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25. IMPORTANCE OF THE AGRICULTURAL INTEREST.- Caleb Cushing. THESE United States are, as a whole, and always have been, chiefly dependent, for their wealth and power, on the natural productions of the earth. It is the spontaneous products of our forests, our mines, and our seas, and the cultivated products of our soil, which have made, and continue to make, us what we are. Manufacture can but modify these, commerce only distribute or accumulate them, and exchange them for others, to gratify taste, or promote convenience. Land is the footstool of our power; land is the throne of our empire.

Generation after generation may give themselves up to slaughter, in civil or foreign war; dynasty follow dynasty, each with new varieties of oppression or misrule; the fratricidal rage of domestic factions rend the entrails of their common country; temples, and basilica, and capitols, crumble to dust; proud navies melt into the yeast of the sea; and all that Art fitfully does to perpetuate itself disappear like the phantasm of a troubled dream; — but Nature is everlasting; and, above the wreck and uproar of our vain devices and childish tumults, the tutelary stars continue to sparkle on us from their distant spheres ; the sun to pour out his vivifying rays of light and heat over the earth; the elements to dissolve, in grateful rain; the majestic river to roll on his fertilizing waters unceasingly; and the ungrudging soil to yield up the plenteousness of its harvest, year after year, to the hand of the husbandman. He, the husbandman, is the servant of those divine elements of earth and air; he is the minister of that gracious, that benign, that bounteous, that fostering, that nourishing, that renovating, that inexhaustible, that adorable Nature; and, as such, the stewardship of our nationality is in him.

26. EUROPEAN STRUGGLES FOR FREEDOM, 1848.-Reverdy Johnson. AMIDST the agitating throes of the Old World, - amidst the fall of Thrones, the prostration of Dynasties, the flight of Kings,what American, native or naturalized, lives, who does not admire and love his Government, and is not prepared to die in its defence? Our power, and our unexampled private and public prosperity, are to be referred altogether to our Constitutional liberty. Can it be wondered at, that, with such an example before them, the Nations of Europe should be striking for freedom? Sooner or later, the blow was inev itable. Absolute individual liberty, secured by the power of all; private rights of person and property held sacred, and maintained by the will and power of all; perfect equality of all; absence of degrading inferiority; each standing on a common platform; no selected Lords nor Sovereigns, by election or by birth, but every honest man a Lord and a Sovereign, constitutes a proud and glorious contrast, challenging, and, sooner or later, certain to obtain, the applause, admiration, and adoption of the world.

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Apparently sudden and unexpected as have been these great popular struggles, with which we are sympathizing, they were as certain

to occur as the revolution of the seasons. To be free, man needs only to know the value of freedom. To cast off the shackles of tyranny, he needs only to know his power. The result is inevitable. But the People of the Old World must also learn that liberty, unrestrained, is dangerous licentiousness. Of all conditions in which man may be placed, anarchy is the most direful. All history teaches that the tyranny of the many is more fatal than the tyranny of the few. The liberty suited to man's nature is liberty restrained by law. This, too, they may learn from our example. In sending, then, our sincere congratulations to the People of the Continent, we should advise them against every popular excess. In a fraternal spirit, we should invoke them to a reign of order, of their own creation, a reign of just law, of their own enactment, a reign of Constitutional freedom, of their own granting. Then will their liberty be as our own, full and perfect, securing all the blessings of human life, and giving to every People everything of power and true glory which should belong to a civilized and Christian Nation.

27. THE BIRTH-DAY OF WASHINGTON.-Rufus Choate.

THE birth-day of the "Father of his Country"! May it ever be freshly remembered by American hearts! May it ever reawaken in them a filial veneration for his memory; ever rekindle the fires of patriotic regard to the country which he loved so well; to which he gave his youthful vigor and his youthful energy, during the perilous period of the early Indian warfare; to which he devoted his life, in the maturity of his powers, in the field; to which again he offered the counsels of his wisdom and his experience, as President of the Convention that framed our Constitution; which he guided and directed while in the Chair of State, and for which the last prayer of his earthly supplication was offered up, when it came the moment for him so well, and so grandly, and so calmly, to die. He was the first man of the time in which he grew. His memory is first and most sacred in our love; and ever hereafter, till the last drop of blood shall freeze in the last American heart, his name shall be a spell of power and might.

