Chapter IV: Section 24: "And I can see no reason why a person, who, without (1)

provocation, is assaulted by another, in any place whatsoever, in such a manner as plainly shows an intent to murder him, as by discharging a pistol, or pushing at him with a drawn sword, etc., may not justify killing such an assailant, as much as if he had attempted to rob him. For is not he who attempts to murder me more injurious than he who barely attempts to rob me? And can it be more justifiable to fight for my goods than for my life?"

And it is not only highly agreeable to reason that a man in such circumstances may lawfully kill another, but it seems also to be confirmed by the general tenor of our books, which, speaking of homicide _se_ _defendo_, suppose it done in some quarrel or affray.

(Hawkins, p. 71. section 14); "And so, perhaps, the killing of dangerous rioters may be justified by any private persons, who cannot otherwise suppress them or defend themselves from them, inasmuch as every private person seems to be authorized by the law to arm himself for the purposes aforesaid."

Here every private person is authorized to arm himself; and on the strength of this authority I do not deny the inhabitants had a right to arm themselves at that time for their defense, not for offense. That distinction is material, and must be attended to.

(Hawkins, p. 75, section 14): "And not only he who on an assault retreats to the wall, or some such strait, beyond which he can go no further before he kills the other, is judged by the law to act upon unavoidable necessity; but also he who being assaulted in such a manner and in such a place that he cannot go back without manifestly endangering his life, kills the other without retreating at all."

(Section 16); "And an officer who kills one that insults him in the execution of his office, and where a private person that kills one who feloniously assaults him in the highway, may justify the fact without ever giving back at all."

There is no occasion for the magistrate to read the riot act. In the case before you, I suppose you will be satisfied when you come to examine the witnesses and compare it with the rules of the common law, abstracted from all mutiny acts and articles of war, that these soldiers were in such a situation that they could not help themselves. People were coming from Royal Exchange Lane, and other parts of the town, with clubs and cord-wood sticks; the soldiers were planted by the wail of the Customhouse; they could not retreat; they were surrounded on all sides, for there were people behind them as well as before them; there were a number of people in the Royal Exchange Lane; the soldiers were so near to the Customhouse that they could not retreat, unless they had gone into the brick wall of it. I shall show you presently that all the party concerned in this unlawful design were guilty of what any one of them did; if anybody threw a snowball it was the act of the whole party; if any struck with a club or threw a club, and the club had killed anybody, the whole party would have been guilty of murder in the law. Lord Chief-Justice Holt, in Mawgrige's case (Keyling, 128), says:--

"Now, it has been held, that if A of his malice prepense assaults B to kill him, and B draws his sword and attacks A and pursues him, then A, for his safety, gives back and retreats to a wall, and B still pursuing him with his drawn sword, A in his defense kills B; this is murder in A. For A having malice against B, and in pursuance thereof endeavoring to kill him, is answerable for all the consequences of which he was the original cause. It is not reasonable for any man that is dangerously assaulted, and when he perceives his life in danger from his adversary, but to have liberty for the security of his own life, to pursue him that maliciously assaulted him; for he that has manifested that he has malice against another is not at to be trusted with a dangerous weapon in his hand. And so resolved by all the judges when they met at Seargeant's Inn, in preparation for my Lord Morley's trial."

In the case here we will take Montgomery, if you please, when he was attacked by the stout man with a stick, who aimed it at his head, with a number of people round him crying out, "Kill them, kill them." Had he not a right to kill the man? If all the party were guilty of the assault made by the stout man, and all of them had discovered malice in their hearts, had not Montgomery a right, according to Lord Chief-Justice Holt, to put it out of their power to wreak their malice upon him? I will not at present look for any more authorities in the point of self-defense; you will be able to judge from these how far the law goes in justifying or excusing any person in defense of himself, or taking away the life of another who threatens him in life or limb. The next point is this: that in case of an unlawful assembly, all and every one of the assembly is guilty of all and every unlawful act committed by any one of that assembly in prosecution of the unlawful design set out upon.

Rules of law should be universally known, whatever effect they may have on politics; they are rules of common law, the law of the land; and it is certainly true, that wherever there is an unlawful assembly, let it consist of many persons or of a few, every man in it is guilty of every unlawful act committed by any one of the whole party, be they more or be they less, in pursuance of their unlawful design. This is the policy of the law; to discourage and prevent riots, insurrections, turbulence, and tumults.

In the continual vicissitudes of human things, amidst the shocks of fortune and the whirls of passion that take place at certain critical seasons, even in the mildest government, the people are liable to run into riots and tumults. There are Church-quakes and State-quakes in the moral and political world, as well as earthquakes, storms, and tempests in the physical. Thus much, however, must be said in favor of the people and of human nature, that it is a general, if not a universal truth, that the aptitude of the people to mutinies, seditions, tumults, and insurrections, is in direct proportion to the despotism of the government. In governments completely despotic,--that is, where the will of one man is the only law, this disposition is most prevalent. In aristocracies next; in mixed monarchies, less than either of the former; in complete republics the least of all, and under the same form of governments as in a limited monarchy, for example, the virtue and wisdom of the administrations may generally be measured by the peace and order that are seen among the people. However this may be, such is the imperfection of all things in this world, that no form of government, and perhaps no virtue or wisdom in the administration, can at all times avoid riots and disorders among the people.

