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DANIEL WEBSTER COMMEMORATING THE
PILGRIM'S LANDING OF 1620
The Plymouth Oration
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Daniel Webster's Plymouth Oration, delivered at
Plymouth, Massachusetts - December 22, 1820.
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Let us rejoice
that we behold this day. |
Let us be thankful
that we have lived to see the bright and happy
breaking of the auspicious morn, which commences
the third century of the history of New England.
Auspicious, indeed,—bringing a happiness beyond
the common allotment of Providence to men,—full
of present joy, and gilding with bright beams
the prospect of futurity, is the dawn that
awakens us to the commemoration of the landing
of the Pilgrims.
Living at an epoch which naturally marks the
progress of the history of our native land, we
have come hither to celebrate the great event
with which that history commenced. For ever
honored be this, the place of our fathers'
refuge! For ever remembered the day which saw
them, weary and distressed, broken in every
thing but spirit, poor in all but faith and
courage, at last secure from the dangers of
wintry seas, and impressing this shore with the
first footsteps of civilized man!
It is a noble faculty of our nature which
enables us to connect our thoughts, our
sympathies, and our happiness with what is
distant in place or time; and, looking before
and after, to hold communion at once with our
ancestors and our posterity. Human and mortal
although we are, we are nevertheless not mere
insulated beings, without relation to the past
or the future. Neither the point of time, nor
the spot of earth, in which we physically live,
bounds our rational and intellectual enjoyments.
We live in the past by a knowledge of its
history; and in the future, by hope and
anticipation. By ascending to an association
with our ancestors; by contemplating their
example and studying their character; by
partaking their sentiments, and imbibing their
spirit; by accompanying them in their toils, by
sympathizing in their sufferings, and rejoicing
in their successes and their triumphs; we seem
to belong to their age, and to mingle our own
existence with theirs. We become their
contemporaries, live the lives which they lived,
endure what they endured, and partake in the
rewards which they enjoyed. And in like manner,
by running along the line of future time, by
contemplating the probable fortunes of those who
are coming after us, by attempting something
which may promote their happiness, and leave
some not dishonorable memorial of ourselves for
their regard, when we shall sleep with the
fathers, we protract our own earthly being, and
seem to crowd whatever is future, as well as all
that is past, into the narrow compass of our
earthly existence. As it is not a vain and
false, but an exalted and religious imagination,
which leads us to raise our thoughts from the
orb, which, amidst this universe of worlds, the
Creator has given us to inhabit, and to send
them with something of the feeling which nature
prompts, and teaches to be proper among children
of the same Eternal Parent, to the contemplation
of the myriads of fellow-beings with which his
goodness has peopled the infinite of space; so
neither is it false or vain to consider
ourselves as interested and connected with our
whole race, through all time; allied to our
ancestors; allied to our posterity; closely
compacted on all sides with others; ourselves
being but links in the great chain of being,
which begins with the origin of our race, runs
onward through its successive generations,
binding together the past, the present, and the
future, and terminating at last, with the
consummation of all things earthly, at the
throne of God.
There may be, and there often is, indeed, a
regard for ancestry, which nourishes only a weak
pride; as there is also a care for posterity,
which only disguises an habitual avarice, or
hides the workings of a low and groveling
vanity. But there is also a moral and
philosophical respect for our ancestors, which
elevates the character and improves the heart.
Next to the sense of religious duty and moral
feeling, I hardly know what should bear with
stronger obligation on a liberal and enlightened
mind, than a consciousness of alliance with
excellence which is departed; and a
consciousness, too, that in its acts and
conduct, and even in its sentiments and
thoughts, it may be actively operating on the
happiness of those who come after it. Poetry is
found to have few stronger conceptions, by which
it would affect or overwhelm the mind, than
those in which it presents the moving and
speaking image of the departed dead to the
senses of the living. This belongs to poetry,
only because it is congenial to our nature.
