"ORATIONS"

By John Quincy Adams

"The Jubilee of the Constitution, delivered at New York, April 30, 1839, before the New York Historical Society. "

Fellow-Citizens and Brethren, Associates of the New York HistoricalSociety:

Would it be an unlicensed trespass of the imagination to conceive thaton the night preceding the day of which you now commemorate the fiftiethanniversary--on the night preceding that thirtieth of April, 1789, whenfrom the balcony of your city hall the chancellor of the State of NewYork administered to George Washington the solemn oath faithfully toexecute the office of President of the United States, and to the bestof his ability to preserve, protect, and defend the constitution of theUnited States--that in the visions of the night the guardian angel ofthe Father of our Country had appeared before him, in the venerated formof his mother, and, to cheer and encourage him in the performance of themomentous and solemn duties that he was about to assume, had deliveredto him a suit of celestial armor--a helmet, consisting of the principlesof piety, of justice, of honor, of benevolence, with which from hisearliest infancy he had hitherto walked through life, in the presence ofall his brethren; a spear, studded with the self-evident truths of theDeclaration of Independence; a sword, the same with which he had led thearmies of his country through the war of freedom to the summit ofthe triumphal arch of independence; a corselet and cuishes of longexperience and habitual intercourse in peace and war with the world ofmankind, his contemporaries of the human race, in all their stages ofcivilization; and, last of all, the Constitution of the United States, a shield, embossed by heavenly hands with the future history of hiscountry?

Yes, gentlemen, on that shield the Constitution of the United States wassculptured (by forms unseen, and in characters then invisible to mortaleye), the predestined and prophetic history of the one confederatedpeople of the North American Union. 

They had been the settlers of thirteen separate and distinct Englishcolonies, along the margin of the shore of the North American Continent;contiguously situated, but chartered by adventurers of charactersvariously diversified, including sectarians, religious and political, ofall the classes which for the two preceding centuries had agitatedand divided the people of the British islands--and with them wereintermingled the descendants of Hollanders, Swedes, Germans, and Frenchfugitives from the persecution of the revoker of the Edict of Nantes. 

In the bosoms of this people, thus heterogeneously composed, there wasburning, kindled at different furnaces, but all furnaces of affliction, one clear, steady flame of liberty. Bold and daring enterprise, stubbornendurance of privation, unflinching intrepidity in facing danger, and inflexible adherence to conscientious principle, had steeled toenergetic and unyielding hardihood the characters of the primitivesettlers of all these colonies. Since that time two or three generationsof men had passed away, but they had increased and multiplied withunexampled rapidity; and the land itself had been the recent theatre ofa ferocious and bloody seven years' war between the two most powerfuland most civilized nations of Europe contending for the possession ofthis continent. 

Of that strife the victorious combatant had been Britain. She hadconquered the provinces of France. She had expelled her rival totallyfrom the continent, over which, bounding herself by the Mississippi, shewas thenceforth to hold divided empire only with Spain. She had acquiredundisputed control over the Indian tribes still tenanting the forestsunexplored by the European man. She had established an uncontestedmonopoly of the commerce of all her colonies. But forgetting all thewarnings of preceding ages--forgetting the lessons written in the bloodof her own children, through centuries of departed time--she undertookto tax the people of the colonies without their consent. 

Resistance, instantaneous, unconcerted, sympathetic, inflexibleresistance, like an electric shock, startled and roused the people ofall the English colonies on this continent. 

This was the first signal of the North American Union. The struggle wasfor chartered rights--for English liberties--for the cause of AlgernonSidney and John Hampden--for trial by jury--the Habeas Corpus and MagnaCharta. 

But the English lawyers had decided that Parliament was omnipotent--andParliament, in its omnipotence, instead of trial by jury and theHabeas Corpus, enacted admiralty courts in England to try Americans foroffences charged against them as committed in America; instead ofthe privileges of Magna Charta, nullified the charter itself ofMassachusetts Bay; shut up the port of Boston; sent armies and navies tokeep the peace and teach the colonies that John Hampden was a rebel andAlgernon Sidney a traitor. 

English liberties had failed them. From the omnipotence of Parliamentthe colonists appealed to the rights of man and the omnipotence of theGod of battles. Union! Union! was the instinctive and simultaneouscry throughout the land. Their Congress, assembled at Philadelphia, once--twice--had petitioned the king; had remonstrated to Parliament;had addressed the people of Britain, for the rights of Englishmen--invain. Fleets and armies, the blood of Lexington, and the fires ofCharlestown and Falmouth, had been the answer to petition, remonstrance, and address. . . . 

The dissolution of allegiance to the British crown, the severance ofthe colonies from the British Empire, and their actual existence asindependent States, were definitively established in fact, by war andpeace. The independence of each separate State had never been declaredof right. It never existed in fact. Upon the principles of theDeclaration of Independence, the dissolution of the ties of allegiance, the assumption of sovereign power, and the institution of civilgovernment, are all acts of transcendent authority, which the peoplealone are competent to perform; and, accordingly, it is in the name andby the authority of the people, that two of these acts--the dissolutionof allegiance, with the severance from the British Empire, and thedeclaration of the United Colonies, as free and independent States--wereperformed by that instrument. 

