Gouverneur Morris

“ Let mankind enjoy at last the consolatory spectacle of thy throne, built by industry on the basis of peace and sheltered under the wings of justice. May it be secured by a pious obedience to that divine will, which prescribes the moral orbit of empire with the same precision that his wisdom and power have displayed, in whirling millions of planets round millions of suns through the vastness of infinite space. ”

“ Those who are well informed smile at the folly. Great minds disdain to tell their own good deeds: it seems, moreover, to those who have managed public business, almost impossible that the tittle tattle of ignorance should meet with belief. Nevertheless, such writings, though sheltered by contempt, from contemporaneous contradiction, are raked out, in a succeeding age, from the ashes of oblivion, and relied on as authority. History, compiled from such materials, can hardly teach us the science of human nature. ”

“ Something more, then, is required to encourage virtue, suppress vice, preserve public peace, and secure national independence. There must be something more to hope than pleasure, wealth, and power. Something more to fear than poverty and pain. Something after death more terrible than death. There must be religion. When that ligament is torn, society is disjointed, and its members perish. The nation is exposed to foreign violence and domestic convulsion. Vicious rulers, chosen by a vicious people, turn back the current of corruption to its source. ”

“ The history of our day is, indeed, a school for princes; and, therefore, the proper school for American citizens. Exercising, by their delegates, the sovereign power, it is meet they know how to assert and how to preserve their freedom. Let them learn the mischief that follows in the train of folly. Let them learn the misery that results from immorality. ”

“ Materials which, establishing facts by indisputable authority, will enable the future historian accurately to deduce effects from the true cause, correctly to portray characters taken from real life, and justly assign to each his actual agency. Let us, humble as we are, and humble we ought to be comparing ourselves with the Eastern hemisphere, let us proudly aver, that if, in modern history, the period, when barbarous hordes broke the vast orb of Roman empire, be one great epoch, the discovery which immortalized Columbus, presents another not less worthy of attention. ”

“ There are persons of some eminence, in Europe, who look contemptuously at our country, in the persuasion that all creatures, not excepting man, degenerate here. They triumphantly call on us to exhibit a list of our scholars, poets, heroes, and statesmen. Be this the care of posterity. But admitting we had no proud names to show, is it reasonable to make such heavy demand, on so recent a people. Could the culture of science be expected from those who, in cultivating the earth, were obliged, while they held a plough in one hand, to grasp a sword in the other? ”

“ A facetious writer who, in a rapid view of centuries, ridicules the misery of injured virtue, displays the glory of successful vice, laughs at the restraint of moral principle, and chuckles at the commission of crimes, may (if he please) call his work philosophy teaching by example; but example so selected and genius so employed, are more likely to accomplish a scoundrel than to form an useful member of society. ”

“ Such writings, therefore, however illumined by the rays of genius, or adorned by the charms of style, instead of showing man a just image of what he is, will frequently exhibit the delusive semblance of what he is not.
When we consider History, in the second point of view, as teaching morality by example, it seems evident that examples, if not drawn from real life, instead of informing, may mislead the mind, and instead of purifying, corrupt the heart. Neither is it certain that wholesome nourishment will always be extracted even from truth. ”

“ How the heart-burnings in a shepherd's family drove a minister of state to the foot of Pharaoh's throne. And how, for purposes still more important, a shepherd-boy was enabled to govern a mighty kingdom.
From the same pure Fountain of Wisdom we learn that vice destroys freedom; that arbitrary power is founded on public immorality, and that misconduct in those who rule a republic, necessary consequence of general licentiousness, so disgusts and degrades the nation, that, dead to generous sentiment, they become willing slaves. ”

“ That form of government which God himself had established, that code of laws which God himself had promulgated, those institutions which infinite wisdom had provided, in special relation to the climate, soil, and situation of the country, to the genius, temper, and character of the people, became intolerable from the prevalence of vice and impiety. It is a trite maxim, that man is governed by hope and fear. ”

“ Samuel, his aged bosom still warm with patriotic sentiment, endeavoured to preserve the old form of equal right. To this end, he assembled the people, and displayed a highly wrought, but faithful, picture of evils which would grow out of despotism. In vain. Men sore with present suffering have not temper to reflect on remote consequence. In the maddening moment, they are deaf even to the voice of a prophet. "The people said, we will have a king over us, that we may be like all the nations, that he may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles." ”

“ The intelligent liberality which devoted a spacious building to Science and the Arts, not only reflects honour on them, but sheds lustre on this great commercial emporium of the United States. Let the sordid collect and the riotous squander hoards of useless or pernicious treasure; be it yours, municipal fathers, to expend the fruit of honest industry ,on objects which embellish your city, and spread the influence of learning, genius, and taste over the hearts and minds of its numerous inhabitants. ”

“ It may, perhaps, be found in that difference of manners which makes us view with horror the Roman practice of sending their superannuated slaves to perish on an island on the Tiber, and fills us with astonishment that the African Scipio should be celebrated for chastity, because he did not violate a distinguished female prisoner. The laws and manners of every nation, taken in the mass, have, generally speaking, a due relation and proportion. They so influence and correct each other, that the business of life goes smoothly on. The social harmony is full. ”

