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infamous outrages perpetrated by the Mexicans upon our troops and our soil. I shall never forget his gallant bearing on that occasion; his flashing eye, his indignant exclamations, and the earnest manner in which he declared his intention to take part in the vengeance which he knew his country would wreak upon those who had thus rashly dared to violate her soil and insult her flag. Sir, the first peal of the tocsin had barely reached us the alarm of war had barely rung out in the land, when he resigned his seat upon this floor, flew to the standard of his country, and upon the glorious field of Buena Vista poured out his life's-blood in defence of her honor and her rights. Sir, I have never heard the name of that gallant man mentioned on this floor, in any of the many complimentary notices which have been taken of our army and our officers. Yet of one thing I am very certain: I do know, that so long as patriotism, so long as selfsacrificing devotion to country, shall be deemed a virtue worthy of the estimation of mankind-so long as bravery, chivalry, and noble daring shall be prized by the American people--so long shall live in their grateful recollections, so long shall flourish and grow green in their hearts, the name, the memory, and the virtues of Archibald Yell.

LVI-GENOA IN HER BEAUTY.

CHARLES SUMNER.

LET me bring to your mind Genoa, called the Superb City of Palaces, dear to the memory of American childhood as the birthplace of Christopher Columbus, and one of the spots first enlightened by the morning beams of civilization, whose merchants were princes, and whose rich argosies, in those early days, introduced to Europe the choicest products of the East, the linen of Egypt, the spices of Arabia, and the silks of Samarcand. She still sits in queenly pride, as she sat then, her mural crown studded with towers-her churches rich with marble floors and rarest pictures-her palaces of ancient doges and admirals yet spared by the hand of time— her close streets, thronged by one hundred thousand inhabitants at the foot of the maritime Alps, as they descend to the blue and tideless waters of the Mediterranean Sea-lean

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ing with her back against their strong mountain-sides, overshadowed by the foliage of the fig-tree and the olive, while the orange and lemon fill with their perfume the air where reigns perpetual spring. Who can contemplate such a city without delight?

LVII.-BEST POLICY IN REGARD TO NATURALIZATION.

LEWIS C. LEVIN.

EACH hour will behold this tide of foreign emigration rising higher and higher, growing stronger and stronger, rushing bolder and bolder.

The past furnishes no test of the future, and the future threatens to transcend all calculations of this formidable evil. View this great subject in any light, and it still flings back upon us the reflected rays of reason, patriotism, and philanthropy. The love of our native land is an innate, holy, and irradicable passion. Distance only strengthens it-time only concentrates the feeling that causes the tear to gush from the eye of the emigrant, as old age peoples by the vivid memory the active present with the happy past. In what land do we behold the foreigner, who denies this passion of the heart? It is nature's most holy decree, nor is it in human power to repeal the law, which is passed on the mother's breast, and confirmed by the father's voice. The best policy of the wise statesman is to model his laws on the holy ordinances of naIf the heart of the alien is in his native land-if all his dearest thoughts and fondest affections cluster around the altar of his native gods-let us not disturb his enjoyments by placing this burden of new affections on his bosom, through the moral force of an oath of allegiance, and the onerous obligation of political duties that are against his sympathies, and call on him to renounce feelings that he can never expel from his bosom. Let us secure him the privilege at least of mourning for his native land, by withholding obligations he cannot discharge either with fidelity, ability, or pleasure. Give him time, sir, to wean himself from his early love. A long list of innumerable duties will engage all his attention during his political novitiate, in addition to those comprised in reforming the errors and prejudices of the nursery, and in creating and

ture.

forming new opinions, congenial to the vast field which lies spread before him in morals, politics, and life. A due reflection will convince every alien, when his passions are not inflamed by the insidious appeals of senseless demagogues, that his highest position is that of a moral agent in the full enjoyment of all the attributes of civil freedom, preparing the minds and hearts of his children to become faithful, intelligent, and virtuous republicans, born to a right that vindicates itself by the holy ties of omnipotent nature, and which, while God sanctions and consecrates, no man can dispute.

LVIII-AN APPEAL FOR OREGON.

