BRAMAN 
 
 A Discourse. 
 
 BV 
 
 4260 
 
 M5 
 1845
 
 REV. MILTON P. BRAMAN'S 
 
 ELECTION SERMON 
 
 1845.
 
 DISCOURSE 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE 
 
 HIS EXCELLENCY GEORGE N. BRIGGS, 
 
 GOVERNOR, 
 
 HIS HONOR JOHN REED, 
 
 LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR, 
 
 THE HONORABLE COUNCIL, 
 
 AND 
 
 THE LEGISLATURE OF MASSACHUSETTS, 
 
 ON 
 
 THE ANNUAL ELECTION, 
 
 JANUARY 1, 1845. 
 
 BY MILTON P. BRAMAN, 
 # 
 
 Pastor of the First Church in Danven. 
 
 tfoston: 
 
 DUTTON AND WENTWORTH, PRINTERS TO THE STATK. 
 
 1845.
 
 COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 IN SENATE, January 2, 1845. 
 
 Ordered, That Messrs. Kittredge, Safford and Richards, be a Committee to pre- 
 sent the thanks of the Senate to the Rev. MILTON P. BRAMAN for the discourse de- 
 livered by him before the Government, on the 1st inst., and to request a copy 
 thereof for publication. 
 
 CHARLES CALHOUN, Clerk.
 
 DISCOURSE. 
 
 2d Samuel, vii. 16. 
 
 AND THINE HOUSE AND THY KINGDOM SHALL BE ESTABLISHED 
 FOREVER BEFORE THEE : THY THRONE SHALL BE ESTABLISHED 
 FOREVER. 
 
 THE instability of human affairs is such, that gov- 
 ernments have always rested upon a very insecure 
 basis. Even those which have continued through 
 the longest period, and seem to be most firmly es- 
 tablished against the action of causes which threaten 
 their existence, are yet not exempt from dangers 
 which are calculated to awaken the solicitude of 
 those, who are interested in their condition and fate. 
 In the earlier periods of our race, those agencies 
 which disturb the arrangements of society, and 
 tend to produce great civil commotions, were more 
 revolutionary, than even in the later ages of the 
 world. Rulers were displaced, dynasties subverted, 
 kingdoms overturned, and the boundaries of nations 
 obliterated, by intestine divisions and foreign aggres-
 
 6 
 
 sions, with a frequency which has been considerably 
 restrained by civilization. The promise, therefore, 
 made to Solomon, by him who had power to secure 
 the event, that his house and kingdom should be 
 perpetually established, was peculiarly encouraging 
 on account of the agitated and shifting state of 
 society. 
 
 If a promise like that which was so authoritatively 
 made to this favored monarch of Judea, were an- 
 nounced to us if an assurance from the great Ruler 
 of nations were given to the members of this con- 
 federacy, I do not say that the Union should be per- 
 petual, but that our republican institutions should 
 stand the severe experiment which is now making 
 upon their strength, and descend unimpaired to dis- 
 tant ages, how many patriotic and anxious hearts 
 would be relieved of the apprehensions which they 
 entertain for the prospects of American liberty. 
 
 We have no divine assurance to encourage our 
 hopes nor has the progress of years given us a 
 maturity of experience and strength, which will 
 afford us a certain protection against the perils that 
 beset us. 
 
 But notwithstanding the uncertainty of the best 
 conditioned political affairs, and the existence of 
 those threatening tendencies which excite alarm for
 
 the safety of our free institutions, there are signs of 
 hope. There are circumstances in our condition 
 which speak a voice of encouragement, and may be 
 construed into omens of favor for the future history 
 of our country. 
 
 It is my design to suggest some considerations, 
 which indicate the perpetuity of our republican lib- 
 erty. 
 
 1. The length of time through which it has been 
 continued, is an encouragement entitled to consid- 
 eration. Seventy years, which is nearly the time 
 that has elapsed since our independent existence, 
 though the ordinary term of human duration, is 
 indeed an inconsiderable period for a national life ; 
 but comparatively brief as it is, it has carried us to 
 a point not only beyond the expectations of enemies, 
 but to which some of the most ardent and sagacious 
 lovers of our free system scarce extended their hopes. 
 The time has been long enough even in the least 
 unfavorable circumstances, to give it a severe trial. 
 h is not within the possibilities of human things, 
 that, even in a spot most advantageous for natural 
 position among a society of men, the most intelli- 
 gent and tranquil which the state of the world has 
 hitherto admitted, a government like ours, should 
 not have to contend with much hostile and formida-
 
 8 
 
 ble agency. Every vulnerable point has been as- 
 sailed. There is not a spot in the whole system, 
 where the jointing wants compactness and strength, 
 that has not been exposed to the severest test that 
 could try its capacity of resistance. Our freedom 
 achieved its existence in a strife with the tremen- 
 dous power of the mother country, almost as un- 
 equal as would be the struggles of a child for life, 
 against the murderous assaults of full grown men. 
 It sustained the perilous reaction of success, when 
 the iron bands of war which held the people 
 together in pursuit of common safety, were un- 
 clasped, and they were left to the wide divergence 
 of individual opinions and peculiarities. It stood 
 the test of the financial embarrassment, and the ex- 
 haustion which followed the revolutionary conflict. 
 It went through the ordeal of that agitation of con- 
 flicting opinions, which resulted in the constitutional 
 compact. It met the crisis of that revolutionary erup- 
 tion in France, whose agitation reached these distant 
 shores and shook the whole civilized world. It has 
 passed, since, through the fiercest encounter of op- 
 posite political opinions. The shock of parties, and 
 the shifting of the administrative power of govern- 
 ment from one political side to the other the ambi- 
 tion of men that seemed born to rule the collision
 
 of great national interests, which have been growing 
 in importance every year, the rapid increase of popu- 
 lation, the heterogeneous mass that has constantly 
 flowed over from Europe, and mixed up our republi- 
 can feelings with an infusion of foreign sentiments 
 and prejudices, have left the great elements of Ameri- 
 can freedom in as vigorous an operation, and notwith- 
 standing the alarms which are felt, I think with as 
 clear prospects before her, as at the commencement 
 of her existence. 
 
 That the length of time during which our liberties 
 have continued, and the severe test to which these 
 have been exposed, give us any certain assurance of 
 their perpetuity is not contended. Though it seems 
 hardly probable that any greater perils await them, 
 however different in kind, than those through which 
 they have already passed with safety. 
 
 The apprehensions which many wise and patriotic 
 citizens express for the future condition of our re- 
 publican institutions, have been so often repeated 
 and are so common, that they cease to produce any 
 high degree of general alarm. 
 
 Miss Martineau informs us that the first person 
 who greeted her upon her arrival ten years ago, in 
 the United States, immediately informed her that 
 2
 
 10 
 
 she " had arrived at an unhappy crisis ; that the in- 
 stitutions of the country would be in ruins before 
 her return to England ; that the levelling spirit was 
 desolating society, and that the United States were 
 on the verge of a military despotism." It was per- 
 haps fortunate for her and ourselves, that she had 
 been accustomed from her childhood to such gloomy 
 auguries at home, or else her fears might have driven 
 her back, without having collected materials for an- 
 other book, and we might have been deprived of 
 another of those maternal admonitions on propriety 
 of behavior, with which our old affectionate mother 
 England, endeavors to correct the childhood of 
 American society. Having closely scanned the Ca- 
 dets at West Point, and a military training on her 
 ascent up the Hudson, she most charitably acquitted 
 them of all designs on the liberties of the country 
 and so must we. Our institutions have survived the 
 terrible crisis, which existed at the time of Miss 
 Martineau's landing at New York. The levelling 
 spirit has not overturned society. The Cadets are 
 as peaceably attending to their duties at West Point, 
 and the military musters are the same showy, harm- 
 less, holiday pageants as they were when scanned by 
 the searching glance of this lady's eye in eighteen 
 hundred thirty-four.
 
 11 
 
 Forty years ago, Mr. Ames wrote his treatise on 
 the dangers of American liberty a treatise in which 
 all the powers of his brilliant imagination were called 
 into requisition, to portray the gloomy and threaten- 
 ing aspect of our political condition. It was a fear- 
 ful crisis then in his view. The experiment of re- 
 publican liberty, he thought had failed ; the hopes 
 of humanity were extinguished and all was lost. 
 " Some bold chieftain," he declared, " will conquer 
 our liberty and triumph and rejoice in her name." 
 " We are now drawn within the revolutionary suc- 
 tion of Niagara, and every thing that is liberty will 
 be dashed to pieces in the descent." Upon which 
 we may be permitted to remark, that, as the fair 
 form of liberty remains yet unbroken if the illus- 
 tration had as much truth as rhetoric at the time it 
 was used, forty years is a long period to make the 
 passage of the fall. 
 
 Whilst we should never be too secure of our 
 standing whilst a wakeful feeling should ever burn 
 like a vestal fire on the heart, there have been too 
 many dreadful crises that have passed away without 
 any dreadful results too many instances, in which 
 the nation has stood on the brink of the precipice 
 without falling, to allow us to be unmanned at every 
 jar in the machinery of the republican system.
 
 12 
 
 Upon the first launching of the new modelled ves- 
 sel of state, there was some apology for over-excited 
 apprehension, as she met the billows and winds of 
 the stormy political ocean. But after she has weath- 
 ered the tempests of more than half a century bet- 
 ter than any ship on the sea, it is too late to despair 
 when she tosses on the billows, and strains and 
 creaks in the storm. 
 
 2. There has been a general progress of free prin- 
 ciples in the civilized world ever since the founda- 
 tion of the republic. We might retrace the period 
 which has elapsed since the reformation, as that dur- 
 ing which have occurred the most remarkable devel- 
 opements and rapid advance of human freedom in 
 many modern countries. For with temporary and 
 partial checks, which in the end are destined to pro- 
 mote the cause which they seem to retard, the prin- 
 ciples which lie at the foundation of human rights 
 and just government have been gathering strength 
 among almost all civilized people. Our national 
 independence and constitutional compact were the 
 embodiment of the highest that liberty had achieved 
 in her long and bloody struggle with the oppressions 
 of power. It was the gathering together in one 
 visible, fixed and glorious result, all those elements 
 of freedom which had been operating, half obscured
 
 13 
 
 and unappreciated, in the mass of humanity. But 
 this was not the end of the progress even in this 
 country. For if it were admitted that nothing could 
 be added to the wisdom and equity with which the 
 plan of our government has been framed if the 
 Constitution of the Union were the most finished in 
 which the vital spirit of freedom could act and ex- 
 press itself to the world, there was room for a more 
 intelligent and deep impression of its principles on 
 the mind of society. The results which had been 
 obtained were the origin of still further results, con- 
 sisting in juster views of republicanism, a higher 
 appreciation of its benefits, more fixed and well de- 
 fined attachments to its spirit and forms. 
 
 How, in this country, could it be otherwise ? The 
 whole action of the political machine has been the 
 action of liberty on the intelligence and heart of the 
 nation. In the general government, in every state 
 government, in all the municipal corporations, its 
 image has been before the eye, its nature discussed, 
 its lessons taught, its principles applied to the 
 changes and the ever shifting multiplying relations 
 of society. Every wise parent feels it indispensably 
 important that the young and ductile minds of his 
 children should be placed under the influence of 
 sound teaching, and trained up to a familiarity with
 
 14 
 
 those lessons which, when well impressed, tend to 
 secure the right direction of subsequent life. Well, 
 the whole people has been sent to school, in its 
 childhood, to listen to instructions in the great doc- 
 trines of human liberty and right. When the Con- 
 stitution of our Union was laid before the people for 
 acceptance, the young mind of the nation was 
 favored with discussions and lectures from the most 
 learned and scientific expounders of its provisions, 
 while it was in that state of eager curiosity and 
 thirst for information, most advantageous for the re- 
 ception of the truths inculcated. 
 
