The advocate has great reason to rejoice, my friends, who, in addition to the merits of a noble cause, can lay claim to a perfectly sympathizing audience—who feels that he has only to unfold his own sentiments to embody theirs, and who, in the utterance of his own emotions possesses himself of all the avenues to their confidence. It is this fact, in some degree, that renders it, ordinarily, so easy a matter to play the orator on the great day of our nation. Hence, the many eloquent voices that fill the land at this period,—court and camp, city and country,—each, rejoicing in its peculiar organ of pride and patriotism—each strong and striving in the necessity of speech; old and young assembling with equal interest—the venerable and the beautiful,—the one to glory in the achievements of the past, the other to delight in the golden promise of the future; all exulting in that universal sentiment of country, which at once inspires the ear of faith and the tongue of eloquence. Soothed and enlivened equally by the common theme, the people grow indulgent to the speaker. Their sympathies lend him courage—their emotions excite his fancy and provoke his imagination; and sorry, indeed, must be the orator who shall utterly fail in kindling that enthusiasm which needs nothing but a spark; who, when his subject is already in their hearts—held there, and gloriously enshrined by the very proudest of memories—shall make no impression upon their senses—shall bring no freshening light into their eyes, and, from the consciousness which is so active in the souls that feel, shall gather no happy stimulus to inform the spirit of him who speaks!

But the subject so grateful, and the audience so indulgent, have their difficulties also; and these arise, strange to say, from their very accessibleness. Were the theme less familiar, were the hearer less friendly, there would be, for the speaker, a twofold motive to exertion; in the freshness of his materials, and in the necessity of proving and establishing their value. As it is, the subject,—hacknied by constant iteration,—may well be assumed to be almost, if not wholly stripped of novelty; while the audience, versed in the discussion which has so often filled their ears, are likely to yield but a listless attention to each new speaker who ascends the tribune. What can they hope to hear which they have not heard already? To how many orators, nobler and better graced, have they not listened Page 106 →on this day and subject? The fiery accents of Patrick Henry,—the energetic volume of John Rutledge,—the copious thought and stern propriety of Daniel Webster,—the classic freedom and Ciceronian fulness of Hugh Legare; and legions beside—great minds, majestic speakers,—have challenged their regards in turn, while dilating on the bounteous excellence of the occasion! The orator who follows such as these, may well shrink in his apprehension—overwhelmed with equal doubts of himself and of his subject,—may well, in anticipation of the probable question of his hearers, demand of himself, in secret misgiving,—“wherefore am I here?” How shall he hope to be heard after such wondrous excellence!—following in the wake of speakers, not less endowed by nature, than trained by art, to the business of lifting an audience from its feet, and hurrying away the unresisting soul into the most delicious imprisonment! How shall he hope to find freshness in the subject which has been winnowed by their thunders—how impart attraction to the argument which has been already adjusted by that Ithuriel spear which the heaven-gifted orator still carries in his grasp! Happy, indeed, is the speaker, who shall so far overcome these difficulties as to persuade his hearers into even momentary forgetfulness of those who have gone before him; who shall compel the attention which he seeks to inform, and, in imparting to his subject, the graces and the charm of novelty, who shall avail himself, not only of all the original freshness of the theme, but of all the first patriotic gushes of emotion in the bosoms of his audience.

I need not tell you that I despair of this,—and yet,—I do not despair of the subject. I am not among those who imagine that its freshness is exhausted, and that the soil, which has been so frequently and deeply furrowed, no longer possesses fertility. I am very sure, indeed, that such is not the case—very sure that there are tracts yet uncleared—virgin recesses, in which new paths may be explored, and new prospects unveiled to the eager eyes of patriotic inquiry. The true difficulty in the way of our orator seems rather in the variety than in the exhaustion of his material. It covers so vast a region, absorbs such numerous interests, contemplates so many principles, and unfolds so many performances, that the mind naturally becomes distracted in the survey, and it is in the difficulty of choosing his themes and concentrating his thoughts, rather than their poverty, that the orator is willing to abandon his subject in despair. He feels it less easy to write an oration than a history—less difficult to proceed in regular narration through the seven years war, and the long ill-concealed hostility by which it was preceded, than to embody, by a rapid and comprehensive generalization, the numerous interests from which it derives its character. If he were permitted only to detach its favorite parts,—but one or more of its numerous dependencies,—the task were equally easy and delightful. What a sufficient subject in itself, to trace the gradual progress of English liberty, from the days of Hereward the Saxon, to the period made famous in the usurpation of Cromwell!—to follow that small Page 107 →and subtle flame, from the moment of its first kindling in the sacred swamps of Ely¹—a dawn rather than a light—to its successive sunbursts in the gloomiest days of Norman despotism,—defying the tyrannies of the Johns, the Stephens, the Edwards and the Henries, of that iron-handed race; and shining out at last, in a certain and confirmed refulgence, in the final expulsion of the Stuarts,—an event designated by the historians as the last grand era in the history of British liberty! Deeply interesting, indeed, to the American, should be the study of that long conflict of the Saxon with his Norman conqueror,—since, in that struggle, we trace the first dawnings of our own emancipation. We follow, with a painful sense of pleasure, the fortunes of the conquered people. We find them unsubdued by bonds, by exaction, by cruelty, and the most degrading privations. We note, with a keen sense of sympathy, their frequent spasmodic attempts to throw off the heavy shackles of their tyrants,—their hope exulting now in the elevation of a Saxon woman to the throne;²—struggling now with a bitter earnestness under the cowl of Thomas à Becket, and only stifled and silenced for a moment while the daggers of the assassin are clashing together in his consecrated person.³—Anon, making wondrous progress towards foothold and a certain strength, when summoned, by the necessities of the Barons, into importance and a new position at Runnymede, where the first great Charter of English liberty was extorted from the common tyrant by a Saxon people not less than a Norman Baronage;⁴—showing itself again successful, when compelling the ratification of this charter, at the reluctant hands of the Third Edward,—and, finally, extricating itself from the despotism of the Norman race, in the total exclusion of the Stuart dynasty from the throne! The study of these periods, alone, would amply compensate the orator who seeks to enlighten an American audience in the true sources of their own freedom;—for that history is ours;—the memory of that long conflict, and of the sovereign principles which it taught—was almost the only inheritance—an inheritance of equal pride and bitterness—which accompanied our grandsires into the wilderness. The American Revolution, was but a closing act of the great drama begun on the fatal field of Hastings, followed up at Runnymede by the successful union of the people with the Barons, and made terribly triumphant, at Marston Moor and Naseby, in the blood of Norman aristocracy. These battles secured the victory to the people against their oppressors. But they did not conclude the struggle. The political results were not commensurate with those of the conflict. The temporary ascendancy of the Puritans, abused by the superior will of Cromwell, was lost by his death; and the great object for which the people of England had striven, was only in part recovered, in the new line of succession, established by the Revolution of 1688.

