country first reached us, amusements lost their power to
charm ; secular business stood still. Tears came unbidden.
It was felt that God was in his holy Temple, and that the
whole land should keep silence before Him. The public
mind was in that mellowed, softened state, which is one of
the richest blessings of Heaven ; which indicates the presence
of the Holy Spirit, affecting millions, as a mighty wind bows
down the forest, and which, if cherished, is the sure harbin-
ger of a brighter day.
H. We are taught by this event the importance of cherish-
ing kind feelings towards our rulers, and of forming liberal
judgments of their measures.
It would shock us now to hear any harsh epithets applied
to General Harrison. We should turn away in sorrow or in
anger from him who had it in his heart to vilify the dead.
We should be ready to eject from civilized society the man
who could wantonly traduce the motives of one who is now
alike insensible to human praise or blame.
But is it not wrong to lacerate the feelings of the living ?
Is it any palliation of our offence, that the object at which
we aim our envenomed shafts has nerves which are quick
W'ith sensibility ? It is a poor business to make war upon the
dead. But it is a poorer business to injure the feelings and
vilify the name of the living.
Yet it has been done to a mournful extent in relation to
our civil rulers. We do not now refer to any particular in-
dividual or party. It is a nalional sin. It is the original sin,
we had almost said, of every party. The utmost ingenuity is
3
18
called into requisition in the invention of abusive epithets, in
distorting the plainest facts, in tearing open character, and
then pouring into the wounds the venom of asps. He is apt
to be regarded as the ablest editor of a newspaper, who can
use the most stinging phrases, who has at his command the
largest vocabulary of excoriating epithets. It is not unfre-
quently mentioned in praise of some zealous orator that he
flayed alive his poor opponent. Withering sarcasm has come
into the place of calm reasoning ; the traducing of motives
into that of respectful remonstrance, or of gentlemanly refu-
tation. One would think that many among us had passed
their lives in studying the plays of Aristophanes, or the writ-
ings of John Wilkes or William Cobbett.
And the abuse is as indiscriminate, as it is abundant. Who
does not now see that Mr. Madison did not deserve the tor-
rent of obloquy which was heaped upon him in 1812 ? Thou-
sands would gladly recal the hard speeches which they then
uttered against that illustrious patriot. So we feel it a duty
to say, tliat many illiberal and unjust accusations were laid
against the immediate predecessor of General Harrison ; accu-
sations to wliich General Harrison gave no countenance, and
whose circulation conferred no honor upon their authors or
abettors.
One would think, that it is the great business of men living
under a free government, to show their freedom by maligning
their rulers, just as the Athenians showed their democracy by
ostracising every citizen of extraordinary virtue. But why can
we not learn to distinguisli between ignorance and bad inten-
tion, between limited capacity and malice, between ignorance
19
which is unavoidable and that which is criminal ? Our rulers
are not omnipresent. They must often, and necessarily, de-
cide on imperfect information. If they waited for exact
knowledge in every case, they would commit flagrant wrong,
by the delay, in some other quarter. Many of them have not
the keen-sighted sagacity of Sully, nor the comprehensive
statesmanship of Burke. They must sometimes test a meas-
ure before they can decide upon its practical utility. Why
should we assign a sinister motive, when an honorable one is
much more probable ?
An eminent individual is strongly attached to office. He
wishes to have a voice in public affairs up to extreme old age.
We attribute it to his ambition, to his love of office for its own
sake ; whereas it may result from the perfect consciousness
which he has, that the abandonment of an occupation with
which he has been fifty years familiar, would be the shipwreck
of his understanding. The same individual does not act in
some great emergency as we had anticipated. He does not
remain steadfast in the traces of the party with which he gen-
erally votes. We wonder at his inconsistency. We are
amazed at his wrong-headedness. Now the day of the revela-
tion of all hidden things may show, that he was not obstinate,
but conscientious, that his solemn and well-ascertained con-
victions of duty would not allow Iiim to vote with his party.
