Upon these let the proud fabric of freedom rest, as the rock of its basis; and as truly as has been said of the only greater institution, “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

Many great and good men, sufficiently qualified for any task they should undertake, may ever be found, whose ambition would aspire to nothing beyond a seat in Congress, a gubernatorial or a presidential chair.  But such belong not to the family of the lion or the brood of the eagle.  What?  Think you these places would satisfy an Alexander, a Caesar, or a Napoleon?  Never!  Towering genius disdains a beaten path.  It seeks regions hitherto unexplored.  It sees no distinction in adding story to story upon the monuments of fame erected to the memory of others.  It denies that it is glory enough to serve under any chief.  It scorns to tread in the footsteps of any predecessor, however illustrious.  It thirsts and burns for distinction; and, if possible, it will have it, whether at the expense of emancipating slaves, or enslaving free men.  Is it unreasonable, then, to expect that some men, possessed of the loftiest genius, coupled with ambition sufficient to push it to its utmost stretch, will at some time spring up among us?  And when such a one does, it will require the people to be united with each other, attached to the government and laws, and generally intelligent, to successfully frustrate his design.

Distinction will be his paramount object, and although he would as willingly, perhaps more so, acquire it by doing good as harm, yet that opportunity being passed, and nothing left to be done in the way of building up, he would sit down boldly to the task of pulling down.  Here, then, is a probable case, highly dangerous, and such a one as could not well have existed heretofore.

* * * * *

All honour to our Revolutionary ancestors, to whom we are indebted for these institutions.  They will not be forgotten.  In history we hope they will be read of, and recounted, so long as the Bible shall be read.  But even granting that they will, their influence cannot be what it heretofore has been.  Even then, they cannot be so universally known, nor so vividly felt, as they were by the generation just gone to rest.  At the close of that struggle, nearly every adult male had been a participator in some of its scenes.  The consequence was, that of those scenes, in the form of a husband, a father, a son, or a brother, a living history was to be found in every family,—­a history bearing the indubitable testimonies to its own authenticity in the limbs mangled, in the scars of wounds received in the midst of the very scenes related; a history, too, that could be read and understood alike by all, the wise and the ignorant, the learned and the unlearned.  But those histories are gone.  They can be read no more for ever.  They were a fortress of strength; but what the invading foemen could never do, the silent