Page images
PDF
EPUB

EXTRACT FROM A SPEECH,

ON THE BILL FOR THE RELIEF OF CERTAIN SURVIVING OFFICERS OF THE REVOLUTIONARY ARMY.

BY MARTIN VAN BUREN.

LET us look, for a moment, at the arguments advanced by the opponents of the bill. The meritorious services of the petitioners, the signal advantages that have resulted from *these services to us and to posterity; the losses sustained by the petitioners, and the consequent advantages derived by the government from the act of commutation, are unequivocally admitted.

But it is contended, we have made a compromise legally binding on the parties, and exonerating the government from farther liability; that in an evil and unguarded hour they have given us a release, and we stand upon our bond.

Now the question which I wish to address to the conscience and the judgments of this honorable body, is this, not whether this issue was well taken in point of law; not whether we might not hope for a safe deliverance under it; but whether the issue ought to be taken at all; whether it comports with the honor of the government to plead a legal exemption against the claims of gratitude; whether, in other words, the government be bound at all times to insist upon its strict legal rights.

Has this been the practice of the government on all former occasions? Or, is this the only question on which this principle should operate? Nothing can be easier than to show that the uniform practice of the government has been

at war with the principle which is now opposed to the claim of the petitioners.

Not a session has occurred since the commencement of this government, in which Congress has not relieved the citizens from hardships resulting from unforeseen contingencies, and forborne an enforcement of law, when its enforcement would work great and undeserved injury. I might, if excusable on an occasion like this, turn over the statute book, page by page, and give repeated proofs of this assertion. But it is unnecessary.

It appears, then, that it has not been the practice of the government to act the part of Shylock with its citizens; and God forbid that it should make its debut on the present occasion, not so much in the character of a merciless creditor, as a reluctant, though wealthy debtor; withholding the merited pittance from those to whose noble daring and unrivalled fortitude, we are indebted for the privilege of sitting in judgment on their claims; and manifesting more sensibility for the purchasers of our lands than for those by whose bravery they were won, and but for whose achievements, those very purchasers, instead of being the proprietors of their soil, and the citizens of free and sovereign states, might now be the miserable vassals of some worthless favorite of arbitrary power.

If disposed to be less liberal to the Revolutionary officers than to other classes of community, let us at least testify our gratitude by relieving their sufferings, and returning a portion of those immense gains which have been the glorious fruits of their toil and of their blood.

Such would, in my judgment, be a correct view of the subject, had the government relieved itself of all farther liability by the most ample and unexceptionable performance of its stipulations. How much stronger, then, will be their appeal to your justice, if it can be shown that you have no right to urge this act of commutation as a complete fulfilment of your promise?

[ocr errors]

EXTRACT FROM AN ADDRESS,

TO THE STUDENTS OF RUTGERS COLLEGE.

BY WILLIAM WIRT.

THE man who is so conscious of the rectitude of his intentions, as to be willing to open his bosom to the inspection of the world, is in possession of one of the strongest pillars of a decided character. The course of such a man will be firm and steady, because he has nothing to fear from the world, and is sure of the approbation and support of Heaven. While he, who is conscious of secret and dark designs which, if known, would blast him, is perpetually shrinking and dodging from public observation, and is afraid of all around, and much more of all above him.

Such a man may, indeed, pursue his iniquitous plans, steadily; he may waste himself to a skeleton in the guilty pursuit; but it is impossible that he can pursue them with the same health-inspiring confidence, and exulting alacrity, with him who feels, at every step, that he is in pursuit of honest ends, by honest means.

The clear, unclouded brow, the open countenance, the brilliant eye which can look an honest man steadfastly, yet courteously in the face, the healthfully beating heart, and the firm, elastic step, belong to him whose bosom is free from guile, and who knows that all his motives and purposes are pure and right. Why should such a man falter in his

[ocr errors]

course? He may be slandered; he may be deserted by the world; but he has that within which will keep him erect, and enable him to move onward in his course with his eyes fixed on Heaven, which he knows will not desert him.

Let your first step, then, in that discipline which is to give you decision of character, be the heroic determination to be honest men, and to preserve this character through every vicissitude of fortune, and in every relation which connects you with society. I do not use this phrase, "honest men," in the narrow sense, merely, of meeting your pecuniary engagements, and paying your debts; for this the common pride of gentlemen will constrain you to do.

:

I use it in its larger sense of discharging all your duties, both public and private, both open and secret, with the most scrupulous, Heaven-attesting integrity in that sense, farther, which drives from the bosom all little, dark, crooked, sordid, debasing considerations of self, and substitutes in their place a bolder, loftier, and nobler spirit: one that will dispose you to consider yourselves as born, not so much for yourselves, as for your country, and your fellow-creatures, and which will lead you to act on every occasion sincerely, justly, generously, magnanimously.

There is a morality on a larger scale, perfectly consistent with a just attention to your own affairs, which it would be the height of folly to neglect: a generous expansion, a proud elevation, and conscious greatness of character, which is the best preparation for a decided course, into every situation into which you can be thrown; and, it is to this high and noble tone of character that I would have you to aspire.

I would not have you to resemble those weak and meager streamlets, which lose their direction at every petty impediment that presents itself, and stop, and turn back, and creep around, and search out every little channel through which they may wind their feeble and sickly course. Nor yet would I have you to resemble the headlong torrent that carries havoc in its mad career.

But I would have you like the ocean, that noblest emblem of majestic Decision, which, in the calmest hour, still heaves its resistless might of waters to the shore, filling the heavens, day and night, with the echoes of its sublime Declaration of Independence, and tossing and sporting on its bed, with an imperial consciousness of strength that laughs at opposition. It is this depth, and weight, and power, and purity of character, that I would have you to resemble; and I would have you, like the waters of the ocean, to become the purer by your own action.

« PreviousContinue »