Poetry is, in this respect, but the handmaid of
true philosophy and morality; it deals with us
as human beings, naturally reverencing those
whose visible connection with this state of
existence is severed, and who may yet exercise
we know not what sympathy with ourselves; and
when it carries us forward, also, and shows us
the long continued result of all the good we do,
in the prosperity of those who follow us, till
it bears us from ourselves, and absorbs us in an
intense interest for what shall happen to the
generations after us, it speaks only in the
language of our nature, and affects us with
sentiments which belong to us as human beings.
Standing in this relation to our ancestors and
our posterity, we are assembled on this
memorable spot, to perform the duties which that
relation and the present occasion impose upon
us. We have come to this Rock, to record here
our homage for our Pilgrim Fathers; our sympathy
in their sufferings; our gratitude for their
labors; our admiration of their virtues; our
veneration for their piety; and our attachment
to those principles of civil and religious
liberty, which they encountered the dangers of
the ocean, the storms of heaven, the violence of
savages, disease, exile, and famine, to enjoy
and to establish. And we would leave here, also,
for the generations which are rising up rapidly
to fill our places, some proof that we have
endeavored to transmit the great inheritance
unimpaired; that in our estimate of public
principles and private virtue, in our veneration
of religion and piety, in our devotion to civil
and religious liberty, in our regard for
whatever advances human knowledge or improves
human happiness, we are not altogether unworthy
of our origin.
There is a local feeling connected with this
occasion, too strong to be resisted; a sort of
genius of the place, which inspires and awes us.
We feel that we are on the spot where the first
scene of our history was laid; where the hearths
and altars of New England were first placed;
where Christianity, and civilization, and
letters made their first lodgment, in a vast
extent of country, covered with a wilderness,
and peopled by roving barbarians. We are here,
at the season of the year at which the event
took place. The imagination irresistibly and
rapidly draws around us the principal features
and the leading characters in the original
scene. We cast our eyes abroad on the ocean, and
we see where the little bark, with the
interesting group upon its deck, made its slow
progress to the shore. We look around us, and
behold the hills and promontories where the
anxious eyes of our fathers first saw the places
of habitation and of rest. We feel the cold
which benumbed, and listen to the winds which
pierced them. Beneath us is the Rock, on which
New England received the feet of the Pilgrims.
We seem even to behold them, as they struggle
with the elements, and, with toilsome efforts,
gain the shore. We listen to the chiefs in
council; we see the unexampled exhibition of
female fortitude and resignation; we hear the
whisperings of youthful impatience, and we see,
what a painter of our own has also represented
by his pencil, chilled and shivering childhood,
houseless, but for a mother's arms, couchless,
but for a mother's breast, till our own blood
almost freezes. The mild dignity of Carver and
of Bradford; the decisive and soldier-like air
and manner of Standish; the devout Brewster; the
enterprising Allerton; the general firmness and
thoughtfulness of the whole band; their
conscious joy for dangers escaped; their deep
solicitude about dangers to come; their trust in
Heaven; their high religious faith, full of
confidence and anticipation; all of these seem
to belong to this place, and to be present upon
this occasion, to fill us with reverence and
admiration.
The settlement of New England by the colony
which landed here on the twenty-second of
December, sixteen hundred and twenty, although
not the first European establishment in what now
constitutes the United States, was yet so
peculiar in its causes and character, and has
been followed and must still be followed by such
consequences, as to give it a high claim to
lasting commemoration. On these causes and
consequences, more than on its immediately
attendant circumstances, its importance, as an
historical event, depends. Great actions and
striking occurrences, having excited a temporary
admiration, often pass away and are forgotten,
because they leave no lasting results, affecting
the prosperity and happiness of communities.