But there still remained the last and crowning act, which the peopleof the Union alone were competent to perform--the institution of civilgovernment, for that compound nation, the United States of America. 

At this day it cannot but strike us as extraordinary, that it does notappear to have occurred to any one member of that assembly, which hadlaid down in terms so clear, so explicit, so unequivocal, the foundationof all just government, in the imprescriptible rights of man, and thetranscendent sovereignty of the people, and who in those principles hadset forth their only personal vindication from the charges of rebellionagainst their king, and of treason to their country, that their lastcrowning act was still to be performed upon the same principles. Thatis, the institution, by the people of the United States, of a civilgovernment, to guard and protect and defend them all. On the contrary, that same assembly which issued the Declaration of Independence, insteadof continuing to act in the name and by the authority of the good peopleof the United States, had, immediately after the appointment of thecommittee to prepare the Declaration, appointed another committee, of one member from each colony, to prepare and digest the form ofconfederation to be entered into between the colonies. 

That committee reported on the twelfth of July, eight days after theDeclaration of Independence had been issued, a draft of articles ofconfederation between the colonies. This draft was prepared by JohnDickinson, then a delegate from Pennsylvania, who voted against theDeclaration of Independence, and never signed it, having been supersededby a new election of delegates from that State, eight days after hisdraft was reported. 

There was thus no congeniality of principle between the Declaration ofIndependence and the Articles of Confederation. The foundation of theformer was a superintending Providence--the rights of man, and theconstituent revolutionary power of the people. That of the latter wasthe sovereignty of organized power, and the independence of the separateor dis-united States. The fabric of the Declaration and that of theConfederation were each consistent with its own foundation, but theycould not form one consistent, symmetrical edifice. They were theproductions of different minds and of adverse passions; one, ascendingfor the foundation of human government to the laws of nature and ofGod, written upon the heart of man; the other, resting upon the basisof human institutions, and prescriptive law, and colonial charter. Thecornerstone of the one was right, that of the other was power. . . . 

Where, then, did each State get the sovereignty, freedom, andindependence, which the Articles of Confederation declare itretains?--not from the whole people of the whole Union--not from theDeclaration of Independence--not from the people of the State itself. Itwas assumed by agreement between the Legislatures of the several States, and their delegates in Congress, without authority from or consultationof the people at all. 

In the Declaration of Independence, the enacting and constituent partydispensing and delegating sovereign power is the whole people of theUnited Colonies. The recipient party, invested with power, is the UnitedColonies, declared United States. 

In the Articles of Confederation, this order of agency is inverted. EachState is the constituent and enacting party, and the United States inCongress assembled the recipient of delegated power--and that powerdelegated with such a penurious and carking hand that it had morethe aspect of a revocation of the Declaration of Independence than aninstrument to carry it into effect. 

None of these indispensably necessary powers were ever conferred by theState Legislatures upon the Congress of the federation; and well wasit that they never were. The system itself was radically defective. Itsincurable disease was an apostasy from the principles of the Declarationof Independence. A substitution of separate State sovereignties, in theplace of the constituent sovereignty of the people, was the basis of theConfederate Union. 

In the Congress of the Confederation, the master minds of James Madisonand Alexander Hamilton were constantly engaged through the closing yearsof the Revolutionary War and those of peace which immediately succeeded. That of John Jay was associated with them shortly after the peace, in the capacity of Secretary to the Congress for Foreign Affairs. Theincompetency of the Articles of Confederation for the management of theaffairs of the Union at home and abroad was demonstrated to them by thepainful and mortifying experience of every day. Washington, thoughin retirement, was brooding over the cruel injustice suffered by hisassociates in arms, the warriors of the Revolution; over the prostrationof the public credit and the faith of the nation, in the neglect toprovide for the payments even of the interest upon the public debt; overthe disappointed hopes of the friends of freedom; in the language ofthe address from Congress to the States of the eighteenth of April, 1788--"the pride and boast of America, that the rights for which shecontended were the rights of human nature. "

At his residence at Mount Vernon, in March, 1785, the first ideawas started of a revisal of the Articles of Confederation, by theorganization, of means differing from that of a compact between theState Legislatures and their own delegates in Congress. A conventionof delegates from the State Legislatures, independent of the Congressitself, was the expedient which presented itself for effectingthe purpose, and an augmentation of the powers of Congress for theregulation of commerce, as the object for which this assembly was tobe convened. In January, 1785, the proposal was made and adopted inthe Legislature of Virginia, and communicated to the other StateLegislatures. 

The Convention was held at Annapolis, in September of that year. Itwas attended by delegates from only five of the central States, who, on comparing their restricted powers with the glaring and universallyacknowledged defects of the Confederation, reported only arecommendation for the assemblage of another convention of delegatesto meet at Philadelphia, in May, 1787, from all the States, and withenlarged powers. 

