it be weak to rejoice, when, even in any corner of the earth, human beings are able to get up from beneath oppression, to erect themselves, and to enjoy the proper happiness of their intelligent nature;-if this be weak, it is a weakness from which I claim no exemption. A day of solemn retribution now visits the once proud monarchy of Spain. The prediction is fulfilled. The spirit of Montezuma and of the Incas might now well say, "Art thou, too, fallen, Iberia? Do we see Mr. Chairman, I will detain you only with one more reflection on this subject. We cannot be so blind-we cannot so shut up our senses, and smother our faculties, as not to see, that in the progress and the establishment of South American liberty, our own example has been among the most stimulating causes. That great light a light which can never be hid-the light of our own glorious revolution, has shone on the path of the South American patriots, from the beginning of their course. In their emergencies. they have looked to our experience; in their political institutions, they have followed our models; in their deliberations, they have invoked the presiding spirit of our own liberty. They have looked steadily, in every adversity, to the great northern light. In the hour of bloody conflict, they have remembered the fields which have been consecrated by the blood of our own fathers; and when they have fallen, they have wished only to be remembered with them, as men who had acted their parts bravely, for the cause of liberty in the western world. Sir, I have done. If it be weakness to feel the sympathy of one's nature excited for such men, in such a cause, I am guilty of that weakness. If it be prudence to meet their proffered civility, not with reciprocal kindness, but with coldness or with insult, I choose still to follow where natural impulse leads, and to give up that false and mistaken prudence, for the voluntary sentiments of my heart. 409 AN ORATION, PRONOUNCED AT CAMBRIDGE, BEFORE THE SOCIETY OF PHI BETA KAPPA, AUGUST 26, 1824. BY EDWARD EVERETT. MR. PRESIDENT, AND GENTLEMEN, In discharging the honorable trust of being the public organ of your sentiments on this occasion, I have been anxious that the hour which we here pass together, should be occupied by those reflections exclusively which belong to us as scholars. Our association in this fraternity is academical; we engaged in it before our alma mater dismissed us from her venerable roof, to wander in the various paths of life; and we have now come together in the academical holidays, from every variety of pursuit, from almost every part of our country, to meet on common ground, as the brethren of one literary household. The professional cares of life, like the conflicting tribes of Greece, have proclaimed to us a short armistice, that we may come up in peace to our Olympia. But from the wide field of literary speculation, and the innumerable subjects of meditation which arise in it, a selection must be made. And it has seemed to me proper, that we should direct our thoughts, not merely to a subject of interest to scholars, but to one which may recommend itself as peculiarly appropriate to us. If that old man eloquent, whom the dishonest victory at Cheronæa killed with report,' could devote fifteen years to the composition of his Panegyric on Athens, I shall need no excuse to a society of American scholars, in choosing for the theme of an address, on an occasion like this, the peculiar motives to intellectual exertion in America. In this subject, that curiosity which every scholar feels in tracing and comparing the springs of mental activity, is heightened and dignified by the important connection of the inquiry with the condition and prospects of our native land. In the full comprehension of the terms, the motives to intellectual exertion in a country embrace the most important springs of national character. Pursued into its details, the study of these springs of national character is often little better than fanciful spec ulation. The questions, why Asia has almost always been the abode of despotism, and Europe more propitious to liberty; why the Egyptians were abject and melancholy; the Greeks inventive, elegant, and versatile; the Romans stern, saturnine, and, in matters of literature, for the most part, servile imitators of a people whom they conquered, despised, and never equalled; why tribes of barbarians from the north and east, not known to differ essentially from each other at the time of their settlement in Europe, should have laid the foundation of national characters so dissimilar as those of the Spanish, French, German, and English nations; these are questions to which a few general answers may be attempted, that will probably be just and safe only in proportion as they are vague and comprehensive. Difficult as it is, even in the individual man, to point out precisely the causes, under the influence of which members of the same community and of the same family, placed apparently in the same circumstances, grow up with characters the most diverse; it is infinitely more difficult to perform the same analysis on a subject so vast as a nation, where it is first not a small question what the character is, before you touch the inquiry into the circumstances by which it was formed. But as, in the case of individual character, there are certain causes of undisputed and powerful operation, there are, also, in national character, causes equally undisputed of improvement and excellence, on the one hand, and of degeneracy and decline, on the other. The philosophical student of history, the impartial observer of man, may often fix on circumstances, which, in their operation on the minds of the people, in furnishing the motives and giving the direction to intellectual exertion, have had the chief agency in making them what they were or are. Nor are there many exercises of the speculative principle more elevated than this. It is in the highest degree curious to trace physical facts into their political, intellectual and moral consequences; and to show how the climate, the geographical position, and even the particular topography of a region, connect themselves by evident association with the state of society, its predominating pursuits. and characteristic institutions. In the case of other nations, particularly of those which in the great drama of the world have long since passed from the stage. these speculations are often only curious. The operation of a tropical climate in enervating and fitting a people