Probably when sent to us, it was also sent, by another message, to that body. These observations, sir, are tedious and uninteresting. I am glad to be through with them. And here I might terminate my remarks, and relieve the patience, now long and heavily taxed, of the committee. But there is one part of the discussion, on which I must ask to be indulged with a few observations. Pains, sir, have been taken by the honorable member from Virginia, to prove that the measure now in contemplation, and, indeed, the whole policy of the government respecting South America, is the unhappy result of the influence of a gentleman formerly filling the chair of this house. To make out this, he has referred to certain speeches of that gentleman delivered here. He charges him with having become himself affected at an early day with what he is pleased to call the South American fever, and with having infused its baneful influence into the whole councils of the country. If, sir, it be true, that that gentleman, prompted by an ardent love of civil liberty, felt, earlier than others, a proper sympathy for the struggling colonies of South America; or that, acting on the maxim that revolutions do not go backward, he had the sagacity to foresee, earlier than others, the successful termination of those struggles; if, thus feeling, and thus perceiving, it fell to him to lead the willing or unwilling councils of his country, in her manifestations of kindness to the new governments, and in her seasonable recognition of their independence; if it be this which the honorable member imputes to him; if it be by this course of public conduct that he has identified his name with the cause of South American liberty, he ought to be esteemed one of the most fortunate men of the age. If all this be, as is now represented, he has acquired fame enough. It is enough for any man thus to have connected himself with the greatest events of the age in which he lives, and to have been foremost in measures which reflect high honor on his country, in the judgment of mankind. Sir, it is always with great reluctance that I am drawn to speak, in my place here, of individuals; but I could not forbear what I have now said, when I hear, in the house of representatives, and in this land of free spirits, that it is made matter of imputation and of reproach, to have been first to reach forth the hand of welcome and of succor to new-born nations, struggling to obtain and to enjoy the blessings of liberty. We are told that the country is deluded and deceived by cabalistic words. Cabalistic words! If we express an emotion of pleasure at the results of this great action of the spirit of political liberty; if we rejoice at the birth of new republican nations, and express our joy by the common terms of regard and sympathy; if we feel and signify high gratification that, throughout this whole continent, men are now likely to be blest by free and popular institutions; and if, in the uttering of these sentiments, we happen to speak of sister republics-of the great American family of nations-or of the political system and forms of government of this hemisphere, then, indeed, it seems we deal in senseless jargon, or impose on the judgment and feeling of the community by cabalistic words! Sir, what is meant by this? Is it intended that the people of the United States ought to be totally indifferent to the fortunes of these new neighbors? Is no change, in the lights in which we are to view them, to be wrought by their having thrown off foreign dominion, established independence, and instituted, on our very borders, republican governments, essentially after our own. example? Sir, I do not wish to overrate-I do not overrate-the progress of these new states in the great work of establishing a well-secured popular liberty. I know that to be a great attainment, and I know they are but pupils in the school. But, thank God, they are in the school. They are called to meet difficulties, such as neither we nor our fathers encountered. For these we ought to make large allowances. What have we ever known like the colonial vassalage of these states ? When did we or our ancestors feel, like them, the weight of a political despotism that presses men to the earth, or of that religious intolerance which would shut up heaven to all but the bigoted? Sir, we sprung from another stock. We belong to another race. We have known nothing we have felt nothing-of the political despotism of Spain, nor of the heat of her fires of intolerance. No rational man expects that the south can run the same rapid career as the north; or that an insurgent province of Spain is in the same condition as the English colonies when they first asserted their independence. There is, doubtless, much more to be done in the first than in the last case. But on that account the honor of the attempt is not less; and if all difficulties shall be in time surmounted, it will be greater. The work may be more arduous; it is not less noble, because there may be more of ignorance to enlighten-more of bigotry to subdue-more of prejudice to eradicate. If it be a weakness to feel a strong interest in the success of these great revolutions, I confess myself guilty of that weakness. If it be weak to feel that I am an American, to think that recent events have not only opened new modes of intercourse, but have created also new grounds of regard and sympathy between ourselves and our neighbors; if it be weak to feel that the south, in her present state, is somewhat more emphatically a part of America, than when she lay obscure, oppressed and unknown, under the grinding bondage of a foreign power; if it be weak to rejoice, when, even in any corner of the earth, human beings are able to get up from beneath oppression, to erect themselves, and to enjoy the proper happiness of their intelligent nature;-if this be weak, it is a weakness from which I claim no exemption. A day of solemn retribution now visits the once proud monarchy of Spain. The prediction is fulfilled. The spirit of Montezuma and of the Incas might now well say, "Art thou, too, fallen, Iberia? Do we see Mr. Chairman, I will detain you only with one more reflection on this subject. We cannot be so blind-we cannot so shut up our senses, and smother our faculties, as not to see, that in the progress and the