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with the dust of every stricken field of the Revolution, from their Jones mouldering to the consecrated earth of Bunker's Hill, of Saratoga, of Monmouth,— would start up in visible shape before me, to cry shame on me, their recreant countryman! Sir, I have roamed through the world, to find hearts nowhere warmer than hers, soldiers nowhere braver, patriots nowhere purer, wives and mothers nowhere truer, maidens nowhere lovelier, green valleys and bright rivers nowhere greener or brighter; and I will not be silent, when I hear her patriotism or her truth questioned with so much as a whisper of detraction. Living, I will defend her; dying, I would pause, in my last expiring breath, to utter a prayer of fond remembrance for my native New England!

196. BARBARITY OF NATIONAL HATREDS. — Rufus Choate.

MR. PRESIDENT, we must distinguish a little. That there exists in this country an intense sentiment of nationality; a cherished energetic feeling and consciousness of our independent and separate national existence; a feeling that we have a transcendent destiny to fulfil, which we mean to fulfil; a great work to do, which we know how to do, and are able to do; a career to run, up which we hope to ascend, till we stand on the steadfast and glittering summits of the world; a feeling, that we are surrounded and attended by a noble historical group of competitors and rivals, the other Nations of the earth, all of whom we hope to overtake, and even to distance; - such a sentiment as this exists, perhaps, in the character of this People. And this I do not discourage, I do not condemn. But, Sir, that among these useful and beautiful sentiments, predominant among them, there exists a temper of hostility towards this one particular Nation, to such a degree as to amount to a habit, a trait, a national passion, of feeling which" is to be regretted," and which really threatens another war, this I earnestly and confidently deny. I would not hear your enemy say this. Sir, the indulgence of such a sentiment by the People supposes them to have forgotten one of the counsels of Washington. Call to mind the ever seasonable wisdom of the Farewell Address: "The Nation which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is, in some degree, a slave. It is a slave to its animosity, or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest."

to amount to a state

No, Sir! no, Sir! We are above all this. Let the Highland clansman, half naked, half civilized, half blinded by the peat-smoke of his cavern, have his hereditary enemy and his hereditary enmity, an-1 keep the keen, deep, a precious hatred, set on fire of hell, alive, if he can; let the North American Indian have his, and hand it down from father to son, by Heaven knows what symbols of alligators, and rattlesnakes, and war-clubs, smeared with vermilion and entwined with scarlet; let such a country as Poland, - cloven to the earth, the armed heel on the radiant forehead, her body dead, her soul incapable

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to die, let her remember the "wrongs of days long past;" let the lost and wandering tribes of Israel remember theirs the manliness and the sympathy of the world may allow or pardon this to them; — but shall America, young, free, prosperous, just setting out on the highway of Heaven, "decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just begins to move in, glittering like the morning star, full of life and joy," shall she be supposed to be polluting and corroding her noble and happy heart, by moping over old stories of stamp act, and tea tax, and the firing of the Leopard upon the Chesapeake in a time of peace? No, Sir! no, Sir! a thousand times, no! Why, I protest I thought all that had been settled. I thought two wars had settled it all. What else was so much good blood shed for, on so many more than classical fields of Revolutionary glory? For what was so much good blood more lately shed, at Lundy's Lane, at Fort Erie, before and behind the lines at New Orleans, on the deck of the Constitution, on the deck of the Java, on the lakes, on the sea, but to settle exactly these "wrongs of past days"? And have we come back sulky and sullen from the very field of honor? For my country, I deny it.

Mr. President, let me say that, in my judgment, this notion of a national enmity of feeling towards Great Britain belongs to a past age of our history. My younger countrymen are unconscious of it. They disavow it. That generation in whose opinions and feelings the actions and the destiny of the next are unfolded, as the tree in the germ, do not at all comprehend your meaning, nor your fears, nor your regrets. We are born to happier feelings. We look to England as we look to France. We look to them, from our new world, - not unrenowned, yet a new world still, and the blood mounts to our cheeks; our eyes swim; our voices are stifled with emulousness of so much glory; their trophies will not let us sleep: but there is no hatred at all; no hatred, no barbarian memory of wrongs, for which brave men have made the last expiation to the brave.