 The Congress of the United States, together with 
 the Federal Judicial Court, which hold their annual 
 sessions at Washington, may be considered as a 
 grand national university, at which the choicest spir- 
 its of the land resort to engage in discussions in 
 regard to the nature and operations of equitable gov- 
 ernment, and to elucidate, expound and apply the 
 text-book of American freedom, the report of which 
 is carried in their persons, and wafted on the wings 
 of the press, to the extremities of the Union. 
 
 There are, also, what may be denominated our 
 State universities, in which the instruments which 
 embody republican doctrines are the themes of dis- 
 cussion in connection with interests which have a
 
 15 
 
 more immediate and personal bearing, than those 
 embraced by national legislation. 
 
 In some countries, there are great and liberal 
 minds who have risen above the tone of opinion 
 which prevails around them, who discuss and unfold 
 theories of freedom, which cannot be applied to the 
 existing state of society. There are parties who 
 entertain ideas of republican equality, but are pre- 
 vented by insuperable obstacles from making an ex- 
 periment of their practical utility, in the community 
 of which they are members. 
 
 But here we have not only theory but the actual 
 test of theory not projected schemes but the ac- 
 complishment of them. The instructions which are 
 given to the people by the chosen teachers of politi- 
 cal equality, are practical in the most rigid sense of 
 the term. They are like those scientific lectures in 
 which theory and experiment are united together, 
 and every principle is verified and demonstrated by 
 a visible illustration. 
 
 The national and state constitutions are like so 
 many great working engines, not merely exposed to 
 the observation of the curious not put into tempo- 
 rary operation for inspection as patent models but 
 applied to actual use working out the most satis- 
 factory results and incontestibly establishing their
 
 16 
 
 claims to public favor by more than half a century's 
 most successful trial. 
 
 And not only is there visible and experimental 
 proof, that popular liberty is a practicable attain- 
 ment, but the results of its operation are brought 
 home to the happy personal experience of the whole 
 people. Cases are presented in which, either through 
 defect of wisdom in framing the plan of government, 
 or the unpreparedness of the community for self di- 
 rection, or the combination of both, that republican- 
 ism, so denominated, has produced a less happy con- 
 dition of society than exists under some monarchical 
 governments. But the excellent fruits of our civil 
 constitution, are the general theme of exultation and 
 eulogy. They are seen, experienced, rejoiced in, 
 by every city, hamlet, and individual member of the 
 body public. 
 
 There is scarce a mind among all the millions of 
 the Union in which freedom is not associated, iden- 
 tified with every thing which makes up its highest 
 conception of the temporal well-being of humanity. 
 As long as intelligence, and competence, and a pros- 
 perous state of affairs are valued objects, as long as 
 personal rights, and social privileges, and domestic 
 comforts have any hold on human affection, so long 
 will the American heart be bound to American insti-
 
 17 
 
 tutions, with indissoluble attachment. The past 
 must be obliterated the records of memory erased 
 human feelings must cease to be human feelings, 
 and human desires must cease to take delight in the 
 objects of highest human gratification, and human 
 nature must become another nature, before the love 
 of freedom shall die out of the nation. For the im- 
 press of its fair image is on every public and private 
 enterprise on all social improvement upon the ad- 
 vance of art. And all the comforts of wealth and 
 blessings of religion, and the whole stock of human 
 happiness bear testimony to its exalted worth, and 
 speak in its name to the heart of the whole people. 
 
 Another cause for the increased attachment to free 
 institutions among the American people, is the long 
 exercise of the privileges of freedom itself to which 
 they have been accustomed. 
 
 The republican system has not only acted on the 
 people, but they have acted on the system, and have 
 acted with it. They have administered it they 
 have used its rights and powers till these have been 
 incorporated with the political being of the nation. 
 They have exercised free action till they know no 
 other action, and can pursue no other action I had 
 almost said live with no other action. 
 
 The sovereigns of monarchical nations have al- 
 3
 
 18 
 
 ways been proverbially attached to the powers and 
 privileges of their high stations. The unyielding 
 pertinacity with which they hold every atom of au- 
 thority the tremendous and perilous struggles in 
 which they will engage to retain their royal immuni- 
 ties and prerogatives, show how vigorous is the love 
 of power and self-direction in the human heart. 
 
 Now every form of liberty is a form of power; 
 and what is the nation but a sovereign, jealous of 
 the least supposed encroachment on its prerogative, 
 having all the attachment, which long use added to 
 inborn sentiment, can give to that action which is 
 free from all superior control ; having united to it 
 more than royal franchises, and grasping its power 
 with unyielding persistency. 
 
 We are sometimes referred to the revolutionary 
 period, as the golden crisis of American feeling, 
 when patriotism was most patriotic and the love of 
 independence most determined, and when the great 
 national heart was filled with the divinest inspira- 
 tions of liberty. There was at that time, particu- 
 larly in the persons of the chief actors in the scene, 
 an exhibition of some of the most truly lofty and 
 heroic traits of the human character. But as noble 
 spirited as they were, and invincible as was the en- 
 ergy which impelled them to such daring and stu-
 
 19 
 
 pendous efforts as they made to achieve our deliver- 
 ance, there can be little doubt that the spirit of 
 liberty is more deeply, intelligently, seated, and ine- 
 radicable, than in the hotest crisis of the revolu- 
 tionary contest. It has expanded with the growth, 
 and has been invigorated by the free action of the 
 nation. The impetuous and fiery passions of its re- 
 publican youth, have superadded to them the depth, 
 fixedness, strength, and wise experience of maturer 
 years. 
 
 The continual progress of free opinions in the 
 European world, deserves a more extended notice. 
 The popular feeling which had long been working 
 more or less vigorously in the mass of transatlantic 
 society, received a new impulse by the successful 
 organization in which it was embodied here, that has 
 borne it onward to this day. Its excessive and ir- 
 regular action, its destructive fury, as it became 
 united with unpropitious elements its more calm, 
 equable and fortunate movement, where it was more 
 united with intellectual and Christian agencies, but 
 nevertheless, its onward and irresistible sweep under 
 all influences, are too familiar to need particular re- 
 petition. 
 
 It has overturned a throne in France that rested 
 on the loyal prejudices and traditionary reverence of
 
 20 
 
 forty generations ; and notwithstanding the reaction 
 which followed, gained by that act an immense and 
 permanent accession to its power. It has breasted 
 cannon and bayonet it has waded through seas of 
 blood. It has made progress against the mighty 
 resources of wealth and cunning the terrors of 
 superstition against the opposing machinery of 
 monarchical and aristocratical society and at this 
 moment tasks all the resources of power and policy 
 to resist its course, and is the most restless, disturb- 
 ing and dreaded element of the old world. 
 
 The history of England, since, and before the set- 
 tlement of this country, is a history of popular inno- 
 vation. Free opinions are now pressing against the 
 throne, and kindred institutions of that kingdom 
 with the weight of a continent. 
 
 Fortunate is it for those institutions, that they 
 have elasticity enough to yield to the pressure. For 
 there have been times within a recent period, when 
 obstinate resistance would have drenched that nation 
 in blood, and exploded the government to atoms. 
 On the continent, the vigorous impulses of liberty 
 have been extensively felt through the social system. 
 We were told many years ago, that since the birth 
 of this nation five or six constitutions had been 
 wrested by the people from their irresponsible rulers
 
 21 
 
 Two remarks occur on this part of the subject : 
 
 1 . It would seem that the spirit of freedom, which 
 makes its way against such powerful obstacles in 
 Europe, has vigor enough to live amidst the compar- 
 atively slight struggles which it has to maintain here. 
 If the whole array of thrones, and principalities and 
 hierarchies, wielding the vast agencies and resources 
 at their command, cannot brace themselves firm 
 against the shock of this great social movement, 
 then who and what shall turn it back and arrest its 
 course in this republican nation ? Has that which 
 has power enough to make its foes tremble and re- 
 coil when standing, not strength sufficient to resist 
 them when prostrate ? Has the torrent which 
 breaks through rocks and mountains, not force suffi- 
 cient to move in an unobstructed channel ? 
 
 Then must we say to all the struggling aspirants 
 for freedom in other countries, make haste slowly 
 you breathe longest when under the greatest weight 
 the most dangerous pressure is no pressure at all 
 and independence will be the last gasp of vitality. 
 
 2. The popular movements in the old world give 
 a strong impulse to the free spirit of this nation. 
 
 Great Britain, for instance, exists in such close 
 relations with this land, that every cord which is
 
 22 
 
 struck there vibrates through the heart of this nation 
 She is so near by facilities of communication, and 
 bound with us by such sympathies, arising from 
 identity of language and blood, from numerous 
 points of similarity in political features, that we 
 hear every breath which freedom draws there, and 
 feel the mighty throbbings of her heart, and receive 
 the warm current from her own veins into ours, which 
 flows to the extremities of the body politic. The 
 struggles of liberty with opposing forces attract more 
 notice, and awaken more lively interest, than liberty 
 in the repose of complete triumph. It seems almost 
 necessary, in the first stages of our great experi- 
 ment, that our sympathies should be kept in ex- 
 citement, our vigilance rendered wakeful, and our 
 attachment to freedom quickened into a state of 
 more conscious emotion by the struggles of other 
 nations not yet politically emancipated, so that we 
 might cherish that unsleeping anxiety and jealousy 
 which will induce us to keep a more wary eye on 
 the perils that environ our situation. 
 
 But however this may be, the spirits of English 
 patriots and martyrs to liberty are embaljied among 
 us in history and song. They have arisen from 
 their ashes and speak to us in the immortal pages of 
 genius. The vigorous, free periodical literature of
 
 23 
 
 the English, which is as much our literature as 
 theirs the discussions of their parliament, which 
 is in interest to us almost like another Congress in 
 London, and from which the voice of freedom rings 
 almost as loud and clear across the Atlantic to these 
 western shores their great popular agitations 
 their reforms their high-souled and Christian sacri- 
 fices of property and patronage to freedom, must act 
 with prodigious power on the whole American society, 
 and quicken the pulse of freedom in every heart in 
 the land. Can it be that we should take a back- 
 ward movement against such onward movements ? 
 that we should force a passage through the opposing 
 tendency and influence of the civilized world ? that 
 the shadow of liberty should go back on the dial- 
 plate of the nation, while the great luminary of 
 social advancement is pursuing its ever-brightening 
 track through the heavens ? 
 
 III. The social agencies which modern times have 
 brought either into existence, or more active opera- 
 tion, hold out strong encouragements for the per- 
 petuity of our liberty. Among which is the general 
 diffusion of mental cultivation. The people in this 
 country are the rulers. They form a congress above 
 congress. They are the supreme court of appeal to
 
 24 
 
 which all political questions are referred for final ad- 
 judication. They are called upon to make and un- 
 make constitutions of government to enact and ab- 
 rogate laws, to decide upon vexed questions which 
 have tasked the most powerful intellects for genera- 
 tions. They must have knowledge, therefore, and 
 invigorated power of reflection and judgment. Not- 
 withstanding the deficiencies under which we yet 
 labor, and the existing mass of uncultivated intellect, 
 yet the agencies in operation to seize upon the 
 young mind, and give it direction, expansion and 
 solid strength, are multiplied among us to an extent 
 never before realized ; and there is now a zeal waked 
 up in behalf of popular cultivation, which will, we 
 trust, raise them to more efficient action, and open 
 the fountains of instruction at every door in the 
 land. 
 
 Foreigners reproach us that we have produced no 
 more men of distinguished genius, and very few that 
 stand in the highest rank of literary and scientific 
 fame. Let them know that what we lack in con- 
 centration, is compensated by diffusion. As much 
 as we honor the illustrious poets and philosophers of 
 other lands, we would not exchange our popular in- 
 formation for the brightest names in their intellectual 
 sky. We would not part with our common schools,
 
 25 
 
 for Shakspeare and Paradise Lost. We would not 
 give the discipline and strength which the young 
 mind receives from our popular arithmetics, for the 
 glory of Newton's Principia. 
 
