Topics: Military

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A Plea for the Militia System 

in A

DISCOURSE

Delivered Before the
Ancient and Honorable
Artillery Company
on Its
197^th ANNIVERSARY
June 1, 1835

By J.G. Palfrey, D.D.
Professor in the University of Cambridge

 

Published by the Company’s Request

 

Boston:
Dutton and Wentworth, Printers

DISCOURSE

Apocalypse III.2.
Be watchful; and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die.

One hundred and ninety-eight years ago, my hearers, (the colony of Massachusetts Bay then consisting of only fifteen towns,) the associated founders of the military company, by whose invitation we are to-day assembled, petitioned the governor and council for a charter.  At first it was denied; the council, as the journal of that admirable chief magistrate, the ancestor of the company’s present commander, records, considering from the example of the Praetorian band among the romans, and Templars in Europe, how dangerous it might be to erect a standing authority of military men, which might easily in time over throw the civil power?  By the following year, however, the apprehension had subsided, and the application found more favor; and on the first Monday of June, 1638, the first election of officers took place under a charter, containing, among other peculiar privileges, the provision, that, on the days of the company’s monthly trainings, no ordinary town- meetings should be held within this part of the jurisdiction; a singular testimony to the consequence of men, without whose presence municipal business could not be safely transacted. The object of the institution is set forth in terms of the preamble, which recites, that divers gentlemen and others, out of their care of the public weal and safety, by the advancement of the military art, and exercise of arms, have desired license of the court, to join themselves in one company.  It was designed to be a school of officers; and actually embraced on its first roll the names of all the commissioned officers of the train-bands of the neighboring towns.  These were voluntary associations, which constituted the whole martial force of the colony, till the organization of the militia in four regiments, corresponding to the four counties, in 1644.
            The officers of the militia, like those of the primitive train-bands, continued generally to qualify themselves for their commands, by service in the ranks of the Ancient and Honorable Company.  It was this militia of Massachusetts victoriously through the most gloomy period she ever saw, that of the Indian wars, at the close of the seventeenth century; and which humbled the French power in this western world before that of England, in the war of 1753 to 17561.  It was the militia of Massachusetts, which, after standing alone the first shock of the revolutionary contest, furnished one soldier in every four, through the war which followed, to the continental army; and which, (to speak of a less conspicuous service, yet one on which the salvation of the commonwealth, and of the sovereignty of cis-atlantic law depended,) crushed, in 1786, the insurrection in the western counties.
            When, in the more recent war, an exasperated enemy, its vast resources just let loose from the fields of continental Europe, was hovering on our coast, and the national forces were withdrawn to the inland frontier, so complete was the militia organization, that, at twenty hours’ notice, companies fully equipped and provisioned, had in several  instances reached, from twenty miles’ distance, the point of alarm; and they garrisoned satisfactorily the line of maritime forts, which the national troops had abandoned, thus securing the ports and cities.
            But, after the time of danger had past, the militia began to be affected by other influences.  The decline of its own efficiency, along with the course which public opinion took in relation to it, is to be seen in the history of laws, thenceforward from time to time enacted.  In 1823, the three legal company trainings in a year, in addition to the annual spring inspection, and autumnal review, were reduced to one.  In 1830, all persons, between the ages of thirty and forty-five, were exempted from military service; a measure of course attended by a vast reduction of numbers, and a great inconvenience, (in religion thinly people,) in collecting sufficient numbers for purposes of discipline.  And, in 1834, all parades, independent of the annual inspection of arms, were abolished, except for volunteer companies; and the members of these were authorized to withdraw on giving six months’ notice.
            The consequence of these measures has been probably much more destructive to the militia system, than their advocates anticipated; certainly more speedily destructive than their opponents fore-told.  The volunteer companies, kept together hitherto by an ambition in their members to do better than others what all were compelled at any rate to do, and required now, when collected in masses, to assemble at points distant from one another, are, far and near, rapidly disbanding; and the public pecuniary bounty, (though it has been raised this very year,) being what a Massachusetts citizen is unused to taking, for preparing to defend his own fireside and freedom, apparently does absolutely nothing to obstruct the tendency.  Officers, elected to the highest posts, finding no attraction in a command, which is only not nominal when it calls for some obnoxious exercise of authority, are constantly declining to serve at all, or soliciting to be discharged. And into such contempt, under such circumstances, has the institution fallen, that it was actually found necessary to enact a law, at the last session of the General Court, authorizing the commander in chief to withhold commissions from “idiots, lunatics, common drunks, vagabonds, paupers, and persons convicted of infamous crimes, when elected to militia commands; several instances of such elections being known to have occurred.
            Being brought into this place, by the flattering indulgence of this company, but without any expectation or any wish of my own, I would use the opportunity, in endeavoring to say a word, (which I hope and pray may be spoken in the spirit, becoming a well-intentioned citizen, and a Christian minister,) in behalf of the once efficient and admired, now apparently expiring militia system of Massachusetts.  And if I argue against the fitness of existing laws, I offer no disrespect to the law-making power.  The system is all unsettled.  To a great extent it is acknowledged to be so.  Should I exaggerate much, if I alleged  that there is a universal conviction, that, if the militia system is not to be sustained, some existing burdens may and should be dispensed with; and that if it is to be sustained, the existing laws are altogether insufficient?—and I do not content myself with saying, that the Federal Constitution, the paramount law of the land, requires that it be sustained,  because the case will be more satisfactorily rested on its own merits; though I confess I do not see, how anyone can take the oath of office to support that Constitution, who means to use his authority  to the sacrifice of the militia system, or to neglect even to afford it his positive support.
            I perceive no more convenient way of approaching the point at which I aim, than by adverting to some of the causes, which may have led to encroachments upon the ancient organization.  When I have asked for these, I have sometimes been referred to the progress of principles of international peace, as indicated and extended by the formation of Peace Societies.  With some opportunities of judging, (not perhaps, however, such as would authorize me to speak with confidence,) I believe that this cause has had no very considerable operation.  I believe it, and I hope it.  I hope it, as a friend to the militia system, against which I should be distressed to think, that the influence of a large body of active and philanthropic men as to be enlisted, on the ground of an erroneous abstract principle; the militia system, the trustworthy instrument of defensive war, and the safe substitute for that institution of standing armies, whose tendencies are essentially offensive.  I hope it, as a friend to Peace Societies, which could hardly be more discredited or checked, than by identification with them of the theory of the unlawfulness of defensive war.  I am no skeptic respecting either the excellence or the practicability of that enterprise, in which these societies have been engaged.  When I mark the wide action of the renovated power of Christianity, to control those bad actions from which almost all wars, (shall I say, all wars, if traced to the encroaching party?) have proceeded; the juster style of reasoning, which to a great extent prevails, on questions both of moral right and of public interest; the multiplied relations of commercial and literary, yes, and of religious intercourse, to which war brings interruption and disturbance; and the increased and increasing power of the people, whose interest offensive war can never be;–when I turn to facts, and observe what a constantly progressive triumph of humanity there has been, upon the whole, in amelioration of the practices of war, and what a revolution  of sentiment has been witnessed, even within the century, in respect to usages hardly before suspected, such, for instance, as that of the private pillage, (under public commission, but for private gain,) of property upon the ocean,–a revolution so great, that now, I will not say a conscientious man, but a man who had a character to keep, could hardly, I suppose, be found to touch the unclean thing, and many a one, with no fastidious sensibility either, would well-nigh as soon suffer himself to be called a pirate, as to be called a privateers man;–when I remember, that the scheme of a court of nation has, in these last years, actually been put in force, if under circumstances going to impair the worth of the example, through the exhibition of selfish designs, still in a way perfectly to illustrate the capacity of the plan to be prosecuted to ends of beneficence and justice, when the point of honor should be deficiently raised by mutual pledges and a sense of judicial responsibility;– and when I advert o such instances, as that of our own last controversy with England, submitted to the arbitration of an inferior mutually friendly power, rather than to the chance of arms, simply because the parties were wise enough to see, that the morals, and dignity, and interests of both, dictated this for the reasonable course; when I weigh these and other truths and facts, most important in the connection, I see, my hearers, ample, overflowing encouragement for labors designed to teach the nations, that they ought, and that they can, and they had better, live together as brethren.
            But, if any go further, and say, that life, and children, and liberty, and country, are never to be forcibly defended against unlawful violence, I find myself obliged to diverge from the path of such.  I must do it, following my own convictions of duty as a reasonable and a Christian man.  In my view, they read very erroneously the book of God’s will, equally as it is written on fleshly tables of the heart, and on the pages of recorded revelation.  I am tempted to ask myself have they weighed that whereof they affirm.  Does their imagination represent to them no extreme case, (–for let it be observed, the very question they raise, is on extreme cases, no other,–) in which they would think it an unlawful abandonment of duty, not to resist, to the last violence, the violent hand?  Let them answer that inquiry to their own consciences.  I find only one way of answering it to mine. I make no question here of rights of self-defence; of privilege, and the like.  I know no privilege to be brought into such considerations, except that of doing the will of God, our Maker and our Judge, to the best of our knowledge and the utmost of our power.  The life he gave me is his trust resting with me.  I am bound to use it for his glory, in the promotions of the objects for which he made me to live.  As different circumstances, the basis of different obligations, dictate, I may so use it by keeping or by resigning it.  The one or the other may become my duty; and whichever becomes my duty, that I am cheerfully to do.  In God’s service, (that is, in the way of acting my own allotted part,) I must be as ready to carry my life to the scaffold or the stake, as to the field of battle; so I must be as ready to give my own life or that of others on the battle-field, as my own on the scaffold or at the stake.  Let each determine the question, for his own government.  But I must be further advised, before I perceive how a good hope for eternity could be reasonably enjoyed upon a death-bed, by him, who, in the one case, any one than in the other, had shrunk from the terrible appeal. 
            Am I told, however, that our Lord himself said, ‘Resist not evil?’  He did say it; and let it be observed, that the words prohibit , not sanguinary resistance, not forcible or restraining resistance, but all resistance, all obstructing of the evil-doer, whatsoever.  Taken then from an unlimited rule of universal action, they would no more directly, and absolutely, and unequivocally, prohibit military defense, than they would forbid the public officer to hold back the incendiary’s hands while he applied the match to a granary, or charge the keeper to desist, who was binding a madman.—I cannot go here into a question of scriptural interpretation.  But does this remark suggest the propriety of inquiring, whether the precept in question was not intended to bear upon the course of persons, commissioned under peculiar circumstance, to a peculiar duty, which duty, under those circumstances, the course thus prescribed was the appropriate ne to perform?  The text connecting itself, so far, with that other in the same discourse, where the same persons seem to be directed to have no more care for their sustenance, than did the fowls of the air and the lilies of the field, and with the direction to the disciples to take no money for the journey, nor scrip, nor staff, nor so much as a change of garments.  Arrangements for personal accommodation would obstruct the object.  Therefore, these were to be forborne, and God would supply the want.  Resistance on the part of the early preachers of our religion would have been unavailing.  It would also have prematurely exasperated against them an exterminating power.  It would have lost them the hearing, which it was their special business to obtain.  Non-resistance, under their peculiar circumstances, was their safety and strength.  So it may, no doubt, under the like, or under different circumstances, be ours; and then it will also become our duty.  But to make the precept quoted sustain the inference sometimes deduced, one must first show, either that it was designed for universal application, or else that there is a similarity between the case which it contemplated, and that to which it is now applied, as to give it an equal applicability to both.  And in either result, I think, certainly in the former, the precept will then require to be taken in the large comprehensiveness at which I just now hinted; a fact which seems to have been wholly overlooked.
            When it is further urged, that non-resistance has, in instances, which are appealed to, actually proved the most effectual protection, I suppose that no inference can be safely drawn from an induction so exceedingly limited as has been made, except of a truth which needs little confirmation, however much more consideration It may deserve; namely, that a kind and inoffensive deportment, is, to the extent that other causes allow it to operate, a most conciliating quality; to which I would add, that it may be not the less, but the more so, when it is known that he, who practices it, will defend himself from outrage in the last resort.  Surely no one would undertake to argue, on such grounds, I the face of all the history of man that the inoffensive are exposed to no wrong or that cupidity and brutality will be infallibly disarmed, as often as they can be indulged without opposition or hazard.—But I must leave this subject.  To undertake to pursue its discussion, to a length in any degree proportioned to the importance communicated to it by the excellent character of some, whose theory here I told to be all wrong, would be to exclude for today every other topic.  If their endeavor seems to us, in some views, as mischievous as it is honest, this should not make us impatient of it, both because of the motive by which it is impelled, and because the whole history of man’s progress is that of a struggling of truth towards its rightful place of sway, though a throng of opposing, and mutually opposing errors.  The remarks which follow I must be content to address to such, as admit the lawfulness of defensive military action.
