menaced-the fair fabric of freedom, erected by sages and patriots, was threatened with demolition. He accepted a commission from Kentucky to reappear upon the theatre of public affairs, and hastened to the capitol. Again he rises in the Senate chamber, the scene of so many former triumphs. That clarion voice, which so often before "enchained the listening Senate," again rings through its chambers and resounds through the country, striking terror to the hearts of conspirators, and imparting confidence, courage, and hope, to desponding patriots everywhere. How eloquently and persuasively he pleads for harmony and conciliation, and that spirit of mutual concession and compromise in which the Union was formed, and which alone can preserve it. With what power does he portray the advantages of the Union and the inappreciable evils that will follow its dissolution. How terrible his denunciations of those who conspire against it! Disunion stands rebuked and abashed in his presence, and cowers under his patriotic indignation. Towering in intellectual proportions above other men, as Atlas towers above the mole-hills at its base, Mr. Webster rises to follow in the debate. He is a Northern man. He is a Senator from Massachusetts, and the favorite and most honored citizen of that State. What course will he take? What will he say? Will he forfeit his position in Massachusetts and in the Northern States generally? Dare he brave the thunders of indignation which would burst upon him? He speaks and speaks as no man never before spoke -not for the North or the South, the East or the West, but for the country, the whole country, and nothing but the country-for the Union, and the liberty and happiness which it secures. Reckless of consequences to himself, he gave to his country, what was not meant for a state or a section-his powerful intellect and matchless oratory, and all the influence which these high gifts enabled him to wield. WEBSTER and CLAY!-I refer to them with the most exulting pride. I am proud of them as American patriots, orators and statesmen. How gloriously they have borne themselves! If they were both to die to-day, they have achieved enough for fame. History would eternize their patriotic deeds, and remote ages would hail them great and glorious. GLORY OF ARMS. 105 LXXV.-GLORY OF ARMS. CHARLES SUMNER. WHATEVER may be the judgment of poets, of moralists, of satirists, or even of soldiers, it is certain that the glory of arms still exercises no mean influence over the minds of men. The art of war, which has been happily termed by a French divine, the baleful art by which men learn to exterminate one another, is yet held, even among Christians, to be an honorable pursuit; and the animal courage, which it stimulates and develops, is prized as a transcendent virtue. It will be for another age, and a higher civilization, to appreciate the more exalted character of the art of benevolencethe art of extending happiness and all good influences, by word or deed, to the largest number of mankind,—which, in blessed contrast with the misery, the degradation, the wickedness of war, shall shine resplendent the true grandeur of peace. All then will be willing to join with the early poet in saying at least : 66 Though louder fame attend the martial rage, Then shall the soul thrill with a nobler heroism than that of battle. Peaceful industry, with untold multitudes of cheerful and beneficent laborers, shall be its gladsome token. Literature, full of sympathy and comfort for the heart of man, shall appear in garments of purer glory than she has yet assumed. Science shall extend the bounds of knowledge and power, adding unimaginable strength to the hands of men, opening innumerable resources in the earth, and revealing new secrets and harmonies in the skies. Art, elevated and refined, shall lavish fresh streams of beauty and grace. Charity, in streams of milk and honey, shall diffuse itself among all the habitations of the world. Does any one ask for the signs of this approaching era? The increasing beneficence and intelligence of our own day, the broad-spread sympathy with human suffering, the widening thoughts of men, the longings of the heart for a higher condition on earth, the unfulfilled promises of Christian Progress, are the auspicious auguries of this Happy Future. As early voyagers over untried realms of waste, we have already observed the signs of land. The green twig and fresh red berry have floated by our bark; the odors of the shore fan our faces; nay, we may seem to descry the distant gleam of light, and hear from the more earnest observers, as Columbus heard, after midnight, from the masthead of the Pinta, the joyful cry of Land! Land! and lo! a new world broke upon his early morning gaze. LXXVI. ON THE REMOVAL OF WASHINGTON'S REMAINS. A. S. CLAYTON. PHYSICAL monuments perish, but it is the grand moral association that perpetuates events to the latest age, and occasions them to endure, with increasing effect, through all future time. Among these great moral recollections associated with the character of Washington, is the place of his birth and the home of his childhood. What country so fitted for his sepulchre as Virginia, the State that gave him being ?that State, so distinguished for every noble daring, and where Washington commenced and ended his military career—a career so signally famed for its masterly valor at the very outset, and