political liberty. It is that, over the whole extent of this gigantic empire-stretching as it does from the St. Croix to the Sabine, and from the waters of the Atlantic almost to those of the Pacific-wherever man is found, he is seen to walk abroad in all the dignity of his nature-with none to intimidate, or to insult, or to oppress him-with no superior upon this earth that does not deserve to be so--and that, in the proud consciousness of his privileges, his soul is filled with the most noble apprehensions, and his aspirations lifted up to the most exalted objects, and his efforts animated and encouraged in the pursuit of whatever has a tendency to bless and adorn his existence. This is the boast we make this is the theme of the day we are celebrating-and do any of you envy the feelings of the man-who denies that the one is as rational and just, as the other is noble and transporting?

It has been usual on this occasion-as nothing, certainly, can be more appropriate and natural-to expatiate upon the events of the revolutionary contest, and to honour, in a suitable strain of panegyric, such of the founders of the Republic as were supposed to have rendered it the most important services, at a crisis so full of peril and glory. But as these topics, however interesting in themselves, and eminently well fitted for the purposes of popular declamation, are become so trite that it would be difficult, by any art of composition, to bestow upon them the graces of novelty, I have chosen rather to exhibit some of the general features-the great leading characteristics-by which, I conceive that memorable event to be distinguished from all others of a similar kind, that are recorded in the annals of empire.

The first of these peculiarities which I shall notice, is, that the Revolution was altogether the work of principle.

Whoever is anywise conversant with political history knows that such has always been the blind infatuation, the supine carelessness, or the abject servility of mankind, that not only have they submitted with patience to the grossest abuses and misrule, but that they have seldom been roused up to resistance, except by a long course of positive suffering-or by events that powerfully affect the senses and fill the bosom, even of the most indifferent spectator, with indignation and horror. The expulsion of the Tarquins-the overthrow of the Decemvirs-the repeated secessions of the people to the sacred mount-with many other incidents of a like kind, are familiar examples of this truth. A romantic tradition ascribes to a similar cause the origin of Helvetic liberty. The despotism of Philip II. would never have been resisted and shaken, nor Holland emerged, in the glory and greatness of freedom, out of that obscurity to which nature seemed so studiously to have condemned her, had it not been for the infernal atrocities of ALVA, and the martyr

dom of EGMONT and HORN-and even the Revolution of '88, which seems, in this respect, to approach nearest to our ownnot to mention that it grew out of the heats of religious and even a bigoted and fanatic zeal, rather than the love of civil liberty-was not effected until a whole century had passed away in strife, and persecution, and cruelty, and woe-until kindred hosts had been arrayed against each other in many a field of blood-until ALGERNON SIDNEY had died like a felon by the hands of the executioner; until, in short, the daring though feeble attempt of the second JAMES had left his subjects no alternative, but to rid themselves at once of the predestinated and incurable perverseness of a race, that had neither learned nor forgotten any thing, even under the discipline of adversity and exile. But, in accounting for our declaration of independence, it is quite hyperbolical to speak-as it has been too common to do—of the tyranny of the mother country, and the evils under which the Colonies laboured, as too grievous to be endured. They were, indeed, intolerable-but only to such men as our fathers. There was, it must be confessed, good cause for resistance-but it may be affirmed with confidence that no other people upon earth would have rebelled for such a cause. There was nothing in their situation to excite the passions of vulgar men. There was none of the atrocities by which other nations have been goaded into the fury of civil war-no royal outrages— no patrician insolence-no religious persecution-no bloody proscription of the wise and the brave. Even the right of taxation against which they were contending was a prospective and contingent evil, rather than an actual grievance, and nothing can be more just than the quaint metaphor of BURKE, that "they augured misgovernment at a distance, and snuffed tyranny in every tainted gale." The first intelligence of the stamp act, threw the whole country at the same instant into a flame: it was even then in a state of open rebellion. The encroachments of the ministry were resisted at the very threshold, and the moment the Colonies became conscious of the yoke, they shook it off. One spirit, one mind, pervaded and animated the whole They argued-refined-distinguished-explained, with all the learned ingenuity of the schools. But if they reasoned about their rights with the subtlety of doctors-they were prepared to maintain them with the constancy of martyrs, and, for the first time in the history of civil society, a metaphysical dispute resulted in the creation of a great empire.

mass.

This fact, sufficiently remarkable for its singularity, assumes a still more important aspect, when viewed, as it ought to be in connection with the progress of society, with the causes that account for it, and with some inferences and anticipations which it seems naturally to suggest. Undoubtedly, the situation of the