Now, it is from this difficulty that the policy of the law has framed such strong discouragements to secure the people against tumults; because, when they once begin, there is danger of their running to such excesses as will overturn the whole system of government. There is the rule from the reverend sage of the law, so often quoted before:--

(1 H. H. P. C. 437): "All present, aiding and assisting, are equally principal with him that gave the stroke whereof the party died. For though one gave the stroke, yet in interpretation of law it is the stroke of every person that was present, aiding and assisting."

(1 H. H. P. C. 440): "If divers come with one assent to do mischief, as to kill, to rob or beat, and one doeth it, they are all principals in the felony. If many be present and one only give the stroke whereof the party dies, they are all principal, if they came for that purpose."

Now, if the party at Dock Square came with an intention only to beat the soldiers, and began to affray with them, and any of them had been accidentally killed, it would have been murder, because it was an unlawful design they came upon. If but one does it they are all considered in the eye of the law guilty; if any one gives the mortal stroke, they are all principals here, therefore there is a reversal of the scene. If you are satisfied that these soldiers were there on a lawful design, and it should be proved any of them shot without provocation, and killed anybody, he only is answerable for it.

(First Kale's Pleas of the Crown, 1 H. H. P. C. 444): "Although if many come upon an unlawful design, and one of the company till one of the adverse party in pursuance of that design, all are principals; yet if many be together upon a lawful account, and one of the company kill another of the adverse party, without any particular abetment of the rest to this fact of homicide, they are not all guilty that are of the company, but only those that gave the stroke or actually abetted him to do it."

(1 H. H. P. C. 445): "In case of a riotous assembly to rob or steal deer, or to do any unlawful act of violence, there the offense of one is the offense of all the company."

(In another place, 1 H. H. P. C. 439): "The Lord Dacre and divers others went to steal deer in the park of one Pellham. Raydon, one of the company, killed the keeper in the park, the Lord Dacre and the rest of the company being in the other part of the park. Yet it was adjudged murder in them all, and they died for it." (And he quotes Crompton 25, Dalton 93. p. 241.) "So that in so strong a case as this, where this nobleman set out to hunt deer in the ground of another, he was in one part of the park and his company in another part, yet they were all guilty of murder."

The next is:--

(Kale's Pleas of the Crown, 1 H. H. P. C. 440): "The case of Drayton Bassit; divers persons doing an unlawful act, all are guilty of what is done by one."

(Foster 353, 354): "A general resolution against all opposers, whether such resolution appears upon evidence to have been actually and implicitly entered into by the confederates, or may reasonably be collected from their number, arms or behavior, at or before the scene of action, such resolutions so proved have always been considered as strong ingredients in cases of this kind. And in cases of homicide committed in consequence of them, every person present, in the sense of the law, when the homicide has been involved in the guilt of him that gave the mortal blow."

(Foster): "The cases of Lord Dacre, mentioned by Hale, and of Pudsey, reported by Crompton and cited by Hale, turned upon this point. The offenses they respectively stood charged with, as principals, were committed far out of their sight and hearing, and yet both were held to be present. It was sufficient that at the instant the facts were committed, they were of the same party and upon the same pursuit, and under the same engagements and expectations of mutual defense and support with those that did the facts."

Thus far I have proceeded, and I believe it will not be hereafter disputed by anybody, that this law ought to be known to every one who has any disposition to be concerned in an unlawful assembly, whatever mischief happens in the prosecution of the design they set out upon, all are answerable for it. It is necessary we should consider the definitions of some other crimes as well as murder; sometimes one crime gives occasion to another. An assault is sometimes the occasion of manslaughter, sometimes of excusable homicide. It is necessary to consider what is a riot, (1 Hawkins, ch. 65, section 2): I shall give you the definition of it:--

"Wheresoever more than three persons use force or violence, for the accomplishment of any design whatever, all concerned are rioters."

Were there not more than three persons in Dock Square? Did they not agree to go to King Street, and attack the main guard? Where, then, is the reason for hesitation at calling it a riot? If we cannot speak the law as it is, where is our liberty? And this is law, that wherever more than three persons are gathered together to accomplish anything with force, it is a riot.

(1 Hawkins, ch. 65, section 2): "Wherever more than three persons use force and violence, all who are concerned therein are rioters. But in some cases wherein the law authorizes force, it is lawful and commendable to use it. As for a sheriff [2 And. 67 Poph. 121], or constable [3 H. 7, 10, 6], or perhaps even for a private person [Poph. 121, Moore 656], to assemble a competent number of people, in order with force to oppose rebels or enemies or rioters, and afterwards, with such force actually to suppress them."