Shall we then visit him with our maledictions ? To his own
Master, he standeth or falleth.
Ought we not to practise a little magnanimity ? Ought
we not to judge our public men with comprehensive and
Christian charity ? It may be the trade of a partizan to show
20
how adroit he can be in tlie use of opprobrious terms. Be it
ours, so far as we can, to correct this crying national ofience,
to rise superior to the miserable arts of the demagogue, and to
demonstrate in our own case the ennobling influence of our
free institutions, whose foundation rests upon a fraternal and
affectionate equality. In no other way, can we obey the au-
thoritative injunctions of the Bible ; for how can we offer in-
tercessions for " all in authority," when in the next breath,
we cast out their names as evil, and denounce their knavery or
incompetency.
III. Another vice, for which we may be suffering the chas-
tisement of Heaven, is a want of moral integrity, which is the
result, in part at least, of an insatiable desire for the acquisition
of wealth. This is one of the most vicrorous off-shoots of our
national depravity. And yet, for the most part, it seems to be
overlooked and uncondcmned. When w^e speak of the of-
fences for which we are visited in judgment, our minds in-
stantly revert to the violation of the Sabbath, to intemperance,
or to the wrongs inflicted by involuntary servitude. But we
are not certain, that eitlier of these is more offensive, or more
wide-spread tlian that controlling love of money which is grow-
ing upon the country and menacing alike its purity and its
happiness. Thus it was regarded by the departed President.
In a speech before the Historical Society of Ohio in 1837, he
said, " The inordinate desire for the accumulation of riches,
which has so rapidly increased in our coimtry, if not arrested,
will ere long effect a deplorable change in the character of our
countrymen. This basest of passions could not exhibit itself
in a way more destructi\ e to republican principles, than by ex-
21
erting an influence on the course of education adopted by our
youth."
This impatience of labor, this reluctance to pursue the hon-
orable and toilsome way for the acquisition of wealth, manifests
itself in a great variety of forms. It has occasioned a rush of
young men from the country to the large towns and cities,
many of whom look with contempt upon what they consider
the menial and ill-requited tasks of tlie husbandman ; imagin-
ing that, as merchants or importers, they shall rapidly rise to
the high places of wealth and consideration. Hence, in the
reverses or stagnation of business, they are thrown out of em-
ployment, and are compelled to resort to almost any occupa-
tion, provided it is in a city, for their habits and tastes are now
unfitted to the dull and prosaic vocation of the tiller of the soil.
Hence, also, we may account, in part, for the disgraceful ea-
gerness which thousands manifest to obtain a public office, say-
ing like some of former times, " Thrust me into one of the of-
fices, that I may obtain a morsel of bread ;" preferring to live
in a sort of precarious vassalage, rather than to go to work,
like independent men, and earn, by hard labor, the means of
subsistence.
Hence, also, the before unheard-of speculations, the stu-
pendous frauds, forgeries, embezzlement of public funds, ruin
of character, which are so common now as to cease to create
any surprise. This vice has infested all classes of society. It
has even crept into the sacred profession, and men have been
found who could preach against the love of money on the
Sabbath, and during the whole of the following week specu-
late in western lands.
22
It is obvious, that something was necessary to stop tliis in-
sinuating and fatal vice. It was fast corrupting the vitals of
our prosperity, disgracing our character and institutions in the
view of the civilized nations of Europe, some of whom are
not unwilling now to brand us a community of swindlers and
knaves. If the death of General Harrison, coupled with the
fact, that both his example and remonstrances were uniformly
and decidedly in opposition to the vice in question, should be
the means, in any degree, of turning the minds of men to it,
with a view to its utter abandonment, then that death, so
much lamented, will not have been in vain. It may have
been one of the principal reasons of the frown of Heaven.
In this matter, we have gone in defiance of the plainest pre-
cepts of the Bible. We have run counter to the laws im-
pressed on our own nature, and to the whole tenor of human
experience.
