Mr. President and Fellow members.
His next step is to assail men of meditation as being skeptics and
science and literature as vehicles of their obnoxious tenets, from whose
baneful influences he says man will never know exemption whose sting is more
cruel than the sword more fatal than the asp. And here the
Gentleman
adopts that vain sophistry so often resorted to
by the enemies of learning men who wish to disparage it either because they are
unable to excel or because they have not the inclination to attempt it who
would suffer man to grope on in his pristine state of ignorance and
superstition from fear of his becoming an apostate from the
Christian
Religion and
a
emmersing himself
from
in the dark waters of infidelity. And where I
ask did this vain therory take its origin and among what class is it most
prevalent? The answer is written upon its very face It sprang from ignorance
without substantiation
Page 3
and the ignorant must be its
advocates because it is to them a consolation for their own deficiences. And
the
Gentleman
himself
advocates advances this
absurd doctrine as if it were an axiom and needed no defense, and in
consequence he makes no attempt at its support. And let me tell him that if he
wishes to maintain before this Hall that the human intellect is so far weakened
and impaired by cultivation as to doubt its own divine origin, he must explore
some mine of wisdom to which others have had not access and to which
God grant, they
may never have. But I should have been pleased beyond measure to have heard the
Gentleman
enlarge his views, to have heard his arguments
in defense of his favorite idea and lastly his explanation of this
self-destroying property of the human mind. For I am at a loss to imagine even
his initiatory step. Is its appreciation of its own powers lessened because
forsooth it is unable to throw aside the veil that covers its operations with
such an impenetrable mistery? No: It rather impresses upon him the conviction
of the grandure of that controlling power which, while it directs his erring
steps, gives him no clue to its own constitution. And when in the course of his
researches he wanders among the wonderful evidences of the
Page 4
operation of mind, sees its trace upon land and sea, contemplates the
result
of mans ingenuity that has contributed
so abundantly to waft
conviction
cultivation to the remotest corners of the
earth; or rises in imagination among those ever-wandering worlds, the planets,
and speculates upon the almost superhuman wisdom that has reduced their motions
to laws that enable the Astronomer to calculate with such accuracy their
revolutions in their orbits, then turns upon that instrument of these
astounding results, his doubts are dispelled and he involuntari
ally exclaims "truly the hand that made
us is Divine". But the refutation of this argument is, as I said stamped
upon its face so it scarcely deserves notice. As to the subject he has broached
in connection with his notice of the
French
Revolution I think that his impetuosity has again outstriped his
discretion. He imputes to the French Philosophers the crime of originating the
Revolution and points in horror to its consequences. And
here gain he transgresses the limits of his subject. For we must argue this
question in relation to the good or evil that arises from the legitimate sphere
of these two classes respectively and if a Philosopher deserts this
2
legitimate sphere and engages
Page 5
in the strife of
Politics, philosophy cannot be held responsible for his crimes. The
Gentleman
instances
Voltaire as one of the instigators of the
Revolution. Granted that it is so. Yet, if he contends that
he embarked in Politics during this eventful period, his is then the province
of defending him, not mine, for he then becomes a man of action. But whatever
may now be the opinion of the world of this
Revolution, the motives of the enlightened minds that first
put this ball in motion were, beyond doubt, purely patriotic and their cause
the cause of Liberty.
Roman
Catholocism, which for centuries had fettered and tramelled its upward
progress and whose baneful effects still rested upon unhappy
France,
threatened to baffle every effort of the patriots to cast off the galling yoke.
Politics were fashioned after its image, power was reputed divine, the people
were tra
veling on in blind and ignominous
obedience to its corrupt teachings, which made all inquiry into the validity of
its institutions a blasphemy
and a heresy. The
Reformation had thrown new light upon the subject and
reason began to supplant superstition and we hear the spirit of Philosophy
raising its clarion voice against this degrading tyrany. Its notes at first
cautious, by degrees swelled
Page 6
into one mighty burst
of indignation, and
France at once
resolved to be free. It was to be a
Revolution in which enlightenment was to supplant
superstition an liberty, tyranny. How far this holy design was thwarted by the
mad spirits of fanatacism originating from the conciousness of newborn freedom
and the grasping ambition of such men as
Danton and
Murat
[possibly
Jean Paul
Marat]: The history of the time but too well attests. The names of the
French Philosophers are handed down to us as the champions of Liberty. Whatever
anathemas the world may heap upon
Voltaire for his
attempting to overthrow the worship of his
God, they cannot
accuse him of conspiring against the liberties of his country. His infidelity
sprang from some darker corner of his heart. Its turbid waters could never flow
from the limpid fountain of Philosophy. But, he says the baneful influence of
his doctrine will continue to poison the human mind as long as books are read
or wherever civilization extends her dominions. Does he adduce this to prove
that the light of knowledge should be trameled in its vigorous growth, that
philosophy should be bloted out from the world because forsooth a few of its
devoted have deserted the pristine faith at a time when the whole nation was
tinctured
Page 7
with skepticism? Would he leave the
untutored mind to the fearful ravages so often incident upon reading
atheistical works? I hope not. Let him rather seek to arm the understanding
with weapons of cultivation that these impious and alluring precepts may
forever be erased from their places upon the pages of books. But he turns from
his review of the
reign of
Terror with the bloody streets of
Paris
before his eyes, the escutcheon of
France blured
and blotted with the stain of
Civil
War, the bright hopes of liberty suddenly arrested from the Patriots by
Robespiere and
Danton, men of action! dark and terrible action! and asks
who but men of action have ever been the apostles of liberty. No wonder if the
guant and emaciated form of unhappy
Ireland had
arisen before his eyes and silenced his voice ere this strange and unnatural
question fell from his lips. No wonder if the shade of
"Warsaw's last Champion"
3 had
suddenly started up and pointed him in horror to that "leagued
oppression" that snatched the last hope of freedom from
his country
and ask were not these men of action. Let him turn his eyes to where the battle
wreath still encircles poor, down-trodden
Hungary where
the blood of her martyred patriots scarcely dry cries out against
Page 8
tyranny, where the chains their conquerors forged are
still bright and ask himself if men of action are not the scourges of humanity.
