provisions of their constitution, which were most offen- | education and the press are stripping antiquated instisive to their countrymen; not because he thought themtutions of the gilded cloud, which so long dazzled the dangerous or objectionable in themselves, but because eyes of an ignorant multitude. they excited so much dissatisfaction, and by making But what could have raised the Cincinnati above the the society an object of popular jealousy, tended to common degree of American citizens? Not wealth; frustrate the patriotic design of the founders. The for, generally, they had inherited little from their anprovisions for hereditary succession and for the admis-cestors; universally, they accumulated nothing in the sion of honorary members, were therefore repealed, and the society was reduced to its first simple design of a friendly association for life among the officers of the revolutionary army.

Now when the society is extinguished by the decease of nearly all the venerable patriots who founded it, and it can no more excite the sensitive spirit of democratical jealousy; it is scarcely necessary to frame an elaborate vindication of the pure intentions of the founders and the harmless nature of the institution, even on the enlarged system of its original organization.

form of pay and plunder in the public service; and poor and long-delayed was the reward which their country gave them for all their deeds and sufferings in her cause. Had they by any means acquired extraor dinary wealth, they could not have transmitted it by entail to the heirs of their membership in the society. Law, usage, and public sentiment in this country, are alike opposed to the practice of entail, by which large estates descend undivided through a single line of posterity. On the contrary, the largest fortunes in this country are dissipated by division, and generally before they reach the third generation.

Can any one now suspect, that the officers of that Nor could the members of the Cincinnati Society army who "loved not their lives to the death" for lib- have acquired any exclusive privilege or official dig. erty, would tarnish their laurels and belie all their acts nity, except by the free gift of their fellow-citizens. of daring and of suffering, by a deliberate scheme to They had no wealth to buy political power, nor armies subvert the republican freedom, for which they had at command to wrest it from an unwilling people. risked the loss of all things? If ever men gave invinci- Their military authority was laid aside, after having ble evidence of devotion to free institutions, it was the been exercised only for their country's liberty; they scarred and weather-beaten heroes of the revolution-retained only the common station of citizens, and must the Washingtons, the Greenes, the Waynes, and the like others win their way to office by popular suffrage. Morgans of the revolution.

I apprehend, however, that no one was so blinded by a malignant prejudice, as to suspect that the Cincinnati in general harbored any anti-republican design, or were themselves aware of any aristocratical tendency in their institution. The worst that was charged by any respectable accuser, was probably this; that a few politic individuals among them, having no faith in democratical government, embraced the scheme of the Cincinnati Society as a feasible method of introducing a distinction of ranks into the country, and of preparing the way for monarchical government, and that the society, as originally formed, was well adapted to this purpose.

Here we join issue, and maintain that the Cincinnati Society, even with its hereditary succession, was not qualified to produce any aristocratical distinction among the people of the United States.

Aristocracy, to be any thing more than an empty name, must be endowed with some transcendant powers and exclusive privileges. Its titles of distinction must be sustained, either by hereditary and unalienable wealth, or permanent military command, or legislative power; or by all of these combined. The aristocracy of England is sustained by its vast endowment of landed property, and its co-ordinate power in the legislature. Were it deprived of either of these props, it would fall into contempt, and be stripped even of its vain titles by the growing spirit of English democracy. So, in every country where the nobility maintain a substantial superiority over the commons, it is, and it must be, by virtue of their hereditary possessions, and by their pre-eminent share of military commands and civil dignities. By means of these, they first established themselves; and by the same means, they must support their claim to the homage, or even to the respect, of the commonalty-especially in these times, when

In the competition for votes, they could not be supposed to have any advantage over their fellow citizens, except from two sources: namely, the fame and merits of those who founded the society, and the combined support of the members themselves. But neither of these could avail much. The veteran officer who had fought for his country, would have a claim to popular favor, which many would acknowledge; but this claim would be weakened in the son, and dissipated in the grandson. This has been proved by experience. What advan tage in political contests, have the sons and grandsons of the Cincinnati gained from the merit of their ancestors? How few of them have risen to eminent stations? Where are the kindred of Putnam, of Schuyler, of Greene, of Marion, or even of Washington? Their names are scarcely seen in the official lists of the age. A new generation has sprung up; and though the memory of our revolutionary patriots is embalmed in history, their families have generally fallen into obscu rity. While the Cincinnati lived and kept their society in full operation, no political effect was produced by the association. Were their intended successors yet to meet and wear the social badge, their voices would still be unheard amidst the din of party politics; unless their social organization gave them a weight, which their relation to dead patriots has evidently failed to bestow.

Whilst we fully acknowledge that union is strength, and that a social organization is adapted to promote union; we may well deny that the Cincinnati could have acquired, by this means, any political ascendency. Composing with their near connexions, not a hundredth part of the voters, they could have derived very inconsiderable weight from their numbers, even if they had acted in perfect union and concert. But perfect concert among themselves was not to be expected. Living, dispersed among their fellow citizens, and meeting in

counterpoise? There was evident danger, too, that the newly acquired liberty would degenerate into licentiousness; and that dissensions and collisions, among such ill-compacted states, would lead to intestine blood. shed and mutual desolation. Then their dearly bought independence would prove a curse instead of a blessing, for want of a controlling power.

