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I
 ADDRESS

DELIVERED AT

THE SIXTH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION

OF

THE MIAMI CHAPTER

ALPHA DELTA PHI SOCIETY,

August 10th, 1841.

BY JORDAN A. PITCH.

OXFORD:
PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE CHAPTER.
1841.
 POLITICAL CONSERVATISM.

ADDRESS

DELIVERED AT

THE SIXTH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION

OF

THE MIAMI CHAPTER

OP THE

ALPHA DELTA PHI SOCIETY,

August 10th, 1841.

BIT JORDAN A. PUOH.

OXFORD:
PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE CHAPTER.
1841.
C0LLC8C
 ADDRESS.

At the present time, when society, with the gravitating force of

five thousand years, seems to be hurrying rapidly on towards new
developments, there is no problem, the solution of which is more
anxiously sought, than that relating to its conservative forces. In
Europe, where the political features of ancient and modern times are
blended inharmoniously together, and the established institutions
seem to be tottering on the verge of dissolution, most anxiously has
some power been sought to bind these discordant elements together,
and to preserve these crumbling systems from decay. In our own
country, where society is advancing with rapid strides towards we
know not whatwe too are carefully devising some means by which
to retard it in its hasty and devious course.
We dread the unknown future. Our associations bind us to the
institutions of the present time; even when their vitality has de
parted, we cling to them tenaciously, until the great progression of
events bears us far beyond them.
Society is constantly shifting its conditions. Nations are disap
pearing from the earth. They grow up, found their institutions,
raise their solemn temples^ erect their gorgeous palaces; and ere
Time has placed his effacing fingers upon their edifices, the commu
nities which reared them can be found no more. A revolution
prostrates them, the hand of a despot destroys them, the inundating
force of a conquering body sweeps them away, or degeneracy and
licentiousness sap their foundations, and they sink without a struggle
into the grave of nations. All is shiftingall is evanescent
Change, Change, is the only word written which the ceaseless flow
of Time will not erase.
To devise some system which might be durable: some great social
machine, with its checks and its balances, its centripetal and its cen
trifugal forces, its disturbing causes and their compensating princi
 [ 4 ]
pies, which might go on, constantly and harmoniously revolving, has
been the object of all political philosophers. They have expended
their ingenuity upon this problem in vain; they have devised their
systems, they have embodied their forces, they have raised their
barriersand Change, with its resistless power, has borne them
away as the blast bears the feather.
Conservatism is opposed to change. Its object is to continue es
tablished institutions, to prevent alterations in the political relations
of a country, and to preserve it from revolutions. With this view,
society is divided into different departments, a complicated system
of government is framed, and checks are placed upon the powers of
the people.This is Political Conservatism.
Knowledge and Religion are often relied upon to aid this politi
cal conservatism, but in truth they have no such tendency. Knowl
edge tends to strengthen the dominion of the intellect over the pas
sions; to preserve man from the false and to guide him to the true.
The Christian religion exhibits man as a free agent, having the ca
pacity to attain happiness or misery ; it teaches him the necessity of
self-control, and of subjugating present desires to future interests;
it commands him to reflect, and to "be able to give an account of
the faith that is in him;" it allows him to go to no priesthood for his
doctrine, and to no file-leader for his guidance. These influence
men as individuals, and are independent of the social organization ;
they teach them to govern themselves; and though they may pre
serve them from the wild phrenzy and blood-thirstiness of some of
their revolutions, they will not prevent them from revolutionizing.
Whether they are ever politically conservative, indeed, must depend
upon the nature of the established institutions, upon their adapta
tion to the wants and feelings of a community, upon their justice,
their equality, their truth.
Conservatism has always been sought in an organization of so
ciety : systems have been devised to preserve it from revolutions by
placing checks upon the power of its members. Man's right to govern
himself has ever been either directly or indirectly admitted; but his
capacity to do so has as constantly been denied. The opinions of
