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Orationsby

John Quincy Adams

“The Jubilee of the Constitution, deliveredat New York, April 30, 1839, before the New

York Historical Society.”

Fellow-Citizens and Brethren, Associates of the NewYork Historical Society:

Would it be an unlicensed trespass of the imaginationto conceive that on the night preceding the day of whichyou now commemorate the fiftieth anniversary—on thenight preceding that thirtieth of April, 1789, when fromthe balcony of your city hall the chancellor of the Stateof New York administered to George Washington the sol-emn oath faithfully to execute the office of President ofthe United States, and to the best of his ability to pre-serve, protect, and defend the constitution of the UnitedStates—that in the visions of the night the guardian

angel of the Father of our Country had appeared beforehim, in the venerated form of his mother, and, to cheerand encourage him in the performance of the momen-tous and solemn duties that he was about to assume,had delivered to him a suit of celestial armor—a hel-met, consisting of the principles of piety, of justice, ofhonor, of benevolence, with which from his earliest in-fancy he had hitherto walked through life, in the pres-ence of all his brethren; a spear, studded with the self-evident truths of the Declaration of Independence; asword, the same with which he had led the armies ofhis country through the war of freedom to the summitof the triumphal arch of independence; a corselet andcuishes of long experience and habitual intercourse inpeace and war with the world of mankind, his contem-poraries of the human race, in all their stages of civili-zation; and, last of all, the Constitution of the UnitedStates, a shield, embossed by heavenly hands with thefuture history of his country?

Yes, gentlemen, on that shield the Constitution of theUnited States was sculptured (by forms unseen, and incharacters then invisible to mortal eye), the predestinedand prophetic history of the one confederated people

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of the North American Union.They had been the settlers of thirteen separate and

distinct English colonies, along the margin of the shoreof the North American Continent; contiguously situated,but chartered by adventurers of characters variouslydiversified, including sectarians, religious and politi-cal, of all the classes which for the two preceding cen-turies had agitated and divided the people of the Brit-ish islands—and with them were intermingled the de-scendants of Hollanders, Swedes, Germans, and Frenchfugitives from the persecution of the revoker of the Edictof Nantes.

In the bosoms of this people, thus heterogeneouslycomposed, there was burning, kindled at different fur-naces, but all furnaces of affliction, one clear, steadyflame of liberty. Bold and daring enterprise, stubbornendurance of privation, unflinching intrepidity in fac-ing danger, and inflexible adherence to conscientiousprinciple, had steeled to energetic and unyielding har-dihood the characters of the primitive settlers of allthese colonies. Since that time two or three generationsof men had passed away, but they had increased andmultiplied with unexampled rapidity; and the land it-

self had been the recent theatre of a ferocious and bloodyseven years’ war between the two most powerful andmost civilized nations of Europe contending for thepossession of this continent.

Of that strife the victorious combatant had been Brit-ain. She had conquered the provinces of France. Shehad expelled her rival totally from the continent, overwhich, bounding herself by the Mississippi, she wasthenceforth to hold divided empire only with Spain. Shehad acquired undisputed control over the Indian tribesstill tenanting the forests unexplored by the Europeanman. She had established an uncontested monopoly ofthe commerce of all her colonies. But forgetting all thewarnings of preceding ages—forgetting the lessons writ-ten in the blood of her own children, through centuriesof departed time—she undertook to tax the people ofthe colonies without their consent.

Resistance, instantaneous, unconcerted, sympathetic,inflexible resistance, like an electric shock, startled androused the people of all the English colonies on thiscontinent.

This was the first signal of the North American Union.The struggle was for chartered rights—for English lib-

Orations of John Quincy Adams

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erties—for the cause of Algernon Sidney and JohnHampden—for trial by jury—the Habeas Corpus andMagna Charta.

But the English lawyers had decided that Parliamentwas omnipotent—and Parliament, in its omnipotence,instead of trial by jury and the Habeas Corpus, enactedadmiralty courts in England to try Americans for of-fences charged against them as committed in America;instead of the privileges of Magna Charta, nullified thecharter itself of Massachusetts Bay; shut up the port ofBoston; sent armies and navies to keep the peace andteach the colonies that John Hampden was a rebel andAlgernon Sidney a traitor.

English liberties had failed them. From the omnipo-tence of Parliament the colonists appealed to the rightsof man and the omnipotence of the God of battles. Union!Union! was the instinctive and simultaneous cry through-out the land. Their Congress, assembled at Philadelphia,once—twice—had petitioned the king; had remonstratedto Parliament; had addressed the people of Britain, forthe rights of Englishmen—in vain. Fleets and armies,the blood of Lexington, and the fires of Charlestownand Falmouth, had been the answer to petition, remon-

strance, and address ….The dissolution of allegiance to the British crown, the

severance of the colonies from the British Empire, andtheir actual existence as independent States, were de-finitively established in fact, by war and peace. The in-dependence of each separate State had never been de-clared of right. It never existed in fact. Upon the prin-ciples of the Declaration of Independence, the dissolu-tion of the ties of allegiance, the assumption of sover-eign power, and the institution of civil government, areall acts of transcendent authority, which the people aloneare competent to perform; and, accordingly, it is in thename and by the authority of the people, that two ofthese acts—the dissolution of allegiance, with the sev-erance from the British Empire, and the declaration ofthe United Colonies, as free and independent States—were performed by that instrument.

