rests. The London merchant, who risked one nor penury can congeal the warm flowing of his hundred pounds, would receive for his money ten-generous bosom. The utmost idea of the kindfold more than the pennyless emigrant for his entire liest welcome, that the generosity of nature can services." Mr. W. may contend that this proof offer to man, extends not beyond "Virginia hospiis only applicable to the projectors, who fitted out tality." Golden thoughts of intellect have been and dispatched by their means the expedition, and incased in the mutilated language of olden time not to the real and actual settlers, whose intention, by the flight of centuries, yet they have rolled on by their emigration, was permanently to locate them-under the weight of mind and genius without findselves. But does he not perceive that the arguing a phrase to impair its meaning. The languishment cuts both ways? and that, if a distinction is ment of poverty, hitherto untasted, may blanch to be introduced to exculpate the actual settlers of the blushing cheeks of her daughters, may sear Massachusetts from the motive of gain, and to in- the bloom of expectation in her ardent sons, yet culpate the projectors of the expedition, the dis-that warm glowing welcome, that generous effutinction also carries with it the same force in the sion of soul, found embedded in hearts moulded by case of Virginia to free the one class and to bind nature and culture to ennoble the relations of life, the other? Having, then, conceded for Virginia, like the natural mass that lessens visually, but inand proven on the part of Massachusetts, that the destructibly defies division, will remain to the last colonizing expeditions of both were influenced by without change or diminution by nature or time. the same motives, and that if a distinction is to be We have, then, the habits and immemorial cusdrawn between the projector and settler, that it is toms of Virginians to establish their generosity and of equal and binding force upon both States, I have, want of penuriousness from the present day, up to therefore, in the motive of gain, proven a parity the period of their first emigration hither; and, between the two settlements, and consequently the therefore, from these immemorial customs, we have falsity of the positions assigned them in the com-abundant evidence, that the persons, who composed parison instituted by Mr. W., on that ground, in ex- that emigration, exercised in all the relations of altation of the one at the expense of the other. life an unbounded generosity, and handed it down Civil society, in all ages of the world, has been to their posterity; and, of consequence, were not divided and subdivided into different classes of men, led hither as creatures of gain," as asserted by contradistinguished one from the other by the dif- Mr. Webster. ferent manners and customs belonging separately Directly the reverse of this might be proven in and peculiarly to each. These manners and cus- the case of Massachusetts, by adopting the same toms are the arbitrary and legitimate laws estab-method of argument in tracing out the motives of lished by nature, by which the motives of action her settlers by their manners and customs, as they and the general principles found to exist in each do now, and have immemorially existed; but enough people separately are made manifest, and traced, has been done by vindicating, I trust conclusively, with undeviating accuracy, from every posterity of the assailed reputation of the Fathers of Virginia, the present to its remotest ancestry of the past, without desiring, in a spirit of vindictiveness in thus forming a consanguineous chain, linked to-pursuing the subject farther, to consign the posigether by manners and customs, to subdue, by its distinguishing marks, the almost immeasurable chasm between the most distant lineage and its far off descent. Mr. Justice Blackstone defines those customs to be legally binding as law and in themselves evidence, that have been used so long "that the memory of man runneth not to the contrary." Customs, therefore, that do now and have immemorially existed in Virginia and Massachusetts, Massachusetts, were the unobscured constellation are the proper and accurate criteria by which the of civil and religious liberty." I am aware that principles and motives of action that influenced the prejudices of the strongest cast are to be comsettlers of each state, are to be determined. Vir- batted in proving the negative of this assertion, ginia generosity and hospitality have now become for "it is not unusual for the world to reject the the universal axiom for refined civility. A Vir- voice of truth because its tones are strange." ginian's intercourse with his fellow man has ever Virginia, however, is yet the victim of the conand always been marked by an effacement of all trast, and the stern, unbending record of history penuriousness of conduct. Profuse to a fault, that must become her champion and vindicator; for her noble trait of character often opens the portals of settlers are, by inference and force of comparison, his heart when prudence would dictate them to be made to acknowledge as their guide a "constellaclosed. The frosts of adversity nip not his fellow-tion" opposite to that of "civil and religious liberty." feeling and the blight of years rolls by him in the First, then, as to civil liberty. The quantum, that exercise of hospitable civility, whilst neither want 'influenced each settlement hither, can only be es tion, from which, by irrefragable