapacity, finding a wide and often rich field of action in the provinces, looked
nevertheless to the banks of the Tiber, as the scene in which their ill-gotten
treasures should be displayed; or, if a spirit of more honest acquisition
prevailed, the object, nevertheless, was ultimate enjoyment in Rome itself. If
our own history and our own times did not sufficiently expose the inherent and
incurable evils of provincial government, we might see them portrayed, to our
amazement, in the desolated and ruined provinces of the Roman empire. We might
hear them, in a voice that terrifies us, in those strains of complaint and
accusation, which the advocates of the provinces poured forth in the Roman
Forum:--"Quas res luxuries in flagitiis, crudelitas in suppliciis, avaritia in
rapinis, superbia in contumeliis, efficere potuisset, eas omnes sese pertulisse."1
As was to be expected, the Roman Provinces partook
of the fortunes, as
well as of the sentiments and general character, of the seat of empire.
They lived together with her, they flourished with her, and fell with her.
The branches were lopped away even before the vast and venerable trunk itself
fell prostrate to the earth. Nothing had proceeded from her which could support
itself, and bear up the name of its origin, when her own sustaining arm should
be enfeebled or withdrawn. It was not given to Rome to see, either at her zenith
or in her decline, a child of her own, distant, indeed, and independent of her
control, yet speaking her language and inheriting her blood, springing forward
to a competition with her own power, and a comparison with her own great renown.
She saw not a vast region of the earth peopled from her stock, full of states
and political communities, improving upon the models of her institutions, and
breathing in fuller measure the spirit which she had breathed in the best
periods of her existence; enjoying and extending her arts and her literature;
rising rapidly from political childhood to manly strength and independence; her
offspring, yet now her equal; unconnected with the causes which might affect the
duration of her own power and greatness; of common origin, but not linked to a
common fate; giving ample pledge, that her name should not be forgotten, that
her language should not cease to be used among men; that whatsoever she had done
for human knowledge and human happiness should be treasured up and preserved;
that the record of her existence and her achievements should not be obscured,
although, in the inscrutable purposes of Providence, it might be her destiny to
fall from opulence and splendor; although the time might come, when darkness
should settle on all her hills; when foreign or domestic violence should
overturn her altars and her temples; when ignorance and despotism should fill
the places where Laws, and Arts, and Liberty had flourished; when the feet of
barbarism should trample on the tombs of her consuls, and the walls of her
Senate-house and forum echo only to the voice of savage triumph. She saw not
this glorious vision, to inspire and fortify her against the possible decay or
downfall of her power. Happy are they who in our day may behold it, if they
shall contemplate it with the sentiments which it ought to inspire!
The New England Colonies differ quite as widely
from the Asiatic
establishments of the modern European nations, as from the models of the ancient
states. The sole object of those establishments was originally
trade; although we have seen, in one of them, the anomaly of a mere
trading company attaining a political character, disbursing revenues, and
maintaining armies and fortresses, until it has extended its control over
seventy millions of people. Differing from these, and still more from the
New England and North American Colonies, are the European settlements in the
West India Islands. It is not strange, that, when men's minds were
turned to the settlement of America, different objects should be proposed
by those who emigrated to the different regions of so vast a country.
Climate, soil, and condition were not equally favorable to all pursuits.
In the West Indies, the purpose of those who went thither was to engage in that
species of agriculture, suited to the soil and climate, which seems to bear more
resemblance to commerce than to the hard and plain tillage of New England. The
great staples of these countries, being partly an agricultural and partly a
manufactured product, and not being of the necessaries of life, become the
object of calculation, with respect to a profitable investment of capital, like
any other enterprise of trade or manufacture. The more especially, as,
requiring, by necessity or habit, slave labor for their production, the capital
necessary to carry on the work of this production is very considerable. The West
Indies are resorted to, therefore, rather for the investment of capital than for
the purpose of sustaining life by personal labor. Such as possess a considerable
amount of capital, or such as choose to adventure in commercial speculations
without capital, can alone be fitted to be emigrants to the islands. The
agriculture of these regions, as before observed, is a sort of commerce; and it
is a species of employment in which labor seems to form an inconsiderable
ingredient in the productive causes, since the portion of white labor is
exceedingly small, and slave labor is rather more like profit on stock or
capital than labor properly so called.
The individual who undertakes an establishment of
this kind takes into the
account the cost of the necessary number of slaves, in the same manner as he
calculates the cost of the land. The uncertainty, too, of this species of
employment, affords another ground of resemblance to commerce. Although gainful
on the whole, and in a series of years, it is often very disastrous for a single
year, and, as the capital is not readily invested in other pursuits, bad crops
or bad markets not only affect the profits, but the capital itself. Hence the
sudden depressions which take place in the value of such estates.
But the great and leading observation, relative to
these establishments,
remains to be made. It is, that the owners of the soil and of the capital
seldom consider themselves at home in the colony. A very great portion of
the soil itself is usually owned in the mother country; a still greater is
mortgaged for capital obtained there; and, in general, those who are to derive
an interest from the products look to the parent country as the place for
enjoyment of their wealth. The population is therefore constantly fluctuating.
Nobody comes but to return. A constant succession of owners, agents, and factors
takes place. Whatsoever the soil, forced by the unmitigated toil of slavery, can
yield, is sent home to defray rents, and interest, and agencies, or to give the
means of living in a better society. In such a state, it is evident that no
spirit of permanent improvement is likely to spring up. Profits will not be
invested with a distant view of benefiting posterity. Roads and canals will
hardly be built; schools will not be founded; colleges will not be endowed.
There will be few fixtures in society; no principles of utility or of elegance,
planted now, with the hope of being developed and expanded hereafter. Profit,
immediate profit, must be the principal active spring in the social system.
There may be many particular exceptions to these general remarks, but the
outline of the whole is such as is here drawn.
Another most important consequence of such a state
of things is, that no
idea of independence of the parent country is likely to arise; unless, indeed,
it should spring up in a form that would threaten universal desolation. The
inhabitants have no strong attachment to the place which they inhabit. The hope
of a great portion of them is to leave it; and their great desire, to leave it
soon. However useful they may be to the parent state, how much soever they may
add to the conveniences and luxuries of life, these colonies are not favored
spots for the expansion of the human mind, for the progress of permanent
improvement, or for sowing the seeds of future independent empire.
Different, indeed, most widely different, from all
these instances, of
emigration and plantation, were the condition, the purposes, and the
prospects of our fathers, when they established their infant colony upon
this spot. They came hither to a land from which they were never to
return. Hither they had brought, and here they were to fix, their hopes,
their attachments, and their objects in life. Some natural tears they
shed, as they left the pleasant abodes of their fathers, and some emotions they
suppressed, when the white cliffs of their native country, now seen for the last
time, grew dim to their sight. They were acting, however, upon a resolution not
to be daunted. With whatever stifled regrets, with whatever occasional
hesitation, with whatever appalling apprehensions, which might sometimes arise
with force to shake the firmest purpose, they had yet committed themselves to
Heaven and the elements; and a thousand leagues of water soon interposed to
separate them for ever from the region which gave them birth. A new existence
awaited them here; and when they saw these shores, rough, cold, barbarous, and
barren, as then they were, they beheld their country. That mixed and strong
feeling, which we call love of country, and which is, in general, never
extinguished in the heart of man, grasped and embraced its proper object here.
