they become rooted in the hearts of those who, in addition to the early associations peculiar to each, are knit together in one common bond of brotherhood by the recollection of the great and noble deeds of those who have lived before them in the land; who can point to records of historic lore and show names of their country and her sons inscribed upon the brightest pages in the annals of the past! What, then, are the means by which to kindle this love of country into a steady and enduring flame, chaste, pure, and unquenchable as that which vestals for their goddess guarded? Your Free Public Schools. Let the young girl of America be instructed in the history of her country; let her be taught the story of the wives and mothers of the Revolution; of their devoted attachment to their country in the hour of its darkest peril; of that proud spirit of resistance to its oppressors which no persecution could overcome; of that unfaltering courage which lifted them high above the weakness of their sex, and lent them strength to encourage and to cheer the fainting spirits of those who were doing battle in its cause-and when that girl shall become a matron, that love of country will have grown with her growth and become strengthened in her heart, and the first lessons that a mother's love will instil into the breast of the infant on her knee will be devotion to that country of which her education shall have taught her to be justly proud. Take the young boy of America and lead his mind back to the days of Washington. Teach him the story of the great man's life. Follow him from the moment when the youthful soldier first drew his sword in defense of his country, and depict his conduct and his courage on the dark battle-field where Braddock fell. Let each successive scene of the desperate revolutionary struggle be made familiar to his mind; let him trace the wintry march by the blood-stained path of a barefooted soldiery winding their painful way over a frozen soil; teach him in imagination to share the triumphs of Trenton, of Princeton, and of Yorktown. Let him contemplate the hero, the patriot, and the sage, when the battle's strife was over and the victory secured, calmly surrendering to his country's rulers the rank and station with which they had invested him, withdrawing to the retirement of the home that he loved, and

modestly seeking to escape the honors that a grateful people were to bestow. Teach him to appreciate the less brilliant but more useful and solid triumphs of the statesman; tell him how, at the people's call, the man that was "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen, abandoned the calm seclusion that he cherished, again, at an advanced age, to expose himself to the stormy ocean of public life: first, to give aid and counsel to his countrymen in devising a frame of government that should forever secure their liberties; and then, by his administration of that government, to furnish a model and guide for the chief magistrates that were to succeed him. And then lead him at length to the last sad scene, the closing hour of the career of the greatest man that earth has ever borne, to the deathbed of the purest patriot that ever periled life in his country's cause, and let him witness a mighty people bowed down with sorrow and mourning the bereavement of their friend, their father. And as the story shall proceed, that boy's cheeks shall glow and his eye shall kindle with a noble enthusiasm, his heart shall beat with quicker pulse, and in his inmost soul shall he vow undying devotion to that country which, above all riches, possesses that priceless treasure, the name, the fame, and the memory of Washington.

Nor is it here that the glorious results of your system of universal education for the people are to be arrested. The same wise Providence which has bestowed on the inhabitant of the New World that restless activity and enterprise which so peculiarly adapt him for extending man's physical domain over the boundless forests that still invite the ax of the pioneer, has also implanted in his breast a mind searching, inquisitive, and acute; a mind that is yet destined to invade the domain of science, and to take possession of her proudest citadels. Hitherto the absence of some basis of primary instruction has caused that mind, in a great degree, to run riot, for want of proper direction to its energies; but its very excesses serve but to prove its native strength, as a noxious vegetation proves, by the rankness of its growth, the fertility of the soil when yet unsubdued by man. Let this basis be supplied, and instead of indulging in visionary schemes or submitting to the influ

ence of the wildest fanaticism-instead of becoming the votary of a Mormon or a Miller-the freeman of America will seek other and nobler themes for the exercise of his intellect; other and purer fountains will furnish the living waters at which to slake his thirst for knowledge. The boundless field of the arts and sciences will be opened to his view. Emulation will lend strength and energy to each rival in the race of fame. Then shall we have achieved the peaceful conquest of our second, our moral independence. Then shall we cease morally as well as physically to be the tributaries of the old world. Then, in painting, other Wests and other Allstons will arise; then sculpture will boast of other Greenoughs and Powerses; then the name of Bowditch will not stand alone amongst the votaries of that science which has her home in the heavens; then other philosophers will take their place by the side of Franklin, and other divines will emulate the fame and follow in the footsteps of Channing.

THOMAS HART BENTON

THE POLITICAL CAREER OF ANDREW JACKSON

[Thomas Hart Benton, an American statesman, was born in North Carolina in 1782. At first a lawyer in Tennessee, he served under Jackson in the War of 1812, and then settled in Missouri. Political affairs attracted him at once; he was elected to the Senate from Missouri and retained his seat for thirty years, figuring prominently in nearly every leading debate in Washington during the period prior to the Civil War. He opposed the states' rights extremists, urged the opening up of the great West, and did his best to counteract the influence of Calhoun. He wrote a book entitled "Thirty Years' View,” a record of his experience during his long term of congressional life. He died in 1858. The following speech was made in the Senate, 1834.]

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HE expunging resolution and preamble having been read, Mr. Benton said: Mr. President, it is now near three years since the resolve was adopted by the Senate, which it is my present motion to expunge from the journal. At the moment that this resolve was adopted, I gave notice of my intention to move to expunge it, and then expressed my confident belief that the motion would eventually prevail. That expression of confidence was not an ebullition of vanity, nor a presumptuous calculation, intended to accelerate the event it affected to foretell. It was not a vain boast nor an idle assumption, but was the result of a deep conviction of the injustice done President Jackson, and a thorough reliance upon the justice of the American people. I felt that the President had been wronged, and my heart told me that this wrong would be redressed. The event proves that I was not mistaken. The question of expunging this resolution has been carried to the people, and their decision has been had upon it. They decide in favor of the expunction; and their decision has been both made and manifested, and communicated to us in a great variety of ways. A great number of states have expressly

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instructed their senators to vote for this expunction. very great majority of the states have elected senators and representatives to Congress, upon the express ground of favoring this expurgation. The Bank of the United States, which took the initiative in the accusation against the President, and furnished the material and worked the machinery which was used against him, and which was then so powerful on this floor, has become more and more odious to the public mind, and musters now but a slender phalanx of friends in the two houses of Congress. The late presidential election furnishes additional evidence of public sentiment. The candidate who was the friend of President Jackson, the supporter of his administration, and the avowed advocate for the expunction, has received a large majority of the suffrages of the whole Union, and that after an express declaration of his sentiments on this precise point. The evidence of the public will exhibited in all these forms is too manifest to be mistaken, too explicit to require illustration, and too imperative to be disregarded. Omitting details and specific enumeration of proofs, I refer to our own files for the instructions to expunge-to the complexion of the two houses for the temper of the people -to the denationalized condition of the Bank of the United States for the fate of the imperious accuser-and to the issue of the presidential election for the answer of the Union. All these are pregnant proofs of the public will; and the last preeminently so, because both the question of the expunction and the form of the process were directly put in issue upon it. A representative of the people from the State of Kentucky formally interrogated a prominent candidate for the presidency on these points, and required from him a public answer, for the information of the public mind. The answer was given, and published, and read by all the voters before the election; and I deem it right to refer to that answer in this place, not only as evidence of the points put in issue, but also for the purpose of doing more ample justice to President Jackson, by incorporating into the legislative history of this case the high and honorable testimony in his favor of the eminent citizen who has just been exalted to the lofty honors of the American presidency: