of fresh, nourishing blood into a weak and languishing frame. It would renovate the exhausted, vital principle,-supply new powers and energies,-give strength to infirmity, and youthful buoyancy in lieu of premature decrepitude, and send a vigorous pulse and a healthy circulation through every vein and artery of the body politic.

Conclusively to test the remedy, and make full trial of the various means and instruments placed within our reach for the maintainance of our public privileges and blessings, we are urged by the strongest Motives which can address our sensibilities as men and patriots. To the existing generation-ourselves in common with our fellow-citizens-have been committed in custody the highest interests ever entrusted to human charge, involving not only our own welfare and the happiness of our posterity, but bearing on the condition and prospects of civilized man in every quarter of the globe. However we may flatter ourselves that the problem has been successfully solved, we have not yet lived sufficiently long as an independent nation, to silence the cavils of those who affirm the incompetency of a great and free people for the arduous duties of self government. To the princes and cabinets of the old world-the patrons and minions of despotism,-we stand forth collectively an object of suspicion, aversion or hate. Our example is dreaded; our influence deprecated; our vaunted institutions and the blessings they bestow are regarded with a temper of ill-disguised

And

jealousy, or open and uncompromising hostility. Every movement of intestine disorder, every explosion of popular violence, every symptom of social disaffection, real or imaginary, are interpreted as evidences of national degeneracy and the approaching overthrow of our Government and Union. if, in return, we have no feelings of special sympathy for invidious observers of this description, we should be deterred through dread of honest shame from aught that might seemingly countenance their predictions, or justify by the issue their sinister forebodings.

But it is a more animating consideration that in the eyes of others,-a fast multiplying host,-our position is admiringly contemplated; that hitherward, the friends of freedom in regions the most distant, turn a look of hope, and joy, and confidence; that our land has become the asylum of the children of misfortune, the home of the exiled sons of liberty and conscience from every enslaved and suffering clime; and that the star of our country's fortunes is followed as the beacon light of millions more, in their struggles for national emancipation.-And shall we disappoint their fond and ardent hopes? Shall we halt midway in our glorious career, or what is worse, tread back our irresolute footsteps? Shall we abandon the pledges and securities so oft and so nobly renewed of constancy in freedom's cause, and our steadfast assertion of principles in the successes of which are bound up our country's fortunes, and the interests of oppressed and persecuted humanity

the wide world over? Forbid it, charity! Forbid it honor! Forbid it, patriotism!

Let it quicken our emulation to reflect that, elevated as we are in the sight of the nations by our distinguishing privileges, there is no culminating point unalterably fixed in the book of fate whither we may go but no further, and where our ascending course shall imperatively be stayed. We may rear indeed the fatal barrier at any chosen limit. We may say when, or where, that limit shall be. For God has placed our destinies in our own hands. We may advance, or we may retrograde. We may climb or fall-prosper or perish. The alternative is left with ourselves. But there is no escaping the effects of moral causes once deliberately chosen, and whose dominion, by our discretionary permission, is established in the midst. By wisdom and righteousness we shall assuredly be exalted. By folly and wickedness we shall sink and be undone. A people wise, virtuous, free-true to reason and justice, to duty, conscience and to God-a people uniting with these moral requisites, the many subsidiary elements of political power enjoyed by ourselves a people pre-eminently privileged by every feature and circumstance of their condition-masters of half a continent, heirs of the noblest patrimony that ever fell to the lot of man-a people,

"Mature in youth, a nation at their birth,

Who start where Europe stops, or at her side;
Who spread their commerce o'er the distant earth,
And press where science leads inventive pride,"-

such a people, solemnly alive to their high and momentous responsibilities, may reach a pinnacle of grandeur that would transcend the pomp of the proudest empires ever known to history or fame.

Will you say that the issue is dependent on the virtue and patriotism of the whole, and not a part; that we form but a fractional portion-a small contingent in the great mass of our country's population; and that it is the character and conduct of the people at large, which must determine our future progress? Have you forgotten, let me ask, the moral influence of our own New England,—not alone by her voice in the national councils, nor yet the silent efficacy of her bright and beaming example, (that practical exemplification of the value of her institutions so promotive of knowledge and piety among the various classes of our citizens :) but do you take into account the indirect force of sentiment and character produced by the personal intercourse of her children with our brethren throughout the Union? Do you consider her as the nursing-mother of a teeming offspring that go everywhere, mingle everywhere, and diffuse far and wide the wholesome principles and habits wherein they have been bred? -New England from the beginning has been a great OFFICINA GENTIUM,-the prolific parent of colonies dispersed all over the land; and from the bosoms of these, as so many radiating centres, the genial emanations of her wise and beneficent institutions have never failed to be disseminated. And no

man of perception will be startled at the assertion, as too extravagant, which we offer,-that to this day, New England continues to exert a preponderating influence on the whole national character, on the genius of our government, and the general policy and bias of all our public legislation. Her image and superscription are stamped deep on the face of society. She has thrown those distinctive ingredients into our country's character which make it what it is individuated from all others—a character of unconquerable energy and enterprise-a character of wisdom and firmness-a character of "power and a sound mind."

The influence of New England, whether for good or evil, is felt; and it will continue to be every where felt so long as our national league shall be perpetuated. It is not to be estimated by the ratio of its congressional representation within the walls of the Capitol. Nor is it an arithmetical product expressible in plain figures, or which may be arrived at by the rules of common equations; but rather a politico-algebraic quantity determinable by other exponents, and requiring deeper powers of computation and extraction. Enough that the spirit of the Pilgrims, so much of it as has lived down to our days,—far from being confined to New England, has imperceptibly spread from the strand first printed by Pilgrim feet, to the remotest "log-house beyond the mountains." That spirit was the spirit of freedom, informed and regulated by virtue and under