The Constitution of the United States was the work of this Convention. But in its construction the Convention immediately perceived that theymust retrace their steps, and fall back from a league of friendshipbetween sovereign States to the constituent sovereignty of thepeople; from power to right--from the irresponsible despotism ofState sovereignty to the self-evident truths of the Declaration ofIndependence. In that instrument, the right to institute and to altergovernments among men was ascribed exclusively to the people--the endsof government were declared to be to secure the natural rights of man;and that when the government degenerates from the promotion to thedestruction of that end, the right and the duty accrues to the peopleto dissolve this degenerate government and to institute another. Thesigners of the Declaration further averred, that the one people of theUnited Colonies were then precisely in that situation--with a governmentdegenerated into tyranny, and called upon by the laws of nature and ofnature's God to dissolve that government and to institute another. Then, in the name and by the authority of the good people of the colonies, they pronounced the dissolution of their allegiance to the king, andtheir eternal separation from the nation of Great Britain--and declaredthe United Colonies independent States. And here as the representativesof the one people they had stopped. They did not require theconfirmation of this act, for the power to make the declaration hadalready been conferred upon them by the people, delegating the power, indeed, separately in the separate colonies, not by colonial authority, but by the spontaneous revolutionary movement of the people in them all. 

From the day of that Declaration, the constituent power of the peoplehad never been called into action. A confederacy had been substitutedin the place of a government, and State sovereignty had usurped theconstituent sovereignty of the people. 

The Convention assembled at Philadelphia had themselves no directauthority from the people. Their authority was all derived from theState Legislatures. But they had the Articles of Confederation beforethem, and they saw and felt the wretched condition into which they hadbrought the whole people, and that the Union itself was in the agoniesof death. They soon perceived that the indispensably needed powerswere such as no State government, no combination of them, was by theprinciples of the Declaration of Independence competent to bestow. Theycould emanate only from the people. A highly respectable portion of theassembly, still clinging to the confederacy of States, proposed, asa substitute for the Constitution, a mere revival of the Articles ofConfederation, with a grant of additional powers to the Congress. Their plan was respectfully and thoroughly discussed, but the want of agovernment and of the sanction of the people to the delegation of powershappily prevailed. A constitution for the people, and the distributionof legislative, executive, and judicial powers was prepared. Itannounced itself as the work of the people themselves; and as this wasunquestionably a power assumed by the Convention, not delegated tothem by the people, they religiously confined it to a simple powerto propose, and carefully provided that it should be no more than aproposal until sanctioned by the Confederation Congress, by the StateLegislatures, and by the people of the several States, in conventionsspecially assembled, by authority of their Legislatures, for the singlepurpose of examining and passing upon it. 

And thus was consummated the work commenced by the Declaration ofIndependence--a work in which the people of the North American Union, acting under the deepest sense of responsibility to the Supreme Rulerof the universe, had achieved the most transcendent act of power thatsocial man in his mortal condition can perform--even that of dissolvingthe ties of allegiance by which he is bound to his country; ofrenouncing that country itself; of demolishing its government; ofinstituting another government; and of making for himself anothercountry in its stead. 

And on that day, of which you now commemorate the fiftiethanniversary--on that thirtieth day of April, 1789--was this mightyrevolution, not only in the affairs of our own country, but in theprinciples of government over civilized man, accomplished. 

The Revolution itself was a work of thirteen years--and had neverbeen completed until that day. The Declaration of Independence and theConstitution of the United States are parts of one consistent whole, founded upon one and the same theory of government, then new inpractice, though not as a theory, for it had been working itself intothe mind of man for many ages, and had been especially expounded in thewritings of Locke, though it had never before been adopted by a greatnation in practice. 

There are yet, even at this day, many speculative objections to thistheory. Even in our own country there are still philosophers who denythe principles asserted in the Declaration, as self-evident truths--whodeny the natural equality and inalienable rights of man--who deny thatthe people are the only legitimate source of power--who deny that alljust powers of government are derived from the consent of the governed. Neither your time, nor perhaps the cheerful nature of this occasion, permit me here to enter upon the examination of this anti-revolutionarytheory, which arrays State sovereignty against the constituentsovereignty of the people, and distorts the Constitution of the UnitedStates into a league of friendship between confederate corporations. Ispeak to matters of fact. There is the Declaration of Independence, and there is the Constitution of the United States--let them speak forthemselves. The grossly immoral and dishonest doctrine of despotic Statesovereignty, the exclusive judge of its own obligations, and responsibleto no power on earth or in heaven, for the violation of them, is notthere. The Declaration says, it is not in me. The Constitution says, itis not in me. 

"Oration at Plymouth, December 22, 1802, in Commemoration of the Landingof the Pilgrims. "

Among the sentiments of most powerful operation upon the humanheart, and most highly honorable to the human character, are those ofveneration for our forefathers, and of love for our posterity. They formthe connecting links between the selfish and the social passions. By thefundamental principle of Christianity, the happiness of the individualis interwoven, by innumerable and imperceptible ties, with that of hiscontemporaries. By the power of filial reverence and parental affection, individual existence is extended beyond the limits of individual life, and the happiness of every age is chained in mutual dependence upon thatof every other. Respect for his ancestors excites, in the breast of man, interest in their history, attachment to their characters, concern fortheir errors, involuntary pride in their virtues. Love for his posterityspurs him to exertion for their support, stimulates him to virtue fortheir example, and fills him with the tenderest solicitude for theirwelfare. Man, therefore, was not made for himself alone. No, he was madefor his country, by the obligations of the social compact; he was madefor his species, by the Christian duties of universal charity; hewas made for all ages past, by the sentiment of reverence for hisforefathers; and he was made for all future times, by the impulse ofaffection for his progeny. Under the influence of these principles, "Existence sees him spurn her bounded reign. "

They redeem his nature from the subjection of time and space; he isno longer a "puny insect shivering at a breeze"; he is the glory ofcreation, formed to occupy all time and all extent; bounded, during hisresidence upon earth, only to the boundaries of the world, and destinedto life and immortality in brighter regions, when the fabric of natureitself shall dissolve and perish. 