But there still remained the last and crowning act,which the people of the Union alone were competent toperform—the institution of civil government, for thatcompound nation, the United States of America.

At this day it cannot but strike us as extraordinary,that it does not appear to have occurred to any one


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member of that assembly, which had laid down in termsso clear, so explicit, so unequivocal, the foundation ofall just government, in the imprescriptible rights of man,and the transcendent sovereignty of the people, and whoin those principles had set forth their only personalvindication from the charges of rebellion against theirking, and of treason to their country, that their lastcrowning act was still to be performed upon thesameprinciples. That is, the institution, by the peopleof the United States, of a civil government, to guardand protect and defend them all. On the contrary, thatsame assembly which issued the Declaration of Inde-pendence, instead of continuing to act in the name andby the authority of the good people of the United States,had, immediately after the appointment of the commit-tee to prepare the Declaration, appointed another com-mittee, of one member from each colony, to prepare anddigest the form of confederation to be entered into be-tween the colonies.

That committee reported on the twelfth of July, eightdays after the Declaration of Independence had beenissued, a draft of articles of confederation between thecolonies. This draft was prepared by John Dickinson,

then a delegate from Pennsylvania, who voted againstthe Declaration of Independence, and never signed it,having been superseded by a new election of delegatesfrom that State, eight days after his draft was reported.

There was thus no congeniality of principle betweenthe Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Con-federation. The foundation of the former was a super-intending Providence—the rights of man, and the con-stituent revolutionary power of the people. That of thelatter was the sovereignty of organized power, and theindependence of the separate or dis-united States. Thefabric of the Declaration and that of the Confederationwere each consistent with its own foundation, but theycould not form one consistent, symmetrical edifice. Theywere the productions of different minds and of adversepassions; one, ascending for the foundation of humangovernment to the laws of nature and of God, writtenupon the heart of man; the other, resting upon the ba-sis of human institutions, and prescriptive law, and co-lonial charter. The cornerstone of the one was right,that of the other was power ….

Where, then, did each State get the sovereignty, free-dom, and independence, which the Articles of Confed-


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eration declare it retains?—not from the whole peopleof the whole Union—not from the Declaration of Inde-pendence—not from the people of the State itself. Itwas assumed by agreement between the Legislatures ofthe several States, and their delegates in Congress, with-out authority from or consultation of the people at all.

In the Declaration of Independence, the enacting andconstituent party dispensing and delegating sovereignpower is the whole people of the United Colonies. Therecipient party, invested with power, is the United Colo-nies, declared United States.

In the Articles of Confederation, this order of agencyis inverted. Each State is the constituent and enactingparty, and the United States in Congress assembled therecipient of delegated power—and that power delegatedwith such a penurious and carking hand that it had morethe aspect of a revocation of the Declaration of Inde-pendence than an instrument to carry it into effect.

None of these indispensably necessary powers wereever conferred by the State Legislatures upon the Con-gress of the federation; and well was it that they neverwere. The system itself was radically defective. Its in-curable disease was an apostasy from the principles of

the Declaration of Independence. A substitution of sepa-rate State sovereignties, in the place of the constituentsovereignty of the people, was the basis of the Confed-erate Union.

In the Congress of the Confederation, the master mindsof James Madison and Alexander Hamilton were con-stantly engaged through the closing years of the Revo-lutionary War and those of peace which immediatelysucceeded. That of John Jay was associated with themshortly after the peace, in the capacity of Secretary tothe Congress for Foreign Affairs. The incompetency ofthe Articles of Confederation for the management ofthe affairs of the Union at home and abroad was dem-onstrated to them by the painful and mortifying expe-rience of every day. Washington, though in retirement,was brooding over the cruel injustice suffered by hisassociates in arms, the warriors of the Revolution; overthe prostration of the public credit and the faith of thenation, in the neglect to provide for the payments evenof the interest upon the public debt; over the disap-pointed hopes of the friends of freedom; in the lan-guage of the address from Congress to the States of theeighteenth of April, 1788—”the pride and boast of


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America, that the rights for which she contended werethe rights of human nature.”

At his residence at Mount Vernon, in March, 1785, thefirst idea was started of a revisal of the Articles of Con-federation, by the organization, of means differing fromthat of a compact between the State Legislatures andtheir own delegates in Congress. A convention of del-egates from the State Legislatures, independent of theCongress itself, was the expedient which presented it-self for effecting the purpose, and an augmentation ofthe powers of Congress for the regulation of commerce,as the object for which this assembly was to be con-vened. In January, 1785, the proposal was made andadopted in the Legislature of Virginia, and communi-cated to the other State Legislatures.

The Convention was held at Annapolis, in Septemberof that year. It was attended by delegates from only fiveof the central States, who, on comparing their restrictedpowers with the glaring and universally acknowledgeddefects of the Confederation, reported only a recom-mendation for the assemblage of another convention ofdelegates to meet at Philadelphia, in May, 1787, fromall the States, and with enlarged powers.

