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natural superiority to other nations. But circumstances have conspired to give us an advantage, in making this great political experiment, which no other modern nation enjoys. If, therefore, our experiment shall fail, the world may well despair. Warned as we are by the taunts of European monarchists, and by the mournful example of all the ancient republics, are we willing to split on the same rock on which we have seen them shipwrecked Shall we forfeit all the bright honors that we have hitherto won by our example, and now admit by our conduct that, although free government may subsist for a while, under the pressure of extrinsic and momentary causes, yet that it cannot bear a long season of peace and prosperity, but that as soon as thus left to itself it speedily hastens to faction, demoralization, anarchy, and ruin?

5. MORAL FORCE OF EXAMPLE.-Judge McLean.

The great principles of our republican institutions cannot be propagated by the sword. This can be done by moral force, and not physical. If we desire the political regeneration of oppressed nations, we must show them the simplicity, the grandeur, and the freedom, of our own government. We must recommend it to the intelligence and virtue of other nations by its elevated and enlightened action, its purity, its justice, and the protection it affords to all its citizens, and the liberty they enjoy. And if, in this respect, we shall be faithful to the high bequests of our fathers, to ourselves, and to posterity, we shall do more to liberalize other governments, and emancipate their subjects, than could be accomplished by millions of bayonets. This moral power is what tyrants have most cause to dread. It addresses itself to the thoughts and the judgment of men. No physica. force can arrest its progress. Its approaches are unseen, but its consequences are deeply felt. It enters garrisons most strongly fortified, and operates in the palaces of kings and emperors. We should cherish this power, as essential to the preservation of our government, and as the most efficient means of ameliorating the political condition of our race. And this can only be done by a reverence for the laws, and by the exercise of an elevated patriotism.

7. THE FABRIC OF OUR GOVERNMENT. -Webster.

Of all the presumptions indulged by presumptuous man, that is one of the rashest which looks for repeated and favorable opportunities for the deliberate establishment of a united government over distinct and widely-extended communities. Such a thing has happened once in human affairs, ard but once; the

event stands out as a prominent exception to all ordinary history, and unless we suppose ourselves running into an age of miracles, we may not expect its repetition. Washington, therefore, could re gard, and did regard, nothing as of paramount political interest, but the integrity of the Union itself. With a united government, well administered, he saw we had nothing to fear, and without it nothing to hope. The sentiment is just, and its momentous truth should solemnly impress the whole country.

If disastrous war sweep our commerce from the ocean, another generation may renew it; if it exhaust our treasury, future industry may replenish it; if it desolate and lay waste our fields, still, under a new cultivation, they will grow green again, and ripen to future harvests. It were but a trifle, even if the walls of yonder Capitol were to crumble, if its lofty pillars should fall, and its gorgeous decorations be all covered by the dust of the valley. All these might be rebuilt. But who shall reconstruct the fabric of demolished government? Who shall rear again the well-proportioned columns of constitutional liberty? Who shall frame together the skilful architecture which unites national sovereignty with state rights, individual security, and public prosperity? No, gentlemen! if these columns fall, they will be raised not again. Like the Colosse'um and the Parthenon, they will be destined to a mournful, a melancholy immortality. Bitterer tears, however, will flow over them, than were ever shed over the monuments of Roman or Grecian art; for they will be the remnants of a more glorious edifice than Greece or Rome ever saw, the edifice of Constitutional American Liberty.

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CXXXVI.

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THE HARBOR OF SAN FRANCISCO.

1. Nor even the magnificent harbor of Constantinople, in which security, depth and expanse, are combined, can rival the peerless land-locked Bay of San Francisco. How shall we describe it? You are sailing along the high coast of California, when suddenly a gap is seen, as if the rocks had been rent asunder: you leave the open ocean and enter the strait. The mountains tower so high on either hand that it seems but a stone's throw from your vessel to the shore, though in reality it is a mile. Slowly advancing, an hour's sail brings you to where the strait grows still narrower; and lo! before you, rising from the very middle of the waters, a steep rock towers aloft like a giant warder" of the strait.

2. Were that rock but fortified, not all the fleets in the world

could force the passage. You gaze back on the grim rock as you emerge from its shadows, and so land-locked does the scene appear, that you could fancy the mountains had fallen in, since you passed, and blocked up forever your path to the ocean. You turn to look ahead, and, lo! a scene as wonderful again lies before you. You are in an inland sea!—you are in Francisco Bay. To your right lies the Golden City; at a distance in front rise the steep shores, and all round you an expanse of water, a lake for calmness, a sea for extent, — in which the fleets of the world might ride at anchor.

3. San Francisco will be the entrepôt of nations, the emporium of the East and West. High prices, and the absorption of the people in gold-seeking, will long cause it to import everything, and the deficiency of wood and the want of coal will impede anything like manufactures; even her ships will for a long time be built in the harbors of the Atlantic. But her merchants will be the brokers, her halls the exchange, of the Pacific. Turn to the map, and you will see the rare advantages of her position. The whole Pacific, with its countless isles, lies open to her enterprise; the Australian continent, and the realms of Hindostan', will reciprocate her commerce; and the Golden Gate fronts the harbor of Canton' and the mouth of the Yang-tze-kiang, the great artery of Chinese traffic.