The voice of history has not, in all its compass, a note but answers inunison with these sentiments. The barbarian chieftain, who defended hiscountry against the Roman invasion, driven to the remotest extremity ofBritain, and stimulating his followers to battle by all that has powerof persuasion upon the human heart, concluded his persuasion by anappeal to these irresistible feelings: "Think of your forefathers and ofyour posterity. " The Romans themselves, at the pinnacle of civilization, were actuated by the same impressions, and celebrated, in anniversaryfestivals, every great event which had signalized the annals of theirforefathers. To multiply instances where it were impossible to adducean exception would be to waste your time and abuse your patience; butin the sacred volume, which contains the substances of our firmest faithand of our most precious hopes, these passions not only maintain theirhighest efficacy, but are sanctioned by the express injunctions of theDivine Legislator to his chosen people. 

The revolutions of time furnish no previous example of a nation shootingup to maturity and expanding into greatness with the rapidity which hascharacterized the growth of the American people. In the luxuriance ofyouth, and in the vigor of manhood, it is pleasing and instructive tolook backward upon the helpless days of infancy; but in the continualand essential changes of a growing subject, the transactions of thatearly period would be soon obliterated from the memory but for someperiodical call of attention to aid the silent records of the historian. Such celebrations arouse and gratify the kindliest emotions of thebosom. They are faithful pledges of the respect we bear to the memoryof our ancestors and of the tenderness with which we cherish the risinggeneration. They introduce the sages and heroes of ages past to thenotice and emulation of succeeding times; they are at once testimonialsof our gratitude, and schools of virtue to our children. 

These sentiments are wise; they are honorable; they are virtuous; theircultivation is not merely innocent pleasure, it is incumbent duty. Obedient to their dictates, you, my fellow-citizens, have institutedand paid frequent observance to this annual solemnity, and what event ofweightier intrinsic importance, or of more extensive consequences, wasever selected for this honorary distinction?

In reverting to the period of our origin, other nations have generallybeen compelled to plunge into the chaos of impenetrable antiquity, or totrace a lawless ancestry into the caverns of ravishers and robbers. It is your peculiar privilege to commemorate, in this birthday of yournation, an event ascertained in its minutest details; an event of whichthe principal actors are known to you familiarly, as if belonging toyour own age; an event of a magnitude before which imagination shrinksat the imperfection of her powers. It is your further happiness tobehold, in those eminent characters, who were most conspicuous inaccomplishing the settlement of your country, men upon whose virtueyou can dwell with honest exultation. The founders of your race arenot handed down to you, like the fathers of the Roman people, as thesucklings of a wolf. You are not descended from a nauseous compound offanaticism and sensuality, whose only argument was the sword, and whoseonly paradise was a brothel. No Gothic scourge of God, no Vandal pest ofnations, no fabled fugitive from the flames of Troy, no bastard Normantyrant, appears among the list of worthies who first landed on therock, which your veneration has preserved as a lasting monument oftheir achievement. The great actors of the day we now solemnize wereillustrious by their intrepid valor no less than by their Christiangraces, but the clarion of conquest has not blazoned forth their namesto all the winds of heaven. Their glory has not been wafted over oceansof blood to the remotest regions of the earth. They have not erected tothemselves colossal statues upon pedestals of human bones, to provokeand insult the tardy hand of heavenly retribution. But theirs was "thebetter fortitude of patience and heroic martyrdom. " Theirs was thegentle temper of Christian kindness; the rigorous observance ofreciprocal justice; the unconquerable soul of conscious integrity. Worldly fame has been parsimonious of her favor to the memory of thosegenerous companions. Their numbers were small; their stations in lifeobscure; the object of their enterprise unostentatious; the theatre oftheir exploits remote; how could they possibly be favorites of worldlyFame--that common crier, whose existence is only known by the assemblageof multitudes; that pander of wealth and greatness, so eager to hauntthe palaces of fortune, and so fastidious to the houseless dignity ofvirtue; that parasite of pride, ever scornful to meekness, and everobsequious to insolent power; that heedless trumpeter, whose ears aredeaf to modest merit, and whose eyes are blind to bloodless, distantexcellence?

When the persecuted companions of Robinson, exiles from their nativeland, anxiously sued for the privilege of removing a thousand leaguesmore distant to an untried soil, a rigorous climate, and a savagewilderness, for the sake of reconciling their sense of religious dutywith their affections for their country, few, perhaps none of them, formed a conception of what would be, within two centuries, the resultof their undertaking. When the jealous and niggardly policy of theirBritish sovereign denied them even that humblest of requests, andinstead of liberty would barely consent to promise connivance, neitherhe nor they might be aware that they were laying the foundations of apower, and that he was sowing the seeds of a spirit, which, in lessthan two hundred years, would stagger the throne of his descendants, andshake his united kingdoms to the centre. So far is it from the ordinaryhabits of mankind to calculate the importance of events in theirelementary principles, that had the first colonists of our country everintimated as a part of their designs the project of founding a great andmighty nation, the finger of scorn would have pointed them to the cellsof Bedlam as an abode more suitable for hatching vain empires than thesolitude of a transatlantic desert. 