the wisest philosophers have presented this strange paradoxa right,
theoretically so perfect, that it has become one of the general pro
positions which are considered as logical premises, practically
considered to be the most dangerous proposition of political science
 [ 5 ]
a paradox for which, I believe, we can find no parallel in the opin
ions entertained in regard to any other subject of human investiga
tion. The experiment of the members ofa community uniting them
selves together under a social compact, which secures to each his
individual rights, political equality, and an influence upon the acts
of the government, has not as yet been tested, because it is the la
test development of modern civilization. Prior to the formation of
our own government, we can find nothing of the kind in the history
of the world. The political system of the Athenians differed quite as
much from a modern democracy, as the oligarchy of Carthage, or
the tyranny of later Rome. Absolutism, indeed, was the prominent
feature of all ancient institutions, whether religious or political.
The philosophers of Europe are distrustful of this system; even we
are doubtful of its success, and regard anarchy as the probable result.
Men love repose. They feel their right to selfgovernment ; but they
behold the direful convulsions of society, and are appalled thereby.
They seek refuge in timidity from the conclusions of their under
standings, and search anxiously around them for security and repose.
They grasp at any means by which they think they can attain these.
In order to do so, they patiently endure the heaviest burdens, they
submit to become the base of the social fabric, they bare their backs
to the smiter, and bow their necks tothe foot of their master. They
will endure anything under a regular system which is in their na
ture to endure ; they will dive into the waters in search of their
gems; they will till the ground and gather its fruits; they will dig
into the earth, and bring forth its hidden treasures. All this they
will do, rather than be tossed about in a chaotic, revolutionizing con
dition of society. Whatsoever may be the form of government, they
will expend for it the strength of their bodies, and consume for it
the days of their lives, if it will only afford them security, and per
mit them to live. And more, distrustful of their own powers of en
durance, they have been willing to place the reins of their govern
ment in other hands, to rear over them a superior order lest at any
time they might be tempted into disorganization.
Have men accomplished aught by these schemes? Have they
been able to devise durable systems ? Have they prevented anarchy ?
Have they stayed revolutions ? If not, what painful sacrifices have
been made in vain! If such systems have been beneficial in their
results, if they be necessary to the preservation of the social order,
 [ 6 ]
the world has much to dread; and men should exert their ingenuity
anew, for society requires them more at the present time than it has
ever done since its organization.
Democracies are, it is said, eminently anti-conservative. The
path of republics leads to anarchy. Men have a strange, wild ad
miration for the true hero; they exalt him to power, and he soon
tramples upon them. The people are led astray by factious dema
gogues : they search for novelties : they run after wild schemes :
they make rapid changes in the political conditions of a state, and
governments soon become disorganized. So have reasoned political
philosophers.
Now in order to be convinced that the power of the commons is
soon to become the sole power of the state, we have but to glance
with an eye ever so rapid over the history of Modern Europe. It
has become more and more apparent in every phase society has as
sumed. It has gathered strength from each epoch, each revolution,
each development of civilization. Amid all the chequered scenes
of History,amid despotism and anarchy; hopeless languor, and
fierce excitement ; sudden relapses, and hasty and premature advan
ces; oppressors with their galling burdens, and their savage destruc
tion by an infuriated people,we may trace its constant progress,
until now affairs seem ripe for its consummation, and each event
predicts the dissolution of the present forms of society. Govern
ments are fast assuming a democratic character; and the system of
classes, upon which men rely for conservatism, must soon be aban
doned.
Classes or orders of society have always governed it. Ancient
history presents us with no single state of which the members were
not classified by law; and until the establishment of our own insti
tutions, modern history exhibits no one in which this classification
did not extend through all the departments of life. This system
