In what other country under heaven is industry and talent so rewarded? Assuredly, nowhere can they boast of such rewards as in New England; for these advantages are common, though in different degrees. to all the New England States. And to what cause does New England owe this enviable superiority? The superiority of education, diffused by her common schools through her whole population, has enabled her to overcome the resistance of her inclement climate and her barren soil, and thus nobly to distance all her rivals in the career of improvement.

This have common schools done, but they have not yet exhausted their power. They are as yet only the rudiments of an institution destined to mould anew the character, to create anew the fortunes of the nations. He who measures their influence starts back in astonishment at the magnitude of the results already realized. He who considers what their influence might be, is no less astonished at the waste of our means, and the neglect of our resources. I hesitate not to declare my undoubting conviction, that throughout New England, we do not reap one tenth part of the harvest of benefits which our schools are capable of yielding us. I know, and I pledge my reputation on it, that a boy, twelve years old, and of average capacity, can be taught more of useful knowledge, better business habits, and better intellectual and moral habits, in two years, than our children ordinarily acquire between the ages of four and sixteen. What a fearful treasure of talent wasted, time misspent, a people's best energies dormant, and none to awaken them! Never was a reformation more imperatively demanded by every interest and every duty than in our common schools. A century ago they were a wonder and a praise, but now they are behind the age. They have made us what we are, but they have also enabled us to discover what we may be, what we ought to be, what we shall be, if we remodel our schools to meet the wants of the times. It is not enough that the school master is abroad, unless the school master is furnished and prepared for his vocation. No man pretends to play the violin, or the piano, until by long practice he has mastered its chords, or keys, but of those who undertake to operate upon that most complicated of all instruments, the human mind, how vast a majority are totally unacquainted with its nature and functions. What wonder at their ill success!

CHAPTER IV.

MR. RANTOUL'S POLITICAL PRINCIPLES EARLY MATURED AND
CONSISTENTLY MAINTAINED THROUGH LIFE.

Ar the age of fifteen or sixteen years, he was deeply interested in great political questions. While at Phillips Academy preparing for his collegiate course, his youthful associates observed with surprise the attention he gave to subjects of this nature. His arguments in support of Free Trade at that early period, are still distinctly remembered; and many of the associates of his youth have had occasion to admire, in common with most of his countrymen, the power and genius which have successfully maintained opinions so early formed.

His youth was, indeed, distinguished by the ripe knowledge and judgment of manhood, on whatever subject engaged his attention. Not only did this singular maturity of thought belong to him, but his nature itself, the bent of his mind was favorable to the view which he afterwards took of political subjects. He was naturally just, sincere, and kind. He sympathized with the weak, rather than the strong, with the unfortunate and the oppressed, rather than the prosperous and the overbearing. As in the sports of his youth, so in the serious contests of his manhood, he naturally took sides with those who most needed assistance. His regards for men were founded more on their necessities and misfortunes, than their ability to recompense his services. Such was his habitual disposition. How much it was formed by wise parental influence and the sacred associations of his early home, from which his heart never wandered, it is impossible to estimate. Its result,

however, was a practical Christianity, worthy of one who reverenced the great Teacher of religion, as the immortal advocate and defender of true liberty, equality, and fraternity among men. Believing morality the only reliable foundation of personal, or national freedom, and that the sway of justice is, by the ordination of Providence, progressive, Mr. Rantoul was cheered by an unconquerable trust in the ultimate triumph of human rights over the perversions of will and the accidents of fortune. Hence, it appears from his writings, speeches, and his whole life, that, while he followed no man with blind servility, he held the principles of the democratic party, as understood by its great leaders in the United States. He himself says:

There have been two great schools of politics in this country since the foundation of the government. To one of these schools I have always belonged. I think the maxims of that school essential to the durability of our institutions. It is not the expediency of party policy which seems to me to be involved. Two great fundamental principles as to how the Constitution is to be interpreted are involved. It is a question on which parties are now divided, and on which they always will divide to the end of time. Let us look at that question. The Constitution of the United States creates a government of limited powers. Are they to be held strictly to the limitations of that instrument? or are they to have a system of loose construction which will transcend those powers? That is the great question at the bottom of all our party divisions for sixty years past. Now I hold, and always have held, that the Constitution of the United States is an instrument which is to be strictly construed; that the Constitution is the letter of attorney by which the members of Congress are authorized to act, and that they are empowered to do nothing which it does not authorize them to do. That is my doctrine, and it is democratic doctrine.*

