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your destruction, it is easily effected. Adopt this principle, and the whim of the moment will not only be the law, but the constitution of our country.

The gentleman from Virginia has mentioned a great nation brought to the feet of one of her servants. But why is she in that situation? Is it not because popular opinion was called on to decide every thing, until those who wore bayonets decided for all the rest? Our situation is peculiar. At present our national compact can prevent a state from acting hostilely toward the general interest. But, let this compact be destroyed, and each state becomes instantaneously invested with absolute sovereignty. But what, I ask, will be the situation of these states (organized as they now are) if, by the dissolution of our national compact, they be left to themselves? What is the probable result? We shall either be the victims of foreign intrigue, and, split into factions, fall under the domination of a foreign power; or else, after the misery and torment of civil war, become the subjects of an usurping military despot. What but this compact-what but this specific part of it can save us from ruin? The judicial power, that fortress of the constitution, is now to be overturned.

If

Yes, with honest Ajax, I would not only throw a shield before it-I would build around it a wall of brass. But I am too weak to defend the rampart against the host of assailants. I must call to my assistance their good sense, their patriotism, and their virtue. Do not, gentlemen, suffer the rage of passion to drive reason from her seat. this law be indeed bad, let us join to remedy the defects. Has it been passed in a manner which wounded your pride or roused your resentment? Have, I conjure you, the magnanimity to pardon that offence. I entreat, I implore you, to sacrifice these angry passions to the interests of our country. Pour out this pride of opinion on the altar of patriotism. Let it be an expiatory libation for the weal of America. Do not, for God's sake, do not suffer that pride to plunge us all into the abyss of ruin.

Indeed, indeed, it will be but of little, very little avail, whether one opinion or the other be right or wrong: it will heal no wounds; it will pay no debts; it will rebuild no ravaged towns. Do not rely on that popular will which has brought us frail beings into political existence.

That

It will soon change. You will be deceived.

opinion is but a changeable thing. This very measure will change it. Do not, I beseech you, in reliance on a foundation so frail, commit the dignity, the harmony, the existence of our nation to the wild wind. Trust not your treasure to the waves. Throw not your compass and your charts into the ocean. Do not believe that its billows will waft you into port. Indeed, indeed, you will be deceived. O! cast not away this only anchor of our safety. I have seen its progress. I know the difficulties through which it was obtained. I stand in the presence of Almighty God and of the world. I declare to you, that if you lose this charter, never, no never, will you get another! We are now, perhaps, arrived at the parting point. Here, even here we stand on the brink of fate. Pause! Pause! For heaven's sakepause! MORRIS.

44.-DECISION OF CHARACTER.

THE man who is so conscious of the rectitude of his intentions, as to be willing to open his bosom to the inspection of the world, is in possession of one of the strongest pillars of a decided character. The course of such a man will be firm and steady, because he has nothing to fear from the world, and is sure of the approbation and support of Heaven. While he, who is conscious of secret and dark designs which, if known, would blast him, is perpetually shrinking and dodging from public observation, and is afraid of all around, and much more of all above him.

Such a man may, indeed, pursue his iniquitous plans, steadily; he may waste himself to a skeleton in the guilty pursuit; but it is impossible that he can pursue them with the same health-inspiring confidence, and exulting alacrity, with him who feels, at every step, that he is in the pursuit of honest ends, by honest means. The clear, unclouded brow, the open countenance, the brilliant eye which can ook an honest man steadfastly yet courteously in the face, the healthfully beating heart, and the firm elastic step, belong to him whose bosom is free from guile, and who knows that all his motives and purposes are pure and right.

He may

Why should such a man falter in his course? be slandered; he may be deserted by the world: but he has that within which will kept him erect, and enable him to move onward in his course with his eyes fixed on Heaven, which he knows will not desert him.

Let your first step, then, in that discipline which is to give you decision of character, be the heroic determination to be honest men, and to preserve this character through every vicissitude of fortune, and in every relation which connects you with society. I do not use this phrase, "honest men," in the narrow sense, merely, of meeting your pecuniary engagements, and paying your debts; for this the common pride of gentlemen will constrain you to do. I use it in its larger sense of discharging all your duties, both public and private, both open and secret, with the most scrupulous, heaven-attesting integrity; in that sense, farther, which drives from the bosom all little, dark, crooked, sordid, debasing considerations of self, and substitutes in their place a bolder, loftier, and nobler spirit: one that will dispose you to consider yourselves, as born not so much for yourselves, as for your country and your fellow creatures, and which will lead you to act on every occasion sincerely, justly, generously, magnanimously.

