by trampling upon their rights: that the distinguishing excellence of a republican form of government is, that, under it, oppression can have no place. This opinion I am not disposed to combat; but as it is a fact, that a safe and constitutional remedy for all grievances of this kind is in the hands of the people, this circumstance alone should dispose every one to submit, for a time, to some inconvenience rather than apply a rash and violent corrective. I admit, there are cases in which the minions of office become so intoxicated with a little brief power—that, forgetting all men are free and possess certain constitutional privileges, and forgetting also, that they were elevated to office not to be oppressors but conservators, their haughty, vexatious, and oppressive conduct, becomes intolerable. In such cases as these, let the strong indignation of an outraged public, calmly but firmly expressed, awaken the dreamer from his vision of greatness, and send him back to re-enact his dream in his original obscurity.

"Another argument for order and subordination lies in the fact, that the laws are in the hands of the people. Legislators are not elevated to office for their private emolument and honour, but for the nobler purpose of advancing and securing the happiness of their constituents: and they are bound—by the most solemn considerations—they are bound, to enact such laws, and such laws only, as are suited to the genius and circumstances of the people. If they betray the high trust committed to them, and enact laws either oppressive or partial, the corrective is equally in the hands of the people. They have only to apply the constitutional remedy. Here, then, is no apology for disorder. Order, then, must be our rule; for without subordination, and prompt and constant and conscientious obedience to wholesome law, there can be no security for person nor property. The bands of society would be untwisted, and the whole fabric exposed to ruin on the first popular outbreak. Be it, then, fellow-citizens, our first concern to sustain our officers in the proper discharge of their constitutional duties; to secure obedience to the laws, and to preserve them from violation with the same jealousy with which we watch the first encroachment of power.

"I observe, in the second place, that union among ourselves is absolutely necessary to prosperity. The idea of prosperity and stability where disunion reigns, where the elements of discord are actively at work; the idea of prosperity and stability, in such circumstances, can only serve to mislead. Can that army, in which faction triumphs among the soldiers and disunion and jealousy distract the counsels of the officers, hope to succeed in a campaign? Where each is afraid of the other, where no one has confidence in any, where every one regards every other one with feelings not only of jealousy but of positive hostility, how can there be any hope to bring an unbroken front to bear with undivided force upon any single point? I would observe also, that the complexion of the soldiers' mind will be sure to be tinged by that of their officers. In every community there will be found some few to whom the mass will look up with unenquiring deference. Mankind, generally, are averse to the labour of thinking. This circumstance separates those who should be very friends, and men file off under different leaders as fancy or caprice may dictate. Each party ranges itself under the banner of a leader whom it invests with all perfection of political sagacity and political integrity. To his semi-brutal followers his word is law; his decisions an oracle. Finding in him every attribute of perfection, they abandon the reins to his hand; yield up the glorious privileges of thinking and examining, and prepare to follow with a blind and implicit obedience. This unworthy abandonment of the public interests, this surrender of a privilege to which every man is born, and which every man should exercise, is the capital of intriguing politicians and unprincipled political demagogues. And, let me ask you, fellow-citizens, what scheme, however mad and absurd, which has been set on foot by these unprincipled leaders, has not had among the masses its advocates and adherents? Bad, however, as human nature is, alluring and fascinating as are the glitter and privilege of place and power, this confidence has not been always abused. We could easily point out instances, in which the influence which this disposition we have been adverting to has given to men, has been exerted wholly and exclusively for the public good. But we must take human nature as we find it; and as we find this disposition every where prevalent, the duty becomes imperative on all who have influence, to exert it for the public good. The root of the jealousies and divisions among public men will, generally speaking, be found planted in the soil of selfishness and ambition: not in any real and sincere disagreement as to the proper measures for the public good. This, I admit, is always the avowed, the ostensible, but, I am bold to say, not the real cause.