I do not mean to apply the word rebel on this occasion; I have no reason to suppose that ever there was one in Boston, at least among the natives of the country; but rioters are in the same situation, as far as my argument is concerned, and proper officers may suppress rioters, and so may even private persons.

If we strip ourselves free from all military laws, mutiny acts, articles of war and soldiers' oaths, and consider these prisoners as neighbors, if any of their neighbors were attacked in King Street, they had a right to collect together to suppress this riot and combination. If any number of persons meet together at a fair or market, and happen to fall together by the ears, they are not guilty of a riot, but of a sudden affray. Here is another paragraph, which I must read to you:--

(1 Hawkins, ch. 65, section 3): "If a number of persons being met together at a fair or market, or on any other lawful or innocent occasion, happen, on a sudden quarrel, to fall together by the ears, they are not guilty of a riot, but of a sudden affray only, of which none are guilty but those who actually began it," etc.

It would be endless, as well as superfluous, to examine whether every particular person engaged in a riot were in truth one of the first assembly or actually had a previous knowledge of the design thereof. I have endeavored to produce the best authorities, and to give you the rules of law in their words, for I desire not to advance anything of my own. I choose to lay down the rules of law from authorities which cannot be disputed. Another point is this, whether and how far a private person may aid another in distress? Suppose a press-gang should come on shore in this town and assault any sailor or householder in King Street, in order to carry him on board one of his Majesty's ships, and impress him without any warrant as a seaman in his Majesty's service; how far do you suppose the inhabitants would think themselves warranted by law to interpose against that lawless press-gang? I agree that such a press-gang would be as unlawful an assembly as that was in King Street. If they were to press an inhabitant and carry him off for a sailor, would not the inhabitants think themselves warranted by law to interpose in behalf of their fellow-citizen? Now, gentlemen, if the soldiers had no right to interpose in the relief of the sentry, the inhabitants would have no right to interpose with regard to the citizen, for whatever is law for a soldier is law for a sailor and for a citizen. They all stand upon an equal footing in this respect. I believe we shall not have it disputed that it would be lawful to go into King Street and help an honest man there against the press-master. We have many instances in the books which authorize it.

Now, suppose you should have a jealousy in your minds that the people who made this attack upon the sentry had nothing in their intention more than to take him off his post, and that was threatened by some. Suppose they intended to go a little further, and tar and feather him, or to ride him (as the phrase is in Hudibras), he would have had a good right to have stood upon his defense--the defense of his liberty; and if he could not preserve that without the hazard of his own life, he would have been warranted in depriving those of life who were endeavoring to deprive him of his. That is a point I would not give up for my right hand--nay, for my life.

Well, I say, if the people did this, or if this was only their intention, surely the officers and soldiers had a right to go to his relief; and therefore they set out upon a lawful errand. They were, therefore, a lawful assembly, if we only consider them as private subjects and fellow-citizens, without regard to mutiny acts, articles of war, or soldiers' oaths. A private person, or any number of private persons, has a right to go to the assistance of a fellow-subject in distress or danger of his life, when assaulted and in danger from a few or a multitude.

(Keyl. 136): "If a man perceives another by force to be injuriously treated, pressed, and restrained of his liberty, though the person abused doth not complain or call for aid or assistance, and others, out of compassion, shall come to his rescue, and kill any of those that shall so restrain him, that is manslaughter."

Keyl.: "A and others without any warrant impress B to serve the king at sea. B quietly submitted, and went off with the pressmaster. Hugett and the others pursued them, and required a sight of their warrant; but they showing a piece of paper that was not a sufficient warrant, thereupon Hugett with the others drew their swords, and the pressmasters theirs, and so there was a combat, and those who endeavored to rescue the pressed man killed one of the pretended pressmasters. This was but manslaughter; for when the liberty of one subject is invaded, it affects all the rest. It is a provocation to all people, as being of ill example and pernicious consequences."

Lord Raymond, 1301. The Queen _versus_ Tooley _et_ _al_. Lord Chief-Justice Holt says: "The prisoner (i.e. Tooley) in this had sufficient provocation; for if one be impressed upon an unlawful authority, it is a sufficient provocation to all people out of compassion; and where the liberty of the subject is invaded, it is a provocation to all the subjects of England, etc.; and surely a man ought to be concerned for Magna Charta and the laws: and if any one, against the law, imprisons a man, he is an offender against Magna Charta."

I am not insensible to Sir Michael Foster's observations on these cases, but apprehend they do not invalidate the authority of them as far as I now apply them to the purposes of my argument. If a stranger, a mere fellow-subject, may interpose to defend the liberty, he may, too, defend the life of another individual. But, according to the evidence, some imprudent people, before the sentry, proposed to take him off his post; others threatened his life; and intelligence of this was carried to the main guard before any of the prisoners turned out. They were then ordered out to relieve the sentry; and any of our fellow-citizens might lawfully have gone upon the same errand. They were, therefore, a lawful assembly.

