6 YFACILH 7 ^'N/VG..i-,Tr Off SAN Ufts^j iHt UNIVERSITY LIBRAR? mmsijy OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO LA JOLU, CALIFORNIA Historic Progress American Democracy AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY, SIXTY-FOURTH ANNIVERSABT, DECEMBER 16, 18G8, JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY. " Sed inter hominem et belluam hoc maxime interest . . . quort Eomo ra- tiocis est particeps, per quam consequentia cernit, causas rerum videt, earumque progressus et qnasi antecessiones non i^morat, similitudines comparat, et rcbu6 praeseutibus adj ungit atque annectit futuras."— Cic. de Off. i. 16. NEW-YORK : CHARLES SCRIBNER AND CO 654 BKOADWAY. iscy. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by THE NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New-Yorl£. John A. Gkat & Grebn, Printkes, 16 akd 18 Jacob Strect, Nkw-York. OFFICERS OF THE SOCIETY, 18G9. PRESIDENT, HAMILTON FISH, LL.D. FIRST VICE-PRESIDE>"r, THOMAS DE WITT, D.D. SECOXD VICE-PRESIDENT, GULIAN C. VERPLANCK, LL.D. FOREIGN CORRESPONDING SECRETARY, JOHN ROMEYX BRODHEAD, LL.D DOMESTIC CORRESPONDING SECRETARY, WILLIAM J. HOPPIN. EECORDING SECRETARY, ANDREW WARNER, TREASURER, BENJAMIN H. FIELD. LIBRARIAN, • GEORGE H. MOORE, LL.D. COMMITTEE OF ARRANGEMENTS SIXTY-FOURTH ANNIVERSARY. CHARLES P. KIRKLAND, WILLIAM CHAUNCET, WILLIAM T. BLODGETT, ANDREW WARNER, GEORGE H. MOORE. ADDRESS. I HAVE the honor of addressing the Histoiical So- ciety in the great Metropolis of the great Republic. These simple words suggest to me so wide a range of thought that you will pardon me if I do not dwell on local details of our history or of any history. I see before me an immense Result, and I would fain grope my way with such lantern as I can provide for myself towards causes whether distant or near. As I wandered yesterday, almost at random, through this magnificent city; as I marked the long sumptuous avenues of stone and marble houses, which seemed to multiply even while I looked upon them — as in tropical regions the strenuous, full vitalized vegetation, with its gorgeous blossoms, rampant vines, overshadowing foliage, expands in growth almost beneath the gazer's eye ; as I saw the innumerable steamers and ships which crowd your wharves, like moving woods and shifting palaces, forming an un- broken cliain of connection with every zone and clime ; as I moved tLrougli tlie crowded mart wliose slightest throb sends a pulsation through the world ; as I felt myself — a casual spectator — caught up and whirled along, almost against my will, on the im- petuous ra^^ids of this swift commercial life ; when I surveyed this million-headed monster stretching forth its feelers and feeders, its long lines of rail, river, and canal into the far distance, devouring for its daily needs the product of farm, forest, factory, and mine in every corner of the globe ; clutching in its ever-exj)anding arras, as each day rolls on, thousands of the forlorn, the adventurous, the out- cast, and lifting them out of misery into hope ; assimi- latino; all this discordant material into its o^vn flesh and blood with a swiftness which suggests an oc- casional doubt whether such violently digestive powers are quite natural or wholesome ; as I turned from these scenes of excitement to the stately j^arks — than which nothing more luxurious is to be found in older and imperial cities — to the frequent, splendid churches of every sect ; to the colleges, the libraries, the institutions of charity, of administration, of jus- tice ; as I looked upon and listened to this vast, resonant, vehement whole, I was opjoressed with a single thought — that all this is of To-Day. There is something at once startling and depressing in the rapidity with whicli this result has been reached. We talk of History. No man can more highly appreciate than I do the noble labors of your Society and of others in this country, for the pre- servation of memorials belonging to our brief but most important Past. We can never collect too many of them, nor ponder them too carefully, for they mark the era of a new civilization. But that interesting Past presses so closely upon our sight, that it seems still a portion of the Present ; the glimmering dawn preceding the noon-tide of to- day. I shall not be misunderstood, then, if I say that there is no such thing as human history. No- thing can be more profoundly, sadly true. The annals of mankind have never been written, never can be written; nor would it be within human capacity to read them if they were written. We have a leaf or two torn from the great book of human fate as it flutters in the storm- winds ever sweeping across the earth. We decipher them as we best can with purblind eyes, and en- deavor to learn their mystery as we float along to the abyss; but it is all confused babble, hierogly- phics of Avhich the key is lost. Consider but a moment. The island on wliicli this city stands is as perfect a site as man could desire for a great, commercial, imperial city. Byzantium, whicli the lords of the ancient world built for the capital of the earth ; which the temperate and vigorous Turk in the days of his stern military discipline plucked from the decrepit hands which held the sceptre of Caesar and Constantine, and for the sue cession to whicli the present lords of Europe are wrangling ; not Byzantium, nor hundred-gated Thebes; nor London, nor Liverpool, Paris, nor Mos- cow can surpass the future certainties of this thir- teen-mile long Manhattan, And yet it was Init yesterday — for what are tAVO centuries and a half in the boundless vista of the Past ? — that the Mohawk and the • Mohican were tomahawking and scalping each othef throughout these regions, and had been doing so for centuries ; when the whole surface of this island, now groaning under millions of wealth which oj^press the imagina- tion, hardly furnished a respectable hun.ting-ground for a single Sachem, in his war-2:>aint and moccasins, who imagined himself proprietor of the soil. But yesterday Cimmerian darkness ; primeval night. To-day, grandeur, luxury, wealth, poAver. I come not here to-night to draw pictures or pour forth dithy- rambics that I may gratify your vanity or my own, whether municipal or national. To appreciate the unexampled advantages bestowed by the Omni- potent upon this favored Kepublic, this youngest child of civilization, is rather to oppress the thought- ful mind with an overwhelming sense of responsi- bility ; to sadden with quick-coming fears ; to torture with reasonable doubts. The world's great hope is here. The future of humanity — at least for that cycle in which we are now revolving — depends mainly upon the manner in which we deal with our great trust. The good old times! Where and when were those good old times ? " All times when old are good," says Byron. "And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death," says the great master of morals and humanity. But neither fools nor sages ; neither individuals nor nations; have any other light to guide them along the track which all must tread, save that long glim- mering vista of yesterdays which grows so swiftly fainter and fainter as the present fades off into the past. And I believe it possible to discover a law out of all tliis apparently chaotic wliirl and bustle ; tliis tangled skein of liunian affairs as it spins itself througli the centuries. That law is ]3rogress — slow, confused, contradictory, but ceaseless development, intellectual and moral, of the human race. It is of Human Progress that I speak to-night. It is of Progress that I find a startling result when I survey the spectacle which the American Present displays. This nation stands on the point towards which other peoples are moving — the starting-point, not the goal. It has put itself — or rather Destiny has placed it — more immediately than other nations in subordination to the law governing all bodies poli- tical as inexorably as Kepler's law controls the mo- tions of the planets. The law is Progress ; the result Democracy. Nearly forty years ago tlie clear, philosophical mind of De Tocqueville was so impressed by this com- paratively infant Ilepublic, the phenomena of which he had examined witli microscopic minuteness and with statesman-like breadth of vision, that he ex- horted his countrymen and Euroj^e in general to accept the fact that democracy was the preordained condition of the human race — a condition to which the world was steadily tending — and to seek hap- piness in conforming to tlie divine command instead of wearing themselves out in futile struggles with the Inevitable. Circumstances, mainly due to now very obvious phenomena in the policy of this country to which the philosopher did not pay sufficient heed, have retarded the result ; but it is again signalling its approach with swiftly augmenting speed. Whether it be a bane or a blessing, it is all- important for us to aGcei)t and make the best of it. No man more thoroughly believes and rejoices in the fundamental truth on which our system is founded than I do ; but it is not to flatter nor exult that I allude to this foremost position which we occupy ; not entirely through our merits but mainly from the bounty of heaven. Sydney Smith once alluded, if I remember right- ly, to a person who allowed himself to speak disre- spectfully of the equator. I have a strong objection to be suspected of flattering the equator. Yet were it not for that little angle of 23°, 2f, 2G'', which it is good enough to make with the plane of the ecliptic, the history of this earth and of " all which it inherit " would have been essentially modified, even if it had not been altogether a blank. 8 " Some say he bid his angels turn askance The poles of eartli twice ten degrees and more From the sun's axle ; they with labor pushed Oblique the central globe .... to bring in change Of seasons to each clime, else had the spring Perpetual smiled on earth with verdant flowers Equal in days and nights, except to those Beyond the polar circles." Out of tlie obliquity of the equator lias come fortli our civilization. It was long ago observed by one of tlie most tlioughtful writers that ever dealt with human history, John von Herder, that it was to the gradual shading away of zones and alternation of seasons that the vigor and variety of mankind were attributaljle. Nothing good or great could ever come out of the eternal spring or mid- summer of the tropics, nor from the thick-ribbed winter of tlie poles. From the temperate zone, with its healthful and stimulating succession of seasons, have come civilization and progress.