 Graduates from the schools are taken under the 
 tuition of the free political press, that most neces- 
 sary and tremendous engine next to Christianity, when 
 it has the right sort of intellectual material to operate 
 upon, which was ever wielded for liberty. I say 
 when it has the proper material for its operation. 
 
 For to secure the benefits of the press there must 
 be a solid intellectual base. " The press," says Mr. 
 Ames in eighteen hundred and five, " has left the 
 understanding of men just where it found it ; but by 
 supplying an endless stimulus to their imagination 
 and passions, it has rendered their temper and man- 
 ners infinitely worse. It renders men indocile and 
 presumptuous. They are pervaded by its heat and 
 kept forever restless by its activity. It has been the 
 base and venal instrument of the very men, whom 
 it ought to gibbet to universal abhorrence." Again, 
 " In our time this boasted luminary vents more 
 smoke than light." These statements were proba- 
 bly exaggerated at the time ; and I would by no 
 means apply them to the present political press of 
 the United States. But it is very apparent, that in
 
 26 
 
 the unrestricted freedom of the press, it is liable to 
 fall under the control of designing, unprincipled, and 
 incompetent men, who, in the accomplishment of 
 their nefarious ends, will appeal to passion and pre- 
 judice rather than to reason, and by their advocacy 
 of error, and distorted representations of truth, will 
 exert the most deleterious influence upon an excita- 
 ble and unintellectual community. I repeat then, to 
 render the press a safe and useful instrument for 
 promoting freedom, there must be a good degree of 
 mental cultivation in the people, together indeed 
 with moral, which will be noticed hereafter, and the 
 power of exercising a discriminating, independent, 
 and right judgment on questions submitted to their 
 consideration. If you could suppose a people to 
 possess the mere power of reading, with little or no 
 additional training, the press might to a deplorable 
 extent verify that high-wrought description in which 
 the exuberant imagination of Mr. Ames has por- 
 trayed its character. We sometimes hear of the 
 control which the press exercises, or might be made 
 to exercise, on political opinion. We do not ask for 
 a press that shall control public sentiment. Let us 
 have a community of independent thinkers, that will 
 not submit to be governed by editorial power a 
 community that is able to act on the press, as much
 
 27 
 
 as the press acts on that. Let us have a people 
 who, like a most acute and experienced magistrate 
 on the judicial bench, with all his prejudices and 
 passions held subordinate to a spirit of clear inves- 
 tigation and a predominating intellect, shall balance 
 conflicting statements and weigh contrary argu- 
 ments, and sift, and search, and eliminate, till from 
 the chaos of opposing elements, the disjointed frag- 
 ments and broken proportions of truth shall be nice- 
 ly adjusted together, and it shall rise a new creation 
 before the mind. We want a people that when the 
 press does not confine itself to the question under 
 discussion, and introduces irrelevant matter into the 
 argument, or makes mis-statements and deals in per- 
 sonalities, shall, like the presiding officers of your 
 honorable legislative bodies, call that press to order. 
 We owe it to the solid intellectual cultivation which 
 so many of the people obtain in the schools, that the 
 political press is to such a degree an instrument of 
 diffusing light, and assisting the community to form 
 correct and intelligent conclusions on subjects of na- 
 tional concern. The means of school education, it 
 must be conceded, are very defective in some parts 
 of the country. But when we consider the active 
 and inquisitive state of mind that is the characteris- 
 tic of the people the mass of information that is
 
 28 
 
 floating in the community the constant call and 
 tendency to engage in political discussions, which 
 are created by our institutions, taken in connection 
 with the leisure, opportunity, freedom from exhaust- 
 ing toils of body, and anxious animal cares, that 
 leave the mind elastic, vigorous, and excursive ; we 
 see the constituents of an intellectual material, which, 
 though inadequate, is yet a most encouraging pecu- 
 liarity of American society. 
 
 The education of the people in schools, is awaken- 
 ing a continually increasing interest. It is extend- 
 ing its range and deepening its foundation and no- 
 where is the observation more true than in Massa- 
 chusetts. Let the great work of popular education 
 continue to advance, till the keenness of the New 
 England intellect shall be characteristic of the whole 
 nation, and be sharpened beyond all its former sharp- 
 ness. Then let the press take care of its edge. 
 Let it understand that it must assimilate itself to 
 the illumination around it ; and if any portion of 
 the press chooses to smoke rather than to emit clear 
 light, let it smoke ; it cannot obscure the light ; for 
 as those dense columns which ascend from this city 
 in a clear morning, will soon be lost in the effulgence 
 of day, so the smoke of the press will disappear in 
 the serene atmosphere and brilliant light which en- 
 compass the nation.
 
 29 
 
 The press extended as it is in this country, be- 
 yond all that has ever existed before, sending its 
 swift messengers to every door in the land, operating 
 as it does on a base of mind so considerably informed 
 and discriminating, is a high school for the nation, in 
 which it is always learning, and from which it never 
 graduates, and in which it is training its powers and 
 adding to its stores of knowledge on the questions 
 of civil policy and liberty, beyond all former prece- 
 dent. 
 
 ft is a question upon which different sides are 
 taken, what influence the general diffusion of 
 knowledge has on the moral virtues which are es- 
 sential to republican freedom. It is necessary to 
 a clear view of the inquiry, that the terms should be 
 accurately defined. To what sort of knowledge does 
 the question relate? A perception of the moral and 
 Christian truths contained in the Bible, and a percep- 
 tion of the relations of numbers and geometrical 
 figures both range under the head of knowledge. 
 Now in this and in all Christian countries, the terms 
 popular information and popular intelligence, include 
 a mixture of all sorts of knowledge. Arithmetic is 
 taught, and the Bible read in the same schools. The 
 relations of triangles are learned, and books contain- 
 ing illustrations of moral truth, perused by the same
 
 30 
 
 pupils. The press teems with productions on all 
 sorts of subjects, and often in the same work will 
 scientific and moral knowledge be blended together. 
 
 Who can doubt that moral knowledge tends to 
 exert a moral influence ? Who doubts that popular 
 information, so far as it includes moral truth, con- 
 duces to strengthen moral feeling, and promote the 
 traits of virtuous character ? The question con- 
 templates an entire separation between mere scien- 
 tific, literary, and political truth, and that which 
 concerns moral relations and obligations ; a question 
 happily not so practical among us, as it might at 
 first sight appear. 
 
 If it be a fact that in the instruction of the young, 
 iu the books that form the reading and study of ma- 
 turer years, in most of those sources from which the 
 intelligence of the nation is fed, more or less moral 
 and Christian sentiment is introduced as an almost 
 inseparable ingredient, then the general information 
 of the nation is favorable to the interests of virtue. 
 
 That a considerable allowance must be made for 
 books of a doubtful and injurious character, will 
 not be disputed. The judgment must be made 
 up on the predominant tendency of that which con- 
 tributes to form the intelligence of the popular 
 mind.
 
 31 
 
 But the fact is, that all mental cultivation is of 
 favorable moral tendency ; no small part of the power 
 which temptation has over the mind, is derived from 
 the immediateness of the gratification which it of- 
 fers. The passions and appetites owe much of their 
 great force and mastery over the man, to his want 
 of ability to reason and calculate consequences. 
 There are multitudes of cases in which men yield to 
 the seductions of vice, when, with no greater strength 
 of moral sentiment than they now possess, they would 
 resist the assault if they possessed more discipline of 
 thoughts, and vigorous powers of reflection. Mental 
 force is as real an antagonist power to passion as 
 moral force. 
 
 A few moments longer reflection, or a few addi- 
 tional degrees of intensity of reflection, in the hour 
 of temptation, such as might be derived from the dis- 
 cipline of the mathematics, or any other study of 
 pure intellection, would have saved many a victim 
 from crime and ruin. And, other conditions remain- 
 ing the same, just as you give strength and activity, 
 and contemplative habits to the mass of mind in a 
 given community, do you contribute to raise men 
 above the inferior principles of their nature, and 
 cause prudence, economy and self-restraint, to take
 
 32 
 
 the place of thoughtless indulgence, animalism, and 
 those vices which sink them in degradation. 
 
 Another agent is the Christian religion. Let all 
 other means of influence favorable to free institu- 
 tions be perfected to the highest degree, and render- 
 ed as potential as the nature of things will possibly 
 admit in their operation on human society, still we 
 should have reason to despair of our liberties without 
 the celestial and all controlling influences of Chris- 
 tianity. The history of the world demonstrates, 
 that the best constructed forms in which the spirit 
 of freedom can enshrine itself, will not secure its 
 safety, unless there be a large infusion of Christian 
 sentiment into the mass of the people. Thanks to 
 the favor of heaven, the genius of the Christian re- 
 ligion is more pervasive and controlling amongst us, 
 than was ever witnessed in any other community of 
 equal magnitude. The influence of the pulpit and 
 Christian institutions is acknowledged generally to 
 extend wide, and go down deep into the feelings of 
 the nation. Much of that tyrannical power which 
 is ascribed to public opinion in this country, and 
 which forms the standing theme of complaint with 
 foreign travellers, is the religious sentiment predom- 
 inating in the minds of the people, adding force and 
 delicacy to the public conscience, frowning on infi-
 
 33 
 
 delity and lax manners, and exercising a more rigidly 
 supervisory inspection over those who dislike moral 
 restraint, than exists in other nations. 
 
 Without, however, dwelling on those general con- 
 siderations which have been so often presented and 
 are so familiar, permit me to advert to the fact, that 
 religion has superadded to its common influences, 
 among us, two which are of a more special char- 
 acter. 
 
 1. It is most intimately associated in the concep- 
 tions of the people with the progress of freedom and 
 human rights. The tremendous and bloody struggle 
 for religious freedom in the mother country, in the 
 heat of which this was settled, and which was a 
 most influential cause of its settlement, has stamped 
 its features on all our institutions, and left an impres- 
 sion which time will not efface. The notion of re- 
 ligious liberty is one of the most cherished, sacred, and 
 predominant ideas of the nation. It is so ingrained 
 into the popular mind, that it sometimes assumes the 
 most grotesque forms. The man who has no reli- 
 gion at all, is ready to contend to death for his reli- 
 gious rights. The disbeliever in the Bible vindicates 
 his most Christian privilege to reject Christianity. 
 The most insensible to moral obligation, entertains a 
 
 conscientious belief in his right to have no con- 
 5
 
 34 
 
 science. The jealousy oi religious freedom is so 
 great in some States, that clergymen are prohibited 
 from holding political offices. The " gallant " State 
 of South Carolina, equally zealous for religious as 
 for State rights, shuts the door of all civil offices 
 in the face of her clergymen. It must be confessed 
 that considering the wonderful courage which she 
 exhibits, generally, she betrays a most excessive fear 
 of the Christian ministry. So that we might, per- 
 haps, expect if she should execute her alarming 
 threats of withdrawing her protection from the gen- 
 eral government, and shutting the United States out 
 of the Union, and a poor clergyman should appear 
 within the walls of her Capitol, she would nullify 
 nullification, and forthwith hasten back to the arms 
 of the confederacy, craving protection against a hier- 
 archy. We claim for Massachusetts as ardent an 
 attachment for religious freedom, and as great an 
 aversion to ecclesiastical despotism, as exists in the 
 empire of South Carolina, although clergymen have 
 full access to the legislative assemblies. But we 
 respectfully request of the Legislature, who will par- 
 don the digression on account of the importance of 
 the subject, to repel every attempt unnecessarily and 
 dangerously to enlarge their power; and that the 
 proceedings of those persons who have repeatedly
 
 35 
 
 petitioned, that gallows might be erected by the 
 churches, and that ministers of the gospel should be 
 empowered to step from their pulpits to execute 
 criminals, should be watched, lest, under the guise of 
 philanthropy, and a pretended attempt to affix a 
 stigma to blood-thirsty priests, their real aim should 
 be to unite Church and State. If any clergymen 
 put their names to those petitions, we are sensible 
 that they do not represent the wishes of the ministry 
 generally, whatever ambitious designs themselves 
 may harbor ; and we think that the great body of 
 the incumbents of the sacred office are as unaspiring 
 in their dispositions, and attached to the religious 
 rights of the people as ever. We are persuaded, 
 my respected auditors, that if such a request should 
 be preferred again, the petitioners will be informed 
 that they have mistaken the temper of the times, 
 and will have leave to amend their petition. 
 