            Again; I have heard it said that the friends of temperance have exerted a strong influence, adverse to the integrity of the militia system.  It may be so; but having, till recently, had a somewhat intimate acquaintance with the progress of measures and of opinions touching this subject, I do not recollect to have seen an argument of the kind supposed.  It was again and again stated, it is true, that, at the numerous meetings which military parades occasioned, mournful exhibitions of intemperance were made.  But the same thing was affirmed of all occasions which brought crowds together, however needful, and (must I say it?) however sacred.  Intemperance was to a melancholy extent the habit of the country, and, being so, of course painful manifestations of it were made, as often as numbers of men were for any reason assembled.  Am I bidden to ask the militia officer, what he has witnessed disgraceful in this way, at the parade and the review?  I will put that question; for all facts are wanted, which will yield to avert an unspeakable calamity, and expose a crying sin.  But I must go further than to the militia man, and inquire of the judge, and the municipal officer, yes, and the minister, what they have witnessed of the same kind, among the multitudes collected by the court-week, and the town-meeting, and the ordination-day.  Will you shut up the courts then?  Will you interdict the municipal assemblies?  Will you cease to give a ministry to the churches?  No; wise men do not so leap to a conclusion.  The evil will disappear from crowds of all kinds, and those assembled by one occasion as well as by another, in proportion as the taste for it are subdued in the individuals who compose those crowds ; and in the meantime, let, of course, the advancing reform be aided, by all such safe and practical laws, as may prevent the excitement of crowds from being accompanied with peculiar temptations to excess.  Our legislation has, in fact, been more sensitive on this subject in relation to the militia, than to any other public institution; a law having been passed, five years ago, to prohibit those entertainments of militia electors, by their officers, which had up to that time been practiced.  In the present state of enlightened opinion on this matter, what the Commonwealth forbears to do, in the way of restraint and security, may be left with strong hope to the vigilance of the municipal corporations.  When the authorities of the city, with its more mixed population, have been able to expel spirituous liquor, even from the theatres, (at the cost, perhaps, of some odium to those who first moved in the measure, but of nothing worse,) I greatly err, if the ‘village Hampdens’ are found so far in the rear of the reform, as to endure its polluting presence on the militia muster grounds.  But the truth is, that the mountain of the Temperance reformation stands too strong, to admit of any hazard being incurred in its support, of injury to nay of the great institutions of the country.  It is doing grievous injustice to that enterprise, to suppose it is so weak as to need to ask a sacrifice in its behalf, at the hands of anything else that is good.
            But I am persuaded that disaffection to the militia system, considered as a wide-spread sentiment among the people, is to be traced to quite a different cause from such as have now been touched upon.  It is, if I mistake not, among the earliest developments of a principle, from which many of our most important institutions may ultimately prove to be equally in danger.  As such, I call on good citizens to watch it.  I refer to an imperfect perception on the part of those, for whose benefit our political system was framed, and at whose mercy it all lies, of the permanent worth of arrangements may cost,  I am persuaded that to this it is, beyond almost everything else, that the solicitude of the American patriot requires to be directed.  Our institutions, the fruit of great political experience and forecast, were most wisely and honestly devised, to secure the greatest good of the greatest number.  Make the people see, that they have that character, that tendency, that fitness,, and the people are sufficiently their own and one another’s friends, to bear cheerfully all burdens incident to their support.  But a political system, embracing the necessary safe-guards to law and liberty, (that pair, so strictly wedded, that one directly follows the other to the grave,) is necessarily somewhat complicated, its parts requiring careful reflection to discern all their use.  And the object of some of its most onerous provisions may be the prevention of evils, which, while, occurring, they would be so great, that they demand meanwhile the most scrupulous precautions, are yet not apparent except to the practiced or jealous eye, perhaps remote, incidental, seemingly or really improbable,–I should be ready to suppose, for the argument’s sake merely possible; and such provisions are of course always liable to become distasteful to all but the reflecting, as often as their burdens press.  When our system was proposed for adoption, men whose minds comprehended and could simplify the whole scheme, took pains to cause the use of every portion of it to be understood.  The American people understood it, and perceived its excellence the more clearly from recent severe experience of evils, whose recurrence they saw it was well devised to prevent; and understanding, they cordially adopted it.  But I greatly fear, that the want of perpetually repeated expositions of the principles of our government is already beginning to be felt; and as soon as from this cause, ignorance of them, or inattention to them, shall come extensively to prevail, everything we ought to hold dearest is thenceforward at the mercy of the mistake or the discontent of the hour.  A present inconvenience is felt, and the reason why it should be borne, as the reasonable and the necessary price of something precious, is overlooked, and honest opposition is tempted.  A judge decides a case, as we think, wrongly, and we indignant that we cannot command the advantage of an annual election of judges, to supersede him next year by a better man; forgetting what a blessed boon the constitution has secured to us, as it has secured to all, in giving to us in our time of innocent peril, an impartial judge; a judge so impartial, that he would not let a hair of our head be touched, though our head should be called for by a whole clamorous community; a judge, so impartial as he could not be, if opposition , at any time, to the will of an uninformed and excited majority, would be a forfeiture to him of the means of living.  We are impatient that a national measure, which e think good, should be checked by the action of the more permanent legislative branch, and we complain that any constitutional hindrance should exist to the instantaneous consummation of what we call the people’s will; forgetting what safety must unavoidably be often found  in the suspension of an excitement, which, indulged, it might be self-ruinous, and in the effectual expression of a judgment, which being more deliberate and responsible, may be expected to prove more wise.  So the interruption, and fatigue, and expensiveness of militia duty are felt as an annoyance.  Show us, it is said; an enemy to repulse, or a usurper to demolish, or an insurrection to quell, and then we see why we should submit to it.  But we dwell among our own people.  No foreign hostility molests or makes us afraid.  We have no ambitious ruler, or factious citizen, who seems to be entertaining a design against our liberties; and such is the prevailing sense of the majesty of law, that the civic force seems ample to secure to it respect and efficacy.  And, under such circumstances, the annoyance does appear to us to be without a sufficient corresponding benefit.—Accordingly, the young man, who is subject to do militia duty, is dissatisfied to make the sacrifice of his day’s work or his day’s leisure.  The old man, who is not subject to it, is dissatisfied to have his work left on his own hands; the farmer missing his sons and his laborers, the mechanic his journeymen, the merchant his clerks.  The rich complain of the cost of ammunition, carried to the town accounts.  They are told, to reconcile them, that the militia charge is an outlay for the security of the property of the rich; and so it is, for it is for the maintenance of liberty and law, and these again protect property, just as they protect life.  And then the poor, hearing the rich thus argued with, remonstrate on their part, ‘if this kind of work is to protect property of the rich, let the rich do it, or pay to have it done:’ forgetting that the argument would apply equally well to the interruption and trouble of their attendance at the town-meetings, to see the election of good magistrates.  The citizen, high or low, whosoever he be, goes as much to the town-meeting as he goes to the militia parade-ground, to secure the property of the rich; but it is by doing what will at the same time protect the day’s wages of the laborer, and what, while it protects property, will at the same time protect liberty and life,–the liberty and life of both, rich and poor together.—the argument forgets another thing.  May I venture to state it, so revolting is the consequence?  ‘Let the rich do the militia service,” it is said, “if they wish it done.’  Abandon then, the arms and the discipline to them, and create at once an aristocratic standing army.  Are we ready to take such counsel?  ‘Let the rich pay for the service, if the service is wanted.’  That is, let the rich have an army in their pay.  Does the spirit of Massachusetts brook that proposal?—So easily my hears, do stimulating addresses to the selfish passions
of the people, resolve themselves into applications to them to desert their own cause.
            After the war of independence, that militia system, the wreck of which still survives, (which, I will not say in the words of the context, has ‘yet a name to live, but is dead,’)  was incorporated by our ancestors into our institutions, because they hoped that they were establishing aa reign of liberty and law, and the experience of the world had shown them , that this must be maintained, if at all, by a sufficient military force, or, better, by the show of a sufficient military force, to discourage or defeat aggression; and they conceived that to none could the defense of liberty and law be so safely entrusted, as to those who were personally interested for their preservation ; and they probably would have said, that in their thought, the sacrifice of some days in every week, instead of some days in every year, (had that been needful to obtain sufficient security,) would have been a cheap price in such a purchase.  If we do not like the arrangement, what will we have instead?  Will we have a large standing army?  My hearers, you would not listen to me, if I should undertake to argue that question.  There is no institution, of which you are so irreconcilably suspicious.  You know, that where that exists, despotism exists; the despotism of the movers of the colossal and unthinking machine, whether one, or few, or many.  You cannot endure the thought of having those, in any strength, within your borders, whose sympathies together are the sympathies of a camp, whose will is the unexamined will of their commander, whose trade id force, who are essentially trained to despotic principles by the habit on their own part of implicit obedience to authority, and whose elaborate discipline enables them, under some circumstances, to cope with a large preponderance of numbers, and put on them the fetters which they wear themselves.
            Will we then look to a voluntarily organized force to give such protection to the country, and such support to the laws, as emergencies may require?  If it were not that I conceive, that, under existing circumstances, such a force is little likely to be collected to any large amount, I should tremble to think of what our recent laws have done to bring about such an arrangement.  Already the Commonwealth’s militia at large is essentially disbanded.  What remains are the volunteer companies.  “A select militia,’ said John Adams ‘will soon become a standing army.’  Here is already that select militia.  It is further composed, (that is, in the contemplation of the law, I cannot say whether as yet in practice,) of mercenary troops.  Their pay has been raised within the year, and may be raised again and again, till it shall be an effectual lure to recruits.  Moreover, there is this great peculiarity in this paid force that it is offered by itself, with the exception only of the highest posts, which are filled by the government.  The law clearly points to a monopoly of military practice and skill, in a self –constituted and self-officered body.  I do not believe, I repeat, that the system is permanent; else I should say, that it could not be wisely viewed without extreme alarm.  I content myself with asking, whether its tendencies are not most distinctly anti-republican.  Could the people of this Commonwealth long see, without irrepressible uneasiness, a body of troops among them, collected by mutual pledges, and permitted and encouraged to bring themselves to the highest state of discipline and military sufficiency, while at the same time the body of the people were abandoning even the inferior discipline, in which a partial security would , in case of need, be found, and under the name of leaving to others the trouble, were in act doing a different thing, that is, leaving to others the power?  If the scheme should have time allowed to develop its tendencies, I make no question that reason would be found for reviving, (and on more serious grounds,) the apprehension of our primitive magistrates, when they scrupled about the incorporation of this company, recollecting the instances of the Praetorian band in Rome, and the Templars in feudal Europe.
            If we take none of these risks, what will we do?  Will we go without any array of physical force, for our institutions to rest upon in the last resort?  We may say this, and we may hope that we shall be able to do it harmlessly, till a painful and costly experience comes to undeceive us.  By the ordination of Providence, vigilance is the price to be paid for safely, which is a pearl of great price.  Precaution and peril take each other’s places, just as surely as the sun’s departure is followed by night.  We say, we see no danger.  It is because we have seen precautions, by which the element s of danger were over-awed, and checked from springing into actual being.  The energetic militia movement in Shay’s rebellion, for instance, was a solemn lesson read by the Constitution and the law, not to be forgotten while that generation lasted.  Let the precautions disappear, and as certainly as human nature is not as yet completely reformed, the danger, in some or in all of its forms, will reappear.  And when this shall befall, we shall have at last to take the steps which we shall then no longer be able to doubt that it demands, and to take them then not only under the conviction, that they would have been taken more effectually, if taken more seasonable resort to them would probably have saved us all the various injury, resulting from danger which has at length arisen.  And it is under the most profound and anxious conviction of this, that I, for one, desire to see the strength of Massachusetts all ready to provide, in any emergency, for the safety of Massachusetts, under the direction of her wisdom, as exerted and expressed through the constitutional organs.  I would have it already to apply to a foreign assailant, at every point of her border, ‘hitherto mayest thou come, but no further,’ no, no further than to that sacred line.  I would have it prepared, in any time of actual or threatened commotion which may come, to take that attitude of dignity, forbearance, and gravity, but decision, which only a well-grounded self-reliance for the possession of means to meet consequences, will sustain; and to speak one of those loud voices of command, for the integrity of this union, which may be needed, the Omniscient only knows how soon.  I would have the militia of the country in a condition to make the usurpation of arbitrary power so impossible, that the very thought may not reach, I will not say its birth, but so much as its rude conception, in any ambitious bosom.  I would not care so much to urge, that that physical force, whose preventive or remedial uses are so indispensable to the existence of a state, should be embodied in a militia, rather than in a mercenary army, because it is a much less expensive security against danger of foreign invasion; though certain it is, that, while its pecuniary burden is not very seriously felt, military establishments have always been a ,most oppressive tax upon military governments, and a most multitudinous and exhausting host that must be, which would cover our extended frontier.  I would not even chiefly insist, that, while a militia costs less than a very insignificant standing force, it is actually more effective, for purposes of defense of a country of geographical position like ours, than the largest standing army which the treasury of the most thriving country could support; more effective, unquestionably, their comparative numbers considered, whatever weight may be thought, by one or another, to belong to the facts, that the militia-man has that intimate acquaintance with the natural features of the region he is defending, which is often worth books full of science, and that it is his own hearth and altar that the militia man defends;- how effective, let Concord and Bunker Hill bear witness, though even these are not fair examples, for the aggressor of that day, in consequence in past relations  of the country, had first obtained peaceable foothold on the shore.  