Such is frequently the fortune of the most
brilliant military achievements. Of the ten
thousand battles which have been fought, of all
the fields fertilized with carnage, of the
banners which have been bathed in blood, of the
warriors who have hoped that they had risen from
the field of conquest to a glory as bright and
as durable as the stars, how few that continue
long to interest mankind! The victory of
yesterday is reversed by the defeat of to-day;
the star of military glory, rising like a
meteor, like a meteor has fallen; disgrace and
disaster hang on the heels of conquest and
renown; victor and vanquished presently pass
away to oblivion, and the world goes on in its
course, with the loss only of so many lives and
so much treasure.
But if this be frequently, or generally, the
fortune of military achievements, it is not
always so. There are enterprises, military as
well as civil, which sometimes check the current
of events, give a new turn to human affairs, and
transmit their consequences through ages. We see
their importance in their results, and call them
great, because great things follow. There have
been battles which have fixed the fate of
nations. These come down to us in history with a
solid and permanent interest, not created by a
display of glittering armor, the rush of adverse
battalions, the sinking and rising of pennons,
the flight, the pursuit, and the victory; but by
their effect in advancing or retarding human
knowledge, in overthrowing or establishing
despotism, in extending or destroying human
happiness. When the traveler pauses on the plain
of Marathon, what are the emotions which most
strongly agitate his breast? What is that
glorious recollection, which thrills through his
frame, and suffuses his eyes? Not, I imagine,
that Grecian skill and Grecian valor were here
most signally displayed; but that Greece herself
was saved. It is because to this spot, and to
the event which has rendered it immortal, he
refers all the succeeding glories of the
republic. It is because, if that day had gone
otherwise, Greece had perished. It is because he
perceives that her philosophers and orators, her
poets and painters, her sculptors and
architects, her governments and free
institutions, point backward to Marathon, and
that their future existence seems to have been
suspended on the contingency, whether the
Persian or the Grecian banner should wave
victorious in the beams of that day's setting
sun. And, as his imagination kindles at the
retrospect, he is transported back to the
interesting moment; he counts the fearful odds
of the contending hosts; his interest for the
result overwhelms him; he trembles, as if it
were still uncertain, and seems to doubt whether
he may consider Socrates and Plato, Demosthenes,
Sophocles, and Phidias, as secure, yet, to
himself and to the world.
"If we conquer," said the Athenian commander on
the approach of that decisive day, "if we
conquer, we shall make Athens the greatest city
of Greece."[6] A prophecy how well fulfilled!
"If God prosper us," might have been the more
appropriate language of our fathers, when they
landed upon this Rock, "if God prosper us, we
shall here begin a work which shall last for
ages; we shall plant here a new society, in the
principles of the fullest liberty and the purest
religion; we shall subdue this wilderness which
is before us; we shall fill this region of the
great continent, which stretches almost from
pole to pole, with civilization and
Christianity; the temples of the true God shall
rise, where now ascends the smoke of idolatrous
sacrifice; fields and gardens, the flowers of
summer, and the waving and golden harvest of
autumn, shall spread over a thousand hills, and
stretch along a thousand valleys, never yet,
since the creation, reclaimed to the use of
civilized man. We shall whiten this coast with
the canvas of a prosperous commerce; we shall
stud the long and winding shore with a hundred
cities. That which we sow in weakness shall be
raised in strength. From our sincere, but
houseless worship, there shall spring splendid
temples to record God's goodness; from the
simplicity of our social union, there shall
arise wise and politic constitutions of
government, full of the liberty which we
ourselves bring and breathe; from our zeal for
learning, institutions shall spring which shall
scatter the light of knowledge throughout the
land, and, in time, paying back where they have
borrowed, shall contribute their part to the
great aggregate of human knowledge; and our
descendants, through all generations, shall look
back to this spot, and to this hour, with
unabated affection and regard."
A brief remembrance of the causes which led to
the settlement of this place; some account of
the peculiarities and characteristic qualities
of that settlement, as distinguished from other
instances of colonization; a short notice of the
progress of New England in the great interests
of society, during the century which is now
elapsed; with a few observations on the
principles upon which society and government are
established in this country; comprise all that
can be attempted, and much more than can be
satisfactorily performed, on the present
occasion.