Whatever constitutes country, except the earth and the sun, all the moral
causes of affection and attachment which operate upon the heart, they had
brought with them to their new abode. Here were now their families and friends,
their homes, and their property. Before they reached the shore, they had
established the elements of a social system, and at a much earlier period had
settled their forms of religious worship. At the moment of their landing,
therefore, they possessed institutions of government, and institutions of
religion: and friends and families, and social and religious institutions,
framed by consent, founded on choice and preference, how nearly do these fill up
our whole idea of country! The morning that beamed on the first night of their
repose saw the Pilgrims already at home in their country. There were
political institutions, and civil liberty, and religious worship. Poetry has
fancied nothing, in the wanderings of heroes, so distinct and characteristic.
Here was man, indeed, unprotected, and unprovided for, on the shore of a rude
and fearful wilderness; but it was politic, intelligent, and educated man.
Every thing was civilized but the physical world.
Institutions, containing
in substance all that ages had done for human government, were organized in a
forest. Cultivated mind was to act on uncultivated nature; and, more than all, a
government and a country were to commence, with the very first foundations laid
under the divine light of the Christian religion.
Happy auspices of a happy futurity! Who would wish
that his country's
existence had otherwise begun? Who would desire the power of going back to the
ages of fable? Who would wish for an origin obscured in the darkness of
antiquity? Who would wish for other emblazoning of his country's heraldry, or
other ornaments of her genealogy, than to be able to say, that her first
existence was with intelligence, her first breath the
inspiration of liberty, her first principle the truth of divine religion?
Local attachments and sympathies would ere long
spring up in the breasts of our ancestors, endearing to them the place of their
refuge. Whatever natural objects are associated with interesting scenes and high
efforts obtain a hold on human feeling, and demand from the heart a sort of
recognition and regard. This Rock soon became hallowed in the esteem of the
Pilgrims, and these hills grateful to their sight. Neither they nor
their children were again to till the soil of England, nor again to
traverse the seas which surround her. But here was a new sea, now open to their
enterprise, and a new soil, which had not failed to respond
gratefully to their laborious industry, and which was already assuming a
robe of verdure. Hardly had they provided shelter for the living, ere they
were summoned to erect sepulchers for the dead. The ground had become sacred, by
enclosing the remains of some of their companions and connections. A parent, a
child, a husband, or a wife, had gone the way of all flesh, and mingled with the
dust of New England. We naturally look with strong emotions to the spot, though
it be a wilderness, where the ashes of those we have loved repose. Where the
heart has laid down what it loved most, there it is desirous of laying itself
down. No sculptured marble, no enduring monument, no honorable inscription, no
ever-burning taper that would drive away the darkness of the tomb, can soften
our sense of the reality of death, and hallow to our feelings the ground which
is to cover us, like the consciousness that we shall sleep, dust to dust, with
the objects of our affections.
In a short time other causes sprung up to bind the
Pilgrims with new cords to their chosen land. Children were born, and the hopes
of future
generations arose, in the spot of their new habitation. The second
generation found this the land of their nativity, and saw that they were
bound to its fortunes. They beheld their fathers' graves around them, and
while they read the memorials of their toils and labors, they rejoiced in
the inheritance which they found bequeathed to them.
Under the influence of these causes, it was to be
expected that an
interest and a feeling should arise here, entirely different from the
interest and feeling of mere Englishmen; and all the subsequent history of
the Colonies proves this to have actually and gradually taken place. With
a general acknowledgment of the supremacy of the British crown, there was, from
the first, a repugnance to an entire submission to the control of British
legislation. The Colonies stood upon their charters, which, as they contended,
exempted them from the ordinary power of the British Parliament, and authorized
them to conduct their own concerns by their own counsels. They utterly resisted
the notion that they were to be ruled by the mere authority of the government at
home, and would not endure even that their own charter governments should be
established on the other side of the Atlantic. It was not a controlling or
protecting board in England, but a government of their own, and existing
immediately within their limits, which could satisfy their wishes.
It was easy
to foresee, what we know also to have happened, that the first great cause of
collision and jealousy would be, under the notion of political economy then and
still prevalent in Europe, an attempt on the part of the mother country to monopolize the trade of the Colonies. Whoever has looked deeply into the
causes which produced our Revolution has found, if I mistake not, the
original principle far back in this claim, on the part of England, to monopolize
our trade, and a continued effort on the part of the Colonies to resist or evade
that monopoly; if, indeed, it be not still more just
and philosophical to go farther back, and to consider it decided, that an
independent government must arise here, the moment it was ascertained that an
English colony, such as landed in this place, could sustain itself
against the dangers which surrounded it, and, with other similar establishments,
overspread the land with an English population.
Accidental causes retarded at times, and at times
accelerated, the progress of the controversy. The Colonies wanted strength, and
time gave it to them. They required measures of strong and palpable injustice,
on the part of the mother country, to justify resistance; the early part of the
late king's reign furnished them. They needed spirits of high order, of great
daring, of long foresight, and of commanding power, to seize the favoring
occasion to strike a blow, which should sever, for all time, the tie of colonial
dependence; and these spirits were found, in all the extent which that or any
crisis could demand, in Otis, Adams, Hancock, and the other immediate authors of
our independence.
Still, it is true that, for a century, causes had
been in operation
tending to prepare things for this great result. In the year 1660 the
English Act of Navigation was passed; the first and grand object of which
seems to have been, to secure to England the whole trade with her
plantations. It was provided by that act, that none but English ships
should transport American produce over the ocean, and that the principal
articles of that produce should be allowed to be sold only in the markets
of the mother country. Three years afterwards another law was passed,
which enacted, that such commodities as the Colonies might wish to
purchase should be bought only in the markets of the mother country.
Severe rules were prescribed to enforce the provisions of these laws, and
heavy penalties imposed on all who should violate them. In the subsequent years
of the same reign, other statutes were enacted to re-enforce these statutes, and
other rules prescribed to secure a compliance with these rules. In this manner
was the trade to and from the Colonies restricted, almost to the exclusive
advantage of the parent country.
But laws, which rendered the interest of a
whole people subordinate to that of another people, were not likely to execute
themselves; nor was it easy to find many on the spot, who could be depended upon
for carrying them into execution. In fact, these laws were more or less evaded
or resisted, in all the Colonies. To enforce them was the constant endeavor of
the government at home; to prevent or elude their operation, the perpetual
object here. "The laws of navigation," says a living British writer, "were
nowhere so openly disobeyed and contemned as in New England." "The people of
Massachusetts Bay," he adds, "were from the first disposed to act as if
independent of the mother country, and having a governor and magistrates of
their own choice, it was difficult to enforce any regulation which came from the
English Parliament, adverse to their interests." To provide more effectually for
the execution of these laws, we know that courts of admiralty were afterwards
established by the crown, with power to try revenue causes, as questions of
admiralty, upon the construction given by the crown lawyers to an act of
Parliament; a great departure from the ordinary principles of English
jurisprudence, but which has been maintained, nevertheless, by the force of
habit and precedent, and is adopted in our own existing systems of government.
