shall succeed in separating it from that Union by which alone its existence is made sure, it will stand, in the end, by the side of that cradle in which its infancy was rocked; it will stretch forth its arm, with whatever vigor it may still retain, over the friends who gather around it; and it will fall at last, if fall it must, amidst the proudest monuments of its own glory, and on the very spot of its origin!

23. MILITARY SUPREMACY DANGEROUS TO LIBERTY.-Henry Clay.

Recall to your recollection the free nations which have gone before us. Where are they now?

"Gone glimmering through the dream of things that were,
A school-boy's tale, the wonder of an hour."

And how have they lost their liberties? If we could transport ourselves to the ages when Greece and Rome flourished in their greatest prosperity, and, mingling in the throng, should ask a Grecian if he did not fear that some daring military chieftain covered with glory-some Philip or Alexander- would one day overthrow the liberties of his country, the confident and indignant Grecian would exclaim, "No! no! we have nothing to fear from our heroes; our liberties will be eternal." If a Roman citizen had been asked if he did not fear that the conqueror of Gaul might establish a throne upon the ruins of public liberty, he would have instantly repelled the unjust insinuation. Yet Greece fell; Cæsar passed the Rubicon, and the patriotic arm even of Brutus could not preserve the liberties of his devoted country.

We are fighting a great moral battle, for the benefit, not only of our country, but of all mankind. The eyes of the whole world are in fixed attention upon us. One, and the largest portion of it, is gazing with contempt, with jealousy, and with envy; the other portion, with hope, with confidence, and with affection. Every where the black cloud of Legiti

macy is suspended over the world, save only one bright spot, which breaks out from the political hemisphere of the West, to enlighten, and animate, and gladden the human heart. Observe that, by the downfall of liberty here, all mankind are enshrouded in a pall of universal darkness. To you belongs the high privilege of transmitting, unimpaired, to posterity, the fair character and liberty of our country. Do you expect to execute this high trust by trampling or suffer ing to be trampled down, law, justice, the Constitution, and the rights of the people? by exhibiting examples of inhumanity, and cruelty, and ambition? Beware how you give a fatal sanction, in this infant period of our Republic, scarcely yet two-score years old, to military insubordination. Remember that Greece had her Alexander, Rome her Cæsar, England her Cromwell, France her Bonaparte, and that, if we would escape the rock on which they split, we must avoid their errors.

212. Controversial, Interrogative Style: Frequent Upward Inflections (Prodominating Terminal Stress (§ 101), becoming, on very emphatic words of one syllable, Compound (§ 103: a; § 45: b, c).

24. THE EXPUNGING RESOLUTION, 1837.-Henry Clay.

What patriotic purpose is to be accomplished by this expunging resolution? Can you make that not to be which has been? Can you eradicate from mémory and from history the fact that, in March, 1834, a majority of the Senate of the United States pássed the resolution which excites your énmity? Is it your váin and wicked object to arrogate to yourselves that power of annihilating the past which has

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25. ON THE JUDICIARY ACT, 1802.-Gouverneur Morris.

What will be the situation of these States, organized as they now are, if, by the dissolution of our national compact, they are left to themselves? What is the probable result? We shall either be the victims of foreign intrigue, and, split into factions, fall under the domination of a foreign power, or else, after the misery and torment of a civil war, become the subjects of an usurping military despot. What but this compact, what but this specific part of it, can save us from ruin? The judicial power, that fortress of the Constitution, is now to be overturned. With honest Ajax, I would not only throw a shield before it,—I would build around it a wall of brass. But I am too weak to defend the rampart against the host of assailants. I must call to my assistance their good sense, their patriotism and their virtue. Do not, gentlemen, suffer the rage of passion to drive Reason from her seat! If this law be indeed bad, let us join to remedy the defects. Has it been passed in a manner which wounded your pride, or roused your resentment? Have, I conjure you, the magnanimity to pardon that offense! I entreat, I implore you, to sacrifice these angry passions to the interests of the country. Pour out this pride of opinion on the altar of patriotism. Let it be an expiating libation for the weal of America. Do not, for God's sake, do not suffer that pride to plunge us all into the abyss of ruin!

Indeed, indeed, it will be but of little, very little, avail, whether one opinion or the other be right or wrong; it will

heal no wounds, it will pay no debts, it will rebuild no ravaged towns. Do not rely on that popular will which has brought us frail beings into political existence. That opinion. is but a changeable thing. It will soon change. This very measure will change it. You will be deceived. Do not, I beseech you, in a reliance on a foundation so frail, commit the dignity, the harmony, the existence of our nation, to the wild wind! Trust not your treasure to the waves. Throw not your compass and your charts into the ocean. Do not believe that its billows will waft you into port. Indeed, indeed, you will be deceived! Cast not away this only anchor of our safety. I have seen its progress. I know the difficulties through which it was obtained: I stand in the presence of Almighty God, and of the world, and I declare to you that, if you lose this charter, never, no, never will you get another! We are now, perhaps, arrived at the parting point. Here, even here, we stand on the brink of fate Pause pause!— for heaven's sake, pause!

26. AGAINST THE EMBARGO, 1808.-Josiah Quincy.

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I ask, in what page of the Constitution of laying an embargo. Directly given, it is nowhere. Never before did society witness a total prohibition of all intercourse like this, in a commercial nation. But it has been asked in debate, "Will not Massachusetts, the cradle of liberty, submit to such privations?" An embargo liberty was never cradled in Massachusetts. Our liberty was not so much a mountain nymph as a sea nymph. She was free as air. She could swim, or she could run. The ocean was her cradle. Our fathers met her as she came, like the goddess of beauty, from the waves. They caught her as she was sporting on the beach. They courted her while she was spreading her nets upon the rocks. But an embargo liberty, a handcuffed liberty, liberty in fetters, a liberty traversing between