The battle was thenceforth to be fought anew. The friends of popular liberty, were taught to see, in the caprices of their political fortunes, that something more than mere patriotism and numbers, was necessary to the success of the good old Page 108 →cause. In what did this deficiency consist? In the acquisition, simply, of a new field for the old conflict! A breathing spell, a breathing space,—a temporary repose—a fair field!—and the protracted struggle must be renewed. Neither the people nor the cause was wanting—it was the battle field alone. England offered none. No space in Europe was sufficiently large or unincumbered for the working out, by the masses, of that great problem, on the solution of which depended the divine right of kings or people! The existing despotisms—the established church,—the feudal nobility—these were the powers, armed to the teeth,—fenced in by the completest panoply of art and artifice—which were leagued in deadly hostility against the cause of man. Banded by common lusts and common dangers, the wealthier and more intellectual castes,—doubly strong because of their union with the wild and mercenary,—were in possession of all the strong-holds of Europe. The nations,—fettered by convention, every where coerced and kept in subjection by the linked hands and iron influences of a potent aristocracy, inflexible in it prejudices and watchful to strangle the man-child, Liberty, the very moment he should give sign of breath or being—left the old world without a single spot upon which the oppressed multitudes could rally and unite while erecting the banner of civil freedom. But Providence was not unmindful of the necessities of the race! The required field was furnished for the mighty conflict as soon as men were ready for the strife! It was at a moment most fortunate for human freedom that the new world was yielded to the knowledge of the old. America was the appointed battlefield for European liberty. Here was the old fight of the Saxon with his Norman tyrant, to be renewed, and set at rest forever! Here, with no walled fortresses to quell insurrection—with no legions of hireling soldiery to arrest the incipient efforts of freedom;—the spirit of mankind, collecting all its vigor from a thousand lands, was enabled to throw off the weight of that intolerable despotism which had cramped its mighty energies so long. Here, and here alone, could the scattered and suspected worshippers of liberty unite in safety for the erection of her altars. Here were no artificial bonds of society or law, subduing the free spirit of man to the condition of the brute,—till he himself, familiar with his shame, becomes wholly insensible to what might be his pride. Here were no inflexible fetters of routine, perhaps the worst, to baffle and to blind the intellect—to mock the hope—to arrest the uplooking desire of humanity—to restrain the yearnings of that noble spirit, bent on progress, which, once upon the track, with a firm grasp upon the clues leading to the undiscovered truth, can never be kept from its acquisition, unless by the arbitrary hands of power! The broad wildernesses of America yielded to Europe the field, which was alike necessary to its denied intellect and its down-trodden multitudes. Ignorant themselves of the destiny before them, of the great work for which they were chosen, we see them traversing the mighty deep, in their frail and cumbered vessels. Faint and few at first, in scattered groups, the hopeless outcasts of fortune, gathering Page 109 →from all parts of Europe, are taking their mournful way to the unknown realms of the Atlantic. Great hearts, yearning impulses of thought, spirits impatient of injustice,—a pride that will not bend to man,—a faith that strives in its own way to bend before God,—and that humble virtue, which is simply dissatisfied to dwell where wrong is every where triumphant,—these were the sources of that social strength which was to do battle, on the plains of America, for the nations of the earth.