* But for this graceful inclination of our mother earth towards the sun as she revolves about that source of light and life — a dip which great Jupiter standing perpendicular on his plane disdains to make, * See Idecn znr GescMclde dcr Menschlieit. Iter Thcil, Ites Buch, S. iv. Herder's Siimmtliche Wcrke, 28ter Band. and doubtless causes liis cliildren to suffer wofully ill consequence — who can tell whether our places might not have been occupied by wandering savages or broods of speechless rej^tiles? It is certainly no merit of ours, however, that the earth makes this blessed angle, and as earth- men we may gratefully recognize our superiority to Jupiterians without being braggarts. And as Ameri- cans we have the right to rejoice — but with trembling — at the more fortunate conditions in which our po- litical orbit has been traced around that great central fact towards which all civilized bodies must turn. I have never remarked, moreover, that the nations , by whom our tendency to boastfulness is sometimes rebuked are absolutely overwhelmed with bashful- ness themselves, or ready to sink into the earth with shame when alluding to their own advan- tao-es or achievements. Self-assertion is the na- tural althouo:h not ens-ao-ino; characteristic of vis^or- ous and progressive peoples. It is sometimes as well to appreciate as to despise in national self- contemplation. And certainly we are never likely to pine for want of sharj) criticism on this or the other side of the water ; for if ever nation sur- vived perpetual vivisection, especially during the last half-dozen years, and grew fat and strong upon 10 it, tliat nation is America. Not a quivering muscle, not a thrilling nerve, even in moments of tension and agony, but has been laid bare before the world and serenely lectured upon by tlie learned doctors of Privilege; but when the long sigh of relief had been drawn from the spectators at the demonstrated death of Democracy, behold the monster on its feet again and very much more alive than ever. There is no reason then why we should shrink from our opinions, even if not entirely unfavorable to our national character or our national hopes. I honor the men of opinions and of courage to pro- claim them, and I deprecate neither the wrath nor the lamentations of the prophets of evil on either side the ocean. Men of genius and virtue have uttered boding shrieks from time to time and have done us excellent service. I trust sincerely that their voices may never grow too hoarse to croak for our good. And if I speak hopefully, even in regions where Mammon is supposed to be not entirely with- out votaries, " Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell From Heaven," it is because I know that the pursuit of riches in this country, maddening and often demoralizing though it be, has strengthened the energies of the 11 land, and tliat wealth has been poured forth like water at all times and seasons, whenever needed to save a nation, to encourage enterprise, relieve dis- tress, or foster Science and Art. Out of the vast reservoir the outflow has heen constant. If Midas has hathed in our Pactolus and Croesus incrusted himself all over in its golden waters, we know too that its perennial streams have fertilized the broadest prairies and the lowest depths of Humanity. I asked where and when were the good old times ? This earth of ours has been spinning about in space, great philosophers tell us, some few hundred millions of years. We are not very familiar with our prede- cessors on this continent. For the present, the oldest inhabitant must be represented here by the man of Natchez, whose bones were unearthed not long ago under the Mississippi bluffs in strata which were said to argue him to be at least one hundred thousand years old. Yet he is a mere modern, a parvenu on this planet, if we are to trust illustrious teachers of science, compared with the men whose bones and whose implements have been found in high moun- tain valleys and gravel-pits of Europe; while these again are thought by the same authorities to be descendants of races which flourished many year- thousands before, and whose relics Science is con- 12 fidently expecting to discover^ althougli the icy sea liad once engulfed them and their dwelling-places. We of to-day have no filial interest in the man of Natchez. He was no ancestor of ours, nor have he and his descendants left traces along the dreary track of their existence to induce a desire to claim relationship with them. We are Americans — but yesterday we were Euro- peans — Netherlanders, Saxons, Normans, Swabians, Celts— and the day before yesterday, Asiatics, Mon- golians, what you will. Go to the ancestral home of many of us. Strike into the busy heart of London with pick-axe and spade. Sink a shaft in the central ganglion of confused and thickly-crammed streets about Tower Hill and Thames Street, along which the ever accumulating mass of traffic has been rolling for a dozen centuries. And if you go deep enough, and excavate widely enough, you will find beautiful statues, tesselated pavements, mosaic pic- tures, pagan shrines — relics of that puissant Roman people who governed what they thought the world, when Britons were painted savages. Yet they never dreamed of the existence of that great American conti- nent where the man of Natchez and his race had been roaming hundreds of year-thousands before, but never producing temples nor pictures, statues nor fountains. 13 For what are Koman antiquities in England or anywhere else ? Many of ns trace back our ancestry to Beclfordsliire and Suffolk, and are never weary of tracking tlie footsteps of our pilgrim fathers in quiet villages and peaceful English scenery of two or three hundred years ago. Go back two or three hundred thousand years, and saunter on the margin of the Ouse, or through the primitive valleys of Bedford, and find your ancestors, as great naturalists inform us you will, contemporaries and companions of the mammoth and the woolly rhinoceros, the lion and the hyena."" Yet Ave talk of history because we can grope back- wards dimly and vaguely for a matter of thirty centuries, while those rude forefathers of ours have faded for ever from our chronicles. Men through all ages — other than those accepting the revelations of Holy Writ — have solaced or dis- tressed themselves with shadowy or whimsical fancies of a great beginning of tlie Universe and of them- selves ; but perhaps they had better pause in their theorizino; until the modern dauntless investiorators shall find in full fruition of their hopes, among the fossils of the pre-glacial period, some connecting * Sir Charles Lyell. Geological Fc'ulences of the xintiquity of Man. 2d edition. Murray, 1863. Pages 3V5-376. 14 antLropo-simial links, some precious relics of the ancient ancestral ape, and " Madly play with that great kinsman's bone As with a ckib," to smite all other theories to the earth. But even then we shall probably arrive at the same conclusion with the venerable Ephraim Jenkinson, in the " Vicar of Wakefield," who sold Moses a gross of green spec- tacles with copper rims, and told him at the same time " that the cosmogony or creation of the world had puzzled the philosophers of all ages." One thing is certain. Man is here. And another thing is equally certain : he has arrived at his present condition through a long series of improvements and developments. Placed on " this isthmus of a middle state," between two eternities, he looks backward with a curiosity half exultant, half loathing, and forward with a hope which is often akin to despair. To be created at once in likeness to the Omnipotent and to a fantastic brute ; to be compounded thus of the l)estial and the angelic, alternately dragged upward and do\vnward b}' conflicting forces, presses upon us the conviction, even without divine revelation, that this world is a place of trial and of j)rogress towards some higher spliere. But let the gorilla stand erect in frightful carica- ture of humanity. Weigh his brain and a Hottentot's 15 together in the same balance, if you choose, and find less difference between the two than between Hanni- bal's and a more southern African's. Until you can find a dumb animal endowed with the relio-ious faculty; who worships the Eternal Father on his knees; who has treasured in his heart the liojie of an immortal future ; who " looks before and after, and pines for what is not ;" you may be sure that the interval between Man and the ans-els will be crossed at a single leap sooner than the infinite sj^ace be- tween the brute and Man will be diminished by a hair's-breadth. All the inconceivable time since pri- meval Man before the glacial flood is but an hour's span compared to that wliich the brute must tra- verse before he can crawl even to the threshold of humanity. Nothing can betoken a weaker faith in Omnipotent love than to " sag with doubt " before the grand generalizations of science, for fear of for- feiting the grasp on immortality. If to survey the enormous progress already made does not encourage fiith in that eternal law, I know not of what element hope can be compounded. There is somethinsf in man alone wliich has weisrhed the heavenly bodies, measured their inconceivable dis- tances, marked the spot where lost worlds after year- thousands must reappear, prescribed the course in 16 wliicb. tlie planets wheel, expounded tlie laws whieli the universe obeys ; something which lias guided the almost divine iinger of the sculptor, the pencil of the painter to create visions more beautiful than Nature's self has revealed ; something which has in- spired the poet to raise his less gifted brethren into spheres of thought and emotion far above the visible world ; something which has produced from shape- less matter the Grecian temple, the Gothic cathedral, the Pacific Railroad; something which has nerved heroes to despise luxury and welcome death in the sacred cause of country ; something which ties the great sailor to the main-top, above the smoke of the conflict, that he may control his fleet and guide the battle, nor fall, even though he die, till victory is won ; something which chains the great soldier, despite of danger, oj^position, or censure, to one line, even if it takes all summer, ay, and all winter too, when Duty commands ; something which has enabled the scientific adventurer to confront for years, alone and almost forgotten, the jDerils of torrid, l)arbarous Africa, or the barriers which guard the frozen mys- teries of the Pole; something which has sustained thousands of obscure men and feeble women, as they were consuming by slow fire at the stake, when a word against what they believed religious truth 17 would have saved tliem. So long as liistory gamers such j^roofs of progress out of the lower depths, Man needs not to tremble lest the angelic part of him should be imperilled by his likeness to the brute. Language makes Man. The beast can chatter, roar, or bellow, but man cau speak. The child talks in fragments, and earlier languages are monosyllabic. A Chinese Dr. Johnson would be impossible. He would perish for want of poly- syllables. If it had not been for the tower of Babel, we should have been sj^ared much superfluous trouble ; for although we are all sj^eaking very choice Aryan at bottom, Ave find it difficult to converse fluent- ly with each other in that tongue, or even in the more modern Sanscrit, which we are told by great scholars — no doubt with accuracy — is essentially English, French, German, or Greek. It is also an awful thought that languages per- haps cannot live unless they are stone dead. Cicero or Demosthenes might take his stand on any plat- form to-day and be reported in the papers for a classically educated public; but should King Alfred come from his toml), like the elder Hamlet, to re- veal important secrets, he would find no living soul, 18 save a professor or two, tliroiigliout his ancient realms, to comprehend his warnings. The great German of all, from whom the race is fancied to derive its name — Herman, Arminius, War- Man, Ger-Man — the patriot who smote Varus in the Frisian sw^amps, and caused Augustus to shrielc through his marble halls for his legions, would l^e unintelligible to his Fatherland should he come forth to make a sj^eech on the Schleswig-Holstein question, to the National, Patriotic, German Union of to-day.