There is a morality on a larger scale, perfectly consistent with a just attention to your own affairs, which it would be the height of folly to neglect; a generous expansion, a proud elevation, and conscious greatness of character, which is the best preparation for a decided course, in every situation into which you can be thrown; and it is to this high and noble tone of character that I would have you to aspire. I would not have you to resemble those weak and meager streamlets, which lose their direction at every petty impediment that presents itself, and stop, and turn back, and creep around, and search out every little channel through which they may wind their feeble and sickly course. Nor yet would I have you to resemble the headlong torrent that carries havoc in its mad career. But I would have you like the ocean, that noblest emblem of majestic decision, which, in the calmest hour, still heaves its resistless might of waters to the shore, filling the heavens, day and night, with the echoes of its sublime declaration of independence, and tossing and sporting, on

its bed, with an imperial consciousness of strength that laughs at opposition. It is this depth, and weight, and power, and purity of character, that I would have you to resemble; and I would have you, like the waters of the ocean, to become the purer by your own action. WIRT.

45.-BONAPARTE TO THE ARMY OF ITALY.

SOLDIERS,-You are precipitated like a torrent from the heights of the Apennines; you have overthrown and dispersed all that dared to oppose your march. Piedmont, rescued from Austrian tyranny, is left to its natural sentiments of regard and friendship to the French. Milan is yours; and the republican standard is displayed throughout all Lombardy. The dukes of Parma and Modena are indebted for their political existence only to your generosity..

The army, which so proudly menaced you, has had no other barrier than its dissolution to oppose your invincible courage. The Po, the Tessen, the Adda, could not retard you a single day. The vaunted bulwarks of Italy were insufficient. You swept them with the same rapidity that you did the Apennines. Those successes have carried joy into the bosom of your country. Your representatives decreed a festival dedicated to your victories, and to be celebrated throughout all the communes of the republic. Now your fathers, your mothers, your wives, and your sisters will rejoice in your success, and take pride in their relation to you.

Yes, soldiers, you have done much; but more still remains for you to do. Shall it be said of us, that we know how to conquer, but not to profit by our victories? Shall posterity reproach us with having found a Capua in Lombardy? But already I see you fly to arms. You are fatigued with an inactive repose. that are lost to your glory! Well, then, let us proceed; we have other forced marches to make, other enemies to subdue; more laurels to acquire, and more injuries to

avenge.

You lament the days

Let those who have unsheathed the daggers of civil war in France; who have basely assassinated our ministers,

who have burnt our ships at Toulon; let them tremble! the knell of vengeance has already tolled!

But to quiet the apprehensions of the people, we declare ourselves the friends of all, and particularly of those who are the descendants of Brutus, of Scipio, and those other great men whom we have taken for our models.

To re-establish the capital; to replace the statues of those heroes who have rendered it immortal; to rouse the Roman people, entranced in so many ages of slavery; this shall be the fruit of your victories. It will be an epoch for the admiration of posterity; you will enjoy the immortal glory of changing the aspect of affairs in the finest part of Europe. The free people of France, not regardless of moderation, shall accord to Europe a glorious peace; but it will indemnify itself for the sacrifices of every kind which it has been making for six years past. You will again be restored to your firesides and homes; and your fellow citizens, pointing you out, shall say, "There goes one who belonged to the army of Italy!" BONAPARTE.

46.-ON A FUTURE STATE.

THE idea of another and a better world seems to be con

genial to the human mind. It has been generally enter tained in every age. The philosophers of ancient times, who had nothing but the dim light of nature to direct them, cherished the ennobling notion of immortal existence. Even the untutored savage flatters himself with the pleasing prospect of being one day transported into happier regions, and anticipates the pleasure which he will there enjoy in the company of his fathers. All feel within themselves the pleasing hope, the fond desire, of immortality. But though nature has given to all her children some conceptions of immortality, still it must be acknowledged that her information is far from proving satisfactory. Hence we find the most eminent sages of the heathen world, even while desiring and hoping for such a state, confessing themselves unable to demonstrate its existence.-Doubtful and insecure were all their prospects. While toward futurity they bent their longing eyes, a thick cloud, impenetrable by unassisted reason, intercepted their view. But from this state of

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