PAPERS OF MIRABEAU BuoNAP.ARTE LAMAR 87 things in the state in which we find them, without sufficiently adverting to the causes by which they have been produced, and possibly may be upheld Notwithstanding the warnings of our friends, and the daily examples of losses and misfortunes, which life forces upon our obser•a- tion, such is the absorption of our thoughts on the business of the present day, such the resignation of our reason to empty hopes of future felicity, or such our unwillingness to foresee what we dread, that every calamity comes suddenly upon us, and not only prises us as a burden but crushes as a blow The general history of mankind evinces that lawful and settled authority is very seldom resisted when it is well employed. Gross corruption as in this case, or evident im- becility is necessary to the suppression of that reverence, with.which I, and a majority of mankind, look upon their Governors or those whom the people have placed in power. Resentment of wrong is a useful principle in human nature; and for the wisest purposes, was implanted in our frame It is the necessary guard of private or public rights, and the great restraint on the insolence of the unprincipled and vio- lent who, if no resistance were made would, as in this case, trample on the gentle and peacable Without preserving liberty and independence, we can never command respect That servility of spirit which subjects us to the whims and caprices of this unprincipled empiric, permitting our selves to be quacked out of property, out of character, out of credit, out of liberty and in many instances out of life itself, shews clearly this; that we seek a refuge from our fears in the fears themselves, and con- sider a temporizing meanness as the only source of safety Alas!• the spirit of chivalry seems to be gone, and that of unprincipled empirics and selfish calculators has succeeded and the glory of Texas I fear is extinguished forever I Never, never more shall we behold that gen- erous hospitality, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in the most critical dark and doubtful period, the spirit of an exalted freedom The un- bought grace of life the cheap defence of nations, - the nurse of manly sentiment is gone! It is gone that sensibility of principle, that chas- tity of honor, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage whilst it mitigated ferosity, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness Who, or where are our public men in these times of trial? Are they folding their arms in quiet and tamely submitting the Country, and delivering her up to the hawks and kites, the bone pickers of necessity, misfortune or indolence; whose cormorant apetites would leave us as bare as winter? Let them be admonished, that public life is a situation of power and energy; he trespasses against his duty, who sleeps upon his watch, as well as he that goes over to the enemy. Our hero in calling to his unholy aid the foreign Hawks and Kites, the abolition quacks, has unintentionally aroused the most noble independent, dar- ing and intrepid of all birds; the American Eagle is on the alert Taken her circuit, poised herself high in the air, overlooked the continent, and in her rapid discent to her perch, has issued her scream high in the air which has been hear<'! beyond the atlantic, notifying the foreign Hawks and Kites, that no bone should be picked on this continent without her consent, and in which she did not have a share. She is now on the watch tower keeping a sharp lookout so that if our own statesmen fold their arms and sleep on their posts, we have at least a
Powered by FlippingBook