establishment of South American liberty, our own example has been among the most stimulating causes. That great light a light which can never be hid—the light of our own glorious revolution, has shone on the path of the South American patriots, from the beginning of their course. In their emergencies, they have looked to our experience; in their political institutions, they have followed our models; in their deliberations, they have invoked the presiding spirit of our own liberty. They have looked steadily, in every adversity, to the great northern light. In the hour of bloody conflict, they have remembered the fields which have been consecrated by the blood of our own fathers; and when they have fallen, they have wished only to be remembered with them, as men who had acted their parts bravely, for the cause of liberty in the western world. Sir, I have done. If it be weakness to feel the sympathy of one's nature excited for such men, in such a cause, I am guilty of that weakness. If it be prudence to meet their proffered civility, not with reciprocal kindness, but with coldness or with insult, I choose still to follow where natural impulse leads, and to give up that false and mistaken prudence, for the voluntary sentiments of my heart. 409 AN ORATION, PRONOUNCED AT CAMBRIDGE, BEFORE THE SOCIETY OF PHI BETA KAPPA, AUGUST 26, 1824. BY EDWARD EVERETT. MR. PRESIDENT, AND GENTLEMEN, In discharging the honorable trust of being the public organ of your sentiments on this occasion, I have been anxious that the hour which we here pass together, should be occupied by those reflections exclusively which belong to us as scholars. Our association in this fraternity is academical; we engaged in it before our alma mater dismissed us from her venerable roof, to wander in the various paths of life; and we have now come together in the academical holidays, from every variety of pursuit, from almost every part of our country, to meet on common ground, as the brethren of one literary household. The professional cares of life, like the conflicting tribes of Greece, have proclaimed to us a short armistice, that we may come up in peace to our Olympia. But from the wide field of literary speculation, and the innumerable subjects of meditation which arise in it, a selection must be made. And it has seemed to me proper, that we should direct our thoughts, not merely to a subject of interest to scholars, but to one which may recommend itself as peculiarly appropriate to us. If that old man eloquent, whom the dishonest victory at Cheronæa killed with report,' could devote fifteen years to the composition of his Panegyric on Athens, I shall need no excuse to a society of American scholars, in choosing for the theme of an address, on an occasion like this, the peculiar motives to intellectual exertion in America. In this subject, that curiosity which every scholar feels in tracing and comparing the springs of mental activity, is heightened and dignified by the important connection of the inquiry with the condition and prospects of our native land. In the full comprehension of the terms, the motives to intellectual exertion in a country embrace the most important springs of national character. Pursued into its details, the study of these springs of national character is often little better than fanciful spec ulation. The questions, why Asia has almost always been the abode of despotism, and Europe more propitious to liberty; why the Egyptians were abject and melancholy; the Greeks inventive, elegant, and versatile; the Romans stern, saturnine, and, in matters of literature, for the most part, servile imitators of a people whom they conquered, despised, and never equalled; why tribes of barbarians from the north and east, not known to differ essentially from each other at the time of their settlement in Europe, should have laid the foundation of national characters so dissimilar as those of the Spanish, French, German, and English nations;-these are questions to which a few general answers may be attempted, that will probably be just and safe only in proportion as they are vague and comprehensive. Difficult as it is, even in the individual man, to point out precisely the causes, under the influence of which members of the same community and of the same family, placed apparently in the same circumstances, grow up with characters the most diverse; it is infinitely more difficult to perform the same analysis on a subject so vast as a nation, where it is first not a small question what the character is, before you touch the inquiry into the circumstances by which it was formed. But as, in the case of individual character, there are certain causes of undisputed and powerful operation, there are, also, in national character, causes equally undisputed of improvement and excellence, on the one hand, and of degeneracy and decline, on the other. The philosophical student of history, the impartial observer of man, may often fix on circumstances, which, in their operation on the minds of the people, in furnishing the motives and giving the direction to intellectual exertion, have had the chief agency in making them what they were or are. Nor are there many exercises of the speculative principle more elevated than this. It is in the highest degree curious to trace physical facts into their political, intellectual and moral consequences; and to show how the climate, the geographical position, and even the particular topography of a region, connect themselves by evident association with the state of society, its predominating pursuits, and characteristic institutions. In the case of other nations, particularly of those which in the great drama of the world have long since passed from the stage, these speculations are often only curious. The operation of a tropical climate in enervating and fitting a people for despotism; the influence of a broad river or a lofty chain of mountains, in arresting the march of conquest or of emigration, and thus becoming the boundary, not merely of governments, but of languages, literature, institutions and character; the effect of a quarry of fine marble on the progress of the liberal arts; the agency of popular institutions in promoting popular eloquence, and the tremendous reaction of popular eloquence on the fortunes of a state; the comparative |