These consequences, then so little foreseen, have unfolded themselves, in all their grandeur, to the eyes of the present age. It is a commonamusement of speculative minds to contrast the magnitude of the mostimportant events with the minuteness of their primeval causes, and therecords of mankind are full of examples for such contemplations. Itis, however, a more profitable employment to trace the constituentprinciples of future greatness in their kernel; to detect in the acornat our feet the germ of that majestic oak, whose roots shoot down tothe centre, and whose branches aspire to the skies. Let it be, then, ourpresent occupation to inquire and endeavor to ascertain the causesfirst put in operation at the period of our commemoration, and alreadyproductive of such magnificent effects; to examine with reiterated careand minute attention the characters of those men who gave the firstimpulse to a new series of events in the history of the world; toapplaud and emulate those qualities of their minds which we shall finddeserving of our admiration; to recognize with candor those featureswhich forbid approbation or even require censure, and, finally, to layalike their frailties and their perfections to our own hearts, either aswarning or as example. 

 Of the various European settlements upon this continent, which have finally merged in one independent nation, the firstestablishments were made at various times, by several nations, and underthe influence of different motives. In many instances, the convictionof religious obligation formed one and a powerful inducement of theadventures; but in none, excepting the settlement at Plymouth, did theyconstitute the sole and exclusive actuating cause. Worldly interest andcommercial speculation entered largely into the views of other settlers, but the commands of conscience were the only stimulus to the emigrantsfrom Leyden. Previous to their expedition hither, they had endureda long banishment from their native country. Under every species ofdiscouragement, they undertook the voyage; they performed it in spiteof numerous and almost insuperable obstacles; they arrived upon awilderness bound with frost and hoary with snow, without the boundariesof their charter, outcasts from all human society, and coasted fiveweeks together, in the dead of winter, on this tempestuous shore, exposed at once to the fury of the elements, to the arrows of the nativesavage, and to the impending horrors of famine. 

Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before whichdifficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air. These qualitieshave ever been displayed in their mightiest perfection, as attendants inthe retinue of strong passions. From the first discovery of theWestern Hemisphere by Columbus until the settlement of Virginia whichimmediately preceded that of Plymouth, the various adventurers from theancient world had exhibited upon innumerable occasions that ardor ofenterprise and that stubbornness of pursuit which set all danger atdefiance, and chained the violence of nature at their feet. But theywere all instigated by personal interests. Avarice and ambition hadtuned their souls to that pitch of exaltation. Selfish passions were theparents of their heroism. It was reserved for the first settlers ofnew England to perform achievements equally arduous, to trample downobstructions equally formidable, to dispel dangers equally terrific, under the single inspiration of conscience. To them even libertyherself was but a subordinate and secondary consideration. They claimedexemption from the mandates of human authority, as militating with theirsubjection to a superior power. Before the voice of Heaven they silencedeven the calls of their country. 

Yet, while so deeply impressed with the sense of religious obligation, they felt, in all its energy, the force of that tender tie which bindsthe heart of every virtuous man to his native land. It was to renew thatconnection with their country which had been severed by their compulsoryexpatriation, that they resolved to face all the hazards of a perilousnavigation and all the labors of a toilsome distant settlement. Underthe mild protection of the Batavian Government, they enjoyed alreadythat freedom of religious worship, for which they had resigned somany comforts and enjoyments at home; but their hearts panted for arestoration to the bosom of their country. Invited and urged by theopen-hearted and truly benevolent people who had given them an asylumfrom the persecution of their own kindred to form their settlementwithin the territories then under their jurisdiction, the love of theircountry predominated over every influence save that of conscience alone, and they preferred the precarious chance of relaxation from the bigotedrigor of the English Government to the certain liberality and alluringoffers of the Hollanders. Observe, my countrymen, the generouspatriotism, the cordial union of soul, the conscious yet unaffectedvigor which beam in their application to the British monarch:

"They were well weaned from the delicate milk of their mother country, and inured to the difficulties of a strange land. They were knittogether in a strict and sacred bond, to take care of the good of eachother and of the whole. It was not with them as with other men, whomsmall things could discourage, or small discontents cause to wishthemselves again at home. "

Children of these exalted Pilgrims! Is there one among you who can hearthe simple and pathetic energy of these expressions without tendernessand admiration? Venerated shades of our forefathers! No, ye were, indeed, not ordinary men! That country which had ejected you so cruellyfrom her bosom you still delighted to contemplate in the character of anaffectionate and beloved mother. The sacred bond which knit you togetherwas indissoluble while you lived; and oh, may it be to your descendantsthe example and the pledge of harmony to the latest period of time!The difficulties and dangers, which so often had defeated attempts ofsimilar establishments, were unable to subdue souls tempered like yours. You heard the rigid interdictions; you saw the menacing forms of toiland danger, forbidding your access to this land of promise; but youheard without dismay; you saw and disdained retreat. Firm and undauntedin the confidence of that sacred bond; conscious of the purity, andconvinced of the importance of your motives, you put your trust in theprotecting shield of Providence, and smiled defiance at the combiningterrors of human malice and of elemental strife. These, in theaccomplishment of your undertaking, you were summoned to encounterin their most hideous forms; these you met with that fortitude, andcombated with that perseverance, which you had promised in theiranticipation; these you completely vanquished in establishing thefoundations of New England, and the day which we now commemorate is theperpetual memorial of your triumph. 

