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the excise system was a mere scare-crow, a bug-bear; that the sound of the words constituted all the difference between a system of excise and a system of customs; that both meant the same thing: "Write them together; yours is as fair a name; sound them; it doth become the mouth as well;" here, sir, I must beg leave to differ; I do not think it does: "Weigh them; it is as heavy;" that I grant-" conjure with them;"-excise "will start a spirit as soon as" customs. This I verily believe, sir, and I wish, with all my heart, if this bill is to pass, if new and unnecessary burdens are to be wantonly imposed upon the people, that we were to return home with the blessed news of a tax or excise, not less by way of "minimum," than fifty cents per gallon upon whiskey. And here, if I did not consider an exciseman to bear, according to the language of the old law books, “caput lupinum,” and that it was almost as meritorious to shoot such a hell-hound of tyranny, as to shoot a wolf or a mad-dog; and if I did not know that anything like an excise in this country is in effect utterly impracticable,-I myself, feeling, seeing, blushing for my country, would gladly vote to lay an excise on this abominable liquor, the lavish consumption of which renders this the most drunken nation under the sun; and yet we have refused to take the duties from wines, from cheap French wines particularly, that might lure the dog from his vomit, and lay the foundation of a reformation of the public manners.

From "Speech in the House of Representatives," 1824.

THE EXCISE SYSTEM IMPOSSIBLE IN AMERICA.

JOHN RANDOLPH.

SIR, an excise system can never be maintained in this country. I had as lief be a tithe proctor in Ireland, and met on a dark night in a narrow road by a dozen White-boys, or Peep-of-day Boys, or Hearts of Oak, or Hearts of Steel, as an excise man in the Alleghany Mountains, met in a lonely road, or by-place, by a backwoodsman, with a rifle in his hand. With regard to Ireland, the British chancellor of the exchequer has been obliged to reduce the excise in Ireland on distilled spirits, to comparatively nothing to what it was formerly, in consequence of the impossibility of collecting it in that country. Ireland is, not to speak with statistical accuracy, about the size of Pennsylvania, containing something like twenty-five thousand square miles of territory, with a population of six millions of inhabitants, nearly as great a number as the whole of the white population of the United States; with a standing army of twenty thousand men; with another standing army, composed of all those classes in civil life, who, through the instrumentality of that army, keep the

wretched people in subjection: under all these circumstances, even in Ireland, the excise cannot be collected. I venture to say that no army that the earth has ever seen; not such a one as that of Bonaparte, which marched to the invasion of Russia, would be capable of collecting an excise in this country; not such a one (if you will allow me to give some delightful poetry in exchange for very wretched prose) as Milton has described

"Such forces met not, nor so wide a camp,

When Agrican, with all his northern powers,
Besieged Albracea, as romances tell,

The city of Calliphrone, from whence to win
The fairest of her sex, Angelica,

His daughter, sought by many prowest knights,
Both Paynim and the peers of Charlemagne ;"

not such a force, nor even the troops with which he compares them, which were no less than "the legend fiends of hell," could collect an excise here. If any officer of our government were to take the field a still-hunting, as they call it in Ireland, among our southern or western forests and mountains, I should like to see the throwing off of the hounds. I have still so much of the sportsman about me, that I should like to see the breaking cover, and, above all, I should like to be in at the death. From "Speech in the House of Representatives," 1824.

AMERICAN VALOR.

LEWIS CASS.

THERE is one point, sir, where we can all meet, and that is the gallantry and good conduct of our country. This is one of the high places to which we can come up together, and laying aside our party dissension, mingle our congratulations that our country has had such sons to go forth to battle, and that they have gathered such a harvest of renown in distant fields. The time has been, and there are those upon this floor who remember it well, when our national flag was said to be but striped bunting, and our armed vessels but fir-built frigates. The feats of our army and navy, in our last war with England, redeemed us from this reproach, the offspring of foreign jealousy; and had they not, the events of the present war would have changed these epithets into terms of honor; for our flag has become a victorious standard, borne by marching columns, over the hills and valleys, and through the cities, and towns, and fields of a powerful nation, in a career of success of which few examples can be found in ancient or modern warfare.

The movement of our army from Puebla was one of the most roman

tic and remarkable events which ever occurred in the military annals of any country. Our troops did not indeed burn their fleet, like the first conquerors of Mexico, for they needed not to gather courage from despair, nor to stimulate their resolution by destroying all hopes of escape. But they voluntarily cut off all means of communication with their own country, by throwing themselves among the armed thousands of another, and advancing with stout hearts but feeble numbers into the midst of a hostile country. The uncertainty which hung over the public mind, and the anxiety everywhere felt, when our gallant little army disappeared from our view, will not be forgotten during the present generation. There was universal pause of expectation-hoping, but still fearing; and the eyes of twenty millions of people were anxiously fixed upon another country which a little band of its armed citizens had invaded. A veil concealed them from our view. They were lost to us for fifty days; for that period elapsed from the time when we heard of their departure from Puebla till accounts reached us of the issue of the movement. The shroud which enveloped them gave way, and we discovered our glorious flag waving in the breezes of the capital, and the city itself invested by our army.

