ALWAYS READY BUT NEVER RASH. 85 genial heat be imparted to the heart of every man in this House and to the heart of the whole American people! Sir, I faucy that I hear the people of the West responding to the sentiments uttered by that venerable man—that the mighty heart of that great giantess has begun to pulsate with a double vigor, and that I hear the echo of its throbs across the Alleghanies. Yes! I fancy that I see gathering upon her brow a tempest of indignation, that will burst upon the devoted heads of any set of men, or party, that would defeat the consummation of the measures before the House for the full occupation of Oregon, and the protection of our citizens; or that would surrender one foot of our territory there to satiate the cupidity of Great Britain. Her sons would prefer inaking the territory north of forty-nine degrees their buryingground, rather than seal, by its surrender to by peace from England, the infamy and eternal disgrace of their country. They ask nothing but what is just, and will not submit to anything that is wrong. She offers the noble bosoms of her sous, as a living, unconquerable bulwark, to protect the country and our rights. She asks the boou at the hands of this government of rearing aloft the stars and stripes, and planting them on every hill-top and valley in Oregon-aye, sir, on the shores of the mighty Pacific, there to guard them with her noblest sous, and there to let them wave in triumph, till the glorious principles of liberty and Christianity shall have begirt the world, and consummated universal liberty, civil and religious, to man. LIX. ALWAYS READY BUT NEVER RASH. H. BEDINGER. THOSE who, like myself, have stood amid the sublime scenery at Harper's Ferry, and watched the eagle there in his favorite haunts, now perched in solitary grandeur on some tall peak or towering crag-now wheeling into the heavens with his eye upon the sun-those who have delighted to watch him thus, know something of his nature and his habits. They know he is never rash, that he makes no unnecessary noise, or idle fluttering; that he never strikes until he is ready, and when he does strike, it is with the rapidity and On deadly certainty of heaven's lightning! I witnessed there, upon one occasion, sir, a scene which I wish I had the skill or ability to depict, for it was very beautiful. There was a black, lowering, and portentous cloud in the west, charged with thunder; over its dark bosom the red lightning gleamed and danced, and the voice of the thunder came forth in tones which shook the hills. An eagle came swooping on from the east, directly in the face of the cloud itself. ward he came with the rapidity of an arrow, seemingly resolved to penetrate the dark barrier, and make his onward way in spite of all resistance. Now he plunged into the dark bosom of the cloud, as if determined to snatch the lightnings of heaven. Anon he wheeled aloft as if resolved to scale the summit; and his shriek came forth in fierce defiance of the angry thunder. But suddenly he made one majestic swoop-not backward, sir, no retreat in his nature -but directly along the very verge of the cloud, skirting this Blue Ridge, and perched himself upon one of its loftiest peaks. He paused one moment, with bowed wings and glancing eyes -the cloud blew over without even the smallest pattering of rain, the sun came out again from the cloudless heaven, the eagle sprang from his perch and pursued his course far in the dim regions of the trackless West! So, sir, might it be with us, if we could but curb our impetuosity and imprudence; if we could but pause and ponder, and wait, for a brief period, the dark cloud now lowering upon our political horizon would pass away without difficulty of danger, and the "Eagle of America" would take its onward flight, unresisted and unopposed, to the rich regions of Oregon. LX.--SECESSION. Peaceable Secession ! DANIEL WEBSTER. SECESSION! Sir, your eyes and mine are never destined to see that miracle. The dismemberment of this vast country without convulsion! The breaking up of the fountains of the great deep without ruffling the surface! Who is so foolish-I beg everybody's pardon -as to expect to see any such thing? Sir, he who sees these States, now revolving in harmony around a common centre, and expects to see them quit their places and fly off without convulsion, may look the next hour to see the heavenly bodies rush from their spheres, and jostle against each other in the realms of space, without producing the crush of the universe. There can be no such thing as a peaceable secession. Peaceable secession is an utter impos sibility. Is the great Constitution under which we live here -covering this whole country-is it to be thawed and melted away by secession, as the snows on the mountain melt under the influence of a vernal sun-disappear almost unobserved, and die off? No, sir! no, sir! I will not state what might produce the disruption of the States; but, sir, I see it as plainly as I see the sun in heaven-I see that disruption must produce such a war as I will not describe in its twofold characters. Peaceable secession! peaceable secession! The concurrent agreement of all the members of this great Republic to separate! A voluntary separation with alimony on the one side and on the other! Why, what would be the result? Where is the line to be drawn? What States are to secede? What is to remain American? What am I to be?