 It were an occupation peculiarly pleasing to cull from ourearly historians, and exhibit before you every detail of thistransaction; to carry you in imagination on board their bark at thefirst moment of her arrival in the bay; to accompany Carver, Winslow, Bradford, and Standish, in all their excursions upon the desolate coast;to follow them into every rivulet and creek where they endeavored tofind a firm footing, and to fix, with a pause of delight and exultation, the instant when the first of these heroic adventurers alighted on thespot where you, their descendants, now enjoy the glorious and happyreward of their labors. But in this grateful task, your former orators, on this anniversary, have anticipated all that the most ardent industrycould collect, and gratified all that the most inquisitive curiositycould desire. To you, my friends, every occurrence of that momentousperiod is already familiar. A transient allusion to a few characteristicinstances, which mark the peculiar history of the Plymouth settlers, mayproperly supply the place of a narrative, which, to this auditory, mustbe superfluous. 

One of these remarkable incidents is the execution of that instrument ofgovernment by which they formed themselves into a body politic, the dayafter their arrival upon the coast, and previous to their first landing. That is, perhaps, the only instance in human history of that positive, original social compact, which speculative philosophers have imaginedas the only legitimate source of government. Here was a unanimousand personal assent, by all the individuals of the community, tothe association by which they became a nation. It was the result ofcircumstances and discussions which had occurred during their passagefrom Europe, and is a full demonstration that the nature of civilgovernment, abstracted from the political institutions of their nativecountry, had been an object of their serious meditation. The settlersof all the former European colonies had contented themselves with thepowers conferred upon them by their respective charters, without lookingbeyond the seal of the royal parchment for the measure of their rightsand the rule of their duties. The founders of Plymouth had been impelledby the peculiarities of their situation to examine the subject withdeeper and more comprehensive research. After twelve years of banishmentfrom the land of their first allegiance, during which they had beenunder an adoptive and temporary subjection to another sovereign, theymust naturally have been led to reflect upon the relative rights andduties of allegiance and subjection. They had resided in a city, theseat of a university, where the polemical and political controversiesof the time were pursued with uncommon fervor. In this period they hadwitnessed the deadly struggle between the two parties, into which thepeople of the United Provinces, after their separation from the crown ofSpain, had divided themselves. The contest embraced within its compassnot only theological doctrines, but political principles, and Mauriceand Barnevelt were the temporal leaders of the same rival factions, ofwhich Episcopius and Polyander were the ecclesiastical champions. 

That the investigation of the fundamental principles of government wasdeeply implicated in these dissensions is evident from the immortalwork of Grotius, upon the rights of war and peace, which undoubtedlyoriginated from them. Grotius himself had been a most distinguishedactor and sufferer in those important scenes of internal convulsion, and his work was first published very shortly after the departure ofour forefathers from Leyden. It is well known that in the course of thecontest Mr. Robinson more than once appeared, with credit to himself, asa public disputant against Episcopius; and from the manner in whichthe fact is related by Governor Bradford, it is apparent that the wholeEnglish Church at Leyden took a zealous interest in the religious partof the controversy. As strangers in the land, it is presumable thatthey wisely and honorably avoided entangling themselves in the politicalcontentions involved with it. Yet the theoretic principles, as they weredrawn into discussion, could not fail to arrest their attention, andmust have assisted them to form accurate ideas concerning the origin andextent of authority among men, independent of positive institutions. The importance of these circumstances will not be duly weighed withouttaking into consideration the state of opinion then prevalent inEngland. The general principles of government were there littleunderstood and less examined. The whole substance of human authority wascentred in the simple doctrine of royal prerogative, the origin of whichwas always traced in theory to divine institution. Twenty years later, the subject was more industriously sifted, and for half a century becameone of the principal topics of controversy between the ablest and mostenlightened men in the nation. The instrument of voluntary associationexecuted on board the "Mayflower" testifies that the parties to it hadanticipated the improvement of their nation. 

