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vent their appearance. Homer rose in the dawn of Grecian culture; Virgil flourished in the Court of Augustus; Dante ushered in the birth of the modern European literature; Copernicus was reared in a Polish cloister; Shakespeare was trained in the greenroom of a theatre; Milton was formed while the elements of English thought and life were fermenting toward a great political and moral revolution; Newton, under the profligacy of the Restoration. Ages may elapse before any country will produce a mind like these; as two centuries have passed since the last-mentioned of them was born. But if it is really a mark of inferiority on the part of the United States, that in the comparatively short period of their existence as a people, they have not added another name to this illustrious list, (which is equally true of all the other nations of the earth,) they may proudly boast of one example of Life and Character, one career of disinterested service, one model of public virtue, one type of human excellence, of which all the countries and all the ages may be searched in vain for a parallel. I need not,- on this day I

need not, speak the peerless name.

It is stamped

on your hearts, it glistens in your eyes, it is written on every page of your history, on the battle-fields of the Revolution, on the monuments of your Fathers, on the portals of your capitols. It is heard in every breeze that whispers over the fields of Independent

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America. And he was all our own. He grew up on the soil of America; he was nurtured at her bosom. She loved and trusted him in his youth; she honored and revered him in his age; and though she did not wait for death to canonize his name, his precious memory, with each succeeding year, has sunk more deeply into the hearts of his countrymen!

But, as I have already stated, it was urged against us in substance on the occasion alluded to, that within the last sixty years the United States have degenerated, and that by a series of changes, at first apparently inconsiderable, but all leading by a gradual and steady progression to the same result, a very discreditable condition of things has been brought about in this country.

Without stating precisely what these supposed changes are, the "result" is set forth in a somewhat remarkable series of reproachful allegations, far too numerous to be repeated in detail, in what remains of this address, but implying in the aggregate little less than the general corruption of the country,-political, social, and moral. The severity of these reproaches is not materially softened by a few courteous words of respect for the American People. I shall in a moment select for examination two or three of the most serious of these charges, observing only at present that the prosperous condition of the country, which I have imperfectly sketched, and especially its

astonishing growth, during the present century in the richest products, material and intellectual, of a rapidly maturing civilization, furnish a sufficient defence against the general charge. Men do not gather the grapes and figs of science, art, taste, wealth, and manners from the thorns and thistles of lawlessness, venality, fraud, and violence. These fair fruits grow only in the gardens of public peace, and industry protected by the Law.

In the outset let it be observed then, that the assumed and assigned cause of the reproachful' and deplorable state of things alleged to exist in the United States is as imaginary, as the effects are exaggerated or wholly unfounded in fact. The "checks established by Washington and his associates on an unbalanced democracy" in the general government have never, as is alleged, "been swept away," -not one of them. The great constitutional check of this kind, as far as the General Government is concerned, is the limitation of the granted powers of Congress; the reservation of the rights of the States; and the organization of the Senate as their representative. These constitutional provisions, little comprehended abroad, which give to the smallest States equal weight with the largest, in one branch of the national legislature, impose a very efficient check on the power of a numerical majority; and neither in this nor in any other provision of the Constitution, bearing

on the subject, has the slightest change ever been made. Not only so, but the prevalent policy since 1800 has been in favor of the reserved rights of the States, and in consequent derogation of the powers of the General Government. In fact, when the Reform Bill was agitated in England, and by the conservative statesmen of that country stigmatized as "a revolution," it was admitted that the United States possessed in their written Constitution, and in the difficulty of procuring amendments to it, a conservative principle unknown to the English government.

In truth, if by "an unbalanced democracy" is meant such a government as that of Athens, or republican Rome, or the Italian Republics, or the English Commonwealth, or revolutionary France, there not only never was, but never can be such a thing in the United States, unless our whole existing system should be revolutionized, and that in a direction to which there never has been the slightest approach. The very fact that the great mass of the population is broken up into separate States, now thirty-three in number and rapidly multiplying, each with its local interests and centre of political influence, is itself a very efficient check on such a democracy. Then each of these States is a representative commonwealth, composed of two branches, with the ordinary divisions of executive, legislative, and judicial power. It is true, that in some of the States, some trifling property qualifications for

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eligibility and the exercise of the elective franchise have been abrogated, but not with any perceptible effect on the number or character of the voters. system, varying a little in the different States, always made a near approach to universal suffrage; and the great increase of voters has been caused by the increase of population. Under elective governments, with a free press, with ardent party divisions, and in reference to questions that touch the heart of the people, petty limitations on the right of suffrage are indeed 'cobwebs,' which the popular will breaks through. The voter may be one of ten, or one of fifty of the citizens, but on such questions he will vote in conformity with the will of the great mass. If he resists it, the government itself, like that of France in 1848, will go down. Agitation and popular commotion scoff at checks and balances, and as much in England as in America. When Nottingham Castle is in ruins and half Bristol a heap of ashes, monarchs and ministers must bend. The Reform Bill must then pass through Parliament or over it," in the significant words of Lord Macaulay; and that, whether the constituencies are great or small. That a restricted suffrage and a limited constituency do not always insure independence on the part of the Representative, . may be inferred from the rather remarkable admission of Lord Grey, in this very debate, that "a large proportion of the members of the present House of

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