love of the species; on the vindication of injured virtue; on great plans to advance the permanent welfare of man.

Do you ask what can be done here to secure an honored name? I answer, the liberties of our land, bought with so invaluable blood, are to be defended, and transmitted in their purity, to other times-and he deserves a grateful remembrance who contributes anything, by private virtue or public service, to such a result. Every office is open to any young American as the reward of service rendered to the country; and there is not one in the gift of the people which may not be contemplated as possibly within the reach of any aspirant for a grateful remembrance. It is one of the glories of our system, that the path to the highest office is to be kept open to any one who may confer sufficient benefit on his country, to show that it may be a suitable recompense for public services. And no human tongue can tell what youth may yet enter on that high office, or in what humble cottage beyond the mountains the infant may now be sleeping that is yet to attain it.

CXXXIV. THE POET.

RALPH W. EMERSON.

NOTHING walks, or creeps, or grows, which must not, in its turn, arise and stand before the poet as exponent of his meaning. Doubt not, O poct, but persist. Say, "It is in me, and shall out!" Stand then, balked and dumb, stuttering and stammering, hissed and hooted, stand and strive until at last rage draw out of thee that dream power, which every night shows thee is thine own. Then indeed is thy genius no longer exhaustible. All creatures by pairs and by tribes, pour into thy mind as into a Noah's ark, to come forth again to people a new world. It is like the stock of air for respiration, not a measure of gallons, but the entire mighty atmosphere. And therefore it is that Homer and Shakspeare and Raphael are exhaustless-resembling a mirror carried through the street, ready to render an image of every created object. O Poet! a new nobility is conferred in groves and pastures, and not in castles or by sword-blades any longer. The conditions are hard, but equal. Thou shalt leave the world and know the muse only. The time of towns is tolled from the

world by funereal chimes, but in nature the universal hours are counted by succeeding tribes of animals and plants, by growth of joy upon joy. Thou shalt lie close hid with nature, and cannot be afforded to the Capitol of Exchange. The world is full of renunciations and apprenticeships, and this is thine; thou must pass for a fool and a churl for a long season. And this is the reward: that the ideal shall be real to thee, and the impressions of the actual world shall fall like summer rain, copious but not troublesome, to thy invulnerable essence. Thou shalt have the whole land for thy park and manor, the sea for thy bath and navigation, without tax and without envy. The woods and rivers shalt thou own; and thou shall possess that wherein others are only tenants and boarders. Thou true landlord! sea lord! air lord! Wherever snow falls, or water flows, or birds flywherever day and night meet in twilight-wherever the blue heaven is hung by clouds, or sown by stars-wherever are forms with transparent boundaries—wherever are outlets into celestial space-wherever is danger, and awe, and love, there is Beauty, plenteous as rain, shed for thee. And thou shouldst walk the world over, thou shalt not be able to find a condition inopportune or ignoble.

CXXXV. INJUSTICE THE CAUSE OF NATIONAL RUIN.

THEODORE PARKER.

Do you know how empires find their end? Yes, the great states eat up the little; as with fish, so with nations. Aye, but how do the great states come to an end? By their own

injustice, and no other cause. Come with me, my friends, come with me into the Inferno of the nations, with such poor guidance as my lamp can lend. Let us disquiet and bring up the awful shadows of empires buried long ago, and learn a lesson from the Tomb.

Come, old Assyria, with the Ninevitish dove upon thy emerald crown. What laid thee low? "I fell by my own injustice. Thereby Nineveh and Babylon came with me to the ground." Oh queenly Persia, flame of the nations, wherefore art thou so fallen, who troddest the people under thee, bridgedst the Hellespont with ships, and pouredst thy

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temple-wasting millions on the western world? "Because I trod the people under me, and bridged the Hellespont with ships, and poured my temple-wasting millions on the western world. I fell by my own misdeeds!" Thou, muselike, Grecian queen, fairest of all thy classic sisterhood of states, enchanting yet the world with thy sweet witchery, speaking in art, and most seductive song, why liest thou there with the beauteous yet dishonored brow, reposing on thy broken harp? "I scorned the law of God; banished and poisoned wisest, justest men; I loved the loveliness of flesh embalmed in Parian stone; I loved the loveliness of thought, and treasured that in more than Parian speech. But the beauty of justice, the loveliness of love, I trod them down to earth! Lo, therefore, have I become as those Barbarian states-as one of them!"