The Constitution of the United States was the work ofthis Convention. But in its construction the Conventionimmediately perceived that they must retrace their steps,and fall back from a league of friendship between sov-ereign States to the constituent sovereignty of thepeople; from power to right—from the irresponsibledespotism of State sovereignty to the self-evident truthsof the Declaration of Independence. In that instrument,the right to institute and to alter governments amongmen was ascribed exclusively to the people—the endsof government were declared to be to secure the naturalrights of man; and that when the government degener-ates from the promotion to the destruction of that end,the right and the duty accrues to the people to dissolvethis degenerate government and to institute another.The signers of the Declaration further averred, that theone people of the United Colonies were then preciselyin that situation—with a government degenerated intotyranny, and called upon by the laws of nature and ofnature’s God to dissolve that government and to insti-tute another. Then, in the name and by the authority ofthe good people of the colonies, they pronounced thedissolution of their allegiance to the king, and their


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eternal separation from the nation of Great Britain—and declared the United Colonies independent States.And here as the representatives of the one people theyhad stopped. They did not require the confirmation ofthis act, for the power to make the declaration had al-ready been conferred upon them by the people, delegat-ing the power, indeed, separately in the separate colo-nies, not by colonial authority, but by the spontaneousrevolutionary movement of the people in them all.

From the day of that Declaration, the constituent powerof the people had never been called into action. A con-federacy had been substituted in the place of a govern-ment, and State sovereignty had usurped the constitu-ent sovereignty of the people.

The Convention assembled at Philadelphia had them-selves no direct authority from the people. Their au-thority was all derived from the State Legislatures. Butthey had the Articles of Confederation before them,and they saw and felt the wretched condition into whichthey had brought the whole people, and that the Unionitself was in the agonies of death. They soon perceivedthat the indispensably needed powers were such as noState government, no combination of them, was by the

principles of the Declaration of Independence compe-tent to bestow. They could emanate only from the people.A highly respectable portion of the assembly, still cling-ing to the confederacy of States, proposed, as a substi-tute for the Constitution, a mere revival of the Articlesof Confederation, with a grant of additional powers tothe Congress. Their plan was respectfully and thoroughlydiscussed, but the want of a government and of the sanc-tion of the people to the delegation of powers happilyprevailed. A constitution for the people, and the distri-bution of legislative, executive, and judicial powers wasprepared. It announced itself as the work of the peoplethemselves; and as this was unquestionably a power as-sumed by the Convention, not delegated to them by thepeople, they religiously confined it to a simple power topropose, and carefully provided that it should be no morethan a proposal until sanctioned by the ConfederationCongress, by the State Legislatures, and by the peopleof the several States, in conventions specially assembled,by authority of their Legislatures, for the single pur-pose of examining and passing upon it.

And thus was consummated the work commenced bythe Declaration of Independence—a work in which the


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people of the North American Union, acting under thedeepest sense of responsibility to the Supreme Ruler ofthe universe, had achieved the most transcendent act ofpower that social man in his mortal condition can per-form—even that of dissolving the ties of allegiance bywhich he is bound to his country; of renouncing thatcountry itself; of demolishing its government; of insti-tuting another government; and of making for himselfanother country in its stead.

And on that day, of which you now commemorate thefiftieth Anniversary—on that thirtieth day of April,1789—was this mighty revolution, not only in the af-fairs of our own country, but in the principles of gov-ernment over civilized man, accomplished.

The Revolution itself was a work of thirteen years—and had never been completed until that day. The Dec-laration of Independence and the Constitution of theUnited States are parts of one consistent whole, foundedupon one and the same theory of government, then newin practice, though not as a theory, for it had been work-ing itself into the mind of man for many ages, and hadbeen especially expounded in the writings of Locke,though it had never before been adopted by a great na-

tion in practice.There are yet, even at this day, many speculative ob-

jections to this theory. Even in our own country thereare still philosophers who deny the principles assertedin the Declaration, as self-evident truths—who deny thenatural equality and inalienable rights of man—whodeny that the people are the only legitimate source ofpower—who deny that all just powers of governmentare derived from the consent of the governed. Neitheryour time, nor perhaps the cheerful nature of this occa-sion, permit me here to enter upon the examination ofthis anti-revolutionary theory, which arrays State sov-ereignty against the constituent sovereignty of thepeople, and distorts the Constitution of the United Statesinto a league of friendship between confederate corpo-rations. I speak to matters of fact. There is the Declara-tion of Independence, and there is the Constitution ofthe United States—let them speak for themselves. Thegrossly immoral and dishonest doctrine of despotic Statesovereignty, the exclusive judge of its own obligations,and responsible to no power on earth or in heaven, forthe violation of them, is not there. The Declaration says,it is not in me. The Constitution says, it is not in me.


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“Oration at Plymouth, December 22, 1802,in Commemoration of the Landing of the

Pilgrims.”

Among the sentiments of most powerful operationupon the human heart, and most highly honorable tothe human character, are those of veneration for ourforefathers, and of love for our posterity. They form theconnecting links between the selfish and the social pas-sions. By the fundamental principle of Christianity, thehappiness of the individual is interwoven, by innumer-able and imperceptible ties, with that of his contempo-raries. By the power of filial reverence and parental af-fection, individual existence is extended beyond the lim-its of individual life, and the happiness of every age ischained 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 charac-ters, concern for their errors, involuntary pride in theirvirtues. Love for his posterity spurs him to exertion fortheir 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 ofthe social compact; he was made for his species, by theChristian duties of universal charity; he was made forall ages past, by the sentiment of reverence for his fore-fathers; and he was made for all future times, by theimpulse of affection for his progeny. Under the influ-ence of these principles,

“Existence sees him spurn her bounded reign.”

