tion of a free system, destined, as we trust, to stand forever, as the exemplar of popular government. Thus was discharged the duty of our fathers to themselves, to the country, and to the world.

The power of the example thus set up, in the eyes of the nations, was instantly and widely felt. It was immediately made visible to sagacious observers that a constitutional age had begun. It was in the nature of things, that, where the former evil existed in its most inveterate form, the reaction should also be the most violent. Hence the dreadful excesses that marked the progress of the French Revolution, and, for a while, almost made the name of liberty odious. But it is not less in the nature of things, that, when the most indisputable and enviable political blessings stand illustrated before the world—not merely in speculation and in theory, but in living practice and bright example — the nations of the earth, in proportion as they have eyes to see, and ears to hear, and hands to grasp, should insist on imitating the example. France clung to the hope of constitutional liberty through thirty years of appalling tribulation, and now enjoys the freest constitution in Europe. Spain, Portugal, the two Italian kingdoms, and several of the German states have entered on the same path. Their progress has been and must be various, modified by circumstances, by the interests and passions of governments and men, and, in some cases, seemingly

arrested. But their march is as sure as fate. . . A public opinion of a new kind has risen among men

the opinion of the civilized world. Springing into existence on the shores of our own continent, it has grown with our growth and strengthened with our strength, till now, this moral giant, like that of the ancient poet, marches along the earth and across the ocean, but his front is among the stars. The course of the day does not weary, nor the darkness of the night arrest him. He grasps the pillars of the temple where Oppression sits enthroned, not groping and benighted, like the strong man of old, to be crushed, himself, beneath the fall, but trampling, in his strength, on the massy ruins. . .

In that unceasing march of things, which calls forward the successive generations of men to perform their part on the stage of life, we at length are summoned to appear. Our fathers have passed their hour of visitation-how worthily, let the growth and prosperity of our happy land and the security of our firesides attest. Or, if this appeal be too weak to move us, let the eloquent silence of yonder famous heights-let the column which is there rising in simple majesty' recall their venerable forms, as they toiled in the hasty trenches through the dreary watches of that night of expectation, heaving up the sods, where many of them

1 The Bunker Hill monument.

lay in peace and honor before the following sun had set. The turn has come to us. The trial of adversity was theirs; the trial of prosperity is ours. Let us meet it as men who know their duty and prize their blessings. Our position is the most enviable, the most responsible, which men can fill. If this generation does its duty, the cause of constitutional freedom is safe. If we fail if we fail not only do we defraud our children of the inheritance which we received from our fathers, but we blast the hopes of the friends of liberty throughout our continent, throughout Europe, throughout the world, to the end of time.

History is not without her examples of hard-fought fields, where the banner of liberty has floated triumphantly on the wildest storm of battle. She is without her examples of a people by whom the dear-bought treasure has been wisely employed and safely handed down. The eyes of the world are turned for that example to us.

Let us, then, as we assemble on the birthday of the nation, as we gather upon the green turf, once wet with precious blood let us devote ourselves to the sacred cause of constitutional liberty! Let us abjure the interests and passions which divide the great family of American freemen! Let the range of party spirit sleep to-day! Let us resolve that our children shall have cause to bless the memory of their fathers, as we have cause to bless the memory of ours!

ROBERT YOUNG HAYNE

1791-1840

SENATOR HAYNE was one of whom no one had anything to say but words of high, cordial praise. BENTON in his “Thirty Years' View" wrote: "Nature had lavished upon him all the gifts which lead to eminence in public and happiness in private life. . . . I can truly say that in ten years' association with him [in the Senate] I never saw him actuated by a sinister motive, a selfish calculation, or an unbecoming aspiration."

Born of a South Carolina family of small means, his education was confined to a Charleston grammar school and the reading of law. Before practising his profession, however, he served in the army during the War of 1812; after which his oratorical gifts brought him quick success as a lawyer. He served in the State legislature from 1814 to 1818, the last year as Speaker, and then became Attorney-General until 1822, when he was elected to the United States Senate. Here he had a brilliant career, as one of the most industrious on committee, wise in council, and eloquent on the floor, besides attracting many friendships. In 1832 he became Governor of South Carolina.

As a strenuous States right man Mr. HAYNE had, before leaving the Senate, been a member of the South Carolina convention that adopted the famous nullification ordinance, and as Governor of the State he proclaimed it. The ordinance was adopted November 24, 1832. On December 10 President JACKSON vigorously denounced it and CLAY's Compromise Tariff Act of March, 1833, quieted the agitation.

While in the Senate, Mr. HAYNE was closely associated with CALHOUN and BENTON, and in especial harmony with the former he championed the rights of the States, and defended the South and its "domestic institutions" [slavery]. It was in a speech on Senator FOOTE's resolution concerning the sale of public lands, which process he attacked as favoring the East and North to the prejudice of the West and South, that HAYNE made a speech which WEBSTER answered; from HAYNE'S rejoinder to that (January 21, 1830), are here given the themes he chiefly emphasized · the South, slavery, and the rights of the States to nullify laws of the United States under the Constitution.