For these great works you may labor; yes, you are laboring, when you help forward justice, industry, when you promote the education of the people; when you practise, public and private, the virtues of a Christian man; when you hinder these seemingly little things, you hinder also the great. You are the nation's head, and if the head be wilful and wicked, what shall its members do and be? To this class let me say: Remember your Position at the head of the nation; use it not as pirates, but Americans, Christians, men. Remember your Temptations, and be warned in time. Remember your opportunities--such as no men ever had before. God and man alike call on you to do your duty. Elevate your calling still more; let its nobleness appear in you. Scorn a mean thing. Give the world more than you take. You are to serve the nation, not it you; to build the church, not make it a den of thieves, nor allow it to apologize for your crime, or sloth. Try this experiment and see what comes of it. In all things govern yourselves by the eternal law of right. You shall build up not a military despotism, nor a mercantile oligarchy, but a State, where the government is of all, by all, and for all; you shall found not a feudal theocracy, nor a beggarly sect, but the church of mankind, and that Christ which is the same yesterday, to-day and for ever, will dwell in it, to guide, to warn, to inspire, and to bless all men. And you, my brothers, what shall you become? Not knaves, higgling rather than earn; not tyrants, to be feared whilst living, and buried at last amid popular hate; but men, who thrive best by justice, reason, conscience, and have now the blessedness of just men making themselves perfect.
[23] I gather these facts from a Review of Major Poussin's _Belgique et les Belges, depuis 1830_, in a foreign journal. The condition of the merchant manufacturer I know not.
[24] Subsequent events (in 1850 and 1851) show that he was right in his statement. What was thought calumny then has become history since, and is now the glory and boast of Boston.
[25] Mr. _Robert J. Walker_ published a letter in favor of the annexation of Texas. In it he said: "Upon the refusal of re-annexation ... THE TARIFF AS A PRACTICAL MEASURE FALLS WHOLLY AND FOR EVER, and we shall thereafter be compelled to resort to direct taxes to support the Government." Notwithstanding this foolish threat, a large number of citizens of Massachusetts remonstrated against annexation. The House of Representatives, by a large majority, passed a resolve declaring that Massachusetts "announces her uncompromising opposition to the further extension of American slavery," and "declares her earnest and unalterable purpose to use every lawful and constitutional measure for its overthrow and entire extinction," etc. But the Senate voted that the resistance of the State was already sufficient! The passage in the text refers to these circumstances.