Oh manly, majestic Rome, thy seven-fold mural crown all broken at thy feet, why art thou here? 'Twas not injustice brought thee low; for thy Great Book of Law is prefaced with these words, Justice is the unchanging, everlasting will to give each man his Right! 'It was not the saint's ideal, it was the hypocrite's pretence! I made iniquity my law. I trod the nations under me. Their wealth gilded my palaces, where thou mayest see the fox and hear the owl,it fed my courtiers and my courtezans. Wicked men were my cabinet councillors-the flatterer breathed his poison in my ear. Millions of bondmen wet the soil with tears and blood. Do you not hear it crying yet to God? Lo, here have I my recompense, tormented with such downfall as you see! Go back and tell the new-born child, who sitteth on the Alleghanies, laying his either hand upon a tributary sea, a crown of thirty stars above his youthful brow-tell him there are rights which States must keep, or they shall suffer wrongs. Tell him there is a God who keeps the black man and the white, and hurls to earth the loftiest realm that breaks His just, eternal law! Warn the young empire that he come not down dim and dishonored to my shameful tomb! Tell him that Justice is the unchanging, everlasting will to give each man his Right. I knew it, broke it, and am lost. Bid him to keep it and be safe!"'

CXXXVI-SUPPOSED SPEECH AGAINST THE

DECLARATION.

DANIEL WEBSTER.

LET us pause! This step, once taken, cannot be retraced. This resolution, once passed, will cut off all hope of reconciliation. If success attend the arms of England, we shall then be no longer colonies, with charters, and with privileges; these will all be forfeited by this act; and we shall be in the condition of other conquered people, at the mercy of the conquerors. For ourselves, we may be ready to run the hazard, but are we ready to carry the country to that length? Is success so probable as to justify it? Where is the mili

tary, where the naval power, by which we are to resist the whole strength of the arm of England, for she will exert that strength to the utmost? Can we rely on the constancy and perseverance of the people? or will they act, as the people of other countries have acted, and, wearied with a long war, submit in the end, to a worse oppression? While we stand on our old ground, and insist on redress of grievances, we know we are right, and are not answerable for the consequences. Nothing, then, can be imputable to us. But if we now change our object, carry our pretensions further, and set up for absolute independence, we shall lose the sympathy of mankind. We shall no longer be defending what we possess, but struggling for something which we never did possess, and which we have solemnly and uniformly di-dained all intention of pursuing, from the very outset of the troubles. Abandoning thus our old ground, of resistance only to arbitrary acts of oppression, the nations will believe the whole to have been mere pretence, and they will look on us, not as injured, but as ambitious subjects. I shudder, before this responsibility. It will be on us, if relinquishing the ground we have stood on so long, and stood on so safely, we now proclaim independence, and carry on the war for that object, while these cities burn, these pleasant fields whiten and bleach with the bones of their owners, and these streams run blood. It will be upon us, it will be upon us, if failing to maintain this unseasonable and ill-judged declaration, a sterner despotism, maintained by military power, shall be established over our posterity, when we ourselves, given up by an exhausted, a harassed, a misled people, shall have expiated our rashness and atoned for our presumption, on the scaffold.

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CXXXVII-SUPPOSED SPEECH OF ADAMS IN REPLY.

DANIEL WEBSTER.

SINK or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my heart to this vote. It is true, indeed, that in the beginning, we aimed not at independence. But there's a Divinity which shapes our ends. The injustice of England has driven us to arms; and, blinded to her own interest for our good, she has obstinately persisted, till independence is now within our grasp. We have but to reach forth to it, and it is ours. Why then should we defer the declaration? Is any man so weak as now to hope for a reconciliation with England, which shall leave either safety to the country and its liberties, or safety to his own life, and his own honor? Are not you, sir, who sit in that chair, is not he our venerable colleague near you, are you not both already the proscribed and predestined objects of punishment and of vengeance? Cut off from all hope of royal clemency, what are you, what can you be, while the power of England remains, but outlaws? If we postpone independence, do we mean to carry on, or to give up the war? Do we mean to submit to the measures of Parliament, Boston port-bill and all? Do we mean to submit, and consent that we ourselves shall be ground to powder, and our country and its rights trodden down into dust? I know we do not mean to submit. We never shall submit. The war then must go on. We must fight it through. And if the war must go on, why put off longer the Declaration of Independence? That measure will strengthen us. It will give us character abroad. If we fail, it can be no worse for us. But we shall not fail. The cause will raise up armies, the cause will create navies. The people, the people, if we are true to them, will carry us, and will carry themselves, gloriously, through this struggle. Sir, the declaration will inspire the people with increased courage. Read this declaration at the head of the army; every sword will be drawn from its scabbard, and the solemn vow uttered to maintain it, or to perish on the bed of honor. Publish it from the pulpit; religion will approve it, and the love of religious liberty will cling round it, resolved to stand with it, or fall with it. Send it to the public halls; proclaim it there; let them hear it who heard the first roar of the enemy's cannon; let them see it, who saw their brothers and their sons