In an argument so practical, I would not even put prominently forward the sensible principles of the case, and press the truth, (or what I hold for it,) that a militia force is the reasonable, as well as the cheap defense of nations; that the ancient, superseded theory on the subject, was the true one; that, with some necessary exceptions, military service is of that nature,, that it ought to be done by men for themselves; that it ought not to be delegated; and especially, that it is a proper tribute to freedom, to defend her by a freeman’s , and not a mercenary’s arm.  Upon the thought, that a militia organization is the strong arm of only defensive war, I should be tempted, for reasons of philanthropy, to dwell;– so rooted and quick is my conviction, that an offensive war is a measure only approached in its wickedness by its folly; that there is no more cruel plague of men, and no more outrageous and high-handed offense against their Maker; and that, in a standing army, there are strong and ever-active tendencies to offensive war, while a militia, at least that of a prosperous country, is hardly capable of being used for purposes of offense;–hardly capable, except in one of those rare contingencies, in which there arises reason for it to do violence to all its habits, to strike a sudden blow abroad, so as to anticipate and foreclose a severer struggle at home.  But I would, at all events, implore the patriot to reflect, that a sufficient physical force is indispensable to sustain, in the Last resort, the empire of liberty and law, while the knowledge of its having been provided will afford the best attainable security against their ever being brought to an arbitration of blood; and that, on the other hand, the only force not dangerous to liberty and law, is the force of the legally-armed free-citizen.  I would beseech him to remember, that he should be attentive to sustain a sufficient militia system, because a militia force is the only large force that a free people can trust for defense against foreign assault, and because it is a force, which, giving it such organization as to do the behests of law, a free people must trust, if they mean to be secure against usurpation and against anarchy.  And if this be so, the people, who, because of any attending unavoidable inconvenience, will be discouraged from keeping it up, are as unworthy of the liberties they enjoy, as they are actually in danger of losing them.
            Of the liberties they enjoy, I say.  And that is the word, rather than the liberties they possess.  For possession implies something of a power to keep, and that of which I am speaking might, under the circumstances supposed, prove to be no more than a possession which was dreamed of.  Do you tell me again, that no danger is visible?  You only say what alarms me most.  I would rather, for security’s sake, that you would use almost any other language.  I hold, that there always is public danger, as often as the persuasion exists that there is none. And if there is no present danger, has it never come upon us, and come suddenly?  And have there been no other times, when it would have possessed us, but that we knew we had that, wherewith we should oppress it?  Can none of us remember the time, when, rebellion being formally menaced by the temporary authorities of a sister state, once of different fame, we thought that patriotism might have to stand to its arms, at least till the vain but self-exciting insult to the majesty of union should be abashed?—How long is it, since some people thought, that there were only two differences between the head of this nation on the one hand, and Cromwell and Napoleon, at a certain crisis of their rise, on the other;–the one difference being, that the latter had already a subservient army, while the former could raise one with a word;–the other difference, that in the way of the former there would still stand one million three hundred thousand (enrolled at least, and to a great extent, armed and disciplined) militia-men, the great majority of whom , whatever might be their personal party-predilections, had no supreme wish but their country’s good?  I do not say, that the persons, who entertained that thought were right.  I do not stand here, to take any ground on questions of party divisions.  I allow, for the purposes of this argument, that the head of this nation is as pure a lover of his country, as his country’s annals name.  Still I say, God forbid that the time should come, for the liberties of this nation to depend on the good intentions of any man.  Were he a patriot as irreproachable, as incapable of being suspected, as George Washington, (–and now I have gone to the furthest limit of language,–) still I cannot consent to hold my freedom by no better tenure, than that of his honest views.  Freedom?  No; that is not then the word; it is sufferance.  Only satisfy me, that there was not physical organized power to have scattered his retainers to the four winds, and given his dishonored limbs to a gibbet, the hour that he should have been solemnly convicted of arming them against his country’s liberties, and I ask no more, to own myself his slave.  Let him make me feel the iron or the thong, a little earlier or a little later; and whether earlier or later, it matters not mush; but the time is then for his own choosing.  No danger, to make it necessary to keep up the force, which danger, if it came, might make desirable!  Why, how long is it since the twelfth and thirteenth nights of August 1834?  Boston, on those nights, was a well-appointed garrison, commanded by those safe and trusty officers, the sheriff and the mayor; and because the Lord kept the city with his militia-men, the watchmen did not wake in vain.  Did anybody foresee, on the eleventh day of August, that, in twenty-four hours, we should be in such an uproar?  As much,–as much, and no more,–as we expect that the same scene will be re-enacted on the second day of June, 1835.  Are the same elements of disturbance all expelled.—the same elements, and the like, and different, so that we may be sure that a similar scene will never be repeated?  Or to quell a domestic riot or insurrection, when it occurs, or in view of the possibility of their recurrence, will Massachusetts be content in relying on doing what Virginia has lately done, that is, inviting in Federal troops to quell them?  Will she consent to do this, I ask, till she is unable to do better?  If she will, I have misconstrued her history.  I have not learned the alphabet of her character.
            But, my hearers, I forebear from this vast theme, for I ought to find place, before I close, to say a few words regarding another aspect of the subject;–a few words, and modestly, for the subject, in that aspect, is under the cognizance of much wiser heads than mine.  If a well-regulated be, what the constitution declares it, ‘necessary to the security of a free state,’ a freeman’s and a patriot’s wish will be to know, and knowing, to do, as far as in him lies, what, under existing circumstances, is requisite, for its stability, credit, and prosperity.  Without presuming to prejudge a case, submitted to such competent discretion, I would however venture to anticipate, that three or four points will be objects of especial notice.
            I presume, that, while the leading object will be, on the one hand, to remove unnecessary burdens, and, on the other, to secure a sufficient enrolment, equipment, organization, and discipline, care will be taken to restore to officers an actual command; since, without good officers, there cannot be good soldiers, nor means of using them, if they could exist; and officers cannot be expected to find attraction in posts which bestow only a title and some obnoxious trouble, without authority to advance the object professed to have been undertaken; so that, unless this feature of the system be reformed, the only apparent remaining resource must be, to compel officers to serve, under a penalty, as jurymen are now compelled; a scheme certainly liable to great objections.
            I suppose, that another step may be, greatly to reduce the number of legal grounds of exemption from military service, a number now so large as to occasion much dissatisfaction and discouragement.  I am almost ready to say, (at least, as to the general theory of the case, whatever modification minor considerations might require,) that there should be no exemptions, till the prescribed term of service has been finished, except for those, who, at the hour when they would be rendering it, are actually employed in some other duty, in which the individual, then exempted, may better serve the state.  Military service is, on all just grounds of estimating it, personal service.  It is not what one can fitly or reasonably do by proxy.  It is a stern duty, which one must be content to perform for himself.  I could as honorably, (higher reasons for not interfering,) hire another to plunge into the water, in my place, to rescue my child, as to go to the field, while I remain behind, to defend my country for me.  I cannot serve in two ways at once; and therefore, when I am sitting on the bench of justice, or in the hall of legislation, I must needs be excused from the camp.  But the permanent exemption of any classes of men, as far as it proceeded from, or went to instill the idea that their occupations were too dignified, or too sacred, to be consistent with military service,–that a patriot soldier’s duty was not the duty of a grave or a holy man,–would not only be utterly indefensible as to its grounds, but also it would be either greatly dispiriting, or else greatly demoralizing, to those who were left to fill the ranks.
            I suppose that the great outrage of electing notoriously unworthy persons to commands will not be dealt with by the law, any further than to provide some satisfactory way of ascertaining the character of such elections, so as to make them invalid.  It is impossible that the practice, (but I hope that a practice it has nowhere yet become,) can live under the indignant rebuke of an honest public sentiment.  The penalty of disfranchisement of such faithless electors would be in theory the resource.  But disfranchisement for wanton abuse of the prerogative of suffrage is a penalty not known to our laws, and with reason, since the offense would be so difficult to prove, and the application of the remedy would open a way for the inroad of corruption of another kind.  Else disfranchisement would be the natural and just resource; for the corrupt voter, in a militia election, has pronounced himself unfit to be trusted with a citizen’s power.  He is one, against whose vote the government in all its departments, the community in all its interests, his neighbors in all their relations, is concerned to have full protection.  Mark the company which has done this thing.  I know them not; but I know, that, (except that it were done under the temporary excitement of some passion or folly, by which all of us are liable to be misled,) the roll of that company, on whatever plain of the pilgrims’ clearing its musters, is a rag of shame. It holds the names of those, who are not suitable associates for honest men; for, if the throwing of a vote to any other end, than the election of the best man, is a citizen’s perfidy, what name is there for a vote thrown with the intent to elect the worst?  Mark the individual who does it, if he is so reckless as to commit himself to your knowledge; mark him for one who is ready to sell his vote, who is in a way to be ready to sell his country and himself, for the gold, shall I say?  No, for the copper, of France, or England, or Portugal, or Haiti.—and after law shall have finished its discreet and righteous work, still there will remain much to be done, in the way of encouragement, as well as of correction, which law can of its nature only partially accomplish, and which public opinion, in the militia man, and in every citizen, must be enlightened and excited to undertake, to the end that officers and soldiers, seeing more clearly the honorableness and dignity of the service, may be more prompt to serve, and more interested to excel.  The majestic principles, on which the institution rests, must be made better understood, and the springs of the patriotic spirit, which is its life, be touched by master hands.  A militia parade must not be suffered to pass in any mind, for a mere holiday exhibition; it must be seen for what it is, a great and happy people’s preparation for the maintenance of what makes it great and happy.  Never should the idea have been allowed, for want of care, to establish itself, that the militia meetings were mere entertainments.  No wonder, that those who had gone so far, as thus to regard them, went so much further, soon, as to regard them as idle entertainments.  Yet in point of fact, I suppose that that may have been the case of others, which has been mine; and I know, that, with advantages of education as good as the average, I had reached the age when the militia-man is discharged from his principal service, without having any fit sense or perception of the worth or the grounds of the institution.  Our fathers understood this thing better.  There was a high philosophy in their right feelings and strong sense.  They did not call on men to do what they forbore to show them the reasons, and excite in them the feeling, for doing.  Among other arrangements to the end, they sanctified these occasions of concourse with ‘the word of God and prayer;’ a practice, of which this company’s annual solemnities present an interesting relic.  If some things, which were done in our father’s days by prayers and sermons, are to be done in ours by other forms of speech, then let us have the benefit of the altered fashion.  Let some additional attraction be given to the days of militia parades, and some additional advantage be derived from them, by devoting part of the day to some such useful expositions of the worth of the institution, as there is not a village of our Commonwealth not affording more than one person competent to present.  They need not be what some of us lately heard over the bones of the militia proto-martyrs of Lexington, to send every hearer away with a glowing sense of the duty of defending such a country , and the privilege of having such a country to defend.—But these hints must have an end.  Let me give them one by saying, that, if the militia service is not rendered with satisfaction and alacrity, having such purposes and such associations to recommend it, there are others who must share the blame with those who feel the reluctance and the discontent.
            Gentlemen of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, I shall address you very briefly in conclusion, for the proper time has not only come, but gone, for me to relieve your patience, and that of your guests.  Your institution appears to have been designed, by noble hearts, for noble ends.  It might be called in the use of hardly too strong a figure, the corner stone of the militia organization of Massachusetts, as it has also been a distinguished ornament of that body in later times.  With such a history to animate you, with such a reputation to support, you are reasonably looked to, to be, in time to come, useful and true friends to all good institutions of the good Commonwealth; and to be willing, as those who went before you were, to go to the death in defense of her liberty and laws.  Vigilance, gentlemen, vigilance erect and in panoply, is what providence has made the price of a people’s safety.  See you, with other good citizens, that it does not sleep, and see further that it watches in armor.  Hitherto the objects, at which your venerable founders aimed, have been essentially secured.  You approach the close of the second century of your company’s age, under auspices of the country, such as to rejoice a patriot’s heart, yet not altogether unmingled with causes of solitude.  The one should make him thankful to God, and to good, and wise, and valiant men, God’s instruments; the other should not make him fearful, but they should make him watchful.  I say more, repeating what I have said.  If present causes for watchfulness did not exist, his want of watchfulness would be still most imprudent, for that very want would create them.  Do your part, gentlemen, and let the rest of us in our lot, do ours, and let the same spirit live in those who are to take our places, as it did live in those places we have taken, and, by that blessing of Almighty God, which waits on upright human endeavor, the coming ages, as one after another they roll in their flood of the mysterious experience of human fortunes, will still find our beloved Commonwealth the happy seat of liberty and law; and through them, and through causes which they protect and foster, the seat of universal competence, a ripe learning, a patriotic brotherly love, and, a pure, fervent, and operative piety.  And so it will be a marked spectacle, for all eyes of the world, as a field which the Lord hath blessed.