We hear a great deal said, in these days, of what is due by this country to the gallant foreigner,—to the generous Irishman, the buoyant Frenchman, the fearless and much-enduring Pole. I shall not underrate their services. I shall not deny their valor. I thank them, and God! for the noble blood which they poured forth so freely in the cause of America. But that cause was their own! It was for this very conflict that America was yielded to Europe, and they were summoned to her fields of battle. The broad plains of America, undefaced by the gloomy towers of baronial strength and vassalage, afforded them severally what their own countries had denied—a fair field and fair play, for the struggle with their hereditary foes. Could Pole, or Irishman, or Frenchman, have been permitted to assert his freedom, successfully, in arms at home, we had never seen them here. They came here with the same motive that brought our sires! They are our sires. It is our pride that we spring from the united vigor of the noblest races of mankind,—that no exhausted stocks—no puny aristocracy, degraded and made diminutive as well in mental as in physical stature,—gave us the proud birth-right of free souls, and fearless hearts, and firm thews and sinews, which are the beginnings of our greatness. Let the weak and impotent boast of homogeneousness. The amalgam, which is our pride, is secure of a progeny, quite as noble and much more enduring. It is no shame to exult in the prowess of the foreigner, leagued with the native, in the glorious work of the Revolution. It was not simply the cause of the colonists for which they fought, but the cause of man; and what more natural than that man, from every quarter of the globe, should unite against an enemy which, in all other quarters of the globe, had shown itself too powerful for all his opposition! America was, by Providence, the appointed place of refuge, from the tyranny of the ancient world. The providential hand grows conspicuous in every stage of her progress! It was natural enough that the Spaniard, the most adventurous of European nations, should make the discovery of the country,—but how should the Spaniard, the most bigoted of all European people, be entrusted with the safety of a principle, so necessary to the growth and progress of the whole human family. The Frenchman, who had never yet been taught to resist the march of tyranny at home, was as little prepared for the responsibilities of such a trust. It was for the Anglo-Saxon race—a people early united against the oppressor—struggling for their rights from the beginning—struggling ever for the right—and losing no chance, whether by the exercise of their own strength, Page 110 →or by playing off their tyrants against one another, to increase their securities;—a stubborn, an invincible people—not easily deceived—not easily driven from their purpose, and never to be mocked in their hope;—it was for these, alone, to seize upon the sacred inheritance, and, training themselves quietly for the great conflict, to take secure foot-hold, and gain firm possession of the field, before unfurling that banner of stars which was to become the sun-burst of the world! It was in their very feebleness that the American colonists were enabled to lay the foundations of their own and the world’s liberties! How should the great empires of Europe feel apprehensive from the infant labors of the scattered groups of settlers, who had wandered across the ocean into forests three thousand miles away? How should the regal tyrannies of Spain and England, ever dream to hear the trumpet-note of defiance sounded in their ears, from the rude hamlets that dotted the banks of Indian waters in America? Could human foresight have conjectured a danger such as this, how easy to have crushed them in the cradle!—to have extinguished, by a breath, the first faint glimmerings of that glorious flame; which now, lofty and radiant as the sun, looms out, from tower and temple of our vast republic, a wondrous beacon of hope and promise, for the still groping nations of the European world!

Here, then, alone, may be found a sufficient and splendid subject for the orator, who would dilate on the sources of American liberty. He has but to follow the stream of English history,—for it was really the old spirit of the Anglo-Saxon, warring with his Norman tyrant, that informed the revolution of America! Let this train of inquiry be pursued,—analyze our colonial history,—distinguish its frequent epochs,—and we find constant proofs of the stubborn spirit of the same race, struggling for the blessing which it did not dare to name, long before the triumphant issue which we this day meet to celebrate! Confine this examination to our own State, and we get a tolerably fair idea of the events in all the colonies. The career of Carolina, from the very first settlements on Ashley River, was a series of impatient strivings against a dominion, which, in one form or another, was always held in detestation. We find the people, from the earliest periods, torn with discontents and strife,—struggling with their domestic rulers, and throwing them off in banishment,—rebelling against their proprietary lords, and flinging them off in like manner,—and, finally, with arms in their hands, defying the authority of the sovereign. With what coolness, what caution, what gradual but certain steps, did they approach this conclusion,—after how many years of endurance and preparation! But the advantages of a new field, for the old fight, were felt as thoroughly by the great men of America, in 1670, as, one hundred years later, in 1776. The very possession of the new field, taught its own advantages; while the conditions of trial which it imposed, equally, upon mind and muscle, wonderfully developed their own strength and the resources of the country, to the hardy children of the soil. Great spirits, meanwhile, were Page 111 →ripening for the exigency. Seventy years of self-training, in the new world, added to the glorious inheritance of thought, and character, and ancient experience, which had come from their European ancestry, had brought out all the vigor of the Anglo-Saxon race;—had opened to their eyes the most startling visions of a great truth,—visions full of the most glorious promise,—by which they were lifted, in moral respects, very far above the great body of the people they had left. Prophets, too, had arisen among them,—men, like Moses among the Israelites, capable, not only of showing, but of conducting them in safety to the Land of Promise;—building for them, out of the indestructible materials of their own character and virtue, the glorious ark of their political covenant. It is in the possession of such master spirits that we are to recognize the first true sources of hope for a people in bondage. No nation, let me say, ever succeeds in throwing off its manacles,—nay, no nation has a right to succeed,—until, from its own ranks, it can raise up individuals who shall prove themselves able to grapple, on equal terms, with the highest intellectual strength of the oppressor. A race, inferior in mind and moral to that which subdues it, can never relieve itself from subjection; and no conquering nation, degenerating to the condition of the inferior, can ever maintain its authority over the conquered people. It was only when the Jews could produce a Moses—a man capable of contending with the ablest of the Egyptian priesthood,—that God ever sanctioned their prayer for deliverance. It was only when they could produce from among themselves, men capable of taking charge of them, and bound to their service by all the ties of blood and a common necessity, that they were suffered to go free. So, it was only in the miserable degeneracy of the modern Spaniard, that the Mexican could assert his independence. Nobody can suppose that the soldiers of Santa Anna, a slavish and timorous race, herds of whom would be annihilated by a single troop of Anglo-Saxon cavalry, could have stood, for a moment, the charge of veterans like those of Hernan Cortés! But, when Spain was begging help from Britain to maintain her position at home, it was absurd to suppose that she could keep her dependencies in America. The troops of Santa Anna, wretched as they are, were quite as good as those of the European sovereign; and the Mexican chief, inferior as we may think him, was no doubt quite worthy to oppose the best general in the Spanish service.