had its origin in the darkness of the earliest epochs. A democracy
would probably be the first form of the social contract ; but in a com
munity where there was but a rude system of law, and no division
of labor, where even the most absolute rights were but imperfectly
discerned, and still more imperfectly appreciated, men would soon
be compelled to surrender themselves up to the government of
classes. The natural influence of property and of superior intelli
gence, combined with that feeling which pervades men's bosoms,
 [ 7 ]
and makes them " rather bear the ills they have, than fly to others
which they know not of," have contributed to fasten this system
upon the world.
These classes are differently organized. In some governments,
as in our own, the classification extends merely to the political
agents of society. The powers of these agents are distinct, the
tenures of their offices are different; and Ihey are thus made to
exercise such an influence upon each other as to preserve an har
monious revolution of government in the absence of any great
disturbing cause. But in a country where the people are acknowl
edged to be the source of all authority, and exercise a direct and
controling influence, such classes can have little conservative effect
upon society at large. They are its creatures, depending upon its
favor for their honors, their offices, and their emoluments ; and they
are therefore generally found following in the track of the people.
Besides, such influence as they do exert is merely external. It
does not penetrate to the depths of the social system; it has no
power there: and what can it avail against the wasting and des
truction of nations?
Other governments are so constituted as to extend this classifi
cation through all the departments of society. Hereditary orders
are established, possessing immunities, and having interests distinct
from those of the mass. These orders are intelligent, cultivate the
arts and sciences, and present an imposing external array. They
exercise always a great, and generally a controlling influence upon
the people by their wealth, their superior intelligence, and the
pomp by which they surround themselves. But they are a burden
to the state; the exactions requisite for their support, and the course
of legislation necessary to maintain them, retard society. And in
time they are degenerated by wealth, enervated by luxury, and
made drunken by the long exercise of power.
There is a great law of social advancement; but it is the interest
of such orders to keep men ignorant, and governments stationary.
They will not permit a people to advance gradually and peaceably,
and their progress is therefore by violent efforts, by insurrections,
and by revolutions. To this cause may be ascribed the great social
convulsions of modern times. That of England, in 1640, may be
attributed to it. Ages before, the conservative orders were far in
advance of society ; but in its great march it had overtaken them, and
 [ 8 ]
yet there they stood, persisting in all their exactions, blocking the
way, obstinately refusing to stir a step. And what could the people
do but rise up and demolish them ? And when the oppression was
no longer to be endured, when the lower orders had risen in their
fury, where was the conservatism of the higher classes? What
could they then do but stand weeping and trembling around the
scaffold of their king? So it was in France at a later day. The
nobles resisted the advance of society; they continued those exac
tions and restrictions which only the blindness of the dark ages had
ever allowed. Under such a system, life was a burden, a curse to
the peasant. A revolution was a physical and moral necessity.
The signs of the coming tempest had been portentous for ages; yet
the higher classes would yield nothing until an oppressed, despair
ing people had burst their bonds, and drenched themselves in the
blood of their oppressors. And in that time of wild commotion, of
social elementary war, of wrath and blood-thirstiness, of what avail
were the wealth, the intelligence, and the armorial bearings of the
superior orders? Where was their conservatism when they were
yielding themselves up to the guillotine, or flying for refuge to foreign
lands? Such are the natural, the inevitable consequences of such
establishments : they oppress men, they keep them ignorant, they
render them the miserable slaves of a social organization, they com
pel them either to starve or to revolutionize.
But it is said these revolutions produced no good results. They
caused only misery, and slaughter, and social disorganization. Kings
seated themselves again upon their thrones, nobles strode on to their
former power, and the people relapsed into their old condition. I
