THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR THE SCHOOL OF THE REVOLUTION.*

FELLOW-CITIZENS :

I HAVE accepted, with great cheerfulness, the invitation with which you have honored me, to address you on this occasion. The citizens of Worcester did not wait to receive a second call, before they hastened to the relief of the citizens of Middlesex, in the times that tried men's souls. should feel myself degenerate and unworthy, could I hesitate to come, and, in my humble measure, assist you in commemorating those exploits which your fathers so promptly and so nobly aided our fathers in achieving.

Apprised by your committee that the invitation which has brought me hither was given on behalf of the citizens of Worcester, without distinction of party, I can truly say that it is also, in this respect, most congenial to my feelings. I have several times had occasion to address my fellow-citizens on the fourth of July; and sometimes at periods when the party excitement-now so happily, in a great measure, allayed has been at its height; and when custom and public sentiment would have borne me out in seizing the opportunity of inculcating the political views of those on whose behalf I spoke. But of no such opportunity have I ever availed myself. I have never failed, as far as it was in my power, to lead the minds of those whom I have had the honor to address to those common topics of grateful recollection which unite the patriotic feelings of every American. It has not been my fault, if ever, on this auspicious national anni

* Oration delivered at Worcester, on the 4th of July, 1833. VOL. I.

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versary, a single individual has forgotten that he was a brother of one great family, while he has recollected that he was a member of a party.

In fact, fellow-citizens, I deem it one of the happiest effects of the celebration of this anniversary, that, when undertaken in the spirit which has animated you on this occasion, it has a natural tendency to soften the harshness of party, which I cannot but regard as the great bane of our prosperity. It was pronounced by Washington, in his valedictory address to the people of the United States, "the worst enemy of popular governments;" and the experience of almost every administration, from his own down, has confirmed the truth of the remark. The spirit of party unquestionably has its source in some of the native passions of the heart; and free governments naturally furnish more of its aliment than those under which the liberty of speech and of the press is restrained by the strong arm of power. But so naturally does party run into extremes, so unjust, cruel, and remorseless is it in its excess, so ruthless in the war which it wages against private character, so unscrupulous in the choice of means for the attainment of selfish ends, so sure is it, eventually, to dig the grave of those free institutions of which it pretends to be the necessary accompaniment, so inevitably does it end in military despotism and unmitigated tyranny, that I do not know how the voice and influence of a good man could, with more propriety, be exerted, than in the effort to assuage its violence.

We must be strengthened in this conclusion, when we consider that party controversy is constantly showing itself as unreasonable and absurd as it is unamiable and pernicious. If we needed illustrations of the truth of this remark, we should not be obliged to go far to find them. In the unexpected turns that continually occur in affairs, events arise, which put to shame the selfish adherence of resolute champions to their party names. No election of president has ever been more strenuously contested than that which agitated the country the last year; and I do not know that party spirit, in our time at least, has ever run higher, or the

party press been more virulent on both sides. And what has followed? The election was scarcely decided, the president thus chosen had not entered upon the second term of his office, before the state of things was so entirely changed, as to produce, in reference to the most important question which has engaged the attention of the country since the adoption of the constitution, a concert of opinion among those, who, two months before, had stood in hostile array against each other. The measures adopted by the president, for the preservation of the Union, met with the most cordial support, in Congress and out of it, from those who had most strenuously opposed his election; and he, in his turn, depended upon that support, not only as auxiliary, but as indispensable to his administration, in this great crisis. And what do we now behold? The president of the United States traversing New England, under demonstrations of public respect, as cordial and as united as he would receive in Pennsylvania or Tennessee; and the great head of his opponents in this part of the country, the illustrious champion of the Constitution in the Senate of the United States, welcomed with equal cordiality and equal unanimity, by men of all names and parties, in the distant west.

