Various

“ President, I shall enter on no encomium upon Massachusetts—she needs none. There she is—behold her, and judge for yourselves. There is her history: the world knows it by heart. The past, at least, is secure. There is Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill—and there they will remain forever. The bones of her sons, falling in the great struggle for independence, now lie mingled with the soil of every state, from New England to Georgia; and there they will lie forever. ”

“ In the places of many of the old Polish cities, it is said, that dense forests have now sprung up; that the traveller, as he makes his way through their interminable shades, finds the pavement of streets and the relics of deserted towns in the midst of a lifeless solitude. And now, that the sum of evils may be full, the nation of the Poles seems destined to a fall, from which there will be to them no further resurrection.
Yet the former history of Poland hardly palliates the position which the sovereigns and states of Europe have assumed towards her. ”

“ The enemies of statu quo, and the genius of change, are now arraying their respective powers, and in proportion as the people have been debarred from all participation in the government, will be their ardour to govern without controul. Such a struggle cannot end in a day, or in a year,—nor will it be decided in all probability, except through a long series of gradations, which will finally rest at last on a basis suitable to the present state of the human mind. We cannot, therefore, but anticipate heavy times for Europe. ”

“ Perhaps they will, so long as there is an army of sixty or eighty thousand men, disposed so happily for the protection of order in the United Kingdom, that every breath of discontent is met by a bayonet. But let the monarchs who maintain order in Europe, by means of standing armies, recollect the lesson of history, which teaches us, that throughout all ages, and countries, the power which sustained the throne by force, in the end by force overthrew it. There is but one solid permanent support of power, and that is, the attachment of the people. ”

“ I thank God, that, if I am gifted with little of the spirit which is able to raise mortals to the skies, I have yet none, as I trust, of that other spirit, which would drag angels down. When I shall be found, Sir, in my place here, in the Senate, or elsewhere, to sneer at public merit, because it happens to spring up beyond the little limits of my own state, or neighbourhood; when I refuse, for any such cause, or for any cause, the homage due to American talent, to elevated patriotism, to sincere devotion to liberty and the country ”

“ A cosmopolite, infidel republic of letters was already lifting its front above the old sovereignties, gathering under its banners a race of mankind new to public struggle,—the whole secluded, yet jealous and vexed race of labourers in the intellectual field, and summoning them to devote their most unexhausted vigour and masculine ambition to the service of a sovereign, at whose right and left, like the urns of Homer's Jove, stood the golden founts of glory. ”

“ Whether a chastened freedom, guarantied by a fair representation of the people in the governments, a despotism without limits, or an anarchy without controul, is beyond the reach of human foresight to predict.
One thing, however, we think, is certain. This unsettled state of life, liberty and property, in Europe, will produce a vast accession of wealth and population in the new world, and accelerate its progress to the sceptre of intellect and power, hitherto, for so long a time, wielded by the old. ”

“ Europe, in her present situation, cannot do without America,—while, on the other hand, America has no occasion for Europe. America can, and will, therefore, become independent of Europe; but, in the present state of things, Europe cannot become independent of America. That almost universal empire which Europe attained by the superiority of her intelligence,—by the tribute she exacted from every other quarter of the globe, and by the superiority of her skill as well as of her industry, cannot be sustained for a much longer period. ”

“ But all that is great, or good, or valuable, in this world, must be attained by labour, perseverance, courage, and integrity. Liberty is too valuable a blessing to be gained or preserved without the exercise of these great virtues. It must have its victims, and its charter must be sealed with blood. A people afraid of a bayonet, are not likely to be free while Europe swarms with standing armies, having little or no community of interests or feeling with those who maintain them by the sweat of their brow. ”

“ Sir, the human mind is so constituted, that the merits of both sides of a controversy appear very clear, and very palpable, to those who respectively espouse them; and both sides usually grow clearer as the controversy advances. South Carolina sees unconstitutionality in the tariff; she sees oppression there, also; and she sees danger. Pennsylvania, with a vision not less sharp, looks at the same tariff, and sees no such thing in it—she sees it all constitutional, all useful, all safe. ”

“ The United States, on the contrary, with nothing to disturb their tranquillity, but the peaceable struggles of an election, and stretching out a hand of welcome to all nations, and all ranks of mankind, from the exiled monarch to the mechanic or peasant, coming in search of employment and bread, will present a safe deposit for the wealth of Europe,—a sanctuary where the persecuted, the harassed, and the timid spirit, may find repose from the storms that vex his native land. ”

“ Webster thus secured for a great constitutional principle, he may now well regard, as the chief honour of his life.
Indeed, a man such as he is, when he looks back upon his past life, and forward to the future, must needs feel, that his fate and his fortunes, his fame and his ambition, are connected throughout with the fate and the fortunes of the constitution of his country. He is the child of our free institutions. None other could have produced or reared him;—none other can now sustain or advance him. ”

“ In concluding, we may respond to the sentiment of Mr. Peale, when on leaving Milan, he bade farewell to the arts of Italy.
"An Italian, not exempted from bigotry, discovered a new world for the emancipation of man. May America in patronizing the arts, receive them as the offspring of enlightened Greece, transmitted through Italy, where their miraculous powers were nourished in the bondage of mind. Let them in turn be emancipated, and their persuasive and fascinating language be exalted to the noblest purposes, and be made instrumental to social happiness and national glory!" ”

“ Thank Heaven we live in a land in which there is no such dignity to be supported,—where the time of the great officers of state is never occupied in wrangling about the extent of the facilities which shall be afforded the successor to the administration of affairs, of bringing disgrace upon himself, and the country,—where the people are infinitely better governed, at an infinitely less expense, both of money and honour! ”