IV. One use of this national bereavement may be to teach
us to estimate more adequately the value of our free institu-
tions.
During the last twelve months, these institutions have
passed through pretty severe ordeals. It has been proved
again, that there is in them some fitness to our character and
wants, some adaptation to the genius of the people. It has
been too common to represent them as arbitrary and conven-
tional, as something to which the people must inure them-
selves with long and severe discipline. They are often lik-
ened to a reed shaken by the wind, to a rope of sand, to a
sheet of perishing parchment, or to the feeblest and frailest
objects in nature. It seems to be imagined, that the great
23
Aiitlior of our freedom is honored when we speak disparag-
ingly, or contemptuously, of our political institutions, as
though he could protect us just as well in some other way,
by a monarchical establishment, for instance, or a paternal
despotism, between which and the feelings of the people,
there is no possible correspondence. It is often said, that our
frame of government is no defence against exasperated pas-
sion. It is a mere paper bulwark, which a breath may
throw down. But is it not thus with any of the works of
man ? Would not the boasted British constitution be like
tow in the fire in some conceivable exigency ? And yet that
instrument is fitted to the spirit and genius of the British peo-
ple. It has weathered the storms of more than a dozen cen-
turies. So with our Constitution. It has had somewhat vio-
lent handling for more than fifty years, and yet it is substan-
tially unimpaired. It may be battered by some daring inno-
vator, but it has a self-recovering energy. It may be in-
fringed upon by some State or local partizanship, but it is so
nicely balanced, so perfectly adjusted, that the attack will call
forth a powerful defence from some opposite quarter of the
Union ; and where one hand of violence is raised for its over-
throw, a thousand hands will rally for its rescue. God is to be
honored, we conceive, not by mournful ditties on the worthless-
ness of these civil privileges, but by praising Him, that they
are as good as they are, and that He presided in those illus-
trious councils which gave birth to them. His wisdom was
most conspicuously manifest. His spirit of conciliation, and
of comprehensive benevolence was breathed into the hearts
of the venerable fathers of our republic. One is struck in
24
reading the journals of their secret dehberations, with their
repeatedly-expressed consciousness of the solemnity of their
work ; that the well-being of a " continent," to use their favo-
rite term, was suspended on the result of their deliberations*
It has been confidently predicted, over and over again, by
the wise and by the unw-ise, that our frame of government
would not endure this or the other sharp trial. Men trembled
for the ark when General Washington's steadying hands were
withdrawn from it. The gulf of ruin was yawning before us
in the period of the embargo, and of the Berlin and Milan
decrees. Many men gave up all for lost when the war of
1812 burst upon us. The financial embarrassments, which
succeeded, would ruin forever, it was thought, our jniblic
credit. The horrors of civil strife would inevitably follow the
discussion of the Missouri question, wliichever way it should
be decided. Again, when one of the twenty-six planets
showed some tokens of rushing out of its orbit, the whole
system, it was supposed, would be thrown into disastrous con-
fusion. But the sun still shines in the centre, and the goodly
company of stars hold on their luminous road. The elections
of the last year were full of inauspicious omens. The im-
mense meetings of the people would be a fatal precedent.
The voice of reason would be drowned in the uproar of a mul-
titude. But the constitution and the country came out of the
conflict without any serious defacement. It was certainly a
sublime spectacle to see two or three millions of men meet to-
gether, with strong political preferences, and elect peaceably,
without the loss of a single human life, and without anything
* See the Journals of Mr. Madison.
25
which could be termed a riot, a fellow-citizen to preside over
them, whom most of them had never seen, and who resided
hundreds or thousands of miles from them ; and then, in the
course of a few days, to behold all parties quietly acquiesce
in the w'ill of the majority. It shows, that, with all our de-
generacy, there is some self-control among us, some true love
of country. It demonstrates that our Constitution is not that
miserable parchment, which some men would call it. It
proves that our fathers' God has not wholly deserted the peo-
ple whom he once blessed with his presence.