It is in the advent of the superior intellect that we are to behold the first proofs of a people’s capacity for freedom. It is then, and then only, that they may be assumed to be equal to the perilous duties of self government;—and here, let me remark, that self government does not imply, as is sometimes erroneously imagined, the universal diffusion of a capacity for rule among the great body of a people,—for this would be an absurdity refutable with the experience of each returning day—but simply such a concentration of endowment among individuals rising from their masses, as will enable them to carry out the great popular trusts Page 112 →which are to secure the birthright of the race. And, long before the final struggle of the American colonist, with the British crown, such individuals were living in our forests; men, capable of counselling British statesmen,—of informing British philosophy,—of leading British armies to victory;—men, whose voices, strong in the virtues of genius and patriotism, could lead, at will, the delighted and reverential multitude,—philosophers, who could conduct to earth and disarm of its terrors, the wildest lightnings of heaven,—statesmen, who could pursue to triumphant issue the most complicated policies of empire,—and warriors, who could even extricate British valor from the slaughter to which it had been hurried by the blind wilfulness of British presumption. Such were the Henries, the Franklins, the Gadsdens, the Adamses, the Marions, and the Washingtons of infant America. These men were not only equal, but, in some important respects, very far superior to their European contemporaries. Men they were, of deep thought and searching eloquence; of equal nerve and purity; of great powers of endurance; unflinching in resolution, and of the most exquisite capacities for conduct. Compare the leaders of the Revolutionary movement in America, with the influential ministers of Great Britain during the same period—compare them with the public mind of that country,—and you will see, at a glance, why it was that our ancestors revolted from British dominion, and succeeded in shaking it off. It was not because of any miserable tax on stamped paper, or any half-penny duty upon teas. It is high time that these absurdities should be blotted from our books. These were pretexts only—the mere showing of persons who had resolved on the independence of the country, and were destined for its achievement, even though the British ministry had left the people entirely untaxed. These duties were usurpations doubtless, but they were not the adequate provocations to the bloody war that followed: nor would they have been followed by that war, but that the convictions of the British monarch led him at once to the true source of the discontents in America. The better reasons for the revolt are to be found in the fact that the time for our emancipation had arrived—because we could go alone, and needed British leading strings no longer. We had worked long enough for the Egyptians, and felt that it was high time to set up for ourselves. We had proved our independence long before we asserted it, and felt the shame and the dishonor,—having such mighty men in our own land,—of being governed by a people, in no respect superior, three thousand miles away! The injustice from which we suffered did not consist in the loss of the sixpences for which we were assessed by the foreign governor, but that we should have a foreign governor at all! It was a revolt of the native mind of the country, confident of its strength, assured of its resources, and resolving, with equal patriotism and courage, that no nation can be permanently safe which is not under the direction of the native intellect. For what else was this intellect assigned a people? What Deity confers the gifts of genius upon a slave,—endows, with the aspirations of soul, a creature Page 113 →destined only for the exactions of time,—lights a fire within the yearning heart of the freeman, only that it may be extinguished beneath the brutal heels of oppression,—or plants the seed of a heavenly virtue in the breast, while ordaining that it shall never grow? The possession of the endowment is the best authority for its use. The gifts of intellect to the people of America, were not decreed to rust in abeyance,—to grow worthless from inaction,—and mock with the reproach of the most wretched prostitution, the possessor, who, thus efficiently endowed, is yet content to crouch under the incubus of foreign dominion! Why, with Jefferson and Patrick Henry for our councils, should we prefer the rule of North and Bute, in London,—with Washington and Marion for our armies, should it be necessary to import Braddock and Sir Henry Clinton? The great struggle of American independence, was to prove that we could do without such assistance. Until that period, it had been the policy of Europe to assert that man degenerated in America,—that he could neither direct in council nor lead in battle. The Briton not only scorned to be tutored by the “buckskin,” but arrogated the merit of his achievements.⁵ Monsieur Buffon, and other philosophers, arguing from pre-conceived opinions, stoutly asserted the inferiority of all moral and even physical humanity in this country. Our men were to be puny of form, and base of understanding, and were to sink, dwarfed by successive generations, into marvels of curiosity for European speculation. It was in vain that we dwelt upon the stupendous and magnificent scale by which nature had wrought, in almost every part of her American domain. It was in vain that we pointed to our mighty rivers,—our towering mountains,—wide-spread continents, and wondrous oceans,—our gigantic trees,—our colossal remains,—our seas of forest, dense, tangled and venerable,—inhabited by beast and reptile, all of marvellous size and peculiar attributes,—and birds, of wing so capacious, as to hold dominion, almost at a single flight, from the Pacific to the Atlantic sea! Arguing from all analogies, there was good reason to suppose that man was not to be denied a corresponding development, by that liberal mother who had so fruitfully endowed his home. Our European sages were unwilling to discover this. They reasoned no less against facts than against analogies. It was their policy not to see, and not to believe. There was a something unfriendly to European nature in our soil,—

