him into stone upon the spot! But, no!-he cried, “The die is cast!" He plunged!—he crossed!—and Rome was free no more! XXI.-THE UNION. WEBSTER. 1. I PROFESS, sir, in my career hitherto, to have kept steadily in view the prosperity and honor of the whole country, and the preservation of our federal union. It is to that union, we owe our safety at home, and our consideration and dignity abroad. It is to that union, that we are chiefly indebted for whatever makes us most proud of our country. That union we reached only by the dis cipline of our virtues, in the severe school of adversity. It had its origin in the necessities of disordered finance, prostrate commerce, and ruined credit. Under its benign influences, these great interests immediately awoke as from the dead, and sprang forth with newness of life. Every year of its duration has teemed with fresh proof of its utility and its blessings; and, although our territory has stretched out wider and wider, and our population spread further and further, they have not outrun its protection or its benefits. It has been to us all a copious fountain of national, social, and personal happiness. 2. I have not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the union, to see what might lie hidden in the dark recess behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances of preserving liberty, when the bonds that unite us together shall be broken asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of disunion, to see whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the abyss below; nor could I regard him as a safe counsellor in the affairs of the government, whose thoughts should be mainly bent on considering, not how the union might best be preserved, but how tolerable might be the condition of the people, vhen it shall be broken up and destroyed. 3. While the union lasts, we have high, exciting, grati fying prospects spread out before us, for us and our chil dren. Beyond that, I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant, that in my day, at least, that curtain may not rise. God grant, that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind. When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious union; on states dissevered, discordant, belligerent; our land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fra ternal blood! 4. Let my last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, not a single star obscured, bearing, for its motto, no such miserable interrogatory as, What is all this worth? nor those other words of delusion and folly, Liberty first, and union afterward; but everywhere, spread all over, in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea, and over the land, and on every wind, and under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart-Liberty AND Union, now and forever; one and inseparable! XXII.-EXTRACT FROM THE LAST SPEECH OF ROBERT EMMET. 1. I HAVE been charged with that importance in the efforts to emancipate my country, as to be considered the key-stone of the combination of Irishmen, or, as your lordship expressed it, "The life and blood of the conspiracy." You do me honor over-much you have given to the subaltern all the credit of a superior. There are men engaged in this conspiracy, who are not only superior to me, but even to your own conceptions of yourself, my lord; men, before the splendor of whose genius and virtues I should bow with respectful deference, and who would think themselves dishonored to be called your friend-who would not disgrace themselves by shaking your blood-stained hand. 2. Wh, my lord, shall you tell me, on the passage to that scaffold, which that tyranny, of which you are only the intermediary executioner, has erected for my murder, that I am accountable for all the blood that has been, and will be shed, in this struggle of the oppressed against the oppressor? Shall you tell me this, and must I be so very a slave as not to repel it? I do not fear to approach the omnipotent Judge, to answer for the conduct of my whole life; and am I to be appalled and falsified by a mere remnant of mortality here? by you too, who, if it were possible to collect all the innocent blood that you have shed in your unhallowed ministry, in one great reservoir, your lordship might swim in it. 3. Let no man dare, when I am dead, to charge me with dishonor! let no man attaint my memory, by believing that I could have engaged in any cause but that of my country's liberty and independence; or, that I could have become the pliant minion of power, in the oppression, or the miseries, of my countrymen. The proclamation of the provisional government speaks forth our views; no inference can be tortured from it, to countenance barbarity, or debasement at home, or subjection, humiliation, or treachery from abroad. I would not have submitted to a foreign invader, for the same reason that I would resist the foreign and domestic oppressor; in the dignity of freedom, I would have fought upon the threshold of my country, and its enemy should enter only by passing over my lifeless corpse. Am I, who have lived but for my country, and who have subjected myself to the dangers of the jealous and watchful oppressor, and the bondage of the grave, only to give my countrymen their rights, and my country her independence, and am I to be loaded with caluminy, and not suffered to resent or repel it? No, God forbid! 4. If the spirits of the illustrious dead participate in the concerns and cares of those who are dear to them in this transitory life, O, ever dear and venerated shade of my departed father, look down with scrutiny upon the conduct of your suffering son; and see if I have even for a moment deviated from those principles of morality and patriotism, which it was your care to instill into my youthful mind; and for which I am now to offer up my life. My lords, you are impatient for the sacrifice. The blood which you seek, is not congealed by the artificial terrors which surround your victim; it circulates warmly and unruffled, through the channels which God created for noble purposes, but which you are bent to destroy, for purposes so grievous, that they cry to heaven. 5. Be yet patient! I have but a few words more to say. I am going to my cold and silent grave: my lamp of life is nearly extinguished; my race is run: the grave opens to receive me, and I sink into its bosom! I have but one request to ask at my departure from this world,it is the charity of its silence! Let no man write my epitaph: for, as no man, who knows my motives, dare now vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them, and me, repose in obscurity and peace, and my tomb remain uninscribed, until other times, and other men, can do justice to my character: when my country takes her place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written. I have done. 1. XXIII.-TELL ON HIS NATIVE HILLS. Oн, with what pride I used KNOWLES. To walk these hills, and look up to my God, And bless him that the land was free. 'T was free From end to end, from cliff to lake 't was free! Free as our torrents are that leap our rocks, And plow our valleys, without asking leave 2. 8. Or as our peaks, that wear their caps of snow How happy was it then! I loved In my boat at night, when, midway o'er the lake, On yonder jutting cliff-o'ertaken there By the mountain blast, I've laid me flat along, As if to sweep me o'er the horrid brink, And I have thought of other lands, whose storms Are summer-flaws to those of mine, and just Have wished me there-the thought that mine was fres Blow on!-this is the land of liberty! |