same idea. A Confederation was a favorite object with them from the beginning. It was suggested naturally in the train of associations attached to their vision of a boundless empire of freedom and virtue. But they were prevented from developing it with efficacy by the apprehension that its members would be implicated in the peculiarities of each other. For this reason Rhode Island was excluded; and until the period of the Revolution the plan of a Confederation was never made agreeable to all the Colonies. If it had been otherwise - if, leaving to each the care of its local concerns, from the beginning, the several Colonies had sustained a confederated council, for the consideration and promotion of the general good, no human intelligence can calculate the effects upon the course of events. Perhaps, essential independence would have been secured without bloodshed, or any of the disastrous economical and moral effects of a long war.

But, however that might have been, we are living in the enjoyment of the benefits of a Confederacy that preserves us from intestine war, and confers upon us untold blessings. Instead of wishing to go out from it because it includes conditions and institutions which we do not fancy, let us rejoice that it opens wide its arms to gather into its peaceful fold, and under its remedial influences, all who seek admission. Instead of feeling scandalized because some States, in the exercise of their reserved sovereignty, enact barbarous laws, and cherish un

righteous institutions, if we appreciated all the salutary effects flowing from the Union, and kept clearly in our minds the principle on which it was founded, we should only regret that we cannot, at once, extend it over all, even the most ill-governed and benighted races of the earth. Without entering upon an enumeration of the beneficial influences of such a Confederation upon all whom it includes, it answers my present purpose to observe that, in removing standing armies, fortified and garrisoned towns, the iniquities that mark the borders of contiguous and unfriendly nations, and all the curses that follow in the train of rival and warring States, we have multiplied incalculably the chances, and cleared away the chief obstructions to the progress of reform. Indeed the abolition of standing armies is the first step in the elevation of a people, and it must be taken before any real progress can be made. The permanent military organization of a large proportion of the population, separated from the ordinary avocations of life, is the last resort, and the strong defence, of modern despotism. It is the contrivance, by which kings turn the physical power of the people against the people themselves.

The relief from a standing army, which we are enjoying in this country, is itself a blessing greater than was ever vouchsafed to a people before. To appreciate it fully one must travel in other countries. The military forces thought necessary to protect the frontiers of the Union, and preserve

during peace the basis upon which, in the event of a foreign war, the strength of the nation might be organized for belligerent purposes, are at this moment nearly all withdrawn from the country; but the frame of society throughout this great empire is found able to stand without their aid. In all the Northern States, and, indeed, over nearly the entire surface of the Republic, there are not at the present time more troops, of the regular army, all told, than are permanently stationed in every third-rate city of Europe. If there are persons among us, so outraged by the existence of an institution that holds in bondage a portion of the colored race in some quarters of the Confederacy, as to countenance the idea of a separation of the States, let them consider that while such a result would not in all probability reduce the evil, upon which their thoughts have become so painfully concentrated, it would inevitably and instantly lead to the additional enslavement of thousands and tens of thousands of the white population, in the form of permanent standing armies, bristling along the borders of the multiplying fragments of the Union, and preying upon the resources, the morals and the liberties of all the rest.

My last exhortation to the sons of New-England, then, is to BE FAITHFUL FOR EVER TO THE FEDERAL UNION. While they exercise, according to their several convictions, their political rights in opposing all partial and sectional legislation, resisting the extension, by the national authority, of anti-repub

lican institutions, and discountenancing unrighteousness and injustice in the mode in which the government is administered, let them rejoice in the assurance that, over whatever extent of territory and from whatever motives of policy the Confederacy is spread, within its boundaries the arts of Peace, which are their arts, and were the arts of their fathers, will have an opportunity, such as has never been secured before, to prevail over all other arts. If, impelled by the enterprise which marks their race, they follow with their traffic and ingenious industry the conquests of our armies, or open the way for cultivation and civilization to advance into the remotest regions of the West, or pursue their avocations in any quarter of the Union, however inconsistent with their views its peculiar institutions may be, if they carry their household gods with them, all others will gradually be converted to their principles, and imbued with their spirit. If the sons of New-England rear the school-house and the church wherever they select their homes, if they preserve the reliance upon their own individual energies, the love of knowledge, the trust in Providence, the spirit of patriotic faith and hope, which made its most barren regions blossom and become fruitful around their fathers, then will the glorious vision of those fathers be realized, and the Continent rejoice, in all its latitudes and from sea to sea, in the blessings of freedom and education, of peace and prosperity, of virtue and religion.