Matthew Fontaine Maury

“ And so it is in the moral world: the progress of man must be upward and onward, or downward and backward. His mind cannot stand still. There is no such thing as a stationary condition for the human understanding. To stand still is death; to go backwards is worse.
With the advantages of the good training which you have received here, you cannot go amiss for subjects of study and improvement. The rock at your feet, the plant in every walk you tread, the air that surrounds you, the insect that flits across your path, the stars that look down upon you, are all suggestive of knowledge. ”

“ A republic with a future of boundless prosperity and inconceivable greatness before it, has been established; its citizens are prosperous and happy at home, honored and respected abroad; and the question as to man’s capability of self-government is settled forever.
In this grand achievement, the sons of Virginia bore a noble and conspicuous, may I not say, a chief part? Then may not the mind of the rising generation in Virginia be now turned in right good earnest to the advancement of her own special welfare and glory? ”

“ We are wiser than our fathers: every generation adds to the stock of human knowledge; and however the case may be with individuals, yet with the species there is no doubt that man, generation by generation, grows wiser and wiser. In the discovery of every new truth there is increase of knowledge; and every fresh fact that is revealed to us concerning the mysteries of the universe or the economy of nature, is a clue leading from the very chambers of knowledge, which the discoverer leaves behind him to guide his followers. ”

“ The geographical position of Virginia is commanding. She is midway the sea coast; nature has made her the front door to the Mississippi valley—Will you not open it? Her climate is the most healthful, and her harbors the most spacious and convenient in the world; yet even the traveler, let alone the produce and merchandise, must turn aside and pass around her as a taboo. ”

“ A pure, bright star is marching through the field to the music of the spheres; and at the very instant predicted, even to the fraction of a second, it stalks across the wire and is gone:—The song that was sung by the morning stars has been felt, and the heart swelling with emotions too deep for the organs of speech, almost bursts with the unutterable anthem. ”

“ An American youth setting forth to try the world, commences his career with rare advantages: he has no prejudices of class to overcome; there, the way is clear. Nor has he any superiors save those who have won their claims to superiority by their own industry, intelligence and virtue. It is a race in which no one has any special privilege, but in which all the competitors are equals, everything fair, and the stakes the highest prize that each one may have the spirit or the resolution to contend for. ”

“ But since the power of intellect to rule in congress gave way to the force of numbers, the condition of the country has changed; new elements have been brought into play; the material prosperity of all the states has greatly increased, and the relations of business have come up, if not to divide, certainly to modify the power and extent of that kind of influence that Virginia once possessed in so eminent a degree, and which made her in the eyes of all good men so exceedingly beautiful and lovely. ”

“ Your heritage is in a goodly land. Its fields are wide; its skies are bright; and its people free. Choose you out its men of mark—the great and good—as patterns for yourselves. Ask of their experience, if in its silent teachings you may not find reason—nay more—encouragement, to hope for a good name too—a place among them. ”

“ The fairest estimate to be made of the enterprise of a people is based on the average amount of property held by each citizen in the state; for the wealth of the people in the aggregate, is the wealth of the state. According to the statement of Professor Tucker in his admirable papers on the Progress, Population, and Wealth of the United States, which statements are based on the census returns, it appears that in 1850, the average value of the property owned by each white person was, leaving out the cents, $234 per head in New York, against $427 in Virginia. ”

“ The tendency of a free government with a free press like this, where all great questions are referred to the people and discussed in the primary assemblies, and by the public press, is to make a nation of legislators. Hence the government is always behind the people; it rarely anticipates the press.
In other countries, diplomacy is a profession; but here, every citizen is himself something, of a statesman; and it is curious and instructive to compare American state papers with those of any other country. ”

“ Commerce is king : therefore, in seeking the power for your state to achieve social conquests by virtuous example, and to hold again the moral sway she once held with her sister states, you should subsidize commerce, and call to your aid all the forces that with a prosperous and thriving people, are seen marshalled in the train of traffic, travel and intercourse. ”

“ The machinery by which the forces of the universe are regulated and controlled is exquisite. And if it be instructive to study the mechanism of a watch, or profitable to understand the principles of the steam engine, the contrivances of man’s puny intellect, how much more profitable and instructive must it be to look out upon the broad face of nature and study that machinery which was planned and arranged in the perfection of Wisdom. ”

“ If you be at first a little skeptical as to this order and arrangement, taking the harmonies of nature for discord, you will soon feel satisfied that the machinery of the universe—that mechanism which gives nature her powers to act—is in all its parts the expression of one thought,—as much so as the works of a watch are of one design ”

“ Nay, students of these things go so far as to say that the fig crop of Smyrna, which alone supports thousands of human beings, could not be brought forth if a certain little insect were to fail regularly and at the right time to perform certain offices for this plant. But are not insects as well as plants agents and instruments of the Creator? Have they not their appointed offices to perform in the economy of the universe? And has the insect any more ability to resist the power of instinct than a good seed in good ground has to resist the forces of germination? ”