"There lie," says another English writer, whose
connection with the Board
of Trade has enabled him to ascertain many facts connected with Colonial
history, "There lie among the documents in the board of trade and state-paper
office, the most satisfactory proofs, from the epoch of the English Revolution
in 1688, throughout every reign, and during every
administration, of the settled purpose of the Colonies to acquire direct
independence and positive sovereignty." Perhaps this may be stated
somewhat too strongly; but it cannot be denied, that, from the very nature of
the establishments here, and from the general character of the measures
respecting their concerns early adopted and steadily pursued by the English
government, a division of the empire was the natural and necessary result to
which every thing tended.
I have dwelt on this topic, because it seems to
me, that the peculiar
original character of the New England Colonies, and certain causes coeval
with their existence, have had a strong and decided influence on all their
subsequent history, and especially on the great event of the Revolution.
Whoever would write our history, and would understand and explain early
transactions, should comprehend the nature and force of the feeling which I have
endeavored to describe. As a son, leaving the house of his father for his own,
finds, by the order of nature, and the very law of his being, nearer and dearer
objects around which his affections circle, while his attachment to the parental
roof becomes moderated, by degrees, to a composed regard and an affectionate
remembrance; so our ancestors, leaving their native land, not without some
violence to the feelings of nature and affection, yet, in time, found here a new
circle of engagements, interests, and affections; a feeling, which more and more
encroached upon the old, till an undivided sentiment, that this was their
country, occupied the heart; and patriotism, shutting out from its embraces
the parent realm, became local to America. Some retrospect of the century
which has now elapsed is among the duties of the occasion. It must, however,
necessarily be imperfect, to be compressed within the limits of a single
discourse. I shall content myself, therefore, with taking notice of a few of the
leading and most important occurrences which have distinguished the period.
When the first century closed, the progress of the
country appeared to
have been considerable; notwithstanding that, in comparison with its
subsequent advancement, it now seems otherwise. A broad and lasting
foundation had been laid; excellent institutions had been established;
many of the prejudices of former times had been removed; a more liberal
and catholic spirit on subjects of religious concern had begun to extend
itself, and many things conspired to give promise of increasing future
prosperity. Great men had arisen in public life, and the liberal
professions. The Mathers, father and son, were then sinking low in the
western horizon; Leverett, the learned, the accomplished, the excellent
Leverett, was about to withdraw his brilliant and useful light. In
Pemberton great hopes had been suddenly extinguished, but Prince and
Colman were in our sky; and along the east had begun to flash the
crepuscular light of a great luminary which was about to appear, and which was
to stamp the age with his own name, as the age of Franklin.
The bloody Indian wars, which harassed the people
for a part of the first
century; the restrictions on the trade of the Colonies, added to the
discouragements inherently belonging to all forms of colonial government;
the distance from Europe, and the small hope of immediate profit to
adventurers, are among the causes which had contributed to retard the
progress of population. Perhaps it may be added, also, that during the
period of the civil wars in England, and the reign of Cromwell, many
persons, whose religious opinions and religious temper might, under other
circumstances, have induced them to join the New England colonists, found
reasons to remain in England; either on account of active occupation in the
scenes which were passing, or of an anticipation of the enjoyment, in their own
country, of a form of government, civil and religious, accommodated to their
views and principles. The violent measures, too, pursued against the Colonies in
the reign of Charles the Second, the mockery of a trial, and the forfeiture of
the charters, were serious evils. And during the open violences of the short
reign of James the Second, and the tyranny of Andros, as the venerable historian
of Connecticut observes, "All the motives to great actions, to industry,
economy, enterprise, wealth, and population, were in a manner annihilated.
A general inactivity and languishment pervaded the
public body. Liberty,
property, and every thing which ought to be dear to men, every day grew more and
more insecure." With the Revolution in England, a better
prospect had opened on this country, as well as on that. The joy had been as
great at that event, and far more universal, in New than in Old England. A new
charter had been granted to Massachusetts, which, although it did not confirm to
her inhabitants all their former privileges, yet relieved them from great evils
and embarrassments, and promised future security. More than all, perhaps, the
Revolution in England had done good to the general cause of liberty and justice.
A blow had been struck in favor of the rights and liberties, not of England
alone, but of descendants and kinsmen of England all over the world. Great
political truths had been established the champions of liberty had been
successful in a fearful and perilous conflict. Somers, and Cavendish, and Jekyl,
and Howard, had triumphed in one of the most noble causes ever undertaken by
men. A revolution had been made upon principle. A monarch had been dethroned for
violating the original compact between king and people. The rights of the people
to partake in the government, and to limit the monarch by fundamental rules of
government, had been maintained; and however unjust the government of England
might afterwards be towards other governments or towards her colonies, she had
ceased to be governed herself by the arbitrary maxims of the Stuarts.
New England had submitted to the violence of James
the Second not longer than Old England. Not only was it reserved to
Massachusetts, that on her soil should be acted the first scene of that great
revolutionary drama, which was to take place near a century afterwards, but the
English Revolution itself, as far as the Colonies were concerned, commenced in
Boston. The seizure and imprisonment of Andros, in April, 1689, were acts of
direct and forcible resistance to the authority of James the Second. The pulse
of liberty beat as high in the extremities as at the heart. The vigorous feeling
of the Colony burst out before it was known how the parent country would finally
conduct herself. The king's representative, Sir Edmund Andros, was a prisoner in
the castle at Boston, before it was or could be known that the king himself had
ceased to exercise his full dominion on the English throne.
Before it was known here whether the invasion of
the Prince of Orange
would or could prove successful, as soon as it was known that it had been
undertaken, the people of Massachusetts, at the imminent hazard of their lives
and fortunes, had accomplished the Revolution as far as respected themselves. It
is probable that, reasoning on general principles and the known attachment of
the English people to their constitution and
liberties, and their deep and fixed dislike of the king's religion and
politics, the people of New England expected a catastrophe fatal to the
power of the reigning prince. Yet it was neither certain enough, nor near
enough, to come to their aid against the authority of the crown, in that
crisis which had arrived, and in which they trusted to put themselves,
relying on God and their own courage. There were spirits in Massachusetts
congenial with the spirits of the distinguished friends of the Revolution in
England. There were those who were fit to associate with the boldest asserters
of civil liberty; and Mather himself, then in England, was not unworthy to be
ranked with those sons of the Church, whose firmness and spirit in resisting
kingly encroachments in matters of religion, entitled them to the gratitude of
their own and succeeding ages.
The second century opened upon New England under
circumstances which evinced that much had already been accomplished, and that
still better prospects and brighter hopes were before her. She had laid, deep
and strong, the foundations of her society. Her religious principles were
firm, and her moral habits exemplary. Her public schools had begun to
diffuse widely the elements of knowledge; and the College, under the
excellent and acceptable administration of Leverett, had been raised to a
high degree of credit and usefulness.
