heal no wounds, it will pay no debts, it will rebuild no ravaged towns. Do not rely on that popular will which has brought us frail beings into political existence. That opinion is but a changeable thing. It will soon change. This very measure will change it. You will be deceived. Do not, I beseech you, in a reliance on a foundation so frail, commit the dignity, the harmony, the existence of our nation, to the wild wind! Trust not your treasure to the waves. Throw not your compass and your charts into the ocean. Do not believe that its billows will waft you into port. Indeed, indeed, you will be deceived! Cast not away this only anchor of our safety. I have seen its progress. I know the difficulties through which it was obtained: I stand in the presence of Almighty God, and of the world, and I declare to you that, if you lose this charter, never,- -no, never will you get another! We are now, perhaps, arrived at the parting point. Here, even here, we stand on the brink of fate. Pause - for heaven's sake, pause!

pause!

26. AGAINST THE EMBARGO, 1808.-Josiah Quincy.

find the power

I ask, in what page of the Constitution you of laying an embargo. Directly given, it is nowhere. Never before did society witness a total prohibition of all intercourse like this, in a commercial nation. But it has been asked in debate, "Will not Massachusetts, the cradle of liberty, submit to such privations?" An embargo liberty was never cradled in Massachusetts. Our liberty was not so much a mountain nymph as a sea nymph. She was free as air. She could swim, or she could run. The ocean was her cradle. Our fathers met her as she came, like the goddess of beauty, from the waves. They caught her as she was sporting on the beach. They courted her while she was spreading her nets upon the rocks. But an embargo liberty, a handcuffed liberty, liberty in fetters, a liberty traversing between

the four sides of a prison and beating her head against the walls, is none of our offspring. We abjure the monster! Its parentage is all inland.

Is embargo independence? Deceive not yourselves! It is palpable submission! Gentlemen exclaim, "Great Britain smites us on one cheek!" And what does Administration? Gentlemen say, "Great Britain

"It turns the other, also." is a robber; she takes our cloak." And what says Administration? "Let her take our coat, also." France and Great Britain require you to relinquish a part of your commerce, and you yield it entirely! At every corner of this great city we meet some gentlemen of the majority wringing their hands and exclaiming, "What shall we do? Nothing but an embargo will save us. Remove it and what shall we do?" Sir, it is not for me, an humble and uninfluential individual, at an awful distance from the predominant influences, to suggest plans of government. But, to my eye, the path of our duty is as distinct as the Milky Way,- all studded with living sapphires, glowing with cumulating light. It is the path of active preparation, of dignified energy. It is the path of 1776! It consists not in abandoning our rights, but in supporting them, as they exist, and where they exist,on the ocean as well as on the land. But I shall be told, "This may lead to war." I ask, "Are we now at peace?" Certainly not, unless retiring from insult be peace; unless shrinking under the lash be peace! The surest way to prevent war is not to fear it. The idea that nothing on earth is so dreadful as war is inculcated too studiously among us. Disgrace is worse! Abandonment of essential rights is worse!

27. CICERO AGAINST VERRES.-Marcus Tullius Cicero.

I ask now, Verres, what you have to advance against this charge. Will you pretend to deny it? Will you pretend that anything false, that even anything aggravated,

is alleged against you? Had any prince, or any state, committed the same outrage against the privilege of Roman citizens, should we not think we had sufficient ground for declaring immediate war against them? What punishment ought, then, to be inflicted upon a tyrannical and wicked prætor, who dared, at no greater distance than Sicily, within sight of the Italian coast, to put to the infamous death of crucifixion that unfortunate and innocent citizen, Publius Gavius Cosanus, only for his having asserted his privilege of citizenship, and declared his intention of appealing to the justice of his country against a cruel oppressor who had unjustly confined him in prison at Syracuse, whence he had just made his escape?

The unhappy man, arrested as he was going to embark for his native country, is brought before the wicked prætor. With eyes darting fury, and a countenance distorted with cruelty, he orders the helpless victim of his rage to be stripped, and rods to be brought; accusing him, but without the least shadow of evidence, or even of suspicion, of having come to Sicily as a spy. It was in vain that the unhappy man cried out, "I am a Roman citizen: I have served under Lucius Pretius, who is now at Panormus and will attest my innocence."

The blood-thirsty prætor, deaf to all he could urge in his own defense, ordered the infamous punishment to be inflicted. Thus, Fathers, was an innocent Roman citizen publicly mangled with scourging; while the only words he uttered amid his cruel sufferings were, "I am a Roman citizen!" With these he hoped to defend himself from violence and infamy. But of so little service was this privilege to him, that, while he was thus asserting his citizenship, the order was given for his execution,- for his execution upon the cross!

O liberty! O sound once delightful to every Roman ear! O sacred privilege of Roman citizenship!-once sacred!

now trampled upon! But what then! - Is it come to this? Shall an inferior magistrate, a governor, who holds his whole power of the Roman people, in a Roman province, within sight of Italy, bind, scourge, torture with fire and red-hot plates of iron, and at last put to the infamous death of the cross, a Roman cítizen? Shall neither the cries of innocence expiring in agony, nor the tears of pitying spectators, nor the majesty of the Roman Commonwealth, nor the fear of the justice of his country, restrain the licentious and wanton cruelty of a monster who, in confidence of his riches, strikes at the root of liberty and sets mankind at defíance?

I conclude with expressing my hopes that your wisdom and justice, Fathers, will not, by suffering the atrocious and unexampled insolence of Caius Verres to escape the due punishment, leave room to apprehend the danger of a total subversion of authority and the introduction of general anarchy and confusion.

28. BRITISH INFLUENCE, 1811.-John Randolph.

Imputations of British | ìnfluence have been uttered against the opponents of this war. Against whom are these charges brought? Against men whó, in the war of the Revolution, were in the Coun

cils of the nation, or fighting the battles of your country! And by

whom are these charges made? By rùnaways, chiefly from the

British dominions, since the breaking out of the French troubles.

The great autocrat of all the Rússias receives the homage of our

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high consideration. The Dey of Algiers and his divan of pírates are

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relígion, with ourselves.

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Hénrys, Háncocks, Fránklins, Rútledges, of America - learn those

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wanting to subserve the purposes, however ruinous or wicked, of kings and ministers of state. I acknowledge the influence of a Shakspeare and a Milton upon my imagination; of a Locke upon