Yes, Gentlemen, there is one personal, one vast felicity, which no man can share with him. It was the daily beauty and towering and matchless glory of his life, which enabled him to create his country, and, at the same time, secure an undying love and regard from the whole American people. "The first in the hearts of his countrymen!" Yes, first! He has our first and most fervent love. Undoubtedly there were brave and wise and good men, before his day, in every colony. But the American Nation, as a Nation, I do not reckon to have begun before 1774. And the first love of that young America was Washington. The first word she lisped was his name. Her earliest breath spoke it. It still is her proud ejaculation; and it will be the last gasp of her expiring life!

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Yes! Others of our great men have been appreciated, - many admired by all. But him we love. Him we all love. About and around him we call up no dissentient and discordant and dissatisfied elements, no sectional prejudice nor bias, no party, no creed, no dogma of politics. None of these shall assail him. Yes. When the storm of battle blows darkest and rages highest, the memory of Washington shall nerve every American arm, and cheer every American heart. It shall relume that Promethean fire, that sublime flame of patriotism, that devoted love of country, which his words have commended, which his example has consecrated.

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28. THE PROSPECTS OF CALIFORNIA, Nov. 2, 1850. -Nathaniel Bennett.

JUDGING from the past, what have we not a right to expect in the future. The world has never witnessed anything equal or similar to our career hitherto. Scarcely two years ago, California was almost an unoccupied wild. With the exception of a presidio, a mission, a pueblo, or a lonely ranch, scattered here and there, at tiresome distances, there was nothing to show that the uniform stillness had ever been broken by the footsteps of civilized man. The agricultural richness of her valleys remained unimproved; and the wealth of a world lay entombed in the bosom of her solitary mountains, and on the banks of her unexplored streams. Behold the contrast! The hand of agriculture is now busy in every fertile valley, and its toils are remunerated with rewards which in no other portion of the world can be credited. Enterprise has pierced every hill, for hidden treasure, and has heaped up enormous gains. Cities and villages dot the surface of the whole State. Steamers dart along our rivers, and innumerable vessels spread their white wings over our bays. Not Constantinople, upon which the wealth of imperial Rome was lavished, -not St. Petersburg, to found which the arbitrary Czar sacrificed thousands of his subjects, would rival, in rapidity of growth, the fair city which lies before me. Our State is a marvel to ourselves, and a miracle to the rest of the world. Nor is the influence of California confined within her own borders. Mexico, and the islands nestled in the embrace of the Pacific, have felt the quickening breath of her enterprise. With her golden wand, she has touched the prostrate corpse of South American industry, and it has sprung up in the freshness of life. She has caused the hum of busy life to be heard in the

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* Lord Byron.

wilderness "where rolls the Oregon," and but recently heard no sound, "save his own dashings." Even the wall of Chinese exclusiveness has been broken down, and the Children of the Sun have come forth to view the splendor of her achievements.

But, flattering as has been the past, satisfactory as is the present, it is but a foretaste of the future. It is a trite saying, that we live in an age of great events. Nothing can be more true. But the greatest of all events of the present age is at hand. It needs not the gift of prophecy to predict, that the course of the world's trade is destined soon to be changed. But a few years can elapse before the commerce of Asia and the Islands of the Pacific, instead of pursuing the ocean track, by way of Cape Horn or the Cape of Good Hope, or even taking the shorter route of the Isthmus of Darien or the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, will enter the Golden Gate of California, and deposit its riches in the lap of our own city. Hence, on bars of iron, and propelled by steam, it will ascend the mountains and traverse the desert; and, having again reached the confines of civilization, will be distributed, through a thousand channels, to every portion of the Union and of Europe. New York will then become what London now is, the great central point of exchange, the heart of trade, the force of whose contraction and expansion will be felt throughout every artery of the commercial world; and San Francisco will then stand the second city of America. Is this visionary? Twenty years will

determine.