"It is envy of place and emolument—it is ambition of power, that array public men in a hostile attitude, and range their infatuated followers under their opposing banners. In the infancy of our political existence, let those amongst us who have credit with the people and influence over them, beware of so great infatuation. Let us recollect, that all cannot govern: that from the division and order into which society naturally resolves itself, all even of those who are worthy, cannot stand in the foremost ranks. Let us remember, that we equally serve our country, whether we sit in the gubernatorial or presidential chair; whether we deliberate in the Hall of the Legislature or preside in the Sanctuary of Justice; that we equally serve our country, whether from the shades of cloistered retirement we send forth wholesome maxims for public instruction, or in the intercourse of our daily life we set an attracting example of obedience to the laws; that we equally serve our country, whether from the sacred desk we inculcate lessons of celestial wisdom, exhibit the sanctions of a heaven-descended religion and the thunders of an incensed Jehovah, or in the nursery of learning unfold the mysteries and display the glories of science, recall and re-enact the deeds and the achievements of the past, and call back upon the stage the heroes, the patriots, and the sages of antiquity, to kindle the ardour, nerve the virtue, awaken the patriotism, elevate and purify the sentiment, and expand the mind, of the generous and aspiring youth. Humble as many of those offices of which I have spoken are esteemed to be,—obscure and concealed from vulgar gaze and destitute of the trappings of office and the glitter of fame as most of them actually are, it is, nevertheless, fellow-citizens, not within the reach of our judgment to determine which one of them exerts the greatest influence on the destinies of our race. True dignity, and, I may add, true usefulness, depend not so much upon the circumstance of office as upon the faithful discharge of appropriate duties.

"It is the false notion of honour which has unhappily possessed the minds of men, placing all dignity in the pageantry of state and the tinsel of office, which produces those collisions, jostlings, and acrimony of contending factions which sometimes shake the fabric of society to its very foundations: it is by the maddening influence of this false notion that men, whose claim to respectful notoriety is inversely as their desire to be conspicuous, are sometimes urged to abandon their obscure but appropriate position in the line, and to rush into the foremost ranks. When men shall have learned wherein true honour lies—when men shall have formed correct ideas of true and sober dignity, then we shall see all the ranks of society united as by a golden chain—then Ephraim shall not envy Judah, nor Judah vex Ephraim;—then the occupant of the palace and of the cottage—then the man in lawn and the man in rags will, like the parts of a well-adjusted machine, act in perfect unison. Considering, then, the influence which in every community a few men are found to possess—considering, also, that each one of these influential men is sure to be followed by a party, we can hardly appreciate the obligation which rests upon them, to abandon all jealousies and suspicions—to merge every private and personal consideration in thoughts for the public good—and to bring a mind untrammelled, and free from every party predilection, to a solemn deliberation on the great objects of public utility.

"The education of our youth is the next subject to which I would direct your attention. 'Knowledge is power'—is an old proverb—but not the less true because it is old. This is the spring that regulates the movements of society—this is at once the lever and the safety-valve of human institutions. Without it society will either not move at all, or, like an unbalanced, unhelmed ship, move in a direction and at a rate that must eventually destroy it. Education corrects vice—cures disorders—abates jealousies—adorns virtue—commands the winds—triumphs over the waves—scales the heavens. In a word, education lays all nature under tribute, and forces her to administer to the comfort and happiness of man. Nor is this all that education does. It ennobles and elevates the mind, and urges the soul upward and animates it to deeds of high and lasting renown. Education opens sources of pure, refined, and exquisite enjoyment—it unlocks the temple of nature, and admits the awe-stricken soul, to behold and admire the wondrous work of God. An ignorant, vicious, idle community, has the elements of destruction already in its bosom. On the very first application of a torch they will explode and lay the whole fabric in ruins. A virtuous, orderly, educated people, have all the elements of national greatness and national perpetuity.—Would we be happy at home and respected abroad, we must educate our youth.