From "Speech in the Senate," 1848.

BARBAROUS WARFARE.

LORD CHATHAM.

BUT, my lords, who is the man, that in addition to these disgraces and mischiefs of our army, has dared to authorize and associate to our arms the tomahawk and scalping-knife of the savage? To call into civilized alliance, the wild and inhuman savage of the woods; to delegate to the merciless Indian, the defence of disputed rights, and to wage the horrors of his barbarous war against our brethren? My lords, these enormities cry aloud for redress and punishment. Unless thoroughly done away, it will be a stain on the national character. It is a violation of the constitution. I believe it is against law. It is not the least of our national misfortunes, that the strength and character of our army are thus impaired. Infected with the mercenary spirit of robbery and rapine; familiarized to the horrid scenes of savage cruelty, it can no longer boast of the noble and generous principles which dignify a soldier; no longer sympathize with the dignity of the royal banner, nor feel the pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war, that make ambition virtue!" What makes ambition virtue?-the sense of honor. But is the sense of honor consistent with a spirit of plunder, or the practice of murder? Can it flow from mercenary motives, or can it prompt to cruel deeds? Besides these murderers

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and plunderers, let me ask our ministers, what other allies have they acquired? What other powers have they associated to their cause? Have they entered into alliance with the king of the gypsies? Nothing, my lords, is too low or too ludicrous to be consistent with their counsels. From "Speech on Address to the Throne."

ENGLAND AND HER CHILDREN.

EDMUND BURKE.

A NOBLE lord, who spoke some time ago, is full of the fire of ingenuous youth; and when he has modelled the ideas of a lively imagination by further experience, he will be an ornament to his country in either house. He has said, that the Americans are our children, and how can they revolt against their parent? He says, that if they are not free in their present state, England is not free; because Manchester, and other considerable places, are not represented. So, then, because some towns in England are not represented, America is to have no representative at all. They are "our children;" but when children ask for bread, we are not to give a stone. Is it because the natural resistance of things, and the various mutations of time, hinder our government, or any scheme of government, from being any more than a sort of approximation to the right, is it therefore that the colonies are to recede from it infinitely? When this child of ours wishes to assimilate to its parent, and to reflect with a true filial resemblance the beauteous countenance of British liberty; are we to turn to them the shameful parts of our constitution? are we to give them our weakness for their strength? our opprobrium for their glory; and the slough of slavery, which we are not able to work off, to serve them for their freedom? From "Speech on American Taxation."

MILTON AND THE AGE OF REASON."

T. ERSKINE.

It is said by the author of the "Age of Reason," that the Christian fable is but the tale of the more ancient superstitions of the world, and may be easily detected by a proper understanding of the mythologies of the heathens.-Did Milton understand those mythologies?-Was he less versed than Mr. Paine in the superstitions of the world? No, -they were the subject of his immortal song; and though shut out from all recurrence to them, he poured them forth from the stores of a memory rich with all that man ever knew, and laid them in their

order as the illustration of real and exalted faith, the unquestionable source of that fervid genius which has cast a kind of shade upon all the other works of man

He passed the bounds of flaming space,
Where angels tremble while they gaze-
He saw,-till blasted with excess of light,
He closed his eyes in endless night.

But it was the light of the BODY only that was extinguished: "The CELESTIAL LIGHT shone inward, and enabled him to justify the ways of God to man."--The result of his thinking was nevertheless not quite the same as the author's before us. The mysterious incarnation of our blessed Saviour (which this work blasphemes in words so wholly unfit for the mouth of a Christian, or for the ear of a court of justice, that I dare not, and will not, give them utterance), Milton made the grand conclusion of his Paradise Lost, the rest from his finished labors, and the ultimate hope, expectation, and glory of the world.

A Virgin is his Mother, but his Sire

The power of the Most High ;-he shall ascend

The throne hereditary, and bound his reign

With earth's wide bounds, his glory with the heavens.

From "Speech on the Age of Reason."

THE EAST INDIAN GOVERNMENT.

EDMUND Burke.

IN India, all the vices operate by which sudden fortune is acquired; in England are often displayed by the same persons, the virtues which dispense hereditary wealth. Arrived in England, the destroyers of the nobility and gentry of a whole kingdom will find the best company in this nation, at a board of elegance and hospitality. Here the manufacturer and husbandman will bless the just and punctual hand that in India has torn the cloth from the loom, or wrested the scanty portion of rice and salt from the peasant of Bengal, or wrung from him the very opium in which he forgot his oppressions and his oppressor. They marry into your families; they enter into your senate; they ease your estates by loans; they raise their value by demands; they cherish and protect your relations, which lie heavy on your patronage; and there is scarcely a house in the kingdom that does not feel some concern and interest that makes all reform of our eastern government appear officious and disgusting; and, on the whole, a most discouraging attempt. In such an attempt you hurt those who are able to return kindness, or to resent injury. If you succeed, you save those who cannot so much as give you thanks. All these things show the diffi

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