XVII-CALIFORNIA AND PLYMOUTH ROCK,

THOMAS H. BENTON.

LET us vote upon the measures before us, beginning with the admission of California. Let us vote her in. Let us vote, after four months' talk. The people who have gone there have done honor to the American name. Starting from a thousand points, and meeting as strangers far removed from law and government, they have conducted themselves with the order, decorum and justice, which would have done honor to the oldest established and best regulated community. They have carried our institutions to the furthest verge of the land-to the coast of the Pacific, and lit it up with the lights of religion, liberty, and science-lights which will shine across the broad ocean, and illuminate the dark recesses of benighted Asia. They have completed the work of the Pilgrim Fathers. Would to God that those who landed on the Rock, and on the banks of the James river, more than two hundred years ago, and who crossed the stormy Atlantic in search of civil and religious liberty, and who did so much for both in their day and generation, could now see what has been done in our day! could look down from their celestial abodes, and see the spark which they struck from the flint now blazing with a light which fixes the gaze of the world-see the mustard seed which they planted, now towering to the skies, and spreading its branches from the Atlantic to the Pacific. With what rapture would they welcome the Pilgrims of California into the family circle, while we, their descendants, sit here in angry debate, repulsing our brethren, calculating the value of the Union, and threatening to rend it asunder if California is admitted.

XVIII-THE HONOR OF WAR.

W. E. CHANNING.

THAT the idea of glory should be associated strongly with military exploits, ought not to be wondered at. From the earliest ages, ambitious sovereigns and states have sought to spread the military spirit, by loading it with rewards.

THE HONOR OF WAR.

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Badges, ornaments, distinctions, the most flattering and intoxicating, have been the prizes of war. The aristocracy of Europe, which cornmenced in barbarous ages, was founded on military talent and success; and the chief education of the young noble, was, for a long time, little more than a training for battle,—hence the strong connection between war and honor. All past ages have bequeathed us this prejudice, and the structure of society has given it a fearful force. Let us consider it with some particularity.

The idea of honor is associated with war. But to whom does the honor belong? If to any, certainly not to the mass of the people, but to those who are particularly engaged in it. The mass of a people, who stay at home, and hire others to fight—who sleep in their warm beds, and hire others to sleep "on the cold and damp earth,-who sit at their well-spread board, and hire others to take their chance of starving-who nurse the slightest hurt on their own bodies, and hire others to expose themselves to mortal wounds and to linger in comfortless hospitals; certainly this mass reap little honor from war; the honor belongs to those immediately engaged in it Let me ask, then, what is the chief business of war? It is to destroy human life; to mangle the limbs; to gash and hew the body; to plunge the sword into the heart of a fellowcreature; to strew the earth with bleeding frames, and to trample them under foot with horses' hoofs. It is to batter down and burn cities; to turn fruitful fields into deserts; to level the cottage of the peasant and the magnificent abode of opulence; to scourge nations with famine; to multiply widows and orphans. Are these honorable deeds? Were you called to name exploits worthy of demons, would you not naturally select such as these? Grant that a necessity for them may exist; it is a dreadful necessity, such as a good man must recoil from with instinctive horror; and though it may exempt them from guilt, it cannot turn them into glory. We have thought that it was honorable to heal, to save, to mitigate pain, to snatch the sick and sinking from the jaws of death. We have placed among the revered benefactors of the human race, the discoverers of arts which alleviate human sufferings, which prolong, comfort, adorn, and cheer human life; and if these arts be honorable, where is the glory of multiplying and aggravating tortures and death?

XIX.-DANGER OF INDIAN HOSTILITIES.

FISHER AMES.

IF any should maintain that the peace with the Indians would be stable without the posts, to them I will urge another reply. From arguments calculated to procure conviction, I will appeal directly to the hearts of those who hear me, and ask, whether it is not already planted there? I resort especially to the convictions of the Western gentlemen, whether, supposing no posts and no treaty, the settlers will remain in security? Can they take it upon them to say, that an Indian peace, under these circumstances, will prove firm? No, sir, it will not be peace, but a sword; it will be no better than a lure to draw victims within the reach of the tomahawk.