"In professing to notice those things which are necessary to our prosperity—to the advancement of our prosperity, and the perpetuity of our prosperity, it is natural that you should expect that agricultural industry will be brought prominently into view. I think it may be safely affirmed, that the virtue and independence of a people will be inversely as their attention is wholly given to commerce—that their virtue and independence is evermore to be measured by their pursuits of the wholesome and pleasing and primitive employment of agriculture and husbandry. Go into the countries of Europe—examine their large manufacturing and commercial towns and cities. Then visit the rural, agricultural districts—compare the quiet, tranquillity, order, virtue, plenty of the latter, with the bustle, confusion, vice, and general dependence and poverty of the other, and you cannot fail to be struck, and deeply affected, by the frightful contrast. And wherefore? Is not commerce called the great civiliser of the world? Is it not the means by which nations become acquainted and hold communion with each other? Is it not by this means that the great and master-minds of one nation commune with kindred minds of other nations? Is it not the channel through which improvements in art, in science, in literature, in all that adorns, dignifies, and ennobles human nature, flow as on the wings of the wind from country to country? Grant it. It is not my purpose to pronounce a wholesale anathema upon commerce. I appreciate its high importance in improving our race. It is excess I would discourage—it is the wretched deteriorating influence it will exert upon a people, when, by absorbing their whole attention, it keeps them looking constantly abroad to the neglect of the improvement of their own country. It is to this I would call your attention. Again;—Let it not be forgotten, that if commerce imports improvements, it imports vices also. It offers the same facility for the transmission of both. The same vessel that brings us the Book of God brings us also the Age of Reason—and in one and the same ship, we not unfrequently find the devoted self-sacrificing missionary, and that accursed thing which a celebrated orator with characteristic energy has styled 'liquid fire and distilled damnation!!'

"In the natural, or, more properly, vegetable world, we have sometimes seen exotics outstripping in rapidity of growth the natural spontaneous productions of the soil. In this we have not a very unhappy illustration of the rank growth of imported vices. These baneful exotics, grafted on the tree of indigenous corruption, seem to receive and impart unwonted vigour from the contact: and the result is, a fruit of the most disorganising potency. An examination into the moral state of towns and districts, wholly given to commerce and manufactures, will fully sustain this remark. How, let me ask you, can there be order, where the very nature of the pursuits which engross all minds demand ceaseless hurry, bustle, and confusion?—where to stop to breathe is to be at once outdone, and where he who can move the most swiftly amid the greatest confusion is thought to be the smartest man! In respect of virtue,—is it to be thought of, except for the purpose of holding it up to ridicule, in a place where the vicious of all countries meet; and where females of every class and character, far from the watchful eye of parental solicitude, are huddled together in one promiscuous throng, and dependent for their daily bread upon the freaks and fancies of unprincipled employers! Lowell, in America, is, I believe, the only large manufacturing town where virtue is held in the least esteem. What shall I say of honesty and integrity? where the lowest, basest arts, are practised for gain; where all is intrigue and circumvention—where the maxim prevails, 'all is fair in trade'—where each regards the other as lawful game—where one can gain only by the loss of the other—where, in a word, rascality is fair-play, and villainy systematic;—where, fellow-citizens, let me ask you, where, in such a community, is there room for honesty? Can the heart fail, in such circumstances, to become deadened to every feeling of humanity—steeled against every kindly, generous, and ennobling impulse? I will not venture to affirm, that the result we have just now noticed is universal. I admit, with pleasure, there are honourable exceptions—but I do affirm, that what I have said forms the general rule.

"But let us turn from these scenes of noise and smoke and deep depravity, and visit the quiet abode of the farmer and the husbandman. What tranquillity reigns here, and order, and peace, and virtue!! Behold the farmer, as he goes forth in the morning to his daily task;—how firm and elastic his step; how cheerful his sun-burnt countenance; how active his athletic arm!! Behold how cheerfully he labours; how the fat valleys around him laugh with corn; how the spacious plains teem with grain, and the ancient forests fall beneath his resounding axe!! Follow him, when the labour of the day is over, follow him to his humble home. See him surrounded by an affectionate, industrious, frugal wife, unsophisticated by the vices and dissipations of the fashionable world, and by a prattling progeny blooming in health, and big with promise of future usefulness. No cankering cares gnaw his peaceful bosom; no uncertain