* We celebrated Shakespeare's third century four years ago. Let another half a dozen centuries go l)y, and perhaps there will be none to philoso- phize with Hamlet, or weep over the sorrows of Lear. Shakespeare himself may l^ecome as mythical as either of those princes whom he seems to have endowed with immortality, and some future Wolf may divide him into a score of ballad-mongers. It is a dreary possibility, at least, that unless the An- glo-Saxon race dies out after a few centuries, the accretions and transmutations of language may make those wonderful dramas as obsolete as the odes of the Kymri, or the lays of Llewellyn. * See Lyell. Antiquity of Man. Chap, xxiii. pp. 454-470. f Ibid. 19 If a Somersetsliire peasant needs but three liun- dred words out of the hundred and fifty million now perhaps in use on this planet, how much of human vocabulary can be saved by poets, philoso- phers and men of business from desuetude, as Time rolls remorselessly away ? Man, as far back as we know or imagine him, could speak, but it was long before he learned his letters, without which accomplishment erudition is apt to be limited. At last schoolmaster Cadmus came out of the East— as is the habit of school- masters — and brought sixteen counters in his pocket, which he had picked up among the Pelasgians. The schoolmaster being abroad at last, progress became rapid enough. For in truth what human invention can compare with that of the Alphabet? It is no wonder that Cadmus Avas pronounced not only a king's son, but allied to the immortals. " Founders of states and lawgivers," says Lord Bacon, " were honored with the titles of demigods ; but inventors were ever consecrated among the gods themselves." And if heathen mythology still pre- vailed, what a Pantheon we should have in the Patent Office at Washington ! After the almost infinite space already traversed by Mankind, at last something like Tradition, Record, 20 Monumental History began. Tlie civilization of Egypt is a parenthesis between two barbarisms ; the present wandering tribes of the Delta having inherit- ed no more culture from the Pharaohs and the Pto- lemies than did those royal lines from the savages who preceded them, And contemporaneous with the epoch of Egyptian and Hebrew grandeur there was a siege — so men say — of a city in Asia Minor, and it chanced that a blind man, if lie was a man and was blind, sang some songs about it. Wonderful power of poetic genius! Tlie leading personages in that war, their passions and sentiments, the minute details of their costume, the color of their hair and eyes, the names of their soldiers and their shi})s, their habits of social life, the scenery surrounding them, the daily military and household events of that insignificant quarrel, are almost as familiar in this remote liemi- sphere to-day as the siege of Vicksburg, with all its heroic, picturesque, and passionate circumstance, and its momentous consequences for all time. And out of the confusion of songs, monuments, and records, there comes at last a glimmer of chrono- logy. There was once a cook in Athens. Whether he w\as skilful or not in the kitchen is unknown, but he was swift of foot. He ran a race at the 21 Olymj^ic Games; liis name was tlie first to be re- corded as victor on the arcliives of tliose festivals ; and accordingly the subsequent history of Gi-eece, with all her heroes, poets, sages, is registered from the Olym- piad in which Coroebus won his race. Truly, says Sir Thomas Browne, " the iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppies, and deals wdth the memories of men without regard to merit of jierpetuity." Strangely enough, too, the date of this first regis- tered 01ym2:)iad has a sacred but familiar sound in our ears. It was 776 before Christ ; 1776 years after Christ another epoch was established, from which this great Republic dates its records; a day on which equal rights were j)roclaimed as the heri- tage of mankind ; a nobler era for the world than any that cooks or racers are ever likely to establish. At exactly the same period with Corcebus — as chronoloo-ists have settled it amono; themselves — there was a certain she-wolf in an Italian swamp, with a pair of j^romising foster-children ; and, as we all have read in the story-books, the foster-children founded a city, which has had much influence for good and evil upon the cause of human progress. The orbit of civilization — so far as our perishing records enable us to trace it — seems preordained from East to West. China, India, Palestine, Egypt, 22 Greece, Rome, are successively lighted up as tlie majestic orb of day moves over them ; aud as lie ad- vances still further through his storied and mysterious zodiac, we behold the shadows of evening as surely falling on the lands which he leaves behind him. Religion, poetry, aesthetic art, have already ennobled the progress of Man. What would the world have been without Palestine ? What present idea of human civilization would be possible without the poetry, sculpture, architecture, the magnificent drama, the sub- tle, lofty, almost divine philosophy of Greece ; without the imperious and cruel nationalism, the all-surpass- ing military art, the colossal self-esteem, the cynic ma- terialism, the massive, sharply-chiselled j uris2:)rudence, which made Rome the mistress of the world? Dead Athens shines there for ever — not a constel- lation, but a whole universe of lustre — with the milky way of her exquisite, half nebulous fables; with the pure starry liglit of her fixed and un- changing truth — illuminating vast sj^aces of ol)SCur- ity before and since her brief mortal existence. Rome, both in ]wv military and legal glor\', and in her shameful and cr.'ipulous decre])itude, remains a per- petual memory to encourage human progress, and to warn from the dangers of luxury, ambition, and in- effable disdain of hunum rights by which she justly perished. 23 And tlien came tlie wandering of the nations; tlie northern deluge. Eome sank miserably beneath the glacial flood, which like that in early geologi- cal ages, had become necessary in tlie grand scheme of civilization. Surely the Koman world had need of submergence and of ice. And at last as the del- uge subsided, Germany had conquered Eome, and the new civilization began. But a low civilization at best. The passionate rising for freedom, the great mutiny against Eome, resulted only in new and heterogeneous forms of despotism. Man made progress still, for lie had been born again out of death into life, but the People did not exist, nor were there indications of its birth. Europe became a camp on conquered territory. The iron-clad man on horseback divided the ^vliole soil among his captains and corporals ; the multitudes were throttled and made to ^vear the collar of serfdom, marked with their owners' names ; land-robbers and filibusters became kings and princes by grace of God — which meant the steel-gloved fist ; the feudal system was established, and poetry, romance, gro- velling legend and sycophantic chronicle have spread a halo around the perpetual crime even unto our own days. Do what you will, even in this dis- tant land and age, you can not entirely remove. 24 as yet, tlie tenacious fil^res from that foreign root wliicli are twisted into our law, Listory, literature, into our social and political being. Man still reeled on — falling, rising again, stagger- ing forward witli hue and cry at his heels — a wounded felon daring to escape from the prison to which grace of God had inexorably doomed him. And still there was progress. Besides the sword, two other instruments grew every day more potent — the pen and the purse. The power of the pen soon created a stupendous monojioly. Clerks obtained j)i"ivnlege of murder be- cause of their learning; a Norman king gloried in the appellation of "fine clerk" because he could spell ; the sons of serfs and washerwomen became high pontiffs, put their feet on the neck of emperors, thi'ough the might of education, and appalled the souls of tyrants w^ith their weird anathemas. Na- turally, the priests kej^t the talisman of learning to themselves. How should education help them to power and pelf if the people could participate in the mystic spell ? The icy Dead-liand of the Church, ever extended, was filled to overflowing by tremljling baron and superstitious hind. The fairest valleys, the richest plains, the noblest forests of Europe were clutclied by the comfortable friars in perpetual mortmain. 25 But there Avas anotlier power steadily aiigment- ino- tlie magic purse of Fortuuatus with its clink of petennial gold. Commerce changed clusters of hovels, cowering for protection under feudal castles, into powerful cities. Burghers wrested or purchased liberties from their lords and masters. And at last there were leagues of municipalities, chains of com- mercial republics in all but name, stretched across Christendom, and tripping up tyranny at every turn. Liberties in the plural, not liberty of man ; con- cessions to corporations from the iron fist, from grace of God, in exchange for coin or in repara- tion of buffets. And still Man struggled on. An experimenting friar, fond of chemistry, in one corner of Europe, put nitre, sulphur, and charcoal together; a sexton or doctor, in another obscure nook, carved letters on blocks of wood ; and lo ! there were explosions shaking the solid earth, and causing the iron-clad man on horseback to reel in his saddle. It was no wonder that Dr. Faustus was supposed to have sold his soul to the fiend. Whence but from devilish alliance could he have derived such power to strike down grace of God ? The military encampment had secured all ter- ritory to the crown ; the pen had given control 2G of the human mind to the Chm"ch ; floating capital was locked up in the strong-box of corporations. Man had made progress, but everywhere the People was submerged; pursuing its monotonous and dark- ened course, destined to gloomy servitude almost beneath the reach of hope ; with encampments, establishments, corporations, piled upon it mountains high. But Sacerdotalism, political Priesthood, reigned too long and went too far. Auction sales of indul- gences, for every j^o^^ible and imaginable crime, had been too audacious ; Christian temples had gro\vn too gorgeous on the proceeds of remitted sin ; the balefid splendor which had grown out of the putrescence of the traffic had become too noisome an exhalation for the human mind to endure. There was a reformation. But it was only a leap into the liglit. It was not a mere difference of creed and dogma. Good Catholics and virtuous men were as much offended at heart l)y Borgianism, as Luther or Calvin had been. It was not an up- rising against the Church, 1)ut against the prostitu- tion of the Cliurch to temporal purposes. Much good was accomj)lished, both in the ancient and tlie new establishments, but freedom of religion was 27 scarcely dreamed of; mutual toleration was account- ed a crime. Priesthood was triumphant after all, for Church and State maintained their incestuous union. The people obtained new creeds if their masters professed one, or remained with the ball and chain of ancient dogma rivetted to their limbs, if their masters remained faithful to that. Whoever governs you, his religion shall be yours ! Cujus regio^ ejus religio. Were ever more blasphe- mous and insulting words hurled in the face of mankind ? Yet this was accepted as the net result of the Reformation, so far as priests and princes could settle the account. This was the ins-euious com- promise by which it was thought possible to re- move thje troublesome question of religion for ever from the sphere of politics. Cujus regio^ ejus religio! Could it be doul)ted that the ancient Church would seize this weapon from the Protestant hands which had forged it, and smite every people with it that stniggled for eman- cipation? Not freedom of religion, but freedom of princes to prescribe religion to their slaves — iov this so many tens of thousands had died on the battle- field, or been bunied, and buried alive ! And it was sincerely hoped and believed that 28 humanity could be thus remanded to its dungeon, buifeted, flouted, jeered out of its rights, and the padlock placed for ever on the immortal mind. And truly to those Avho reckon history by the year, who find the record of man's progress only in political annals, how dreary must seem our fate ! What can be more monotonous than the dull cata- logue of kings, princes, and priestly or courtly poli- ticians, with their palace revolutions, insipid cere- monials, and ghastly chronicles of murderous wars for i^etty questions, as whether Charles or Ferdinand, Louis or Peter, shall sit on this throne, restore that province, or esj)ouse this princess? Unless w^e hold fost to the fact, tliat in human as in physical history, Nature is ever patiently pro- ducing her effects through long lapses of time, l)y causes which have been in operation since the be- ginning, History is but another word for despair. But history is never hysterical, never j^roceeds l)y catastrophes and cataclysms ; and it is only by I'e- membering this that Ave can comprehend its higher meaning. To discover the great intellectual law prescribed by the Creator is tlie science of history. To induce mankind to conform to that law is tlie science of politics. 