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lilied emblem on his country's banner. He has departed from among us; but he has become again the companion of Washington. He has but left the friends of his old age, to associate with the friends of his youth. Peace be to his ashes! Calm and quiet may they rest upon some vine-clad hill of his own beloved land! And it shall be called the Mount Vernon of France. And let no cunning sculpture, no monumental marble, deface, with its mock dignity, the patriot's grave; but rather let the unpruned vine, the wild flower, and the free song of the uncaged bird-all that speaks of freedom and of peace, be gathered round it. Lafayette needs no mausoleum. His fame is mingled with a Nation's History. His epitaph is engraved upon the hearts of men.

SANCTITY OF ELECTIVE FRANCHISE, AND
PRESERVATION OF THE UNION

Extract from Speech delivered at Faneuil Hall, Boston, Massachusetts, July, 1838.

I DO sincerely believe, that never since men have dwelt on the face of this green earth, and had rulers over them, was there ever an administration seen in any country of the globe, or in any age of time, more utterly callous to the sufferings or the wishes of the people. And I will say further, that I do not believe that in any country of the world would such a destruction of public property, without the presence of an invading enemy, and proceeding from the acts of the government alone, have been endured without a national convulsion. No other people on the face of the earth but the free citizens of this Republic, would ever have submitted to it. No, sir, not in Turkey itself. Had the Sultan, by his despotic edict, suddenly thrown the subjects of his throne as far back from their previous condition, bad as it might before have been, as this country has been thrown back by the mad experiments on its currency, he would the next night have slept in the Bosphorus. And why has it not been so here? I will tell you why: the American people well know that they have the remedy in their own hands; they know that they still hold the reins of power; and if their steeds prove restive and dispute their pleasure,

they know another thing, that they hold the whip as well as the reins.

We have had to fight a hard battle; and though, through the aid and blessing of Heaven, we have been able to save the citadel of the Constitution, rely upon it, the worst part of the contest yet remains. We contend with a veteran foe; though worsted, they are not vanquished—they have lost a battle, but, like the squadrons of the desert, they will sweep round and re-appear with a new front, but under the old flag. Sir, is it not so? Even since the adjournment, I hear they have put forth a new bulletin, evincing a determination still to hold on to the same policy. Had I been consulted, I should have counselled that very course. They seem to be demented. They have been steeped so long in wickedness, that they are under a judicial blindness. They remind me of the simpleton who in a great storm at sea, being in mortal fear, went and lashed himself to the anchor, so that if the ship did go down, he at least might be safe. So has this Administration tied itself fast to the Sub-Treasury policy; and may the Genius of Gravitation carry them so straight and so profoundly to the bottom, that not a bubble shall rise to mark the spot where they went down! I may as well utter the honest truth; for even a short experience in public life, has convinced me that plain, open speech is the best policy. I believe that a part of the mischief which this Administration has effected, may be traced to its very weakness. We have not dreaded it as we ought to have done; it has been suffered to gnaw as a worm, where it should have been crushed as a serpent.

One of the gentlemen who have addressed you, has been pleased to say that I have fought a good fight; and recreant indeed should I have been, could I have turned my back in such a contest. The reference, I presume, was to the late struggle in my State; for though thousands of miles removed, your intelligence has fully apprised you that an inroad was made on your own rights, and on the Constitution, by the foul and nefarious decision of the House of Representatives in regard to a late Mississippi election.

I fear, fellow-citizens, that the great fundamental principles of our institutions have not enough been looked at. We glory in the institutions themselves, and consider them as the

strong bulwarks of our freedom; while we too much forget the vital principles upon which they rest. These broad and general principles are like the roots of the everlasting mountains; they lie deep-are out of sight and forgotten-but they are nevertheless the pillars of the earth. We are too apt to think of them as abstractions-as barren generalities—not coming immediately home to our business and bosoms we cannot conceive it possible that any man should dare to attack them; but our security is our danger. They may be attacked. They have been assailed. One of these great principles of our freedom is the Elective Franchise, and this has been attacked in the persons of the Representatives of Mississippi. We thought this was a thing so settled, that no one would dream of attempting to disturb it; but we contend with a foe that knows nothing of civilized warfare. They assailed this citadel of our Freedom; and had the people of Mississippi submitted to it—had they yielded the key of this their last refuge -their liberties would have been gone; nor would they have deserved any longer to be free. But they were not thus stolid, thus base and craven-hearted; they manfully resisted the assault; they were true to themselves, and true to you; for this was your question as much as it was theirs. Your rights, our rights, the rights of every State, and of every man, woman and child in every State, were all in danger; they stood on the steep precipice of imminent and present destruction; but they were rescued. Yet, when I think how close was the contest, how narrow the escape I tremble for the future; and I now repeat the warning so often uttered-the price of Liberty is unsleeping vigilance in guarding it. You must be like your patriot fathers. You must be the minute-men of the Constitution.

