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known that my voice, as well as vote, has been uniformly given in conformity with the ideas I have expressed. Protection is the right of the frontiers; it is our duty to give it.

Who will accuse me of wandering out of the subject? Who will say that I exaggerate the tendencies of our measures? Will any one answer by a sneer that this is all idle preaching? Will any one deny that we are bound, and I would hope to good purpose, by the most solemn sanctions of duty, for the vote we give ? Are despots alone to be reproached for unfeeling indifference to the tears and blood of their subjects? Are republicans irresponsible? Have the principles on Have the principles on which you ground the reproach upon cabinets and kings no practical influence, no binding force? Are they merely themes of idle declamation, introduced to decorate the morality of a newspaper essay, or to furnish petty topics of harangue from the windows of that State House? I trust it is neither too presumptuous nor too late to ask, Can you put the dearest interest of society at risk, without guilt and without remorse?

It is vain to offer as an excuse that public men are not to be reproached for the evils that may happen to ensue from their measures. This is very true, where they are unforeseen or inevitable. Those I have depicted are not unforeseen; they are so far from inevitable, we are going to bring them into being by our vote; we choose the consequences, and become as justly answerable for them as for the measure that we know will produce them.

By rejecting the posts, we light the savage fires, we bind the victims. This day we undertake to render an account to the widows and orphans whom our decision will make; to the wretches that will be roasted at the

stake; to our country; and I do not deem it too serious to say, to conscience and to God. We are answerable; and if duty be anything more than a word of imposture, if conscience be not a bugbear, we are preparing to make ourselves as wretched as our country.

There is no mistake in this case, there can be none; experience has already been the prophet of events, and the cries of our future victims have already reached us. The Western inhabitants are not a silent and uncomplaining sacrifice. The voice of humanity issues from the shade of the wilderness; it exclaims, that while one hand is held up to reject this treaty, the other grasps a tomahawk. It summons our imagination to the scenes that will open. It is no great effort of the imagination to conceive that events so near are already begun. I can fancy that I listen to the yells of savage vengeance and the shrieks of torture; already they seem to sigh in the western wind; already they mingle with every echo from the mountains.

LVI. THE FUTURE OF AMERICA.

WEBSTER.

CONCLUSION of a discourse delivered at Plymouth, Massachusetts, December 22, 1820, in commemoration of the first settlement in New England.

L

ET us not forget the religious character of our origin. Our fathers were brought hither by their high veneration for the Christian religion. They journeyed in 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, and literary. Let us cherish these sentiments, and extend their influence still more widely; in the full conviction that that is the happiest society which partakes in the highest degree of the mild and peaceable 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. 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.

They are in the distant regions

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 everything which may enlarge the understandings and improve the hearts of men.

And when, from the long distance of a hundred years, they shall look back upon us, they shall know, at least, that we possessed affections, which, running backward, and warming with 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 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!

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The ocean old,

Centuries old,

Strong as youth, and as uncontrolled,

Paces restless to and fro,

Up and down the sands of gold.

His beating heart is not at rest;

And far and wide

With ceaseless flow

His beard of snow

Heaves with the heaving of his breast.

He waits impatient for his bride.
There she stands,

With her foot upon the sands,

Decked with flags and streamers gay,

In honor of her marriage-day,

Her snow-white signals fluttering, blending,

Round her like a veil descending,

Ready to be

The bride of the gray old sea.

Then the Master,

With a gesture of command,

Waved his hand;

And at the word,

Loud and sudden there was heard,

All around them and below,

The sound of hammers, blow on blow,

Knocking away the shores and spurs.
And see! she stirs !

She starts, she moves,

she seems to feel

The thrill of life along her keel,

And, spurning with her foot the ground,

With one exulting, joyous bound,

She leaps into the ocean's arms.

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