support of this college in Ohio, we should, if well advised, decide for the latter. We have Harvard, Amherst, Williams; we do not want another college. In the west is a vast and growing population, possessing a great and increasing influence in the political system of which we are members. Is it for our interest, strongly, vitally for our interest, that this population should be intelligent and well educated; or ignorant, and enslaved to all the prejudices which beset an ignorant people?

When, then, the right reverend bishop and the friends of the west ask you, on this occasion, to help them, they ask you, in effect, to spare a part of your surplus means for an object, in which, to say the least, you have a common interest with them. They ask you to contribute to give security to your own property, by diffusing the means of light and truth throughout the region where so much of the power to preserve or to shake it resides. They ask you to contribute to perpetuate the Union, by training up a well-educated population in the quarter which may hereafter be exposed to strong centrifugal influences. They ask you to recruit your waning strength in the national councils, by enlisting on your side their swelling numbers, reared in the discipline of sound learning and sober wisdom; so that, when your voice in the government shall become comparatively weak, instead of being drowned by a strange and unfriendly clamor, from this mighty region it may be reëchoed, with increased strength and a sympathetic response, from the rising millions of the North-western States. Yes, sir, they do more. They ask you to make yourselves rich, in their respect, good will, and gratitude; to make your name dear and venerable, in their distant shades. They ask you to give their young men cause to love you, now, in the spring-time of life, before the heart is chilled and hardened; to make their old men, who, in the morning of their days, went out from your borders, lift up their hands for a blessing on you, and say, "Ah, this is the good old-fashioned liberality of the land where we were born!" Yes, sir, we shall raise an altar in the remote

wilderness. Our eyes will not behold the smoke of its inBut there the altar will stand;

spirit will be offered up; and

cense, as it curls up to heaven. there the pure sacrifice of the the worshipper who comes, in all future time, to pay his devotions before it, will turn his face to the eastward, and think of the land of his benefactors.

THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT.*

MR PRESIDENT, and Brethren oF THE MASSACHUSETTS

CHARITABLE MECHANIC ASSOCIATION,

(FOR, by your favor, I enjoy the privilege of being an honorary member of that institution,) when I consider the auspices under which this meeting is assembled; when I reflect upon the zeal evinced in this cause by the Mechanic Association, and the moral power with which that body moves to the accomplishment of any object which it takes in hand, I feel a satisfaction which I want words to express. It was my

fortune to be one of those who took an early interest in the erection of a monument upon Bunker Hill. In the efforts made to bring forward and carry on this great work, I bore a very humble, but, I believe I may say, an assiduous and laborious part. I gave, sir, all I had to give a large portion of my time and my best efforts, in union with my valued associates, to recommend this object to the public favor. I shared with the friends of the enterprise the satisfaction of witnessing the first burst of enthusiasm with which the project was welcomed, and their regret and mortification at finding that the popular excitement and interest which were to furnish the resources to carry on this expensive work did not hold out to its completion. If it affords satisfaction, or is deemed a duty, in any quarter, to indicate faults committed by the early boards of directors, to point out errors of judgment into which it is supposed they fell, (errors of intention will not,

* Speech delivered in Faneuil Hall, 28th May, 1833, on the subject of the Bunker Hill Monument, at a meeting called by the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association, to take measures for its completion.

I think, be imputed to them,)—I, for one, will, with meekness, submit to the rebuke from any individual who has given more of his time, attention, labor and money even, in proportion to their means - than the members of these much censured boards of directors. Nay, sir, even from any one who has not done this I will submit, for one, to any deserved rebuke, if he will now that the work is so far advanced that its completion is matter of calculation, and now that the state of the times admits and encourages a fresh appeal to the liberality of a prosperous community-step forward and exert himself zealously and effectually in the cause. I do not rise to vindicate former boards of directors, nor former measures, but to congratulate you, sir, and my fellow-citizens, on the prospect which is now opening upon the work; and cheerfully, for one, to transfer to those who shall now take it up and complete it the unshared and unqualified credit of the patriotic undertaking. The work, I am confident, will now be completed. It is taken in hand by those accustomed to finish what they undertake; and, whatever we have done before, I am sure, sir, we are now hammering upon the nail that will go.

Sir, I suppose there can be but one opinion on the question, when it is fairly stated. It is not whether the monument shall be built, but whether it shall be left incomplete; not whether it shall be begun, but whether it shall be finished. Nay, not even exactly this. The question is not whether it shall be finished at all, but whether it shall be finished by us, or, after remaining unfinished another half century, a memorial, not to the renown of the great men we commemorate, but to the discredit of this generation of their descendants, the honor of completing it shall be reserved to other times, when a more enduring patriotic sentiment shall be awakened in its favor.

That it will be completed, whether by us or not, -is certain. What is already done is as substantial as the great pyramid of Egypt. The foundations have been laid with such depth and solidity, that nothing but an earthquake can shake them. The part already constructed will stand to the

end of time; and the real question which we have to settle is, will we leave it in its present state, an object unsightly to the eye and painful to the mind; or will we, who assisted to lay the foundations, enjoy the satisfaction of beholding the noble shaft rising in simple majesty towards the heavens, where, in the language of that surpassing eloquence, which I would to Heaven, Mr President, could rouse and animate us this afternoon, "the earliest light of the morning shall gild it, and parting day linger and play on its summit.”*

But, sir, I wrong myself, and I wrong my fellow-citizens present, in treating this subject as if the strongest reason for completing the monument arose from mortification and regret, at leaving it in its present state. Far otherwise, I know, sir, do you view this question; far otherwise do I view it myself. Those great patriotic and moral inducements which originally prompted the enterprise, remain in unimpaired force, and must gather strength with each succeeding year. The idea which lay at the basis of this undertaking was, to redeem from all desecrating uses, and devote to the eternal remembrance of the event of which it was the scene, the summit of Bunker Hill, and to erect upon its height a plain but majestic monumental structure, to identify the spot to the latest time. This idea was first conceived by an amiable and accomplished fellow-citizen, now no more, (the late William Tudor,) when the half century was near expiring, since the occurrence of the event. It was by him communicated to a circle of friends, and by them to the public, by whose favor the enterprise was so far advanced that the corner stone was laid in the presence of such an assembly as was perhaps never before witnessed, on the jubilee anniversary of the battle, the seventeenth of June, 1825. It was my misfortune, sir, not to be present on that auspicious day. I was absent on the public service, at a distance. But I know too well the feelings which animated the mighty multitude gathered together on that hallowed spot, in the presence of the nation's guest, returning from his triumphant progress through the Union, in

* Mr Webster's address, on occasion of the laying of the corner stone.