give due attention to this duty, it is as if the chosen governors of the country should withhold a tenth part of the talent or of the time due to their office.

I do not demand of any one, that he should be an eager and noisy politician. I only demand that he should vote; that he should, no matter how quietly, thus express his interest and take his share in the commonweal-thus assume, what he professes to prize so highly, the privilege and duty of self-government. But I am obliged to say, and I hardly know whether it is with greater mortification or the more profound concern, that the very persons among us who are most apt to neglect this duty, are the very persons most of all bound to fulfil it—I mean the rich and the educated. It is a statement most fearful in its bearing on the prospects of the country, but it is true. I do not deny that many of both classes are found at their posts, when their country calls upon them. But there are rich men, who are too much engrossed with their business to give their vote-too much engrossed with gain to attend to their duty; or who, perchance, are too fastidious to expose their persons amidst the throng at the polls. And there are educated men, who are so much disgusted with party strifes, that they will have nothing to do with them. They give them up, as they scornfully say, to demagogues and brawlers; and so very simple are these sensible and refined persons, that they do not seem to perceive, when they say this, that they are giving up their country to demagogues and brawlers. Yes, their country! And here it is, too, on the very side where it most needs support, that its legitimate defenders on that side are opening their ranks to the onset and the rushing crowd of popular ignorance and party violence. "Fools and blind!"-would it be said, should they be overwhelmed by that crowd-"that did not perceive that they too had interests at stake-that very property, that very repose, which they so much valued. For when the crowd came, what did it find? Not good and manly citizens at their post; but only certain moneychangers in their counting-houses, or silken loungers in drawing-rooms, or certain learned monks in their cloisters!' I do not fear any such violent and Vandal incursion of popular ignorance and passion; and yet if anything is to overwhelm the country, it will be this. If there is any one thing more to be feared than any other-any one overshadowing peril to our political institutions, it is, that numerical force will overbalance the intellectual and moral strength of the country. I say again, that I do not fear it-except with that fear which bringeth safety. I do not fear it, because I trust that events are teaching intelligent and educated men their duties; and because I believe, that into the numerical force, otherwise so much to be dreaded, there is a constantly increasing, and will be a still larger infusion of, intelligence.* But if it shall be otherwise; if population is to outstrip education; if numbers, and not principles, are to be the watchwords and war-cries of party, and the governing powers of the state, the dreaded result is inevitable.

In connexion with this topic, there is a question often raised concerning a certain educated class in the country, to which I shall give a moment's attention. This question is-ought the clergy to vote? And

Not in cities, perhaps, from temporary causes; but in the country at large.

to this question I firmly answer, yes; always and everywhere. This is a right which they ought never to suffer to be drawn into debate. It is enough that they are, by public opinion, nearly disfranchised, and that absurdly enough, of their natural right to hold offices under the government.* We hear much of freedom, and invasions of freedom, in this country. What would any other respectable class of citizens say, if they were excluded from all active share and interest in the government? They would fill the country with their complaints, and the world would be called upon to look at this monstrous anomaly in our free institutions. I shall be at no pains here to say, that the clergy probably do not desire public employment. Whether they do or not, is not the question. I say that they have a right to it, as much as any other class; and the frequent language of reproach and satire heard, on every assumption of this right, I hold to be disgraceful to a free press and people. But the question now is about suffrage. And on this point, I maintain, that for the clergy to cast their vote with the rest of their fellow-citizens at the elections, is not only their right, but their bounden duty. Nor should their congregations, in manly candour, ever desire to deprive them of this right, or to dictate to them in regard to the discharge of this duty. This is not a country-a republican government is the last in the world-that can afford to part with the influence of a large and intelligent body of its citizens.

I have dwelt longer than I intended upon this first and foundation principle of our political morality-that which requires every legally qualified citizen to give his vote at the elections. There is another duty coincident with this, which is too obvious to call for much argument, and yet too often violated to be passed over in silence; and that is the duty of giving an honest vote.

Every citizen in this primary act that gives its being and character to the government, is bound to express his honest conviction. The vote demands the contribution of his mind, of his judgment, of his patriotism and fidelity to the commonweal. The citizen is the real governor.— And if the elected ruler is forbidden, by every just principle, to swerve from an honest purpose towards the public good, so is the ruling elector; and he who surrenders his judgment or conscience to private interest, or the mere dictation of a party; he who accepts a bribe or offers one; he who, in the ballot, smothers his own conviction, or attempts to coerce another's, is perjured in the holiest rites with which he swears upon his country's altar.