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4. Instead of the tedious route by the Cape of Good Hope, steam-vessels from California will carry the produce of China, India, and the Isles, to the Isthmus of Dariën, and shorten by a half the voyage to Europe and Eastern America. The very winds and currents combine to favor the new region; and a vessel from Cape Horn, by keeping well out to sea, will arrive sooner at San Francisco than at the intermediate ports on the South American coast.

CXXXVII.

EXECUTION OF MADAME ROLAND.

1. THE examination and trial of Madame Roland were but a repetition of those charges against the Gironde with which every harangue of the Jacobin party was filled. She was reproached with being the wife of Roland, and the friend of his accomplices. With a proud look of triumph, Madame Roland admitted her guilt in both instances; spoke with tenderness of her husband, with respect of her friends, and with dignified modesty of her self; but, borne down by the clamors of the court whenever she gave vent to her indignation against her persecutors, she ceased

speaking amid the threats and invectives of her hearers. The people were at that period permitted to take a fearful and leading part in the dialogue between the judges and accused; they even permitted persons on trial to address the court, or compelled their silence; the very verdict rested with them.

2. Madame Roland heard herself sentenced to death with the air of one who saw in her condemnation merely her title to immortality. She rose, and, slightly bowing to her judges, said, with a bitter and ironical smile, "I thank you for considering me worthy to share the fate of the good and great men you have murdered!" She flew down the steps of the Conciergerie with the rapid swiftness of a child about to obtain some long-desired object the end and aim of her desires was death. As she passed along the corridor, where all the prisoners had assembled to greet her return, she looked at them smilingly, and, drawing her right hand across her throat, made a sign expressive of cutting off a head. This was her only farewell; it was tragic as her destiny, joyous as her deliverance; and well was it understood by those who saw it. Many who were incapable of weeping for their own fate shed tears of unfeigned sorrow for hers.

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3. On that day (November 10th, 1793) a greater number than usual of carts laden with victims rolled onward toward the scaffold. Madame Roland was placed in the last, beside an infirm old man, named Lamarche. She wore a white robe, as a symbol of her innocence, of which she was anxious to convince the people; her magnificent hair, black and glossy as a raven's wing, fell in thick masses almost to her knees; her complexion, purified by her long captivity, and now glowing under the influence of a sharp, frosty November day, bloomed with all the freshness of early youth. Her eyes were full of expression; her whole countenance seemed radiant with glory, while a movement between pity and contempt agitated her lips. A crowd followed them, uttering the coarsest threats and most revolting expressions. "To the guillotine to the guillotine!" exclaimed the female part of the rabble.

4. "I am going to the guillotine," replied Madame Roland; "a few moments and I shall be there; but those who send me thither will follow me cre long. I go innocent, but they will come stained with blood, and you who applaud our execution will then applaud theirs with equal zeal." Sometimes she would turn away her head that she might not appear to hear the insults with which she was assailed, and would lean with almost filial tenderness over the aged partner of her execution. The poor old man wept bitterly, and she kindly and cheeringly encouraged him to bear up with firmness, and to suffer with resignation. She even

tried to enliven the dreary journey they were performing together by little attempts at cheerfulness, and at length succeeded in winning a smile from her fellow-sufferer.

5. A colossal statue of Liberty, composed of clay, like the liberty of the time, then stood in the middle of the Place de la Concorde, on the spot now occupied by the Obelisk; the scaffold was erected beside this statue. Upon arriving there, Madame Roland descended from the cart in which she had been conveyed. Just as the executioner had seized her arm to enable her to be the first to mount to the guillotine, she displayed an instance of that noble and tender consideration for others, which only a woman's heart could conceive, or put into practice at such a moment. "Stay!" said she, momentarily resisting the man's grasp. "I have one only favor to ask, and that is not for myself; I beseech you grant it me." Then, turning to the old man, she said, "Do you precede me to the scaffold; to see my blood flow would be making you suffer the bitterness of death twice over. I must spare you the pain of witnessing my punishment." The executioner allowed this arrangement to be made.

6. With what sensibility and firmness must the mind have been imbued which could, at such a time, forget its own sufferings, to think only of saving one pang to an unknown old man! and how clearly does this one little trait attest the heroic calmness with which this celebrated woman met her death! After the execution of Lamarche, which she witnessed without changing color, Madame Roland stepped lightly up to the scaffold, and, bowing before the statue of Liberty, as though to do homage to a power for whom she was about to die, exclaimed, "O, Liberty! Liberty! how many crimes are committed in thy name!" She then resigned herself to the hands of the executioner, and in a few seconds her head fell into the basket placed to receive it.

LAMARTINE.

CXXXVIII.

WHAT A COMMON MAN MAY SAY.

1. I AM lodged in a house that affords me conveniences and comforts which even a king could not command some centuries ago. There are ships crossing the seas in every direction, some propelled by steam and some by the wind, to bring what is useful to me from all parts of the earth. In China, men are gathering the tea-leaf for me; in the Southern States, they are planting cotton for me; in the West India Islands, and in Brazil, they are preparing my sugar and my coffee; in Italy, they are feeding silk-worms for me; at home, they are shearing sheep to make me

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