The commercial character of the country,
notwithstanding all discouragements, had begun to display itself, and five
hundred vessels, then belonging to Massachusetts, placed her, in relation to
commerce, thus early at the head of the Colonies. An author who wrote very
near the close of the first century says:--"New England is almost deserving that
noble name, so mightily hath it increased; and from a small settlement at
first, is now become a very populous and flourishing government.
The capital city, Boston, is a place of great wealth and trade;
and by much the largest of any in the English empire of America; and not
exceeded but by few cities, perhaps two or three, in all the American world."
But if our ancestors at the close of the first century could look back with joy
and even admiration, at the progress of the country, what emotions must we not
feel, when, from the point on which we stand, we also look back and run along
the events of the century which has now closed! The country which then, as we
have seen, was thought deserving of a "noble name,"--which then had "mightily
increased," and become "very populous,"--what was it, in comparison with what
our eyes behold it?
At that period, a very great proportion of its
inhabitants lived in the eastern section of Massachusetts proper, and in
Plymouth Colony. In Connecticut, there were towns along the coast, some of them
respectable, but in the interior all was a wilderness beyond Hartford. On
Connecticut River, settlements had proceeded as far up as Deerfield, and Fort
Dummer had been built near where is now the south line of New Hampshire. In New
Hampshire no settlement was then begun thirty miles from the mouth of Piscataqua
River, and in what is now Maine the inhabitants were confined to the coast. The
aggregate of the whole population of New England did not exceed one hundred and
sixty thousand. Its present amount (1820) is probably one million seven hundred
thousand. Instead of being confined to its former limits, her population has
rolled backward, and filled up the spaces included within her actual local
boundaries.
Not this only, but it has overflowed those
boundaries, and the waves of emigration have pressed farther and farther toward
the West. The Alleghany has not checked it; the banks of the Ohio have been
covered with it. New England farms, houses, villages, and churches spread over
and adorn the immense extent from the Ohio to Lake Erie, and stretch along from
the Alleghany onwards, beyond the Miamis, and towards the Falls of St. Anthony.
Two thousand miles westward from the rock where their fathers landed, may now be
found the sons of the Pilgrims, cultivating smiling fields, rearing towns and
villages, and cherishing, we trust, the patrimonial blessings of wise
institutions, of liberty, and religion. The world has seen nothing like this.
Regions large enough to be empires, and which, half a century ago, were known
only as remote and unexplored wildernesses, are now teeming with population, and
prosperous in all the great concerns of life; in good governments, the means of
subsistence, and social happiness. It may be safely asserted, that there are now
more than a million of people, descendants of New England ancestry, living, free
and happy, in regions which scarce sixty years ago were tracts of unpenetrated
forest. Nor do rivers, or mountains, or seas resist the progress of industry and
enterprise. Erelong, the sons of the Pilgrims will be on the shores of the
Pacific. The imagination hardly keeps pace with the progress of population,
improvement, and civilization.
It is now five-and-forty years since the growth
and rising glory of
America were portrayed in the English Parliament, with inimitable beauty,
by the most consummate orator of modern times. Going back somewhat more than
half a century, and describing our progress as foreseen from that point by his
amiable friend Lord Bathurst, then living, he spoke of the
wonderful progress which America had made during the period of a single
human life. There is no American heart, I imagine, that does not glow, both with
conscious, patriotic pride, and admiration for one of the happiest efforts of
eloquence, so often as the vision of "that little speck, scarce visible in the
mass of national interest, a small seminal principle, rather than a formed
body," and the progress of its astonishing development and growth, are recalled
to the recollection. But a stronger feeling might be produced, if we were able
to take up this prophetic description where he left it, and, placing ourselves
at the point of time in which he was speaking, to set forth with equal felicity
the subsequent progress of the country. There is yet among the living a most
distinguished and venerable name, a descendant of the Pilgrims; one who has been
attended through life by a great and fortunate genius; a man illustrious by his
own great merits, and favored of Heaven in the long continuation of his years.
The time when the English orator was thus speaking of America preceded but by a
few days the actual opening of the revolutionary drama at Lexington.
He to whom I have alluded, then at the age of
forty, was among the most zealous and able defenders of the violated rights of
his country. He seemed already to have filled a full measure of public service,
and attained an honorable fame. The moment was full of difficulty and danger,
and big with events of immeasurable importance. The country was on the very
brink of a civil war, of which no man could foretell the duration or the result.
Something more than a courageous hope, or characteristic ardor, would have been
necessary to impress the glorious prospect on his belief, if, at that moment,
before the sound of the first shock of actual war had reached his ears, some
attendant spirit had opened to him the vision of the future;--if it had said to
him, "The blow is struck, and America is severed from England for ever!"--if it
had informed him, that he himself, during the next annual revolution of the sun,
should put his own hand to the great instrument of independence, and write his
name where all nations should behold it and all time should not efface it; that
erelong he himself should maintain the interests and represent the sovereignty
of his new-born country in the proudest courts of Europe; that he should one day
exercise her supreme magistracy; that he should yet live to behold ten millions
of fellow-citizens paying him the homage of their deepest gratitude and kindest
affections; that he should see distinguished talent and high public trust
resting where his name rested; that he should even see with his own unclouded
eyes the close of the second century of New England, who had begun life almost
with its commencement, and lived through nearly half the whole history of his
country; and that on the morning of this auspicious day he should be found in
the political councils of his native State, revising, by the light of
experience, that system of government which forty years before he had assisted
to frame and establish; and, great and happy as he should then behold his
country, there should be nothing in prospect to cloud the scene, nothing to
check the ardor of that confident and patriotic hope which should glow in his
bosom to the end of his long protracted and happy life.
It would far exceed the limits of this discourse
even to mention the
principal events in the civil and political history of New England during
the century; the more so, as for the last half of the period that history
has, most happily, been closely interwoven with the general history of the
United States. New England bore an honorable part in the wars which took place
between England and France. The capture of Louisburg gave her a character for
military achievement; and in the war which terminated with the peace of 1763,
her exertions on the frontiers were of most essential service, as well to the
mother country as to all the Colonies.
In New England the war of the Revolution
commenced. I address those who remember the memorable 19th of April, 1775; who
shortly after saw the burning spires of Charlestown; who beheld the deeds of
Prescott, and heard the voice of Putnam amidst the storm of war, and saw the
generous Warren fall, the first distinguished victim in the cause of liberty. It
would be superfluous to say, that no portion of the country did more than the
States of New England to bring the Revolutionary struggle to a successful issue.
It is scarcely less to her credit, that she saw early the necessity of a closer
union of the States, and gave an efficient and indispensable aid to the
establishment and organization of the Federal government.