29 The great mutiny against sacerdotal Rome, which we call the Keformation, even like the universal revolt against imperial Kome a thousand years be- fore, which we call the wandering of the nations, had been balked of its loo-ical result. The first mutiny established the Feudal system over the people ; the second strengthened Church and military government by confirming instead of dissolving the connection between the two. But now another talisman was to change the face of the world ; for the great discoveries are apt to leap from the highly electrified brain of Man at identical epochs. Christojjher Columbus, confiding in his own stout heart and the mariner's compass, sailed forth on unknown seas, and behold America ! Here was the chief event thus far recorded in hu- man progress, as Time, in its deliberate patience, was one day to prove. Speech, the Alphabet, Mount Sinai, Egypt, Greece, Rome, Nazareth, the wandering of the nations, the feudal system. Magna Cliarta, gunpowder, printing, the Reformation, the mariner's compass, America — here are some of the great landmarks of human motion. As we pause for a moment's rest, after our raj^id sweep through the eons and the centuries, have we 30 not the riglit to record proof of man's progress since tlie days of tlie rhinoceros-eaters of Bedford- shire, of tlie man of Natchez ? And for details and detached scenes in the gene- ral phantasmagoria, which has been ever shifting before us, we may seek for illustration, instruction, or comfort, in any age or Land where authentic record can be found. We may take a calm sur- vey of passionate, democratic Greece in her great civil war through the terse, judicial narrative of Thucydides ; we may learn to loathe despotism in that marvellous portrait-gallery of crime w^hich the som- l)re and terrible Tacitus has bequeathed ; we may cross the yawning abysses and dreary deserts which lie between two civilizations over that stately via- duct of a thousand arches w^hich the great hand of Gibbon has constructed ; w^e may penetrate to the inmost political and social heart of England, during a period of nine years, by help of the magic wand of Macaulay; we may linger in the stately portico to the unlniilt dome which the daring genius of Buckle consumed his life in devising ; we may yield to the sweet fascinations wdiich ever dwell in the picturesque i:>ages of Prescott ; avc may investigate rules, apply and ponder examples; but the detail of history is essentially a blank, and nothing could be 31 more clisoial tlian its pursuit unless tlie mind be filled by a broad view of its general scheme. But wbat concerns us most nearly at present is the actual civilization of Europe and America. Europe and America — twin sisters — the one long hidden in entranced sleep within ^^I'ii^^val forests, while the other was slowly groping its way along the path of j^rogress ; yet both indissolubly connected by an ever palpitating bond. In the fulness of time, after so many errors, crimes, and disappointments, civilization seemed to find a fresh field for its endeavors, as the discovery of this continent revealed a virgin world. It is impossible to imagine a more fortunate position than that occuj^ied by this Republic. Na- ture has done its best, and it is not for physical advantages alone that she should be ever grateful. i All the exj^erience of the old world, all its acqui- sitions, all its suiferings, all its beacons of warning are for our benefit. Feudal System, Divine Right, are essentially as dead figments here as the laws of Lycurgus or Draco. Religion can be honestly and ardently cherished because priesthood is deprived of political power. Universal education, the only pos- sible foundation of human freedom, is the easiest duty, because the Church is powerless to arrogate a function which it can never discharge. 32 To be rid of the cumbrous macliiiiery of military conquest, to have escaped from all the grand Lamas into whom the soul of the great Schaka successively passes, enduing them with infallibility and omni- science, to have forgotten many of these worn-out traditions of Europe and Asia, is a boon for which America ought to be daily upon her knees. The great inventions making democracy on an im- perial scale possible; representation by rule of three, the steam-engine, the telegraph, the free school, and that immense instrument of civilization, the daily press, had been waiting to be perfected until she could show their value on a colossal scale. For in time a new term would have to be inven- ted for what men call civilization and polity. From civitas — city, civilization, civility ; from 2^olis — poli- tics, politician, polit}^ — always from the city had grown empire as in antiquity, or by the city had been wrested liberties as in media3val times. Culture was ever of the town, " townish. But here a vast empire had been waiting for its empty S2:)aces to be peopled, three millions of miles with never a town on its surface. Clearly the phenomenon was a new one and culture here could only mean Democracy. But to the solemn birthday of the infant Ame- rica, around whose cradle, obscure as it was, so 33 many good spirits had invisibly clustered, one malig- nant fairy had not been bidden, and her name was Privilege. And even as in the story-book she sent a curse to avenge the slight. Almost on that natal day — we know the tale too well, and have had cause to ponder it bitterly — came the accursed bark with its freight of victims from unhappy Africa, and Privilege had silently planted in this virgin soil the seeds of her future sway. It was an accident — if any thing can be called ac- cidental in the grand scheme of Creation — yet out of that grain of mustard-seed was one day to sprout an evil to overshadow this land; to poison with its deadly exhalations the vigorous atmosphere of free- dom. Oligarchy grew up and held its own, side by side with Democracy — until the time came for de- ciding whether the one principle or the other was in conformity with the eternal law. Chemistry resolves the universe into a few ingre- dients. What, for example, is a man? Take a little hydrogen and oxygen, nitrogen and carbon, potash, lime, and sulphur, Avith a pinch or two of salt ; and there is your hero or your prize-fighter; your Plato or your Washington. And political chemistry is no less subtle and rapid in its analysis. Oligarchy is resolved into the same gaseous vapors on one side 34 the ocean and the other. So soon as it was demon- strated that the Slave power rested on Divine Right ; so soon as it was ascertained on authority that the Bible ordained not negro slavery merely, bnt hnman slavery without distinction of color; so soon as it had been proclaimed that " the Bible argu- ment in favor of slavery was its sheet-anchor ;" so soon as it had been categorically stated at the South, " that slavery is just, natural, and necessary, and that it does not depend on difference of color ; " so soon as the new Evangel had announced that " the experiment of uni- versal liberty had failed, that the evils of free society are insufferable, and that policy and humanity alike forbade the extension of its evils to new peoples and coming generations," and that " there was no solution of the great j^roblem of reconciling the interests of caj)ital and labor so simple and effective as to make the laborer himself capital" — in all which statements I am only quoting literally from eminent slave-power authority — it became obvious that the identity of Privilege, whether cis- or trans-Atlantic, was perfect. Grace of God, Kiglit Divine, property in mankind claimed by human creatures superior to mankind, mili- tary dominion, political priesthood — what are all these but the nitrogen, hydrogen, carbon, lime, and potash out of which Privilege is always compounded ? Yet this great, innocent, ingenuous American De- mos rubbed its eyes with astonishment — as its great fight with Oligarchy began — to find no tears run- ning down the iron cheek of Privilege. Why, Pri- vilege would have been an idiot if it had wept in sympathy with the Demos. Nothing but the sancta simpUcitas of perfect confidence in the right, nothing but the conviction that the Declaration of Indepen- dence reaffirmed the statutes of the Omnipotent could have explained the popular delusion. Slavery and serfdom have been abolished throuo^hout Eu- roj)e, but so long as the soil of many great emj^ires belongs to an exquisitely small minority of the in- habitants, are not Wamba the Witless and Gurth the Swineherd almost as much born thralls to their master as if his collar were still upon their necks ? "Patriotism," said Samuel Johnson, at the epoch of our war of Independence, "is the last refuge of a scoundrel." His parents believed, you remember, in the right divine of a queen's finger to cure the scrofula. And there has been a series of Dr. John- sons from his day to ours, all over Europe, to de- nounce patriots and rej^ublicatis, especially when they are causing interruptions to trade. So close an electric chain unites America and Europe, so instan- taneous are their action and retroaction, that the 36 American civil war, at least in Western Europe, be- came as mucli an affair of passionate party feeling as if it were raging on that side tlie Atlantic. "I had no idea," said a very eminent statesman to John Bright, on two different occasions, "how mnch in- fluence the example of that Eepublic was having upon public opinion in England until I discovered the universal congratulation that the Republic was likely to be broken up." And yet, strange to say, in spite of the breathless interest with which the result and tlie daily details were watched for, it would be difficult to exagge- rate the ignorance enwrapping the general mind of Europe as to the merits and meaning of the conflict. In popular periodicals and lectures of to-day you may learn much of the bays, rivers, inlets, oceans, and continents of the planet Mars ; and if inclined for a vacation excursion, and could you find a con- veyance thithei', you might easily arrange a tour in that planet, starting from Huggin's Inlet and sailing thirty thousand miles along one of its very conveni- ent estuaries without ever losing sight of land. I know not whether the Martians have accepted the nomenclature of Dawes Continent, Table-Leg Bay, and the other designations laid down on their planet by the spirited geographers of ours ; but at least they 87 miglit be flattered did tliey know of the interest they excite on this eartli. Perliaj^s, however, if they knew what was said of them here, they might be almost as much amazed as we used to be in America at the wonderful dis- coveries made by Euroj^e concerning our politics, geography, history, statistics, national character, con- stitution, and condition during the late civil war. It was not that light was impossible. The thinkers and the workers were never misled ; the brains and the bone and muscle of Europe were in the right place. Without mentioning; other illustrious names which might be cited, I will remind you but of this. There was one man in England — greatest and truest of all — who made our cause his own through good report and l)ad re^^ort, ^vhose voice found an echo in every patriotic heart in this country, and whose intellect shone like the sun throus^h the mists of passion and prejudice obscuring