proof, they have been removed, to their compatriots of Massachusetts. It has long been a saying, that folly has its corner in the brains of every wise man; the verity of this proverb becomes strikingly accurate after perusing our colonial history, in endeavoring to reconcile truth and facts to the declaration of Mr. W., "that the stars which guided the settlers of "Roger Williams, upon landing at Boston, found himself in direct opposition to the whole system upon which Massachusetts was founded," because, (mark now the reason,) he was the advocate of the sanctity of conscience; and declared that the civil magistrate should restrain crime but never control opinion; should punish guilt, but never violate the freedom of the soul,-because, he would blot from the sta tute book the felony of non-conformity; would quench the fires that persecution had so long kept burning; would repeal every law compelling attendance on public worship; would abolish tithes and all forced contributions to the maintainance of religion; would give an equal protection to every form of religious faith; and never suffer the authority of government to be enlisted against the Mosque of the Mussulman, or the edifice of the fire-worshipper, against the Jewish Synagogue or Roman Cathedral." timated by the different systems of government of temples of protestant piety, be evidences of established by each after their arrival. The foun- that brotherly charity and universal toleration, which dation of our civil liberty, according to Mr. W., is the true and only meaning of "religious liberty;" consists "in free forms of government founded on then do I emphatically deny that the settlers of popular representation." I suppose there are no Massachusetts sought either in spirit, precept, or people, who would consider their civil liberty safe, truth, a jot or tittle of "religious liberty;" and I when its total preservation depended upon local ground and defend my assertion upon the very exor municipal representation without any form of plicit and conclusive statement of Mr. Bancroft, general government. That State, therefore, in himself a New Englander; who says, that which we find the first representative assembly of the people convened, was more thoroughly animated both before and after its organization, by the spirit of civil liberty. Consequently, Mr. W., by his own testimony, completely vindicates the colony of Virginia from the taint of his own declaration, and places her far in advance of Massachusetts in proclaiming "civil liberty" and equality of rights: for he tells us that the people of Virginia sought for a charter that would allow them "to constitute and establish the first popular representative assembly which ever convened on this continent-the Virginia house of Burgesses." To Virginia and to Maryland alone belongs the sole credit of establishing the first organic system of government Though lengthy, I have transcribed the above founded upon representation-the only legitimate quotation, because its members should form a sensource of civil liberty in the New World. Twin tence, that should be memorialized not only to resisters of the same origin, by a singular coincidence mind us of the requirements of our own constituof circumstances, the same sun that smilingly shed tion, but to awaken in our bosoms the gratitude due his glory upon the birth-day of civil representa- to one of the two boldest assertors of intellectual tion in the one, permitted not another ray to the regeneration. It was for advocating these cardinal other, without carrying with it from the shades of principles of "religious liberty," for lending his night, the tidings and the possession of a similar capacious and comprehensive mind "to quench the regeneration. For, as the learned Bancroft ob- fires that persecution had so long kept burning" serves, "just one day before that memorable ses- in Massachusetts, that Roger Williams was consion of Virginia, when the people of the ancient demned and banished from her soil; being considominion adopted a similar system of independent dered by her settlers too liberal and heretical to legislation, the representatives of Maryland con- remain within their confines, whilst holding opinions vened in the house of Robert Slye," (the present of religious freedom, that proclaimed his ostraancient and venerable, yet beautiful and splendidly cism, "because, upon landing at Boston, he found situated mansion of Mr. Edmund J. Plowden of St. himself in direct opposition to the whole system upon Mary's County,) "voted themselves a lawful assem- which Massachusetts was founded." bly without dependence on any other power in the It has been our pride and boast that we live under province." It was not until many years afterwards, a government of such mildness, that in the adminthat Massachusetts, warmed and influenced by the istration of its many parts, not a drop of human spirit and example of these two noblest assertors blood has been shed for State crimes. Would to of our "civil liberty," organized a representative God that the annals of Massachusetts did not de- t assembly to direct her affairs of government. So prive us of the higher and still nobler boast, that much for "civil," now for "religious liberty." I the soil of our country has never been stained by know not what Mr. Webster may understand by the the disgraceful slaughter of one human being at term "religious liberty," but if he means to convey the unhallowed shrine of religious persecution. the idea of an exclusive worship, only