 But to return. Our political liberties are safe as 
 long as religious freedom and rights are retained. 
 They will probably stand together or fall together. 
 But the love of religious freedom is burnt into the 
 heart of the nation. It is guarded by the ramparts 
 of that deep sense of right, which the fire and steel 
 and general political persecutions of England could 
 not subdue, centuries ago, and which is now a more
 
 36 
 
 impregnable defence than ever. It has the strong 
 passions and prejudices and convictions of those on 
 its side, who, though they see no divine beauty in 
 Christianity, yet regard it for the unrestricted lib- 
 erty which it proclaims to the expression of the 
 thoughts and opinions of men. Free toleration of 
 religious opinions and forms of worship, equality of 
 rights among all denominations, are endeared to the 
 people by the memory of their fathers. The love for 
 them is fortified by an intense hatred of the oppres- 
 sions which their ancestors suffered ; it is kept alive 
 by the collisions and jealousies of rival sects who 
 watch and detect every unfavorable indication. A 
 cry of union between Church and State, that should 
 be supported by plausible appearances, would be the 
 most popular watchword under which a party could 
 rally, and carry with it the tide of national sympa- 
 thy. One great idea so deeply fixed so defined, so 
 historically associated, so sensitively alive in both the 
 devout and undevout, to the most distant signs of 
 encroachment so associated with the strongest sense 
 of right in the human soul, as that of religious free- 
 dom, is the seminal principle of all kinds of liberty ; 
 it allies itself with all notions of popular rights, and 
 if it could be established in the communities of Eu- 
 rope with as much force as among us, would make 
 short work with every despotism on its soil.
 
 37 
 
 The whole history, progress and influence of re- 
 ligion among the American people, have operated to 
 imprint the notion of religious freedom so deep, that 
 it will only cease to operate when the remembrance 
 of Christianity dies out of the soul. 
 
 2. Religion is now most vigorously applied to so- 
 cial reform. Jn later times, it has taken on a new type. 
 It aims not only to regenerate the individual man, 
 but to mould arid amend all the institutions of soci- 
 ety. When the Gospel was first promulgated, the 
 whole social state was constructed on principles very 
 alien from Christianity. Mis-government, political 
 abuses, the oppressions of the ignorant and weak by 
 the cunning and the strong domestic servitude, were 
 stamped on the features, and formed the constitution 
 of every community. 
 
 The wisdom of the great Founder and first teachers 
 of Christianity, made no direct assault on civil organ- 
 izations it attempted no social reforms, but aimed 
 to deposite divine principle in each heart, and left it 
 first to do its work in the individual man, and next 
 in the social man, till it should revolutionize the 
 whole mass of humanity. 
 
 But religion came to this country as a political re- 
 former. It aimed not merely to affect the individ- 
 ual man, but to bring constitutions and states and
 
 38 
 
 laws, and all forms, customs and institutions of soci- 
 ety under its plastic control. It has retained that 
 character to this time, and never since the origin of 
 the country, was the spirit of religion more aggres- 
 sive and reformatory than at this moment. Our 
 political organizations which put the sovereign power 
 into the hands of the people, abolish all castes, and 
 open every institution in the land to the whole sweep 
 of the popular mind, encourage this particular mani- 
 festation of religion in a remarkable degree. 
 
 What a contrast between the socially active as- 
 sailant, and reformatory spirit of religion among us, 
 to that retired and self-communing character which it 
 has exhibited at some times; when though it aimed, 
 indeed, to extend itself by conversion, yet it was the 
 concern of the humble convert to lead a quiet and 
 peaceable life, amidst the grossest political abuses, 
 and not to seek great outward and formal changes 
 and when there was a strong propensity to quit so- 
 cial life, and nourish a contemplative and solitary 
 piety in caves and deserts, when convents and 
 monasteries received those who sought to work out 
 their salvation, by prayers, and vigils, and fastings, 
 in lonely cells unmolested by the agitations of the 
 world. 
 
 Now every man considers himself by his Christian
 
 39 
 
 profession as a reformer the spirit of his religion 
 goes outward it seeks to reorganize the structure 
 of communities, and aims to pour its healing waters 
 into every turbid stream that flows through social 
 life. It is resolved to fix the print of its strong and 
 corrective hand on every institution and practice, 
 that touch the interests and happiness of man. 
 
 The active and reforming character which Chris- 
 tianity has assumed the bold and searching appli- 
 cation which is made of religious truth, to every un- 
 sound part of the civil and social state, and to popular 
 customs ; the carrying out of the divine principles 
 from their control over the inner man, and individual 
 conduct, in operation over the broad surface of the 
 community, are most favorable to the developement 
 and progress of free institutions, and the improve- 
 ment of the condition of man. 
 
 The readiness with which those who are not pen- 
 etrated by the higher and more spiritual influences 
 of Christianity, will unite with such as are truly im- 
 bued with the genius of religion, to promote great 
 popular reforms, to correct abuses which seem woven 
 into the national manners, to elevate the moral, po- 
 litical and economical condition of all classes, is an 
 evidence of the social direction which Christianity is 
 taking, and the power with which it is bearing along
 
 40 
 
 with it the sentiments and feelings of men, to a new 
 era of civilization. 
 
 In fact, the reforming spirit has taken such hold 
 on the public mind, that it has become in many a 
 kind of mania. It sees evil in every thing which 
 exists. Its morbid imagination converts the most 
 harmless objects into malignant spirits, and dragons, 
 and gorgons. Some seem bent on doing so perfect 
 a cure on the body politic, that they attempt to kill 
 both the disease and the patient too. 
 
 The Bible is so antiquated in the view of some, 
 and savors so much of the barbarous morality of an 
 uncivilized age, that it has fallen behind the times. 
 Christianity needs christianizing, and its spirit of 
 love to be sublimated into the transcendental, super- 
 exquisite, double refined philanthropy of the apostles 
 of a civilized Gospel. 
 
 I have referred to these ultraists, as indicating the 
 strong tendency of popular feeling. Whatever pres- 
 ent annoyance and mischief they may occasion, they 
 need excite no serious alarm. They are the mere 
 froth and filth which are thrown out upon the sur- 
 face of society by intestine fermentation, at once 
 showing the direction of the current, and the violence 
 of the agitation by which it is attempting to work 
 itself clear of internal impurities.
 
 41 
 
 In close connection with the foregoing remarks, 
 the deep conviction on the minds of the religious 
 community, of the indispensable necessity of sup- 
 plying the new and increasing settlements of the 
 country with the means of Christian knowledge, de- 
 serves to be alluded to. It is a growing, ineradicable 
 principle with men of enlightened and Christian 
 views, that religion is no more necessary to the life 
 of the soul, than to the preservation of republican 
 liberty. They believe that no policy of statesman- 
 ship, that no perfection of civil government, that no 
 skill in the enaction and administration of laws, that 
 no institutions of learning, that no resources which 
 human wisdom and power can command, will pre- 
 serve our institutions without the influence of relig- 
 ion. It is the last hope on which they rest the lib- 
 erties of republican America. Hence an appeal to 
 furnish the great West with Christian institutions, 
 will thrill upon the older States like a battle-cry to 
 defend their freedom. They are determined to run 
 a chain of Christian fortresses the whole length of 
 the Mississippi. They are resolved to wall every 
 city with Christian ramparts and Christian batteries ; 
 and to have a standing army of soldiers of the cross, 
 disciplined with heavenly skill, and armed with those 
 6
 
 42 
 
 spiritual weapons, which are mighty through God to 
 repel the assault of every ibe to American liberty. 
 
 IV. The decline of the military spirit is another 
 favorable indication. 
 
 The framers of our Constitution were most deeply 
 impressed with the dangers to which popular insti- 
 tutions were exposed by military taste and ambition. 
 The history of the old world was a lesson of instruc- 
 tion to them. In France, before the Revolution, the 
 military spirit was so predominant, that " all trades 
 and merchandise, and a condition of labor were held 
 degrading." The Revolution terminated, as it might 
 have been expected, in a military despotism, though 
 various causes contributed to the result. 
 
 When this spirit is predominant when the mili- 
 tary title is the most honorable title when the sol- 
 dier's occupation is the most honorable employment 
 when the plume and cap, epaulet and sword, are 
 more glittering than badges of civil distinction, free- 
 dom is in great peril and cannot long exist. The 
 slightest pretences will be set up for foreign war, 
 standing armies will be maintained, men will desert 
 industrial pursuits for camps, the spirit of freedom 
 will cower and be over-awed, and ambitious men 
 will be under strong temptations, as well as fur-
 
 43 
 
 nished with a most convenient instrument to seize 
 on the liberties of the people. Whilst the indispen- 
 sable importance of military organization and disci- 
 pline is most freely conceded, to meet the various 
 emergencies which may arise, it is yet a subject of 
 congratulation, that the spirit of peace, industry and 
 religion, in this country, so much predominates over 
 the military feeling. It is trne, that with too many, 
 a military reputation is more dazzling than any other, 
 and that the victories which are obtained by a suc- 
 cessful general, by balls and bayonets over the 
 bodies of men, are more illustrious than the most tri- 
 umphant civil battles, which reason and argument ever 
 obtain over the prejudices and errors of the human 
 understanding. There is something so much more 
 palpable, appreciable and striking, in the struggles 
 and results of a triumphant battle, to unreflecting 
 and gross minds, than in the successful exposure of 
 sophistry and error, in the power with which a 
 great mind moulds the feelings and sentiments of 
 others to his own, and upholds a system of prosper- 
 ous policy against opposing forces, that the reputa- 
 tion of one considerable military victory in a candi- 
 date for office, outweighs every civil disqualification. 
 But on the whole, the military spirit has suffered 
 a great decline. The highest military titles are held
 
 44 
 
 in much less estimation than formerly, and to desig- 
 nate a person by some of those lower distinctions, 
 which once were considered as rigorously due, as 
 the royal and noble titles in monarchical nations, 
 would be deemed in many cases a questionable 
 act of civility, if not an impeachment of a gentle- 
 man's respectability. Military musters are waning 
 in their interest, except to those who, like Miss Mar- 
 tineau, happen to land on our shores in some great 
 national panic, and are yielding to the superior at- 
 tractions of agricultural exhibitions, and mechanic 
 fairs. 
 
 The growing humanity of society the powerful 
 direct as well as indirect influences of Christianity 
 the love of industry the commercial spirit the di- 
 rect efforts to expose the impolicy and inhumanity 
 of war, and to inspire pacific dispositions our favor- 
 able territorial situation, exempting us to such a de- 
 gree from the dangers of foreign invasion, direct the 
 current of human feeling into channels that are safer 
 for liberty, and encourage us to hope for a happy de- 
 liverance from the arm of that dreadful foe which 
 has so often struck it down among the nations. 
 
 But there are some things which are supposed to 
 look with a threatening aspect on our liberties.
 
 46 
 
 1. One of which is the efforts made to propagate 
 the Roman Catholic religion, connected with the suc- 
 cess which seems to attend these efforts. 
 
 The fears which are entertained bj many on this 
 subject are natural, and not without grounds to jus- 
 tify them. I make no apology, my respected audi- 
 tors, for alluding to this topic upon the present oc- 
 casion. 
 
