ing for blood; tramples all the intellectual and moral man under the feet of the stimulated clay; lays the understanding, the kind affections, and the conscience, in the same grave with prosperity and health; and, having killed the body, kills the soul!

Such, faintly described, is the vice of intemperance. Such it still exists in our land; checked, and, as we hope, declining, but still prevailing to a degree which invites all our zeal for its effectual suppression. Such as I have described it, it exists, I fear, in every city, in every town, in every village in our country. Such, and so formidable is its power. But I rejoice in the belief, that an antagonist principle of equal power has been brought into the field. Public opinion, in all its strength, is enlisted against it. Men, that agree in nothing else, unite in this. Religious divisions are healed and party feuds forgotten, in this good cause. Individuals and societies, private citizens and the government, have joined, in waging war against intemperance; and, above all, the press,— the great engine of reform,—is thundering, with all its artillery, against it. It is a moment of great interest; and also of considerable delicacy. That period in a moral reform, in which a great evil, that has long passed comparatively unquestioned, is overtaken by a sudden bound of Public Opinion, is somewhat critical. Individuals, as honest as their neighbors, are surprised in pursuits and practices, sanctioned by the former standard of moral sentiment, but below the mark of the reform. Tenderness and delicacy are necessary, to prevent such persons, by mistaken pride of character, from being made enemies of the cause. In our denunciations of the evil, we must take care not to include those whom a little prudence might bring into cordial cooperation with us in its suppression. Let us, sir, mingle discretion with our zeal; and the greater will be our success in this pure and noble enterprise.

ORATION

DELIVERED AT WORCESTER, ON THE 4TH OF JULY, 1833.

FELLOW CITIZENS,

I HAVE accepted, with great cheerfulness, the invitation with which you have honored me, to address you on this occasion. The citizens of Worcester did not wait to receive a second call, before they hastened to the relief of the citizens of Middlesex, in the times that tried men's souls. I should feel myself degenerate and unworthy, could I hesitate to come, and, in my humble measure, assist you in commemorating those exploits which your fathers so promptly and so nobly aided our fathers in achieving.

Apprised by your committee, that the invitation, which has brought me hither, was given on behalf of the citizens of Worcester, without distinction of party, I can truly say, that it is also, in this respect, most congenial to my feelings. I have several times had occasion to address my fellow citizens on the fourth of July; and sometimes at periods when the party excitement,-now so happily, in a great measure, allayed, has been at its height; and when custom and public sentiment would have borne me out, in seizing the opportunity of inculcating the political views of those on whose behalf I spoke. But of no such opportunity have I ever availed myself. I have never failed, as far as it was in my power, to lead the minds of those whom I have had the honor to address, to those common topics of grateful recollection, which unite the patriotic feelings of every American. It has not been my fault, if ever, on this auspicious national anniversary, a single individual.

has forgotten that he was a brother of one great family, while he has recollected that he was a member of a party.

In fact, fellow citizens, I deem it one of the happiest effects of the celebration of this anniversary, that, when undertaken in the spirit which has animated you on this occasion, it has a natural tendency to soften the harshness of party, which I cannot but regard as the great bane of our prosperity. It was pronounced by the Father of his Country, in his valedictory address to the people of the United States, the worst enemy of popular governments;' and the experience of almost every administration, from his own down, has confirmed the truth of the remark. The spirit of party unquestionably has its source in some of the native passions of the heart; and free governments naturally furnish more of its aliment than those under which the liberty of speech and of the press is restrained by the strong arm of power. But so naturally does party run into extremes, so unjust, cruel, and remorseless is it in its excess,—so ruthless in the war which it wages against private character,—so unscrupulous in the choice of means for the attainment of selfish ends,-so sure is it, eventually, to dig the grave of those free institutions, of which it pretends to be the necessary accompaniment,—so inevitably does it end in military despotism and unmitigated tyranny, that I do not know how the voice and influence of a good man could, with more propriety, be exerted, than in the effort to assuage its violence.

