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charmed Calypso and her nymphs, is his; an extensive library spreads its treasures before him; a philosophical apparatus offers to him all the secrets and mysteries of nature: peace, tranquillity, and innocence, shed their mingled delights around him: and to crown the enchantment of the scene, a wife, who is said to be lovely even beyond her sex, and graced with every accomplishment that can render it irresistible, had blessed him with her love, and made him the father of her children. The evidence would convince you, sir, that this is only a faint picture of the real life. In the midst of all this peace, this innocence, and this tranquillity, this feast of the mind, this pure banquet of the heart-the destroyer comes; he comes to turn this paradise into a hell. A stranger presents himself. It is Aaron Burr! Introduced to their civilities by the high rank which he had lately held in his country, he soon finds his way to their hearts by the dignity and elegance of his demeanor, the lightand beauty of his conversation, and the seductive and fascinating power of his address. The conquest was not a difficult

one.

Innocence is ever simple and credulous; conscious of no designs of itself, it suspects none in others; it wears no guards before its breast; every door, and portal, and avenue of the neart is thrown open, and all who choose it enter. Such was the state of Eden, when the serpent entered its bowers. The prisoner in a more engaging form, winding himself into the open and unpractised heart of the unfortunate Blannerhasset, found but little difficulty in changing the native character of that heart and the objects of its affection. By degrees he infuses into it the poison of his own ambition; he breathes into it the fire of his own courage; a daring and desperate thirst for glory; an ardor panting for all the storms, and bustle, and hurricane of life In a short time the whole man is changed, and every object of his former delight relinquished. No more he enjoys the tran quil scene; it has become flat and insipid to his taste; his books are abandoned; his retort and crucible are thrown aside; his shrubbery blooms and breathes its fragrance upon the air in vain; he likes it not; his ear no longer drinks the rich meiody of music; it longs for the trumpet's clangor and the cannon's roar: even the prattle of his babes, once so sweet, no longer affects him; and the angel smile of his wife, which hitherto touched his bosom with ecstacy so unspeakable, is now unseen and unfelt. Greater objects have taken possession of his soul- . his imagination has been dazzled by visions of diadems, and stars and garters, and titles of nobility; he has been taught to burn with restless emulation at the names of Cromwell, Cesar, and Bonaparte. His enchanted island is destined soon to relapso

into a desert; and in a few months we find the tender and beautiful partner of his bosom, whom he lately "permitted not the winds of summer to visit too roughly,"—we find her shivering, at midnight, on the winter banks of the Ohio, and mingling her tears with the torrents that froze as they fell. Yet this unfortunate man, thus deluded from his interest and his happiness— thus seduced from the paths of innocence and peace-thus confounded in the toils which were deliberately spread for him, and overwhelmed by the mastering spirit and genius of another ;this man, thus ruined and undone, and made to play a subordinate part in this grand drama of guilt and treason, this man is to be called the principal offender; while he, by whom he was thus plunged and steeped in misery, is comparatively innocent ―a mere accessary. Sir, neither the human heart, nor the human understanding, will bear a perversion so monstrous and absurd; so shocking to the soul; so revolting to reason.

61. ELOQUENT APPEAL IN BEHALF OF GREECE.

-Clay

Mr. Chairman,―There is reason to apprehend that a tremendous storm is ready to burst upon our happy country-one which may call into action all our vigor, courage, and resources. Is it wise or prudent, then, sir, in preparing to breast the storm, if it must come, to talk to this nation of its incompetency to repel European aggression, to lower its spirit, to weaken its moral energy, and to qualify it for easy conquest and base submission! If there be any reality in the dangers which are supposed to encompass us, should we not animate the people, and adjure them to believe, as I do, that our resources are ample; and that we can bring into the field a million of free- ́ men ready to exhaust their last drop of blood, and to spend their last cent in the defense of the country, its liberty and its institutions? Sir, are we, if united, to be conquered by all Europe combined? No, sir, no united nation that resolves to be free, can be conquered. And has it come to this? Are we so humble, so low, so debased, that we dare not express our sympathy for suffering Greece; that we dare not articulate our detestation of the brutal excesses of which she has been the bleeding victim, lest we might offend one or more of their imperial and royal majesties? Are we so mean, so base, so despicable, that we may not attempt to express our horror, utter our indignation, at the most brutal and atrocious war that ever stained earth or

shocked high heaven; at the ferocious deeds of a savage and infuriated soldiery, stimulated and urged on by the clergy of a fanatical and inimical religion, and rioting in all the excesses of blood and butchery, at the mere details of which the heart sickens and recoils ?

