Various

“ Every sale implies a price, a quid pro quo, an equivalent given to the seller in lieu of what he transfers to the buyer; but what equivalent can be given for life and liberty, both of which (in absolute slavery) are held to be in the master's disposal? His property also, the very price he seems to receive, devolves ipso facto to his master, the instant he becomes his slave. In this case, therefore, the buyer gives nothing, and the seller receives nothing: of what validity then can a sale be, which destroys the very principles upon which all sales are founded? ”

“ Your philosophy and metaphysics, will draw you irresistibly to a great first cause—the supreme, beneficent, ever bounteous Author of all the objects of our senses, of all the powers and conceptions of our understandings; and will indelibly stamp upon your hearts the sentiments of adoration, love and obedience, as the only proper tribute you could pay to a Being, who, so far as we can comprehend his works, hath made them all subservient, either directly or indirectly, to our own happiness, both in time and eternity. ”

“ There is something strikingly magnanimous in the self-denial, which could make such a mind relinquish pursuits so congenial to its tastes and so meet for its abilities, for a profession the most abounding of all others in dry, ponderous, and perplexing drudgery, yet amongst the most vital to the well-being of society. What a lesson to our dilettanti, who, even after having adopted that profession, cannot bravely face and grapple with its difficulties, but remain entranced by the Circean draughts and Syren songs of the lightest and most frivolous of the Muses! ”

“ It will be a time of heartfelt rejoicing, a day of glorious jubilee, to all who may live to see it—a day which even we of the present generation may highly enjoy by anticipation, although we have little prospect of living to participate in all its precious blessings. By the way, how do we obtain this power of anticipation, this faculty of feeling inexpressible delight in all the advantages, gratifications and enjoyments of those who are to live after we are dead and gone? ”

“ The overpowering awe that steals upon one, while viewing those mighty efforts of creative power, which fills the soul with sensations altogether too big for utterance,—is modified, when the eye falls, and rests on the peaceful village, which speaks of human society, comfort and happiness. It seems as if the inhabitants, brought up with such scenes of beauty and sublimity constantly before them, must be more free from base and ignoble passions, than those who live and die amid scenery of a different character. ”

“ These principles and these alone form our only safeguards against vice and crime—our only security for using whatever other education we may acquire, as rational and accountable beings should use all the powers of their minds and bodies. Once acquired and ardently cherished, they will prove to you "a refuge in every storm—a present help in every trouble"—the sweetest solace in all adversity—the ever faithful monitors and guides in prosperous fortune. ”

“ If they are really better educated, ought they not certainly to be not only wiser but better men, that is if education actually was what it most assuredly should be? But what is the fact? Do we find them better men, better citizens, better neighbors, friends and heads of families or states, than those who, with less scholarship, have had much more attention paid to their moral and religious education, than to those scholastic acquirements of which nothing but the most thorough, moral and religious instruction can teach us either the true value or the proper use? ”

“ No one can estimate more highly than I do, their power of extending our views, liberalizing our sentiments, enlightening our minds, strengthening our intellectual faculties, and exciting an ardent desire to increase our knowledge. Considered as the means and not the ends of education, I would always award to them the highest rank. But when we have said this, nothing more can justly be affirmed in their favor—if disconnected, as they too often are, from the ultimate and vital purposes of all perfect education. ”

“ You will reach the lowest, most despicable grade of political prostitution, by turning man-worshippers; and soon learn to offer up your incense in exact proportion to the vanity of your idols and their power to gratify your wants; until at last you will neither see, hear, nor understand any thing but as they wish you; and will call black white, or white black—just as they bid you do. To this wretched state of degradation and self-abasement do most politicians sink themselves, whose educations have not been firmly based on sound, moral and religious principles. ”