say they did not relapse. They accomplished in each case precisely
what they began to revolutionize for. They learned their own
power, they taught tyrants a lesson, they lessened their burdens,
they decreased their exactions, they improved their condition.
Neither can nations rely upon the conservatism of an intelligent
class. Such an order, to exercise a controlling influence, and with
out this it cannot be conservative, must be a distinct one. It
must have distinct interests, or it melts into the mass, and advances
or recedes with it. Its members must be bound and linked together
by a common and permanent object; else there are so many diverg
ing causes in operation that they will be constantly drawn off. The
Romish priesthood was perhaps the best system of classified intelli
 [ 9 1
gence the world ever saw; it was indeed almost perfect in its plan.
But who, in the present age of the world, would look to such a body
for political conservatism?
Since those classes, which are created by legislation, and sup
ported by the whole power of the government; which are bound
together so closely that the interests of one member are the interests
of the whole body ; have failed to exercise any truly conservative
influences, how vain would it be to seek, amid the infinite variety
of human pursuits, for conservatism in a single profession or voca
tion in life?
The world has always been subjected to the control of the few;
and looking back upon the dark, fearful records of Time, I can behold
nothing therein to reconcile me to such government. I see their
labors to retard man, their selfish schemes of aggrandizement.
Civilization has shed its light upon them, and they have striven to
cover their fellow men with the eternal pall of ignorance. I see,
"as through a glass darkly," the nations of the earth come tramp
ing by. I behold the forms of government instituted, and the nature
of the conservative influences exercised by the superior classes. I
see the Babylonish king at his festival; I behold the indescribable
sins there committed; I read the handwriting of God upon the wall.
I behold the members of a Jewish hierarchy deciding upon the fate
of one before them. Even a fierce, rude soldier is softened by the
sight, and his heart melts within him at the words of Him " who
spake as never man spake." 1 turn to the priests, the humble
instruments of an almighty and all-merciful God ; I turn to them for
pity, but I hear from their lips the cry " Give us Barabbas the rob
ber!" I behold another sceneit is during the decline of the Ro
man empire, when ignorance, sensuality, the basest and most awful
degeneracy pervade society. I see a lifeless trunkthe trunk of
Boijthius. By a tyrant's decree, the light of the last star that shone
in the hemisphere has been extinguished; the fires of the last noble
soul, which came " like a spirit from the dead, to revive and reani
mate a fallen and degenerate race," have been quenched in death.
I see a tribunal of the Romish church, a council of its reformers,
condemning a reformer to death. I behold a funeral pyre, hear the
crackling of its flames, and see the consuming body of Huss. Other
scenes rise up before me. I behold the great metropolis of the
French empire.- It is a holy eve, the eve of a saint's day. The
2
 [ io ]
temples are lighted, the congregations are upon their knees, tne
priests are chanting the misericordia to the tones of the organ as they
swell through the dimly lighted aisles,when I hear the tramp of
the soldiery, and the shrieks of their victims, when I behold the
horrors of saint Bartholomew's eve, and see thousands of French
men ruthlessly, mercilessly slain, by a king and a priesthood,the
father of a people and its intelligent conservatism,because they
sought for truth, groped for it in their blindness, and recognizing
embraced and loved it. I see the factories of England, filled with
the pallid, distorted bodies of her children; who toil ceaselessly by
the light of the day and the darkness of the night, for such a recom
pense as will not procure for them the physical necessities of life.
And has the world found conservatism in any thing like this? I
turn to my own country, with her democratic institutions, her
recognition of man, not as a member of a class, but as an unit in
God's creationand there I behold a new race
" Stern o'er each bosom, Reason holds her state,
With daring aims irregularly great;
Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,
I see the lords of human kind pass by.
Intent on high designs, a thoughtful band,
By forms unfashioned, fresh from Nature's hand,
Fierce in their native hardiness of soul.
True to imagined right, above control :
While e'en the peasant boasts his rights to scan,
And learns to venerate himself, a man"

