Act well your part – there all true honour lies.'
'He who does the best his circumstances allow,
Does well, acts nobly: Angels could do no more.'
"It is the false notion of honour which has unhappily possessed the minds of men, placing all dignity in the pageantry of state and the tinsel of office, which produces those collisions, jostlings, and acrimony of contending factions which sometimes shake the fabric of society to its very foundations: it is by the maddening influence of this false notion that men, whose claim to respectful notoriety is inversely as their desire to be conspicuous, are sometimes urged to abandon their obscure but appropriate position in the line, and to rush into the foremost ranks. When men shall have learned wherein true honour lies – when men shall have formed correct ideas of true and sober dignity, then we shall see all the ranks of society united as by a golden chain – then Ephraim shall not envy Judah, nor Judah vex Ephraim; – then the occupant of the palace and of the cottage – then the man in lawn and the man in rags will, like the parts of a well-adjusted machine, act in perfect unison. Considering, then, the influence which in every community a few men are found to possess – considering, also, that each one of these influential men is sure to be followed by a party, we can hardly appreciate the obligation which rests upon them, to abandon all jealousies and suspicions – to merge every private and personal consideration in thoughts for the public good – and to bring a mind untrammelled, and free from every party predilection, to a solemn deliberation on the great objects of public utility.
"The education of our youth is the next subject to which I would direct your attention. 'Knowledge is power' – is an old proverb – but not the less true because it is old. This is the spring that regulates the movements of society – this is at once the lever and the safety-valve of human institutions. Without it society will either not move at all, or, like an unbalanced, unhelmed ship, move in a direction and at a rate that must eventually destroy it. Education corrects vice – cures disorders – abates jealousies – adorns virtue – commands the winds – triumphs over the waves – scales the heavens. In a word, education lays all nature under tribute, and forces her to administer to the comfort and happiness of man. Nor is this all that education does. It ennobles and elevates the mind, and urges the soul upward and animates it to deeds of high and lasting renown. Education opens sources of pure, refined, and exquisite enjoyment – it unlocks the temple of nature, and admits the awe-stricken soul, to behold and admire the wondrous work of God. An ignorant, vicious, idle community, has the elements of destruction already in its bosom. On the very first application of a torch they will explode and lay the whole fabric in ruins. A virtuous, orderly, educated people, have all the elements of national greatness and national perpetuity. – Would we be happy at home and respected abroad, we must educate our youth.
"In professing to notice those things which are necessary to our prosperity – to the advancement of our prosperity, and the perpetuity of our prosperity, it is natural that you should expect that agricultural industry will be brought prominently into view. I think it may be safely affirmed, that the virtue and independence of a people will be inversely as their attention is wholly given to commerce – that their virtue and independence is evermore to be measured by their pursuits of the wholesome and pleasing and primitive employment of agriculture and husbandry. Go into the countries of Europe – examine their large manufacturing and commercial towns and cities. Then visit the rural, agricultural districts – compare the quiet, tranquillity, order, virtue, plenty of the latter, with the bustle, confusion, vice, and general dependence and poverty of the other, and you cannot fail to be struck, and deeply affected, by the frightful contrast. And wherefore? Is not commerce called the great civiliser of the world? Is it not the means by which nations become acquainted and hold communion with each other? Is it not by this means that the great and master-minds of one nation commune with kindred minds of other nations? Is it not the channel through which improvements in art, in science, in literature, in all that adorns, dignifies, and ennobles human nature, flow as on the wings of the wind from country to country? Grant it. It is not my purpose to pronounce a wholesale anathema upon commerce. I appreciate its high importance in improving our race. It is excess I would discourage – it is the wretched deteriorating influence it will exert upon a people, when, by absorbing their whole attention, it keeps them looking constantly abroad to the neglect of the improvement of their own country. It is to this I would call your attention. Again; – Let it not be forgotten, that if commerce imports improvements, it imports vices also. It offers the same facility for the transmission of both. The same vessel that brings us the Book of God brings us also the Age of Reason – and in one and the same ship, we not unfrequently find the devoted self-sacrificing missionary, and that accursed thing which a celebrated orator with characteristic energy has styled 'liquid fire and distilled damnation!!'