The familiarity with which certain transactions at the polls are spoken of-yes, palpable infractions of the law with regard to the age, residence, and, where a property qualification is required, the property of voters the freedom with which parties charge these practices upon each other after an election-are facts of evil omen. And the common defence set up for them is, if possible, worse than the things themselves. The country, we are constantly told, is in danger; every nerve must be strained, every means used, to carry certain measures; the opposite party leave no means, however flagitious and desperate, untried, and we must meet them on their own ground-must fight them with their own weapons. Admirable doctrine! that goes around the whole circuit

* They are so by law in some of the States.

of parties, and lends a handle to each one, wherewith to push on the cumulative argument for dishonesty and intrigue! The country in danger!-and to be saved by corruption, by bribery, false swearing, and the violated law! The nation, sick and prostrate by the tampering of some ignorant administration with its health and vigour—and how to be cured? By the canker and the gangrene that are eating out its very vitals!

Away with such paltering and paltry arguments for the expedient against the right! If it must be so, I had rather my country were destroyed by truth, than saved by falsehood. I would rather it were ruined by virtue, than redeemed by corruption. But do not the very terms of this statement show, that it is not so? No; "honesty is the best policy" for man or nation, for individual or party. But if honesty is anywhere to be demanded or expected, it is in the first act that gives its character to the government-the elections. Admit any false principle there, and what, in consistency, can you look for but a corrupt government? Will you poison the fountain head, and expect the streams to be pure?

I insist, then, that the elector shall be honest. He should no more dare to be false to his own mind, false to his conscience, in giving his vote, than he would in giving his word. His vote is his word; and the only word, perhaps, that he can speak in the great ear of the nation. If that word is a lie, he sacrifices, as far as in him is, the right government and rectitude of the country.

We have now attended to one branch of our specific political duties, the morality of elections-binding every citizen to vote, and every citizen to vote honestly. The other department of specific morality embraces the duties of the elected-of legislators and magistrates.

And here, I must confess, that the tone of public sentiment on this subject the admission, almost universal, that legislators and magistrates when elected will act, and must be expected to act, for sinister ends-is one at which I tremble. If this charge were the offspring of mere party recrimination, I could understand it, and could look upon it with comparative indifference. But the truth is, that the charge has been bandied about, between parties, till it has become resolved into a general maxim, or a maxim, at least, of frightful prevalence among the people. If the allegation were only, that every administration is liable to be corrupt, and does sometimes lean to party ends-against such a fact, arising from the weakness of human nature, I could bear up; but when, by four out of five of all the men you meet, of all parties, it is sapiently or carelessly said, that "all is corrupt in the government;" that "in Congress, of course, everything is decided by party;" that "the Capitol is but a scene of intrigue and corruption;" then is public virtue not only shaken, but it is sapped to the very foundation. And if something does not arrest this tendency of public sentiment, it is not too much to fear, that it will whelm the whole fabric in ruins. If virtue in a public man is a thing altogether out of the calculation of his constituents; if he is allowed to look upon his place only as a sphere of personal and party selfishness; if singleminded principle, if singlehearted truth for the country, is thus mocked at by the people, and its possessor is led to regard himself as a prodigy or a fool for his honesty, what is to save the state-all the barriers of virtue broken down-from overwhelming corruption?

Is this general proscription of public men just? I deny that it is.If it were, then, indeed, I should have nothing to say, but that which I shall directly attempt to say, in discharge of my conscience with regard to such high and heaven-daring iniquity. But I deny that the common, the too easy allegation against public men, is true. It may suit the impatience of disappointed partisans, or the envy of inferior men, or the vanity of the all-knowing ones, or the too deep and habitual distrust of the national mind, to bring these sweeping accusations; but I am persuaded that there are men in our high places that ought to stand acquitted of them-men to whom they are a heinous and cruel injustice. I know that all are not corrupt; that all are not gone out of the way.Mistaken they may be; prejudiced they may be; it is but human to err; but they are not all to be set down as dishonest men. I know this as well as I can know any fact of such a nature. I know it, because I know the men; or because I know the character they have sustained, and still sustain, among their friends and neighbours. It is obviously a most arbitrary and unwarrantable proceeding to charge upon public men, as such, a worse character than upon the communities they represent; to hold them, in virtue of their elevation, to be bad men: to convert the shield of a goodly reputation, the moment the insignia of office are stamped upon it, into a target for universal abuse and opprobrium. But, on the other hand, when this treatment is deserved; when a man is false to the high trusts of magistracy and legislation; when he makes of the greater trust only the greater argument for infidelity to the commonweal, there is no language of reprobation too strong to visit upon him. Called by a whole district, perhaps a whole country, to guard and promote its welfare-presiding, alone or jointly, over the affairs and destinies of a whole people; each one's interest involved, each one's interest dear; and the interests of thousands, perhaps of millions, uniting to lay upon him the bond of his great office-if he can shake it from him easily, if he can snap it asunder as tow, and cast it aside as the rubbish of old and outworn morality, I would he might know in what tone the outraged conscience of a nation can speak. I would that the public bosom were taught to heave, and the public eye to flash upon him, with withering and crushing indignation.

