EXTRACT.

From a 4^th of July address.

What, let us consider, was the specific object of our Fathers’ labors and their sacrifices? It was, that they might secure to their posterity, if not to themselves, the rights of man, the blessings of civil and religious liberty, the prerogative of self-government. Who, when he reflects that this was their object, and how steadily they kept it in view, can hesitate to accord to them a higher praise, than is due to the founders of any other nation? It was, let us repeat, the moral character of the American Revolution, which gave it its peculiar grandeur. Do you feel any veneration, any love for Washington and his com-patriots, merely on account of the bloody battles they fought? You ought not. You should recoil with horror from scenes of blood, let the actors in them have been who they may. The heroes of our Revolution, it is true, fought bravely, desperately. But this alone would be equivocal applause. It was the purity of their intentions, their self-devotion to the cause of Liberty, which makes them deservedly the pride of our country, and the honor of our race. The battles which they fought, the thousands of fellow-beings whom they slew, were incidents in the prosecution of their undertaking, which the benevolent can never think of, but with sorrow and loathing.

It is then, we say again, the great moral purpose of the Revolution, which commends it, and those who conducted it, to our most grateful remembrance. How ardent and unfeigned they were in their love of Liberty, is evident not more in what they did and suffered during the contest, than in the provisions they afterwards made for the protection of our rights.— Ere they had laid aside their arms, all fresh from the scenes of danger and of loss through which they had passed, our fathers instituted a form of government, which excluded themselves no less than it excluded others from all distinctions of honor or profit, but such as their fellow citizens might freely accord to them. The principles on which they based our civil fabric are broad and deep. Their recognition of these as the only just foundation of human governments, gives us the clearest evidence that they were men of high intellectual power, and of unparalleled integrity. They promulgated doctrines, the truth and value of which are not yet fully realized. Hereafter, their wisdom and foresight will be more justly, that is to say, more highly appreciated. — Certain momentous questions are now agitating our Republic, and others are soon coming up to trouble us, which might at once be settled by a candid appeal to the constitution which they bequeathed us. —If we guide our political and religious affairs by the plain principles therein propounded, we shall avert those evils, which now threaten our very existence as a united people. But if we disregard them, the most fearful consequences are inevitable.

Our fathers declared that all men are created equal, with a right to freedom — A declaration of infinite import! A glorious, gospel, heaven inspired truth! If we deeply feel and duly regard this, whose rights or feelings shall we violate? This is a truth which ought to be indelibly engraven on every heart. It should control all the measures of government, and the deportment of individuals towards each other. It is the truth, out of which arise those principles, that should guide the intercourse of man with man, and of one community with another, both in respect to their civil and their religious concerns. It is but a new version of our Saviour’s golden rule.

By the result of those measures, which were determined upon fifty-seven years ago, we have been called unto liberty. Let us seriously reflect upon the nature and extent of the blessing, that we may not use it for an occasion to the flesh, but in willing obedience to God and his Christ, whose service alone is perfect freedom.

Think not, brethren, that ye are free because your fathers threw off the yoke of colonial subjection. Think not that ye are free because ye have no king, nor hereditary nobility to reign over you. Think not that ye are free because ye live in a country where the supreme power is in the hands of the people. Such are indeed the highly favorable circumstances of your condition; and yet you may be in bondage, more abject than that from which our fathers were delivered. You may be in bondage to the majority, whose will, if the principles of our constitution be forgotten, may become as absolute and arbitrary as the will of any despot. You may be the creatures of your own party or sect, to whose opinions you may be compelled to assent, and in whose projects you may be obliged to toil, on pain of expulsion from their ranks, and the odium of an outcast. Or worse than all, you may be the slaves of some prevailing vice, or of some wicked or foolish custom.

It was obviously the intention of those who framed our constitution, to sustain every man in forming his own opinions on all subjects, and in acting in accordance with his own opinions, unless they would lead him to violate the equal rights of another. But there are indications every where, that this wise intention of our fathers has already come to be often disregarded. Unmindful of their high individual responsibility, the mass of our people, instead of examining and judging for themselves, seem willing that others should shape their opinions and guide their actions. Though they loudly boast of their freedom, they are the humble servants of “the few.” In consequence, they have become arrayed in parties and sects, the country over, with their general and subordinate leaders, and their organs of inter-communication. What their leaders declare to them, they believe too often, it is feared, without inquiry. Whithersoever their leaders go, they follow, nothing doubting. This is, we believe, too just an account of our religious and political affairs. It is rarely, very rarely, that we see an individual thinking and acting without an undue defence to some party. — How continually do we perceive in large bodies of men, a sameness of opinion and a unity of action, which there could not, would not be, if it were not for some master minds controlling them with absolute authority. Ye have witnessed the struggles of the rival factions in our land. Have ye thought their zeal has been according to knowledge? Have ye seen reason to believe that the individuals, on either side, thoroughly understood the merits of their cause? And that each one acted as his own best judgment and kind feelings dictated? Has it not rather been apparent to you that the individual merged himself in his party, feeling it safe for him to act in concert with numbers; and fearing, that if he should dare to stand alone, withholding himself from both sides, he might be considered trust-worthy by neither, and perhaps would incur some more distinct expression of their displeasure? Do we then exercise and enjoy, as we might and ought to do, that civil and religious liberty of which we are so boastful?

These are a few of many questions, which should be pressed upon the serious consideration of every one. Our limits forbid us to mention several others, which have been suggested to our minds by the return of this season. We wish to see the anniversary of our independence devoted to higher purposes, than it has usually been. There has been enough, and more than enough of self-gratulation. We have taken too much credit to ourselves for the deeds of our fathers. Let us do them and ourselves a higher honor. Let us emulate their excellences and shun their errors.—Indeed let us not be satisfied until we surpass them in knowledge and in virtue; as the superior advantages they procured for us should enable us to do. Let us make a wider and a higher application, than they did, of the great principles for which they so nobly contended. Let us not rest satisfied with our liberty, while aught of slavery abides in our land.