PILGRIM FESTIVAL AT NEW YORK IN 1850. Speech delivered before the New England Society of New York on Occasion of the Pilgrim Festival for 1850. AFTER the customary toasts on this occasion had been given, the President of the day, Mr. Grinnell, asked attention to a toast which, as he said, was not on the list, but which he thought every one would vote ought to be placed there forthwith. He gave "THE CONSTITUTION AND THE UNION, AND THEIR CHIEF DEFENDER." This sentiment was received with great applause; and when Mr. Webster rose to respond to it, he was greeted with the most prolonged and tumultuous cheers. When the applause had subsided, he spoke as follows: MR. PRESIDENt, and Gentlemen of the New England SOCIETY OF NEW YORK: Ye sons of New England! Ye brethren of the kindred tie! I have come hither to-night, not without some inconvenience, that I might behold a congregation whose faces bear lineaments of a New England origin, and whose hearts beat with full New England pulsations. I willingly make the sacrifice. I am here to attend this meeting of the Pilgrim Society of New York, the great offshoot of the Pilgrim Society of Massachusetts. And, Gentlemen, I shall begin what I have to say, which is but little, by tendering to you my thanks for the invitation extended to me, and by wishing you, one and all, every kind of happiness and prosperity. Gentlemen, this has been a stormy, cold, boisterous, and inclement day. The winds have been harsh, the skies have been severe; and if we had been exposed to their rigor; if we had no shelter against this howling and freezing tempest; if we were wan and worn out; if half of us were sick and tired, and ready to descend into the grave; if we were on the bleak coast of Plymouth, houseless, homeless, with nothing over our heads but the heavens, and that God who sits above the heavens; if we had distressed wives on our arms, and hungry and shivering children clinging to our skirts, we should see something, and feel something, of that scene, which, in the providence of God, was enacted at Plymouth on the 22d of December, 1620. Thanks to Almighty God, who, from that distressed early condition of our fathers, has raised us to a height of pros perity and of happiness which they neither enjoyed, nor could have anticipated! We have learned much of them; they could have foreseen little of us. Would to God my friends, that, when we carry our affections and our recollections back to that period, we could arm ourselves with something of the stern virtues which supported them in that hour of peril, and exposure, and suffering! Would to God that we possessed that unconquerable resolution, stronger than bars of brass or iron, which strengthened their hearts; that patience, "sovereign o'er transmuted ill," and, above all, that faith, that religious faith, which, with eyes fast fixed upon heaven, tramples all things earthly beneath her triumphant feet! What our Gentlemen, the scenes of this world change. ancestors saw and felt, we shall not see nor feel. What they achieved, it is denied to us even to attempt. The severer duties of life, requiring the exercise of the stern and unbending virtues, were theirs. They were called upon for the exhibition of those austere qualities, which, before they came to the Western wilderness, had made them what they were. Things have changed. In the progress of society, the fashions and the habits of life, with all its conditions, have changed. Their rigid sentiments, and their tenets, apparently harsh and exclusive, we are not called on, in every respect, to imitate or commend; or rather to imitate, for we should commend them always, when we consider the state of society in which they had been adopted, and in which they seemed necessary. Our fathers had that religious sentiment, that trust in Providence, that determination to do right, and to seek, through every degree of toil and suffering, the honor of God, and the preservation of their liberties, which we shall do well to cherish, to imitate, and to equal, to the utmost of our ability. It may be true, and it is true, that in the progress of society the milder virtues have come to belong more especially to our day and our condition. The Pilgrims had been great sufferers from intolerance; it was not unnatural that their own faith and practice, as a consequence, should become somewhat intolerant. This is the common infirmity of human nature. Man retaliates on man. It is to be hoped, however, that the greater spread of the benignant principles of religion, of the divine charity of Christianity, has, to some extent, improved the sentiments which prevailed in the world at that time. No doubt the "first comers," as they were called, were attached to their own forms of public worship, and to their own particular and strongly-cherished religious opinions. No doubt they esteemed those sentiments, and the observances which they practised, to be absolutely binding on all, by the authority of the word of God. It is true, I think, in the general advancement of human intelligence, that we find, what they do not seem to have found, that a greater toleration of religious opinion, a more friendly feeling towards all who profess reverence for God and obedience to his commands, is not inconsistent with the great and fundamental principles of religion; I might rather say, is itself one of those fundamental principles. So we see in our day, I think, without any departure from the essential principles