And I say, Man is his own conservator. Do not fetter him by

restrictions, do not crush him by exactions, do not legislate him into
nothing, entrust him with his own destinies, and he can preserve
himself. You need not then seek conservatism, as they seek it now
in England, through their benevolent societies, which sell garments
at half price, and bread at less than cost. Only let man alone,
and he will buy his garments at full price, and his bread at a profit j
and something more than this too, he will accomplish, as I fancy.
Man's destinies, his creator's laws, forbid conservatism to any
thing unjust. And, if the social organization be just and equal, if
the happiness of the whole body, and not of a portion, be the object,
society will find conservatism at this day in its own constitution.
Behold it, with its countless departments, its endless divisions of
labor, its infinite variety of pursuits ! How vast the social fabric !
 [ 11 ]
How infinitely ramified the channels of industry ! How diverse the
interests'. How varied the habits of thought! The merchant, in
tent upon his schemes of mercantile aggrandizement, and anxious
to incorporate his commercial systems into the politics of the coun
try; the farmer, studying the interests of agriculture, and desiring
that society should develop itself in the form most beneficial to him;
the manufacturer wishing to transform the nation into one great
workshop, where nothing but the noise of the swift moving shuttle,
and the clatter of machinery should be heard ; the mariner, telling
his tales of old ocean's riches, and expatiating upon the benefits of
foreign commerce, demands attention; the scholar, with his sci
ences, and schemes of intellectual advancement, claiming the aid of
government ; and the hard-handed son of labor, lifting up nis voice
also for the benefits of legislation : each of these is necessary to the
other, their labors all tend towards a common object, the advance
ment of society. And in a country where an equal authority is
exercised by all,these, by their action upon each other, by their
counter and opposing forces, by the diversity of their interests and
habits of thought, have a vast influence upon each other, and consti
tute the true conservative force of society.
There are other conservative forces, the many remembrances of
the aged, the associations of the past, the dread of the untried and
the unknown, the security of the present time ; all these bind society
to its established institutions. The successful, the rich, the power
ful, those who have much to lose and little to gain, are all eminently
conservative. But theirs, like that of the hereditary orders, is the
conservatism of selfishness, which is a barrier to the advancement of
society, and is opposed to the interests of the great body of its mem
bers. They oppose truth quite as obstinately as falsehood; because
they have the same consequences to apprehend from both, a change
in their own condition. And when a new proposition is advanced,
which threatens to deprive wealth of some of its privileges, or their
cast of some of its immunities, they cry aloud, " Revolution'. Anar
chy ! Destruction !"as if the existence of society depended upon
the preservation of the relation of their order to that of the commu
nity at largeas if the great body of the people were but a sort of
out-works to the social machine, to protect them, its centre, from
the encroachments of hostile powers. But their cry is for nought :
u the wolf! the wolf!" has not yet appeared. Society still moves on ;
 [ 12]
even with us it is advancing; new theories are developed, new prin
ciples are received; parties take advanced grounds, and fortify other
positions; the Whig of yesterday is the Tory of to-day, and the Demo
crat of the present time will be the Federalist of the future. Each
day's experience adds to man's stock of intelligence; it brings either
a new or a different modification of an old truth. New desires are
excited, new wants arc to be gratified ; the conditions of men's exist
ence are constantly shifting, and society must shift with them. Why
then should we seek so anxiously for conservative influences? We
may divide a community, and legislate some of its members into the
higher, and some into the lower orders. We may create intelligent
classes, and for themselves they will be conservative. But there is
no protection for the people in all these ; there are rather suffering,
and misery, and unbounded oppression ; there are convulsive upheav-
ings, fierce dissentions, and bloody revolutionsawful lessons to
those who seek such conservatism.
Men have no love for anarchy, and they never do revolutionize
until the stern law of self-preservation requires them to do so.
Neither do they incline to believe new propositions; a few may be
bribed or corrupted so to do, but the massnever. Truth must
force conviction : they must believe before they assent. All a man's
associations are opposed to change: it is only when the old is untrue,
and the new seems to be true, that he does seek for change.
It is now a commonly received proposition in the philosophy of
History, that no system ever was established, or ever obtained gen
eral credence, which did not contain some portion ol truth. It is its
truth and not its falsehood which recommends it." Man cannot at
tain to absolute truth until he attains to absolute perfection. He
gathers his partial, dimly-seen, contingent truths by repeated expe
riments and painful labor. By the binding force of his little truth
he rears his vast fabric of falsehood. Time rolls on; the false disap
pears, for falsehood has no self-existence, no vitality; but that false
hood so disappearing teaches a new truth, and another system is de
veloped. A naked falsehood never had dominion among men : they