And what is the cause of this wonderful and auspicious change; auspicious, however transitory its duration may unfortunately prove? That cause is to be sought in a principle so vital, that it is almost worth the peril to which the country's best interests have been exposed, to see its existence and power made manifest and demonstrated. This principle is, that the union of the states - which has been in danger— must at all hazards be preserved; that union, which, in the same parting language of Washington which I have already cited, "is the main pillar in the edifice of our real independence, the support of our tranquillity at home, our peace abroad, our safety, our prosperity; of that very liberty which we so highly prize." Men have forgotten their little feuds in the perils of the constitution. The afflicted voice of the country, in its hour of danger, has charmed down with a sweet persuasion the angry passions of the day; and men

have felt that they had no heart to ask themselves the question, whether their party were triumphant or prostrate; when the infinitely more momentous question was pressing upon them, whether the Union was to be preserved or destroyed.

In speaking, however, of the preservation of the Union as the great and prevailing principle in our political system, I would not have it understood that I suppose this portion of the country to be more interested in it than any other. The intimation which is sometimes made, and the belief which in some quarters is avowed, that the Northern States have a peculiar and a selfish interest in the preservation of the Union, -that they derive advantages from it at the uncompensated expense of other portions, I take to be one of the grossest delusions ever propagated by men, deceived themselves, or willing to deceive others. I know, indeed, that the dissolution of the Union would be the source of incalculable injury to every part of it; as it would, in great likelihood, lead to border and civil war, and eventually to military despotism. But not to us would the bitter chalice be first presented. This portion of the Union, erroneously supposed to have a peculiar interest in its preservation, would be sure to suffer, no doubt; but it would also be among the last to suffer from that deplorable event; while that portion which is constantly shaking over us the menace of separation, would be swept with the besom of destruction from the moment an offended Providence should permit that purpose to reach its ill-starred maturity.

Far distant be all these inauspicious calculations. It is the natural tendency of celebrating the fourth of July, to strengthen the sentiment of attachment to the Union. It carries us back to other days of yet greater peril to our beloved country, when a still stronger bond of feeling and action united the hearts of her children. It recalls to us the sacrifices of those who deserted all the walks of private industry, and abandoned the prospects of opening life, to engage in the service of their country. It reminds us of the fortitude of those who took upon themselves the perilous responsibility of leading the public councils in the paths of

revolution; in the sure alternative of that success, which was all but desperate, and that scaffold, already menaced as their predestined fate if they failed. It calls up, as it were, from the beds of glory and peace where they lie, from the heights of Charlestown to the southern plains, the vast and venerable congregation of those who bled in the sacred cause. They gather in saddened majesty around us, and adjure us, by their returning agonies and re-opening wounds, not to permit our feuds and dissensions to destroy the value of that birthright which they purchased with their precious lives.

There seems to me a peculiar interest attached to the present anniversary celebration. It is just a half century since the close of the revolutionary war. It is the jubilee of the restoration of peace between the United States and Great Britain. It has been sometimes objected to these anniversary celebrations, that they are calculated, by the unavoidable train of remark in the public addresses which they call forth, to perpetuate an unfriendly feeling towards the land of our fathers, with which we, to our mutual benefit, are at peace. Without denying that this celebration may, like all other human things, have been abused in injudicious hands for such a purpose, I cannot, nevertheless, admit that, either as philanthropists or citizens of the world, we are required to renounce any of the sources of an honest national pride. A revolution like ours is a most momentous event in human affairs. History does not furnish its parallel. Characters like those of our fathers services, sacrifices, and sufferings like theirsform a sacred legacy, transmitted to our veneration, to be cherished, to be preserved unimpaired, and to be handed down to after ages. Could we consent, on any occasion, to deprive them of their just meed of praise, we should prove ourselves degenerate children; and we should be guilty, as a people, of a sort of public and collective self-denial, unheard of among nations whose annals contain any thing of which their citizens have reason to be proud. Our brethren in Great Britain teach us no such lesson. In the zeal with which they nourish the boast of a brave ancestry, by the proud recollections of their history, they have, so to speak, consecrated their