J. J. M'DOWELL.

Is the American heart dead that pulsated so nobly and patriotically in days gone by? Is there no remaining love for the graves of our ancestors, our honor, and our liberty? No, that heart is not dead, thank God! I heard the voice, the other day, on this floor, of an aged and venerable member from Massachusetts, who lived far back in the eighteenth century, asserting that the whole of Oregon was ours, and that the question ought now to be settled. Sir, my heart throbbed a warm response to that patriotic declaration, coming from one who has lived and acted with that noble band of patriots that gave birth to this Republic, imparting to it that vitality and vigor that command the love and admiration of all who can appreciate the liberality of her principles or the sublimity of her destiny. He seemed to be the only remaining one of that group of intellectual constellations that shone in times gone by, and threw a lustre upon the history of their own country and of the world, that time nor circumstances can obscure or destroy. Though the ravages of time are visible in the palsied hand that was raised in attestation of our right to Oregon, and the spray of the political Jordan he had passed, with other worthies that were no more, still was white upon his locks, yet there beat in that bosom on this question an American heart; aye, sir, it pulsates with a warmth that was imparted to it by the fire that fell upon it from the altar of liberty, at which he and the fathers of the Constitution worshipped together in days gone by. May its

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genial heat be imparted to the heart of every man in this House and to the heart of the whole American people!

Sir, I fancy that I hear the people of the West responding to the sentiments uttered by that venerable man-that the mighty heart of that great giantess has begun to pulsate with a double vigor, and that I hear the echo of its throbs across the Alleghanies. Yes! I fancy that I see gathering upon her brow a tempest of indignation, that will burst upon the devoted heads of any set of men, or party, that would defeat the consummation of the measures before the House for the full occupation of Oregon, and the protection of our citizens; or that would surrender one foot of our territory there to satiate the cupidity of Great Britain. Her sons would prefer making the territory north of forty-nine degrees their buryingground, rather than seal, by its surrender to by peace from England, the infamy and eternal disgrace of their country. They ask nothing but what is just, and will not submit to anything that is wrong. She offers the noble bosoms of her sons, as a living, unconquerable bulwark, to protect the country and our rights. She asks the boon at the hands of this government of rearing aloft the stars and stripes, and planting them on every hill-top and valley in Oregon-aye, sir, on the shores of the mighty Pacific, there to guard them with her noblest sons, and there to let them wave in triumph, till the glorious principles of liberty and Christianity shall have begirt the world, and consummated universal liberty, civil and religious, to man.

LIX. ALWAYS READY BUT NEVER RASH.

H. BEDINGER.

THOSE Who, like myself, have stood amid the sublime scenery at Harper's Ferry, and watched the eagle there in his favorite haunts, now perched in solitary grandeur on some tall peak or towering crag-now wheeling into the heavens with his eye upon the sun-those who have delighted to watch him thus, know something of his nature and his habits. They know he is never rash, that he makes no unnecessary noise, or idle fluttering; that he never strikes until he is ready, and when he does strike, it is with the rapidity and

deadly certainty of heaven's lightning! I witnessed there, upon one occasion, sir, a scene which I wish I had the skill or ability to depict, for it was very beautiful. There was a black, lowering, and portentous cloud in the west, charged with thunder; over its dark bosom the red lightning gleamed and danced, and the voice of the thunder came forth in tones which shook the hills. An eagle came swooping on from the east, directly in the face of the cloud itself. Onward he came with the rapidity of an arrow, seemingly resolved to penetrate the dark barrier, and make his onward way in spite of all resistance. Now he plunged into the dark bosom of the cloud, as if determined to snatch the lightnings of heaven. Anon he wheeled aloft as if resolved to scale the summit; and his shriek came forth in fierce defiance of the angry thunder. But suddenly he made one majestic swoop-not backward, sir, no retreat in his nature -but directly along the very verge of the cloud, skirting this Blue Ridge, and perched himself upon one of its loftiest peaks. He paused one moment, with bowed wings and glancing eyes -the cloud blew over without even the smallest pattering of rain, the sun came out again from the cloudless heaven, the eagle sprang from his perch and pursued his course far in the dim regions of the trackless West!

So, sir, might it be with us, if we could but curb our impetuosity and imprudence; if we could but pause and ponder, and wait, for a brief period, the dark cloud now lowering upon our political horizon would pass away without difficulty of danger, and the " Eagle of America" would take its onward flight, unresisted and unopposed, to the rich regions of Oregon.

LX.--SECESSION.

SECESSION! Peaceable Secession !

DANIEL WEBSTER.

Sir, your eyes and mine are never destined to see that miracle. The dismemberment of this vast country without convulsion! The breaking up of the fountains of the great deep without ruffling the surface! Who is so foolish-I beg everybody's pardon -as to expect to see any such thing? Sir, he who sees these States, now revolving in harmony around a common centre, and expects to see them quit their places and fly off

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