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that from the ashes of the friendless martyr there would rise the flames of a war in Bohemia which would shake the Austrian power, and desolate Germany through long years of suffering and of blood. If the persecuting temper of the sixteenth century is to be renewed here, if American Protestantism so far forgets its genius and its mission, as to aid in rekindling the religious wars of that terrible period in quest of vengeance for the gone centuries of wrong, religion will suffer most. True Christianity will veil her face and seek the shade, till better times. Men will be divided between a sullen and sordid fanaticism on the one side, and a scoffing infidelity on the other. Our national characteristics will be lost. American civilization will have changed its character. Our Federal Union will have sacrificed its distinctive traits, and we shall have exhibited a failure in the principles with which our government commenced its career, at which hell itself might exult in triumph.

From "Speech at Versailles, Ky.,” 1855.

STATE LAWS.

ALEXANDER HAMILTON.

THERE is one transcendent advantage belonging to the province of state governments, which alone suffices to place the matter in a clear and satisfactory light-I mean the ordinary administration of criminal and civil justice. This, of all others, is the most powerful, most universal, and most attractive source of popular obedience and attachment. It is this, which, being the immediate and visible guardian of life and property; having its benefits and its terrors in constant activity before the public eye; regulating all those personal interests, and familiar concerns, to which the sensibility of individuals is more immediately awake; contributes, more than any other circumstance, to impress upon the minds of the people affection, esteem, and reverence towards the government. This great cement of society, which will diffuse itself almost wholly through the channels of the particular governments, independent of all other causes of influence, would insure them so decided an empire over their respective citizens, as to render them at all times a complete counterpoise, and not unfrequent dangerous rivals. to the power of the union.

From "The Federalist."

THE CONSTITUTION A BILL OF RIGHTS.

ALEXANDER HAMILTON.

THE Constitution is itself, in every rational sense, and to every useful purpose, A BILL OF RIGHTS. The several bills of rights in Great Britain,

form its constitution, and conversely the constitution of each state is its bill of rights. In like manner the proposed constitution, if adopted, will be the bill of rights of the Union. Is it one object of a bill of rights to declare and specify the political privileges of the citizens in the structure and administration of the government? This is done in the most ample and precise manner in the plan of the convention; comprehending various precautions for the public security, which are not to be found in any of the state constitutions. Is another object of a bill of rights to define certain immunities and modes of proceeding, which are relative to personal and private concerns? This we have seen has also been attended to, in a variety of cases, in the same plan. Adverting therefore to the substantial meaning of a bill of rights, it is absurd to allege that it is not to be found in the work of the convention. It may be said that it does not go far enough, though it will not be easy to make this appear; but it can with no propriety be contended that there is no such thing. It certainly must be immaterial what mode is observed as to the order of declaring the rights of the citizens, if they are provided for in any part of the instrument which establishes the government: whence it must be apparent, that much of what has been said on this subject rests merely on verbal and nominal distinctions, entirely foreign to the substance of the thing.

From "The Federalist."

THE POWER OF THE CONSTITUTION.

JAMES MADISON.

Ir the new constitution be examined with accuracy and candor, it will be found that the change which it proposes, consists much less in the addition of NEW POWERS to the Union than in the invigoration of its ORIGINAL POWERS. The regulation of commerce, it is true, is a new power; but that seems to be an addition which few oppose, and from which no apprehensions are entertained. The powers relating to war and peace, armies and fleets, treaties and finance, with the other more considerable powers, are all vested in the existing Congress by the Articles of Confederation. The proposed change does not enlarge these powers; it only substitutes a more effectual mode of administering them. The change relating to taxation may be regarded as the most important; and yet the present Congress have as complete authority to REQUIRE of the states indefinite supplies of money for the common defence and general welfare, as the future Congress will have to require them of individual citizens; and the latter will be no more bound than the states themselves have been, to pay the quotas respectively taxed on them. Had the states complied punctually with the Articles of Confederation, or could their compliance have been enforced by as peaceable

means as may be used with success towards single persons, our past experience is very far from countenancing an opinion, that the state governments would have lost their constitutional powers, and have gradually undergone an entire consolidation. To maintain that such an event would have ensued, would be, to say at once, that the existence of the state governments is incompatible with any system whatever, that accomplishes the essential purposes of the Union.

From "The Federalist."

EULOGY ON FRANKLIN.

ABBÉ FAUCHET.

FRANKLIN did not omit any of the means of being useful to men, or serviceable to society. He spoke to all conditions, to both sexes, to every age. This amiable moralist descended, in his writings, to the most artless details; to the most ingenuous familiarities; to the first ideas of a rural, a commercial, and a civil life; to the dialogues of old men and children; full at once of all the verdure and all the maturity of wisdom. In short, the prudent lessons arising from the exposition of those obscure happy, easy virtues, which form so many links in the chain of a good man's life, derived immense weight from that reputation for genius which he had acquired, by being one of the first naturalists and greatest philosophers in the universe.

