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ing their interests.-And WHY?-Because the Law had spoken,-it was the judgment of the LAW.

The people were wise and virtuous; they loved their country above all things; and to her they willingly sur5 rendered their strength, their passions, their pride, and their interest. A jury of Pennsylvania, instructed and convinced that the supremacy of the LAW had been violated, gave up the offenders,-their fellow-citizens, respected, and WORTHY of respect,—to its penalties.- What a JUDGE ! 10-how FEARLESS in his DUTY!-What a PEOPLE! how MAGNANIMOUS in their submission! How worthy of each other! No proud and passionate assertion of sovereignty; no violent menaces of insulted power; no rebellious defiance of the federal authority; no inflammatory combinations to 15 resist it; and to shatter, in their madness, the beautiful fabric of our Union.

In short, no NULLIFICATION,—a new and portentous word, -but a calm and noble submission to the concentrated power of ALL the States, in a government MADE and ADOPTED 20 by all; which all are BOUND, by their solemn and pledged faith, by their hopes of peace, safety, and happiness, to MAINTAIN and OBEY.

It is only by such efforts of patriotism that this great and growing Republic can be preserved. If, whenever the 25 pride of a state is offended, or her selfishness rebuked, she may assume an attitude of defiance, may pour her rash and angry menaces on her confederated sisters, may claim a sovereignty altogether independent of them, and acknowledge herself to be bound to the Union by no ties but 30 such as she may dissolve at pleasure; we do indeed hold our political existence by a most PRECARIOUS tenure; and the future destinies of our country are as dark and uncertain, as the past have been happy and glorious.

Happy is THAT country, and ONLY that, where the laws 35 are not only just and equal, but supreme and irresistible; -where selfish interests and disorderly passions are curbed by an arm to which they MUST submit.-We look back with horror and affright to the dark and troubled ages, when a cruel and gloomy superstition tyrannized over the 40 people of Europe; dreaded alike by kings and people; by governments and individuals; before which the LAW had NO FORCE; JUSTICE NO RESPECT; and MERCY NO INFLUENCE. The sublime precepts of morality, the kind and endearing charities; the true and rational reverence for a bountiful

Creator, which are the elements and the life of our religion, were TRAMPLED upon in the reckless career of AMBITION, PRIDE, and the LUST of POWER. Nor was it much better when the arm of the warrior, and the sharpness of 5 his sword, determined every question of right; and held the weak in bondage to the strong; and the revengeful feuds of the great, involved, in one common ruin, themselves and their humblest vassals.-These disastrous days are GONE, never to return. There is no power but the 10 LAW, which is the power of ALL; and those who administer it are the MASTERS and the MINISTERS of ALL.

LESSON XIII.-BIRTHPLACE OF LIBERTY.-PROF. STUART.

[This, and the two following pieces, are intended to be marked by the reader, as an exercise in applying the rules of Emphasis.]

The members of the legislature * now before me, are convened on holy ground. Here is the sacred place where liberty, in its best form, first struggled into being. This is the very spot where the pulsation of the heart of 5 true freedom began to beat. I, who was born and nurtured in another state, may venture to say this without the appearance of self-gratulation. The remembrance of early days rushes upon my mind, and rekindles the enthusiasm with which I then read the story of your efforts. 10 and sufferings on this ground, in behalf of your country's freedom, while I bedewed with tears the pages which recorded them. Increasing years have not diminished that feeling; and it has been greatly augmented by a personal knowledge of this place and people. It is now my most 15 fervent supplication to God, that here, where freedom began, her reign may continue down to the end of time. Here may the flame of Christian liberty, which has been kindled, burn brighter and brigh.er, until states and empires shall be no more!

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But if, in the inscrutable purposes of HEAVEN, and in judgment to our race, the cause of Freedom must again sink; if she is to be wounded in every part, and the current of her blood to be drained from every vein and artery of the body, may the seat of life here still remain in 25 action! But if even the very heart too must be drained of its last drop, and life cease to beat, then let the funeral obsequies of human happiness be kept in solemn sadness;

*Of Massachusetts.

let the heavens be hung with black, and the earth clothed with habiliments of mourning, in token of grief, that the liberty of man is no more.

LESSON XIV.—CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON.-Smyth.

[To be marked for Emphasis, by the reader.]

To the historian, few characters appear so little to have shared the common frailties and imperfections of human nature, as that of Washington. There are but few particulars that can be mentioned even to his disadvantage. 5 Instances may be found where, perhaps, it may be thought that he was decisive to a degree that partook of severity and harshness, or even more; but how innumerable were the decisions which he had to make!-how difficult and how important, through the eventful series of twenty years 10 of command in the cabinet or the field!