-an American no longer? Where is the flag of the Republic to remain? Where is the eagle still to tower? or is he to cower, and shrink, and fall to the ground? Why, sir, our ancestorsour fathers, and our grandfathers, those of them that are yet living among us with prolonged lives--would rebuke and reproach us; and our children, and our grandchildren, would cry out, shame upon us! if we, of this generation, should dishonor these ensigns of the power of the Government, and the harmony of the Union, which is every day felt among us with so much joy and gratitude. What is to become of the army? What is to become of the navy? What is to become of the public lands? How is each of the thirty States to defend itself? * * * * Sir, I am ashamed to pursue this line of remark. I dislike it-I have an utter disgust for it. I would rather hear of natural blasts and mildews, war, pestilence, and famine, than to hear gentlemen talk of secession. To break up! to break up this great Government! to dismember this great country! to astonish Europe with an act of folly, such as Europe for two centuries has never beheld in any government! No, sir! no, sir! There will be no secession. Gentlemen are not serious when they talk of secession. LXI. PEACEFUL CONQUESTS. JOHN A. DIX. In the extension of our commercial intercourse, we have not, like our Anglo-Saxon mother, been seen hewing down with the sword, with unrelenting and remorseless determina tion, every obstacle which opposed itself to her progress. Our career thus far has been stained by no such companionship with evil. Our conquests have been the peaceful achievements of enterprise and industry-the one leading the way into the wilderness, the other following and completing the acquisition by the formal symbols of occupancy and possession. They have looked to no objects beyond the conversion of uninhabited wilds into abodes of civilization and freedom. Their only arms were the axe and the ploughshare. The accumulations of wealth they have brought were all extracted from the earth by the unoffending hand of labor. If, in the progress of our people westward, they shall occupy territories not our own, but to become ours by amicable arrangements with the government to which they belong, which of the nations of the earth shall venture to stand forth, in the face of the civilized world, and call on us to pause in this great work of human improvement? It is as much the interest of Europe as it is ours, that we should be permitted to follow undisturbed the path which, in the allotment of national fortunes, we seem appointed to tread. Our country has long been a refuge for those who desire a larger liberty than they enjoy under their own rulers. It is an outlet for the political disaffection of the old world—for social elements which might have become sources of agitation, but which are here silently incorporated into our system, ceasing to be principles of disturbance as they attain the greater freedom which was the object of their separation from less congenial combinations in other quarters of the globe. Nay, more; it is into the vast reservoir of the western wilderness, teeming with fruitfulness and fertility, that Europe is constantly pouring, under our protection, her human surpluses, unable to draw from her own bosom the elements of their support. She is literally going along with us in our march to prosperity and power, to, share with us its triumphs and its fruits. Happily, this continent is not a legitimate theatre for the political arrangements of the sovereigns of the eastern A STRIKING PICTURE. 89 hemisphere. Their armies may range, undisturbed by us, over the plains of Europe, Asia, and Africa, dethroning monarchs, partitioning kingdoms, and subverting republics, as interest or caprice may dictate. But political justice demands that in one quarter of the globe self-government, freedom, the arts of peace, shall be permitted to work out, unmolested, the great purposes of human civilization. LXII-A STRIKING PICTURE. EDWARD EVERETT. AT length the revolution, with all this grand civil and military preparation, came on; and O that I could paint out in worthy colors the magnificent picture! The incidents, the characters, are worthy of the drama. What names, what men! Chatham, Burke, Fox, Franklin, the Adamses, Washington, Jefferson, and all the chivalry, and all the diplomacy of Europe and America. The voice of generous disaffection sounds beneath the arches of St. Stephen's; and the hall of Congress rings with an eloquence like that which "Shook the arsenal, and fulmined over Greece, Then contemplate the romantic groups that crowd the military scene; all the races of men, and all the degrees of civilization, brought upon the stage at once-the English veteran; the plaided Highlander; the hireling peasantry of Hesse Cassel and Anspach; the gallant chevaliers of Poland; the well-appointed legions of France, led by her polished noblesse; the hardy American yeoman, his leather apron not always thrown aside; the mounted rifleman; the painted savage. At one moment, we hear the mighty armadas of Europe thundering in the Antilles. Anon we behold the blue-eyed Brunswickers, whose banners told, in their tattered sheets, of the victory of Minden, threading the wilderness between St. Lawrence and Albany, under an accomplished British gentleman, and capitulating to the American forces, commanded by a naturalized Virginian, who had been present at the capture of Martinico, and was shot through the body at Braddock's defeat. While the grand |