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It has pleased the benevolent Author of our existence to set in boundless profusion before us the necessary elements for a high state of cultivation and enjoyment. Blessings cluster around us like fruits of the land of promise, and science unfolds her treasures and invites us to partake, literally without money and without price. The propensities of our nature, as well as the philosophy of our being, serve to remind us that man was formed for care and labor, for the acquisition and enjoyment of property, for society and government, to wrestle with the elements around him; and that, by an active exercise of his powers and faculties alone, can he answer the ends of his creation, or exhibit his exalted attributes. His daily wants, in all conditions of life, prompt him to exertion; and the spirit of acquisition, so deeply implanted in the human breast, that " ruling passion strong in death," so universally dif fused through the whole family of man, is the parent of that laudable enterprise which has caused the wilderness to bud and blossom like the rose, planted domestic enjoyments in the lair of the beast of prey, and transformed the earth from an uncultivated wild into one vast storehouse of subsistence and enjoyment. What can be more acceptable to the patriot or the philanthropist, than to behold the great mass of mankind raised above the degrading influences of tyranny and indolence, to the rational enjoyment of the bounties of their Creator? To see, in the productions of man's magic powers, the cultivated country, the fragrant meadow, the waving harvest, the smiling garden, and the tasteful dwelling, and himself, chastened by the precepts of religion and elevated by the refinements of science, partaking of the fruits of his own industry, with the proud consciousness that he eats not the bread of idleness or fraud; that his gains are not met with the tears of misfortune, nor wrung from his fellow by the devices of avarice or extortion ; his joys heightened, his sorrows alleviated, and his heart rectified, by the cheering voice and heaven-born influences of woman. Well may he sit down under his own vine and fig-tree without fear of molestation, and his nightly repose be more quiet than that of the stately monarch of the east upon his down of cygnets, or the voluptuous Sybarite upon his bed of roses.

SECTIONAL SERVICES IN THE LAST WAR. C. Cushing,

THE gentleman from South Carolina taunts us with counting the cost of that war in which the liberties and honor of the country, and the interests of the North, as he asserts, were forced to go elsewhere for their defence. Will he sit down with me and count the cost now? Will he reckon up how much of treasure the State of South Carolina expended in that war, and how much the State of Massachusetts ? how much of the blood of either state was poured out on sea or land? I challenge the gentleman to the test of patriotism, which the army roll, the navy lists, and the treasury books, afford. Sir, they who revile us for our opposition to the last war have looked only to the surface of things. They little know the extremities of suffering which the people of Massachusetts bore at that period, out of attachment to the Union, their families beggared, their fathers and sons bleeding in camps, or pining in foreign prisons. They forget that not a field was marshalled, on this side of the mountains, in which the men of Massachusetts did not play their part as became their sires, and their "blood fetched from mettle of war proof." They battled and bled, wherever battle was fought or blood drawn.

Nor only by land. I ask the gentleman, who fought your naval battles in the last war? Who led you on to victory after victory, on the ocean and the lakes? Whose was the triumphant prowess before which the red cross of England paled with unwonted shames? Were they not men of New England? Were these not foremost in those maritime encounters which humbled the pride and power of Great Britain? I appeal to my colleague before me from our common county of brave old Essex, I appeal to my respected colleagues from the shores of the Old Colony. Was there a village or a hamlet on Massachusetts Bay which did not gather its hardy seamen to man the gun-decks of your ships of war? Did they not rally to the battle, as men flock to a feast?

I beseech the House to pardon me, if I may have kindled, on this subject, into something of unseemly ardor. I cannot sit tamely by, in humble acquiescent silence, when reflections, which I know

to be unjust, are cast on the faith and honor of Massachusetts. Had I suffered them to pass without admonition, I should have deemed that the disembodied spirits of her departed children, from their ashes mingled with the dust of every stricken field of the Revolution, from their bones mouldering to the consecrated earth of Bunker's Hill, of Saratoga, of Monmouth, — would start up in visible shape before me, to cry shame on me, their recreant countryman! Sir, I have roamed through the world, to find hearts nowhere warmer than hers, soldiers nowhere braver, patriots nowhere purer, wives and mothers nowhere truer, maidens nowhere lovelier, green valleys and bright rivers nowhere greener or brighter; and I will not be silent, when I hear her patriotism or her truth questioned with so much as a whisper of detraction. Living, I will defend her; dying, I would pause, in my last expiring breath, to utter a prayer of fond remembrance for my native New England!