I have but one point of law more to consider, and that is this: In the case before you I do not pretend to prove that every one of the unhappy persons slain was concerned in the riot. The authorities read to you just now say it would be endless to prove whether every person that was present and in a riot was concerned in planning the first enterprise or not. Nay, I believe it but justice to say some were perfectly innocent of the occasion. I have reason to suppose that one of them was--Mr. Maverick. He was a very worthy young man, as he has been represented to me, and had no concern in the rioters' proceedings of that night; and I believe the same may be said in favor of one more at least, Mr. Caldwell, who was slain; and, therefore, many people may think that as he and perhaps another was innocent, therefore innocent blood having been shed, that must be expiated by the death of somebody or other. I take notice of this, because one gentleman was nominated by the sheriff for a juryman upon this trial, because he had said he believed Captain Preston was innocent, but innocent blood had been shed, and therefore somebody ought to be hanged for it, which he thought was indirectly giving his opinion in this cause. I am afraid many other persons have formed such an opinion. I do not take it to be a rule, that where innocent blood is shed the person must die. In the instance of the Frenchmen on the Plains of Abraham, they were innocent, fighting for their king and country; their blood is as innocent as any. There may be multitudes killed, when innocent blood is shed on all sides; so that it is not an invariable rule. I will put a case in which, I dare say, all will agree with me. Here are two persons, the father and the son, go out a-hunting. They take different roads. The father hears a rushing among the bushes, takes it to be game, fires, and kills his son, through a mistake. Here is innocent blood shed, but yet nobody will say the father ought to die for it. So that the general rule of law is, that whenever one person has a right to do an act, and that act, by any accident takes away the life of another, it is excusable. It bears the same regard to the innocent as to the guilty. If two men are together, and attack me, and I have a right to kill them, I strike at them, and by mistake strike a third and kill him, as I had a right to kill the first, my killing the other will be excusable, as it happened by accident. If I, in the heat of passion, aim a blow at the person who has assaulted me, and aiming at him I kill another person, it is but manslaughter.

(Foster. 261. section 3): "If an action unlawful in itself is done deliberately, and with intention of mischief, or great bodily harm to particulars, or of mischief indiscriminately, fall it where it may, and death ensues, against or beside the original intention of the party, it will be murder. But if such mischievous intention doth not appear, which is matter of fact, and to be collected from circumstances, and the act was done heedlessly and inconsiderately, it will be manslaughter, not accidental death; because the act upon which death ensued was unlawful."

Suppose, in this case, the mulatto man was the person who made the assault; suppose he was concerned in the unlawful assembly, and this party of soldiers, endeavoring to defend themselves against him, happened to kill another person, who was innocent--though the soldiers had no reason, that we know of, to think any person there, at least of that number who were crowding about them, innocent; they might, naturally enough, presume all to be guilty of the riot and assault, and to come with the same design--I say, if on firing on those who were guilty, they accidentally killed an innocent person, it was not their fault. They were obliged to defend themselves against those who were pressing upon them. They are not answerable for it with their lives; for on supposition it was justifiable or excusable to kill Attucks, or any other person, it will be equally justifiable or excusable if in firing at him they killed another, who was innocent; or if the provocation was such as to mitigate the guilt of manslaughter, it will equally mitigate the guilt, if they killed an innocent man undesignedly, in aiming at him who gave the provocation, according to Judge Foster; and as this point is of such consequence, I must produce some more authorities for it:

(1 Hawkins. 84): "Also, if a third person accidentally happen to be killed by one engaged in a combat, upon a sudden quarrel, it seems that he who killed him is guilty of manslaughter only," etc. (H. H P. C. 442, to the same point; and 1 H. H. P. C. 484. and 4 Black, 27.)

I shall now consider one question more, and that is concerning provocation. We have hitherto been considering self-defense, and how far persons may go in defending themselves against aggressors, even by taking away their lives, and now proceed to consider such provocations as the law allows to mitigate or extenuate the guilt of killing, where it is not justifiable or excusable. An assault and battery committed upon a man in such a manner as not to endanger his life is such a provocation as the law allows to reduce killing down to the crime of manslaughter. Now, the law has been made on more considerations than we are capable of making at present; the law considers a man as capable of bearing anything and everything but blows. I may reproach a man as much as I please; I may call him a thief, robber, traitor, scoundrel, coward, lobster, bloody-back, etc., and if he kill me it will be murder, if nothing else but words precede; but if from giving him such kind of language I proceed to take him by the nose, or fillip him on the forehead, that is an assault; that is a blow. The law will not oblige a man to stand still and bear it; there is the distinction. Hands off; touch me not. As soon as you touch me, if I run you through the heart, it is but manslaughter. The utility of this distinction, the more you think of it the more you will be satisfied with it. It is an assault whenever a blow is struck, let it be ever so slight, and sometimes even without a blow. The law considers man as frail and passionate. When his passions are touched, he will be thrown off his guard, and therefore the law makes allowance for this frailty --considers him as in a fit of passion, not having the possession of his intellectual faculties, and therefore does not oblige him to measure out his blows with a yard-stick, or weigh them in a scale. Let him kill with a sword, gun, or hedge-stake, it is not murder, but only manslaughter.

