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 of 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 forever.  They were a fortress of strength; but what invading foeman could never do the silent artillery of time has done—­the leveling of its walls.  They are gone.  They were a forest of giant oaks; but the all-restless hurricane has swept over them, and left only here and there a lonely trunk, despoiled of its verdure, shorn of its foliage, unshading and unshaded, to murmur in a few more gentle breezes, and to combat with its mutilated limbs a few more ruder storms, then to sink and be no more.

They were pillars of the temple of liberty; and now that they have crumbled away that temple must fall unless we, their descendants, supply their places with other pillars, hewn from the solid quarry of sober reason.  Passion has helped us, but can do so no more.  It will in future be our enemy.  Reason cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason—­must furnish all the materials for our future support and defense.  Let those materials be moulded into general intelligence, sound morality, and in particular, a reverence for the Constitution and laws; and that we improved to the last, that we remained free to the last, that we revered his name to the last, that during his long sleep we permitted no hostile foot to pass over or desecrate his resting place, shall be that which to learn the last trump shall awaken our Washington.

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.”

PROTEST IN THE ILLINOIS LEGISLATURE ON THE SUBJECT OF SLAVERY.

March 3, 1837.

The following protest was presented to the House, which was read and ordered to be spread in the journals, to wit: 

“Resolutions upon the subject of domestic slavery having passed both branches of the General Assembly at its present session, the undersigned hereby protest against the passage of the same.

“They believe that the institution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy, but that the promulgation of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than abate its evils.

“They believe that the Congress of the United States has no power under the Constitution to interfere with the institution of slavery in the different States.