They redeem his nature from the subjection of time andspace; he is no longer a “puny insect shivering at abreeze”; he is the glory of creation, formed to occupyall time and all extent; bounded, during his residenceupon earth, only to the boundaries of the world, anddestined to life and immortality in brighter regions,when the fabric of nature itself shall dissolve and per-ish.

The voice of history has not, in all its compass, a notebut answers in unison with these sentiments. The bar-barian chieftain, who defended his country against theRoman invasion, driven to the remotest extremity of


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Britain, and stimulating his followers to battle by allthat has power of persuasion upon the human heart,concluded his persuasion by an appeal to these irresist-ible feelings: “Think of your forefathers and of yourposterity.” The Romans themselves, at the pinnacle ofcivilization, were actuated by the same impressions, andcelebrated, in anniversary festivals, every great eventwhich had signalized the annals of their forefathers. Tomultiply instances where it were impossible to adducean exception would be to waste your time and abuseyour patience; but in the sacred volume, which containsthe substances of our firmest faith and of our most pre-cious hopes, these passions not only maintain their high-est efficacy, but are sanctioned by the express injunc-tions of the Divine Legislator to his chosen people.

The revolutions of time furnish no previous exampleof a nation shooting up to maturity and expanding intogreatness with the rapidity which has characterized thegrowth of the American people. In the luxuriance ofyouth, and in the vigor of manhood, it is pleasing andinstructive to look backward upon the helpless days ofinfancy; but in the continual and essential changes of agrowing subject, the transactions of that early period

would be soon obliterated from the memory but for someperiodical call of attention to aid the silent records ofthe historian. Such celebrations arouse and gratify thekindliest emotions of the bosom. They are faithfulpledges of the respect we bear to the memory of ourancestors and of the tenderness with which we cherishthe rising generation. They introduce the sages and he-roes of ages past to the notice and emulation of suc-ceeding times; they are at once testimonials of our grati-tude, and schools of virtue to our children.

These sentiments are wise; they are honorable; theyare virtuous; their cultivation is not merely innocentpleasure, it is incumbent duty. Obedient to their dic-tates, you, my fellow-citizens, have instituted and paidfrequent observance to this annual solemnity. and whatevent of weightier intrinsic importance, or of more ex-tensive consequences, was ever selected for this honor-ary distinction?

In reverting to the period of our origin, other nationshave generally been compelled to plunge into the chaosof impenetrable antiquity, or to trace a lawless ancestryinto the caverns of ravishers and robbers. It is your pe-culiar privilege to commemorate, in this birthday of your

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nation, an event ascertained in its minutest details; anevent of which the principal actors are known to youfamiliarly, as if belonging to your own age; an event ofa magnitude before which imagination shrinks at theimperfection of her powers. It is your further happi-ness to behold, in those eminent characters, who weremost conspicuous in accomplishing the settlement ofyour country, men upon whose virtue you can dwell withhonest exultation. The founders of your race are nothanded down to you, like the fathers of the Romanpeople, as the sucklings of a wolf. You are not descendedfrom a nauseous compound of fanaticism and sensual-ity, whose only argument was the sword, and whose onlyparadise was a brothel. No Gothic scourge of God, noVandal pest of nations, no fabled fugitive from the flamesof Troy, no bastard Norman tyrant, appears among thelist of worthies who first landed on the rock, which yourveneration has preserved as a lasting monument of theirachievement. The great actors of the day we now solem-nize were illustrious by their intrepid valor no less thanby their Christian graces, but the clarion of conquesthas not blazoned forth their names to all the winds ofheaven. Their glory has not been wafted over oceans of

blood to the remotest regions of the earth. They havenot erected to themselves colossal statues upon pedes-tals of human bones, to provoke and insult the tardyhand of heavenly retribution. But theirs was “the bet-ter fortitude of patience and heroic martyrdom.” Theirswas the gentle temper of Christian kindness; the rigor-ous observance of reciprocal justice; the unconquerablesoul of conscious integrity. Worldly fame has been par-simonious of her favor to the memory of those gen-erous companions. Their numbers were small; their sta-tions in life obscure; the object of their enterprise un-ostentatious; the theatre of their exploits remote; howcould they possibly be favorites of worldly Fame—thatcommon crier, whose existence is only known by theassemblage of multitudes; that pander of wealth andgreatness, so eager to haunt the palaces of fortune, andso fastidious to the houseless dignity of virtue; thatparasite of pride, ever scornful to meekness, and everobsequious to insolent power; that heedless trumpeter,whose ears are deaf to modest merit, and whose eyesare blind to bloodless, distant excellence?

When the persecuted companions of Robinson, exilesfrom their native land, anxiously sued for the privilege

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of removing a thousand leagues more distant to an un-tried soil, a rigorous climate, and a savage wilderness,for the sake of reconciling their sense of religious dutywith their affections for their country, few, perhaps noneof them, formed a conception of what would be, withintwo centuries, the result of their undertaking. Whenthe jealous and niggardly policy of their British sover-eign denied them even that humblest of requests, andinstead of liberty would barely consent to promise con-nivance, neither he nor they might be aware that theywere laying the foundations of a power, and that he wassowing the seeds of a spirit, which, in less than twohundred years, would stagger the throne of his descen-dants, and shake his united kingdoms to the centre. Sofar is it from the ordinary habits of mankind to calcu-late the importance of events in their elementary prin-ciples, that had the first colonists of our country everintimated as a part of their designs the project of found-ing a great and mighty nation, the finger of scorn wouldhave pointed them to the cells of Bedlam as an abodemore suitable for hatching vain empires than the soli-tude of a transatlantic desert.

