If I have committed any errors, I hope they will be pointed out. Fifty years hence, the character of Mr. Webster and his eminent contemporaries will be better understood than now; for we have not yet all the evidence on which the final judgment of posterity will rest. Thomas Hutchinson and John Adams are better known now than at the day of their death; five and twenty years hence they will both be better known than at present.

BOSTON, March 7, 1853.

INTRODUCTION.

TO THE YOUNG MEN OF AMERICA.

GENTLEMEN,I address this Discourse to you in particular, and by way of introduction will say a few words.

We are a young nation, three and twenty millions strong, rapidly extending in our geographic spread, enlarging rapidly in numerical power, and greatening our material strength with a swiftness which has no example. Soon we shall spread over the whole continent, and number a hundred million men. America and England are but parts of the same nation, a younger and an older branch of the same great Anglo-Saxon stem. Our character will affect that of the mother-country, as her good and evil still influence us. Considering the important place which the AngloSaxon tribe holds in the world at this day,-occupying one-eighth part of the earth, and controlling one-sixth part of its inhabitants,

the national character of England and America becomes one of the great human forces which is to control the world for some ages to come.

In the American character there are some commanding and noble qualities. We have founded some political and ecclesiastical institutions which seem to me the proudest achievements of mankind in Church and State. But there are other qualities in the nation's character which are mean and selfish; we have

founded other institutions, or confirmed such as we inherited, which were the weakness of a former and darker age, and are the shame of this.

The question comes, Which qualities shall prevail in the character and in the institutions of America, the noble, or the mean and selfish? Shall America govern herself by the eternal laws,

as they are discerned through the conscience of mankind, or by

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the transient appetite of the hour, the lust for land, for money, for power, or fame? That is a question for you to settle; and, as you decide for God or mammon, so follows the weal or woe of millions of men. Our best institutions are an experiment: shall it fail? If so, it will be through your fault. You have the power to make it succeed. We have nothing to fear from any foreign foe, much to dread from Wrong at home: will you suffer that to work our overthrow?

Business and

The two hum

The two chief forms of American action are Politics, - the commercial and the political form. bler forms of our activity, the Church and the Press, the ecclesiastic and the literary form, - are subservient to the others. Hence it becomes exceedingly important to study carefully our commercial and political action, criticizing both by the Absolute Right; for they control the development of the people, and determine our character. The commercial and political forces of the time culminate in the leading politicians, who represent those forces in their persons, and direct the energies of the people to evil or to good.

It is for this reason, young men, that I have spoken so many times from the pulpit on the great political questions of the day, and on the great political men; for this reason did I preach, and now again publish, this Discourse on one of the most eminent Americans of our day, that men may be warned of the evil in our Business and our State, and be guided to the Eternal Justice which is the foundation of the common weal. There is a Higher Law of God, written imperishably on the nature of things, and in

the nature of man; and, if this nation continually violates that law, then we fall a ruin to the ground.

If there be any truth, any justice, in my counsel, I hope you will be guided thereby; and, in your commerce and politics, will practise on the truth which ages confirm, that Righteousness exalteth a Nation, while Injustice is a reproach to any People.