Perhaps we might safely say, that a new spirit and
a new excitement began to exist here about the middle of the last century. To
whatever causes it may be imputed, there seems then to have commenced a more
rapid improvement. The Colonies had attracted more of the attention of the
mother country, and some renown in arms had been acquired. Lord Chatham was the
first English minister who attached high importance to these possessions of the
crown, and who foresaw any thing of their future growth and extension. His
opinion was, that the great rival of England was chiefly to be feared as a
maritime and commercial power, and to drive her out of North America and deprive
her of her West Indian possessions was a leading object in his policy. He dwelt
often on the fisheries, as nurseries for British seamen, and the colonial trade,
as furnishing them employment. The war, conducted by him with so much vigor,
terminated in a peace, by which Canada was ceded to England. The effect of this
was immediately visible in the New England Colonies; for, the fear of Indian
hostilities on the frontiers being now happily removed, settlements went on with
an activity before that time altogether unprecedented, and public affairs wore a
new and encouraging aspect. Shortly after this fortunate termination of the
French war, the interesting topics connected with the taxation of America by the
British Parliament began to be discussed, and the attention and all the
faculties of the people drawn towards them.
There is perhaps no portion of our history more
full of interest than the
period from 1760 to the actual commencement of the war. The progress of opinion
in this period, though less known, is not less important than the progress of
arms afterwards. Nothing deserves more consideration than those events and
discussions which affected the public sentiment and settled the Revolution in
men's minds, before hostilities openly broke
out.
Internal improvement followed the establishment
and prosperous
commencement of the present government. More has been done for roads, canals,
and other public works, within the last thirty years, than in all our former
history. In the first of these particulars, few countries excel
the New England States. The astonishing increase of their navigation and
trade is known to every one, and now belongs to the history of our
national wealth.
We may flatter ourselves, too, that literature and
taste have not been
stationary, and that some advancement has been made in the elegant, as well as
in the useful arts.
The nature and constitution of society and
government in this country are interesting topics, to which I would devote what
remains of the time
allowed to this occasion. Of our system of government the first thing to
be said is, that it is really and practically a free system. It originates
entirely with the people, and rests on no other foundation than their
assent. To judge of its actual operation, it is not enough to look merely
at the form of its construction. The practical character of government
depends often on a variety of considerations, besides the abstract frame
of its constitutional organization. Among these are the condition and
tenure of property; the laws regulating its alienation and descent; the
presence or absence of a military power; an armed or unarmed yeomanry; the
spirit of the age, and the degree of general intelligence. In these
respects it cannot be denied that the circumstances of this country are
most favorable to the hope of maintaining the government of a great nation on
principles entirely popular. In the absence of military power, the
nature of government must essentially depend on the manner in which
property is held and distributed. There is a natural influence belonging
to property, whether it exists in many hands or few; and it is on the
rights of property that both despotism and unrestrained popular violence
ordinarily commence their attacks. Our ancestors began their system of
government here under a condition of comparative equality in regard to
wealth, and their early laws were of a nature to favor and continue this
equality.
A republican form of government rests not more on
political constitutions,
than on those laws which regulate the descent and transmission of
property. Governments like ours could not have been maintained, where
property was held according to the principles of the feudal system; nor,
on the other hand, could the feudal constitution possibly exist with us.
Our New England ancestors brought hither no great capitals from Europe;
and if they had, there was nothing productive in which they could have
been invested. They left behind them the whole feudal policy of the other
continent. They broke away at once from the system of military service
established in the Dark Ages, and which continues, down even to the
present time, more or less to affect the condition of property all over
Europe. They came to a new country. There were, as yet, no lands yielding rent,
and no tenants rendering service. The whole soil was unreclaimed from barbarism.
They were themselves, either from their original condition, or from the
necessity of their common interest, nearly on a general level in respect to
property. Their situation demanded a parceling out and division of the lands,
and it may be fairly said, that this necessary act fixed the future frame and
form of their government. The character of their political institutions was
determined by the fundamental laws respecting property. The laws rendered
estates divisible among sons and daughters. The right of primogeniture, at first
limited and curtailed, was afterwards abolished. The property was all freehold.
The entailment of estates, long trusts, and the other processes for fettering
and tying up inheritances, were not applicable to the condition of society, and
seldom made use of. On the contrary, alienation of the land was every way
facilitated, even to the subjecting of it to every species of debt. The
establishment of public registries, and the simplicity of our forms of
conveyance, have greatly facilitated the change of real estate from one
proprietor to another. The consequence of all these causes has been a great
subdivision of the soil, and a great equality of condition; the true basis, most
certainly, of a popular government. "If the people," says Harrington, "hold
three parts in four of the territory, it is plain there can neither be any
single person nor nobility able to dispute the government with them; in this
case, therefore, except force be interposed, they govern themselves."
The history of other nations may teach us how
favorable to public liberty
are the division of the soil into small freeholds, and a system of laws,
of which the tendency is, without violence or injustice, to produce and to
preserve a degree of equality of property. It has been estimated, if I
mistake not, that about the time of Henry the Seventh four fifths of the
land in England was held by the great barons and ecclesiastics. The
effects of a growing commerce soon afterwards began to break in on this
state of things, and before the Revolution, in 1688, a vast change had
been wrought. It may be thought probable, that, for the last half-century, the
process of subdivision in England has been retarded, if not reversed; that the
great weight of taxation has compelled many of the lesser freeholders to dispose
of their estates, and to seek employment in the army and navy, in the
professions of civil life, in commerce, or in the
colonies. The effect of this on the British constitution cannot but be
most unfavorable. A few large estates grow larger; but the number of those who
have no estates also increases; and there may be danger, lest the inequality of
property become so great, that those who possess it may be dispossessed by
force; in other words, that the government may be overturned.
A most interesting experiment of the effect of a
subdivision of property
on government is now making in France. It is understood, that the law
regulating the transmission of property in that country, now divides it,
real and personal, among all the children equally, both sons and
daughters; and that there is, also, a very great restraint on the power of
making dispositions of property by will. It has been supposed, that the
effects of this might probably be, in time, to break up the soil into such
small subdivisions, that the proprietors would be too poor to resist the
encroachments of executive power. I think far otherwise. What is lost in
individual wealth will be more than gained in numbers, in intelligence,
and in a sympathy of sentiment. If, indeed, only one or a few landholders
were to resist the crown, like the barons of England, they must, of
course, be great and powerful landholders, with multitudes of retainers,
to promise success. But if the proprietors of a given extent of territory
are summoned to resistance, there is no reason to believe that such
resistance would be less forcible, or less successful, because the number
of such proprietors happened to be great. Each would perceive his own
importance, and his own interest, and would feel that natural elevation of
character which the consciousness of property inspires. A common sentiment would
unite all, and numbers would not only add strength, but excite enthusiasm. It is
true, that France possesses a vast military force, under the direction of an
hereditary executive government; and military power, it is possible, may
overthrow any government. It is in vain, however, in this period of the world,
to look for security against military power to the arm of the great landholders.
That notion is derived from a state of things long since past; a state in which
a feudal baron, with his retainers, might stand against the sovereign and his
retainers, himself but the greatest baron. But at present, what could the
richest landholder do, against one regiment of disciplined troops? Other
securities, therefore, against the prevalence of military power must be
provided. Happily for us, we are not so situated as that any purpose of national
defense requires, ordinarily and constantly, such a military force as might
seriously endanger our liberties.