These apprehensions were in part realised; and for several years a fearful progress was made towards the consummation of all that patriotism dreaded: when, after great difficulty and by the special mercy of heaven, the present federal constitution was adopted, and the country was saved at the very crisis of its fate.

society but once a year, their members would be more | their federal duties, under all the exigencies of the war subjected to the opposing influences which create par- for independence; how then would the same states ties, than to the consolidating tendency of their social fulfil them, when the pressure was removed, and the organization. If this was true of the original Cincin-indolence and the selfishness of peace should have no nati, the veteran brotherhood of the revolution; how much more would their successors, bound together by far weaker ties, have been rent by the contending elements of federalism and democracy? But had they been able to resist the intrusion of party spirit among themselves, they could not have prevailed against the resistance which their very union would have excited. You have heard how easily a few political pamphleteers of inferior degree, filled the public mind with suspicion and prejudice against their association; and that too, immediately after they had retired from the field of their glory, and almost before they had time to heal their wounds and to wipe the dust and the sweat of the revolution from their brows. How much more If then some of the leading men of the revolution easily could popular leaders have heaped odium upon doubted whether fourteen democracies, spread over them in after times? To accomplish their supposed | half a continent, and containing in themselves the elearistocratical designs, they must, in the division of ments of discord, could maintain good government parties, have embraced federalism, or high government within their respective limits, and move harmoniously principles; and then how utterly and irrecoverably together, these doubts were not unreasonable—and if must they have been overwhelmed by the surges of they desired a strong concentrated government, to give democracy, which swept down and dissolved the whole their country peace at home and respect abroad, the federal party! If they were compelled at the outset, desire argues nothing against their wisdom or their when they had every advantage, to pacify the public patriotism: for such a government, to some extent, mind by giving up some parts of their constitution; was forced upon the states by a few years experience must they not have yielded all, if they had, as a body, of the utter impotency and worthlessness of the mere engaged in political contests, when the wind and the league and covenant which they had first adopted. I waves of universal suffrage beat against their feeble wish, most devoutly, that even the present federal contenement? of a universal suffrage swollen to turbu-stitution may be able to carry us safely through the lence, by the pauperism and mobocracy of Europe, shock of the tempest, that is even now giving indicadisgorged upon our shores?

tions of its approach. The frequent out-breakings of

land-pirates and adventurers who call themselves patriots-above all the fanatical spirit of abolition in the north, and the fiery threats of civil hostility and separation in the south-are fearful omens of a trial at hand; which if not met by the sound part of our citi zens with wisdom and firmness, will yet extinguish all our patriotic hopes in sectional feuds and mutual destruction. We should then feel how much better it was to submit to a government, able to control the elements of discord, than to suffer the terrors of mobocratical violence, the horrors of civil war, and the furies of fanatical rage let loose.

I hold, therefore, that the fancied scheme of the Cin-lawless violence-the sympathy felt for all manner of cinnati to make noblemen of themselves and their descendants was too unfeasible to be entertained by wise men, such as Alexander Hamilton and General Knox; and that if it were admissible that such a scheme was conceived in the organization of the society, the result has proved how little ground there was for the popular apprehension. No, fellow-citizens; aristocracy, if it ever invade our system of political equality, will not come in that way; but through the anarchy of a lawless and violent democracy, disunion and civil war among the states, and their inevitable consequence, a resort to military despotism, as the only remaining refuge for a harassed and ruined people.

Something may be conceded, however, without casting the slightest shade upon the fair fame of our revolutionary patriots. We may admit that at the close of the war, not a few of the wisest and best men, both civil and military, had painful misgivings about the issue of the great political experiment which was then to be tried in this country.

We may admit also that the founders of the Cincinnati Society, in making provision for hereditary membership, desired to leave behind them an institution, which should stand as a living monument of their names and their public services.

"For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,

This pleased and anxious being e'er resigned;
And left the precincts of the cheerful clay,
Nor cast one longing lingering look behind."

When they considered the vast extent of our territory, in which a diversity of local interests and prejudices would grow up; and the imperfect union of the Would they not naturally, and might they not innostates under the old confederacy; a union so loose and cently, seek to preserve their posthumous fame; while fragile as to be easily rent asunder; with a federal they sought to prolong, during life, the personal friendgovernment dependant on the co-operation of all the ships formed in the field of their glory and their sufferstate governments, and incapable of commanding re-ings? Say not, that all anxiety about the honorable spect either at home or abroad--they could not have full remembrance and unfading gratitude of their countryconfidence in the success of the experiment. They had men, was superfluous-that the people of the United seen and felt the remissness of the states in fulfilling States could not forget them; nor delay to reward

them and their children liberally for the deliverance of | populous and wealthy republic, whose citizens spend their country. Public gratitude and justice are not al- millions a year for trifling gratifications, agree to conways infallible. Too often the popular idol of to-day, tribute, once for all, to raise a monument to Washingeclipses wholly to the public eye, the hero or the pa- ton, the Father of their country. triot, who retired yesterday into the shade of private life. Some partial remuneration was indeed promptly bestowed upon the officers of the revolution, in the form of land-titles and half-pay. But before this heavy debt of justice was fully acknowledged and provided for, about forty long years, and most of them years of unparalleled national prosperity, were suffered to pass away. At last, when the revolutionary pension-law was enacted, a majority of the war-worn veterans had travelled, many of them in poverty and despair, beyond the reach of human reward. It was only a feeble remnant who lingered on the scene of their campaigns, long enough to taste before they died, the tardy justice of their country.