At one and the same time, he governed nature in the heavens and in the hearts of men. Amidst the tempests of the atmosphere, he directed the thunder; amidst the storms of society, he directed the passions. Think, gentlemen, with what attentive docility, with what religious respect, one must hear the voice of a simple man, who preached up human happiness, when it was recollected that it was the powerful voice of the same man who regulated the lightning.

IIe electrified the consciences, in order to extract the destructive fire of vice, exactly in the same manner as he electrified the heavens, in order peaceably to invite from them the terrible fire of the elements.

Venerable old man! august philosopher! legislator of the felicity of thy country, prophet of the fraternity of the human race, what ecstatic happiness embellished the end of thy career! From thy fortunate asylum, and in the midst of thy brothers who enjoyed in tranquillity the fruit of thy virtues, and the success of thy genius, thou hast sung songs of deliverance. The last looks, which thou didst cast around thee, beheld America happy; France, on the other side of the ocean, free, and a sure indication of the approaching freedom and happiness of the world.

Pronounced in Paris, 1790.

THE AMERICAN MOTIVE TO WAR.

CHARLES JAMES FOX.

EVERY blow you strike in America is against yourselves; it is against all idea of reconciliation, and against your own interest, though you should be able, as you never will be, to force them to submit. Every stroke against France is of advantage to you: America must be conquered in France; France never can be conquered in America.

The war of the Americans is a war of passion; it is of such a nature as to be supported by the most powerful virtues, love of liberty and of their country; and, at the same time, by those passions in the human heart which give courage, strength, and perseverance to man; the spirit of revenge for the injuries you have done them; of retaliation for the hardships you have inflicted on them; and of opposition to the unjust powers you have exercised over them. Everything combines to animate them to this war, and such a war is without end; for whatever obstinacy, enthusiasm ever inspired man with, you will now find in America. No matter what gives birth to that enthusiasm; whether the name of religion or of liberty, the effects are the same; it inspires a spirit which is unconquerable, and solicitous to undergo difficulty, danger, and hardship: and as long as there is a man in America, a being formed such as we are, you will have him present himself against you in the field.

From "Speech in Purliament,” 1778.

THE REIGN OF TERROR.

LORD BROUGHAM.

THE Reign of Terror, under which no life was secure for a day; the wholesale butcheries, both of the prisoners in September, and by the daily executions that soon followed; the violence of the conscription, which filled every family with orphans and widows; the profligate despotism and national disasters under the Directory; the military tyranny of Napoleon; the sacrifice of millions to slake his thirst of conquest; the invasion of France by foreign troops-pandours, hussars, cossacks, twice revelling in the spoils of Paris; the humiliating occupation of the country for five years by the allied armies, and her ransom by the payment of millions;-these were the consequences, more or less remote, of the Reign of Terror, which so burnt into the memory of all Frenchmen the horrors of anarchy, as to make an aversion to change for a quarter of a century the prevailing characteristic of a people not the least fickle among the nations, and to render a continuance of any yoke bearable, compared with the perils of casting it off. All these evils were the price paid by the respectable classes of France, but espe

cially of Paris, for their unworthy dread of resisting the clubs and the mob in 1792.

From "Eminent Statesmen."

DENUNCIATION OF LORD CASTLEREAGH.

LORD BROUGHAM.

My lasting sorrow for the loss we have sustained is made deeper, by the regret that those lamented friends live not to witness the punishment of that foul conduct which they solemnly denounced. The petty tyrant, to whom the noble lord delivered over that ancient and gallant people, almost as soon as they had, at his call, joined the standard of national independence, has since subjected them to the most rigorous provisions of his absurd code; a code directed especially against the commerce of this country, and actually less unfavorable to France.

Thus, then, it appears that after all, in public as well as in private, in state affairs as well as in the concerns of the most humble individuals, the old maxim cannot safely be forgotten, that "honesty is the best policy." In vain did the noble lord flatter himself that his subserviency to the unrighteous system of the Congress would secure him the adherence of the courts whom he made his idols. If he had abandoned that false, foreign system, if he had acted upon the principles of the nation whom he represented, and stood forward as the advocate of the people, the people would have been grateful. He preferred the interests and wishes of the courts; and by the courts he is treated with their wonted neglect. To his crimes against the people, all over Europe; to his invariable surrender of their cause; to his steady refusal of the protection which they had a right to expect, and which they did expect, from the manly and generous character of England, it is owing, that if at this moment you traverse the Continent, in any direction whatever, you may trace the noble lord's career in the curses of the nations whom he has betrayed, and the mockery of the courts who have inveigled him to be their dupe.

From "Speech in Parliament."

THE VALOR OF THE IRISH ALIENS.

R. L. SHEIL.

THERE is, however, one man of great abilities, not a member of this house (Lord Lyndhurst), but whose talents and whose boldness have placed him in the topmost place in his party-who, disdaining all imposture, and thinking it the best course to appeal directly to the religious and national antipathies of the people of this country-abandon

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