for despotism; the influence of a broad river or a lofty chain of mountains, in arresting the march of conquest or of emigration, and thus becoming the boundary, not merely of governments, but of languages, literature, institutions and character; the effect of a quarry of fine marble on the progress of the liberal arts; the agency of popular institut.ons in promoting popular eloquence, and the tremendous reaction of popular eloquence on the fortunes of a state; the comparative destiny of colonial settlements, of insular states, of tribes fortified in nature's Alpine battlements, or scattered over a smiling region of olive gardens and vineyards;-these are all topics, indeed, of rational curiosity and liberal speculation, but important only as they may illustrate the prospects of our own country. It is, therefore, when we turn the inquiry to our country, when we survey its features, search its history, and contemplate its institutions, to see what the motives are, which are to excite and guide the minds of the people; when we dwell, not on a distant, an uncertain, an almost forgotten past, but on an impending future, teeming with life and action, toward which we are rapidly and daily swept forward, and with which we stand in the dearest connection which can bind the generations of man together; a future, which our own characters, our own actions, our own principles, will do something to stamp with glory or shame ;-it is then that the inquiry becomes practical, momentous, and worthy the attention of every patriotic scholar. We then strive, as far as it is in the power of philosophical investigation to do it, to unfold our country's reverend auspices, to cast its great horoscope in the national sky, where many stars are waning, and many have set; to ascertain whether the soil which we love, as that where our fathers are laid, and we shall presently be laid with them, will be trod in times to come by a virtuous, enlightened and free people. The first of the circumstances which are acting, and will continue to act, with a strong peculiarity among us, and which must prove one of the most powerful influences in exciting and directing the intellect of the country, is the new form of political society, which has here been devised and established. I shall not wander so far from the literary limits of this occasion, nor into a field so oft trodden, as the praises of free political institutions. direct and appropriate influence on mental effort of institutions like ours, has not yet, perhaps, received the attention, which, from every American scholar, it richly deserves. I have ventured to say, that a new form of polity has here been devised and established. The ancient Grecian republics, indeed, were free enough within the walls of the single city, of which many of them were wholly or chiefly composed; but to these single cities the freedom, as well as the power, was confined. Toward the confederated or tributary states, the government was generally a despotism, more capricious, and not less severe, than that of a single tyrant. Rome, as a state, was never free. In every period of her history, authentic and dubious, royal, republican, and imperial, her proud citizens were the slaves of an artful, accomplished, wealthy aristocracy; and nothing but the hard-fought battles of her stern tribunes can redeem her memory to the friends of liberty. In ancient and modern history, there is no example, before our own, of a purely elective and representative system. It is on an entirely novel plan, that, in this country, the whole direction and influence of affairs, -all the trusts and honors of society,-the power of making, abrogating and administering the laws,-the whole civil authority and sway, from the highest post in the government to the smallest village trust, are put directly into the market of merit. Whatsoever efficacy there is in high station and exalted honors, to call out and exercise the powers, either by awakening the emulation of the aspirants or exciting the efforts of the incumbents, is here directly exerted on the largest mass of men, with the smallest possible deductions. Nothing is bestowed on the chance of birth, nothing flows through the channel of hereditary family interests; but whatever is desired must be sought in the way of a broad, fair, personal competition. It requires little argument to show, that such a system must most widely and most powerfully have the effect of appealing to whatever of energy the land contains; of searching out, with magnetic instinct, in the remotest quarters, the latent ability of its children. It may be objected, and it has been, that, for want of an hereditary government, we lose that powerful spring of action which resides in the patronage of such a government, and must emanate from the crown. With many individuals, friendly to our popular institutions, it is nevertheless an opinion, that we must consent to lose something of the genial influence of princely and royal patronage on letters and arts, and find our consolation in the political benefits of our free system. It may be doubted, however, whether this view be not entirely false. As no one can suppose, that the mere fact of the existence of an hereditary government adds any thing to the resources of the people, independent of other causes, whatever is gained by concentrating an active patronage in the metropolis and in the central administration, must be lost by withdrawing the means of patronage from the distant portions of the state and all its subordinate institutions. The effect produced on the civilization and intellectual growth of a country, by concentrating the means and the control of patronage, at one political metropolis, may be compared to that, which would be produced on the civilization of Europe, by subverting its various independent governments, annihilating the numerous seats of improvement which are scattered over its surface, reducing to a dead level the mass of the population, and building upon the ruins of all the local institutions one great metropolitan centre.-It is plain that, whatever might be gained in the splendor of the rewards and the intensity of the excitement, at the great fountain of honor, would be lost a hundred times over, by destroying all the motives to exertion and all the means of education, enjoyed by the mass of men. By this process, the public patronage is not merely withdrawn from the majority of those who might be influenced by it, but much of it is annihilated. On the contrary, by the |