“our skies, Where genius sickens and where fancy dies,”—

and, to such an extent was this absurd philosophy carried, that, when our great men began to show themselves, and to achieve their victories, they were believed in Europe to be neither more nor less than Englishmen in disguise. Washington himself, was, for a long time, asserted to be an European,—an error somewhat perpetuated to this day among our enemies, since we find a recent writer of Great Britain, claiming, for that country, all the substantial merits of his fame. “It is Page 114 →the highest glory of England,” says Mr. Alison, in his eloquent but jaundiced history, “to have given birth, even amid trans-Atlantic wilds, to such a man!” If England did give birth to such a man in America, it is only wonderful that she did not equally succeed with her less questionable offspring at home. Something is undoubtedly due to the Anglo-Saxon origin of Washington. It is our pride to have descended from that tenacious and liberty-loving people. It is our glory to insist that the American Revolution was nothing less than the old conflict, the principles of which were partially declared at Runnymede. But the American patriots, with Washington at their head, were possessed of resources, in morals and in intellect, which were peculiarly American. The broad wildernesses of our forest land, which yielded a fair field for the contending races, were as necessary to the development of the natural man for the unsealing of his mental vision—for his extrication from that social training, which, in highly sophisticated communities, is apt to emasculate the simplicity of a great soul, and to subdue, in the patriot, those earnest essentials of independent character, without which the work of national deliverance can never be achieved, and would never be undertaken.

It was in the wrong done to the native genius,—in its denial of trust,—its exclusion from honorable consideration,—that made common cause, throughout all Saxon America, of the revolutionary struggle. How else should colonies, so little assimilated by constitution, by manners, or by occupation, have been brought together in this struggle? Here, at the very outset, in the seemingly simple act of union, lay the most remarkable circumstance in the history of the Revolution. It was only by a combination of their separate strength, that they could possibly hope to be successful; and yet, how few were the influences by which that union was likely to be brought about. The great work, therefore, was in the alliance, offensive and defensive, between colonies remote from each other, of rare correspondence, of infrequent communion, and strikingly dissimilar in tastes, habits and pursuits. They were not a people calculated to assimilate for any object, not, of itself, the most absorbing and imperious. What unity of feeling was there between the Bay of Massachusetts and the settlements on Ashley River? As little then as now! Nay, there was positive diversity, if not dislike, between them. Trained in differing and conflicting schools, hostile in opinion, doubtful of one another,—mutually distasteful and distrustful,—how were they to be reconciled,—moved to obey the joint necessity, and to march, shoulder to shoulder, against the foreign oppressor? Had Carolina been governed by no other considerations of anger, than such as arose from the expensiveness of British protection, she would, in all probability, have remained to this day under the rule of King, Lords and Commons! She had few or no causes of quarrel, of a pecuniary nature, with the mother country. She had no manufactures, requiring the forcing process of protection,—no shipping to crave the monopoly of the carrying trade,—was aiming at no rivalry with the commercial genius of Great Page 115 →Britain. She was rather the pet and the favorite of that ambitious empire. Her raw productions, carried from our ports in British bottoms, were returned to us in British manufactures. The business of the two countries harmonized happily,—in no ways came into conflict,—and, had the British Parliament taken its cue from the British merchant, New-England might have been left to herself—even to this day—to carry out, her numerous schemes, whether of commerce, manufactures, or—philanthropy. In money, in means, in military help,—in various social affinities,—Carolina received from the maternal nation quite as much, in all probability, as she ever yielded to the British revenues. Why, then, should she go into the conflict? Why form an alliance, with this object, with communities which had so few claims upon her sympathies,—for which neither mutual interest, nor mutual esteem, furnished any sufficient motives? It was the difficulty of answering this question, which rendered one-half of her people, not merely reluctant, but hostile to the Revolution. Very far superior, indeed, to these, were the true motives for the struggle,—which brought together, to equal sacrifice, in the same bloody fields of danger, colonies that otherwise had scarcely one sentiment in common. We must not, at this day, suffer ourselves to be deceived by the suggestions which were relied on then, to influence the decisions of the people. It was not then considered politic to utter aloud the true reasons for the strife, or its superior incentives. The better argument was latent, and never declared to the multitude. Hence, indeed, the terrible civil war which followed, by which the plains of Carolina were drenched in fraternal blood. Hence it was, that one half of our people, unsatisfied of the alleged necessity, and remembering only the benefactions of Great Britain,—when the ultimate issue became inevitable,—arrayed themselves under the banner of the sovereign. If, in that day, it had been said that the war contemplated the emancipation of the national mind, and this had been urged as the sufficient motive for the struggle, in all probability our grandsires would have bared the sword in vain. The national mind would have been discredited, and the noblest yearnings of the national soul would have been trampled ignominiously out of sight by provincial subserviency. The movement would have been ascribed to the ambition, and not to the patriotism, of the popular leaders; and that same colonial servility, which, even to this day, turns ever with sycophantic devotion to the intellect and authority of Europe, as to a something, which, by nature, must be very far superior to our own, would have arrayed itself in venomous opposition to the holy cause of national individuality. We should have had thousands to say, as, indeed, they did say, and do say now, “the wisdom of England is quite good enough for us.” To spirits such as these, it was deemed a much more imposing argument to show them the purse of the country in peril. They could better comprehend the necessity of national money than national brains,—would sooner fight for cash than character,—and willing, all the while, to recognize a divine right in a foreign despot to sway, with Page 116 →his own creatures, the destinies of a distant country,—to repudiate its mind, and dishonor its greatness,—were yet easily persuaded to perceive the monstrous absurdity and danger of suffering their money-bags in the same divine clutches. To the honorable—to the thoughtful and the noble—to those whom instinct and education taught to snuff tyranny in every foreign breeze,—the true motives for the Revolution were freely spoken, and never more proudly than by Carolina eloquence. They could understand that the cost was nothing, the tribute every thing,—that the foreign domination, when a nation is equal to its own rule, is the most degrading form of human vassalage.

