ART. III.-Historical Address delivered before the Philomathean Society of the University of Pennsylvania, November 1st, 1838. By WILLIAM B. REED. Philadelphia: 1838.

THERE is a period in the national history of our country, which has not yet received the full historic attention that is due to it. No event, perhaps, in our civic annals possesses a deeper interest, in consideration of its unending series of consequences, than the commencement of that political system which has obtained the historical designation of "the old Congress." On the fifth day of September, 1774, about fifty citizens, delegates from the several colonies and provinces in North America" met at the Carpenter's Hall in the city of Philadelphia, and that meeting, it may safely be asserted, gave a tone and character to the whole revolutionary struggle. It was the first pulsation of national life. Elementary as the assembly was, it must have revealed a sense of colonial power that left not a spot for the apprehension of ministerial intimidation. Apart from the eloquence which distinguished that session, the traditionary oratory of Patrick Henry, of John Adams, and the Rutledges, and that more permanent in the state papers on the journal, we can well conceive how mighty must have been the silent action on each others spirits of the presence of such men as composed that body. There was the stern enthusiasm of Samuel Adams, the man whom Mr. Galloway afterwards described from his personal observation, as one who "eats little, drinks little, sleeps little, thinks much, and is most indefatigable in the pursuit of his object;" there was the vigorous native good sense of Roger Sherman; there were the refined and accomplished intellects of John Dickinson, of Jay, and Lee, and the Livingstons, and there was the tranquil energy and wisdom of George Washington. It need be no marvel that from the day on which these men, and others such as they, coming together to consult on their country's welfare, looked on each others faces and heard each others words, the movement of the cause, which brought them there, was onward — steady, and leading to results, it had not entered into their hearts to conceive. Strong as was the wisdom which characterized that assembly, and rich as it was in the various elements that make up that imaginative sagacity, which enables a great mind to discover in the distance the rising tops of future events, we cannot imagine that all combined, could have given

a vision mighty enough to picture the sequel of that day's transactions. When the finger of history is placed on the record of them, it may pass on till it traces their consequences in independence. Besides, the meeting on that fifth day of September was the beginning of that political combination which first led to the imperfectly constituted system which has been conveniently entitled "the Revolutionary Government," then ill compacted under the Confederation and at last taking a form and permanence as the "more perfect union," designed and secured by the present Constitution.

When we look back from the present time to the first meeting of the old congress, there is some difficulty in fully appreciating the importance and the character of that event. A careless chronicler might overlook it as an epoch. Neither our own day, nor the high elevation of the union as now constituted, gives the true point of vision. The contemplation of the present, presses too strongly on the mind to allow it at once to estimate truly that period. Our thoughts are pre-occupied with the close political and social affinities that have gradually arisen from our national system—the old colonial landmarks are effaced, and we cannot now-a-days readily believe that it was any mighty affair for some fifty individuals to come together from different sections of the country. To judge of these things aright, we must seek another position. It has been well remarked, that to form a true conception of what history records, and to draw instruction from it, the assistance of imagination is needed. It is an erroneous and narrow minded opinion of the functions of that faculty, to suppose its chief office is to falsify. So far from it, the aim of all bigh efforts of imagination is truth. With regard to its connexion with historical knowledge, in order to form a lively idea of events that transpired earlier than the reach of our experience, their scenes, the characters, the thoughts and feelings of those who participated in them, we must carry ourselves out of our own day, and look on them as they were looked on by those who were contemporary. To the unimaginative student, the page of history is but a meagre record; he gathers from it nothing but lifeless memories it is to him a cold abstraction. The very facts themselves, become to his mind virtually less true, because they are stripped of part of the power of truth; they are faintly and feebly impressed upon the understanding. It is only when history is embraced by imagination, that it becomes a living idea, instinct with the strength and presence of reality; it is only thus, that partial conceptions are ex

panded, and the mind disabused of false impressions it often receives unconsciously. For it is not so much the difference between the use of imagination and the absence of it, as it is between the imagination active, though controlled and guided by reason, and the imagination passive, and abandoned to its own fitfulness and irregularities. The dullest brain that ever plodded along the paths of history is not safe from error, unless that path is illuminated by the combined lights of the understanding and imagination. The most matter of fact intellect of the driest annalist, may find that at the very time he prides himself on restraining every motion of imagination, his fancy has been unwittingly busy. It is thus that unconsciously the past is often invested with the attributes of the present, and the occurrences, the genius of a former age, measured by a standard that was never intended for them. We want imagination therefore to make us sure of the facts to give us the truth, and to make it part of our spirit. Let it not be supposed that we are maintaining that this faculty is not liable to be abused, nor that we have in our thoughts anything like romance or fiction illustrative of history. We speak of the legitimate use of imagination in the department of history proper.