"In the natural, or, more properly, vegetable world, we have sometimes seen exotics outstripping in rapidity of growth the natural spontaneous productions of the soil. In this we have not a very unhappy illustration of the rank growth of imported vices. These baneful exotics, grafted on the tree of indigenous corruption, seem to receive and impart unwonted vigour from the contact: and the result is, a fruit of the most disorganising potency. An examination into the moral state of towns and districts, wholly given to commerce and manufactures, will fully sustain this remark. How, let me ask you, can there be order, where the very nature of the pursuits which engross all minds demand ceaseless hurry, bustle, and confusion? – where to stop to breathe is to be at once outdone, and where he who can move the most swiftly amid the greatest confusion is thought to be the smartest man! In respect of virtue, – is it to be thought of, except for the purpose of holding it up to ridicule, in a place where the vicious of all countries meet; and where females of every class and character, far from the watchful eye of parental solicitude, are huddled together in one promiscuous throng, and dependent for their daily bread upon the freaks and fancies of unprincipled employers! Lowell, in America, is, I believe, the only large manufacturing town where virtue is held in the least esteem. What shall I say of honesty and integrity? where the lowest, basest arts, are practised for gain; where all is intrigue and circumvention – where the maxim prevails, 'all is fair in trade' – where each regards the other as lawful game – where one can gain only by the loss of the other – where, in a word, rascality is fair-play, and villainy systematic; – where, fellow-citizens, let me ask you, where, in such a community, is there room for honesty? Can the heart fail, in such circumstances, to become deadened to every feeling of humanity – steeled against every kindly, generous, and ennobling impulse? I will not venture to affirm, that the result we have just now noticed is universal. I admit, with pleasure, there are honourable exceptions – but I do affirm, that what I have said forms the general rule.
"But let us turn from these scenes of noise and smoke and deep depravity, and visit the quiet abode of the farmer and the husbandman. What tranquillity reigns here, and order, and peace, and virtue!! Behold the farmer, as he goes forth in the morning to his daily task; – how firm and elastic his step; how cheerful his sun-burnt countenance; how active his athletic arm!! Behold how cheerfully he labours; how the fat valleys around him laugh with corn; how the spacious plains teem with grain, and the ancient forests fall beneath his resounding axe!! Follow him, when the labour of the day is over, follow him to his humble home. See him surrounded by an affectionate, industrious, frugal wife, unsophisticated by the vices and dissipations of the fashionable world, and by a prattling progeny blooming in health, and big with promise of future usefulness. No cankering cares gnaw his peaceful bosom; no uncertain speculation disturbs his quiet slumbers; no revolutions in foreign lands, damming up the channels of trade, cloud the calm serenity of his brow. Oh! if there be a spot on earth, where true happiness is to be found, here is that spot.
"But we take a higher and a more extended view of this subject, and regard it in its bearing on political economy. And my first remark is, that no nation can be independent which subsists wholly by commerce. And here let it be observed, once for all, that I use the word independent in a sense altogether distinct from sovereignty. I admit that there may be a temporary prosperity; that so long as peace prevails amongst nations connected by commercial and diplomatic relations, – so long as each acts in perfect faith, and maintains in all their entireness and in all their integrity his treaty stipulations, there may not be felt a want of the necessaries or even of the luxuries of life. There may, perhaps, be a large influx of the precious metals. Nothing, however, could be more fallacious, than to regard this activity as an indication of independence or permanent prosperity. For I remark, in the second place, that so uncertain are the operations of trade – so suddenly are its channels and outlets closed by misunderstandings and ruptures between rival nations – so liable is it to paralysing shocks from intriguing cabinets and wily politicians, the operations of one year scarcely afford any ground for conjecture in regard to the operations of the next. Let us illustrate our position by an humble supposition.
"Suppose the surrounding country should suddenly relent, throw wide its doors, and shake its teeming wealth of gold and ivory and wood and gums into our lap; and the native African, patient of labour and of travel, should supply us at the most accommodating rates with all the coarser food for our consumption; – suppose vessels should flock (as, under such circumstances, vessels would most assuredly flock) to our shores, offering us in exchange for the produce thus liberally poured in upon us, the conveniences, elegances, and luxuries of foreign countries. Suppose every man desert his farm, and betake himself to trading as the more easy and the more speedy road to wealth, – there would certainly be great activity and great prosperity. But should we be independent? One more supposition, and the important and interesting problem is solved. Suppose the paths to the interior are suddenly blocked up by feuds among the tribes; all ingress cut off and trade suspended. Where, then, are our supplies? Should we be able to return to our farms, and draw thence articles of exchange with foreign nations? By no means. In the mania for trade our farms have been deserted, and, like the land on which a curse rests, have long laid fallow. Think you, fellow-citizens, that our trade once gone, we should again behold the French, the Bremen, the American, and the English flag floating to the breeze in our harbour. From that hour you might bid a long adieu to every white face but that of a missionary. Fellow-Citizens! our prosperity and independence are to be drawn from the soil. That is the highway to honour, to wealth, to private and national prosperity.