These consequences, then so little foreseen, have un-

folded themselves, in all their grandeur, to the eyes ofthe present age. It is a common amusement of specula-tive minds to contrast the magnitude of the most im-portant events with the minuteness of their primevalcauses, and the records of mankind are full of examplesfor such contemplations. It is, however, a more profit-able employment to trace the constituent principles offuture greatness in their kernel; to detect in the acornat our feet the germ of that majestic oak, whose rootsshoot down to the centre, and whose branches aspire tothe skies. Let it be, then, our present occupation to in-quire and endeavor to ascertain the causes first put inoperation at the period of our commemoration, and al-ready productive of such magnificent effects; to exam-ine with reiterated care and minute attention the char-acters of those men who gave the first impulse to a newseries of events in the history of the world; to applaudand emulate those qualities of their minds which weshall find deserving of our admiration; to recognize withcandor those features which forbid approbation or evenrequire censure, and, finally, to lay alike their frailtiesand their perfections to our own hearts, either as warn-ing or as example.

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Of the various European settlements upon this conti-nent, which have finally merged in one independentnation, the first establishments were made at varioustimes, by several nations, and under the influence ofdifferent motives. In many instances, the conviction ofreligious obligation formed one and a powerful induce-ment of the adventures; but in none, excepting the settle-ment at Plymouth, did they constitute the sole and exclu-sive actuating cause. Worldly interest and commercialspeculation entered largely into the views of other set-tlers, but the commands of conscience were the onlystimulus to the emigrants from Leyden. Previous to theirexpedition hither, they had endured a long banishmentfrom their native country. Under every species of dis-couragement, they undertook the voyage; they performedit in spite of numerous and almost insuperable obstacles;they arrived upon a wilderness bound with frost andhoary with snow, without the boundaries of their char-ter, outcasts from all human society, and coasted fiveweeks together, in the dead of winter, on this tempes-tuous shore, exposed at once to the fury of the elements,to the arrows of the native savage, and to the impend-ing horrors of famine.

Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman,before which difficulties disappear and obstacles van-ish into air. These qualities have ever been displayed intheir mightiest perfection, as attendants in the retinueof strong passions. From the first discovery of the West-ern Hemisphere by Columbus until the settlement ofVirginia which immediately preceded that of Plymouth,the various adventurers from the ancient world had ex-hibited upon innumerable occasions that ardor of en-terprise and that stubbornness of pursuit which set alldanger at defiance, and chained the violence of natureat their feet. But they were all instigated by personalinterests. Avarice and ambition had tuned their souls tothat pitch of exaltation. Selfish passions were the par-ents of their heroism. It was reserved for the first set-tlers of new England to perform achievements equallyarduous, to trample down obstructions equally formi-dable, to dispel dangers equally terrific, under the singleinspiration of conscience. To them even liberty herselfwas but a subordinate and secondary consideration. Theyclaimed exemption from the mandates of human au-thority, as militating with their subjection to a superiorpower. Before the voice of Heaven they silenced even

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the calls of their country.Yet, while so deeply impressed with the sense of reli-

gious obligation, they felt, in all its energy, the force ofthat tender tie which binds the heart of every virtuousman to his native land. It was to renew that connectionwith their country which had been severed by theircompulsory expatriation, that they resolved to face allthe hazards of a perilous navigation and all the laborsof a toilsome distant settlement. Under the mild pro-tection of the Batavian Government, they enjoyed al-ready that freedom of religious worship, for which theyhad resigned so many comforts and enjoyments at home;but their hearts panted for a restoration to the bosomof their country. Invited and urged by the open-heartedand truly benevolent people who had given them anasylum from the persecution of their own kindred toform their settlement within the territories then undertheir jurisdiction, the love of their country predomi-nated over every influence save that of conscience alone,and they preferred the precarious chance of relaxationfrom the bigoted rigor of the English Government to thecertain liberality and alluring offers of the Hollanders.Observe, my countrymen, the generous patriotism, the

cordial union of soul, the conscious yet unaffected vigorwhich beam in their application to the British monarch:

�They were well weaned from the delicate milk

of their mother country, and inured to the difficul-

ties 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 discour-

age, or small discontents cause to wish themselves

again at home.�

Children of these exalted Pilgrims! Is there one amongyou ho can hear the simple and pathetic energy of theseexpressions without tenderness and admiration? Ven-erated shades of our forefathers! No, ye were, indeed,not ordinary men! That country which had ejected youso cruelly from her bosom you still delighted to con-template in the character of an affectionate and belovedmother. The sacred bond which knit you together was


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indissoluble while you lived; and oh, may it be to yourdescendants the example and the pledge of harmony tothe latest period of time! The difficulties and dangers,which so often had defeated attempts of similar estab-lishments, were unable to subdue souls tempered likeyours. You heard the rigid interdictions; you saw themenacing forms of toil and danger, forbidding your ac-cess to this land of promise; but you heard without dis-may; you saw and disdained retreat. Firm and undauntedin the confidence of that sacred bond; conscious of thepurity, and convinced of the importance of your mo-tives, you put your trust in the protecting shield of Provi-dence, and smiled defiance at the combining terrors ofhuman malice and of elemental strife. These, in the ac-complishment of your undertaking, you were sum-moned to encounter in their most hideous forms; theseyou met with that fortitude, and combated with thatperseverance, which you had promised in their antici-pation; these you completely vanquished in establish-ing the foundations of New England, and the day whichwe now commemorate is the perpetual memorial of yourtriumph.

