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FRENCH AGGRESSIONS.

Tн solemn oath of America has ascended to heaven. She has sworn to preserve her independence, her religion and her laws, or nobly perish in their defense, and be buried in the wrecks of her empire. To the fate of our government is united the fate of our country. The convulsions that destroy the one, must desolate the other. Their destinies are interwoven, and they must triumph or fall together. Where then is the man, so hardened in political iniquity, as to advocate the victories of French arms, which would render his countrymen slaves, or to promote the diffusion of French principles, which would render them savages? Can it be doubted, that the pike of a French soldier is less cruel and ferocious than the fraternity of a French philosopher? Where is the youth in this assembly, who could, without agonized emotions, behold the Gallic invader hurling the brand of devastation into the dwelling of his father; or with sacrilegious cupidity plundering the communion table of his God? Who could witness, without indignant desperation, the mother who bore him, inhumanly murdered in the defense of her infants? Who could hear, without frantic horror, the shrieks f a sister, flying from pollution, and leaping from the blazing roof, to impale herself on the point of a halberd? "If any, speak, for him I have offended!" No, my fellow-citizens, these scenes are never to be witnessed by American eyes. The souls of your ancestors still live in the bosom of their descendants; and rather than submit this fair land of their inheritance to ravage and dishonor, from hoary age to helpless infancy, they will form one united bulwark, and oppose their breasts to the as sailing foe.

PAINE.

SUPPOSED SPEECH OF JOHN ADAMS.

SINK or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my heart to this vote. It is true, indeed, that in the begin ning we aimed not at independence. But there's a divinity which shapes our ends. The injustice of England has driven us to arms; and, blinded to her own interest, for our good, she has obstinately persisted, till independence is now within our grasp. We have but to reach forth to it, and it is ours.

Why then should we defer the declaration? Is any man so weak as now to hope for a reconciliation with England, which

shall leave either safety to the country and its liberties, or safety to his own life and his own honor? Are not you, sir, who sit in that chair; is not he, our venerable colleague near you; are you not both already the proscribed and predestined objects of punishment and of vengeance? Cut off from all hope of royal clemency, what are you, what can you be, while the power of England remains, but outlaws?

If we postpone independence, do we mean to cany on, or to give up the war? Do we mean to submit to the measures of parlia ment, Boston port bill and all? Do we mean to submit, and consent that we ourselves shall be ground to powder, and our country and its rights trodden down in the dust? I know we do not mean to submit. We never shall submit.

Do we intend to violate that most solemn obligation ever entered into by men that plighting, before God, of our sacred honor to Washington, when putting him forth to incur the dan gers of war, as well as the political hazards of the times, we promised to adhere to him, in every extremity, with our fortunes and our lives? I know there is not a man here, who would not rather see a general conflagration sweep over the land, or an earthquake sink it, than one jot or tittle of that plighted faith fall to the ground.

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For myself, having, twelve months ago, in this place, moved you that George Washington be appointed commander of the forces, raised or to be raised, for defense of American liberty, may my right hand forget her cunning, and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth," if I hesitate or waver in the support 1 give him. The war, then, must go on. We must fight it through. And if the war must go on, why put off longer the declaration of independence? That measure will strengthen It will give us character abroad.

us.

WEBSTER.

THE SAME, CONTINUED.

Ir we fail, it cannot be worse for us. But we shall not fail The cause will raise up armies; the cause will create navies. The people, the people, if we are true to them, will carry us, and will carry themselves, gloriously, through this struggle. I care not how fickle other people have been found. I know the people of these colonies, and I know that resistance of British aggression is deep and settled in their hearts and cannot be eradicated. Every colony, indeed, has expressed its willing

ness to follow, if we but take the lead. Sir, the declaration will inspire the people with increased courage. Instead of a long and bloody war for restoration of privileges, for redress of grievances, for chartered immunities held under a British king, set before then the glorious object of entire independence, and it will breathe into them anew the breath of life.

Read this declaration at the head of the army; every sword will be drawn from its scabbard, and the solemn vow uttered to maintain it, or to perish on the bed of honor. Publish it from the pulpit; religion will approve it, and the love of religious. liberty will cling round it, resolved to stand with it, or fall with it. Send it to the public halls; proclaim it there; let them. hear it, who heard the first roar of the enemy's cannon; let them see it, who saw their brothers and their sons fall on the field of Bunker Hill, and in the streets of Lexington and Concord, and the very walls will cry out in its support.

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Sir, I know the uncertainty of human affairs, but I see, I see clearly through this day's business. You and I, indeed, it. We may not live to the time when this declaration shall be made good. We may die; die, colonists; die, slaves; die, it may be, ignominiously and on the scaffold. Be it so. Be it so.