“ That such power, passing from generation to generation successively, into the hands of men of mature age, of bold spirits and commanding minds, will increase and multiply itself without end, is certain. That such power will be deemed necessary, so long as men give themselves up to dreams of glory and the lust of conquest, is equally sure.
Why did our fathers hope that the experiment of free government might succeed with us, though it had failed every where else? Was it not because our local situation removed us far from war, and the entanglements of foreign politics? ”

“ Nothing deserves the name of education which does not tend directly and intelligibly to these great objects. Judge then, I pray you my friends, how little what is usually called education is entitled to be so styled! But first hear that you may judge. Is it not the sole aim in all our schools of the lower kinds to enable pupils to enter those of a higher grade, not by the evidences they can produce of advancement in the knowledge and practice of moral and religious principles, but by their proficiency in the elements of certain languages and abstract sciences? ”

“ There are some little great men in the world, who have the vanity to conceive that their taste and judgment (if they have any) is the standard for all mankind—and if all do not exactly conform to it, they snap and bark like the curs which infest our streets, and annoy the by-ways. True criticism is the sentence of a liberal and enlightened judgment, which delights as much in approving what is worthy of praise, as in condemning what deserves censure. By such an arbiter, and by such alone, let the specimens of native genius which we now present to our readers be tried. ”

“ And if I grant, also, that the slave is happier than the free laborer, does it follow that his master may lawfully hold him as such? Does the question of right depend simply, or at all, upon the degree of happiness which the laborer enjoys? And have I, then, a right to make any man work for me, according to my will and pleasure, provided I take care to feed and clothe him well, and make him as happy as any laborer can expect to be? ”

“ I do love to drive about a little, and see the world, and the people that are in it. And, by the way, do you know that I go to Boston, with Alpheus, in a fortnight? Business calls him there,—and he says he cannot go without me. I am glad of it, truly. I should not like to ask him to take me with him,—and stay at home, alone, I could not!"
"I am glad you are to have the pleasure of a journey," said Mrs. Lawrence. "And there is no reason why you should not. Mr. North is, of course, at present, your principal care; and you have little else to do, but study to promote his happiness." ”

“ Are these duties solely or even chiefly, to speak, or to understand a great variety of tongues—to measure the earth, the waters of the mighty ocean, nay the heavens themselves, with instruments and means of human invention—to wear away life itself in the vain attempt to discover the elementary principles of all visible things—to scan thoroughly the vast powers and possible expanse of human intellect—and to astonish the world by the perfection to which all human science, arts and accomplishments may be brought? ”

“ The combined power of three great causes are at work: maternal love, vanity and ignorance. We may venture to say, every mother in her senses loves her child more than she loves herself. How can she then refuse to give him any thing! Food is the most obvious comfort, the greatest pleasure he enjoys, and she gives it freely. She wishes her child to thrive, to become strong, vigorous and fleshy. And now vanity comes in play. Every mother is vain of her child, and would fain have it the finest, and for this purpose also it is excessively fed. ”

“ Lawrence felt that the case was, at present, hopeless. There was no feeling; there was not even thought;—it was a mere assent of the voice.
But an event was now in prospect that seemed to have a great effect on Mrs. North; and which frequently has a vast effect in deciding character. Life is always uncertain,—and, in a moment of reflection, every one is willing to acknowledge it; but when a lady has the prospect of becoming a mother, there is a definite period to which she looks forward, as the one in which she may be called from time into eternity. ”

“ Lawrence felt that it would bring a severe pang to her heart, were the first smile and look of love of an infant of her own, bestowed on an hireling,—however worthy she might be. But Mrs. North had no weakness of this kind; on the contrary, she was delighted with the happiness he manifested in nurse's arms, as it was incontestible proof of her faithful discharge of duty.
Eight years passed away, and in that time the number of Mrs. North's children increased to four; but never was a woman less incommoded by a growing family. Never was there one on whom care sat more lightly. ”

“ Your mathematics will lead you to the conviction, strong and irresistible as the demonstrative principles and reasonings upon which the whole of this noble science depends, that nothing but a God of all perfect wisdom and love could have endowed you with faculties and powers capable of deriving not only the highest mental gratifications from such a source, but of applying the discoveries which produce these gratifications to an infinite series of the most beneficial purposes. ”