Thus, then, superior to all sordid considerations, did South Carolina enter the confederacy. We need not ask how she bore herself in the conflict which followed. Happily for us, my countrymen, her history needs not to be written. It is already deeply engraven on the everlasting monuments of the nation. It is around us, a living trophy upon all our hills. It is within us, an undying memory in all our hearts. It is a record which no fortune can obliterate—inseparable from all that is great and glorious in the work of the Revolution. Take the name of Carolina from that volume which contains the history of our national existence, and you tear from it some of the brightest jewels in its collection. You take from it the fields of Eutaw and of Cowpens,—of King’s Mountain and Fort Sullivan. You take from it the venerated names of Rutledge and of Gadsden, of Marion and Moultrie, of Sumter and of Pickens. You pluck from it some of the noblest cariatides by which its colossal triumphs are upborne. The battle fields which have been distinguished by Carolina valor, and rendered sacred by her blood, are among the most holy memorials of the republic. They stretch themselves in our sight, in unfading verdure, upon every hand. The humblest district in our country, the smallest river, gliding through our territories to the sea, bears some sufficient memorial, of the glory and the suffering of her sons in that bloody strife for independence. Crowned with no monuments, it is certain that they call for none more durable than those which speak through undying memories. The shepherd who conducts you to the plain of blood, who traces out for your survey, the faint outline of the ruined fortress, or the more distinct elevations of the mound of death, is himself a better memorial than any we can raise of marble. So long as he feels it well, on this returning day, to revive, at the altars of his country, the recollections which it brings, we shall need no better monument than himself. When he shall forget the field, the warriors who strove together, and the glorious occasion for the strife, it would be in vain that we would speak to him in brass or marble. Our monuments then would be as unmeaning and inexpressive as those which invite the steps and mock the curiosity of the stranger in the crumbling teocallis of Yucatan. God forbid that the day shall ever arrive, when the “Quien Sabe?” of our peasantry, as they contemplate the memorials of the past glory of their race, shall declare the degradation of the great Anglo-Saxon stock.

Page 117 →And what, since the victory is won,—since that common cause of native Independence for which we made common fight, has been rendered secure against the foreign enemy,—since the Briton no longer threatens our borders, and assumes the dominion in our land—since we have made ourselves one great community, and rejoice in the strength and virtues of a united people—what has been the deportment of Carolina—how has she borne herself as one of this confederacy of States? What have been her contributions of mind and patriotism to the national character? And how has the genius which made itself so gloriously conspicuous in the annals of ’76, been honored and maintained by the name, which preserves for us, to this day, that individuality of which we were then so reasonably proud? Let the records show. The war of 1812, so honorable to the country, was a Southern measure, detrimental to the pecuniary interests of Carolina, in which she had conspicuous share. She has not scrupled to yield her interests when the honor of the country was at peril. Certainly, my friends, we have nothing with which to reproach ourselves in our relations to our sister communities. We have been true to them in peace and war,—shrinking from no danger, withholding no sacrifice, which the common interests might require at our hands. We have not faltered in our faith. We have not shrunk from any of our obligations. Our blood and treasure have been freely expended in the common cause of country. Envy and injustice have never dared to accuse us of any deficiency of trust or resolution. We have firmly and honorably held to all the conditions of our compact. We have maintained our relations, with a lofty sense of what is due to ourselves and country. We never penetrate the borders of a sister State to interfere with its laws, to denounce its customs, to disturb the harmony of its society. We pry not into their concerns, vex not their abodes with our surveillance,—disturb none of their securities. There are many things in their domestic economy which we could wish to see altered—some, we are very sure, that might very much be amended. But this is a business peculiarly their own. We should be guilty of presumption were we to trespass upon them with our notions of reform, and doubly criminal to attempt such reform in defiance of their wishes and opinions. We conceive the duties of forbearance, to be quite as imperative as those of performance; and, recognizing still, the great object of our revolution, to be the exercise and assertion of the native intellect, in all native concerns, we freely accord to the people of Massachusetts Bay, the exclusive duties of their own government!

Have they been equally forbearing—have they recognized this principle in regard to us? Have they yielded the same deference to our intellect, the same heed to our securities—to the rights which we possess, as well against themselves, as against the whole European world? What is the history? Is it not one equally offensive to our sensibilities and our Independence? Are they not daily trespassing, more and more, upon our securities. Do they not hourly encroach upon our Page 118 →rights, insult our pride and denounce our institutions? Have they not converted the halls of our common council,—where we are required to meet on equal terms, for the common benefit,—in pacific consultation, and mutually indulgent intercourse,—into an arena for most fearful conflict, and the least justifiable passions; and, in their insane fury, have they not flung from our possession a vast and noble territory, acquired by our kindred, and essential to the natural expansion of our race, simply because its acquisition might afford additional strength and new securities to the people of the South?