 As it respects those tenets of the Romanists, 
 which are exclusively theological, it would be a vio- 
 lation of propriety to discuss them at this time. But 
 if this denomination entertains any political opinions 
 that are inconsistent with republican freedom, or if 
 any of their theological doctrines, have a political 
 bearing that is adverse to human liberty, or tend to 
 restrict or overthrow any of those institutions upon 
 which the perpetuity of our civil rights and equality, 
 are acknowledged by general consent, in a good 
 measure to depend if great efforts are made to 
 plant the Catholic religion in this country, and pros- 
 elyte the nation to its system of belief if Catholic 
 powers in Europe, alarmed at the great onward 
 movement of the age, are using means to establish 
 their faith among us, whether in a form more or 
 less modified, yet with a design to subvert our liber- 
 ties and of annexing this prospectively vast nation to
 
 46 
 
 the domains of despotism, and in a form adapted 
 to secure this object, then let every freeman utter 
 his voice, let him speak every where and any where, 
 and especially, before the venerated chief magistrate 
 and civil authorities of this Commonwealth. 
 
 There is great reason to suspect, if not no reason 
 to doubt, that great efforts are made by some foreign 
 political men, to extend the Catholic religion, which 
 they find so convenient an ally of despotism in their 
 own countries, in this land also, for the purpose of 
 arresting the progress of free opinions, and over- 
 turning our republican institutions. 
 
 Will they succeed ? That this religion will spread 
 in our nation, to a greater or less extent, in a modi- 
 fied form, divested of its temporal power, obnoxious 
 political features, and to a considerable extent of its 
 anti-republican tendencies, is doubtless true. It will 
 have its place among the other numerous forms of 
 religious faith which we hope will always be suffered 
 to extend themselves to the utmost of their power, 
 without hinderance or molestation from the interfer- 
 ence of government. 
 
 But this will not answer the design of the enemies 
 of human freedom. To secure their object, it must 
 exist here, as in some European nations, a supporter 
 of despotic power, a foe to general education, armed
 
 47 
 
 with the power of civil penalties, and a controller of 
 the conscience and faith of the people. 
 
 Is there reason to believe that it will ever be es- 
 tablished here, as a great hierarchy, wielding politi- 
 cal power to the destruction of American freedom? 
 
 It is but justice to the leading Catholics of the 
 United States, to say, that they disavow all designs 
 inconsistent with our free institutions. But without 
 impeaching the sincerity of their declarations, which, 
 the history and character of the Romish religion lead 
 many to fear, are made as much from policy as from 
 conviction, we have a right to inquire, however cor- 
 rect may be the present intentions of the Priesthood, 
 what they might be induced to attempt, if by any 
 means, the country were brought into such a condi- 
 tion as would present a promising opportunity to 
 give the Catholic religion that character and power 
 which it has in some European nations, and espe- 
 cially in the ecclesiastical states of Italy. It is a 
 fact that the Pope has recently issued a decree, en- 
 joining it upon all the faithful, to interdict the use 
 of the Bible to the common people. Is the Pope 
 the authoritative head of the church, as he assumes 
 by this ordinance to be ? Has there been any re- 
 sponsible and explicit disavowal of the right of his 
 Holiness to issue this command to inferior ecclesias-
 
 48 
 
 tics, by Catholic Bishops in this country ? And is it 
 the present policy of the head of the Romish church, 
 to forbid the free use of the word of God to its 
 members ? If this is the policy of the church, then 
 it is hostile to American freedom. It aims to subvert 
 one of the great pillars of modern civilization, and 
 republican institutions ; and the principle upon which 
 the scriptures are made inaccessible to the people, 
 extends to all those agencies which tend to give that 
 illumination, enlargement and self-direction to the 
 mind, which are the basis of popular freedom. 
 
 The question then would be, not so much what 
 are the present intentions of the Catholics in the 
 country, as to the ultimate exercise of political pow- 
 er, as what the prospects are of the final spread of 
 the Catholic faith in that obnoxious form, in which 
 it has been recently commended to the faithful by 
 the Bishop of Rome, and which would certainly pre- 
 pare the way for the introduction of the most rig- 
 orous exercise of ecclesiastical despotism. 
 
 De Tocqueville thinks that the democratic tenden- 
 cies of the nation are peculiarly favorable to the 
 spread of the Catholic religion ; that the taste for 
 unity, simplicity and impartiality, with which politi- 
 cal equality imbues the mind, disposes it, when it 
 has any religious belief at all, to submit to an an-
 
 49 
 
 thority which is single and uniform. He is a friend 
 to democratic institutions, and by no means contem- 
 plates any disastrous results to liberty, from the 
 prevalence of a religion which, even as he seems to 
 conceive of it, requires of its votaries a surrender of 
 their religious faith to ecclesiastical dictation. 
 
 But, if we should admit, with the illustrious author, 
 that there are some peculiarities in the American 
 mind, which favourably dispose it to the Catholic 
 belief in a certain form ; how many other most pow- 
 erful and hostile tendencies exist to all those features 
 of the system which have a decidedly political char- 
 acter, and are adverse to civil rights and popular 
 institutions ! 
 
 The papal religion as it existed in its palmiest 
 days, a foe to general improvement and the rights 
 of independent judgment armed with the terrific 
 power of inflicting civil penalties to enforce theolo- 
 gical belief, is most repugnant to the habits and spirit 
 of American society it is against, in fact, the whole 
 current of modern civilization, which has developed 
 its tendencies so fully here its history is a sentence 
 of condemnation, inscribed as it were on the whole 
 arch of the heaven, and visible to all the people. It 
 is too late in the day to recover what it has lost, and 
 7
 
 50 
 
 gain new conquests. The age has gone beyond it. 
 It has to sustain the impetuous and unyielding as- 
 saults of all those tremendous forces which are 
 brought into action by the advancement of society 
 and the progress which Romish belief is making 
 in new and humble forms, with disguised dress and 
 changed name is but the effect of the recoil of that 
 
 O 
 
 heavy ordinance which is battering down its walls. 
 Puseyism is a fugitive from the Roman camp, with a 
 feigned name, and new costume, and lighter armor, 
 assumed to avoid detection and extermination. 
 
 The Catholic religion in its full vigor and develop- 
 ment, was fitted to a particular period of the world, 
 and state of the social system, and no other like 
 those monsters which geology has dug out of the 
 lower strata of the earth, and whose structure shows, 
 that they were never designed to live amidst the 
 higher organization of this last and more perfect 
 creation of the world. 
 
 It is well known that popery, in its political and 
 anti-social form, has not been able to sustain itself in 
 Europe. It is shaking and yielding amidst those 
 active forces, which are revolutionizing the nations, 
 and moving on to fulfil the great destiny of the hu- 
 man family. Macaulay is of opinion that the pro- 
 gress of knowledge and the arts, is not unfavorable
 
 to the existence and prevalence of papacy, because, 
 notwithstanding the immense increase of mental illu- 
 mination and activity within the last two centuries, 
 Protestantism has gained no conquests since the re- 
 action which followed the Reformation, and he 
 supposes also that the fact, that Sir Thomas More 
 lived and died in the belief of transubstantiation is 
 fatal to those encouragements which Protestantism 
 derives from the advancement of general knowledge. 
 But he has made no allowance for the changes which 
 the Catholic system has undergone in the countries 
 where it nominally holds sway, and that immense 
 under current of popular feeling, which, like the great 
 and almost unobserved movement that preceded the 
 Reformation, is making perpetual inroads upon its 
 domain, and undermining its foundations ; nor has he 
 duly taken into account the vast preponderance of 
 resources and power and influence which freedom 
 has imparted to the Protestant nations, and which 
 are acting on the papal world with an effect most 
 prodigious, irresistible, and augmenting beyond all 
 assignable limitations. And what though Sir Thom- 
 as More was a devout believer in the mysteries of 
 transubstantiation, when notwithstanding the incon- 
 sistencies of some parts of his conduct, occasioned by 
 the agitated state of the times, he avowed in one of
 
 52 
 
 his works, the most liberal sentiments, proclaimed 
 himself an enemy to bigotry and intolerance, and 
 has inculcated the largest forbearance to all sorts of 
 opinions. 
 
 If then the papal religion is unable to stand firm 
 against the insurgent forces of Europe, with so much 
 to aid it in the constitution of society there, how is 
 it to establish itself here, where society is construct- 
 ed on a different model, and all these forces are in 
 ceaseless activity and operating with a power which 
 increases every moment ? Before the foreign con- 
 spirators can subvert our liberties, they must bind the 
 press they must arrest the popular zeal for educa- 
 tion, and shut up the common schools they must 
 wrest the Bible from the hands of the common 
 people. They must allay the ceaseless jealousy of 
 religious sects, that hear the clank of chains in every 
 breeze they must disband every ecclesiastical organ- 
 ization and religious association in the land they 
 must persuade that restless mind to submit to a pre- 
 scribed faith which changes its governing opinions 
 every month, perhaps on the democratic principle of 
 rotation in office. Can they accomplish this ? might 
 they not as well cause the Mississippi to flow back 
 to the falls of St. Anthony ? and turn the course of 
 every river that empties into the Atlantic towards
 
 53 
 
 the Lakes and the Alleghanies ? The enemy can 
 capture the fortress, if he can batter down the walls, 
 and spike the cannon, and secure the arms of its 
 defenders, but the difficulty is to remove these im- 
 pediments. 
 
 The great architect, Sir Christopher Wren, said 
 that he would agree to frame an arch like that 
 of Kings College in Cambridge, if any one would 
 tell him where to lay the first stone. The problem 
 to be solved by those who design to rear an arch of 
 despotism in this union, is how and where to lay the 
 first stone. 
 
 Any serious attempt to restrict the freedom of the 
 press, or overturn our system of popular education, or 
 interdict the free use of the Scriptures, would unite 
 the whole people as one man, with the ardor of the 
 revolutionary spirit, to repel the audacious encroach- 
 ment. 
 
 The commercial and industrial habits of the mass 
 of the people, and that ardor of competition in all 
 pursuits, which presses every individual and class of 
 people onward and upward, would be a most formi- 
 dable obstruction to the establishment of a Romish 
 despotism. 
 
 The Protestant and Catholic countries of Europe 
 are visibly distinguished, in favor of the former, by
 
 54 
 
 the state of trade and agriculture, general industry, 
 and progress in all those arts which advance and 
 embellish the social condition of man. 
 
 The papal religion, to gain the ascendancy which it 
 has in the despotic countries of Europe, must change 
 the whole industrial character of the nation, and 
 arrest that tide of life which pours like the waters 
 of our vast rivers, through the channels of the nation. 
 
 Miss Martineau says, that a distinguishing quality 
 of the New England clocks which are sold in the 
 south and west, is to go too fast a trait which she 
 supposes to be illustrative of the character of the 
 manufacturers. The energetic and independent 
 qualities of the artificers seem to be infused into the 
 mechanism of the time-piece, which will no more 
 submit to the old laws of the earth's motion, than 
 our fathers would consent to be governed by the an- 
 tiquated regulations of the mother country. These 
 clocks are exported to foreign lands, to teach, we 
 may hope, all those who would engraft the oppres- 
 sive institutions of the old world on our soil, if not 
 by the rapid movements of their machinery, at least 
 by the evidence which is afforded by them of Ameri- 
 can enterprise and skill, that they are behind the 
 American time. 
 
 Let it ever be considered that the papal system
 
 55 
 
 must have a populace, a degraded and inferior caste 
 of people, a lower and distinct stratum of society to 
 rest upon, as the foundation of its support. It can 
 no more establish and maintain itself without such a 
 basis, than a man can sustain himself in mid air. 
 We have no populace here ; there is no lower stra- 
 tum, or rather the populace is the gentry and nobility, 
 and the lower stratum is uppermost, and for that 
 great spiritual despotism which has crushed the mil- 
 lions upon whom it has rested in the old world, there 
 is not a corner stone in the United States. 
 