 

 

OFFICERS
OF THE
ANCIENT AND HONORABLE ARTILLERY COMPANY
FOR THE YEAR 1834
Lt. Col. Grenville T. Winthrop, Capt.
Col. Thomas Livermore, 1^st Lieut.
Lt. Col. Abijah Ellis, 2^nd Lieut.
Lt. Col. Francis R. Bigelow, Adjutant.

 

 

 

FOR THE YEAR 1835

Brig. Gen. Thomas Davis, Capt.
Col. Josiah L.C. Amee, 1^st Lieut.
Capt. Samuel Knower, 2^nd Lieut.
Capt. Charles A. Macomber. Adjutant

John Pierpont (1785-1866) Biography:

Born in Connecticut to a well-known family, he graduated from Yale in 1804. He worked as an educator for several years, then began studying law. In 1812, he passed the bar and went to work as a lawyer in Newbury, Massachusetts. But being dissatisfied as an attorney he became a merchant in Boston, then Baltimore, and next entered the study of theology. He graduated from Cambridge Divinity School and was ordained in 1819. He pastored a Boston church until 1845, then a church in Troy, New York, until 1849, and then another church in Massachusetts, where he pastored until 1856. While a pastor, Pierpont penned two of the more popular classroom school readers of that day. He was an abolitionist, a member of the temperance movement, a Liberty Party candidate for governor in the 1840s, and then a Free-Soil Party candidate for governor in 1850. He served as a Massachusetts field chaplain during the Civil War, but the physical demand was too great for his aging body, so he took an appointment in the Treasury Department in Washington, where he worked until his death in 1866. He was an accomplished poet and penned many published poems as well as sermons.

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“Who Goeth A Warfare At His Own Charges?”

A DISCOURSE
Delivered Before the
ANCIENT AND HONORABLE
ARTILLERY COMPANY
OF MASSACHUCHETTS,
On the Celebration of Their 190^th ANNIVERSARY,
BOSTON, JUNE 2, 1828

 

By JOHN PIERPONT.
Published at the Request of the Company.
BOSTON

 

Bowles and Dearborn, 72 Washington Street.

1828
Boston. Press of Isaac R. Butts & Co.

DISCOURSE

1 Corinthians, 9:17
Who goeth a warfare, at any time, at his own charges?

            This question is proposed by the apostle Paul by way of illustration or argument.  The point that he would prove is, that, as an apostle of Christ, giving up his time and powers for the benefit of those to whom he had been sent, and submitting to the labors and privations of the service in which he was engaged, he had a right to such compensation, from those for whom he labored, as would support him under his labors; or, as he himself states his point, he would prove that they who preached the gospel had a right to a living out of the gospel.  This proposition he proves and illustrates by a variety of comparisons.  The law of Moses permitted the priests, who were to superintend the offering of sacrifices in the temple, to feed upon the sacrifices they offered; and the ox, employed in treading or threshing corn, to eat of the grain that he threshed.  And who, asks the apostle, feeds a flock, and does not eat of the fruit of the vineyard?  Or who goeth a warfare at any time, at his own charges?  Whoever thinks of serving as a soldier, of doing military duty, at his own expense; or, as the analogy of his argument requires, without being paid for his services by those for whose benefit they are rendered?
            This last illustration of the apostle—this appeal of his to the common usage of nations, and to the common sense of mankind, as to what would be equitable,– might have been very pertinent in his day, to the point before him.  Its force would have been felt, and his question must have been unanswerable.  But in our days, should a soldier of the Cross, in an argument to prove that, as a minister of religion, he had a right to a support from those for whose benefit he labors, ask, “Who goeth a warfare at any time at his own charges?”—whoever does military duty at his own expense?—not one of his hearers but would answer, every militia-man in the country.
            My friends and fellow citizens, I do not forget where I stand.  I do not forget in whose presence, nor yet at whose bidding I speak.  I stand in a Christian church—in one of the oldest of the churches of our fathers.  I speak in the presence of the chief rulers and counsellors of the commonwealth, and at the bidding of an ancient and an honorable military company; a company the most ancient on the continent, and one in which some of the most honorable men of our country have been enrolled.  I cast myself upon the honorable feelings which become men , whether they become soldiers or magistrates, with the full conviction that what I shall now say will not be misconstrued, as it certainly would be, were it construed into anything disrespectful to the memory or wisdom of our fathers, or to any individual of all those before whom I stand.  Personal worth, as well as the feelings and opinions of all who are worthy, I cannot but hold in reverence.  But while I do not forget where I am, I would not forget “whose I am, and whom I am bound to serve.”  Knowing that, officially at least, I am a servant of the Lord, and being taught that “where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty,” I know that, if that liberty is anywhere, it ought to be here, in his church; and believing that it is here, I claim it as my own, and as my own I will use it.  I will use it; and will ask no protection of my gown from any responsibility for the manner in which I use it, if I speak of plain things in a plain way.  Every citizen, so long as he is respectful to the legislator, has a right to examine his laws.  If he sees that they are inequitable, if he feels that they are “needlessly oppressive to the community, and benefiting nobody on earth,” he has a right to say so.  Nay, it is his duty to say so.  It is his duty to lift up his voice against them; and, so far as he can, to make the pulpit and the press lift up their voices against them.  It is his duty to examine them; if he deems them useless, to show their inutility; if absurd, to expose their absurdity.  He will thus draw the public mind to them. They will become more and more, the subjects of free discussion.  If there is good reason for them, good reasons will be given for them, and the wisdom of the laws will be made more widely manifest. If there are no such reasons, the public mind will , in time, become satisfied that there are none; and the public arm will, soon after that, disencumber itself of everything that burdens without strengthening it—will free itself of every thong, but that which carries as a sling, and that which binds on its shield.
            Far be it from me, to say that there is no advantage gained, no blessing secured, by the militia system of our country, even as it is at present arranged and administered.  The question that I would raise is this; Are the benefits that we secure by it, in any degree proportionate to the expense at which they are secured?  Far be it from me to speak disparagingly of the wisdom of our fathers generally, or particularly of that wisdom which, in their day, they displayed, in the laws by which their military force was organized and governed—the laws by which they sought protection from danger which they felt.  The question I would propose is, whether it is wise in us, under our circumstances, to do the same things, that it was wise in them to do under theirs.  Far be it from me to question the bravery of American troops, even of militia-men.  That has been doubted too often, and proved too often on those who have doubted it, for me to bring any skepticism in relation to it within the scope of the present discourse.  I would rather ask, is there anything, in the present state of the country and the times, which requires our militia-men, at so great an expense to themselves, to show how valiant they would be if their valor were called for?  Set an enemy of blood and bone upon our shore, and I think it would be very wise in us to let our militia-men charge bayonet upon him, and push him back into the water; and I verily believe, that the militia-men of Massachusetts  would not be long in showing that they thought it very wise in them to do it.  But is it as wise to keep them standing on the shore, with their bayonets bright and bristling, against such an enemy comes? Or marching and countermarching …

