The ultimate effect of this alliance of sovereigns, for objects personal to themselves, or respecting only the permanence of their own power, must be the destruction of all just feeling, and all natural sympathy, between those who exercise the power of government and those who are subject to it. The old channels of mutual regard and confidence are to be dried up, or cut off. Obedience can now be expected no longer than it is enforced. Instead of relying on the affections of the governed, sovereigns are to rely on the affections and friendship of other sovereigns. There are, in short, no longer to be nations. Princes and people are no longer to unite for interests common to them both. There is to be an end of all patriotism, as a distinct national feeling. Society is to be divided horizontally; all sovereigns above, and all subjects below; the former coalescing for their own security, and for the more certain subjection of the undistinguished multitude beneath. This, sir, is no picture, drawn by imagination I have hardly used language stronger than that in which the authors of this new system have commented on their own work. Mr. Chataubriand, in Lis speech in the French Chamber of Deputies, in February last, declared, that he had a conference with the Emperor of Russia at Verona, in which that august sovereign uttered sentiments which appeared to him so precious, that he immediately hastened home, and wrote them down while yet fresh in his recollection. "The Emperor declared," said he, "that there can no longer be such a thing as an English, French, Russian, Prussian, or Austrian policy: there is henceforth but one policy, which, for the safety of all, should be adopted both by people and kings. It was for me first to show myself convinced of the principles upon which I founded the alliance; an occasion offered itself; the rising in Greece. Nothing certainly could occur more for my interests, for the interests of my people nothing more acceptable to my country, than a religious war in Turkey: but I have thought I perceived in the troubles of the Morea, the sign of revolution, and I have held back. Providence has not put under my command 800,000 soldiers, to satisfy my ambition, but to protect religion, morality, and justice, and to secure the prevalence of those principles of order on which human society rests. It may well be permitted that kings may have public alliances to defend themselves against secret enemies." These, sir, are the words which the French minister thought so important as that they deserved to be recorded; and I, too, Sir, am of the same opinion. But, if it be true that there is hereafter to be neither a Russian policy, nor a Prussian policy, nor an Austrian policy, nor a French policy, nor even, which yet I will not believe, an English policy; there will be, I trust in God, an American policy. If the authority of all these governments be hereafter to be mixed and blended, and to flow in one augmented current of prerogative, over the face of Europe, sweeping away all resistance in its course, it will yet remain for us to secure our own happiness, by the preservation of our own principles; which I hope we shall have the manliness to express on all proper occasions, and the spirit to defend in every extremity. The end and scope of this amalgamated policy is neither more nor less than this:—to interfere, by force, for any government, against any people who may resist it. Be the state of the people what it may, they shall not rise; be the government what it will, it shall not be opposed. The practical commentary has corresponded with the plain language of the text. Look at Spain and at Greece. If men may not resist the Spanish inquisition, and the Turkish scimitar, what is there to which humanity must not submit? Stronger cases can never arise.Is it not proper for us, at all times-is it not our duty, at this time, to come forth, and deny, and condemn, these monstrous principles. Where, but here, and in one other place, are they likely to be resisted? They are advancing with equal coolness and boldness; and they are supported by immense power. The timid will shrink and give way-and many of the brave may be compelled to yield to force. Human liberty may yet, perhaps, be obliged to repose its principal hopes on the intelligence and the vigour of the Saxon race. As far as depends on us, at least, I trust those hopes will not be disappointed; and that, to the extent which may consist with our own settled, pacific policy, our opinions and sentiments may be brought to act on the right side, and to the right end, on an occasion which is, in truth, nothing less than a momentous question between an intelligent age, full of knowledge, thirsting for improvement, and quickened by a thousand impulses, and the most arbitrary pretensions, sustained by unprecedented power. In four days, the fire and the sword of the Turk, rendered the beautiful Scio a clotted mass of blood and ashes. The details are too shocking to be recited. Forty thousand women and children, unhappily saved from the general destruction, were afterwards sold in the market of Smyrna, and sent off into distant and hopeless servitude. Even on the wharves of our own cities, it has been said, have been sold the utensils of those hearths which now exist no longer. Of the whole population which I have mentioned, not above 900 persons were left living upon the island. I will only repeat, sir, that these tragical scenes were as fully known at the Congress of Verona, as they are now known to us; and it is not too much to call on the powers that constituted that Congress, in the name of conscience, and in the name of humanity, to tell us if there be nothing even in these unparalleled excesses of Turkish barbarity, to excite a sentiment of compas sion; nothing which they regard as so objectionable as even the very idea of popular resistance to arbitrary power. * * I close, then, sir, with repeating, that the object of this resolution is, to avail ourselves of the interesting occasion of the Greek revolution, to make our protest against the doctrines of the Allied Powers; both as they are laid down in principle, and as they are applied in practice. I think it right too, Sir, not to be unseasonable in the expression of our regard, and, as far as that goes, in a ministration of our consolation, to a long oppressed and now struggling people. I am not of those who would in the hour of utmost peril, withhold such encouragement as might be properly and lawfully given, and when the crisis should be past, overwhelm the rescued sufferer with kindness and caresses. The Greeks address the civilized world with a pathos not easy to be resisted. They invoke our favour by more moving considerations than can well belong to the condition of any other people. They stretch out their arms to the Christian communities of the earth, beseeching them, by a generous recollection of their ancestors, by the consideration of their own desolated and ruined cities and villages, by their wives and children, sold into an accursed slavery, by their own blood, which they seem willing to pour out like water, by the common faith, and in the Name, which unites all Christians, that they would extend to them, at least some token of compassionate regard. Extract from an Oration, delivered at the City Hotel, in the New-York Forum, April, 1821. Pre-eminence in oratory was the most distinguishing mark of excellence among the enlightened of the nations of antiquity, and they brought it to a perfection, which, although the lapse of ages has taken place, and millions have toiled to emulate, few have been able to equal, none to surpass. Who can read the fulminations of a Demosthenes to arouse the slumbering spirit of the Athenian against Macedonian Phillip, with an eloquence whose influence, like that of the moon upon the waters, raised the tide of the multitude, till, o'erleaping all bounds, it burst an impetuous and overwhelming torrent against the encroaching object of its opposition; who can read this and not feel a devotion to sacrifice all selfish and personal advantages for the prosperity, safety, and happiness of his native country? Who but must look back with an admiration approaching to Mythologic deification, at the splendour of a Cicero, encircled by the glory of his forensick eloquence, in the accusation of a Verres ? What holy, what dignified uses-what noble results has not oratory led to, and may not oratory continue to achieve? In a religious point of view, what good man who contemplates that system of infidelity and demoralization, resorted to by men of a very different denomination, but must rejoice that the redeeming voice of eloquence, in the more redeeming language of christianity, may rescue ignorance or impiety from such wicked, such iniquitous procedure ! A system which, if suffered without disapprobation to be disseminated, might ultimately destroy the humanity and harmony which constitute the present happiness |