Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1862-03-06
BANCRoFTS GRAFTON.

torian, delivered before the New York
City Government on the anniversary Of
Washington's birthday: ...
PRINCIPLES OF THg GOVERNMENT.
The only ground Of hope for the per-
petuity of our Union, you will find, men
of New York, in the words of Washing
ton, spoken in this city. When in the
presence of your fathers, Washington,
standing under the canopy OF the sky,
took the oath to support the constitution,
he returned into the Senate Chamber, to
interpret to the first Congress the princi-
Piles Of our great charter, and the fit policy
for the nation TO pursue. Then it was
that he laid down as their rule I" the pure
and immutable principles of private mo-
rality," and "the eternal rules of order
and right which Heaven itself has or
dained." And the House of Representa-
tives, using the pen of Madison to frame
its answer, accepted his enlightened max
inns, and owed the obligation to "adore
the invisible hand which has led the
American people through SO many diff
culties, to cherish conscious response
bility for the destiny of republican lib
erty." On these principles the govern
ment which makes us one people was put
in motion, while the foundations of mon
archy in France were crumbling away,
and the beams that upheld the civiliza-
ton of the Middle Ages were falling in.
During the half century which succeeded,
France under vent more revolutions than
| can readily count up; Spain had many
forms of government in rapid succession;
the dynasty of Portugal was driven for
refuge to South America the empire of
Germany went down in the whirlpool of
revolution; Russia has been Cos H!sed by
a fearful plot for insurrection; Italy was
many times reconstructed the Pope lost
and won temporal power, and has been
almost shorn of it again :; the institutions
of Great Britain have been thrice essen
TALLY modified by the annexation OF Ire
land, by the reform of Parliament-which
was in fact REVOLUTIONARY by opening
the doors of its two Houses to men of all
creeds.
PROGRESS OF CORRUPT INFLUENCES.
During all these commissions the United
States stood unchanged, admitting none
but the slightest notifications in its char
ter, and proving itself the most stable
government in the civilized world. ZAP
plause.) But at last "we have fallen on
evil days" The propitious smiles of
Heaven" are the words of Wash
never be expected on
nation that disregards the eternal rules of
order and right" During eleven years
of perverse government those rules were
disregarded, and it came TO pass that men
who should firmly avow the sentiments Of
Washington and Jefferson and Franklin
and Chancellor Livingston were disfran-
chised for the public service; that the
spotless Chief Justice whom Washington
placed at the head of our Supreme Court
could by no possibility have been nomi-
mated for THAI office, or confirmed. Nay,
the corrupt influence invaded even the
very home of justice. The final decree of
the Supreme Court, in its decision on a
particular case, must be respected and
obeyed the present Chief Justice has on
one memorable appeal accompanied his
decision with an impassioned defamation
- wherein with profound immortality
which no one has as yet fully laid bare,
treating the people of the United States as
shrew TO be tanned by an open scorn of
the facts Of history, with dreary indus
try collecting evidences of cases where
justice may have slumbered or weakness
been oppressed, compromising for want of
evidence by confidence of assertion, with
apartiality that would have disgraced an
advocate, neglecting humane decisions
of colonial courts and the enduring me-
MORALS Of colonial statute books in his
party zeal to prove that the fathers of our
country held the negro to have mo rights
which the white man was bound to re-
spect," he has not only denied the rights
of man and the liberties of mankind, but
has not left a ioothold for the liberty of
the white man to rest upon. Applause. }
CHIEF JUSTICE TANEY.
That ill-starred disquisition of fancy,
who, trust, did not intend to hang out
the flag of disunion, is the fountain head
of this rebellion. (Applause.) That of.
fence to the conscious memory of the mil.
lions convulsed our country with the ex-
element which swept over those of Us
who vainly hoped to preserve a strong
and sufficient hough narrow isthmus thai
might stand between the conflicting floods
No nation can adopt that Judgment as its
rule and live; the judgment has in it nc
element of political vitality; ! will no,
say it Is an invocation of the dead past
there never was a past that accepted sucl
opinions. (Appiause.) five want the
opinions received in the days when oul
constitution was framed, we will not take
them secondhand from our Chief Justice