(Keyling's Report, 135. Regina _versus_ Mawgrige.) "Rules supported by authority and general consent, showing what are always allowed to be sufficient provocations. First, if one man upon any words shall make an assault upon another, either by pulling him by the nose or filliping him on the forehead, and he that is so assaulted shall draw his sword and immediately run the other through, that is but manslaughter, for the peace is broken by the person killed and with an indignity to him that received the assault. Besides, he that was so affronted might reasonably apprehend that he that treated him in that manner might have some further design upon him."

So that here is the boundary, when a man is assaulted and kills in consequence of that assault, it is but manslaughter. I will just read as I go along the definition of assault:--

(1 Hawkins. ch. 62, section 1): "An assault is an attempt or offer, with force or violence, to do a corporal hurt to another, as by striking at him with or without a weapon, or presenting a gun at him at such a distance to which the gun will carry, or pointing a pitchfork at him, or by any other such like act done in angry, threatening manner, etc.; but no words can amount to an assault,"

Here is the definition of an assault, which is a sufficient provocation to soften killing down to manslaughter:--

(1 Hawkins, ch. 31, section 36): "Neither can he be thought guilty of a greater crime than manslaughter, who, finding a man in bed with his wife, or being actually struck by him, or pulled by the nose or filliped upon the forehead, immediately kills him, or in the defense of his person from an unlawful arrest, or in the defense of his house from those who, claiming a title to it, attempt forcibly to enter it, and to that purpose shoot at it," etc.

Every snowball, oyster shell, cake of ice, or bit of cinder, that was thrown that night at the sentinel, was an assault upon him; every one that was thrown at the party of soldiers was an assault upon them, whether it hit any of them or not. I am guilty of an assault if I present a gun at any person; and if I insult him in that manner and he shoots me, it is but manslaughter.

(Foster. 295, 396): "To what I have offered with regard to sudden rencounters let me add, that the blood already too much heated, kindleth afresh at every pass or blow. And in the tumult of the passions, in which the mere instinct of self-preservation has no inconsiderable share, the voice of reason is not heard; and therefore the law, in condescension to the infirmities of flesh and blood, doth extenuate the offense."

Insolent, scurrilous, or slanderous language, when it precedes an assault, aggravates it.

(Foster, 316): "We all know that words of reproach, how grating and offensive soever, are in the eye of the law no provocation in the case of voluntary homicide: and yet every man who hath considered the human frame, or but attended to the workings of his own heart knoweth that affronts of that kind pierce deeper and stimulate in the veins more effectually than a slight injury done to a third person, though under the color of justice, possibly can."

I produce this to show the assault in this case was aggravated by the scurrilous language which preceded it. Such words of reproach stimulate in the veins and exasperate the mind, and no doubt if an assault and battery succeeds them, killing under such provocation is softened to manslaughter, but killing without such provocation makes it murder.

End of the first day's speech

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS (1767-1848)

No other American President, not even Thomas Jefferson, has equaled John Quincy Adams in literary accomplishments. His orations and public speeches will be found to stand for a tradition of painstaking, scholastic finish hardly to be found elsewhere in American orations, and certainly not among the speeches of any other President. As a result of the pains he took with them, they belong rather to literature than to politics, and it is possible that they will not be generally appreciated at their real worth for several generations still to come. If, as is sometimes alleged in such cases, they gain in literary finish at the expense of force, it is not to be forgotten that the forcible speech which, ignoring all rules, carries its point by assault, may buy immediate effect at the expense of permanent respectability. And if John Quincy Adams, who labored as Cicero did to give his addresses the greatest possible literary finish, does not rank with Cicero among orators, it is certain that respectability will always be willingly conceded him by every generation of his countrymen.

Some idea of the extent of his early studies may be gained from his father's letter to Benjamin Waterhouse, written from Auteuil, France, in 1785. John Quincy Adams being then only in his eighteenth year, the elder Adams said of him:--

"If you were to examine him in English and French poetry, I know not where you would find anybody his superior; in Roman and English history few persons of his age. It is rare to find a youth possessed of such knowledge. He has translated Virgil's 'Aeneid,' 'Suetonius,' the whole of 'Sallust'; 'Tacitus,' 'Agricola'; his 'Germany' and several other books of his 'Annals,' a great part of Horace, some of Ovid, and some of Caesar's 'Commentaries,' in writing, besides a number of Tully's orations. ... In Greek his progress has not been equal, yet he has studied morsels in Aristotle's 'Poetics,' in Plutarch's 'Lives,' and Lucian's 'Dialogues,' 'The Choice of Hercules,' in Xenophon, and lately he has gone through several books of Homer's 'Iliad.'"