Nor is this all. When the revolutionary Congress decreed monuments to the fallen, and honorary distinctions for the achievements of the living; how long were many of these decrees left unexecuted? And how few honors of the sort, have to this day been bestowed upon the dead or the living heroes of our independence! This flourishing and mighty republic, ought ere now to have adorned and glorified herself with a hundred magnificent structures, to commemorate the events of her revolutionary history, and the fame of her patriotic founders. Gratitude called for these tokens of respect; a wise policy demanded, that the patriotism of the living should be stimulated by visible monuments of the glorious dead. Saratoga, should have been marked to every visitor, by her pyramid of everlasting granite; York-Town should have lifted her tall column high over the plains of Virginia, a land-mark to fill the navigators of the Chesapeake with inspiring reminiscences.

Why is not Trenton distinguished by some visible memento of the 25th of December, 1776; when Washington led his shoeless band, darkling, through ice and snow; and turned that midnight of despair, into the dawn of glorious victory? And why has there not been long since, even a stone erected on the plain of Princeton, to direct the traveller's eye to the spot where Mercer fell-when Washington by a second stroke of consummate skill, brightened the dawn of returning victory into a day of reviving confidence in his country's cause?

But that which above all justifies the apprehension of the Cincinnati, respecting the grateful recognition of their merits, after they should have retired from the field, is the fact, that this nation has never yet erected a monument to Washington; or what would be better, a joint monument, at the seat of government, to Washington and his compatriots. Yes: this nation has been content, for almost forty years, to let the bones of her chief hero and patriot, whose name is revered over half the globe, lie obscurely under the weeping willow of Mount Vernon! While our thankful patriotism expends itself in yearly declamations, which cost nothing, and have become stale by repetition!

Let this shameful neglect be repaired. Let the fifteen millions of these six and twenty states, flourishing in peace and abundance, give due honor to the heroes and patriots of the departed generation, of two millions; who built the foundation of this great republic with their treasures and their blood. Build now their monuments. Let our citizens look upon them, and remember the times that tried the very soul of patriotism. Rear in the city of Washington the great revolutionary monument. Lay deep its foundation of rock; let art and genius try their utmost skill to raise it high above the dome of the capitol; to adorn it with the choicest sculpture, and to inscribe on its walls the story of the revolution, in letters and emblems to be read by a hundred generations. There, let the chiselled forms of the revolutionary heroes and sages meet the national eye.

ed.

There, let the bones of Washington be entombThere, in fine, let the embodied spirit of the revolution stand displayed, in the presence of the national government; to admonish our representatives, and to frown into shame and silence, the paltry selfishness of the day, and the impious threats of disunion.

My last paper was sent to you from the beautiful shades of Oakwood,-and contained a promise of another, to be dated in my own New England. That promise it is now my intention to redeem.

What a transition it was from those fine old oaks in

Virginia, to the crowded thorough-fares, through which I had to pass on my way hitherward! It was indeed a change, and one, from the consequences of which I have not yet, even now, recovered.

"There, at the foot of yonder nodding beech,

That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, His listless length, at noontide, would he stretch, And pore upon the brook that bubbles by." Every thing seemed and still seems new,-and its novelty is harsh. The din of the rail-ways, the bustle of the over-crowded streets, the rush and riot of the city's constant moving mass,--how unlike the scene, where, for weeks before,

66 at peep of dawn, Brushing, with hasty steps, the dews away,

I've met the sun upon the upland lawn!” Deserted and disconsolate Mab! She could not share these reverses with him who had made her the partner of almost all his rural pleasures! She thrust her nose over the palings, and whinnied forth a not unmusical farewell, and as I was whirled away towards the town, she gazed wistfully after me, whose departure cut off so What public authority neglected to do, a private many of her innocent enjoyments. How Mab did enjoy association lately attempted; and after calling upon the peach season! She ate the delicious fruitage from the the nation for voluntary contributions, they at last re-weighed-down boughs by bushels, each rare-ripe, clingported the paltry sum of thirty thousand dollars-to stone, and melicatcón separately, however,—as a wellerect a monument to Washington! So much did this bred lady should do: daintily detaching, with her deli

But it was not always an emblem of sadness. At the How touchingly does this rare poem draw wood-pic-feast of "first fruits," it was borne in triumph. “Ye tures! How breathes this stanza of the pure country

He will lead you to the woodland fastnesses of brave after its yellow beams were hidden, from the view: for