Of the motives which influenced the first
settlers to a voluntary exile, induced them to
relinquish their native country, and to seek an
asylum in this then unexplored wilderness, the
first and principal, no doubt, were connected
with religion. They sought to enjoy a higher
degree of religious freedom, and what they
esteemed a purer form of religious worship, than
was allowed to their choice, or presented to
their imitation, in the Old World. The love of
religious liberty is a stronger sentiment, when
fully excited, than an attachment to civil or
political freedom. That freedom which the
conscience demands, and which men feel bound by
their hope of salvation to contend for, can
hardly fail to be attained. Conscience, in the
cause of religion and the worship of the Deity,
prepares the mind to act and to suffer beyond
almost all other causes. It sometimes gives an
impulse so irresistible, that no fetters of
power or of opinion can withstand it. History
instructs us that this love of religious
liberty, a compound sentiment in the breast of
man, made up of the clearest sense of right and
the highest conviction of duty, is able to look
the sternest despotism in the face, and, with
means apparently most inadequate, to shake
principalities and powers. There is a boldness,
a spirit of daring, in religious reformers, not
to be measured by the general rules which
control men's purposes and actions. If the hand
of power be laid upon it, this only seems to
augment its force and its elasticity, and to
cause its action to be more formidable and
violent. Human invention has devised nothing,
human power has compassed nothing, that can
forcibly restrain it, when it breaks forth.
Nothing can stop it, but to give way to it;
nothing can check it, but indulgence. It loses
its power only when it has gained its object.
The principle of toleration, to which the world
has come so slowly, is at once the most just and
the most wise of all principles. Even when
religious feeling takes a character of
extravagance and enthusiasm, and seems to
threaten the order of society and shake the
columns of the social edifice, its principal
danger is in its restraint. If it be allowed
indulgence and expansion, like the elemental
fires, it only agitates, and perhaps purifies,
the atmosphere; while its efforts to throw off
restraint would burst the world asunder.
It is certain, that, although many of them were
republicans in principle, we have no evidence
that our New England ancestors would have
emigrated, as they did, from their own native
country, would have become wanderers in Europe,
and finally would have undertaken the
establishment of a colony here, merely from
their dislike of the political systems of
Europe. They fled not so much from the civil
government, as from the hierarchy, and the laws
which enforced conformity to the church
establishment. Mr. Robinson had left England as
early as 1608, on account of the persecutions
for non-conformity, and had retired to Holland.
He left England from no disappointed ambition in
affairs of state, from no regrets at the want of
preferment in the church, nor from any motive of
distinction or of gain. Uniformity in matters of
religion was pressed with such extreme rigor,
that a voluntary exile seemed the most eligible
mode of escaping from the penalties of
non-compliance. The accession of Elizabeth had,
it is true, quenched the fires of Smithfield,
and put an end to the easy acquisition of the
crown of martyrdom. Her long reign had
established the Reformation, but toleration was
a virtue beyond her conception, and beyond the
age. She left no example of it to her successor;
and he was not of a character which rendered a
sentiment either so wise or so liberal would
originate with him. At the present period it
seems incredible that the learned, accomplished,
unassuming, and inoffensive Robinson should
neither be tolerated in his peaceable mode of
worship in his own country, nor suffered quietly
to depart from it. Yet such was the fact. He
left his country by stealth, that he might
elsewhere enjoy those rights which ought to
belong to men in all countries. The departure of
the Pilgrims for Holland is deeply interesting,
from its circumstances, and also as it marks the
character of the times, independently of its
connection with names now incorporated with the
history of empire. The embarkation was intended
to be made in such a manner that it might escape
the notice of the officers of government. Great
pains had been taken to secure boats, which
should come undiscovered to the shore, and
receive the fugitives; and frequent
disappointments had been experienced in this
respect.