If it be the pleasure of heaven that my country shall require the poor offering of my life, the victim shall be ready, at the appointed hour of sacrifice, come when that hour may. But while I do live, let me have a country, or at least the hope of a country, and that a free country.

But whatever may be our fate, be assured that this declaration will stand. It may cost treasure, and it may cost blood; but it will stand, and it will richly compensate for both. Through the thick gloom of the present, I see the brightness of the future, as the sun in heaven. We shall make this a glorious, an immortal day. When we are in our graves, our children will honor it. They will celebrate it, with thanksgiving, with festivity, with bonfires, and illuminations. On its annual return they will shed tears, copious, gushing tears, not of subjection and slavery, not of agony and distress, but of exultation, of gratitude, and of joy.

Sir, before God, I believe the hour is come. My judgment approves this measure, and my whole heart is in it. All that I have, and all that I am, and all that I hope, in this life, I am now ready here to stake upon it; and I leave off as I begun, that live or die, survive or perish, I am for the declaration. is my living sentiment, and by the blessing of God it shall be my dying sentiment-independence now; and INDEPENDENCE

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WEBSTEK.

THE MISERIES OF WAR.

Он, tell me, if there be any relentings of pity in your bosom, how could you endure it, to behold the agonies of the dying man, as, goaded by pain, he grasps the cold ground in convulsive energy; or, faint with the loss of blood, his pulse ebbs low, and the gathering paleness spreads itself over his countenance; or, wrapping himself round in despair, he can only mark, by a few feeble quiverings, that life still lurks and lingers in his lacerated body, or, lifting up a faded eye, he casts on you a look of imploring helplessness for that succor which no sympathy can yield him? It may be painful to dwell thus, in imagination, on the distressing picture of one individual; but, multiply it ten thousand times; say how much of all this distress has been heaped together on a single field; give us the arithmetic of this accumulated wretchedness, and lay it before us with all the accuracy of an official computation, and, strange to tell, not one sigh is lifted up among the crowd of eager listeners, as they stand on tiptoe, and catch every syllable of utterance which is read to them out the registers of death. Oh! say what mystic spell is that which so blinds us to the suffering of our brethren; which deafens to our ear the voice of bleeding humanity, when it is aggravated by the shriek of dying thousands; which makes the very magnitude of the slaughter throw a softening disguise over its cruelties and its horrors; which causes us to eye, with indifference, the field that is crowded with the most revolting abominations, and arrests that sigh which each individual would, singly, have drawn from us, by the report of the many that have fallen and breathed their last in agony along with him!

CHALMERS.

extent.

FREE DISCUSSION.

IMPORTANT as I deem it to discuss, on all proper occasions, the policy of the measures at present pursued, it is still more important to maintain the right of such discussion in its full and just Sentiments lately sprung up, and now growing fashionable, make it necessary to be explicit on this point. The more I perceive a disposition to check the freedom of inquiry by extravagant and unconstitutional pretenses, the firmer shall be the tone in which I shall assert, and the freer the manner in which I shall exercise it

It is the ancient and undoubted prerogative of this people to canvass public measures, and the merits of public men. It is a "home-bred right," a fireside privilege. It hath ever been enjoyed in every house, cottage, and cabin in the nation. It is not to be drawn into controversy. It is as undoubted as the right of breathing the air, or walking on the earth. Belonging to public life as a right, it belongs to public life as a duty; and it is the last duty which those, whose representative I am, shall find me to abandon. Aiming at all times to be temperate and courteous in its use, except when the right itself shall be questioned, I shall then carry it to its extent. I shall place myself on the extreme boundary of my right, and bid defiance to any arm that would move me from my ground.

This high constitutional privilege I shall defend and exercise within this house, and without this house, and in all places; in time of peace, and in all times. Living, I shall assert it; and, should I leave no other inheritance to my children, by the blessing of God I will leave them the inheritance of free principles, and the example of a manly, independent, and constitutional defense of them.

WEBSTER

AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS.

WHO is there among us, that, should he find himself on any spot of the earth where human beings exist, and where the existence of other nations is known, would not be proud to say, I am an American? I am a countryman of Washington? I am a citizen of that republic which, although it has suddenly sprung up, yet there are none on the globe who have ears to hear, and have not heard of it- who have eyes to see, and have not read of it - who know anything, and yet do not know of its existence and its glory? And, gentlemen, let me now reverse the picture Let me ask, who is there among us, if he were to be found to-morrow in one of the civilized countries of Europe, and were there to learn that this goodly form of government had been overthrown that the United States were no longer united - who is there whose heart would not sink within him? Who is there who would not cover his face for very shame ?

At this very moment, gentlemen, our country is a general refuge for the oppressed and the persecuted of other nations. Whoever is in affliction from political occurrences in his own country, looks here for shelter. Whether he be republican, flying from

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