Part 16

"O how wretched," exclaimed the Poet of Nature, "is that poor man that hangs on princes' favors." Miserable is the condition of every being who hangs on the favors of creatures like himself. Deserve, and strive by desert, to win the esteem of your fellow-men. Thus acquired, it decorates him who obtains and blesses those who bestow it. To them it is returned in faithful service, and to him in aid of the approbation of conscience to animate diligence and reward exertion. Those too, who engage in public service, are bound to cherish a hearty sympathy with the wants, feelings, comforts, and wishes of the people--whose welfare is committed to their charge. It is essential for the preservation of that confidence which ought to subsist between the principal and the agent, the constituent and the representative, that all haughtiness and reserve should be banished from their intercourse. It sometimes happens that he who has lived too constantly among books manifests a disgust in an association with the uneducated and unrefined, which mortifies and repels them. This is absurd in him, and unjust to them. It is absurd, for he ought to know, and know well, those for whom, and upon whom, he expects to act--they constitute in fact, one of the first and most appropriate objects of his study; and it is unjust, for not unfrequently under this roughness which shocks the man of books is to be found a stock of practical information, in which he is miserably deficient. Banish, then, all superciliousness, for it is criminal and ridiculous. Honestly seek to serve your country, for it is glorious to advance the good of your fellow-men, and thus, as far as feeble mortals may, act up to the great example of Him in whose image and likeness you are made. Seek also, by all honest arts, to win their confidence, but beware how you prefer their favor to their service. The high road of service is indeed laborious, exposed to the rain and sun, the heat and dust; while the by-path of favor has, apparently, at first, much the same direction, and is bordered with flowers and sheltered by trees, "cooled with fountains and murmuring with waterfalls." No wonder, then, that like the son of Abensina, in Johnston's beautiful apologue the young adventurer is tempted to try the happy experiment of "uniting pleasure with business, and gaining the rewards of diligence without suffering its fatigues." But once entered upon, the path of favor, though found to decline more and more from its first direction, is pursued through all its deviations, till at length even the thought of return to the road of service is utterly abandoned. To court the fondness of the people is found or supposed to be easier than to merit their approbation. Meanly ambitious of public trust, without the virtues to deserve it; intent on personal distinction, and having forgotten the ends for which alone it is worth possessing, the miserable being, concentered all in self, learns to pander to every vulgar prejudice, to advocate every popular error, to chime in with every dominant party, to fawn, flatter and deceive, and become a demagogue! All manliness of principle has been lost in this long course of meanness: he dare not use his temporary popularity for any purposes of public good, in which there may be a hazard of forfeiting it; and the very eminence to which he is exalted renders but more conspicuous his servility and degradation. However clear the convictions of his judgment, however strong the admonitions of his, as yet, not thoroughly stifled conscience, not these, not the law of God, nor the rule of right, nor the public good, but the caprice of his constituents, must be his only guide. Having risen by artifice, and conscious of no worth to support him, he is in hourly dread of being supplanted in the favor of the deluded multitude by some more cunning deceiver. And such, sooner or later, is sure to be his fate. At some unlucky moment, when he bears his blushing honors thick upon him--and well may such honors blush--he is jerked from his elevation by some more dextrous demagogue, and falls, unpitied, never to rise again. Can this be the lot of him who has been here trained to admire and love high-minded excellence, and who has been taught by high classical authority to regard with the same fearless and immovable indifference the stern countenance of the tyrant and the wicked ardor of the multitude, and who has learned from a yet higher and holier authority to hold fast to "whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, to abhor that which is evil and cleave to that which is good?" Believe me, however, this is no fancy picture. The original may be found in the world every day. Nor will it surprise those who have had occasion to see how the vain heart is swollen, and the giddy head turned, how honesty of purpose and manliness of spirit are perverted by popular applause. It is but the first step that costs. Once yield to the suggestion that a little deceit or prevarication, a slight sacrifice of principle and independence, a compromise of conscience in matters not absolutely fundamental, may be excused, when the immediate gain is obvious and the end in view important, and the downward path becomes every day more and more smooth until, in its descent, it reaches the very abyss of vulgar, trading, intriguing, electioneering, office-hunting politicians. If in this lowest depth a lower deep can be found, none of us, I am sure, have the curiosity to explore it.