“ May it not be that in all histories of a romantic character there is, from the very nature of the thing, a degree of mystery which we cannot penetrate; and that the innumerable little incidents, which adorn the pages of a romance, and so aptly illustrate the characters of the parties, are hidden by the veil of domestic privacy? It might be allowable to supply these; but the attempt to do so, is always offensive to the reader. We are disgusted at seeing truth alloyed by fiction, and the fiction always betrays itself. ”

“ Who does not desire that the strife and bitterness of politics should be allayed by the diffusion of a spirit which shall unite and harmonize the most discordant elements, and establish a point where all men of every sect and party may rally for the interests of their country, and forget the unhappy differences which distract and divide them. It is certainly an extraordinary fact that, with one honorable exception, no similar institution seems ever to have been established in Virginia, during the more than two centuries of its civilized existence. ”

“ We cannot concur in the sentiment that the fame of La Fayette, or even of Washington, has placed either of those great men superior to eulogy. The most sublime events and the most heroic actions have generally found some poet or historian of sufficient qualifications to record them with dignity and effect. Even the most exalted truths which have ever dawned upon mankind,—the facts and doctrines of revelation,—have lost none of their grandeur in the simple narratives of plain and unlettered men. ”

“ Thus it appears that the reasoning of Blackstone to prove the unlawfulness of slavery in its origin, is as strong as we have always thought it; and very easily defends itself against all that any ingenuity can urge against it. But say that it is not so; and grant, if you please, for the sake of argument, that it is all "a specious fallacy" indeed; what then? Does it follow that slavery as it exists in our state, was just and lawful in its origin? ”

“ By the decree of God, who has said, that "man shall eat of the fruit of the earth by the sweat of his face," there must always be a working class of men, in every country, who must be satisfied to labor for their victuals and clothes; that being the natural and impassable stint of their wages. It makes no manner of odds, therefore, whether the members of this working class be free or slave: if they are fed and clothed, it is all that they have a right to expect, or any reason to demand. In point of fact, indeed, the slave of this class is perhaps rather better off than the freeman ”

“ A less enthusiastic spectator would subtract many of its beauties from this glowing description, and still could not fail to admire—to admire much and long, the prospect from Chapoltepec. He would see a fine city, with its sixty domes and twice as many towers, but the lake of Tescuco is too distant and indistinct to seem to wash it with its waters—and he would look in vain for the villages and hamlets that surround it. The fruit trees of Tacubaya, San Angel and Agustin exist, but unfortunately are not seen. ”

“ Nothing is more true, than that the appetite for pleasure grows by indulgence, and that, pushed to the verge of what is lawful, it is too apt to pass into criminal excess. But innocent pleasures men will have. What security that they will be content with these? None but the influence of public sentiment, constraining them to respect the almost viewless boundary that divides the extreme of lawful indulgence from the beginnings of licentiousness. The exercise of this influence is a duty society owes to itself ”

“ But will any sober, reflecting person say, that such appliances do not tend constantly, nay almost certainly, to make us fear man more than God—to inspire more dread of public sentiment than love of public and private duty—to poison our hearts with jealousy and envy, and to intoxicate us with pride, vanity and ambition, rather than to fix indelibly in our souls all those truly christian virtues, which man must not only possess but exercise—not only acquire but ardently cherish, to attain the great end of his being? ”

“ We should sincerely lament if so noble an effort to diffuse throughout the country a taste for science and elegant literature, should fail for want of encouragement, but we think we perceive a growing conviction of its importance, and an increasing disposition to promote its objects. These objects, as declared in the constitution of the society, are "to discover, procure and preserve whatever may relate to the natural, civil and literary history of this state; and to patronize and advance all those sciences which have a direct tendency to promote the best interests of our citizens." ”