 2. Great fears are entertained of the influence of 
 foreign immigrants, particularly of the Catholic per- 
 suasion. 
 
 But it should always be remembered, that the 
 very spirit which leads to emigration is favorable to 
 freedom and mental enlargement. That dissatisfac- 
 tion with their condition at home that restlessness 
 under the restraints of European society that aspi- 
 ration to rise higher in the scale of social life, and to 
 breathe a freer air, which lead so many to snap all 
 ties, and adventure their fortunes in the new world, 
 are qualities which assimilate rather easily to the 
 spirit and habits of republican citizens. No person 
 comes to take up his residence in this country, with- 
 out being powerfully affected by the transmuting 
 agencies of American institutions.
 
 56 
 
 Some persons who have acquired a taste for the 
 compliant and obsequious obedience which foreign- 
 ers receive from their dependents, have imported 
 some of this class for domestic service; but no sooner 
 do they begin to inhale the air of republicanism than, 
 in imitation of the fashion of the country, they make 
 a declaration of independence. They acquire such 
 lofty notions of equal rights and self-respect, that 
 their former deferential and cringing manners are 
 changed into the airs of erect, sometimes insolent, 
 insurgent and democratic citizens. 
 
 Servants can no more breathe in America, than 
 slaves can in England. 
 
 And not only does that tame and servile spirit 
 which is so prevalent in the inferior classes in Europe 
 disappear in this free land, but that mental activity, 
 self-respect, sense of moral obligation, desire to raise 
 the condition in life, which lead to industry, order and 
 republican virtues and right use of liberty, are pro- 
 duced and fostered by the institutions of our country. 
 
 Complaints are made that not merely those who 
 have a wish to improve their condition by the enjoy- 
 ment of their just immunities and rights, and the 
 exercise of a more successful industry, but that the 
 indolent, vicious, sharpers, and fugitives from justice 
 turn their course to this land, as a place more favora-
 
 57 
 
 ble to the indulgence of their depraved inclinations, 
 and the depredations which they seek to commit on 
 the community. That such persons are most unprom- 
 ising materials for the construction of our republican 
 edifice, is unquestionable. 
 
 It is probable, however, that they form a small 
 proportion of the whole body of foreign immigrants; 
 and a part of these, when withdrawn from the temp- 
 tations and unfavorable circumstances of their former 
 situations, when placed in the new situations and 
 connections which they hold here, and acted upon by 
 the wholesome, social and moral influences that oper- 
 ate on the people of this land, will find their unex- 
 tinguished better feelings reached, invigorated and 
 gaining ascendancy over those evil habits, and those 
 vices, which have held them in degrading bondage. 
 It is found that a considerable part of those criminals 
 which are transported from England to her distant 
 penal settlements, are reclaimed to industry, sobriety 
 and virtuous manners, by their mere withdrawment 
 from former scenes of life, and their establishment 
 in a new condition ; although enjoying a much less 
 advantageous situation for reformation and the culti- 
 vation of moral dispositions, than is furnished by the 
 state of society in this country. 
 
 However, dangers have always been apprehended 
 8
 
 58 
 
 from a too hasty admission of foreign immigrants to 
 the rights of suffrage and eligibility to political office ; 
 and as the tide is setting so strongly from the old 
 world to our shores, and bears upon its bosom a 
 mixed multitude of all sorts of opinions and prejudices 
 and all grades of intellectual cultivation it does not 
 seem a fit time to relax that system of restrictions 
 which the wisdom of our fathers adopted to afford 
 security against the ignorance, misconceptions and 
 uncongeniality of those whose characters are formed 
 in distant lands under influences so different from 
 those which control our community. 
 
 The assimilating process cannot be perfected at 
 once, even in those who have the strongest affinity 
 for the republican spirit and manners ; and whilst it 
 must be admitted that there are some who come to 
 dwell among us, whose spirits blend most quickly 
 and kindly with the true American feeling, there are 
 so many who do not yield easily to the improving 
 influences of their new and unaccustomed position, 
 that it is a matter of rejoicing and a sign for good, 
 that there is now waked up such a just feeling in 
 the community in regard to the necessity of taking 
 decided and strong measures to defend the avenues 
 through which perils are approaching our institutions. 
 
 The people are right in standing on the defensive.
 
 59 
 
 Let that man who surrenders his independent judg- 
 ment to a Romish priest, and takes his political, as he 
 does his religious opinions, from his lips, be deemed, 
 and taken, and held, to all intents and purposes, as a 
 man under twenty-one years of age, if he be as old 
 as an antediluvian patriarch, and wait for the full 
 privileges of a citizen till he is free from his ghostly 
 father. Let him be under restriction for a time 
 sufficient to have acquired enough of republican 
 intelligence and a republican disposition, to know and 
 feel, that this land has been baptized into freedom 
 of all kinds, mental, political and religious ; and that 
 it is not in our declaration of independence, nor any 
 part of our bill of rights, that ecclesiastical priests or 
 political priests, should come between any man and 
 the conscience and reason, which God has given him. 
 
 Let it be understood, that, if this land is to be 
 made a receptacle for foreign paupers and criminals, 
 they shall be subject, to some extent, to pauper 
 house regulations, and prison discipline. We have 
 reason to hope, that what political regulations can 
 do, will be done, to guard that mighty engine, the 
 ballot box, from the tampering of unskilful hands 
 and political frauds. 
 
 May we not hope that men of all political sects 
 will forbear to make this a party question that they
 
 60 
 
 will calmly look at the subject as one of common 
 interest to all, that they will unite, I do not say to 
 form another party, for on this I offer no opinion, but 
 in one great republican, national and patriotic party, 
 to protect the land from those, who, though they 
 come without weapons, are as really dangerous, if 
 not watched and restricted, as navies and armies 
 approaching with hostile intent and armed with mu- 
 nitions of war. 
 
 3. It is said that the tendency of civilization and 
 prosperity is to accumulate property in masses, and 
 so concentrate vast sums in the hands of individuals, 
 as to depress the wages and condition of the laboring 
 classes to a point inconsistent with a comfortable 
 subsistence; and as the right of suffrage in this 
 country will be necessarily universal, and the sove- 
 reign power in the hands of the majority, they will 
 grow restive under their privations, throw off the 
 restraints of law, divide the possessions of the rich, 
 overturn our institutions : and that the result will be 
 a popular or military despotism. Thus Macaulay 
 refers us to the twentieth century as a crisis danger- 
 ous to our republicanism arising from the centraliza- 
 tion of wealth. 
 
 The population of the country is comparatively so 
 sparse at present there is such an immense amount
 
 61 
 
 of productive land, yet in a wild and unsettled state 
 over which the redundance of the older communities 
 may flow for a century, before covering the soil, that 
 the danger under any circumstances is very remote. 
 In the mean time, whatever political regulations 
 are yet necessary to be made to promote a juster 
 distribution of wealth, and protect the poor against 
 the encroachments of the rich, the people have it in 
 their power to make ; and whatever economical pro- 
 visions, the increase of knowledge, and of the power 
 of Christianity over the hearts of men, may prompt, 
 for a more equitable division of the proceeds of labor 
 and skill, have a sufficient time to be arranged into a 
 very complete system before the distant period shall 
 arrive. If the past is any index to the future, social 
 ameliorations are destined to take place within one 
 century, which will change the whole moral and 
 industrial condition of the world. Some of the most 
 perplexing and alarming economical problems are to 
 receive a most favorable solution. The state of soci- 
 ety and industry in England is such, as to cause her 
 to solve great questions in advance for our advantage, 
 and to work out those results which will be as beacon 
 lights to guide our industrial progress, and contribute 
 to our escape from those dangers and difficulties into 
 which civilization unenlightened by experience, and
 
 62 
 
 not accompanied with the advantages of our condi- 
 tion, has brought her. What a prodigious amount of 
 study and sagacity has been expended in England 
 on the causes and cure of pauperism ; and those great 
 questions respecting the improvement of the state of 
 the laboring classes which the exigencies of affairs 
 have made very practical and urgent there, but which 
 the prosperity and resources of our country have 
 hitherto spared us the necessity of agitating ! The 
 results of the attention of distinguished men to this 
 most important subject are as available to us, as to 
 the people for whose special benefit they are design- 
 ed, and will operate as preventives here, of those 
 disorders for which they are applied as remedies in 
 the mother country. 
 
 The great forces which are to bring in the new, 
 the last and most perfect civilization of the species, 
 have but just begun to move upon the nations. The 
 success and effect with which they operate, are an 
 omen of their final and splendid triumph over the 
 world. 
 
 The oppressed state of the laboring classes in 
 European communities, is to be traced in a very con- 
 siderable degree to the constant pressure of the pop- 
 ulation on the means of subsistence. Dr. Chalmers 
 has attempted to show, that the great corrective of
 
 63 
 
 this vicious state of society, lies in the elevation of 
 the intellectual and moral tastes of the people. Just 
 in proportion as you raise man above low and brutish 
 desires as you increase his power of reflection, and 
 his forecast just in proportion as you give him self- 
 respect, a taste for order, beauty and domestic com- 
 fort, moral habits and an independent spirit, you raise 
 an effectual barrier against an overflowing and de- 
 graded population, by checking those imprudent con- 
 nections and improvident dispositions, which are the 
 source of this evil. No doubt he is mainly correct ; 
 and when you add to these remedial agents, the 
 changes which will take place in the artificial struc- 
 ture of society that has grown out of the selfish 
 passions of men, and the new institutions which, 
 wisdom prompted by benevolence will erect to raise 
 the condition of the masses, you have completed the 
 circle of causes, which are destined to promote the 
 temporal comfort and well being of humanity. But 
 the grand instrument to accomplish these changes 
 is the Gospel of Jesus Christ applied to the hearts 
 of men. It is the power above all other powers, 
 and from which they all derive, if not their exis- 
 tence, their efficiency and direction. The Gospel, 
 in addition to its more immediate effects, is the 
 mainspring, the moving spirit of all that multiplied
 
 64 
 
 social machinery, which is to improve and elevate 
 the human race. 
 
 The projects, devices, communities, artificial ar- 
 rangements by which visionary and misguided men 
 propose to ameliorate the social state of man, inde- 
 pendently of religion, are mere palliatives and ineffec- 
 tual remedies. They are the sheer quackery of 
 philanthropy. They do not reach the seat of the 
 disorder. These reformers mistake both the disease 
 and the remedy ; and conduct as absurdly as would a 
 physician, who should undertake to heal decaying 
 lungs by changing the fashion of the dress, or to 
 restore a diseased heart by shifting the position of 
 the body. 
 
 May we not hope, that all the dangers in question 
 will be avoided by the increasing power of Christian- 
 ity, in connection with those improved arrangements 
 in the constitution of society, to which it will more 
 or less directly give birth ; and that the independent 
 spirit of thrift, and decency and foresight, having 
 unrestricted scope, which will keep the rich as depen- 
 dent on the laborer, as the laborer on the rich, will 
 pervade the community, and harmonize the different 
 classes and beautify the land, when Owenism and 
 Fourierism and Agrarianism, will be ranked with 
 South Sea bubbles, and Mississippi schemes and the 
 witchcraft of a former generation.
 
 65 
 
 4. Another source of danger to our liberties, in the 
 apprehension of many, is the spirit of insubordination 
 which shows itself in mobs, and various forms of 
 organized, and too successful, resistance to authority 
 in many parts of the land. Foreign enemies of re- 
 publicanism lay hold of these outbreaks of popular 
 violence, as arguments against the practicability of 
 self-government among men, and regard them as 
 sure prognostications of the downfall of our institu- 
 tions. That there have been many serious, and 
 somewhat alarming, tumults in the community ; and 
 that there has been, in too many instances, a want of 
 sufficient promptitude and decision in putting them 
 down, is true. 
 
