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wharves into the nurseries which the state, solicitous for her security against ignorance, has prepared for them, has sometimes been treated as a device to appropriate the school fund to the endowment of seminaries for teaching languages and faiths, thus to perpetuate the prejudices it seeks to remove; sometimes as a scheme for dividing that precious fund among a hundred jarring sects, and thus increasing the religious animosities it strives to heal; and sometimes as a plan to subvert the prevailing religion and introduce one repugnant to the consciences of our fellow-citizens; while, in truth, it simply proposes by enlightening equally the minds of all, to enable them to detect error wherever it may exist, and to reduce uncongenial masses into one intelligent, virtuous, harmonious, and happy people. Being now relieved from all such misconceptions, it presents the questions whether it is wiser and more humane to educate the offspring of the poor than to leave them to grow up in ignorance and vice; whether juvenile vice is more easily eradicated by the court of sessions than by common schools; whether parents have a right to be heard concerning the instruction and instructors of their children, and tax-payers in relation to the expenditure of public funds; whether, in a republican government, it is necessary to interpose an independent corporation between the people and the schoolmaster; and whether it is wise and just to disfranchise an entire community of all control over public education, rather than suffer a part to be represented in proportion to its numbers and contributions.

Since such considerations are now involved, what has hitherto been discussed as a question of benevolence and universal education, has become one of equal civil rights, religious tolerance, and liberty of conscience. We could bear with us in our retirement from public service no recollection more worthy of being cherished through life than that of having met such a question in the generous and confiding spirit of our institutions, and of having decided it upon the immutable principles on which they are based. Annual Message, 1842.

FREEDOM.

John Quincy Adams.

THE capitol is deserted! The legislature have suspended their labors; the city is in mourning; a sudden blow has fallen on the master-chord in the heart of this nation, and grief is diffusing itself throughout the Union. The voice of JOHN QUINCY ADAMS has died away on earth, and he has resumed converse with John Adams and Jefferson, with La Fayette and with Washington, in heaven.

Death found the statesman where he wished to meet it-in the capitol; in his place; in the performance of his duty; in defending the cause of peace and of freedom. He submitted to the inevitable blow as those who loved and honored him foretold and desired that he would-saying only, "This is the last of earth-I am content."

I will not suffer myself to speak all I feel on this sad occasion. While the American people have lost a father and a guide-while Humanity has lost her most eloquent, persevering, and indomitable advocate-I have lost a patron, a guide, a counsellor, and a friend-one whom I loved scarcely less than the dearest relations, and venerated above all that was mortal among men.

I speak in behalf of my associates. Great as he was, illustrious as his achievements were, he was one of us. He was a civilian, a lawyer, a jurist. His great mind was imbued with the science of our noble profession, and enriched with all congenial learning; and to these he added the ornaments of rhetoric

*Remarks before the Court of Chancery, Albany, Feb. 25, 1848.

and eloquence. Trained in constitutional law, in the school of its founders, Washington called him in precocious youth to the kindred field of diplomacy. That mission discharged, he returned to his profession, and devoted himself to it with assiduity until the people called him from the duty of expounding laws to the higher department of making laws.

Rising through various and very responsible departments of public service, he became chief magistrate of the republic. There he impressed on its history an enduring illustration of a wise, peaceful, and enlightened administration, devoted to the cultivation of peace, to its arts and its interests, and to extending the sway of republican institutions over the continent, and yet in all things subordinate to the law and regulated by the law.

When he had thus filled the measure of the world's expectation and of his own generous ambition, he resumed his place in the national legislature, and devoted what remained of life to a long, arduous, and finally-successful vindication of the constitutional liberty of speech, and of the universal inalienable right of petition. Nor can we forget that, while thus engaged, he set a noble example for us, by returning again to the field of his early labors, the unpaid, unrivalled advocate of the Amistad captives. Those unhappy fugitives, rescued by him from the oppression of two great nations, were restored to Africa, the first of the many millions of her people of whom she had been despoiled by the avarice of our superior race. Whatever difference of opinion there may be concerning the principles and policy of the deceased, all men will now agree that he won among American statesmen, and eminently more than any other, the fame accorded to the most illustrious chevalier of France-the fame of a statesman sans peur et sans reproche.

