tionary consensus of mankind made and maintained an equilibrium between the metals among the nations up to 1870. With more vigorous aid from positive law, that "written reason," which, Mr. Pirmez says, is all the law there ever is or can be, I cannot but anticipate the suppression of the discord and struggle between the moneys of the world which now trouble commerce.

the very law and without measuring the actual repugnance and resistance it has to meet, is simply impugning civilization for having fought with nature as it has done from the beginning. We had some years ago a revenue law in the United States, called forth by the exigencies of war expenditure, by which we undertook to exact a tax of $2 a gallon on whiskey, yet whiskey was sold all over the United States, tax paid, at $1.60 a gallon. This Everett, ALEXANDER HILL, diplomatist; was a case of miscalculation of how far born in Boston, March 19, 1792; gradauthority could go against a natural ap- uated at Harvard in 1806; studied law petite and a national taste. When we re- with John Q. Adams; and in 1809 duced the tax to 60 cents on the gallon, accompanied him to St. Petersburg as the law triumphed over this opposition of attaché to the American legation, to which appetite and cupidity and produced an im- he became secretary in 1815. He became mense revenue to the treasury. It is the chargé d'affaires at Brussels in 1818; in old puzzle, how to reconcile the law of nat- 1825-29 was minister to Spain; and from ure, that abhorred a vacuum, with its 1845 until his death was American comceasing to operate beyond 33 feet in missioner in China. His publications inheight. This was solved by the wise ac- clude Europe, or a General Survey of commodation between philosophy and fact, the Political Situation of the Principal that nature abhorred a vacuum, to be sure, Powers, with Conjectures on their Future but only abhorred it to a certain extent. Prospects (1821); New Ideas on PopuAs I have said, the informal, the uncon- lation (1822); America, etc. (1827). He scious, the merely historical and tradi- died in Canton, China, June 29, 1847.

EVERETT, EDWARD

Oration at Gettysburg.-The following is his oration at the dedication of the National Cemetery, on the Gettysburg battle-field, on Nov. 19, 1863:

Everett, EDWARD, statesman; born in the United States in 1860 by the ConstiDorchester, Mass., April 11, 1794; brother tutional Union party. Mr. Everett was a of the preceding; graduated at Har- rare scholar and finished orator, and was vard in 1811; and was ordained pastor one of the early editors of the North of the Brattle Street (Boston) Unitarian American Review. He died in Boston, Church in February, 1814. He was Jan. 15, 1865. chosen Professor of Greek in Harvard University in 1815, and took the chair on his return from Europe in 1819. Mr. Ev erett was in Congress from 1825 to 1835; governor of Massachusetts from 1836 to 1840; minister to England from 1841 to 1845; president of Harvard from 1846 to 1849; and succeeded Daniel Webster as Secretary of State in November, 1852. He was in the United States Senate from March, 1853, until May, 1854, when he retired to private life on account of feeble health. He took great interest quent silence of God and nature. in the efforts of the women of the United the duty to which you have called me States to raise money to purchase Mount must be performed; grant me, I pray Vernon. He wrote and spoke much, and you, your indulgence and your sympathy. by his efforts procured a large amount of It was appointed by law in Athens money, and the estate was purchased. He that the obsequies of the citizens who fell was nominated for the Vice-Presidency of in battle should be performed at the pub

Standing beneath this serene sky, overlooking these broad fields now reposing from the labors of the waning year, the mighty Alleghanies dimly towering before us, the graves of our brethren beneath our feet, it is with hesitation that I raise my poor voice to break the eloBut

lic expense, and in the most honorable recognized, but not, therefore, unhonored, manner. Their bones were carefully dead, and of those whose remains could gathered up from the funeral pyre where not be recovered. On the fourth day their bodies were consumed, and brought the mournful procession was formed; home to the city. There, for three days mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, led before the interment, they lay in state, the way, and to them it was permitted, beneath tents of honor, to receive the by the simplicity of ancient manners, to votive offerings of friends and relatives utter aloud their lamentations for the flowers, weapons, precious ornaments, beloved and the lost; the male relatives painted vases, wonders of art, which, and friends of the deceased followed; after 2,000 years, adorn the museums of citizens and strangers closed the train. modern Europe-the last tributes of sur- Thus marshalled, they moved to the place viving affection. Ten coffins of funeral of interment in that famous Ceramicus, cypress received the honorable deposit, the most beautiful suburb of Athens, one for each of the tribes of the city, which had been adorned by Cimon, the and an eleventh in memory of the un- son of Miltiades, with walks and foun

tains and columns-whose groves were that illustrious plain, ready to put off filled with altars, shrines, and temples the shoes from my feet, as one that stands whose gardens were kept forever green by the streams from the neighboring hills, and shaded with the trees sacred to Minerva and coeval with the foundations of the city-whose circuit enclosed

"the olive grove of Academe, Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird Trilled his thick-warbled note the summer long,"

whose pathways gleamed with the monuments of the illustrious dead, the work of the most consummate masters that ever gave life to marble. There, beneath the overarching plane trees, upon a lofty stage erected for the purpose, it was ordained that a funeral oration should be pronounced by some citizen of Athens, in the presence of the assembled multitude.