Eighteen years before he spoke thus, he took the same view of the value of the Union and of the Constitution, the same view of the slavery question, the same of commerce, banking, and the currency, and every other great political question that he has since held, and has tried the nerves of the statesmen of our country. Mr. Rantoul did not speak what he could not

*Speech at Lynn, 1851.

prove to be true. His political opinions in 1833, were, on all these great subjects, the same that he so fearlessly avowed in 1851. It may be affirmed with confidence, that no American, of equal political standing, ever expressed his opinions upon all subjects of public interest, when called upon to do so, with more ingenuousness, frankness, and honesty, or maintained them with more consistency, than Mr. Rantoul. This fact will be remembered to his lasting honor. He never had an opinion, with which the public had any concern, that he was unwilling to utter. He never refused to give, without guile, or equivocation, reasons for the faith that was in him; reasons which decided, at least, his own judgment. But let him speak for himself. The following is an extract from an article written by him, and published in the Gloucester Democrat and Workingmen's Advocate, 1834:

From the adoption of the Constitution to the present day, two great parties have divided the people of the United States. The one apprehended serious danger from the inherent weakness of our government. With the spectacle of the French Revolution then exhibiting before their eyes, they trembled for the efficiency, and even for the stability of the new institutions. They prognosticated that the federal government would be imbecile and probably short lived. Referring then to the example of Great Britain, they saw a government, standing firm in the midst of popular commotion, and they sought to strengthen the imaginary weakness and supply the supposed deficiencies of our own Constitution, by transplanting British engines of influence to accumulate power in hands that could wield them.

The other party apprehended dangers equally serious from the disposition of the government to increase its powers; and they feared, if this disposition were not checked, it would ultimately be too strong for our liberties. They cast their eyes over the world, and looked through the history of past ages, and they saw everywhere that the tendency of all power is to take to itself more power. They judged because the French government had once been too strong to feel the popular influence, that it had now become too weak to withstand the popular reaction. They esteemed the firmness of the British government to be purchased at too dear a rate when the people were crushed beneath its burdens; and they protested against the introduction of British practices, or indeed of any practices not warranted by the letter of the Constitution.

The experience of forty-five years has shown that the latter party

were correct in their views. Never has the government proved, in any one instance, too weak to accomplish its legitimate purposes: often, and in a great variety of instances, has assumed powers not granted by the Constitution.

The fundamental article in the democratic creed is this that the general government ought to be strictly confined within its proper sphere. In the words of Thomas Jefferson, taken from an official opinion drawn up by him while secretary of state, they "consider the foundation of the Constitution laid on this ground, that all powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or the people. To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power no longer susceptible of any definition."

Congress very soon overstepped these boundaries, and in spite of an obstinate resistance from the democratic party, from time to time, enacted such legislative constructions of the Constitution as made it a very different thing from what the people thought they had submitted to. The question whether we were to live under a limited or an unlimited government, was decided in favor of the doctrine that the power given by the Constitution to collect taxes, to provide for the general welfare of the United States, permitted Congress to take every thing under their own management which they should deem for the public welfare, and which is susceptible of the application of money.

So alarming were these assumptions of powers not delegated, that the people were roused to resist them. The election of Thomas Jefferson, and his untiring efforts through the eight years of his presidency, did much to restore the administration of the government to its original constitutional simplicity. The natural tendencies, however, of interest and ambition to steal power from the many and deposit it with the few, were too strong to remain dormant. They soon began to operate in the old way with new vigor. After the close of the late war, (with Great Britain,) a splendid system of consolidated government was devised by J. C. Calhoun, then secretary of war, and advocated by George McDuffie, in an able pamphlet, and by Henry Clay in the house of representatives. This system held up glittering prizes for ambition. It was calculated to enlist in the service of its leaders all the wealth and all the talent in the nation, that was not restrained by principle. It was the conspiracy of avarice against liberty. To beguile if possible the unthinking, it was called the American system; though as Daniel Webster justly observes, in one of his tremendous philippics against it, deserved rather to be called the British system, being copied in all its