the crowning victory of York at its close. But, sir, when you add to this, the recollection of that spot, in his native State-the one above all others, which he selected for his home-where he spent a long life-to which every day in that long life was devoted in works of taste, and around which he had thrown his great mind in the most imperishable evidences of genius and industry-that had attracted the visits of thousands from every part of the world, and those, too, of the most distinguished foreigners, at the head of whom stands the immortal La Fayette-which, in life, was open to every stranger, the curious as well as the grateful, and since his death has become the shrine of the patriot's pilgrimage—what site on earth so suited for a monument as that, thus consecrated by such undying recollections? This, then, should be the grave of Washington. But, sir, there is another strong consideration why these remains should not be disturbed. It was the last request recorded in his will, that there he should rest, and that no pomp or show attend his funeral, nor splendid monument mark his grave. This was truly in character with his republican simplicity. ON THE REVOLUTIONARY PENSION BILL. 107 And when it is remembered that his unrivalled fame is far above the reach of artificial glories to adorn, and beyond all the efforts of marble structures and towering edifices to perpetuate, it is better secured, and more illustriously commemorated in the unostentatious manner in which, at Mount Vernon, his remains are entombed, than it would be, if they were deposited under the gaudy dome of the capitol, where, torn from the shade of his consort, they would become a mere spectacle for the "gaze of the idler," and where, I would add, all reverence for them would be lost in the same reckless levity that is witnessed every day at the pictures in the rotunda. The immeasurable distance between the greatness of his life and the simplicity of his death, and burial, forms of itself a monument of moral grandeur, that utterly contemns all the splendors of art. LXXVII-ON THE REVOLUTIONARY PENSION BILL. W. R. DAVIS. SIR, the passage of this bill will be a signal, the sounding of a reveille, that will wake up from the slumber of the grave all the dead militia of the land. Not harmless ghosts and spectres, but substantial pensioners, tax receivers, and consumers of the substance of the people. I believe, however, I might be induced to vote for this bill, if it would have power and virtue to resurrect the blessed patriots who have gone before us; if it would arouse from their slumbers the real and true men who repose on the sides of Breed's hill, on the plains of Trenton and Princeton, on the banks of the Brandywine; of those who sleep on the gory but hallowed spots that scar the bosoms of the Southern States; of those who rest beneath the green sod of Yorktown, Guilford, King's Mountain, Cowpens, Stono, and Eutaw; if it would bring to life and light the buried warlike and the wise," and give back to us, at this dread crisis, their counsels, advice, example, and countenance, to warm, animate, and cheer our country's wintry state! Yes, sir, I would give it my support, if it would cause the great Washington to burst the cerements which swathe him, and enable him to participate in the counsels of this day; if it would call to your aid 66 the gallant Greene, the wise and patriotic Hancock, the Adamses, Shermans, Pinckneys, and all that host of worthies; if it would resuscitate that brotherly feeling which once connected and made invincible the old thirteen States; which blazed with radiance the path of honor and virtue they trod together, and gave to history one bright page of spotless devotion to human liberty. What would such patriots feel and say, at the present state of the country? Would not Washington again warn you against sectional legislation? And what might we not expect from the heroic Greene-from him, "around the burning edges of whose shining buckler the whole chivalry of the South delighted to rally?" From one so loved and cherished in life, so mourned in death by the whole South ?from one, who chose to live and die on fields dear to him, to his and American glory?-from one intc whose lap she poured her rich treasures? He would tell you, for well he knew, that the Hugonots of Carolina, like the Pilgrims of Plymouth rock, were a liberty-loving, but not a factious or seditious people. What, too, would the old Maryland line say to the charge of disaffection and want of patriotism made against us by the selfish and interested? Would the Howards and Campbells of that day give the charge a moment's credence? Would they not remember when our banners floated, and our arms were stacked together on the bloody but victorious plains of Eutaw ? sea. LXXVIII.-THE MAYFLOWER. EDWARD EVERETT METHINKS, I see it now, that one solitary, adventurous vessel, the Mayflower of a forlorn hope, freighted with the prospects of a future state, and bound across the unknown I behold it pursuing, with a thousand misgivings, the uncertain, the tedious voyage. Suns rise and set, and weeks and months pass, and winter surprises them on the deep, but brings them not the sight of the wished-for shore. I see them now, scantily supplied with provisions, crowded almost to suffocation in their ill-stored prison, delayed by calms, pursuing a circuitous route; and now, driven in fury before the |