thizing. Webster conversed brilliantly, but, he required, to be drawn out; Clay would take the initiative, and he always selected the subject with tact and a true discernment, of the tastes, and intelligence of his companions. In fashionable society, at Washington, Webster stood in proud repose, with icy brow, like Mont Blanc among the lesser Alps, its summit covered with perpetual snow. He was among them, but not of them. Clay, on the contrary, had the facility to adapt himself to every situation. He could shine as brilliantly in the saloon as in the Senate. Webster would enter the party of a secretary or minister, move slowly to one side of the room, and sit down, silent and abstracted. After a while a few friends would gather around him, and the conversation, at first sluggish and cold, would gradually become instructive, sometimes warm into eloquence, but seldom grow light and lively. Clay would address himself to the ladies, engage in their conversation or amusement, and vie with the lightest of them in gayety, with the liveliest in vivacity, and with the brightest in wit. Thus Clay was always the most popular man in Washington society; a distinction which Webster never attained and never sought.

Similar differences between the two were observable in their public and official intercourse with men. Webster made firm friends of the few, but held the many at a distance. He was courteous to all, but cordial only to those who had the key to his heart, and knew how to turn it. Clay made friends of all who approached him. Many who voted against him as a politician, loved him as a man. Webster inspired respect, but he was inscrutable. When you grasped the warm hand of Clay, you could look through the windows of his eyes right down into his heart and see it beat. Webster awed men — Clay attracted them. They admired Webster-they loved Clay.

In their treatment of great questions, the difference between It reClay and Webster was as striking as in their manners. minds us of the contrast drawn by a writer some years since, in a style somewhat exaggerated, between Canning and Brougham. Clay swept lightly over the surface, seized the obvious points, and adorned his subject with all the graces of wit and rhetoric. Webster toiled in deep mines. grasped the strongest points, and addressed himself to the understanding rather than the sympathies of his hearers. Clay was the more persuasive - Webster

the more convincing. Clay constructed his edifice of the materials which lay nearest at hand, and it rose up light, airy, and graceful. Webster brought up from below the everlasting granite, and made his structure as solid as a pyramid. In personal controversy, Clay used a rapier; Webster, a broadsword. But both were adepts in the use of their peculiar weapons, and fortunate was the man who escaped alive from an encounter with either.

SUPPOSED SPEECH OF JOHN ADAMS IN FAVOR OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE,

SINK

INK or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my heart to this vote. It is true, indeed, that in the beginning we aimed not at independence. But there is a Divinity that shapes our ends. The injustice of England has driven us to arms; and, blinded to her own interest, for our good she has obstinately persisted, till independence is now within our grasp. We have but to reach forth to it, and it is ours.

Why then should we defer the Declaration? Is any man so weak as now to hope for a reconciliation with England, which shall leave either safety to the country and its liberties, or safety to his own life, and his own honor? Are not you, sir, who sit in that chair; is not he, our venerable colleague, near you; are you not both already the proscribed and predestined objects of punishment and vengeance? Cut off from all hope of royal clemency, what are you, what can you be, while the power of England remains, but outlaws?

If we postpone independence, do we mean to carry on, or to give up the war? Do we mean to submit, and consent that we ourselves shall be ground to powder, and our country and its rights trodden down in the dust? I know we do not mean to submit. We never shall submit.

Do we intend to violate that most solemn obligation ever entered into by men, that plighting before God of our sacred honor to Washington, when, putting him forth to incur the dangers of war, as well as the political hazards of the times, we promised to adhere to him, in every extremity, with our fortunes and our

lives? I know there is not a man here who would not rather see a general conflagration sweep over the whole land, or an earthquake sink it, than one jot or tittle of that plighted faith fall to the ground.

For myself, having, twelve months ago, in this place, moved you that George Washington be appointed commander of the forces raised, or to be raised, for the defence of American liberty, may "my right hand forget its cunning, and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth," if I hesitate or waver in the support I give him. The war, then, must go on. We must fight it through. And if the war must go on, why put off longer the Declaration of Independence? That measure will strengthen us. It will give us character abroad. The nations will then treat with us, which they never can do while we acknowledge ourselves subjects in arms against our sovereign. Nay, I maintain that England herself will sooner treat for peace with us on the footing of independence, than consent, by repealing her acts, to acknowledge that her whole conduct to us has been a course of injustice and oppression.

Her pride will be less wounded, by submitting to that course of things which now predestinates our independence, than by yielding the points in controversy to her rebellious subjects. The former she would regard as the result of fortune: the latter she would feel as her own disgrace. Why, then, why then, sir, do we not, as soon as possible, change this from a civil to a national war? And since we must fight it through, why not put ourselves in a state to enjoy all the benefits of victory, if we gain the victory?