But is integrity sure to meet here its merited reward? Unquestionably not. If it were, and the fact generally known, there would scarcely be room for choice, and men would be honest from the want of a plausible temptation to be otherwise. But it is not too much to say, that in general, integrity has a tendency to promote the interests of him who pursues it, and it is therefore recommended to our adoption by prudence, not less than by principle. Success in the acquisition of any intrinsic object is necessarily uncertain, since it depends on contingencies which cannot be foreseen, and which, if foreseen, are frequently beyond our power. It is not in mortals to command success. No talent, no courage, no industry, and no address can be certain to effect it. But when it is attempted by cunning, disingenuous means, it is usually rendered more difficult of attainment because of the complexity of the scheme and the risk of detection and counteraction. Honesty, in the long run, is therefore the surer policy. It is impossible to thrive without the reputation of it, and it is far easier to be honest, indeed, than to cheat the world into the belief of integrity where it is not. The crooked stratagems, the arts, toils, concealments and self-denials, which are necessary to carry on a successful imposition, are far more onerous and painful than all the duties which a life of probity enjoins; while the consciousness of an upright deportment diffuses through the whole man that security and serenity which infinitely outweighs all the advantages of successful cunning. Nor, in recommending a spirit of independence, is it intended to proscribe the acceptance of friendly aid, freely tendered, and won by no mean solicitation. Children of the same common family, we are bound to help each other in the trials and difficulties of our common pilgrimage; nor should we ever be too proud to receive from others that assistance which it is our duty to render to them. Now such aid is not only more likely to be bestowed, but comes with far greater effect, when there has been a manly and sustained effort to do without it. The spindling plant which has always been supported by a prop is not only unable to stand alone, but can scarcely be sustained by props when the season of fruit arrives; whereas, the slight assistance then bestowed on the hardy tree that, self-sustained, has always braved the breeze, will enable it to bear up under the heaviest and richest burthen. He who trusts to others must necessarily be often disappointed, and the habit of dependence creates a helplessness which is almost incapable of exertion. Fancy dwells on expected aid, until it mistakes its own creations for realities, and the child of illusion wastes life in miserable daydreams, unable to act for himself, and confidently relying on assistance which he is destined never to receive.

Deeply-rooted principles of probity, confirmed habits of industry, and a determination to rely on one's own exertions constitute, then, the great preparation for the discharge of the duties of man, and the best security for performing them with honor to one's self and benefit to others. But it may be asked what is there in such a life of never-ending toil, effort and privation, to recommend it to the acceptance of the young and the gay? Those who aspire to heroic renown, may indeed make up their minds to embrace these "hard doctrines;" but it may be well questioned whether happiness is not preferable to greatness, and enjoyment more desirable than distinction. Let others, if they will, toil "up the steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar"; we choose rather to sport in luxurious ease and careless glee in the valley below. It is, indeed, on those who aspire to eminence that these injunctions are intended to be pressed with the greatest emphasis, not only because a failure in them would be more disastrous than in others, but because they are exposed to greater and more numerous dangers of error. But it is a sad mistake to suppose that they are not suited to all, and are not earnestly urged upon all, however humble their pretensions or moderate their views. Happiness, as well as greatness, enjoyment as well as renown, have no friends so sure as Integrity, Diligence, and Independence. We are not placed here to waste our days in wanton riot or inglorious ease, with appetites perpetually gratified and never palled, exempted from all care and solicitude, with life ever fresh, and joys ever new. He who has fitted us for our condition, and assigned to us its appropriate duties, has not left his work unfinished, and omitted to provide a penalty for the neglect of our obligations. Labor is not more the duty than the blessing of man. Without it there is neither mental nor physical vigor, health, cheerfulness, nor animation; neither the eagerness of hope, nor the capacity to enjoy. Every human being must have some object to engage his attention, excite his wishes, and rouse him to action, or he sinks, a prey to listlessness. For want of proper occupation, see strenuous idleness resorting to a thousand expedients--the race-course, the bottle, or the gaming-table, the frivolities of fashion, the debasements of sensuality, the petty contentions of envy, the grovelling pursuits of avarice, and all the various distracting agitations of vice. Call you these enjoyments? Is such the happiness which it is so dreadful to forego?

"Vast happiness enjoy the gay allies! A youth of follies, an old age of cares, Young yet enervate, old yet never wise; Vice wastes their vigor and their mind impairs. Vain, idle, dissolute, in thoughtless ease, Reserving woes for age, their prime they spend; All wretched, hopeless to the evil days, With sorrow to the verge of life they tend; Grieved with the present, of the past ashamed; They live and are despised, they die, no more are named."