We must be strengthened in this conclusion, when we consider that party controversy is constantly showing itself, as unreasonable and absurd, as it is unamiable and pernicious. If we needed illustrations of the truth of this remark, we should not be obliged to go far to find them. In the unexpected turns that continually occur in affairs, events arise, which put to shame the selfish adherence of resolute champions to their party names. No election of chief magistrate has ever been more strenuously contested, than that which agitated the country the last year; and I do not know that party spirit, in our time at least, has ever run higher, or the party press been more virulent on both sides. And what has followed? The election was scarcely decided; the President, thus chosen, had not entered upon the second term of his office, before the state of things was so entirely changed, as to produce, in ref

erence to the most important question which has engaged the attention of the country since the adoption of the Constitution, a concert of opinion among those, who, two months before, had stood in hostile array against each other. The measures adopted by the President, for the preservation of the Union, met with the most cordial support in Congress and out of it, from those who had most strenuously opposed his election; and he, in his turn, depended upon that support, not only as auxiliary, but as indispensable, to his administration, in this great crisis. And what do we now behold? The President of the United States, traversing New-England, under demonstrations of public respect, as cordial and as united, as he would receive in Pennsylvania or Tennessee; and the great head of his opponents in this part of the country, the illustrious champion of the Constitution in the Senate of the United States, welcomed, with equal cordiality and equal unanimity, by men of all names and parties, in the distant West.

And what is the cause of this wonderful and auspicious change; -auspicious, however transitory its duration may unfortunately prove? That cause is to be sought in a principle so vital, that it is almost worth the peril to which the country's best interests have been exposed, to see its existence and power made manifest and demonstrated. This principle is, that the union of the States,— which has been in danger,-must, at all hazards, be preserved; that union, which, in the same parting language of Washington which I have already cited, 'is the main pillar in the edifice of our real independence, the support of our tranquillity at home, our peace abroad, our safety, our prosperity; of that very liberty which we so highly prize.' Men have forgotten their little feuds, in the perils of the Constitution. The afflicted voice of the country, in its hour of danger, has charmed down, with a sweet persuasion, the angry passions of the day; and men have felt that they had no heart to ask themselves the question, Whether their party were triumphant or prostrate? when the infinitely more momentous question was pressing upon them, Whether the Union was to be preserved or destroyed?

In speaking, however, of the preservation of the Union, as the great and prevailing principle in our political system, I would not have it understood, that I suppose this portion of the country to be more

interested in it than any other. The intimation which is sometimes made, and the belief which, in some quarters, is avowed, that the Northern States have a peculiar and a selfish interest in the preservation of the Union;-that they derive advantages from it, at the uncompensated expense of other portions;-I take to be one of the grossest delusions ever propagated by men, deceived themselves, or willing to deceive others. I know, indeed, that the dissolution of the Union would be the source of incalculable injury to every part of it; as it would, in great likelihood, lead to border and civil war, and eventually to military despotism. But not to us would the bitter chalice be first presented. This portion of the Union, erroneously supposed to have a peculiar interest in its preservation, would be sure to suffer, no doubt, but it would also be among the last to suffer, from that deplorable event; while that portion, which is constantly shaking over us the menace of separation, would be swept with the besom of destruction, from the moment an offended Providence should permit that purpose to reach its ill-starred maturity.

Far distant be all these inauspicious calculations. It is the natural tendency of celebrating the Fourth of July, to strengthen the sentiment of attachment to the Union. It carries us back to other days of yet greater peril to our beloved country, when a still stronger bond of feeling and action united the hearts of her children. It recalls to us the sacrifices of those who deserted all the walks of private industry, and abandoned the prospects of opening life, to engage in the service of their country. It reminds us of the fortitude of those who took upon themselves the perilous responsibility of leading the public councils in the paths of revolution; in the sure alternative of that success, which was all but desperate, and that scaffold, already menaced as their predestined fate, if they failed. It calls up, as it were, from the beds of glory and peace where they lie,-from the heights of Charlestown to the southern plains, the vast and venerable congregation of those who bled in the sacred cause. They gather in saddened majesty around us, and adjure us, by their returning agonies and reopening wounds, not to permit our feuds and dissensions to destroy the value of that birthright, which they purchased with their precious lives.