assassin was well known, but he has not been arrested. The city government has, as yet, offered no public reward for his apprehension. It is rumoured that the man was murdered by one whom he had complained of for violating the licence law.

The Fugitive Slave Law drove into exile about four or five hundred inhabitants of Boston in less than a year. They had committed no crime, except to believe themselves the owners of their own bodies, and act on that belief.

Several Unitarian clergymen have been driven from their parishes in consequence of opposing that law. It has been proclaimed by the most eminent politicians of the nation, that there is no law higher than the statutes of Congress. Prominent clergymen assent to the doctrine. Thus the negation of God is made the first principle of politics. In a certain town, in Massachusetts, the names of all anti-Slavery men are rejected from the list of jurors. Some of the leading commercial newspapers of Boston advise men not to employ such as are opposed to the Fugitive Slave Law.

Many clergymen declare that Slavery is a Christian institution; some of great eminence,―as men estimate clerical eminence,-have undertaken to support and justify it out of the Bible. Several wealthy citizens of Boston are known to own Slaves at this moment; they buy them and sell them. There is one who has made a large fortune by selling rum on the coast of Africa, and thence carrying Slaves to America. In Boston it is respectable to buy and sell men,-the Slave-hunter, the kidnapper, is an "honourable man,"-even the defender of kidnapping and Slave-hunting is respected and beloved, while the philanthropist, who liberates bondmen, is held in abhorrence. The blacks are driven from the public schools by a law of the city. There is a church in which coloured men are not allowed to buy a pew. They are not permitted to enter the schools of theology or of medicine. They are shut out from our colleges. In some places they are not allowed to be buried with white men. episcopal church, in New York, holds a cemetery on this condition, that "they shall not suffer any coloured person to be buried in any part of the same." A presbyterian

An

church advertised that in its grave-yard "neither negroes nor executed felons" should ever be buried there. No sect opposes Slavery; no prominent sectarian. The popular religion of New-England teaches that it is Christian to buy Slaves, sell Slaves, and make Slaves. "Slavery, as it exists at the present day," says an "eminent divine," "is agreeable to the order of divine providence."

One of the newspapers in Boston, on the 10th of October, 1851, speaking of the Abolitionists and Liberty party men, says: "Such traitors should every one be garrotted," -strangled to death. Another, of the same date, says that Mr Webster's "wonderful labours in behalf of the Constitution" "have vindicated his claim to the highest title yet bestowed upon man." The Church and the State alike teach that though the law of God may be binding on Him, it is of no validity before an act of Congress.

America is a Republic; and Millard Fillmore is by "accident" President of the United States of America. Naples is a Monarchy; and Ferdinand is, by the " grace of God," King. Such is the Different; oh, reader, behold the Like!

Boston, Oct., 1851.

DISCOURSE

OCCASIONED

BY THE DEATH OF DANIEL WEBSTER.

PREACHED AT THE MELODEON, ON SUNDAY, OCT. 31, 1852.

PREFACE.

Ir is now four months since the delivery of this Sermon. A phonographic report of it was published the next morning, and quite extensively circulated in all parts of the country. Since then, I have taken pains to examine anew the life and actions of the distinguished man who is the theme of the discourse. I have carefully read all the criticisms on my estimate of him, which came to hand; I have diligently read the most important sermons and other discourses which treat of him, and have conversed anew with persons who have known Mr Webster at all the various periods of his life. The result is embodied in the following pages.

My estimate of Mr Webster differs from that which seems to prevail just now in Church and State; differs widely; differs profoundly. I did not suppose that my judgment upon him would pass unchallenged. I have not been surprised at the swift condemnation which many men have pronounced upon this sermon,-upon the statements therein, and the motives thereto. I should be sorry to find that Americans valued a great man so little as to have nothing to say in defence of one so long and so conspicuously before the public. The violence and rage directed against me is not astonishing; it is not even new. I am not vain enough to fancy that I have never been mistaken in a fact of Mr Webster's history, or in my

judgment pronounced on any of his actions, words, or motives. I can only say I have done what I could. 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 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.

now;

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 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 Anglo-Saxon 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 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?

The two chief forms of American action are Business and Politics, the commercial and the political form. The two humbler 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, criticising 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,