permitting Proudly may we point to every other colony of our toleration to itself and denying freedom of con- nation, and no foul stigma of bloodshed in religious science to all others-trampling upon intellectual warfare crimsons a blush of disgrace upon our esliberty by banishment, or sacrifice at the fagot and cutcheon: but to the everlasting misfortune of our the stake-if such be his understanding of "reli- Fame, a few harmless and innocent Quakers dared gious liberty," then I readily concede that its "un- to sunder the chains, that were forged for the intelobscured constellation" led thither the settlers of lect, so far as to question the conscriptive princiMassachusetts. But if the Jewish Synagogue, the ples of the Plymouth Theocracy, and they calmly Cathedral of the Catholic, or even the "Mosque of yielded life to the murderous exactions of a relithe Mussulman," when reared beside the hundreds gious code, that imprinted a disgrace, which man tles all time with its pall, and calls up the crimson to keep alive the memory of our two moral Lights blush of posterity. It is exceedingly painful thus to of man's intellectual regeneration: 66 Fortunati ambo, si quid mea carmina possunt, Nulla dies unquam memori vos eximet ævo." scarify old sores, and to call up the truthful records of history to chide the deeds of our sisters of the union; but it should be remembered that such a "The colonists of English America were of the course is forced upon us in defence of the fair fame people, and a people already free." To answer of an illustrious member of our confederacy, against Mr. W., I must borrow the idea of an eloquent dethe unjust assault and invidious comparison of him, fender of " ancestral fame," "our boast then should who, by the election of his own State, has become be that we have preserved, not originated a governthe expositor of her sentiments, and by his com- ment"-that our constitution existed in crude and manding talents" a monument of national illustra- undigested elements, intangibly scattered through tion." It is the only effective remedy left to soothe the theoretic systems of England, which required and eradicate a wound otherwise mortal from the but the plastic touch of the compiler to methodize skilful shafts of the assailant. The contest was what has been heretofore pronounced the sublimest forced upon us-Mr. Webster is the aggressor-original of all human conceptions in governmentthe panoply of truth and reason are our shield and that its framers were but the plagiarists of English defender. If after defending our outposts, the war invention, the promulgators of English, not Amehas been transferred to Africa, we have but returned rican doctrines-that they have usurped the title of the sword for the lance-" legem sibi dixerat ipse."" Fathers of the constitution," and deceptiously Mr. Webster labors to establish his positions and promulgated an absolute, instead of a "derivate" comparisons by reasoning out his premises to their claim to originality in its formation—that being “a natural results, but it seems to me irreconcilable people already free," the prize, for which they braved with a regard for truthful deduction, when profess- the toil of eight years of war and carnage, was ing to cull those premises from the historical nar- but an illusive phantom of the imagination, magrations of the colonization of British America, that nifying oppression-rendering the result and its he should have omitted the vast influences of the consequences alike unimportant, whether victory settlements of a Penn, a Rogers, a Calvert and crowned or defeat blasted their efforts. Such docothers, who brought hither the genuine spirit of trines are too palpably absurd, too erroneous in themreligious philanthropy, and founded an asylum of selves to admit of serious refutation, even when reception for the persecuted of all nations. Cal- supported by the high authority of Mr. Webster. vert and Rogers particularly were the champions But he continues, "England transplanted liberty of intellectual liberty, as distinguished from that to America." To answer this declaration, I shall, mere corporeal freedom that would permit equal by quoting Mr. Webster's own Oration, permit him liberty to the body in civil affairs, but at the same to apply a complete and unqualified answer in contime fetter the action of thought when directed to futation of himself. He says that France after religious observances, by laws restrictive and penal forty years of revolution, bloodshed, and suffering, against the sanctity of conscience. It was at a obtained the declaration, that all Frenchmen are time, (as history somewhere remarks,) when the equal before the law." "What France had refearful feuds of religious warfare deluged the greater ceived only by the expenditure of so much blood portion of Germany in the blood of its own citizens; and treasure, and the exhibition of so much crime, when the vengeful ire of captious faction swept the English colonists obtained by simply changing desolation over Holland; when France had yet to their place of residence, and leaving behind their boil in the fast warming caldron of the approaching political institutions." The colonists then were contest; "when England was gasping under the not "equal before the law" previous to "changing despotism of intolerance;" and some years before their place of residence, and leaving behind their Descartes planted modern Philosophy on the doc-political institutions," and that government, which trine of free reflection-that