At length the appointed time came, bringing with
it unusual severity of cold and rain. An
unfrequented and barren heath, on the shores of
Lincolnshire, was the selected spot, where the
feet of the Pilgrims were to tread, for the last
time, the land of their fathers. The vessel
which was to receive them did not come until the
next day, and in the mean time the little band
was collected, and men and women and children
and baggage were crowded together, in melancholy
and distressed confusion. The sea was rough, and
the women and children were already sick, from
their passage down the river to the place of
embarkation on the sea. At length the wished-for
boat silently and fearfully approaches the
shore, and men and women and children, shaking
with fear and with cold, as many as the small
vessel could bear, venture off on a dangerous
sea. Immediately the advance of horses is heard
from behind, armed men appear, and those not yet
embarked are seized and taken into custody. In
the hurry of the moment, the first parties had
been sent on board without any attempt to keep
members of the same family together, and on
account of the appearance of the horsemen, the
boat never returned for the residue. Those who
had got away, and those who had not, were in
equal distress. A storm, of great violence and
long duration, arose at sea, which not only
protracted the voyage, rendered distressing by
the want of all those accommodations which the
interruption of the embarkation had occasioned,
but also forced the vessel out of her course,
and menaced immediate shipwreck; while those on
shore, when they were dismissed from the custody
of the officers of justice, having no longer
homes or houses to retire to, and their friends
and protectors being already gone, became
objects of necessary charity, as well as of deep
commiseration.
As this scene passes before us, we can hardly
forbear asking whether this be a band of
malefactors and felons flying from justice. What
are their crimes, that they hide themselves in
darkness? To what punishment are they exposed,
that, to avoid it, men, and women, and children,
thus encounter the surf of the North Sea and the
terrors of a night storm? What induces this
armed pursuit, and this arrest of fugitives, of
all ages and both sexes? Truth does not allow us
to answer these inquiries in a manner that does
credit to the wisdom or the justice of the
times. This was not the flight of guilt, but of
virtue. It was an humble and peaceable religion,
flying from causeless oppression. It was
conscience, attempting to escape from the
arbitrary rule of the Stuarts. It was Robinson
and Brewster, leading off their little band from
their native soil, at first to find shelter on
the shore of the neighboring continent, but
ultimately to come hither; and having surmounted
all difficulties and braved a thousand dangers,
to find here a place of refuge and of rest.
Thanks be to God, that this spot was honored as
the asylum of religious liberty! May its
standard, reared here, remain for ever! May it
rise up as high as heaven, till its banner shall
fan the air of both continents, and wave as a
glorious ensign of peace and security to the
nations!
The peculiar character, condition, and
circumstances of the colonies which introduced
civilization and an English race into New
England, afford a most interesting and extensive
topic of discussion. On these, much of our
subsequent character and fortune has depended.
Their influence has essentially affected our
whole history, through the two centuries which
have elapsed; and as they have become intimately
connected with government, laws, and property,
as well as with our opinions on the subjects of
religion and civil liberty, that influence is
likely to continue to be felt through the
centuries which shall succeed. Emigration from
one region to another, and the emission of
colonies to people countries more or less
distant from the residence of the parent stock,
are common incidents in the history of mankind;
but it has not often, perhaps never, happened,
that the establishment of colonies should be
attempted under circumstances, however beset
with present difficulties and dangers, yet so
favorable to ultimate success, and so conducive
to magnificent results, as those which attended
the first settlements on this part of the
American continent. In other instances,
emigration has proceeded from a less exalted
purpose, in periods of less general
intelligence, or more without plan and by
accident; or under circumstances, physical and
moral, less favorable to the expectation of
laying a foundation for great public prosperity
and future empire.
A great resemblance exists, obviously, between
all the English colonies established within the
present limits of the United States; but the
occasion attracts our attention more immediately
to those which took possession of New England,
and the peculiarities of these furnish a strong
contrast with most other instances of
colonization.