There must be an end to this, my countrymen! This bitter warfare will bring its issues, whether the fruits be good or evil. No people not utterly shorn of pride, of manhood, of all the most ordinary sensibilities of human nature; but must finally revolt, at all hazards, against the constant warfare, the prolonged annoyance, the denunciation and the indignity, and take measures of safety and precaution against the dangers which these necessarily imply. We cannot always be patient—we may not always submit with equanimity. The cup of wrath will one day fill to overflowing, and run over, it may be, in measureless retribution. The same sense of mental independence which prompted our ancestors to enter the field in 1776, with the British oppressor, will make us warm now, and watchful, to resent every assault upon the province of our local government, from whatever quarter it may come. The stipulations of our Constitution must be observed—the conditions of the compact, by which we entered the confederacy, must be held in spirit and in letter. The war upon our domestic institutions must have an end. It may be that we err in maintaining them. It may be that we lack some of those philanthropic lights, by which the buyer of the stolen property is the only criminal, and he who steals and sells it is the only saint. We shall not gainsay this morality, which seems to be so perfect a faith in the sons of the slave dealers of Old and New England. We simply deny any accountability to the modern Puritans of these regions. The subject is exclusively our own. Our pride, not less than our securities, requires that the discussion of this matter shall not be suffered to invade the halls of our National Council. The common government must not be made the instrument for the annoyance or the destruction of its individual members. I do not think that the danger is immediate, but the indignity to which a people submits becomes a danger, and every party which is in movement, is a growing party. We must check its growth. We care not for the abstract opinions of any set of men. We leave to the people of the North to think after their own fashions, but they must not put their opinions into action for our detriment. In this cause, against this danger, the people of the South must unite in season. Setting aside the consideration of all ordinary topics, they must address their unanimous will to the arrest of this imposing faction. Strong, equally, in the intellect as in the courage and integrity of her sons, she must compel that deference to her mind, which is, after all, the true security for her rights. It needs but this for our safety. Page 119 →Let the South but show itself, moving together, in solid phalanx, as one man, and there will be no conflict worthy of the name. Without this union, we can do nothing. This secured, and the strife ceases—the storm cloud disappears, and the bright sun of peace and harmony, moves once more in our political firmament with the serene dignity of our own upsoaring eagle. It is only in our divisions that the enemy succeeds. It is in our very individuality of character—the source of so many of our proudest virtues, magnanimity, hospitality and courage—in the possession of so many proud and independent intellects,—that the common cause of our section is endangered. Our great men of the South are too much given to assert themselves rather than their country—are too easily persuaded to see a rival, rather than an ally, in each Southern brother. Thus it is, that Virginia and the Carolinas, Georgia and Alabama, and Mississippi, are to be found divided among themselves—warring with each other,—seeking to make Presidents, while the North, moving in solid body, is seeking only to make subjects. We must persuade our patriots to believe that the sources of a permanent distinction are to be found always in the assertion of popular, rather than individual claims. He who at heart strives for his people will never be abandoned by them. They cannot abandon him—if they would. They become dependent upon his virtues and his strength, and acknowledge, in his integrity and intellect, his right to rule. Persuade our statesmen to believe this, and our people will be as closely united in feeling as they are in fortune. That we are not so, is due to the selfish infirmities of those to whom we give our trust. Overcome this difficulty—array your Virginians, your Carolinians, your Tennesseans and Alabamians, your Georgians, and Mississippians, in one column, under one great leader, and we sweep away, as with a will, the whole vast meshes of Eastern cunning—their thousand threads and fibres, sufficient to bind us singly, would break like flax smitten by the fire, under the instant pressure of our united strength. The miserable abuses of the tariff,—the creation of unnecessary treasures, unequally gathered for still more unequal distribution,—the brutal fanaticism of abolition,—the thousand schemes of fraud which may be practised and perpetrated under the seemingly innocent sanction of a “general welfare” doctrine—all the myriad arts by which cunning toils ever to wind her web about the limbs of the unsuspecting,—would be dissipated, by the single act of union among ourselves, as easily as the strong man at morning dashes the seal of slumber from his eyelids. Could we engage Southern statesmen in this great object! Could some one great patriarchal mind among us, set forth with the patriotic single-heartedness of Father Mathew, with the view to this glorious consummation! And why should there not be gatherings of the people,—and great orators—in this, as in the temporary cause of local parties, and presidential elections? How unworthy are such inferior objects when the glorious rights which have rendered past struggles sacred, are escaping from our grasp. Let us labor to instil this lesson—to inculcate this duty—to bring Page 120 →our kindred States together in the common cause. To the statesman who, armed only with the sufficient spear of truth, shall make a political progress among us—who shall devote his genius and his life to this consummation,—whose eloquence shall bind conflicting parties,—who shall compel the deference of sordid politicians,—and teach, with the eloquence of a perfect faith, the single principle, “the South, and the South all together,”—and shall succeed in rallying our united powers in the great domestic issues which are before us,—there shall be an eminence of fame superior to that of President or Sovereign—a fame worthy of that of Washington, as proud, as peaceful, as enduring. We can reduce the tariff—we can recover Texas—we can bring statesmen once more back to the Constitution, without strife, without violence or bloodshed,—we can strengthen the old, and acquire new securities for our sectional rights, and all by the simple act of union among ourselves. There is a virtue in such an act, the magic of which would disperse all the sophisms of candidates, and cast down all the cunningly-devised schemes of cliques and classes—silence the hundred clamors of abolitionist and spinning-jenny, and purge the floor of our Council House of the rankness which offends it.