To one test, however, our institutions had never been sub-
jected. There was one fire into which their metal had never
been thrown. No President had ever died in office. No
one, for any reason, had ever vacated his seat. A provision
of the Constitution is now, for the first time, practically ap-
plied. For fifty years the vice-president, as such, was a ci-
pher in our system. A slumbering article of the immortal
instrument awakes into life. We have a President, not by
the choice of even a minority of the people. He assumes his
office, by the immediate dispensation of Almighty God.
There is not, however, the slightest jarring in the system.
When Alexander of Russia died — the only one of the mon-
archs of Europe who was styled an autocrat — there were se-
rious disturbances. His legitimate successor soon abdicated
his office, and the present emperor succeeded, not without
hazard of the most fearful insurrections. But in our country,
which is full of the fiery elements of freedom, there has been
a succession to the chief magistracy, without the slightest de-
sire or whisper of those changes, which sometimes perplex
4
26
liereditary monarchs. Tliis noiseless and admirable working
of our system must, we should suppose, exert some influence
in Europe in favor of republican and representative govern-
ments. We are aware, that the people of Europe do not
like to take lessons of us. They are much more apt to chroni-
cle our misdemeanors, than to study patiently our invaluable
civil polity. Still, our country is, in this respect, like a city
set on a hill. The eagerness with which our faults are scan-
ned shows that our example, be it good or bad, is felt among
the old despotisms of Europe. Every great and successful
struggle which we pass through is welcomed by all the friends
of human improvement from the cliffs of Norway to the rock
of Gibraltar. Several of the Northern and central govern-
ments of Europe are gradually extending to their people the
benefits of representative forms. Whether this improvement
shall advance any further depends essentially upon us. Dis-
honesty, want of integrity, misgovernment here, will certainly
put an end to the generous aspirations which are breathed
forth there. We cannot but believe, that the severe tests to
which our civil institutions are subjected, from time to time,
in the Providence of God, are intended to demonstrate the
superiority of our system, for the benefit of other nations.
We are aware, that the common doctrine is, that one form
of government is as good as another. What is best for us
could not be administered in Austria. Some tribes of men
are born to be tlie tools of a despot. All these fond and ar-
dent expressions about freedom and popular governments are
but idle prating. The Cossacks and the Tartars must be
taught, as the men of Succoth were, vvith the thorns and
27
briers of the wilderness. But we suppose that the Russian
* emperor is not always to rule over a nation of rein-deer or of
wolves. A despotic government is as good as any other,
provided the people do not know the ditierence between it
and any other. But the moment you enlighten them, you
infuse a doubt into their minds whether an irresponsible mon-
archy is the best form of human government. And just ac-
cording to the degree in which you enlighten them, to that
degree you make a popular government indispensable for them.
The reason why Nicholas is an autocrat is, that his subjects
are boors. England and France are becoming more en-
lightened every year, and they are approximating, indisputa-
bly, to the American theory. Therefore it is, that our exam-
ple is of immeasurable importance. Therefore it may be that
God afflicts us, that he may benefit our brethren over the
"V waters.
It is, however, objected, that our form of government, by
its levelling tendencies, annihilates all that wholesome reve-
rence which every people should manifest towards their rulers.
This feeling sickens and dies except under the sun-light of a
monarchy. We deny the position altogether. The observ-
ance of this day is a refutation of it, borne upwards by voices
like the sound of many waters, from the Southern Gulf to the
Lake of the Woods. Yes, the simple observance of this day
is a tribute of mingled love and reverence from a people to-
wards a ruler, sublimer than was ever chanted in royal cathe-
dral, or listened to in the precincts of courts. It was not
ordered, it was recommended ; it is not a hard service ; it is
a spontaneous outflow. And it is not a sohtary instance.
28
What sovereign in Europe was ever honored as Washington
is now, and as he will be till the republic which he founded
shall cease to exist ?