In respect, however, to the recent law of
succession in France, to which I have alluded, I would, presumptuously perhaps,
hazard a conjecture, that, if the government do not change the law, the law in
half a century will change the government; and that this change will be, not in
favor of the power of the crown, as some European writers have supposed, but
against it. Those writers only reason upon what they think correct general
principles, in relation to this subject. They acknowledge a want of
experience. Here we have had that experience; and we know that a multitude of
small proprietors, acting with intelligence, and that enthusiasm which a common
cause inspires, constitute not only a formidable, but an invincible power.
The true principle of a free and popular
government would seem to be, so
to construct it as to give to all, or at least to a very great majority,
an interest in its preservation; to found it, as other things are founded,
on men's interest. The stability of government demands that those who
desire its continuance should be more powerful than those who desire its
dissolution. This power, of course, is not always to be measured by mere
numbers. Education, wealth, talents, are all parts and elements of the
general aggregate of power; but numbers, nevertheless, constitute
ordinarily the most important consideration, unless, indeed, there be a
military force in the hands of the few, by which they can control the
many. In this country we have actually existing systems of government, in the
maintenance of which, it should seem, a great majority, both in
numbers and in other means of power and influence, must see their
interest. But this state of things is not brought about solely by written
political constitutions, or the mere manner of organizing the government;
but also by the laws which regulate the descent and transmission of
property. The freest government, if it could exist, would not be long
acceptable, if the tendency of the laws were to create a rapid
accumulation of property in few hands, and to render the great mass of the
population dependent and penniless. In such a case, the popular power would be
likely to break in upon the rights of property, or else the
influence of property to limit and control the exercise of popular power.
Universal suffrage, for example, could not long exist in a community where there
was great inequality of property. The holders of estates would be obliged, in
such case, in some way to restrain the right of suffrage, or else such right of
suffrage would, before long, divide the property. In the nature of things, those
who have not property, and see their neighbors possess much more than they think
them to need, cannot be favorable to laws made for the protection of property.
When this class becomes numerous, it grows clamorous. It looks on property as
its prey and plunder, and is naturally ready, at all times, for violence and
revolution.
It would seem, then, to be the part of political
wisdom to found
government on property; and to establish such distribution of property, by the
laws which regulate its transmission and alienation, as to interest
the great majority of society in the support of the government. This is, I
imagine, the true theory and the actual practice of our republican
institutions. With property divided as we have it, no other government
than that of a republic could be maintained, even were we foolish enough
to desire it. There is reason, therefore, to expect a long continuance of
our system. Party and passion, doubtless, may prevail at times, and much
temporary mischief be done. Even modes and forms may be changed, and
perhaps for the worse. But a great revolution in regard to property must
take place, before our governments can be moved from their republican
basis, unless they be violently struck off by military power. The people
possess the property, more emphatically than it could ever be said of the
people of any other country, and they can have no interest to overturn a
government which protects that property by equal laws.
Let it not be supposed, that this state of things
possesses too strong
tendencies towards the production of a dead and uninteresting level in
society. Such tendencies are sufficiently counteracted by the infinite
diversities in the characters and fortunes of individuals. Talent,
activity, industry, and enterprise tend at all times to produce inequality
and distinction; and there is room still for the accumulation of wealth,
with its great advantages, to all reasonable and useful extent. It has
been often urged against the state of society in America, that it
furnishes no class of men of fortune and leisure. This may be partly true,
but it is not entirely so, and the evil, if it be one, would affect rather
the progress of taste and literature, than the general prosperity of the
people. But the promotion of taste and literature cannot be primary
objects of political institutions; and if they could, it might be doubted
whether, in the long course of things, as much is not gained by a wide
diffusion of general knowledge, as is lost by diminishing the number of
those who are enabled by fortune and leisure to devote themselves
exclusively to scientific and literary pursuits. However this may be, it
is to be considered that it is the spirit of our system to be equal and
general, and if there be particular disadvantages incident to this, they
are far more than counterbalanced by the benefits which weigh against
them. The important concerns of society are generally conducted, in all
countries, by the men of business and practical ability; and even in
matters of taste and literature, the advantages of mere leisure are liable
to be overrated. If there exist adequate means of education and a love of
letters be excited, that love will find its way to the object of its
desire, through the crowd and pressure of the most busy society.
Connected with this division of property, and the
consequent participation of the great mass of people in its possession and
enjoyments, is the system of representation, which is admirably accommodated to
our condition, better understood among us, and more familiarly and extensively
practiced, in the higher and in the lower departments of government, than it has
been by any other people. Great facility has been given to this in New England
by the early division of the country into townships or small districts, in which
all concerns of local police are regulated, and in which representatives to the
legislature are elected. Nothing can exceed the utility of these little bodies.
They are so many councils or parliaments, in which common interests are
discussed, and useful knowledge acquired and communicated. The division of
governments into departments, and the division, again, of the legislative
department into two chambers, are essential provisions in our system.
This last,
although not new in itself, yet seems to be new in its application to
governments wholly popular. The Grecian republics, it is plain, knew nothing of
it; and in Rome, the check and balance of legislative power, such as it was, lay
between the people and the Senate. Indeed, few things are more difficult than to
ascertain accurately the true nature and construction of the Roman commonwealth.
The relative power of the Senate and the people, of the consuls and the
tribunes, appears not to have been at all times the same, nor at any time
accurately defined or strictly observed. Cicero, indeed, describes to us an
admirable arrangement of political power, and a balance of the constitution, in
that beautiful passage, in which he compares the
democracies of Greece with the Roman commonwealth.
O
morem preclarum, disciplinamque, quam a majoribus, accepimus, si quidem
teneremus! sed nescio quo pacto jam de manibus elabitur. Nullam enim illi
nostrisapientissimi et sanctissimi viri vim concionis esse voluerunt, quae
scisseret plebs, aut quae populus juberet; summota concione, distributis
partibus, tributim et centuriatim descriptis ordinibus, classibus, aetatibus,
auditis auctoribus, re multos dies promulgata et cognita, juberi vetarique
voluerunt. Graecorum autem totae respublicae sedentis concionis temeritate
administrantur.2
But at what time this wise system existed in this
perfection at Rome, no
proofs remain to show. Her constitution, originally framed for a monarchy,
never seemed to be adjusted in its several parts after the expulsion of
the kings. Liberty there was, but it was a disputatious, an uncertain, an
ill-secured liberty. The patrician and plebeian orders, instead of being
matched and joined, each in its just place and proportion, to sustain the
fabric of the state, were rather like hostile powers, in perpetual
conflict. With us, an attempt has been made, and so far not without
success, to divide representation into chambers, and, by difference of
age, character, qualification, or mode of election, to establish salutary
checks, in governments altogether elective.