                        “——–In battailous aspect
                        Bristled with upright beams innumerable
                        Of rigid spears and helmets thronged,”

to guard against a foe that has already fallen—to overawe “The British ghosts that in battle were slain,” when, in other times, they came upon the shore?
            True wisdom, I suppose, consists in adapting our conduct, and our laws, the rules of our conduct, whether as individuals or states, to the circumstances in which we are placed.
            It is wise to foresee evil, and to guard against it.  Prudence is a part of wisdom; prudence, which foresees danger.  Courage is a part of wisdom; courage, which confronts the danger that it sees.  But it is no more a part of wisdom to foresee danger and to confront it promptly, than it is to calculate the contingencies well, on which danger depend—to measure well the danger that may be apprehended, and to preserve a due relation between the probability of an uncertain evil, or the magnitude of a certain one, and the expense at which we would protect ourselves from an evil, certain or uncertain. 
            Does this position require illustration?  It was wise, then, in Cairo or Constantinople to guard against the plague, at the expense of personal comfort and convenience.  Would it be wise to demand the same sacrifices to guard against the same evil in St Petersburgh or Quebec?  It is wise in the Hollanders, who have dyked out the German ocean from their plains, to look well to their dykes; to tax themselves freely for the support of their waterstaat; to keep a patrol moving, day and night, along those barriers, in raising and supporting which the Dutchman has purchased the right to take upon his lips, and that without impiety, the language of the Omnipotent, “Hitherto shalt thou come, and no farther, and here shall thy proud waves by stayed.” –But would the police which is wise on the east side of the German ocean, be as wise on the west?—and, if the guidman who tenants a ninth story on the rock of Edinburgh, should pay as readily and as roundly to insure himself against “the danger of the seas,” as does the respectable burgher of Amsterdam, should we think him eminently wise?  In feudal times it was very wise in the English baron to make his house a castle.  But if a New England farmer were, now, in order to protect himself against his neighbors, to make his house a castle, with its round-towers, and its donjon-keep, with its moat, and draw-bridge and port-cullis;–if he were to constitute his seneschal and wardours; and keep his…

                                    “Nine and twenty yeomen tall,
                                    Waiting duteous in his hall,
                                    Ten of whom, all sheathed in steel,
                                    With belted sword, and spur on heel,
                                    Quitted not their harness bright,
                                    Neither by day nor yet by night,
                                But lay down to rest with their corslet laced,
                                    Pillowed on buckler cold and hard,
                                 And carved at the meal with gloves of steel,
                                    And drank the red wine through the helmet barred”—

His neighbors, I imagine, would begin to suspect that all was not right at “the castle,” and would take measures to place the knight upon a peace establishment in the asylum at Charlestown.
            Perhaps I need not further illustrate my meaning when I say that true wisdom, whether we act as individuals or as states, consists in adapting our conduct, to the circumstances under which we are placed.
            Now, with due deference to the opinions of the patriots of former days, by whom the militia laws were made, and with due deference to the opinions of the patriots of our own days, by whom those laws are not yet unmade, it does appear to me that, in the present constitution and operation of those laws, when considered in reference to the present circumstances of this Commonwealth and of our common country, there is not that wisdom discovered, which is shown in the general provisions and requirements of our civil polity.
            But, as much as it is becoming the fashion of the day—and an excellent fashion it is—in adopting or rejecting opinions, whether in religion or politics, to ask. What are the reasons that support an opinion?  Rather than who are the men that hold it?—I crave the ear of my audience, while I state a few of the reasons on which rests the opinion I have ventured to advance in respect to the militia laws of our country.
            First, then, the militia system does not seem to me to discover the true wisdom of which I have spoken, because, under this system, we seek protection at an expense more than commensurate to our danger.
            To satisfy ourselves whether this is so, we must compare the expense with the danger:–a comparison, it is admitted, which cannot be made with very great accuracy, though, I trust it may be well with all the accuracy that is necessary.  What, then, is the annual expense of the militia of Massachusetts, to the state of Massachusetts?
            The commonwealth has more than fifty thousand men, on her militia rolls.  Grant that these are called out for review, drill, elections, and parade, no more than three days a year; and we have 150,000 days devoted to military duty by those who do that duty.  Allow then only one spectator for one soldier—and it must be a very stupid affair if it there are not as many to see the show, as there are to make it,–and there are 150,000 days more.  Allow moreover only two thirds as much time for each individual to prepare for the field—for fatigue or frolic—and to recover from its duties, or its debauch, as there is spent upon the field,–and we have 200,000 days more.  Now, allowing that there is truth in the remark of a native citizen of Boston, who passes for a very sensible man, viz. that “Time is money,” and allowing one day to be worth only one dollar, the militia of Massachusetts costs the state of Massachusetts, half a million dollars a year.  I make no accounts here, of the money spent upon arms, ammunition, uniforms—the ammunition that is burned up—the muskets and swords, and the costly coats of many colors are laid up—treasures that are kept, for the moth and rust to corrupt, three hundred and sixty days, that they may glisten and look gay for five:–I make no account of the monies, or the morals, that are thrown away in the low revelry of tents and taverns, though of these things there is a fearful account made by “ the Judge of all the earth:”—I estimate even the time of the militia-men at less than one third of the value which, in the form of fines for non-attendance, the law itself gives it, and the commonwealth of Massachusetts pays half a million of dollars a year for the protection which it seeks from its militia system.
            Now, what is the danger against which protection is purchased at this rate?  There are but two forms of danger against which a military force can protect the people of this commonwealth:–danger from insurrection, and danger from invasion.  What is the danger to the citizens from insurrection?  You have already answered this question, my hearers, in the view you entertained of the sanity that good farmer whom we just now supposed to have made his house a castle, fortified and guarded according to the usage of feudal times.  And if there were danger from insurrection, the insurgents will have gained, from militia drilling, the same advantage in the use of arms against the loyalists, as the loyalists would have gained against them;–and it is worth our while to inquire what benefit, in a time of civil war, would result to the whole body politic, by having previously strengthened each of the hands of which both are using all the strength they have, in tearing the body to pieces.  From the danger of insurrection, then, how are protected by your militia, granting that there were there danger from that quarter? 
            And what is our danger from invasion that we sacrifice so much of our substance to be protected from it?—what is the danger of Massachusetts?  What if this Samson of the New England family rest,–ay, sleep even,–on the lap of Peace?  Who are the Philistines that are going to be upon him before he can wake up and shake his locks at them?  Are the Winnebagoes, and the Pawnees, and the Flat-heads, coming down to argue with us the title to the hunting grounds of the Pequods and the Narragansetts?  And are we willing to compromise the suit and buy our peace at half a million dollars a year?  Or do we make a good bargain when we pay that price, or any price, to secure our shores against invasion?
            You do not need my friends, that I should answer these questions.  I fear, rather, that you will say I am trifling with you when I ask them; and that they are below the dignity of my subject.  But, before you say this, I beg you to consider that my present subject is the dangers that impend our civil state, dangers from which we seek protection under our militia system.  If these dangers are trifles in themselves, we do not descend below the dignity of truth, in treating them as such.  Truth does not always look black, and talk pontifically in her teachings.  There is much truth, and as salutary truth, in the sunshine that plays upon the flower that it is showing you, or in the breeze that handles it lightly, while it gives you its odor, as there is in the voice or the visage of the thunder cloud that shows it.  You pay seriously for that security from invasion, for which you look to the present operations of the militia system.  If your danger from these quarters is such a trifle that it cannot be seriously named, my first objection to that system is a sound one, for you to look to it to protect you, at an expense that is beyond measure more than commensurate with your danger; and we have endeavored to show that to do this is not wise, for that “it is out of all proportion and relation of means to ends.”
            My second objection to the present system is, that, granting a real danger, it affords a very inadequate security; and all the security that it does afford might be derived from it, were it so modified that it should be sustained at incomparably less expense. 
            That militia, trained or untrained, are competent to contend with regular and disciplined troops, during a whole campaign, no one pretends; or, if anyone believes that they are, let him inquire of any military man, and he will change his opinion.  They are efficient only in a sudden emergency, or when acting in small parties, falling upon an enemy by surprise, or hanging upon his rear as sharp shooters, and taking off his numbers in detail.  And this, I maintain, is a species of service for which the inhabitants of New England,–unless their right hand has strangely forgotten its cunning since the retreat of their enemy from Concord, and their own defeat at Bunker Hill—are as competent without the discipline of training days, and without red coats and plumes, as with them.  I do but use the words of another, a distinguished advocate for the militia, a full believer in it, as well as an ornament of it, when I say, “The success which attended the mode of warfare by undisciplined troops at Lexington, was so marked that it is wonderful that it should since have been so much disregarded.  The very men who , when formed in a body, scattered like sheep, upon the approach of the British columns, rendered signal services the same day, on the enemy’s retreat, when they were left to their intelligence.”[i]
            Yes, to prove that militia cannot long be depended on, for defense against regular and veteran troops, the seat of our National government is a melancholy witness.  And if, in proof of their efficiency in a sudden exigency, or in one brief struggle, I am pointed to Baltimore, or to New Orleans, or to Plattsburgh, or to Bunker Hill, or to the road “back again” from concord to Phipps’s farm, I answer—that just so efficient they would have been, indeed may we not say, thus dreadfully efficient they were, without the years of previous dressing, and drilling, and drumming—without the fifes and finery—without the pomp, and the pompons, and the parades which now cost the Commonwealth more than all she pays for the support of her municipal government, in its legislative, its judicial, and its executive departments:–ay, more than all that twice told.
            I object, then, to the military system, in its present form and mode of operations, because in times of danger it affords inadequate security; as well as because in times when there is no danger it costs a very adequate price.
            There is still another ground of skepticism as to the wisdom of the militia system, I its present form and operations.  It is not equitable; and I need not labor to prove, that where there is no equity there is no wisdom.  It is not equitable; for, while it purports to protect the whole, it throws the burden of all the protection that it does give upon a part of the community;–upon a small part;–upon a part not the most able to bear it, even, if it were righteous that they should bear it.
            A late venerable chief magistrate of Massachusetts, when, in one of his general orders, he is magnifying the importance of the militia to the state, says—“the militia system was established for the protection of the property of the wealthy.”  Then I say, let the wealthy pay for that protection.  Do they pay for it?  Look at the operation of the law.  A wealthy justice of the peace, in the country, hires half a dozen young men to work upon his farm for six months, from the first of May to the last of October; the whole seasons for military operations.  They are warned to do military duty, “for the protection of the property of the wealthy.”  If they go, their wages, for the time employed in going, staying and returning, he diligently deducts in the day when he “reckoned with them.”   If they do not go, he is the magistrate before whom you, as clerk of the company, bring your suits against them for their fines.  You come into his presence with the delinquents.