Colonies, at such an immense distance from the centre of the British Empire, must have weakened every sort of attraction by which they were held to it-and the peculiar character, too, of the first settlers will conduce very much to the solution of this curious problem. They were of all men the most sensitive and the best informed upon the subject of their rights and liberties. They were the devoted Huguenots, who, after having extorted by their valor in the field, with BOURBON and COLIGNI, with ROHAN and SOUBISE, a short interval of repose from persecution, had at length abjured forever their beautiful native land-the soft and delicious banks of the Loire, where industry made them rich, virtuous, happy-not, as other adventurers constrained by poverty and embarrassments at home to seek their fortunes on a distant shore-not to search for gold and silver mines, nor to overrun vast regions and cement, with the blood of exterminated nations, the dominion of some potentate ambitious of reigning over a waste at the distance of five thousand miles from his capital-but to plunge into the depths of an untrodden wilderness, covered with swamps, breathing pestilence, yielding the bare necessaries of life only to the sweat of laborbecause in its dreary solitudes they could commune with their God!-because, amidst its savage desolation, they could pour out the feelings of gratitude and adoration with which their hearts were filled and which they could not utter in the country of FENELON and PASCAL, without being hunted down like wild beasts! They were the austere and gloomy Puritans of England-the stern and fanatic followers of Pyм and HOLLIS and HAMPDEN-Who had been republicans even in Europe, and had quitted Europe because it was unworthy of a Republic-those men to whom, according to the very probable opinion of the historian HUME, England herself is altogether indebted for what has made her, in these latter ages, the wonder of the world-the democratic part of her constitution. It was these heroes and tried champions of religious liberty-who looked upon the riches and honors of this world as dust and ashes in comparison of the principles upon which they built their steadfast faith-who not only loved liberty as something desirable in itself and essential to the dignity of human nature, but regarded it as a solemn duty, to free themselves from every species of restraint that was incompatible with the fullest rights of conscience-who, possessing all that devotedness and elevation of character, so natural to minds nursed in the habitual contemplation of such subjects and penetrated with their majesty and importance, had learned in the sublime language of RACINE, "to fear God, and to know no other fear"it was such men as these, together with the unfortunate, the persecuted, the adventurous, the bold, the aspiring of all climes and conditions, congregated and confounded in one vast asylum, and

exercised, by the hardships incident to the colonization of a new country, with a sort of Spartan discipline-that laid the foundation of those flourishing commonwealths, whose first united efforts are the subject of this commemoration. Is it wonderful that a nation, composed of such elements and accustomed, too, to go on from one reform of abuses to another (for it is very important to observe that the whole history of the colonies is a history of successive revolutions in their municipal government and administration, and it is only by a figure of speech that we confine that term exclusively to the declaration of independence) should have shown themselves, at once, so sensitive and so determined, in a contest in which their rights were so seriously concerned?

But, although the situation of the country and the peculiar character of the people, go very far to explain the phenomenon I have noticed, it might be shewn-if either the limits to which I am confined, or the nature of this address, would permit me to enter into one of the most curious speculations in the history of the human mind-that it is not unconnected with causes of a more general nature-that a most surprising revolution has taken place in the whole structure of society-and that nothing, therefore, can be more superficial than to reason from what are called the analogies of former republics to the condition and prospects of our own. It is, of course, difficult to convey an adequate idea of so complicated a subject in a single hint-but I cannot refrain from observing, that the difference seems chiefly to consist in the habits of abstraction and reflection which have prevailed so much more for a century or two past, than they ever did at any former period, and in the consequent attachment to principles and laws, as if they were something tangible and personified-just as, in religion, the worship of images, of sensible representations of the Deity, which is of the very essence of the mythologies of early ages and the faith of simple minds, is utterly rejected by the more severe and spiritual, but not less rapturous devotion of a more philosophic era.

But another most fortunate and striking peculiarity of the Revolution we are celebrating is that it occurred in a NEW WORLD.

The importance that ought to be attached to this circumstance will be obvious to every one who will reflect, for a moment, upon the miracles which are exhibiting in the settlement of this country and the increase of its population. Behold how the pomorium of the republic advances in the wilderness of the West! See how empires are starting up into being, in periods of time, shorter even than the interval between infancy and manhood in the span allotted to the individuals that compose them! Contemplate the peaceful triumphs of industry--the rapid progress of cultivation-the diffusion of knowledge-the growth of popu

lous cities, with all the arts that embellish life, and soften while they exalt the character of man--and think of the countless multitudes that are springing up to inherit these blessings! The three millions by whom our independence was achieved, less than half a century ago, are already grown to ten, which in the course of another half century will have swelled up to fifty; and so on, with a continually accelerated progress, until, at no distant day, the language of MILION shall be spoken from shore to shore, over the vastest portion of the earth's surface that was ever inhabited by a race worthy of speaking a language consecrated to Liberty.

Now-to feel how deep an interest this circumstance is fitted to throw into the story of the Revolution-let us imagine a spectator of the battle of Bunker's Hill--or let us rather suppose an actor, in that greatest and proudest of days, to have turned his thoughts upon the future, which we see present and realized. Would he not, think ye, have trembled at the awful responsibility of his situation? Would he not have been overwhelmed with the unbounded anticipation? It depends upon his courage and conduct, and upon the strength of his right arm, whether, not his descendants only--not some small tract of country about his own fireside-not Massachusetts alone-No! nor all that shall inherit it in the ages that are to come-shall be governed by satraps and viceroys, or as reason and nature dictate that they should be-but whether, a republic, embracing upwards of twenty distinct and great empires, shall exist or not--whether a host, worthy to combat and to conquer with JACKSON, Shall issue from the yet unviolated forests of Kentucky and Tennessee, to spurn from New-Orleans the very foe, whose vengeance he now dares, for the first time, to encounter in the field, when that foe shall be crowned with yet prouder laurels, and shall come in more terrible might-whether the banks of the great lakes shall echo to the accents of liberty, and the Missouri and the Mississippi roll through the inheritance of freemen!

But there is yet another point of view, in which the circumstance of the Revolution occurring in a new country cannot fail to strike you as peculiarly important. It gave our fathers, who were great reformers, an opportunity of purifying the fountains of society-of forming the character and controlling, in some degree, and directing the destinies of the infant commonwealth, by such principles as philosophy and experience had shewn to be best, although they had no where else been fully admitted in practice. They had no inveterate prejudices to encounter here-there was no inheritance of abuses come down from remote ages-they were no grievances established by custom-no corruptions sanctified by their antiquity. They were not afraid to correct a defect in one part, lest it should derange