There are few subjects on which the mind is more exposed to the unperceived intrusion of erroneous notions, than the relation during the colonial period between the different communities which now make up the union. The complicated frame work of our system has been for about half a century acquiring strength and solidity, from the imperceptible processes of time; there is a constant concurrence in the national legislature which creates a fellowship between remote sections; there are the million of interchanges arising from an active commercial spiritthe progress of the arts is speeding and facilitating intercourse to an extent never dreamed of- beside all such relations of a political and social character, we are, it is to be hoped, every day realizing more and more the community of our possession in the fame of our ancestry and all that is glorious in our common history. The course of events has been to supply with an increasing abundance the elements that make up a nation's heart. But all this has a tendency to dazzle and confuse our thoughts, when directed to an early period of the formation of the union. We are apt to presume that it was brought about with little difficulty that it was an easy result, and just what might have been anticipated. This, on a little reflection, is perceived to be a serious misapprehension. The formation of the union was a slow

—a laborious and reluctant process. The period of transition from the original state of political severalty to the present political combination, was a space of time not shorter than a century and a half. It began with the first suggestion of that little local coalition, styled the New England Confederacy, in 1637, and came down to the declaration of independence, which completed the union, (for let it be remembered that in transforming the states from their colonial condition, it gave independence to the states in union,) or if a later date be preferred, down to the time when the union was confirmed and made "more perfect" by the adoption of the federal constitution. During this whole period, the processes of combination were at work-silently, imperceptibly seldom thought of, and never fully appreciated. It did not enter into the heart of man to conceive, to what great results every thing was tending. The association of these distinct communities was not the work of political sagacity. According to our apprehensions, the mind of man had but little to do with it-or was at best a very subordinate agent. But is this a suggestion, it may be inquired, designed to disparage the union - a reason for doubting its expediency, and calling in question its value? No: when we intimate that it was not the product of human forethought, and political wisdom and experience that it cannot be traced to any premeditated plan - the idea of any one man, or the concert of any one body of men, we are very far from meaning to imply that it was a work of chance. "A wiser spirit was at work for us ;" and if there is one circumstance which, more than another, should impress deeply upon the heart of every thoughtful citizen of this republic the value of the union, it is this very fact, that it was not by the mind of man alone that it was wrought. The union, in truth, was not made, but it grew. It grew as the tree grows, as the forest grows. Of no political result may it be more emphatically asserted, that God gave the increase. Let any one examine the colonial and revolutionary history of our country with reference to the formation of the union let him observe how conflicting interests were undergoing a reconciliation - how discordant feelings were gradually attuning to a better harmony — how those who were to one another strangers, were becoming familiar friends- how the sentiment of brotherhood was by degrees finding a place in the bosoms of the members of different colonies and let him reflect too, that all this was going on as if it were only incidental to other events, the actors in which were unconscious of their tendencies, and if he is not laboring under

the infidel's malady — that "thick drop serene" which so fearfully clouds the intellectual sight- he will perceive the hand of an over-ruling Providence shaping the rough hewn ends — governing and guiding the current of things towards an unthought of channel.

It is not our purpose to discuss the difficulties that were overcome, in the establishment of a union among the colonies. We wish to advert to the subject only so far as is necessary to place the student of history in the true position to understand the importance of the convocation of the congress of 1774. At the present day, we have become so familiar with the recurrence of conventions, composed of delegates from the several sections of the country, brought together for every variety of purpose - ecclesiastical and political - moral, agricultural, literary, and fanatical — that we are prone to take for granted that it was equally easy for our forefathers to join their heads together in council. It might, we have no doubt, be shown, on the contrary, that the colonies never came together, except when constrained to do so by a sense of common danger. The seeds of the union were few, and sown in no very congenial soil. It would seem as if the chief, if not the only impulse to any concert of action, was the security of their common safety. The presence of a savage foe on the New England frontier, with some additional apprehensions from other neighbors, was the motive of that small eastern confederacy, about the middle of the seventeenth century, to which we have already alluded; and when the danger passed away, the feeble ties which held those few colonies together in an imperfect league, fell away also. When, at another period, a war was anticipated between Great Britain and her colonies, on the one side, and France on the other, the apprehension of it, enforced, too, by suggestions and promptings from the British ministry, produced nothing more than the abortive plan of the Albany congress, in 1754. Again, when danger threatened from a new quarter — royalty grasping more tightly its transatlantic realm-when the hand of the mother country was first rudely laid on the lusty children that had grown up with so little of her fostering care, -the result was only a few weeks' joint deliberation in the Stamp Act congress, at New York. Even at a later period, when the measures of parliament and the ministry had become very much the settled colonial policy of the parent country, the congress of 1774 closed its brief session with a contingent adjournment, that left it doubtful whether the colonies would again be