AN APPEAL FOR UNION.—J. M. Berrien.

I Do not limit my appeal to Southern senators: I address myself to senators from whatever quarter of the Union; I appeal to them as American senators, and I adjure them, by their recollections of the past, by their hopes of the future, as they value the free institutions which the mercy of Providence permits us to enjoy, — by all these considerations, I entreat them to unite with us in excluding from the national councils this demon of discord. The acquisition of territory which it is proposed to accomplish by this bill must bring upon us, with accumulated force, a question which even now menaces the permanence of our Union. I know the firmness of your determination to exert your constitutional powers to prevent the extension of our domestic institutions. I know the various considerations which unite to constitute that determination, and to give to it its unyielding, irrevocable character. I do not mean to discuss this question with you, still less to speak in the language of menace. That is alike forbidden by my respect for myself, for you, and for the dignity and the interests of my con

stituents; but I entreat you to listen to truth, dispassionately, calmly announced to you.

Your determination to deny this right to the South is not more fixed and unwavering than theirs to assert it.

You do not believe

that Southern men will silently acquiesce in, will tamely submit to, the denial to them of that which in their deliberate judgment is the common right of all the people of the United States. If we have a right to acquire territory, if that acquisition be made by the common effort of all the states, by the blood and treasure of all, — if all have a common right to share what all have united to acquire, then the exclusion of the South must result in one of two things. They must give an unexampled manifestation of their devotion to the bond of our Federal Union, by submitting to this exclusion, or sadly though resolutely determine, at whatever hazard, and even against you their brothers in that sacred bond, to assert and maintain their rights. You know them well enough to know which of these alternatives they will adopt. I do most earnestly hope that we may never be brought to so fearful a crisis. The danger menaces us even now; but the patriotism and intelligence of the American people will, I trust, avert it, will teach us, and will teach you, that our safety, that your safety, that the common safety of all alike, forbid the acquisition of territory, if wę would continue to enjoy the precious legacy which has been transmitted to us, a rich, almost boundless domain, capable of ministering to all our wants, of gratifying all our desires, and a glorious constitution, which a world in arms would vainly assail while we rally round it in our united strength.

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UNION LINKED WITH LIBERTY. - A. Jackson.

WITHOUT union, our independence and liberty would never have been achieved; without union, they can never be maintained. Divided into twenty-four, or even a smaller number of separate communities, we shall see our internal trade burdened with numberless restraints and exactions; communication between distant

points and sections obstructed, or cut off; our sons made soldiers, to deluge with blood the fields they now till in peace; the mass of our people borne down and impoverished by taxes to support armies and navies; and military leaders, at the head of their victorious legions, becoming our lawgivers and judges. The loss of liberty, of all good government, of peace, plenty and happiness, must inevitably follow a dissolution of the Union. In supporting it, therefore, we support all that is dear to the freeman and the philanthropist.

The time at which I stand before you is full of interest. The cyes of all nations are fixed on our republic. The event of the existing crisis will be decisive, in the opinion of mankind, of the practicability of our federal system of government. Great is the stake placed in our hands; great is the responsibility which must rest upon the people of the United States. Let us realize the importance of the attitude in which we stand before the world. Let us exercise forbearance and firmness. Let us extricate our country from the dangers which surround it, and learn wisdom from the lessons they inculcate. Deeply impressed with the truth of these observations, and under the obligation of that solemn oath which I am about to take, I shall continue to exert all my faculties to maintain the just powers of the constitution, and to transmit unimpaired to posterity the blessings of our Federal Union.

At the same time, it will be my aim to inculcate, by my official acts, the necessity of exercising, by the general government, those powers only that are clearly delegated; to encourage simplicity and economy in the expenditures of the government; to raise no more money from the people than may be requisite for these objects, and in a manner that will best promote the interests of all classes of the community, and of all portions of the Union. Constantly bearing in mind that, in entering into society, "individuals must give up a share of liberty to preserve the rest," it will be my desire so to discharge my duties as to foster with our brethren, in all parts of the country, a spirit of liberal concession and compromise; and, by reconciling our fellow-citizens to those partial sacrifices which they must unavoidably make, for the preservation of a

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