WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS.

157

Ex. XCVII.-FAREWELL ADDRESS-CONTINUED.

BUT these considerations, however powerfully they address themselves to your sensibility, are greatly outweighed by those which apply more immediately to your interest. Here, every portion of our country finds the most commanding motives for carefully guarding and preserving the union of the whole.

The North, in an unrestrained intercourse with the South, protected by the equal laws of a common government, finds in the productions of the latter great additional resources of maritime and commercial enterprise, and precious materials of manufacturing industry. The South, in the same intercourse, benefiting by the same agency of the North, sees its agriculture grow, and its commerce expand. Turning partly into its own channels the seamen of the North, it finds its particular navigation invigorated; and while it contributes, in different ways, to nourish and increase the general mass of the national navigation, it looks forward to the protection of a maritime strength, to which itself is unequally adapted. The East, in a like intercourse with the West, already finds, and in the progressive improvement of interior communications by land and water, will more and more find, a valuable vent for the commodities which it brings from abroad, or manufactures at home. The West derives from the East supplies requisite to its growth and comfort-and what is perhaps of still greater consequence, it must of necessity owe the secure enjoyment of indispensable outlets for its own productions, to the weight, influence, and the future maritime strength of the Atlantic side of the union, directed by an indissoluble community of interest as one nation. Any other tenure by which the West can hold this essential advantage, whether derived from its own separate strength or from an apostate and unnatural connexion with any foreign power, must be intrinsically precarious.

While then every part of our country thus feels an immediate and particular interest in union, all the parts combined can not fail to find in the united mass of means and efforts, greater strength, greater resource, proportionably greater security from external danger, a less frequent interruption of their peace by foreign nations, and, what is of inestimable value, they must derive from union an exemption from those

of trampling on those laws which they were instituted to defend, most strictly obeyed them. The hands of justice have not been laid on a single American soldier.

Perhaps I shall be told that I have gone through the regions of fancy-that I deal in noisy declamation, and mighty professions of patriotism. Gentlemen are welcome to their opinions; but I look upon that paper as containing the most fatal plan that ingenuity can devise for enslaving a free people. If such be your rage for novelty, take it—indulge yourselves-but you never shall have my consent. My sentiments may appear extravagant, but I can tell you, that a number of my fellow-citizens have kindred sentiments —and I am anxious, if my country should come into the hands of tyranny, to exculpate myself from being in any degree the cause of it; and to exert my faculties to the utmost to extricate her. Whether I am gratified or not in my beloved form of government, I consider that the more she is plunged into distress, the more it is my duty to combat for her. Whatever be the result, I shall wait with patience; perhaps the day may come, when an opportunity shall offer to exert myself in her cause.

Ex. LXXXVIII.—THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION.

Speech in Convention, June, 1788.

EDMUND RANDOLPH.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I am a child of the Revolution. At an early age, and when I most wanted it, my country took me under its protection; and by a succession of favors and honors, prevented even my most ardent wishes. For those favors, I feel the highest gratitude. My attachment to my country is, as it ought to be, unbounded, and her felicity is the most fervent prayer of my heart. Conscious of having exerted my faculties to the utmost in her behalf, if I have not succeeded in securing the esteem of my countrymen, I shall derive abundant consolation from the rectitude of my intentions.

Honors, when compared to the satisfaction arising from a conscious independence of spirit and rectitude of, conduct, are as nothing. The unwearied study of my life shall be to

THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION.

143

promote the happiness of America. As a citizen, ambition and popularity are, at this time of day, no objects with me. I can truly declare to the whole world, that in the part I take in this very important question, I am actuated by no other motive than a regard for what I conceive to be the best interests of these States. I can also, with equal sincerity, declare, that I would join heart and hand in rejecting this system, were I not convinced that it will promote our happiness; but having a strong conviction on my mind, at this time, that by a disunion we shall throw away all those blessings we have so resolutely fought for, and that a rejection of the constitution will occasion disunion-I am determined to discharge the obligation I owe to my country, by voting for its adoption.