Another great principle is attacked with equal desperation. It is the right of Property. Tenets are advanced here, in this free Republic, which would not be tolerated under the worst government of Europe, nay, of the world. It is openly as.rted, that the rich are "the natural enemies of the poor" and the practical corollary from that position is that, therefore, the poor must wage perpetual war against the rich. Nor is this an idle theory; it is attempted to be made a practical question. It is advanced, not as in some obscure debating club,

by a set of raw and green lads, just escaped from the trammels of their minority, but in the halls of Congress, and by men of experience, standing, and character. It would be an insult to ask you whether such a doctrine is to prevail among American citizens. And if it did, how is this imaginary line between rich and poor ever to be drawn? Fix it where you will, there are tens of thousand of the rich who would consider themselves as among the poor, and as many thousand of the poor who would find themselves among the rich. Nor could it remain fixed for a day or an hour; for he who is rich to-day, to-morrow may be a beggar; while on the other hand, thousands born to poverty, are continually enrolling themselves among the opulent of the land. I have observed, especially in the West and Southwest, that the most prosperous, honored and wealthy, are apt to be the men who commenced their course in life with no fortune but their hands, their industry, and their energy of spirit. The truth is, all classes in this country are mutually dependent upon each other, as in the busy hive, where those who return laden impart their stores, and those who are empty, need only go forth in order to return laden. There is no natural hostility between the different classes of society. Such a doctrine should be trampled under the foot of every American freeman-it is a viper, and should not be suffered to show its head. Let us put it to death by common consent.

There is another precious vital interest of the Republic, which is assailed with no less desperate rashness-it is our Union itself. This is attempted to be destroyed by arraying local prejudices in mutual hostility-by stirring up a sectional warfare between the North and the South, the West and the East; as though the common glory and the common interest of the whole Country was not more than sufficient to outweigh a thousand times the local and minor matters in which we differ. But though politicians, actuated solely by a selfish and parricidal ambition, seek to rend asunder what God has himself joined in everlasting bonds, there is a hand that will arrest the impious design: a hand they despise, but which they will find too strong for them; I mean the hard hand of Mechanical Labor. Yes, sir, that mighty hand-and long may it be mighty in this free and equal land—that mighty hand will

link these States together with hooks of steel. The laborin population of this Country mean to live together as one people, and who shall disannul their purpose? See how they are conquering both time and space! See the thousand steamboats that traverse our lakes and rivers; aye, and that, Leviathanlike, begin to make the ocean itself to boil like a pot! Look at their railroad cars glancing like fiery meteors from one end of the land to the other; blazing Centaurs with untiring nerves, with unwasting strength, and who seem to go, too, on the grand temperance principle, laboring all day on water only. Think you the American people will suffer their cars to stop, their railroads to be broken in twain, and their majestic rivers severed or changed in their courses, because politicians choose to draw a dividing line between a Northern and a Southern empire? Never, sir, never. Proceeding on those great national principles of Union, which have been so luminously expounded and so nobly vindicated by your illustrious Guest, they will teach these politicians who is Master. Let us but hang together for fifty years longer, and we may defy the world even to separate us. Let us but safely get through the crisis, and our Institutions will stand on a firmer basis than

ever.

And let it never be forgotten, fellow-citizens, that these Institutions are ours in trust; we hold them for a thousand generations yet to emerge from the stream of time. They are sacred heir-looms, confided to our keeping for those who are to come after us-and if we allow them to be impaired or sullied, while passing through our hands, we are guilty of a double crime; we are traitors alike to our fathers and to our posterity.

True, we are threatened from without as well as within. When I left my distant home, I left not far distant from it thousands of warlike Indians-congregated and armed by the policy of this Administration-consulting, plotting, meditating vengeance. They number, it is said, sixty thousand fighting men. You have given them rifles, and Nature has given them, in the vast prairies in their rear, tens of thousand of wild horses which they well know how to break in and to ride. Their hearts burn with wounded pride, and boil with meditated revenge; and who knows how soon they may return

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