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On this theme my emotions are unutterable. If I could find words for them, if my powers bore any proportion to my zeal, I would swell my voice to such a note of remonstrance, it should reach every log house beyond the mountains. would say to the inhabitants, wake from your false security; your cruel dangers, your more cruel apprehensions are soon to be renewed; the wounds, yet unhealed, are to be torn open again; in the day-time your path through the woods will be ambushed; the darkness of midnight will glitter with the blaze of your dwellings. You are a father-the blood of your sons shall fatten your corn-field: you are a motherthe war-whoop shall wake the sleep of the cradle.

On this subject you need not suspect any deception on your feelings; it is a spectacle of horror which cannot be overdrawn. If you have nature in your hearts, they will speak a language, compared with which, all I have said, or can say, will be poor and frigid. Will any one deny that we are bound, and I would hope to good purpose, by the most solemn sanctions of duty for the vote we give? Are despots alone to be reproached for unfeeling indifference to the tears and blood of their subjects? Are republicans irresponsible? Have the principles on which you ground the reproach upon cabinets and kings, no practical influence, no binding force? Are they merely themes of idle declamation, introduced to decorate the morality of a newspaper essay, or to furnish pretty topics of harangue from the windows of that State House? I trust it is neither too presumptuous nor too

late to ask: Can you put the dearest interests of society at risk without guilt, and without remorse? There is no mistake in this case; there can be none: experience has already been the prophet of events, and the cries of our future victims have already reached us. The Western inhabitants are not a silent or uncomplaining sacrifice. The voice of humanity issues from the shade of the wilderness; it exclaims that, while one hand is held up to reject this treaty, the other grasps a tomahawk. It summons our imagination to the scenes that will open. It is no great effort of the imagination to conceive that events so near are already begun. I can fancy that I listen to the yells of savage vengeance, and the shrieks of torture; already they seem to sigh in the Western wind; already they mingle with every echo from the mountains.

XX.-NOMINAL WAR.

JOHN RANDOLPH.

BUT, sir, I shall be told, perhaps, that there is only a nominal war between Spain and those belligerents-that there is nothing else—a war of name; and that Spain is unable any longer to wag a finger, to use a familiar phrase, or anything but her tongue in the contest. If that be the

condition of Spain, by what arguments can king-craft and priest-craft be prevailed on to remove this nominal claim, which will, like some others, keep cold until the chapter of accidents may realize it? Did Philip the Second ever recognize the independence of the Dutch, when that independence was more firmly established than his own? No, sir, Spain is made of sterner stuff. Truce after truce was patched up without any such recognition-and they were the United Provinces, and so remained till France gave them the coup de grace by the true fraternal hug. What, sir, was the con dition of the war between England and France a little while ago--one not having a ship at sea, except a few frigates, which she employed in burning our ships in a friendly way, so as to induce us to join in making a diversion in aid of her crusade against Moscow-from which I hope we shall take warning; for that attempt was not only plausible, but

promised success-was quite practicable, compared to the crusade to which I have alluded--and England had not a man, at the time I speak of, after the battle of Jena, in arms on her side, on the continent of Europe-not one man; and there they stood, a complete non-conductor interposed between ` them, except the United States, who received the blows of both!

But, though that war was for a long time little else but a suspension of arms, from the inability of each to attack on the other's element-was it nominal-was it war like a peace, or even peace like a war, as was said of Amiens? Oh, no-old England had nailed the colors to the mast; she had determined to go down rather than give up the ship; she wisely saw no safety for her in what might be called a peace; and it was a glorious determination; and it is that spirit—it is not thews, muscle-it is not brawn, it is that spirit which gives life to every nation-that spirit which carries a man, however feeble, through conflicts with giants, compared to him in point of strength, honorably, triumphantly. Sir, I consider the late conflict between England and FranceEngland against the congregated continent of Europe-to say nothing of any other make-weights in the scale-confident against a world in arms-as far surpassing in sublimity of example, the tenaciousness of purpose of Rome during the second Punic war, as that surpassed any of our famous Indian wars and expeditions. It is a lesson of the constancy of the human mind, which ought never to be thrown away.

XXI.-THE DIFFICULT STEP.

JOHN RANDOLPH.

SIR, I never could speak or quarrel by the book-by the card, as Touchstone tells us, was the fashion in his day. I have no gift at this special pleading-at the retort courteous and the countercheck quarrelsome, till things get to the point, where nothing is left for it but to back out or fight. We are asked, sir, by this new executive government of ours-not in the very words, but it is a great deal like it— of the son of Climene-to give some token, some proof, that they possess legitimate claims to the confidence of the people