Let it be considered what it is to have the management of a revolution, and afterwards the maintenance of order. Where is the man who, in the history of our race, has ever succeeded in attempting successively the one and the 15 other?-not on a small scale, a petty state in Italy, or among a horde of barbarians; but in an enlightened age, when it is not easy for one man to rise superior to another, and in the eyes of mankind,—

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"A kingdom for a stage,

And monarchs to behold the swelling scene."

The plaudits of his country were continually sounding in his ears; and neither the judgment nor the virtues of the man were ever disturbed. Armies were led to the field with all the enterprise of a hero, and then dismissed 25 with all the equanimity of a philosopher. Power was accepted, was exercised, was resigned, precisely at the moment and in the way that duty and patriotism directed. Whatever was the difficulty, the trial, the temptation, or the danger, there stood the soldier and the citizen, eter30 nally the same, without fear and without reproach, and there was the man who was not only at all times virtuous, but at all times wise.

The merit of Washington by no means ceases with his campaigns; it becomes, after the peace of 1783, even more 35 striking than before; for the same man who, for the sake of liberty, was ardent enough to resist the power of Great Britain, and hazard every thing on this side the grave, at a later period had to be temperate enough to resist the

same spirit of liberty, when it was mistaking its proper objects, and transgressing its appointed limits.

The American revolution was to approach him, and he was to kindle in the general flame: the French revolution 5 was to reach him, and to consume but too many of his countrymen; and his "own ethereal mould, incapable of stain, was to purge off the baser fire victorious." But all this was done he might have been pardoned, though he had failed amid the enthusiasm of those around him, and 10 when liberty was the delusion; but the foundations of the moral world were shaken, and not the understanding of Washington.

As a ruler of mankind, he may be proposed as a model. Deeply impressed with the original rights of human na15 ture, he never forgot that the end, and meaning, and aim, of all just government, was the happiness of the people; and he never exercised authority till he had first taken care to put himself clearly in the right. His candor, his patience, his love of justice, were unexampled; and this, 20 though naturally he was not patient,-much otherwise,— highly irritable.

He therefore deliberated well, and placed his subject in every point of view, before he decided; and his understanding being correct, he was thus rendered, by the 25 nature of his faculties, his strength of mind, and his principles, the man, of all others, to whom the interests of his fellow-creatures might, with most confidence, be intrusted; —that is, he was the first of the rulers of mankind.

LESSON XV.-IMPRESSIONS FROM HISTORY.-G. C. VERPLANCK.

From a Discourse before the New York Historical Society.
[To be marked for Emphasis, by the reader.]

The study of the history of most other nations, fills the mind with sentiments not unlike those which the American traveller feels, on entering the venerable and lofty cathedral of some proud old city of Europe. Its solemn 5 grandeur, its vastness, its obscurity, strike awe to his heart. From the richly painted windows, filled with sacred emblems, and strange, antique forms, a dim religious light falls around. A thousand recollections of romance and poetry, and legendary story, come thronging in 10 upon him. He is surrounded by the tombs of the mighty dead, rich with the labors of ancient art, and emblazoned with the pomp of heraldry.

What names does he read upon them? Those of princes and nobles who are now remembered only for their vices; and of sovereigns, at whose death no tears were shed, and whose memories lived not an hour in the 5 affections of their people. There, too, he sees other names, long familiar to him for their guilty or ambiguous fame. There rest, the blood-stained soldier of fortune,the orator, who was ever the ready apologist of tyranny, -great scholars, who were the pensioned flatterers of 10 power, and poets, who profaned the high gift of genius, to pamper the vices of a corrupted court.

Our own history, on the contrary, like that poetical temple of fame, reared by the imagination of Chaucer, and decorated by the taste of Pope, is almost exclusively 15 dedicated to the memory of the truly great. Or rather, like the Pantheon of Rome, it stands in calm and severe beauty, amid the ruins of ancient magnificence, and the "toys of modern state." Within, no idle ornament encumbers its bold simplicity. The pure light of heaven 20 enters from above, and sheds an equal and serene radiance around. As the eye wanders about its extent, it beholds the unadorned monuments of brave and good men, who have greatly bled or toiled for their country, or it rests on votive tablets, inscribed with the names of the best bene25 factors of mankind.

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"Patriots are here, in Freedom's battles slain,

Priests, whose long lives were closed without a stain,
Bards worthy Him who breathed the poet's mind,
Founders of arts that dignify mankind,

And lovers of our race, whose labors gave

Their names a memory that defies the grave."

Doubtless, this is a subject upon which we may be justly proud. But there is another consideration, which, if it did not naturally arise of itself, would be pressed upon us 35 by the taunts of European criticism.

What, it is asked, has this nation done to repay the world for the benefits we have received from others?

Is it nothing for the universal good of mankind to have carried into successful operation a system of self-govern40 ment, uniting personal liberty, freedom of opinion, and equality of rights, with national power and dignity; such as had before existed only in the Utopian dreams of philosophers? Is it nothing, in moral science, to have anticipated in sober reality, numerous plans of reform in civil

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