it to be concealed, that dangers of the most formidable nature may assail us from other sources-some peculiar to our situation, and others that are common to all free states.

Faction and luxury-the love of money and the love of power, were the hydra-headed monsters that destroyed the ancient republics. At the time that the Roman commonwealth was overturned, all ranks of men were so corrupted, that tables were publicly set out, upon which the candidates for offices were professedly ready to pay the people the price of their votes; and they came not only to give their voices to the man who had bought them, but with all manner of weapons to fight for him. Hence it often happened, that they did not part without polluting the tribunal with blood and murder, and the city was a perpetual scene of anarchy.* The justice of heaven pursued the perpetrators of these enormities, and Rome was scourged with a series of the most detestable tyrants that ever disgraced the character of humanity. Although corruption will not at first present itself under such hideous forms, yet its approaches will be insidious, undermining and dangerous. It will appeal to cupidity and to ambition, by magnificent promises and by donatives of office, if not by largesses of money. Good men are too often lethargic and inactive-bad men are generally bold and adventurous. And unless arrested by the vigilant intelligence and virtuous indignation of the community, faction will, in process of time, contaminate all the sources of public prosperity-a deleterious poison will be infused into the vital principles of the body politic-intrigue, ignorance, and impudence will be the passports to public honors— and the question will be, not whether the man is fit for the office, but whether the office is fit for the man. In this crisis of the republic, its degenerate and unprincipled sons will unite in a common crusade against the public good, and will encircle the land with a cordon of corrupt and daring spirits, like the peccant hu

*Plutarch.

mors of the body, which, in a dangerous disease, collect in the morbid part of the system.

There are also peculiar circumstances in our situation, which ought to silence high-toned arrogance, and admonish us of the dangers which surround us. The experiment of a great empire, founded on the federative principle, has not been fully tested by the efflux of time and the pressure of events. The ancient democracies, where the people legislated in person, were ruined by the smallness of their area. The impulses of faction were sudden, unchecked, and overwhelming. An extensive republic, like ours, may be destroyed by a conspiracy of the members against the head, or the power of government may be spent as it extends, like a circle in the water, which is lost by its own expansion. And an apprehension of this occurrence may induce the establishment of standing armies in the extremities of the empire, which as in the days of ancient Rome, will rush to the capital, to divide the spoils of power and wealth. Nor is it to be concealed, that a spirit is active in the community, which tends to the destruction of the union, and the consequent subversion of the best hopes of man. It may be considered as giving too much into refinement, to intimate that the sectional prejudices which prevail in certain parts of the union, may be derived from hereditary antipathies and feelings; and that as the eastern states were chiefly settled by the Puritans or Roundheads of England, and the principal southern states by the Cavaliers or Royalists, a diversity of manners was entailed on their progeny, which has tended to increase and exasperate the ancient animosities that were at the same time transmitted. I shall not, although I should be fortified by the great names of Aristotle, Bacon, Berkeley, Buffon and Montesquieu, rely on the operation of physical causes, although perhaps they are not without their influence. It was the opinion of the Stagyrite, that the climate of Greece was the best possible one for the production of great men. The Greeks, said he, hold a middle place in physical and moral qualities, as well as topographical situation, between

the northern Europeans and the southern Asiatics, possessing the courage of the former, without their torpor of intellect, and the ingenuity of the latter, without their abject disposition. Lord Bacon has observed, that the inhabitants of the south are in general more ingenious than those of the north; but that where the native of a cold climate has genius, he rises to a higher pitch than can be realized by the southern wits. And Bishop Berkeley* has illustrated this opinion, by comparing the southern wits to cucumbers, which are commonly all good in their kind, but at best are an insipid fruit, while the northern geniuses are like melons, of which not one in fifty is good, but when it is so, it has an exquisite relish. However pertinent this doctrine may be, where it was intended to apply, it can have but little weight in reference to us. The difference of latitude and temperature is not so great as to produce the predicated results; and so far as facts can be ascertained, they will not bear out the ascription. It is probable that the causes so much to be deprecated, come under the denomination of moral, and are to be found in slavery; for wherever it prevails, it generates an anti-commercial and anti-manufacturing spirit; and at the same time, it produces a lofty sense of independence, which is among the strongest preservatives of our republican governments. In the other states, where commerce and manufactures are cultivated as well as agriculture, there is no real collision of interest with the states purely agricultural. There is, on the contrary, an identity; and although the prosperity of each is the prosperity of all, yet jealousies will spring out of legislative encouragement and protection of these great interests. To encourage the fabrics of art, is to encourage the fabrics of natureto protect manufactures, is to advance the growth of the raw materials of which they are made-to countenance commerce, is to countenance cheapness of transportation and goodness of market-and to promote the wealth of any member or section of the