"Liberians! do not disdain the humble occupation! It commends itself to our attention, ennobled and sanctified by the example of our Creator. 'And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food… And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden, to dress it and to keep it.'3 Never, never, until this degenerate age, has this simple, primitive, patriarchal occupation been despised.
'In ancient times, the sacred plough employed
The kings and awful fathers of mankind:
And some, with whom compared your insect tribes
Are but the beings of a summer's day,
Have held the scale of empire, ruled the storm
Of mighty war; then, with unwearied hand,
Disdaining little delicacies, seized
The plough, and greatly independent lived.'
"Thus sings the author of the Seasons, one of Britain's sweetest bards.
"The last remark time will allow me to make under this head, is, that 'Righteousness exalteth a nation; but sin is a reproach to any people.'4 All attempts to correct the depravity of man, to stay the head-long propensity to vice – to abate the madness of ambition, will be found deplorably inefficient, unless we apply the restrictions and the tremendous sanctions of religion. A profound regard and deference for religion, a constant recognition of our dependence upon God, and of our obligation and accountability to Him; an ever-present, ever-pressing sense of His universal and all-controlling providence, this, and only this, can give energy to the arm of law, cool the raging fever of the passions, and abate the lofty pretensions of mad ambition. In prosperity, let us bring out our thank-offering, and present it with cheerful hearts in orderly, virtuous, and religious conduct. In adversity, let us consider, confess our sins, and abase ourselves before the throne of God. In danger, let us go to Him, whose prerogative it is to deliver; let us go to Him, with the humility and confidence which a deep conviction that the battle is not to the strong nor the race to the swift, is calculated to inspire.
"Fellow-Citizens! we stand now on ground never occupied by a people before. However insignificant we may regard ourselves, the eyes of Europe and America are upon us, as a germ, destined to burst from its enclosure in the earth, unfold its petals to the genial air, rise to the height and swell to the dimensions of the full-grown tree, or (inglorious fate!) to shrivel, to die, and to be buried in oblivion. Rise, fellow-citizens, rise to a clear and full perception of your tremendous responsibilities!! Upon you, rely upon it, depends in a measure you can hardly conceive, the future destiny of your race. You, you are to give the answer, whether the African race is doomed to interminable degradation, – a hideous blot on the fair face of Creation, a libel upon the dignity of human nature, – or whether they are incapable to take an honourable rank amongst the great family of nations! The friends of the colony are trembling; the enemies of the Coloured man are hoping. Say, fellow-citizens, will you palsy the hands of your friends and sicken their hearts, and gladden the souls of your enemies, by a base refusal to enter upon the career of glory which is now opening so propitiously before you? The genius of universal emancipation, bending from her lofty seat, invites you to accept the wreath of national independence. The voice of your friends, swelling upon the breeze, cries to you from afar – Raise your standard! assert your independence!! throw out your banners to the wind!! And will the descendants of the mighty Pharaohs, that awed the world – will the sons of him who drove back the serried legions of Rome and laid siege to the 'eternal city' – will they, the achievements of whose fathers are yet the wonder and admiration of the world – will they refuse the proffered boon, and basely cling to the chains of Slavery and dependence? Never! never!! never!!! Shades of the mighty dead! – spirits of departed great ones! inspire us, animate us to the task – nerve us for the battle! Pour into our bosom a portion of that ardour and patriotism which bore you on to battle, to victory, and to conquest.
"Shall Liberia live? Yes; in the generous emotions now swelling in your bosoms – in the high and noble purpose now fixing itself in your mind, and ripening into the unyieldingness of indomitable principle, we hear the inspiring response – Liberia shall live before God, and before the nations of the Earth.
"The night is passing away – the dusky shades are fleeing, and even now
'Second day stands tiptoe