Among the ancient nations, the Greeks, no doubt,
sent forth from their territories the greatest
number of colonies. So numerous, indeed, were
they, and so great the extent of space over
which they were spread, that the parent country
fondly and naturally persuaded herself, that by
means of them she had laid a sure foundation for
the universal civilization of the world. These
establishments, from obvious causes, were most
numerous in places most contiguous; yet they
were found on the coasts of France, on the
shores of the Euxine Sea, in Africa, and even,
as is alleged, on the borders of India. These
emigrations appear to have been sometimes
voluntary and sometimes compulsory; arising from
the spontaneous enterprise of individuals, or
the order and regulation of government. It was a
common opinion with ancient writers, that they
were undertaken in religious obedience to the
commands of oracles, and it is probable that
impressions of this sort might have had more or
less influence; but it is probable, also, that
on these occasions the oracles did not speak a
language dissonant from the views and purposes
of the state.
Political science among the Greeks seems never
to have extended to the comprehension of a
system, which should be adequate to the
government of a great nation upon principles of
liberty. They were accustomed only to the
contemplation of small republics, and were led
to consider an augmented population as
incompatible with free institutions. The desire
of a remedy for this supposed evil, and the wish
to establish marts for trade, led the
governments often to undertake the establishment
of colonies as an affair of state expediency.
Colonization and commerce, indeed, would
naturally become objects of interest to an
ingenious and enterprising people, inhabiting a
territory closely circumscribed in its limits,
and in no small part mountainous and sterile;
while the islands of the adjacent seas, and the
promontories and coasts of the neighboring
continents, by their mere proximity, strongly
solicited the excited spirit of emigration. Such
was this proximity, in many instances, that the
new settlements appeared rather to be the mere
extension of population over contiguous
territory, than the establishment of distant
colonies. In proportion as they were near to the
parent state, they would be under its authority,
and partake of its fortunes. The colony at
Marseilles might perceive lightly, or not at
all, the sway of Phocis; while the islands in
the Aegean Sea could hardly attain to
independence of their Athenian origin. Many of
these establishments took place at an early age;
and if there were defects in the governments of
the parent states, the colonists did not possess
philosophy or experience sufficient to correct
such evils in their own institutions, even if
they had not been, by other causes, deprived of
the power. An immediate necessity, connected
with the support of life, was the main and
direct inducement to these undertakings, and
there could hardly exist more than the hope of a
successful imitation of institutions with which
they were already acquainted, and of holding an
equality with their neighbors in the course of
improvement. The laws and customs, both
political and municipal, as well as the
religious worship of the parent city, were
transferred to the colony; and the parent city
herself, with all such of her colonies as were
not too far remote for frequent intercourse and
common sentiments, would appear like a family of
cities, more or less dependent, and more or less
connected. We know how imperfect this system
was, as a system of general politics, and what
scope it gave to those mutual dissensions and
conflicts which proved so fatal to Greece.
But it is more pertinent to our present purpose
to observe, that nothing existed in the
character of Grecian emigrations, or in the
spirit and intelligence of the emigrants, likely
to give a new and important direction to human
affairs, or a new impulse to the human mind.
Their motives were not high enough, their views
were not sufficiently large and prospective.
They went not forth, like our ancestors, to
erect systems of more perfect civil liberty, or
to enjoy a higher degree of religious freedom.
Above all, there was nothing in the religion and
learning of the age, that could either inspire
high purposes, or give the ability to execute
them. Whatever restraints on civil liberty, or
whatever abuses in religious worship, existed at
the time of our fathers' emigration, yet even
then all was light in the moral and mental
world, in comparison with its condition in most
periods of the ancient states. The settlement of
a new continent, in an age of progressive
knowledge and improvement, could not but do more
than merely enlarge the natural boundaries of
the habitable world. It could not but do much
more even than extend commerce and increase
wealth among the human race. We see how this
event has acted, how it must have acted, and
wonder only why it did not act sooner, in the
production of moral effects, on the state of
human knowledge, the general tone of human
sentiments, and the prospects of human
happiness. It gave to civilized man not only a
new continent to be inhabited and cultivated,
and new seas to be explored; but it gave him
also a new range for his thoughts, new objects
for curiosity, and new excitements to knowledge
and improvement.