It may be thought a light thing, and to little purpose, to say to the man high in office," You are bound by the laws of morality and honour to act faithfully for the country-yes, and above all men bound." There may be some men of lofty station, and more than one such, who would smile at the simplicity of the appeal, and would imagine that it must come from some child, or from some scholastic and retired person, sadly ignorant of the world. And if, yet more, the nobleness of his function were insisted on; if he were admonished, that nothing on earth can approach so near to the beneficent Divinity as a just and good government, watching over a great people, ministering to the security, comfort, and virtue of millions-he might regard it as a picture drawn by some visionary dreamer. Is it so? Is the adjuration of subject millions, appealing to their rulers; is the good or the evil flowing down from them, through all the dwellings of a whole country; is the sighing and the crying that goes up from nations, asking, ever asking for truth and justice in the high places of the world,-is all this to pass for visionary dreaming? Not so! Forbid it, Heaven! Forbid

it, earth! That profane trifling with the sanctitude of power, that accommodating, detestable morality that allows greatness to be a shield for injustice, and office an exemption from duty, let all the world rise to forbid. That humble ignorance should err, that burdened weakness should falter, that crushed poverty should swerve, may find some apology with man, some indulgence with Heaven; but lofty power, but commanding intellect, but proud independence of the low wants of life -these, if anything, shall be held amenable to the moral judgment of mankind; these, if anything, shall stand confronted with the most awful accusations of human guilt, before the just and dread tribunal of God!

I am sensible that the discussion in which I have now engaged, of specific political duties, has already gone to the usual length of a public discourse; but I must venture to beg your indulgence to a few closing remarks, of a more general character. For I am not willing to leave the subject without showing, in the first place, that there is a lawful and useful sphere for those powers and principles which are involved in the political action of a people; or without pointing out, in the second place, the evil of pressing them beyond the bounds of a just morality.

In the first place, then, there is a lawful sphere for political and party action. Parties, as such, are not to be deprecated. Oppositions are not to be deprecated. Newspapers devoted to the maintainance of particular views, newspaper arguments, public speeches-speeches in caucus-are not to be deprecated. They are to be welcomed; they are all good in their place.

What is their place? Let us consider it.

All

Parties, then, properly regarded, are founded on the different views that are unavoidably taken of public measures and public men. men cannot think alike. Differences of opinion are inevitable. Parties, then, are necessary; and they are useful. It is for the public advantage, that all questions, touching the commonweal, should be freely discussed. The legitimate action of parties is, the embodied manifestation and advocacy of their respective views of the public policy. This is their proper sphere, and this is their proper limit. It is no part of their business to malign the motives of each other, or to use immoral means for the advancement of their respective ends: and not only so, but it is peculiarly incumbent on these political combinations, if they would act an honourable part, to guard themselves from prejudice, passion, and violence, from slander, intrigue, and oppression. This may be accounted no better, I am sensible, than "the foolishness of preaching." It is the grave voice of political morality, and not of faction. But I cannot admit, that it is out of place here. I cannot believe, that all high principle is to be for ever excluded from politics. I have in my mind still, the beau ideal of a party-man, differ as it may from the common example. He is not a man to whom all opinions are indifferent; and, therefore, he is a party-man. He is a man who adopts an opinion, and defends it; but then he is a man who stands up manfully and nobly to defend his opinion; courageously and courteously to defend it; honestly and candidly to defend it; and he spurns the idea of misrepresenting either the argument or the character of his adversary. He cares more to be true to his own mind and conscience than to anything else. He guards his liberty from all party invasion, for he will