Another incident, from which we may derive occasion for importantreflections, was the attempt of these original settlers to establishamong them that community of goods and of labor, which fancifulpoliticians, from the days of Plato to those of Rousseau, haverecommended as the fundamental law of a perfect republic. This theoryresults, it must be acknowledged, from principles of reasoningmost flattering to the human character. If industry, frugality, anddisinterested integrity were alike the virtues of all, there would, apparently, be more of the social spirit, in making all property acommon stock, and giving to each individual a proportional title to thewealth of the whole. Such is the basis upon which Plato forbids, inhis Republic, the division of property. Such is the system upon whichRousseau pronounces the first man who inclosed a field with a fence, andsaid, "This is mine, " a traitor to the human species. A wiser and moreuseful philosophy, however, directs us to consider man according to thenature in which he was formed; subject to infirmities, which no wisdomcan remedy; to weaknesses, which no institution can strengthen; tovices, which no legislation can correct. Hence, it becomes obvious thatseparate property is the natural and indisputable right of separateexertion; that community of goods without community of toil isoppressive and unjust; that it counteracts the laws of nature, whichprescribe that he only who sows the seed shall reap the harvest; thatit discourages all energy, by destroying its rewards; and makes the mostvirtuous and active members of society the slaves and drudges of theworst. Such was the issue of this experiment among our forefathers, and the same event demonstrated the error of the system in the eldersettlement of Virginia. Let us cherish that spirit of harmony whichprompted our forefathers to make the attempt, under circumstances morefavorable to its success than, perhaps, ever occurred upon earth. Letus no less admire the candor with which they relinquished it, upondiscovering its irremediable inefficacy. To found principles ofgovernment upon too advantageous an estimate of the human character isan error of inexperience, the source of which is so amiable that it isimpossible to censure it with severity. We have seen the same mistakecommitted in our own age, and upon a larger theatre. Happily for ourancestors, their situation allowed them to repair it before its effectshad proved destructive. They had no pride of vain philosophy to support, no perfidious rage of faction to glut, by persevering in their mistakesuntil they should be extinguished in torrents of blood. 

As the attempt to establish among themselves the community of goods wasa seal of that sacred bond which knit them so closely together, so theconduct they observed toward the natives of the country displaystheir steadfast adherence to the rules of justice and their faithfulattachment to those of benevolence and charity. 

No European settlement ever formed upon this continent has been moredistinguished for undeviating kindness and equity toward the savages. There are, indeed, moralists who have questioned the right of theEuropeans to intrude upon the possessions of the aboriginals in anycase, and under any limitations whatsoever. But have they maturelyconsidered the whole subject? The Indian right of possession itselfstands, with regard to the greater part of the country, upon aquestionable foundation. Their cultivated fields; their constructedhabitations; a space of ample sufficiency for their subsistence, and whatever they had annexed to themselves by personal labor, wasundoubtedly, by the laws of nature, theirs. But what is the right ofa huntsman to the forest of a thousand miles over which he hasaccidentally ranged in quest of prey? Shall the liberal bounties ofProvidence to the race of man be monopolized by one of ten thousand forwhom they were created? Shall the exuberant bosom of the common mother, amply adequate to the nourishment of millions, be claimed exclusivelyby a few hundreds of her offspring? Shall the lordly savage not onlydisdain the virtues and enjoyments of civilization himself, but shall hecontrol the civilization of a world? Shall he forbid the wildernessto blossom like a rose? Shall he forbid the oaks of the forest to fallbefore the axe of industry, and to rise again, transformed into thehabitations of ease and elegance? shall he doom an immense region of theglobe to perpetual desolation, and to hear the howlings of the tiger andthe wolf silence forever the voice of human gladness? Shall the fieldsand the valleys, which a beneficent God has formed to teem with the lifeof innumerable multitudes, be condemned to everlasting barrenness? Shallthe mighty rivers, poured out by the hand of nature, as channels ofcommunication between numerous nations, roll their waters in sullensilence and eternal solitude of the deep? Have hundreds of commodiousharbors, a thousand leagues of coast, and a boundless ocean, been spreadin the front of this land, and shall every purpose of utility to whichthey could apply be prohibited by the tenant of the woods? No, generousphilanthropists! Heaven has not been thus inconsistent in the works ofits hands. Heaven has not thus placed at irreconcilable strife its morallaws with its physical creation. The Pilgrims of Plymouth obtained theirright of possession to the territory on which they settled, by titlesas fair and unequivocal as any human property can be held. By theirvoluntary association they recognized their allegiance to the governmentof Britain, and in process of time received whatever powers andauthorities could be conferred upon them by a charter from theirsovereign. The spot on which they fixed had belonged to an Indian tribe, totally extirpated by that devouring pestilence which had swept thecountry shortly before their arrival. The territory, thus free fromall exclusive possession, they might have taken by the natural rightof occupancy. Desirous, however, of giving amply satisfaction to everypretence of prior right, by formal and solemn conventions with thechiefs of the neighboring tribes, they acquired the further security ofa purchase. At their hands the children of the desert had no causeof complaint. On the great day of retribution, what thousands, whatmillions of the American race will appear at the bar of judgment toarraign their European invading conquerors! Let us humbly hope thatthe fathers of the Plymouth Colony will then appear in the whiteness ofinnocence. Let us indulge in the belief that they will not only be freefrom all accusation of injustice to these unfortunate sons of nature, but that the testimonials of their acts of kindness and benevolencetoward them will plead the cause of their virtues, as they are nowauthenticated by the record of history upon earth. 

