attach us to that country, powerful, indeed, must be the cause which has overpowered it. Yes, sir, there is a cause strong enough. Not that occult, courtly affection, which he has supposed to be enter5 tained for France; but it is to be found in continued and unprovoked insult and injury,-a cause so manifest, that the gentleman from Virginia had to exert much ingenuity to overlook it. But, sir, here I think the gentleman, in his eager admiration of that country, has not been suffi10 ciently guarded in his argument. Has he reflected on the cause of that admiration? Has he examined the reasons of our high regard for her Chatham? It is his ardent patriotism; the heroic courage of his mind, that could not brook the least insult or injury offered to his country, but 15 thought that her interest and honor ought to be vindicated, at every hazard and expense. I hope, when we are called on to admire, we shall also be asked to imitate. I hope the gentleman does not wish a monopoly of those great virtues to remain to that nation. 20 66 The balance of power" has also been introduced as an argument for submission. England is said to be a barrier against the military despotism of France. There is, sir, one great error in our legislation. We are ready enough to protect the interests of the States, and it should seem, 25 from this argument, to watch over those of a foreign nation, while we grossly neglect our own immediate concerns. This argument of the balance of power, is well calculated for the British parliament, but not at all fitted to the American congress. Tell them, that they have to 30 contend with a mighty power, and that, if they persist in insult and injury to the American people, they will compel them to throw the whole weight of their force into the scale of their enemy. Paint the danger to them; and if they will desist from injury, we, I answer for it, will not 35 disturb the balance. But it is absurd for us to talk of the balance of power, while they, by their conduct, smile with contempt at our simple, good-natured policy. If, however, in the contest, it should be found, that they underrate us, which I hope and believe, and that we can effect the bal40 ance of power, it will not be difficult for us to obtain such terms as our rights demand. I, sir, will now conclude, by adverting to an argument of the gentleman from Virginia, used in debate on a preceding day. He asked, "Why not declare war immediate ly?" The answer is obvious; because we are not yet prepared. But, says the gentleman, "such language as is here held will provoke Great Britain to commence hostilities." I have no such fears. She knows well, that such 5 a course would unite all parties here; a thing, which, above all others, she most dreads. Besides, such has been our past conduct, that she will still calculate on our patience and submission, till war is actually commenced. LESSON CLXXXVII.-APPEAL FOR IRELAND.-HENRY CLAY. [From an Address at a Public Meeting in New Orleans, February 4th, 1847.] Mr. President-If we were to hear that large numbers of the inhabitants of Asia, or Africa, or Australia, or the remotest part of the globe, were daily dying with hunger and famine-no matter what their color, what their reli5 gion, or what their civilization-we should deeply lament their condition, and be irresistibly prompted to mitigate, if possible, their sufferings. But it is not the distresses of any such distant regions that have summoned us together on this occasion. The 10 appalling and heart-rending distresses of Ireland and Irishmen form the object of our present consultation. That Ireland, which has been, in all the vicissitudes of our national existence, our friend, and has ever extended to us her warmest sympathy-those Irishmen, who, in 15 every war in which we have been engaged, on every battle field, from Quebec to Monterey, have stood by us, shoulder to shoulder, and shared in all the perils and fortunes of the conflict. The imploring appeal comes to us from the Irish nation. 20 which is so identified with our own, as to be almost part and parcel of ours, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. Nor is it any ordinary case of human misery, or a few isolated cases of death by starvation, that we are called upon to consider. Famine is stalking abroad throughout 25 Ireland; whole towns, counties-countless human beings, of every age, and of both sexes-at this very moment are starving, or in danger of starving to death. Behold the wretched Irish mother-with haggard looks and streaming eyes-her famished children clinging to her 30 tattered garments, and gazing piteously in her face begging for food! And see the distracted husband and father, with pallid cheeks, standing by, horror and despair depicted in his countenance-tortured with the reflection that he can afford no succor or relief to the dearest objects of his heart, 5 about to be snatched forever from him by the most cruel of all deaths. In This is no fancy picture; but, if we are to credit the terrible accounts which reach us from that theatre of misery and wretchedness, is one of daily occurrence. 10 deed, no imagination can conceive-no tongue expressno pencil paint-the horrors of the scenes which are there daily exhibited. Shall starving Ireland plead in vain ?-shall the young and the old-dying women and children, stretch out their 15 hands to us for bread, and find no relief? Will not this great city, the world's store-house of an exhaustless supply of all kinds of food, borne to its overflowing warehouses by the Father of Waters, act, on this occasion, in a manner worthy of its high destiny, and obey the noble impulses of 20 the generous hearts of its blessed inhabitants? LESSON CLXXXVIII.-LOSS OF NATIONAL CHARACTER.