act in the historical drama of America. The results of toils and sacrifices were now made manifest to the world.

I have presented this brief outline of the history of our country for the purpose of enabling me more clearly and distinctly to call your attention to the causes to which under the Providence of God our fathers were indebted for such eminent success. Permanent free governments are not organized by chance, nor are they the results of one day's sacrifice. The individuals who, aggregated, constitute the nation, must be trained up for free governments. It was with a great price that our fathers purchased their freedom, and enabled us to say in the language of the great Apostle to the Gentiles, that as for ourselves—we are free-born. From the earliest settlement of America, in all the colonies and provinces, colonial and provincial legislatures were organized, and the great principles of English liberty were recognized and sustained. It was not, however, until the controversies with France, that full scope was given for the exercise of legislative powers.

It was for the interest of England that her movements should be seconded with all the power of the colonies, and by all the means at their disposal. Their pride and their patriotism were appealed to, and they made large contributions of men and of money to carry on the wars of the mother country. The frequent assembling of legislative bodies brought the influential men of the colonies into close connection, and produced constant interchange of sentiments and views, while at the same time the union of the troops of various provinces brought together the military men, and they were disciplined and taught by some of the best of European officers. In this way during the French wars, the whole generation to which Washington belonged, was trained up as soldiers and statesmen.

It would be easy to follow out the individuals and show how large a number of those who subsequently acted conspicuous parts, had been educated in that school.

AH the legislative powers and experiences of the people were brought into active requisition when the War of the Revolution broke out. Every hamlet and precinct had its organization, and if there were not two to unite, the single man would call a meeting of himself, and pass his resolution and sign his pledge.

The District, the Town Council, the County Committee, the State Legislature,

the Continental Congress, carried the single individual forward, and united him,

very commencement

in the common cause with all his fellow patriots. At the
of the revolution, form was given to a republican government.

I have said the men were trained up for their work. Take our illustrious man as an example. We have seen that at the close of the first French war he was a youthful surveyor amid the wild mountains and primeval forests of Western Virginia. In the second French war he was with General Braddock when he sustained such a signal defeat on the banks of the Monongahela-defeated because he did not follow the advice of the then youthful soldier. Subsequently Washington was a member of the house of Burgesses of his native state-was elected a member of the first Continental Congress-made Commander-in-Chief-then President of the Convention which gave to us our present Constitution, and then elected to fill the office of the first President of the United States.

In our State, the Schuylers, the Clintons, and other distinguished men, had been trained up both in arms in French and Indian wars, and as public men in our Provincial Legislature.

The condition of the people at the period of the revolution was eminently favorable to their success. They were neither poor nor rich; they were not driven by want to abject submission, or to extreme radicalism, nor by fear of losing great wealth to ultra conservatism. They owned a fertile soil from which they chiefly drew their subsistence, and they had hardy frames with which to cultivate it. They were enured to labor and accustomed to the use of arms from early youth. Education prevailed among all classes. The great mass of the people were religiously educated. When they declared that all men were created equal, and endowed with certain unalienable rights, they proclaimed that those rights were given to them by their Creator, and they believed it-and when they pledged themselves to support that declaration with their lives, their fortunes, and their honor, they did so relying "on the protection of Divine Providence."

I may remark that the introduction in the Declaration of Independence of this acknowledgment of a responsibility to the Ruler and Creator of all men, was not a mere flourish, nor casually inserted. The expressions "appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the rectitude of our intentions," and "with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence," are not found in

the original draft of the Declaration, they were afterwards inserted by the direct action of Congress.

The Patriots of the Revolution believed with Cromwell that he who prays best will fight best, and they prayed and fought on during a seven years war. Such men may be destroyed, they cannot be conquered and subdued.

The institutions under which we live were not the fruits of the American revolution alone. The germ lay farther back, and was developed and ripened by that great event.

We have seen how men were trained up for that great contest, and how they were prepared to establish a government by which liberty should be regulated by law.

