engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon, until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained--we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! 5. An appeal to arms, and to the God of hosts, is all that is left us. They tell us, sir, that we are weak, unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot?

6. Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone, it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery. Our chains are forged. Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable, and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come!

7. It is vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry peace, peace, but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the North will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle! What is it that gentlemen wish? what would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!

PATRICK HENRY.

C.-VARIETIES.

1.-RIGHT OF FREE DISCUSSION.

1. IMPORTANT as I deem it to discuss, on all proper occa sions, the policy of the measures at present pursued, it 17 still more important to maintain the right of such discusion, in its full and just extent. Sentiments lately sprung up, and now growing fashionable, make it necessary to be explicit on this point. The more I perceive a disposition to check the freedom of inquiry by extravagant and unconstitutional pretenses, the firmer shall be the tone, in which I shall assert, and the freer the manner, in which I shall exercise it.

2. It is the ancient and undoubted prerogative of this people to canvass public measures and the merits of public men. It is a "home-bred right," a fireside privilege. It hath ever been enjoyed in every house, cottage and cabin in the nation. It is not to be drawn into controversy. It is as undoubted as the right of breathing the air, or walking on the earth. Belonging to private life as a right, it belongs to public life as a duty; and it is the last duty, which those, whose representative I am, shall find me to abandon. Aiming at all times to be courteous and temperate in its use, except when the right itself shall be questioned, I shall place myself on the extreme boundary of my right, and bid defiance to any arm that would move me from my ground.

3. This high constitutional privilege, I shall defend and exercise, within this house, and without this house, and in all places; in time of peace, and at all times. Living I shall assert it; and should I leave no other inheritance to my children, by the blessing of God, I will leave them the inheritance of free principles, and the example of a manly, independent and constitutional defense of them.

2. MORAL DESOLATION.

WEBSTER.

1. WAR may stride over the land with the crushing step of a giant. Pestilence may steal over it like an invisible

curse-reaching its victims silently and unseen-unpeopling here a village and there a city, until every dwelling is a sepulcher. Famine may brood over it with a long and weary visitation, until the sky itself is brazen, and the beautiful greenness gives place to a parched desert--a wide waste of unproductive desolation. But these are only physical evils. The wild flower will bloom in peace on the field of battle and above the crushed skeleton. The destroying angel of the pestilence will retire when his errand is done, and the nation will again breathe freely: the barrenness of famine will cease at last-the cloud will be prodigal of its hoarded rain-and the wilderness will blossom.

2. But for moral desolation there is no reviving spring. Let the moral and republican principles of our country be abandoned our representatives bow in unconditional obsequiousness to individual dictation-let impudence and intrigue and corruption triumph over honesty and intellect, and our liberties and strength will depart forever. Of these there can be no resuscitation. The "abomination of desolation" will be fixed and perpetual; and as the mighty fabric of our glory totters into ruins, the nations of the earth will mock us in our overthrow, like the powers of darkness, when the throned one of Babylon became even as themselves -and the "glory of the Chaldee's excellency" had gone down.

CI.-NOBILITY OF LABOR.

1. WHY, in the great scale of things, is labor ordained for us? Easily, had it so pleased the great Ordainer, might it have been dispensed with. The world itself might have been a mighty machinery, for producing all that man wants. Houses might have risen like an exhalation,

"With the sound

Of dulcet symphonies, and voices sweet,
Built like a temple."

2. Gorgeous furniture might have been placed in them, and soft couches and luxurious banquets spread by hands unseen; and man, clothed with fabrics of nature's weaving,

rather than with imperial purple, might have been sent to disport himself in those Elysian palaces.

3. "Fair scene!" I imagine you are saying; "fortunate for us had it been the scene ordained for human life!" But where, then, had been human energy, perseverance, patience, virtue, heroism? Cut off labor with one blow from the world, and mankind had sunk to a crowd of Asiatic voluptuaries.

Better that the earth

4. No, it had not been fortunate! be given to man as a dark mass whereupon to labor. Better that rude and unsightly materials be provided in the ore-bed, and in the forest, for him to fashion in splendor and beauty. Better, I say, not because of that splendor and beauty, but because the act of creating them is better than the things themselves; because exertion is nobler than enjoyment; because the laborer is greater and more worthy of honor than the idler.

5. I call upon those whom I address, to stand up for the nobility of labor. It is heaven's great ordinance for human improvement. Let not the great ordinance be broken down. What do I say? It is broken down; and has been broken down for ages. Let it then be built again; here, if any where, on the shores of a new world-of a new civilization.

6. But how, it may he asked, is it broken down? Do not men toil? it may be said. They do indeed toil, but they too generally do because they must. Many submit to it, as in some sort, a degrading necessity; and they desire nothing so much on earth as an escape from it. They fulfill the great law of labor in the letter, but break it in the spirit. To some field of labor, mental or manual, every idler should hasten, as a chosen, coveted field of improvement.

7. But so he is not compelled to do, under the teachings of our imperfect civilization. On the contrary, he sits down, folds his hands, and blesses himself in idleness. This way of thinking is the heritage of the absurd and unjust feudal system, under which serfs labored, and gentlemen spent their lives in fighting and feasting. It is time that this opprobrium of toil were done away.

8. Ashamed to toil? Ashamed of thy dingy work-shop, and dusty labor-field; of thy hard hand, scarred with service more honorable than that of war; of thy soiled and weather-stained garments, on which mother nature has embroidered mist, sun and rain, fire and steam, her own heraldic honors? Ashamed of those tokens and titles, and envious of the flaunting robes of imbecile idleness and vanity? It is treason to nature, it is impiety to heaven; it is breaking heaven's great ordinance. Toil, I repeat-toil, either of the brain, of the heart, or of the hand, is the only true manhood-the only true nobility!

DEWEY.

CII. THE RIGHT TO TAX AMERICA.

1. "BUT, Mr. Speaker, we have a right to tax America." Oh, inestimable right! Oh, wonderful, transcendent right! the assertion of which has cost this country thirteen provinces, six islands, one hundred thousand lives, and seventy millions of money. Oh, invaluable right! for the sake of which we have sacrificed our rank among nations, our importance abroad, and our happiness at home! Oh, right! more dear to us than our existence! which has already cost us so much, and which seems likely to cost us our all. Infatuated man! miserable and undone country! not to know that the claim of right, without the power of enforcing it, is nugatory and idle. We have a right to tax America— the noble lord tells us therefore we ought to tax America. This is the profound logic which comprises the whole chain of his reasoning.

2. Not inferior to this was the wisdom of him who resolved to shear the wolf. What, shear a wolf! Have you considered the resistance, the difficulty, the danger of the attempt? No, says the madman, I have considered nothing but the right. Man has a right of dominion over the beasts of the forest; and therefore I will shear the wolf. How wonderful that a nation could be thus deluded! But the noble lord deals in cheats and delusions. They are the daily traffic of his invention; and he will continue to play off