But some may accuse me of attempting to disparage those who have bravely
battled in their country's cause, and here I disown any such attempt. I honor
them for their patriotism and posterity will award them a place high upon fames
immortal scroll that shall grow brighter and brighter as it is handed down to
each succeeding generation. But a single glance at the history of the world
will show us but too clearly that the march of tyranny has been in a majority
of cases almost irrisitable.
Greece,
Italy,
Ireland,
Poland and
Hungary still
pine in chains, their efforts have been of no avail, and may stand but a short
time until they behold our own fair land writhing under the same iron heel of
oppression. The history of these ill-fated nations show but too clearly that
the cause of oppression is in a majority of cases, triumphant. And though
our own
country gave to the enslaved of the whole world an example of what may
be accomplished by a people inferior to their oppressors when starting up from
their ignominious servitude, writhing under the sting of conscious degragation
they unfurl the sacred banner of Liberty to the breeze, and drawing their
swords in her holy cause and resolve never to sheath it until that banner waves
in triumph over
Page 9
freemen. Yet we shall find but few
who engage in a similar struggle under the same auspicious circumstances, for
though we were combatting the first nation of the Globe, yet in our veins
coursed that same Anglo-Saxon blood which can never warm the loathsome carcass
of a Slave. Besides the consciousness of the justice of our cause, we were
blessed with men, "who knew their rights and knowing dared maintain".
4
There
5 may
be a time, and
God
6
grant that it is near, when, under the genial influence of the reign of
bearing,
7 the
natural asperity of man's heart may be softened and this giant march of
oppression may be checked forever. But hitherto it certainly has been too
frequently unrestrained. But the
Gentleman's
arguments were not even plausible when he came
to draw a paralell between the two classes, for he speaks of the liability of
men of thought to be hurried into excesses while men of action are in no way
liable to the same error. But upon what
strange theory was this
strange theory based, upon what authority was it advanced? Is the man of
literature and science, the devotee of letters, when excluded from the noise
and excitements of the world without, when poreing over the pages of books by
the midnight lamp, subjected to any temptation to forsake the broad road of
truth and rush madly into excesses, when the public must test the truth of his
doctrine by that fearful ordeal of criticism? If so, what is it? For I confess
my ignorance, for his sole aim is centered upon that one object, the discovery
of latent truths
Page 10
that are everywhere scattered
through this world of chaos and wishes these to enlighten the minds of his
fellow beings. It is by truth and not by fallacy he can hope to win for himself
a perpituity of fame. What mode of excitement is there in this wearysome
pilgrimage to present the tranquil flow of reason? I am sure, none. But are
military heroes as well defended against the invideous attacks of their own
passions? How many instances does history present of the impossibility of
checking a revolution exactly at the right time? And the moral grandeur of the
self-sacrificing disposition displayed by
Washington in the revolutionary
in the surrender of his vested authority at a time when but a
word from him might have moulded
this
country into a monarchy and seated himself on the throne, has now for
him the love and veneration of the whole civilized world. Because experience
had proven that human nature was ambitious and grasping, and they could not
think that he would form an exception to the general rule. And here I leave the
Gentleman
and his arguments. I have sought to follow him
in the course of his speech without misrepresenting him and I think I cannot be
accused of it. As for the benefits that Science and the arts have confered upon
the world they are too evident to everyone to make it necessary for me to point
them out. Every day gives evidence of what a tremendous agency they exert in
the work of civilization and we may fondly hope that those who go forth from
the shady walks of this
our Alma mater may be more efficient instruments in
the hands of Providence for elevating
our own
country than those who wear the helmet and the sword.