the cause of liberty ; a statesman whose public speeches will be always treasured on either side the ocean as models of eloquence ; and whose simple Anglo-Saxon name will be always dear to lovers of liberty in future times as in the present. You know already that I mean John Bright. And the great conflict went on while the world 38 stood wondering. Xever in liiiman liistory lias there been sucli a battle with such a stake. It was not for territory, empire, power. It was not merely for the integrity of jthis vast rei^ublican heritage. These things, though 2:)recious, are of little worth compared to the sacred principle concerned in the struo-ojle. For it was to be decided whether the great law of liistory which we have been trac- inir was a truth or a lie ; whether the human race has been steadily although slowly progressing or whether we have been fatally drifting back to Chaos. For surely if freedom is an evil from which society, new or old, is to be saved and slavery the great remedy and the great hope for the world, the only solution of j^olitical problems, then is the science of history the most contemptible of all ima- ginable studies. It was not a question for Ame- rica but for the world. The toilino; multitudes of the earth are interested in the fate of this great republic of refuge, which receives and ])rotects the oppressed of every race. " My countrymen who work for your living," said John Bright, at Bir- mingham, in I8G0, " I'emember this, there will be one wild shriek of freedom to startle all mankind if that Republic should be overthrown." But the game was fought out, and both v/inners and los- 39 ers are the gainers. The South, while deeming itself to have lost all save honor, will be more prosperous than it ever dreamed of ere a generation of mankind shall have passed away. Let its "bruised arms be hung up for monuments," along with the trophies of the triumphant North ; for the valor, the endurance, and self sacrifice were equal on both sides, and the defeated party was van- quished because neither pride of color nor immortal hate can successfully struggle against the inexorable law of Freedom and Progress. I have spoken much of America. The politi- cal aftairs of its sister Europe are at this mo- ment in a more fluid state than usual. The ef- fect of the triumph of freedom in this country on the cause of progress in Europe is plain; but it would be impossible in the limits of this address to take a survey of the whole field. It seems natural, however, to glance at that political and social heart of Europe — Germany. Ever since the great rising for freedom against the Roman em- pire, down to this hour, Germany has been the main source of European and American culture. The common mother of nations and empires— alma mater felix ^^ro/c— she still rules the thought of her vast brood of children; Franks, Goths, 40 Saxons, Lombards, Normans, Netlierlanders, Ameri- cans — Germans all. Her Gothic branches in the fifth and sixth centuries sweeping to and fro over the extinct Koman empire from the Ultima Thule of Britain to the confines of Asia, overlaying and con- trolling the Latin, Celtic, Sclavonic provinces and tribes ; her energetic Norman branch of pirates, seating themselves afterwards with such happy audacity on every throne in Europe, from the Wil- liams and Henrys of the North to the Rogers, Tancreds, Godfreys, and Baldwins of the South and East, from the Rurics of Russia to the Roderics of Spain ; everywhere in high places and low, all-con- quering Germany has stamped our civilization with her impress and bequeathed to modern languages the treasures of her ample and varied dialects. Europe, essentially homogeneous in its upper strata, might have been a united nation a thousand years ago, had Science been sufiiciently advanced to make Union and Democracy possible or even conceivable. But disintegration was the preliminary process by which the ground was prepared for new culture. Everywhere separation into small national group- ings was the initial characteristic of European his- tory. Seven German kingdoms in Avhat we now call England ; as many independent dukes and 41 sovereigns in present France ; a dozen kings in Spain ; in Italy ; hundreds of tliem in Germany proper ; a plurality of sovereignties, in short, in all the districts of Christendom ; thus was Europe broken into hostile and discordant fragments. And the tendency to imite these jarring sovereignties into a few solid masses has marked her later history. A thousand years ago there was a Heptarchy in half the little island of Britain. Now, Europe itself is hardly more than a Heptarchy. It is fortunate for civilization that Charlemagne's attempt did not succeed, because at that stage of intellectual advancement. Progress was of necessity sporadic and intermittent. Being regarded as a dis- ease, it was dealt with for centuries by heroic re^ medies — fire and sword — vigorously applied by tlie military and sacerdotal doctors who controlled the body politic. The new empire was a splendid failure, and that essential portion of it, Germany, was soon shivered into many fragments of sovereignty. Un- der the Golden Bull, five hundred years ago, the seven electors of the emperor acquired complete sovereignty within their own dominions. Three cen- turies later, when the shameful peace of Westphalia had at last ended that conflict of demons, which we call the Thirty Years War, the disunion of Germany 42 was completed. More than three hundred sovereign- ties were established over the unhappy land. State- rights symbolized in dynasties of every imaginable size — from kingdoms with one hundred thousand perma- nent troops to principalities with, standing armies of half a dozen men apiece — were enjoyed to the full. As an inevitable consequence, Germany was perpetu- ally exposed to domestic intrigue and foreign inva- sion. Over the three hundred and seven indepen- dent sovereigns reigned an emperor enjoying the privilege of issuing orders which none of them heeded, and of governing despotically his ancestral possessions, too feeble to resist tyranny. Such was " the holy Roman empire " — an appel- lation which, as Voltaire remarked, was open to criticism on three points. It was not holy, was not Roman, and was not an empire. With those ex- ceptions, the description was perfect. The people were ground to powder and kept in microscopic divisions of territory which had neither the dignity of monarchy nor the freedom of rejiublicanism. A net-work of sovereign and independent custom-houses and forts at every turn as tliick as mile-stones, an intolerable confusion of debased and detestable currencies, strangled commerce and impeded circula- tion, while the great Gei'man heart, yearning for 43 union and nationality, and for freedom, the legitimate child of both, grew sick with hoj)e deferred. After nearly two centuries more had passed away, the Congress of Vienna, as part of the little good that it accomplished for humanity, at least much diminished the catalogue of petty princes in Ger- many. Three hundred and odd of them went up to that political guillotine, and only thirty-five escaped with life. The Germanic Confederation, a league of sovereigns called in the vernacular the Bund, was set up in place of the defunct empire, and conducted itself with much pomp until its power of standing alone should be tested. Magnificent in its deportment towards the lesser powers of Ger- many, and especially towards the people, whose existence it never recognized, it was on its knees whenever the great empire or the great kingdom — Austria or Prussia — wore a frowning face. Meantime the German Demos, striving after union and strength, had partially achieved, under the lead of Prussia, a Customs' Union. The National league, filled with larger ideas of union, resolved, as an ex- emplification of a princij^le, to free the German in- habitants of Schleswisi-Holstein from the Danish crown. The two great jiowers took the war into their own hands. Else had Democracy taken the u bit into its teeth. Tlie Sclileswig-Holstein war was soon over. The provinces were taken from Den- mark. Then followed the dispute for the booty. The rest of the story is familiar. The seven weeks war and the peace of Prague — which passed all un- derstanding — for behold, when the smoke was clear- ed away, not only was Austria excluded from Ger- many, but even her allies in the defunct Bund — the southern states — had accepted, by treaty, the military and commei'cial supremacy of Prussia. Thus another immense stride had been made toward Ger- man unity. In 1648, more than three hundred sove- reignties. In 1815, three dozen. In 1866, with ex- ception of the Germanic possessions of Austria, essen- tially and practically one. How much has liberty gained by this pro- gress ? Time will show that progress and liberty are identical. It is impossible that the success of Prussia is to end in the establishment of one great military empire the more. The example and the retroaction of America ; the success liere of freedom and progress — forbid that result. The great statesman of Prussia is distinguished for cour- age, insight, breadth of vision, iron will, and a warm and steadfast heart. Ilis genius consists in the in- stinctive power of governing by conforming to the 45 spirit of the age. No man knows better tlian Bis- marck, to read the signs of the times. Small is the chance of Desj^otism in these latter days to stem the Rapids. She may utter dismal shrieks, but shoot Niagara she must. The present government of Austria has nobly placed itself on the right road out of great perplexities. Numerous individual deeds of loiightly valor worthy of the age of chivalry ; loyal devotion to antique but sacred ideals ; above all, a spontaneous and signal benevolence manifested by all classes, after the war ; from highest to humblest — converting the jDalaces of great nobles, the mansions of burghers and cottages of the peasant, into hospitals, where the sick and wounded were tenderly ministered to ])y fair and loving hands — could not arrest the inexorable march of events. The brief history of constitutionalism in that empire is full of instruction. The experiment has been a triple one — centralism, federalism, dual- ism. The realm is an agglomerate of many distinct nationalities, scattered through ten kingdoms, and more than thirty duchies or other princi2')alities. The little river Leytlia is the boundary between the hereditary provinces of Habsburg and the triune realm of the holy Stephen — consisting of Hungary, Transylvania, and Croatia — but commonly called the 46 kingdom of Hungary. Croatia, again, is a triad, com- posed of Croatia, Sclavonia, and Dalmatia. After the revolt of 1848-9 had been suppressed, a constitution for the whole Austrian empire was promulgated, whieli, after remaining a dead letter for a couple of years, was repealed. Meantime the ancient, aristocratic constitution of Hungary — which the imperial lawyers had declared forfeit throu2:h her revolt, Ijut the leo-al continu- ity of which she steadily maintained, during the long period of martial law and absolutism which ensued — had received 2:reat accessions of the demo- cratic principle during the revolutionary year, espe- cially in the autonomy secured to the towns, and by the provision that the Diet should never be dissolved until it had tlioroughly discussed and accepted budgets and tax-laws laid before it by the crown. The seventeen Cis-Leythan provinces, making up what is called the West Half of the empire, had never possessed a constitution at all. They had provincial diets, quarter-sessions of mag- nates and burghers, to talk of provincial affairs, but without legislative functions. After the war of 1859, it became obvious that the people must participate in the government of the empire. The sj^irit of the age Avas too urgent 47 to be resisted. The right of the Austrian people