Herald of the times. [volume] (Newport, R.I.) 1830-1846, 1835-09-17

cipe, that the will of the people makes the
right. The influence of that principle would,
OF itself, create an absolute necessity, for
the worlds sake, for that peoples own sake,
that it should have--ond 1t would haye--a
master.
\ ct there.De established within a republic,
the doctrine, that whatever minority may
be led to agree upon, that majority, on no
other evidence, and for no other reason, may
regard, and assert and enforce, as right; that
they need not 90 beyond the fact ofther own
declaration for the proof, nor beyond their
own will for the source Of right; establish this
doctrine, in the lives, in the practices, in the
hearts of the people, and the foundations Of
the moral and the social, 10 less than Of the
political world, are broken up. The progress
ofsthe country cannot but be downward. If
the majority of the nation can make the right,
why may not the majority of party? Why
may not the veriest slave OF party, make 1t
for himself? All passions, all propensities,
all tendencies which need restraint, will learn
that there is none; and with every new indul-
gence will get new vigour, and new boldness,
until the law itself becomes their instrument.
Every new appeal to the people will call up
on lower motives and baser feelings than
were aroused before. and at length the cup
of degradation will be full, and the people
will declare by every act, that they have lost
all relish for liberty, unless it be corrupted
into license. Then their hour has come, and
their chains are ready.
4 Bnt let the opposite sentiment, OF the SOW
ereignty oftruth prevail; invigorate the body
polite with the principle that right is not
their creation, and depends not on their will,
but on His will who made them free, only
that they might the more freely seek and find
il in His ll,-and you send your country
forward upon career which cannot but be
forever onward and upward. Then, every
change in our political condition, will compel
all who would ask the support or confidence
of the people, to take higher ground than suf-
feed before; for every change will enlarge
the sphere and confirm the authority ofthat
truth, under whose banners the battle was
fought and the victory won.
1t may be said, that it is idle to hope that
the mass of our thinking men will ever be
reused to this effort. A duty which lies up
on so many, none will discharge. A homely
proverb teaches, that what is every ones bu-
sness is no ones. But, in the first place,
what other hope do our institutions and the
character of our people permit US to indulge?
And, in the next place, the proverb is no lon
ger true, when the universal danger is seen
to be coming near to every individual, and is
threatening to enter every door, and disturb
the peace and destroy the security Of every
home. Then each mans share of the gener-
al peril calls upon him to resist, with voice
which even selfshness must hear. If the
thinking men of this country have not come to
this point, we have only to hope that they
may reach it soon, and that the outbreak of
violence, the shock to our institutions, the
expenditure ofhuman life may be enough to
teach them their danger and their duty, be-
fore they are enough to subvert the iounda-
tlons otour whole prosperity.
/ Nor will All honest and heartfelt respect
for truth and right, permit any to place their
own wills and individual judgments in oppo-
sition to the Law, which is the only author
lied exponent of the will and the Judgment
the whole. Nor will this reverence for the
law be blind and foolish. 1t will insist that
the law become worthy of respect. Every
thing that is wrought through the agency of
man, must partake of human inirmity, and
can advance only by gradual improvements:
but while it is practically adopted as one Of
our political maxims, that unequal or insut-
ficient laws may be put aside or helped out
by violence, whenever mob thinks violence
desirable-it becomes certain, that the law
will remain in its general operation, unrea-
sonabe and unrighteous. Nor can you eff.
fectually engage the whole wisdom and the
whole justice of a people in the unceasing
endeavor, to take from its law all defect or
inequality, until you can make that people ac-
knowledge the Truth as their sovereign and
the laws as her voice.
Let me then appeal to the loyalty of the !
scholars OF my country. You, you at least,
will acknowledge the truth as your sovereign.
The walls of Harvard were not built up, her
rich endowments given, and kindred insttu-
tions every where established, merely to pro-
vide you with the means of earning your bread
by the labor of the mind, rather than of the
hand. Far higher, far nobler, and more wide
/ Ily-reaching, were the purposes and hopes of
the wise and good men, to whom we owe
these foundations. They believed that the
colleges, and academies, and schools, which
were the objects Of their parental care, would
be as so many fixed points whence education
might radlate truth throughout the land
They founded those institutions in the same
spirit which has elsewhere studied the confines,
OF nations with fortresses, and expended the
strength OF nations IN preparations for resis-
tance. They knew that the main defences of
our land should not be such as these. And
/ If they placed not around thu liberty and hap
plness vt their country, rambarts built of the
enduring granite Of our hills,-have they
therefore left them defenceless? Do ] not
see around Inc host, whom our fathers, by
the institutions which they founded with wise
forecast, have armed for this warfare? Have
they not bound you to this service, by an OBJ
legation co-extensvc with the good that ed
ucation has wrought for you, aud with the
blessings that the truth would preserve for
the remotest future? lave we not the right
10 call on you TO come TO the labor and to the
confiicl;--to come, OIL your allegiance?