It were an occupation peculiarly pleasing to cull from

our early historians, and exhibit before you every detailof this transaction; to carry you in imagination on boardtheir 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 followthem into every rivulet and creek where they endeav-ored to find a firm footing, and to fix, with a pause ofdelight and exultation, the instant when the first ofthese heroic adventurers alighted on the spot where you,their descendants, now enjoy the glorious and happyreward of their labors. But in this grateful task, yourformer orators, on this anniversary, have anticipatedall that the most ardent industry could collect, and grati-fied all that the most inquisitive curiosity could desire.To you, my friends, every occurrence of that momen-tous period is already familiar. A transient allusion to afew characteristic instances, which mark the peculiarhistory of the Plymouth settlers, may properly supplythe place of a narrative, which, to this auditory, mustbe superfluous.

One of these remarkable incidents is the execution ofthat instrument of government by which they formedthemselves into a body politic, the day after their ar-


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rival upon the coast, and previous to their first landing.That is, perhaps, the only instance in human history ofthat positive, original social compact, which specula-tive philosophers have imagined as the only legitimatesource of government. Here was a unanimous and per-sonal assent, by all the individuals of the community,to the association by which they became a nation. Itwas the result of circumstances and discussions whichhad occurred during their passage from Europe, and is afull demonstration that the nature of civil government,abstracted from the political institutions of their nativecountry, had been an object of their serious meditation.The settlers of all the former European colonies had con-tented themselves with the powers conferred upon themby their respective charters, without looking beyond theseal of the royal parchment for the measure of theirrights and the rule of their duties. The founders of Ply-mouth had been impelled by the peculiarities of theirsituation to examine the subject with deeper and morecomprehensive research. After twelve years of banish-ment from the land of their first allegiance, during whichthey had been under an adoptive and temporary subjec-tion to another sovereign, they must naturally have been

led to reflect upon the relative rights and duties of alle-giance and subjection. They had resided in a city, theseat of a university, where the polemical and politicalcontroversies of the time were pursued with uncommonfervor. In this period they had witnessed the deadlystruggle between the two parties, into which the peopleof the United Provinces, after their separation from thecrown of Spain, had divided themselves. The contestembraced within its compass not only theological doc-trines, but political principles, and Maurice and Barneveltwere the temporal leaders of the same rival factions, ofwhich Episcopius and Polyander were the ecclesiasticalchampions.

That the investigation of the fundamental principlesof government was deeply implicated in these dissen-sions is evident from the immortal work of Grotius, uponthe rights of war and peace, which undoubtedly origi-nated from them. Grotius himself had been a most dis-tinguished actor and sufferer in those important scenesof internal convulsion, and his work was first publishedvery shortly after the departure of our forefathers fromLeyden. It is well known that in the course of the con-test Mr. Robinson more than once appeared, with credit


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to himself, as a public disputant against Episcopius; andfrom the manner in which the fact is related by Gover-nor Bradford, it is apparent that the whole EnglishChurch at Leyden took a zealous interest in the reli-gious part of the controversy. As strangers in the land,it is presumable that they wisely and honorably avoidedentangling themselves in the political contentions in-volved with it. Yet the theoretic principles, as they weredrawn into discussion, could not fail to arrest their at-tention, and must have assisted them to form accurateideas concerning the origin and extent of authorityamong men, independent of positive institutions. Theimportance of these circumstances will not be dulyweighed without taking into consideration the state ofopinion then prevalent in England. The general prin-ciples of government were there little understood andless examined. The whole substance of human author-ity was centred in the simple doctrine of royal preroga-tive, the origin of which was always traced in theory todivine institution. Twenty years later, the subject wasmore industriously sifted, and for half a century be-came one of the principal topics of controversy betweenthe ablest and most enlightened men in the nation. The

instrument of voluntary association executed on boardthe “Mayflower” testifies that the parties to it had an-ticipated the improvement of their nation.

Another incident, from which we may derive occasionfor important reflections, was the attempt of these origi-nal settlers to establish among them that community ofgoods and of labor, which fanciful politicians, from thedays of Plato to those of Rousseau, have recommendedas the fundamental law of a perfect republic. This theoryresults, it must be acknowledged, from principles of rea-soning most flattering to the human character. If in-dustry, frugality, and disinterested integrity were alikethe virtues of all, there would, apparently, be more ofthe social spirit, in making all property a common stock,and giving to each individual a proportional title to thewealth of the whole. Such is the basis upon which Platoforbids, in his Republic, the division of property. Suchis the system upon which Rousseau pronounces the firstman who inclosed a field with a fence, and said, “Thisis mine,” a traitor to the human species. A wiser andmore useful philosophy, however, directs us to considerman according to the nature in which he was formed;subject to infirmities, which no wisdom can remedy; to