If we fail, it can be no worse for us. But we shall not fail. The cause will raise up armies; the cause will create navies. The people, the people, if we are true to them, will carry us, and will carry themselves, gloriously through this struggle.

I care not how fickle other people have been found. I know the people of these colonies, and I know that resistance to British aggression is deep and settled in their hearts, and cannot be eradicated. Every colony, indeed, has expressed its willingness to follow, if we but take the lead. Sir, the Declaration will inspire the people with increased courage. Instead of a long and bloody war for restoration of privileges, for redres of grievances, for chartered immunities, held under a British king, set before

them the glorious objects of entire independence, and it will breathe into them anew the breath of life.

Read this Declaration at the head of the army; every sword will be drawn from its scabbard, and the solemn vow uttered to maintain it, or to perish on the bed of honor. Publish it from the pulpit; religion will approve it, and the love of religious liberty will cling around it, resolved to stand with it, or fall with it. Send it to the public halls; first proclaim it there; let them hear it who first heard the roar of the enemy's cannon; let them see it who saw their brothers and their sons fall on the field of Bunker Hill, and in the streets of Lexington and Concord, and the very walls will cry out in its support.

Sir, I know the uncertainty of human affairs; but I see clearly through this day's business. You and I, indeed, may rue it. We may not live to the time when this Declaration shall be made good. We may die; die colonists; die slaves; die, it may be, ignominiously, and on the scaffold. Be it so be it so. If it be the pleasure of Heaven that my country shall require the poor offering of my life, the victim shall be ready at the appointed hour of sacrifice, come when that hour may. But, while I do live, let me have a country, or at least the hope of a country, and that a free country.

But, whatever may be our fate, be assured, be assured that this Declaration will stand. It may cost treasure, and it may cost blood: but it will stand, and it will richly compensate for both. Through the thick gloom of the present, I see the brightness of the future, as the sun in heaven. We shall make this a glorious, an immortal day. When we are in our graves, our children will honor it. They will celebrate it with thanksgiving, with festivity, with bonfires and illuminations. On its annual return, they will shed tears, copious, gushing tears, not of subjection and slavery, not of agony and distress, but of exultation, of gratitude, and of joy.

Sir, before God, I believe that the hour has come. My judgment approves this measure, and my whole heart is in it. All that I have, and all that I am, and all that I hope in this life, I am now ready here to stake upon it; and I leave off as I begun, that, live or die, survive or perish, I am for the Declaration. It is my living sentiment, and, by the blessing of God, it shall be my dying sentiment - Independence now, and INDEPENDENCE

FOREVER!

MOUNT VERNON.

A deeply interesting and highly eloquent address, delivered by the Hon. Joel B. Sutherland, in the presence of two thousand veteran soldiers of the War of 1812, assembled around the tomb of Washington, January 10th, 1856, representing nineteen States of the United States of America.

MY

Y COUNTRYMEN - SOLDIERS OF 1812: Look where we may we Americans cannot discover a spot so hallowed as this sacred shrine, where are garnered up the ashes of our beloved Washington. Around this sepulchre we therefore assemble, and most reverently bow the knee in token of our admiration of his spotless character. He was a soldier, a statesman, and a Christian. The Almighty gave him to America to make us free. This is manifested in the watchings of Providence over him, as well when the Indian levelled his rifle at his heart, and firing, failed to kill him, as during the after-scenes in the bloody drama of the Revolution, when he was shielded from every harm. And, still further to indicate that our future existence as a people was largely to depend upon the father of our country, we find the course of events so moulded as that, after leading our army to victory, he was chosen to preside over the deliberations of the convention that framed our Constitution. With his unequalled name to that glorious instrument that binds the States together, we may confidently trust that they will never be sundered.

Who can witness the holy reverence and deep emotions of this assemblage of the descendants of the men of '76, at this restingplace of the great and the good, without believing that every other American, though not present with us, bears just as ardent a love for our country as we do ourselves?

These States will never break the links of holy concord that hold them together, as long as this tomb can be found by those who shall succeed us.

The lesson to be gathered from our pilgrimage here will be long remembered. Thousands will annually follow our example, and treading in our footsteps, will come up hither. Every father throughout the whole land will, at least once, repair to the repository of the mighty dead. Nay, more, he will bring with him his children when of proper age, and here, in the face of heaven and these venerated relics, pledge them to stand by the holy brotherhood of States.