Having detained you so long with these observations, I must yet advert to
another most interesting topic,--the Free Schools. In this particular, New
England may be allowed to claim, I think, a merit of a peculiar character. She
early adopted, and has constantly maintained the principle, that it is the
undoubted right and the bounden duty of government to provide for the
instruction of all youth. That which is elsewhere left to chance or to charity,
we secure by law. For the purpose of public instruction, we hold every man
subject to taxation in proportion to his property, and we look not to the
question, whether he himself have, or have not, children to be benefited by the
education for which he pays. We regard it as a wise and liberal system of
police, by which property, and life, and the peace of society are secured. We
seek to prevent in some measure the extension of the penal code, by inspiring a
salutary and conservative principle of virtue and of knowledge in an early age.
We strive to excite a feeling of respectability, and a sense of character, by
enlarging the capacity and increasing the sphere of intellectual enjoyment. By
general instruction, we seek, as far as possible, to purify the whole moral
atmosphere; to keep good sentiments uppermost, and to turn the strong current of
feeling and opinion, as well as the censures of the law and the denunciations of
religion, against immorality and crime. We hope for a security beyond the law,
and above the law, in the prevalence of an enlightened and well-principled moral
sentiment. We hope to continue and prolong the time, when, in the villages and
farm-houses of New England, there may be undisturbed sleep within unbarred
doors. And knowing that our government rests directly on the public will, in
order that we may preserve it we endeavor to give a safe and proper direction to
that public will. We do not, indeed, expect all men to be philosophers or
statesmen; but we confidently trust, and our expectation of the duration of our
system of government rests on that trust, that, by the diffusion of general
knowledge and good and virtuous sentiments, the political fabric may be secure,
as well against open violence and overthrow, as against the slow, but sure,
undermining of licentiousness.
We know that, at the present time, an attempt is
making in the English
Parliament to provide by law for the education of the poor, and that a
gentleman of distinguished character (Mr. Brougham) has taken the lead in
presenting a plan to government for carrying that purpose into effect. And yet,
although the representatives of the three kingdoms listened to him with
astonishment as well as delight, we hear no principles with which we ourselves
have not been familiar from youth; we see nothing in the plan but an approach
towards that system which has been established in New England for more than a
century and a half. It is said that in England not more than one child in
fifteen possesses the means of being taught
to read and write; in Wales, one in twenty; in France, until lately, when
some improvement was made, not more than one in thirty-five. Now, it is
hardly too strong to say, that in New England every child possesses such
means. It would be difficult to find an instance to the contrary, unless where
it should be owing to the negligence of the parent; and, in truth, the means are
actually used and enjoyed by nearly every one. A youth of fifteen, of either
sex, who cannot both read and write, is very seldom to be found. Who can make
this comparison, or contemplate this spectacle, without delight and a feeling of
just pride? Does any history show property more beneficently applied? Did any
government ever subject the property of those who have estates to a burden, for
a purpose more favorable to the poor, or more useful to the whole community?
A conviction of the importance of public
instruction was one of the
earliest sentiments of our ancestors. No lawgiver of ancient or modern
times has expressed more just opinions, or adopted wiser measures, than
the early records of the Colony of Plymouth show to have prevailed here.
Assembled on this very spot, a hundred and fifty-three years ago, the
legislature of this Colony declared, "Forasmuch as the maintenance of good
literature doth much tend to the advancement of the weal and flourishing state
of societies and republics, this Court doth therefore order, that in whatever
township in this government, consisting of fifty families or upwards, any meet
man shall be obtained to teach a grammar school, such township shall allow at
least twelve pounds, to be raised by rate on all the inhabitants."
Having provided that all youth should be
instructed in the elements of
learning by the institution of free schools, our ancestors had yet another
duty to perform. Men were to be educated for the professions and the
public. For this purpose they founded the University, and with incredible
zeal and perseverance they cherished and supported it, through all trials
and discouragements. On the subject of the University, it is not possible for a
son of New England to think without pleasure, or to speak without emotion.
Nothing confers more honor on the State where it is established, or more utility
on the country at large. A respectable university is an establishment which must
be the work of time. If pecuniary means were not wanting, no new institution
could possess character and respectability at once. We owe deep obligation to
our ancestors, who began, almost on the moment of their arrival, the work of
building up this institution.
Although established in a different government,
the Colony of Plymouth
manifested warm friendship for Harvard College. At an early period, its
government took measures to promote a general subscription throughout all the
towns in this Colony, in aid of its small funds. Other colleges were
subsequently founded and endowed, in other places, as the ability of the
people allowed; and we may flatter ourselves, that the means of education at
present enjoyed in New England are not only adequate to the diffusion of the
elements of knowledge among all classes, but sufficient also for respectable
attainments in literature and the sciences.
Lastly, our ancestors established their system of
government on morality
and religious sentiment. Moral habits, they believed, cannot safely be
trusted on any other foundation than religious principle, nor any
government be secure which is not supported by moral habits. Living under the
heavenly light of revelation, they hoped to find all the social
dispositions, all the duties which men owe to each other and to society,
enforced and performed. Whatever makes men good Christians, makes them good
citizens. Our fathers came here to enjoy their religion free and
unmolested; and, at the end of two centuries, there is nothing upon which we can
pronounce more confidently, nothing of which we can express a more deep and
earnest conviction, than of the inestimable importance of that religion to man,
both in regard to this life and that which is to come.
If the blessings of our political and social
condition have not been too
highly estimated, we cannot well overrate the responsibility and duty
which they impose upon us. We hold these institutions of government,
religion, and learning, to be transmitted, as well as enjoyed. We are in
the line of conveyance, through which whatever has been obtained by the spirit
and efforts of our ancestors is to be communicated to our children.
We are bound to maintain public liberty, and, by
the example of our own
systems, to convince the world that order and law, religion and morality,
the rights of conscience, the rights of persons, and the rights of property, may
all be preserved and secured, in the most perfect manner, by a government
entirely and purely elective. If we fail in this, our disaster will be signal,
and will furnish an argument, stronger than has yet been found, in support of
those opinions which maintain that government can rest safely on nothing but
power and coercion. As far as experience may show errors in our establishments,
we are bound to correct them; and if any practices exist contrary to the
principles of justice and humanity within the reach of our laws or our
influence, we are inexcusable if we do not exert ourselves to restrain and
abolish them.
I deem it my duty on this occasion to suggest,
that the land is not yet
wholly free from the contamination of a traffic, at which every feeling of
humanity must forever revolt,--I mean the African slave-trade. Neither
public sentiment, nor the law, has hitherto been able entirely to put an
end to this odious and abominable trade. At the moment when God in his
mercy has blessed the Christian world with a universal peace, there is
reason to fear, that, to the disgrace of the Christian name and character,
new efforts are making for the extension of this trade by subjects and
citizens of Christian states, in whose hearts there dwell no sentiments of
humanity or of justice, and over whom neither the fear of God nor the fear of
man exercises a control. In the sight of our law, the African slave-
trader is a pirate and a felon; and in the sight of Heaven, an offender
far beyond the ordinary depth of human guilt. There is no brighter page of
our history, than that which records the measures which have been adopted by the
government at an early day, and at different times since, for the suppression of
this traffic; and I would call on all the true sons of New England to cooperate
with the laws of man, and the justice of Heaven. If there be, within the extent
of our knowledge or influence, any
participation in this traffic, let us pledge ourselves here, upon the rock
of Plymouth, to extirpate and destroy it. It is not fit that the land of
the Pilgrims should bear the shame longer. I hear the sound of the hammer, I see
the smoke of the furnaces where manacles and fetters are still forged for human
limbs. I see the visages of those who by stealth and at midnight labor in this
work of hell, foul and dark, as may become the artificers of such instruments of
misery and torture. Let that spot be purified, or let it cease to be of New
England. Let it be purified or let it be set aside from the Christian world; let
it be put out of the circle of human sympathies and human regards, and let
civilized man henceforth have no communion with it.