 But it deserves to be enquired, what do these 
 affections of the body politic indicate as to the gen- 
 eral condition of the system ? Are they any thing 
 more than temporary and partial disorders, in a com- 
 munity, which is on the whole sound, and performs 
 its functions with a healthy action ? Do the turbu- 
 lence and violence of those, who openly set law at 
 defiance, really any more indicate a tendency to a 
 prevailing spirit of anarchy, than do the crimes of 
 the inmates of our prisons and the victims of the 
 gallows, that all the people are becoming thieves and 
 murderers ? 
 
 9
 
 66 
 
 The character and tendency of these tumultuary 
 proceedings are not to be estimated by that popular 
 resistance, in other lands, to government become op- 
 pressive beyond the point of endurance, which from 
 slight beginnings, has at length burst out with a fury 
 that admitted of no control, and swept all before it. 
 
 And we are not in the condition of those countries, 
 in which, though a milder form of authority exists, 
 yet society is divided horizontally between the gov- 
 ernment and the governed ; and in which a suffering 
 people feel that the rulers are their natural enemies 
 and the source of their misfortunes, and that every 
 act of successful resistance is a conquest over a foe, 
 and so much reparation for injury. There is not, 
 there cannot be, a prevalent feeling of hostility be- 
 tween the government and the people in this coun- 
 try. The government is so free, it so emanates 
 from the people, and is so a part of them the gen- 
 eral condition of the community is so comfortable, and 
 devoid of causes of restlessness and discontent, thus 
 this happy state of affairs is seen so evidently to 
 depend on the protection of government and the 
 existence of order, most are so convinced that loss, 
 rather than gain, will accrue from revolution, that 
 when there is added to these considerations the de- 
 gree of intelligence and ascendancy of moral feeling al-
 
 67 
 
 ready adverted to, which prevail, there exists a strong 
 pledge for the wide prevalence of a quiet and obe- 
 dient spirit, and little cause for that excessive alarm, 
 which some entertain on account of the insubordinate 
 feeling that occasionally breaks out in the country. 
 
 In no state has the revolutionary spirit taken a 
 more alarming form in recent times, than in Rhode 
 Island; but the rebellion, there, has, we may hope, 
 been effectually crushed by the most triumphant 
 ascendancy of the principles of attachment to con- 
 stitutional law and subordination to just authority. 
 That the affair mi^ht have been attended with more 
 
 o 
 
 disastrous consequences, if the hero of the drama had 
 been a Napoleon or a Cromwell, is true. But he 
 is, happily, as the poet says, a " Cromwell guiltless 
 of his country's blood." May all insurgents be such 
 cautious heroes and bloodless Cromwells ; and may 
 the friends of " law and order " every where rally as 
 numerously, unitedly, and vigorously, to put down 
 the revolutionary proceedings of misguided men, as 
 the gallant people of our sister state. 
 
 1 propose, before closing, to devote a few remarks to 
 some of the means of perfecting our free institutions. 
 
 1. The people need more direct and systematic 
 instruction in political principles. These principles 
 ought to be studied in youth. They should make a
 
 68 
 
 prominent part of all common school instruction. 
 The elements of republican government and of 
 financial and political economy, ought to be embodied 
 in popular and well digested treaties, written by able 
 and candid authors, and made as indispensable a 
 part of the exercises of the elementary schools, as 
 common arithmetic. It is a frequent remark, a can- 
 did confession, made by men of all political opinions, 
 that the great mass of the people are honest, and 
 only need the calm and unprejudiced instruction to 
 come to a right decision on all questions in contro- 
 versy. That observation has much truth in it. But 
 how is the requisite knowledge to be acquired ? The 
 political press is not all that is needed, as important 
 as its instrumentality confessedly is in diffusing infor- 
 mation. It is too partizan in its character. It is 
 devoted to the advocacy of the principles and mea- 
 sures of some one of the great political divisions of 
 the country, and having some practical measures of 
 leading interest immediately to accomplish, being 
 patronized by those who are inflamed by the ardor 
 of political passion, and who will not be satisfied 
 with a cool, unprejudiced logical discussion of the 
 questions in agitation, it fails to exhibit them in a 
 point of view most calculated to promote truth and 
 harmonize the views of the contending parties of
 
 69 
 
 the nation. 1 acknowledge, again, the indispensable 
 importance, the vastly favorable influence on the 
 whole, of the American press. I would detract 
 nothing from the ability, the knowledge of political 
 subjects, the devoted patriotism of many who fill the 
 editorial chair ; and, as much as there is, which calls 
 for expressions of regret and censure in the public 
 journals of the nation, yet the tone in which some 
 foreign writers are pleased to speak of them gener- 
 ally, is exaggerated, and unjust to their character. 
 
 There may be a higher order of talent and more 
 elaborate disquisition in some of the leading journals 
 of foreign nations, than in those of the first class in 
 our country ; but it is very much to be doubted, 
 whether the political press in England, for instance, 
 taking it as a whole, is any the less unsparing and 
 abusive in its attacks on public character, any the 
 less disposed to intrude into domestic privacies, and 
 scan with curious and malignant eye the interior of 
 social life, than ours; and even, if on the whole, it 
 should be found on fair comparison, to be more dig- 
 nified and temperate in its tone, whether it can 
 claim any advantage over that of this nation, as an 
 agent for enlightening and directing the sentiments 
 of the people. It is a question whether there would 
 be any real gain by an exchange of presses, even if
 
 70 
 
 we could have the benefit of those daily chronicles 
 in which the private history of members of the royal 
 and noble families are detailed with the most edify- 
 ing minuteness ; in which it is related when and 
 how, her majesty rode out, and what she said to Sir 
 Robert about the weather, and with what party the 
 Duchess of Kent visited the last evening, and how 
 my Lord took an airing in the Park, and how all 
 the Dukes and Marquises and Duchesses rode and 
 walked and dressed and talked and laughed, as if 
 this information were as important as that respecting 
 the condition of the stocks, the measures of Parlia- 
 ment, and the state of trade. 
 
 But even the best of editors are in a constrained 
 position, and cannot carry out the free and indepen- 
 dent dictates of their own judgments, amidst the 
 tempest of popular excitement which sweeps every 
 thing out of its course. 
 
 Besides, editorial instructors are not in the condi- 
 tion of instructors in other departments. The law 
 makes it imperative, in many parts of the country at 
 least, that every common school teacher shall be 
 subject to an examination respecting his moral and 
 literary qualifications for his work. No teacher, sup- 
 ported by public funds, is allowed to be entrusted 
 with the care of the youngest pupils, without a
 
 71 
 
 license from the proper authority. The practice 
 of many of the great religious denominations of the 
 country, require satisfactory credentials of compe- 
 tence, before assuming the office of public teachers, 
 in all those whom they admit to their ecclesiastical 
 fellowship. It is true, that any person may under- 
 take the instruction of the public, in any form, 
 without restriction, who thinks he can safely calcu- 
 late on an adequate support to his enterprise. But 
 the difference between the cases is, that for the 
 most important, influential, responsible station of a 
 conductor of the political press, there is no such 
 safeguard provided against the intrusion of incom- 
 petent persons, in any circumstances, as secures the 
 public against imposition, to a very considerable 
 extent, in other departments of instruction. There 
 is no law of State, no public regulation of any kind, 
 that subjects a candidate for c'ditorial office to a pre- 
 vious test of his qualifications. The access to it 
 lies open without check, without supervision, to every 
 adventurer, who has confidence enough in himself 
 to hope for success, and who can command patron- 
 age sufficient to sustain his operations. 
 
 Public lectures, in the form and circumstances in 
 which they have recently been delivered, are not all 
 that the necessities of the case require. This plan
 
 72 
 
 of operating on the popular mind, has been adopted 
 of late with great effects of some kind, by the politi- 
 cal parties, on the eve of an election. And, without 
 doubt, the mass of facts and arguments which have 
 been presented to the people, in these lectures, and 
 which, through the tones of eloquent voices, and the 
 sympathies of large and excited assemblies, have 
 commanded attention, that would never be given to 
 the printed form of communication, has diffused a 
 great degree of light through the community. But 
 these addresses being made in the heat of great po- 
 litical contests, by persons deeply committed to their 
 respective parties, under the strongest temptation to 
 suppress, distort, overstate, and misstate, to assem- 
 blies excited and inflamed with the most intense ar- 
 dor of political passion, and divested, in a great de- 
 gree, of that calm reflection, and candid discrimina- 
 tion, which are most favorable to the comprehension 
 and reception of truth, need the correction of other 
 forms of instruction. 
 
 I repeat, then, the schools must be made a system 
 of agency for imbedding in the youthful mind the 
 great elements of political knowledge and repub- 
 lican liberty. I have already spoken of these semi- 
 naries as most important instruments of general 
 cultivation. I now refer to them as capable of 
 being made useful means of imbuing the young
 
 73 
 
 with the knowledge requisite for the discharge of 
 civic duties. The pupils assembled in them must 
 receive a training for the high functions of their citi- 
 zenship. For it is most unwise to employ the great- 
 est pains to make them accomplished grammarians, 
 and arithmeticians, and geographers, and send them 
 forth to pick up their political knowledge from casual 
 and indiscriminate reading, and every self-constitut- 
 ed instructor, skilled or unskilled, who may happen 
 to gain their attention and confidence. 
 
 2. There needs to be exacted a higher degree of 
 moral principle in public men. 
 
 The question has been recently discussed, whether 
 it is right, under any circumstances, to give our suf- 
 frage to a candidate for public office, whose moral 
 character is defective. Now, without assuming the 
 truth or falsity of any charges which have been 
 brought recently against candidates for political sta- 
 tions, I do not hesitate to assert, that, when the 
 moral defect is not of such a kind, or of such extent, 
 as necessarily to corrupt the whole character of the 
 man, and render it unsafe to commit to him any civic 
 trust, and when the choice lies between such an in- 
 dividual, and one still more liable to imputation, or 
 if without moral stain, one who is incompetent, or 
 whose political principles, however honestly enter- 
 tained, we think disastrous to the interests of the 
 10
 
 74 
 
 country, there can be no reasonable doubt about the 
 question. 
 
 But it is said, that we are not at liberty to choose 
 between two moral evils. J deny that in such a case 
 there lies a choice between two moral evils. The 
 observation is founded on the utterly and most obvi- 
 ously false assumption, that in choosing a candidate 
 to public office, we necessarily choose or sanction all 
 that is defective in his principles and character. If 
 this principle is a sound one, then we choose between 
 two moral evils whenever we discharge our duty at 
 the polls. For where is the man without moral im- 
 perfections ? And if we choose or give counte- 
 nance to whatever may be wrong in his character, 
 when we elect him to office, no matter how small 
 his blemishes may be, we violate the principle as 
 really, as though they were the greatest crimes under 
 heaven. Religious opinions are as much a part of 
 character as conduct. Of course, whenever an indi- 
 vidual of one denomination casts his vote for a can- 
 didate who is connected with another, he gives his 
 implied approval to those theological tenets, which he 
 at the same time regards not only as unwarranted 
 by scripture, but perhaps as directly opposed to their 
 whole tenor, and of most fatal tendency. Let those 
 who adopt the principle under discussion be tried by
 
 75 
 
 their acts, and be consistent with their assumptions. 
 But whilst it must be conceded that individuals 
 and parties may be so situated, as to be under an 
 obligation to elect men to office, whose moral habits 
 they cannot approve, there is great wrong in the 
 state of the community which creates this necessity. 
 There is not such a dearth of men, able, experienced, 
 and abundantly competent to discharge the functions 
 of the civic offices of the nation, and whose private 
 characters are free from stain, as to shut up the 
 community to the necessity of selecting those whose 
 habits are offensive to the tastes of the better part of 
 the people. Let us endeavor to raise the standard 
 of moral, as well as political, qualifications in the 
 candidates for political trusts. 
 