could not believe it if they would, and would not believe it if they
could. Now I do not say, that every truth which has been developed
was at once recognised ; nor that every established system contained
more truth than any other which might have been devised; nor either
that it owed its entire and complete success to the truth it contained.
 [ 13 ]
But thus much 1 do say, that every system so established, from the
earliest time history shed its light upon the conditions of men, con
tained more truth than that which immediately preceded it. The
term Truth, in discussions of this kind, is not an absolute, but a rela
tive term; and by this proposition I mean, that every system so es
tablished was more true, with reference to the actual physical and
moral condition of those over whom it obtained control.
Even now, with all the experience the world has had in politics;
with all its institutions marked out and denned to our eyes, upon its
vast exploring chart ; with a knowledge of all the falsehoods which
have been displaced, and the truths which have been established,
political science contains only contingent truths. The experience
of the world has evolved certain general principles, but we are not
as yet able in this science, as we are in projectiles and astronomy,
to compute the disturbing causes; and these propositions are to be
applied with the most careful reference to the moral and physical
condition of a people.
This being remembered, who will say that the mythology of
Greece, with its wide, human sympathies, its beauty and its poetry,
was not superior to the abstract system of Rome, whoso place it
usurped. Or that the political institutions of Augustus, concealing
despotism by hypocrisy, were not, Jbetter adapted to the people of
Rome in those days when Roman virtue had departed from the eter
nal city ? When her Senators were no longer conquering heroes in
war, but the humble, the subservient instruments of a dictator in
peace ; when her people were paupers, feeding upon the State, and
ready at the bidding of every ambitious demagoguethen an abso
lute monarchy, even though a Nero kept time by the music of his
fiddle, to the noise of the conflagration, and a Caligula placed his
horse in that office which a Brutus and a Cicero had thought it an
honor to fill, was a far better devised system than the one which it
followed. And afterwards, in that long palsied decline of Rome,
when the cities of the empire refused to receive their freedom at the
hands of the Emperor; when man seemed to have lost his every en
ergy, and to have degenerated into a mere beast, without a thought,
without an emotion : who will say that the Teutonic institutions,
which had never been defiled by a tyrant's touch, had not in them
more of truth? During the dark ages, who will doubt that the
church hierarchy was a truthful system? Then came Feudality,
 [ H ]
with its individuality, its pride of station, and its fierce defence of in
dividual privileges. Next Chivalry with its knights and its trouba
dours, its romance of adventure and its worship of woman. Then,
when the nobles had usurped all power, when they crushed alike the
king and the commoner, a monarchy more absolute was requisite,
and at the bidding it came. The Church of Rome aimed at uni
versal temporal dominion, her interdicts were more powerful than
the commands of kings, and her decrees than the united voice of the
State: she sought to extend her dominions even unto the heavens,
and mitigate their punishments and grant their rewards. And lo! a
Luther appears. All this while a new power was struggling for ex
istence, and now it strode rapidly on. At first not asking for honors,
not seeking for authorityonly humbly begging not to be made an
utter slave; but soon changing its tones, and ringing its loud clear
notes in the ears ofastounded monarchs. Men had lived long enough
for kings and privileged classes, and now wished to live a little for
themselves. That power was the Commons, which has since been
slowly advancing,through many a scene of horror, o'er many a
blood-stained field,until now it presents itself in our own country as
the sole power of the State. And who will say that each of these
systems was not superior to the one which preceded it 1
Why then should we dread the future? The institutions of Go
vernment will be modified, the forms of society will be changed. If
they are now adapted to us, they will soon loose their adaptation, and
become no longer true. We and our systems will be swallowed up
in the abyss of time, but the truth we have will live after us; it will
pervade other institutions, and adapt itself to other forms of society.
Let us not be alarmed by the appearance of new propositions. Let
us not desire the permanent duration of the present order of things.
Time sweeps on in his great course, buries the past in mouldering
ruins, and stamps the decrepitude of age upon the present; in his
vast track, he buries our systems, and we cannot stay him if we
would. The old bald sexton will dig their graves in spite of us.
The grand problem in politics is, to frame such a fabric as is con
sistent with the great law of social advancementas that society
may make its innovations thereupon, gradually and imperceptibly
not by fierce struggles between classes, not by convulsive efforts.
A democratic form of government seems best adapted to this, for
there each citizen has a voice in the legislation of the country, each
 [ 15 ]
contributes to the formation of the social order, each exerts an influ
ence upon the policy of the State. It directs a great variety of in
terest into one channel, it forms a grand compromise between all
the discordant social elementsa compromise which no class will be
inclined to disturb, because a disturbance will be dangerous to itself.