197 ON PRECEDENTS IN GOVERNMENT, 1851.-Lewis Cass.

MR. PRESIDENT, eloquent allusions have been made here to the ominous condition of Europe. And, truly, it is sufficiently threatening to fix the regard of the rest of the civilized world. Elements are at work there whose contact and contest must, ere long, produce explosions whose consequences no man can foresee. The cloud may as yet be no bigger than a man's hand, like that seen by the prophet from Mount Carmel; but it will overspread the whole hemisphere, and burst, perhaps in ruins, upon the social and political systems of the Old World. Antagonistic principles are doing their work there. The conflict cannot be avoided. The desire of man to govern himself, and the determination of rulers to govern him, are now face to face, and must meet in the strife of action, as they have met in the strife of opinion. It requires a wiser or a rasher man than I am to undertake to foretell when and how this great battle will be fought; but it is as

sure to come as is the sun to rise again which is now descending to the horizon. What the free Governments of the world may find it proper to do, when this great struggle truly begins, I leave to those upon whom will devolve the duty and the responsibility of decision.

It has been well said that the existing generation stands upon the shoulders of its predecessors. Its visual horizon is enlarged from this elevation. We have the experience of those who have gone before us, and our own, too. We are able to judge for ourselves, without blindly following in their footsteps. There is nothing stationary in the world. Moral and intellectual as well as physical sciences are in a state of progress; or, rather, we are marching onwards in the investigation of their true principles. It is presumptuous, at any time, to say that "Now is the best possible condition of human nature; let us sit still and be satisfied; there is nothing more to learn." I believe in no such doctrine. I believe we are always learning. We have a right to examine for ourselves. In fact, it is our duty to do so. Still, Sir, I would not rashly reject the experience of the world, any more than I would blindly follow it. I have no such idea. I have no wish to prostrate all the barriers raised by wisdom, and to let in upon us an inundation of many such opinions as have been promulgated in the present age. But far be it from me to adopt, as a principle of conduct, that nothing is to be done except what has been done before, and precisely as it was then done. So much for precedents!

198. INTERVENTION IN THE WARS OF EUROPE, 1852. — Jeremiah Clemens.

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WASHINGTON has said: "There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon any real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion which experience must cure, and which a just pride ought to discard." There is a deep wisdom in this; and he who disregards. or treats it lightly, wants the highest attribute of a statesman. can expect nothing as a favor from other nations, and none have a right to expect favors from us. Our interference, if we interfere at all, must be dictated by interest; and, therefore, I ask, in what possible manner can we be benefited? Russia has done us no injury: we have, therefore, no wrongs to avenge. Russia has no territory of which we wish to deprive her, and from her there is no danger against which it is necessary to guard. Enlightened self-interest does not offer a single argument in favor of embroiling ourselves in a quarrel with her. So obvious, so indisputable, is this truth, that the advocates of "intervention" have based their speeches almost solely on the ground that we have a divine mission to perform, and that is, to strike the manacles from the hands of all mankind. It may be, Mr. President, that we have such a mission; but, if so, "the time of its fulfilment is not yet." And, for one, I prefer waiting for some clearer manifestation of the Divine will. By attempting to fulfil it now, we employ the surest means of disappointing that "manifest destiny" of

which we have heard so much. We have before us the certainty of inflicting deep injury upon ourselves, without the slightest prospect of benefiting others.

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Misfortunes may come upon us all; dishonor attaches only to the unworthy. A nation may be conquered, trodden down, her living sons in chains, her dead the prey of vultures, and still leave a bright example, a glorious history, to after times. But when folly and wickedness have ruled the hour, when disaster is the legitimate child of error and weakness, the page that records it,is but a record of infamy, and pity for misfortune becomes a crime against justice. Sir, I do not love that word "destiny," -"manifest" or not "manifest." Men and nations make their own destinies,

"Our acts our angels are, or good, or ill,

Our fatal shadows, that walk by us still."

