Imatges de pàgina
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Africa was the cradle of science, while Syria, and Greece, and Italy were yet covered with darkness. As far back as we can trace the first rudiments of improvement, they came from the very head waters of the Nile, far in the interior of Africa; and there are yet to be found, in shapeless ruins, the monuments of this primeval civilization. To come down to a much later period, while the West and North of Europe were yet barbarous, the Mediterranean coast of Africa was filled with cities, academies, museums, churches, and a highly civilized population. What has raised the Gaul, the Belgium, the Germany, the Scandinavia, the Britain, of ancient geography, to their present improved and improving condition? Africa is not now sunk lower than most of those countries were eighteen centuries ago; and the engines of social influence are increased a thousand-fold in numbers and efficacy. It is not eighteen hundred years ago since Scotland, whose metropolis has been called the Athens of modern Europe, the country of Hume, of Smith, of Robertson, of Blair, of Stewart, of Brown, of Jeffrey, of Chalmers, of Scott, of Brougham,- was a wilderness, infested by painted savages. It is not a thousand years since the North of Germany, now filled with beautiful cities, learned universities, and the best educated population in the world, was a dreary, pathless forest.

Is it possible that, before an assembly like this,-an assembly of Americans, it can be necessary to argue the possibility of civilizing Africa, through the instrumentality of a colonial establishment, and that in a comparatively short time? It is but about ten years since the foundations of the colony of Liberia were laid; and every one acquainted with the early history of New England knows that the colony at Liberia has made much greater progress than was made by the settlement at Plymouth in the same period. More than once were the first settlements in Virginia in a position vastly less encouraging than that of the American colony on the coast of Africa; and yet, from these feeble beginnings in New England and Virginia, what has not been brought about in two hundred years? Two hundred years ago, and the Continent of North America, for the barbarism of its native population, and its remoteness from the sources of improvement, was all that Africa is now. Impossible to civilize Africa! Sir, the work is already, in no small part, accomplished.

18. WHAT GOOD WILL THE MONUMENT DO? 1833.-Edward Everett.

I AM met with the great objection, What good will the Monument do? I beg leave, Sir, to exercise my birthright as a Yankee, and answer this question by asking two or three more, to which I believe it will be quite as difficult to furnish a satisfactory reply. I am asked, What good will the monument do? And I ask, what good does anything do? What is good? Does anything do any good? The persons who suggest this objection, of course, think that there are some projects and undertakings that do good; and I should therefore like to have the idea of good explained, and analyzed, and run out to its

elements. When this is done, if I do not demonstrate, in about twc minutes, that the monument does the same kind of good that anything else does, I shall consent that the huge blocks of granite, already laid, should be reduced to gravel, and carted off to fill up the mill-pond; for that, I suppose, is one of the good things. Does a railroad or canal do good? Answer, yes. And how? It facilitates intercourse, opens markets, and increases the wealth of the country. But what is this good for? Why, individuals prosper and get rich. And what good does that do? Is mere wealth, as an ultimate end, — gold and silver, without an inquiry as to their use, are these a good? Certainly not. I should insult this audience by attempting to prove that a rich man, as such, is neither better nor happier than a poor one. But, as men grow rich, they live better. Is there any good in this, stopping here? Is inere animal life-feeding, working, and sleeping like an ox-entitled to be called good? Certainly not. But these improvements increase the population. And what good does that do? Where is the good in counting twelve millions, instead of six, of mere feeding, working, sleeping animals? There is, then, no good in the mere animal life, except that it is the physical basis of that higher moral existence, which resides in the soul, the heart, the mind, the conscience; in good principles, good feelings, and the good actions (and the more disinterested, the more entitled to be called good) which flow from them. Now, Sir, I say that generous and patriotic sentiments, sentiments which prepare us to serve our country, to live for our country, to die for our country,- feelings like those which carried Prescott and Warren and Putnam to the battle-field, are good, good, humanly speaking, of the highest order. It is good to have them, good to encourage them, good to honor them, good to commemorate them; and whatever tends to animate and strengthen such feelings does as much right down practical good as filling up low grounds and building railroads. This my demonstration.