of our fathers, a more enlarged and comprehensive Christian philanthrophy. It seems to be the American destiny, the mission which has been intrusted to us here on this shore of the Atlantic, the great conception and the great duty to which we are born, to show that all sects, and all denominations, professing reverence for the authority of the Author of our being, and belief in his revelations, may be safely tolerated without prejudice either to our religion or to our liberties. We are Protestants, generally speaking; but you all know that there presides at the head of the supreme judicature of the United States a Roman Catholic; and no man, I suppose, through the whole United States, imagines that the judicature of the country is less safe, that the administration of public justice is less respectable or less secure, because the Chief Justice of the United States has been, and is, a firm adherent of that religion. And so it is in every department of society amongst us. In both houses of Congress, in all public offices, and all public affairs, we proceed on the idea that a man's religious belief is a matter above human law; that it is a question to be settled between him and his Maker, because he is responsible to none but his Maker for adopting or rejecting revealed truth. And here is the great distinction which is sometimes overlooked, and which I am afraid is now too often overlooked, in this land, the glorious inheritance of the sons of the Pilgrims. Men, for their religious sentiments, are accountable to God, and to God only. Religion is both a communication and a tie between man and his Maker; and to his own master every man standeth or falleth. But when men come together in society, establish social relations, and form governments for the protection of the rights of all, then it is indispensable that this right of private judgment should in some measure be relinquished and made subservient to the judgment of the whole. Religion may exist while every man is left responsible only to God. Society, civil rule, the civil state, cannot exist, while every man is responsible to nobody and to nothing but to his own opinion. And our New England ancestors understood all this quite well. Gentlemen, there is the "Constitution which was adopted on board the Mayflower in November, 1620, while that bark of immortal memory was riding at anchor in the harbor of Cape Cod. Its authors honored God; they professed to commandments, and to live ever and in all things in his obedience. But they say, nevertheless, that for the establishment of a civil polity, and for the greater security and preservation of their civil rights and liberties, they agree that the laws and ordinances, acts and constitutions, (and I am glad they put in the word "constitutions,") — they say that these laws and ordinances, acts and constitutions, which may be established by those whom they shall appoint to enact them, they, in all due submission and obedience, will support. What is it? obey all his This constitution is not long. I will read it. It invokes a religious sanction and the authority of God on their civil obligations; for it was no doctrine of theirs that civil obedience is a mere matter of expediency. Here it is: -- "In the name of God, Amen: We, whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign lord, King James, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, king, defender of the Faith, &c., having undertaken, for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith, and honor of our king and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and of one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation, and furtherance of the ends aforesaid, and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws and ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience." The right of private judgment in matters between the Creator and the individual, and submission and obedience to the will of the whole, in all that respects civil polity, and the administration of such affairs as concerned the colony about to be established, they regarded as entirely consistent; and the common sense of mankind, lettered and unlettered, every where establishes and confirms this sentiment. Indeed, all must see that it is the very ligament, the very tie, which connects man to man, in the social system; and these sentiments are imbodied in that constitution. Discourse on this topic might be enlarged, but I pass from it. Gentlemen, we are now two hundred and thirty years from that great event. There is the Mayflower. There is an imitation on a small scale, but a correct one, of the Mayflower. Sons of New England! there was in ancient times a ship that carried Jason to the acquisition of the Golden Fleece. There was a flag ship at the battle of Actium which made Augustus Cæsar master of the world. In modern times, there have been flag ships which have carried Hawke, and Howe, and Nelson of the other continent, and Hull, and Decatur, and Stewart of this, to triumph. What are they all, in the chance of remembrance among men, to that little bark, the Mayflower, which reached these shores on the 22d day of December, 1620? Yes, brethren of New England, yes! that Mayflower was a flower destined to be of perpetual bloom! Its verdure will stand the sultry blasts of summer, and the chilling winds of autumn. It will defy * Pointing to a small figure of a ship, in confectionary, representing the Mayflower, that stood before him. |