The elder Adams concludes the list of his son's accomplishments with a catalogue of his labors in mathematics hardly inferior in length to that cited in the classics. Even if it were true, as has been urged by the political opponents of the Adams family, that no one of its members has ever shown more than respectable natural talent, it would add overwhelming weight to the argument in favor of the laborious habits of study which have characterized them to the third and fourth generations, and, from the time of John Adams until our own, have made them men of mark and far-reaching national influence.

In national politics, John Quincy Adams, the last of the line of colonial gentlemen who achieved the presidency, stood for education, for rigid ideas of moral duty, for dignity, for patriotism, for all the virtues which are best cultivated through processes of segregation. He ended an epoch in which it was possible for a man who, as he did, wrote 'Poems on Religion and Society' and paraphrased the Psalms into English verse to be elected President. It has hardly been possible since his day.

Chosen as a Democrat in 1825, Mr. Adams was really the first Whig President. His speeches are important, historically, because they define political tendencies as a result of which the Whig party took the place of the Federalist.

ORATION AT PLYMOUTH

(Delivered at Plymouth on the Twenty-Second Day of December, 1802, in Commemoration of the Landing of the Pilgrims)

Among the sentiments of most powerful operation upon the human heart, and most highly honorable to the human character, are those of veneration for our forefathers, and of love for our posterity.

They form the connecting links between the selfish and the social passions. By the fundamental principle of Christianity, the happiness of the individual is interwoven, by innumerable and imperceptible ties, with that of his contemporaries. By the power of filial reverence and parental affection, individual existence is extended beyond the limits of individual life, and the happiness of every age is chained in mutual dependence upon that of every other. Respect for his ancestors excites, in the breast of man, interest in their history, attachment to their characters, concern for their errors, involuntary pride in their virtues. Love for his posterity spurs him to exertion for their support, stimulates him to virtue for their example, and fills him with the tenderest solicitude for their welfare. Man, therefore, was not made for himself alone. No, he was made for his country, by the obligations of the social compact; he was made for his species, by the Christian duties of universal charity; he was made for all ages past, by the sentiment of reverence for his forefathers; and he was made for all future times, by the impulse of affection for his progeny. Under the influence of these principles,

"Existence sees him spurn her bounded reign."

They redeem his nature from the subjection of time and space; he is no longer a "puny insect shivering at a breeze"; he is the glory of creation, formed to occupy all time and all extent; bounded, during his residence upon earth, only to the boundaries of the world, and destined to life and immortality in brighter regions, when the fabric of nature itself shall dissolve and perish.

The voice of history has not, in all its compass, a note but answers in unison with these sentiments. The barbarian chieftain, who defended his country against the Roman invasion, driven to the remotest extremity of Britain, and stimulating his followers to battle by all that has power of persuasion upon the human heart, concluded his persuasion by an appeal to these irresistible feelings: "Think of your forefathers and of your posterity." The Romans themselves, at the pinnacle of civilization, were actuated by the same impressions, and celebrated, in anniversary festivals, every great event which had signalized the annals of their forefathers. To multiply instances where it were impossible to adduce an exception would be to waste your time and abuse your patience; but in the sacred volume, which contains the substance of our firmest faith and of our most precious hopes, these passions not only maintain their highest efficacy, but are sanctioned by the express injunctions of the Divine Legislator to his chosen people.

The revolutions of time furnish no previous example of a nation shooting up to maturity and expanding into greatness with the rapidity which has characterized the growth of the American people. In the luxuriance of youth, and in the vigor of manhood, it is pleasing and instructive to look backwards upon the helpless days of infancy; but in the continual and essential changes of a growing subject, the transactions of that early period would be soon obliterated from the memory but for some periodical call of attention to aid the silent records of the historian. Such celebrations arouse and gratify the kindliest emotions of the bosom. They are faithful pledges of the respect we bear to the memory of our ancestors and of the tenderness with which we cherish the rising generation. They introduce the sages and heroes of ages past to the notice and emulation of succeeding times; they are at once testimonials of our gratitude, and schools of virtue to our children.

These sentiments are wise; they are honorable; they are virtuous; their cultivation is not merely innocent pleasure, it is incumbent duty. Obedient to their dictates, you, my fellow-citizens, have instituted and paid frequent observance to this annual solemnity. And what event of weightier intrinsic importance, or of more extensive consequences, was ever selected for this honorary distinction?