of

But, sir, it is not for Greece alone that I desire to see the measure adopted. It will give her but little support, and that purely of a moral kind. It is principally for America, for the credit and character of our common country, for our own unsullied name, that I hope to see it pass. What appearance, Mr. Chairman, on the page of history, would a record like this exhibit? "In the month of January, in the year of our Lord and Savior 1824, while all European Christendom beheld with cold and unfeeling indifference, the unexampled wrongs and inexpressible misery of Christian Greece, a proposition was made in the congress of the United States, almost the sole, the last, the greatest depository of human hope and freedom, the representatives of a gallant nation, containing a million of freemen ready to fly to arms, while the people of that nation were spontaneously expressing its deep-toned feeling, and the whole continent, by one simultaneous emotion, was rising and solemnly and anxiously supplicating and invoking high heaven to spare and succor Greece, and to invigorate her arms, in her glorious cause, while temples and senate-houses were alike resounding with one burst of generous and holy sympathy,—in the year our Lord and Savior, that Savior of Greece and of us--a proposition was offered in the American congress to send a messenger to Greece, to inquire into her state and condition, with a kind expression of our good wishes and our sympathies—and it was rejected!" Go home, if you can; go home, if you dare, to your constituents, and tell them that you voted it down. Meet, if you can, the appalling countenance of those who sent you here, and tell them that you shrunk from the declaration of your own sentiments:-that you cannot tell how, but that some unknown dread, some indescribable apprehension, some indefinable danger, drove you from your purpose:-that the spectres of scimitars, and crowns, and crescents, gleamed before you, and alarmed you :-and that you suppressed all the noble feel ings prompted by religion, by liberty, by national independence, and by humanity. I cannot, sir, bring myself to believe that such will be the feelings of a majority of this committee. But, for myself, though every friend of the cause should desert it, and I be left to stand alone with the gentleman from Massachusetts, I will give to his resolution the poor sanction of my unqualified approbation.

62. THE CRIMINALITY OF DUELING.-Nott.

Hamilton yielded to the force of an imperious custom. And yielding, he sacrificed a life in which all had an interest-and he is lost-lost to his country-lost to his family-lost to us. For this...... act, because he disclaimed it, and was penitent, I forgive him. But there are those whom I cannot forgive. I mean not his antagonist-over whose erring steps, if there be tears in heaven, a pious mother looks down and weeps. If he be capable of feeling, he suffers already all that humanity can suffer. Suffers, and wherever he may fly will suffer, with the poignant recollection of having taken the life of one who was too magnanimous in return to attempt his own. Had he have known this, it must have paralyzed his arm while he pointed, at so incorruptible a bosom, the instrument of death. Does he know this now, his heart, if it be not adamant, must soften—if it be not ice, it must melt...... But on this article I forbear. Stained with blood as he is, if he be penitent, I forgive him— and if he be not, before these altars, where all of us appear as suppliants, I wish not to excite your vengeance, but rather, in behalf of an object rendered wretched and pitiable by crime, to wake your prayers.

But I have said, and I repeat it, there are those whom I cannot forgive.

I cannot forgive that minister at the altar, who has hitherto forborne to remonstrate on this subject. I cannot forgive that public prosecutor, who, entrusted with the duty of avenging his country's wrongs, has seen these wrongs, and taken no measures to avenge them. I cannot forgive that judge upon the bench, or that governor in the chair of state, who has lightly passed over such offences. I cannot forgive the public in whose opinion the duelist finds a sanctuary. I cannot forgive you, my brethren, who till this late hour have been silent, whilst successive murders were committed. No; I cannot forgive you, that you have not in common with the freemen of this state, raised your voice to the powers that be, and loudly and explicitly demanded an execution of your laws. Demanded this in a manner, which, if it did not reach the ear of government, would at least have reached the heavens, and have pleaded your excuse before the God that filleth them: in whose presence as I stand, I should not feel myself innocent of the blood which crieth against us, had I been silent. But I have not been silent. Many of you who hear me are my witnesses-the walls of yonder temple, where I have heretofore addressed you, are my

witnesses, how freely I have animadverted on this subject, in the presence both of those who have violated the laws, and of those whose indispensable duty it is to see the laws executed on those who violate them.

I enjoy another opportunity; and would to God, I might be permitted to approach for once the last scene of death. Would to God, I could there assemble on the one side the disconsolate mother with her seven fatherless children—and on the other those who administer the justice of my country. Could I do this, I would point them to these sad objects. I would entreat them, by the agonies of bereaved fondness, to listen to the widow's heartfelt groans; to mark the orphan's sighs and tears --and having done this, I would uncover the breathless corpse of Hamilton-I would lift from his gaping wound his bloody mantle-I would hold it up to heaven before them, and I would ask, in the name of God, I would ask, whether at the sight of it they felt no compunction. Ye who have hearts of pity-ye who have experienced the anguish of dissolving friendshipwho have wept, and still weep over the moldering ruins of departed kindred, ye can enter into this reflection.

O thou disconsolate widow! robbed, so cruelly robbed, and in so short a time, both of a husband and a son! what must be the plenitude of thy sufferings ! Could we approach thee, gladly would we drop the tear of sympathy, and pour into thy bleeding bosom the balm of consolation. But how could we comfort her whom God hath not comforted! To his throne, let us lift up our voice and weep. O God! if thou art still the widow's husband, and the father of the fatherless-if, in the fullness of thy goodness, there be yet mercies in store for miserable mortals, pity, O pity this afflicted mother, and grant that her hapless orphans may find a friend, a benefactor, a father in Thee!

63. AGAINST THE INVASION OF CANADA.- -Gaston.

Mr. Chairman,―There is something in the character of a war made upon the people of a country, to force them to abandon a government which they cherish, and to become the subjects or the associates of the invaders, which necessarily involves calamities beyond those incident to ordinary wars.Among us some remain who remember the horrors of the inva sion of the revolution, "and others of us have hung with reverence on the lips of narrative old age, as it related the interesting tale." Such a war is not a contest between those only

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