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weaknesses, which no institution can strengthen; tovices, which no legislation can correct. Hence, it be-comes obvious that separate property is the natural andindisputable right of separate exertion; that commu-nity of goods without community of toil is oppressiveand unjust; that it counteracts the laws of nature, whichprescribe that he only who sows the seed shall reap theharvest; that it discourages all energy, by destroying itsrewards; and makes the most virtuous and active mem-bers of society the slaves and drudges of the worst. Suchwas the issue of this experiment among our forefathers,and the same event demonstrated the error of the sys-tem in the elder settlement of Virginia. Let us cherishthat spirit of harmony which prompted our forefathersto make the attempt, under circumstances more favor-able to its success than, perhaps, ever occurred uponearth. Let us no less admire the candor with which theyrelinquished it, upon discovering its irremediable inef-ficacy. To found principles of government upon too ad-vantageous an estimate of the human character is anerror of inexperience, the source of which is so amiablethat it is impossible to censure it with severity. We haveseen the same mistake committed in our own age, and

upon a larger theatre. Happily for our ancestors, theirsituation allowed them to repair it before its effectshad proved destructive. They had no pride of vain phi-losophy to support, no perfidious rage of faction to glut,by persevering in their mistakes until they should beextinguished in torrents of blood.

As the attempt to establish among themselves the com-munity of goods was a seal of that sacred bond whichknit them so closely together, so the conduct they ob-served toward the natives of the country displays theirsteadfast adherence to the rules of justice and theirfaithful attachment to those of benevolence and char-ity.

No European settlement ever formed upon this conti-nent has been more distinguished for undeviating kind-ness and equity toward the savages. There are, indeed,moralists who have questioned the right of the Europe-ans to intrude upon the possessions of the aboriginalsin any case, and under any limitations whatsoever. Buthave they maturely considered the whole subject? TheIndian right of possession itself stands, with regard tothe greater part of the country, upon a questionablefoundation. Their cultivated fields; their constructed


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habitations; a space of ample sufficiency for their sub-sistence, and whatever they had annexed to themselvesby personal labor, was undoubtedly, by the laws of na-ture, theirs. But what is the right of a huntsman to theforest of a thousand miles over which he has acciden-tally ranged in quest of prey? Shall the liberal bountiesof Providence to the race of man be monopolized by oneof ten thousand for whom they were created? Shall theexuberant bosom of the common mother, amply adequateto the nourishment of millions, be claimed exclusivelyby a few hundreds of her offspring? Shall the lordlysavage not only disdain the virtues and enjoyments ofcivilization himself, but shall he control the civilizationof a world? Shall he forbid the wilderness to blossomlike a rose? Shall he forbid the oaks of the forest to fallbefore the axe of industry, and to rise again, transformedinto the habitations of ease and elegance? shall he dooman immense region of the globe to perpetual desola-tion, and to hear the howlings of the tiger and the wolfsilence forever the voice of human gladness? Shall thefields and the valleys, which a beneficent God has formedto teem with the life of innumerable multitudes, be con-demned to everlasting barrenness? Shall the mighty riv-

ers, poured out by the hand of nature, as channels ofcommunication between numerous nations, roll theirwaters in sullen silence and eternal solitude of the deep?Have hundreds of commodious harbors, a thousandleagues of coast, and a boundless ocean, been spread inthe front of this land, and shall every purpose of utilityto which they could apply be prohibited by the tenantof the woods? No, generous philanthropists! Heaven hasnot been thus inconsistent in the works of its hands.Heaven has not thus placed at irreconcilable strife itsmoral laws with its physical creation. The Pilgrims ofPlymouth obtained their right of possession to the ter-ritory on which they settled, by titles as fair and un-equivocal as any human property can be held. By theirvoluntary association they recognized their allegianceto the government of Britain, and in process of timereceived whatever powers and authorities could be con-ferred upon them by a charter from their sovereign. Thespot on which they fixed had belonged to an Indiantribe, totally extirpated by that devouring pestilencewhich had swept the country shortly before their ar-rival. The territory, thus free from all exclusive posses-sion, they might have taken by the natural right of oc-


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cupancy. Desirous, however, of giving amply satisfac-tion to every pretence of prior right, by formal and sol-emn conventions with the chiefs of the neighboringtribes, they acquired the further security of a purchase.At their hands the children of the desert had no causeof complaint. On the great day of retribution, what thou-sands, what millions of the American race will appearat the bar of judgment to arraign their European invad-ing conquerors! Let us humbly hope that the fathers ofthe Plymouth Colony will then appear in the whitenessof innocence. Let us indulge in the belief that they willnot only be free from all accusation of injustice to theseunfortunate sons of nature, but that the testimonialsof their acts of kindness and benevolence toward themwill plead the cause of their virtues, as they are nowauthenticated by the record of history upon earth.

Religious discord has lost her sting; the cumbrousweapons of theological warfare are antiquated; the fieldof politics supplies the alchemists of our times withmaterials of more fatal explosion, and the butchers ofmankind no longer travel to another world for instru-ments of cruelty and destruction. Our age is too en-lightened to contend upon topics which concern only

the interests of eternity; the men who hold in propercontempt all controversies about trifles, except such asinflame their own passions, have made it a common-place censure against your ancestors, that their zeal wasenkindled by subjects of trivial importance; and thathowever aggrieved by the intolerance of others, theywere alike intolerant themselves. Against these objec-tions, your candid judgment will not require an unquali-fied justification; but your respect and gratitude for thefounders of the State may boldly claim an ample apol-ogy. The original grounds of their separation from theChurch of England were not objects of a magnitude todissolve the bonds of communion, much less those ofcharity, between Christian brethren of the same essen-tial principles. Some of them, however, were not incon-siderable, and numerous inducements concurred to givethem an extraordinary interest in their eyes. When thatportentous system of abuses, the Papal dominion, wasoverturned, a great variety of religious sects arose in itsstead in the several countries, which for many centu-ries before had been screwed beneath its subjection.The fabric of the Reformation, first undertaken in En-gland upon a contracted basis, by a capricious and san-


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guinary tyrant, had been successively overthrown andrestored, renewed and altered, according to the varyinghumors and principles of four successive monarchs. Toascertain the precise point of division between the genu-ine institutions of Christianity and the corruptions ac-cumulated upon them in the progress of fifteen centu-ries, was found a task of extreme difficulty throughoutthe Christian world.