In reverting to the period of our origin, other nations have generally been compelled to plunge into the chaos of impenetrable antiquity, or to trace a lawless ancestry into the caverns of ravishers and robbers. It is your peculiar privilege to commemorate, in this birthday of your nation, an event ascertained in its minutest details; an event of which the principal actors are known to you familiarly, as if belonging to your own age; an event of a magnitude before which imagination shrinks at the imperfection of her powers. It is your further happiness to behold, in those eminent characters, who were most conspicuous in accomplishing the settlement of your country, men upon whose virtue you can dwell with honest exultation. The founders of your race are not handed down to you, like the father of the Roman people, as the sucklings of a wolf. You are not descended from a nauseous compound of fanaticism and sensuality, whose only argument was the sword, and whose only paradise was a brothel. No Gothic scourge of God, no Vandal pest of nations, no fabled fugitive from the flames of Troy, no bastard Norman tyrant, appears among the list of worthies who first landed on the rock, which your veneration has preserved as a lasting monument of their achievement. The great actors of the day we now solemnize were illustrious by their intrepid valor no less than by their Christian graces, but the clarion of conquest has not blazoned forth their names to all the winds of heaven. Their glory has not been wafted over oceans of blood to the remotest regions of the earth. They have not erected to themselves colossal statues upon pedestals of human bones, to provoke and insult the tardy hand of heavenly retribution. But theirs was "the better fortitude of patience and heroic martyrdom." Theirs was the gentle temper of Christian kindness; the rigorous observance of reciprocal justice; the unconquerable soul of conscious integrity. Worldly fame has been parsimonious of her favor to the memory of those generous companions. Their numbers were small; their stations in life obscure; the object of their enterprise unostentatious; the theatre of their exploits remote; how could they possibly be favorites of worldly Fame--that common crier, whose existence is only known by the assemblage of multitudes; that pander of wealth and greatness, so eager to haunt the palaces of fortune, and so fastidious to the houseless dignity of virtue; that parasite of pride, ever scornful to meekness, and ever obsequious to insolent power; that heedless trumpeter, whose ears are deaf to modest merit, and whose eyes are blind to bloodless, distant excellence?

When the persecuted companions of Robinson, exiles from their native land, anxiously sued for the privilege of removing a thousand leagues more distant to an untried soil, a rigorous climate, and a savage wilderness, for the sake of reconciling their sense of religious duty with their affections for their country, few, perhaps none of them, formed a conception of what would be, within two centuries, the result of their undertaking. When the jealous and niggardly policy of their British sovereign denied them even that humblest of requests, and instead of liberty would barely consent to promise connivance, neither he nor they might be aware that they were laying the foundations of a power, and that he was sowing the seeds of a spirit, which, in less than two hundred years, would stagger the throne of his descendants, and shake his united kingdoms to the centre. So far is it from the ordinary habits of mankind to calculate the importance of events in their elementary principles, that had the first colonists of our country ever intimated as a part of their designs the project of founding a great and mighty nation, the finger of scorn would have pointed them to the cells of bedlam as an abode more suitable for hatching vain empires than the solitude of a transatlantic desert.

These consequences, then so little foreseen, have unfolded themselves, in all their grandeur, to the eyes of the present age. It is a common amusement of speculative minds to contrast the magnitude of the most important events with the minuteness of their primeval causes, and the records of mankind are full of examples for such contemplations. It is, however, a more profitable employment to trace the constituent principles of future greatness in their kernel; to detect in the acorn at our feet the germ of that majestic oak, whose roots shoot down to the centre and whose branches aspire to the skies. Let it be, then, our present occupation to inquire and endeavor to ascertain the causes first put in operation at the period of our commemoration, and already productive of such magnificent effects; to examine with reiterated care and minute attention the characters of those men who gave the first impulse to a new series of events in the history of the world; to applaud and emulate those qualities of their minds which we shall find deserving of our admiration; to recognize with candor those features which forbid approbation or even require censure, and, finally, to lay alike their frailties and their perfections to our own hearts, either as warning or as example.

Of the various European settlements upon this continent, which have finally merged in one independent nation, the first establishments were made at various times, by several nations, and under the influence of different motives. In many instances, the conviction of religious obligation formed one and a powerful inducement of the adventures; but in none, excepting the settlement at Plymouth, did they constitute the sole and exclusive actuating cause. Worldly interest and commercial speculation entered largely into the views of other settlers, but the commands of conscience were the only stimulus to the emigrants from Leyden. Previous to their expedition hither, they had endured a long banishment from their native country. Under every species of discouragement, they undertook the vogage; they performed it in spite of numerous and almost insuperable obstacles; they arrived upon a wilderness bound with frost and hoary with snow, without the boundaries of their charter, outcasts from all human society, and coasted five weeks together, in the dead of winter, on this tempestuous shore, exposed at once to the fury of the elements, to the arrows of the native savage, and to the impending horrors of famine.

Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air. These qualities have ever been displayed in their mightiest perfection, as attendants in the retinue of strong passions. From the first discovery of the Western Hemisphere by Columbus until the settlement of Virginia which immediately preceded that of Plymouth, the various adventurers from the ancient world had exhibited upon innumerable occasions that ardor of enterprise and that stubbornness of pursuit which set all danger at defiance, and chained the violence of nature at their feet. But they were all instigated by personal interests. Avarice and ambition had tuned their souls to that pitch of exaltation. Selfish passions were the parents of their heroism. It was reserved for the first settlers of New England to perform achievements equally arduous, to trample down obstructions equally formidable, to dispel dangers equally terrific, under the single inspiration of conscience. To them even liberty herself was but a subordinate and secondary consideration. They claimed exemption from the mandates of human authority, as militating with their subjection to a superior power. Before the voice of heaven they silenced even the calls of their country.