“ While the people of New York were confining their energies and their enterprise to her own borders, Virginia was sending out her pioneers and settlers to the “far west,” and before the settlements of New York had reached her farthest limits, Virginia courage and energy had laid the corner-stones of two new states in the wilderness. ”

“ Many people in New England, for instance, find it easier to make a living at sea than they do when they attempt to wrest one from the severe climate and stingy soil of their native state; consequently they take to the sea and become sailors. But in the southern states the converse obtains. Here the climate is genial, the soil generous, and the laboring man, instead of being driven away from it to the sea, is invited to stay and dig.
You never hear of a man forsaking his home in the Mississippi valley and going to sea to make a living as a common sailor. ”

“ The solution is in those laws of climate and soil which regulate the industrial pursuits of people; and it is in consequence of those laws that we have the absence of sea-faring communities among us;—that the eye of the political economist, when contemplating the industrial landscape presented by Virginia, misses and longs for those very attractive scenes which the business and stir of the sea-calling always impart to it. ”

“ Should we not therefore cast about and seriously think of taking lessons in the study of enterprise, the development of state resources, and the creation of individual wealth, from Georgia, instead of holding up the example of New York and Pennsylvania in a false light, and thus assisting with our voice to give currency to that egregious popular fallacy about the superiority of northern over southern enterprise, as it is called? ”

“ There are some here who though not seamen, are nevertheless about to become the masters of their own acts, and who are about to try the voyage of life upon a troubled sea. I have been some little time on that voyage; and it is so, that whenever I see a young man relying upon his own resources, and setting out alone upon this long voyage, my heart warms towards him. ”

“ It is his rule never to seek office; but have patience: such a man is sure to be appreciated. His fellow-citizens, before he passes the prime of manhood, will be very apt to do homage to his virtues, and to crown him with such honors as a free people only can bestow. Being solicited to take occupation at their hands, he then can judge how best he may serve the state. ”

“ It is like climbing a mountain; every fact or fresh discovery is a step upward with an enlargement of the view, until the unknown and the mysterious become boundless,—self infinitely small; and then the conviction comes upon us with a mighty force, that we know nothing! that human knowledge is only a longing desire.
The impression is very common, that when a young man leaves college he has finished his education; but do not, when you return home crowned with the honors of these schools though you be, give in to this notion even for a moment ”

“ Their spirit answering in the name of both quick and dead, assures us that every son of the soil, how humble so ever his parentage, may rightfully aspire to this great honor. Every young man has room for hope here. The institutions of the country guaranty it, and the good spirit that strives with man has planted it in the breast of all who know how to be free. ”

“ Movement—progress, is a law of the physical world; there, rest and decay are correlative terms. The stars cannot stand still and keep their places; a planet by going back would be hurled into destruction, and even the plant of the earth that ceases to grow, straightway withers and dies. ”

“ It is the spirit of progress, the genius of improvement; these impress a peculiar feature upon the character of the true American, and as he pursues his happiness in his own way, they present him in contrast with air the people of the old world. ”

“ They have reared the most glorious fabric that the wisdom of sages has ever conceived, and they have set it up here, a light to the whole world, and an asylum to the down-trodden and oppressed of every land. ”

“ Our youth breathe it when they are young; and when they are grown, they act up to it unconsciously, for it comes upon them so quietly, and grows upon them so insensibly, that it becomes a part of their nature, and they perceive it not. ”

“ This is a necessary result of our form of government. Its acts are only the behests of the. great popular will. The people are called on, consulted, and appealed to, so often and upon such a diversity of subjects, that the public mind is almost always in a state of more or less excitement with regard to some subject or other, be it federal, state or local. The discussions which take place when the people gather themselves together on these occasions, are full and free; they assume a wide range, and are always instructive. ”

“ This being admitted, and having, after careful self-examination, finally selected the avocation most congenial to your taste, perhaps I may, without laying myself liable to the charge of presumption, venture a few hints as to one or two of the objects which every right-minded man, whatever be his occupation, should always keep in view.
The welfare of the community of which he is a member, the prosperity of the commonwealth, are among the objects which the good citizen never loses sight of. ”

“ That the people of Virginia and the south have not gone as extensively into manufacturing as those of New England have, is no more an indication as to any want of enterprise on our part, than it is want of enterprise on theirs, that the people of New England have not gone as extensively into the cultivation of cotton and rice as Carolina has. ”

“ Therefore, gentlemen, because knowledge is progressive; because you are young and fresh in the race upon this sea of life; because you have the experience of your fathers, with all the fresh lights and beacons of their knowledge to guide and to warn you, you have great advantages ”

“ That the influence of New York with or in the western states has been increasing, while that of Virginia has not been growing, may, I think, be taken for granted. What has brought about this state of things, is one of those questions which, while you are working up to the position of useful citizens, and striving to become influential men in the state, should not, and of course will not, escape your attention. ”

“ The young freeman, therefore, who has been well trained, who is possessed of a sound mind in a healthy body, has the chances of a glorious career before him. And well may those, who, long years ago, passed through their training, and are about to finish their course, pause as they approach the goal, to look back and contemplate the scene presented by those who with young blood in blue veins are just setting out. ”