We are told that the report of dangers is false. The cry of peace, Sir, is false; what they call peace is but a deceitful calm. The tempest lowers over you- look around— wherever you cast your eyes you see danger. Recollect the extreme debility of our merely nominal government. We are, Sir, indeed we are, too despicable to be regarded by foreign nations. Without adequate powers vested in Congress, America can not be respectable in the eyes of other nations. Congress, Sir, ought to be fully vested with powers to support the Union-protect the interest of the United States-maintain their commerce-and defend them from external invasions and insults, and internal insurrections; to maintain justice, and promote harmony and public tranquillity among the States.

A government not vested with these powers will ever be found unable to make us happy or respectable; how far the Confederation is different from such a government, is known to all America. Instead of being able to cherish and protect the States, it has been unable to defend_itself against the encroachments made upon it by them. What are the powers of Congress? They have full authority to recommend what they please; this recommendatory power reduces them to the condition of poor supplicants. Is this the dignified language of the members of the American Congress :-" May it please your high-mightinesses of Virginia to pay your just proportionate quota of our national debt; we humbly supplicate you that it may please you to comply with your federal duties! We implore, we beg, your obedience!" And is not this, Sir, a very fair representation of the powers of Congress? Their opinions are of no validity,

when counteracted by the States. Their authority to recommend is a mere mockery of government.

If anything were wanting to complete this farce, it would be that a resolution of Virginia, and of the other legislatures, should be necessary to confirm and render valid the acts of Congress. This would at once develop the weakness and inefficiency of the general government, to all the world. But, in fact, its imbecility is now nearly the same as if such acts were formally requisite. An act of Virginia, controverting a resolution of Congress, would certainly prevail. I therefore conclude, that the Confederation is too defective to be rendered tolerable even by correction. Let us take our farewell of it, with reverential respect, as an old benefactor. It is gone, whether this House says so, or not. It has perished, Sir, by its own weakness.

Ex. LXXXIX.-DEFINITION OF GOVERNMENT.

Government

WM. GILMORE SIMMS.

We hold to be the creature of our need,
Having no power but where necessity
Still, under guidance of the charter, gives it.
Our taxes raised to meet our exigence,
And not for waste or favorites. Our people
Left free to share the commerce of the world,
Without one needless barrier on their prows.
Our industry at liberty for venture,

Neither abridged nor pampered; and no calling
Preferred before another, to the ruin

Or wrong of either. These, Sir, are my doctrines;
They are the only doctrines which shall keep us
From anarchy, and that worst peril yet,
That threatens to dissever, in the tempest,
That married harmony of hope with power
That keeps our starry Union o'er the storm,
And, in the sacred bond that links our fortunes,
Makes us defy its thunders! Thus in one,
The foreign despot threatens us in vain.
His ministers of state may fret to see us,

INAUGURAL ADDRESS.

Grasping the empires which they vainly covet,
And stretching forth our trident o'er the seas
In rivalry with Britain. They may confine,
But cannot chain us. Balances of power,
Framed by corrupt and cunning monarchists,
Weigh none of our possessions; and the seasons
That mark our mighty progress East and West,
Show Europe's struggling millions fondly seeking
The better shores and shelters that are ours.

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Ex. XC.-INAUGURAL ADDRESS TO BOTH HOUSES OF CONGRESS, APRIL 30, 1789.*

WASHINGTON.

AMONG the vicissitudes incident to life, no event could have filled me with greater anxieties than that of which the notification was transmitted by your order, and received on the 14th day of the present month.

On the one hand, I was summoned by my country, whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love, from a retreat which I had chosen with the fondest predilection, and, in my flattering hopes, with an immutable decision, as the asylum of my declining years; a retreat which was rendered every day more necessary as well as more dear to me, by the addition of habit to inclination, and of frequent interruptions in my health to the gradual waste committed on it by time. On the other hand, the magnitude and difficulty of the trust to which the voice of my country called me, being sufficient to awaken in the wisest and most experienced of her citizens a distrustful scrutiny into his qualifications, could not but overwhelm with despondence one who, inheriting inferior endowments from Nature, and unpractised in the duties of civil ad

* The regret expressed by Washington on this occasion at being recalled from his chosen retirement, was no idle form of words, but an utterance of sentiments which the whole tenor of his life, when relieved from the pressure of official business, showed to have been sincere. He preferred the fields and groves of Mount Vernon to any presidential mansion, with its attendant cares and labors; but he did not feel at liberty to disregard the call of his people, and no sacrifice was too great for him to endure for their good. He was the only President whose election has been unanimous.