Yet, while so deeply impressed with the sense of religious obligation, they felt, in all its energy, the force of that tender tie which binds the heart of every virtuous man to his native land. It was to renew that connection with their country which had been severed by their compulsory expatriation, that they resolved to face all the hazards of a perilous navigation and all the labors of a toilsome distant settlement. Under the mild protection of the Batavian government, they enjoyed already that freedom of religious worship, for which they had resigned so many comforts and enjoyments at home; but their hearts panted for a restoration to the bosom of their country. Invited and urged by the open-hearted and truly benevolent people who had given them an asylum from the persecution of their own kindred to form their settlement within the territories then under their jurisdiction, the love of their country predominated over every influence save that of conscience alone, and they preferred the precarious chance of relaxation from the bigoted rigor of the English government to the certain liberality and alluring offers of the Hollanders. Observe, my countrymen, the generous patriotism, the cordial union of soul, the conscious yet unaffected vigor which beam in their application to the British monarch:--

"They were well weaned from the delicate milk of their mother country, and inured to the difficulties of a strange land. They were knit together in a strict and sacred bond, to take care of the good of each other and of the whole. It was not with them as with other men, whom small things could discourage, or small discontents cause to wish themselves again at home."

Children of these exalted Pilgrims! Is there one among you who can hear the simple and pathetic energy of these expressions without tenderness and admiration? Venerated shades of our forefathers! No, ye were, indeed, not ordinary men! That country which had ejected you so cruelly from her bosom you still delighted to contemplate in the character of an affectionate and beloved mother. The sacred bond which knit you together was indissoluble while you lived; and oh, may it be to your descendants the example and the pledge of harmony to the latest period of time! The difficulties and dangers, which so often had defeated attempts of similar establishments, were unable to subdue souls tempered like yours. You heard the rigid interdictions; you saw the menacing forms of toil and danger, forbidding your access to this land of promise; but you heard without dismay; you saw and disdained retreat. Firm and undaunted in the confidence of that sacred bond; conscious of the purity, and convinced of the importance of your motives, you put your trust in the protecting shield of Providence, and smiled defiance at the combining terrors of human malice and of elemental strife. These, in the accomplishment of your undertaking, you were summoned to encounter in their most hideous forms; these you met with that fortitude, and combatted with that perseverance, which you had promised in their anticipation; these you completely vanquished in establishing the foundations of New England, and the day which we now commemorate is the perpetual memorial of your triumph.

It were an occupation peculiarly pleasing to cull from our early historians, and exhibit before you every detail of this transaction; to carry you in imagination on board their bark at the first moment of her arrival in the bay; to accompany Carver, Winslow, Bradford, and Standish, in all their excursions upon the desolate coast; to follow them into every rivulet and creek where they endeavored to find a firm footing, and to fix, with a pause of delight and exultation, the instant when the first of these heroic adventurers alighted on the spot where you, their descendants, now enjoy the glorious and happy reward of their labors. But in this grateful task, your former orators, on this anniversary, have anticipated all that the most ardent industry could collect, and gratified all that the most inquisitive curiosity could desire. To you, my friends, every occurrence of that momentous period is already familiar. A transient allusion to a few characteristic instances, which mark the peculiar history of the Plymouth settlers, may properly supply the place of a narrative, which, to this auditory, must be superfluous.

One of these remarkable incidents is the execution of that instrument of government by which they formed themselves into a body politic, the day after their arrival upon the coast, and previous to their first landing. This is, perhaps, the only instance in human history of that positive, original social compact, which speculative philosophers have imagined as the only legitimate source of government. Here was a unanimous and personal assent, by all the individuals of the community, to the association by which they became a nation. It was the result of circumstances and discussions which had occurred during their passage from Europe, and is a full demonstration that the nature of civil government, abstracted from the political institutions of their native country, had been an object of their serious meditation. The settlers of all the former European colonies had contented themselves with the powers conferred upon them by their respective charters, without looking beyond the seal of the royal parchment for the measure of their rights and the rule of their duties. The founders of Plymouth had been impelled by the peculiarities of their situation to examine the subject with deeper and more comprehensive research. After twelve years of banishment from the land of their first allegiance, during which they had been under an adoptive and temporary subjection to another sovereign, they must naturally have been led to reflect upon the relative rights and duties of allegiance and subjection. They had resided in a city, the seat of a university, where the polemical and political controversies of the time were pursued with uncommon fervor. In this period they had witnessed the deadly struggle between the two parties, into which the people of the United Provinces, after their separation from the crown of Spain, had divided themselves. The contest embraced within its compass not only theological doctrines, but political principles, and Maurice and Barnevelt were the temporal leaders of the same rival factions, of which Episcopius and Polyander were the ecclesiastical champions.