to representation and legislation was accordingly announced in general terms by the October Diplo- ma of 1860, and an elaborate constitution was pro- claimed in the following February. A central Par- liament or Reichsrath was established for the whole empire, consisting of a House of Peers and of a Re- presentative Chamber, chosen, somewhat as United States Senators are elected, for six years, and by the provincial diets. The Parliament began its sessions, and was hailed with ' great enthusiasm by the Ger- manic element throughout the West Half But beyond the Leytha, Hungary scorned the new constitution, stiffly maintained the continuity of her own, and re- fused, to merge her legal and historical indej^endence in the central imperial system newly promulgated. Military government continued accordingly through- out the triune realm of St. Stephen as before. Mean- time the Schmerlino; o-overnment at Vienna adminis- tered affairs ; the 120 seats designed for the members from Hungary remaining vacant. " We can wait," said Minister Schmerling. " We too can wait," replied the Hungarians. And they won the waiting game. In September, 1865, the Schmerling cabinet fell, the February Constitution was suspended by Impe- rial edict, the experiment of centralism was acknow- 48 ledged to have failed, and a cabinet founded on wliat is called federalism was formed. Federalism was to consist mainly in enlarging the powers of the provincial diets for consultative and financial j)urj)oses, and in coming to an arrangement with Hungary by means of moderate concessions. The system to be adopted was essentially aristo- cratic, founding itself on state rights, and on the fortification of prerogative against democratic inva- sion. The Diet of Hungary was summoned once more to listen to terms of compromise. As soon as assembled, the Magyars were found as faithful as ever to the crown of St. Stephen, as indifferent to all other crowns on the brow of their monarch. Not a thought was admitted of swerving from the ancient constitution, nor from the famous statutes, already alluded to, of 1849, by which it had been so thoroughly liberalized. The conciliatory rescripts of the Crown were answered in respectful terms by the addresses of the Diet — papers glowing with elo- quence, splendid with almost oriental imagery, fervid with strictly Hungarian patriotism, merciless both in law and logic. The debates following the address were of the same character ; for the brilliant rhetoric which had been imprisoned in the enforced silence of those eighteen years seemed to pour forth all at 49 once in passionate and endless strains, like the frozen music in the famous traveller's bngle wlien it be- gan to thaw before the genial blaze. The life and soul of the Diet was Francis Dedk, a man born in the middle classes, a practising lawyer, of moderate fortune, mth no personal aims, and of surpassing forensic ability, wielding by the power of genius and integrity an almost despotic sway over the proudest aristocracy in the world. The interchange of rescripts from the Crown, re- fusing restoration of the Hungarian constitution with- out previous revision, and of addresses from the Diet, refusing revision of it, even to the ninth part of a hair — includino; the democratic statutes of 1849, and laws legalizing disobedience to the Crown, should it contravene the great charter, went on for several months, until the Prussian war brought the debates to a sudden close. So soon as it was over, the Hungarian Diet was once more convened. Baron Beust, a states- man of quick intellect, large political experience, ready eloquence with tongue and pen, imperturb- able temper, and immense power of work, who had long been administrator of the little kingdom of Saxony, became Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Austrian empire. Considering the experiments 50 botli of centralism and of federalism to Lave failed, he decided on complete concession to Hungary. The constitution, in all the reverend and romantic fea- tures of age, and with the vigorous revolutionary- blood poured into its veins in '49 to renew its youth, was restored at last, and a Hungarian minis- try formed. At the head of it was placed Count Andrassy, who, twenty years before, had been con- demned to death for his part in the troubles, but had effected his escape, and who now received full pardon, and became the Hungarian right-hand of the Emj)eroi". At Pest, in the midst of the most stately and picturesque pageant that has been seen in Europe for centuries — a scene so full of historical and medi- aeval sj^lendor that it seemed like a living chapter of Froissart or Philippe de Comines — the king, attired in a long brocaded mantle, with the sacred, jewelled crown of St. Stephen on his head, and mounted on a splendidly-caparisoned cream-white liorse, which he managed witli perfect skill, amid wild shouts of Eljen from his lieges, almost mad with enthusiasm, rode up the sacred mound on the Danulje, and waved the ancient sword of a long line of ancestors to the four quarters of the world, in symbol of protection to the realm. Hungary was restored. i Tlie next problem was to reestablish constitution- alism on tlie otlier side of tlie Leytlia. Tlie striking simile of Deak, likening tlie empire to a majestic arcli resting on two stately columns, wliicli could not be brouslit nearer to eacli other without endau- gering the existence of the arch, was much admired. The Hunsfarian column was erect at last, l^ut where was the other pillar ? The West Half, as Deak was fond of calling that part of Austria which was not Hungary, was in reality to be created. An e 'plurihus unmn Lad failed. An e plurlhus duo was resolved upon. A kind of constituent assembly of the Western provinces was convoked. Then came a o-reat outbreak of dissatisfaction on both sides the Leytlia, from the Sclavonic nationali- ties, which outnumber the Germans and the Magyars combined. This dissatisfaction is easily explained. The problem of fusing nationalities into a nation is always hard to solve. In Austria, the leading three are the German, Hungarian, and Sclavonic. The Mag}'ars, the last direct emigration out of x\sia into Europe, have held the wide, fruitful plains on the borders of Turkey and Russia for a thousand years, wedging themselves firmly between the more ancient settlers of the Sclavonic family. At this moment there are about five million Magyars, nine 52 million Germans, and fifteen million Selavonians, out of tliirty-two millions of the whole j)opnlation of the empire. But there has been no single dominant, national language to absorb into itself those various tongues. And difference of speech has kept nationalities dis- tinct, and of course j^i'omoted disunion. So soon as the pressure of absolutism was removed, each nation- ality began to assert its own rights, its own indepen- dence, its own dialect, and to separate its aspirations and traditions from those of its sisters. Subjects which would seem more appropriate to antiquarian societies or debating clubs than to the realm of poli- tics became popular themes for statesmen and legis- lators. The Magyars — a pi'oud, chivalrous people, with much aptitude for politics — had for centuries governed tAvice their number of Selavonians, control- ling not. only the whole of Hungary, but the annexed provinces of Transylvania and Croatia. In those re- mote, and, to the general American public, obscure regions, lie the seeds of many future convulsions in Europe, to which I shall not allude on this occasion. Thirty years ago, and of course long before the fa- mous democratic era of 1849, the Magyars alarmed, it has Ijeen suggested, by sjmiptoms adverse to the dura- tion of their race, determined to force their language 53 over tte wliole triune kingdom. Previously the de- bates in tlie Diet at Pest, to which came up deputies from Transylvania and Croatia as well as from Hun- gary proper, had been conducted in Latin, as a common medium in which alone Sclavs and Mag- yars could comprehend each other. It was now or- dained that Hungarian only should be used in legis- lative assemblies, in courts of justice, in municipal sessions, in all the common affairs of civic life. If there was a dispute about money matters, the tribu- nal would refuse to adjudicate unless accounts had been kept in Magyar, by those who knew not a word of the lano;uao;e. In towns where the population was exclusively Sclavonic, Magyar clergymen were required to preach in the Magyar language to congregations of course unable to understand a Avord of their discourse, and Sclav children were required to learn their catechism in Magyar, those Avho resisted such tyranny being punished with stripes, because the dignity of the nation required it. If the legislature of New- York should ordain to- day that in churches, courts of justice, legislative and municipal assemblies, schools and Bible classes, the Dutch lanmiao-e should be used to the exclusion, in part, of other tongues, because a very distinguish- 54 ed and influential portion of the population are of Netherland descent, it would exemplify the language- policy forced, in the last generation, on the non-Mag- yar inhabitants of Hungary. Thus would be seen tlie evils inherent in steady encouragement of state traditions, ^^I'ovincial feelings, and separate nationali- ties in a great country. Certainly, if members of one legislature could only understand each other by using a dead language, it would seem natural enough for the dominant nationality to enforce its own dia- lect on the rest. But unfortunately, the Magyar is most difficult to acquire, while Dutch would be easy enough to learn in this State, l)eing only another branch of Anglo-Saxon. By its ready power of as- similation, the composite English language has be- come the admirable tongue it is for a3sthetic and practical purposes. It is through the same process too that a great nation has evolved itself here, while in Austria the self-assertion of nationalities has pre- vented an empire from becoming a nation. On the other side the Leytha, the dominant national- ity, although a minority likewise, is German, number- ing but nine out of nineteen millions. So soon, there- fore, as Hungary had carried its ])oint of entire in- dependence, and was about to make a treaty with something called the West Half, "as one indepen- 55 dent nation treats with another independent nation," the Sclavonic resentment thus explained was every- where intense. In Gallieia, where the j^opulation is entirely Sclav; in Bohemia and Moravia, where the German and Sclavonic elements are in equilibrium, by at least ten millions of the peoj^le therefore, there was fierce opposition to the new j^olicy. Dualism was denounced as unjust, illegal, monstrous, a logical self- contradiction. To divide an empire into two halves and still to retain the existence of the empire, was declared to be like squaring the circle; a geometri- cal impossibility. On the other hand, the German party, swallow- ing their grief at the extinction of centralism, ^varm- ly supported the j)olicy of the government. The imperial arch may be said, therefore, to rest on the two columns of Germanism and Magyarism ; upon the two dominant nationalities in which the Chancellor Baron Beust expects firmest supj^ort. Some of the most progressive and eloquent German representatives in the old Reichsrath have seats in the "West Cabinet. Still more significant are the abolition of the Con- cordat and the liberation of education and marriage from the exclusive control of the Catholic priest- hood or of any priesthood. 56 " The law of last December establishes free liber- ty for all opinions, liberty of marriage, liberty of education, liberty of the press, liberty of faith, no matter of what confession or doctrine. It grants to the members of each confession the rights of estab- lishing public schools and colleges, and members of every confession are allowed to be admitted on the same footing with the sanction of the state."'