Roman colonization resembled, far less than that
of the Greeks, the original settlements of this
country. Power and dominion were the objects of
Rome, even in her colonial establishments. Her
whole exterior aspect was for centuries hostile
and terrific. She grasped at dominion, from
India to Britain, and her measures of
colonization partook of the character of her
general system. Her policy was military, because
her objects were power, ascendency, and
subjugation. Detachments of emigrants from Rome
incorporated themselves with, and governed, the
original inhabitants of conquered countries. She
sent citizens where she had first sent soldiers;
her law followed her sword. Her colonies were a
sort of military establishment; so many advanced
posts in the career of her dominion. A governor
from Rome ruled the new colony with absolute
sway, and often with unbounded rapacity. In
Sicily, in Gaul, in Spain, and in Asia, the
power of Rome prevailed, not nominally only, but
really and effectually. Those who immediately
exercised it were Roman; the tone and tendency
of its administration, Roman. Rome herself
continued to be the heart and centre of the
great system which she had established.
Extortion and rapacity, finding a wide and often
rich field of action in the provinces, looked
nevertheless to the banks of the Tiber, as the
scene in which their ill-gotten treasures should
be displayed; or, if a spirit of more honest
acquisition prevailed, the object, nevertheless,
was ultimate enjoyment in Rome itself. If our
own history and our own times did not
sufficiently expose the inherent and incurable
evils of provincial government, we might see
them portrayed, to our amazement, in the
desolated and ruined provinces of the Roman
empire. We might hear them, in a voice that
terrifies us, in those strains of complaint and
accusation, which the advocates of the provinces
poured forth in the Roman Forum:
"Quas res luxuries
in flagitiis, crudelitas in suppliciis, avaritia
in rapinis, superbia in contumeliis, efficere
potuisset, eas omnes sese pertulisse."
As was to be expected, the Roman Provinces
partook of the fortunes, as well as of the
sentiments and general character, of the seat of
empire. They lived together with her, they
flourished with her, and fell with her. The
branches were lopped away even before the vast
and venerable trunk itself fell prostrate to the
earth. Nothing had proceeded from her which
could support itself, and bear up the name of
its origin, when her own sustaining arm should
be enfeebled or withdrawn. It was not given to
Rome to see, either at her zenith or in her
decline, a child of her own, distant, indeed,
and independent of her control, yet speaking her
language and inheriting her blood, springing
forward to a competition with her own power, and
a comparison with her own great renown. She saw
not a vast region of the earth peopled from her
stock, full of states and political communities,
improving upon the models of her institutions,
and breathing in fuller measure the spirit which
she had breathed in the best periods of her
existence; enjoying and extending her arts and
her literature; rising rapidly from political
childhood to manly strength and independence;
her offspring, yet now her equal; unconnected
with the causes which might affect the duration
of her own power and greatness; of common
origin, but not linked to a common fate; giving
ample pledge, that her name should not be
forgotten, that her language should not cease to
be used among men; that whatsoever she had done
for human knowledge and human happiness should
be treasured up and preserved; that the record
of her existence and her achievements should not
be obscured, although, in the inscrutable
purposes of Providence, it might be her destiny
to fall from opulence and splendor; although the
time might come, when darkness should settle on
all her hills; when foreign or domestic violence
should overturn her altars and her temples; when
ignorance and despotism should fill the places
where Laws, and Arts, and Liberty had
flourished; when the feet of barbarism should
trample on the tombs of her consuls, and the
walls of her senate-house and forum echo only to
the voice of savage triumph. She saw not this
glorious vision, to inspire and fortify her
against the possible decay or downfall of her
power. Happy are they who in our day may behold
it, if they shall contemplate it with the
sentiments which it ought to inspire!