Let us, to ascertain the conservative force of each, but compare
our own system with that of England. How intertwined and inter
woven are our classes? How many ligaments bind each citizen to^
the state? Wealth is widely diffused, because it is not legislated,
into masses. The people are prosperous because our institutions are;
equal ; they are intelligent because they have the leisure and the
means to become so.
Look now to England! From a small isle of the Atlantic, she
radiates her wealth and power to every portion of the circumference
of the globe. Her subjects hunt the white bear upon the shores of
the Polar Sea, and search for gold dust in the sands of Africa: they
seek the whale through the Arctic ocean, and pursue him to the
furthest limit of the Antarctic sea: they traffic in the lumber of
America, and purchase the spices of Asia : they cut the logwood of
Campeachy and gather the opium of Hindostan : they set their nets
on the banks of Newfoundland, and dive for the coral of the Adri
atic sea. England dispenses the dyes of the eastern, and the rich
products of the western continent. She enriches herself by the
luscious fruits of the tropic, and by the soft furs of the frigid zone.
She plants her colonies from the rising to the setting sun, and strews
her factories from Behring's Straits to the shores of Coromandel.
No trade is too contemptible, no risk too hazardous, no monopoly too
extensive, no land too remote. There she sits upon her island throne,
holding the balance of power in Europe, and swaying the destinies
of Asia: now lending herself to the subjects of the Pope, and now
leagueing herself with the Protestants of Holland : now aiding des
potism in France, and now advancing freedom in Africa : now bat
tering the walls of Canton, and now humbling the Turk at Constan
tinople. Pursuing through all her mercantile schemes, until she has
reared the most ponderous commercial system the world has ever
seen. But look to the centre of this vast fabric, and see how it is
with herher privileged orders are crushing her people : her debt is
so vast that she cannot, with all her exertions, prevent its accumu
lations: her taxes so burdensome, that the laborer, with all his toil,
 [ 16 ]
cannot discharge them : her compensation to her artizan so small,
that though he wear out the day, and borrow even of the night, he
cannot by his ceaseless labor procure the absolute requisites of life.
Ignorance, Crime, Misery, Starvation even, pervade her lower or
ders; and her suffering, toil-worn sons, by whose sweat her treasures
have been earned, and by whose blood her territories have been
won, now lift their emaciated features, and their worn, fleshless
hands, to an Almighty God, for that aid their fellow men deny them.
And the conservatism of England must yield,' or the day of suffering
and despair, no longer tolerable, will soon come; and she will be
revolutionized. For what, to men starving for bread, are paper con
stitutions, commercial systems, or national glory ? Nothing, and
worse than nothing. But the conservatism of England will not yield,
as conservatism never has yielded, until the people are lashed into
madness, and have begun their labors of destruction.
Could it be otherwise indeed? Could it be the great law of
events that man is to continue the miserable victim of social institu
tions? Could it be the true political theory, that he requires the
conservative influence of a portion of his kind, endowed as himself,
with capacities alike limited, with passions alike wild? Every fea
ture of modern civilization opposes it, every truth developed denies
it, every faculty of our nature protests against it.
Let us then have confidence in man. Since we feel his right to
govern himself, let us believe in his capacity so to do. That is a
vain ingenuity which goes about devising schemes to protect him
against himself; it is an ingenuity which has always displayed the
worst consequences, which has caused ignorance, misery, and licen
tiousness; which has whetted the knife and roared the scaffold, to
dull the one, and imbrue the other with the blood of its victims.
For many ages, in the darkness of their gloom, men's eyes had not
been able to discover their rights; humble, toiling, truth-loving sons
of earth, they bore their burdens meekly; they have been hewers
of wood and drawers of water; their bodies have formed one long,
continuous bridge for the superior orders to drive their chariot
wheels upon. The vague feeling of right, the dim, indistinct con
sciousness of what belonged to them, have never been wanting. In
the phrenzy of their despair, in the agony of their suffering, they
have occasionally risen up to vindicate themselves; but like the
beast, which in its rude sport avoids the yoke, they have returned
 [ 17 ]
again to their masters, and meekly bowed themselves to their bur
dens. But the day for such establishments has now waned upon
the earth. Men feel their rights and appreciate them, they know
the blessings which result from a true social organization, and the
miseries which follow from unjust, unequal institutions; and a society
which admits of them, need seek no conservatism whatsoever. Walls
of adamant could not support it, chains of iron could not bind it
together.
We need not fear for our institutions : whatsoever may become of
the mere external form, the democratic idea will be permanent.
Slowly has man attained to it. Once he was a serfannexed to the
soil, and transmitted, by hereditary right, from father to son; now he
stands recognized as God's creature, with a capacity for temporal
happiness, and with a soul for eternity. Each feature of this devel
opment has cost the world a social revolution. It must be perma
nent, for it bears God's seal upon it; it is true, all truth, and never
did a truth die.