Men of the profoundest learning, of the sublimest ge-nius, and of the purest integrity, after devoting theirlives to the research, finally differed in their ideas uponmany great points, both of doctrine and discipline. Themain question, it was admitted on all hands, most inti-mately concerned the highest interests of man, bothtemporal and eternal. Can we wonder that men who felttheir happiness here and their hopes of hereafter, theirworldly welfare and the kingdom of heaven at stake,should sometimes attach an importance beyond theirintrinsic weight to collateral points of controversy, con-nected with the all-involving object of the Reformation?The changes in the forms and principles of religiousworship were introduced and regulated in England bythe hand of public authority. But that hand had not

been uniform or steady in its operations. During thepersecutions inflicted in the interval of Popish restora-tion under the reign of Mary, upon all who favored theReformation, many of the most zealous reformers hadbeen compelled to fly their country. While residing onthe continent of Europe, they had adopted the prin-ciples of the most complete and rigorous reformation,as taught and established by Calvin. On returning after-ward to their native country, they were dissatisfied withthe partial reformation, at which, as they conceived,the English establishment had rested; and claiming theprivilege of private conscience, upon which alone anydeparture from the Church of Rome could be justified,they insisted upon the right of adhering to the systemof their own preference, and, of course, upon that ofnon-conformity to the establishment prescribed by theroyal authority. The only means used to convince themof error and reclaim them from dissent was force, andforce served but to confirm the opposition it was meantto suppress. By driving the founders of the PlymouthColony into exile, it constrained them to absolute sepa-ration irreconcilable. Viewing their religious libertieshere, as held only by sufferance, yet bound to them by


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all the ties of conviction, and by all their sufferings forthem, could they forbear to look upon every dissenteramong themselves with a jealous eye? Within two yearsafter their landing, they beheld a rival settlement at-tempted in their immediate neighborhood; and not longafter, the laws of self-preservation compelled them tobreak up a nest of revellers, who boasted of protectionfrom the mother country, and who had recurred to theeasy but pernicious resource of feeding their wantonidleness, by furnishing the savages with the means, theskill, and the instruments of European destruction. Tol-eration, in that instance, would have been self-murder,and many other examples might be alleged, in whichtheir necessary measures of self-defence have been ex-aggerated into cruelty, and their most indispensableprecautions distorted into persecution. Yet shall we notpretend that they were exempt from the common lawsof mortality, or entirely free from all the errors of theirage. Their zeal might sometimes be too ardent, but itwas always sincere. At this day, religious indulgence isone of our clearest duties, because it is one of our un-disputed rights. While we rejoice that the principles ofgenuine Christianity have so far triumphed over the

prejudices of a former generation, let us fervently hopefor the day when it will prove equally victorious overthe malignant passions of our own.

In thus calling your attention to some of the peculiarfeatures in the principles, the character, and the his-tory of our forefathers, it is as wide from my design, asI know it would be from your approbation, to adorn theirmemory with a chaplet plucked from the domain of oth-ers. The occasion and the day are more peculiarly de-voted to them, and let it never be dishonored with acontracted and exclusive spirit. Our affections as citi-zens embrace the whole extent of the Union, and thenames of Raleigh, Smith, Winthrop, Calvert, Penn andOglethorpe excite in our minds recollections equallypleasing and gratitude equally fervent with those ofCarver and Bradford. Two centuries have not yet elapsedsince the first European foot touched the soil which nowconstitutes the American Union. Two centuries more andour numbers must exceed those of Europe itself. Thedestinies of their empire, as they appear in prospectbefore us, disdain the powers of human calculation. Yet,as the original founder of the Roman State is said onceto have lifted upon his shoulders the fame and fortunes


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of all his posterity, so let us never forget that the gloryand greatness of all our descendants is in our hands.Preserve in all their purity, refine, if possible, from alltheir alloy, those virtues which we this day commemo-rate as the ornament of our forefathers. Adhere to themwith inflexible resolution, as to the horns of the altar;instil them with unwearied perseverance into the mindsof your children; bind your souls and theirs to the na-tional Union as the chords of life are centred in theheart, and you shall soar with rapid and steady wing tothe summit of human glory. Nearly a century ago, oneof those rare minds to whom it is given to discern fu-ture greatness in its seminal principles, upon contem-plating the situation of this continent, pronounced, ina vein of poetic inspiration, “Westward the star of em-pire takes its way.” Let us unite in ardent supplicationto the Founder of nations and the Builder of worlds,that what then was prophecy may continue unfoldinginto history—that the dearest hopes of the human racemay not be extinguished in disappointment, and thatthe last may prove the noblest empire of time.


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