giving, to veneration and filial respect;-but to selfexamination and national accountability.

Our fathers did not gain, with so much peril, and so generously give, an inheritance, to be sported with, wasted, or diverted from its legitimate descent. They gave it to be used, preserved, and transmitted. It is, to a whole people, what health, fortune and reputation are, to an individual; given on condition, and easily forfeited, and lost, by neglect, and abuse; the condition is, resistance of beginnings; watchfulness of encroachments, foresight as to causes of decay. Is it not enough that we are free; enviably free? will not our institutions, and our intelligence, and our virtue keep us, and our descendants, free? Certainly, if we, and our descendants, continue to know what freedom is, and how it may be preserved. Perversion, and decay, are ever watching, with the fidelity of the principle of gravitation, to seize on the moment, to act. How long shall we be able to stand erect, and make the component parts their own mutual protection; how long will the moral, and political movements, which must go on, in this singular country produce safe and beneficial results?

It would not become those who engage in the solemnities of these commemorations, to praise, or to blame, the political men, or things, which happen to be existent, at the moment; these constitute a part, and but a very small part, of that chain of agency, which rises far behind them, and which runs through their time, and still, onward; and which must be sounded, and tried, to test the national prosperity, or decline.

It is not of the men, and things, of the day, that we render an account, at the Tribunal of the Fathers; but of a whole people, charged with the high prerogative of directing their own destiny.

It is assumed by the friends of civil liberty, that nothing can be easier than to carry on such a simple process of governing as that of our own country.

It would be easy, if the whole number, who have the right to an opinion, were always agreed. This is not so; and by the laws of nature cannot be so. Men must act in combinations, and in parties. And what is very striking, there is a rule for parties, which the individuals who compose it, disavow. The moral principle of the man, is often lost in the devotion to a party, or a sect; and sometimes men take praise to themselves for the measures of a party, when, if separated from the irresponsible whole, they might be ashamed to have engaged in them. A numerous collection acting to one end, and by one spirit, may be compared to an overwhelming torrent. If each man were separated, and put on his own responsibility, he would be as harmless as the drops which compose the torrent would be, if separated and left to the action of the air. This, one would think, is the very country of all others for combinations; for, instead of discouraging, almost all its institutions afford facilities for combining. The peculiar danger in republics is, the popular combination to aid by force, a reigning faction; this is the more difficult to be met, and managed, because, it moves under that very authority, which should control and repress it.

But leave out all unusual excitement. Take only the common daily, inevitable course of affairs. We have to encounter honest difference of opinion on vital interests; we have to meet long cherished prejudices. We differ in those things which are thought to be best understood. We say, familiarly, that every man has a right to liberty. But what is liberty? what is right? An abstract notion is easily arrived at. It is the application that is embarrassing. Practical right and liberty, are just what each citizen wants for himself, for his friends, for his party. Right and liberty are such constructions of established principles, as will bring about the greatest good; to whom? to the citizen who makes the construction. It is said there is no danger. Intelligence, and virtue, will protect the republic; that we have only to carry on the administration of constitutional government, by the exercise of the electoral franchise. It is assumed that every citizen knows in what manner the power should be used; and who are the proper agents to use it. If by intelligence, is meant a knowledge of the nature of our social compacts, the relation of every citizen to the State; of the States to the confederacy; the powers given and withheld; the proper exercise of these powers, both at home, and abroad; and what is expedient, and practicable, as well in the extraordinary, as in the common course of events, what proportion of us have intelligence? Deduct from the whole number of citizens, those who are not in the way to be informed; those who might be, but are not; those who strive to be, but mistake

their object; and those who are informed, but only for their selfish purposes, and those who are skilled in the arts of managing adherents, and what is the number left who are devoted to civil and religious liberty; and what is the weight of their influence?

As to virtue, applied to political and social relations, does it mean that every citizen shall be governed by an enlightened benevolence towards all others; that he shall know, and respect, the relation of persons, and things, in his social connexion; and that he shall know, and adhere to that, in which his own true happiness consists ;-if so, how many of us are virtuous?

But is not the frequency of election, a security which cannot fail? Integrity, and talents, may pass through the avenues of election to places of trust; but these avenues are not closed upon talents, unaccompanied by integrity. It is a common remark, that there are two sorts of patriots, who flourish in republics; one, which makes all personal views conform to the end, and the means of public duty; and one, which makes all public service conform to the end and the means of self-exaltation. But the electors wisely discriminate between these. Is it so? Suppose every elector calmly devoted to making the wisest selection; suppose no feverish divisions to exist, what proportion of the whole number of electors have the means of deciding who among them are most trustworthy? Within the smallest electoral district, great diversity of opinion honestly occurs as to qualifications for office. The difficulty increases with the increase of

numbers, and the extension of territory. It soon comes to the fact, that some of the electors have no personal knowledge of candidates; and must choose, on the faith of a very few, who assume to be well informed. In one district in this State, comprised in less than four square miles, men are often chosen to important trusts, who are personally unknown to a majority of their electors. How must it be, then, in some of our cities, when they contain, as they will, hundreds of thousands of inhabitants. Then throw into an election, party animosity, credulous jealousy, personal hatred, and the means used to secure triumph, or to gratify some prevalent enthusiasm, and what is the chance of selecting those who are best qualified for honest and faithful service?

At first view it is surprising that office should have so much attraction. Young ambition cannot know the contrast between the feelings with which office is taken, and those with which it is regarded, when gone; nor can it be warned by seeing, how many, who have given their best days to office, are stricken by poverty in the decline of life, chagrined by neglect, or visited by reproach. That master propensity of the human heart, the desire of excelling, will always furnish the republic with abundance of candidates. No human heart is, or ought to be, free from this propensity; combined with honorable motives, it brings clear heads, and pure minds, into the public trust. It often brings zealous, and honest, but incompetent minds; and is sure to bring insincere and mischievous ones, into the same relation. Whether the indiscreet friends, or the