“ We have known, in English annals, a man whose capacious mind embraced all science. With a rare power of intuition, he not only pointed out the means by which knowledge might be enlarged, but seems to have perceived the remote bound to which it could extend. And yet that wonderful man sullied his soul, by accepting a bribe. The character a great English poet gave to Chancellor Bacon, is not wholly inapplicable to the Jewish king: "The greatest, wisest, meanest of mankind." ”

“ As little can the stern severity of Roman virtue, though it swell the youthful bosom with enthusiastic admiration, teach the conduct which befits a Christian people. Hearts chastened by the religion of love would recoil from the Brutus who beheads his son, and the Brutus who plants a dagger in the breast of his friend, but for the lavish encomium of orators, poets, and historians. ”

“ Philosophy, indeed, at a later day, may bring her balance of probability, put the evidence of opposed facts in different scales, and deduce fair-seeming conclusions from an assumed principle that man is a rational creature. But is that assumption just? or, rather, does not History show, and experience prove, that he is swayed from the course which reason indicates, by passion, by indolence, and even by caprice? When the foundation is false, the superstructure must fall. ”

“ The reflection and experience of many years have led me to consider the holy writings, not only as most authentic and instructive in themselves, hut as the clue to all other history. They tell us what man is, and they, alone, tell us why he is what he is: a contradictory creature that, seeing and approving what is good, pursues and performs what is evil. ”

“ Again, if History be taken as the school in which statesmen are to be taught, there can be little hope that politics—that sublime science to make a nation great and happy—will be acquired by reading the relation of mutilated events, attributed to false causes. Such compilations tend to inculcate erroneous notions; and these, where the fate of millions is concerned, can never be indifferent. If measures pregnant with misery are considered as sources of prosperity, the best intentions may produce the worst effects. ”

“ But when strangers, blinded by prejudice, are raised to power, they multiply proofs, already too numerous, that regulations uncongenial to national feeling are inconvenient, if not injurious, and that rash reformation leads to ruin. From the same cause it happens that institutions which have been fruitful of good, in one age or nation, may be as fruitful of evil in another nation, or another age.
Every man, therefore, will find the history of his own country the most interesting and the most instructive. ”

“ New disorders require new corrections, and when the reason of ancient ordinances no longer exists, they fall into oblivion. History and law, therefore, are sister sciences. They support and enlighten each other. But the history of one country can have little connection with the laws of another, and still less can the native code be modified be exotic manners.
Permit me then, gentlemen, to offer my cordial congratulations to you, and, through you, to our fellow-citizens, that this Institution is rapidly collecting and accumulating materials for a history of our own country. ”

“ We read that, in the latter days of Samuel, the judges "turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgment." A more miserable state of society can hardly be conceived. Then laws to protect the weak against the strong, the innocent against the wicked, become instruments of oppression and torture. ”

“ Mature reflection, therefore, will diminish our surprise that many, skilled in History, are ignorant of the world. Long is the list of learned men who know not how to manage the common concerns of life, and not a few are rendered, by the violence of untamed passion, incapable of controling themselves, much less of governing their fellow-creatures. ”

“ They would have covered, with bright varnish, the hideous traits of adultery and assassination. But truth, telling what he was, gives a lesson awfully instructive. It teaches the frailty of our nature, and the danger of trusting too much power even to the purest hands. ”

“ I add, gentlemen, with the pleasure and the pride which swell your bosoms, that America has shown examples of heroic ardour not excelled by Rome, in her brightest day of glory, and blended with milder virtue than Romans ever knew. ”

“ We live in a period so enlightened, that to display the use of History would be superfluous labour. It would be the mere repetition of what has already been expressed, by eminent authors, on various occasions. They have told us that History is the science of human nature ”

“ Those nations are doomed to death who bury, in the corruption of criminal desire, the awful sense of an existing God, cast off the consoling hope of immortality, and seek refuge from despair in the dreariness of annihilation. ”

“ Let a single man be invested with executive and judicial authority." Master and owner of the state, he will, for his own sake, protect it against foreign foes, and provide for an impartial administration of justice; that his subjects, secured and enriched, may multiply and thus increase his wealth and power. ”

“ War, fruitful as it is of misery and wo, is nevertheless medicinal to a nation infected by the breath of foreign pollution, engrossed by the pursuit of illicit gain, immersed in the filth of immoral traffic, or unnerved by the excess of selfish enjoyment. ”

“ Your conduct has proved your conviction, that, in order to promote virtue and multiply the sources of social bliss, wise magistrates will direct the people to laudable pursuits, and impressing on them a just contempt for sensual gratification, raise and adorn the moral dignity of man. ”

“ Let them learn the crush of impiety. Let them learn, also, for such we trust will be the final event, that when the altars of idolatrous lust had been overturned, and those of Jehovah restored; when nations severely scourged had sincerely repented, they were favoured with as much civil liberty, and as much social enjoyment, as consist with their absolute and relative condition. ”

“ Perhaps it is not rash to suppose that more accurate, more extensive, more useful knowledge of our nature may be derived from the intuitive perception and personificating power of Shakespeare, than from the laborious research and acute discussion of Hume. ”

“ Reduced to this forlorn condition, the more sedate and respectable members of the community, seeing no security for property or for life, seek shelter under the wings of absolute power. "The elders said make us a king to judge us like all the nations." ”