If to every bounty of Providence there be annexed, as assuredly there is, some obligations as a condition for its enjoyment, on us, blest as we have been, and as we now are, with the choicest gifts of heaven here below--with freedom, peace, order, civilization and social virtue--there are unquestionably imposed weighty obligations. You whom I now address will, in a few years, be among the men of the succeeding age. In a country like ours, where the public will is wholly unfettered, and every man is a component part of that country, there is no individual so humble who has not duties of a public kind to discharge. His views and actions have an influence on those of others, and his opinions, with theirs, serve to make up that public will. More especially is this the case with those who, whatever may be their pursuits in life, have been raised by education to a comparative superiority in intellectual vigor and attainments. On you, and such as you, depends the fate of the most precious heritage ever won by the valor, preserved by the prudence, or consecrated by the virtue of an illustrious ancestry--illustrious, not because of factitious titles, but nature's nobles, wise, good, generous, and brave! To you, and such as you, will be confided in deposit the institutions of our renowned and beloved country. Receive them with awe, cherish them with loyalty, and transmit them whole, and, if possible, improved, to your children. Yours will, indeed, be no sinecure office. As the public will is the operative spring of all public action, it will be your duty to make and to keep the public will enlightened. There will always be some error to dispel, some prejudice to correct, some illusion to guard against, some imposition to detect and expose. In aid of these individual efforts, you must provide, by public institutions, for diffusing among the people that general information, without which, they cannot be protected from the machinations of deceivers. As your country grows in years, you must also cause it to grow in science, literature, arts, and refinement. It will be for you to develop and multiply its resources, to check the faults of manners as they rise, and to advance the cause of industry, temperance, moderation, justice, morals, and religion all around you. On you too, will devolve the duty which has been long neglected, but which cannot with impunity be neglected much longer, of providing for the mitigation, and (is it too much to hope for in North Carolina?) for the ultimate extirpation of the worst evil that afflicts the southern part of our confederacy. Full well do you know to what I refer, for on this subject there is, with all of us, a morbid sensitiveness which gives warning even of an approach to it. Disguise the truth as we may, and throw the blame where we will, it is slavery which, more than any other cause, keeps us back in the career of improvement. It stifles industry and represses enterprise--it is fatal to economy and providence, it discourages skill, impairs our strength as a community, and poisons morals at the fountain-head. How this evil is to be encountered, how subdued, is indeed a difficult and delicate inquiry which this is not the time to examine nor the occasion to discuss. I felt, however, that I could not discharge my duty without referring to this subject, as one which ought to engage the prudence, moderation, and firmness of those who, sooner or later, must act decisively upon it.

I would not depress your buoyant spirits with gloomy anticipations, but I should be wanting in frankness if I did not state my convictions that you will be called to the performance of other duties unusually grave and important. Perils surround you, and are imminent, which will require clear heads, pure intentions and stout hearts to discern and overcome. There is no side on which danger may not make its approach, but from the wickedness and madness of factions it is most menacing. Time was, indeed, when factions contended amongst us with virulence and fury, but they were, or affected to be, at issue on questions of principle; now Americans band together under the names of men, and wear the livery and put on the badges of their leaders; then the individuals of the different parties were found side by side, dispersed throughout the various districts of our confederated republic, but now the parties that distract the land are almost identified with our geographical distinctions. Now, then, has come the period foreseen and dreaded by our Washington--by him, "who more than any other individual, founded this, our wide-spreading empire, and gave to our western world independence and freedom"--by him, who with a father's warning voice, bade us beware of "parties founded on geographical discriminations." As yet, the sentiment so deeply planted in the hearts of our honest yeomanry, that union is strength, has not been uprooted. As yet, they acknowledge the truth and feel the force of the homely but excellent aphorism, "United we stand, divided we fall." As yet, they take pride in the name of "the United States"--in the recollection of the fields that were won, the blood which was poured forth, and the glory which was gained in the common cause, and under the common banner of a united country. May God, in His mercy, forbid that I or you, my friends, should live to see the day when these sentiments and feelings shall be extinct! Whenever that day comes, then is the hour at hand when this glorious republic, this once national and confederated Union, which for nearly half a century has presented to the eyes, the hopes and the gratitude of man a more brilliant and lovely image than Plato or More or Harrington ever feigned or fancied, shall be like a tale that is told, like a vision that hath passed away. But these sentiments and feelings are necessarily weakened, and in the end must be destroyed, unless the moderate, the good, and the wise unite to "frown indignantly upon the first dawnings of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together its various parts." Threats of resistance, secession, separation have become common as household words in the wicked and silly violence of public declaimers. The public ear is familiarized with and the public mind will soon be accustomed to the detestable suggestion of _disunion_! Calculations and conjectures, what may the East do without the South, and what may the South do without the East, sneers, menaces, reproaches, and recriminations, all tend to the same fatal end! What can the East do without the South? What can the South do without the East? They may do much; they may exhibit to the curiosity of political anatomists, and the pity and wonder of the world the _disjecta membra_, the sundered, bleeding limbs of a once gigantic body instinct with life and strength and vigor. They can furnish to the philosophic historian another melancholy and striking instance of the political axiom that all republican confederacies have an inherent and unavoidable tendency to dissolution. They will present fields and occasion for border wars, for leagues and counter-leagues, for the intrigues of petty statesmen, the struggles of military chiefs, for confiscations, insurrections, and deeds of darkest hue. They will gladden the hearts of those who have proclaimed that men are not fit to govern themselves, and shed a disastrous eclipse on the hopes of rational freedom throughout the world. Solon in his code proposed no rational punishment for parricide, treating it as an impossible crime. Such with us ought to be the crime of political parricide--the dismemberment of our "fatherland." _Cari sunt parentes, cari liberi, propinqui, familiares; sed omnes omnium caritates patria una complexa est; pro qua quis bonus dubitet mortem oppetere, si ei sit profuturus? Quo est detestabilior istorum immanitas qui lacerarunt omni scelere patriam, et in ea funditus delenda occupati et sunt et fuerunt._