Experience is the teacher of individuals, and says Fisher Ames, "experience is the only teacher of Nations." Nations, like individuals, must be trained up for freedom. The descendants of Abraham were the chosen people of God. Under the direction of their great leader and law-giver, they commenced that ever memorable journey towards the home of their fathers. But though they had seen the river turned into blood; though the sea had rolled back and they had walked in its midst upon dry land; though they had beheld the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, and had heard the voice of the Almighty speaking in the thunder, when it would seem that confidence in the future should have entirely possessed them, yet at the first temporary inconvenience they murmured and rebelled, they longed for the waters of the Nile and the flesh pots of Egypt, and desired to return to the land of bondage. How could such a people expect to be the founders of a great nation in a distant land Hence God suffered them to die by the way side, and a new generation of m born and educated freemen, and upon whose necks there were no marks of the Egyptian yoke, was raised up to drive out the Canaanites and to found a ernment in the Land of Promise. From the time of that remarkable e down to the present, in all ages, and under every variety of circumsta people have ever been able to pass at once from despotism to freedor maintain for any length of time the principles of a truly free governm revolutionary movements in Europe at the close of the last centur republics which then sprung into existence confirm this view.

We have seen during the past few years events occurring agai

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tinent of Europe which may well excite our doubts as to the capacity of continental nations to sustain a republican government.

It happened to me to be in London four years ago this day, when the last French Revolution commenced, and when a few days thereafter Louis Philippe fled there for protection, when landing on the coast of England he might have addressed her in the language of Cardinal Wolsey before the door of the Abbey in the city of Leicester

"An old man broken with the storms of State,
Has come to lay his weary bones among ye.
Give him a little earth for charity."

The French nation was aroused-Germany followed, and Italy was in a blaze -Thrones tottered and fell-Monarchs were exiled-Monarchies vanished and Republics sprung up-the people had their own destinies in their own hands, and what has been the result-let the present condition of the Continental nations of Europe answer. And now, as if to crown the whole, France, boasting so loudly of democracy, has by the voice of millions spoken, too, through the ballot boxes-given to one man a power scarcely exercised by the most desbotic monarchs of earth. How can we sympathize with such republicanism? low can we be expected to put faith in such revolutionists? And yet the history of Europe in our day is but the history of our race, and he who has read history right, will not be disappointed at the result.

There are causes operating in Europe which lead the majority of the people to desire a stable government. Thus the eloquent historian of England Macaulay) referring to the great change which has taken place, since Monarchs ere dethroned, and oppressive laws resisted by the uprising of the people in this, says:

rigin the mean time the effect of the constant progress of wealth has been to and insurrection far more terrible to thinking men than maladministration. ratione sums have been expended on works which, if a rebellion broke out, the prerish in a few hours. The mass of moveable wealth collected in the

warehouses of London alone exceed five hundred fold that which I may this ackrisland contained in the days of the Plantagenets, and if the governwas not aubverted by physical force, all this moveable wealth would be ex-. to the Suprinent risk of spoliation and destruction. Still greater would be "with a firm blic credit on which thousands of families directly depend for

subsistence, and with which the credit of the whole commercial world is inseparably connected.

It is no exaggeration to say that a civil war of a week on English ground would now produce disasters which would be felt from the Hoangho to the Missouri, and of which the traces would be discernable at the distance of a century. In such a state of society resistance must be regarded as a cure more desperate than almost any malady which can afflict the State."

What is true of England is to a certain extent true of France, and in the statements of the English historian may be found some of the causes of the triumph of Louis Napoleon. France too has a great public credit, and she is emphatically a nation of property holders. Those who have something, far outnumber those who have nothing. Men were afraid of the fierce and radi-cal spirits which sought to rule, and like a vast pendulum, they swung from one extreme to the other. The great difficulty arises from their want of practical knowledge of the working of republican institutions. There is no want of theorists, but they require that training which fits men for a government like ours.

An absolute monarchy where all laws are made by the monarch, and an unrestricted democracy where all laws are enacted directly by the people, are both simple forms of government and easily understood. A republican government on the contrary, like ours, is of the most complicated character. It can be understood and administered only by an intelligent people. Its aim is to secure liberty, regulated by law-to protect the person, the property, and the character of the citizen-to redress grievances either of the whole people or of any portion of them, or of the individual by peaceable remedies-it pro- claims the equality of all men before the law-it says to every one, pursue your own fortune as you please, subject to those restraints necessary for the protection of your neighbor.

To accomplish these purposes the power of him who governs and the rights of him who is governed, are fixed by constitutions and laws; while the different departments in the government are regulated so as to operate as checks, the one upon the other. These fixed constitutions and laws can be changed only by the will of the majority, distinctly expressed by their own voice or that of their representatives.

I have endeavored to show that our fathers had with their power to obtain