^' On the 25th of May of the present year, a law on education was passed, " which suppresses all the influence of the Catholic Church or of any church over education, decreeing that the whole su- perior' supervision of education, literature, and sci- ence, as also the inspection of schools, belongs to the state, which finally decrees that religious teach- ing in the public schools must be placed in the hands of members of each separate confession; that any religious society may open private or special schools for the youth of its faith; that these schools shall also be sul)ject to the supreme inspection of the state, and that the school-books shall be sub- ject to the approval of the civil authorities, with the exception, however, of such books as are meant for religious instruction, which must l)e submitted * The quotation is from tlic Papal allocution, in which the measures are described in order to be denounced. 57 to tlie approval of the competent antliorities of eacli confession."* More just, enlightened, progressive legislation than this, on such vital subjects, could not be expected in our ov^n land — in New- York, Ohio, Massachusetts — where you will. An ecclesiastical convention has been held in the Tyi'ol for the avowed purpose of " restoring the Lord God to his rights," invaded by this legislation of the Reichsrath on education and marriage. The twenty-five bishops of the empire addressed a pas- sionate appeal to the emperor on the subject of the Concordat and of these new laws, and received from liis Majesty a stern rej^ly that such matters were in the hands of his responsible advisers, and that the duty of the church was to assist government in this grave national crisis rather than to add to its diffi- culties by inflammatory and seditious language. This autograph letter of the emperor was read in the Keichsrath amid tumultuous cheers ; tlie whole assembly rising to their feet. E plurihus duo is established. The attempt to square the political circle has a fair prospect of suc- cess. To assist the separate nationalities in moving off from each other in all directions, to cultivate * From the Papal allocution. 58 separation of language, literature, tradition, costume, habit, law — disintegration, in short — would be to remand the empire into Absolutism or Chaos. The cause of human progress is benefited by the experi- ment now making in Austria, and the friends of civilization and freedom should wish it Godspeed. A double ministry, out of which a third one is evol- ved for imperial purposes only — such a scheme seems delicate and complicated for rough work. But Dualism, combined with personal union under one sovereign, is rather a phrase than a fact ; the two halves of the empire being practically con- joined and dependent on each other, especially on the two great departments of war and foreign affairs. Thus do we find signs of healthful progress in many parts of Euro^^e toward free institutions. So far has the democratic principle, ever glowing amid heaj^s of scoriae, forced itself above the superincum- bent crust. Happy this single great nation on earth, where that principle is recognized as the legitimate source of life and heat, not dreaded as flame from the lowest pit to devastate and consume ! But alas ! progress must be fettered and halting everywhere, under the military rule prevailing over continental Europe. 59 Reflect upon tliese little figures in simple arith- metic : France has 1,200,000 soldiers. Italy has 500,000. Prussia about one million. Austria, 800,000. Russia nearly a million. Thus merely the Pentarchy of the continent, its five leading powers alone — not counting the middle and lesser powers, of which almost the least have larger armies than the present forces of the United States — keep nearly five millions of men perj^etu- ally on foot, while this great Republic has about 40,000 men. No epigram could l)e terser. We know from recent experience how much it costs to keep up great armies. And we have proved to the world that ^vliere great principles or where the national existence is at stake, every citizen becomes a soldier, that immortal commanders start out of obscurity into fame, and that great armies resolve themselves again into the mass of the people, becoming enno- bled by their military experience, and even better citizens than before. But here is the heart of life taken systemati- 60 cally out of all these citizens iu every monarchy. For a period, varying from fifteen to nine years — the whole of youth and the cream of middle age — these men lose their family, their home, their country ; becoming citizens only of that dangerous military commonwealth which holds potentates and subjects alike in its iron grasp. Is it really the final result of European civiliza- tion to decide which nation shall have the most populous armies and the biggest guns ? Before the infinity of the universe and the great laws of motion were known, historical disquisition was but a meagre and discomforting pursuit. But now — standing on this bank and shoal of time — we are able at least to hazard dim glances into those infinite sj)aces which we call the Past and the Future, and to guess at some of those laws of in- tellectual motion which we call Progress. Nor is a contemplation of the conditions of any nation inspiring or suggestive, unless the presence of that electric chain is felt by which all humanity is darkly bound. It is impossible for one nation to acquire without accpiiring for all — for one great member of the human family to advance or to re- trograde without hastening or retarding the gene- ral march of humanity. And it is for this reason 61 that I liave called your attention to-night to a sii- j)erficial and most inadequate view of human j)ro- gress through innumerable ages, and especially to the influence exerted upon that progress and upon the fortunes of man by the example and the fiite of this Republic. I have dwelt long, by way of illustration, on recent events in Central Europe. I should have liked to say something of Spain, of Italy, of France, but time fails me, and perhaj)s one or two exam- ples are as useful as a score. It is im2:)ossible, however, not to make a passing allusion to the presidential election which has just oc- curred in Great Britain almost simultaneously with our own. I say presidential election — because on the vote just taken it has been decided that Mr. Glad- stone, and not Mr. Disraeli, is to preside over aftairs in England for the next political term, be it long or short — as conclusively as if their names had been voted for on general ticket. There the First Lord of the Treasury is Prime Minister for Her Majesty the Queen. Here the President is Prime Minister for His Majesty the People. Who can doubt that among the indirect results of the success of the Union in the late war was the passage of a reform bill by a Tory govern- 62 ment, establishing something nearly approaching to universal suffrage in England ? A vast revolution has been accomplished in that great country, which is destined to place her — where she ought ever to be — side by side, in full friendship and in generous rivalry of freedom and the arts of peace with this Republic — both children of the ancient German mother. The British Parliament, which governs thirty millions of citizens, and one hundred and fifty millions of subjects, which by a statute passed at any moment can change the constitution, alter the succession to the croA^^l, convert the monarchy into a commonwealth or a despotism, prescribe the creed of the CJuu*ch — has been hitherto a represen- tative of land, and not of man. The best club in London, exclusive, full of distinguished and eloquent gentlemen ; delightfully situated on the Thames, with charming terraces and bay-windows on the river ; an excellent library, within five minutes' walk of all the public ofiices, and with the privilege of go- verning a splendid empire into the bargain, it is no wonder that men were willing to pay well in times past for seats in the House of Commons; and it is a sure mark of progress that the average expense of seats has been steadily diminishing. The good 63 old times are gone for ever when boroughs com- fortably advertised themselves for sale in the public journals, and when a working majority of the House held their seats on the nomination and at the plea- sure of less than two hundred landholders — about two members on an average for each landholder, It is certainly to the credit of the British peoj^le, and proof of their indomitable love of liberty, that they have moved steadily forward, and, without civil war, have achieved such trium2:)hs as Catholic eman- cipation, the corn law repeal, the reform bill of 1830, and the reform bill just coming into operation. After all, the English household suffrage l)ill is the fruit of the Appomattox apple-tree. Who im- agined in 1863 that power would be transferred, in England, so soon from land to people, with- out bloodshed, and that it would be done by Tories ? Meantime Land is likely to hold its own for a season lons^er in its race ag^ainst Man ; but Man must be the winner at last, and will soon learn the meaning of the revolution which has been accomplished. England is a landed aristocracy. Twenty million men live in England, thirty thousand men own England. The pyramid stands on its apex. 64 In America is a landed democracy. Every man votes, and every man may l^e a landholder who is willing to go West for a homestead. Our experi- ment has often been pronounced a new and a bold one. It is an experiment, but scarcely a bold one. It is simply to see if the pyramid can be made to stand on its base. Thus far it has stood, although Privilege was amazed the other day that it was not toppled over, feeling that no other go- vernment could have resisted such a shock as was dealt to our fabric. Over the whole surface of Europe there are symp- toms of human progress. There are few people so benighted as to be incapable of imagining light; as in caverns where the sun never shone, naturalists tell us of organized beings, insects, re2:)tiles, fishes, with at least the rudiments of eyes and wings. There is movement all over Europe, as I hope to have proved by pregnant examples. Through the long Past there have been political lullabies for the infant Man; Divine right, Infallil)ility, charters to the people instead of charters from the people; uni- versal suffrage combined with universal bayonets ; above all, the magnificent platitude that government always exists with full consent of the governed. America stands upon the firm land toward which 65 other nations are slowly making their way through revolutions or without them. If she does not now start on an upward progress, intellectual and moral, such as was never known before, she commits a crime ao^ainst mankind. The European emigrant, the forlorn outcast it may be of older civilizations, finds already accomj)lished here the revolution which he has " dreaded Tmt dwelt uj^on" as the darkest of crimes. But that emigi'ation, amounting to three millions of Euro- peans every ten or twelve years, has been always in one direction and on a comparatively limited scale. Two centuries before the Christian era, manj^ millions of men were occupied — as we have all read in the School Books — ten years long in building a wall. That wall, although decaying, stands to this day. It is fifteen hundred miles in length ; it is twenty-five feet high, and so broad that six cavalry- men can ride abreast upon it. It is sometimes carried over mountains of a mile's perpendicular height. Its masonry is so conscientious that it is said to be impossible to thrust a nail between the massive stones of which it is composed. There are towers and bastions for armed men at regular intervals through all its prodigious length. 