“ Every age seems to be productive of some great genius peculiarly adapted to the accomplishment of some great design, connected either with the advancement of learning, or the melioration of the moral condition of mankind. The present appears fruitful of great men, and France, particularly favoured, whether we regard the great political events which have called out the most gigantic exhibitions of practical wisdom, or look at the onward march of science, which seems in no wise impeded, by convulsions which scatter every thing but science, like the yellow leaves of autumn. ”

“ We fear for the result. The brave opposition which has been made, displays the more fully the merits of the nation which is doomed as a victim, and we almost shrink from admiring the gallantry which will eventually render more bloody and more severe the sacrifice that must at last be offered on the unholy altars of despotism. The nationality of Poland has excited the struggle; has animated her sons to battle; and has armed them in the panoply of an heroic despair. That nationality will be utterly destroyed by the impending successes of Russia. ”

“ National pride is a commendable and manly feeling; it is the parent of virtue and greatness—the foundation of a noble character; and if the nation which has led the way in the bright path of freedom—which, young as it is, has become already the beacon, the example, the patriarch of the struggling nations of the world—has not a fair right to be proud, we know not on what basis national pride ought to erect itself. ”

“ The night that is approaching, will be long and dark, in all human probability—it may end in a total regeneration—in a confirmed and inflexible despotism; or in that precise state of things which characterized what are called, the dark ages of Europe—in the establishment of a hundred petty states, governed by a hundred petty tyrants, eternally at variance, and agreeing in nothing but in oppressing the people. Great standing armies are at present the conservators of the great powers of Europe, and public sentiment is no longer the sole or principal cement of empires ”

“ Peale has turned his principal attention. Travelling himself as an artist; seeking for the subjects of his own studies, the masterpieces wherever found; exercising a criticism, not as the picture-dealer who sees in every dingy canvass which bears, truly or falsely, the name of some celebrated master, the marks of pre-eminent genius, regardless of the time or circumstances under which it was executed—nor as the connoisseur or virtuoso, who has to maintain or to gain reputation by the singularity, the rashness, or the accidental correctness of his opinions ”

“ Webster feels this. On all the great principles of the constitution, and all the leading interests of the country, his opinions are known; his ground is taken; his lot is cast. Whoever may attack the Union on any of the fundamental doctrines of our government, he must defend them. Prima fortuna salutis monstrat iter. The path he has chosen, is the path he must follow. And we rejoice at it. We rejoice, that such a necessity is imposed on such a mind. We rejoice, that, even such as he cannot stand, unless they sustain the institutions that formed them ”

“ It is nothing, that the troops of France have passed from the Pyrenees to Cadiz; it is nothing that an unhappy and prostrate nation has fallen before them; it is nothing that arrests, and confiscation, and execution, sweep away the little remnant of national resistance. There is an enemy that still exists to check the glory of these triumphs. It follows the conqueror back to the very scene of his ovations; it calls upon him to take notice that Europe, though silent, is yet indignant; it shows him that the sceptre of his victory is a barren sceptre ”

“ Human beings are composed not of reason only, but of imagination also, and sentiment; and that is neither wasted nor misapplied which is appropriated to the purpose of giving right direction to sentiments, and opening proper springs of feeling in the heart. Let it not be supposed that our object is to perpetuate national hostility, or even to cherish a mere military spirit. It is higher, purer, nobler. We consecrate our work to the spirit of national independence, and we wish that the light of peace may rest upon it for ever. ”

“ No public man of England ever mingled so much personal pursuit of every thing in the form of indulgence with so much parliamentary activity. From the dinner he went to the debate, from the debate to the gaming-table, and returned to his bed by day-light, freighted with parliamentary applause, plundered of his last disposable guinea, and fevered with sleeplessness and agitation; to go through the same round within the next twenty-four hours. He kept no house; but he had the houses of all his party at his disposal, and that party were the most opulent and sumptuous of the nobility. ”

“ Let us look to ourselves; preserve the purity of the national manners and institutions—foster our natural and accidental advantages, and observe, and gather lessons of wisdom as well as moderation from the folly and excesses of rulers and people in the old superannuated world. Above all, let us ever bear in mind and continue to act upon the sentiment of Daniel Webster, and be careful that "while other nations are moulding their governments after ours, we do not break the pattern." ”

“ The leaders of revolutions may transmute, so to speak, into personal merit, some of the results which, more narrowly considered, are referrible to the pervading spirit and general movement of the occasion. To weigh justly these elements of their renown, is not invidiously to derogate from it, but only to vindicate the truth of history. It still leaves them the highest merit to which, perhaps, the leaders in any kind of reform can truly lay claim, that of seizing the spirit of their age, and employing and directing it with a just energy and discernment. ”

“ Gaming, horse-racing, and still deeper deviations from the right rule of life, were looked upon as the natural embellishments of rank and fortune. Private theatricals, one of the most dexterous and assured expedients to extinguish, first the delicacy of woman, and then her virtue, were the favourite indulgence; and, by an outrage to English decorum, which completed the likeness to France, women were beginning to mingle in public life, try their influence in party, and entangle their feebleness in the absurdities and abominations of political intrigue. ”

“ A long course of internal and external wars, is fatal to the great interests of a state. Commerce decays, and seeks other more peaceful climes—agriculture is robbed of its labourers, and of the products of labour, [Pg 414] to recruit and feed the armies,—and manufacturers are deprived of their foreign purchasers. The powers of the intellect, too, are diverted from the pursuits of science and literature, into the bloody paths of warfare,—and thus it has ever happened, that a long continuance of national struggles, produces a neglect of the arts of peace, and an approach to barbarism. ”