It is fit that the death of such a citizen should be marked with all the testimonials of public grief, in order that his life may have its just influence on mankind. It is fit that it should be honored in this tribunal, the fame of which is not unknown throughout the world, and the records of which will remain for ever.-Remarks before Court of Chancery, Albany, Feb. 25, 1848.

NOTE.

Another and more elaborate eulogy on Mr. Adams will be found n the third volume of Mr. Seward's complete Works.

Mutual Rights and Duties of Nations.

WRITERS on law teach us that states are free, independent, equal, moral persons, existing for the objects of happiness and usefulness, and possessing rights and subject to duties defined by the law of nature, which is a system of politics and morals founded in right reason; that the only difference between politics and morals is, that one regulates the operations of government, while the other directs the conduct of individuals, and that the maxims of both are the same; that two sovereign states may be subject to one prince, and yet be mutually independent ; that a nation becomes free by the act of its ruler when he exceeds the fundamental laws; that when any power, whether domestic or foreign, attempts to deprive a state of independence or of liberty, it may lawfully take counsel of its courage, and prefer before the certainty of servitude the chances of destruction; that each nation is bound to do to every other in time of peace the most good, and in time of war the least harm possible, consistently with its own real interests; that while this is an imperfect obligation, of which no state can exact a performance, any one has nevertheless a right to use peaceful means, and even force, if necessary, to repress a power that openly violates the law of nations, and directly attacks their common welfare; and that, although the interests of universal society require mutual intercourse between states, yet that intercourse can be conducted by those only who in their respective nations possess and exercise in fact adequate political powers.

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It is time to protest. The new outworks of our system of politics in Europe have all been carried away. Republicanism has now no abiding place there, except on the rock of San Marino and in the mountain-home of William Tell. France and Austria are said to be conspiring to expel it even there. In my inmost heart, I could almost bid them dare to try an experiment which would arouse the nations of Europe to resist the commission of a crime so flagrant and so bold.

I have heard frequently, here and elsewhere, that we can promote the cause of freedom and humanity only by our example, and it is most true. But what should that example be but

that of performing not one national duty only, but all national duties; not those beginning and ending with ourselves only, but those also which we owe to other nations and to all mankind? No dim eclipse will suffice to illuminate a benighted world.

I have the common pride of every American in the aggrandizement of my country. No effort of mine to promote it, by just and lawful means, ever was or ever will be withheld. Our flag, when it rises to the topmast or the turret of an enemy's ship or fortress, excites in me a pleasure as sincere as in any other man. And yet I have seen that flag on two occasions when it awakened even more intense gratification. One was when it entered the city of Cork, covering supplies for a chivalrous and generous but famishing people. The other was when it recently protected in his emigration an exile of whom continental Europe was unworthy, and to whom she had denied a refuge. Sir, it raised no surprise and excited no regret in me, as it did in some, to see that exile and that flag alike saluted and honored by the people, and alike feared and hated by the kings of Europe.

Let others employ themselves in devising new ligaments to bind these states together. They shall have my respect for their patriotism and their zeal. For myself, I am content with the old ones just as I find them. I believe that the Union is founded in physical, moral, and political necessities, which demand one government, and would endure no divided states; that it is impregnable, therefore, equally to force or to faction; that secession is a feverish dream, and disunion an unreal and passing chimera; and that, for weal or wo, for liberty or servitude, this great country is one and inseparable. I believe, also, that it is righteousness, not greatness, that exalteth a nation, and that it is liberty, not repose, that renders national existence worth possessing. Let me, then, perform my humble part in the service of the republic, by cultivating the sense of justice. and the love of liberty which are the elements of its being, and by developing their saving influences, not only in our domestic conduct, but in our foreign conduct also, and in our social intercourse with all other states and nations.

It has already come to this-that whenever in any country an advocate of freedom, by the changes of fortune, is driven

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