country. Our situation points it out, and the spirit of the nation impels us to attack rather than defend. Attack France, then, for she is our object. The nature of these wars is different. The war against America is against our own countrymen ; you have stopped me from saying against your fellow-subjects. That against France is against an inveterate foe and rival. Every blow you strike in America is against yourselves. It is against all idea of reconciliation, and against your own interest, even though you should be able, as you never will be, to force them to submit. Every stroke against France is of advantage to you. America must be conquered in France. France never can be conquered in America. The war of the Americans is a war of passion. It is of such a nature as to be supported by the most powerful virtues,-love of liberty and love of country,-and at the same time by those passions in the human heart which give courage, strength, and perseverance to man,-the spirit of revenge for the injuries you have done them, of retaliation for the hardships you have inflicted on them, and of opposition to the unjust powers you have exercised over them. Everything combines to animate them to this war; and such a war is without end. Whether it be called obstinacy or enthusiasm, under the name of religion or liberty, the effects are the same. It inspires a spirit which is unconquerable, solicitous to undergo difficulty, danger, and hardship. So long as there is a man in America,—a being formed as we are, so long will he present himself against you in the field. What has become of the ancient spirit of this people? Where is the national spirit that ever did honor to this country? CHARLES JAMES FOX. AMERICANS WILL CELEBRATE 1775 AS A “GLORIOUS ERA." MR. SPEAKER,— (From Speech in Parliament, 1780.) It ill becomes the duty and dignity of Parliament to lose itself in such a fulsome, adulatory address to the throne as that now proposed. We ought rather to approach it with sound and wholesome advice, and even with remonstrances against the ministers who have precipitated the British nation into an unjust, ruinous, murderous, and felonious war. I call the war with our brethren in America an unjust and felonious war, because the primary cause and confessed origin of it is to attempt to take their money from them without their consent, contrary to the common rights of all mankind and to those great fundamental principles of the English constitution for which Hampden bled. I assert that it is a murderous war, because it is an effort to deprive men of their lives for standing up in the defence of their property and their clear rights. Such a war, I fear, will draw down the vengeance of heaven upon this kingdom. Sir, is any minister weak enough to flatter himself with the conquest of America? You cannot, with all your allies, with all the mercenary ruffians of the North, you cannot effect so wicked a purpose! The Americans will dispute every inch of territory with you, every narrow pass, every strong defile, every Thermopylæ, every Bunker Hill! More than half the empire is already lost, and almost all the rest is in confusion and anarchy. We have appealed to the sword, and what have we gained? Are we to pay as dear for the rest of America? The idea of the conquest of that immense country is as romantic as it is unjust. But "the Americans have been treated with lenity"! Will facts justify the assertion? Was your Boston "Port Bill" a measure of lenity? Was your Fishery Bill a measure of lenity? Was your bill for taking away the charter of Massachusetts a measure of lenity? I omit your many other gross provocations and insults by which the brave Americans have been driven to their present state. Whether that state is one of rebellion or of fit resistance to unlawful acts of power I shall not declare. This I know: a successful resistance is revolution, not a rebellion. Rebellion, indeed, appears on the back of a flying enemy, but revolution flames on the breastplate of the victorious warrior. Who can tell whether, in consequence of this day's action, the scabbard may not be thrown away by them as well as by us, and, should success attend them, whether in a few years the independent American may not celebrate the glorious era of the Revolution of 1775 as we do that of 1688 ? JOHN WILKES. AMERICA SEATED AMONG THE NATIONS. (From Oration at Boston, March 5, 1780.) THE rising sun of this Western Hemisphere is already announced, and she is summoned to her seat among the nations of the earth. We have publicly declared ourselves convinced of the destructive tendencies of standing armies. We have acknowledged the necessity of public spirit and the love of virtue to the happiness of any people, and we profess to be sensible of the great blessings that flow from them. Let us not act unworthily of the reputable character we now sustain. Let integrity of heart, the spirit of freedom, and rigid virtue be seen to actuate every member of the commonwealth. The trial of our patriotism is yet before us, and we have reason to thank heaven that its principles are so well known and diffused. Exercise towards each other the benevolent feelings of friendship, and let that unity of sentiment which has shone in the field be equally animating in our councils. Remember that prosperity is dangerous; that, though successful, we are not infallible. Let this sacred maxim make the deepest impression upon our minds, that if avarice, if extortion, if luxury and political corruption are suffered to become popular among us, civil discord and the ruin of our country will be the speedy consequence of such fatal vices. But while patriotism is the leading principle, and our laws are contrived with wisdom and executed with vigor; while industry, frugality, and temperance are held in estimation, and we depend upon public spirit and the love of virtue for our social happiness, peace and affluence will throw their smiles upon the brow of individuals, our commonwealth will flourish, our land will become a land of liberty, and America an asylum for the oppressed. JONATHAN MASON. A NATION BORN IN A DAY. THE Declaration of Independence! The interest which in that paper has survived the occasion upon which it was issued, the interest which is of every age and every clime, the interest which quickens with the lapse of years, spreads as it grows old, and brightens as it recedes, is in the principles which it proclaims. It was the first solemn declaration, by a nation, of the only legitimate foundation of civil government. It was the corner-stone of a new fabric, destined to cover the surface of the globe. It demolished at a stroke the lawfulness of all governments founded upon conquest. It swept away all the rubbish of accumulated centuries of servitude. It announced in practical form to the world the transcendent truth of the inalienable sovereignty of the people. It proved that the social compact was no figment of the imagination, but a real, solid, and sacred bond of the social union. From the day of this declaration the people of North America were no longer the fragment of a distant empire, imploring justice and mercy from an inexorable master in another hemisphere. They were no longer children, appealing in vain to the sympathies of a heartless mother; no longer subjects, leaning upon the shattered columns of royal promises, and invoking the faith of parchment to secure their rights. They were a nation, asserting as of right, and maintaining by war, its own existence. A nation was born in a day. "How many ages hence Shall this, their lofty scene, be acted o’er In states unborn, and accents yet unknown?" It will be acted o'er, fellow-citizens, but it can never be repeated. It stands, and must forever stand, alone; a beacon on the summit of the mountain, to which all the inhabitants of the earth may turn their eyes for a genial and saving light, till time shall be lost in eternity, and this globe itself dissolve, nor leave a wreck behind. It stands forever, a light of admonition to the rulers of men, a light of salvation and redemption to the oppressed. So long as this planet shall be inhabited by human beings, so long as man shall be of a social nature, so long as government shall be necessary to the great moral purposes of society, so long as it shall be abused to the purposes of oppression, so long shall this declaration hold out to the sovereign and to the subject the extent and the boundaries of their respective rights and duties, founded in the laws of nature and of nature's God. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. ODE FOR INDEPENDENCE. WHEN Freedom, 'midst the battle-storm, And round her fair, majestic form Great Washington appeared, With daring hand rolled back the shroud, "Spurn, spurn despair! be great, be free Clothe, clothe thyself in Glory's robe, Rule, rule the sea,-possess the globe,— "Go and proclaim a world is born, Another orb gives light; Another sun illumes the morn, Another star the night; Be just, be brave! and let thy name, And wear the oaken wreath of fame, He said, and lo! the stars of night And morn, with pencil dipped in light Columbia's eagle seized the prize, And, gloriously unfurled, Soared with it to his native skies, And waved it o'er the world. ANONYMOUS (Raymond's Patriotic Reader) |