The New England Colonies differ quite as widely
from the Asiatic establishments of the modern
European nations, as from the models of the
ancient states. The sole object of those
establishments was originally trade; although we
have seen, in one of them, the anomaly of a mere
trading company attaining a political character,
disbursing revenues, and maintaining armies and
fortresses, until it has extended its control
over seventy millions of people. Differing from
these, and still more from the New England and
North American Colonies, are the European
settlements in the West India Islands. It is not
strange, that, when men's minds were turned to
the settlement of America, different objects
should be proposed by those who emigrated to the
different regions of so vast a country. Climate,
soil, and condition were not all equally
favorable to all pursuits. In the West Indies,
the purpose of those who went thither was to
engage in that species of agriculture, suited to
the soil and climate, which seems to bear more
resemblance to commerce than to the hard and
plain tillage of New England. The great staples
of these countries, being partly an agricultural
and partly a manufactured product, and not being
of the necessaries of life, become the object of
calculation, with respect to a profitable
investment of capital, like any other enterprise
of trade or manufacture. The more especially,
as, requiring, by necessity or habit, slave
labor for their production, the capital
necessary to carry on the work of this
production is very considerable. The West Indies
are resorted to, therefore, rather for the
investment of capital than for the purpose of
sustaining life by personal labor. Such as
possess a considerable amount of capital, or
such as choose to adventure in commercial
speculations without capital, can alone be
fitted to be emigrants to the islands. The
agriculture of these regions, as before
observed, is a sort of commerce; and it is a
species of employment in which labor seems to
form an inconsiderable ingredient in the
productive causes, since the portion of white
labor is exceedingly small, and slave labor is
rather more like profit on stock or capital than
labor properly so called. The individual who
undertakes an establishment of this kind takes
into the account the cost of the necessary
number of slaves, in the same manner as he
calculates the cost of the land. The
uncertainty, too, of this species of employment,
affords another ground of resemblance to
commerce. Although gainful on the whole, and in
a series of years, it is often very disastrous
for a single year, and, as the capital is not
readily invested in other pursuits, bad crops or
bad markets not only affect the profits, but the
capital itself. Hence the sudden depressions
which take place in the value of such estates.
But the great and leading observation, relative
to these establishments, remains to be made. It
is, that the owners of the soil and of the
capital seldom consider themselves at home in
the colony. A very great portion of the soil
itself is usually owned in the mother country; a
still greater is mortgaged for capital obtained
there; and, in general, those who are to derive
an interest from the products look to the parent
country as the place for enjoyment of their
wealth. The population is therefore constantly
fluctuating. Nobody comes but to return. A
constant succession of owners, agents, and
factors takes place. Whatsoever the soil, forced
by the unmitigated toil of slavery, can yield,
is sent home to defray rents, and interest, and
agencies, or to give the means of living in a
better society. In such a state, it is evident
that no spirit of permanent improvement is
likely to spring up. Profits will not be
invested with a distant view of benefiting
posterity. Roads and canals will hardly be
built; schools will not be founded; colleges
will not be endowed. There will be few fixtures
in society; no principles of utility or of
elegance, planted now, with the hope of being
developed and expanded hereafter. Profit,
immediate profit, must be the principal active
spring in the social system. There may be many
particular exceptions to these general remarks,
but the outline of the whole is such as is here
drawn.
Another most important consequence of such a
state of things is, that no idea of independence
of the parent country is likely to arise;
unless, indeed, it should spring up in a form
that would threaten universal desolation. The
inhabitants have no strong attachment to the
place which they inhabit. The hope of a great
portion of them is to leave it; and their great
desire, to leave it soon. However useful they
may be to the parent state, how much soever they
may add to the conveniences and luxuries of
life, these colonies are not favored spots for
the expansion of the human mind, for the
progress of permanent improvement, or for sowing
the seeds of future independent empire.
This is page 1 of 3 of Webster's
Plymouth Oration.
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