Religious discord has lost her sting; the cumbrous weapons oftheological warfare are antiquated; the field of politics supplies thealchemists of our times with materials of more fatal explosion, and thebutchers of mankind no longer travel to another world for instrumentsof cruelty and destruction. Our age is too enlightened to contend upontopics which concern only the interests of eternity; the men who hold inproper contempt all controversies about trifles, except such as inflametheir own passions, have made it a commonplace censure against yourancestors, that their zeal was enkindled by subjects of trivialimportance; and that however aggrieved by the intolerance of others, they were alike intolerant themselves. Against these objections, yourcandid judgment will not require an unqualified justification; but yourrespect and gratitude for the founders of the State may boldly claim anample apology. The original grounds of their separation from the Churchof England were not objects of a magnitude to dissolve the bonds ofcommunion, much less those of charity, between Christian brethren ofthe same essential principles. Some of them, however, were notinconsiderable, and numerous inducements concurred to give them anextraordinary interest in their eyes. When that portentous system ofabuses, the Papal dominion, was overturned, a great variety of religioussects arose in its stead in the several countries, which for manycenturies before had been screwed beneath its subjection. The fabric ofthe Reformation, first undertaken in England upon a contracted basis, bya capricious and sanguinary tyrant, had been successively overthrownand restored, renewed and altered, according to the varying humors andprinciples of four successive monarchs. To ascertain the precise pointof division between the genuine institutions of Christianity and thecorruptions accumulated upon them in the progress of fifteen centuries, was found a task of extreme difficulty throughout the Christian world. 

Men of the profoundest learning, of the sublimest genius, and of thepurest integrity, after devoting their lives to the research, finallydiffered in their ideas upon many great points, both of doctrine anddiscipline. The main question, it was admitted on all hands, mostintimately concerned the highest interests of man, both temporal andeternal. Can we wonder that men who felt their happiness here and theirhopes of hereafter, their worldly welfare and the kingdom of heavenat stake, should sometimes attach an importance beyond their intrinsicweight to collateral points of controversy, connected with theall-involving object of the Reformation? The changes in the forms andprinciples of religious worship were introduced and regulated in Englandby the hand of public authority. But that hand had not been uniformor steady in its operations. During the persecutions inflicted in theinterval of Popish restoration under the reign of Mary, upon all whofavored the Reformation, many of the most zealous reformers had beencompelled to fly their country. While residing on the continent ofEurope, they had adopted the principles of the most complete andrigorous reformation, as taught and established by Calvin. On returningafterward to their native country, they were dissatisfied withthe partial reformation, at which, as they conceived, the Englishestablishment had rested; and claiming the privilege of privateconscience, upon which alone any departure from the Church of Rome couldbe justified, they insisted upon the right of adhering to the system oftheir own preference, and, of course, upon that of non-conformity to theestablishment prescribed by the royal authority. The only means usedto convince them of error and reclaim them from dissent was force, andforce served but to confirm the opposition it was meant to suppress. Bydriving the founders of the Plymouth Colony into exile, it constrainedthem to absolute separation irreconcilable. Viewing their religiousliberties here, as held only by sufferance, yet bound to them by allthe ties of conviction, and by all their sufferings for them, could theyforbear to look upon every dissenter among themselves with a jealouseye? Within two years after their landing, they beheld a rivalsettlement attempted in their immediate neighborhood; and not longafter, the laws of self-preservation compelled them to break up a nestof revellers, who boasted of protection from the mother country, and whohad recurred to the easy but pernicious resource of feeding their wantonidleness, by furnishing the savages with the means, the skill, and theinstruments of European destruction. Toleration, in that instance, wouldhave been self-murder, and many other examples might be alleged, inwhich their necessary measures of self-defence have been exaggeratedinto cruelty, and their most indispensable precautions distorted intopersecution. Yet shall we not pretend that they were exempt from thecommon laws of mortality, or entirely free from all the errors oftheir age. Their zeal might sometimes be too ardent, but it was alwayssincere. At this day, religious indulgence is one of our clearestduties, because it is one of our undisputed rights. While we rejoicethat the principles of genuine Christianity have so far triumphed overthe prejudices of a former generation, let us fervently hope for the daywhen it will prove equally victorious over the malignant passions of ourown. 

In thus calling your attention to some of the peculiar features in theprinciples, the character, and the history of our forefathers, it isas wide from my design, as I know it would be from your approbation, toadorn their memory with a chaplet plucked from the domain of others. The occasion and the day are more peculiarly devoted to them, and letit never be dishonored with a contracted and exclusive spirit. Ouraffections as citizens embrace the whole extent of the Union, and thenames of Raleigh, Smith, Winthrop, Calvert, Penn and Oglethorpe excitein our minds recollections equally pleasing and gratitude equallyfervent with those of Carver and Bradford. Two centuries have notyet elapsed since the first European foot touched the soil which nowconstitutes the American Union. Two centuries more and our numbers mustexceed those of Europe itself. The destinies of their empire, as theyappear in prospect before us, disdain the powers of human calculation. Yet, as the original founder of the Roman State is said once to havelifted upon his shoulders the fame and fortunes of all his posterity, solet us never forget that the glory and greatness of all our descendantsis in our hands. Preserve in all their purity, refine, if possible, from all their alloy, those virtues which we this day commemorate as theornament of our forefathers. Adhere to them with inflexible resolution, as to the horns of the altar; instil them with unwearied perseveranceinto the minds of your children; bind your souls and theirs to thenational Union as the chords of life are centred in the heart, and youshall soar with rapid and steady wing to the summit of human glory. Nearly a century ago, one of those rare minds to whom it is given todiscern future greatness in its seminal principles, upon contemplatingthe situation of this continent, pronounced, in a vein of poeticinspiration, "Westward the star of empire takes its way. " Let us unitein ardent supplication to the Founder of nations and the Builderof worlds, that what then was prophecy may continue unfoldinginto history--that the dearest hopes of the human race may not beextinguished in disappointment, and that the last may prove the noblestempire of time.