Williams and Calvert deprived any portion of its citizens of this boon, asserted and proclaimed, both by word and in their cannot be said to have possessed, or dispensed colonies, the sublime precepts of intellectual free-through its laws, political or civil liberty; but Endom; from which as a necessary and inevitable gland, according to Mr. W.'s declaration, did deconsequence every other species of liberty must prive a portion of her citizens of this boon; conflow. By their becoming the authors of the eman- sequently England cannot be said to possess or cipation of the mind from the incubus of religious dispense through her laws political or civil liberty. tyranny, they were fortunate above the rest of man-And if she does not either possess, or dispense kind in leaving a superior claim upon our grati- liberty, by what process of reasoning or regard tude. He, who sang the immortal Æneid, touch- for accuracy can Mr. W. make her " transingly tells, in lines that melt the soul into pity, of plant, to America," what she never possessed? the untimely fate of Nisus and Euryalus, and leaves Again: he continues. "But another grand chapreserved in golden verse a memorial of their dying racteristic is, that in the English colonies, political friendship—it is no less appropriate as an apothegm affairs were left to be managed by the colonists themselves." Consequently, the colonists were the | England, and deceived the world, and (which is more authors of their own liberty, being left the manage- culpable) their allies by that solemn declaration of ment of their own "political affairs," by England; the usurpations they had endured. If our territory, and, therefore, neither England nor any other instead of offering to the cupidity of the Mother power "transplanted liberty to America:" and Land a rich mine of almost exhaustless treasure more thoroughly does Mr. W. confute his own by taxation, had presented nothing else but a begstatement of the transplantation of liberty by En-garly waste, thinly inhabited, like the barren rocks gland, by his very true remark," that home govern- of Nova Scotia, or Cape Breton, that appealed by ment was the secret of the prosperity of the North their distress to her sympathy and humanity for American colonists." For there is no fact better relief, we would have lived until dooms-day, undisestablished than the cold, unnatural neglect of her turbed, in cold neglect; would yet have been percolonies by England. Their bodies alone, to use mitted "a home government," would yet have been the Doric phrase of Mr. W., were "transplanted" unmolested in "leaving behind the political institu* on bare creation," 3000 miles from the civilization tions of England," and would, perhaps, yet have of man, to conquer the wilderness and its savage been a colony of England, with a government not of inhabitants, though often oppressed by the pinch-English, but of essentially American origin. The ings of hunger and starvation. America, however, great error of Mr. W. consists in confounding the by "leaving behind the political institutions" of institutions of America with those of England, in England, and by the infusion of liberalism into her taking from America and bestowing upon England laws and governments, after a few centuries, be- the credit of political systems, which we either as came a theme of the sublimest contemplation to Americans by nativity, or Americans by emigrathe statesman of England. Her mountains and tion, when we ceased to be Englishmen by Leavher valleys, her prairies and her forests dotted the ing England, established and founded. And hence vast expanse of a continent possessing every va- his great error in searching for the origin of our riety of soil, visited by the temperature of every cli-liberty, by riddling and sifting the phases and conmate, washed by two oceans that bore to her ports the vulsions of civil society in England for two huncontributions of the world, and watered by the most dred years, to find the seed of a Liberty-tree, which majestic bays and rivers, with their bosoms bur-(to give his idea) was planted by the emerging of dened by the industry of her sons-such a country a "middle class" from feudal bondage, sprang up could not but attract the cupidinous gaze of the by the doctrines of the reformation, was nurtured most ungrateful of parents. Our Mother Country, by an hundred years of commercial adventure, and, attracted by the glare of wealth, no longer permit- I suppose, to perfect the allegory, matured by the ted home government" to her offspring, but in-combined influence of all these causes, till all Engstead of liberty," transplanted" a tyranny to Ame- land reposed under its shade, and "transplanted" rica in the shape of "imposts and excises to eat a scion from its trunk to America. The figure, ont our substance" and to replenish her exhausted however, to a sagacious rhetorician of Mr. Webcoffers from the treasures, that ourselves and an-ster's celebrity, wants a completion other than that cestors had carved from the bosom of the wilder-I have given it; for inductions deck not allegorical ness. At this period she demanded an absolute, members. The historian has given the finish, unconditional submission and obedience to her will. which Mr. W.'s research should never have omitOur Fathers met the aggression in a becoming spirit ted-the art of printing-which has done more by and proclaimed in their sublime declaration of In- its influences to enlighten mankind and awaken dependence, that they were not a people