ord God of Israel, _why_ is this come to pass in Israel,
that there should be to-day one tribe lacking in Israel?" The other was
a successful example of resistance against tyrannical taxation, and
severed forever the confederacy, the fragments forming separate
kingdoms; and from that day, their history presents an unbroken series
of disastrous alliances and exterminating wars--of assassinations,
conspiracies, revolts, and rebellions, until both parts of the
confederacy sunk in tributary servitude to the nations around them; till
the countrymen of David and Solomon hung their harps upon the willows of
Babylon, and were totally lost among the multitudes of the Chaldean and
Assyrian monarchies, "the most despised portion of their slaves."

In these mournful memorials of their fate, we may behold the sure, too
sure prognostication of our own, from the hour when force shall be
substituted for deliberation in the settlement of our Constitutional
questions. This is the deplorable alternative--the extirpation of the
seceding member, or the never-ceasing struggle of two rival
confederacies, ultimately bending the neck of both under the yoke of
foreign domination, or the despotic sovereignty of a conqueror at home.
May Heaven avert the omen! The destinies of not only our posterity, but
of the human race, are at stake.

Let no such melancholy forebodings intrude upon the festivities of this
anniversary. Serene skies and balmy breezes are not congenial to the
climate of freedom. Progressive improvement in the condition of man is
apparently the purpose of a superintending Providence. That purpose will
not be disappointed. In no delusion of national vanity, but with a
feeling of profound gratitude to the God of our Fathers, let us indulge
the cheering hope and belief, that our country and her people have been
selected as instruments for preparing and maturing much of the good yet
in reserve for the welfare and happiness of the human race. Much good
has already been effected by the solemn proclamation of our principles,
much more by the illustration of our example. The tempest which
threatens desolation, may be destined only to purify the atmosphere. It
is not in tranquil ease and enjoyment that the active energies of
mankind are displayed. Toils and dangers are the trials of the soul.
Doomed to the first by his sentence at the fall, man, by his submission,
converts them into pleasures. The last are since the fall the condition
of hi