-MAXCY. The loss of a firm national character, or the degradation of a nation's honor, is the inevitable prelude to her destruction. Behold the once proud fabric of a Roman empire,an empire carrying its arts and arms, into every part of 5 the eastern continent; the monarchs of mighty kingdoms, dragged at the wheels of her triumphal chariots; her eagle waving over the ruins of desolated countries. Where is her splendor, her wealth, her power, her glory? Extinguished for ever. Her mouldering temples, the mournful 10 vestiges of her former grandeur, afford a shelter to her muttering monks. Where are her statesmen, her sages, her philosophers, her orators, her generals? Go to their solitary tombs, and inquire. She lost her national character, and her destruction followed. The ramparts of her 15 national pride were broken down, and Vandalism desolated her classic fields. Citizens will lose their respect and confidence in our government, if it does not extend over them the shield of an honorable national character. Corruption will creep in, 20 and sharpen party animosity. Ambitious leaders will seize upon the favorable moment. The mad enthusiasm for 5 revolution, will call into action the irritated spirit of our nation, and civil war must follow. The swords of our countrymen may yet glitter on our mountains; their blood may yet crimson our plains. Such, the warning voice of all antiquity, the example of all republics proclaim, may be our fate. But let us no longer indulge these gloomy anticipations. The commencement of our liberty, presages the dawn of a brighter period, to the world. That bold, enterprising spirit which 10 conducted our heroes to peace and safety, and gave us a lofty rank amid the empires of the world, still animates the bosoms of their descendants. Look back to that moment, when they unbarred the dungeons of the slave, and dashed his fetters to the earth; when the sword of a 15 Washington leaped from its scabbard, to revenge the slaughter of our countrymen. Place their example before you. Let the sparks of their veteran wisdom flash across your minds, and the sacred altars of your liberty, crowned with immortal honors, rise before you. Relying on the 20 virtue, the courage, the patriotism, and the strength of our country, we may expect our national character will become more energetic, our citizens more enlightened, and may hail the age, as not far distant, when will be heard, as the proudest exclamation of man: "I am an American." LESSON CLXXXIX.-LAFAYETTE AND NAPOLEON.- Of all the ancient nobility, who returned to France, Lafayette and the young Count de Vaudreuil, were the only individuals who refused the favors which Napoleon was eager to accord to them. Of all to whom the cross 5 of the legion of honor was tendered, Lafayette alone had the courage to decline it. Napoleon, either for want of true perception of moral greatness, or because the detestable servility of the mass of returning emigrants had taught him to think there was no such thing as honor or inde10 pendence in man, exclaimed, when they told him that Lafayette refused the decoration, "What, will nothing satisfy that man but the chief command of the National Guard of the empire ?"-Yes, much less abundantly satisfied him; the quiet possession of the poor remnants of 15 his estate, enjoyed without sacrificing his principles. From this life nothing could draw him. Mr. Jefferson offered him the place of governor of Louisiana, then just become a territory of the United States; but he was unwil ling, by leaving France, to take a step that would look like a final abandonment of the cause of constitutional liberty, 5 on the continent of Europe. Napoleon ceased to importune him; and he lived at Lagrange, retired and unmolested, the only man who had gone through the terrible revolution, with a character free from every just impeachment. He entered it with a princely fortune,-in the 10 various high offices which he had filled he had declined all compensation, and he came out poor. He entered it in the meridian of early manhood, with a frame of iron. He came out of it fifty years of age, his strength impaired by the cruelties of his long imprisonment. He had filled 15 the most powerful and responsible offices; and others still more powerful,-the dictatorship itself,-had been offered him; he was reduced to obscurity and private life. He entered the revolution with a host of ardent colleagues of the constitutional party. Of those who escaped the guil20 lotine, most had made peace with Napoleon; not a few of the Jacobins had taken his splendid bribes; the emigrating nobility came back in crowds, and put on his livery; fear, interest, weariness, amazement, and apathy reigned in France and in Europe;-kings, emperors, armies, nations, 25 bowed at his footstool;-and one man alone, a private man, who had tasted power, and knew what he sacrificed; -who had inhabited dungeons, and knew what he risked; —who had done enough for liberty, in both worlds, to satisfy the utmost requisitions of her friends, this man alone 30 stood aloof in his honor, his independence, and his poverty. And if there is a man in this assembly, that would not rather have been Lafayette to refuse, than Napoleon to bestow his wretched gewgaws; that would not rather have been Lafayette in retirement and obscurity, and just not 35 proscribed, than Napoleon, with an emperor to hold his stirrup; if there is a man who would not have preferred the honest poverty of Lagrange to the bloody tinsel of St. Cloud;-that would not rather have shared the peaceful fireside of the friend of Washington, than have spurred his 40 triumphant courser over the crushed and blackened heaps of slain, through the fire and carnage of Marengo and Austerlitz, that man has not an American heart in his bosom. |