Brothers op the Alpha Delta Phi:

It is for us, the young, the ardent, who are linked to no orders,
who are trammeled by no systems, to lend ourselves seriously to
this great work, the development of truth, whatever may be the
form it assumes, however it may be combated. This alone is en
during, we can find nought else immutable. Nature's hardest sub
stances soon decay; the great globe itself is constantly changing,
anchoring its islands, raising its strata, elevating its mountains.
Ere an age has elapsed, our high raised battlements are mouldering
heaps; our moated towers, leveled ground; our lofty temples,shapeless
dust : and man's theories, the wisest teachings of sages, the pro-
foundest conclusions of philosophers, together with his splendid ma
terial fabrics, are dispelled by the breath of the Great Destroyer.
As for our country, her fate will depend upon us, her sons.
Doubtless she will run the career of other nations, she will attain
unto the meridian of her greatness, and then will commence her
declining course. She is the first offspring of the new world ; and
when nations shall have sprung up around her, when her example
shall have led them on to greatness, when she shall have diffused
among them the free spirit of her institutions, her literature, her
arts, and her sciences, then may she sink calmly to rest in the un-
3
 [ 18 ]
clouded splendor of her evening sky. And when all that she
has shall have been effaced from earth, when she shall have run
her course and sunk from view, then may she live by the memory
of her former greatness, by the achievements she has accomplished,
by the example she has set; live throughout all time and throughout
all place, in prose and storied verse, wherever science has a votary,
or the muse a favored son: then may she live as Greece has lived.
Though her great heroes have slumbered for ages; though time has
hushed the inspirations of Homer, of Eschylus, and of Sophocles;
though Pericles no more delights his wondering audience, and De
mosthenes thunders not against the Macedonian king; though the
silence of eighteen centuries reigns in her academic groves, and Elis
no longer resounds to the shouts of her lusty youth; though her
institutions have disappeared, and her sculptured marble has
crumbled into dust; though War has ravaged her, and Despotism has
trampled her beneath his iron heel, she yet lives throughout the
habitable globe. Amid all the glare of modern improvement, she
sheds her calm effulgence round us; her genius pervades all systems
and speaks in all tongues; wherever man dwells she dwells; wher
ever there is an eye to contemplate the beautiful, or a mind to drink
her inspiration, there is her abiding place. She is still the living
fount of all excellence. Amid all the mutations of time, the decay
of nations, and the wreck of systems, the memory of her former
greatness still survives; the wonderful productions of her art still
remain the delight and pride of men, the admiration of the world,
the standard of human excellence, the unparalleled, the incompara
ble, the unapproached.

A. Pogb, printerCincinnati.
la**""'