6Q Tins wall was built — as we all know — by Tsin- Sliee-Hwang-Tee, founder of the dynasty of Tsin, as protection against tlie incursions of the Tartars. But what is this stupendous piece of mason work, bristling with ' armed men, "which has done its best for two thousand years to protect one third of the human race from the invasion of their fellow-crea- tures, compared to that air-drawn barrier, invisible, impalpable, yet until recent events impregnable, which has barred the road to emigration southward, and which we call Mason and Dixon's line ? The European wanderer, pushing westward after landing on these shores, finds an enormous plain stretching between the Rocky and the Appalachian mountains — from the gulf to the Arctic, and con- taining, below the forty-fifth parallel, a surface of unexampled fertility of a million and a half square miles in extent. There are coal-fields, too, larger than the whole surface of Great Britain. Farther on, there are gold mines which in twenty years have produced more of the precious metal than had the mines of Mexico and Peru, after they had trebled the prices of commodities and revolu- tionized the commerce of the world. There is no feudal system, no state church to prescril>e or pro- scribe his religious creed and prohibit the education 67 of his children. The most commodious buikling in every town is usually the school-house, in which his children are gratuitously educated in common with those of the richest citizens, and where all are converted into Americans together ; not taught to harp upon nationalities or to wrangle of creeds. He finds Catholics, Protestants, Hebrews side by side in mutual respect and affection ; illustrious men not more admired and beloved by those of their own faith than hj those of a difterent church. But the most tempting, semi-tropical region, pro- ducing the great staple on which so large a part of the world's industry depends, has not cultivated much more than one per cent of the soil — a re- gion three times as large as France — which might yield that precious 2")lant in profusion, feed and clothe untold millions and maintain empires. The cotton crop has languished ±ar behind its j^ossibili- ties because, while there was no limit to the de- mand, an increase to the suj^ply of labor was sternly forbidden ; few emi2:rants darino^ to cross that awful barrier. We stand on the threshold of great events. A change in tlie conditions of mankind is impend- 68 " A multitude like which the populous North Poured never from her frozen loins to pass Rliene or the Danaw when her barbarous sons Came lilce a deluge on the South," is gradually collecting in distant regions. Is it possible tliat tliose vast and fruitful plains, which have so long been panting in vain for culture are to lie fallow still when the famishing labor of the world is anxious for a summons ? No country ever prospered long where labor was dishonored. Look at Spain, where, two and a half centuries ago, the most effective j)opulation in the land — five hundred thousand full-grown men and women — were expelled from the country, at the dictate of the archbishop of Toledo, because they were industrious and because they were Moors — an achievement of such stupendous idiocy that a wiser churchman, Car- dinal Richelieu, afterwards declared it to be the most audacious and barbarous ever recorded by history — and think of Spanish misfortunes from that day to this. On remote Bohemian, IVloravian, Swabian, Swedish mountains and plains human creatures are toiling life long, from squalid cradle to pauper grave, for a daily wage of ten cents each. Dowai among: dismal coal-mines in various parts of Europe, men, women, and children are 69 banislied, weeks and inontlis long, from "the warm precincts of tlie cheerful day," from home affections, from education, from civilization ; companions of the fossilized reptiles which perished hundreds of thou- sand-years ago, overshadowed and begrimed by the charred and carbonized forests of the j^rimeval world ; moiling from childhood to old age foi* a pittance barely sufficient to support life, that they may pile up still higher the magnificent fabric of feudal pomp which has so long doomed them and their fellows to a livino; burial. Is it to be imao-ined that such step-children of European civilization would not be wooed from their dismal caves into the genial climate, the virgin forests, the exuberant savannahs of the South, and be con- verted from gnomes and cobolds into men, so soon as the long trance has been broken there, labor raised from degradation, and the great law of De- mocracy accepted ? The inestimable blessing of the abolition of slav- ery to the cause of progress, above all to the South itself, can never be exao-o-erated. The fetters have fallen not from the black alone, but from the white, from all mankind. The standing reproach to Democracy is removed at last, and the basis of our national institutions has become an everlasting truth. 70 Tlius far I liave trespassed on your patience, wliile dimly endeavoring to trace from what we know or imagine of history, proofs of that law of progress to the disbelievers in which history can teach nothing. My faith in that law and in the Avelfare of this Kepublic, in proportion to her con- formity to that law, is absolute. That all mankind are capable of progress I as devoutly believe. None can be deljarred from the inalienable right to intellectual and moral development, which is the true meaning of the pursuit of hap2)iness, as pro- claimed in our great statute. And hope may come to all. In some of the Western j^ortions of this country, amidst the profusion of nearly all the gifts of Heaven, there is a deficiency of pure water. But American energy is not to be balked by dis- sembling Nature of that first necessity of life. Artesian wells are sunk through the sod of the prairies, through the loam, through the gravel, through the hard-pan which is almost granite, until at last, one thousand or fifteen hundred feet beneath the surface, the hand of man reveals a deep and rapid river coursing through those solitary, sunless depths at a speed of ten miles the hour, swifter than Ohio, or Mississippi, or Hudson, or any of the bountiful and imperial streams of this country, 71 flowing as they do tLrougli picturesque mountain scenery, stately forest or enamelled meadow, amid towered cities or cultivated fields. And wlien the shaft has reached that imprisoned river, and the rent for the first time has been made throuo-h its dungeon wall, the waters, remembering the august source on fixr distant mountain toj^s Avhence ages ago they fell, leap upward to the light with ter- rible energy, rising in an instant far above the surface of the earth and 230uring forth their health- ful and fertilizing current to delight and refresh Mankind. And with even such an awakeninc: are we gladdened when halfforgotten Humanity bursts from time to time out of the depths in which it has pursued its joyless, sunless course, moaning and murmuring through long centuries but never quite forgetting its divine and distant origin. Such was the upward movement out of intellec- tual thraldom which we call the Reformation when the shaft of Luther struck the captive stream ; such an awakening but a more significant and hopeful one — has been heralded for this whole Rej^ublic, East and West, North and South, and for all humanity by the triumph of the Right in the recent four years' conflict in which all have been the con- querors. PROCEEDINGS, ETC. At a meeting of the New-York Historical Societj^, lielcl in tlie Academy of Music, in the City of New-York, on AVeclnesday, December 16th, 1868, to celebrate the Sixty-fom-th Anniver- sary of the Fovmding of the Society : The President, Mr. Haimilton Fish, after calling the Society to order, said : " Ladies and Gentlemei^ : The New-York Historical Society has asked your presence, this evening, to unite with them in com- memorating the Sixty-fourth Anniversary of the foundation of tlieir Society. It will be celebrated by a discourse deliverecl by Mr. John Lotheop Motley, whose name belongs to_ no single ,' country and to no single age. As a statesman, and diplomatist, and patriot, he belongs to America ; as a scholar, to the world of letters ; as a liistorian, all ages will claim him in the future. "The exercises of the evening will commence with prayer by the Rev. Dr. DeWitt, the First Vice-President of the Society, after which the Anniversary Discourse will be delivered by Mr. Motley. Subsequently the benediction will be pronounced by the Right Reverend Dr. Potter, Bishop of New-York, and there- after, without formal vote or motion, the meeting Avill stand ad- journed." Upon the conclusion of the Address, Mr. Guliajt C. Ver- PLANCK rose, and said : That the pleasing duty of presenting a resolution of thanks to the orator of the evening had been assigned to him, as the senior member of the Society ; but what was thus made his duty he thought he might safely claim as a right, in view of the fact that half a century ago he had delivered an Anniversary Address before the Society. He had been followed on this annual festival by a great number of illustrious names. Mr. Verplanck warmly commended the discom-se to which the audience had just listened ; spoke of the skill with which different periods of history had been contrasted and compared, and the 74 . genial and hopeful philosophy which pervaded it ; and concluded by oftering the following resolution : llesolved, That the thanks of tliis Society be presented to Mr. Motley for his eloquent and instructive discourse delivered this evening, and that he be requested to furnish a copy for publi- cation. Mr. William Cullen Bryant rose, and said : " I take great pleasure in seconding the resolution which has just been read. The eminent historian of the Dutch Republic, who lias made the story of its earlier days as interesting as that of Athens and Sparta, and who has infused into the narrative the generous glow of his own genius, has the highest of titles to be heard Avith respectful attention by the citizens of a community Avhich, in its origin, Avas an offshoot of that renowned republic. And cheerfully has that title been recognized, as the vast audience assembled here to-niglit, in spite of the storm, fully testifies ; and well has our illustrious friend spoke of the growtli of civilization and of the improvement in the condition of mankind, both in the Old World — the institutions of which he has so lately observed — and in the country which is proud to claim him as one of her children. It is fitting, also, that my old friend of more than forty years, who in 1818, the exact term of half a century since, delivered before this Society, A\lK'n DeWitt Clijs'ton Avas its President, one of the noblest public discourses tliat Avas ever listened to in this or in any other country — it Avas fitting that one so distinguish- ed sliould rise to express in Avords Avhat Ave all feel in our hearts. "Tliis Society, Mr. President, as has just been observed, has often been honored by public addresses from the great men of our Stale. The A^olume of Collections of the Society, Avhich con- tains the magnificent discourse of Mr. Verplanck, contains others from Gouverneur Morris, one of tlie most eloquent men of his day; from Dr. IIosack, eminent in tlie healing art; from the learned Dr. Jarvis, and from Wiieaton, the famed expounder of the laAV of nations. "To these honors is now to be added that of tliis evening, and I therefore claim your voices for this ex})ression of acknowledg- ment to the distinguished visitor from another State, Avho has just addressed us, and who from this moment is no longer a stranger in NcAV-York." The resolution Avas ado])ted unanimously. Extract from the Minutes. Andkeav Warner, Recording Secretary, yC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 001000 326 1 §&. mm, /*«!» 1 mRti^