Such were the tokens of respect required to be paid at Athens to the memory of those who had fallen in the cause of their country. For those alone who fell at Marathon a peculiar honor was reserved. As the battle fought upon that immortal field was distinguished from all others in Grecian history for its influence over the fortunes of Hellas-as it depended upon the event of that day whether Greece should live, a glory and a light to all coming time, or should expire, like the meteor of a moment-so the honors awarded to its martyr-heroes were such as were bestowed by Athens on no other occasion. They alone, of all her sons, were entombed upon the spot which they had rendered famous. Their names were inscribed upon ten pillars erected upon the monumental tumulus which covered their ashes (where, after 600 years, they were read by the traveller Pausanias), and although the columns, beneath the hand of time and barbaric violence, have long since disappeared, the venerable mound still marks the spot where they fought and fell

on holy ground-who have gazed with respectful emotion on the mound which still protects the dust of those who rolled back the tide of Persian invasion, and rescued the land of popular liberty, of letters, and of arts, from the ruthless foe-stand unmoved over the graves of our dear brethren, who so lately, on three of these all important days which decided a nation's history-days on whose issue it depended whether this august republican Union, founded by some of the wisest statesmen that ever lived, cemented with the blood of some of the purest patriots that ever died, should perish or endurerolled back the tide of an invasion, not less unprovoked, not less ruthless, than that which came to plant the dark banner of Asiatic despotism and slavery on the free soil of Greece? Heaven forbid! And

could I prove SO insensible to every prompting of patriotic duty and affection, not only would you, fellow-citizens, gathered many of you from distant States, who have come to take part in these pious offices of gratitude-you respected fathers, brethren, matrons, sisters, who surround me-cry out for shame, but the forms of brave and patriotic men who fill these honored graves would heave with indigna

tion beneath the sod.

We have assembled, friends, fellow-citizens, at the invitation of the executive of the central State of Pennsylvania, seconded by the governors of seventeen other loyal States of the Union, to pay the last tribute of respect to the brave men who, in the hard-fought battles of the first, second, and third days of July last, laid down their lives for the country on these hillsides and the plains before us, and whose remains have been gathered into the cemetery which we consecrate this day. As my eye ranges over the fields whose sods were so lately moistened by the blood of gallant and loyal men, I feel, as never before, how truly it was said of old that it is sweet and becoming to die for one's country. I feel, as never before, how justly from the dawn of hisAnd shall I, fellow-citizens, who, after tory to the present time men have paid an interval of twenty-three centuries, a the homage of their gratitude and adyouthful pilgrim from the world unknown miration to the memory of those who to ancient Greece, have wandered over nobly sacrificed their lives that their

"That battle-field where Persia's victim-horde First bowed beneath the brunt of Hellas' sword."

without the votes of the South (which retained, however, the control of the two cther branches of the government), the occupation of the national capital, with the seizure of the public archives and of the treaties with foreign powers, was an essential feature. This was, in substance, within my personal knowledge, admitted, in the winter of 1860-61, by one of the most influential leaders of the rebellion; and it was fondly thought that this object could be effected by a bold and sudden movement on the 4th of March, 1861. There is abundant proof, also, that a darker project was contemplated, if not by the responsible chiefs of the rebellion, yet by nameless ruffians, willing to play a subsidiary and murderous part in the treasonable drama. It was accordingly maintained by the rebel emissaries in England, in the circles to which they found access, that the new American minister ought not, when he arrived, to be received as the envoy of the United States, inasmuch as before that time Washington would be captured, and the capital of the nation and the archives and muniments of the government would be in the possession of the Confederates. In full accordance also with this threat, it was declared by the rebel Secretary of War, at Montgomery, in the presence of his chief and of his colleagues, and of 5,000 hearers, while the tidings of the assault on Sumter were travelling over the wires on that fatal 12th of April, 1861, that before the end of May "the flag which then flaunted the breeze," as he expressed it, "would float over the dome of the Capitol at Washington."

In pursuance of this original plan of the leaders of the rebellion, the capture of Washington has been continually had in view, not merely for the sake of its public buildings, as the capital of the Confederacy, but as the necessary preliminary to the absorption of the border States, and for the moral effect in the eyes of Europe of possessing the metropolis of the Union. I allude to these facts, not perhaps enough borne in mind, as a sufficient refutation of the pretence, on the part of the rebels, that the war is one of selfdefence, waged for the right of self-government. It is in reality a war originally levied by ambitious men in the cottongrowing States, for the purpose of drawing the slave-holding border States into the vortex of the conspiracy, first by sympathy-which in the case of southeastern Virginia, North Carolina, part of Tennessee, and Arkansas, succeeded-and then by force, and for the purpose of subjugation, Maryland, western Virginia, Kentucky, eastern Tennessee, Missouri; and it is a most extraordinary fact, considering the clamors of the rebel chiefs on the subject of invasion, that not a soldier of the United States has entered the States last named, except to defend their Union-loving inhabitants from the armies and guerillas of the rebels.

In conformity with these designs on the city of Washington, and notwithstanding the disastrous results of the invasion of 1862, it was determined by the rebel government last summer to resume the offensive in that direction. Unable to force the passage of the Rappahannock, where General Hooker, notwithstanding At the time this threat was made the the reverse at Chancellorsville, in May, rebellion was confined to the cotton-grow- was strongly posted, the Confederate gening States, and it was well understood by eral resorted to strategy. He had two them that the only hope of drawing any objects in view. The first was by a rapid of the other slave-holding States into the movement northward, and by manœuvring conspiracy was in bringing about a con- with a portion of his army on the east flict of arms, and "firing the heart of the side of the Blue Ridge, to tempt Hooker South" by the effusion of blood. This was from his base of operations, thus leading declared by the Charleston press to be the him to uncover the approaches to Washobject for which Sumter was to be assault- ington, to throw it open to a raid by ed; and the emissaries sent from Rich- Stuart's cavalry, and to enable Lee himmond, to urge on the unhallowed work, self to cross the Potomac in the neighborgave the promise, that, with the first drop hood of Poolesville and thus fall upon the of blood that should be shed, Virginia capital. This plan of operations was would place herself by the side of South wholly frustrated. The design of the Carolina. rebel general was promptly discovered