The native American., 1838-03-03

are now enjoying the blessings Of that freedom,
which to their kindred are as yet but the misty
visions of futurity, draw deep instruction, and
purer love for the only land in which the flame OF
civil and religious liberty lights and warns every
d-the land of your BIRTH.
Do not all these show national feeling, love
for his native land, in every stranger who comes
to our shores?
And shall we be censured for an effort to create
pure and unadulterated national feeling here
for forming a nucleus around which may gamer
all the sons of our native land-each klndlingl
his zeal in her cause, her exclusive cause, by
mingng with those in whose hearts she is para
mount and alone!.
Now look around you, and tell me where is the
national feeling here--where the'purely American
feeling, unmixed with attachments to foreign
lands, uninfuenced by foreign opinions, indie
pendent of the world, looking to America, and
America only, as the end of all its hopes, the
limit Of its desires! Go into any assembly,
care not whether large or small-whether IN the
remote and scarcely peopled Territory OF our
Western borders, or in the thronged mart OF our
great cities, and how many dialects fall upon your
ear! Is there prominent subject OF discussion,
political, religious, social or scentfc!-my life on
lit foreign accent is heard, loud, prominent, over
bearing in the controversy. To whom does he
look for support! Who, by early associa-
tons, by habit, by the force of nature, and the
still stronger bonds of education---who rallies
around him, who sustains his cause, who sup
ports his opinions! His countrymen.
Look at the Press-the great engine of power
in modern times. Whence do we derive our lite
rature! Is it native! Where does the American
author obtain an adequate support for his .ex-
hausting labors! And with what insatiate ayidity
are foreign reprints bought up!
Look at the arts, the ornaments, and sweetners
of life. Where does an American artist receive
that homage due to his merits, or that wretched
support upon which he drags out his miserable ex-
istence! And with what humility and adalation
do we court foreigner; and with lavish hand
reward his labOrs. But let an American break
through this Gordon sanitaire, with which a ma
tional prejudice hath fenced round nations
sense; let him once obtain the favorable notice of
foreign tribunal; let him, like Irving, or Coop
er, or Leslie, or Greenhough, or Forrest, receive
the stamp which makes him current coin in for
eign land, and the scales fall from our eyes. We
see and admire his genius, and appreciate his
well-earned fame.
| But the influence of this admixture of foreign
and native, not only compels us to borrow our
literature and arts; habits and our tastes.
What land furnishes us with models Of refine
ment-with standard of excelence-with an ar
bitter of fashion, to whose opinion we bow, and
to which we turn with a steady admiration, ever
changing as it changes, ever striving to compel
nature into the trammels of forced condition of
society!
Is it America? Is it any part of America!
What has become of the noble simplicity of
our ancestors-of their chivarous devotion to
true honor, not mere conventional form-to true
virtue, not the false tinsel which gitters in soce-
ty-to that highest, BEST purest, only source and
security OF happiness, an uncorrupt, cultivated,
and virtuous woman? And to what are we to
trace the relaxation which fashion has introduced
into the social regulations Of modern times, but to
this foreign infuence-this corruptiDg influence
which like the mephitic gas, that unseen, min
giles with the vital air. till all sense and feeling
lost, is introducing the false philosophy and falser
taste Of ancient Europe, to the gradual destruc-
ton Of all simplicity and virtue; an influence ex-
tending throughout society, and pervading all con-
ditions in life.
The strongest safeguards of public liberty will
be found in the virtue and intelligence Of the
people. They the source from which all
power proceeds, the final judges in the last resort
of all laws. Should they become corrupt in the
lapse Of time, or basking in the sunshine of false
prosperity, become enervated, or repose in the
deusions of treacherous security, glitterng on
the surface, but hollow and rotten beneath, then
indeed may be seen the genius Of public liberty,
flying, shrieking and aghast, to other lands, while
over this the black vultures of anarchy and civil
discord will reve and exut.
Are we asked again what dangers do you APP
prehend?
Look around you once more, and see the tide
of immigration setting to our shores. Tell me
whence come these gannt and squalid wretches?
a dark and portentous cloud of witnesses against
the tyranny and expressions, the degradation and
depravity of Europe? They come to us, reek-
ing with the pollutons of the jail-with every
moral feature tainted with the pestlence that
broods over the Lazarhouses of the wretched
poor, more loathsome to the moral sense, than are
to eye, the dead carcases which the same ocean
casts upon our shores, bloated, and marred, and
Wave after wave rolls on, bringing
with them, ship after ship, burthened with this
moral pestilence-this physical power. And
still they come. Our ports, our homes, our
public lands, our public Offices, are opened to
them; and our Statesmen in high places are cry
ing to them, welcome, brother! the land of the
free is broad-its valleys are fertile-its rivers
mines exhaustless-power, wealth,
station all all are omen In Won. xualoop,o |