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19. TO THE REVOLUTIONARY VETERANS.—Daniel Webster, at the laying of the corner-stone of the Bunker Hill Monument, June 17, 1825.

We hold still among us some of those who were active agents in the scenes of 1775, and who are now here, from every quarter of New England, to visit once more, and under circumstances so affecting, I had almost said so overwhelming, this renowned theatre of their courage and patriotism.

Venerable men! you have come down to us from a former generation. Heaven has bounteously lengthened out your lives, that you might behold this joyous day. You are now, where you stood, fifty years ago, this very hour, with your brothers, and your neighbors, shoulder to shoulder, in the strife for your country. Behold, how altered. The same heavens are indeed over your heads; the same wean rolls at your feet; but all else how changed! You hear now no roar of hostile cannon, you see now no mixed volumes of smoke

and fame rising from burning Charlestown. The ground strewed with the dead and the dying; the impetuous charge; the steady and successful repulse; the loud call to repeated assault; the summoning of all that is manly to repeated resistance; a thousand bosoms freely and fearlessly bared in an instant to whatever of terror there may be in war and death;-all these you have witnessed. but you witness them no more. All is peace. The heights of yonder metropolis, its towers and roofs, which you then saw filled with wives and children and countrymen in distress and terror, and looking with unutterable emotions for the issue of the combat, have presented you to-day with the sight of its whole happy population come out to welcome and greet you with an universal jubilee. All is peace; and God has granted you this sight of your country's happiness, ere you slumber in the grave forever.

But, alas! you are not all here. Time and the sword have thinned your ranks. Prescott, Putnam, Stark, Brooks, Read, Pomeroy, Bridge! our eyes seek for you in vain amidst this broken band. But let us not too much grieve, that you have met the common fate of men. You lived to see your country's independence established, and to sheathe your swords from war. On the light of Liberty, you saw arise the light of Peace, like

"Another morn

Risen on mid-noon;"

and the sky on which you closed your eyes was cloudless.

But ah!-him! the first great martyr in this great cause! Him! the premature victim of his own self-devoting heart! Him! the head of our civil councils, and the destined leader of our military bands, whom nothing brought hither but the unquenchable fire of his own spirit! Him! cut off by Providence in the hour of overwhelming anxiety and thick gloom; falling, ere he saw the star of his country rise; pouring out his generous blood, like water, before he knew whether it would fertilize a land of freedom or of bondage!—how shall I struggle with the emotions that stifle the utterance of thy name!

Our poor work may perish, but thine shall endure! This monument may moulder away; the solid ground it rests upon may sink down to a level with the sea; but thy memory shall not fail! Wheresoever among men a heart shall be found that beats to the transports of patriotism and liberty, its aspirations shall be to claim kindred with thy spirit!

Veterans! you are the remnant of many a well-fought field. You bring with you marks of honor from Trenton and Monmouth, from Yorktown, Camden, Bennington, and Saratoga. Veterans of half a century! when, in your youthful days, you put everything at hazard in your country's cause, good as that cause was, and sanguine as youth is, still your fondest hopes did not stretch onward to an hour like this' Look abroad into this lovely land, which your young valor defended, and mark the happiness with which it is filled; yea, look abroad intc the whole earth, and see what a name you have contributed to give to

your country, and what a praise you have added to freedom, and then ejoice in the sympathy and gratitude which beam upon your last Jays from the improved condition of mankind.