already them to a just sense of their wrongs, and thus to free," but struggling to be free, that although they infuse liberalism into the English government, and enjoyed, from the time of their emigration to the every other species of government, than the three revolution-a rude species of liberty, yet it was grand causes combined, of emersion of the middle but a vacation of authority, not a relinquishment of classes, of the reformation and of commercial adthe right to rule; that England, always tyrannical venture, brought forward by Mr. Webster. Mr. in her external administration of government, had Hallam, who has excelled all ancient or modern ever held her dread power in terror over them. writers in giving a clear and concise exposition of But apart from this, can any one read the immortal the origin and several parts of the British constituinstrument of Independence in which is enumerated tion, declares that "we (the English) are deceived a catalogue of the darkest and most attrocious ac- by the comparatively perfect state of our present tions of tyranny that ever disgraced a government, liberties, and forget that our superior security is far and afterwards come to the conclusion, that whilst less owing to positive law, than to the control which subject at all times to the decrees of such a govern- is exercised over government by public opinion, ment, we were ever "a people already free," and through the general use of printing, and to the difthat England ever "transplanted liberty to Ame-fusion of liberal principles in policy through the rica!" Impossible! Because no one believes that same means." Mr. Webster's perception of conthe signers of that instrument published a libel upon sequences would not have permitted his omission of 66 Music seek the broken lute, Not again, not again! Tempt me then no more, sweet girl, Not again, not again! this important cause, in searching for the origin, or rather in giving the progression of English liberty, did he not know that its influences were calculated almost to destroy the effects of the causes that suited his proposition, by its superior force in establishing his deductions. They were auxiliaries to the main cause of printing and it is a gross perversion of history, by Mr. Webster, in making them the chief and operative causes in the gradual production of English liberty. Another brief reference to Mr. W.'s Oration and I have done with its many inaccuracies. In his enumeration of the institutions of England that came hither with the settlers of Massachusetts, he says, "the habeas corpus" came. Although "habeas corpus" was an express provision of "Magna Charta," yet by disuse, or political necessity it had become entirely obsolete. For there is no recorded instance in English history to put an end to false imprisonment during the Plantagenet rule by the writ of "habeas corpus ;" and the high notions of prerogative, under the Stuarts and Tudors, made its use very rare. But by the statue of Charles II. it was rendered "actively remedial by express enaction of parliament." Now the reign of Charles II. commenced in 1660, and the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth in 1620, just forty years before the use of the writ of "habeas corpus" became known in English jurisprudence. Its use, therefore, had no existence in England previous to the settlement of MasBefore I pass to a short notice of the most celesachusetts, and consequently it was not only mo- brated Institutions for the instruction of the Blind, rally, but metaphysically impossible for the set-with which I intend to close these few desultory tlers of Massachusetts to have conveyed hither the remarks, it may not be thought inappropriate to say use of a thing, or custom, when that use did not exist. So much for this chronological error of Mr. W., used by him with great effect in completing his very labored apotheosis of the Massachusetts settlers. The ornamental parts of Mr. W.'s Oration I have left untouched, thinking it of more importance to show his falsifications of history, and by it to exhibit the erroneous reasoning of his Oration. NOT AGAIN. BY A. B. MEEK. Not again, not again Not again, not again Alabama. BLINDNESS AND THE BLIND. No. IV. a few words upon a question which has lately appeared to claim the attention of several distinguished philanthropists, viz: the expediency of uniting into one Institution a school for the Blind and one for Deaf mutes. To a superficial observer, such a union must appear preposterous on account of the difference in the mode of instructing each class, and yet such a union is not only possible but in many respects would appear to present decided advantages. In countries where no Institution for either class of these unfortunates has been established and where their numbers do not appear sufficiently large to warrant the erection of two separate Institutions, the friends of both may unite in recommending to the public to establish one compound Institution, and thus united, they may effect what neither alone would have been able to accomplish. There can be no doubt, also, that on the score of economy, such a union would be very desirable as the expenses of one compound Institution containing one hundred pupils would be materially less than those of two separate establishments containing fifty pupils each. The proper mode of viewing this question, however, is to investigate the effects which this union must produce upon the intellectual, the moral and the physical welfare of both the Blind and the Deaf |