bringing their gifts to the altar of their common country. What, sir, was the conduct of the South during the Revolution? Sir, I honor New England for her conduct in the glorious struggle; but great as is the praise which belongs to her, I think, at least, equal honor is due to the South. 4. They espoused the quarrel of their brethren with generous zeal, which did not suffer them to stop to calculate their interest in the dispute. Favorites of the mother country, possessed of neither ships nor seamen to create commercial rivalship, they might have found, in their situation, a guaranty that their trade would be forever fostered and protected by Great Britain. But trampling on all considerations, either of interest or of safety, they rushed into the conflict, and fighting for principles, periled all in the sacred cause of freedom. 5. Never was there exhibited in the history of the world, higher examples of noble daring, dreadful suffering, and heroic endurance, than by the whigs of Carolina during that Revolution. The whole State, from the mountain to the sea, was overrun by an overwhelming force of the enemy. The fruits of industry perished on the spot where they were produced, or were consumed by the foe. 6. The "plains of Carolina" drank up the most precious blood of her citizens: black and smoking ruins marked the places which had been the habitations of her children! Driven from their homes into the gloomy and almost impenetrable swamps, even there the spirit of liberty survived, and South Carolina, sustained by the example of her Sumters and her Marions, proved by her conduct that, though her soil might be overrun, the spirit of her people was invincible. QUESTIONS.-1. What does Mr. Hayne claim for South Carolina in the 1st and 2d paragraphs? 2. What credit does he allow to New England in respect to the American revolution? 3. What sacrifices does he say South Carolina made in that revolution? LESSON CLIV. WORDS FOR SPELLING AND DEFINING. EU LOʻGI UM, eulogy: praise. RE CUR', return; come back. SOUTH CAROLINA AND MASSACHUSETTS. DANIEL WEBSTER. 1. The eulogium pronounced on the character of the State of South Carolina, by the honorable gentleman,* for her Revolutionary and other merits, meets my hearty conI shall not acknowledge that the honorable member goes before me in regard for whatever of distinguished talent, or distinguished character, South Carolina has produced. currence. 2. I claim part of the honor: I partake in the pride of her great names. I claim them for countrymen, one and all. The Laurenses, the Rutledges, the Pinckneys, the Sumters, the Marions,-Americans all, whose fame is no more to be hemmed in by state lines, than their talents and patriotism were capable of being circumscribed within the same narrow limits. 3. In their day and generation they served and honored the country, and the whole country, and their renown is of the treasures of the whole country. Him, whose honored name the gentleman bears himself, does he esteem me less capable of gratitude for his patriotism, or sympathy for his sufferings, than if his eyes had first opened upon the light of Massachusetts, instead of South Carolina? 4. Sir, does he suppose it in his power to exhibit a Carolina name so bright as to produce envy in my bósom? No, sir; increased gratification and delight rather. Sir, I thank God, that, if I am gifted with little of the spirit * Hon. Mr. Hayne, of South Carolina. which is said to be able to raise mortals to the skies, I have yet none, as I trust, of that other spirit which would drag angels down! 5. When I shall be found, sir, in my place here in the Senate, or elsewhere, to sneer at public merit, because it happens to spring up beyond the little limits of my own State or neighborhood; when I refuse, for any such cause, or for any cause, the homage due to American talent, to elevated ratriotism, to sincere devotion to liberty and the country; or, if I see an uncommon endowment of Heaven,if I see extraordinary capacity and virtue in any son of the South, and if, moved by local prejudice, or gangrened by State jealousy, I get up here to abate the tithe of a hair from his just character and just fame, may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth! 6. Sir, let me recur to pleasing recollections; let me indulge in refreshing remembrances of the past; let me remind you that, in carly times, no States cherished greater harmony, both of principle and feeling, than Massachusetts. and South Carolina. Would to God that harmony might again return! Shoulder to shoulder they went through the Revolution; hand in hand they stood round the administration of Washington, and felt his own great arm lean on them for support. Unkind feeling, if it exist, alienation and distrust are the growth, unnatural to such soils, of false principles since sown. They are weeds, the seeds of which that same great arm never scattered. 7. Mr. President, I shall enter on no encomium upon Massachusetts; she needs none. There she is; behold her and judge for yourselves. There is her history; the world knows it by heart. The past, at least, is secure. There is Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill, and there they will remain forever. The bones of her sons, fallen in the great struggle for independence, now lic mingled with the soil of every State, from New England to Georgia; and there they will lie forever. 8. And, sir, where American liberty raised its first voice, and where its youth was nurtured and sustained, there it still lives, in the strength of its manhood, and full of its original spirit. If discord and disunion shall wound it,if party strife and blind ambition shall hawk at and tear it,-if folly and madness,-if uneasiness, under salutary and necessary restraint, shall succeed to separate it from that union, by which alone its existence is made sure, it will stand in the end by the side of that cradle, in which its infancy was rocked; it will stretch forth its arm with whatever of vigor it may still retain, over the friends who gather around it; and it will fall, at last, if fall it must, amidst the proudest monuments of its own glory, and on the very spot of its origin. QUESTIONS.-1. In what does Mr. Webster claim a part of the honor and pride? 2. What does he say of the great men of South Carolina? 3. How does he repel the imputation of envy? 4. What pleasing recollections does he recur to in the 6th paragraph? 5. In what terms does he allude to Massachusetts in the 7th and 8th paragraphs? LESSON CLV. WORDS FOR SPELLING AND DEFINING. SUBTLE, acute. COM BIN ED, united; associated. PRECE DENTS, prior examples. Fo' RUM, court; tribunal. UN DIS TINGUISH A BLE, imper- CE MENT ED, firmly uaited. 1. THOMAS ERS' KINE, a most celebrated English lawyer, born in 1750, died in 1823. 2. AL EX AN DER HAM' IL TON, a celebrated American statesman, was born in 1757, and was killed in a duel with Colonel Burr at Hoboken, in New Jersey, nearly opposite to the city of New York, on the 11th of July, 1804. 3. DE MOS THE NES, (see note, p. 56.) 4. CICE RO, a celebrated Roman orator, born B. C. 106, and died B. C. 43. 5. JOHN MILTON, (see note, p. 228.) 6. EDMUND BURKE, (see note, p. 212.) 7. WEST MIN STER, a city of Middlesex, England, the seat ɔi government, the residence of royalty, and the center of fashion, is now so united with London, that, in appearance, they form one city, though they have separate jurisdictions. DANIEL WEBSTER AS AN ORATOR. WILLIAM H. SEWARD. 1. Daniel Webster's mind was not subtle, but it was clear. It was surpassingly logical in the exercise of induction, and equally vigorous and majestic in all its movements; and yet he possessed an imagination so strong, that if it had been combined with even a moderated enthusiasm of temper, would have overturned the excellent balance of his powers. The civilian rises in this, as in other Republics, by the practice of eloquence, and so Daniel Webster became an orator-the first of orators. 2. Whatever else concerning him has been controverted by anybody, the fifty thousand lawyers of the United States, interested to deny his pretensions, conceded to him an unapproachable supremacy at the bar. How did he win that high place? Where others studied laboriously, he meditated intensely. Where others appealed to the prejudices and passions of courts and juries, he addressed only their understandings. Where others lost themselves among the streams, he ascended to the fountain. While they sought the rules of law among conflicting precedents, he found them in the eternal principles of reason and justice. 3. But it is conceding too much to the legal profession to call Daniel Webster a lawyer. Lawyers speak for clients and their interests; he seemed always to be speaking for his country and for truth. So he rose imperceptibly above his |