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and moral culture of our youth, and the diffusion of knowledge among our people.

Theirs is the moral dignity of stamping the great features of our national character; and, in the moral worth and intelligence which they give it, to erect a bulwark which shall prove impregnable in that hour of trial, when armies and fleets and fortifications shall be vain. And when those mighty and all-absorbing questions shall be heard, which are even now sending their bold demands into the ear of rulers and lawgivers, which are momentarily pressing forward to a solemn decision in the sight of God and of all nations, and which, when the hour of their decision shall come, will shake this country, the union, the constitution, as with the shaking of an earthquake, it is they who in that fearful hour will gather around the structure of our political organization, and, with uplifted hands, stay the reeling fabric till the storm and the convulsion be overpast. -Samuel Eells.

CXVII. SIR ROBERT WALPOLE AGAINST MR. PITT.

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I WAS unwilling to interrupt the course of this debate while it was carried on, with calmness and decency, by men who do not suffer the ardor of opposition to cloud their reason or transport them to such expressions as the dignity of this assembly does not admit. I have hitherto deferred answering the gentleman who declaimed against the bill with such fluency of rhetoric and such vehemence of ture,-who charged the advocates for the expedients now proposed with having no regard to any interests but their own, and with making laws only to consume paper, and threatened them with the defection of their adherents, and the loss of their influence, upon this new discovery of their folly and ignorance. Nor do I now answer him for any other purpose than to remind him how little the clamors of rage and the petulancy of invective contribute

to the end for which this assembly is called together; how little the discovery of truth is promoted, and the security of the nation established by pompous diction and theatrical emotion. Formidable sounds and furious declamation, confident assertions and lofty periods, may affect the young and inexperienced; and, perhaps, the gentleman may have contracted his habits of oratory by conversing more with those of his own age than with such as have more opportunities of acquiring knowledge, and more successful methods of communicating their sentiments. If the heat of his temper would permit him to attend to those whose age and long acquaintance with business give them an indisputable right to deference and superiority, he would learn, in time, to reason rather than declaim, and to prefer justness of argument, and an accurate knowledge of facts, to sounding epithets and splendid superlatives, which may disturb the imagination for a moment, but leave no lasting impression on the mind. He will learn that to accuse and prove are very different; and that reproaches, unsupported by evidence, affect only the character of him that utters them. Excursions of fancy, and flights of oratory, are, indeed, pardonable in young men, but in no other; and it would surely contribute more, even to the purpose for which some gentlemen appear to speak (that of depreciating the conduct of the administration), to prove the inconveniences and injustice of this bill, than barely to assert them, with whatever magnificence of language, or appearance of zeal, honesty, or compassion.

CXVIII.-REPLY OF MR. PITT.

THE atrocious crime of being a young man, which, with such spirit and decency, the honorable gentleman has charged upon me, I shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny; but content myself with hoping that I may be one

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of those whose follies cease with their youth, and not of that number who are ignorant in spite of experience.

. Whether youth can be imputed to a man as a reproach, I will not assume the province of determining; but, surely, age may become justly contemptible if the opportunities which it brings have passed away without improvement, and vice appears to prevail when the passions have subsided.

The wretch who, after having seen the consequences of a thousand errors, continues still to blunder, and whose age has only added obstinacy to stupidity, is surely the object either of abhorrence or contempt, and deserves not that his gray hairs should secure him from insult. Much more is

he to be abhorred, who, as he has advanced in age, has receded from virtue, and becomes more wicked with less temptation: who prostitutes himself for money which he can not enjoy, and spends the remains of his life in the ruin of his country.

But youth is not my only crime. I am accused of acting a theatrical part. A theatrical part may either imply some peculiarity of gesture, or a dissimulation of my real sentiments, and an adoption of the opinions and language. of another man.

In the first sense the charge is too trifling to be confuted, and deserves only to be mentioned that it may be despised. I am at liberty-like every other man-to use my own language and though, perhaps, I may have some ambition to please this gentleman, I shall not lay myself under any restraint, nor very solicitiously copy his diction or his mien, however matured by age or modeled by experience. But if any man shall, by charging me with theatrical behavior, imply that I utter any sentiments but my own, I shall treat him as a calumniator and a villain: nor shall any protection shelter him from the treatment he deserves. I shall, on such an occasion, without scruple, trample upon all those forms with which wealth and dignity intrench

themselves; nor shall any thing but age restrain my resentment:-age, which always brings one privilege that of being insolent and supercilious without punishment.

But, with regard to those whom I have offended, I am of opinion that if I had acted a borrowed part I should have avoided their censure. The heat that offended them was the ardor of conviction, and that zeal for the service of my country which neither hope, nor fear, shall influence me to suppress. I will not sit unconcerned while my liberty is invaded, nor look in silence upon public robbery. I will exert my endeavors, at whatever hazard, to repel the aggressor and drag the thief to justice,-whoever may protect him in his villainies, and whoever may partake of his plunder.

CXIX. THE MISERIES OF War.

THE stoutest heart in this assembly would recoil were he who owns it to behold the destruction of a single individual. by some deed of violence. Were the man who at this moment stands before you in the full play and energy of health, to be in another moment laid, by some deadly aim, a lifeless corpse at your feet, there is not one of you who would not prove how strong are the relentings of nature at a spectacle so hideous as death.

There are some of you who would be haunted for days and weeks by the image of horror you had witnessed; who would feel the weight of a most oppressive sensation upon your heart which nothing but time could wear away; who would be so pursued by it as to be unfit for business or for enjoyment; who would think of it through the day, and it would spread a gloomy disquietude over your waking moments; who would dream of it at night, and it would turn that bed which you courted as a retreat from the torments of an ever-meddling memory into a scene of restlessness.

Oh tell me, if there be any relentings of pity in your

bosom, how could you endure it, to behold the agonies of the dying man, as, goaded by pain, he grasps the cold ground in convulsive energy; or, faint with the loss of blood, his pulse ebbs low, and the gathering paleness spreads itself over his countenance; or wrapping himself round in despair, he can only mark, by a few feeble quiverings, that life still lurks and lingers in his lacerated body; or, lifting up a faded eye, he casts on you a look of imploring helplessness for that succor which no sympathy can yield him?

It may be painful to dwell thus, in imagination, on the distressing picture of one individual, but multiply it ten thousand times; say how much of this distress has been heaped together on a single field; give us the arithmetic of this accumulated wretchedness, and lay it before us with all the accuracy of an official computation, and, strange to tell, not one sigh is lifted up among the crowd of eager listeners, as they stand on tiptoe, and catch every syllable of utterance which is read to them out of the registers of death.

Oh say, what mystic spell is that which so blinds us to the suffering of our brethren; which deafens to our ear the voice of bleeding humanity when it is aggravated by the shriek of dying thousands, which makes the very magnitude of the slaughter throw a softening disguise over its cruelties and its horrors; which causes us to eye, with indifference, the field that is crowded with the most revolting abominations, and arrests that sigh which each individual would singly have drawn from us by the report of the many who have fallen and breathed their last in agony along with him. -Chalmers.

CXX.-DUTY OF THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR.

GENTLEMEN: Thought, which the scholar represents, is life and liberty. There is no intellectual or moral life without liberty. Therefore, as a man must breathe and see

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