*Berkeley's Minute Philosopher.

.

un on, is to enhance its ability to use the fabrics and to consume the productions of the other. The growing expansion of liberal feelings, and the illuminating progress of political philosophy, have had a salutary tendency in checking prejudices and antipathies which have too much prevailed. But, little to our honor, I speak it with regret, they have been recently excited by a contest of equestrian swiftness. In the Olympic games, where enlightened Greece assembled, where Homer recited his poem and Thucydides his history, the laureled crown, the palma nobilis,"* was awarded to the man, not to the beast; but the late display reminds us of the degenerate days of Rome, when a horse was raised to the honors of the consulship; and of the Prasini and the Veneti, the green and blue factions, which arose from those colors of livery in horse-races, and which accelerated, if not occasioned the ruin of the Greek empire.†

The necessity of counteracting the tendency of all human institutions to debasement-of guarding with efficacious circumspection against the advances of anarchy and tyranny, and of preventing the evils to which we are peculiarly exposed from expanded territory and geographical prejudices, must be obvious; and for this purpose, it is essential to attend, with increased zeal, to the great interests of education, and to promote with unrelaxed fervor the sacred cause of science. Education includes móral as well as intellectual culture-the georgics of the heart as well as of the head; and we must emphatically look up to a general diffusion of knowledge as the palladium of a free government-the guarantee of the representative system, and the ægis of our federative existence.

Is it necessary, on this occasion, to show the important connexion between science and all the arts, which contribute to the sustenance, the accommodation, and the embellishment of human life? The analytic researches of chemistry have opened to us a knowledge of the constituent parts of soils, minerals, vegetables,

and other substances, and have developed their useful application. From the first conception of the propulsion of vessels by steam by the Marquis of Worcester, to its consummation by Fulton, how slow was the progress-how difficult the accomplishment! And this could never have been effected, had it not received the aids of chemical discovery, of mathematical calculation, and of mechanical philosophy. All that relates to the economy of labor by machinery-to the facilitation of intercourse by canals and bridges-to naval, civil, and military architecture-to the improvement of agriculture-to the advancement of the mechanic artsmust be derived, directly or indirectly, from scientific research.

It is an ordinance of heaven, that man must be employed, or be unhappy. Mental or corporeal labor is the destination of his nature; and when he ceases to be active, he ceases to be useful, and descends to the level of vegetable life. And certainly those pursuits which call into activity his intellectual powers, must contribute most to his felicity, his dignity and his usefulness. The vigorous direction of an active mind to the accomplishment of good objects, forms its most extatic delights. "Hæc studia adolescentiam alunt, senectutem oblectant, secundas res ornant, adversis perfugium ac solatium præbent, delectant domi, non impediunt foris, pernoctant nobiscum, peregrinantur, rusticantur."*

The honor and glory of a nation consist in the illustrious achievements of its sons in the cabinet and the field-in the science and learning which compose the knowledge of man-in the arts and inventions which administer to his accommodation, and in the virtues which exalt his character. Scarcely two centuries have elapsed since the settlement of these United States, and in that period we have seen a Washington, a Henry, a Franklin, a Rittenhouse, and a Fulton-the most splendid names in war, in eloquence, in philosophy, in astronomy, and in mechanics, which the world

*Cicero.