                                    “He wonders to what end you have assembled
                                    Such troops of citizens to come to him,
                                    His grace not being warned thereof before”–

but he pronounces upon them the sentence of the law, pays his own fine out of his own fees, deducts the “court day” from their calendar, and, if they cannot pay the amount of judgment, for fines, and fees, and costs of suit, the poor debtor’s prison will secure them, for six days, at least, from any further of their country’s claims upon their services in “protecting the property of the wealthy.”
            “We should like to understand, if we may,” says a writer in one of the English Reviews, while commenting upon the orations of our Everett, and our Sprague, and our Webster—“We should like to understand, if we may, upon what principle the poor and the rich are taxed as they are, in the United States of North America, under the militia law.  By the poor we mean those that are not rich, those who are neither wealthy nor destitute.  Of both these are demanded about twelve days of their time to defend the property of the rich man.  The rich, of course, do not appear in the field: the poor do.  The latter cannot afford to keep away:–the former can.  The poor lose, the rich gain, therefore, by submitting to the penalty.  It is, moreover, notoriously true that, while the rich men never turn out, and the poor always do, the rich seldom or never pay the fine when they should pay it, and the poor seldom or never escape.  The rich are let off; here, because they belong to this or that profession, either in church or state, or because they are doctors, or because they are teachers; there, because they are supported by the public, or have carried a commission two or three years in the militia: here, because they have contributed to the purchase of a fire engine; there, because they have encouraged a lottery: as if such people, were to have that property, whether of this or that profession,–teachers or not,–preachers or not,–officers or not,–having property, were to have that property defended by those who have no property—insured, we may say, at the charge of the latter.
            “But why so unequal a tax, under a show of equality?  If watchmen were needed for the guardianship of a city, where would be the wisdom, where the justice, of calling out every free male citizen of a particular age, for so many nights in the year—every one, rich or poor—under a penalty which would be very sure to keep the latter abroad in all weathers, while the former would be exempted, or excused, or suffered, in some way or other, to escape from the duty of watching their own houses?  What if the poor man, who does go forth, were paid by the rich man who does not, for the guardianship of the public?—or at least for watching over the property of the rich man?”[ii]  “Militias are but watchmen.  The subject of their charge may be either a city or a state.  Now the tax which is paid in the United States of North America for that guardianship is a poll tax.  It should be a property tax.  What if the militia were paid so much for every day’s labor?”
            Thus asks the Reviewer: and I repeat the question—“What if the militia were paid for every day’s labor?”—I answer, in the first place, justice would then be done to the militia, which now is not: and, in the second place, I answer, that if they were paid, and if “a tax were laid equally upon every part of the community for the purpose of paying them,” I will consent to do militia duty again myself, if “every part of the community” were not stirring the inquiry, very soon, whether that enormous tax were necessary—whether the circumstances of the country and of the times were so fraught with danger, as to justify such sacrifices for security against that danger.  The question would come up, whether anything more were called for, by a wise reference to the circumstances of the times, than, that arms should be provided at the public charge for the public defense,–that they should be deposited in places where they might be kept in order in time of security, and seized on in an hour in time of alarm: and if this were now thought to be enough, and if some measure like this were now adopted, for one, I doubt not that the good old commonwealth of Massachusetts, whenever she sees that “the Cambells are comin’” indeed, will soon muster a man to a musket,–a man, too, who, though he has never handled it on parade, will show his enemy that he knows what his musket was made for.
            I have, thus far, endeavored to present to you, my hearers, some considerations, the object of which has been to bring your attention to the system of militia laws, in this commonwealth, especially so far as that system is subject to the legislative wisdom of the commonwealth,–apart from the provisions and requirements of the laws of the United States,–that, if it be found capable of amendment, it may, in due time, become the subject of amendment.  I have endeavored to make myself understood.  Would that I had power to make the evils of the system felt here, as they are felt by the citizen abroad.—If it be said that I manifest no respect for the law, my answer is, that I feel none.  The framers of the system may have framed it wisely for their times; but since they have slept, and their graves have been hallowed, as they are hallowed, by the gratitude of their children, the times have changed; and if we are as wise as our fathers, our laws will be so changed as to be as well adapted to our times, as the laws of our fathers were to theirs.  I would not be insensible to the value of those men’s services who have labored to accommodate the system to our times, nor yet deaf to the arguments which its advocates advance in its favor.  Shall we consider one or two of these arguments?
            We are told that the present trainings of the militia “teach civility and respect for authority.”—That the respect of the militia-man for the authority that subjects him to sacrifices and inconveniences, to fatigue and exposure and expense, which, with but half the sagacity and sensibility of an ordinary New Englander, he must see to be unnecessary, and feel to be oppressive,–will be proved, that his veneration for the laws will be put to a severe test, by these trainings—and that his civility, towards those officers who are required by their duty to exercise this authority, will be very adequately tried by these days of drill and review, indeed, I do not doubt.  Bur that he will be taught respect for this authority;–or that he will learn any great civility, or show much of what he has already learned, while moving under the instant fear of being put under guard, I should think he must have a strong natural affinity to civility towards “men in office,” and a particular aptitude to learn respect for authority, to encourage us to hope.
            We hear, too, of the benefit which the laboring part of the community derives from the relaxation and recreation furnished by the military holidays, and are told that the health and spirits are recruited by them.
            In regard to these benefits, I shall not speak with confidence.  It belongs rather to the medical generation to give an opinion in regard to them; and though every man, under our happy form of government, has a right to give his opinion as a statesman, not every man has a right to prescribe as a doctor.  I have always understood, however, that alternation is one of the leading principles of discipline in the animal economy.  The relaxation of the sedentary man is, therefore, to be sought in action, and that of the laborer in repose.  What sanative power there may be to a laboring man, in the difference between working all day in one field-with a hoe, and working all day in another field with a gun, is a question which I shall leave with the faculty.  I cannot but remark, however, that, admitting all the great benefit to the man who eats his bread in the sweat of his brow, that is claimed for him in an occasional  relaxation from toil, and in a season of comparative repose, that benefit is secured to him by the gentle and most happy authority of our religion; which allows to him not five, but fifty days a year, in which he feels it a religious duty to rest from his labors, and enjoy the fruits of them in grateful adoration of the Divine Being.
            But we are told, once more, that in discharging his military duties, a soldier, and especially an officer cultivates his sense of self-respect; he feels his importance to society, and acquires a habit of acting with a regard to his character.  “Every man,” it is said, “who wears an epaulette, feels in a greater or lesser degree, the pride his station.”[iii] 
            Ay, “the pride of his station”—the pride of office.  And are we certain that it is well that he should feel this pride of office, even as he does?  Well for the community, or for the man himself who wears the epaulette?
            Have you never seen the industrious young farmer, the respectable and thriving young mechanic, soon after he had put on his epaulette, pushed on by his pride out of sight of his prudence; stimulated by that badge of his country’s trust, to displays of hospitality, to the “gentlemen officers and fellow soldiers” of his corps, to which his means were not equal; taking counsel of his pride, rather than of his purse, for his own costume, and for the

                                                “—–tilting furniture, emblazoned shields,
                                                Impresses quaint, caparisons, and steeds,
                                                Bases and tinsel trappings”

of his station; till his shop was forsaken, his farm mortgaged, his habits of industry broken up, and the man himself broken down?  The zeal of the soldier hath eaten many a citizen up.
            And if this pride of office will drive a man with one epaulette into a forgetfulness of himself, well may it be expected to drive a man with two, into a forgetfulness of others.  Are you sure that your militia laws will always keep, within the limits which they have themselves marked out, those distinguished military characters, otherwise, most worthy and most valuable men, who have felt most sensibly this pride of office?  If your laws allow as I suppose they do, a brigadier general, within certain limits, and on certain conditions, to call out his brigade for review in one body; is there no danger that a major general will mount an analogy of his own, and gallop to the conclusion that your laws allow him, which I suppose they do not, to call out his division for review in one body?  And that your young men of civic habits and with constitutions conformed to civic habits, will be called out to fatigue duty, to sleep upon the tented field, and even on ground where no tents are, to wage a warfare, and that at their own charges, with cold and wet; a warfare at which a veteran might tremble, and in which Death seeks—ay, and ere yet has found, and followed till he seized, the soldier of a feebler frame!  Have we not ground to suspect the pride of military office, and guard against its assumptions?  Is there not a reason to believe, that where it conduces once to the public weal, it conduces twice to private wo?
            But, it may be asked, shall we set at naught the parting counsel of the illustrious Father of his country, “that in peace we prepare for war.  Let your navy guard your coasts at home, and plead for your interests and for your rights abroad—guard your coasts with fire, and plead with thunder for your rights.  Let your armories ring with the “busy note of preparation.”  Let your magazines of arms and ammunition be kept full, for the common safety, at the common charge.  Let them stand, in their fullness, by your temples of justice, and, if need be, by every one of your temples of religion ; and doubt not, that when there is need, the worshippers in either temple will well know what those weapons mean.  When, and where, did New England ever complain that, in her danger, she could not man all her guns?  Or that she had more powder and shot on her hands, than her children were ready to take off?   I have never read that chapter of her Lamentations.  May we not argue to the future from the past?  Dare we not trust our ships for protection from invasion—our ships of war, that, at the first foot-fall of a coming foe, would growl along our coast like watch-dogs?  If we dare not, let us, like the prudent Belgians, listen to the suggestions of wisdom, and raise our barriers where our perils press.  Let us listen to the teachings of our shores themselves, and what Nature has made strong, let us make stronger.  Let our granite fortresses, that know look down in defiance upon the waves, be made to look down in defiance upon all that can float thereon.  Let those surly and laconic pleaders, that argue the cause of nations in the last appeal—the “black but comely” brethren of your “Hancock’ and your “Adams” whose brighter, but not more honest faces are shining upon us today—be restrained, at the common expense, and seated, tier above tier, on our shore, their mouths filled with weighty arguments; and trust me, though the land behind them, in the meantime, be permitted to repose in security that has been graciously given it, whenever the trial comes on, those managers of your cause will show that a spirit of utterance has been given them.
            Gentlemen of “The Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company”—in the freedom with which I have spoken of the present state and exactions of our militia laws—in questioning, as I have done, and as every citizen has a right to do, both their wisdom and their righteousness—I am sure that you will not understand me as treating with disrespect either the men who administer, or the men who obey those laws, it is but just to observe, that their altercations have almost uniformly been amendments, in that they have almost always consisted in softening their antecedent severity, and, in taking off something of the burden which they had before laid upon the shoulders of the citizen.  In any age of improvement, it is not to be expected that public laws should be in advance of the public sentiment; but it is inevitable that, in a government of the people especially, they should not gradually follow the convictions and feelings of the community, in regard to the rights of the private citizen, and the degree of liberty, and of exemption from onerous duties, which he may justly claim, and securely enjoy.  Your own records furnish evidence that the state of things, in this respect, is much better now than it was in the infancy of your company, when Upshal was doomed, by the voice of the law, to perpetual imprisonment, because, as a matter of the law, to perpetual imprisonment, because, as a matter of conscience, he refused to bear arms; and we ought to not doubt that, in time, the onward movement of the age will be so far felt by the laws, that they will no longer require the private citizen to go a warfare at his own charges, for the public benefit; or even to put on his panoply at all, against an ideal enemy, and, day after day, so to fight, “as one that beateth the air:”  and till that time arrives, far be it from me, whatever I may think of the law, to speak disrespectfully of those who obey it.  No; let every citizen who obeys the laws, be respected because he obeys them.  If they are bad, let him change them, but not break them.  Let him change them if he can, and let him lift up his voice, and put forth his power where he can, that they may be changed.  We respect the citizen who obeys a law which he feels to be wise and righteous;  but  still more profoundly do we respect the citizen who obeys a law which he feels to be unrighteous and unwise, merely because it is the law.  There is that which challenges not respect merely, but veneration in the sight of thousands of our fellow citizens quitting their homes, and, at their own inconvenience and cost, moving in martial array, toiling under the heats and burdens of a military day, and feeling, at the same time, that they are spending their strength for naught, and their money for that which is not bread, merely as an act of homage to the majesty of law.
            No man in the community, however, is so insignificant that he may not do something for the benefit of the community.  Your own company may do much, by the weight of your influence, and by the authority of your example, towards undoing the heavy burdens which may yet be borne by any part of society, without profit to the rest, and breaking every yoke under which the citizen is made to bend his neck, without either enriching or strengthening the state.  By recurring to your past history, we see that yourselves have not unfrequently felt the pressure of pecuniary demands to be greater than you could conveniently bear; and though, by sumptuary laws, you have repeatedly striven against this pressure, and though some individuals of ample means have always been upon your roll, and though by great efforts , or by the excitement of particular occasions, your numbers have been swelled for a season; yet, again and again have they been “minished and brought low,” by the expenses incident to the objects and usages of your association.
            It becomes you, to give a proper tone to the public feeling on this subject.  Let me exhort you, therefore, having in all past time shown that, as soldiers, you cannot forget the state when she needs your services, to show now, that, as citizens, you will not forget yourselves, when she does not.  Husband your resources; squander neither them nor your time in vain parade, or thankless hospitalities, in time of peace; and show that you are contributing to the glory and strength of the state, not by playing the soldier, but by acting the citizen: then: in times of danger and of war, if those times shall come, rally around the altar of your country, with the fruits of your of your peaceful labors.  Cast your treasures upon that altar, with the promptness of the ancient and the honorable of other days; nay, if it must be so, leap upon that altar yourselves—a living and a willing sacrifice—and then, not on earth alone, but in heaven, will you be regarded as having offered a reasonable service.

