temple-wasting millions on the western world. I fell

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by my own misdeeds!" Thou, muse-like 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 sevenfold 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 courtesans. Wicked men were my cabinet counsellors 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!"

DESTINY OF OUR COUNTRY.

JOSEPH STORY.

We stand the latest, and if we fail, probably the last experiment of self-government by the people. We have begun it under circumstances of the most auspicious nature. We are in the vigor of youth. Our growth has never been checked by the oppressions of tyranny. Our constitutions have never been enfeebled by the vices or luxuries of the old world. Such as we are, we have been from the beginning — simple, hardy, intelligent, accustomed to self-government and self-respect. The Atlantic rolls between us and any formidable foe. Within our own territory, stretching through many degrees of latitude and longitude, we have the device of many products and many means of independence.

The government is mild. The press is free. Religion is free. Knowledge reaches or may reach every home. What fairer prospect of success could be pre

sented? What means more adequate to accomplish the sublime end? What more necessary than for the people to preserve what they themselves have created?

Already has the age caught the spirit of our institutions. It has already ascended the Andes and snuffed the breezes of both oceans. It has infused itself into the life-blood of Europe, and warmed the sunny plains of France and the low sands of Holland. It has touched the philosophy of Germany and the north, and moving onward to the south, has opened to Greece the lessons of her better days.

Can it be that America, under such circumstances, can betray herself? That she is to be added to the catalogue of republics, the inscription upon whose ruins is, They were, but they are not?" Forbid it, my countrymen forbid it, Heaven!

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I call upon you, fathers, by the shades of your ancestors, by the dear ashes which repose in this precious soil, by all you are and all you hope to be,-resist every object of disunion; resist every encroachment upon your liberties; resist every attempt to fetter your consciences, or smother your public schools, or extinguish your system of public instruction.

I call upon you, mothers, by that which never fails in woman the love of your offspring; teach them, as they climb your knees, or lean on your bosoms, the blessings of liberty. Swear them at the altar, as with their baptismal vows, to be true to their country, and never to forget or forsake her.

I call upon you, young men, to remember whose sons

you are whose inheritance you possess. Life can never be too short, which brings nothing but disgrace and oppression. Death never comes too soon, if necesin the defence of the liberties of your country.

sary

I call upon you, old men, for your counsels, and your prayers, and your benedictions. May not your gray hairs go down in sorrow to the grave with the recollection that you have lived in vain! May not your last sun sink in the west upon a nation of slaves!

No! I read in the destiny of my country far better hopes, far brighter visions. We who are now assembled here must soon be gathered to the congregation of other days. The time of our departure is at hand, to make way for our children upon the theatre of life. May God speed them and theirs! May he who, at the distance of another century, shall stand here to celebrate this day, still look around upon a free, happy, and virtuous people! May he have reason to exult as we do! May he, with all the enthusiasm of truth as well as poetry, exclaim that here is still his country!

KANSAS.

CHARLES SUmner.

TAKE down your map, sir, and you will find that the territory of Kansas, more than any other region, occupies the middle spot of North America, equally distant from the Atlantic on the east, and the Pacific on the west; from the frozen waters of Hudson's Bay on the

north, and the tepid gulf stream on the south, constituting the precise territorial centre of the whole vast continent. To such advantages of situation, on the very highway between two oceans, are added a soil of unsurpassed richness and a fascinating, undulating beauty of surface, with a health-giving climate, calculated to nurture a powerful and generous people, worthy to be a central pivot of American institutions. A few short months only have passed since this spacious and Mediterranean country was open only to the savage who ran wild in its woods and prairies; and now it has already drawn to its bosom a population of freemen larger than Athens crowded within her historic gates, when her sons under Miltiades won liberty for mankind on the field of Marathon; more than Sparta contained when she ruled Greece, and sent forth her devoted children, quickened by a mother's benediction, to return with their shields or upon them; more than Rome gathered on her seven hills when, under her kings, she commenced that sovereign sway which afterward embraced the whole earth; more than London held, when, in the fields of Crécy and Agincourt, the English banner was carried victoriously over the chivalrous hosts of France.

Against this territory, thus fortunate in position and population, a crime has been committed which is without example in the records of the past. Not in plundered provinces or in the cruelties of selfish governors will you find its parallel: and yet there is an ancient instance which may show, at least, the path of