Read ye the dream? and know ye not Went not the flame from this illustrious spot, That fervent energy must spread, EXTRACT From a Speech delivered in the House of Representatives, April, 1832. SIR, I have, particularly of late, heard a political sentiment avowed, and which seems to me to be fast gaining ground, that, in a political contest, those who are successful, are to be considered as victors, and those who are unsuccessful, as the vanquished; and that the offices in the gift of government, are 'spoils of victory,' to be distributed exclusively among the victors, as rewards for service. From which principle, I suppose, it is claimed as a corollary, that as places and offices are spoils to which the vanquished have no right, neither have they any right to inquire on whom they are bestowed, or how they are conducted. Sir, I take occasion to enter my protest against this doctrine. It is one of the most pernicious and unjust political principles that was ever broached, at any time, or in any country. It is opposed to the genius of our constitution-to the policy of our institutions-to the purity of public sentiment and private integrity-to the virtue of those in, as well as those out of power-to the National interests and to the very existence of our government. This principle assumes the erroneous and demoralizing ground, that the offices of the government are not public trusts, for the benefit of the people exclusively, and to be distributed as their interests require, but that the power of appointment is to be exercised solely for the purpose of promoting the personal and political aggrandizement of those who possess it. This doctrine will, I trust, scarcely be openly avowed in terms by any person. It has been expressly disavowed by the present Executive, in his first message to Congress apparently, however, I regret to say, for the purpose of justifying removals from offices, against which complaints had arisen, rather than as a broad universal principle, applicable at all times to those in, as well as those out of office. It had been long before publicly and pointedly condemned by Mr. Madison, and his testimony is on record against it. This principle is destructive of the purity of those in power, because it is calculated to withdraw them from their sense of responsibility to the people. By imbuing them with the idea that their offices have been bestowed on them for their own individual aggrandizement or benefit exclusively, its tendency is to engender feelings the most arbitrary, partial, and despotic. Nor is the doctrine less injurious to the public interest. It necessarily narrows the field from which the officers of the government are to be chosen, by limiting it to a particular class of partizans, and ordinarily disfranchises about one half of the community-because, unhappily, the country is now, and has been during a considerable portion of its existence as an independent nation, divided into two parties of nearly equal numbers. The principle which I controvert, deprives the public of the services of all those men, however competent in ability and integrity, who differ in opinion from the party in power. Yet it is well known, that there are always very many individuals in the minority, equally capable and honest with any of those in the majority, and whose services might be most usefully called into requisition. Finally, this principle of proscription is directly calculated to destroy the very foundation on which our government restsnamely, the prevalence and independent exercise of an enlightened and honest PUBLIC OPinion. The people of this country are the source of all power, and every public agent is responsible to them for the use of the power with which he is entrusted by them. Hence the obvious necessity of intelligence and virtue in the people individually, that they may rightly judge and act on all matters of public concernment. But public opinion is only the mass of the opinions of the individuals who compose the public or the people. Whatever, therefore, is calculated to divert individuals from a clear and unprejudiced view of public affairs, or to deter them from the most entire freedom in expressing their sentiments, in private or at the ballot boxes, whether it be by temptation or intimidation, strikes at the very source of intelligence and virtue, and consequently endangers the public liberty. Now, it is perfectly obvious, that whenever the principle is established, or an apprehension entertained that it may be, that a person is to be disfranchised from office for holding or avowing particular political opinions, he is assailed with a temptation or threat-too powerful, alas! for ordinary men to resist to conceal or misrepresent his sentiments, and to act, not as he feels to be right, but as he considers to be politic. So far as individuals are induced to act thus, so far exactly is the government changed from one founded on public opinion to one which is nothing better, if it is not in fact a despotism. AGENCY OF RELIGION IN HUMAN AFFAIRS. RELIGION is the mightiest agent in human affairs. To this belongs preeminently the work of freeing and elevating the mind. All other means are comparatively impotent. The sense of God is the only spring, by which the crushing weight of sense, of the world, and temptation, can be withstood. Without a consciousness of our relation to God, all other relations will prove adverse to spiritual life and progress. I have spoken of the religious sentiment as the mightiest agent on earth. It has accomplished