I would invoke those who fill the seats of
justice, and all who minister
at her altar, that they execute the wholesome and necessary severity of
the law. I invoke the ministers of our religion, that they proclaim its
denunciation of these crimes, and add its solemn sanctions to the
authority of human laws. If the pulpit be silent whenever or wherever
there may be a sinner bloody with this guilt within the hearing of its
voice, the pulpit is false to its trust. I call on the fair merchant, who
has reaped his harvest upon the seas, that he assist in scourging from
those seas the worst pirates that ever infested them. That ocean, which
seems to wave with a gentle magnificence to waft the burden of an honest
commerce, and to roll along its treasures with a conscious pride,--that ocean,
which hardy industry regards, even when the winds have ruffled its surface, as a
field of grateful toil,--what is it to the victim of this oppression, when he is
brought to its shores, and looks forth upon it, for the first time, loaded with
chains, and bleeding with stripes? What is it
to him but a wide-spread prospect of suffering, anguish, and death? Nor do the
skies smile longer, nor is the air longer fragrant to him. The sun is
cast down from heaven. An inhuman and accursed traffic has cut him off in his
manhood, or in his youth, from every enjoyment belonging to his being, and every
blessing which his Creator intended for him.
The Christian communities send forth their
emissaries of religion and
letters, who stop, here and there, along the coast of the vast continent
of Africa, and with painful and tedious efforts make some almost
imperceptible progress in the communication of knowledge, and in the
general improvement of the natives who are immediately about them. Not
thus slow and imperceptible is the transmission of the vices and bad
passions which the subjects of Christian states carry to the land. The
slave-trade having touched the coast, its influence and its evils spread,
like a pestilence, over the whole continent, making savage wars more
savage and more frequent, and adding new and fierce passions to the
contests of barbarians.
I pursue this topic no further, except again to
say, that all Christendom,
being now blessed with peace, is bound by everything which belongs to its
character, and to the character of the present age, to put a stop to this
inhuman and disgraceful traffic.
We are bound, not only to maintain the general
principles of public
liberty, but to support also those existing forms of government which have so
well secured its enjoyment, and so highly promoted the public
prosperity. It is now more than thirty years that these States have been
united under the Federal Constitution, and whatever fortune may await them
hereafter, it is impossible that this period of their history should not
be regarded as distinguished by signal prosperity and success. They must
be sanguine indeed, who can hope for benefit from change. Whatever
division of the public judgment may have existed in relation to particular
measures of the government, all must agree, one should think, in the
opinion, that in its general course it has been eminently productive of
public happiness. Its most ardent friends could not well have hoped from
it more than it has accomplished; and those who disbelieved or doubted
ought to feel less concern about predictions which the event has not
verified, than pleasure in the good which has been obtained. Whoever shall
hereafter write this part of our history, although he may see occasional errors
or defects, will be able to record no great failure in the ends and objects of
government. Still less will he be able to record any series of lawless and
despotic acts, or any successful usurpation. His page will contain no exhibition
of provinces depopulated, of civil authority
habitually trampled down by military power, or of a community crushed by
the burden of taxation. He will speak, rather, of public liberty protected, and
public happiness advanced; of increased revenue, and population augmented beyond
all example; of the growth of commerce, manufactures, and the arts; and of that
happy condition, in which the restraint and coercion of government are almost
invisible and imperceptible, and its influence felt only in the benefits which
it confers. We can entertain no better wish for our country, than that this
government may be preserved; nor have a clearer duty than to maintain and
support it in the full exercise of all its just constitutional powers.
The cause of science and literature also imposes
upon us an important and delicate trust. The wealth and population of the
country are now so far advanced, as to authorize the expectation of a correct
literature and a well formed taste, as well as respectable progress in the
abstruse sciences. The country has risen from a state of colonial subjection; it
has established an independent government, and is now in the undisturbed
enjoyment of peace and political security. The elements of knowledge are
universally diffused, and the reading portion of the community is large.
Let us hope that the present may be an auspicious
era of literature. If,
almost on the day of their landing, our ancestors founded schools and
endowed colleges, what obligations do not rest upon us, living under
circumstances so much more favorable both for providing and for using the means
of education? Literature becomes free institutions. It is the
graceful ornament of civil liberty, and a happy restraint on the asperities
which political controversies sometimes occasion. Just taste is not only an
embellishment of society, but it rises almost to the rank of the virtues, and
diffuses positive good throughout the whole extent of its influence. There is a
connection between right feeling and right principles, and truth in taste is
allied with truth in morality. With nothing in our past history to discourage
us, and with something in our present condition and prospects to animate us, let
us hope, that, as it is our fortune to live in an age when we may behold a
wonderful advancement of the country in all its other great interests, we may
see also equal progress and success attend the cause of letters.
Finally, let us not forget the religious character
of our origin. Our fathers were brought hither by their high veneration for the
Christian religion. They journeyed by its light, and labored in its hope. They
sought to incorporate its principles with the elements of their society, and to
diffuse its influence through all their institutions, civil, political, or
literary. Let us cherish these sentiments, and extend this influence still more
widely; in the full conviction, that that is the happiest society which partakes
in the highest degree of the mild and peaceful spirit of Christianity.
The hours of this day are rapidly flying, and this
occasion will soon be
passed. 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 God, 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 anticipate
their concurrence with us in our sentiments of deep regard for our common
ancestors. We would anticipate 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
gratitude, 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 every thing 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 gratitude 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 shore 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 passing, and soon shall have
passed, our own human duration. We bid you welcome to this pleasant land of the
fathers. 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!
1
"Whatever result the luxury could have in debauchery,
cruelty in executions, avarice in robberies, pride in insults, all of
them he suffered himself."
2"Oh,
if only we could maintain the fine tradition and discipline that we have
inherited from our ancestors! But somehow it is now slipping out of our
hands. Those wisest and most upright of our men did not want power to
lie in the public meetings. As for what the commons might approve or the
people might order, when the meeting had been dismissed and the people
distributed in their divisions by centuries and tribes into ranks,
classes, and age groups, when the promulgators of the measure had been
heard, when its text had been published well in advance and understood,
then they wished the people to give their orders or their prohibitions."
Transcript Note: Original spellings modified to reflect current
American English practices. Latin to English translations outsourced to
freelance professional.
Loeb
consulted on second quotation.
Page Updated: 11/29/22
U.S. Copyright Status:
Text and Image = Public domain.