The world is interested in our success; for a fresh field is opened to its commerce, and a new avenue to the civilization and progress of the human race. Let us, then, endeavor to realize the hopes of Americans, and the expectations of the world. Let us not only be united amongst ourselves, for our own local welfare, but let us strive to cement the common bonds of brotherhood of the whole Union. In our relations to the Federal Government, let us know no South, no North, no East, no West. Wherever American liberty flourishes, let that be our common country! Wherever the American banner waves, let that be our home!

29. THE STANDARD OF THE CONSTITUTION, Feb. 1852. — Webster.

IF classical history has been found to be, is now, and shall continue to be, the concomitant of free institutions, and of popular cloquence, what a field is opening to us for another Herodotus, another Thucydides (only may his theme not be a Peloponnesian war), and another Livy! And, let me say, Gentlemen, that if we, and our posterity, shall be true to the Christian religion, if we and they shall live always in the fear of God, and shall respect His commandments, — if we and they shall maintain just moral sentiments, and such conscientious convictions of duty as shall control the heart and life, - we may have the highest hopes of the future fortunes of our country. And, if we maintain those institutions of government, and that political Union, exceeding all praise as much as it exceeds all former

examples of political associations, we may be sure of one thing, that while our country furnishes materials for a thousand masters of the historic art, it will afford no topic for a Gibbon. It will have no Decline and Fall. It will go on, prospering and to prosper. But, if we and our posterity reject religious instruction and authority, violate the rules of eternal justice, trifle with the injunctions of morality, and recklessly destroy the political Constitution which holds us together, no man can tell how suddenly a catastrophe may overwhelm us that shall bury all our glory in profound obscurity. If that catastrophe shall happen, let it have no history! Let the horrible narrative never be written; let its fate be like that of the lost books of Livy, which no human eye shall ever read, or the missing Pleiad, of which no man can ever know more than that it is lost, and lost forever.

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But, Gentlemen, I will not take my leave of you in a tone of despondency. We may trust that Heaven will not forsake us, so long as we do not forsake ourselves. Are we of this generation so derelict — have we so little of the blood of our Revolutionary fathers coursing through our veins that we cannot preserve what our ancestors achieved? The world will cry out "SHAME" upon us, if we show ourselves unworthy to be the descendants of those great and illus trious men who fought for their liberty, and secured it to their posterity by the Constitution.

The Constitution has enemies, secret and professed; but they cannot disguise the fact that it secures us many benefits. These enemies are unlike in character, but they all have some fault to find. Some of them are enthusiasts, hot-headed, self-sufficient and headstrong. They fancy that they can make out for themselves a better path than that laid down for them. Phaeton, the son of Apollo, thought he could find a better course across the Heavens for the sun.

"Thus Phaeton once, amidst the ethereal plains,
Leaped on his father's car, and seized the reins;
Far from his course impelled the glowing sun,
'Till Nature's laws to wild disorder run.'

Other enemies there are, more cool, and with more calculation. These have a deeper and more traitorous purpose. They have spoken of forcible resistance to the provisions of the Constitution; they now speak of Secession! Let me say, Gentlemen, secession from us is accession elsewhere. He who renounces the protection of the Stars and Stripes shelters himself under the shadow of another flag, you may rest assured of that. Now, to counteract the efforts of these malecontents, the friends of the Constitution must rally. ALL its friends, of whatever section, whatever their sectional opinions may be, must unite for its preservation. To that standard we must adhere, and uphold it through evil report and good report. We will sustain it, and meet death itself, if it come; we will ever encounter and defeat error, by day and by night, in light or in darkness-thick darkness,if it come, till

"Danger's troubled night is o'er,

And the star of Peace return."

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