Nor, need we doubt, in the meantime, that Texas shall become ours. Of its loss there is little danger. Armed, as we are, with a jealous watchfulness of Great Britain, she dare not make any movement upon our borders, which shall ally this nation against her. She dare not accept of that cession which we refuse. She is sagacious enough to know certain things, of which our own politicians seem to be ignorant. She knows that nothing would so soon unite the American people as external pressure;—and she as well knows that a republic, the weakest of all nations in time of peace, is the strongest of all nations, engaged in foreign war. It is only in seasons of conflict, that popular governments, like ours, exhibit any of the forces of centralism. It is then, and only then, that heart speaks to heart, in the far-spread regions of our country,—pulse responds to pulse, mind to mind, and the whole kindred nature of the vast republic, efficiently aroused, supplies, with the necessary aliment of blood and spirit, the thousand arteries which feed our energy and strength. Let the provocation ever again occur,—let our country a third time be called to arm against its hereditary enemy,—and, I believe, as I trust, that we shall not forego that warfare, until we banish the British ensign forever from our skies. Cuba, Canada, the West-Indian Islands, are all, no less than Texas, the natural dependencies of our hemisphere, and must, in the inevitable progress of events, become portions of our national domain, and integrals of our spreading empire. It will be for Britain and Mexico to say, whether these shall fall, sooner or later, into our possession. With the increase of our strength, a national and manly foreign policy must make them ours, without the necessity of dissipating the cobweb sophistries of week-day politicians. The absurd pretences Page 121 →by which the acquisition of Texas has been deferred for the present, will not long impose upon the people of America. They are quite too shrewd for that herd of slender statesmen, who, in measuring their own stature by their own standards, are very apt to dwarf their constituencies. Blinded by their besotted selfishness, they seem to have never had any idea of country, separate from the dugs of office. The South demands the annexation of Texas, avowedly, as necessary to the proper balance of power. Without this balance of power, we have no securities. But the great interests of the nation demand it, not less than ourselves. A vast domain, essential to our safety, and, with time, to the natural expansion of the race, is not to be flung from our grasp to satisfy a sectional prejudice, and secure votes for hungry candidates,—creatures, scarcely less blind to their own fortunes—in their excess of selfishness,—than they are indifferent to the great destinies and the superior prospects of the nation. As for faith with Mexico, we have none to break, and our politicians know it. But for their home interests, they had never thought of Mexico. We have recognized Texas as an independent power, and have done business with her as such,—such business,—indeed, the establishment of a definitive boundary,—as could not be transacted with any but a thoroughly independent nation. It was, then, in the power of Texas,—recognized by us,—to say where her boundaries should be. It was just as easy, then, to have said, that the United States territory should reach to the Rio Bravo, as to the Rio Roja. The violation of faith with Mexico, was just as complete in the one as in the other instance. We are not to look behind the curtain to the domestic relations of foreign States. We recognize that government as independent which maintains its independence. The principle is a simple one, which saves a world of trouble. If Texas rebels against Mexican authorities, let the latter compel the contumacious member to obedience. We have made no treaty with her to abstain from treating with any other nation. Her clamors and threats are equally impertinent and ridiculous, and of a piece with the arguments of our domestic statesmen, from whom, indeed, she gathers most of her audacity. These arguments come with monstrous bad grace from those who have been for hurrying us into war with England, because of territory in Oregon, and a strip of land necessary to the profits of the Maine lumber cutters. The indignation of Mexico, no doubt, will be a very fearful thing, but with a good conscience, and a few good frigates, we must endeavor to meet it with what philosophy we may. But the annexation of Texas will give us no war with Mexico, or, if it should, Texas will be perfectly able to do all our fighting. Mexico will be pleased, in reality, to extricate herself from the prosecution of a conflict, in which she has hitherto met nothing but disgrace; and her honor will be spared the humiliation of treating for boundary with a rebellious subject. Her policy is doubly urgent with her to sanction this cession,—allowing her the moderate privilege of a few wry faces,—since, in no Page 122 →other way, can she be secure against the continued encroachments of a people, constantly acquiring new strength, and unfettered by any of those obligations of international law, which alone could keep them from daily aggression upon an enemy, at once feeble and insulting.

There are many topics, brethren of the South, upon which we might discourse. Enough for us now, that we are in a transition state, and must prepare for changes. We should be blind beyond recovery, if we did not behold the signs of their approach. We are not, as I have said already, in a condition of security,—nor has the nation at large attained that stability of position, when we might look with composure on all political fluctuations. It is our common error to regard the close of our revolutionary contest, as settling permanently our institutions. This is a very great mistake. That struggle determined nothing but our independence. Our policy is a more subtle and difficult necessity, which we must elaborate with patience, forbearance, great caution, and with the best wisdom that we can command. We are now only engaged in the trial of our institutions. Let us give them a fair trial. Our experiment was one of equal difficulty and novelty. We must not despair of its final success, because of the vicissitudes which attend its progress. How far it will stand the pressure of the unfriendly influences warring upon it, from without and from within, is a question somewhat depending upon our own philosophy and patriotism. We cannot disguise from ourselves, that the moral and social ties which have bound us to the North, are greatly weakened,—I had almost said sundered. These, as I have shown, were never very strong at the beginning. The common cause did not make us a common family, and the government which grew out of common concessions, can only be maintained by a continuance of such concessions. The ligaments which now chiefly bind us together, are those of our political union,—a tie, the value of which, as it was originally the fruit of compromise, can never be beyond calculation. A conviction of the necessity of such a bond, is almost the only additional security for its permanence. The latter may be easily overborne and forgotten in the excitements of domestic strife,—reckless fanaticism on the one hand, and blind fury and desperate defiance on the other. The other is a form and a shadow, rather than a substance. These ligaments need but little for their rupture. They are too slight to resist the insolence of despotism, and the unreckoning violence of a minority, conscious only of injustice. A few more shocks—one ruder blow—the phrenzy of an audacious, or the malignity of a hostile spirit,—and the noble temple of our confederacy, built by the mighty Architects of the Revolution, is thrown down in irretrievable ruin. When that time shall arrive, my countrymen,—when the sound shall go forth, of fate, and a bitter lamenting through the land,—let it be our boast that our hands have not prepared this overthrow,—that we are not guilty of this ruin. The guilt and the shame of a catastrophe, which shall mock Page 123 →and mortify the whole world’s hope of Liberty, must not rest on the fair fame and the conscience of the South.