more, it has strengthened men to do and suffer more, than all other principles. It can sustain the mind against all other powers. Of all principles it is the deepest, the most ineradicable. In its perversion, indeed, it has been fruitful of crime and wo; but the very energy which it has given to the passions, when they have mixed with and corrupted it, teaches us the omnipotence with which it is imbued. Religion gives life, strength, elevation to the mind, by connecting it with the infinite mind; by teaching it to regard itself as the offspring and care of the infinite father, who created it that he might communicate to it his own spirit and perfections, who framed it for truth and virtue, who framed it for himself, who subjects it to sore trials, that by conflict and endurance it may grow strong, and who has sent his son to purify it from every sin, and to clothe it with immortality, It is religion alone, which nourishes patient, resolute hopes and efforts for our own souls. Without it, we can hardly escape self-contempt, and contempt of our race. Without God, our existence has no support, our life no aim, our improvements no permanence, our best labors no sure and enduring results, our spiritual weakness no power to lean upon, and our noblest aspirations and desires no pledge of being realized in a better state. Struggling virtue has no friend; suffering virtue no promise of victory. Take away God, and life becomes mean, and man poorer than the brute.-I am accustomed to speak of the greatness of human nature; but it is great only through its parentage; great, because descended from God, because connected with a goodness and power from which it is to be enriched forever; and nothing but the consciousness of this connection, can give that hope of elevation, through which alone the mind is to rise to true strength and liberty. All the truths of religion conspire to one end, spiritual liberty. All the objects which it offers to our thoughts are sublime, kindling, exalting. Its fundamental truth is the existence of one God, one infinite and everlasting father; and it teaches us to look on the univere as pervaded, quickened and vitally joined into one harmonious and beneficent whole, by his ever present and omnipotent love. By this truth it breaks the power of matter and sense, of present pleasure and pain, of anxiety and fear. It turns the mind from the visible, the outward and perishable, to the unseen, spiritual, and eternal, and, allying it with pure and great objects, makes it free. FREEDOM OF THE MIND. It has pleased the all-wise disposer to encompass us from our birth by difficulty and allurement, to place us in a world where wrong doing is often painful, and duty rough and perilous, where many voices oppose the dictates of the inward monitor, where the body presses as a weight on the mind, and matter, by its perpetual agency on the senses, becomes a barrier between us and the spiritual world. We are in the midst of influences, which menace the intellect and heart, and to be free is to withstand and conquer these. I call that mind free, which masters the senses, which protects itself against animal appetites, which contemns pleasure and pain in comparison with its own energy, which pene trates beneath the body and recognizes its own reality and greatness, which passes life, not in asking what it shall eat or drink, but in hungering, thirsting and seeking after righteous ness. I call that mind free which escapes the bondage of matter, which, instead of stopping at the material universe and making it a prison wall, passes beyond it to its author, and finds in the radiant signatures which it everywhere bears of the infinite spirit, helps to its own spiritual enlargement. I call that mind free, which jealously guards its intellectual rights and powers which calls no man master, which does not content itself with a passive or hereditary faith, which opens itself to light whencesoever it may come, which receives new truth as an angel from heaven, which, whilst consulting others, inquires still more of the oracle within itself, and uses instruction from abroad, not to supersede, but to quicken and exalt, its own energies. I call that mind free, which sets no bounds to its love, which is not imprisoned in itself or in a sect, which recognizes in all human beings the image of God and the rights of his children, which delights in virtue and sympathizes with suffering wherever they are seen, which conquers pride, anger and sloth, and offers itself up a willing victim to the cause of mankind. I call that mind free, which is not passively framed by outward circumstances, which is not swept away by the torrent of events, which is not the creature of accidental impulse, but which bends events to its own improvement, and acts from an inward spring, from immutable principles which it has deliberately espoused. I call that mind free, which protects itself against the usurpations of society, which does not cower to human opinion, which feels itself accountable to a higher tribunal than man's, which respects a higher law than fashion, which respects itself too much to be the slave or tool of the many or the few. I call that mind free, which, through confidence in God and in the power of virtue, has cast off all fear but that of wrong doing, which no menace or peril can enthral, which is calm in the midst of tumults, and possesses itself, though all else be lost. I call that mind free, which resists the bondage of habit, which does not mechanically repeat itself and copy the past, |