If it must be so, let parties and party men continue to quarrel with little or no regard to the public good. They may mystify themselves and others with disputations on political economy, proving the most opposite doctrines to their own satisfaction, and perhaps to the conviction of no one else on earth. They may deserve reprobation for their selfishness, their violence, their errors, or their wickedness. They may do our country much harm. They may retard its growth, destroy its harmony, impair its character, render its institutions unstable, pervert the public mind, and deprave the public morals. These are indeed evils, and sore evils, but the principle of life remains, and will yet struggle with assured success over these temporary maladies. Still we are great, glorious, united, and free, still we have a name that is revered abroad and loved at home--a name which is a tower of strength to us against foreign wrong and a bond of internal union and harmony, a name which no enemy pronounces but with respect, and which no citizen hears but with a throb of exultation. Still we have that blessed Constitution which, with all its pretended defects and all its alleged violations, has conferred more benefit on man than ever yet flowed from any other human institution--which has established justice, insured domestic tranquillity, provided for the common defense, promoted the general welfare, and which, under God, if we be true to ourselves, will insure the blessings of liberty to us and to our posterity. Surely such a country and such a Constitution have claims upon you, my friends, which cannot be disregarded. I entreat and adjure you, then, by all that is near and dear to you on earth, by all the obligations of patriotism, by the memory of your fathers who fell in the great and glorious struggle, for the sake of your sons whom you would not have to blush for your degeneracy, by all your proud recollections of the past and all your fond anticipations of the future renown of our nation, preserve that country, uphold that Constitution. Resolve that they shall not be lost while in your keeping, and may God Almighty strengthen you to fulfill that vow!

GEORGE E. BADGER.

BY WM. A. GRAHAM.

My acquaintance with Mr. Badger commenced in the latter part of the summer of 1825. He had already completed his service as a judge, which office he resigned at the close of the spring circuit of that year; had contested the palm of forensic eloquence and professional learning with Seawell and Gaston, with a wide increase of reputation, at the recent term of the Supreme Court, and was returned to the practice in Orange, where he had once resided, in generous competition with Murphy, Nash, Yancey, Mangum, Hawks, Haywood, and others--Mr. Ruffin, hitherto the leader at this bar, having been appointed his successor on the bench of the Superior Court.

He was then a little turned of thirty years of age. One half of his time since his majority had been passed upon the bench, yet his fame as a lawyer was fully established; and though he doubtless afterwards added vastly to his stores of erudition, yet in quickness of perception, readiness of comprehension, clear and forcible reasoning, elegant and imposing diction, in all that constitutes an orator and advocate, he had attained an eminence hardly surpassed at any period of his life. From that time and before it, I know not how long, till the day he was stricken by the disease which terminated his life, in North Carolina, at least, his name was on every tongue. He was not only marked and distinguished, but an eminent man. So bright and shining a character could not but attract general observation; and though

"Hard is his fate on whom the public gaze Is fixed forever, to detract or praise";