---

SERMON

Preached Before The

ANCIENT AND HONORABLE

ARTILLERY COMPANY,

In Boston, June 6, 1814

Being the 177^th Anniversary of Their

Election of Officers

By Samuel Cary,

One of the Ministers of the Chapel, Boston,

 

Non jam ad culmina rerum

Injustos erevisse queror; tolluntur  in altum

Ut lapsu graviore ruant.           Claudian.

 

BOSTON:

Published by Thomas Wells, 3, Hanover Street

John Eliott, Printer.

1814.

 

SERMON

 

2 Samuel 24:16.

And the Lord said unto the Angel that destroyed the people, it is enough, stay thou Thine Hand

 

       It is at all times a most animating subject to consider the proofs of divine agency in the affairs of this world; the connexion which exists between the revolutions of human society, its improvement or corruption, its prosperity or wretchedness and God the beneficent cause and controller of all things.  It is peculiarly so at this period of the world, when we have lived to see a course of events, to which nothing in history can be at all parallel; events so vast, so unexpected, so appalling; which have so baffled all our calculations and all human foresight, that the mind cannot rest upon mere natural causes, but ascends and fixes itself upon that invisible power, which calls order out of confusion and joy out of depression and despair.  And the subject presents itself with obvious propriety on the present occasion, when the soldier appears in the temple of the most high, to acknowledge, that his courage and strength and skill, without the divine blessing, are all vanity; that it is God, who covers him with his shield in battle; that peace and war, glory and shame, victory and defeat are from his hand.

I shall make no apology therefore, if I should deviate from what may have been the usual practice on these occasions, for the sake of making such remarks upon these great occurrences, as may display the agency of divine providence in producing them and their tendency to confer ultimate and great benefit upon human society.

Let us endeavor to recall some of those apprehensions, which not many months ago, made every good and every thoughtful man among us tremble for himself and for mankind.  What a spectacle of horror, of cold-hearted, merciless tyranny, of the irresistible and triumphant career of vice was at that time exhibited in Europe!  We saw a despotism of a character totally unknown in modern history, more ferocious and more extensive than the soundest politicians had believed could have existed in an advanced and enlightened state of society, establishing itself, upon the ruin of old and venerable habits, principles and institutions;-a despotism possessing all the worst features of the ancient governments, with more experience, more profound views of human nature, more skill in applying itself to the character, the favorite prejudices, the corrupt passions and sympathies of mankind;-a dreadful despotism, which held both soul and body in chains. We saw it advancing with an impetuosity, which confounded all calculations and all resistance; bearing down in its course, monarchs and armies and nation, degrading the exalted, disarming the powerful, endeavoring to crush every feeling of patriotism and every manly sentiment; proclaiming an exterminating war against human liberty, virtue and happiness.  We saw it inflicting misery upon its victims till their courage is gone, till they resigned themselves to despair.

It was a time of universal dismay—a day of clouds and of thick darkness.  There was nothing in prospect to support or encourage hope, no visible means of arresting the destroyer in his course and saving the world from slavery, nothing in short to console the philanthropist but confidence in the over-ruling, the ever watchful, the benevolent providence of the Supreme Being. The most enlightened of our citizens thought they could perceive distinctly, that the foundations of this terrible power were laid with too much care and were too broad and deep to be shaken by any probable human efforts; that there were causes, to be found in the profligate spirit and principles of the French revolution and in the habits and comparative imbecility of the other nations of Europe, which ensured its permanence and its security.  They told us of the immense resources of France; of the admirable subtlety with which her plans of subjugation had been conceived and the steadiness with which they had been kept in view and the success which had followed them; of the boldness with which she had released herself from every mortal obligation, from all those common ties, those habits and laws, which connected her with other people and place her in some measure within their control.  A nation like France, despising the restraints of justice and humanity, calling its whole population to arms, employing its whole wealth in the service of war or of corruption, giving all its spirits and energies to foreign conquest, must, as they thought, be always irresistible.  They told us of the martial enthusiasm of this people, of their thirst for glory and their contempt for the arts of peace, a passion which had marked their national character for centuries, which was diffused through all ranks and all possible conditions, which glowed in the bosom of squalid penury and reconciled the slave to his chains and was extinguished only with life;– a passion which taught them to submit to any sacrifices and to follow any leader who could cut his way to victory.  We were referred to the character of the man, who held these great resources at his own disposal; to his fierce, inexorable, insatiable ambition; to his unrivalled skill in the art of sowing discord among his enemies, dividing their strength, alarming their fears, inflaming their cupidity; to the originality and grandeur of his military schemes, the facility with which he could strike all the points of his object at the same moment, the fury of his onset, the rapidity with which one blow was followed by another, the immense armies, trained by exact discipline and animated by the hope of victory and plunder, with which he could overwhelm his terrified enemies.  We were told of that keen sight, which penetrated all the sources of danger and was forever on its guard, which detected hostility in its very germ and could blast it; which suffered nothing to escape its notice, however remote, however difficult of access, which could serve as an instrument of ambition.  Can we forget the impassioned tone of eloquence, in which our statesmen and orators declared to their countrymen, that the same fatal influence, which had destroyed the energies of Europe, had extended itself to our own shores and was already visible in the base servility of the government and in the degraded character and growing depravity of the people?  Can we forget the anguish, which these great men saw their country associating itself with the fortunes of this sanguinary tyrant and throwing at his feet the noble inheritance, which had been purchased with the blood of its best citizen?  We thought of consequences of this most hateful union.  It was a theme, on which our emotions were unutterable; on which we dwelt, “till our hearts grew liquid and we could have poured them out like water.”[i]

Let me hold this picture before your eyes a little longer. — It was a time, when men said, one to another, doth God know this?  Is the arm of the Lord shortened, that he cannot save?  Why is this moral desolation, this contempt of truth and justice and mercy and good faith, permitted to spread itself over the face of society?  It was indeed the language of short-sighted impatience, of unmanly, thoughtless despondency; of men, who, because they could not see the end of these things and how far this confusion and misery might be consistent with the ultimate felicity of mankind, distrusted the benevolent intentions of the Deity; of men, who did not allow themselves to consider, that the design of the calamity, might be corrective and remedial; that, however terrible and mysterious, it might still be intended to to remove greater and more fatal corruptions and to be the instrument of some vast and permanent good to be conferred hereafter.  We have proofs equally strong and incontestable, that the storms of society and the storms of nature are called forth and controlled by God.  We see them equally serving as means of purification and followed by that genial, benign sunshine, which yields health, plenty and cheerfulness.  Everyone knows, that war, not-withstanding its influence upon public morals and its innumerable calamities, is one of the most powerful instruments, in the hand of God, of destroying deep rooted and inveterate abuses, of elevating the human character, eliciting its noblest energies and displaying all the sublimity of virtue; that it advances society toward perfection, increases its knowledge, improves its condition, excites its piety;[ii]  that its ultimate effects, in one word, are often inestimable.  While the dark cloud is hanging over our heads and the thunder is roaring furiously around is, the heart may perhaps sink with terror, because the end is distant and uncertain and the tempest, we think, may discharge its fury upon ourselves.  But if we are permitted to live til it is over and the light of heaven gain bursts forth in full splendor, we feel that what excited all this solicitude was a dispensation of mercy.

We have seen the justice of the Supreme Being manifested in the utter ruin of this tremendous despotism.  It is now proved to have been a scourge in his hands, inflicting misery under his eye and in such degree and to such extent, as his perfect wisdom determined to be right.  It was permitted to rise, like a malignant star, to a fearful elevation and to “shake pestilence from its horrid hair,” till the mysterious purpose of heaven was accomplished; and then God stretched forth his hand and sunk it forever.  There is nothing since the miraculous victories of the Old Testament. Which has demonstrated the divine interposition so clearly, as this great act of retribution; nothing which has taken place so directly in opposition to the strongest human probabilities, or to which human causes, even in the eye of the most intelligent observers, appeared so totally inadequate.  Could we have believed, that a force so immense and irresistible as that which invaded the north of Europe, a body of disciplined warriors, a mass, vigorous, active, intelligent, in proportion to its magnitude; animated by the most powerful of human passions; supported by the accumulated resources of Europe, conducted by a leader, accustomed to see victory hovering about his standard, whose very name paralyzed the strength of his antagonists; and opposed by a people without political or military renown and degraded by domestic tyranny ,—that these vast armies were marching to their graves?  Could any human sagacity have foreseen, that, in the heart of a half civilized country, there would have been displayed a miracle of magnanimity, unequalled by anything ever exhibited among mankind and will be learnt by future ages of admiration,—a people sacrificing their capital, the object of deep religious awe and the strongest national enthusiasm, to the safety of their country?  Could we have thought, that this accursed enemy of virtue herself?— that his overthrow would be so sudden, so complete, so awful; that this mighty conqueror, who had set God and man at defiance, should, in the space of a few months, have fled, a trembling coward, alone, exhausted seeking his safety within the walls of his own palace; that so many enslaved people would have shaken off the yoke which crushed them to the earth and actually decree the repose of Europe, from the very throne of the disgraced and fallen oppressor?  Yet this is what our eyes have seen!  Oh God, how just and how terrible are thy judgments!

And now the day of vengeance and desolation is over.  God has to the destroying angel, it is enough, stay thine own hand.  The fearful images, which have passed before us in rapid succession, have disappeared, and the light of hope and peace is drawing upon the world.  But still it may be asked, can events, which have produced in their progress such extreme misery, be referred to the Supreme Being, and to beneficence?  Are we to consider the anarchy and horrors of the French revolution and its deadly enmity to religion and the consequent subversion of the most sacred rights of mankind, as produced by the permission of God and as an act of mercy?  Let it be remembered, my friends, that evil, or what we call evil, when it is employed as the punishment of vice, or as the means of rectifying disorder, or of producing good, is one of the instruments of benevolence.  If it is the only mode, or the most effectual mode of promoting human improvement;—if, for instance, it is the direct the direct tendency of this great experiment, which we have now seen brought to its conclusion, to develop and to establish those principles, which are essential to social happiness; if it will serve to give mankind more enlightened views of the nature of government or of religion, to increase their knowledge or their virtue, to effect radical and permanent beneficial changes in their condition;— then it is unquestionably a subject of thankfulness to heaven and ought to be acknowledged as such by us, who survive the storm and by those, who come after us.  That this is, in fact, its tendency, I will endeavor to show in a few words.

It would be wrong for us to undertake to say what precise effects will take place when this convulsion of Europe has subsided.  But there are some general views of the subject, which, at least, so far display its tendency to promote human happiness upon the whole, as to vindicate the equity of the divine government in permitting it to exist.