V. One lesson, we migiit say the great lesson, to be learned
from this bereavement is, the necessity of a profounder con-
viction that God is the Governor of the world.
If there be one truth on the pages of the Bible more lumi-
nous than any other it is this, that Jehovah is King of kings.
The Jewish theocracy is sometimes spoken of as if God's
Providence were confined to it, and as if he permitted the
contemporary nations to live as they listed. Nothing, how-
ever, is plainer, than that they felt his punishing arm, or heard
his cheering voice, according as they sinned or feared before
Him ; and this too when their conduct had no special reference
to his chosen race. The cry of the oppressed in Nineveh
and in Jerusalem alike clothed Him in vengeance. Repent-
ance Avas equally opportune with both. Monuments of his
consuming wrath meet you in the Holy City and in the fast-
nesses of Edom. They jut out from under the second temple,
they rise up from the sands of Egj'pt, and from the banks of
the Euphrates.
All history is full of like examples. Evidences of God's
supremacy, and of his anger with nations, are chronicled on
every shore. The lightning has scorched them into the eter-
nal rocks on every part of the globe.
Fifty years ago, meji wondered at the events which were
transpiring in the French capital. There appeared to be no
cause adequate to the tragedy. France was suffering a pun-
ishment, not only greater than she could bear, but greater
29
than she deserved. Demons could hardly merit a heavier in-
fliction. But men forgot the age of Louis XIV. and the
night when the great bell of St. Bartholomew tolled.
So when the storm of war swept over the central and
northern kingdoms of the continent, near the beginning of
the present century. Why were the old capitals of Europe
sacked ? Why were the hoary thrones of despotism like the
chaff before the wind ? Why were the Francises and the
Fredericks compelled to jfiee, like the veriest thieves, under
cover of midnight ? Because God was remembering Poland.
When the sun went down upon Austerlitz and Jena, thought-
ful men recurred to Warsaw and Kosciusko. " Righteous
are thy judgments," might have been written on " the ocean
of flame" which rose up from the old palace of the czars.
Spain too — she suffers a long time, for it will take a long time
to expiate the innocent blood which her viceroys poured out
on this continent, for ages, like water.
May ive not learn a lesson from the honest page of history ?
Can we safely neglect the warning voice ? Has not God a
controversy with us ? May not our long-continued commer-
cial embarrassments, which have brought ruin into so many
families, and disgiace upon our national character, have a
deeper cause than our worldly-wise men are apt to imagine ?
May they not be foretokens of more bitter afllictions to come ?
Behind this visible scene of things, there is One, " who shut-
teth up a man and there can be no opening ;" "who leadeth
away" the most sagacious financiers, the most sharp-sighted
statesmen, " spoiled ;" " who discovereth deep things out of
darkness, and bringeth out to light the shadow of death ;"
30
" who enlargeth the nations, and straiteneth them again."
In the sad event which we this day mourn, is there not some
other agency than the course of nature, or the ministry of a
disease ?
Lay not, therefore, upon thy soul any atheistic unction
by practically denying the Providence of God, by referring to
accident or to nature what was meant as a pointed admonition.
Beware, that thou do not hide thyself under any indistinct
generalities. If God speaks to the whole people, he speaks
to thee. Interrogate thyself, personally, under this national
bereavement. Break off the sins which make a part of the
vast national aggregate. Beware, lest thou provoke God to
withdraw in anger from thy country. See to it, that the cry
of the oppressed does not arm Him in wrath. Pollute not his
holy Sabbath. Profane no more his awful name, for he is a
jealous God. Take heed, lest thy thoughtless ingratitude, thy
abuse of favors and of afflictions alike, prove the ruin of the
fairest inheritance which the sun in his circuit beholds ; lest
the friends of freedom and the rights of conscience in other
lands should curse thee as miserably faithless to the most
precious hopes ever entrusted to man.
LEJa'!2
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