20. SANCTITY OF STATE OBLIGATIONS, 1840.— Webster.

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WE have the good fortune, under the blessing of a benign Provi dence, to live in a country which we are proud of for many things, for its independence, for its public liberty, for its free institutions, for its public spirit, for its enlightened patriotism; but we are proud also. -and it is among those things we should be the most proud of, are proud of its public justice, of its sound faith, of its substantially correct morals in the administration of the Government, and the general conduct of the country, since she took her place among the nations of the world. But among the events which most threaten our character and standing, and which so grossly attach on these moral principles that have hitherto distinguished us, are certain sentiments which have been broached among us, and, I am sorry to say, have more supporters than they ought, because they strike at the very foundation of the social system. I do not speak especially of those which have been promulgated by some person in my own State, but of others, which go yet deeper into our political condition. I refer to the doctrine that one generation of men, acting under the Constitution, cannot bind another generation, who are to be their successors; on which ground it is held, among other things, that State bonds are not obligatory.

What! one generation cannot bind another? Where is the link of separation? It changes hourly. The American community to-day is not the same with the American community to-morrow. The comniunity in which I began this day to address you is not the same as it is at this moment. How abhorrent is such a doctrine to those great truths which teach us that, though individuals flourish and decay, States are immortal; that political communities are ever young, ever green, ever flourishing, ever identical! The individuals who compose them may change, as the atoms of our bodies change; but the political community still exists in its aggregate capacity, as do our bodies in their natural; with this only difference, that we know that our natural frames must soon dissolve, and return to their original dust; but, for our country, she yet lives, she ever dwells in our hearts, and it will, even at that solemn moment, go up as our last aspiration to Heaven, that she may be immortal!

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1. THE FOURTH OF JULY. - Daniel Webster, at Washington, D C., July 4, 1851, on laying the corner-stone of the new wing of the Capitol.

THIS is that day of the year which announced to mankind the great fact of American Independence! This fresh and brilliant morning blesses our vision with another beholding of the birth-day of our nation

and we see that nation, of recent origin, now among the most consid erable and powerful, and spreading over the continent from sea to sea. "Westward the course of empire takes its way;

The four first acts already past,

A fifth shall close the drama with the day,-
Time's noblest offspring is the last."

On the day of the Declaration of Independence, our illustrious fathers performed the first scene in the last great act of this drama; one, in real importance, infinitely exceeding that for which the great English poet invoked

"A muse of fire,

A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene."

The Muse inspiring our fathers was the Genius of Liberty, all on fire with a sense of oppression, and a resolution to throw it off; the whole world was the stage, and higher characters than princes trod it; and, instead of monarchs, countries, and nations, and the age, beheld the swelling scene. How well the characters were cast, and how well each acted his part, and what emotions the whole performance excited, let history, now and hereafter, tell.

On the Fourth of July, 1776, the representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, declared that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States. This declaration, made by most patriotic and resolute men, trusting in the justice of their cause, and the protection of Heaven, - and yet made not without deep solicitude and anxiety, - has now stood for seventy-five years, and still stands. It was sealed in blood. It has met dangers, and overcome them; it has had enemies, and conquered them; it has had detractors, and abashed them all; it has had doubting friends, but it has cleared all doubts away; and now, to-day, raising its august form higher than the clouds, twenty millions of people contemplate it with hallowed love, and the world beholds it, and the consequences which have followed from it, with profound admiration.

This anniversary animates, and gladdens, and unites, all American hearts. On other days of the year we may be party men, indulging in controversies more or less important to the public good; we may bave likes and dislikes, and we may maintain our political differences, often with warm, and sometimes with angry feelings. But to-day we are Americans all; and all nothing but Americans. As the great luminary over our heads, dissipating mists and fogs, now cheers the whole hemisphere, so do the associations connected with this day disperse all cloudy and sullen weather in the minds and feelings of true Americans. Every man's heart swells within him, every man's port and bearing becomes somewhat more proud and lofty, as he remembers that seventy-five years have rolled away, and that the great inheritance of liberty is still his; his, undiminished and unimpaired; his, in all its original glory; his to enjoy, his to protect, and his to transmit te future generations.

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