The future of this Republic is in our hands; and it is for us to determine whether we will launch the ship of State upon a wild and stormy sea, above whose blackened waters no sunshine beams, no star shines out, and where not a ray is seen but what is caught from the lurid lightning in its fiery path. This, Senators, is the mighty question we have to solve; and, let me add, if the freedom of one continent, and the hopes of four, shall sink beneath that inky flood, ours will be the guilt, - ours the deep damnation.

Shall I be told these are idle fears? That, in a war with Russia, no matter for what cause waged, we must be the victors? That, in short, all Europe combined could not blot this Union from the map of nations? Ah, Sir, that is not all I fear. I fear success even more than defeat. The Senator from Michigan was right when he said that our fears were to be found at home. I do fear ourselves. Commit our people once to unnecessary foreign wars, - let victory encourage the military spirit, already too prevalent among them, and Roman history will have no chapter bloody enough to be transmitted to posterity side by side with ours. In a brief period we shall have reenacted, on a grander scale, the same scenes which marked her decline. The veteran soldier, who has followed a victorious leader from clime to clime, will forget his love of country in his love for his commander; and the bayonets you send abroad to conquer a kingdom will be brought back to destroy the rights of the citizen, and prop the throne of an Emperor.

199. HAZARDS OF OUR NATIONAL PROSPERITY, 1851.-W. R. Smith, of Alabama.

EVERYBODY knows, Mr. Speaker, what has been the policy of this Government with respect to the concerns of Europe, up to the present time. And what, I ask, has been the result of that policy? Why, from the small beginning of three millions of inhabitants, we have grown to twenty-three millions; from a small number of States, we are

now over thirty. But Kossuth says that we may depart from that policy now; that it was wise when we were young, but that now we have grown up to be a giant, and may abandon it. Ah, Sir, we can all resist adversity! We know the uses- - and sweet are they of adversity. It is the crucible of fortune. It is the iron key that unlocks the golden gates of prosperity. I say, God bless adversity. when it is properly understood! But the rock upon which men and upon which Nations split is PROSPERITY. This man says that we have grown to be a giant, and that we may depart from the wisdom of our youth. But I say that now is the time to take care; we are great enough; let us be satisfied; prevent the growth of our ambition, to prevent our pride from swelling, and hold on to what we have got.

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Do you remember the story of the old Governor, who had been raised from rags? His King discovered in him merit and integrity, and appointed him a Satrap, a ruler over many provinces. He came to be great, and it was his custom to be escorted throughout the country several times during the year, in order to see and be seen. was received and acknowledged everywhere as a great man and a great Governor. But he carried about with him a mysterious chest, and every now and then he would look into it, and let nobody else see what it contained. There was a great deal of curiosity excited by this chest; and finally he was prevailed upon, by some of his friends, to let them look into it. Well, he permitted it, and what did they see? They saw an old, ragged and torn suit of clothes, the clothes that he used to wear in his humility and in his poverty; and he said that he carried them about with him in order that, when his heart began to swell, and his ambition to rise, and his pride to dilate, he could look on the rags that reminded him of what he had been, and thereby be enabled to resist the temptations of prosperity. Let us see whether this can illustrate anything in our history. Raise the veil, if there is one, which conceals the poverty of this Union, when there were but thirteen States! Raise the veil that conceals the rags of our soldiers of the Revolution! Lift the lid of the chest which contains the poverty of our beginning, in order that you may be reminded, like this old Satrap, of the days of your poverty, and be enabled to resist the advice of this man, who tells you that you were wise in your youth, but that now you are a giant, and may depart from that wisdom. Remember the use of adversity, and let us take advantage of it, and be benefited by it; for great is the man, and greater is the Nation, that can resist the enchanting smiles of prosperity!

200. AGAINST FLOGGING IN THE NAVY, 1852. — R. F. Stockton.

THERE is one broad proposition upon which I stand. It is this That an American sailor is an American citizen, and that no Ameri can citizen shall, with my consent, be subjected to the infamous punishment of the lash. If, when a citizen enters into the service of his country, he is to forego the protection of those laws for the preservation of which he is willing to risk his life, he is entitled, in all justice,

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