In the first place, we may consider it as a lesson of most solemn instruction to the present and all future ages.  It has taught mankind in a tone of energy, which must forever be heard and felt;— that the restraints of law and of religion are essential to  the very existence of human liberty;—that a state of rational freedom is not that in which every citizen may act as he is prompted by his corrupt passions, or his false principles, or the impulse of his wild imagination; but that in which he has the power of acting the part for which God created him and improving his own character and advancing his own and his neighbor’s felicity.  It has given more solid ideas of government itself and of the rights of mankind.  It has exhibited to the world the singular spectacle of a pure theoretic democracy, –a government of the very populace, a state in which all ranks, conditions, and understandings are levelled, in which power is entrusted without discrimination  to the ignorant and the intelligent, the upright and the base, the men of character, principle, virtue and those who have no consciousness of their responsibility and are capable of sacrificing everything to their own selfishness,—a state in which the passions are triumphant and every clamorous demagogue becomes an oracle.  We have seen how far such a state of things is consistent with public liberty and happiness.  We have seen the passion for unrestrained freedom overturning principles, which had been sanctioned by the experience of ages, plunging a flourishing people into anarchy, and at length subjecting it to the rod of a ferocious tyranny, which had no heart to pity the miseries it inflicted.  And is it possible for us, or for posterity to see these things in vain?

It is most important, that this decisive experiment should be permitted to take place in the present state of society.  It was the error of many intelligent minds, that the intellectual condition of mankind was so evidently improved, that they would now be safe under a government of philosophy; that liberty was in no danger of being abused, because men were capable of discerning their real interests and the necessity of restraining themselves.  Similar experiments in ancient times had no weight in the minds of these reasoners.  They saw nothing in the lesson of history, nothing in the state of the Greek and Roman republics, or the causes of their destruction, which was at all applicable to an enlightened age.  They considered the principles of government as so much better understood and the means of judging rightly on subjects that immediately affect human happiness, as diffused so generally among all classes, that the seeds of corruption would be at once detected and extinguished; that a free people would, of course, be virtuous, because virtue was essential to their security.  But now this delusion is ended.

In the second place, it is the evident tendency of these events to destroy the accumulated abuses of the old systems.  That such abuse did exist and were inveterate and most oppressive is undeniable; that they were an effectual bar to the general advancement of society and that it was most important, that they should be rectified, is also undeniable.  But how was this desirable end to be accomplished?  How were evils, which had become so venerable by age, so confirmed by education and habit, so closely associated with all the sympathies of human nature, to be separated from the good and thrown away forever?  Not by the mere influence of reason, for reason had to be content with power, with ambition, with avarice, with the fear of change,—with enemies, who would either despise its gentle remonstrances, or would not hear them;—not by the moral improvement of mankind, for it was first necessary  to remove the evils, before such improvement  could exist.  Nothing could have so effectually and so radically extirpated these abuses, as the great convulsion which God, in his wisdom, has permitted to take place in Europe; an event it is true, which seemed, instead of correcting, to destroy; which overturned the whole political fabric, with its good as well as its evil, its beauty and deformity; but which, without question, will prove most salutary in its consequences.  The discordant and inflammable principles, which had been so long collecting, have discharged their fury and are harmless.  Society will be restored to tranquility and to refinement.  It will be settled upon more solid principles awakened as it is, and made wise by the severe lessons of experience.  There will probably be a more equal distribution of power, a more sacred regard to the acknowledged rights of mankind, more distinct ideas of the duties of those who govern and those who obey, a more solemn conviction, that the true glory of the one consists in giving efficacy to just laws by their ready acquiescence, and that of the other in promoting the public prosperity.

Again it is the tendency of these events to encourage a commercial, instead of a military spirit, among the nations of Europe.  War has always been their passion and pride; a passion kept alive and cherished by the nature of their governments, their habits and institutions.  But in the general wreck of ancient habits and institutions, these sources of military enthusiasm have disappeared and will not soon and perhaps never be revived.  War is at length a prostrate and vanquished enemy.  The world is exhausted by its miseries and tired of the follies of ambition and the blood-stained trophies of victory.  What a lesson for the pride of kings in the poor, degraded exile of the Mediterranean, yesterday the terror and scourge of mankind, darting thunder from Olympus and covering the earth with desolation; today so low, so despicable, that his conquerors will not deign to crush him!

Europe will now seek felicity in the arts of peace, in the interchange of good offices, of wealth, of knowledge; in the encouragement of industry and honorable enterprise, in giving useful employment to all classes of its population; in exciting a love of order and truth and justice and all those virtues, which are the support and ornament of society.  That commerce may eventually produce luxury and its peculiar vices and a spirit of mutual hostility, is not improbable.  But in the mean time the general state of society will have been most essentially improved; habits of amity will have been formed between the people of different nations, the principles of national law and justice will have become generally understood and respected; and war will neither possess its present malignant character, nor will its effects be so ruinous to the general interests of mankind.

I persuade myself, that these most awful dispensations of divine providence are intended to produce great efforts upon the religious character of society.  They have already drawn the eyes of the world to the Supreme Being.  In the stillness of prosperity, when men are wafted gently along the stream of life by favorable breezes and cheered by a serene sky, they forget the Creator and their dependence and their duty.  It is amid the horrors of the storm and the earthquake and the falling empires that we fly to religious principles for consolation and feel that without the protective care of the Deity, we must perish, we are nothing.  The persons, who are now to act a distinguished part in Europe, have been trained in the school of adversity; they know the value of religion and they will support and diffuse it by their example.
But this is not all.  Christianity was given by God to soften the hearts and reform the manners of the world.  It is a system most admirably adapted to its end; and eighteen centuries have elapsed since its influence began to be exerted.  Has it been successful?  No. and the reason is, that Christianity, as it has been current in Europe during this long period, is as distinct from that simple and benevolent religion, which was once delivered to the saints, as the abominations of Paganism. The thing, which has assumed this name, is a ferocious system, armed with the sword of the civil magistrate, loaded with disgusting absurdities, teaching sentiments concerning God and the condition of mankind, which fill the soul with horror and breathing vengeance against all, who venture to question its infallibility.

When the religion of Jesus was taken under the protection of the state as incapable of protecting itself and was decorated with artificial ornaments to make it venerable in the eyes of the vulgar; and when the scriptures were withdrawn from the public eye, as if this gift of God was an inconsiderate gift and ill adapted to the conditions or wants of man,— then a dark cloud spread itself over this bright orb, and it became invisible.  Then the dogmas of ignorant pride and the reveries of an absurd philosophy were delivered to mankind, as the genuine doctrine of the gospel.  Our faith fell into the hands of theorists, who undertook to make the work of omniscience more perfect, to supply what they chose to consider deficient and to beautify what to their tasteless vision seemed gross deformities.  The consequence was that a mass of falsehood became incorporated with Christianity, which was handed down from generation to generation; and which, though in some measure exploded at the reformation, still exerted a most fatal influence throughout Europe.  But in this whirlwind which we have seen subverting religion and liberty and government, from their foundations, these abuses, of which we speak, have disengaged themselves from Christianity.  There is at least this advantage resulting under the care of divine providence from a general inattention to religion, that what is false belonging to it loses its hold upon the affections; error ceases to be encouraged and it expires; systems are permitted with impunity to be severely scrutinized; and the true principles of religion, which are indestructible, invulnerable by any revolutions of society, founded in the nature of man and eternal as his duration— these true principles rise from their temporary depression in a purified and most glorious form, to be the consolation, the support, the joy of mankind.
It appears that the great principle of Protestantism, the right of worshipping God unmolested, according to the dictates of conscience, is to be guaranteed by the new constitution of France.  My friends, have we considered this all-important, this most animating fact with sufficient attention?  The rights of conscience are at length distinctly recognized and protected upon the continent of Europe!  Christians then are permitted to search the records of their faith, without opposition and without fear; to hold their own conclusions and to avow them honestly; to assail and reject error without exposing themselves to public scorn, or the lash of ecclesiastical tyranny.  The mind is at last free.  Man may worship the God of his affections and his understanding, the God of the scriptures, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, instead of the idol of superstition, or of the civil magistrate.  The principle obstruction to freedom of inquiry and the acquisition of evangelical truth and the genuine influence of Christianity, are at an end and is it too much to predict, that the gospel in its original simplicity, the gospel as it was preached by Christ and his apostles, that gospel, which breathes nothing but benevolence and subdues the whole heart to purity,—will come forth from obscurity and reign in triumph over the very people who have loaded it with injuries?  What a glorious prospect presents itself to our eyes!  What a day is breaking upon the moral state of man!  Intolerance, bigotry, persecution, —demons, your hour is come, your empire is destroyed!

Gentlemen of the Ancient and Honourable Artillery—-In applying this subject to the state and prospects of our own country, it is impossible to disguise or to restrain our apprehensions.  We have seen the Supreme Being wise and benevolent in his dispensations; and this should teach us to confide in his care and to be satisfied, that whatever lot is reserved for us will be right.  But at the same time we have seen him leading mankind to happiness through scenes of inconceivable misery.  Perhaps it may be necessary, that we should suffer more and severely, before we are permitted to see days of prosperity.  It may be that there are prevailing vices among us, which must be removed by punishment; a national tameness and insensibility to honour, which requires to be stimulated; a timid, luxurious, indolent, mercenary spirit, which fears to be disturbed, more than it fears disgrace; a national degeneracy, which must be checked before it drags us to ruin.  Our fathers scorned to stop and calculate, whether it was more profitable to be freemen or slaves.—perhaps the blessing of regenerated Europe are not to be imparted to us, who may be unworthy to enjoy them. When, however, I consider the character of the nation, with which we at war, the astonishing elevation on which it stands, its unexampled magnanimity;— when I consider the heroism and inflexible fidelity with which it has defended the cause of God and man, of religion, of liberty, of justice, of everything valuable, which escaped the fangs of anarchy; the enthusiasm with which it has flown to the succor of nations who dared to struggle for their rights; its devotion to the arts of peace and to whatever improved the intellectual and moral conditions of society—-I think there is everything to hope. I think this people will not tarnish the ineffable glory which surrounds them, by an act of mere vengeance.

But, gentlemen, there are more serious causes of apprehension than foreign hostility.  The collisions between this country and Europe may be extinguished.  But will peace reconcile the innumerable contending interests which exist among ourselves?  Will it appease the fierce animosities which are cherished by the different sections of this republic, or restrain the ungovernable spirit of party, or teach the people and their rulers to become disinterested patriots?  I fear the time is not far distant, when these seeds of national disgrace and wretchedness will shoot into fatal luxuriance.  But on this topic I have no time and no desire to enlarge.  Let us trust in God.  If prosperity is in store for us, let us take warning by what we have suffered and bear it with moderation.  If we are to pass through scenes of horror, let it be with that fortitude and that dignity, which will prove us worthy of our ancestors and bright examples to our posterity.

OFFICERS OF THE COMPANY.

1813-1814
Captain,   Capt. Jonathan Whitney
Lieutenant, Mr. Jacob Hall
Ensign,       Mr. Caswell Beal

Sergeants,
Capt. John Roulstone       Mr. Edward Gray
Mr. Abraham Wood         Mr. James Hooper

1814-1815
Captain,  Mr. William Howe
Lieutenant, Capt. George Welles
Ensign, Mr. Levi Melcher

Sergeants,
Capt. Benjamin Loring                  Capt. James B Marston
Mr. John Dodd                               Mr. Thomas Wells