Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserved us a nation.

Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto "In God is our trusť": And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.

AMERICAN GOVERNMENT UNIQUE

DANIEL WEBSTER

Daniel Webster (1782-1852), orator and statesman, delivered the address from which this selection is taken, in Fryeburg, Maine, July 4, 1802, when he was principal of the Fryeburg Academy and but twenty years of age. It remained unpublished until eighty years after its delivery, when the original manuscript was found, with a mass of private papers, in a junk shop in Boston. In 1882, the centennial year of Webster's birth, it was issued in pamphlet form.

THE true definition of despotism is government without law. It may exist, therefore, in the hands of many as well as of one. Rebellions are despotisms; factions are despotisms; loose democracies are despotisms. These are a thousand times more dreadful than the concentration of all power in the hands of a single tyrant. The despotism of one man is like the thunderbolt, which falls here and there, scorching and consuming the individual on whom it lights; but popular commotion, the des

potism of a mob, is an earthquake, which in one moment swallows up everything. It is the excellence of our government that it is placed in a proper medium between these two extremes, that it is equally distant from mobs and from thrones.

Unhappy Europe! the judgment of God rests hard upon thee! Thy sufferings would deserve an angel's pity if an angel's tears could wash away thy crimes! The Eastern Continent seems trembling on the brink of some great catastrophe. Convulsions shake and terrors alarm it. Ancient systems are falling; works reared by ages are crumbling into atoms. Let us humbly implore Heaven that the wide-spreading desolation may never reach the shores of our native land, but let us devoutly make up our minds to do our duty in events that may happen to us. Let us cherish genuine patriotism. In that, there is a sort of inspiration that gives strength and energy almost more than human. When the mind is attached to a great object, it grows to the magnitude of its undertaking. A true patriot, with his eye and his heart on the honor and happiness of his country, hath an elevation of soul that lifts him above the rank of ordinary men. To common occurrences he is indifferent. Personal considerations dwindle into nothing in comparison with his high sense of public duty. In all the vicissitudes of fortune, he leans with pleasure on the protection of Providence and on the dignity and composure of

his own mind. While his country enjoys peace, he rejoices and is thankful; and, if it be in the counsel of Heaven to send the storm and the tempest, his bosom proudly swells against the rage that assaults it. Above fear, above danger, he feels that the last end which can happen to any man never comes too soon if he falls in defense of the laws and liberties of his country.

LIBERTY AND UNION INSEPARABLE

DANIEL WEBSTER

This selection is taken from a speech delivered before the United States Senate on January 26, 1830. Webster was at that time in the prime of life. His black hair, high forehead, and shaggy brows gave him an appearance which was always impressive, and never more so than on this day when he held his audience spellbound by his eloquence. The speech is often called "Webster's Reply to Hayne," because it was prompted by Hayne's speech for broader state rights. Webster's famous plea for an unbroken union of states represents one of the high-water marks of American oratory.

I PROFESS, Sir, in my career hitherto, to have kept steadily in view the prosperity and honor of the whole country, and the preservation of our federal Union. It is to that Union that we owe our safety at home and our consideration and dignity abroad. It is to that Union that we are chiefly indebted for whatever makes us most proud of our country. That

Union we reached only by the discipline of our virtues in the severe school of adversity.

It had its origin in the necessity of disordered finance, prostrate commerce, and ruined credit. Under its benign influence these great interests immediately awoke, as from the dead, and sprang forth with newness of life. Every year of its duration has teemed with fresh proofs of its utility and its blessings; and, although our territory has stretched out wider and wider, and our population spread farther and farther, they have not outrun its protection or its benefits. It has been to us all a copious fountain of national, social, personal, happiness.

I have not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the Union to see what might lie hidden in the dark recess behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances of preserving liberty when the bonds that unite us together shall be broken asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of disunion to see whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the depths of the abyss below; nor could I regard him as a safe counselor in the affairs of this government, whose thoughts should be mainly bent on considering, not how the Union might be preserved, but how tolerable might be the condition of the people when it shall be broken up and destroyed.

While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out before us, for us and our children. Beyond that I seek not to pene

trate the veil. God grant that, in my day at least, that curtain may not rise! God grant that on my vision never may be opened what lies beyond! When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood.

Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original luster, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured-bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as "What is all this worth?" nor those other words of delusion and folly, "Liberty first, and union afterwards"-but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every American heart - Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!