 There is much dispute about the doctrine of in- 
 structions. Some constituent bodies are pleased to 
 transmit instructions to their representatives, in re- 
 spect to the discharge of their respective duties ; and 
 some humble servants of the public are very obedi- 
 ent to the mandate. Let the principle of instruc- 
 tion be enlarged in its application. Let candidates 
 and office holders be instructed in the rules of mo- 
 rality ; and whenever, for instance, an honorable 
 member of the national House of Representatives, has 
 engaged in a passionate and disgraceful brawl, let
 
 76 
 
 his constituents forthwith send him some wholesome 
 instructions, in regard to the rules of decent behav- 
 ior, and give him to understand, that if he really 
 thinks it a part of his legislative duty to smite his 
 opponent, they expect him to conform to his instruc- 
 tions in morality, as well as politics, and to surren- 
 der his conscientious convictions to the sovereign 
 will. 
 
 Let us rejoice, whilst we must reprobate whatever 
 of falsehood, exaggeration, and coarse and bitter vi- 
 tuperation, has disgraced the late political election, 
 in the existence of such a degree of religious feeling 
 and sound morality in the community, that those po- 
 litical agitators, who are reckless of principle them- 
 selves, yet find it to their account to assume an air 
 of moral sensibility, and attempt to advance their ob- 
 jects by assailing the real or imputed vices of public 
 men. 
 
 The private lives of some distinguished public in- 
 dividuals, who have rendered eminent service to the 
 country, or who have lent their efficient aid to the 
 promotion of the leading and favorite objects of a 
 political division of the state, are very liable to be too 
 much disregarded. The splendor of their talents di- 
 verts attention from the spots on their character. The 
 gratification which their powerful eloquence affords to
 
 77 
 
 intellect and taste, the gratitude which is awakened 
 by the devotion and success with which they have ad- 
 vocated cherished interests, overpower moral senti- 
 ment. Those vices which would meet with unsparing 
 rebuke and exclude from confidence in inferior per- 
 sons, are tolerated in men of illustrious public merits ; 
 they are winked out of sight and whispered about in 
 a pitying, forgiving tone, and thought to belong to a 
 sort of interior character which the individual has a 
 right to form as he pleases, and with which the great 
 public have but little concern. The lofty and splen- 
 did eulogium which Mr. Ames pronounced on Ham- 
 ilton immediately after his death, exhibits in a re- 
 markable degree the propensities of men of great 
 purity of feeling themselves, to judge of the charac- 
 ter of distinguished public personages, by a peculiar 
 code of morality. " With him," says his panegyrist, 
 " it was not enough to be suspected ; his bosom would 
 have glowed like a furnace at its own whispers of 
 reproach ;" " Mere purity would have seemed to 
 him below praise ;" and this was uttered of a man 
 who had fallen in a duel, in which he engaged under 
 a false sense of honor, against his avowed abhorrence 
 of the practice, and the strong moral convictions of 
 his own mind. One of the unhappy effects among 
 others, of supporting candidates for public office
 
 78 
 
 whose moral practices are defective, is the necessity 
 under which it puts their friends, to make ingenious 
 apologies for vice. Glaring offences are palliated 
 half defended, ranked among the minor faults of 
 human infirmity ; single traits of private virtue and 
 generosity are weighed against opposite defects, and 
 made to atone for gross outrages on moral principles, 
 in the general estimate of character. An unmingled 
 admiration is challenged for political consistency, 
 long devotion to the public service and the authorship 
 of great and useful measures, at the sad expense of 
 impairing the delicacy of the public conscience, and 
 rendering it callous to moral distinctions. 
 
 Let us hope, then, that the severe and unsparing 
 scrutiny which is applied to the private habits of can- 
 didates for high offices, that the undisguised publicity 
 with which their social and domestic biography is 
 laid open to the gaze of the whole nation that the 
 increase of religious sentiment, and the consequent 
 growing demand for pure morals in public men, will 
 operate like a second conscience on those who have 
 entered the public arena, and are glowing with aspi- 
 rations for some of the distinguished prizes of repub- 
 lican governments. 
 
 But there are political profligates whose turpitude 
 equals the grossest private immoralities, men who
 
 79 
 
 under the pretence of the most disinterested patriot- 
 ism, and devotion to the public, have no object but 
 aggrandizement, and no conscience but the popular 
 voice. They are so willing, professedly, to serve the 
 public in any way that the beloved people desire, let 
 the people give them the honor of a private station, 
 and tell them that whereas it was in their heart to 
 sacrifice their retirement and private comfort on the 
 altar of public service, it will be kindly accepted, as 
 though the sacrifice were really made ; and that as 
 they feel particular delicacy about laying on such 
 willing servants all the burdens and anxieties of civil 
 office, they will permit them to enjoy their desired 
 quiet, and shed around them the fragrance of their 
 modest and unobtrusive worth among those dear 
 people to whom they are knit in such friendship, and 
 whose intimate society must be so grateful to their 
 affectionate spirits. Let them receive comfort from 
 the thought that there are some patriots of so pecu- 
 liar a cast, that their most useful oratory is silence, 
 and their best political service, no service at all. 
 
 3. There ought to be great caution exercised 
 about the multiplication of political parties. 
 
 An occasional breaking up of the old organizations, 
 and a re-casting of the political elements is a reno- 
 vating and healthful process. But the greatness of
 
 80 
 
 the exigency must justify it. There is too strong a 
 propensity to frame new party organizations on nar- 
 row grounds, to single out one prominent point of 
 interest and concentrate the whole action upon that, 
 to the comparative neglect of other questions, which 
 cannot be disregarded with safety. It were much 
 better, in many cases, to unite any new question that 
 may arise, with the principles of an existing organi- 
 zation, than to break away from old and establised 
 connections, held together by the recognition of doc- 
 trines of acknowledged importance, and form new 
 associations limited to one measure, and composed of 
 those who entertain the most opposite sentiments in 
 other respects upon the great interests of the country. 
 What if the action is slower ? What if the zeal is 
 less exclusive and concentrated ? What if there is 
 less of that close union and impetuous feeling which 
 bear down on one point, as if nothing else were 
 worth a thought in comparison? 
 
 That plan which looks calmly at all important 
 questions, which views them as related parts of a 
 great system which aims to give each one its due 
 regard of attention without sacrificing any, and carry 
 all forward to one grand termination, is safest in its 
 action and happiest in its results. 
 
 The present disposition to form new association is
 
 81 
 
 not checked, we shall have as many parties as there 
 are fancies in the human brain ; and the demand for 
 office bearers will be so great, that there will not be 
 suitable candidates enough to supply the market. 
 Some parties are reduced to such extremities, that 
 they begin to talk of manufacturing candidates al- 
 ready ; these have to be made to order like an article 
 of domestic furniture ; and the machinery is so im- 
 perfect that it does not always produce a valuable 
 commodity after all. 
 
 An unfortunate distinction is set up between moral 
 and political questions, to the undue disparagement 
 of the latter; and when a party has assumed a moral 
 question as the bond of its union and the basis of 
 action it so fills the vision, and touches the deep 
 springs of action and absorbs the interest of consci- 
 entious and religious men, that they can think of 
 nothing else ; and political questions in distinction 
 from moral, really of vast importance, are winked 
 out of sight and viewed with contempt. Just as if 
 political were not moral questions also -just as if 
 questions relating to tariffs and banks, have not 
 moral connections and bearings, as really, as those 
 which respect intemperance and gambling. The 
 great and vitally important questions, that have been 
 in dispute between the prominent political parties of 
 11
 
 82 
 
 the country, have been called mere questions of dol- 
 lars and cents, and regarded as perfectly insignificant 
 by some, compared with those moral and transcen- 
 dental questions which affect the freedom and rights 
 of man. But is not the right to dollars and cents 
 the right to property, a great human right ? and as 
 really a moral right as any other? The right to 
 property is so sacred and important as to be guarded 
 by one of the precepts of the decalogue. The ques- 
 tion of currency and banking and protection, a ques- 
 tion of dollars and cents ! But in this question of 
 dollars and cents are involved the regulation of trade 
 and human industry and the greater or less supply 
 of that which is necessary to satisfy animal wants, 
 to promote human comfort, to support the institutions 
 of learning and religion ; and in fact which affects 
 the physical, social, moral condition of the whole 
 country. Let those who have arrived at such lofty 
 heights, as to esteem questions of money insignifi- 
 cant in their character, try the experiment of living 
 without it. Let them supply their wants by moral- 
 ity ; let those electioneering candidates who have 
 such a contempt for dollars, take scraps of morality 
 for the emoluments of office ; and if, after a sufficient 
 trial, they prove themselves to be growing strong, 
 and well favoured, we will forswear the paltry trash
 
 83 
 
 of dollars and addict ourselves to the same spiritual 
 fare. 
 
 A remark made by an intelligent individual, in the 
 late elections, illustrates the feeling to which 1 
 have adverted. He was heard to exclaim, as he 
 saw the mighty masses moving towards the point of 
 congregation, "when shall we see such a gathering in 
 the cause of humanity ?" Were not those thousands 
 assembled in behalf of humanity ? Is not a wisely 
 administered government beneficial to the interests 
 of humanity ? Is not the choice of good rulers pro- 
 motive of the objects of humanity ? Are not the 
 great questions which occupy the attention of Con- 
 gress, and whose decision affects the well-being of 
 the whole nation, for ages, related to the concerns 
 of humanity? Perhaps we shall have a new party 
 organized to promote humanity an abstract entity 
 a refined product, distilled from human nature 
 an essence so sublimated and etherial, that it will 
 dispense with government and legislation, and live 
 on moral sentiment. 
 
 I shall omit another topic, the importance of pro- 
 moting the institutions of Christianity, as the great 
 perfecting agent of republican freedom ; this point 
 having received frequent notice in the previous parts 
 of the discourse, and proceed to the salutations of 
 the occasion.
 
 84 
 
 His Excellency the Governor will permit us to ex- 
 press our satisfaction in his election to the highest 
 office of the Commonwealth. Allow us to say, 
 sir, though at the risk of trespassing on the delica- 
 cies of the occasion, that it is fit that a community 
 so distinguished for the intelligence and repuhlican 
 virtue of its citizens, should be represented in the 
 person of its Chief Magistrate, hy one whose enlight- 
 ened patriotism, Christian integrity, and devotion to 
 the social improvement of the people, have earned 
 him a name above that which his honorable station 
 can confer. 
 
 Sir, we think it would be a most auspicious omen 
 for the preservation of American liberties, if we 
 could see the whole people make as wise a choice 
 of the public servants as that which was made by 
 Massachusetts in the late election of her highest ex- 
 
 o 
 
 ecutive officer. And we should feel that all our 
 concerns were safe under the management of those 
 for whose ability, fidelity, and disinterestedness we 
 could have such security as is affored the citizens by 
 the name of him to whom they have committed the 
 highest civil trusts of the Commonwealth. 
 
 His Honor the Lieutenant Governor, will grant 
 us the liberty of indulging in the gratified emotions 
 with which we behold his accession to the office
 
 85 
 
 which he so worthily fills. The people, sir, have 
 given proof of their capacity to appreciate general 
 uprightness of character, civil wisdom and experi- 
 ence, and the faithful performance of responsible du- 
 ties in other spheres of public life. 
 
 In the persons of the first and second magistrates, 
 of the Honorable Senators, and of the Representa- 
 tives of the State, we see those who have been cho- 
 sen to administer its affairs, and execute the high 
 functions of the rulers of a free people. 
 
 May the spirit of wisdom, of unalloyed patriotism, 
 of earnest consecration to the public duties, so per- 
 vade their hearts, and direct all their counsels and 
 measures, that a new illustration shall be given of 
 the beneficial operation of popular institutions, and 
 a new encouragement afforded to the hopes of those 
 whose anxious prayers are offered up for the estab- 
 lishment and perpetuation of our liberties to the 
 latest generation.
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 Santa Barbara 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW. 
 
 Series 9482